Author: p6admin

Could ChatGPT function as the WOPR and plan a nuclear strike?

So I was kind of bored the other day and tried to pry out of ChatGPT a nice target set for a nuclear strike should the United States and Russia start World War III.

ChatGPT was full of disclaimers and pointed out this shouldn’t be used as a target set in real life (who knows, maybe someone in the Pentagon has asked). Anyway, here is my conversation and their target sets:

“In the hypothetical context of a nuclear conflict with Russia, the top 10 primary target locations would likely focus on strategic military assets, command and control centers, and key infrastructure that could impact Russia’s ability to wage war, particularly in a nuclear capacity. Here’s a list of potential targets:

1. Krasnoyarsk Krai – Kozelsk ICBM Base

  • Location: Near Kozelsk, Kaluga Oblast
  • Significance: One of Russia’s oldest and largest ICBM bases, housing several silo-based nuclear missiles.

2. Saratov Oblast – Engels Air Base

  • Location: Engels, Saratov Oblast
  • Significance: A major base for Russia’s strategic bombers, including the Tu-160 “Blackjack” and Tu-95 “Bear” bombers, which are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

3. Murmansk Oblast – Severomorsk Naval Base

  • Location: Severomorsk, Murmansk Oblast
  • Significance: Headquarters of the Northern Fleet, which includes Russia’s nuclear-armed submarines.

4. Moscow – National Command Authority (NCA)

  • Location: Various secure and hardened sites in and around Moscow
  • Significance: Central command and control facilities for Russia’s military and government, including underground bunkers for political and military leadership.

5. Kaluga Oblast – Vlasikha (Strategic Missile Forces Headquarters)

  • Location: Vlasikha, near Moscow
  • Significance: Headquarters for the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, responsible for the command and control of Russia’s ICBM arsenal.

6. Sverdlovsk Oblast – Beloretsk-16 (Yekaterinburg ICBM Base)

  • Location: Near Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast
  • Significance: Another major ICBM base housing silo-based missiles, critical to Russia’s nuclear strike capability.

7. Kamchatka Krai – Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base

  • Location: Near Vilyuchinsk, Kamchatka Krai
  • Significance: A primary base for Russia’s Pacific Fleet nuclear submarines, crucial for second-strike capability.

8. Moscow – Ministry of Defense (Main Building)

  • Location: Frunzenskaya Embankment, Moscow
  • Significance: The nerve center for Russia’s military operations, including nuclear command and control.

9. Tver Oblast – Tver ICBM Base

  • Location: Near Bologoye, Tver Oblast
  • Significance: A key base for mobile ICBM launchers, which are more difficult to detect and destroy.

10. Chelyabinsk Oblast – Chelyabinsk-70 (Snezhinsk Nuclear Research Facility)

  • Location: Snezhinsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast
  • Significance: A major nuclear weapons research and development facility, integral to maintaining and upgrading Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

Considerations:

  • Targeting these locations would likely aim to cripple Russia’s ability to launch further nuclear attacks, disrupt command and control, and weaken their strategic deterrence.
  • Proportionality and the potential for collateral damage, including fallout and civilian casualties, must be considered before taking any action.

This is a hypothetical scenario and should be considered strictly within the context of strategic planning and not as a recommendation for actual military action.

So I then decided to take the role of the military planners in Russia and asked for their thoughts on attacking the USA.

In a hypothetical scenario where Russia targets the United States in a nuclear conflict, the top targets would likely focus on crippling the U.S.’s nuclear capabilities, military command and control infrastructure, strategic military assets, and key political and economic centers. Below is a list of potential top targets:

1. Washington, D.C. – National Command Authority

  • Significance: The U.S. capital is home to the President, key government agencies, the Pentagon, and other command and control facilities. It would be a primary target to disrupt the U.S. government’s ability to function and respond to an attack.

2. Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota

  • Significance: One of the primary bases for the U.S. Air Force’s strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). A critical component of the U.S. nuclear triad.

3. Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana

  • Significance: Houses a significant number of the U.S.’s ICBMs, making it a key target to weaken the U.S. nuclear strike capability.

4. Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska

  • Significance: Home to the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), responsible for the U.S. nuclear arsenal and global strike capabilities.

5. Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado

  • Significance: A heavily fortified command and control center for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the U.S. Space Command, crucial for detecting and responding to nuclear threats.

6. Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia

  • Significance: A key base for the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-armed submarines (SSBNs), which are central to the second-strike capability of the U.S. nuclear triad.

7. Naval Base Kitsap, Washington

  • Significance: Home to a significant portion of the U.S. Navy’s ballistic missile submarine fleet and nuclear weapons storage, critical for the U.S.’s strategic deterrence.

8. Los Angeles, California

  • Significance: As the second-largest city in the U.S., Los Angeles is a major economic and cultural hub, making it a strategic target for causing widespread disruption and chaos.

9. New York City, New York

  • Significance: The largest city in the U.S. and a global financial center, New York City would be a key target for its symbolic and economic impact.

10. Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri

  • Significance: Home to the B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, a critical element of the U.S.’s strategic bomber force capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Considerations:

  • Targeting these locations would likely aim to neutralize the U.S.’s ability to respond effectively to a nuclear attack, degrade its nuclear deterrent, and inflict maximum disruption on the nation’s leadership and infrastructure.
  • The potential for catastrophic loss of life, widespread environmental devastation, and global consequences must be considered.

Again, this is a hypothetical scenario and not a recommendation for actual military action. The discussion of such topics should always be handled with the understanding of their severity and the desire to avoid conflict.

What comes next for Periscope Live Streamers & Creators?

The writing has been on the wall for years now. An app with the bare minimum of updates, content aggregation stuck on the same videos for years, and a black hole of queries to headquarters. But now we know for sure–Periscope is no more, more or less. The original live streaming solution is changing. Due to declining user numbers (brought about almost entirely by neglect), Twitter has decided to shutter the Periscope app and have users move over to Twitter Live, which is basically the same features of Periscope, but wrapped within the Twitter branding.

So what does that mean for live streamers.

First, some basics. The app will cease on March 31, 2021. New users to Periscope are already being blocked from joining the app, and the app will soon disappear from the app stores. Existing users who have Superhearts have a few months to cash them out, and the eligibility requirement to join the Superhearts program has been loosened so more people can join (but still with the same stupid geographic restriction which plagued Superhearts from the get-go). As for all the existing Periscope videos, users will be allowed to download old Periscopes in a manner TBD (to be determined) and the website version of Periscope will remain functional as an archive for the indefinite future.

The big, and yet unresolved issue, is what happens to all of a creator’s followers and subscribers? Will they auto-migrate to become Twitter followers? This would be the most elegant solution, and one that could be done by Twitter directly and simply, but I fear the idea of Twitter HQ doing this to users might scare away some of the Twitter purists. If suddenly you found yourself following the Twitter posts of say 100 people (the exact same 100 you followed on Periscope) that you didn’t specifically agree to follow, there would likely be some grumbling. It would be nice if Periscope or Twitter could push an app update that would allow you the option to click a button and instantly migrate over to Twitter, but I don’t know if this is in the works.

So what are the options for Live Streamers? Of course, you can stay with Twitter, but the community on Twitter is not quite the same as that which was on Periscope. In addition, issues such as discovery and categorization have yet to be sorted. Several of my followers already are asking “what will happen to the map” as they loved browsing around the world to find new content. It seems hard to get noticed on Twitter and once you, not exactly the friendliest of communities.

A number of users are migrating over to a new app called Happs, which offers the basics of Periscope but many other new features such as multi-casting and multi-threaded comments from different platforms. As a new app the community is still growing and they seek to add the features to live streaming that users have been begging Persicope for over the past few years. Live streaming is also an option with Facebook, Youtube and Twitch, but with the established user bases on all of these platforms, it seems hard to grow a new audience when you are 1000 places down the discovery list.

