#subcomponent

[whisperofthewaves]

I'm watching Silo, and I'm in the middle or so of season 2, so I can't say I don't enjoy the series but every fucking time I see them use some technology or medicine while being told repeatedly by the creators that everything is being kept from too high advancement I'm basically that screen from it's always sunny in philadelphia where the guy's like, that doesn't sound right but I don't have enough knowledge to argue.

[centrally-unplanned]

People are discoursing about the "are imports subtracted from GDP thing", and ofc no, they aren't, I thought Noah Smith's write-up of that was perfectly good, but it is a bit of an awkward moment for economics as a historical discipline. To TL;DR, when you see this equation for GDP:

GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government purchases + Exports - Imports

It seems like imports are subtracting from GDP, but that is because secretly C, I, and G all contain imports in them. "C" is actually C_d + C_i, and so on, so when you subtract I you are just cancelling them out. Explained it makes perfect sense (imported consumptions is, of course, consumption), but it does beg the question - why would you write it that way?? Like come on, you are burying compound subcomponents of a variable that you elsewhere sum and use explicitly in the equation, and there is no notation of that? Mathematicians in the audience are facepalming more than they normally do around economics notation, which is a high bar.

The "reason" is that the equation is actually a merging of two somewhat separate threads. "Consumption", "Investment", etc is all core economics, the fundamental human behaviors. They don't care about borders, it would never matter to you if something is an "import" or an "export"; from the viewpoint of a household today that is most every good. GDP is not a core economic concept; it is a statistical unit of national accounting. Governments care, but the "fundamental" economist doesn't. But obviously economists do more than 101 stuff, and so when the macro folk wanted to calculate that unit of account they married it into their discipline's existing terminology (for their 101 classes, obviously the people at the BLS have more sophisticated stuff going on). Inventing new terms for "consumption" was like, eh, why bother doing that?

Which imo I do think is pretty silly. I get it, I get wanting to use the same terms across topics, but here I think you have to fess up that it is just legitimately very confusing. I wouldn't be shocked if the median intro macroeconomics student thinks imports lower GDP unless that is specifically address as a "topic of discussion". Economics just has a very bad history of being special little snowflakes when it comes to notation, and here they clearly are paying a price for it.

[maaarine]

in Belgium there's a political principle called "cordon sanitaire"

wiki/Cordon_sanitaire_(politics):

"cordon sanitaire" tldr: even if the far-right party wins the election, other parties will team up to form a coalition that excludes it from government — and that's the power of love, kids

but there's also a bonus subcomponent to this cordon: le "cordon médiatique"

it means that the media refuses to engage with the far right, doesn't interview those politicians, doesn't give them any coverage, doesn't fuck with those cunts whatsoever

the interesting thing is that while the cordon sanitaire has been in place on a national level, the cordon médiatique is only applied in Wallonia (French-speaking south), not in Flanders (Dutch-speaking north)

now here's a fun guessing game

how popular is the far-right party in Flanders, where the media does fuck with those cunts? it's #1 in the polls

and in Wallonia? the far right is virtually nonexistent

the polls in Wallonia are thus:

mainstream left

mainstream right

far left

green

center right

when commentators ponder about the mysterious and mystical cultural differences between north and south that could explain why Flanders is so much more on the right than Wallonia, they usually reach for historical and economic reasons

for context Flanders is more prosperous and more densely populated than Wallonia, so it's not poor rednecks who are voting for the baddies

anyway my point is that I'm always baffled when journalists themselves fail to take their own cordon médiatique into account, like they fail to see that they're the ones creating this reality

the far right doesn't exist in the media...... so it doesn't exist at all!

it's unsettling when media people don't realize that they're the ones at the wheel, they drive the political discourse by choosing who and what they give attention to

[qadoshqadoshqadosh]

im allergic to such a wide variety of things and in such seemingly random ways that im convinced what im allergic to isnt actually the specific things themselves but the presence of some shared subcomponents, imagine if there was like a kind of ingredient in food made out of wood and dirt and like skin cells or fur or something. and manufacturers included it not just in like specific foods but could also put it in,e.g. cleaning products, medicines, cosmetics, building materials, houseplants, animals (except reptiles) or, like, a fresh brewed cup of tea. an additive whose popularity in manufacturing really came to prominence approximately 30,000 years ago. that’s what i imagine it must be like.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

In 2018, the Mossad infiltrated a secret warehouse in Tehran and took 100,000 documents showing the nuclear weapons work of Iran's AMAD Project between 1999 and 2003. The trove documented years of work on atomic weapons, warhead designs and production plans.

