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There's still one type of flying that hasn't been done yet. And I think it could go for some pretty big endurance records.

I think it'd be neat to fly an aircraft at lower altitude, but have it take advantage of a kite (either a tractor or a gyro hooked to generator) on a tether up in the jetstream. If there's enough windshear across that altitude difference, you'd have a lot more power available than any solar flier.

Yeah, the idea of a wind-powered aircraft sounds impossible. But a study back in the 1970's said it was feasable. They just lacked the cheap and lightweight automated control systems back then which would make such a system reasonable. And such a system would require close to constant attention in order to make it work.

I'm just wondering why nobody's tried it yet. It would be a bit more interesting and challenging from an engineering standpoint. Is it the patent?

5.56mm and similar rounds are being sought after less and less due to their lack of range.

Checkout : Marksmen issued better rifles in Afghanistan (7.62mm DMR)

And: SCHOOL OF ADVANCED MILITARY STUDIES: Increasing small arms lethality in Afghanistan: Taking back the Infantry Half-Kilometer

Larger caliber helps with that, but it's not a requirement. The caliber of AK-74 is smaller than that of M16, but the latter has looser tolerances, and is generally more reliable as a result

I think everyone here is talking about the ubiquitous AK-47 which shoots the 7.62mm round, a good deal larger than the 5.56mm M16 round. Both the AK-74 and M16 can hit targets accurately out to about 600m. The AK-47 and other guns that chamber the larger 7.62mm round, the M14, DMR or SVD for example, can hit targets accurately out to 800m and can shoot out to 1000m or more. The 7.62 round has almost twice the kinetic energy as the smaller 5.57 round. A lot of engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq take place between 400m and 1000m where 5.56mm rounds just don't reach their target, so being accurate just doesn't matter as much as being able to put rounds far enough to reach the target.

It's accurate enough at most realistic ranges of engagement ... 200-300m.

5.56mm and similar rounds are being sought after less and less due to their lack of range. Bigger does not mean less accurate, it just means further distances and more kinetic energy impacting the target.

Checkout : Marksmen issued better rifles in Afghanistan (7.62mm DMR)

And:
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED MILITARY STUDIES: Increasing small arms lethality in Afghanistan: Taking back the Infantry Half-Kilometer

Of course any long range discussion cannot truly take place without the mention of the .338 Lapua Magnum. Taking out targets at almost two miles away is just mind boggling.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/announcements/dodrootcertificates.html 'nough said

This, previously mentioned fellow Researcher is on a hot trail - an update:

The paper was re-done in 2001.

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA417629

Now, from a completely different team Researcher, same trail:

Another paper on that same line from the Navel Post Graduate School.
It makes reference to the Myers' thesis.

"A Demonstration of the Subversion Threat" by Emory A. Anderson

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.149.5898&rep=rep1&type=pdf

If you'd like to help, or know more (serious research only please):

hylas(a+)operamail(d0t)com

Me?
I got nothing.

(lately) ;-)

I'm still reading the paper.

As far as Chertoff, a Cold War means nothing when you're fighting Ghosts (and your own Computer).

If you're worried about headbutts, use an infrared laser then - stuff from 400-1400nm can get to the retina, and visible spectrum is 390-750nm. And people also conveniently sell 1-1.5 watt laser pointers in the 800-1400 nm range: http://www.amazing1.com/laser_pointers.htm

I doubt the blink reflex works for infrared lasers.

The people with digital cameras or video cameras might detect your laser (see for yourself with an infrared remote control).

Anyway, maybe they can treat some laser eye damage, with light! http://www.warp-heals.com/pdf/DARPA_Soldier_Self_Care.pdf
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA445026

I'm sorry, the only source of information about a war is a picture of a dead soldier in a major newspaper?

I just googled combat dead in Iraq and found photos.

Desert Storm had a press pool.

http://web1.duc.auburn.edu/~benjadp/gulf/gulf.html

In OIF we had embedded reporters who had much less restrictive rules than Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Serbia or Desert Storm had.

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA423756&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/rodriguez.pdf

But for death porn, no it hasn't been as widespread as it was in Vietnam.

Even with per-satellite latency, you're nowhere near GEO delay.

