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If anyone wants to read up on Information Warfare, I suggest you look into the RAND Corporation.

http://vivisimo.rand.org/vivisimo/cgi-bin/query-me ta?input-form=simple&v%3Aproject=pubs&query=inform ation+warfare

And if you ever have a paper to write, go search the RAND publication archives. Those guys have written in-depth papers on everything.

The Internet is a power law network, meaning there are some very well-connected routers out there that a lot of the end-to-end transfers through the Internet go through. These are typically the peering points, owned by Tier 1 ISPs. It's not inconceiveable that if two ISPs don't peer with each other anymore, at some level a partition is created.

When Paul Baran had the task of designing a network that could withstand a nuclear attack, he envisioned a "distributed network". By today's lingo, it's a mesh network where each router is connected to approximately the same number of other routers. But now that routing infrastructure is driven commercially, with tit-for-tat contracts between Tier 1 ISPs, we ended up with what he said was a "decentralized network" -- that is, power law. Not what Paul Baran had in mind. If the underlying topology were his distributed network, you wouldn't be reading this story.

You can read his paper here. The Internet could withstand one nuclear attack. Several well-placed nuclear attacks? That's debatable...

- shadowmatter

Some of those antennas also serve to detect nuclear explosions around the globe. For monitoring other countries' tests and as a warning system. Here's a pretty informative overview on the history of GPS (in pdf).

Man, I dig gps. Used LORAN quite a bit growing up fishing. Useful, but not nearly as easy or informative. Cool.
J

I don't have a large library of such documents or links on hand, but you might try something like this (found near top of search list by by Google w/"large jury awards frequency" search):

http://www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB9025/RB9025. html
http://www.rand.org/publications/CT/CT143/

They are a little old, but I haven't heard any evidence to dispute that the trends have changed since then.

You'll note that although they do say that size of punitive damage awards is going up, they also say that "Despite the attention they have received from policymakers and from the media, punitive damages are rarely awarded". Rand isn't well-known for being a liberal think tank.

Many of the other links are heavily biased & seem to be oriented toward manipulating public perception - often by pointing out the increasing size of jury awards, and then stating without proof that both size AND frequency of jury awards are going up, and that's why we need tort reform.

Here's a link that is admittedly selected because it supports my viewpoint, but seems to list some cases to back up their claims:

http://cms.bio-itworld.com/newsitems/2005/Aug2005/ 08-30-05-opinion-merck/talkback/1125443244/discuss ionitem_view

I don't have a large library of such documents or links on hand, but you might try something like this (found near top of search list by by Google w/"large jury awards frequency" search):

http://www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB9025/RB9025. html
http://www.rand.org/publications/CT/CT143/

They are a little old, but I haven't heard any evidence to dispute that the trends have changed since then.

You'll note that although they do say that size of punitive damage awards is going up, they also say that "Despite the attention they have received from policymakers and from the media, punitive damages are rarely awarded". Rand isn't well-known for being a liberal think tank.

Many of the other links are heavily biased & seem to be oriented toward manipulating public perception - often by pointing out the increasing size of jury awards, and then stating without proof that both size AND frequency of jury awards are going up, and that's why we need tort reform.

Here's a link that is admittedly selected because it supports my viewpoint, but seems to list some cases to back up their claims:

http://cms.bio-itworld.com/newsitems/2005/Aug2005/ 08-30-05-opinion-merck/talkback/1125443244/discuss ionitem_view

When I was in college in the 70's I fell hook line and sinker for the Club of Rome's forecast the world would run out of oil in 1985. Their methods were obviously flawed because they were wrong. Thirty years later, Hubert is trotted out as "this is what we really meant...." In the interim, I've seen markets adjust to constraints, both artificial and structural. I've also seen people be a hell of a lot more adaptable than oil future models can account for. Hell, in the 60's had you said the Secretary of State would be a black woman whose predecessor was a black man, you would have been considered a nut. People adapt. If we ever truly run out of oil somewhere down the line, we'll figure something out - we've demonstrated in the past that figuring it out seems to be something we're capable of.

I recall my sister, who lives in St. Louis, MO, telling me about a light rail system that was planned there some years ago. I wonder what became of that idea.

I lived for 20 years in New York. I would say that the "rite of passage" experienced by 16-year-olds in taking the drivers' education class and getting their license to drive a car is almost unknown in NYC. Some New Yorkers never learn to drive a car -- nor do they care. If they have to get anywhere, it's the subway or a bus or, if the place is inaccessible or they don't know the way, a taxi. And the subways in NYC are faster than most ground transportation.

