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Common Sense, Good Reads, History, Learning, On my mind, Quote, Technology, The way I see it, WSJ articles I like, X/Twitter 13.05.2026 No Comments
Elon Musk just defended America better than every politician in Washington combined.Musk: “After World War 2, the US could have basically taken over the world and any country.
Like we got nukes, nobody else got nukes. We don’t even have to lose soldiers. Which country do you want?”
One nation on earth held a weapon nobody else had.
Total dominance.
Zero competition.
No risk of retaliation.
Every empire in history that held that kind of advantage used it.
Rome. The Mongols. The British. The Ottomans.
They conquered until they collapsed.
America had a bigger advantage than all of them combined.
And it rebuilt the countries it just defeated.
Musk: “The United States actually helped rebuild countries. So it helped rebuild Europe, it helped rebuild Japan. This is very unusual behavior, almost unprecedented.”
Almost unprecedented?
It had never happened before.
Not once in 5,000 years of recorded history.
The Marshall Plan wasn’t foreign aid. It was the most radical act of restraint any superpower ever committed.
America turned its enemies into allies.
Turned rubble into economies. Turned surrender into partnership.
Germany went from ashes to the economic engine of Europe in a generation.
Japan went from unconditional surrender to the third largest economy on earth.
Three years after the war, America was flying food into Berlin.
A city in the heart of the nation that just tried to destroy it.
That’s not policy.
That’s a civilization deciding what it is at the exact moment it has the power to be anything.
You’re being told a story right now.
That America is the villain of history. You hear it everywhere. Media. Universities. Social platforms.
Musk: “There’s always like, well America’s done bad things. Well of course America’s done bad things, but one needs to look at the whole track record.”
Every nation on earth has dark chapters. Every single one.
The difference is what a country does when nobody can stop it.
And when nobody could stop America, it fed its enemies and rebuilt their cities.
Musk: “The history of China suggests that China is not acquisitive. Meaning they’re not going to go out and invade a whole bunch of countries.”
Probably right. China has historically built walls, not fleets.
But the real question isn’t about borders anymore.
We’re approaching a moment that mirrors 1945 in ways nobody has fully processed yet.
AI is going to give a handful of people a power advantage that makes nuclear monopoly look quaint.
If someone is going to hold that kind of power, who do you want it to be?
The country that conquered when it could?
Or the one that rebuilt when it didn’t have to?
Every alliance. Every trade route. Every economy.
Billions lifted out of poverty.
All of it traces back to one act of restraint that had never been done before.
And carries no guarantee of being repeated.
The most powerful thing America ever did wasn’t building the bomb.
It was what it didn’t do after.
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I asked the question had anyone got the frequency for the Artemis trip to the moon. (for those who don’t understand the question to hear comms from the space ship to NASA inflight to and from the moon)With the odd helpful reply i went on the hunt and found this infoWhile you won’t be able to “tune in” with a standard handheld radio to hear the astronauts chatting, dedicated amateur radio operators with specialized equipment are actively preparing to track and receive signals from the Orion spacecraft.The primary communication for Artemis II happens on the S-band (2.2–2.3 GHz) and via a new high-speed Optical (laser) Communications System (O2O).-
Public Access: You cannot hear them directly on standard VHF/UHF ham frequencies. However, many ham radio clubs (like those at NASA’s Johnson and Goddard Space Centers) often rebroadcast mission audio on local repeaters (e.g., 146.640 MHz in Houston or 147.450 MHz in Maryland) during major mission phases.
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Encryption: Much of the modern voice and data telemetry is digital and encrypted for security and mission integrity, meaning even if you “catch” the signal, it would sound like white noise without a NASA-authorized decoder.
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To participate, operators typically use large satellite dishes (often 1.2 meters to 4.5 meters or larger) and Software Defined Radios (SDRs) capable of receiving the S-band spectrum (specifically around 2210.5 MHz).
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The Crew: Three of the four Artemis II astronauts—Reid Wiseman (KF5LKT), Victor Glover (KI5BKC), and Jeremy Hansen (KF5LKU).
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If you have a 2.4 GHz dish and an SDR, you can try to “see” the signal spike on a waterfall display as Orion travels to the Moon. If you just want to hear the crew, your best bet is to listen to the NASA TV live stream or find a local ham repeater that is rebroadcasting the audio feed.
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Infrared photography is a technique that involves capturing infrared light by blocking out all or some frequencies of visible light. The results are unique and otherworldly, and it’s fun to see what the world around you looks like when you capture it in this way.
While you might think that you need a specially adapted camera to partake in this hobby, you might be surprised to hear that you can use a plain old unmodified smartphone, too.
Yes, you can shoot infrared with a phone
Most cameras filter out as much infrared light as possible using what is known as a “hot mirror filter” that sits in front of the sensor. Digital SLR, mirrorless, and point-and-shoot cameras use this to block the vast majority of infrared light, at least enough so that regular exposure times aren’t too badly affected.
Click (HERE) to read the rest of this story published in How To Geek.
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