Sun Tzu would not have approved. To him the best battles were the ones not fought:
Generally, in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this. To capture the enemy's entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.
Microsoft's tactics of decimation and delay benefit no one. They are needlessly beligerent, and have managed to make an enemy of almost everyone. In the process they have also earned, EARNED, a reputation for shoddy product at expensive prices.
This is no "brilliant" plan. It is the work of a thug who thinks that he can bully the entire world. News flash: the world at some point gets tired of this shit.
Actually the Soviets had a better idea: build the engines into the fuel tank. Of course they abandoned their shuttle after a few flights. They found the concept WAY too expensive.
Note: they aren't fixing any of the actual problems. They are going through painful steps to make it look like progress. Some of these steps sound like the "Hightened Security" measure at the airport.
While I am all for a manned space program, it's time to stop flying the shuttle. It's a white elephant, and the costs of keeping it up in the air are siphoning money out of developing its replacement.
And note that they aren't even discussing the
40 pound bolt fragment that periodically comes off the SRB's.
Neanderthals are quite often given the short end of the stick by scientists.
Probably because they feel a little uncomfortable with the idea that we may have given them the pointy end of the spear. Whenever they discuss how the Neanderthals died out, they kind of tail off at the notion that we exterminated them in a turf war.
Hell, just look in the bible. Don't the Philistine's sound an awful lot like the Neandertals, at least as described by a primative scribe?
What I find preposterous and somewhat irksome is that a politician would speak at the funeral of a soldier who died in a dubiously motivated war and make a bald-faced claim that the soldier is now enjoying a bit of R&R with his maker. Surely that's beyond the competence of judgement even for the president of a superpower, even if the Bible is true in every word?
Frankly, no priest or pastor would ever claim to know where a person was headed in the afterlife. They will tell you that they THINK that the person is going to heaven, but really God is the decider of such things.
Only it the screen reads (with the last link blinking):
Department of Defense: <p>Top Secret
Or:
EvilGenius Incorporated <p> Press F9 for secret plot<br> to rule the world, and F5 for<br> idiotic vulnerability in my next<br> superweapon
Or maybe:
The Swiss Bank <p> Please enter the account number<br> you wish to loot money from:<br> <br> Please enter the amount, and use the<br> US standard decimal point, and not the<br> European comma. While you are at it, ignore<br> the fact the this system is in English<br> and not in French or German
Having just bought a house, it is VERY comforting to know the amount of paperwork that goes into a title transfer.
Of course, you run into the issue of recognizing a string of characters as property. A plot of land doesn't move. I can't type it out a new plot of land. I can go out and jump up and down on it.
A string of characters is a thought. At the very most it's like a trademark. Frankly I could fold up shop as FUBAR.COM and start life over again as NUBI.COM, and through the miracle of search engines, poeple would find me again.
And man oh man, if "domains" start to be property, people will start suing for using their "domains" in disparaging ways. Frankly, I think the whole domain name system is silly. If you are looking for "Realistic" speakers, and try to find them on realistic.com, you are in for quite a suprise. I've learned to trust only the search engines.
That made me think of the Corporate Raiders scene from Monty Python and the Meaning of Life.
But anyway, it's not a crappy scifi movie until you have the guys talking to themselves while typing on a computer with that infamous 20 character wide screen.
Nobody can yet bend the rules, but we're finding more rules all the time.
Yes, but are we finding rules or simply making up new rules? From a strictly secular "objective observer" standpoint, the 2 are indistinguisable.
As far as the G word is concerned, I can find no better explaination for how it is we manage to continue operating. Humans a petty, greedy, and short-sighted. Yet, despite ourselves we have constructed a world based on collective works and free exchange of information. That's not to say that forces are not at work trying to undo that. But there is something going on that is greater than the sum of its parts.
I'm just the kind of guy who finds a pattern in everything. Maybe it is just a personality flaw, or some psychosis, or some primative instinct. But prima fasa, an insane person is incapable of seeing they are insane.
The universe does not have a beginning or an end. It has a center and the details get fuzzier as you extend outward. Not how our picture of the world grows less detailed as we try to peer into the past, or try to guess into the future. The same applies with distance.
So all of these nuts trying to go back to the good old days, and all the cults waiting to the end of the world are frankly full of shit. The universe exists, right now, at this very point in space and time.
