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Joined 17 days ago
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Cake day: February 26th, 2025

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  • The chance of the captain and first mate just being drunk or really irresponsible (“the sea is big, what’s the worst that can happen?”) seems way more likely to me here than some nefarious plan. I just don’t see what would be gained from it.

    The various cable cuts related to russian ships are definitely suspicious though. There the motive would be clear - it sends a threatening message to other countries about how vulnerable their infrastructure is, potentially making them less likely to stand up to russian aggression. And the cost to fix the cables is much higher than the cost of a low-medium chance the (old, leaking, close to decommissioning) ship gets impounded.



  • I’m glad we’re working on replacing starlink, though AFAIK IRIS² won’t be ready until 2027 at the earliest.

    I do think that with the increasing use of LEO satellites for drone control and the general breakdown of international agreements and institutions we’re seeing, the moratorium on weapons in space will not last much longer. Every player will work on anti-satellite systems to deny command-and-control links to the enemy.

    The anti-satellite weapons we have today are mostly focused on taking down single satellites, and would not be practical against these mass swarms of LEO satellites. We’ll probably see a revival of ideas like EMPs in orbit to knock out large batches of satellites all at once. Obviously such a weapon would be indiscriminate and would take down everything within the blast radius.