I now live in Connecticut, near Hartford and still commute into NYC. For me, it's a 40-minute drive to a commuter train (not a subway) and then an hour and forty minutes by train. It's a really long commute and the commuter train might be a little slower than taking a car all the way but it saves on gasoline and reduces pollution and it offers me the chance to read. I'd imagine commuters who take trains into inner cities like NYC and Chicago are more literate than those who drive everywhere.

Having seen (and lived) both sides of the coin, I'm compelled to comment that it takes a certain political will to build commuter systems. And that includes ponying up higher taxes. NYC has a larger budget than all but two states in the US. And metropolitan transit is governed by a board that is mostly controlled from outside the city. While I don't like the governance of the MTA (it's a political football that does not express the will of the people), I am in agreement with paying to play. NYC residents pay federal income tax, state income tax and city income tax. The sales tax in New York City is 4.37% which is added to a 4.25% New York State tax rate, resulting in an 8.62% effective rate. As sales taxes are regressive, they hit those on low incomes harder. But one may argue that the lower incomes also benefit more from a good system of public transportation.

I work with a former Texan who gripes constantly about the high taxes he has to pay in New York. I think he appropriately reflects an overall view in Western states that high taxes are for naught. He also reflects the opinion that governments will tend to muck up any program, versus the private sector (a Libertarian viewpoint).

I will admit freely that the MTA does not control costs well and also tends to pay its managers too well for bad management, while paying those who actually cause the trains and busses to move less, in proportion to those managers.

But, unless the public dedicates itself to voting for higher taxes for the construction of public alternatives to cars, highways, pollution and higher individual transportation costs, nothing will ever work for those "low tax libertarians" in the west. And this cannot be a passing fad; this kind of a movement must be sustained over 20 to 30 years of building.

I would encourage anyone reading this to study France's TGV system, which is transforming the countryside in Northern France. The line north of New York City pretty much ends in New Haven in Connecticut. And it takes an hour and forty minutes to get from New Haven to NYC. Were it a fast TGV system, one could commute from Springfield, MA to NYC in under one hour.

There has to be a national will to build something like that. The current chairperson of the US House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is Representative Thomas Petri of Wisconsin. Now here's a man who may tend to block funding of Amtrak and other rail in favor of roads and cars. This is not to single him out for public disparagement, the man has probably never lived in the northeast corridor, which is the only area of the US well-served by rail. The last Committee chairperson was from Oklahoma and he wanted to zero out all funding for Amtrak.

So if you are interested in public transit, you need to consider two things: Higher taxes and popular will. I would imagine those train tracks that pass close to your house will be torn up before there is any change in either.

protecting a space elevator is really simple to solve

Actually no, that's not its only function. The CIA has many functions with HUMINT actually being one of the smallest, though arguably the most important. It is split up into different departments with the Directorate of Intelligence being the largest. The DI specializes in Analysis and reporting. The Directorate of Operations, which specializes in human intelligence is what you are referring too. The CIA also have a paramilitary wing which was extensively used in Afghanistan. The paramil wing has a role similar to the special forces. It also has a Research and Development wing, which specializes in intelligence technology.

Also an offensive tasking seems like it would more likely be a DoD thing, Airforce maybe though who knows.

The proper parlance is the intelligence world is covert action. And with many departments these days trying to keep up with netwarriors (I don't mean hackers, check the link) they have to assume organisational and offensive formlessness and take up roles which in the past they wouldn't have taken up. This includes the use of covert action by agencies that were considered pre-9/11 as collection agencies.

Just to clarify for some /.'ers who may have a narrow view of intelligence. The intelligence world is split up into collection (HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT, OSINT etc.), analysis, covert action and counter-intelligence. Pre-9/11 most agencies were traditional set in stone in these areas, however due to 4th Generational warriors and netwarriors the traditional agencies have had to change in the areas of organisation, doctrine and culture. So don't think that traditional agencies still keep their same roles. Their roles are blurred and operate under a complete different set of rules from the soviet era.

That is an interesting definition of what happened. According to Webster.com, this is the definition of a subsidy. In other words, the governments of Chicago, Dallas and Saint Louis were all willing to give millions of dollar in tax breaks for somewhere around 500 jobs. That was a subsidy, at least according to Webster's dictionary.

True, but the development of weapons systems does not occur in a vaccuum. The military and Boeing sit in a room together and design the weapons systems together. The military then provides seed money to Boeing and the company uses that money to develop prototypes. For example, the cost of the new Join Strike Figher(see here and here, is on such a long timeline--starting about 1994--and is so expensive that neither Boeing or Lockheed could afford to develop a simple prototype without a government subsidy. Both Boeing and Lockheed spent millions of dollars (both their own and government subsidies) to develop the prototypes over the course of years. In 2001, the military awarded the contract to Lockheed. Note that today, the only two major military aircraft builders are Lockheed and Boeing. It was rumored that if the government didn't provide the contract to Lockheed, it was highly likely that Lockheed would have gone out of business, leaving the US with one manufacturer of military aircraft.

