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The Pentagon's Supersonic, Shape-Shifting Assassin
grammar fascist writes "CNN reports that Northrop Grumman is under contract to build a new supersonic, shape-shifting bomber by 2020. The main innovation is in its single, rotating wing. From the article: '[It] will cruise with its 200-foot-long wing perpendicular to its engines like a normal airplane. But just before the craft breaks the sound barrier, its single wing will swivel around 60 degrees (hence the name) so that one end points forward and the other back. This oblique configuration redistributes the shock waves that pile up in front of a plane at Mach speeds and cause drag. When the Switchblade returns to subsonic speeds, the wing will rotate back to perpendicular.'"
So, having one part of the plane change its angle is now shape shifting? WOW. My laptop is a shapeshifter, because the lid opens. My car must be a shape shifter too, the sunroof can take several positions!
Go America! Fuck Yeah!
I am sure I came accross this in a history book about technology that the Germans had developed in the closing part of WWII.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
How will they cope with the inestability that the rotation of the wing will cause?
Any ideas?
Hmm, a curious asymmetric orientation for an aircraft, swiveling at an angle like that.
Could this translate into anything similarly useful for missile or even rocket design? Like a hypersonic aerospace plane, for instance?
Waste
takes on a whole new meaning here...
Practical and affordable too I bet. Who cares how many kids can't read?
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
I, for one, welcome our supersonic, shape-shifting overlords.
May I say that I know many strategic points which you may find enlightening!
The fighter for the new millenia brought to you by the idiots who couldn't build the postal service a truck that works 50% of the time.
Seastead this.
More bombs!
I just hope that it's control software won't use Windows 2020 or else it will crash with a blue explosion.
I recall seeing a NASA test plane with a swiveling wing at the EAA OSHKOSH airshow back in the early 80's. It was one place, jet powered, and was flown in the airshow with the wing rotated to a fairly steep angle several times. It was a proof of concept to explore control issues and to prove that the wing need not be swept BACK on both sides to improve aerodynamics at high speeds. They referred to is as the AD-1", an oblique wing aircraft.
--
We don't need no stinkin' sig!
So how is this any better than the swing-wing designs of the F-14 and Tornado? I thought the consensus was that moving wings were a Bad Idea?
Stick Men
Here is a link to the NASA page on the AD-1
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
I love the smell of burning pork in the morning.
Shapeshifting? Bit rich I think.
Anyway this has been around for 40 years already http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panavia_Tornado Bore Off.
You beat me to Googling this earlier attempt, but what you get from actually RTFA is that they metion this 1979 atempt and it involed none other than Burt Ratan! (SpaceShip One fame)
The 1979 attempt was hard and unintuitive to control, but the drone attempt will not rely on ingrained pilot intincts and automatically control the pitch over that happens when say you nose the plane up.
Letter To Iran
Been hawking videophones, personal fliers and self-cleaning clothes since the fifties. That I know of.
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
Let's continue to invest in war, because as we all know, war is good business, right?
At least war pays for pure R&D and cutting edge science. Seems shareholders are only interested in only doing research that will generate revenue on a quarterly basis. Unfortunate that war (or the preparation/avoidance of war) is the driver, but the cutting edge avionics and composite technologies I enjoy as an aviation hobbyist were born from that 'war machine'. Someday we might not - but I don't see it changing anytime soon.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
You got 1 out of 3 right. Unemployment is down to 4.6% (about half that of the major European economies), and Medicare never actually gets cut- Congress either fiddles with the rate of growth, or adds a multi-billion-dollar "Part D" program. Try reading the news every now and then. Sure, the deficit's a bummer, but national defense is mandated by the Constitution in Article IV, as opposed many of the abuse-of-the-Commerce-Clause programs whose names I won't mention... ...and whoever runs this place, how about adding an option to post as "Anonymous Ignorant Coward" for those AC's who realize that they may not know what they're talking about?
I came, I saw, I left. It looked better in the brochure.
Rules of Acquisition say:
34. War is good for business
35. Peace is good for business.
34 comes before 35. All clear?
Ignore this signature. By order.
What's wrong with hooking the guys loitering on the side of the quickie-mart up with a keg full of dynamite & sending them over ?
Jimminy christmas, it's all over the news now, by the time one of theese things gets built, anyone it would be used against is going to have things in place to shoot down suspicious craft on sight.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Rising unemployement rate? No, national unemployment is down to nearly 1999 levels.
See http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServl
Medicare is getting slashed? Congress just passed the largest increase in Medicare spending in decades (Prescription Drug Program).
Were you just posting the Daily Kos talking points without thinking? Just because you keep quoting these talking points as facts doesn't mean they will automagically become facts.
Yes, the deficit is rising and the gov't is spending more for craptastic social programs. Military spending is still ~4% GDP, so I really don't have a problem with that. Of course, I don't have a problem with our gov't safeguarding us and preventing another 3,000 of our citizens from being killed by terrorists, but I guess I'm not blinded by hatred of our President. Win at all costs, that's the mantra of the Kossacks, isn't it?
Britain - 5.1% Portugal - 4.3% Denmark - 4.2% Ireland - 4.2% Austria - 3.9% Luxembourg - 2.6 Netherlands - 2.4
How about adding an option to post as an ignorant math-challenged fascist instead? 4.6 is nowhere near half of 5.1.
As a side note, France and Germany have higher reported unemployment because they don't count part-time minimum wage jobs. HTFH.
This is exciting and all, but when do I get my VF-1 Valkyrie?
In Firefox's Live Bookmark feed, the title says "The Pentagon's Supersonic, Shape-Shifting Ass ..."
Hmmm - NASA had one of those flying back in 1982!
, 949473,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/archive/printout/0,23657
www.sjbaker.org
I have an RSS feed of slashdot, and this topic came up as
"The Pentagon's Supersonic Shape-Shifting Ass..."
And just to be on topic, does anyone know when this goes on ebay?
The RSS title was, "The Pentagons Supersonic, Shape-Shifting Ass.."
That sounds like a much more interesting story.
X-Wing?!
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
Funny, I don't recall ever seeing such an inflammatory title on a /. story in years. Just because the plane is a bomber? Come on now, the technology is cool, even if this is a bit outdated (I've got a swing-wing Estes rocket from when I was a kid, sitting on the shelf right over my desk, for crying out loud...). No need to make a political statement like this - let's keep the discussion a bit more civil, please.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
...and lame suckers who bleed everytime America spends a drop of its budget on preserving its superpower position...like nooobody, not China, Europe or the wacko Iranian dictator would do if they wanted to keep dominance eh? For Christ sake, stop your fucking whining and go feed the poor or teach the iliterates that so bothers you!!
The UE rate is about as factual as the inflation rate...
While projects like this can easily be seen as waste, they do a couple things.
This money goes to create hi tech jobs, rewarding people for getting engineering/science/sometimes computing degrees, potentially supporting universities themselves.
These projects generate knowledge by testing out technologies and supporting businesses or universities that sponsor research.
In my opinion, this is not waste, even if the end product never comes to be.
Certainly, this can only go so far, you wouldn't want all your money going to high tech / low success projects, but it is reasonable to have money going towards these things.
Somehow, I find my browser's interpretation more fitting...
Having perused the posts that have been made so far, I'm a bit surprised that everyone is concentrating on the aerospace engineering aspects of the plane. To me, the more interesting facet of this is the idea of having a huge supersonic aircraft loaded with cruise missles and potentially nuclear weapons with no one in the cockpit.
I wish articles like this would focus more on the communications, AI, and general catasrophe-tolerance of the systems that go into a craft like this. There have to be some interesting discussions going on right now in a room somewhere underground about how to protect this thing from unauthorized access, what to do if communication goes out, etc.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
National defense is mandated but is spending billions on a program which is useless against terrorist mandated too?
I am all for defense. I do object to waging war for fun and profit though. Where is it mandated that the US taxpayers should get rid of every two bit dictator with oil while making nice with dictators in pakistan and africa?
evil is as evil does
Let's continue to invest in war, because as we all know, war is good business, right?
You couldn't be more right, if there wasn't a cold war with the USSR, why would we need a nuke proof network like DARPA NET? And we can see the real impact of that on business, I think all the fortune 500 companies use it as one of their primary ways of making a profit.
If you are going to open your yap the least you can do is make sure it is informed and walking all over your current actions.
WOuldn't it be more efficient to take the war out of it and spend the money on pure R&D? Better yet why not just provide incentives for private enterprise to do R&D and give the money back to the taxpayers? How about R&D through the space program? Wouln't that be better then making new bombers to drop bombs on miami on a band of al-quada sypathisers?
I can imagine how useful this weapon will be to drop bombs on big cities in the US which have terrorist cells in them.
evil is as evil does
And let's not forget that:
10. Greed is eternal.
62. The riskier the road, the greater the profit. ("Rules of Acquisition")
190. Hear all, trust nothing. ("Call to Arms")
Two quick points.
