Tai When

August 6, 2024, 3:04 PMAugust 7, 2024, 1:50 AM Chill Prediction, War

Some free advice: When it looks like China is likely to attack or even blockade Taiwan, buy whatever computer or tech stuff you want immediately. And that does include these days cars. Because once that starts happening, anything tech-related or with a bunch of tech in it is, first, going to get very expensive and then it will be unavailable altogether for 3-10 years.

That “buy immediately” advice also includes items not made in or near Taiwan due to the cascade effect.

I will put a note on this blog when it’s time to start buying. Listen or not, I don’t care. But I will be right.

DNS

August 6, 2024, 1:13 PMAugust 6, 2024, 1:57 PM Chill Tech

How Windows DNS actually works.

I was expecting this to be wrong but it is actually correct. Even in that subreddit, that does not happen often. I’ve gotten into arguments with clients and with people who should know better about Windows DNS behavior. And many times I’ve walked into clients with an external DNS configured on their domain-joined endpoints “for redundancy.”

Of course, their crap half-works and they don’t understand why. Then they get angry because you take their fake redundancy away while making their domain and network 100x more reliable. People are fucking weird. It seems most people want to shoot themselves in the foot and become resentful when you tell them that blasting away at their own appendages is a bad idea.

Crossing the Jordan

August 6, 2024, 12:03 PM Chill Regular-ass Post

Jordan Peterson is not a draw to me. What’s not facile and obvious of what he says is moronic. However, I think this explains his appeal quite well:

Men who pay any attention are told they are the cause of all problems while the same people claim that men have no problems of their own. Furthermore, they are treated by nearly everyone — including those they are most attracted to — as disposable and worthless most of the time. The average man’s experience in the world is pretty terrible. Peterson at least acknowledges that and proposes some way to live with the knowledge that most people see you as a tool for their own ends.

I can see why that’s appealing to men who are otherwise completely invisible except to be told how contemptible they are.

JDAMmit

August 6, 2024, 11:31 AMAugust 6, 2024, 11:33 AM Chill Regular-ass Post, War

JDAM bomb launch against Russian positions by Su-27 fighter. Date not mentioned.

Strange days, with JDAMs on a Flanker. I also saw Storm Shadows on an Su-25 the other day.

To those not familiar with military crap, both of these are like putting a Honda transmission in a Ford and having it function correctly. Those weapons are just not at all designed to work with Eastern Bloc-originated planes in any way, shape or form.

Wealth

August 6, 2024, 10:37 AMAugust 6, 2024, 11:31 AM Chill Regular-ass Post

There’s not that much wealth in the world.

This fundamentally misunderstands how wealth works and what it is based on. It’s just all kinds of wrong, like most things Noah Smith writes about economics. It’s interesting that when he writes about science, politics or policy outside of economics he’s usually correct. But about economics (his actual profession), it’s always just wildly incorrect assertions and ideas.

That is, though, how the entire mainstream econ field operates so no surprise I guess.