You can get close to the flight-time delay of geo (250ms or so) if you include enough instances of per-node transmission time in your back-of-the-envelope calculations. Each node requires a non-zero amount of time to transmit its packet of data to the next hop. For a geostationary, that's a single fixed chunk of latency. (Only one hop). For Iridium et al, that's once per lateral hop. And Inmarsat BGAN has pretty good throughput: 64kbps. Iridium, OTOH, seems to run at best 10 kbps, so each Iridium hop can potentially have more than six times the per-packet per-hop latency.

However, an Air Force Institute of Technology study seems to indicate that simulated Iridium end-to-end latency works out, on average, to 178 ms, so it would seem a bit more responsive than Inmarsat. In fact, this AFIT paper, top of Page 8, indicates that it'd take 14 LEOsat hops to get end-to-end latency comparable to geostationary distance-based delays. So those clever folks at Iridium seem to have found some good optimizations.

All of that said, I agree, Iridium was pure genius. Technically. From the business plan perspective, not so much. But I'm sure the Department of Defense is glad for final outcome. For low-bandwidth data, Iridium modems are simply brilliant. Great way to, for instance, collect data from isolated weather observation systems and pipe them back to the big meteorology centers for analysis and numerical forecasting.

As a student of war, I cannot agree more: even as a participant of these recent hostilities, I recognize, and have been taught, that the purpose of war IS NOT revenge (or retaliation). War occurs in many forms, but the one's involving "killing people and breaking things" tend to get folks all (rightfully so) upset.
War is a way to get somebody (a leader/and its people) to do something they refuse to do otherwise.



ps: let's please stop getting all sniffy about war hurting civilians, it hurts pretty much everybody.

As a student of war, I cannot agree more: even as a participant of these recent hostilities, I recognize, and have been taught, that the purpose of war IS NOT revenge (or retaliation). War occurs in many forms, but the one's involving "killing people and breaking things" tend to get folks all (rightfully so) upset.
War is a way to get somebody (a leader/and its people) to do something they refuse to do otherwise.



ps: let's please stop getting all sniffy about war hurting civilians, it hurts pretty much everybody.

Well, as a historian who has researched the Soviet Union, at least the last 20 years of the USSR, I can say that I trust them about as far as I can throw the Urals.

A society who wouldn't tell the truth about something as simple as the KAL 007 or their experiences in Afghanistan* can't be trusted with something like this.

* The Bear went over the Mountain - http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA316729 - shows how clueless and adverse to the truth the Soviet and Russian military were and are.

I didn't know what one of these is until google helped.

The basic idea appears to be that you bounce a signal off the enemy radar array to jam it or generate false images in it, and use genetic algorithms to optimize the signal (a waveform based on a genetically controlled polynomial it seems) based on what it returns.
The fighter jet would include an "ECM Library" of algorithms from which the radar man and the genetic algorithms presumably can select functions to create new waveforms.

The way the article is written, it looks like fighter jets would also be somehow wirelessly hacking into enemy networks but I haven't seen anything in google about that. If there is anything like that, it would be cool if they could somehow "take over" enemy computing systems maybe via induced voltages somehow but the reality is probably more like hacking into a linksys router like some people have mentioned, i.e. war driving at Mach 1. You would have to be able to detect pretty sensitive return signals to know if you're having any effect and would seem like a pretty subtle mission for a fighter jet.

Military ECM concepts
Electronic Combat Systems

A paper
2
3
4
5

Basic concept

Development of successful electronic countermeasure (ECM) techniques against target track radars is a time-consuming and expensive process. Recently, Nunez et al. reported a genetic algorithm (GA) optimization method for ECM techniques generation; this paper outlines the current effort to implement the approach with an operational radar system and to establish a methodology for arbitrary ECM signal generation in a closed-loop system. While this effort employs GA, the method applies equally to other optimization techniques. After defining the GA fitness function for a generic range gate pull off (RGPO) technique, the ECM signal is implemented with a very fast digital arbitrary waveform generator. The RGPO signal is injected into the radar environment, and the tracking radar response is measured and scored for optimization. The method is suitable for more sophisticated ECM signals and will be studied in future work.