1. That's CNN's article title, so that's hardly the Slashdot editors' fault.
2. It's unmanned. Unmanned combat aircraft are used almost exclusively for assassinations, at least currently.
I had done a quick google search and used figures brought up by the BBC. European unemployment rates similar to the U.S. unemployment rate:
.7% from last year's rate, compared with the U.S. unemployment rate, which reduced .5%.
Austria - 4.8% Britain - 5.3% Denmark - 4.8% Netherlands - 5.7% Sweden - 5.5% Switzerland - 3.3%
The overall unemployment rate in the Euro zone is 8% (this is in large part due to high reported unemployment in Germany and France, explained above, 11.0% and 9.3% respectively). However, the Euro zone unemployment rate reduced by
Not to be a total jackass, but I really do have to rub this in your face: the Scandinavian countries have historically had the lowest unemployment (historically lower than that of the United States) and STILL have the largest welfare system of all of Europe. If that doesn't provide a counterexample to your nonsensical "Everyone benefits from a dog-eat-dog world" blind faith in Capitalism-as-God, I don't know what does.
Was I the only one that thought the DOD was developing a T1000?
Congress either fiddles with the rate of growth, or adds a multi-billion-dollar "Part D" program
It might look like they haven't screwed with Medicare, but that ignores the fact that they're now pushing the costs onto the States.
I recall reading about this design in an aircraft book that was published in the late 70s (the F16 was mentioned in it was the brand new mass-production USAF fighter).
Forget the name of the book unfortunately...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Because massive sideway forces that can't possibly be balanced over the whole length of the wing, and asymmetrically applied lifting forces ARE COOL, especially on a plane that has to cover great distances and carry heavy bombs. I have a better idea -- why don't they just fly a bomber sideways?
I am sure, a giant boomerang version of this is in the works, too.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I think when this monster comes screaming in at several times the speed of sound, scattering thousands of pounds of explosives behind it in an orgy of death and destruction, "Silent" is probably not the adjective that the survivors (if any) will use to describe it.
Lock up your energon cubes.
Not every defense program has to be about fighting terrorists.
This war isn't fun.
This war hasn't been profitable.
(This war, however, remains necessary.)
As for getting rid of every two-bit dictator, we aren't really trying- it's impossible to do all at once, at least if we're to take a nuanced approach (for lack of a better term). But our foreign policy does seem to be more about trying to make the "domino effect" work for democracy, instead of autocracy, for a change. And speaking as a US taxpayer, paying to cure the misfortunes of other people kinda grows on you after a while, and we've been doing it for over 65 years, give or take a few.
I came, I saw, I left. It looked better in the brochure.
It takes them about 100 years to develop the fuel cell vehicle just for them to in that it'll be ready in 25 more years. While at the same time they predicted the delay of the fcv, they build a brand new vehicle from scratch, and they say it'll ready in 15 years total.
Zarqawi was killed with a couple of aircraft-delivered bombs, a fate delivered to countless other islamo-fascist freaks since late 2001. The point here is to build a platform that can remain on station for a long time out of harm's way until a target is identified, then streak in and take it out. It'll be unmanned, so we can take out the bad guys without putting our guys at risk.
You are for reducing the risk to our men and women in the armed forces, aren't you? Sorry, have to ask nowadays...
I am all for defense. I do object to waging war for fun and profit though. Where is it mandated that the US taxpayers should get rid of every two bit dictator with oil while making nice with dictators in pakistan and africa?
Well, hurry up and win an election, then, and you'll be able to get straight to work in Afghanistan and Iraq stripping away women's rights to vote, re-introducing the burka, and throwing the girls out of school. Funny how you pricks are always bellyaching about human rights, but when the US moves to do something that will actually bring 25 million people into the 21st century, you moan like a downed cow. It serves to illuminate your motivations quite nicely.
And fun and profit? Please.
This seems more like the kind of thing that should be developed under a cloak of secrecy at Area 51. My guess is that it's seen as an outside shot by DARPA, and the $10.3m pocket change they're throwing at it convinces me even more that they're just using this as "gosh ain't we high-tech and futuristic" publicity (or propaganda if you'd rather) blurb.
What seals it though is the 1950's Buck Rogers shiny treatment. Any self-respecting supersonic bomber has to have a mat-black paint job, surely?
Don't start with the facts, codefoundry, that doesn't work with this crowd...
Why we need something like this? Does the money need to be spent on R&D to fix a problem that isn't a problem? Since when has this new ability been neccesary?
How about upgrading B1-B first? Russians have Tu-160 long range supersonic bomber that's better than B1-B, and has a longer range that even this "far in the future" contraption.
Compared to B1-B, Tu-160 can:
1. Carry more weapons (payload of 40 metric tons, compared to 34 tons)
2. Fly faster (Mach 2.05 compared to Mach 1.25)
3. Carry nucular weapons, including short range nuclear cruise missiles
And it's also "stealth".
There are only a few aircraft currently in service in the Russian army, but you don't need that many of them, and they're making more.
That plan has my vote!
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
This war hasn't been profitable.
At $70 usd a barrel and record profits AGAIN for the oil companies(like in '73 and '79), I would place some bets that this war is probably one of the most profitable ever. Now I don't know who's making the ammo and the small arms being used there, but I ould wager that their profits are up "slightly". And the arms smugglers? No quicker way to get rich. Let's not forget good ol' Halliburton. The US has benn at war since its inception, before even. It seems they know no other way. One of Bush's most flagrant lies was when he said, "America is a peaceful country". I'm not sure what makes you think that the US is trying to "cure the misfortunes of other people", when it turns out that it has been the cause of much misfortune since they started massacring the Indians. And many of the more famous "two bit dictators" couldn't have gotten there without the Americans's and Europeans' help. In Iraq they are merely replacing one puppet with another. It's colonialism at it's worst.
What?
Most if not all F-18 fighters will have the AIM 120 missile which AFAIK has a two phased guidance procedure. The missile get's the target's location and a rough course uploaded to it by the launching aircraft moments prior to launch. After that, during the first guidance phase, the missile only recieves updates which it uses to adjust the initial uploaded course from the launching aircraft. During the second, terminal phase the missiles own radar locks onto the target and the pilot can move on leaving the missile to guide it self. Theoretically the Aim-120 is a fire and forget weapon even at long range but in practice, if the launching aircraft keeps illuminating the target with his radar through out the first phase, the hit probability will increase considerably especially against fast and highly maneuverable targets like Mig-29s, Su-27/30s, J-10s... never mind something like a Trance 3 Eurofighter with thrustvectoring engines. The launch aircraft does not have to illuminate the target until impact. Interestingly enough the F-14 is slated to be replaced by A/F-18 Super Hornet fighters packing the shorter range AIM-120 missile later this year. Even so the F-18/AIM-120 combination is not really a competitor for the F-14 which, combined with it's Phoenix missles, is still a pretty potent weapons that has few if any peers at the moment since the Russians have apparently stopped developing the MiG-31 at the pace that would have been needed to keep it competitive due to the enormous costs and the Eurofighter and F-22 are still being deployed.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Isn't that same idea already applied to the good ol' F14 Tomcat ? Or is it something completely different ?
The thing that the military adds to R&D that academia lacks is urgency. The military responds to a threat, or a perceived threat. Academia can spend generations arguing the same theories to death.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
While all of that is true, the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is having the OPPOSITE effect. Instead of DOD funds going into research (this bomber not withstanding), it is going to pay for fuel, ammunition, and warfighters' salaries. Research budgets are actually getting cut across the services, with I think DARPA the only agency getting an increase.
So yes, research for DOD is a Good Thing, but the current climate, with budget deficits and operational costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, is not.
Compare the fictional Valkyrie specifications with the real one. The XB-70 could take off with a gross weight of 250 tons, and had a range of 8000 kilometers at Mach 3. It had variable geometry too. At subsonic speeds the wings were flat. At supersonic speeds wing tips folded down, to keep the lift constant at all speeds.
Isn't it funny how reality is better than fiction?
WOuldn't it be more efficient to take the war out of it and spend the money on pure R&D?
R&D is Research & DEVELOPMENT. You have to build something when you are done otherwise it is not R&D, it is just R. It is also not R&D&War.
Better yet why not just provide incentives for private enterprise to do R&D and give the money back to the taxpayers?
Well other than the giving money back part, the US government does this all the time.
How about R&D through the space program?
Have you ever heard of NASA?
Wouln't that be better then making new bombers to drop bombs on miami on a band of al-quada sypathisers?
Please use facts when making an argument. This is just a dumb statement that shows you have no good points to argue.
Slashdot +1 funny -4 Insightful +1 informative -2 Redundant
Karma: Somewhere between SCO and Microsoft
At least war pays for pure R&D and cutting edge science. Seems shareholders are only interested in only doing research that will generate revenue on a quarterly basis.
War doesn't pay for pure R&D and science unless there is some potential military application. Their interest in doing research is as biased as the corporate shareholders you mentioned.
...our new supersonic, shapeshifting overlords...
I regret spilling a glass of ginger ale on an achritect!