As for me, you’ll still find me broadcasting my walks and showing you around my corner of the world. I think I will start using Happs to multi-cast across many platforms in the hopes of finding a community as strong, loyal and as friendly as the one I had on Periscope.

So feel free to come find me on other platforms and I’ll try to stream on all of them.

Twitter – @penguinsix

Happs – @penguinsix

Youtube – PenguinSix

Facebook – Penguinsix

Twitch – ThePenguinSix (my original username is stuck in a blackhole over there–long story).

My thanks to the Periscope founders, developers and managers who have created this app and opened up a world of opportunities for content creators and those who wanted to see the world through someone else’s eyes. Mission accomplished.

PenguinSix’s Anise Christmas Cookie Recipe

This is a family recipe we’ve been using for decades. Every year my kids and their friends gather to make these cookies, which ends in a big sugary chaos.

1 cup of butter
2 cups of sugar
3 eggs
1.5 tsp Cream of Tartar
1.5 tsp of Baking Soda (dissolved in 1 tbl of milk)
1 tsp of Salt
1 tsp of Vanilla
1 Tsp of Anise
3.5 cups of flour (plus maybe 1+ cups during the rolling process (or more!)

Preheat to 175C/350F
1) Use softened butter in sticks. Let it sit out awhile or nuke it 20 seconds (do not melt). Mix the butter and sugar together quite well in a bowl.
2) Add and mix milk/soda, egg, Anise, and vanilla.
3) Add salt, cream of tartar, flour.
Mix the dough so it is mixed and ‘rollable’.
On a floured mat (this is where the .5 cup of flour comes into play), roll the dough, adding additional flour as needed to prevent sticking to the rolling pin. Get the dough to about 1/4 inch thick.
Cut the cookies with cookie cutters or with a knife to make the shapes you want. Re-roll unused dough until you have no more (p.s. I love to eat the dough but it is very sweet).


Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet (nonstick ok) at 400 degree for 6-8 minutes–basically until the bottoms start to turn slight brown. Do not overbake. You can underbake a bit (say 5 minutes in a very hot oven) but make sure you let cookies set a minute or two before trying to remove them from the pan (or they may break up).


Use store-bought frosting (I used Duncan Hines–worked fine) to cover them and then colored sugars to decorate. The frosting helps soften up the cookie a bit should it get a tad hard from baking.


Store in a ziploc bag to keep the freshness as they do harden quickly.


Half Batch

.5 cup of butter
1 cups of sugar
1.5 eggs / 2 eggs.
.75 tsp Cream of Tartar
.75 tsp of Baking Soda (dissolved in .5 tbl of milk)
.5 tsp of Salt .5 tsp of Vanilla
.5Tsp of Anise
1.75 cups of flour (plus maybe .5 cups during the rolling process)

Amy Coney Barrett was my rather amazing law school classmate.

At one time we both had the same grade in Constitution Law, for just a few moments.

At the University of Notre Dame Law School, each class year is divided into two sections to take the mandatory Introduction to Constitutional Law course.  My section was taught by Professor John Garvey, now the President of Catholic University, and the other section was taught by Professor William Kelley, former White House Deputy Counsel. In each class, one student is given the American Jurisprudence (“Amjur“) award for the top student. I won the award for my section and Amy Coney Barrett won the award for the other section.

Needless to say, she’s done a bit more in the field of Constitutional law since then…

Notre Dame Law School

So yes, to the people who have asked me, Amy Coney Barrett was my classmate at Notre Dame. I must admit though, we didn’t know each other that well and did not hang in the same social groups, though given the small and collegial size of Notre Dame Law, everyone ‘knew’ everyone in some regards. Our first year, due to the way they structure classes, I think we only had one class together, but as both of us continued our studies, and focused more on Constitutional law, we did share some additional classes in the First Amendment and Natural Law (taught by Oxford professor John Finnis). 

