I suspect that the "intention" behind the leak isn't really about Jensen or Nvidia, but is just more administration infighting - Jensen is just collateral damage.
Consider the timing of the reporting - the first report from NYT comes out on Nov 6th - just enough time after mid-terms. Consider that follow up reporting clearly identifying Rubio as the author of the in-administration warning memo.
JD and Rubio (and who knows who else) are clearly trying to find ways to distance themselves from Trump without being completely cut to pieces, now that it's completely clear that the Trump brand is toxic.
"Uncovers some spying" - there are 4 different things they might find:
* Jensen divulged national security information
* Jensen divulged NVidia sensitive information
* Jensen outright agreed to do things for Alice (beyond normal and on the level business agreements)
* Jensen unconsciously acted in ways that were favourable for Alice
It's basically impossible to prove the last case. I highly doubt they will find evidence of the 3rd. I think Jensen probably did not do any of the first. If they find anything at all, it will be the second category.
That's the factual part of the investigation.
I imagine the conclusions and framing of the investigation will be held up until its clearer how the political and financial winds are blowing, and the investigation will happily line up with however NVidia (and maybe USG) wants to clean house.
"Politics got involved" from the beginning. In the context of USA politics, being an EV company while your CEO talked about how important electrification was to stave off the effects of human caused climate change is 100% a politically coded act.
What happened wasn't "politics got involved", what happened was that CEO started talking other politics.
And to say that "politics got involved" is a ridiculously passive statement. Elon has full control over how he publicly acts. Politics "didn't get involved" from 2022 onwards, Elon's publicly articulated political views significantly shifted, AND THEN Elon personally led massive organizational changes in the federal government.
Regardless of if you support or oppose DOGE, it's completely dishonest to wall off his actions at DOGE into a separate category of acts that you can clearly separate from his business.
Feels weird to talk about the "can neither confirm nor deny" stuff when the website for the Warren AFB and 90th Wing so plainly say that they have and operate ICBMs.
That, plus young security forces airmen and missile officers that just don’t want to accidentally say something they’re not supposed to. CYA is the most common source of over classification.
If you choose to define intensity as the ability/willingness to turn other knobs to 11 (which is what the author does), then its not unexpected to see correlation of "intensity" and "success".
As long as the other knobs show a generally positive relationship between input and output, then obviously turning the knobs up will generally result in higher output.
The questions are:
* What are the downsides of turning up the knob? Both in terms of the specific knobs you're turning, as well as "going to 11" in a more general sense.
* Why do people and organizations find it difficult to turn the knob to 11?
My take is that intensity is painful. This brings two things that have to be overcome:
You must somehow build a pain tolerant organization. You can do this by selecting for pain tolerant people, by inoculating a mission/message that positively improves pain tolerance (make people believe that it's worth it), by creating organizational structures that attenuates the pain feedback loop (ie, somehow insulate decision makers from the pain, while finding ways to mitigate or work around the pain where it is felt... ie, probably just accepting the churn) or other means.
The other thing to overcome is that pain is supposed to be instructive, and provide useful negative feedback. As you build up your pain tolerance, you ideally are still able to extract real information from the pain signals. If you achieve pain tolerance through blocking off or ignoring all pain signals, then you are probably at higher risk of just... doing stupid things.
> * What are the downsides of turning up the knob?
I once worked at a relatively small (<1000) person firm that basically had a near extinction event due to failing to fund a secondary datacenter / sensible data backup / business continuity strategy for years (despite engineering raising the alarm).
A team of 20 engineers worked 16 hour days for 2 weeks through the weekend to rescue them from their own decisions.
At the end of it they had a 10 minute zoom with the team to thank us and tell us they were going to - send us a ($10) bottle of wine, and grant "2 days off in lieu" (we were already on "unlimited vacation" plan) for the extra ~14 days of work.
That was a single-use only knob due to their behaviour.
No one cared enough again to do anything above & beyond, morale went to zero, and senior members of the team had all left within a year. The thank-you was so bad it was probably better that they not have done one at all.
If you had the resources to run and maintain a nuclear submarine force, but were also resource limited to a single form of strategic deterrence, then yeah, you would probably go with SLBMs. This is what the UK and France settled into.
