Oh hey - the TLA/milspeak guy (gal?). I wouldn't wish more typing upon you but I would love if you could do a bit more 'longhand' so I could have a better grasp of some of the stuff you say - genuinely not being snarky, you seem to have great and informed insights! Thanks!
1IC / 2IC: First Island Chain / Second Island Chain.
ABM: Anti-Ballistic Missile.
CENTCOM: United States Central Command, combatant command for Middle East
MENA: Middle East and North Africa, in this case oil that comes from gulf to asia.
IR: Iran
MIC: Military-Industrial Complex.
PRC: People's Republic of China.
SKR: South Korea (Republic of Korea).
PH: Philippines.
The broad analogy is imagine a boxing match. US is aging heavy weight with finesse, Iran is a teen whose been training for a few years. The super weight's day job is protecting other teens from Iran.
On paper one would expect US to absolutely brain Iran in first round. Before fight, heavy weight had to spend months training / prepping. Which is strange vs fight against teenager, but we can charitably interpret that as diligence. Fight starts, teenage Iran somehow lands a few blows. Which is concerning. Maybe got lucky, a little embarrassing but as long as US heavy weight knocks out teen emphatically in first round. Then teenager survived first round, spent rest period between rounds to punch the other teens US was obligated to protect in the face. Fight continues, what if that knockout doesn't happen until round2... 3... 4... etc. What if heavy weight drags out and wins by TKO in 10th round, what if heavy weight gets tired and forfeits by 5th round. Other teens in protection racket gets nervous, because PRC is not Iran, PRC is like 10 super heavy weights with homefield advantage watching US heavyweight borrow equipment to finish a minor fight with Iran. Some will fixate on the fact that yes, in deed the super weight can probably murder that teen eventually, but the amount of effort required feels insane.
Maybe the strategically dignified / smart thing was for US not to accept (pick) that fight in the first place. Especially if staking credibility/reputation on fighting PRC one day. I'm 50/50 on this, there's medium/long term reason why Iran missile complex is existential for US regional posture (and Israel), taking it out is strategically sound. Taking it out while revealing that's about the limit of what US can take out is... not.
I have been lusting after a decent visual interpretation of Ringworld ever since I read it decades ago... I was thrilled to hear Halo was set on a ringworld and - because I am diehard Nintendo guy - had to go to a mate's house to see it on his XBox.. I spent ages wandering about looking up, but it wasn't quite what I was after and hey, given the era, the graphics were not up to much. I am still amazed it has not been well done in a film or game or VR to this date - at least afaik, i am open to suggestions. (One of the most visually plausible habitats in film imho was in Elysium and I always feel this film has been a little overlooked. The parallels with the modern world's refugee issues are overstated but I thought incredibly compelling.)
For genuine, believable oddness - although the SF pigeonhole seems restrictive - I would recommend the utterly unique M. John Harrison, specifically the later Kefahuchi Tract trilogy. The much earlier Centauri Device pops up on lots of lists but although it is entertaining and original, is not in the same league. Definitely more in common with the Strugatsky brothers than Clarke - humans fixated on commerce and sex, much more than technology.. quantuum weirdness bleeding into the occult... a galaxy-wide, neon-lit rust-belt. If there is anyone else doing anything remotely like him then I am all ears - sadly, I have read it all! I also felt that Tchaikovsky's ideas are striking and well thought-out, but I did not encounter any people in his books. Peter Watt definitely interesting but often unnecessarily hard to parse, I thought? Must revisit Reynolds - only tried one many years ago...
Interesting.. Minor point: it would be good to know what each of the default panels is? not entirely clear to me?
Intrigued by spiderfoot, but seeing that the last release - from that repo anyway - was in 2022, I assume the action has moved elsewhere, given that this is a very quickly changing field - anyone know?
Both of these make me realise how out of date my copy of Bazzell's OSINT Techniques is..
I find the free version of plex - once I config out all their own streaming junk - is perfectly good.. (and it runs acceptably on my ancient synology) Are there any compelling reasons for me to look in to jellyfin?
It’s free as in freedom and open source. This isn’t just a thing for people who are preachy but it’s also a sign that it’s less likely to change the terms of the deal, so to speak.
I'm perfectly fine with paying for software, so the price wasn't a leading factor in my choice (and I have contributed to Jellyfin).
It just looks to me that Plex (as a company) isn't really as reliable for self-hosting in the long run. So even though Plex has a better client support (for example, on xbox and playstation), I decided against it in favor of something that only I am in control of.
Initially intended to buy a license for Emby, but it doesn't support hardware transcoding on Apple Silicon yet, so Jellyfin it is then.
If you are happy with Plex, there's no reason to switch, IMO. If something goes wrong, it likely won't take you long to connect an alternative to the same media library
The main reason that finally pushed me to move over was that Plex works local only (no internet connection) for only so long and then you are done for without a beacon/login home I guess. Dumbest "feature" ever but I guess I get why they do it.
We had our power and internet go out for an extended amount of time earlier this year and shortly after I converted us over to Jellyfin vs Plex. Quite easy and painless setup. Mostly just recreated my libraries in Jellyfin and good to go.
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