It's still not frontline work. For being in Iraq, it's one of the easiest jobs you can find. At a time when troops were out in the field with little to no shelter, these guys were living in palaces, literally. I've been to a few of them. They're nice. Solid walls, electricity, (and eventually, not sure when) plenty of AC. Considering what kind of real work was being at the same time not too far away, anyone doing IT support in a palace shouldn't be complaining about work conditions. I was in the Perfume Palace in Baghdad in 2005 one time when a.50 cal round came in through the window and smacked into a map board. I've told people the story as a humorous anecdote while making pains not to sound like I was complaining, usually in the same breath while mockingly complaining the chowhall didn't have any rainbow sprinkles for the ice cream. As pyrr said, these stories just show how easy IT people have it compared to people who do real work.
Exactly. The guy who does stateside reachback support for IT people in Iraq who are in the "rear" compared to infantry and other warfighters on the frontlines doesn't exactly get a lot of sympathy from me. Oh, you had to answer the phone late at night? Cry me a river.
I have no need to have mail picked up and delivered to my house 6, or even 5 days a week. I would be willing to drive to the post office a couple of times a week. Perhaps most people would. I am sure there are people for whom that isn't practical: they should pay a premium for home pickup/delivery.
Yeah, I would love to wait in line behind the 50,000 people in my county who want their mail today. Fucking brilliant.
Stamps should be RFID tags. Businesses who create large volumes of mail would associate the address information with the tag ID at the time the mail is created. For people who hand address envelopes, the address would be keyed & associated at the post office, once. From that point on the mail could be handled - sorted & routed - automatically.
Letters, magazines, etc already gave bar codes on them. They're run through machines and automatically sorted this way. Hand-written letters have barcodes printed on them when they're first handed in. Have been for decades. It's simple, cheap, and effective. Thanks for trying.
There are plenty of great easy to use sniper rifles available today. They are expensive though. Getting them close to a target is hard. Laying motionless for days is hard. I don't see how this would be a game change for others. For the US, this greatly increase the capability of our sniper teams though.
That's fucking genius. We'll just live in space and build the ships from vacuum and satellite debris! That'll be much easier than using metal, ceramic, and glass from earth-bound sources.
The low-level baggage handler/fondlers perhaps. TSA has figured out how to install expensive backscatter Xray devices that surreptitiously save images. I would place RFID scanners as less complex and less expensive devices to those.
It was French ships attacking British ships that allowed us to win the Battle of Yorktown, which ended the war. Their support was far from mere finance and logistics.
Is that a joke? Follow the thread. I should be able to use it to get on a plane. I proved to the federal government that I am not a terrorist and they gave me a standard badge that gets me into the CIA, NSA, and other places. I should be able to get on a plane without getting scanned or groped.
There's already a national ID for military with barcodes on the back and standard scanners everywhere. Most military bases have hand-held ones and scan your military ID card (CAC: Common Access Card) when you come on base. There is also a standard Intelligence Community badge with RFID. Not every citizen needs or warrants one of these, but those who have them should be able to use them.
True, and the indicators that he was violent and had connections to terrorists should have been heeded. Perhaps an additional layer of security like a metal detector or full body scanner would keep him off a plane, perhaps not. The active duty military member or retired police officer that is a physical threat to others, let alone a bona fide al qaeda terrorist, is rather rare. Personally, I'm a big fan of letting everyone on board with knives, brass knuckles, expandable police batons and other melee weapons, while prohibiting guns and explosives. It's kinda hard to take over a plane with a knife when everyone else has one too. But that's just me.
The standard badge, in use in many intelligence agencies, has an RFID. I wave it in front of a door, and it opens. People wear them all over the place. That Clear company that lost the laptop (reported here a few times) tried to basically do the same thing: make a separate line for people who were cleared so TSA can process them faster. Good idea, but Clear obviously mishandled it. There are standards for various IDs. Why can't they implement one and save themselves time and money searching all those people? "Loyal" citizens or not, there are plenty of people who don't need to be treated like terrorists and should be able to carry knives or other non-firearm weapons. I'm a former Marine, have a concealed carry permit for handguns, and have been thoroughly investigated by the govt over the last 14 years. Why can't I carry a pocket knife on a plane? As another poster just pointed out, wouldn't you WANT more people like me on planes? Trusted, thoroughly vetted, armed, ready to serve?
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It's still not frontline work. For being in Iraq, it's one of the easiest jobs you can find. At a time when troops were out in the field with little to no shelter, these guys were living in palaces, literally. I've been to a few of them. They're nice. Solid walls, electricity, (and eventually, not sure when) plenty of AC. Considering what kind of real work was being at the same time not too far away, anyone doing IT support in a palace shouldn't be complaining about work conditions. I was in the Perfume Palace in Baghdad in 2005 one time when a .50 cal round came in through the window and smacked into a map board. I've told people the story as a humorous anecdote while making pains not to sound like I was complaining, usually in the same breath while mockingly complaining the chowhall didn't have any rainbow sprinkles for the ice cream. As pyrr said, these stories just show how easy IT people have it compared to people who do real work.
