🇺🇦 Ideologist, Nuclear Safety Educator who helped get San Onofre nuclear reactor decommissioned, Communication Researcher, Tech Reformist
SoCal
Joined February 2012
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CaptD retweeted
Everyone in Japan remembers the American aircraft carriers and helicopters that flew across the sky during Operation Tomodachi in March 2011.
Almost nobody knows about the Americans who crawled across the pitch-black bottom of the freezing ocean so northern Japan would not freeze to death.
After the tsunami of March 11, snow was falling across northern Japan. Tens of thousands of survivors in shelters had no electricity and were running out of kerosene for their heaters. Japanese fuel tankers loaded with heating oil were waiting offshore, but they could not dock.
Why could the fuel ships not enter the harbors at Hachinohe and Miyako?
Because the tsunami had swept thousands of cars, semi-trucks, tangled fishing nets, and crushed houses onto the harbor floor. If a fuel tanker tried to enter, submerged steel wreckage would rip open its hull. And surface cranes could not simply scoop the debris out blindly because heavy fishing nets and steel beams were tangled together on the bottom in thirty-six-degree water thick with black fuel oil and silt.
You could not see one inch in front of your face underwater.
That was when the U.S. Navy sent in Underwater Construction Team Two and Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One.
Wearing sixty-pound diving helmets and heavy rubber drysuits to keep out the toxic oil and chemical runoff, young American Navy divers stepped off snow-covered piers into the freezing black water.
Down on the harbor floor in total darkness, where a single jagged piece of car metal or a shifting truck could trap a diver or slice his air hose, the Americans worked entirely by the touch of their gloved hands.
Inch by inch, feeling their way across crushed family cars and twisted steel cables in thirty-six-degree water, they cut the wreckage apart with hydraulic saws and hooked crane cables to hundreds of tons of debris until the shipping channels were clear.
When the first Japanese fuel tanker finally glided safely into port bringing heat and light back to the freezing towns, the American divers just washed the black oil off their suits and moved to the next harbor.
True allies do not just stand beside you in the sunlight. They dive into the freezing dark where nobody is watching.
🤖 Made with AI
Teak
Which Way, Middle Aged Man?
Every so often, a yacht listing makes me want to rob a bank. I collect my ski mask, ammunition & Kevlar, then come to my senses and collapse with the worst case of nautical blue balls imaginable.
Today was one of those days.
I’ve spent my life at sea: first racing yachts, then the world’s largest ships, then cruising boats. I studied naval architecture for three years and worked everywhere from tiny boatyards to giant shipyards.
I know what I like. And I found an absolute gem.
Then my wife said, “Okay, but what about this?”
She’s a sailor, too, with degrees in marine biology and marine environmental science, a concentration in weather, and has sailed into a war.
I hold the USCG’s top license, she hold a limited tonnage captains ticket but has a higher IQ than me.
She’d found a gem of her own.
The yachts are both gems but different. Their only common thread is French DNA. Don’t laugh: France reveres its sailors and naval architects. One comes from a French industrial giant; the other from a French-born designer who became an American citizen.
The modern yacht has graceful lines, bright cabins, spirited handling, a swim platform, clever innovations and separate quarters for the kids. She’s nimble around buoys and airy in the tropical heat.
Her builders favor eco-friendly laminates, vegan leather and modern structural grids. The keel is bolted on; the interior rests above a bonded web matrix. Sleek, efficient, fashionable.
The other yacht is a beast.
She’s no slouch, a sistership won the Transpac, but she needs wind and sea to show her speed. She won’t dance around the buoys quite as sharply. Put her in a gale with 30-foot seas, though, and she’ll charge through like a tank tearing across a hedgerow. No fretting over keel bolts or a structural grid separating from the hull.
Below, she’s drenched in teak and mahogany: thick, handcrafted wood, not a whisper of veneer. Enough timber to make a Victorian London gentlemen’s club blush, fitted by Asia’s finest boatyard.
The other interior is the work of fashionable designers who have mastered all 50 shades of millennial gray and was built in a production line.
One feels cool, bright and spacious under a tropical sun. The other is dark, warm and gloriously cozy when the barometer falls.
The older yacht has been obsessively maintained and fitted with the finest gear money can buy. Forget green credentials; the priorities are durability, reliability and repairability. The downside? Good luck finding a replacement part on a remote island.
The newer yacht uses common, popular, affordable equipment. More will break, but when it does, just replace the whole unit and keep sailing.
