Typical ant control involves leaving sterilizing bait granules on (or near) “roadways”. Worker ants carry them into the hive and feed them to the queens. The trick is that they aren’t poisonous, they are sterilizing. The queens cannot produce more workers and the colony gradually disappears.

Not sure about effects on other insects. I think the key would be putting them where ants travel, because that’s where other insects don’t.

Sounds like a nice material. :)

Thanks for sharing your opinion. It is interesting, but I can’t say I agree.

Can I ask which sources do you primarily use to draw information about history and (geo)politics?

The literal definition of Tankie is supporting USSR tanks being sent for regime change/suppression of eastern Europe post war. Russia happened to peacefully give liberation to all of these countries, and to all of USSR. That US/NATO has continued its demonic diminishment of Russia after this point, including nazi coups under fake liberal colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine…

What follows is a brief detour into Eastern European history, with a focus on conflicts.

Tanks were sent in 1956 to crush the Hungarian Revolution and 1968 to crush the Prague Spring, and of course in 1979 to invade Afghanistan, triggering a 10-year war.

While Gorbachev (in office from 1985 to 1991) deserves a lot of praise for being fairly incorruptible (he didn’t enrich himself), ending the war in Afghanistan, organizing nuclear disarmament initiatives, organizing the first semi-democratic elections in the USSR (which brought about the end of the power monopoly of the communist party) and some policies (one of which I’ve hijacked as my username) that favoured transparency and reconstruction… sadly, even he did likely authorise tanks: for seizing the Vilnius TV tower in January 1991 (some unfortunate folks got killed there). It must be noted that mass protest erupted in Russian cities when the event was reported (media was already partly independent as a result of his reforms) and protesters were definitely mostly Russian, not Baltic or Ukrainian. In the late stages of the USSR, there was a functioning sense of solidarity (a bit like solidarity of prisoners escaping together, but having different life goals) between different nations against the system.

Later, it went thus that some republics went down the tubes into calamity and corruption (and some like Armenia and Azerbaijan into war between each other) while others managed to swim out of the spiral. Economic and demographic damage was very serious all across the country, and this probably “wound up” people. Gorbachev became the most hated leader in Russia, blamed for everything and some more things, and people did start thinking that someone with an iron fist might suit them better. Yeltsin seized the opportunity during the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 and ordered tanks to fire at the Supreme Soviet, overhthrowing the constitutional order and bestowing himself powers like a monarch, which he later gave to Putin, who entrenched himself twice as deep. [sidenote: US residents beware, I sense a risk that this could happen at your place within 2 years]

Later on, when the USSR was already multiple years gone and Putin acted as prime minister under Yeltsin, the Chechnian independence movement was drowned in blood in such manner, reminiscent of today’s Gaza sector.

The war in Georgia was an extremely stupid thing. Both sides contributed to provocations and Georgia, having raised the stakes, decisively lost. The subsequent turning of Georgia into a Russian vassal state under the supervision of Putin’s allies was a slow-motion coup in favour of the Kremlin (which is finished by now) and likely encouraged Putin.

Now, as for Ukraine, unlike the other countries, for whatever reason they maintained a culture of mass protest. They protested in great numbers during the Orange Revolution and during Euromaidan. The escalation of the Euromaidan protest into a revolution was likely triggered by the beatdown which president Yanukovich ordered. If he hadn’t had the protesters beaten and dispersed, it would have fizzled out. He escalated however, and protesters also escalated. Other political parties sided with protest, leaving his Party of the Regions isolated. When police started using lethal violence (claiming about 100 lives) and protesters responded (claiming about 13 lives), the situation took an unexpected turn for Yanukovich. The army refused to intervene, his police force was overwhelmed and he took the decision to flee the country to Russia. The parliament organized new elections in his absence. Putin however used the opportunity to annex Crimea (surprisingly, this was not bloody) and tried to annex Donetsk and Lugansk (which turned bloody really fast). Subsequently, a contingent of about 30…40 000 Russian soldiers held parts of those oblasts against the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while superficially pretending to be rebel separatists.