Part of that trove described Iran developing and manufacturing a key nuclear weapon subcomponent called a “shock wave generator.”  Manufacturing of components of this generator, and testing of them, occurred near the village of Sanjarian, and the facility was called the "Sanjarian Facitlity" in the documentation. 

Less than a year ago, the Institute for Science and International Security (the "Good ISIS") said that Sanjarian was up and running again:

During the last year and a half, Iran has reportedly reactivated and accelerated activities at two former Amad Plan sites that were key to Iran’s development of nuclear weapons during its crash nuclear weapons program in the early 2000s, according to Western intelligence officials who decided to release officially the information to the Institute on the condition of remaining anonymous. The two sites, Sanjarian and Golab Dareh, were central to the Amad Plan’s development of a sophisticated multipoint initiation (MPI) system to initiate the high explosives for spherical implosion in a nuclear weapon, to develop and test high-speed diagnostic equipment or their subcomponents, and to conduct a range of tests to ensure that the MPI system and diagnostic equipment worked.  The officials emphasized that this recent activity is being conducted by experts in the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (aka SPND or SEPAND) who participated in weaponization work in the Amad Plan. SPND is a DARPA-like defense entity, which evolved from the Amad Plan, and still holds many of the personnel and material assets of the Amad Plan and is widely viewed as the locus of Iranian work on nuclear weaponization. The former AMAD personnel involved at these two sites appear to have freedom of action within SPND.

This is but one data point that shows that Iran had indeed resurrected its nuclear weaponization program that the West insisted had laid dormant for so long.

David Albright of ISIS reported yesterday that, based on satellite image analysis, Israel destroyed most (but not all) of the Sanjarian facilities. 

He notes that the IAEA has never visited Sanjarian.

Israel is saving the world. 

[rendakuenthusiast]

Speaking of atoms, I was driving in my car earlier tonight and musing on alternate conceptual metaphors a civilization might use for atomic theory. If your language isn't going to use a term borrowed from a prestige language meaning "uncuttable" for an atom, what other words would make sense? Japanese uses the word kaku, originally the stone of a fruit, for a variety of concepts involving coreness including the atomic nucleus; so perhaps using "core" or "(fruit) stone" for an atom is not a crazy idea (if this civilization like ours conceived of the existence of atoms before discovering that they have internal structure). Or perhaps extending the sense of "speck (of dust)", to mean an extremely small point-like quantity of a substance. I was also musing on alternate conceptual metaphors for positive and negative electrical charge, and gender is a choice that a civilization might reasonably have hit upon (much to the chagrin of some types of genderqueer feminism). The terms positive and negative in our own history of science apparently date to Benjamin Franklin's electricity experiments; but I think even someone in his position could have come up with the idea of a male and female element to "electrical fluid". Would it be better if the electron or the proton ended up being the atomic subcomponent associated with femininity? I'm not sure if there's any better way to conceptualize quarks than three-color human vision. I figure once your society discovers quarks it will almost certainly have discovered additive coloration and might well have discovered the color television; and at that point it's gonna be hard to think of anything other than color adding to describe them.

[wardensantoineandevka]

💛 for unpopular opinion

unpopular opinion ask game

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

I love that this is the only question on the list that requires you to actually explain your choice.

All the obvious ones for C3 are actually rather popular opinions, so I won't go for those, and I've been vocal over the years about my takes about popular C2 PC/PC ships that I cannot get into. So, that's all low-hanging fruit.

That leaves me with few POPULAR ships, as I've yapped a lot about many of the truly popular ones in the past, so I have to choose from simply common ones, not unpopular but not popular.

I've never really said this one: Caleb/Astrid/Eadwulf and all three of its subcomponents as like a ship ship, present-day like actually angling for them to get back together or maybe it can be revisited and be shaped into something workable thing (as opposed to a thing that happened in their past that still weighs on them).

I just... it feels so looking-backward in a character arc that is about not holding on to what could have been, to clinging to what you had once in the hopes that you can still have it, that maybe if you had a chance to redo it that it'll be good and whole. Or something, I'm not really articulating it well here. I feel like that dynamic, forged out of desperation for a comfort in a terrible moment, is something that is best something they all move on past. Caleb especially, as someone who's story this is. It is best left in the past.