Improvement of ECM Techniques through Implementation of a Genetic Algorithm

Abstract : This research effort develops the necessary interfaces between the radar signal processing components and an optimization routine, such as genetic algorithms, to develop Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) waveforms under a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HILS) architecture. The various ECM waveforms are stored in an ECM library, where an operator selects the desired function to use with a particular system. This optimization works with modular components, compared to previous research that embedded a genetic algorithm into the Range Gate Pulloff (RGPO) waveform optimization loop, which can be interchanged based upon the operator's desired hardware/software testing setup. The ECM library's first entries contain the RGPO and Velocity Gate Pull-off (VGPO) signals, developed mathematically for multiple polynomial profiles representing realistic moving false targets. The Lab-Volt training system and jammer pod provided a validation medium for the developed RGPO and VGPO waveforms. These waveforms were optimized using a Simulink model of the Lab-Volt radar system and the MATLAB Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Direct Search toolbox, contained in Version 7.4 (R2007a), using a defined parameter set, specified for the RGPO

1) the weapon is a short burst weapon, and no, it can't kill you, it only causes discomfort while you;re in the beam, and it causes no cell disruption or actual biurns, only burning SENSATION.

From a military pdf, "With respect to concerns about skin damage, in most instances there is no after-effect. On occasion, some skin reddening and irritation has been observed. The 11,000 exposures produced only eight second-degree burns, six of which consisted of pea-size blisters that healed without medical attention. The other two required medical care; both individuals recovered fully without complications." However it does not say how long exposure was. I bet if you're trapped inside the beam and unable to get away you will be burned.

You misunderstand the difference between DNA and LIFE

BS! And I end there.

Falcon

I'm reminded of one airplane evacuation study where everyone exited the plane in a nice orderly fashion. Then they repeated the same study but paid the people based on the order they exited the plane. Let's just say the results were different. People climbing over seats pushing each other out of the way... Gov study in PDF

You got it the first time. Radio transmission is very difficult in the water. You're pretty much limited to ultra low frequency transmission, like the military uses to talk to subs. It's slow, about 1 bit /sec and might have problems at extreme depths or in complex topography.

Hence, the tether.

Certainly true. Occasionally I see references in journals to things like this - the more sources we can get like that, the better.

There's no original because that's not the spec.

The real spec is DoD 5220.22-M, available at http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html/522022m.htm.

The DoD standard has been superceded by NIST Special Publication 800-88:

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-88/NISTSP800-88_rev1.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence

There's no original because that's not the spec.

The real spec is DoD 5220.22-M, available at http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html/522022m.htm.

I think the term is ex-CIA *Asset*... or at least that is what they say in all the spy novels.

It's in the DoD dictionary, as well as Wikipedia. OBL may not have a CIA 401-k, medical, and dental plan, but he still may have worked for them as an independent contractor. There are other well documented cases of the CIA hiring people as independent contractors.

The beauty of independent contractors is, when somebody says, "that person used to work for you," you can say, "no they didn't," and not be lying. Technically, they aren't on your payroll.

However, I haven't been able to find anyone actually manufacturing or using this composite cable.

I didn't try the right combination of search terms:

Optical fiber composite overhead ground wire
Development of High-Performance Composite Fiber-Optic Overhead Ground Wire

I have actually done some theoretical calculations based upon other people/scientist's "crazy" theories, and it is possible that an explosion the equivalent to a 3 gigaton TNT explosion ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent ) to be created. Depending on where is happens, it might create a crater or hump ( http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Library/Effects/UndergroundEffects.html ), but probably a crater between 10 kilometers to 18 kilometers wide. This explosion would probably create an earthquake between 8.5 and 10.5 on the ritcher scale ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale ) that is felt in Geneve, Switzerland, and an earth quake between 7 and 8.5 felt in Paris, France. The fun thing is that the amplitude of the quake would be very large, and the ground might not even shake more than twice due to the size of the whole thing.

Please note that these calculations assume that all the equipment works perfectly (, or a error of less than a thousandth of a percent). I did account for error in the calculations, especially how practical large/nuclear explosions tend to have caused slightly larger earthquakes than calculated ( http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0617181 ).

Other notes: There exists a chance that a huge explosion would just create a big crater with a small tunnel going toward the center of the earth. If you have trouble visualizing this, try visualizing the Death Star.

Is anyone else putting their aluminum foil hats on and thinking that these scientists are absolutely mad?! And why did these mad scientists get to have a chance to destroy the world before me?

