14
Piroko 14 points ago +14 / -0

when all my friends proudly proclaimed they were part of Gryffindor or Hufflepuff

LIES.

Who the fuck would ever claim to be Hufflepuff?

1
Piroko 1 point ago +1 / -0

Raytheon added semi active laser targeting to the M982 in the Excalibur S, so that 155mm shells could be directed in descent by apaches and reapers. The firing battery only has to get them in the ballpark.

They then added fire and forget capability with an onboard radar in the Excalibur N5, which is intended to be shot from the 5"/54 M45. Again, the firing battery only has to get it in the rough ballpark of where the target will be.

In short... we have the technology.

1
Piroko 1 point ago +1 / -0

By the time the chinks are in arty range, they're already dashing for the beaches. You need to hit them further out.

Taiwan has a solution for that already.

3
Piroko 3 points ago +4 / -1

Guided artillery shells aren't really useful against ships. They're for hitting static targets. Ships move.

You're mistaken.

The limitations you're envisioning do not exist in a hypothetical battle of the Taiwan Straits. That's because there will be zero possibility of friendly fire.

If you simply want an artillery round to pick a target and kill it, indiscriminately, that's easy. You can do it with 80's technology, and that's basically what the Bofors Strix m/49 does.

The only reason the Copperhead needed target designators was because we didn't want it attacking OUR OWN SHIT.

Also, ships don't move fast enough to EVADE artillery. In WW2 naval battles they weren't evading the shells, they were evading the firing solution that was putting the shells on them. Today that can be calculated by computer in microseconds.

4
Piroko 4 points ago +5 / -1

the allies had 6,939 ships

And the Nazis didn't have guided fucking artillery shells.

A shore assault today is suicide, that's why we didn't actually try it in Desert Storm. It was only ever really feasible for Normandy because the allies spent two years building landing ships.

Listen to people who know TI...

Any attempt to force a landing against Taiwan, would be the naval equivalent of Pickett's Charge. They'll come out of their ports, and immediately be under long range sea skimming missile fire; Hsiung Feng III's and Harpoons. Halfway across the straits, they'll be into artillery range; steerable 203mm and 155 mm shells blowing clean through landing ships from hundreds of guns, as well as MLRS. By the time they get into sight of the shore, they'll be taking short ranged missile fire; javelins on every shoreside building, hellfires on helicopters.

If any of them mange to make it to the shore, they'll immediately be moving from a marine theater to an urban theater, the worst possible environment for an aggressor and the best possible environment for a determined defender. They'll have no remote, defensible beachhead because there is no remote shoreline.

Any attempt to conquer Taiwan will see the straits run red for a week with blood and burning wreckage.

0
Piroko 0 points ago +1 / -1

Campaign contributions.

Not that it matters, the libertarians have always been explicitly an open borders, free trade party. It wasn't a difficult platform to subvert to Chinese interests.

4
Piroko 4 points ago +6 / -2

Libertarians are a million times better

That was before the Chinese bought them off.

A party that claims to indifferent or opposed to nationalism is now either malicious or dangerously incompetent.

4
Piroko 4 points ago +5 / -1

"ANY OF YOU GOT ANYTHING BETTER TO DO THAN MARCHIN UP AND DOWN THE SQUARE?!"

1
Piroko 1 point ago +4 / -3

Wtf is up with all those isekek titles?

12
Piroko 12 points ago +13 / -1

St Louis's problem is the reputation of East St Louis.

If we just focus on East St Louis...

The interstates caused property values to tank. Dropping tax income caused budget cuts, driving the fire department to go on strike.

Dissatisfied with the police and fire situation, many large employers petitioned the state to let them secede from the city and negotiate police and fire services directly from St Clair County, further deepening the city's tax problems, causing maintenance deferral to spread into basic infrastructure maintenance.

6
Piroko 6 points ago +7 / -1

.........

When Warmachine Mk 3 dropped, it became apparent that they'd done very little playtesting and that it was structured around rigid forcecomps clearly intended to sell more material.

As feedback started to roll in, they fired their entire community support team, and then pulled all convention appearances.

Then they started direct selling figures lootbox style at a discount, which swamped eBay with product below msrp, infuriating store owners.

5
Piroko 5 points ago +6 / -1

Ehhh...

The most amazing transition for local game & comic store was in 2017, the year Privateer Press decided to shoot itself in the foot and go from commanding multiple whole shelves for warmahordes to being unceremoniously dumped in the discount bin.

8
Piroko 8 points ago +9 / -1

A bond that converts to equity when capital levels drop.

That's like, not a bond at all, it's a license for companies to perform badly and get away with it.

1
Piroko 1 point ago +2 / -1

for a new product

Trivial. Anyone can build something new, that's not hard.

Go ask your AI to write something that can pull data from a twenty year old informix instance.

2
Piroko 2 points ago +3 / -1

I think things start to get interesting though if the regulator can't raise enough money from the sale of SVB's assets to offset the deposits.

The Fed can cheat on that by taking the bank's held-to-maturity securities onto its own balance sheet. It's a bailout "in the present" but will pay itself off because the Treasury never defaults.

3
Piroko 3 points ago +4 / -1

But that doesn't have the same potential to launch the problem into other sectors of the economy.

Agriculture, manufacturing, communications, health care, logistics, technology, and entertainment didn't care about the bankruptcies and defaults. Banks collapsing left and right was just a problem for borrowers, not businesses funded by selling equities. They barely even cared as the rating agencies like Bear Sterns imploded.

But once AIG collapsed, THEN the threat became real for the rest of the economy.

9
Piroko 9 points ago +10 / -1

In 2008 there was a force multiplier:

Insurance companies investing their reserves in improperly rated mortgage backed securities.

When foreclosures started to ramp up, nobody knew how much the investments were actually worth, so suddenly insurance companies were seeing their reserve money evaporate instantly.

1
Piroko 1 point ago +2 / -1

TI, I still don't understand why you haven't just grown a beard and declared for Allah.

1
Piroko 1 point ago +2 / -1

The figure you're complaining about is called "Expense Ratio".

For life insurance, the industry average expense ratio is about 10.5%. For property casualty, it's about 27%.

Health Insurance uses a reversed figure called Medical Cost Ratio, which is legally required to be at least 80%-85% (depending on some criteria). This is because unlike Life and P&C, health insurance is basically always a money losing venture.

5
Piroko 5 points ago +6 / -1

BUT IF YOU BELIEVE IN VICTIMHOOD, THEN I BELIEVE IN VICTIMHOOD, AND THEN THEY BELIEVE IN VICTIMHOOD, AND THEN WE ALL MAKE ALL KINDS OF FUCKIN MONEY!

1
Piroko 1 point ago +2 / -1

Those Hicksites and their progressive heresy...

Someone ought to write a strongly worded letter.

1
Piroko 1 point ago +2 / -1

but I think they should look more "princely" or something

As I mentioned earlier, Cure Chocolat is more butch than Cure Wing.

As in quite literally the character is modeled on a Takarazuka Revue style otokoyaku (lit: "male role", although played by a woman), and the VA did that for 15 stage productions IRL before moving into voice work.

3
Piroko 3 points ago +4 / -1

Is Yellowstone actually any good?

Don't try to pet the elk, or pose with the elk.

But if you see some tourists trying to pose with elk, find cover and watch cuz shit is about to happen.

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