[a-photo-every-other-day]

Filament & Anther, 2024

This title is derived from the subcomponents of Stamen, the subject of this picture. The continual problem of macro photography is the depth of field. My macro lens is cheap, although better lenses suffer from the same issue, which is the depth of field is so shallow that only a small portion of the image is in focus. there's not really much to be done about it. The effect is both good and bad, depending on the intended composition.

©2024. This work is licensed via CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[adhdo5]

For the ask game: what do you think of the *other* tragedy triangle aka songxuexiao?

I LIKE THEM. MADNESS INDUCING STUFF. Their narrative positioning in parallel also to Wangningxian and 3zun is so fucking crunchy and Yi City arc hits brutal style every time

Out of subcomponents the one that does the least for me is Songxue; I respect the vision and it's not even that I don't see it – I think triangling them is solid notionally and even essential in fixits – but I am just not convinced they like each other in canon and the thing is I need characters to like each other or at least have a reason to want to get along. Xuexiao and Songxiao DO make me insane on this note... what can I say "extremely rare compassion and guy who doesn't know how to react to it normally" and "doomed partners" are compelling as fuckkkkk to me I love it when characters are so fucking important to each other and this is kind of also why I see it as a V rather than a triangle in canon because there is something so broken glass beautiful about the idealism of Songxiao and the ~kind of practical goodness of Xuexiao and the ways that their incompatibilities, especially due to how XY is as a symptom of what he represents, mean that that ideal and reality fail to coexist. Like, it's Xue Yang who delivers "save the world? You can't even save yourself" . What if we all blow up and die.

So um. 👍

[nommi707]

Blog Post #4 - Week 6

Why is race significant, or even more significant in the digital world than in the real world? What most individuals do not realize is that the concept of "race" was mainly established as a way to suppress the freedom to express oneself and to put the idea of what a person's identity should be restricted in a "box". Arguments about race were ways of "wrestling with difficult questions" as a way to return to less controversial topics, making it seem like anything that has to do with race and its subcomponents were taboo; for as long as history has been recorded, there has always been this avoidance of "race" specifically seen in white communities as if it is like an act in keeping some form of control over others. But what does that have to do with the cyberspace? With technology, you are believed to think you have freedom in expressing yourself, but in actuality, your expression is suppressed the same way that the concept of "race" was created in the real world. In "Race in Cyberspace", the authors highlight that "race matters in cyberspace precisely because all of us who spend time online are already shaped by how race matters offline", which signifies that even though the digital space is shaped to feel like it may not be the same as in the real world, it is more similar than different as we, the users, are feeding technology in a way that mimics how current society is like (5). Race shows its significance in the digital world because of the way we behave, reflecting on our real-life decisions and actions and in turn, we get results that we see in our everyday scrolls that we do not like; this contradicts the cause that many people portray in-person against biased racial behavior, yet they have no problem in showing this behavior in an online space.

Is the 3D Realms: Shadow Warrior the result of pure ignorance? In some form, there is ignorance to what the point of the game is in terms of portraying the Asian community. The theme of the game was to play on the stereotypes that the American industry had on Asian background, which was very limited as many believed all Asians were the same or similar compared to the vast diversity and better portrayal of Asians in entertainment now. While the creators of 3D Realms did not see it as a problem, but rather as a joke or comedy against previous perspectives on the community, many others thought otherwise as it continued to paint Asian individuals in this negative light. Even if it was not intended in that way, it still added to the oppression and hate that the Asian community faces for being who they are, basically "adding fuel to the fire" and setting back the progress made in attempts for Asians to be seen as more than those stereotypes. The game also builds on the stereotypes of women, mainly sexualizing them through enhancing their breasts as a way to captivate more revenue, and it places this image as if they are just "objects" for men to fond over and do with however they like through the main character's inappropriate behavior; this specific portrayal is specifically used to get white, typically older men, hooked in their game as a lot of the perspective on Asians and more so Asian women is through fetishism and it is an occurring problem even today. The creators may say that it is not ignorance if they are aware of what they are portraying and use it as a joke against old stereotypes from the 60s through the 80s so it would not be taken seriously, but even so, their actions in knowing these portrayals are still hurtful and still continue to use them for the fun of it shows that they are in fact ignorant to the situation and prioritize their own profits over being properly informed.

