Currently have a project going using Python scripting in Blender using scipy.optimize.differential_evolution and Cycles rendering to optimize the shape of a reflector to match a desired light distribution pattern. It's not a perfect tool for the job, but it seems to be pretty accurate.
according to the Wall Street Journal
Meanwhile, some reports from the frontlines indicate that while drones are ubiquituous, they aren't the game-changer the tech-industry wants them to be.
tl;dr essential bits: a) most drone strikes could have been done by other, cheaper weapons. b) drones are an unreliable weapon due to jamming, dependency on weather and light and many technical failures.
Vatniks pretended that "Russia already won" for the entirety of this war. It's getting old.
Well, if Russia "already won", then there shouldn't be anything preventing Putin from declaring victory and going home. I await his proclamation and the parades of returning troops in Moscow.
Just wait until these little bastards have on-board AI that visually identifies targets and kills them autonomously. [...] This is not good.
Agreed, that is a scenario straight out of a Terminator movie.
That said, it won't happen (much) until they get the energy budget of all that AI down to something that can be powered by a drone battery for a sufficient period of time.
Russia's progress has not been speeding up. It's been slowing down. They are not currently capturing 500 square kilometers per month and growing. Between December 31st, 2024, and June 11th, 2025, a period of slightly more than half a year (192 days), Russia captured 1,845 square kilometers. This is an average of 292 square kilometers per month. With their progress slowing, there is no reason to believe that they will double their rate of advance in the next ten months.
Russia has indeed significantly increased their Shahed production capacity, and will expand it even farther in the future. Ukraine, on the other hand, has been ramping up their interceptor drone production capacity in response.
Ukraine's economy is (and has been) kept on life support via funding from allied countries. This is sustainable indefinitely as long as the allied countries are willing to do so. Russia's economy is beginning to show signs of severe strain. Eventually, if the war doesn't end, and allied support to Ukraine doesn't stop, Russia will be forced to significantly reduce their military expenditures. Which I don't think would result in Russia capitulating, but simply result in overall lower operational tempos. We've already seen this in specific areas. Russia ran out of missiles. That didn't result in the end Russian use of missiles, it simply resulted in their consumption rate matching their production rate. The same thing will soon happen (if it hasn't already) in a number of armoured vehicle categories, as Russia has largely burned through the soviet-era stockpiles that can be reactivated.
We are rounding up a whole bunch of Mexicans and Hispanics
We actually are not. Trump's ICE raids might look tough to some, but the number of deported people hasn't significantly increased. There are about 15k deportations per month, and at this rate it'll take a _decade_ to make a dent in the overall illegal immigrant population.
For example; even if it was something high-value such as you purchased car, and unbeknownst to you it turns out to be a stolen car. You are not subject to arrest for having unknowingly purchased it, and there is no probable cause for arrest. By the same token: the police are going to take custody of the car and return it, and in general your recourse will be a civil lawsuit against the person who sold you the car, which can only proceed to discover and trial after the conclusion of any criminal charges and investigation against the seller are resolved.
Actually, in real life, you're likely to be arrested for driving a stolen vehicle. Even if you legally purchased it from a dealer. Or you legally rented it from say, Hertz (not saying them because it happened, but...).
The police are going to arrest you and then you're going to spend a few days in jail until its figured out that you're innocent in all this. Even if you did buy it off a dealer (who bought it off someone else who bought it unknowingly stolen). Or you rented a vehicle the company reported stolen but then failed to clear the report.
So yes, you may be innocent, but you will have your life turned upside down for a few days. And that's if you're lucky - you might spend longer in jail.
Let's just say that it's no longer possible to claim the MIG Switch is just "a backup tool" because it's been proven now that people are ripping games and then selling the original cartridge back (which is a violation of copyright law - it's a legal grey area to do the ripping, but it's pretty definitive if you rip a copy and sell the original). Now, most people could get away with it back when Nintendo could only detect it when two people went online simultaneously with the same cartridge key. Now though, Nintendo seemed to have improved their detection.