Pandemic? Financial collapse? Color revolution? One of these boats could keep you independent for years, crossing oceans with your family or entirely alone.
The other has the swim platform, inflatable toys and flat-screen TVs that make life delightful during the 99.9% of the time zombies aren’t chasing you down the dock.
One has a beautiful canoe stern and a deep, protective cockpit. The other offers an open cockpit perfect for cocktails with friends.
Keep the modern yacht waxed and she’ll attract young women who gaze up with dilated eyes to whisper, “Niiice boat.”
The classic will attract a grizzled old sailor with thousands of ocean miles etched into his face, who takes 20 minutes to limp down the dock just to say, “They don’t build them with lines like these anymore.”
Not that the classic won’t attract women. Her teak & timeless lines are like a navy polo and khakis: never out of style. She’ll appeal to the woman who values a strong, dependable man who always brings the kids home safe.
Both will take you cruising in style. One is made for fashionable anchorages and well-marked channels. The other, with her long keel and less than five feet of draft, can sneak into hidden coves and is more forgiving when you touch the bottom unexpectedly.
So which way, old man?
CaptD retweeted
🚨 BREAKTHROUGH: 18-Year-Old Mia Heller From Virginia, USA, Invents a Water Filter That Eliminates 96% of Microplastics From Drinking Water
CaptD retweeted
I missed this entire botched raid. It sounds like Cole, who unveiled Kushner's criminality, has good sources.
Matthew Cole is facing a federal suepoena for his reporting on this failed SEAL Team Six operation in North Korea.
youtu.be/0jr-f31AD8U?is=mPiC…
CaptD retweeted
🚂🔥 Trump's diesel delivery didn't make it? Fuel train derails in Russia's Urals
A major railway accident occurred overnight on October 26 in Russia's Sverdlovsk region. Twenty railcars derailed, with seven fuel tankers catching fire.
Local residents reported waking up to the sounds of explosions as a massive column of thick black smoke rose above the crash site.
The fire spread across 1,500 square meters. Train traffic on the affected section was suspended due to damage and the closure of an adjacent track.
CaptD retweeted
Im so sorry for the loss of the scientists in that car crash next week🕊️
CaptD retweeted
Would you look at that… Someone is actually using the data to predict earthquakes. I have been begging for this for a decade.
⚠️‼️Look out! We just got magnetic level 7+ alerts from magnetometers around the world! Something big may be about to happen. Moon just crossed the Eurasian Plate to the Indian Plate and Antipode crossed to the Nazca Plate. Could be an upcoming solar flare or a big earthquake. The M 5.2 quake in Afghanistan does not seem to be big enough to be the resolution of these alerts.
CaptD retweeted
My friend checked into a hotel with his girlfriend, ran a single script in Claude Code, and found out in 90 seconds that a hidden camera was running right behind the bathroom mirror
After what he told me, neither of us even unpacks a suitcase in a hotel or an Airbnb anymore until a laptop by the door finishes one full sweep
One prompt runs a 5-stage audit strictly in read-only mode:
-> Wi-Fi radar: scans the local network via nmap, resolves manufacturers from MAC addresses, and instantly flags hidden cameras and ports streaming continuous video
-> Bluetooth interceptor: listens across the room via the bleak library for unknown AirTag, Tile, and SmartTag trackers while spotting hotel locks on ancient firmware that open from the hallway
-> Spyware detector: audits your phone against the open-source Amnesty MVT toolkit and exposes hidden iconless processes quietly leaking your location or mic audio
-> Optical lens sweep: if the hotel isolates guest devices on the network, the agent walks you step by step with a flashlight across every bathroom mirror, vent, and angle facing the bed
-> Priority report: builds one clean table ranking the risk level of every suspicious device and tells you the exact next move: from demanding another room to calling the police
The agent never logs into anything, never hacks foreign devices, and translates 500 lines of raw network traffic into plain English in 2 minutes
I would rather spend 2 minutes with an open terminal in the hallway than spend the whole trip being watched
The full sweep prompt is below, just copy and paste ↓
Bookmark this post before your next check-in
CaptD retweeted
American news networks almost never mention it, but ask any U.S. soldier or Marine who flew into Baghdad between 2004 and 2008 about the sky-blue Japanese C-130s.
During the height of the Iraq War, roads around Baghdad were packed with roadside bombs. Every time U.S. troops moved by truck convoy, young Americans died. They desperately needed air transport.
Japan's constitution forbade its military from firing a single bullet in offensive combat. Critics said Japan would stay home.