That's their headache. If they only selected an operating system written in Ada too... :-)

I was surprised to learn that satellites are not refueled more often. After a bit of googling, this pdf came up. From page 15:

Although the use of shuttle manned EVA evolutions to conduct on-orbit servicing has proven sucessful in LEO, shuttle operational limits preclude operations above 400nm. Satellites which operate in MEO or GEO with typical altitudes of as high as 22,000 nm are not accessible to shuttle flights at this time.

This was from 1996, but as I understand, basic shuttle capabilities haven't changed much (someone correct me if I'm wrong). I think nm is nautical mile (1.852km).

Actually a particle accelerator could be used to created a beam of neutrino's, as far back as 1978 there has been work on modulating neutrino's.

According to the United States Department of Defense definition collateral damage is the unintentional or incidental injury or damage to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the time. Such damage is not unlawful so long as it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the attack. (Joint Publication 3-60)

Whose military?

The U. S. military?

Wrong. Since you use the phrase "join" you mean "enlist". (The officer equivalent of join is "be commissioned" or "be appointed".)

Quoting DoD Directive 1304.26, "Qualification Standards for Enlistment, Appointment,and Induction":

E1.2.2. Citizenship

E1.2.2.1. To be eligible for enlistment in the Regular
Army or Air Force, an individual must be an American
citizen, or lawfully admitted to the United States for
permanent residence (10 U.S.C., 3253 and 8253, reference
(a)). There is no equivalent statute limiting enlistment
in the Regular Navy and Marine Corps, but they usually
apply the same citizenship requirements as those required
for the Army and Air Force.

E1.2.2.2. To be eligible for enlistment in the Reserve
components, an individual must be a citizen of the United
States or lawfully admitted to the United States for
permanent residence (10 U.S.C., 510, reference (a)).

E1.2.2.3. To be eligible for appointment as a commissioned
or warrant officer, U.S. citizenship is required except
for Reserve appointment where an individual must be
lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent
residence (Sections 532 and 591 of reference (a)).
For regular appointment, when tendered, U.S. citizenship
is required. Law requires National Guard officers
to be U.S. citizens (32 U.S.C., 313, reference (c)).

E1.2.2.4. Citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia
or the Republic of the Marshall Islands also are eligible
for enlistment in the Active and Reserve components.
(See the Compact of Free Association (reference (d)).)

Note the phrase "lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence". That's a Green Card.

Now, don't expect to get any kind of clearance unless you're a citizen, so expect some real limits to the specialties you can be assigned to. But "join"? Absolutely.

Just a shame they test it in Scotland then - with lots of lovely depleted uranium. Aye, it's braw stuff. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3148853.stm

Let us rewind:

• 1990 - Facility at Dundrennan Range, Kirkcudbright announced http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12517010.300-scotland-to-host-rail-gun-testbed-.html
• 1995 - Velocities by 5MJ's performed http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel3/3330/9963/00472945.pdf
• 2003 - First sea trials at 1/8 scale http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2003/05/mil-030512-navsea04.htm
• 2005 - Commenced construction of the new test launcher facility at Dahlgren, VA, using old Army refurbished SDI launcher http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/systems/emrg.htm
• 2007 - Delivery to Dahlgren by BAE of new system - 40 ton, "laboratory" version with removable rails - aiming for 32MJ (scaling to 64) http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/01/aprailgun070117/

And may, I draw you attention to this http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2004armaments/DayII/SessionI/01_Cilli_EM_Gun.pdf. Slides 12/13 are particularly interesting... ("use their test facility at no cost to US")

And yet....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_multiplier
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/force+multiplier
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/10/green.htm
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/4012.pdf
http://https//www.maxwell.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap15/v3c15-1.htm

The first five hits in Google for Force Multiplier are directly referring to combat operations, with the exception of the article talking about Wesley Clark - who just happens to be a General.

It seems to me that I'm perfectly aware of its proper usage. It also seems to me that some people delight in using $5 words when a nickel word would have been perfectly sufficient, or to claim credibility by using professional jargon in every-day discussions.