And you claim to be North American? It's "YEEEEHAAAW!!!"
so what were the motivations of your fine leaders when they supported hussein? when he dropped gas on his own people were you not supplying him (among countless other foul dictators) with weaponry?
no weapons of mass destruction...whoops
no link with 911...ok so that was a lie
but hey this has nothing to do with oil and is all about human rights, forget that we've supported and continue to support regimes that trample over civil liberties. never mind the fact that America is actively engaging in torture by shipping prisoners to places for that very purpose.
there really isn't that much point debating with the kind of idiot that reckons the invasion of iraq was a great idea. you resort to lies way so quickly that its clear that we are dealing with delusion. snap out of it.
How can you consider a bomber to be delivered in 2020 to be "urgent"? This thing has a longer development time than any other bomber which has been put into operation. 14 years? Urgent?
It was ARPANET when it was first set up. ARPA didn't acquire its ominous D until a little later.
Is amazing...I mean who doesn't want to hear about the pentagon's supersonic shapeshifting ass?
hitter is more like it... Don't ask don't tell...
Interesting that this plane seems to be "outed" before it's even built. I suppose the DOD will go employ the usal Nellis/where ever cloak methods during the sanity-checking phase...
At least the F-14 and F-111 were "supersonic swing-wing" fighter/bomber, respectively.
But, WHO are the supposed targets of THIS technology. Time to start racking the people for more taxes for weapons systems that OUGHT NOT/DON'T need to exist...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This plane is called the scissor wing and it already been flown by NASA in the 1980s. It was a overcomplicated, and like the forward swept wing, and was discarded. Although, maybe with the better computers and composites materials of today, it may be fesable again. Also, the Tu-160 NATO code named Blackjack, is a very big copy of the B-1A. Being big and non-stealthy, it is a very BIG target for SAMs and AAMs. Also, while it is supersonic, it can only do it for a short period of time before it runs out of fuel. Really, you need a hypersonic bomber, or spaceplane, Mach 6 or faster to overcome SAMs, AAMs and AAA.
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/Medium /ECN-13302B.jpg
So to get a few toys, we must abandon our conscience? Sounds too Godfather-like to be comfortable with.
As a Finn I was just wondering, at what time where you in sweden?
;-)
Because when Wartburg was a popular car in Finland, it would date to 1950s, that would make you a really old slashdotter. Mayby you are mixing Wartburg with Lada? Lada was a soviet made car which was also imported to Finland, but it was never popular, and if you mixed those two, then it would date you to 1980s.
Thought, you are quite right about the fact that having and driving a car in both Sweden and Finland is very expensive, but that's because the car taxes double the cars price and gasolines price, which btw. is just right, because personal driving is expensive to goverment (roads) and to enviroment (polution) and thus taxes should be taken to compensate those costs. Now days there thought is talk about moving to strictly taxing gasoline, and not cars, that would be logical, and it would make people think more about having a own car when a liter would cost from 2 to 3. The reason why americans are driving SUVs is because US goverment is subsidizing personal driving, by not taxing car owners the cost that are associated with using cars.
On a note, I too think that scandinavian countries tax too much, and there is too much goverment control, our unemployment rate is too high, and the official numbers are cleaned by putting people in to education and to early pension. Thought, I think that american system isn't the answer, thought it has some good points, the society should take care of it's weaks and unfortunates, and provide a minimum level of living, that is the only way in which we can say that everybody is in the same line in life and that people try and take risk in their lifes, without worrying ending up in the street.
PS. The most popular car in Finland in now days is Toyota, same too in america, or it will be soon
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
And rightfully so. With the small modification of s/revenue on a quarterly basis/a positive net present value/ I am very glad as a shareholder and member of society that this is the case. Don't go spending my wealth on what happens to be your favorite blue sky research.
Now don't get me wrong -- we need some blue sky research. Just don't fund it with my 401(k). Form a foundation, endow a university, and/or fund it with (limited) tax dollars.
That's what they should call that. The leafy bug.
How do you feel about our government's foreign policy and attitude to the rest of the world that creates the kind of hatred of us that makes people want to attack us in the first place?
Or how do you feel about the 18,961 - 42,900 civilian casualties that have occurred overseas? They were people, too... who did NO wrong.
Keep in mind this money is not being spent on making you safer. You can still probably smuggle weapons on an airplane... borders are still not safe... etc. We went after Iraq which never attacked us, seemingly ignored Al Qaeda and countries that were more responsible like Iran or Russia or bigger threats like North Korea.
This money is getting spent on taking away your American liberties, and spent on fighting a war that should never have even begun (then again, the stated reasons for beginning the war have changed multiple times over the years, so maybe the next reason will be better) in the first place.
I don't say these things because of a dislike for the President. I dislike the President because he deserves it.
The D is to support further R, that is all. Development after R&D is implementation. The two are not equal.
NASA was born from the military. The poster, IMO, was simply suggesting the removal of the "build things to destroy things" aspect to focus on the innovation for purely peaceful applications. I agree completely with that sentiment. We already have enough weapons.
Some things are best left said to yourself.
judging by the picture I'm about to give you, the concept UAV talked about above isn't the first "shape shifter" in the military. Just take a look at this Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey.
r craft/images/v-22-dvic281.jpg
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ai
Could have had something to do with the geopolitical climate of the time, don't you think, AC? Oh, wait, you were probably cheering for the Red side back then, weren't ya! Sorry the worker's paradise thing didn't quite pan out for you...
no weapons of mass destruction...whoops
no link with 911...ok so that was a lie
Jury is still out on WMD, but they sure seem to be finding a lot of undeclared pre-gulf war chemical munitions, aren't they! And nobody in the administration even feels the need to promote that. Oh, yeah, makes me wonder, too, about why all of those Russian scientists were running around Iraq before the war... And all of that truck traffic into Syria...
Nobody ever said Saddam was in on 9/11. Nobody. What they said was that Saddam's govt met and discussed operational ties. Stop re-writing history.
but hey this has nothing to do with oil and is all about human rights, forget that we've supported and continue to support regimes that trample over civil liberties.
And you want to take the civil liberties Afghani and Iraqi people have gained away from them, post haste, don't you? Yes, yes you do, because your rabid hatred of Bush and American interests in general trumps all those women who can now vote, go to school, and show their ankles in public without being stoned to death. Such a warm and fuzzy person you are.
never mind the fact that America is actively engaging in torture by shipping prisoners to places for that very purpose.
Well, with pansies like you around, what other choice do we have? I mean, we're trying to avert terrorist attacks, AC, and you want to play dominoes with 'em!
The current group of fanatics we are fighting feels anyone who is not a member of their culture/religion is not worthy to live and must be killed. They would be trying to destroy us even if we stood in the corner with our hands in our pockets, and they are doing this even to people who sympathize with them. As for the government spending money on R&D and production, every penny of your money the government spends on R&D and production ends up in the paychecks of the employees and shareholders associated with the companies that got the contracts.
When he dropped gas on his own people were you not supplying him (among countless other foul dictators) with weaponry?
no weapons of mass destruction...whoops
If he didn't have weapons of mass destruction, how exactly did he gas his own people?
Excessive forking causes un-wanted children.
Speak for yourself, please. My conscience is clear.
"So yes, research for DOD is a Good Thing"
Wow.
I think I'd call it more of a Necessary Evil, but that's just me.
Right before the speed of sound the whole wing swivels 60 degrees? How many times can it do that before failure? Great concept but considering the amount of fraud and waste going on in government projects I sure as hell wouldn't want to fly in one.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Were you just posting the Daily Kos talking points without thinking?
Point of fact, Kos is primarily a political tactician and not prone to making unbased assertions. These are not points he would make.
OTOH, which social programs are "craptastic," pray tell? As for our government protecting us from terrorists, I hardly see how this ridiculous boondoggle has anything to do with that, any more than the Crusader artillery piece or the new class of destroyers are meant to fight terrorism.
Next time you get a chance to remove your head from your ass, you might take note that the informed criticism of "our" president (he's not the president of Slashdot) is based on substantive policy concerns and has nothing to do with blind hatred or winning at all costs. What you are suggesting is really nothing more than projection, and it is the sort of reaction to criticism that is absolutely guaranteed to prevent any cohesive bipartsanship in our lifetimes.
// This is not a sig.
Actually, with SUVs no longer being "in vogue" in the U.S. - I think you'll find quite a few people of limited incomes driving them. The used car lots near me are overfilled with early 2000 model mid-sized SUVs that they're more than happy to resell, especially to people with "less than perfect credit".
"Keeping up with the Jones'" doesn't equate to buying some 2001 or 2002 model Mitsubishi or Nissan SUV. Those are purchased today because someone has few options in the "under $15,000" range for a reasonably nice-looking vehicle that has a decent chance of being reliable for a few more years.
If they want something that will fly around for hours and then go quickly to a target why not just carry cruise missiles in a slow plane like they do already?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Then again, with all the ties politicians have to corporations like Halliburton, The Carlyle Group, etc... in a lot of cases, when the government spends on defense... a lot of that money directly benefits the politicians' retirement funds.
