Just want to second this comment. Last week I was eating a vegetable lasagna and had to throw most of it out because in the cold it returned to its natural cardboard state. This despite the fact that I missed breakfast and was eating a late lunch and was starving. Still wasn't worth it.
I never heat them unless I have time to kill, but if its warm out they'll usually be edible anyway.
A buddy of mine (a gunner) once had to stay awake on mission for 3 days while going through a particularly dangerous area of Afghanistan. Jittery or not, you MUST stay awake. If you don't, you can't protect your vehicle or the rest of the convoy at all. Caffeine hallucinations suck, but you can at least stay on task.
Personally though, I only see a useful effect from caffeine from about a cup per 8 hours awake. If I work a ~30 hour shift (used to do it twice a week in garrison), the sixth or seventh coffee or energy drink will just run right through me. It's best to wait until you can't hold your eyes open anymore, then start sipping slowly on something with caffeine. I had more trouble eating enough calories than staying awake since everything you eat feels like lead after a while. Maybe that's the logic of combining food and caffeine, to encourage you to consume something and restore some of that energy.
I am an American Soldier. I'm from New York, and I enlisted after college. Like most of my buddies, I took a pay cut to serve in the Army. I knew exactly what I was signing up for. My recruiter tried to convince me to pick a safe job, but I knew I belonged in a combat job. My enlistment will run out before I'm scheduled to deploy, but I've decided to voluntarily extend my contract so that I can deploy with my platoon. I don't care about the Afghans or Iraqis. I hope they live long prosperous lives. But if I have to kill people, then that's the way it goes. That isn't what concerns me. I'm going overseas so that I can make sure everybody gets home.
My apologies if my story doesn't fit into your storyline. It is the truth, and you'll find most soldiers defy your expectations. I went to basic training with an enlisted soldier in his 30's who was a doctor and professor of economics. He spoke with a thick accent because he was from Portugal. I don't think he was a citizen. He just wanted to serve the country that took him in as one of its own.
The biggest problem I see with how the public sees soldiers is that everybody wants to speak for us. Nobody wants to listen to what we have to say.
This isn't Vietnam. There are rules. Seriously, things are a lot different now. They're even a lot different from the start of the war. I know rules aren't always followed, but that stems from the fact that people (including soldiers) like to live, not that they just like killing people.
Re:Spaceballs- Barf: "Radar about to be jammed!"
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Seeing Through Walls
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The tinfoil is less of a countermeasure and more of a billboard. It would work only if you are willing to line the walls of every building in the area. Otherwise, we'll assume the bad guys are in the buildings lined with foil.
Personally, I think this has only limited use on a battlefield until the definition gets a lot better. You don't shoot just anything that moves on a battlefield (at least not recently). You don't shoot unless you're pretty sure you're about to get shot/blown up yourself. This can tell us somebody is in a building, but we'll still have to clear it the old fashioned way because we won't be able to tell if its military or civilian inside. So not really the greatest help in the world. With better definition, we might be able to identify weapons in the building which in turn could lead to justification to attack the building without entering it first. Obviously that would be a lot safer.
I don't know if others had this problem as well, but I put my email address in the box for "notify me when it's available." I only just now learned that it is open for everybody because I was expecting some kind of email. Maybe mine just got eaten somewhere...
Not there yet. Actually new technology increases the need for grunts. Who do you think carries it? If we go on a mission with a dozen high tech tools, do you think there is any one person who is an expert in all of them? Not a chance. Plus, anything with a screen is a distraction. You can't look at a screen and pull security at the same time. Whoever uses this needs a few more guys to make sure nobody is sneaking up on him. Not to mention firepower will never be obsolete. One guy with all the tech in the world will still get beat by a dozen guys with rocks if they know what they're doing.
The nice thing about a robot is that you can bring it with you in a truck and not worry too much about it for months on end. It will sit patiently, consuming nothing, until the one time you want to use it. ie. we need to move this equipment to this observation post halfway up a mountain where no roads exist. Oh, and EVERYTHING needs to be in place in a single night. When the mission is done, the robots can sit patiently till the next time.
