California: $73 Billion Deficit
May 13th, 2024What does it mean when even the Jackasses are fleeing California?
The part to pay close attention to happens at 8:08, “Marking the days on… my calendar, so I don’t have to pay California state taxes”:
Via: ZeroHedge:
In the course of two years, California has turned a $100 billion surplus into a $73 billion deficit, forcing governor Gavin Newson (D) to propose painful (token) spending cuts on Friday while announcing his revised state budget.
Germany May Introduce Conscription for All 18-Year-Olds
May 13th, 2024Via: Telegraph:
Germany is considering introducing conscription for all 18-year-olds, as it looks to boost its troop numbers in the face of Russian military aggression.
Military planners in Berlin are in the final stages of discussing three options, two of which involve a form of conscription, according to leaked plans reported in the German media.
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is set to go public with the official plans by June.
Gavin Newsom Is Coming For Your Car, And He Wants You To Know It
May 12th, 2024Via: Politico:
Gov. Gavin Newsom is taking California’s climate story — with its big ambitions and political risks — on the road.
The Democratic governor, Biden surrogate and potential presidential contender is pushing aggressive climate action in appearances from China to the Vatican, selling it as a winning issue beyond the borders of his deep-blue state.
His pitch: The effects of climate change are upon us and the world — including California — ignores them at their peril.
First ‘Extreme’ Solar Storm in 20 Years Brings Spectacular Auroras
May 11th, 2024I saw it. Pretty wild. It was a dim orange glow from the southeast to southwest for me. Others in New Zealand saw very spectacular displays.
Via: AFP:
The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to Britain — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend.
The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun — came just after 1600 GMT, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
It was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged power infrastructure in South Africa. More CMEs are expected to pummel the planet in the coming days.
Social media lit up with people posting pictures of auroras from northern Europe and Australasia.
Buffett Continues to Grow Cash Pile
May 11th, 2024Via: MHFIN:
Pentagon’s UFO Office Under Kirkpatrick Was a Scam Designed to Maintain Secrecy
May 9th, 2024Imagine my shock.
But the whole thing might be a case of good cop bad cop, with Mellon playing the good cop and Kirkpatrick playing the bad cop:
The “bad cop” takes an aggressive, negative stance towards the subject, making blatant accusations, derogatory comments, threats, and in general creating antipathy with the subject. This sets the stage for the “good cop” to act sympathetically, appearing supportive and understanding, and in general showing sympathy for the subject. The good cop defends the subject from the bad cop. The subject may feel able to cooperate with the good cop, either out of trust or out of fear of the bad cop and may then seek protection by the good cop and provide the information the interrogators are seeking.
My advice to any genuine whistleblowers: Don’t trust Kirkpatrick or Mellon.
Via: The Hill:
Gillibrand noted that two knowledgeable individuals with whom she has met “refused to meet with” Kirkpatrick or his office. These whistleblowers’ hesitations may be well founded. In recent months, the Pentagon’s UFO office has lost much of its credibility following a series of flawed and deeply misleading reports.
Crucially, another set of newly released documents indicates that high-level current and former officials with apparent knowledge of illicit UFO programs refused to meet with Kirkpatrick.
In a June 2023 interview with NewsNation, Rubio made a series of startling UFO-related comments. According to Rubio, “smart, educated people with high clearances and very important positions in our government” have informed Congress of the existence of secret UFO programs.
As the documents reveal, Kirkpatrick was taken by surprise by Rubio’s comments. A Senate Intelligence Committee staffer subsequently informed Kirkpatrick that the senior officials described by Rubio were among those who refused to speak to his office.
As Christopher Mellon, the Department of Defense’s former top civilian intelligence official, notes, many UFO whistleblowers do not trust the Pentagon process, preferring to speak to Congress and the intelligence community’s internal watchdog instead.
This puts the Pentagon in a particularly awkward position. If the director of the UFO office was aware that high-level officials alleging the existence of unreported UFO programs refused to speak with him, how can he and his office credibly issue sweeping denials that such programs exist?
New Study, Ivermectin Works Again
May 9th, 2024AND ANOTHER : New Study, Ivermectin works again.
Double-blind randomised controlled study finds Ivermectin reduced ICU admissions by 83% (P <0.001)
Its time that those involved in denying sick and/or dying covid patients access to Ivermectin were arrested and charged with… pic.twitter.com/eFKDrDVAz3
— Craig Kelly (@CraigKellyPHON) May 5, 2024
Aune AR5000 Openback Headphones
May 9th, 2024I was going to post this to an audio forum but thought that some budget audiophiles out in Cryptogon land might be interested.
