I'm interested to see what they're releasing since they've had so much time to really let their brain juices simmer. I hope it's tasty

https://archive.is/U26c8

Seriously this the first time I've ever heard of this. I'm even asking around and everyone's going reactions

At the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak, Alaska, in 2019, the Israelis successfully tested an anti-ballistic missile system that intercepts weapons in space. Now, in the Israel-Hamas War, it’s finally being used in battle, pushing military conflict above the atmosphere.

Kodiak Island is better known for its salmon-guzzling grizzly-bears than its rockets. But the forested Alaskan isle, separated from the mainland by the Shelikof Strait, has had a small commercial spaceport since 1998. Kodiak’s Pacific Spaceport Complex is intended for launching small satellites into polar orbit and got its start as the country’s first commercial spaceport. More famous facilities, like Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Vandenberg Space Force Base, are government-operated spaceports. Yet the majority of the 31 launches that have taken place at Pacific Spaceport Complex since its opening have, in fact, been for the military or government, including one foreign one: Israel. The shift towards supporting launches by the men in black has frustrated many of Kodiak’s residents, as I discovered when I visited the island last month.

Why is there a spaceport on Kodiak Island?

Kodiak might seem an unlikely spot for launching satellites into orbit. Spaceports are generally built closer to the equator to take advantage of the additional thrust provided by the Earth, which spins faster in the middle. Since the entire planet rotates once every 24 hours, objects on the equator are advancing 1670 km per hour. Those halfway to the North or South Pole are moving a mere 1170 km per hour, or 30 percent slower. Consequently, more rocket fuel is needed to launch from poleward locations to achieve the whopping speed of 40,270 kilometers per hour necessary to achieve escape velocity.

This advantage of equatorial launch sites, however, is negated when trying to launch into polar orbit. Polar orbits are used by satellites performing Earth observation or reconnaissance missions that image the entire planet. Each time a polar-orbiting satellite circles the Earth, it passes over the North or South Pole, providing full planetary coverage. Polar orbits are becoming increasingly popular as both governments and commercial firms seek to provide up-to-date satellite imagery of the entire planet.

Some northern countries and states like Alaska are hoping that satellite operators might turn to spaceports located in the world’s northern latitudes to reach polar orbits. Among them are not only the Pacific Spaceport Complex, but other other up-and-coming competitor spaceports like Andøya in northern Norway, Esrange in northern Sweden, and SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland, in the northernmost bit of the United Kingdom.

Despite the seeming advantages of polar spaceports, many of the commercial actors that the Pacific Spaceport Complex has sought to attract have swallowed the extra fuel costs of launching from the south and transported their rockets and satellites to spaceports like southern California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. These are much closer to major infrastructure and engineering facilities in places like Los Angeles and don’t require arranging complicated, expensive logistics to transport material to the Arctic or sub-Arctic by plane or barge. The cold waters around Kodiak Island make for some of the world’s richest fish and crab stocks, as made famous in the television show Deadliest Catch, but are notoriously harsh for boats. The turbulent weather around the Emerald Isle also means that rain, fog, and wind all challenge the reliability of the airport for satellite operators, which often have short windows in which to prepare and undertake missions.

The difficulties that the Pacific Spaceport Complex has encountered in attracting market share means that only nine of their 31 launches have been orbital. The rest have been suborbital launches, or those that fly into space but do not reach escape velocity and return to the atmosphere before fully orbiting Earth. While these might sound less than spectacular, military conflict is rapidly evolving in suborbital space, with one key innovator at the helm: Israel.

Anti-intercontinental ballistic missile testing on Kodiak

In July 2019, three suborbital launches went soaring into the blackness of space over the inky waters of the Gulf of Alaska surrounding Kodiak. These launches had one purpose: to test the Israel Defence Ministry’s Arrow 3 Interceptor Missile System. The state-of-the-art technology built by Israel Atmospheric Industries and troubled U.S. aerospace company Boeing employs “exoatmospheric hypersonic anti-ballistic missiles,” which can intercept and destroy incoming long-rang missiles above the atmosphere. The system provides a top layer of defense that complements Israel’s more famous “Iron Dome”, which shields the country from rockets and bombs fired closer to the ground.