Mules are good if you are moving supplies day in day out. But if you only have to do it once or twice a year, robots are very useful and don't waste your time and attention when you have a battle to fight. And the fuel one of these uses is minuscule compared to everything else happening. There are no power stations. Just generators. And LOTS of big trucks.
As for cost, its blood or money. This thing allows for more flexible missions. Which means we can act like light infantry but still have the firepower of a heavy force. That means the Taliban won't know where we'll pop up. But yes, wars are expensive...
I was observing that it shouldn't be surprising that protestors are absent. And to compare the Libyan war in any way to something like Iraq is absurd. I thought Afghanistan was right. I thought Iraq was wrong, and I protested it. Getting involved in the Libyan war was the right thing to do.
Yes, I see that your point was probably meant in regard to the constitutional or maybe international legality of the involvement. My point is that protestors are not driven by fine legal points. They are driven by moral views. You can have something that is illegal but right, or legal that is wrong.
Except for the part where the people asked for it, and proved with their own blood that they wanted to fight this fight. We refused to stand on the sidelines in an ongoing war and we made a difference. That's something to be proud of. Bringing war to a people at peace, even if they think they are unhappy, is something different entirely.
Most people in the US don't like congress. What if a foreign power came in to "liberate" us from congress? You'd be pissed, right? Well what if you were presently in a life or death fight against congress and a foreign power showed up to give you help? That's different. Isn't it?
It was originally mounted on headgear, but presented problems. Aside from looking goofy, a version based around the head misses most obstacles, since they are generally near the ground.
Really, the term "Afghan soldier" is kind of vague. In news reports, it usually means Afghan National Army. In a strict sense though, Taliban soldiers are [mostly] Afghan, and they are definitely soldiers. Sometimes the term "fighter" is used in place of "soldier" to indicate a Taliban soldier. I never liked this though. It feels like a cheap attempt to avoid the Geneva conventions.
Terminology aside, if you think the ANA or ANP or anybody in Afghanistan is above looting the shit out of free supplies, you're sadly mistaken. haha.
But all of those baby boomers paid into the system their whole lives up until now. That is why Social Security used to have money worth taking for other projects, and why Al Gore wanted a "lock box." Everyone saw this coming, but only a handful of politicians actually cared about it enough to try to prevent it.
At some point, don't they have all the information about us? Given all the security breaches in everything we do, you would think that the market of this information would eventually be saturated. What more do these people want to know? The size of my johnson?
Seriously, I'm looking for somebody that understands what's going on to explain this to me. What use is all of this information?
I probably would not have watched the video if it was posted, but was happy to read the text. That the GP bothered to write out the whole thing indicated to me that he thought it was important. Simply posting a link to a youtube video doesn't tell me that.
Verifiable facts do not enjoy copyright protection (deliberate lies inter-spread with facts do, believe it or not, that's how they copyright the phone book... but if the alleged offender omits the lies, you're case is over).
Not true, at least in the US. In Feist v. Rural it was ruled that a phone book is simply a collection of fact, and not creative content. The particular phone book in question did have fake entries in it, which is how the copying was identified. The point is to identify and prove infringement with fake entries, not to manufacture justification for copyright.
I wish the 108th story of the Sears Tower did have windows that could open, so you would be able to compare it to the 108th story of a skyscraper in New York... oh wait, nevermind, there isn't one;)
Was that just a 9-11 joke?
I hope it wasn't. Towers one and two of the WTC each had 110 stories.
You can have the best vehicle in the world, but if it doesn't do certain things (ie work with existing vehicles) the design has to be thrown out anyway. This just lets designers know about this ahead of time.
Personally, I would let the medics design the thing. They know what works and what doesn't by now.
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Just want to second this comment. Last week I was eating a vegetable lasagna and had to throw most of it out because in the cold it returned to its natural cardboard state. This despite the fact that I missed breakfast and was eating a late lunch and was starving. Still wasn't worth it.