And keep in mind that we attacked them. Had we not attacked them, they weren't about to attack us. Meanwhile, some other people were. And we left them alone.
War is good for creating jobs, if only we could be at 1999 military and civilian casualty and injury levels.
http://icasualties.org/oif/Cumulative.aspx
Of course, I don't have a problem with our gov't safeguarding us and preventing another 3,000 of our citizens from being killed by terrorists, but I guess I'm not blinded by hatred of our President.
So when we get to 3000 kids, dubya sent to die, we'll be even, right. I guess the 18,350 kids who were wounded is a fair price to pay for you to "feel safer"
Those unacceptable numbers pale in comparison to the casualties and injuries incurred by non-us civilians. Estimated to be 35,000 to 42,000 people. Hmmm. 40,000 family members all love the US now. No reason they would join the insurgents. Was only dad, brother, son.....
War sucks, however, war is sometimes necessarry. Unecessarry war is morally repugnant. Red State/Blue State makes no damn difference.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
But just before the craft breaks the sound barrier, its single wing will swivel around 60 degrees (hence the name) so that one end points forward and the other back.
I'm sure their engineers have worked long and hard, but hey! That should be NINETY degrees to make one end point forward and the other back! NINETY!
What's happening to engineering? This isn't exactly rocket science.
NASA AD-1 - from 19-frigg'n-80 - and *that* aircraft was predated by an RPV from 1976!
Hey, I've got a great idea for a plane that combines forward thrust with a rotary wing that increases lift and reduces fuel consumption. I call it... "the autogyro". I wonder how many the Pentagon will want...
Clear, Dark Skies
The unemployement rate is... semi-useful.
Unemployement can go up, while the unemployement rate goes down.
Basically: Unemployment statistics indicate how many (unemployed) people are seeking employment for pay. This number is only tangentially related to the number of people who do not have jobs.
I'd encourage you to read more about it here
As for Medicare, a quick Google search would show you that the Gov't has cut spending in the past (Feb. 2006-ish) and is currently trying to cut it again.
Last but not least, military spending as a percentage of GDP is much less relevant than military spending as a percentage of government spending.
P.S. Kossack is generally spelled with a "C" Ie "Cossack"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That's why.
Clear, Dark Skies
Boy, I'm glad I'm not the only one old enough to remember that plane.
Clear, Dark Skies
History, look at it. Many gassed decades ago with chemical weapons. Also make technical note of the functional lifespan of chemical weapons in storage. Locating decades old supplies of chemical weapons is not finding new weapons of the sort, nor is it finding functional weapons of the sort implied.
You are correct, this is a sixty-two year old idea: http://www.luft46.com/bv/bvp202.html And NASA had the Oblique Wing aircraft they flight tested in the 1970's: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/
Unemployment is down to 4.6%
But are those stats really accurate? Hardly.
Millions of Americans have been unemployed for too long so the gov't just labels those workers as "discouraged" and arbitrarily drops them from its stats -- a nice way of cooking the numbers; just like labeling part-time workers who can't find full time work as "employed".
Do European countries cook their unemployment numbers as badly as the US? (I don't know, just asking.)
The AFL-CIO have done some analysis that showed that if the US used the same statistical model today that they used in the 1970s, that the real unemployment rate today would be almost double what the US gov't reports.
Yes, there really are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
cheering for the reds- ahhh, that sounds like the "you're either with us or against us" bullshit that bush said about the war on terror. well actually i'm neither. i dont like murderous liars whatever their justification or persuasion.
but lets deal with a few facts- Hussein dropped gas on the kurds (Halabja) in the late 80's and at that time your govt supported hussein.
When the US and UK govt were holding up fraudulent dossiers in front of the UN and undermining their credibility, there was good reason to think that hussein had no weapons of mass destruction- which turned out to be the case. is that not crystal clear to you? the jury out? even dr strangefeld would now admit that saddam had none.
you're much better off when you lie about the reason you went to war in the 1st place; that it was all about human rights and democracy.
but in response to this i would once again ask you a question you've failed to answer; why does the US choose to act on the abuses of certain regimes around the world and not others, could it be that the human rights thang is just a front for protecting their own interests?
if iraq was a major source of...carrots, would the US govt give a damm about the human rights abuses on women?
if you answer yes to this last one then you are either a stupid person and you believe the lies fed to you (and given the way you express yourself that is a distinct possibility.)
Or maybe you're just an evil biggot. America does seems to have more than its fair share these days. By the way, however much you join bush, blair and bin laden in their chorus of "god told me to do it" it doesn't make a bit of difference to me. The thousands of people killed in this disgusting war are still dead and the number is still growing.
and as for pansies, i'll bet you wouldn't call me that to my face you lard-arsed fool.
give it up for the military-industrial complex which is making BILLIONS of $$$ building things that blow up. or building things that blow other things up.
oh, it's only 10 million. well, the design anyways. before the bait-and-switch.
> For years, the U.S. military has wanted a plane that could loiter just outside enemy territory for more than a dozen hours and, on command, hurtle toward a target faster than the speed of sound. And then level it.
uh-huh! i want one of them, too!
Free Manning, jail Obama.
"CNN reports that Northrop Grumman is under contract to build a new supersonic, shape-shifting bomber by 2020. The main innovation is in its single, rotating wing. From the article: '[It] will cruise with its 200-foot-long wing perpendicular to its engines like a normal airplane. But just before the craft breaks the sound barrier, its single wing will swivel around 60 degrees (hence the name) so that one end points forward and the other back. This oblique configuration redistributes the shock waves that pile up in front of a plane at Mach speeds and cause drag. When the Switchblade returns to subsonic speeds, the wing will rotate back to perpendicular.'"
Let's change that to read: "its 200-foot-long wing at right angles to its fuselage like a normal airplane". Otherwise I get an image of the wing being in a vertical up and down position relative to the fuselage.
And: "the wing will rotate back to the right angle position".
Writing readable English should not be that difficult.
Fata viam invenient.
You do realize that federal funding of education is only a tiny percentage of total education funding?
Most of the funds for education in the United States come from property taxes.
Clear, Dark Skies
US tops world in school spending.
Clear, Dark Skies
I agree. Our military spending prevented 9/11 from happening. And boy, did we whip bin Laden's ass for even thinking about it! We put his shrunken head on the Washington Monument! Let that shit be a lesson to all you terrorisms!
Put another way: You think Bush dropping his pants and waving his tiny little nuclear warhead around is going to scare the religious jihadists? We're talking RELIGIOUS WINGNUT SUICIDE BOMBERS here. They don't care what happens to the rest of the world after they leave it. They think, for whatever reason, that they're doing the work of their god. Imagine if Hannity had an army of fervent followers who would be willing and eager to literally die for him.
Put down the crack pipe and the Tiger Balm, Rush. Who do you think is buying the debt that is used to pay for our military misadventures? I can't believe it's not
Newsflash, O'Falafel: Thanks to the Bush Administration's wanton spending spree, China could crash our economy into a zillion little shards . They have a strong economic incentive not to do that, but they could if they so chose. Bush and Cheney have given them that power over us.
no, the R is obviously for the D.
Shape shifting implies something more complex than rotating parts.
That should read "rotating wing".. I somewhat expected something which turns into a cessna, then a commercial liner, than a wright flyer.. not some dinky rotating wing.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
That is the Scissor Wing Transport.
Amazing, what started out as an efficient way of moving people around the planet has been corrupted into a weapon of war.
WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN!
Randy
Argue semantics all you want, all the government has done is OK continued development. Until they start gearing up a production run, its still R&D in most minds.
We already have enough weapons.
Its not about volumes of weapons, its about having the right weapon for the right task. This weapon is geared toward modern engagements, rapid response, etc. an area where the current systems have come up short. 50 Metric tons of AK-47's is enough weapons, yet completely ineffective against an ancient B-29 flying at 20,000 feet.
The poster, IMO, was simply suggesting the removal of the "build things to destroy things" aspect to focus on the innovation for purely peaceful applications.
Which is a lovely thought, and if the whole world were an idylic Utopia, that might be fine suggestion.
The new Apple laptops have batteries that buldge and lift and seperate, just sitting there without moving! :P
Your statement is correct as far as it goes, but what you've failed to realize is that "the current group of fanatics" is not a fixed set of people. Like the particles of water vapor that form a cloud, there are constantly individuals entering and leaving the "set of fanatics", and its appearance as a fixed object is an illusion. Like a cloud, its size will grow or shrink depending on the environment around it. Which is why so much of the USA's recent actions have been not only ineffective but counterproductive: if a military operation kills N terrorists, but inspires (more than N) people who were previously non-combatants to become terrorists, then our effort in that operation has actually harmed us more than doing nothing would have.
The "War On Terror" is not some video game where you can win simply by killing until there are no 'baddies' to kill. It is a political struggle for the hearts and minds of humanity. The terrorists know this, and use it to their advantage. It's time we did the same. When the bulk of the world can't tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys" anymore, the terrorists are winning.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Does that include the civilians in Spain killed by the terrorists bombing the trains?