Between 2008-2021, the U.S. government contributed $1.27 billion to Israel’s Arrow 3 program. Its support for Israel’s Arrow system has been consistent, with development first beginning in 1986. In 2004, the Naval Air Station Point Mugu Missile Test Center in southern California hosted tests of Arrow 2, which uses an explosive to destroy incoming medium- to long-range missiles. In contrast, Arrow 3 destroys incoming long-range missiles through interception alone in the exoatmosphere, or the region just above the Earth’s atmosphere. They must be designed to operate in a vacuum, requiring complicated engineering to deal with low pressure [1].

In June 2017, during a Congressional hearing, U.S. Vice Admiral James Syring explained the role that Kodiak would play in testing Arrow 3:

Admiral Syring: Yes, sir. We are close partners with Israel on development of their systems, system engineering in particular, and testing support also. And I have been intimately involved with them on David's Sling and Arrow, the more recent version of Arrow 3. And, frankly, that interceptor is now up into the exoatmosphere, and it has significant range constraints within the Mediterranean. And one of the better places to test is in Alaska, from Kodiak, and we plan to do that next year.

Mr. Coffman: Okay. So the Arrow 3 is designed to defeat the over-the-horizon capability of the Iranians. Am I correct in that?

Admiral Syring: Sir, it is designed to defeat the exoatmospheric ballistic missile threat from Iran.

In other words, given the crowded airspace around the Mediterranean, Israel was unable to test Arrow 3 to its full capacities. Moshe Patel, director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization, said in March 2019 during a panel discussion in Washington, D.C.: “Arrow 3 is too big for the state of Israel…It is supposed to be good against nuclear threats that are coming from Iran. (But) we have limitations in our arena to conduct flight tests because of safety.”

(Continues in comments)

That said

Alternative title: Trotskyite gets put in charge, tries to push communism button, finds out the material conditions of a fucking ice age may not be conducive to declaring a final victory of the 5th internationale over Stalinism in a videogame.

My favorite quote in the article

Everyone was incredibly happy with me and all my kept promises right up until the coal ran out, which I'd kind of stopped paying attention to as I got ensnared in a thicket of political manoeuvring and ideology. I wasn't overwhelmed—the game does a good job of not bombarding you with too much information and mechanical complexity, and Stokalski says it's a conscious effort by the devs to make sure you're never "doing notes, doing maths on the side just to not die"—I'd just gotten wrapped up in ideas without paying much heed to material reality.

The article does ask a good question on the sort of conundrum that could become an identity crisis thst fire emblem has rode itself into with the steady inclusion of social aspects in their games ever since Awakening.

Personally I would be in favor of keeping the model they developed in 3 houses while refining it further with the game mechanics they developed in engage. I'd also like to keep the whole marriage and matchmaker aspect that we saw in awakening and fates out unless they figure out how to tastefully weave it into the storyline.

And while it would take too much gamedev time to implement it, it would be interesting to whether or not its possible to blend and synergize the fire emblem strategy game aspect with some of the musou aspects they've been lately dabbling in. I'm thinking akin to how the Total War series handles army battles but making the choices of how to play each battle as being either classic turn-based tactical mode or going full musou hack'n'slash nonsense as options for gameplay.

Swaws: CNBC

Key points

The wealth gap between rich millennials and the rest of their age group is the largest of any generation, creating a new wave of class tension and resentment, according to a study.

While the average millennial has less wealth at the age of 35 than previous generations, the top 10% of millennials have 20% more wealth than the top baby boomers at the same age.

The surge in wealth among millennial heirs is also creating a lucrative new market for wealth-management firms, luxury companies, travel firms and real estate brokers.

Capitalism again is illustrating it is not a meritocracy, but a continually degrading nepotistic system in decay.

The wealth gap between rich millennials and the rest of their age group is the largest of any generation, creating a new wave of class tension and resentment, according to a recent study.

The generation that's witnessed greatest creation of wealth due to the overthrow of the Soviet Union since the division of the world by the imperialist powers of the 19th century are now seeing the rotten fruits of the system they live in once more.

Even as the vast majority of millennials struggle with student debt, low-wage service-jobs, unaffordable housing and low savings, the millennial elite are surpassing previous generations. According to the study, the average millennial has 30% less wealth at the age of 35 than baby boomers did at the same age. Yet the top 10% of millennials have 20% more wealth than the top baby boomers at the same age.