Really? Are they that much different from the Chicago's, Seattle's and San Diego's? All of those cities have provided millions in subsidies for jobs. Are not the national governments of Europe just providing money for Airbus jobs? And, according to some of the articles on a A380, about 40% of the material in the A380 is purchased in the United States. In effect, the Europeans are subsidizing some communities here in the States.

(Note that I am NOT personally in favor of subsidies by any government, I am just pointing out that both Boeing and Airbus are subsidized).

Here's a few other things that are already being done with your (and everyone else's) tax dollars which (presumably) you must like:

• Millions of local tax dollars every year to protect neo-nazis and white supremacists when they hold their yearly rallies
• Tens of millions of dollars to conduct and write bogus DOE studies supporting Yucca Mountain as a long-term nuclear storage facilities.
• Tens of billions of dollars for post Sept. 11 airport security systems that still cannot prevent gun- and knife-toting passengers on commercial airplanes.
• More than a hundred billion of federal tax dollars every year to protect the poppy fields and opium farmers in the nation that supplies 75-80% of the world's heroin (Afghanistan).

Maybe you're okay with these, but I confess to being less-than-thrilled.

I'm all for people paying attention to where taxes go, but subsidizing college education for academically-resourceful yet economically-challenged high school kids (even if they are undocumented) is a far better allocation of resources, imho. It's been proven time and time again that foreigners (whether here illegally or not) who attend high school and college in the US become successful and productive members of our society.

Here's a Rand study about immigrants and education:

http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR718/

Here's another (a little dated, but applicable) paper from the IRDA that touches on economic topics:

http://www.idra.org/Newslttr/1996/May/Abel.htm

As a (somewhat unrelated) side note, the conservative folks who seem to want to pick and choose where their tax dollars go (not to undocumented illegal alien (read: Mexican) lawbreakers!) are oddly also the same people that don't want to document them so that they CAN become taxpayers that stay here. Great. What you get then is an "Envios a Mexico" money-sending station in every taco stand, tire store and boteria in the Latino parts of town -- where are those American dollars going? Yup, down to old Mexico.

As much as I don't care for it, it so happens that my rep is THE Tom Tancredo, and he'd rather lock down the border and shoot those fence-jumpin' spanish-jabbering brown-faced sonsa-bitches than find a way to make 'em taxpayers. I find it kinda ironic, actually, since he claims to be a fiscal conservative, too.

Back in 1968, when DARPA was creating the internet, Paul Baran pointed out that there are potentially 3 different kinds of networks, a centralized 'star' type network, a distributed network (basically what the internet is today), and a decentralized network (p2p).

Please click the link and look at the diagram. It's one of the single most important concepts vital to understanding the structure of the internet.

This is nothing new. The decentralized design was chosen to maximize the price to redundancy ratio. A distributed network is too prone to failure and was not feasable back in 1968 (and still isn't today because of the basic economic structure in America. The internet will remain decentralized as long as the telcos own the phone lines.)

How many non-NRA members (of which catagory I fall into) understand that the 18th century phrase "well-regulated" translates into "subject to regulations of a higher authority" in 20th century American English? Or that the regulation of the militia applies to those actively engaged in militia duty?

Or that "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is a present participle, rather than a clause? That means that the phrase is intended as a justification, not a limitation.

Or who the "militia" entails. In the words of the founding father George Mason: "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for few public officials." Under the US Code, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 13, 311, the militia is legally all males over 17 years of age, plus any females that are part of the National Guard. Anyone not in the National guard and not female is part of the unorganized militia.

Or what the intended purpose of the militia, being the whole of the people, is? In the words of Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts during the floor debate of the Bill of Rights: "What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." From which we can infer that even though we have a standing Army now, it is not necessarily a good thing, Posse Comitatus restrictions notwithstanding.

Consider these roughs drafts of the Second Amendment:

• "That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own states or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals." (by the Pennsylvania Legislature)
• "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a well-armed and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." (by James Madison)
• "That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power." (from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason)

A more modern version of the Second Amendment might be written thus: "No law, rule or regulation infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall be passed, in order that the militia, being subject to regulation of conduct and civilian authority, may be effective in providing security to the nation." The Second Amendment is a limitation on the powers of the government, and a limitation on the powers of any majority bloc, as is all the other Amendments in the Bill of Rights. It is intended to be the final defense against subjugation of the American people, whether from an external power or by their own government.