Picture it like a lightbulb illuminating a dark field. As you go further out, it becomes dimmer and dimmer until it fades into absolute nothingness.
So now that I've removed the time constraint, the next question is what do we do with the time we have here? What happens after our time is up? What were we before we were here? Is there a God? What is God?
The world is a giant episode of Sienfield. There is no instrisic purpose. Our curse as a species is needing to have a purpose, and to that end each of us strives to try to live one. Believe it or not, that struggle IS our purpose.
What happens after our time is up? You die and start your life over again from the beginning. Ever experience Deja Voi? That's your soul remembering a good idea or a bad idea from the last trip around. Remember Sisiphus from the greeks, pushing the rock up the hill, only to have it fall down again. That's us folks.
Now some enlightened souls finally do figure out how to escape from all this. Generally it involves ceasing the push the rock. The unfortunate and VERY uncomfortable fact of the matter is that you are then in complete control of your life, and there are absolutely no gaurentees as to what is out there.
What is God? God is the collective conciousness of our entire civilization. Each one of us is like a cell in the body. That's why God generally doesn't dig war, murder, theft, or deceipt.
Can you pray to God, sure. But his/her/its ability to alter reality to fit your present crisis without taking something away from someone else is limited. You can pray for world peace, but not for hockey teams or hitting the lotto.
And yes, some people CAN bend the rules. Indeed every advancement in technology involves some small bit of magic that science later justifies be altering the "rules." You can't do anything too weird without having a lot of people believe in you though, there seems to be some sort of power we all have to impose the status quo.
Now all of you can start your flamefests of disbelief.
That's not to say that a far better outcome would be for the energy to dissipate by kicking your whole body. The energy of a bullet over 1/2 of a square inch will kill you. Spread over your entire chest would only give you a nasty bruise or some crack ribs.
The problem is that the bullet doesn't travel straight through you, indeed hollow points are designed not to. The most horrific wounds are inflicted when the bullet shatters inside the body and essentially shreds all of the tissue on its way out. Even if the bullet doesn't shatter, it still has to push all of that flesh out of the way, which again, does more damage that just the initial puncture.
The M-16 is a small bullet, relatively speaking. But it is designed to hit with enormous kinetic energy. Once in the body, it's been known to skip around a bit. On guy in my brother-in-law's group was hit in the leg and the bullet severed his spine. It's also been known to kit major arteries, it's really hard to end up with just a flesh wound.
Zion is actually a collecting area for people who question the programming of the matrix. The machines invented a prophesy to keep the humans busy warring against the machines, and not question the "real" world.
Unfortunately, sooner or later someone comes along who WILL question the "real" world. That person is "the Anomoly". The computer's answer: wipe out Zion, and keep the Anomoly busy re-creating a new Zion. Indeed, there is some implication that the machines designed Neo to fill this role. (Note how many abilities he has in common with the Agents.)
What is happening this time is neo is an anomolous anomoly. He doesn't go with the plan, and takes the emotional "save the princess" option instead of the logical "save humanity" option.
The machines of course are very concerned. If the anomoly rejects the programming they have so carefully crafted they have no idea how everything will turn out. To a mathematical equation, chaos is the end of the system. With Neo free to do what he will, flouting the rules, people who ordinarily wouldn't question the matrix are.
They have a mess, and it's going to end badly. They seem to have a "shotgun and canned goods" backup plan, but the Architect didn't seem to thrilled by the prospect.
I could explain the differing levels of humanity to you, but in your present developmental state you would wind up curling into a fetal position muttering to yourself for the rest of your life.
I personally have been accused of being an Android and an Alien. While I like to cultivate those notions to build up an air of mystery, I can assure you that what seperates me from most other people is having seen the shape of the universe, and developed enough composure to continue living a normal life afterwards.
It is a bit overwhelming, and frankly hard to explain. And no, you don't really need drugs, a plug in the back of your head, or alien intervention to see it. You just have to be willing to ask the right questions, and have no pre-concieved ideas of what the answer should be.
Also remember that most of the damage from a bullet is the exit wound, and with guns like the M-16, when the bullet bounces around the body.