Do you claim that weapons past functional life are functional? Weapons undeclared as they are not functional due to age are not supportive of an invading force entering under claim that functional weapons exist but rather the opposite.
This is the only thing for which a plane like this might have purpose. I mean, assuming they left their photon torpedoes in their other ships.
I appreciate the interesting engineering in this, but in a world which you don't have any real conventional armies to use it against that couldn't be easily decimated with our existing aircraft... well, I guess I just wonder if there wasn't anything else we could've spent the dough on.
It will be a psychological arms race. In the end techniques are always developed that conquer all torture methods and prepare the trained to provide only misinformation in the guise of revealed information after every severity of torture. This misinformation leads to misapplication of force and benefit to the forces of the tortured. That is the flaw of torture. Information extracted through it is not reliable and can never be reliable. It encourages misinformation to a much greater degree than it can ever encourage accurate information and deluding yourself that it can serve any purpose other than that of pure barbarism is self-defeating.
Lemme ask you, if you were in charge of verifying that Iraq is WMD-free, would you allow a slew of sarin and mustard gas weapons with questionable born-on-dates to be ignored and allowed to be undeclared? Gimme a break, man.
Did you know that Lenin was convinced of the inevibility of the world communism, a midget called Napoleon was convinced that he's unbeatable and the sun was never to set over the British Empire? Every superpower has fallen and so will US. History is a bitch that likes to repeat herself, but don't fret the next superpower-to-be is just behind you in that queue.
I think you're full of shit. I'd like to use both methods on you and see what's what.
I don't have a problem with our gov't safeguarding us and preventing another 3,000 of our citizens from being killed by terrorists
How are you so blind? They're not doing it for you. They're not doing anything to protect you. They are protecting profits.
Here, this rock keeps bears away. Want to buy it? You're supporting capitalism if you do, and supporting the terrorists if you don't. I bet you buy it.
So in your view a nation-state's sovereignty is worthless so that it can now be breached at the whim of an invading force and that any resistance is the party at fault? This has never gone well any time it has been used as support for invasion.
don't forget about the B-1. it had swing wings too.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Last time I read something about the Switchblade, it was more like a swing-wing design with a wing configuration designed to match the X-29's abilities, now it's a UAV flying wing?
Task Mangler
LOL! http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/1021/ass9sn.jpg
"Also, the "poverty level" is the biggest lie that's come from the Democrats in my lifetime. The poverty level is plenty to afford a car, decent apartment, cable and a cellphone for each kid. There are no poor people in the U.S. or Europe."
You are either trolling, or blindingly ignorant. But i repeat myself.
I make well above the official poverty line, and on my own cannot afford a car, decent apartment, cable and cellphones, much less care and feeding of the implied children.
As much as no one likes war, it is a goal to work towards that helps in the R&D of new technologies. I mean, if I were to tell you "Go out and invent something cool." you'd probably make something interesting. But if I told you "We need to beat these guys!" People generally get a lot more fired up. They tend to focus on the problem at hand and come up with possible solutions, in this case, going faster. It always helps to have some sort of focus.
Now, a similar thing occured when we had the space race for instance, so it's not war only, but war is a powerful force that drives civilizations time and time again.
Also, it's a good defense. If people know we're constantly developing new technologies to swiftly kick their ass, they'll be less likely to try a conventional attack on us.
-=JML=-
Popular Science had an article on a supersonic airliner with a scissor wing (one wing tip forward and the other back) in the 1970's. It was a very interesting idea and it is also known as an oblique wing, and you can find a lot of NASA references to it as oblique.m /index.html
. htm
Here are some pictures of the flying prototypes:
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/AD-1/Mediu
It even inspired an Estes model rocket design where the wing would deployafter boost and glide back to Earth.
http://www.acsupplyco.com/estes/estes_scissorwing
The only inflation going on around his is your blowup girlfriend.
Better yet why not just provide incentives for private enterprise to do R&D and give the money back to the taxpayers?
If you're going to fund something, fund it right out front where I can see it. Don't screw around with "incentives".
Medicare is getting slashed? Congress just passed the largest increase in Medicare spending in decades (Prescription Drug Program).
It's always easy to increase spending when you can't negotiate for reduced price drugs for Medicare. I don't disagree with your point but I suppose I really dislike politicians in the drug company pants.
And this explains the current wars in Africa, Indonesia, and anywhere else the followers of Islam are killing those who do not believe as they do?
No, the mentality of the few radicals we are fighting doesn't apply to all radicals in the world. I don't know of their motivations, but heres a little translation of something Osama said http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/bin.lade n.transcript/
Heres a quote:
Contrary to what [President George W.] Bush says and claims -- that we hate freedom --let him tell us then, "Why did we not attack Sweden?"
I've seen better transcriptions but i can't find them now
Ahh -- But even if you get the truth out of everyone you capture, as long as THEY don't have the truth, you still don't get anywhere.
Oh, and who minds a little torture here and there anyway, no?
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
Can we trigger them in your basement and see how long you live?
The "Best before" date indicates the date after which the weapons aren't reliable, not after which they're completely ineffective.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
...well, that is unless you think planes can't go faster than sound.
You'd think that a quaint 50s term like "sound barrier" would have died off by now, but no.
What value of support does it give to an invader if they find unreliable weapons where they claimed that functional and reliable weapons existed-such as to have posed the threat an invasion is to react to? If you wish to simply hold the absolute total production of all chemical weapons produced against a nation, you must first damn the Russian Federation and United States and most of the EU.
"This war isn't fun.
This war hasn't been profitable."
For who? Certainly it's been fun for the neocons, and profitable for them too. It's also been very profitable for the president and the vice president whose personal fortunes probably soared as a result of increasing oil prices and increased defense spending.
"This war, however, remains necessary."
Bullshit. Really I won't go into why because millions of people who are much smarter then me have made the argument that war was in no way, shape or form necessary. It's just bullshit. The fact that you believe that says a lot about you.
evil is as evil does
"Have you ever heard of NASA? "
Yes I have heard of NASA. You fucking completely missed the point. Can you even read you fucking moron. What the fuck kind of a republitard are you???
Instead of spending money building bombers which do nobody any good how about spending the money with NASA and actually expanding our knowledge of the universe? NASAs budget is what? 16.2 billion last I checked. US is spending 100 billion per year in Iraq alone!. Why not spend that 100 billion per year on something good and will advance mankind instead of killing brown people till they accept the govt we chose for them?
The military can still have the rest of the money, let's just take the money being spent on Iraq.
evil is as evil does
"As much as no one likes war"
I disagree. Many people love war. War gives their lives meaning. It defines them as people and as a country. US goes to war every four to eight years. Like clockwork. Without war it feels lost and feminine. It loves war because it makes it feel like a man, it gives it purpose and meaning.
Many people love war. That's why so many people advocate for it as the first and only solution to any problem.
evil is as evil does
Well, I guess my plane is a shape-shifter too.
Except I call my super-duper morphing acuators "ailerons" and "flaps".
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Well, who ever said that there will never be another conventional war?
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Do we really need another billion dollar plane? Don't we have Billion dollar bombs? We should be investing more in satilites with bomb dropping capabilties and not more jets.Every country in the world knows we America have nukes, biological, chemical and other nasty bombs, having another jet makes no differnce in my opinon for a deterent.
not to be picky or anything, but I feel that while war is a powerful force and it drives many things, civilization is not one of them.
I gues you could say that war drives research, but if you have more sofisticated technology, that does not make you any more civilized.
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
About 50% of all loans are defunct or bad loans, if major banks fail and billions are lost, China will
be forced to sell the US BONDS to get the cash to prop up the bank again.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"CNN reports that Seagate is under contract to build a new supermegabytic, data-shifting hard disk drive by 2006. The main innovation is in its single, rotating platter. From the article: '[It] will cruise with its 500-gigabyte-long platter perpendicular to the label glued on top like a new and expensive hard drive. But just before the drive breaks the speed barrier, its single platter will swivel around 60 degrees (hence the name) so that one end points forward and the other back. This oblique configuration redistributes the shock waves that pile up in front of a drive at 21,000rpm speeds and cause data loss. When the Switchblade returns to submegabytic speeds, the platter will rotate back to perpendicular. The main challenge will be guessing if the bits are parralel, perpendicular, or plain offtopic.'"
This administration did manage to cut medicare benefits while massively increasing the cost of the program to taxpayers. They're also responsible for any other rising costs of social programs and any other decisions made as they control both the white house and congress.
As far as "another 3,000" of our citizens being killed by terrorists, how exactly has this administration done that? The man responsible for September 11th is still alive, because we decided we needed to move our war to somewhere with less value to the saftey of the USA, but more natural resources. And all it took was the president lying to the people about some intelligence, outing a secret a service agent whose husband threatened to reveal facts, lying about the knowledge of who revealed the information, later stating that the president has all powers to declassify, and then when it appears someone may have broken a law, magically getting their trial pushed beyond your mid-term elections. It's kind of hard not to hate the president and this administration.