Finally, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when th

Here is a good overview on laser/light-based and other techniques:

http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1187/MR1187. appc.pdf

From the document: Laser systems that illuminate potential hiding places, or "hides," and detect retro-reflections from the sniper's scope are referred to as optical augmentation systems. These systems have the advantage of possibly detecting the sniper before he fires his weapon. The downside is that the sniper can employ antireflection filters that selectively block the wavelength of the laser. Tunable lasers may reduce the effectiveness of blocking filters in the future.

I don't think the issue is that the U.S. Military is losing wars, or is somehow not prepared tactically/strategically speaking (though funding and morale may be an issue). I mean, the initial stages of the conflict in Iraq were a military success. Similarly, Afghanistan was a successful military action. This simulator will not address the political/economic/ethnic/religious realities that have to be addressed after the fighting stops.

So, if this helps plan for urban combat, and potentially reduce military and civilian casualties, it's a great thing. But, ultimately, the U.S. has no trouble winning wars.....if I may borrow a cliched phrase, the problem is winning the peace.

For an interesting analysis on the logistics of 'nation building', please see this recently completed report.

It's cheaper by a factor of five, according to a detailed study by Rand Corp.

They're hardly a bleeding-heart liberal group, either - they fully support California's "Three Strikes" law as a way to reduce crime. They simply looked objectively at additional methods for crime reduction and found that education incentives are by far the most cost-efficient.

Moreover, these cost/benefit analyses don't even take into account the added economic benefit of having a someone be a contributing member of society (paying taxes) rather than being a pure drain (prison).

Education is much more cost-effective than prison. Unless you like throwing people in jail and paying for the privilege, everyone should be hugely in favour of educating as many people as possible.

Truly random? Well, you could always buy a copy of "A Million Random Digits" but I still don't think it would work out well for you. ;)

The RAND Corporation's the hope of the world,
They think all day long for a fee.
They sit and play games about about going up in flames;
For counters they use you and me.

The status of a 'Think Tank' report is no different to comments on Slashdot although they might be better researched and spell-checked

Let's be clear about what a "Think Tank" is - an organization like Rand, that employs legions of incredibly smart people and produces tomes of actual original thought.

These so-called "think tanks" are nothing more than second-tier market researchers with ideas above their station. Like Gartner and Forrester.

The status of a 'Think Tank' report is no different to comments on Slashdot although they might be better researched and spell-checked

Let's be clear about what a "Think Tank" is - an organization like Rand, that employs legions of incredibly smart people and produces tomes of actual original thought.

These so-called "think tanks" are nothing more than second-tier market researchers with ideas above their station. Like Gartner and Forrester.

... or if it was pushed: they are working on such weapons Look up the cool "reentry angle for faster deorbit" graphs and the "impact velocity minimum energy deorbit" charts in this RAND Corp document on kinetic-energy space weapons.

Yeah, they're working on that too

Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.

"Software piracy laws are so practically unenforceable and breaking them has become so socially acceptable that only a thin minority appears compelled...to obey them.... Whenever there is such profound divergence between the law and social practice, it is not society that adapts."
-- John Perry Barlow (the eff.org dude)

--

You can have them print & bind pretty much any CIA/FBI/Special Forces/Army/etc manual that's been declassified or released under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). I took a philisophy class @ Georgetown Univeristy one summer, and the prof was a very young man with a goatee etc. The last part of the course was about Anarchy, and he told us: "go to the GPO building on pennsylvania avenue and if you ask for the US Army Manual on Improvised Munitions it'll cost you $10(?) and they'll bind it for you right there."

There's also Unconventional Warfare Devices & Techniques, Incendiary Devices & Techniques, Boobytraps, Grenades & Pyrotechnics, Explosive Preparations & Formulas... You get the picture? These are the manuals that Spec Ops use when they go to countries and train up insurgents, armies, other special forces, etc.
Anti-Polygraph stuff
Teh CIA Facts
More bout Mind Control Etc

here's and idea, go to amazon.com and search for works by the "U.S. Army". You'll get all kinds of garbage with some fun stuff thrown into the mix. Most of the manuals are boring as shit to read, but they have some very interesting stuff about psyops (psychological operations, you want really scary, go read some Rand Corporation publications) making your own guns/bombs/grenades/anything you need to kill, harass, demoralize, terrorize... Special Forces soldiers (and them sumbitches in the CIA) are some of the most dangerous people around. One man armies, men capable of raising armies, destabilizing gov'ts, and raping your mind, all in one!

Let's get out the envelope and see if your implicit message (which I assume is it's more dangerous being a fireman than an astronaut) makes sense.

Assuming there were 30 astronauts per year, that's a mortality of 15 per 1000 per year. According to a source I found, there are around 1.1 million firefighters in the Unites States. That gives a mortality rate of 0.1 per 1000 per year for firefighting. Kind of puts it in perspective--being an astronaut is 150 times more dangerous than being a firefighter. That's not to say firefighters are sissies--it's an extremely dangerous job and I'm sure they clang together when they walk down the street.

