Weaponization of the Toyota Truck

Some people may remember pictures from the late 1980s and 1990s that include crews of terrorists in white Toyota trucks, with machine guns bolted down in the truck bed. The trucks were puny and fragile compared to militarized versions of vehicles. They were repurposed civilian vehicles, drafted into military duty by low-budget and cagey terrorist enemies. Continue reading

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Vocabulary Gymnastics of Reverse Means Testing

It used to be investments and retirement plans were proportional: if you put in more, you get more out. Now, I find a new paradigm edging into traditional programs like Social Security. Nothing is changing about the program except the words. Why change the words? Continue reading

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Agile Military Acquisition – 1 week

Many people talk about agile acquisitions of military defense systems, trying to put away bureaucracy that has grown for decades. Elon Musk seems to operate in a different place and think differently. Continue reading

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Buying or Selling a used Helium Crypto Miner

If you want to buy or sell a used Crypto Miner, there are a few things that you should be aware of!   As a starting point, read the official documentation of the Helium mining network about transferring a miner. Continue reading

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Exodus v. Atomic crypto conversion fees

Exodus and Atomic are both desktop wallets for a variety of crypto coins. They both do no fiat exchanges, but they do dozens of conversions between crypto types. Exodus appears a lot more expensive even through both claim “no fees”. In fact, they both charge price spreads on the crypto prices, which sort of hides the costs unless you do some fancy math. Continue reading

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