What is "voice-activated" racism? Racism can be portrayed through different forms of speech, whether verbally or through words online. With "voice-activated" racism, it is used through verbal language where one party will make remarks against another out loud for others to hear. In Nakamura's TedTalk, she uses the example of Rampage Jackson, who is a well-known martial arts fighter through his experience in playing video games, specifically Halo. Jackson reports his experience of playing the new Halo game that allowed in-game voice chat, where those who heard his voice were triggered and led them to make racist remarks against him for being a Black individual. In addition to their comments, his own teammates would also go against him, often killing him off rather than focusing on the opposing team in the match. Dr. Nakamura highlights the significance of this form of racism, in which despite the other players not even knowing what Jackson really looked like outside of the game, they assumed based on what they knew, his voice, and backlashed against him in a very intense form of racism; in some point during our lives, we have at least heard one person talk about how "words can cut sharper than knives" or in a similar format, where what we say can have a more-lasting impact on a person's conscious compared to being physically attacked. In my experience, I have seen a lot of this "voice-activated" racism through current videos, like Roblox. Since the implementation of voice chat for those old enough, it has often been overused and utilized as an extension in verbally attacking individuals for their avatars and being who they are, which also ties into the other form of racism through a person's avatar; the downside to this behavior is that more and more kids are picking up these behaviors, thinking that they are okay to use since others are using it and you have kids verbally attacking other individuals who may also be a kid and say things that should normally not be said.

How is racism carried on in the digital world, even when you do not use your real identity? Dr. Nakamura speaks about a popular player in Second Life known as Jenny Varian, in which she is met with a graphic designer who specializes in making custom skins for players and he wanted her to model one of his skins as a way to gain business. When Varian did, she gained attention she did not expect; for individuals who were African-American in the real world, they complimented on her "bravery" for having this skin as there are a lot of individuals who are biased against those who portray themselves like this, and with Varian's friends, they fed into this biased perspective against "colored" skins as they asked her when she would change her skin back or if she could change it back since her original skin portrayed her better and it was more appealing. This exchange from both sides highlights that even in the digital world where no one has to know the real "us", racism and discrimination continue to exist because of the already pre-existing ideals from the real world. The quote from Kolko's article stating that "race matters in cyberspace precisely because all of us who spend time online are already shaped by how race matters offline, and we can't help but bring our own knowledge, experiences, and values with us when we log on" perfectly highlights this experience as it signifies that the digital world is just a reflection of the real world in a different format (5). Unless we as a society can change our perspectives on how we perceive "race", then the behavior in the digital world will not change either.

Kolko, B. E., Nakamura, L., Rodman, G. B. (2000). Race in cyberspace: An introduction.

Ow, J. A. (2003). The revenge of the yellowfaced cyborg terminator.

Nakamura, L. (2011). 5 types of online racism and why you should care. [Video]

[mariacallous]

The U.S. defense industrial base just got a $20 billion shot in the arm from the national security supplemental bills passed by Congress last week. But although officials and experts believe the funding will provide a much-needed jolt to military production and help open up new factory lines, some say it’s still not enough to respond to China, Russia, and terror threats at the same time.

“We have begun—begun—to rebuild the industrial base with the supplementals,” Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, said at an event last week. “Calling it a wartime footing, no.”

The biggest need? Money. Officials and experts say that the United States needs more of it, lots more, to make the real investments. At the peak of World War II, the United States was spending nearly 40 percent of its GDP on defense. It’s down to less than a tenth of those spending levels now. And the need to spend more has gone up with the Chinese spending more—and with Russian factories working around the clock.

“It’s still shy by quite a bit [for] what you would need to get our stockpiles in the right shape, get our industrial base in the right shape, help the Taiwanese, and get the Ukrainians in a position that they can get some leverage in negotiations,” said Jeb Nadaner, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial policy. “If the benchmark is against the calendar and the clock, we’re still falling behind every month. And that can’t go unnoticed by China.”

But the jolt will allow the United States to surge artillery production and solve key bottlenecks.