As for Belarus, when Lukashenka falsified the elections for what was probably the seventh time, mass protest finally started. He relied on Putin’s assistance to beat and imprison thousands of people.

I hope this helps. I have the feeling that you lack a historical understanding of our region. From the viewpoint an anarchist: in Ukraine and most of the rest of Eastern Europe, as an anarchist, you work above the ground but may get name-called often because everyone thinks you’re their preferred sort of demonic creature. :) Meanwhile in Russia, the communist party is Putin’s lap dog and the anarchist movement is underground, in emigration and in prison. In Belarus, only the potato dictator rules, and allows their territory to be used for war against Ukraine, but tries to stay out of it.

Myself, I’ve seen a bit of similar stuff.

Since arriving on Lemmy, I’ve sometimes stumbled on instances where ideological purity is enforced with an iron fist, and dozens of communities have the same overlapping moderators (no point in appealing any decision).

In such places, I’ve sometimes ended up arguing - usually describing history from the viewpoint that Wikipedia takes, from the viewpoint which has the benefit of supporting evidence. In those few places, this has been deemed “reactionary” and I’ve been banned a few times.

Upon examining the moderation logs of the threads where I got banned, I’ve found other peculiarities, like people getting banned for voting the wrong way.

I’ve never been too sure about what the appropriate response is, but my response has been reminding the admin of a local Lemmy instance (I have accounts on multiple instances) that federating with strange places has adverse consequences.

If one federates with an authoritarian place where censorship occurs strongly, everyone will see the counterfactual narratives pushed there, but nobody can argue, since they’ll get banned in those communities super fast. That’s not a balanced exchange of views and I’ve come to dislike that.

I recommend reading his text besides the news article.

He writes well and his description of what got him caught is very informative to anyone who might end up doing sabotage.

(Notes: he traveled to Latvia instead of doing everything locally, some of his drones failed to take off (possibly due to a curious fox pushing them over) and had no self-destruct timers, he only slightly changed the location of the railway bomb after encountering suspicious dacha owners, he was psychologically affected by the death of his grandmother and less cautious, and on his return trip from the railway, he stumbled before a camera.)

What he describes about FSB’s methods of torture might convince some other partisan to carry a gun or grenade.

In the pessimistic scenario, nothing short of Putin’s regime ending will get him out, I hope it ends sooner. In the matters where I can, I try to help other people end it sooner.

In the optimistic scenario, he will be exchanged with some Russian agent who got caught in Ukraine since he consulted with Ukranians to get some information and skills.

I cannot write him. They don’t need my name on their records. Peaceful people from more distant countries are better suited to write him.

Interesting article, thank you.

A note about black carbon, however - it requires a carbon based fuel. This launch vehicle (and some others too) used H2 as its fuel. As a result, we can note emissions of zero for black carbon, alumina and chlorine.

The article has one more estimation error relative to this flight. They seem to have estimated 17.5% of the landing pod’s mass to burn up on re-entry. This is a reasonable estimate when re-entering from orbital flight (initial speed at least 7.8 km/s), but the flight in the news article was suborbital: a steep ascent to the Karman line (initial speed of re-entry: very low), followed by a ballistic fall.

As evidenced by photos of the capsule (also available in the news article), nearly none of its mass burnt away. It features no thermal protection tiles on the sides (there could be some under the bottom) and exhibits no visible signs of overheating or mass loss (even the painted text has remained readable).

So, while the article could be accurate in its analysis of solid-fueled and carbon-based launches and orbital re-entries, this flight differs considerably from the analyzed pattern. The capsule didn’t enter orbit, didn’t carry retrograde engines to initiate re-entry, as a result was lighter, and launchable using a relatively small rocket (19 m is really small for a passenger carrying rocket).

As a result, I think they caused very little harmful atmospheric emissions (I would consider water vapour harmless, thermal NOx harmful). Based on this, I would even speculate (based on intuition, no calculations) that during the flight (notes: not during the building of the spacecraft, not during spacecraft fuel production) less pollution was caused than an airliner burning aviation fuel emits over 500 km… maybe 1000 km.

It was just their energy bill that was huge.

Myself, I’m not so skeptical.

Yes, it’s a very expensive passtime. They burned H2 and O2, but used a lot of energy.