But it costs a lot to feel confident in SLBMs, especially if the top of your target list includes the USA.
Otherwise, if you're talking about the USA specifically... ICBMs should probably be considered an expensive hedge.
Finally, "optimal" depends on your definition. China has chosen a public "no first strike", while also avoiding launch on warning likely for a variety reasons. China's publicly stated "minimal deterrence strategy" (which they seem to be walking away from) was probably at least partly a pragmatic choice, driven by resource constraints. Also, for what its worth, it does seem like China is also walking away from a strict "no launch on warning" policy as well.
The lack of launch on warning (this is my speculation) was probably a combination of lack of technical capability (both ISR and C2), wanting to maintain tight central control, and wanting to play up the advantages of being "the third player".
The system in question is basically just a directed microwave emitter. It is designed to heat up the first ~0.5mm of your skin.
It's safety is basically completely a function of the operator. Since the beam will keep depositing energy (ie heating), if the beam is held on a target, it will incur more and more heating (and potentially harm).
In proper usage, safety is ensured through the combination of operator training, selection of proper settings, and induced compliance. If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases. The nature of this device means that it's not a barrier, it's a beam.
During earlier testing, they were able to induce second degree burns on a test subject due to incorrect power and duration settings.
for certain types of tools (and I'd certainly class weapons as this type) you have to assume that a certain number of operators will be, as you put it, "shitty". Whether it's because they're having a bad day, are genuinely incompetent, are malicious, whatever the reason---some percentage of the operators will be using your tool in a way you'd discourage for PR reasons.
Maybe I am too cynical, but I don't think the people making these tools actually care about this either, not beyond the potential for bad publicity.
Since the title is ambiguous, it matters to clarify that it will be deployed on the border with Mexico, which has a long history of abuse and even cold-blooded murder of non-threatening undocumented immigrants. This will be abused, it's only a matter of time.
Not only US immigration officers, even civilians have murdered undocumented immigrants crossing their property, not staying, crossing on their way out, and claimed self-defense because they felt their life threatened somehow.
Racism and disregard for basic human rights has a long history in that border. I'd even say it's part of a subculture. Some people leave water jugs for people crossing the desert, others are horrible people that enjoy inflicting pain on others.
My point is that "the border with Mexico, which has a long history of abuse", with a particular emphasis on Mexico, makes it sound like you're stating that Mexico has a history of those things.
There's also the escalation timeline. In a hypothetical situation where nonlethal force is being used, but there's a threat that requires more than a gentle "please don't" type of heating, I don't think we'd want it to be limited. Gentle crowd suppression is great till someone pulls out a gun or knife, and though it's debatable opinion and there are a lot of factors to consider, I think a few collateral 2nd degree burns beats switching to a rifle and opening fire into the crowd.
Take a look at the videos of police encounters posted online. The situation you're describing is highly theoretical. What actually happens is that you get pain compliance used to control talk back and disrespect of cop.
Will taking the tools of torture away from cops increase risks they face? Maybe. But have they earned our confidence that they will use these tools wisely? No, they haven't.
LEO will use it against anyone they wish to. Why do people want a group that already has special privileges to murder you scot-free to have more powers? Anyone sane would be working to equalize matters by either kicking cops down to the same laws as us or arming up to the level as cops and arguing for the same immunities to murdering cos.
Let's be honest. ICE has shown us that only the "shitty" operators will be hired in. Specifically the malicious ones, we cannot leave to chance spreading misery.
Most people fleeing across the border have braved significantly worse, this is just another way to harm people we see as lesser for the accident of where they were born.
That would be like saying its less cruel to do bad things to you due to your subhuman intelligence. Fortunately for everyone we care about human rights in this house.
Every individual has their own risk tradeoff calculation. People already risk death to cross the border, so it's not clear how much this would move the needle.
Yeah and I'm saying you're doing a bit of victim blaming. For one the US fucked up those countries and their economies making it desirable to flee to the US. Maybe the US should stop meddling and we'd have fewer people coming here.