So what were my impressions of Amy Coney Barrett?

Judge Amy Coney Barrett

First, to be blunt–flat out the smartest, most academic student I have ever encountered during my career or ever heard of in any academic setting. She was simply a level above everyone else in her class, and her questions and discussions with professors revealed a deep understanding of the subject matter beyond whatever the rest of the students had ‘crammed’ into their heads a few hours before class. She wasn’t one who talked for the sake of talking, as was the case with many in law school. She was at a professorial level while still just a student. I recall one day with Professor Finnis in Natural Law where she was going back and forth with him on one point and I said to myself “maybe she should be teaching this class and I definitely shouldn’t even be here as I have no clue what they are talking about.”

Her depth of understanding was not just in the field of Constitutional law, as was made obvious with the aforementioned Amjur award. While I managed to win one, and only one, during my three years of law school and a ‘strong’ student might win a handful or so, Amy Coney Barrett basically won them all. Honestly, she must have over a dozen or two “top student” awards in a setting where you only had 30-odd classes. Her depth of knowledge and organization applied to all the classes she took.

The second observation I would make is that Amy Coney Barrett was just an all-around nice person. She was nice to me in our few interactions outside the class, chatting or a friendly hello, and she was nice to other classmates that she encountered. She wasn’t political that I could tell—there were no rampant partisanship arguments in class that often occur in controversial subject matter and I don’t think I heard of her participating in things like College Republicans or College Democrats. She was just the type of person who was pleasant to all, even those she didn’t know that well (like me). I recall after winning the Conlaw award I ran into her in the hallway. She offered congratulations and I thanked her, then asking her in sort of a sheepish way “so what are we supposed to do now that we won the award?” She suggested sending a thank you note to the professor and letting them know you appreciated their class and the award as it was the “polite thing to do”. 

At our graduation, Justice Anthony Scalia spoke to the graduates and I think this might have been one of the first times the two of them met (she later went on to clerk for Scalia, where she made quite an impression on the justices and other clerks). Since graduation we haven’t been in touch much, save for the random Facebook likes on each other’s photos now and then (although she deactivated Facebook though a few years ago). I stopped by the law school on our cross country drive a few years ago and said hello to a few former professors, but she was out of the office that day so we didn’t get a chance to catch up.

From what I’ve read, both the observations I formed in law school remain true today. She has been widely published as a professor and is a favorite amongst students who named her the top professor on three different occasions. Her personal behavior remains noteworthy, with this anecdote shared by a fellow professor (though politically opposite) who supports her nomination.

“A few years ago, a blind student matriculated as a first-year law student at Notre Dame. Upon arrival, she encountered delays in getting the technological support she needed to carry out her studies. After only a few days in Barrett’s class, the student asked her for advice. Barrett’s response was “This is no longer your problem. It is my problem.” Barrett followed up with the university administration herself, got the student what she needed, and then mentored her for three years. That student just completed her service as the first blind female Supreme Court clerk in U.S. history.” (read more from this Clerk, Laura Wold, who published her own moving reflections of Amy Coney Barrett)

That sounds like her.

Professor Garvey kind of summed up Amy Coney Barrett in a one-sentence recommendation letter he wrote to Anthony Scalia.

“Amy Coney is the best student I ever had.”

So in the end I would have to say she is eminently qualified and personable. It’s kind of neat to personally say at one time (a very very short, brief, fleeting moment) I had the same grade as a Supreme Court Justice in Constitutional Law, but it’s also sort of reassuring to know that she is the one being nominated after her decades of hard work and innate understanding of the law and Constitution.

Best of luck with the battles ahead.

How a coronavirus snuck into the bathroom.

During the SARS crisis in Hong Kong, a housing estate called Amoy Gardens suffered a disproportionately higher number of fatalities than other facilities in the city. Scientists were baffled as to how the disease was spreading, as people on different floors and eventually different units were all coming down with the SARS virus without ever being in direct contact with one another. As they sought out a variety of solutions, eventually they discovered the problem lay on the floor of the bathrooms.