One is the production of solid rocket motors used for everything from Javelin anti-tank weapons that can hit a tank from a little over a mile away to intercontinental ballistic missiles that can propel warheads across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans if a U.S. war with Russia or China ever went nuclear.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, which was recently bought out by L3Harris Technologies for nearly $5 billion, was one of only a few suppliers. But the supplemental gives several billions of dollars for companies, such as Orbital ATK, to expand their solid rocket motor facilities.

And it provides money from the Defense Production Act—the same law that Washington used to force U.S. manufacturers to produce more masks, gloves, and face shields during the coronavirus pandemic—to build out a second tier of rocket motor suppliers, including X-Bow Systems in Texas; Ursa Major in Colorado; and Adranos in Mississippi, which was recently bought out by defense technology company Anduril. The idea is to fast-track work that wasn’t going to be done until at least 2026, if not 2027 or 2028, according to a congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about military contracts that hadn’t been made public.

There’s also about $100 million to help Williams, one of the only American makers of cruise missile motors, speed up production in Michigan. Those motors are used in the long-range anti-ship missile that might one day help Taiwan fend off Chinese landings; the armor-piercing joint air-to-surface standoff missile; the Tomahawk land attack missile that is the U.S. Navy’s weapon of choice; and the Harpoon missile that the Ukrainians have used in the Black Sea.

There’s also money to build factories for ball bearings, printed circuit boards, and other subcomponents for the $311 billion that the Pentagon wants to spend in the upcoming year to develop new weapons. Processor assemblies, castings, forgings, microelectronics, and seekers for munitions have been major bottlenecks. And there are recruitment and attrition problems almost across the board, from welders at shipyards to rocket engineers, a generational problem that might need vocational-training fixes at the high school level and up.

But with some Democrats pushing back on the Biden administration’s $850 billion Pentagon budget proposal as too costly, there’s also a focus on smaller attritable capabilities that don’t need a whole lot of start-up capital or defense industrial muscle to get moving.

There’s a ton of counter-drone money, about $600 million, that will go toward Coyotes, a small drone capable of intercepting other drones, and Roadrunners, an air defense munition that takes off vertically—just like the F-35 fighter jet variant flown by the U.S. Marines.

Some members, such as House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith, have advocated for ending production of ground-launched nuclear weapons. Congress is also trying to scrap old weapons, including F-15 fighter jets, the A-10 Warthog aircraft, and littoral combat ships used by the Marines. Smith is even curious about using microwaves as the next generation of air defense instead of directed energy.

The United States is also torn between near-term needs, like 155 mm artillery ammunition, and long-term needs—like a sixth-generation fighter jet that will follow the F-35. “There are going to have to be some trade-offs between preparing for a near-term fight and near-term deterrence and probably making some trade-offs on some next-generation weapons systems,” said Seth Jones, the senior vice president and director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is still going to be a major factor in setting requirements for the U.S. military. ��We’re going to be selling 155 [mm] like a drunken sailor for a few years,” said Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The Western alliance needs the U.S. to crank 155 [mm] for a decade.”

Other weapons used in the early days of Ukraine’s defense of Kyiv are likely to hit a plateau in production. Those include Javelin systems; the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS; and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which the Pentagon sent to Ukraine in large numbers early in the war and are also included in the supplemental, but which have taken on a secondary role as the fight has been bogged down in trench warfare for months and months.

Allies can help solve some of the bottleneck problems. The United States is co-developing new glide-phase interceptors with Japan as well as co-producing guided multiple-launch rockets with Australia and guidance-enhanced missiles for Patriot air defenses with the Germans. But after the political fights that took the supplemental more than six months to get through Congress, LaPlante and other officials acknowledged that the United States now has an image problem in showing itself to be a reliable torch-bearer for the global defense industrial base.

There’s another major production plateau that members of Congress are trying to stave off: attack submarines. The Biden administration’s proposed budget for the upcoming year slashed funding for one attack submarine. For years, producing two a year had been the standard, even though U.S. shipyards only produce between 1.2 and 1.4 Virginia-class submarines each year, and new variants are 24 to 36 months behind schedule.

And there are dependencies that are difficult—if not impossible—to cut. The United States still buys a significant amount of its titanium from Russia, which is used for everything from landing gears to tank armor, and is only slowly ramping up production of rare earth minerals, which are dominated by China. But the U.S. military’s weapons are ravenous for rare earths: The F-35 needs 900 pounds of rare earths to run, and the Virginia-class submarines need more than 10 times that amount. The military also needs lithium ions used in advanced battery production that China also dominates.

