Comments by "Stephen Villano" (@spvillano) on "Ryan McBeth" channel.

  1. 1
  2. 1
  3. 1
  4. 1
  5. 1
  6. 1
  7. 1
  8.  @chriswheeler6092  to be pedantic, we've not been officially at war since WWII. That was the last time Congress declared war. That said, one can't find very long periods where military action wasn't engaged upon. Hell, Yemen fired missiles at the Eisenhower just this week, missed, but they fired and they in turn received an unfriendly visit by Ike's jets. Above, there was a suggestion that only R&D and tooling was all that was needed, so that weapons could be built in time of need. OK, using that notion, we'd have no aircraft carriers built, so while our merchant vessels are burning and sinking, we'll have to build a supercarrier, combat aircraft, bombs and missiles, train crews, figure five years and we can respond. So, yeah, we need a standing ready force to respond in a sane amount of time. We also don't need an excessively large force that remains idle, as that's an insane waste of resources and funding. So begins the magical balancing act of well, human existence, balancing military readiness against available resources. One area Ryan skimmed over a lot on was WWII. That was a time of total war, the entire national economy was dedicated toward winning the war and that was true with all participants. Anyone thinking that remains true today via the mythical MIC, well, please show me a recent model Singer Sewing Machine Company machine gun, how about an International Business Machines machine gun? A pilot lamp company submachine gun company perhaps? All true in WWII, I've fired all three during my military career. Kind of missed that ancient grease gun... Nope, once the war was over, the demand of their rather novel product lines ceased and they went back to making sewing machines and adding machines and light bulbs for radios. There is a sizable dedicated defense arms and support corporate presence, there pretty much always was. Think that those ships build themselves? Think those M4's replace themselves sexually or something? No, they only fuck the folks they're aimed at and occasionally, their operators. Think those base showers fix themselves? Nope, they need contractors to electrocute troops in the shower, huh, bad example. Think those troops can run their own networks worth a damn? Trust me, they can't, they get top notch training, then become ComSec custodians and never touch the equipment beyond end user again. I know that last part from firsthand experience, as I offered to train them and give them an opportunity to do their jobs, but their commander declined, despite their desire to train in their actual military jobs and well, frequently, that turned into a retention issue that remains a problem today. So, we retain what we must to continue to conduct trade, keep our military ready to confront any adversary with current equipment, rather than as we did bloodily in the past, with obsolescent equipment and training, balancing that upon our available resources. It ain't easy. But, a truer thing was never said, "It's never easy". Otherwise, someone else would've already done it.
    1
  9. 1
  10. 1
  11. 1
  12. And his magical drones would have to fly a wee bit low. To detect alpha radiation, well, it's got a range in air of around 1.5 - 2 inches, gonna have to get a tiny bit low - inside of homes low, ramming into furniture low. Oh wait, maybe beta radiation, it's got a longer range and some nuclear components are beta emitters - oh crapmuffins, that's a whopping six inches. Plutonium and uranium primarily decay by emitted alpha particles, with plutonium emitting at a 3 - 5% rate gamma, which wouldn't escape the reflectors and tamper of the weapon case. Nukes don't generate gamma radiation in detectable amounts and again, we're talking a few feet if someone suddenly made a special gamma tagged nuke for no reason. A mythical nuke that would have unstable high explosives, long defunct tritium and oh, those were strategic missiles, weighed in at at least a half ton to a ton. And I actually have had my hands literally on a nuclear warhead. I started my military career in Pershing missiles. Thus far, the overhwelming majority of "drones" shown in videos online have been either passenger aircraft or helicopters. Most, requiring watching the extended video to see the autofocus finally overcome oversaturated sensors to actually focus on the point source that's the navigation lights. Then, one sees a tail stabilizer, skids, a canopy or wingtip beacons and tail logos. Telling though is the mythical warheads are from Ukraine, not any of the other republics. Who is Russia a bit miffed with this week and looking for an excuse to escalate to literal nuclear weapons - per Putin's own words? And no, they're also not mythical Soviet suitcase nukes, if they brought those into the US, we'd have done the same to them and we'd both have forests littered with really, really expensive paperweights that are toxic as all hell, with unstable explosives, as radiation and RDX are incompatible. That's one of the reasons for our bomb modernization program, the other being some other components that also have degraded.
