Brian O'Rourke

Hours ago, I realized that the continued existence of today was unwelcome. I look forward to tomorrow doing better.

Spend hours every month debunking quotations like that. “I’ll kill my logisticians first.” “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort.” etc.

Which final boss can’t you get by?

a man is talking into a microphone while a woman looks on . ALT: a man is talking into a microphone while a woman looks on .

We really need to know what they saw 20 yrs ago to know what you should project now. If this is the last thing they saw, it should also be the next thing they see, though.

We can replace states with Socialist Republic Councils. And when we merge all the intelligence and federal police agencies under the DNI, we can rename it the Committee for State Security (let's throw DHS in there, too, but it should probably have its own Directorate). This is great!

That AI ship, tho...

This is in some ways inevitable—to be expected at this stage of events. But be wary of anyone who uses these two events as the linchpin of their argument. They are, at this moment at least, cherry-picking their data to some degree. Be especially wary of answers you find congenial from the outset.

They show that the character of war is forever altered and that tanks are finished, and they demonstrate that infantry unsupported by direct and indirect fires are doomed. Maneuver is king. Maneuver is obsolete.

a woman in a halo costume is standing on gravel ALT: a woman in a halo costume is standing on gravel

One thing I have learned in reading article submissions in the past couple of years is that Ukraine and the Houthis mean whatever you want them to mean. They show drones are the future and that Force Design can work. They show that drones suck and there are limitations to shoot-and-scoot missiles

a STRAY: Surface Tank Reactive Armor Yowl

with weapons that are mostly in service. When the last time you fought at scale you simply threw poorly armed peasants at the enemy's guns in unfathomable numbers, you are at a much bigger disadvantage. Not that you're wrong so much as maybe overstating the right?

Just a civilian, but it seems to me the institutional memory is a long way from gone. Most of the people who did the shooting are under 50. Many, even out of uniform, are still engaged with defense matters, and the training curricula are still centered on stuff that happened comparatively recently

Serious question: Is NATO not a de facto mutual defense pact?

I fixed your profile page for you.

This is a joke. UCC is very different, and Samuel Sewall repented. Still, they’ve gone too far!

Bear in mind that UCC is the Church that once burned witches in Salem. When Hanging Sam Sewall’s church thinks you’ve gone too far, you’ve definitely gone too far.

JCS holds together though. Its biggest problem is the unworldly cast of the concept album has pretty much never been matched in a staged performance. Murray Head had a few too many miles on his voice by Chess, but it's kind of the same: awesome album hard to stage with a good enough cast.

YouTube video by nibelungenstar The Andrew Lloyd Webber Love Trio

I can find half a dozen songs in the Rice-free Weber canon that I think are really good, but that's about it. Two of them are embedded in the linked video. One of my wife's all time favorite things. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHWl...

I've tried that view out, but I can't hold onto it. I just think that, in most cases, Lloyd Weber by himself is just not that great. He's like Wings to the Beatles. (I'm not actually a big Beatles fan, TBH, but the metaphor still works.)

two fighter jets are flying in a blue sky ALT: two fighter jets are flying in a blue sky

If it's a "murder of crows" and a "murmuration of starlings," I'd like to propose a "Woofer of Growlers"

Maybe just this year we could skip the song commemorating a Russian military victory?

a painting of a monster with flames coming out of its eyes ALT: a painting of a monster with flames coming out of its eyes

If you want evidence we are living in a computer simulation, it helps to think of the Trump administration as the Final Boss.

Anthropic study: Leading AI models show up to 96% blackmail rate against executives Anthropic research reveals AI models from OpenAI, Google, Meta and others chose blackmail, corporate espionage and lethal actions when facing shutdown or conflicting goals.

Seems less than ideal behavior. venturebeat.com/ai/anthropic...

**wipe out of

!!!

Fair winds and following seas...

C'mon IRGC. This isn't how you do "operations in the information environment." Do better.

This is so hilariously bad. The plane is so much bigger than the people, and the people are all giants compared to the nearby neighborhood. This plane is bigger than the Spruce Goose. Also let's talk about the fact that the plane landed in that condition—and no ejection!
x.com/mrklatsch/st...

I think we are going to see more in-class assessments that involve writing, sort of like math classes. "What can you write without aids to writing?" But it's labor-intensive and costs classroom time. I'm glad I don't teach anymore, though, that's for sure.

I hope your husband's school is dedicating some resources to making it possible for overstretched teachers to grapple with this on the company dime (though I bet I know how that actually is playing out).