Where Congress and the Pentagon are having more trouble jolting the defense industrial base to life is for weapons that might be used in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. Army’s precision strike missile that would be used to hit incoming Chinese ships from more than 600 miles out, for instance, is still being developed—the seeker that would find enemy vessels isn’t finished—so there’s no way to ramp up capacity, at least not yet.

But before the United States ramps up industrial capacity, some members of Congress want the Pentagon to take a good, hard look at what’s already on the books.

“Where can we look within the budget and say, wouldn’t we be better to spend more money on these things that we really do need?” Smith said. “So before I get into a discussion about, ‘Gosh, it’d be great if we had another $50 billion,’ where are we spending the money that we have? I think that’s the first question.”

[iknowseye]

What components can go into it, in order to help it be what it was meant to be?

What path do you need to go on, and why is it important?

How does this notion get us to prospering as an individual, or as a collective?

What does human flourishing look like?

How do we get concepts to where we want them to go?

= THE ROOT OF EMPOWERMENT =

The energy of a sentence comes from the verb—the action; the identified passion. A verb is a focal point; a modifier is a boost of energy; participles act as adjectives, as they add more information to the noise… these are all lenses of a whole.

Refocus identification—try and narrow the search of a concept by creating subcomponents—by naming qualities, explaining the perspective, organizing, listing, and expanding for others on why this is important; for, this forges pathways to profound understanding and establishes portals to unification.

🗣️🏳️‍🌈🫂🍴🍚

#freewillsun

[what-the-stark]

@fvzzyelf from x

So this hadn't been all his idea, but it was enough his that he hadn't minded being put up on the block for it in the PR arena. Tony had been blamed for far worse when he'd actually meant well, and this? Was a program that was actually doing some good. Quantifiable good; numbers, statistics, things he could work with.

And he could work with this guy, too. Though he didn't really look like he was up for a quality team-building experience at the moment. And Tony got that. He did. Mr. Wagner — Kurt, apparently — had basically been conscripted and politely told to suck it up for mutants everywhere. It wasn't as if he couldn't have said no, plenty of folks had, but he'd stepped up to the plate.

Which was admirable, obviously, and they could use the help. No need to make him any more uncomfortable than he clearly already was.

"Oh, you're good to go. We just needed everyone together for that promo shot." Tony eyed him curiously over his phone, pulling up a small UI for a new project file as he spoke, blue light oscillating beneath his fingertips. "We don't actually have a dress code, you know? Fury went pretty hard for it back in the day, but that definitely did not stick. Bruce never would have made the team; his ass was out more often than not."

Enlarging the panel that hung in the air between them, Tony assigned a relative avatar, squinting briefly at Kurt as he estimated his height and weight. "Since you're here, though. You'll be on my squad, so I might as well get a head start on your kit. You have any, ah...unique logistical requirements, armor-wise?" Breaking into a grin, Tony pulled up another panel for subcomponents. "Which is my way of asking if you're gonna drop said meticulously crafted kit like a bad habit the first time you do your thing. I'd just wait and see the show, but this is for science."

[jenroses]

the tech tree for literally every part of modern life is terrifyingly complex.

A desktop computer is made up of a case, a motherboard, power supply, a cpu, a video card (maybe), RAM, storage, fans, speaker, webcam, mouse, keyboard.... but every one of those components has subcomponents, there are circuitboards and rf or wifi or bluetooth transmitters in a lot of the mice and keyboards, the individual keys, the shells. The motherboard has thousands of subcomponents. The CPU is so complex that it defies imagining without a WHOLE lot of teaching. The graphics card is practically a computer all by itself. And right now, almost every new high end computer in the world is relying on a single company's chips (and it's not Intel). It's based in Taiwan. Taiwan is using that fact to help protect themselves from China.

Every component is a mix of materials ranging from sand to rare metals and these are not things you can just bootstrap in a few years, they all have been developed over decades from supply chain to manufacturing technique, you need machines capable of the level of precision to manufacture the machines with the level of precision...

But like, every cell phone is nearly as complex, only smaller.

Every new car these days has a computer or six onboard.

Every refrigerator, oven, microwave, washing machine....

We are so interdependent.

watch PearlMania500's response, that guy gets supply chain. I work in supply chain and that is exactly what everyone should be thinking about

But no, most people don't even know how their food gets to the grocery store

[vatt-world]

hi

Watches for New Files Monitors directories or HCP/S3 for inbound files.