You know how we used to joke about our 2020s being a repeat of the 1920s?

“Millennials are so different from one another that it is not particularly meaningful to talk about the ‘average’ Millennial experience,” wrote the study’s authors, Rob Gruijters, Zachary Van Winkle and Anette Eva Fasang. “There are some Millennials who are doing extremely well—think Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman—while others are struggling.”

That's a bullshit line. There are the many workers and then there is the few capitalists. It's the same struggle that's been happening for centuries now.

The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds. Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.

At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs. As they put it, “The returns to high-status work trajectories have increased, while the returns to low-status trajectories have stagnated or declined.”

The millennials who “went to college, found graduate level jobs, and started families relatively late,” ended up with “higher levels of wealth than Baby Boomers with similar life trajectories,” according to the report.

Remember they're still talking primarily of the working class here.

The great wealth transfer

There may be another factor creating so much wealth among millennials: inheritances. In what’s known as “the great wealth transfer,” baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years. Much of that is expected to go to their millennial children. High-net-worth individuals worth $5 million or more will account for nearly half of that total, according to Cerulli Associates.

Wealth management firms say some of that wealth has already starting trickling down to the next generation.

There your class struggle, your capitalist "meritocracy".

“The great wealth transfer, which we’ve all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway,” said John Mathews, head of UBS’ Private Wealth Management division. “The average age of the world’s billionaires is almost 69 right now. So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate.”

Lol funny number

Tensions between millennial classes are likely to escalate as more wealth is transferred in the coming years. Wealth displays on social media by millennial “nepo babies” could add to the intra-generational class war and drive nonwealthy millennials to overspend or create the appearance of lavish lifestyles to keep up.

The only thing that should be driving proletarian millenials is cutting the wealth gap with a blade.

A survey by Wells Fargo found that 29% of affluent millennials (defined as having assets of $250,000 to over $1 million of investible assets) admit they “sometimes buy items they cannot afford to impress others.” According to the survey, 41% of affluent millennials admit to funding their lifestyles with credit cards or loans, versus 28% of Gen Xers and 6% of baby boomers.

New wealth dipshits, petite bourgeoisie, and small business tyrants. Who gives a shit they're just a tiny slice of the capitalist pie

The battle between rich millennials and the rest could also shape their attitudes toward wealth. For over four decades, the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires created in America have been self-made, mostly entrepreneurs. A study by Fidelity Investments found that 88% of American millionaires are self-made

Clever wordplay here. Millionares are the sardines to the billionare sharks.

We care more about the fucking big fish that maintain ownership of the means of production.

Yet inherited wealth could become more common. A study by UBS found that among newly minted billionaires last year, heirs who inherited their fortunes racked up more wealth than self-made billionaires for the first time in at least nine years. And, all the billionaires under the age of 30 on the latest Forbes billionaires list inherited their wealth, for the first time in 15 years.

By more common they mean comrade Death is coming for what's due.

‘Extreme’ wealth

The surge in wealth among millennial heirs is also creating a lucrative new market for wealth-management firms, luxury companies, travel firms and real estate brokers.

Parasites

Clayton Orrigo, one of the top luxury real estate brokers in Manhattan, has built a thriving business on moneyed millennials. The founder of the Hudson Advisory Team at Compass has sold over $4 billion in real estate and regularly brokers deals over $10 million. He says the “vast majority” of his business lately is from buyers in their 20s and 30s with inherited wealth.

Expropriation or the guillotine. Neither discriminate based on age.

“I just sold a $16 million apartment to someone in their mid-20s, and the buyer accessed the family trust,” he said. “The wealth that is behind these kids is extreme.”

Isn't "mid-20s" zoomer territory?

Inherited wealth has become Orrigo’s specialty. He says he works on forging close relationships with family offices, trusts and young money elite mingling at New York membership clubs like Casa Cipriani.

Parasitic yesmen

The pattern is familiar: A wealthy family calls wanting a rental for their son or daughter; a few years later, they want a $5 million or $10 million two-bedroom condo to buy in a new, high-security building downtown.

In fucking Manhattan, mind you. Capital E fucking Expensive

“My gig is working very quietly and very discreetly with the wealthiest families in the world,” Orrigo said.

Parasites tend to not advertise their presence but they'll also be removed all the same.