I never heat them unless I have time to kill, but if its warm out they'll usually be edible anyway.
A buddy of mine (a gunner) once had to stay awake on mission for 3 days while going through a particularly dangerous area of Afghanistan. Jittery or not, you MUST stay awake. If you don't, you can't protect your vehicle or the rest of the convoy at all. Caffeine hallucinations suck, but you can at least stay on task.
Personally though, I only see a useful effect from caffeine from about a cup per 8 hours awake. If I work a ~30 hour shift (used to do it twice a week in garrison), the sixth or seventh coffee or energy drink will just run right through me. It's best to wait until you can't hold your eyes open anymore, then start sipping slowly on something with caffeine. I had more trouble eating enough calories than staying awake since everything you eat feels like lead after a while. Maybe that's the logic of combining food and caffeine, to encourage you to consume something and restore some of that energy.
As opposed to punishing drug use, which is the politically accepted alternative.
I am an American Soldier. I'm from New York, and I enlisted after college. Like most of my buddies, I took a pay cut to serve in the Army. I knew exactly what I was signing up for. My recruiter tried to convince me to pick a safe job, but I knew I belonged in a combat job. My enlistment will run out before I'm scheduled to deploy, but I've decided to voluntarily extend my contract so that I can deploy with my platoon. I don't care about the Afghans or Iraqis. I hope they live long prosperous lives. But if I have to kill people, then that's the way it goes. That isn't what concerns me. I'm going overseas so that I can make sure everybody gets home.
My apologies if my story doesn't fit into your storyline. It is the truth, and you'll find most soldiers defy your expectations. I went to basic training with an enlisted soldier in his 30's who was a doctor and professor of economics. He spoke with a thick accent because he was from Portugal. I don't think he was a citizen. He just wanted to serve the country that took him in as one of its own.
The biggest problem I see with how the public sees soldiers is that everybody wants to speak for us. Nobody wants to listen to what we have to say.
This isn't Vietnam. There are rules. Seriously, things are a lot different now. They're even a lot different from the start of the war. I know rules aren't always followed, but that stems from the fact that people (including soldiers) like to live, not that they just like killing people.
The tinfoil is less of a countermeasure and more of a billboard. It would work only if you are willing to line the walls of every building in the area. Otherwise, we'll assume the bad guys are in the buildings lined with foil.
Personally, I think this has only limited use on a battlefield until the definition gets a lot better. You don't shoot just anything that moves on a battlefield (at least not recently). You don't shoot unless you're pretty sure you're about to get shot/blown up yourself. This can tell us somebody is in a building, but we'll still have to clear it the old fashioned way because we won't be able to tell if its military or civilian inside. So not really the greatest help in the world. With better definition, we might be able to identify weapons in the building which in turn could lead to justification to attack the building without entering it first. Obviously that would be a lot safer.
i think you hit the nail on the head.
I don't know if others had this problem as well, but I put my email address in the box for "notify me when it's available." I only just now learned that it is open for everybody because I was expecting some kind of email. Maybe mine just got eaten somewhere...
Not there yet. Actually new technology increases the need for grunts. Who do you think carries it? If we go on a mission with a dozen high tech tools, do you think there is any one person who is an expert in all of them? Not a chance. Plus, anything with a screen is a distraction. You can't look at a screen and pull security at the same time. Whoever uses this needs a few more guys to make sure nobody is sneaking up on him. Not to mention firepower will never be obsolete. One guy with all the tech in the world will still get beat by a dozen guys with rocks if they know what they're doing.
Maybe all of us soldiers should just go home so you can see how friendly our neighbors really are.
Full Metal Jacket WAS a documentary... What you see on TV is cleaned up for the cameras.
The nice thing about a robot is that you can bring it with you in a truck and not worry too much about it for months on end. It will sit patiently, consuming nothing, until the one time you want to use it. ie. we need to move this equipment to this observation post halfway up a mountain where no roads exist. Oh, and EVERYTHING needs to be in place in a single night. When the mission is done, the robots can sit patiently till the next time.