They had no practical purpose for going - only demonstrating that it’s safe. No experiments besides the flight itself, and it’s been demonstrated already that Blue Origin can fly and land. The added data point was just telemetry and small improvements, and the message that Blue Origin dares to fly VIPs.

I’m content to mostly ignore it, and note “there’s one more private space launch company out there”.

For greater traffic between Earth and space, things must change. The rocket stage that ascends out of the atmosphere would be better released from an extremely high-flying plane or airship. Chances of surviving accidents would increase. Required engine power levels would drop. This has been tried by Scaled Composites. Sadly their space programme was set back by deadly accidents unrelated to their architecture, losing 3 ground crew to an explosion and one pilot to a pilot error. :(

At a later time, instead of ascending out of atmosphere by burning carried fuel, one should seriously consider delivery of energy from Earth by laser (rocket as a solar concentrator, no looking out of windows) and maneuvering in orbit with the assistance of permanent space tugs utilizing highly efficient magnetic thrusters (orientation) and ion engines (propulsion). Probably ion engines that permanently sit in space and only get reaction mass and energy delivered to them regularly.

In the far end, if lots of cargo and lots of people must visit space, then a space elevator must be constructed. Materials that allow making one still don’t exist.

The worst scenario is in El Salvador, where the study estimated that 44% of the country’s tuberculosis cases in 2019 occurred in its prisons.

History has shown that presence of widespread tuberculosis can make a prison camp a death camp. If half of a country’s tuberculosis cases happen in prisons, there is reason to suspect this is happening.

The rest of society will pay too, when strains resistant to antibiotics will spread outside via prison personnel.

Note: at the stage of instruction, they may think they’re only going to nurse the wounded.

Practise could differ - they could be be pressured to carry supplies, becoming a legitimate military target. Also, they might be pressured to provide sexual services.

I ride a 300 € bike as a hobby in summer. It’s from 2014. Given the highly advanced bike stealing culture present locally, any more expensive bike would need to be smeared with gull excretions for protection against theft. :P

Given that El Salvador has the highest imprisomnent rate per capita after North Korea (and since NK is super secretive, they might have passed it by without us knowing), and various other inhumane laws, I would definitely prefer if nobody paid that government even a penny.

I would pay (if I had enough pennies) for opposition to get Nayib Bukele out of power. He’s their version of Trump, a democratically elected authoritarian.

Sadly, unlike with Duterte (from the Philippines), there is currently no international interest in getting him to a court - which he likely has already earned by now.

Sadly, the video refuses to play continuously for me (likely due to an interaction between ads and ad blocker).

In case this also annoys others, here’s some information as text. :) It’s about protecting unmanned aerial vehicles, not people, however.

• microwave frequencies can be picked up by cable runs in the range 3 mm to 20 cm
• microwaves cause noise in a drone’s internal systems and lead to malfunction
• the most vulnerable component is an operational amplifier
• communication equipment is severely affected
• as expected, optical and fiber optical communications are immune
• shielding: provides a continuous layer of conductive material
• some conductive materials are better than others
• shielding materials: aluminum, copper, nickel (note: magnetic) and their alloys, foil or mesh, graphene and graphene oxide as paint

Below, you can find a nice enough study written by a major in the USAF for his master’s thesis, about hardening UAV systems against microwave weapons. It’s only partly outdated.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD1042082.pdf

I picked out some information:

Units of measurement: volts per meter (electrical field strength), watts per square centimeter.

Factors specific to the weapon include power level, microwave frequency, pulse duration, and pulse repetition interval.[18] This pulse creates an electromagnetic (EM) field surrounding the target, typically measured in volts per meter, kilovolts per meter, or watts per square centimeter (V/m, kV/m, W/cm2 ). The field produces excess energy, energy potential, or power within the target, measured in joules (J), volts (V), or amps (A). The aim is to induce a strong enough flow of electrons in the target material to cause adverse effects. [19] Field strength decreases proportional to the inverse square of target range ®, or 1/r2 , assuming a directional antenna as the source of the pulse.

Paths of effect: “front door” through antennas, “back door” through the entire system.

