"DEC's systems were a large computer surrounded by dumb terminals. They died because Olsen didn't want to know about the PC".
You might as well say "Wintel PCs have a 386 processor and run a crappy command-line apology for an operating system". That was true once... but long, long ago.
DEC did indeed specialize in the type of timesharing system you describe - in the 1970s and early 1980s. By 1985 it also sold excellent workstations comprising a MicroVAX box with a big bitmapped graphics monitor. Much like a top-end PC of today (although far less powerful due to Moore's Law, etc.) but running a rock-solid operating system and with networking software that was, in some respects, better than anything available today. I still haven't found an adequate replacement for VAXNotes. A VAXstation was absolutely compatible with the big "mother ship" VAX servers and with workgroup MicroVAX servers - they could even be clustered together in VAXClusters (whose features, AFAIK, haven't been surpassed to the present day). And then came Alpha, the fastest chip in the world. One software engineer I knew sat down at his new Alpha/VMS machine to run a benchmark. He just got the dollar prompt back. After a few tries he realized the Alpha was just running the benchmark in less than the time it took the prompt to reappear.
Then there were DEC's PCs, which were badly marketed but represented great value at the time. In retrospect launching three different families wasn't the smartest move... But DEC's big blunder was failing to understand the commercial software market. If it "... died because Olsen didn't want to know about the PC," then why didn't HP, IBM, and Sun die with it? Not to mention companies like Tandem. Sure, HP and IBM had PC divisions, but they were never business-critical. Their big computers went right on selling alongside the PCs.
Oh, and about "not wanting to know about the PC"... DEC marketed the first PC in the world, namely the PDP-1, in 1960. True, it was a bit pricey, but computers did cost a lot back then. In every other way, the PDP-1 fulfilled the description of a personal computer.
While we're on this subject - well, close enough, anyway - can anyone enlighten me as to whether copyright can be transferred without payment or other compensation? For example, if Slashdot decided to claim all our contributions as its own property - just because they appear on its Web site - would that hold up? How about Amazon, which invites all and sundry to contribute reviews, and claims that those reviews then become its "property" although it offers no payment for them?
I was avoiding Godwin's Law. Hmmmm, maybe that should be expanded to include Stalin. But then, its whole point is that far more people refer to Hitler than to Stalin, even though it is far from clear which (if either) was worse.
"I'm sure the Huns appreciated Attila's success in war, but I don't think anyone loved Stalin".
Not so. By many reputable accounts very large numbers of Soviet citizens quite sincerely worshipped him, and lamented his death. Just as many US citizens continue to swear by (rather than at) the current incumbent, quite regardless of events in the fact-based world.
"And hopefully no one loves the mini-Hitlers who go around modding conservative posts "flamebait"".
"He generally does what he thinks is best, regardless of how the public is going to receive it, which is why people like me love him".
Attila generally did what he thought best, regardless of how the local people were going to receive it, which was why the Huns loved him.
Genghis Khan generally did what he thought best, regardless of how the local people were going to receive it, which was why the Mongols loved him.
Stalin generally did what he thought best, regardless of how the people were going to receive it, which was why the Communist Party of the Soviet Union loved him.
Note that the USA spent about $529 billion on armaments in 2006, whereas China spent nearly $50 billion - maybe 9 percent as much, 9.5 percent at most. When you bear in mind that China has about four times as many people as the USA, the disparity becomes even more glaring. At least the USA no longer spends more on arms than the rest of the world combined. In 2006 it contributed a mere 46% of the world total.
As one reader of US Today's article ("The Mick") points out: "The United States spends $40 per person on defense for every $1 China does. I don't see why China's spending is such a big deal particularly because it not only has a large land mass to defend, but it borders on near-lawless Afghanistan and a few near-lawless former members of the Soviet Union".
"It can cut metal, heal burns and kill cancer tumors -- all without damaging heat. "All you need is one of his ultrashort pulse, or USP, lasers, he said. To change the function, just change the software".
Hmmmm. So this laser can do different things. One moment, it's a deadly weapon. The next, it's a harmless cosmetic aid.
And which of these things it does will be determined by... software? Written and maintained by whom? With what sort of utterly foolproof user interface?
Rather like the carbon and nitrogen cycles, there is a continuous process whereby experts in given domains coin new jargon terms. They do this because the terms are needed. Blog, folksonomy, and so on... all useful, meaningful, crisply denoting ideas that otherwise would have to be laboriously explained using several words (or even several sentences).
People outside the charmed circle of that specific domain of expertise react in diverse ways. Most totally ignore the alien jargon - quite rightly, too. I don't worry about Chinese usage, for the simple reason that I don't live in China and don't speak any Chinese. In short, it's none of my business.