I think there should be a great deal of concern of new search engines in China. The major customer in China is the state and a number of companies including Cisco, Yahoo, and Microsoft have been catering their software to permit Chinese censorship. The Chinese government has also been active in removing certain keywords from use in popular search engines, like google.
If I type in 'Falun Gong' or 'VIP Reference' (page 30-31)' in any of these new search engines, I recieve no content. Sure these my offer new commerical opportunities, like MP3 searching. Both they are part of state control in China. Companies back in 2000 had to agree to self-censorship. These new sites represent a growing trend of corporate complicity in Chinese censorship. And if common search engines are actively controlling what is 'found' on the Internet, there is great concern that average citizens will become acostumed to a regulated Internet.

fenn

actually medical merijuana isn't smoked.

all it is is a pill derrived from the same chemical found in the brain, delta-9 THC, which concequently is the active ingredient in marijuana.

I repeat: YOU DON'T SMOKE MEDICINE!!!

in fact, people in NORML are trying to use arguments like the peyote case(PDF) to get the courts to listen to the case

and for those who want medical marijuana now, please remember the Thalidomide "Wonderdrug" that caused wonderful newborns to have wonderful birth defects

• Update the electrical system to make up for years of deterioration and neglect under Saddam Hussein. Ditto the water system.
• Get the oil fields pumping again. Begin new investments in oil-field infrastructure so that Iraq's future development can be self-financing.
• Establish a new and creditable currency to lay the groundwork for economic growth.
• Refurbish and improve the backward physical condition of the nation's schools, and de-Nazify (so to speak) the Saddam-glorifying textbooks, so that all Iraq's children could be back in school by the first autumn. Ditto for the more than two dozen Iraqi universities, including fresh investments in new equipment, books, and supplies. Higher wages needed to be available for teachers too, who, like other professionals, had been impoverished under Saddam

You have got to be kidding. Most people think of China as a Third World country that can barely feed their population. While this may be true in many areas, it's also true that they have incredible military power. The USA would probably lose any war with China.

Could you site some military statistics to back this up? First off, China could Not win a Nuclear war with the US. China has about 20 nuclear missles. It would take 124 nuclear weapons specifically aimed at the correct places to disable America's ability to function as a nation and launch their own nukes. It would take 368 nukes to destroy China, but America has thousands of nukes.

China couldn't win a war against the US, they may have more foot soldiers, but they don't have the navy, air force, nukes or technology the US army has.

If it came down to a ground war, will those starving citizens fight for their facist regime or will they lay down their arms and surrender?

And, as ever, a military adaptation/application:

pdf link

The U.S. military actually used a lower tech version of the sensor net along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1966. The program was called "Igloo White" and involved a number of audio and seismic sensors. Check out this link and look at page 11 for details. Very interesting read.

Some bits:

• Initially unit cost was $2145 and battery life was two weeks. By the end of the program, the battery was improved (the paper doesn't say by how much, though) and the units costed as little as $15. Presumably, costs would drop similarly when the modern version gets fielded.
• IBM 360-65 mainframes were used to correlate massive amounts of data and choose targets for strikes, although the effectiveness of the system (like almost everything deployed in Vietnam) was likely exagerated.
• Some sensors were booby trapped to prevent tampering. Nevertheless, some North Vietnamese troops developed countermeasures - shooting dropped units out of trees, playing tape recordings of trucks near them, or (presumably for chemical sensors) placing bags of livestock urine nearby.

Maybe that's true, and maybe it's not. I guess it depends on your level of paranoia.

It is certainly something that has been discussed quite a bit though. A fast Google search for: Space Weapons turned up two interesting sites:

A paper from Rand.
And a lot of papers from the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation found here.

• The Nimitz class (10 ships): approx 97,000 tons displacement, 85 aircraft.
• Enterprise class (1 ship): 89,600 tons, 85 aircraft.
• John F. Kennedy (1 ship): 82,000 tons, 85 aircraft.
• Kitty Hawk class (1 ship): 82,000 tons, 85 aircraft.

Look, my only point is you need about 80 aircraft to both protect your fleet and project ait power. Only the US aircraft carriers can do this. It's that simple.

RAND did a report on the use of space based weapons, Space Weapons Earth Wars. It has some interesting analysis of the practicality and performance of space based kinetic energy weapons, both artificial and natural. See Appendix B. A tungsten sphere with a radius of 1 meter, entering at 11 km/s and 60, will retain 34% of its kinetic energy and 99% of its mass to impact. The impact will release the equivalent of 422 tons of TNT in kinetic energy.