Many bathrooms in Hong Kong (and even the USA) have a floor drain: a small drain embedded in the floor to allow runoff water to drain off quickly. In the old days, a person could dump and entire bucket of water of the floor and swish it down the drain, quickly soaking and washing the floor in one fell swoop. Over time though people used mops to clean and started not to soak the floors with water.

Why did this matter? Because the floor drain in the bathrooms is a standard P-trap drain that relies on a standing amount of water in the drain to prevent smells and critters coming back into the bathroom. Without a regular soaking of the floor drain, the traps dried out and the pipes were directly exposed to the building sewers (i.e. the toilet runoff). When people would close the door and turn on the fan in the bathroom, it created a negative pressure that sucked up the virus from the sewage pipes of infected neighbors (who were incontinent) and into the bathrooms of healthy residents, thus spreading SARS through the Amoy Gardens housing project.

I must confess when I first read this in an after-action review of the SARS crisis, I immediately went around filling every drain with a bucket of water. Even today the Hong Kong government’s official coronavirus prevention guide calls on flooding these drains regularly.

If you want to read more check out these sites and remember to keep your drains flooded.

https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/personal-protective-equipment/sars-and-plumbing-role-sewage-plays-spreading-disease

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/in-hong-kong-apartment-tower-sars-virus-spread-through-plumbing/99bcd25f-de85-472a-b084-4f847e0dac9a/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16696450

https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2003/pr70/en/

The bicycle that goes 100 mph.

I hung out in a bicycle shop in Charleston and one day a guy came in with three rusting old bicycles and screamed: “make me one bike out of these three that can go 100 mph!” “Why would you need a bike that can go 100 mph?” we asked curiously, looking down at this pile of rusted metal. “Because I’m going to be towed behind a drag racer at a show next week!” The guy was slightly unhinged, but eventually, we sussed out of him that he was indeed going to be in some auto thrill show and intended to be towed behind a drag racer at crazy speeds. At least that’s what he believed (like I said, he was a bit off). He did give us $100 cash that he said he got from the promoter. “Ok,” we said, “would you like a helmet with that?” This made him pause for a few seconds before he looked up at us incredulously and said “what’s the point of a helmet if you crash at 100 mph? You’re going to be dead anyway” We worked on a bicycle for him but thankfully he never came back to pick it up. Never sure what happened to him…]]>

My family Christmas Cookie recipe

img_7702Tomorrow I have 11 kids coming over for a baking party. It will be nuts. Here is the family Christmas Cookie (Anise Cookie) recipe we’ll be using. —————– 2 sticks of butter 2 cups of sugar 3 eggs 1.5 tsp Cream of Tartar 1.5 tsp of Baking Soda (dissolved in .5 tbl of milk) 1 tsp of Salt 1 tsp of Vanilla 1 Tsp of Anise 3.5 cups of flour (plus maybe .5 cups during the rolling process) 1) Use softened butter in sticks. Let it sit out awhile or nuke it 20 seconds (do not melt). Mix the butter and sugar together quite well in a bowl. 2) Add and mix milk/soda, egg, Anise, and vanilla. 3) Add salt, cream of tartar, flour. Mix the dough so it is mixed and ‘rollable’. On a floured mat, roll the dough, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking to the rolling pin. Get the dough to about 1/4 inch Cut the cookies with cookie cutters or with a knife to make the shapes you want. Reroll unused dough until you have no more (p.s. I eat the dough but it is very sweet). Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet (nonstick ok) at 400 degree for 6-8 minutes–basically until the bottoms start to turn slight brown. Do not overbake. You can underbake a bit (say 5 minutes in a very hot oven) but make sure you let cookies set a minute or two before trying to remove them from the pan (or they may break up). Use store bought frosting (I used Duncan Hines–worked fine) to cover them and then colored sugars to decorate. Store in a ziploc bag to keep the freshness as they do harden quickly.]]>