The energy that reaches the target induces effects by coupling to the component in one of two ways. “Front door” coupling occurs when energy enters the system directly through a normally utilized input device, such as an antenna. This type of coupling typically only occurs within the narrow band of the EMS that the input device was designed to receive. “Back door” coupling is the entrance of energy into the system by the field of electric potential that surrounds it. Back door coupling is more difficult to protect against, as the weapon does not need to be designed to match input device characteristics, allowing a much wider frequency band.[20]

Most vulnerable parts: op-amps, MESFETs (note: not MOSFETs).

Operational amplifiers, widely used in integrated circuits, as a common component vulnerable to upset, with a threshold of 9x10 -10 J. Among common components most susceptible to damage are Gallium arsenide metal- semiconductor field-effect transistors (GaAs MESFET), used in radar and sensor systems, with a damage threshold as low as 10 -7 J.22 While upset and damage effects to common electronic components from back door coupling are typically associated with field strengths of 8 kV/m [14] (upset) and 15 to 20 kV/m (damage), AFRL considers a field of electrical potential of 200 V/m or stronger as a threat to sensitive electronics in general.[23] This field strength is readily attainable with current HPM systems at combat-relevant ranges.

Enclosure materials: plastic is most vulnerable.

Pulse entry is the ability of unwanted EMS energy to penetrate the target and reach vulnerable electronics. Contributing factors include outer mold line construction material and vehicle shape. In general, materials specifically designed to shield against EMI are most effective against HPM entry, followed by metallic surfaces (which conduct and attenuate the pulse), with plastics and related materials most vulnerable to penetration.

Effect of shielding: measured in decibels attenuation (note: logarithmic unit).

For example, shielding that provides 20 dB of attenuation reduces EMI field strength to 0.1 times its original value, or a reduction of 90 percent. Assuming an initial field strength at the target of 15 kV/m, the widely accepted low-end damage threshold for electronics, a vehicle would need 38 dB of shielding to attenuate the field to an acceptable level of 200 V/m. At 25 kV/m, the point at which many robust electronics are damaged, the shielding requirement becomes 42 dB of attenuation.

Shielding levels that protect:

Most information on military aircraft shielding is close-hold in the US, partner nations, and adversaries alike. However, an interpolated value of 40-50 dB may be assumed to be a general standard across such systems, due to many militaries requiring manned airborne systems be hardened against EMP resulting from nuclear detonations. Such pulses are capable of generating field strengths in excess of 50 kV/m, which would drive a minimum attenuation requirement of 48 dB.[41] Incidentally, a 2004 study by Swedish scientists Bäckström and Lövstrand demonstrated that the 4th generation JAS-39 Gripen fighter aircraft is shielded to provide approximately 40 dB of attenuation.[42]

Protection levels given by shielding fabric:

US-based Conductive Composites has created a nickel-embedded non-woven material that provides from 41 to 72 dB of attenuation, depending on pulse characteristics. The material ranges from .0018 to .003 inches thick, weighs from .75 to 5.76 grams per square foot, with costs at or under $10 per square foot.[43] Another company, Glenair, has developed composite braided shielding for internal system component wrapping that is up to 80 percent lighter than traditional nickel/copper braids.[44]

Personal opinion:

• if a drone is expected to come across a microwave weapon, it better be optically or fiber optically controlled
• for entry level protection, its flight controller and motor controller ought be packaged in an enclosure that can be wrapped in conductive material
• if an aluminum radiator for the motor controller exits the shielding, it should be in firm contact (part of the shielding)
• it should not rely on GPS, and should not have an exposed GPS antenna
• its motor wires should also be wrapped in continuous conductive material
• all shielding elements should be grounded together

It would be a method of representing trust or distrust in a structured way that’s automatically accessible to the end user.

The user could right-click an image, pick “check trust” from a menu, and be presented with a list of metainfo to see who has originally signed it, and what various parties have concluded about it.

Negative proof: the AI company signs it with their watermark.

Positive proof: the photographer signs it with their personal key, providing a way to contact them. Sure, it could be a fake identity, but you can attempt to verify and conclude that.