RAND did a report on the use of space based weapons, Space Weapons Earth Wars. It has some interesting analysis of the practicality and performance of space based kinetic energy weapons, both artificial and natural. See Appendix B. A tungsten sphere with a radius of 1 meter, entering at 11 km/s and 60, will retain 34% of its kinetic energy and 99% of its mass to impact. The impact will release the equivalent of 422 tons of TNT in kinetic energy.

No, it wasn't. Nuclear attack was an example of a disaster which might happen to a communications network.

Yes it was. The desire for a communications network that could survive a first strike was the only reason why the DoD started research into distributed communication. Later researchers realized that such networks had all sorts of other desirable features, but when they started out, and when they commisioned ARPANET, nuclear attack was what they were interested in.

According to The Naval War College Library notes:

The Internet may seem new, but it actually began in the 1960s. In 1964 Paul Baran at RAND designed a packet-switching network which could survive a nuclear attack. In 1969 the Department of Defense commissioned ARPANET, a decentralized network, built so that messages could be rerouted in the event that part of the country's communications system was destroyed by a nuclear attack.

we could EASILY afford to reconfigure the shuttles, design and build new ones, and solve most of our domestic (US) problems (education, etc) if we'd Stop giving so damn much money away in foreign aid!!!

U.S. Spending on Foreign Operations 2002: $17.9 Billion
Requested spending in 2003: $16.4 Billion
Requested spending in 2004: $18.8 Billion

Just so you know - those aid figures include a little over $4 billion a year in foreign military financing and a couple hundred million each for anti-drug efforts and peacekeeping efforts. But, to give you the benefit of the doubt, we'll lump it all in as "foreign aid."

In FY 2004, NASA's proposed budget is $15.4 Billion ( link).
Cost of the ISS (estimated, from Young Report): ~$30 billion (link)

Estimated costs of "other" domestic problems:
Medicare prescription drug benefit for elderly: $11-15 Billion (link).
Domestic port security needs: $2 billion (link).
Upgrade school technology: $100 billion (link).

I could go on, but I don't see much point in doing so. Foreign aid is a teeny tiny part of the federal budget, and cutting it won't do much of anything. A vast proportion of federal discretionary spending comes from Defense - if you want to cut, that's where you've got to cut.

>In light of the fact that the article does not go into detail on how the study was devised, I can't just blindly accept it. Chances are it was not a true experiment, it sounds epidemiological in nature, without controls, and the website hosting the article [environmen...guards.com] doesn't exactly appear unbiased. I'm a scientist - I try to consider the sources in determining causality. What what the N on that study?

Ironically enough, the federal government funded that particular study.

The article itself is apparently only available on LexisNexis (0891-5709) if you have access.

>What was the design? Who funds RAND?

RAND is a generally conservative research institute.

> Don't get me wrong, I think extra drug/rehab is a great idea, but getting rid of the enforcement aspect could be quite catastrophic.

Why do you think it would need any more enforcement than our current laws covering Alcohol?

The story by the Washington Times and Pentagon report were about Taiwan, on an island called Formosa off the coast of mainland China that, yes, China can easily attack. The comments about striking the U.S. were peripheral and forward-looking and probably inaccurate (the Pentagon is not perfect) -- China does not have that capability now. But even if they do, it doesn't matter.

Of course China and others have and will continue to develop ICBM's. The point is that ABM's are not the answer. And, as was understood when the anti-ABM treaty was signed, building ABM's actually accelerates nuclear proliferation. Counter ABM methods such as decoys are easy and cheap to implement; no one has a good answer. If we somehow develop the perfect ICBM defense, well, no one's going to attack us with ICBM's -- they'll use one of the other 500 ways of doingit. If ABM's are our only defense and someone wants to nuke us, we had best move somewhere else.

You really think we can ring the country with Patriot-type batteries to stop intermediate-range missiles with transit times of may five minutes? How many thousands of miles of coastline? How many billions of dollars? How long before a battery accidentally shoots down a jet? Not even the administration has proposed such a thing.

"Well a decent ABM system should easily be able to deal with 30 incoming ICBMs" -- well I suppose that's true, but it begs the question we don't have and won't for a long time such a decent ABM system. We can't even shoot down one warhead. Developing such a system would be staggering achievement, and a collosal waste of money.

There are other ways of dealing with the threat, methods that will work without sparking an arms race, alienating our allies, wasting a collosal amount of money, and increasing the risk of war.

Last, you really dropped the ball on this: "We are not dealing with MAD anymore, they cannot destroy us completely (though we can destroy them)." We can destroy them has always been the whole point of MAD. It's called deterrence.

