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Or change the laws so we can accurately measure productivity of the separate parts of a huge organisation!

Now if I can just remember where I put my glass ball that told me who was how productive....

I just want simple things, like transforming the stop-motion shots in Terminator 1 to motion shots. I don't want upscale or anything, just light touches. It's the only thing in the movie which doesn't look gorgeous.

The BW tubes had pretty good resolution though. If you eyes were good sitting near them.

Tru that! I think B&W tv was fantastic, for the right kind of media. Old films? Perfect!

Russia is not the USSR. In practice, Russia is Moscow and St Petersburg. Pose a credible threat to those cities and be set. Because Poland and Russia are so close geographically, plausible second strike capability can be achieved many ways without having ICBMs and nuclear strike subs.

If you're at the point where you're actively considering nuclear strikes, you are fine with accepting the MASSIVE costs that arise.

Even if Moscow or St Petersburg are completely wiped off the map, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Omsk, etc will remain while much of Poland is irradiated.

> Russia is not the USSR

It's not the USSR, but it's still a large country, and much of the defense industry has remained in Siberia since WW2.


I'd focus on your previous point about second-strike capabilities.

> Even if Moscow or St Petersburg are completely wiped off the map, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Omsk, etc will remain while much of Poland is irradiated.

Yes, but the goal isn't to win a first strike, it's MAD to prevent the other side doing that.

Russia has enough warheads to not just level Poland's cities, but every settlement and forest in the country.

Poland with 10 credible nuclear weapons is enough to break the economic back of any country who attacks, so they won't attack.

This needs what you said before, second-strike capability. Either that or a fast enough response time that they can launch while hostile missiles are still inbound. (Or does that still count as second-strike?)


> Poland with 10 credible nuclear weapons is enough to break the economic back of any country who attacks, so they won't attack.

If you are in a situation where you are even seriously considering a nuclear strike, that means you are viewing a threat as existential, which completely undermines the economic argument.

> This needs what you said before, second-strike capability. Either that or a fast enough response time that they can launch while hostile missiles are still inbound. (Or does that still count as second-strike?)

Absolutely, but the issue is that this takes A LOT of time to build and implement, and a country like Poland or Germany cannot build that kind of capability overnight. Yet a nuclear program can be viewed as an existential threat that can be used as a causus belli for war (conventional or nuclear).

This is a pretty bad RoI.

Nuclear programs are expensive, and instead of spending the amount you would need to build a nuclear program, it's much better for Poland and Germany to double down and concentrate on conventional war capabilities such as rocket systems, drones, artillery, and heavy weapons. The fact that a country with an ossified MIC like Ukraine is able to bog down a military like Russia's with conventional capabilities is proof enough that doubling down on building conventional war-fighting capabilities is enough to cause severe pain on an aggressor while not turning a conflict into an existential one which justifies nuclear warfare.

And this is why you never hear Polish or German military leadership talk about developing a nuclear program.


> If you are in a situation where you are even seriously considering a nuclear strike, that means you are viewing a threat as existential, which completely undermines the economic argument.

No, because it's not symmetric.

Party A may be an existential threat to party B, party B can prevent that existential threat just by being sufficiently painful. B doesn't even have to be close to an existential threat to A for it to be painful enough to reconsider.

That's how bees keep humans away from hives. Also how the Irish kicked my great-grandparents generation out of controlling Ireland, even at the height of the British empire.

> Nuclear programs are expensive, and instead of spending the amount you would need to build a nuclear program, it's much better for Poland and Germany to double down and concentrate on conventional war capabilities such as rocket systems, drones, artillery, and heavy weapons. The fact that a country with an ossified MIC like Ukraine is able to bog down a military like Russia's with conventional capabilities is proof enough that doubling down on building conventional war-fighting capabilities is enough to cause severe pain on an aggressor while not turning a conflict into an existential one which justifies nuclear warfare.

Yes, they are expensive. Also, I expect a multi-polar nuclear arms race to go hot much more easily, to normalise their use, to generally be bad for everyone.

So I hope you are correct (or, more importantly, that your opinion is shared by decision makers). On the other, there's clearly a constant undercurrent of "let's not give too much more aid to Ukraine just in case the Russian nukes actually work", so I don't think it's seen that way.

> German military leadership

Given the local attitudes towards even nuclear reactors, I think it's just a political non-starter around here. (I'll have to wait and see if @TeMPOraL sees this and responds regarding Poland's politics?)


> So I hope you are correct (or, more importantly, that your opinion is shared by decision makers)

Yep. I'm basing my stance on Poland's current defense strategy [0][1].

Furthermore, Poland's on track to outcompete Russia in rocket artillery and tanks, so it has day 1 capabilities that are comparable to a tactical nuclear strike minus the cost.

> No, because it's not symmetric

Yep. It isn't symmetric, but it doesn't matter, because crossing the nuclear launch threshold is enough to justify retaliatory strikes and counter-strikes - which is something a state which lacks a second strike or nuclear triad cannot deter against.

And the Kargil War in 1999 was proof enough that two states having nuclear weapons capabilities alone cannot deter a war.

[0] - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10736700.2020.1...

[1] - https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/media-library---content--m...


