iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 3h

THis one question is phrased as would Musk getting the money make you more/less support than you would otherwise feel for the program

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 3h

Bezos in particular seems to care a LOT about his space project (Blue Origin) beyond the sheer dollars involved, and that firm is particularly sensitive to executive branch decisions and thus to Bezos relative standing with Trump vs Musk

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 3h

I have a pilot survey question out on how much Elon Musk getting the contract for a major military space program affects public support and I am very eager to see what it shows

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 3h

That said, checking the LA map it's possible one 25kt bomb could disable both the big Wilmington refinery and adjacent LA/LGB container port, or at least the rail lines exiting the port.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 3h

For larger weapons probably, but I'm positing 25 kilotons (bit more than Hiroshima, sort of thing a brand new nuclear power might have). Targets within metro areas matter at that level -- centered on LAX, 25kt wouldn't break windows in Santa Monica or Redondo

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 4h

Oil refineries are nice as nuclear targets in that they cover a large area and require real effort to *not* burst into flame every day on their own

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 4h

Yeah, my gut guess was that there are probably too many data centers for any one to be *that* important and they are probably spread out too much even in tech industry regions for one 25kT bomb to take out very many. But, that was a *guess* and I might well be wrong, as several have suggested

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Laura Bassett @lebassett.bsky.social · 5h

“If you don’t like public executions just don’t watch it” says the crowd trying to ban drag shows and books

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 4h

Still no beer/wine sales in grocery, an area where Mass has loosened up a lot. And no big box stores like Total Wine -- RI law basically does not allow chains and no out-of-state owners at all

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 4h

Believe it or not the local breweries have tried and failed. Even that is less restrictive than it was 20 years ago. The few vinyards in RI had a heck of a fight to be allowed to sell bottles on site. The wholesalers and liquor stores have Smith Hill well greased.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 4h

One legal oddity you may know is breweries here can either be a restaurant or sell beer offsite but not both. Feels bizarre to me as Oregon law is any place that sells liquor must have a real kitchen with several hot entree items available, even the diviest dive and the strip clubs.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 5h

That's Apponaug. It's fine, not amazing. That's pretty thin for an area from Kennedy Plaza to URI compared to how prevalent in other parts of the state.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 5h

Bristol has 1/10th the population of Cranston + Warwick + So. Prov yet has what, four craft breweries?

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 5h

Cranston actively chased away craft breweries, I gather our water dept manager doesn't like them and charges >10x what any other RI town does for brewery wastewater fees. Warwick had marquee Proclamation which closed last year for their own reasons, but not a great time for new starts to replace it

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 5h

Thinking I should visit RI breweries more, and ocurrs to me there's a big gap west bay -- only little Apponaug between downtown Providence and S. Kingston despite half the state living in that area. E Prov, Bristol, Westerly, Aquidneck, Paw/Woon, even Exeter all have one, most >1.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 6h

When I was a kid decades ago I think there was a company that would print custom books with your child's name as the main character and that sounded really lame to basically all of us but the few imagination challenged narcissist kids now have all the money and power

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 6h

Is SpaceX is valued at 100x the entire planetary gdp, who would / could buy all those shares?

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 6h

Also Harvard, MIT, brown, yale, going after J1 researcher visas. Apparently if Trump doesn't get a Nobel Prize, US universities shouldn't get them either

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 7h

That would have been my next guess

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 8h

Lol "Dave Petraeus sponsored by the Gordon Gecko Institute" isn't appealing?

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 8h

For me it's much more direct -- I consider my job much less secure than would normally be the case for a 20+ year civil servant.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 8h

One of the days that reminds me there are reasons my family is overweighted in non retirement cash vs standard guidelines.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 8h

Everyone thought it was inhumane but no one cared enough to lose their job or pass up accepting a contract.

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Katherine Alejandra Cross @quinnae.com · 9h

This is a moral atrocity and it needs to be loudly condemned as such. There is a reason that democracies *don't* do publicly televised executions (and why many don't execute people at all): it inculcates and rewards bloodthirst, which corrupts the spirit and corrodes the foundation of the polity.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 9h

Im not going to defend Sky Full of Grok but SpaceX does at least behave reasonably well in this sense

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 9h

Yes, SpaceX owns most of the world's satellites (hotdogguy.jpg), but seriously a big issue is Chinese operators do not share ephemeris data, do not provide notice of manuevers, don't answer the phone to discuss impending conjunctions, and they have 1,000 sats and growing fast

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 9h

And this! Great day at work. bsky.app/profile/reic...

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ex-Lethality Jane @lethalityjane.bsky.social · 9h

Beyond matters of taste and decency and whether or not you even believe in the death penalty due to moral reasons, livestreaming the execution of Nidal Hasan is a dumb idea because you're giving him his moment of public martyrdom.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 9h

I am curious if there is going to be a dod stand down to let everyone watch. Or to order everyone to watch.

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James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 9h

I guess this is just sort of the logical endpoint of this administration’s commitment to fulfilling their supporters’s desire to vicariously consume violence done to other people.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

Is that in Managing Nuclear Operations?

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

I did say "economic" but an interesting question is how much big DC strikes mess up the economy through panic and loss of coordination.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

This is the kind of question that has intrigued me since middle school. Even if push ups and crew cuts did not.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

Hah! I actually did think of that when musing on my walk.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

Yeah, if I had time I'd call up sone experts on pipeline/storage nodes vs refineries

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

This is seriously the sort of thing we grad students would yell at each over many beers in the sad Marriott bar across the street from E38. Miss those days.

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

Re SEA SFO interesting question what happens if you wipe out Big Tech hqs and their employees -- what does that do short term? I suppose nuking the big AI firms would trigger a market crash given they are propping it up

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

I don't think electric power plants are as individually scarce as refineries

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

Probably also some obscure key sole source facilities, like dint we get all the semiconductor silica from one mine in the southeast?

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

Hoover Dam is intriguing due to the regional water crisis it causes, though probably hard to hit

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 10h

Ok, now seized with "you have 10 fission bombs, 25k. Maximize economic damage to the US" Offhand, 1 to lower Manhattan, 0 to 3 to major container ports, the rest on oil refineries chosen for size and difficulty to substitute

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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 11h

"metropolitan area nuclear targets ranked by CPI increase" is a project we MIT SSP wierdos would have enjoyed playing with but what an odd political argument to make

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 11h

Whoa. @haleaziz.bsky.social has the scoop on a truly insane plan to use some military training ships for deportations, with people presumably shackled or locked in cells for days at a time as they transit to Central and South America. Each journey would be staggeringly expensive — and dangerous.