Abstract: Describes a subway concept called "Planetran" comprising electromagnetically supported and propelled cars traveling in underground evacuated tubes, able to cross the United States in one hour. It is designed to interface with local transit systems, and the tunnel complex also contains utility transmission and auxiliary freight-carrying systems. Tunnels represent a major problem area and most of the cost. They will be placed several hundred feet underground in solid rock formations. It will require advanced tunnel-boring machines, such as hypersonic projectile spallation, laser beam devices, and the "Subterrene" heated tungsten probe that melts through igneous rocks. Planetran is rated as a system high in conservation of energy. For every car being accelerated, there is one decelerating in an adjoining tube. The decelerating cars return energy to the system. The tubes have a reduced atmosphere, making drag losses much smaller than for aircraft. Coast-to-coast energy costs are expected to be less than $1.00 per passenger.

The only people who would consider this a troll are Americans who are so brainwashed and so closed-minded that they can't see the truth. I am an American, but if I had the ability to leave this cesspool, I would. Here are the problems I see:

1. Americans are overweight (so the poster is correct in saying we're fat) with many of them being dangerously obese. I could stand to lose 10-15 pounds myself.

2. Americans have become locked into an obessive and unhealthy relationship with money and property due to the capitalist system. In America, the only value a person has is the amount of "stuff" that they own. This is immoral.

3. Americans are woefully out of touch with regards to the rest of the world due to the lack of true news reporting and cultural education in general. See this link for a great rundown of American failings.

4. Due to the propaganda that passes for news in this country, Americans (incorrectly) think that the rest of the world is out to get them. It isn't true folks. Wake up and join the rest of the world.

5. Americans are too eager to see an enemy around every corner. Even if it is unwarranted. This is evidence of how scared most of our population is. The very fact that so many fools believe they need to own a gun, further illustrates the point.

In general, Americans need to grow up and become aware of what is really going on in the rest of the world. America is NOT the greatest nation on the planet. The American century is over. Accept it.

While capitalism might be the best thing going right now... that doesn't imply that it will always be the best thing. I believe it's nearing the end of it's usefulness because it only encourages greed, ruthless competition and fear. It's time for a change. Keep in mind, the best way to travel used to be a horse drawn coach at one time, I'd challenge anyone here to say that it still is.

The capitalist system is the root source of most of America's problems in and out of the nation. Why did the "terrorists" hit the Twin Towers? Because WE are interfering with their culture solely to make a profit. Why did the "dot.com" bubble burst? Because a bunch of greedy bastards thought that they deserved six figure salaries for having no business model other than "It's really cool and it'll use the internet". Why do we have such a huge disparity between the rich and the poor? Because the rich have the money to pay people to make them richer. The poor actually have to work.

So, as much as I would love to defend this country, I find myself wanting to walk away, quietly and ashamed, from all the things it currently stands for. Until this country and it's populace decide to pay attention to the real world instead of the one they see through the filter of capitalism, we are doomed to be mocked and attacked. America is being controlled by the wrong people: lawyers and business interests. The only people those two groups benefit are themselves. They just throw the illusion of wealth at people like you and me.

I make $45,000 a year working as a network admin/programmer in the non-profit (major metropolitan public library) sector because I believe in doing something for my fellow man. I could have worked in the private sector and made a lot more money, but who would that be helping? It wouldn't help those who really matter (the children in the inner city, the unemployed and underpriveledged). That is how I can view my country this way. The peopple who have been deluded into thinking that they are wealthy and important because they own stuff, are morally bankrupt.

Heh. Interestingly enough a lot of computer scientists who wouldn't work for the DoD because they were against the war in Vietnam wound up working for them indirectly at places like Xerox PARC. Great stuff on the "counterculture" influence on the computer era in Roszak's book _The Cult of Information_. Also here's the RAND paper that started it all, if anyone is interested.

China has made major strides in the censorship war in the past year. There is a report that is about to be issued from RAND (named "You've Got Dissent") that describes the situation way better than I could. A lot of the things you mention still work in China, but they are really putting a lot of effort into clamping down. If we dont do something soon, the good guys will soon be too far behind to catch up.

Rand is a government-funded think tank whose job is to provide an objective view to policymakers. The purpose of the book I mentioned is to inform the U.S. government of how and why the WTO meeting was shut down by activists and how to best stop them from having future successes. This report is the most comprehensive and accurate report I've seen to date. If you read it, you will see that in Seattle, police started using teargas, rubber bullets, and pepper spray against hours before any vandalism by protestors. In fact, they used teargas and pepper spray against people who had locked themselves down and were incapable of moving. Later, the police went on a rampage in section of town called Capital Hill, teargassing, clubbing, kicking, pepperspraying, firing rubber bullets, and using "flash bang" concussion grenades largely against the residents of that part of town. The Rand report says this:

The final incident of Wednesday night demonstrated that civilian control of law enforcement ceased to exist for a time. The "Battle of Capitol Hill" degenerated into a police riot, perhaps the only time during the WTO protests that police command totally lost control of their forces on the street.

