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New York Computerizes its Subway System
Iphtashu Fitz writes "New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority launched it's first fully computer controlled subway line this month. The `L' Line of the MTA that connects the southern part of Manhattan with Brooklyn was picked for this pilot program because of its relatively short length and the fact that it doesn't share tracks with any other lines. Trains on this line no longer have conductors on board, and only a single driver in the front to monitor all the systems.
What's the big deal, you may ask? After all, cities like San Francisco and Paris already have computerized subway lines. Well, having recently celebrated its 100th anniversary the MTA is one of the oldest subway systems in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. If all goes well, the MTA will continue to expand automated service to the rest of the subway system over the next 20 years. But just how safe and secure will these new automated lines be? The radio links that provide data communication between the trains and the control center are encrypted, but how long until a hacker manages to crack it?"
Expecting an apology from the US is foolish historical revisionism. Not sure the variation you learned in school, but they attacked us first. We lost a good chunk of our Pacific fleet, and it was only by the grace of God that they didn't hit the fuel dumps in Pearl Harbor. Had that happened, the war would have taken at least another year, possibly two.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible events, but war IS terrible. By concentrating all the awfulness into just two events, overall many lives were probably saved. Particularly ours, which must be our primary consideration in war.
In my opinion, the deliberately-induced firestorm in Dresden was at least as great a crime. What is it about people's thinking.... a whole bunch of small explosions that kill tens of thousands of people are okay, but a single BIG explosion that kills fewer people is a crime against humanity?
Remember, Dresden was a follow-on to Hamburg. We knew what was likely to happen and we deliberately induced the exact same effect. By dropping incendiary bombs over several days, they started a raging fire that engulfed more than eight square miles. It generated so much heat that it became its own weather system, creating hurricane-force winds that literally sucked everyone and everything around to their destruction. More than 200,000 bodies were recovered, and the total death toll is believed to exceed 250,000.
Between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, about 120,000 died... less than half.
Your bleating about an apology from the US is just emotional handwringing with no basis in reality. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were humane by the standards of WW2... they did, after all, end the war.
(and to those who start bitching about radiation effects... we didn't KNOW very much about radiation effects at the time. In the middle of a war, where the enemy is trying desperately to kill you and those you love, you don't worry a lot about long-term consequences. You ask, "will using this weapon hurt our people in any way?" If the answer is no, and the weapon is a good one, it's going to get used.)
Wars are very easy to start, but very hard to stop. We stopped a war in its tracks by killing 120,000 people with two planes and two big bombs. It was the right decision, and no apology should ever be expected.