    1
  13. 1
  14. 1
  15. We didn't call them charges on mortars, they're referred to as increments. They're typically smokeless powder, same thing that's in modern small arms cartridges. So, they don't explode, they burn rapidly via deflagration. Detonation results in a mortar tube becoming a pipe bomb. There are plenty of increment fires on youtube, where improperly disposed of increments catch a spark from the gun firing and catching fire. Fire bad around explosive rounds, says Frankenstein. Germany vociferously objected to US usage of shotguns during WWI. They cleaned out trenches quite efficiently. Disassembled, not so much, but short barrels equals wide dispersion of pellets, precision aiming just wasn't in the cards in trench warfare when inside of an enemy trench. But, at 100 meters, a shotgun's just weight to lug around. Great master key though. I don't get the question about ID plates from expended munitions. Does the questioner think that an enemy is going to order that part number for their own usage? Munitions are tracked by lot numbers and for some systems, serial numbers. It's nice to keep track of ordinance, it's even nicer if one batch is recalled and we have a serial number to say "yep, that goes away, it's recalled". Not worth the effort to remove plates before usage and well, the enemy don't know who fired what serial number bit of ordinance. Yeah, we didn't just train once and get stuck on a shelf. We trained, returned to unit, cleaned and maintained our equipment we trained on, train with the equipment, use that equipment, rinse and repeat each year in quarter year increments of each phase. The wider the variety of equipment one fields, the more crap you need to acquire and distribute to maintain and supply it. So, six models of tank means six models of tank parts and specialized munitions for each different type of gun used. It's called what it is, a logistical nightmare, as well as a training nightmare. As for doctrine, for much of my military career, the world largely concerned itself with two doctrines. NATO fighting doctrine and Warsaw Pact fighting doctrine, with small bits of North Korean to be a distraction. Across dozens of nations, it simplified things a lot and enhanced interoperability. That got honed during the GWOT by a lot. Warsaw pact is gone, but Russia remains, although to study performance thus far, I don't think that they know or train to any known doctrine...
    1
  16. 1
  17. 1
  18. 1
  19. 1
  20. 1
  21. Known currently. SecDef has prostate cancer and had an elective procedure that had some issue that became an emergency sufficient to earn an ICU stay. So, likely to clear, ahem, flow procedure, possibly ablation (several methods for that), possibly expansion, biopsy, etc. So, either obstruction or sprung a leak of red stuff, the stuff that when you run low on does that killing you thing. Or priapism. The latter, I doubt, as that typically won't land you in the ICU. The treatment will just make you think that you will. Now, you're POTUS, being asked about SecDef's Johnson... Do you really want to discuss Old Blue on your SecDef with the press, for starters? Now, it was an emergency, ambulance and ICU and all. So, there might've been some brief confusion as his deputy gets staged into position, comms get transported and set up, etc, but later that day, not so much, but you're still getting asked about SecDef's dick. While alluding to contingency matters in the NMCC and line of succession. Now, consider POTUS' age and faith, I really don't see him willing to have him or his staff discuss another man's salami. But then, I am a fan of Occam's Razor. Add in, it sounds like the emergency hand-off turned into a goat screw, yeah, tons of rug sweeping under. Especially considering, who verifies POTUS identity in the nuclear chain again? Major? Champ? Commander? SecDef? The Acting briefly in Puerto Rico without secure comms and judging by some concerned delay, perhaps forgot a certain biscuit during a time of high tension between nuclear armed powers? Yeah, the pastabilities abound, all reasonable and embarrassing and should've been handled better. And well, when you want to get out of the hole, it's a lot easier if you put down the shovel.
