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.
Going by surveys, there does exist a considerable divergence in attained education levels.
Among supporters of a certain conservative political masterpiece (name starts with T), there is a strong trend towards lack of education. Which often enough, though not always, means "stupid".
Among conservative politicians themselves, there does not seem to be such a strong correlation. Implying that they aren't uneducated, and some might be intellectualy quite capable. They have just made a choice. Some of them might be fairly depressed right now, but keeping a stiff upper lip.
Whether the masterpiece himself has made a choice or is stupid, is a good question. Judging by what's available to me, he exibits signs of fairly limited knowledge, attention, self-criticism and self-control. Whether that's due to age or other reasons, another good question. But certainly not a master strategist.
Source: Newsweek Trump approval tracker
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.
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 (r), 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:
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).
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.
They say that people who don't build battery banks while wearing a sweater will cry about the lack of battery banks in double fur coats. :)
Since today was possibly the last "sweater" weekend here, morning frost is a reality and snow has fallen 500 km northwards...
...I decided that I would be among the first and not the second group. :)
Coincidence has given me an almost unused (43 000 km driven) battery bank of a Mitsubishi i-MIEV (a crap car, don't buy unless you are an EV mechanic).
But in my house, there is already a 24V battery bank made of Nissan Leaf cells and I'm worried about lack of space and fire hazard (if lithium batteries burn, you typically need tons of water to make them do anything else - I have only one ton and pumping it requires that same battery bank).
So I decided that I'd build a new 48V battery bank outside my house, start it up with the MIEV cells and maybe migrate the Leaf cells there later too, after checking and reassembly.
However, winters are cold here and MIEV cells (as I mentioned, the car is crap) lose 30% of their capacity when cold. It thus follows that I must keep my battery warm in winter - and later on, cool in summer. This requires energy. Spending less energy on battery care allows using more energy for useful things. :)
Thus it follows that I need a battery enclosure. :) It must have wheels so construction bureaucrats can be waved away with an explanation (a generator on wheels doesn't need a building permit either). And it must have thermal insulation.
The insulation is PIR foam, 10 cm thick. Maybe I'll make some parts even thicker. The wheeled platform was salvaged from a bankrupt boat factory, I don't know its original purpose. The bottom plywood is 20 mm waterproof ply, and the top layer (PIR is very delicate, don't put batteries directly on PIR) is 9 mm waterproof ply.
The design I stole from an anarchist squat which existed in 2009, where styrofoam was used for a similar purpose, with the difference that squatters used lead acid batteries and their battery room was indoors (now it's advisable to imagine the sound of clattering teeth, it was cold there in winter).
Inside the box, there will be:
Since PIR aborsbs sound, the piezo buzzers of the alarm devices will have to be unsoldered and brought to a plastic box on the surface of the enclosure. :)
The arrangement of cells has been chosen to provide access from outside, get a reasonable ratio between volume and surface (avoid flat shape) and to minimize the cutting of materials (several sides are made of PIR sheet cut to length only).
Some more pictures:
End result of today's work:
Living off grid often correlates with poorly accessible locations - because that's where the infrastructure is not.
On certain latitudes, especially near bodies of water, especially in remote locations - do not ask who the snow comes for - it always comes for you (and with a grudge). So, what ya gonna do?
Over here, a tractor being incomplete (it is great folly to go into winter with an incomplete tractor), snow is handled by an electric microcar. Since the microcar is made of thin sheet metal and plastic, it cannot carry a plow... but the rear axle being solid steel, it can pull one.
The plow is one year old, and was previously pulled by a gasoline car. It is made of construction steel: 8 mm L-profiles shaped like a letter A with double horizontal bars. The point of connection on top ensures it doesn't lift too much while plowing. It's currently fixed with an unprofessional and temporary C-clamp (there will be an U-bolt soon). It is pulled with a chain.
If snow is heavy, the L-profiles lift the plow on top of snow, and you have to plow the same road many times. Sometimes it veers off sideways. Generally, you have to catch the snow early with this system - if you're late, you're stuck. :)
Not many advantages, but dirt cheap. Don't go plowing public roads with such devices - it is nearly invisible to fellow drivers, and cops would get a seizure.
To make no excessive claims, I have to admit I burnt a fair bit of wood during the night. In the morning however, around 9 o'clock, the solar fence (nominal power 2400 W) was giving 600 W and steaming vigorously. By 10 o'clock, it had thawed and gave 940 W. Later, other panel arrays took over and wattage decreased. The energy was used to run a heat pump.
P.S. Knowing that server resources aren't infinite, I hosted the image externally, I hope that hosting on "postimages.org" works smoothly.
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.