In large portions of the US, we use this new-fangled thing called hydro-electric power,

The problem with hydro which is often overlooked is the fixed capacity of the system. Many are under the illusion that all you need to do is dam a river with a new dam and wow, free power. Often overlooked is that hydro is gravity power from falling water. That is water moving from one elevation to another. Many people have no clue as to why there is no major (or minor) hydro plants on the mighty Mississippi River. The sad fact is Chicago Illinois is at an elevation of only 700 feet. Just how many 80 foot drop dams are you going to put between the gulf and Iowa? If you put in a dam and let the water back-up.. how much land would be under water? The river is over 2,000 miles long, but most of the elevation is below 1,000 feet. There isn't much falling water in there.
http://www.42explore2.com/missriv.htm

The river does have a system of Dams and Locks, but they are for Navigation, not power generation
"Twenty-nine locks and dams on the Mississippi and eight on the Illinois replaced rapids and falls with a stairway of water for commercial and recreational traffic."

They connected it to one of the Great lakes with a canal.
"The history of navigation on the Upper Mississippi River System goes back to the 1820's, when Congress authorized construction of a canal connecting Lake Michigan and the Illinois River and also authorized removal of snags and other obstructions in several reaches of the Mississippi River."

Remember that water flows downhill. Lake Michigan is at elevation 577 feet above sea level. The canal connects to the Illinois river which than empties into the Mississippi river. Let's face it, there just isn't a lot of elevation drop in the river to supoort power generation. There is barely enough elevation drop to drain a heavy rain.

Here is some stats on a couple of the dams. Both of them have a drop of less than 20 feet. These are not suited for commercial power generation.
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA105334
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA104703

Move on to the mighty Columbia, known for it's hydro. There are many dams in Oregon.

The Columbia River has the water from most of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. It enters Oregon near the Idaho border. One of the major dams is the McNary dam near Hermiston Oregon. The dam has a nominal pool level of 340 feet above sea level. That dam dumps right into the pool of the next dam which has a pool elevation of 265 feet. This stair step drop from pool to pool continues all the way down to the Boniville dam near Hood river. From there the river has very little drop all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Any more dams along there would simply flood out the powerhouse of the next dam upstream. The last dam the bonivile dam has a pool elevation of 74 feet. It discharges into the lower river near Portland Oregon. The river in Portland is at a nominal elevation of about 9 feet above sea level. That is why there are no dams on the Columbia between Portland and Astoria on the coast 80 miles away. If you put in a dam and allowed the pool to fill, all of downtown Portland would be under water.

Hydro power is cheap to produce, but there just isn't any more places with a good head of water to feed the demand for hydro power. There are a few creeks which can support some small hydro, but these are backyard projects. The environmentalists and outdoors men also resist the damming of every little stream. The lower Deschutes river is known for it's white water rafting. Damming that up would be a major legal battle.

In large portions of the US, we use this new-fangled thing called hydro-electric power,

The problem with hydro which is often overlooked is the fixed capacity of the system. Many are under the illusion that all you need to do is dam a river with a new dam and wow, free power. Often overlooked is that hydro is gravity power from falling water. That is water moving from one elevation to another. Many people have no clue as to why there is no major (or minor) hydro plants on the mighty Mississippi River. The sad fact is Chicago Illinois is at an elevation of only 700 feet. Just how many 80 foot drop dams are you going to put between the gulf and Iowa? If you put in a dam and let the water back-up.. how much land would be under water? The river is over 2,000 miles long, but most of the elevation is below 1,000 feet. There isn't much falling water in there.
http://www.42explore2.com/missriv.htm

The river does have a system of Dams and Locks, but they are for Navigation, not power generation
"Twenty-nine locks and dams on the Mississippi and eight on the Illinois replaced rapids and falls with a stairway of water for commercial and recreational traffic."

They connected it to one of the Great lakes with a canal.
"The history of navigation on the Upper Mississippi River System goes back to the 1820's, when Congress authorized construction of a canal connecting Lake Michigan and the Illinois River and also authorized removal of snags and other obstructions in several reaches of the Mississippi River."

Remember that water flows downhill. Lake Michigan is at elevation 577 feet above sea level. The canal connects to the Illinois river which than empties into the Mississippi river. Let's face it, there just isn't a lot of elevation drop in the river to supoort power generation. There is barely enough elevation drop to drain a heavy rain.

Here is some stats on a couple of the dams. Both of them have a drop of less than 20 feet. These are not suited for commercial power generation.
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA105334
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA104703

Move on to the mighty Columbia, known for it's hydro. There are many dams in Oregon.

