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Insider's Look at High-Tech High-Speed Navy Vessel
Xidus writes "Computerworld is running an article on the technology behind the US Navy's newest HSV (High Speed Vessel), focusing on interfaces designed to reduce the number of personnel needed on the bridge. Lots of pretty pictures. No word on OSes, although Mozilla is mentioned, and UNIX-ish desktops are visible, along with some nifty virtual-reality tactical displays. Would you like to play a game?"
Hope they have lots of armor around the servers, and a backup bridge.
"uses paperless charts"
It worries me that China is working on an anti-satellite warfare, and the military keeps marching down the GPS for everything road. WWIII could see a lot of pretty hardware sitting at the docks while the navigator runs down to supply to see if they have any "old fashioned" compasses and charts.
Oh well. The military knows what they are doing, right?
Not everyone gets to window shop at Lockheed.
Reducing the number of people required to man the ship is great and all, but, if memory serves, one of the debates about reducing the number of people required to man the ship is the subsequent reduction in number of people available for damage control. If the ship takes damage and there aren't enough (remaining) people able to control the damage, the ship is even more likely to be out of the fight or even lost completely.
So your argument is what? -- That defenselessness will always lead to peace and never function (as it has historically) as a magnet for risk-free aggression? "Those that will not bear swords can still die on them" (Tolkien)
I am a Nigerian Colonel,... just kidding. I am writing this in the hopes that I might spare you the horror of your own hypocrisy.
Please cease the use of any of the following: Computers, all frequency hopping radios such as a cellphone, any device making use of transistors of any sort, aluminum cans, modern four wheel drive vehicals, any civil project which might have involved explosives (most roads, power generated by dams, and possibly drinking water), weather forecasts produced with aid of any satellites/computers/radar (ie all of them), trauma medicine, some insecticides, nuclear medicine, nuclear power (which provides a major fraction of the worlds power needs), underwater and space exploration, and, of course, any political system that doesn't involve you being the wholly owned an insignificant subject of someone else.
If those pump parts were badly needed in a village important to the people outside of it, they'd have the resources to buy them. And since I don't see you putting your money where your mouth is, feel free to start leading by example we'll follow along at our earliest convienence. It says something that a 9 year old in the US has a great enough availability of resources that he can get a well built in Africa where the native africans can't.
FYI War pre-dates weapons. Weapons were invented to settle wars quicker. It turns out that while a person can beat another to death with their bare hands, it's exhausting, and time consuming.
Maybe the problem is there just aren't enough american nine yearolds. That must be it.
And so concludes this episode of Oversimplification Theater.
"Nearly every function of the ship, from navigation and steering to engine and damage control, is conducted and monitored using commercial, off-the-shelf hardware and software."
LORAN and GPS have been commercially available in civilian navigation systems for ages. Computer navigation and steering is not new. I'm a little surprised that the damage-control isn't customized, but the rest isn't that unusual. In general, a ship is a ship is a ship, and the problem of problems of making it stay afloat and go where you want are the same for military and non-military craft.
May we never see th
The primary role of the US Navy in peacetime is to keep the sealanes open. The only reason you can get those Reeboks for $30 is because the US ensures safe shipping throught the world. Even so, piracy is on the rise since most European nations have killed their navies and the availability of small watercraft in third word countries is greater.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
All of that technology, to serve what end? Killing people.......As long as there are men making weapons, there will be war.
No military weapons were involved when some islamic terrorists drove airplanes into the World Trade Centers and Pentagon killing 3000 people.
In fact, they didn't even use guns, but "box cutters".
Perhaps a more accurate statement would be "as long as there are men, there will be war".
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I cannot understate this......everybody knows that a product with pretty screenshots is easier to sell than an ugly one even if the ugly one is much better at doing what it is supposed to do......but real world experiences have shown me that if a software is pretty it does not even need to do anything at all!
I'm not joking here, I have seen software that has been sold and initially installed purely on the basis of a simulated user interface. Management are happy because it looks pretty, and users just carry doing thier job with "the old system" until such time as the "bugs are ironed out" in the new system. Put another way, a total lack of functional code is just a bug, whilst lack of a pretty screenshot is lack of product.
I hestitate to say this is wrong, however. When I go and look at the home page of a new software package one of the first things I look at is the screenshot, and I rarely look at the todo list or "Known issues" until I have actually installed!
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)