The total damage due to vandalism by either activists or opportunistic local kids ended up being less than the sales lost due to stores being closed for two days during the "state of emergency". If you put a dollar amount on the injuries from police violence, and add to it the pain and suffering of thousands of people that had their apartments filled with teargas during the police riot, you would get a much larger amount.

Now, I wasn't at any of the other gatherings of government leaders that resulted in mass protests and/or riots, but if Seattle is any indicator, I would imagine the vast majority of violence at the other cities was police violence against peaceful residents of the city hosting the meeting. With the countless people injured by police in Seattle during the WTO meeting, I have not heard of a single civillian resident of Seattle injured by someone that was not a police officer.

So you say not to blame the riot cops, but in Seattle, they truly were "riot" cops. Like the cop caught on tape using his steel toed boot to kick an unarmed resident of Capital Hill (who was backing off with his hands in the air) in the balls, resulting in serious injury. Or the cop who saw a young women videotaping him from a car so he motioned for her to roll down the window and sprayed pepper spray in her face, saying "tape this, bitch!" (fortunately he was not quite clever enough to smash her camera as is usually done, so that too was all caught on tape and shown on local TV).

Rand is a government-funded think tank whose job is to provide an objective view to policymakers. The purpose of the book I mentioned is to inform the U.S. government of how and why the WTO meeting was shut down by activists and how to best stop them from having future successes. This report is the most comprehensive and accurate report I've seen to date. If you read it, you will see that in Seattle, police started using teargas, rubber bullets, and pepper spray against hours before any vandalism by protestors. In fact, they used teargas and pepper spray against people who had locked themselves down and were incapable of moving. Later, the police went on a rampage in section of town called Capital Hill, teargassing, clubbing, kicking, pepperspraying, firing rubber bullets, and using "flash bang" concussion grenades largely against the residents of that part of town. The Rand report says this:

The final incident of Wednesday night demonstrated that civilian control of law enforcement ceased to exist for a time. The "Battle of Capitol Hill" degenerated into a police riot, perhaps the only time during the WTO protests that police command totally lost control of their forces on the street.

The total damage due to vandalism by either activists or opportunistic local kids ended up being less than the sales lost due to stores being closed for two days during the "state of emergency". If you put a dollar amount on the injuries from police violence, and add to it the pain and suffering of thousands of people that had their apartments filled with teargas during the police riot, you would get a much larger amount.

Now, I wasn't at any of the other gatherings of government leaders that resulted in mass protests and/or riots, but if Seattle is any indicator, I would imagine the vast majority of violence at the other cities was police violence against peaceful residents of the city hosting the meeting. With the countless people injured by police in Seattle during the WTO meeting, I have not heard of a single civillian resident of Seattle injured by someone that was not a police officer.

So you say not to blame the riot cops, but in Seattle, they truly were "riot" cops. Like the cop caught on tape using his steel toed boot to kick an unarmed resident of Capital Hill (who was backing off with his hands in the air) in the balls, resulting in serious injury. Or the cop who saw a young women videotaping him from a car so he motioned for her to roll down the window and sprayed pepper spray in her face, saying "tape this, bitch!" (fortunately he was not quite clever enough to smash her camera as is usually done, so that too was all caught on tape and shown on local TV).

Lat & lon from GPS. $14 billion per RAND for 6 bytes.

Lat & lon from GPS. $14 billion per RAND for 6 bytes.

Actually, I think weinerdog is right in saying that the jury is out on whether or not copyright infringement is outright theft punishable by death (ok, not death), in light of the times we live in. The constitutional "decision" you speak of, was made hundreds of years ago when content was tied to expensive physical media.

You can't ignore the fact that technology changes society in drastic ways, and it's the law playing catchup. The nature of digital tech makes enforcing copyright next to impossible, which renders copyright law toothless. Society will either agree that draconian copyright enforcement is a good thing, or they won't, and a new balance between creators and 'consumers' will emerge on its own (not hand-waiving).

Here's an appropriate quote I happen to agree with:

"...piracy laws are so practically unenforceable and breaking them has become so socially acceptable that only a thin minority appears compelled...to obey them.... Whenever there is such profound divergence between the law and social practice, it is not society that adapts."--John Perry Barlow

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You might want to read this: Quantum Theory and Human Consciousness

Quote:
What about future evolution? Will consciousness occur in computers? The advent of quantum computers opens the possibility. However, as presently envisioned, quantum computers will have insufficient mass in superposition (e.g., electrons) to reach the threshold for objective reduction due to environmental decoherence. Still, future generations of quantum computers may be able to realize this goal.