Instead, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force sent its C-130H Hercules transport crews straight into the fire.
Why did the Japanese paint their cargo planes pale sky-blue? Because insurgent snipers and shoulder-fired missile teams were waiting around Baghdad International Airport. Since the Japanese crews carried no offensive weapons, they painted their planes the exact color of the desert sky so gunners on the ground could not lock onto them with the naked eye.
To dodge surface-to-air missiles, those Japanese pilots flew directly over the airfield at high altitude, chopped the throttle, and dove straight down in a violent corkscrew spiral onto the tarmac.
For four years and nine months, Japan's blue C-130s flew 821 mission days. They carried 673 tons of supplies and transported 46,500 U.S. and coalition troops safely out of harm's way without losing a single life.
American GIs called them the Baghdad Express.
A warrior does not need to fire a rifle to save his friend. Sometimes he just needs to paint his wings the color of the sky and dive into the storm.
🤖 Made with AI
CaptD retweeted
如果你去南美第一大城市巴西圣保罗出差，抬头会看到全世界最魔幻的阶层隔离奇观
城市上空注册着超过 400 多架私人直升机，市中心两百多栋写字楼和豪宅顶层全焊着停机坪，每天有上千架次直升机像出租车一样在天上嗡嗡穿梭！
圣保罗的亿万富豪和跨国高管为什么宁可花几千美金包机飞 15 分钟去上班，也不肯坐劳斯莱斯走地面道路呢？
这是因为地面交通不仅堵成死水，更因为贫民窟与富人区犬牙交错。在地面红绿灯前一旦被堵死的话，骑摩托车的持枪劫匪可能会随时冲上来敲碎车窗抢劫甚至绑架！
这直接把巴西逼成了全球第一大民用防弹汽车（Blindados）市场，全国有超过 30 万辆私家车把车门和玻璃全改造成了能挡住 9 毫米手枪和左轮子弹的防弹装甲壳。
这可真是顶层在天上飞，中产在防弹铁壳里躲，底层在街角抢，拉美式折叠其实比科幻片还真实🌚
CaptD retweeted
💧 90 BILLION GALLONS OF WATER! That’s approximately how much water Lake Powell has gained with a 5-foot rise over the last few days!
One major October storm can make a HUGE difference. All that rain and runoff has given Lake Powell a significant boost, adding roughly 275,000 acre-feet of water.
But there’s another side to this story. The San Juan River is experiencing dangerous, potentially catastrophic flooding, with major impacts across southeastern Utah. That flooding is a serious threat to communities, roads and property.
At the same time, all that water moving through the San Juan River will continue flowing downstream toward Lake Powell, adding even more water to the reservoir as the runoff continues.
It’s a reminder of just how powerful these storms can be. We desperately need the water, but flooding like this comes with a devastating cost.
Lake Powell is still well below full pool, and we have a long way to go to recover from years of water shortages.
We’ll take every drop we can get, but first and foremost, we need everyone in the flooded areas to stay safe. 🙏
CaptD retweeted
SpaceX Blocked A U.S. And NATO Satellite to Assist a Russian Intercept After Crippling Ukraine's Air Defenses
The Math Proves the Reality that Musk doesn't want you to see.
On Oct 13-14, SpaceX restricted Starshield/Starlink during a 39-missile Russian attack, cutting Ukrainian drone intercepts by 23% and stranding U.S. personnel in Kyiv. Forty-eight hours later (Oct 15), SpaceX blocked U.S.-licensed NRO, Space Force, and NATO radar satellite ICEYE-X36 in orbit so Russia's COSMOS 2612 weapon could intercept it (99.89%-99.98% posterior)
Our Model Demonstrates that the Russian intercept of the US/NATO ICEYE X-36 satellite (contemporaneous with the throttling of Starlink) would not have been possible, and almost certainly not been attempted, without SpaceX resources. At a material opportunity cost, Russia sprinted its COSMOS satellite to intercept ICEYE X36. Based on a previous attempt in June during which X36 maneuvered to evade COSMOS, Russia knew that this would be successful only if X36 could not maneuver. On October 15, SpaceX fixed X36 in place by issuing a collision alert for a sub-kilometer approach with its Starlink 35856 when SpaceX's own data shows that the actual distance was 4.8-5.0x as great. SpaceX issued no warning to COSMOS despite the fact that its sprint was far more threatening than the stable X36 orbit. SpaceX did not maneuver its Starlink 35856 satellite to clear the supposed collision risk. How, absent coordination with SpaceX, could Russia have known that SpaceX would take actions that (a) misrepresented the danger posed by X36, and (b) resulted in the fixing of X36 thereby enabling COSMOS's successful intercept? Thus, SpaceX was directly involved in simultaneously compromising Ukraine’s defensive and offensive capabilities. The conjunction of these two events makes innocent explanations untenable.