Cumulative positive and negative proof: on top of the photographer, news organizations add their signatures and remarks (e.g. BBC: “we know and trust this person”, Guardian: “we verified the scene”, Reuters: “we tried to verify this photo, but the person could not be contacted”).

The photo, in the end, would not be just a bitmap, but a container file containing the bitmap (possibly with a steganographically embedded watermark) and various signatures granting or withdrawing trust.

Your post makes it look like a binary choice between cop-filled reality and cop-free fantasy. But there are marked differences between how many cops (many = often more stupid, untrained, poorly selected, corrupt) a society needs and what activity is expected of them.

Existing societies also demonstrate a vastly different need for imprisoning people.

Myself, I think that prisoners per capita is a better indicator than cops per capita. The latter gives weird results heavily tilted towards microstates (lead by Vatican, Pitcairn Islands and Motserrat).

• Maximum of prisoners per capita: North Korea (undisclosed but estimated), El Salvador (1600 per 100K), Cuba (794), Rwanda (637), Turkmenistan (576), United States (541).
• Minimum of prisoners per capita: go and have a look, it’s interesting. The leading 5 have a trend towards microstates and very poor developing countries, but if one filters them out and chooses sizable countries with functioning economies, the first that comes across is Japan - with an incarceration rate of 33 per 100K. That’s 48 times less than El Salvador and 16 times less than the United States. The first European country on the list is Finland with 52 per 100K, indicating approximately what a “western style” society can achieve. The EU average seems to be around 100 per 100K. The highest rated EU country seems to be Poland with 194 per 100K.

Notably, the first somewhat sizable European country and western-type society on both lists is Finland. It has the lowest prisoners per capita in Europe (at 52 per 100K) and the lowest cops per capita in Europe at 132 per 100K. It is not a known haven of rampant crime - it has really low crime rates too. Apparently in some conditions, you can have few cops, few prisoners and limited crime.

My guess - I could be wrong - is that the quality and coverage of social security, education and health care are what actually make the difference. Most people don’t start criminal activity for fun. Contributing factors include desperate poverty, poor parenting, lacking education, mental illness and exposure to trauma, damage from disease and substance abuse, etc, etc. Lots of full prisons are probably a factor that contributes to criminality, by making a “higher education in crime” accessible to more people.

Note: another really common combination is 9600 baud, 8 data, 1 stop. Antiquated, but a washing machine probably doesn’t need anything fast.

You don’t need to connect the 5V pins. An ordinary serial connection has no power pins.

The rest of your description seems sound.

As a minimum, how about frequent rotation and a sortition + selection system to staff the squads?

Imaginary example:

Two “cops” are needed for a term of 90 days (side note: in this hypothetical society, it could be that a cop is not a first responder but an investigator - first responders may be selected by proximity to the event and called up using some automated emergency messaging system). An investigator is allowed to request expert assistance from outside their department and often does.

At first, 10 candidates are sortitioned at random. Out of them, 3 refuse the job for various reasons, 7 go through instruction and pass evaluation. Out of them, 3 either step out during training or fail exams, 4 complete exams. Among them, another round of sortition occurs: 2 are selected at random, while 2 are paid compensation for study and assigned to reserve. If lottery chooses them again, they won’t need to pass exams.

This might be possible to enhance with other tricks. If feedback shows that cops cannot be impartial near their home, then they don’t work near their home. If however, feedback shows that they perform best near their home, then the opposite way.

The main goals this would aim to achieve:

• ensure that corruption will not start
• ensure that investigation is not biased (or that chances exist of bias being quickly exposed)
• ensure that offices cannot be given by people in power to whom they prefer
• ensure that competence is valued and unqualified bozos won’t be appointed

I would think the drag is considerable.

I would also worry about stability in a strong side wind.

As a result, I would not like to ride the 2-wheeled version in strong side wind. The 3-wheeled version looks OK, but also suffers from drag.

Besides, to generate power from wind while parking, you would have to choose your parking direction. But you can’t always choose the parking direction - location dictates it often. Toppling over while parked would be a definite thing to expect with this setup.

That kind of kit on two-wheeled vehicle looks severely half-assed. They should have thought more steps ahead.