tal

At some point in the mid-late 1990s, I recall having a (technically-inclined) friend who dialed up to a BBS and spent a considerable amount of time pinging and then chatting with Lisa, the "sysadmin's sister". When I heard about it, I spent quite some time arguing with him that Lisa was a bot. He was pretty convinced that she was human.

http://bbs.hmvh.net/hmvh/lisa/LISA.HTM

http://textfiles.com/bbs/install.txt

I think that you've really hit the nail on the head here. A bit of distance and etiquette is clearly needed in situations like this.

1. Obtain a pair of Montblanc 149 fountain pens.

2. Fill one with something with a bit of executive class, like Diamine Oxblood.

3. Fill the other with something a bit fun-and-quirky, like Noodler's Southwest Sunset.

4. Obtain a nice, high-resolution C-mount camera of the sort frequently used for computer vision work.

5. Obain a Bantam Tools NextDraw 8511, a pen plotter capable of using arbitrary pens and making use of tilt.

6. Obtain a computer with a substantial amount of GPU capability.

7. In the secretary's office adjacent to yours, install the OCR-capable computer vision LLaVA model on the machine. Attach the camera, and aim it at the desk. Install motion, the motion-detecting software package. Have motion run a script that, on motion, feeds the most-recently-captured image into LLAVA to convert it to text, and from there into ChatGPT. Attach the NextDraw 8511. Place the Southwest Sunset-loaded Montblanc 149 in the NextDraw pen plotter. Obtain a monoline font appropriate for handwriting pen plotter use, and feed ChatGPT text responses into text2svg, then feeding the resultant SVG file to your lpd, which has the NextDraw pen plotter set as its output.

8. Pen your first note with your Oxblood-loaded fountain pen. Have your executive assistant carry your note next door and place it on the table under the camera. Your virtual secretary will read it and write her response. Your executive assistant will wait for the note to be written, then carry it back to you.

This is the sort of decorum and professional class that one would expect in a proper office environment.

That's a website that was never intended to be viewed by anyone other than a 30+ year old sysadmin who owns at least one beard grooming product.

Somewhere, a !unixsocks@lemmy.blahaj.zone denizen looks offended.

Yeah, sucks. :-/

For anyone else in the same boat, let me go see what that enclosure is with a physical power button that I wound up ultimately getting.

goes to look

This:

https://www.amazon.com/Swapable-External-Enclosure-Support-Capacity/dp/B0DCDDGHMJ

Probably others one can find

just an 8-bay JBOD enclosure with a variable speed fan and physical power switch.

But unlike the non-powering-on-after-power-loss enclosures, I haven't had problems with it.

I have a ton of USB devices, and drive enclosures

the one thing that I really do not want to stay offline

are the only thing I've ever seen that doesn't power up again on power loss. Maybe there are some USB displays that might also do so, but I don't care about that if I'm not physically present.

If what you're asking is "could the US hypothetically cut off the Internet in a worst case scenario", like a war or something, the answer is "sure". If the US were bent on destroying Internet infrastructure -- submarine cable interchange stations, satellite uplink stations, major international cables, whatever, all of those are not hardened not realistically protectable targets and could be physically destroyed. Taking out communications infrastructure in Iraq was our first target in the Gulf War.

That's probably also be true of a number of major military powers, but I'd be particularly confident of the US's ability to knock out communications.

I was reading an article from a retired Navy officer a while back where he was talking about how submarine cables were vulnerable, and he pointed out that in past wars, we've destroyed them, and should also assume that an opponent would do the same.

One point: if it matters to you, you might want to confirm your enclosure's behavior under power-loss conditions. I had one that did not come back to a powered on state or have an option to do so when power was restored. Not something I'd thought of, since I'd assumed this behavior. Eventually, after some looking, found an enclosure with a mechanical-toggle power switch that did restore prior state.

Are you using "crypto" here as being short for "cryptography" or for "cryptocurrency"?

Effective immediately, exporters of products containing Scandium, Dysprosium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Lutetium, Samarium, and Yttrium must apply for an export license from the China Ministry of Economy. The application requires customers to detail the final use of the material.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_Rare_Earth_Mine

The Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine and Processing Facility, owned by MP Materials, is an open-pit mine of rare-earth elements on the south flank of the Clark Mountain Range in California, 53 miles (85 km) southwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2020 the mine supplied 15.8% of the world's rare-earth production. It is the only rare-earth mining and processing facility in the United States.[1][2] It is the largest single known deposit of such minerals.[3]

As of 2022, work was ongoing to restore processing capabilities for domestic light rare-earth elements (LREEs) and work has been funded by the United States Department of Defense to restore processing capabilities for heavy rare-earth metals (HREEs) to alleviate supply chain risk. [4] The mine was reported as operating in 2025.[5]

https://warontherocks.com/2025/04/a-federal-critical-mineral-processing-initiative-securing-u-s-mineral-independence-from-china/

After China’s 2010 rare earth elements embargo, the United States, the European Union, and Japan filed a case against China at the World Trade Organization, ultimately forcing Beijing to remove export quotas by 2015. The United States also revived rare earth mineral processing, including efforts to reopen the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine in California. In 2023, Washington intensified its “friendshoring” strategy by allocating additional resources to domestic mining and refining through the Department of Defense and Department of Energy budgets, while also strengthening supply chain partnerships with allies like Canada and Australia.