A fabric with high strength would "tame" the bullet, restricting damage to the entrance wound, and also keeping poisenous lubricants like teflon out of the blood stream.
On second thought, with the right stitching pattern you might be on to something. Right now I'm looking at the 3 dimensional weave of the fabric in my T-Shirt.
Again though, it's only good in tension. You do open up more applications though: a high-strength hammock, or a slash-resistant fabric, a drum-head, a high-strength net. Using the same techniques they use for kevlar, bullet-resistant materials.
I'm also envisioning it's use in large pnumatic dome structures, where the strength of the structure IS in the tension of the walls.
Slashdot Mirror
Generally, in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this. To capture the enemy's entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.
Microsoft's tactics of decimation and delay benefit no one. They are needlessly beligerent, and have managed to make an enemy of almost everyone. In the process they have also earned, EARNED, a reputation for shoddy product at expensive prices.
This is no "brilliant" plan. It is the work of a thug who thinks that he can bully the entire world. News flash: the world at some point gets tired of this shit.
I don't think IBM would think that dignified. They would probably have a constractor of a subsidiary do the crushing.
Say anyone else have the idea of a Santa Cruz Missle stuck in their head?
SCO can't be Santa. Santa may not exist, but you still get your packages. SCO does exist, and they are trying to take your packages back.
Or in my case how to re-write C64 and Apple ][ BASIC programs to run on the IBM PC.
Actually the Soviets had a better idea: build the engines into the fuel tank. Of course they abandoned their shuttle after a few flights. They found the concept WAY too expensive.
While I am all for a manned space program, it's time to stop flying the shuttle. It's a white elephant, and the costs of keeping it up in the air are siphoning money out of developing its replacement.
And note that they aren't even discussing the 40 pound bolt fragment that periodically comes off the SRB's.
But remember, ranged weapons are no use in close-quarters combat. Across a field, an archer with a long-bow would easily take out a knight in armor.
10 feet away, my money is on the knight!
Probably because they feel a little uncomfortable with the idea that we may have given them the pointy end of the spear. Whenever they discuss how the Neanderthals died out, they kind of tail off at the notion that we exterminated them in a turf war.
Hell, just look in the bible. Don't the Philistine's sound an awful lot like the Neandertals, at least as described by a primative scribe?
Frankly, no priest or pastor would ever claim to know where a person was headed in the afterlife. They will tell you that they THINK that the person is going to heaven, but really God is the decider of such things.
No wait. Whoever's account that is isn't going to be very "worth"y. Muhahahahahaha.
It's not how crappy the computer you had to work with, it's how much you learned while overcoming its iniquities.
Next you will be telling me there is no Santa Claus.
Or:
Or maybe:
Of course, you run into the issue of recognizing a string of characters as property. A plot of land doesn't move. I can't type it out a new plot of land. I can go out and jump up and down on it.
A string of characters is a thought. At the very most it's like a trademark. Frankly I could fold up shop as FUBAR.COM and start life over again as NUBI.COM, and through the miracle of search engines, poeple would find me again.
And man oh man, if "domains" start to be property, people will start suing for using their "domains" in disparaging ways. Frankly, I think the whole domain name system is silly. If you are looking for "Realistic" speakers, and try to find them on realistic.com, you are in for quite a suprise. I've learned to trust only the search engines.
You know, some new windows would be nice on the house too...
But anyway, it's not a crappy scifi movie until you have the guys talking to themselves while typing on a computer with that infamous 20 character wide screen.
Yes, but are we finding rules or simply making up new rules? From a strictly secular "objective observer" standpoint, the 2 are indistinguisable.
As far as the G word is concerned, I can find no better explaination for how it is we manage to continue operating. Humans a petty, greedy, and short-sighted. Yet, despite ourselves we have constructed a world based on collective works and free exchange of information. That's not to say that forces are not at work trying to undo that. But there is something going on that is greater than the sum of its parts.
I'm just the kind of guy who finds a pattern in everything. Maybe it is just a personality flaw, or some psychosis, or some primative instinct. But prima fasa, an insane person is incapable of seeing they are insane.
The universe does not have a beginning or an end. It has a center and the details get fuzzier as you extend outward. Not how our picture of the world grows less detailed as we try to peer into the past, or try to guess into the future. The same applies with distance.