The Columbia River has the water from most of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. It enters Oregon near the Idaho border. One of the major dams is the McNary dam near Hermiston Oregon. The dam has a nominal pool level of 340 feet above sea level. That dam dumps right into the pool of the next dam which has a pool elevation of 265 feet. This stair step drop from pool to pool continues all the way down to the Boniville dam near Hood river. From there the river has very little drop all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Any more dams along there would simply flood out the powerhouse of the next dam upstream. The last dam the bonivile dam has a pool elevation of 74 feet. It discharges into the lower river near Portland Oregon. The river in Portland is at a nominal elevation of about 9 feet above sea level. That is why there are no dams on the Columbia between Portland and Astoria on the coast 80 miles away. If you put in a dam and allowed the pool to fill, all of downtown Portland would be under water.

Hydro power is cheap to produce, but there just isn't any more places with a good head of water to feed the demand for hydro power. There are a few creeks which can support some small hydro, but these are backyard projects. The environmentalists and outdoors men also resist the damming of every little stream. The lower Deschutes river is known for it's white water rafting. Damming that up would be a major legal battle.

emulated..."

Hmm. Let me see. The Multics system, ran on GE mainframes. So old, they predate a PDP-7.
I believe it ran on a GE-465. VERY WEIRD hardware. 36 bit. Seemed to have some thing about varible sized bytes of 6-bits for compatibility, and 9-bit bytes for emulation and a whole lotta weird stuff. VERY SECURE. And the box had a slit down the middle and could be opened up like a fridge...
( Im going to post this Anonymously so I dont show my age...:(

OPPS. Some was working on emulation:
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0787218
So is this:
http://os.1.vg/projects/ge635/

Combatbot? That ain't a combatbot, THIS IS A COMBATBOT. That's just a little remote controlled toy tank, not much different than a Predator armed with a Hellfire missile, no more intelligent than a remote controlled car.

I was about to post "About damned time"- but that would have been in response to a bot patrolling at random a rectangular set of GPS co-ordinates that fired at anything that set off it's motion detector, not a remote-controlled toy that has to ask "father may I" three times before firing.

Just more proof that the modern army is defective on basic no-man's land tactics that their grandfathers would have been familiar with. And in so doing, guarantees a loss on the battlefield as they try to sort out what God only knows- who is really the enemy. Just kill them all, God can sort 'em out. And in so doing, you can separate populations that want to kill each other, by a line of death that neither can successfully cross.

I also saw a lot of self-organizing work on the Transputers. These were fairly low-power processors (but respectable for the time) that could be trivially wired into a mesh as large as you like. Processes could be divided by the hardware pretty much as the hardware liked. Both code and data could also be declared MOBILE.

Weird list of some historical events in parallel processing - there's a few other examples in there.

The link is to a totally unrelated page http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/f/02 109.html titled fixed station patrol.

I even looked at the page revision history to see if someone had screwed with it; nope.

So, basically your source is a one sentence anonymous quote. Pretty ironic I think considering your reason for posting.

Even considering using devices that could cause permanent blindness is evil. Sometimes the US is characterised correctly.

Yeah, right... http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&met adataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA178183

You realize that they can't say anything else, especially on TV. Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (the laws that govern the conduct of the military) binds the officers and since that worked out so well, they made DoD Directive 1344.10 which extends it to all members of the military. They can't say anything else.

Really? Well, that might have been true back in the 70's or early 80's. However now, post commander have to abide by USC Title 10 Section 2683 which requires the minimum drinking age on a military installation to be at least equal to the drinking age of the state in which the installation resides. This was further codified in DoD Directive 1015.2,

You'd assume so, but copyright law only explicitly excludes works by the U.S. federal Government. States and other local governments can and often do claim copyright on their work. http://cendi.dtic.mil/publications/04-8copyright.h tml#30

For example:

AIREVACCONFIRM
MARCORMATCOM
SCATMINEWARN

These and many others are available here.

For example:

AIREVACCONFIRM
MARCORMATCOM
SCATMINEWARN

These and many others are available here.

For example:

AIREVACCONFIRM
MARCORMATCOM
SCATMINEWARN

These and many others are available here.

For example:

AIREVACCONFIRM
MARCORMATCOM
SCATMINEWARN

These and many others are available here.