Triggered via scheduled job or Kafka metadata message.

✅ 2. Reads File Content Uses FileManagerAdapter (e.g., LocalFileLoaderAdapter, HCPFileManagerAdapter).

Reads CSV/flat file line-by-line.

✅ 3. Validates File Structure Uses BulkScoringOrderValidationService

Checks for:

Proper batch header/trailer (BH / BT)

Record count consistency

Required fields present

✅ 4. Creates Domain Object Builds a BulkScoringOrder: ///////

This Spring Batch + Kafka microservice ingests raw payment instruction files (like CSV), validates and transforms them into structured scoring records, and sends them to downstream services via Kafka.

Kafka (BulkScoringOrder) ↓ S3: Download files → Batch Job Launched ↓ Step 1: File Header → FileHeaderInfo → Mongo Step 2: Batch Header → BatchHeaderInfo → Mongo Step 3: Instructions → ScoringOrder → Kafka + Mongo + Redis

✅ Core Responsibilities

Stage Purpose Kafka Consumer Listens for file arrival metadata (BulkScoringOrder) S3/Local File Access Reads actual instruction and header files Spring Batch Job Launches the step-based processing flow

Validation + Transformation Maps raw lines to domain objects (ScoringOrder, FileHeaderInfo)

Redis Tracks inflight status (INFLIGHT_PROCESSING, TRANSFORMED, etc.) ///// High-Level Flow Listens to Kafka topic validated-out

Retrieves Account info from Redis

Enriches the Payment object

Persists to MongoDB

Publishes enriched message to Kafka topic enriched-in

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 🔁 Execution Steps 🟢 1. Kafka message arrives PaymentEnrichmentKafkaClient consumes message from validated-out

Message payload is a Payment object

🧠 2. Enrichment decision Reads isProcessingEnabled flag (@ConfigProperty)

/// Transformation Service – High-Level Overview ✅ 1. Consumes Validated Instructions Reads messages from Kafka topic received-out

Messages contain raw payment data (e.g., ACXInstruction)

✅ 2. Deserializes Dynamically Uses GFDTransformableDeserializer

Detects PaymentType (e.g., ACX) from Kafka headers

Converts to matching instruction class (e.g., ACXInstruction)

✅ 3. Transforms Into Standard Format Invokes InstructionTransformationUseCase

Internally uses InstructionMapperFactory + ACXInstructionMapper

Converts raw input into GFDInstruction

✅ 4. Enriches and Wraps As ScoringOrder Combines GFDInstruction + Kafka headers into ScoringOrder

Adds metadata like gfdId, batchId, and status: TRANSFORMED

/// Kafka Consumer Layer (Adapter) Class: SubmitterKafkaClient

Listens to enriched-out Kafka topic.

Extracts headers using MessageHeaderUtils.

Builds a ScoringOrder domain object.

Invokes PaymentPFDMapper to create the byte stream.

Emits the final message to pfd-request topic.

Updates the transaction status in Redis via InflightOutputPort.

Business Logic Layer Interfaces & Services:

SubmitterUseCase – Defines the core business operation.

SubmitterService – Implements the logic: validate, map, update status.

Domain Layer Main Domain Classes:

ScoringOrder: Root domain object.

GFDInstruction: Enriched transaction info.

TransactionInfo, Addenda, Payee, Address: Subcomponents.

InFlight: Tracks processing state of an instruction. //

The File Egress Service is responsible for moving enriched and processed fraud scoring files to their final destination (e.g., cloud bucket, downstream system) and updating processing status in Redis.

It acts after the Submitter service and before Notification or Export/Audit systems.

🧱 Core Responsibilities Task Details ✅ Listen to Kafka Consumes from egress-requested-out topic. 📦 Move Files Transfers file from input → output bucket (e.g., S3/HCP). 🔄 Update Processing Status Updates Redis with SCORING_FILE_MOVED_TO_OUTPUT_FOLDER. ❌ Handle Missing Files Validates file presence before move. ⚙️ Modular & Configurable Uses Quarkus config injection for paths, buckets, endpoints.