Is Trump right about it being a shit hole? I figured he was just being a jackass I didn't realize Mexico was in a state where it's citizens need to flee.
Why do you ask? If it was the lowest figure you mentioned, or halfway between the lowest and highest, would one of those make it better?
Is the argument that this new tech will only kill n people on top of those that already die, so whether we fry less than 1% or a far higher figure, that one of those is better?
Focusing on the specific death rate doesn't change that crossing the border is risky, and some people will take their chances with or without the heat ray. It's one more variable in the calculation.
This is a high power microwave emitter whose very high frequency (33GHz, IIRC - home µwave ovens are 2.45GHz) limits its energy deposition to a thin tissue layer. It's very effective, but big and cumbersome because of the high power requirements. At these frequencies, components are tiny. If one needed less than ten Watts, this could be a box the size of a desktop PC, maybe a shoebox.
I'm fairly sure this could be (is being?) scaled down to something resembling the pain box used on Paul Atreides in Dune. An efficient "enhanced interrogation" technology is just too tempting for too many in power.
A while back, I'd been researching the general topic. Health problems fog my memory, but essentially I was trying to figure out how closely the proclaimed application/purpose actually fit the actual capabilities. I found, what seemed to me, evidence that the military systems are not hard limited to the specific advertised GHz/len spectrum, but can be adjusted for lethal purposes.
Possibly the "safeguard" portion of the first patent below indicates this; which may only make sense if such devices are capable of exceeding lawful spectrums, etc. Not sure though.
The others I just threw in. I am not in the right space to vet or read them right now, so they may or may not be relevant. That said, I did once interview a soldier who told me of some off-the-record use of directed energy in Iraq/Afghanistan... describing bodies with relatively intact exteriors with internal damage not fitting of thermobaric weapons, ie vehicles also intact. Terms used were "cooked from the inside". Anecdotal, but disturbing, and certainly physically possible.
So if I can't keep my eyes closed (because of a riot situation, or friends in trouble) am I risking permanent eye damage, with no government responsibility for it, because some cop shouted something into a bullhorn that I couldn't make out ?
The device works through line of sight, so blocking line of sight from the emitter to your open eyes (for example, by looking away and shielding with your arms) may be helpful.
Testing indicates that test subjects reached their pain threshold in ~5 seconds (typically reacting within 3). Proper application of this device in a riot situation likely involves pulsed application, at sufficient standoff range (between targets and a barrier or your riot police/troops), precisely to reduce the risk of operators feeling that they need to dwell, with the standoff range providing enough buffer to allow operators to feel like they can illuminate, wait for initial reaction, shut off, and then read the full reaction.
In your general scenario, you can replace this weapon with any other riot control tool, and get basically the same shitty situation. Once the government/police/whatever have decided that you are in a riot/mob, then you're not going to be treated as an individual, you're going to be treated as an element of a threat. This is true of dudes with shields and batons, beanbags, water cannons, tear gas, horses, whatever.
> Higher frequencies need smaller holes to attenuate as effectively.
So let's make the holes smaller. We want to permit nanometer-wave light to pass while blocking centimeter-wave RF. I'm not seeing a particularly difficult engineering challenge here. :)
> You'd likely be better off with aluminum foil than the door.
Did you think this through at all? Running away and hiding while wearing opaque aluminum foil blinders is kind of a unilateral non-starter.
---
Anyway, we also have this: Window film. Let's look at an example.
3M Thinsulate Climate Control 75 is a self-adhesive film that blocks greater than 99% of RF from 100MHz to 4.5GHz[1], which I might suggest is pretty good for protecting the ol' eyeballs from a brief encounter with the blindness machine.
The combination of it and a single pane of window glass provides 74% visible light transmission[2]. I further suggest that this allows plenty of light with which to safely move around.
The Business Plot people who want to tear down the United States, the rebel faction trying to destroy democracy and the nation from within has really figured out how to keep driving fear and conspiracy into our hearts (the less mind the better). They're just such amazing aggitants, able to make people so willing and ready to throw this whole nation in the wood chipper.