It's not existenial if you don't have anyone on the other side of the "deal" to offer nuclear strikes in return. So far, it's been the US, but that doesn't seem assured for the future anymore.

It takes decades to build credible second strike or nuclear triad capabilities. A conventional war would be finished well before that.

For example, to launch into Russia, Poland and Germany would need Tactical, SR, MR, and LR Ballistic Missiles, but neither state has a ballistic missiles program so they would need to start from scratch or be entirely dependent on France (which the defense industry in both states have lobbied against).

If a Poland or Germany attempts to begin a nuclear weapons program, that is reason enough for a belligerent nation like Russia to start a war.


Without themselves knowing it, or something? I don't get it. At this pace, the empire will crumble pretty soon.

Foreign intelligence agencies must pinch themselves right now.

FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States

https://theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-sit-...

From 2014, continuing The Onion's streak of clear eyed reporting

> After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere Of Pure Rage Early GOP Front-Runner For 2016

> Sources say the screaming orb might be the only potential candidate that would tap into Republicans’ deep-seated, seething fury after this election.


Serious case of "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake", I suspect.

Or exercising every exploit they've banked knowing the chances of being caught are now even lower.

Last few decades of what US is doing might be described as heroically snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, in slow motion.

Basically since US was orphaned on the world stage by USSR it gradually falls apart.


Something similar as the USSR might be back in a couple of years, though.

It might, but if so funded by China. (Or maybe you just meant China?)

It doesn't really matter. After failed attempt at adopting "terrorism" as new enemy, USA firmly fixated its sights on China in hopes that a strong enemy will help US regain former prosperity.

What Trump currently is doing fits perfectly this goal. Russia is natural, local ally of USA against China, that's what Trump means when he voices hopes for future cooperation between "our great countries". It is further reinforced by plans to sell F35 to India, another natural ally, which means those planes will be copied by Russia as soon as possible.

In all this Europe is just abandoned. USA knows that in conflict against China, Europe is useless as it has no business in making enemy out of China.

What he might be not appreciating sufficiently (because he percieves Europe as weak and restricted by its morals) is that Europe can be motivated to align themselves with China against Russia. While Europe can't (and doesn't want to) threaten China in any way they can offer China a lot. For starters they could start delivering most advanced litography machines, which only they know how to make to China, instead of Taiwan. And they could also internationally recognize China taking into their zone of influnece eastern parts of Russia if China agrees to provide military assistance and suplemental nuclear deterrence in the war of Europe against Russia that's almost inevitably coming.

I think at some point sobering realization will come that evading your responsibility of global hegemon (even if at this point it's only nominal role) and leaving Europe hanging might have severe consequences for Trump's imperial project.


On the one hand, yes.

On the other, please don't over-estimate the competence of the people in charge of Europe (states or EU) — we're still just a bunch of independent sovereign states pootling along quietly doing our own thing with no real hard stressors to force us to select the best of the best as leaders, certainly not a unified cohesive whole.

When it gets to sink-or-swim time, I don't know which way we're going to go. I hope swim, but the US isn't the only one who can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — that's something every civilisation in history has suffered from, one time or another.


Yeah. The fact that something makes sense doesn't mean it's significantly more likely to happen. But it could. And I'd say that both Russia and USA are now accidentally hellbent on providing sufficient stressors.

Gotta be marginal

Well, I guess it’s an official act. :-/

The reason is probably to have runway to deport people before cases can be heard.


I assume this was sarcasm

Studies are always good, but it almost trivially follows that the tread loss must go somewhere.

EV specific tires have basically eliminated the difference in tread loss already. And because there's public pressure on this, the toxicity of the materials and tires is decreasing rapidly.

Every study I've seen from people pushing on this uses very old information about tires, proving there's a problem really requires updated work taking these things into consideration.


Can I put these EV specific tires on my ICE to get super-duper tread life?

(and have the tire companies been conspiring to make tires disposable?)


Yes, and yes. Though with a lower mass vehicle you may have reduced grip.

Grip is proportional to downforce times the coefficients of friction. Since downforce comes mostly from vehicle weight the maximum available acceleration/deceleration (grip) is nearly identical across lighter and heavier vehicles for a given tire compound and tread pattern.

The complexity comes from things like sidewall stiffness (controls available grip near the lateral limit of traction, must be designed for vehicle mass), suspension geometry (tire camber affects maximum grip), tire width (affects contact patch size relative to mass of the vehicle, tire pressure, camber, and sidewall stiffness), and suspension spring rate and dampening (wheel hop, changing camber angle from body roll).


"Since downforce comes mostly from vehicle weight the maximum available acceleration/deceleration (grip) is nearly identical across lighter and heavier vehicles for a given tire compound and tread pattern."

What? Was this written by AI?


It's literally just physics. Couloumb (static, or dry) friction is F_f = μF_n where F_f is the frictional force (grip) of tires in this case and F_n is the normal force between the ground and the tires due to the mass of the vehicle. μ ranges from 0.8 to 1 or more in modern tires.

Since F=ma and F_n is 9.8 N/kg due to gravity, F_f = μ * 9.81 * m and a = F/m = μ * 9.81 * m / m, and finally a = μ * 9.81 m/s^2.


Oh I get what you're saying. You get more grip, but the vehicle also has that much more momentum.

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