Can you try and see things from the other side before you cry for blood? The U.S. is increasingly being seen as an untrustworthy country that has wiped it's collective ass with any treaty that it has signed during it's history. The joke says that the british are waiting for G.W. to void the declaration of independance so they can reclaim their territory. Seriously though, check the "Joint Doctrine for Space Operations" where your government is actively talking about the militarization of space and even worse, "...deny the use of space assets by its adversaries.". It is worded as if the US had a god-given right to own space and define who-can-do-what with it.
(Full text of the document available here.)

The chinese after watching the outcome of the Gulf War in 1991 understood that they would not stand a chance defending themselves in the event of a US attack. Their only option was the deterrent of a full ICBM exchange, which is loosing it's appeal due to, you guessed it, G.W. wiping his ass with the ABM treaties. There is a study on the subject written by a couple of chinese generals that makes emphasis on the need to develop anti-satellite weapons and this is the outcome of their "paradigm shift". I hope this explains the need of the chinese to build and test such technology.

The dangerous part here is that as long as the US foreign policy is seen as expansionistic or imperialistic other countries will be developing technology to defend themselves. And as long as the development of such technology makes the americans feel threatened, the more it will fuel the continuation of the foreign policy that caused this mess in the first place, and so on.

While some of the energetic beta particles had followed of the earth's magnetic field and illuminated the sky, other high-energy electrons became trapped in man-made radiation belts around the earth. There was much uncertainty and debate about the composition, magnitude, and potential adverse effects from this trapped radiation after the detonation. The weaponeers became quite worried when three satellites in low earth orbit were disabled. These man-made radiation belts eventually crippled one-third of all satellites in low orbit. Seven satellites were destroyed as radiation knocked out their solar arrays or electronics, including the first commercial communication satellite ever, Telstar.

For a substantial look at what the existing recommendations are, take a look at this excerpt from DOD directives on secure computer systems. It says that open source is ok but freeware with no access to source and no support is bad. Seems reasonable, no?

"DCPD-1 Public Domain Software Controls
Binary or machine executable public domain software products and other software
products with limited or no warranty such as those commonly known as freeware or
shareware are not used in DoD information systems unless they are necessary for
mission accomplishment and there are no alternative IT solutions available. Such
products are assessed for information assurance impacts, and approved for use by the
DAA. The assessment addresses the fact that such software products are difficult or
impossible to review, repair, or extend, given that the Government does not have access to
the original source code and there is no owner who could make such repairs on behalf of
the Government."

Source: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/i850 02_020603/i85002p.pdf
                (search for the word "freeware")

It's NIPRnet and SIPRnet, not NIPPERnet and SIPPERnet.

But at the end of the day I know that I can see - with my glasses.

At the end of the day, people with laser surgery can basically see. Some have problems with glare, and some develop vision problems that can't be corrected even with glasses, but the procedure basically works for most people despite the risks.

That's at the end of the day. How about at the end of the decade, or of your lifetime, though? This thing has only been done for a short while now, and the longitudinal studies aren't in, by definition.

Military organizations, again, have done studies over shorter periods. Eighteen months is not the measure of this surgery, though. It's performed on a sensitive organ that already has problems with deterioration with age. Given that, I'm not exactly jumping to get it done because of the deals on those special ads that come with the Sunday funnies in my paper.

Are contact lenses such a problem? I can see it for jet pilots, okay, maybe. But for everyday people, what -- you absolutely can't wear goggles when you swim?

So again... Fact someone REPORTED THE NAME OF VALERIE PLAME TO NOVAK. Let me type it in english. Someone reported the name Valerie Plame to NOVAK. Since you dared... 1, 2, 3 (Department of Energy, If left alone, Freeh warned, unbreakable encryption poses a threat to fighting crime through wiretapping., Finally... Case Study of HR 695: The Security and Freedom Through Encryption (SAFE) Act... This is where the government decided to place controls on encryption leaving the US because (guess what...) the government cannot break ciphers as easily as you might think. So when I use the term "Unbreakable Crypto", let me make it clear what I mean... Without the keys its impossible... With the keys... Good luck. It would 1) take too long 2) require more space then there currently is ON THE PLANET 3) by the time they cracked it, it would likely mean nothing.

My guess is the MDA was not reading the DOD guidelines on IA http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html/850 02.htm (among many other pubs) which is pretty clear. Being a classified mission critical system used for warfighting, they would fit into the MAC I, confidentiality=high baseline.

Lets hope their contract gets recompeted so my company can head over there!