This is complete and utter bullshit. While I imagine there are some fanatics out there who feel that people who are not a member of their culture/religion must be killed, I would wager that a good number of them live in the US. The primary beef folks in the Midle East have with American policy is that we blatantly and unreasonably yield to Israeli policy at the expense of the Arab population. The western world considers the Arab world with general contempt stretching back to the time after WWI when the west drew up borders and established puppet leaderships. The global population in general rejects the strong brand of American superiority and cultural hegemony that is imposed by fiat on what are supposed to be locally-goverened democracies. Funny thing--many Americans are fed up with this too, albeit on subtler levels.
As for the government spending money on R&D and production, every penny of your money the government spends on R&D and production ends up in the paychecks of the employees and shareholders associated with the companies that got the contracts.
Aside from the fact that most of the money for these contracts DOES NOT EVEN EXIST AND IS MERELY DEBT TO BE PASSED ON TO FUTURE GENERATIONS, money could still be spent on R&D for peaceful purposes. You know, things like shelter and food. Buckminster Fuller's vision of a world without material need is a technological possibilty. Unfortunately it's not politically as profitable as war. Profiting from war is a true moral low, but quite beneficial for the Inner Party.
harmonious design
They talked about a design like this in Popular Science Magazine. Before I graduated from High School. In 1980.
Military overexpenditure will soon be the end of us. See Rome, see Napoleonic France, see Nazi Germany. All empires fall from overextending their military. None have ever survived it.
At least war pays for pure R&D and cutting edge science. ... Unfortunate that war (or the preparation/avoidance of war) is the driver, but the cutting edge avionics and composite technologies I enjoy as an aviation hobbyist were born from that 'war machine'. Someday we might not - but I don't see it changing anytime soon.
I agree that much technology is developed from military applications, but I don't agree that it has to be that way or is even usually that way. Early aircraft designs were all civilian and the products later adapted for military use (Wright flyer, zeppelins, flying boats, racing planes, mail planes, helicopters (American version, German version was military)). Many WWII bombers were simply modified 1930's airliner designs. Probably the most famous civilian-to-military aircraft was the DC-3 (and yes, I know that most airliners of the 50's and 60's went the other way and were derived from WWII bomber designs). Many aerodynamic advances seen on military craft today, such as fuel-saving winglets, came from civilian research. The rotating wing aircraft design discussed in the article was a civilian NASA research project that has now been adapted for a military bomber. Even the composite construction materials and techniques you attribute to the military had their first use in sport sailplanes, and were only later adopted for military aircraft.
I'm not saying that military to civilian technology transfer does not occur, but I don't think it is accurate to credit the "war machine" with driving civilian aircraft development - I think it is the other way around for the most part.
Every modern war has been hugely profitable to the US. What would be the point otherwise ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
And Blohm & Voss were designing this sort of thing in the 1940s. None of it is new, and allmost all of it is copied from German technology. That, after all, is where all our rocket technology comes from!
It's a copy of the BV P202. Here is a link. http://www.luft46.com/bv/bvp202.html
And this should get me something for "informative", if anything does!
I've been working on...
We can barely keep an occupying force together in one country of 24 million.
So fuck off out of that country and stop interfering with other countries, mmmkay?
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
"There are many more then 38 Million SUV drivers." - How many? Reference? Actually I'd be interested to know the figure of SUV *owners* because I sat in a friend's Land Rover once and drove it up the drive for 5 minutes so technically I could be described as an "SUV driver (once)" but I don't think we want to include people like me in the stats we're interested in...
Does anyone want to make a bet on the likelihood it will be stolen by a guy called Miles Mayhem?
Sorry, I'm an immature adult.
And what's more, this plane can time-travel back to 1953 where it's relevant.
I want one for Xmas! Or \mas! Or /mas!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Don't you mean, rather, "If the current U.S. regime decides to invade another country on false pretense?" Or, "If the U.S. has to clean up another mess of it's own making?" Or, "If the president's approval rating drops too low?"
The American people have a right to know WHY we need to spend more on our military than most of the rest of the world combined, and I'm afraid that if we really knew the truth, we wouldn't like it one bit. Yes, in fact I'm quite certain.
We are only reaping what we have sewn in the violence perpetrated against us. The American public is paying the price for the "leadership" we have chosen.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Interesting. Want to know whats worse? The fact of the supposed retirement of the f-14 . But the problem is that all the f-14d's are being sent to the boneyard as is. Not stripped of their electronics. Planes sent there are stripped. Why send the f-14d's there whole and fully operational. I say there is something fishy going on.
Similarly, to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq is an appropriate use of US tax money. However, to rebuild any infrastructure in the US would be socialism.
Similarly, we have a responsibility to free the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's tyranny because those people deserve human rights and we have a leadership role when it comes to human rights in the world. However, we can inprison them indefinitely without trial, and interrogate them with what would be considered torture in the US, because they are not Americans, and it's not the responsibility of the US government to secure human rights for non-Americans.
Keep going over those basic arguments until you've memorized them. It might help to print them out and carry them around with you, in case you don't have 24/7 access to Fox News.
Sorry if this is a late dupe, but Northrop Grumman patented a thing they called Switchblade back in 1999.
Guess that version didn't pan out.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Ah, but by this you imply that the U.S.A. (probably the only country in the world with a continued military engagement from the 1860's to date - never on it's own land!) was at some point a good guy.
Terrorist, noun: One who utilizes the systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve political objectives, while disguised as a civilian non-combatant. (source: "define:terroist" on google)
In light of the above definition, I beg to differ: outside of your borders (where, by definition, people are less subjective on U.S.A.-related issues) it is widely regarded that the U.S.A. is probably the biggest world terrorist. But what can one expect from a country so energy dependent on one hand, in a constant oil acquisition frenzy on the other and to top it all off, a probably bigger military yearly budget than the rest of the world put together...
Just thought you'd enjoy a sobering thought or two...
They talked about a design like this in Popular Science Magazine. Before I graduated from High School. In 1980.
And that was due to Burt Rutan building and showing off the AD-1 in the late 70s / early 80s. Show a prototype concept vehicle, and people's minds start racing at the possibilities. The problem was, it was difficult to fly, so the design needed a little time on the shelf to allow AI concepts and processing power time to catch up. 40 years after proving the concept (assuming this program isn't cut), we will have our swing-wing bomber.
This is much like the "flying wing" concept conceived and tested by Jack Northrop in the 1920s. There were production models made in the 1940s, such as the Northrop B-35, but the flight characteristics were still touchy. Ultimately, the design had to wait until the 1980s for the B2, for fly-by-wire and enough procesing power to keep the wing stable.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
There's also another factor at work, in my opinion: the US is essentially underwriting the defense of the entire free world, and for good reason. I don't think we're interested in instilling fear in free nations so much as insulating ourselves from their utter fecklessness. If we had to talk the likes of France, Germany, and a number of others into helping us in something vital in their -- much less our -- defense, we'd be making a risky bet. Better to invest in our own ability to project force on their behalf than count on them being there when it really counts. It also has the side benefit of the US being able to project humanitarian aid swiftly and on a global scale. The big tsunami was a good example. The US had a carrier groups there helping rescue, treat, and supply people within 48 hours. The UN was still holding organizing meetings two weeks later (and coincidently taking credit for the help the US military was already delivering). I view the US military, in part, as in-kind foreign aid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-111
XaNk: now I remember why I hated the girls in high school
XaNk: because none of them would talk to me
Well it was rather hard with the misspellings and poor grammar, but I made it through.
What the fuck kind of a republitard are you???
This is where you cannot argue a point so you decide to start calling names. You make nicknames rather than use proper names. Is this supposed to make you look intelligent?
You seem to equate war being wrong with building an unmanned jet that can fly well at either supersonic or sub-supersonic speeds. This is just a plane we are not building a war. Yes this is a machine capable of being used in war, but the technology could be used for many other things like civilian aircraft in the future.
Oh and to answer your question, no I am not a Republican and rarely vote for any Republican candidates. I would bet by reading your comments though that it does not matter what a candidate has to say as long as they belong to the correct party you will vote for them.
Slashdot +1 funny -4 Insightful +1 informative -2 Redundant
Karma: Somewhere between SCO and Microsoft
Please use facts when making an argument. This is just a dumb statement that shows you have no good points to argue.
Yes, but we all know that facts are the tools of the liberal elite. It's better to use truthyness when making an argument. It would terrible to be castigated as one of those liberals. BTW, did you know Ted Kennedy eats fresh, raw puppies for breakfast?
from the folks who brought you napalm and unmanned predator drones, here is another way to maim brown people in other countries without having to see them.