Exactly. The guy who does stateside reachback support for IT people in Iraq who are in the "rear" compared to infantry and other warfighters on the frontlines doesn't exactly get a lot of sympathy from me. Oh, you had to answer the phone late at night? Cry me a river.
I have no need to have mail picked up and delivered to my house 6, or even 5 days a week. I would be willing to drive to the post office a couple of times a week. Perhaps most people would. I am sure there are people for whom that isn't practical: they should pay a premium for home pickup/delivery.
Yeah, I would love to wait in line behind the 50,000 people in my county who want their mail today. Fucking brilliant.
Stamps should be RFID tags. Businesses who create large volumes of mail would associate the address information with the tag ID at the time the mail is created. For people who hand address envelopes, the address would be keyed & associated at the post office, once. From that point on the mail could be handled - sorted & routed - automatically.
Letters, magazines, etc already gave bar codes on them. They're run through machines and automatically sorted this way. Hand-written letters have barcodes printed on them when they're first handed in. Have been for decades. It's simple, cheap, and effective. Thanks for trying.
First UBL gets killed, then this. I've been so worried all these years that justice would never be served, but my hope has been renewed.
There are plenty of great easy to use sniper rifles available today. They are expensive though. Getting them close to a target is hard. Laying motionless for days is hard. I don't see how this would be a game change for others. For the US, this greatly increase the capability of our sniper teams though.
That's fucking genius. We'll just live in space and build the ships from vacuum and satellite debris! That'll be much easier than using metal, ceramic, and glass from earth-bound sources.
Silences is an anagram for licenses. That's all I have. But I found that more interesting than TFS.
And the Battle of Lexington and Concord, 1775.
2008 just called
Dude, did you warn them about Japan?
Yeah. And someone once proved communication with Mars was impossible, since it would require a flag so huge it would be impossible to wave.
What are you, Johnny Depp?
The Turing Award, widely considered the 'Nobel Prize in Computing,' is named for the British mathematician Alan M. Turing.
Turing, you say? Hmm, can't say I ever heard of anyone by that name. Was he famous or something?
I realize English is not everyone's first language on /., but I wanted to point out that in all three uses of whom, it should have been who.
Thank you, Mr. Butt, for those words of wisdom.
Sorry, I accidentally the last sentence.
No, but Gore's PowerPoint presentation did.
For some reason, that address is not resolving. Is geocities having some problems today?
The low-level baggage handler/fondlers perhaps. TSA has figured out how to install expensive backscatter Xray devices that surreptitiously save images. I would place RFID scanners as less complex and less expensive devices to those.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw that. This might be better categorized as Electronic Warfare (EW) than any form of intelligence.
It was French ships attacking British ships that allowed us to win the Battle of Yorktown, which ended the war. Their support was far from mere finance and logistics.
Is that a joke? Follow the thread. I should be able to use it to get on a plane. I proved to the federal government that I am not a terrorist and they gave me a standard badge that gets me into the CIA, NSA, and other places. I should be able to get on a plane without getting scanned or groped.
There's already a national ID for military with barcodes on the back and standard scanners everywhere. Most military bases have hand-held ones and scan your military ID card (CAC: Common Access Card) when you come on base. There is also a standard Intelligence Community badge with RFID. Not every citizen needs or warrants one of these, but those who have them should be able to use them.
True, and the indicators that he was violent and had connections to terrorists should have been heeded. Perhaps an additional layer of security like a metal detector or full body scanner would keep him off a plane, perhaps not. The active duty military member or retired police officer that is a physical threat to others, let alone a bona fide al qaeda terrorist, is rather rare. Personally, I'm a big fan of letting everyone on board with knives, brass knuckles, expandable police batons and other melee weapons, while prohibiting guns and explosives. It's kinda hard to take over a plane with a knife when everyone else has one too. But that's just me.
The standard badge, in use in many intelligence agencies, has an RFID. I wave it in front of a door, and it opens. People wear them all over the place. That Clear company that lost the laptop (reported here a few times) tried to basically do the same thing: make a separate line for people who were cleared so TSA can process them faster. Good idea, but Clear obviously mishandled it. There are standards for various IDs. Why can't they implement one and save themselves time and money searching all those people? "Loyal" citizens or not, there are plenty of people who don't need to be treated like terrorists and should be able to carry knives or other non-firearm weapons. I'm a former Marine, have a concealed carry permit for handguns, and have been thoroughly investigated by the govt over the last 14 years. Why can't I carry a pocket knife on a plane? As another poster just pointed out, wouldn't you WANT more people like me on planes? Trusted, thoroughly vetted, armed, ready to serve?
It's also Carbon Iodine, or Chlorine depending on the font, to chemists. Strong law of large numbers and all that. I'm sure it has many meanings.