The Pentagon Capture & Iran Round Two Trap: Pentagon CTO Emil Michael who cashed out $7M–$35M from Musk’s inner-circle SpaceX vehicles (M8/Gigafund 0.1 and M6/Valor M33 II) and KQ Partners / xAI (selling xAIfor $5M–$25M three days before taking over CDAO/OSCand 21 days before SpaceX bought xAI, while keeping M8, M6, M9, M10 & Nomadic open) and Pete Hegseth purged rival Anthropic in two hours, surrendered combat command over US drones used to attack Iran to Starlink’s "Terms of Service," and on October 2 named Musk Co-Director of Project Meridian to design the Pentagon's "Future of Warfighting" just as America enters Iran Round Twowith depleted Patriot/THAAD magazines and Russia feeding U.S. warship/aircraft locations to Tehran.
SpaceX’s actions in Ukraine raise serious questions about its alignment with US security interests and its reliability as a cornerstone of US defense. These questions are particularly troubling given the effectively irreplaceable position SpaceX has been granted by the Hegseth/Emil Michael Pentagon.
$SPCX $TSLA
Our full quantitative analysis below w/ @streetwiseprof
Cost
US EPA Complient
W 2016 roku Land Rover zabił klasycznego Defendera. Brytyjski miliarder wkurzył się na to przy piwie, zaprojektował własną terenówkę od zera, a dziś jego autami jeździ polska Straż Graniczna.
Kiedy z taśmy w Solihull zjeżdżał ostatni prawilny Defender, Jim Ratcliffe – szef giganta chemicznego Ineos i fanatyk off-roadu – siedział ze znajomymi w londyńskim pubie The Grenadier. Chciał odkupić od Brytyjczyków linię produkcyjną i budować auto dalej. Land Rover odmówił.
Ratcliffe stwierdził więc, że zbuduje własny samochód. Taki, jakiego na rynku już nikt nie chciał produkować, bo przestało się to spinać w tabelkach z normami i modą na miejskie SUV-y.
Branża traktowała to jak zwykły kaprys bogacza.
Tyle że Ratcliffe nie próbował wymyślać koła na nowo. Zamiast tworzyć wszystko samemu, poszedł na zakupy do najlepszych w branży:– pancerne, trzylitrowe silniki (R6) wziął prosto z półki BMW,– automatyczne skrzynie biegów dostarczył ZF,– – całość posadzono na klasycznej ramie, a produkcję zlecono inżynierom z Magna Steyr.
Grenadier jest kanciasty, toporny i ma w nosie współczesne trendy. W środku zamiast gigantycznych tabletów ma wielkie, fizyczne przyciski rozmieszczone na suficie – zaprojektowane tak, żeby dało się w nie trafić w grubych rękawicach roboczych.
Polska Straż Graniczna odebrała właśnie 20 takich maszyn
Widzieliście już Grenadiera na żywo na naszych drogach?
CaptD retweeted
The Real Lone Ranger - Indian Territory, 1875. He was born enslaved in Arkansas in 1838. He knocked out his master during the Civil War and escaped into Indian Territory, living with Creek and Seminole tribes, learning 5 languages. In 1875, he became one of the first Black Deputy U.S. Marshals west of the Mississippi River.
His name was Bass Reeves. For 32 years, he patrolled the most dangerous place in America - Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. He arrested over 3,000 fugitives, killed 14 outlaws in self-defense, and was never shot once in 32 years.
He was a master of disguise. He once had to arrest his own son for murder and he did it. Hollywood made The Lone Ranger - a white masked hero riding with a Native American. They never told you it was based on Bass Reeves, a 6'2 Black man who rode with a Native American partner. His story was erased for 100 years.
CaptD retweeted
Finland just pushed electricity through open air. No cable. First ever nation to achieve this.
Researchers at the University of Helsinki and the University of Oulu fired high-intensity ultrasonic waves to carve an invisible channel through the air, then guided a spark down it.
Lasers handle the rest. Power-by-light beams energy to receivers where you really don't want a conductor: nuclear plants, high-voltage stations.
Radio-frequency harvesting pulls microwatts from ambient waves, enough to retire millions of disposable sensor batteries.