Mules are good if you are moving supplies day in day out. But if you only have to do it once or twice a year, robots are very useful and don't waste your time and attention when you have a battle to fight. And the fuel one of these uses is minuscule compared to everything else happening. There are no power stations. Just generators. And LOTS of big trucks.
As for cost, its blood or money. This thing allows for more flexible missions. Which means we can act like light infantry but still have the firepower of a heavy force. That means the Taliban won't know where we'll pop up. But yes, wars are expensive...
Where does this shit come from? Did New Yorkers piss in everyone's coffee or something?
I was observing that it shouldn't be surprising that protestors are absent. And to compare the Libyan war in any way to something like Iraq is absurd. I thought Afghanistan was right. I thought Iraq was wrong, and I protested it. Getting involved in the Libyan war was the right thing to do.
Yes, I see that your point was probably meant in regard to the constitutional or maybe international legality of the involvement. My point is that protestors are not driven by fine legal points. They are driven by moral views. You can have something that is illegal but right, or legal that is wrong.
Except for the part where the people asked for it, and proved with their own blood that they wanted to fight this fight. We refused to stand on the sidelines in an ongoing war and we made a difference. That's something to be proud of. Bringing war to a people at peace, even if they think they are unhappy, is something different entirely.
Most people in the US don't like congress. What if a foreign power came in to "liberate" us from congress? You'd be pissed, right? Well what if you were presently in a life or death fight against congress and a foreign power showed up to give you help? That's different. Isn't it?
It was originally mounted on headgear, but presented problems. Aside from looking goofy, a version based around the head misses most obstacles, since they are generally near the ground.
Really, the term "Afghan soldier" is kind of vague. In news reports, it usually means Afghan National Army. In a strict sense though, Taliban soldiers are [mostly] Afghan, and they are definitely soldiers. Sometimes the term "fighter" is used in place of "soldier" to indicate a Taliban soldier. I never liked this though. It feels like a cheap attempt to avoid the Geneva conventions.
Terminology aside, if you think the ANA or ANP or anybody in Afghanistan is above looting the shit out of free supplies, you're sadly mistaken. haha.
I'm not sure you realize this, but over that exact time period we've become involved in three wars.
But all of those baby boomers paid into the system their whole lives up until now. That is why Social Security used to have money worth taking for other projects, and why Al Gore wanted a "lock box." Everyone saw this coming, but only a handful of politicians actually cared about it enough to try to prevent it.
At some point, don't they have all the information about us? Given all the security breaches in everything we do, you would think that the market of this information would eventually be saturated. What more do these people want to know? The size of my johnson?
Seriously, I'm looking for somebody that understands what's going on to explain this to me. What use is all of this information?
And all I want to know is will I still get a free groping at the airport? It's FREE people. jeez...
I probably would not have watched the video if it was posted, but was happy to read the text. That the GP bothered to write out the whole thing indicated to me that he thought it was important. Simply posting a link to a youtube video doesn't tell me that.
Verifiable facts do not enjoy copyright protection (deliberate lies inter-spread with facts do, believe it or not, that's how they copyright the phone book ... but if the alleged offender omits the lies, you're case is over).
Not true, at least in the US. In Feist v. Rural it was ruled that a phone book is simply a collection of fact, and not creative content. The particular phone book in question did have fake entries in it, which is how the copying was identified. The point is to identify and prove infringement with fake entries, not to manufacture justification for copyright.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry
Jokes on him. None of us read the article!
I wish the 108th story of the Sears Tower did have windows that could open, so you would be able to compare it to the 108th story of a skyscraper in New York... oh wait, nevermind, there isn't one ;)
Was that just a 9-11 joke?
I hope it wasn't. Towers one and two of the WTC each had 110 stories.
You can have the best vehicle in the world, but if it doesn't do certain things (ie work with existing vehicles) the design has to be thrown out anyway. This just lets designers know about this ahead of time.
Personally, I would let the medics design the thing. They know what works and what doesn't by now.