    1
  22. 1
  23. 1
  24. 1
  25. 1
  26. 1
  27. 1
  28. 1
  29. 1
  30. 1
  31. OMG, I was dealing with radiation all day! The damned bus wouldn't even try to use a radiation rejection system called an air conditioner "because it'd get too cold" as we hit near 90 degrees farhenhot. Seriously, I'm comfortable in 80 - 85, that was a bit warmer, I was actually covered with perspiration and was perfectly comfortable in Djibouti and Qatar. Enough said. Did get uncomfortable, badly when playing Santa Claus - oddly, largely for Muslim children. Light, heat, microwaves, radio waves are all electromagnetic radiation. Neutrons, what are they? Protons, who? Beta particles (aka really fast electrons, making grandparents CRT tubes embarrassed), huh? Alpha who? My skin blocks that shit, might as well verbally insult me, it'll hurt more. Gamma, no Incredible Hulk here, just, well, dead. Really nasty shit, ranging from knocking electrons up to super knocking them up and an electron and anti-electron get reproduced, totally bad karma for your cells in any way you wanna slice it. As in, what is that dead thing, Alex? Bananas, well... Argon balloon, lighter... OUCH! I was joking, dammit! An electron from a tritium particle hits a magical phosphor chunk, making it glow, so that you can see it, Ryan missed that. Can I get some Pu-238? If so, just drop it off with NASA, they're flat out of it. For personal collection, I'll be satisfied with a small sample of depleted uranium, hopefully encased in a wee bit of plastic to keep it safe from my radiation breath. While at the urologist, I was reminded oddly of the Davey Crockett missile. Mostly, due to the sample containers... Sir, you want me to shoot a whatlear whattle, just over there and then *what?!?!?!*, can you kindly urinate in this container, initial and date/time the sample? Because, you must be motherfucking high and I wanna see just what you're stoned on...
    1
  32. 1
  33. 1
  34. 1
  35. For most, especially IT students, it comes down to what one is comfortable using and also does what you need it to do. I could do all of the tasks discussed and more with my old Mac, alas, it was stolen during a move and I set some options to brick it. I keep one Windows system at home for specialty work and to read some medical equipment. Everything else is largely either *BSD or Linux. Each to its own strengths and abilities, as I'm fluent at the SA level on all. Might get a Chromebook, just for shits and giggles, but well, I can get pretty much anything to do what I need it to do, when I can't, I'll VM or remote into a bridge box I have to reach a machine that does that specialty task. Oh, for the record, my apartment's smaller. That means, if I shot a video, it'd sound like I'm videoing from the middle of a data center's server room. And previously, in a many hat role, I was base IASO, mail filter admin, antivirus admin, patch management admin, defacto IAM for the installation, web filter owner (I was the best out of automations at RegEx anyway), as well as requested and issued elevated access tokens. Plus command and staff, a few IA meetings a week and Shell Answer Man (especially when an organization needed assistance with a firewall modification request). Most of my work was conducted by scripts, stage a script to perform the task needed, check the script logs, massage any recalcitrant job(s), smoke cigarettes and drink coffee while the scripts did their jobs. I also owned all of the computer and user logon scripts and was consulted heavily for GPO modifications. I'm that prick that could give an accurate resultant set of policy result before the tool could. And yes, the sea did indeed part, but honestly, that was due to the DFAC's beans...
    1
  36. 1
  37. 1
  38. 1
  39. 1
  40. 1
  41. 1
  42. 1
  43. 1
  44. 1
  45. 1
  46. 1
  47. 1
  48. 1
  49.  @RyanMcBethProgramming  tipping my hat on the observation that an attorney couldn't be assed to read a constitution he was speaking about. One expects attorneys to be prepared and well informed on such things if they're speaking on them. Perhaps, you've found one former President's next attorney? I've noticed that you also do what I have frequently done in in person discussions about the vote, give the history of who was enfranchised first, as many have forgotten their school civics classes and foreigners are confused no end by our federal and state systems, being accustomed to strong central governments. Still, could Ukraine successfully run an election during this war in particular? Color me dubious, the chances of organized Russian interference and injected false ballots would be quite high. It'd be right up there with expecting a free, fair and valid ballot during Nazi occupation and we know who'd end up getting hailed. Back to civics lessons, recent online discussions, "Why did they bother to give this guy bail?", "Why is this guy even getting a lawyer for defense?" and worse, displaying pure ignorance on the contents of the Constitution, a document written in plain English and understood trivially by even Elementary school students. But, cutting school budgets and confiscating dictionaries from libraries are important for our nation's welfare. But, what would I know, I ain't got no brunging up. Oh, wasn't only Privates doing stupid stuff, after all, we had the Private of the Officer Corps to also tilt nipple to... ;)
    1
  50. 1