A lot of writers have missed the point of the proposed vehicle. It is an unmanned vehicle desigend to loiter for long periods of time while having the ability to strike quickly. It will be usefull against conventional as well as unconventional targets. With today's precision munitions it will be able to strike a range of targets based upon the threat. In effect it will do what we are doing today but more efficiently and without the risk to a crew. Saying that money could be better spent elsewhere is rather naive. There will always be a threat somewhere, at least in our lifetime. The article doesn't provide enough information for us to determine if it is a viable and cost effective solution so we can't say for sure if it warrants testing. In theory, this design will allow for a lighter and stronger design than a conventional swing wing design. Being lighter and stronger allows for greater payload and/or range so it may work out well.
So when are you going to war to prevent to 30k to 40k people killed by autombiles in the USA each year?
Anarchists never rule
"The current group of fanatics" did not reside in Iraq before the USA invaded Iraq. The fanatics moved to Iraq to take advantage of the chaos following the botched occupation and to kill Americans without the hassle of sneaking into the USA.
Anarchists never rule
"The reason why americans are driving SUVs is because US goverment is subsidizing personal driving, by not taxing car owners the cost that are associated with using cars."
First of all, you equate "not taxing" with "subsidizing". The US definitely has plenty of corporate welfare programs, but not taxing something is not the same thing as subsidizing it.
"that everybody is in the same line in life and that people try and take risk in their lifes, without worrying ending up in the street."
The possibility of ending up on the streets is not only a good motivator for taking risks, it's a good motivator for making those risks pay off. I disagree with your premious that a welfare system encourages people to take risk; I think it does just the opposite. Social safety nets are a good thing, but life-long entitlement systems destroy cultures and remove the need to strive not only for survival, but personal growth.
I guess it's desirable in your country "that everyone is in the same line". I think people in Europe often think of the US as a European country on another continent. This is not true. The US is very diverse, so diverse racially and culturally that there is no possibility of defining a "same line" for everyone to be in. Being forced to be in the "same line" is the reason most of our ancestors left their old countries to come here. I have no desire to be in the "same line" with everyone else, I desire a system that lets me be all I can be and challenges me to become more than I am.
A Human Right
Aww, see. Now you made me hungry. . . And not a puppy to be found! Guess I'll just have to resort to killing kittens. . .
(Please, look for the sarchasm before modding, you might fall and get hurt)
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
Hint: The parent post has NOTHING to do with the topic at hand, so whoever gave it +Insightful needs to have his/her mod privileges revoked. Moderate and Meta-moderate accordingly.
I think the error in your logic is the target of the R&D. Consumers don't like change. Government can change technology much more easily. I don't have a fuel cell vehicle because it requires me and a large percentage of the population to start buying them. I don't know about you, but buying a new car isn't in my budget.
The thing about fuel cell, or any alternative fuel vehicles, is that we have to get to critical mass before it can happen. If you can see a way to do that, then do it and you will be the next multi-billionaire in this country. To make it work, you either have to have the money to immediately implement the fuel on a national scale without having the sales to get there, or it has to be 100% compatible with existing engines.
I think what we need to work on is a method to easily and inexpensively retrofit existing engines to work with alternative fuels. If I could go to Schucks and spend less than $2000 on an engine add-on that would let me use an alternate fuel, I would do it. I have seen several articles on Slashdot about hydrogen-injection systems for motors, some you have to buy hydrogen for, and some that create it themselves. The problem is, they all turn into vaporware. Someone needs to fund the people that are trying to develop them, or do it themselves so it works. I'll be the first in line to buy one, but I can't afford to go spend $30-60,000 on a new car that might use alternative fuels. And I don't know many that could. I live in the Seattle area, and I don't seen any stations that are selling Hydrogen, either.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
It's a Good Thing (tm). If it were a Necessary Evil (tm), we would be reluctant to do it, and we would be the next target because of it. Besides, when technology like this is developed, it's contracted to the private sector to build it. A few design generations later, it ends up being incorporated into commercial craft, because Boeing, etc know how the design works.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
I think there was a paradigm shift in the system at some point. As the government got more proactive in developing defense systems, the government became more innovative than the private sector. In the modern design world, private defense contracts are where the real design happens. It makes for a fuzzy line, but that makes it so that more military development is getting into commercial implementation.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
look fuckwad. What kind of a person thinks that military spending is the best and most efficient way to get R&D? What kind of a retard thinks that the govt is the best and most effective way to accomplish R&D?
You are a retarded moron. A republitard.
evil is as evil does
Military R&D is a necessary evil. We could stop it today, but I can promise you Iran, China, and North Korea (among others) won't do the same. Granted we're a few steps ahead and it'll take them a while to catch up, but when it comes to war, I'd rather be as far ahead as I can be. That's the reason Desert Storm was so short, because we had the technology and money behind it. We didn't start that war, but I'm sure glad we had what we did or it would have been a lot longer or had a lot more casualties, but probably both.
Just remember, there are a lot of technologies we use every day that developed out of war, like it or not. I hope it changes some day too, but I highly doubt it. It's human nature to kill eachother.
China? North Korea? Possibly even India down the road? Right now we're already at war with North Korea (okay, there has been a cease-fire for decades now but the war^H^H^Hpolice action is still on) and in a very real economic war with both China and India (in which many Americans are helping us to lose), plus China has been sabre-rattling since the '90s.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
A commercial pizza delivery version would capture the hearts of the overweight American population and seal the deal here...
"Military R&D is a necessary evil. We could stop it today, but I can promise you Iran, China, and North Korea (among others) won't do the same."
So in your little black and white world there are only choices. 1) keep spending more then the rest of the world combined, invade countries under false pretenses, wage way every four to eight years. 2) Stop all spending.
You see no alternatives whatsoever. None huh. I mean Canada or sweden don't spend a lot but china isn't invading them and north korea hasn't invaded anybody for a really long time. Why do you think North Korea want to kill Americans?
evil is as evil does
ROTFLMAO!
My newsfeed truncated the article title to " The Pentagon's Supersonic, Shape-Shifting Ass..."
So that's where all our tax money is going!!!
Outed? The prototype was available for public view from NASA 20 years ago. Saw it in public at Moffet NAS back then. Looked more like a pair of scissors than a knife to me.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Numbers, please?
I came, I saw, I left. It looked better in the brochure.
Any load that falls far short of that, does very little wear. It's not straining the pavement.
The rest of your post is just oft-repeated chicken littling. You realize the sky is cleaner now then it's been in decades (at least where the economy is strong enough to allow people to run clean engines)?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I would rather see the money spent by the military than the governmet for another handout program so sacks of shit like you can sit at home and collect welfare. North Korea hasn't invaded anyone in a long time is the best you can do for a reason to cut spending? Pull your head out of your ass. Your a piece of shit communist\democrat.
Nice rant guys. I'll add some flamebait for ya...
Namecalling is really unnecessary, you dumb piece of shit assmunching queerbait syphallitic twat dripping. And for a pacifist, you seem to be harboring a LOT of pent up rage. Maybe a good war will do you good!
Now, as far as technology goes, try this at home... Tally up on one side all the technological advances that were either directly, or indirectly, attributable(sp?) to the war effort. On the other side tally up the advances made "for the good of mankind".
War may be a Bad Thing(TM0), however, The threat of death DOES, for some odd reason, is one hell of a motivator. So fine we can all teach the world to sing and buy a Coke and whatnot, but, I don't have the money to fund R; much less, D. So whoever does Can.
oh, and neener neener neener.
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
So you have decided that a conversation about how best to go about doing research and development has become about the merits of war then huh? Nice going dumbass. Now why don't you go back to listening to talk radio because apparently reading is just too hard for you.
There are two basic questions in this thread.
1) Is the govt the best and the most efficient mechanism to advance the state of R&D?
2) Given A) is military spending the best and most efficient mechanism to advance the state of R&D.
I say the answer to both questions is FALSE.
The war pigs apparently think the answer to both questions is TRUE and as a bonus they get better and longer lasting erections thinking about all the dead brown people.
evil is as evil does
Sure don't need any extra heating there in that cockpit with that laptop there if its a macbook ;)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
People are saying this isn't new, it was tested by NASA in the 1980s following research in the 1970s. Well, IIRC, It was Barnes Wallis who developed this concept for supersonic aircraft in the 1950s. He was British, which I guess is why you 'mericans pathologically overlook his work. In fact if it wasn't for the Brits handing over all their supersonic research as part of a post-war deal (fair enough I guess, we needed your money to rebuild our country and the rest of Europe), you probably would have been beaten to the punch for breaking the sound barrier in the first place.
Mind you, BW was against the TSR-2 and so lent a lot of clout the US argument against that effort, so he's got some brownie points against him in my book. But that's an argument for another day.
...OTOH, which social programs are "craptastic," pray tell?...
Welfare.
Any other questions?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
The thing that the military adds to R&D that academia lacks is urgency.
This has been the case in a number of instances, but it is not the norm. What the military provides is a way to bypass both ethics and reasonable accountability and risk assessment. By operating in secret they manage to hide their actions from public outcry. Sometimes (rarely I hope) this means unethical experimentation on people. More often it means spending 100 billion dollars over the course of 20 years to create technologies only marginally better than what exist in the private sector and at prices that businesses accountable for their spending would find ludicrous. Sometimes, very rarely, these projects pay off by producing real advances. Usually, however, they are an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars. If the public had visibility into the waste the military would be stopped by public outcry. In the public sector, the investors stop the waste. The risk versus reward is terrible for most of these projects. The ability to continue with thousands of them anyway is what the military brings.