The Amazon affiliate links pay me a small commission. Your support is very much appreciated.
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I’ve had my Aune AR5000 openbacks for about a month and they are fantastic. Very detailed and impactful midrange. Ample bass. Treble is detailed and never unpleasant. I’m coming from DT770 80 ohm, so I’m still marveling at the larger soundstage on the AR5000. (These are my first openbacks.) Instruments are separated and floating in space around me now.
At only 28 ohms, you can drive these with anything.
I used to EQ the DT770 lows and highs down while boosting midrange, basically trying to turn them into a closed HD600. Don’t laugh, man, it worked for me.
I’m running the AR5000 with no EQ at all and they sound absolutely beautiful.
The build looks and feels premium. Very solid. No squeaks or rattles. The cable feels premium and is a commonly available dual 3.5mm setup if you want to change it, or run 4.4mm balanced.
With regard to the fit and comfort: I have a huge head. I wore DT770 with the forks all the way out. AR5000 fits my head easily with room to spare.
Clamp force feels perfect.
I do wish the pads/ear cups were a bit bigger, but if they are barely adequate for me, chances are they will be good for you. I haven’t seen any other reviewer complain about this, so it might just be me. I only notice it after long sessions.
I did start to want more room for my ears inside the pad. Any DT770 pads fit the AR5000. The most comfortable pads I’ve found are a generic memory foam protein leather replacement for DT770. The specs are: Material: protein leather & Memory foam, Outer diameter: 100mm, Inner size:50mm, Thickness:35mm. These are available on Amazon and Ebay. Cost is between $12 and $15. On the stock AR5000 pads, there is nothing between the pads and the drivers, so I cut away the thin mesh on the replacement pads.
I get a vague sense that the stock pads sound slightly better, maybe more detail. When I went to try and apply EQ with these replacement pads, I wound up just leaving it flat. If you try this and are scratching your head about what’s different, I’d consider slightly EQing down the 5K to 8K range between 1 and 3dB with the generic replacement pads I mentioned.
That’s it. I’m good for a long, long time. My guess is that the law of diminishing returns would kick in very hard from this point. I’m not going to say this is the end of my headphone journey, but it might be and that would be fine. I’m very happy to be able to say that at the $300 level and not some much more insane level.
I still use my DT770s when I require sound isolation. I live is a small house with my wife, her sewing machine and our four children, so the closed back DT770s definitely still have their place.
Some videos:
War Is A Racket: Anduril Pulsar
May 8th, 2024Here’s a tiny curiosity to add to your long herniating War Is A Racket file folder.
The U.S. Government paid Anduril about a billion dollars for a system that seeks to counter a sub-$500 threat:
The company in 2022 mentioned the EW equipment after winning a nearly $1 billion counter-unmanned aerial systems contract from U.S. Special Operations Command. A memo obtained by Defense News that same year described it helping to “mitigate incoming threats.”
How effective would this Pulsar system be if the enemy programmed the target coordinates into ArduPilot (free/open source) and spent a few cents on EM shielding on their sub-$500 drone?
Hmm…
Silly me, worrying about the finer details—like whether the widgets will work or not.
As long as wealth is transferred from the base of the pyramid to the psychopath war priests at the top, it’s mission accomplished.
Now, let’s look at the bright side.
Compared to boondoggles like the F-35 ($1.5 trillion) and spending a couple of decades and $2.3 trillion to kill people wearing sandals and armed with $150 AK-47s in Afghanistan*, this Anduril contract seems like a bargain.
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* Same Taliban, same sandals, now with U.S. weapons costing an order of magnitude more and provided to them by the U.S. taxpayer: As Taliban takes over, some swap iconic AK-47s for made-in-America rifles.
Via: Anduril:
Related:
Major General Smedley Butler: War Is A Racket (1935)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961)
Rifle-Armed Robot Dogs Now Being Tested By Marine Special Operators
May 8th, 2024Via: The Warzone:
The United States Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) looks to be the first organization within the U.S. military to be using rifle-wielding “robot dogs.” Other armed robotic K-9s have been explored by the U.S. military and shown off by foreign countries, in the recent past.
Eric Shell, head of business development at Onyx Industries which supplied the gun system for the dogs, confirmed to TWZ on the floor of SOF Week that they are in use with MARSOC. Shell noted that MARSOC has two robot dogs fitted with gun systems based on Onyx’s SENTRY remote weapon system (RWS) — one in 7.62x39mm caliber, and another in 6.5mm Creedmoor caliber. It’s unclear precisely how many other robotic dogs MARSOC may have at present, however, it appears likely that the two equipped with SENTRY are being tested by the command.