Chances are this is going into a huge database that's going to be levelled against anyone making or selling the MIG Switch because it's obviously not being used for "legitimate backup purposes".
Chances are those banned Switch 2 consoles were the result of a similar sting because Nintendo caught people using game carts with the same serial number. Maybe they detect the MIG switch. Or maybe they detected that some cartridge was played consistently in Florida for the past several years, then suddenly popped up in San Jose, with the one on San Jose having run games that were played in New York and Seattle.
Even better is Nintendo didn't really say anything at all - they're letting the news hammer it home - people using the MIG Switch are setting their consoles banned and promptly returned open-box to retailers. Then this happening (which unbanned the guy relatively quickly from a call to customer support once he sent a photo of his used cartridge). It's now on the MIG Switch guys to have to reassure the public that they didn't just devalue used consoles and games.
As a bonus, they likely got some other user banned who was probably happy they "got away" with a MIG Switch and not getting banned.
Superhero fatigue I believe just refers to the glut of superhero comic book movies released the past decade - there feels like a new MCU movie coming out every month, a new DC movie coming out every few months, and "everything else", with the "everything else" doesn't really generate as much buzz. Maybe a handful of movies but always overshadowed by DC/Marvel movies.
I wouldn't even call it "woke" stuff, I'd call it just releasing tons and tons of comic book superhero movies that everyone's just tired.
Granted, the actual number is probably far less, but it always seems like ads for the latest MCU movie get replaced with another MCU movie regularly or a DC movie and the never ending promos for them.
Like I think along with Superman there's a Fantastic 4 movie coming out soon? I don't know, it's all a blur to me.
I get why it happened - they made one, it made a lot of money, then they made more and make more money and now there's so many you can probably bet one is opening next week. It's nothing about wokeness or anything - it's just the public is tired of seeing the same-y type movies constantly blared at them.
Good point. An army that sees all others as subhuman and sees only the next death is one that has to keep fighting. It has no choice. It's the only thing it knows. It can keep conquering more territory outwards, or it can slaughter its own government inwards. History shows those are your two options.
Whether or not Russia conquers Ukraine, it will attack other countries - vast numbers of bored, underpaid soldiers would seek entertainment elsewhere if they didn't.
Can't the cut the fiber optic spool with a laser?
A drone can fly just a few meters above the ground, out of LoS of the turret. There's talk of using laser turrets against drones themselves, though.
But there's even more, Ukraine now launches "carrier drones" that can autonomously fly for about 300 kilometers deep into the Russian territory and release a swarm of smaller attack drones. And this contraption costs less than 1 HIMARS missile. It can even be remotely controlled through cellular Internet, Russia is trying to combat this by literally switching off all the mobile networks if these drones are detected. Not that it'll help in the long run, it's trivially easy to stick something like a Starlink antenna on the carrier.
Russia has gained less than 5,000 square kilometers since January 2024. If we are generous and assume 5,000 square kilometers gained in 18 months, this equates to Russia capturing roughly 0.6% of Ukraine per year. That's not enough to matter in terms of determining the outcome of the war, since Russia's economy can't sustain this long enough to accumulate meaningful territorial gains at that pace. The war will end, however it ends, based on other factors.
Why is this still a thing? FFS. A stack overflow? Why. Is. This. Still. A. THING?!
Could we cut it out with the C# already? Computers are powerful enough that you no longer need that sort of latitude.
I just got mod points, and looked in on responses, and I couldn't agree more too.
I almost want to delete the OP and mod that one up.
This is what I'm going by:
The report said that in December 2018, the US Federal Aviation Administration issued a special airworthiness information bulletin based on reports from operators of model 737 planes that the fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged.
The airworthiness concern was not considered an unsafe condition that would warrant an airworthiness directive – a legally enforceable regulation to correct unsafe conditions.
The same switch design is used in Boeing 787-8 aircraft, including Air India’s VT-ANB, which crashed. The report added: “As per the information from Air India, the suggested inspections were not carried out as the SAIB was advisory and not mandatory.”
(1) Never draw what you can copy. (2) Never copy what you can trace. (3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down.