🧩 Architecture Overview pgsql Copy Edit ┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Kafka Topic: egress-requested-out │ └────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐ │ FileEgressKafkaClient │ │ → Triggers moveFile() use case │ └──────────────────────────────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐ │ FileEgressInputPort (UseCase) │ │ - Moves File │ │ - Updates Redis status │ └───────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │ ▼ ▼ ┌────────────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────────────────┐ │ FileSystemAdapter │ │ InflightRedisAdaptor │ │ - Validates file exists│ │ - Writes status to Redis │

/////////

file-generator service is responsible for:

✅ Listening to Kafka for FraudDecision messages, ✅ Tracking progress of a batch using Redis, ✅ Generating a response file when all decisions for a batch are received, and ✅ Uploading the file to object storage (e.g., HCP or S3).

🔄 High-Level Flow less Copy Edit ┌──────────────────────┐ │ Kafka Topic: │ │ file-collecting-out │ └─────────┬────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌────────────────────────────────────┐ │ file-generator Kafka Consumer │ │ (@Incoming FraudDecision messages) │ └────────────────┬───────────────────┘ │ [Extract gfdId from decision] │ ▼ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Redis (Inflight Tracker) │ │ - total expected children (from earlier)│ │ - increment processed count │ └────────────────┬────────────────────────┘ │ [Check if all children received] │ ▼ ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Format content for response file │ │ (e.g., line per decision: TXN001|OK) │ └────────────────┬─────────────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Write file using FileSystemAdapter │ │ - Local path: /scoring/temp/GFD123.txt│ └────────────────┬──────────────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Upload file to S3 (HCP) using │ │ HCPFileHandlingAdapter │ └────────────────┬────────────────────────────┘

[circuitcardassembly]

How Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) Differs from Circuit Card Assembly (CCA)?

In the electronics industry, words like PCBA and circuit card Assembly (CCA) are often used. Despite their equality, however, there is a significant difference in references, applications and scope of these words. Understanding the difference between PCBA and CCA is crucial for experts working on electronic systems for engineers, designers and buying experts.

Understanding of printed circuit board Assembly (PCBA)

The Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) refers to the process where electronic components are mixed on a bare PCB to create a completely functional tray. This includes growing active and passive components such as resistance, capacitor, integrated circuit (ICS), contacts and more. The PCBA process includes a combination of Surface Mount Technology (SMT), through-Hole Technology (THT) or both. Following the assembly, the board reviews test processes such as Automated Optical Inspection (AOI), in-Circuit Test (ICT) and functional testing to ensure quality and reliability.

Typically, PCBA is utilized to portray both the manufacturing handle and the coming about board. It centres particularly on the populated board itself and not the total framework in which it will inevitably operate.

What is Circuit Card Assembly (CCA)?

Circuit Card Assembly (CCA) is a broader term that can allude to a completed electronic Assembly that may incorporate not as it were the populated board but too connectors, protecting, mechanical latches, and now and then lodging components. The term CCA is regularly utilized in businesses like aviation, defense, and broadcast communications where complex electronic modules are built as portion of bigger systems.

A Circuit Card Assembly may comprise of one or more PCBAs mounted inside a chassis or case, total with wiring, warm administration components, and extra mechanical bolsters. It is a more all encompassing term that goes past the uncovered board to incorporate extra parts essential for sending in real-world environments.

Key Contrasts Between PCBA and CCA

1. Scope:

• PCBA refers specifically to the assembled circuit board with electronic components.

• CCA encompasses the entire assembly that includes the PCBA along with mechanical and structural elements.

2. Usage Context:

• PCBA is commonly utilized in customer hardware, car, and common gadgets manufacturing.

• CCA is predominant in exceedingly controlled divisions like aviation and military, where point by point system-level congregations are essential.

3. Complexity:

• A PCBA is typically a subcomponent within a larger device.

• A CCA may represent a standalone module ready for integration into larger systems.

4. Terminology Origin:

• PCBA is more commonly used in commercial and industrial electronics manufacturing terminology.

• CCA stems from military and aerospace documentation and procurement language.

Conclusion

While Printed Circuit Board Assembly and Circuit Card Assembly may show up comparative at to begin with look, they serve distinctive parts in the lifecycle of an electronic item. PCBA centres on the prepare of populating a circuit board, while CCA covers a more comprehensive electronic module. Recognizing the contrasts between PCBA and CCA guarantees superior communication, clearer documentation, and more successful extend arranging over designing and manufacturing groups.