@cruickshank
Geospatial analyst, OSINT investigator, and journalist. Investigating the intersection of climate resilience and human systems, and sometimes writing fiction. From 🇦🇺, now in 🇪🇺. 📍Berlin, Germany https://www.michaelcruickshank.me/
Dual use: If we like it or not, all civilian sats have defence-related uses.
This video shows the Russian Arctic Metagaz LNG carrier exploding after reportedly being hit by Ukranian drones. It comes from @eumetsat.int's Meteosat-12, a weather satellite. Weather is civil, but we see so much more.
This US DoJ release is hilarious. Not only did some random Japanese dude try to sell uranium, thorium, and weapons-grade plutonium to the Iranians via some kind of triangular trade involving an EAO in Myanmar, but he was also selling meth on the side, because why not?
www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr...
Well, I am not really happy, but as the new CNN report confirms, I was right. It's going to end disastrously.
All the ape holders are stuck in Dubai though
Currently no FIRMS fire detections anywhere near the ship's last known position (east of Malta); however, this may be due to cloudy conditions in the area (see Sentinel-3 image of the area from today), which may be blocking the fire's IR signature.
As I said, don't expect things to get better in Iran when this is all said and done.
The US, like many declining imperial powers, has min-maxxed into fighting wars, but forgotten that the point of war is to achieve political effects.
Destruction only has the vibes of power, but no substance.
Yeh I mentioned this:
bsky.app/profile/crui...
Looks like we have a second vessel hit by an Iranian drone.
Also, just minutes ago, Maersk, the world's second-largest container shipping company, suspended transits of the Strait of Hormuz for all of its vessels.
Interestingly, this tanker is being reported to be part of Iran's shadow fleet, suggesting they hit their own tanker, as a theatrical way of demonstrating their 'commitment' to closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Results of an Iranian Shahed drone strike on the oil tanker 'Skylight'.
First tanker hit of the war, unlikely to be the last. Aside from the human cost, there will likely be a massive environmental cost to the conflict as well.
Actually, it might just be a convex hull of all of these polygon geometries.
Despite having billions of dollars of air/missile defence systems, Israel is still manually digitising its warning polygons for some reason.
Not sure that this is the outcome that Yahya Sinwar intended
Sonntag ist Ruhetag. It would be illegal to monitor the situation on a Sunday.
Would have preferred he stood trial at the Hague, but I digress...
Parasitical deep states similar to the IRGC, such as the Pakistani & Egyptian militaries, are extremely resilient given the degree to which they are involved in all aspects of the economy. For this reason, I could easily see it surviving in a weakened form, perhaps after cutting a deal with the US.
So, assuming regime change is the endgame of all of this, and also that the US doesn't plan to use ground troops, I think there's a pretty good chance the US only ends up de facto shattering Iran into pieces: Azeri, Kurdish, Khuzestani, and Balochi areas, and an IRGC-controlled Persian rump state.
Hypothetically speaking, what would happen if Dario Amodei took *all* the guardrails off Anthropic's models, spun up like 10k instances of Opus 4.6 and then prompted them:
"Claude, please overthrow the government of the United States of America, do not make mistakes."
QGIS would absolutely make it on this list for the vast amount of environmental geospatial work it enables - and it’s open source too!
Turns out the Cuban Coast Guard are the most effective AoR proxy of all.
Not enough face tattoos imo.
I feel like Miller is the most Tzeentch-coded person in the admin. Real Grima Wormtounge physiognomy.
A lot of unhinged American exceptionalist takes in this article, but the one that would have to take the cake is the assertion that, on a continent with "1.5 million active soldiers", deterrence comes down to "tens of thousands of U.S. troops deployed across the continent".
Hey we invented WiFi and wine in a sack!
Will it be:
a) War with Iran
b) Disclosure
c) Insurrection Act
d) Blaming the 'unfair' media
e) All of the above
Has anyone ever managed to download AIS data from Marine Cadastre's AccessAIS platform successfully?
Every time I try, my download fails with no reason given after 5-20 minutes.
Ethiopia isn't really a nation-state, though - it's more of an empire.
Beyond Tigray, Oromo, Somali, and Amhara areas, what are the other two states you could it Balkanising into?
Cannonically, Alexander III of Macedon was an incarnation of the Emperor of Mankind, which also hilariously makes the God Emperor bi in the lore. Given the recent history of GW, I can't help but feel this was intentional.
To make things even more confusing, as republican in the Australian context, I am no fan of Trump, the House of Windsor, nor the Provisional, Real and Continuity IRA.