So all of these nuts trying to go back to the good old days, and all the cults waiting to the end of the world are frankly full of shit. The universe exists, right now, at this very point in space and time.
Picture it like a lightbulb illuminating a dark field. As you go further out, it becomes dimmer and dimmer until it fades into absolute nothingness.
So now that I've removed the time constraint, the next question is what do we do with the time we have here? What happens after our time is up? What were we before we were here? Is there a God? What is God?
The world is a giant episode of Sienfield. There is no instrisic purpose. Our curse as a species is needing to have a purpose, and to that end each of us strives to try to live one. Believe it or not, that struggle IS our purpose.
What happens after our time is up? You die and start your life over again from the beginning. Ever experience Deja Voi? That's your soul remembering a good idea or a bad idea from the last trip around. Remember Sisiphus from the greeks, pushing the rock up the hill, only to have it fall down again. That's us folks.
Now some enlightened souls finally do figure out how to escape from all this. Generally it involves ceasing the push the rock. The unfortunate and VERY uncomfortable fact of the matter is that you are then in complete control of your life, and there are absolutely no gaurentees as to what is out there.
What is God? God is the collective conciousness of our entire civilization. Each one of us is like a cell in the body. That's why God generally doesn't dig war, murder, theft, or deceipt.
Can you pray to God, sure. But his/her/its ability to alter reality to fit your present crisis without taking something away from someone else is limited. You can pray for world peace, but not for hockey teams or hitting the lotto.
And yes, some people CAN bend the rules. Indeed every advancement in technology involves some small bit of magic that science later justifies be altering the "rules." You can't do anything too weird without having a lot of people believe in you though, there seems to be some sort of power we all have to impose the status quo.
Now all of you can start your flamefests of disbelief.
The problem is that the bullet doesn't travel straight through you, indeed hollow points are designed not to. The most horrific wounds are inflicted when the bullet shatters inside the body and essentially shreds all of the tissue on its way out. Even if the bullet doesn't shatter, it still has to push all of that flesh out of the way, which again, does more damage that just the initial puncture.
The M-16 is a small bullet, relatively speaking. But it is designed to hit with enormous kinetic energy. Once in the body, it's been known to skip around a bit. On guy in my brother-in-law's group was hit in the leg and the bullet severed his spine. It's also been known to kit major arteries, it's really hard to end up with just a flesh wound.
Unfortunately, sooner or later someone comes along who WILL question the "real" world. That person is "the Anomoly". The computer's answer: wipe out Zion, and keep the Anomoly busy re-creating a new Zion. Indeed, there is some implication that the machines designed Neo to fill this role. (Note how many abilities he has in common with the Agents.)
What is happening this time is neo is an anomolous anomoly. He doesn't go with the plan, and takes the emotional "save the princess" option instead of the logical "save humanity" option.
The machines of course are very concerned. If the anomoly rejects the programming they have so carefully crafted they have no idea how everything will turn out. To a mathematical equation, chaos is the end of the system. With Neo free to do what he will, flouting the rules, people who ordinarily wouldn't question the matrix are.
They have a mess, and it's going to end badly. They seem to have a "shotgun and canned goods" backup plan, but the Architect didn't seem to thrilled by the prospect.
I personally have been accused of being an Android and an Alien. While I like to cultivate those notions to build up an air of mystery, I can assure you that what seperates me from most other people is having seen the shape of the universe, and developed enough composure to continue living a normal life afterwards.
It is a bit overwhelming, and frankly hard to explain. And no, you don't really need drugs, a plug in the back of your head, or alien intervention to see it. You just have to be willing to ask the right questions, and have no pre-concieved ideas of what the answer should be.
We don't mind the Foo Fighters, but the Fighters of Foo are on our shitlist.
Come on, didn't you read the Madelin L. Lengal books as a kid!
A fabric with high strength would "tame" the bullet, restricting damage to the entrance wound, and also keeping poisenous lubricants like teflon out of the blood stream.
Insightful post!
Again though, it's only good in tension. You do open up more applications though: a high-strength hammock, or a slash-resistant fabric, a drum-head, a high-strength net. Using the same techniques they use for kevlar, bullet-resistant materials.
I'm also envisioning it's use in large pnumatic dome structures, where the strength of the structure IS in the tension of the walls.