A few thoughts about tugs:
As I've been reading Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil, a 1952 book about logistics in the Pacific in WWII, I've been struck how often the topic of tugs has come up: ships that were saved because of their presence, or perhaps lost due to their absence.
One sometimes hears the PLAN described as a brittle and inexperienced force, unlikely to be able to succeed in real-world combat. How well have they provided for forces to conduct recovery and salvage?
- 14 tugs (ATAs)
- 13 PLAN rescue/salvage ships (ARSs), w/ 27 more under Ministry of Transportation
Worth noting IMO is that these are all likely to be located in the western Pacific. https://t.co/23uccgzcL6
Not specifically so, but IMO the relative lack of this capability is symptomatic, along with stories of double-pumped deployments and the like, of trying to run a worldwide Navy on the cheap...
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The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
If everyone was holding bitcoin on the old x86 in their parents basement, we would be finding a price bottom. The problem is the risk is all pooled at a few brokerages and a network of rotten exchanges with counter party risk that makes AIG circa 2008 look like a good credit.
— Greg Wester (@gwestr) November 25, 2018
The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