U.S. efforts to reduce dependence on China for critical minerals face a number of significant hurdles. First, domestic refining expansion remains slow, with new processing plants and smelters taking 10–20 years to become operational. For example, the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine, which reopened after China’s 2010 export controls, still sent 98 percent of its raw materials to China in 2019 due to the lack of U.S. processing capacity.

https://mpmaterials.com/mountain-pass

With our re-commissioned processing facilities, we now deliver separated and refined products, including high-purity NdPr oxide, the cornerstone of the world’s strongest and most efficient permanent magnets.

I don't know what portion of processing you're capable of doing for what materials, but I sure hope that you guys have found a way to fill that processing capacity gap and reliance at some point between 2019 and now.

EDIT: Though Russia's been obtaining US components via shell companies in China using false pretenses, and I suppose that that's a sword that cuts two ways, unless China intends on also cutting off the rest of the world. We've played the "shell company in other countries" game ourselves, and I imagine could do so again if need be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird

The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" is a retired long-range, high-altitude, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed and manufactured by the American aerospace company Lockheed Corporation.[N 1] Its nicknames include "Blackbird" and "Habu".[1]

The SR-71 was developed in the 1960s as a black project by Lockheed's Skunk Works division.

Titanium was used for 85% of the structure, with much of the rest being polymer composite materials.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/crazy-story-how-russia-helped-build-sr-71-blackbird-187431

The more significant problem, however, was that the United States simply did not have sufficient reserves of domestic titanium ore to construct planes from. The Soviet Union, however, did and had made it available for export.

Of course, if the Soviet Union had known that its exports were being used to build American planes, then it certainly would not have sold them. And even if the United States had not declared the purpose of its imports, bureaucrats in Moscow would likely have raised their eyebrows at the quantities of titanium that the U.S. government was suddenly interested in. This led the Central Intelligence Agency to begin a program of clandestinely buying the ore, using dummy corporations and third world countries as intermediaries.

Ultimately, the CIA was able to secure enough titanium to construct 32 SR-71s, along with more than a dozen A-12s and a handful of derivative planes—all from minerals illicitly obtained from the Soviet Union.

They are just cheap chocolate with cheap licensed figures.

Kinder Surprise eggs are illegal in the US, as federal regulations deem them a choking hazard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder_Surprise

A 1938 law, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, prohibits confectionery products that contain a "non-nutritive object", unless the non-nutritive object has functional value.[34] Essentially, the Act bans "the sale of any candy that has embedded in it a toy or trinket".[35]

If Pope Francis actually gave Vance's children Kinder Surprise eggs

as opposed to some other type of chocolate egg

we can reasonably assume that the pope was trying to murder Vance's kids, and that Vance probably felt that he had to strike before the pope made any subsequent attempts.

This is a King Kong vs Godzilla battle for energy.

looks dubious

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?country=USA%7ECHN

The US's largest source of energy is natural gas, of which it is the largest producer in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_production

The US also

though it's been closing down production

has the largest known coal reserves in the world.

China's largest source of energy is coal, of which it is the largest producer in the world. China does not use much natural gas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_production

I doubt that either is going to abruptly blow up over this.

Could be, though if Florida is doing a lot more replacement work, I'd think that electricity prices would be significantly higher, since equipment replacement costs have to be paid by the power consumers. While Florida definitely doesn't have the cheapest electricity, it's about middle of the pack:

https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/

That says that there is less pub-going recently. And I do see some articles saying that many pubs aren't using up their allotted time because traffic has fallen off. So that may be an effect in addition to this.

This one, though, describes the legal mandates as a much-longer-running phenomenon, legislation dating all the way back to World War I:

https://londonlhr.online/why-do-london-pubs-close-early/

The World War I Defense of the Realm Act (DORA) of 1916 is where the practice of early shutting originated.

The goal of the ordinance was to prevent excessive drinking and maintain sobriety among those employed in weapons plants and other wartime industries.

Despite DORA’s long-standing repeal, its effects on pub closing times have persisted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_of_the_Realm_Act_1914

Alcoholic drinks were watered down and pub opening times were restricted to 12 noon–3pm and 6:30pm–9:30pm. (The requirement for an afternoon gap in permitted hours lasted in England until the Licensing Act 1988.)

An article from 1987 talking about the Licensing Act 1988:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-06-25-mn-10623-story.html

The current law that affects about 50,000 pubs dates back to 1915. In that year, the Defense of the Realm Act was introduced to restrict the nation’s 18-hour drinking day so that production of munitions would not be impaired. The government promised that normal service would be resumed at the end of the war, but the promise was never kept.

Hurd said that under the new bill, public houses will be allowed to stay open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. six days a week. He did not specify what the Sunday hours will be.

Licensing laws have already been liberalized in Scotland. But elsewhere in Britain, pubs can open only nine hours a day (9 1/2 hours in London) Monday through Saturday and only five hours on Sunday. Basically, pubs can open only at lunchtime and in the evening until 11 p.m.