Academia can spend generations arguing the same theories to death.
But generally that costs very little. In truth, mostly it is academia who makes the real breakthroughs. Really, I'm going to have to disagree with you here.
It's easy to criticize something you don't directly benefit from, isn't it?
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Shit-
I was an Industrial Hygienist for 8 years. One of my primary roles was to oversee the renovation of housing projects. I *directly* saw where my tax money went, insofar as the welfare part.
I can goddamn guarantee you that welfare is a waste of my money, and everyone else's to boot.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I'm not certain, but I think what you just did is an appeal to authority. Not sure how it works when the authority is the person making the argument, but whatever.
Putting that aside, how do you propose improving welfare, or are you suggesting that money would be better spent on weapons systems and that the poor should be left to sink or swim?
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Instead, we have a massively complex, massively redundant bureaucracy of scores of different private plans that cannot negotiate with drug companies for discounts on a national level. The redundancy insures that multiple people are being paid to do the same thing, which drives up costs. And each of these plans is a for-profit enterprise, so there is the added cost of paying a cut to the owners. This is a certain recipe for a craptastic, expensive, ineffective program.
Thank you pResident Bush JR, thank you Republican Congress!
I wouldn't have a problem with that either, except that the cost of the Iraq Conquest and Occupation isn't considered part of the military budget. $70 billion here, 80 billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money. And the eventual costs of taking long term care of the wounded and traumatized will be on the VA budget, so you can lump that into the costs of social services when you complain about welfare spending. There is also the hidden cost of replacing the equipment we're wearing out at record rates, which won't start hitting hard until after 2006.
Over 2500 of our soldiers are dead. ~10,000 more are horribly wounded, and would have been dead in any other conflict, including Gulf War I. Why do you hate our troops so much that you don't even consider them citizens?
And if this action had made us safer, we wouldn't be taking our shoes off in airports, having our private calls logged by the NSA, our library records scrutinized, etc., etc., etc.,. If "safety" is so important to you, why not just hold up a liquor store and get put in jail. Your ass will be safe there (well, maybe not your ass, but the rest of you, anyway. You even get free prescription drugs!)
Blinded by the sight of his bulging codpiece on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln instead, I guess. That was his diaper, dude!
I'm not a Kossack, though I have followed links to topics on Daily Kos now and then. I'm not sure they have a motto. They do seem to argue with each other almost as vociferously as the Democrats. I never considered diversity of opinion to be a win at all costs strategery. In context, George Bush JR and Karl Rove seem to have a pretty exclusive copyright on the win-at-all-costs attitude.
Fundamentalism is a crime against humanity
I not only talked to Jones, I got funding mandated to Ames to fund supersonic testing of the oblique all wing design as a consequence of my conversations with him. The poor SOBs at Ames ended up getting some assholes at NASA HQ on a revenge kick by docking their discretionary budget by the amount that congress mandated. R. T. Jones told me, and I believe him, that the eliptical oblique ALL WING (read my fucking response) was proposed almost as soon as the principle of the oblique wing was discovered optimal.
Seastead this.
I am not the be-all-end-all authority on welfare, but having seen, 1st hand, how it is mis-used, in a very large section of the welfare population (20,000+ units) I can safely say I know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, as far as fixing it, it's simple:
2 years on "welfare" then you are cut off. Find a job or starve.
You've got 2 years, hell the gov't will even help with education and job placement (at least the state gov't where I live does)
Welfare was an idea for temporary assistance, started in the depression era (IIRC) and was never meant to be a way of life.
But those that only wish to be a leach, or have no self respect regarding their place in this world, have abused the system, and turned it into a generational life support.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
2 years on "welfare" then you are cut off. Find a job or starve.
So you have no problem with allowing people to starve? Ok. I think that I don't even need to make an argument. But I will point out that there are no indefinite welfare programs anyway. Did you miss welfare reform in the 90s?
You've got 2 years, hell the gov't will even help with education and job placement (at least the state gov't where I live does)
Will government funded education and job placement miraculously be more efficient than welfare? I mean, you're lumping all assistance programs into "welfare" to begin with, how do these two items not constitute welfare as well?
But those that only wish to be a leach, or have no self respect regarding their place in this world, have abused the system, and turned it into a generational life support.
People abuse all sorts of things, but we don't respond by trashing them. That notion is encapsulated in the cliche "throwing out the baby with the bathwater." Unless you can provide me with serious evidence (i.e. something more substantial than "I saw it") that a significant percentage of welfare recipients abuse the programs, I will have to conclude that there's nothing more to be said here.
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I just got back from iraq, and actually, even as a full blood German, i was darker then a lot of the Iraqis. I would also probably fall under what you would consider a 'war pig', but i would hate to see those Iraqis dead, most of them like us being there (especially financialy) and I met some very good people, some who actualy give more respect to their wives then most americans do (a small minority, but they are over there). people like you who think that all of us 'war pigs' just want to kill people and blow stuff up (blowing stuff up is fun though), would hate it if the media spent more time talking about all the R&D we do for medicine and humanitarian purposes, rather then always talking about our new thing to blow stuff up with. this is not a pro war statement, i just wanted to say that not all of our R&D is on weapons, weapons just cost a lot more then the other stuff so it makes a bigger mark on the budget.
dont they have enuff of them. and i believe most of them have never been utilized in real situations
None of what you said is actually relevent to this conversation but.....
You are/were a volunteer soldier. I was too at one time. When I was in the military I saw first hand what an inneficient and wasteful organization it was. Anybody who tries to justify military spending because it creates R&D is a fool. For every dollar spent on R&D the military spends million dollars on painting an entire base because the general is coming to visit.
As for war pigginess. Well yes since you volunteered to join the army and took active part in the illegal invasion and occupation of people who didn't and don't want you there you must shoulder some of the karma from that process. I don't know if you personally snuffed out a human life there but you helped kill tens of thousands completely innocent human beings. If there is a God you will be held accountable for that sooner or later.
Are you a war pig? Maybe, were you a tool of the war pig? Definately.
If you hate to see iraqis dead then maybe you should stop killing them, just a thought.
evil is as evil does
...So you have no problem with allowing people to starve? Ok. I think that I don't even need to make an argument. But I will point out that there are no indefinite welfare programs anyway. Did you miss welfare reform in the 90s? ...
...Will government funded education and job placement miraculously be more efficient than welfare?...
...Unless you can provide me with serious evidence (i.e. something more substantial than "I saw it") that a significant percentage of welfare recipients abuse the programs, I will have to conclude that there's nothing more to be said here...
I have absolutely no problems letting people, who will not help themselves, starve. None whatsoever.
As far as indefinate welfare, there is a world of difference between reform, and implementation. The work I did in the 90s, showed to me, that nothing had changed.
Nothing.
Case in point: One notable housing project I went to, had a fixed monthly rent of 1$.
That's right 1.00$, and you couldn't be kicked out for late rent payments.
End result? *Straight* from the director's mouth, "no one pays rent here. No one. They know they can't be evicted, so they don't bother."
*That's* abuse of the system.
Perhaps, perhaps not, but it's no long a spoon-fed life support system. Besides, are you only going to accept programs that are guaranteed to work? Then by that definition, you should be rejecting welfare, because it *clearly* *doesn't* work!
20,000 housing project units, encompassing over 100,000 people. In the areas where these project were, that was roughly 10% of the population.
Having just checked the budget for just *one* of the years in my state, I found the welfare section was *5 billion* dollars. For one year!
And much of that money, comes from my tax dollars. I resent this.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I have absolutely no problems letting people, who will not help themselves, starve. None whatsoever.
And you're happy paying a far larger price for the police protection and incarceration that will follow?
Having just checked the budget for just *one* of the years in my state, I found the welfare section was *5 billion* dollars. For one year!
a) Link, please. b) This is a totally meaningless figure in the absence of such context as the total budget, the spending priorities within this figure, federal funding, etc.
Look, your argument boils down to this: I saw some waste when I worked for the government. Well, I have a counter-argument for that: I work for the government, and I've seen a lot of money well spent. Game over. We're at an impasse. I've asked you for facts like four times and you've given me a handful of decontextualized, unsubstantiated numbers and a couple anectdotes. It seems to me that a) you've got a chip on your shoulder because you don't like subsidizing the peaceful society from which you benefit hugely, and b) you don't really have a clue what you're talking about.
One thing is for certain: this conversation is a waste of my time. Farewell.
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Your computer is one tool that developed out of war. ENIAC, the first American all-purpose digital computer, developed out of the need to solve differential equations quickly to compute firing tables. This is just an example of the technologies that have developed out of war-time need.
SRSLY.
What is the purpose of this plane that our existing arsenal is ill-equipped for? In other words, we should be prepared for... what, in your estimation?