I wish we could identify, grapple with how bad what a terror America has become against itself. Against its history. Against in so many cases reality. There doesn't seem to be any regulating functions in red America, anything other than ever increasing war drums against democracy, against union, again the constitution, the declaration of rights, reason, kindness, and possibility. To make itself the foe of the nation has been the only thing this political faction has been able to lead by, and we are so far past the unhinging, never to come back seemingly, never to be able to have any learning moments, never to recognize a loyal opposition again, never to compromise. Just shrill shrieking bedlam and din forever.
Apparently the recent ad showing the senator breaking into the girl's toilet to check her genitals was quite effective. There just aren't many of those ads.
That and many other considerations. 1. is the system adjustable beyond the advertised wavelen. 2. Is the person able bodied, ie capable of retreating. 3. Is the person even aware of the context...
This is where things are moving, however. I do not think it is good.
> In proper usage, safety is ensured through the combination of operator training, selection of proper settings, and induced compliance. If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases. The nature of this device means that it's not a barrier, it's a beam.
Yeah, that's going to go well with people aiming this at whoever they think it's "less than" them.
There's no way I'd trust this in the hands of anyone, especially those operating in the service of the current administration. They say they want to use it to "protect the border" but there are reports that they'd used it domestically already.
Considering the non-tolerance of public protest and the "promise" of non-lethality, I could imagine this becoming a regular tool in population control if things don't change.
Oh goody. Let's give cops another toy before we have tamed the use of pain compliance tools already in their hands. We are breeding a class of casual torturers.
> It is designed to heat up the first ~0.5mm of your skin.
Oh, is that all?
> US officials had also considered deploying the system during moments of domestic unrest, including at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term when protests erupted over the murder of George Floyd, according to a former US official familiar with those discussions.
This is for "the border" (because you know we should be able to torture people there), but really this will imperial boomerang back to US citizens in the blink of an eye.
The real question is why you would give a new weapon to the rioters, of course. Much of that "domestic unrest" was caused by police escalating situations (aka police riots), to both punish people for speaking out and also to use the spectacle of disorder to show how we need them.
And that's exactly the problem. We (and users) have known for decades that you can kill someone with a rubber bullet. And they have been used to intentionally kill on many different occasions.
Rubber bullets are supposed to be aimed at the ground, but we've seen (pun sadly intended) plenty of officers aiming at faces/eyes of protestors. This can kill, and if it doesn't kill it maims.
They're trained to not maim or kill. More training won't fix it. More money and more resources won't fix that systemic rot.
NHL brought in the salary cap system following the 2004-05 lockout, because the league wanted to implement salary cap following the expiration of the previous agreement.
The fact that it was a lockout, and not a strike, that the lockout lasted a whole season, and that the players ended up voting like 90% in favour tells you which side the leverage is on.
The players might bring the majority of the value, but the current CBA sets the salary cap to basically a 50/50 split between players and owners.
It truly is cartel-like behavior, but I don't think the union can do much as long as hockey players want to make a lot of money playing hockey in North America.
NORAD is unique - it is a joint command. The NORAD agreement requires the commander and deputy to from different countries (practically, it's always been a American commander and Canadian deputy). The agreement also requires integrated and binational staff. NORAD itself is responsible for aerospace warning, and aerospace control. It exercises aerospace control by having operational control (though not ownership) of national units.
When the article talks about Canadian officers serving as deputy corps commanders, that's referring to Canadian participants in exchange programs. The US military has exchange programs which do 1:1 exchanges with allied forces. For example, a Canadian might end up as as a US deputy division or corps officer, and an American might end up as a Canadian brigade staff officer or deputy commander. The exchange programs are part of a broader American program to build military-military ties, increase interoperability, and maybe grant unique perspectives.
NORAD spots must be filled, and will be filled. It just means that you're probably not getting the best or most motivated candidates anymore. The exchange slots will probably whittle away.
Consider the timing of the reporting - the first report from NYT comes out on Nov 6th - just enough time after mid-terms. Consider that follow up reporting clearly identifying Rubio as the author of the in-administration warning memo.
JD and Rubio (and who knows who else) are clearly trying to find ways to distance themselves from Trump without being completely cut to pieces, now that it's completely clear that the Trump brand is toxic.
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