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PowerBook, Because Lives Are On The Line
WCityMike writes "Major Shawn Weed, an intelligence planner with the Third Infantry Division, eschewed his Panasonic Toughbook because it wasn't fast enough in processing giant satellite and reconnaissance images. He put in a requisition for and received a PowerBook G4, the only Apple currently being used in the entire Middle East theater. 'Frankly, lives are in the balance here, so the quicker I can get stuff done accurately, the better,' Weed says."
Perhaps you guys missed the demonstration where the Powerbook G4 was run over by an 18-wheeler, then it backed up (over the powerbook) and ran over it again...then someone walked up, picked it up and started it up fine? I've seen it done, and I've never met anyone who has had physical damage disable a powerbook, except when the LCD was directly struck (while it was open).
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
I'll be the one pulling the laptop out from underneath the Major's corpse trying to figure out where the heck is the second mouse button went. Faster/better/different is great until you have to take over someones job unexpectedly. More of an occupational hazard in his area... though the Valley is not much safer (job wise).
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
However, aside from the fact that the initial post was intended to be humorous, the military spending is still out of control, and full of pork.
From: Price Trends for Defense Logistics Agency's Weapon System (GAO November 2000), which found that between 1997, and 1998, prices of 2,993 different spare parts purchased by the military increased over one thousand percent, and 14 percent of the total spare parts ordered from defense contractors increased at least 50 percent in price in that one year. Contractors have been underbidding the prices, then jacking up the prices upon time for billing. Parts like a bolt, initially quoted at $40, ended up being $1,887, or a self-locking nut, quoted at $2.69, ended up costing $2, 185. These are not nearly the worst examples of cost increases . . . A linear microcircuit, original 1997 price $0.11 cents, cost $5,788.76, thermal insulation that really cost $1, ended up costing $3,390, or the boss nipple, costing $1, cost the US military $1,498.48.
There's no reason he couldn't be doing imagine manipulation, enhancement, and analysis using Photoshop; so long as the image is in a standard image format (and why not?), it's just pixels and filters.
I mean, even if it's just simple stuff:
Overlays of two images taken in different spectrums (IR and visible)
Time-lapse animation (multiple layers transformed into an animation, not unlike an animated GIF)
Edge detection/feature enhancement
Cropping to remove useless data
Rotation, perspective, and skewing to transform poorly captured or framed images into more easily understood images
Overlay of before/after shots (perhaps using difference blending)
Comparison of two different photos with an identical feature (perhaps identifing buildings, known vs unknown, performed again with overlays and blends)
Scaling of a photo so a comparison to a similar photo, taken with different settings, can be accomplished
Enhancement of a photo to compensate for low light levels (levels, etc)
Normalization of a photo (perspective, levels, colors, scale) so comparisons between two different photos can be accomplished
All of those are trivial with Photoshop.
GPL Deconstructed
Actually it's not the *only* PowerBook G4 being used here right now. I've got an 867MHz PowerBook G4 I bought back in July 2002 that I am using while stationed in Camp Va, Kuwait. I use it for very similar reasons to Major Weed, although I had to purchase mine myself.