Some others love to plunder specialist terms from other people's domains. IT is a classic case in point: think of all the words and phrases, from "interface" to "ping", "access", and "download", that have crept into everyday discourse. Like a jackdaw stealing shiny objects to decorate its nest, many people seem to feel that larding their conversation with these clever-sounding terms will gain them more respect. Of course, they usually misunderstand the jargon they borrow, and thus use it incorrectly. Often enough, this incorrect usage then becomes standard, by sheer weight of numbers.
A third group react to other people's jargon by resenting and condemning it. They typically complain that the language is being polluted and degraded, failing to understand that the many sets of specialist jargon are like optional extensions to the basic language. As the waiter says in the old cartoon, "Eef you don' like heem, don' eat heem".
So you think it is repressive, or even Fascist, for companies to be allowed to choose when and how they make public announcements? In extreme cases, the consequences of a single unguarded statement by any employee of a company to any representative of the media can be utterly disastrous to that company - and its employees, shareholders, suppliers, and even customers.
That is why companies carefully choose public spokespersons, who usually have appropriate authority, knowledge, and training. The alternative to having closed meetings like this one would simply be not have any meetings at all.
The issue of whether the meeting should have been described as "public" is separate; that decision is hard to understand or justify. But it was a relatively minor mistake.
Reports of almost everything's "death" are greatly exaggerated. What journalists mean when they write that something is "dead" is that they don't feel like writing about it any more. Generally, that means it's about ready for serious use. Remember the definition of a "legacy" application? One that works.
In about 1990 some analyst (Gartner, I think) reported that there were about 100 billion lines of COBOL in use. Since 2000, I have seen that figure revised to about 200 billion lines. Now, while I doubt if the amount of COBOL has actually doubled in the last 15-20 years, I strongly suspect it has substantially increased. Moreover, COBOL applications drive a surprising proportion of the world's really important transactions. If you doubt this, ask IBM.
Same goes for C. Sure, commentators on the PC apps market may be seeing less of it these days, what with C#, Java, PHP, Ruby, Perl, etc. That's partly because people are using more structured and OO languages, but also because many developers work at a higher level of abstraction. That means they need scripting languages, not low-level 3GLs like C. Nevertheless, C is still the classic system programming language. If those pundits even realised there is an embedded systems market, they might get a clue.
AFAICS, one of the industry's biggest problems today is that it is getting assimilated to the fashion/entertainment industry. COBOL has been around for over 50 years; C for nearly 50. We've had Java for 12 years or so. But now new languages, frameworks, etc. are popping up and flashing by in weeks or months. No one really has time to learn how best to use them.
Note, in particular, Bill Gates' notorious "Pearl Harbor" speech of December 7th 1995, in which he warned of the emerging global threat from Java and Netscape. The author of the page cited above, Doc Searls, seemed to think that all the warlike references were just good clean fun. Gates began his speech as follows:
MR. GATES: Well, good morning. I was realizing this morning that December 7th is kind of a famous day. (Laughter.) Fifty-four years ago or something. And I was trying to think if there were any parallels to what was going on here. And I really couldn't come up with any. The only connection I could think of at all was that probably the most intelligent comment that was made on that day wasn't made on Wall Street, or even by any type of that analyst; it was actually Admiral Yamomoto, who observed that he feared they had awakened a sleeping giant. (Laughter.)
Searls' comment on this? 'I see. The "veiled threat" was Bill's opening laugh line. Even if this was "a veiled threat," it was made in good humor'.
It was news to me at the time (1995), and still is now, that there was anything funny about Pearl Harbor. From what I know of Americans' feelings of patriotism, I would have expected Gates. remarks to raise a storm of protest. But no one said a word.
Microsoft should now list exactly which patents it is referring to, and how the Linux kernel infringes upon them. At worst, the Linux team can then rewrite the offending code so that it no longer infringes.
However I am deeply sceptical of this whole claim, and find it very suspicious that Microsoft has not given any details but prefers to stick to vague sabre-rattling. Until specifics are published, we will have to conclude that Microsoft is merely bluffing: trying to frighten off the weaker and less determined Linux users by the threat of legal action.
At a technical level, it is always possible that any given piece of code infringes upon someone's patents. But how likely is it in this case? Consider that Linux is essentially a clean-room rewrite of Unix, whose design dates from 1970 and the following years. Now recall that, after the original Windows turned out to be too unreliable a foundation, Microsoft hired some ex-DEC software engineers in the early 1990s, leading to the creation of Windows NT - whose similarity to OpenVMS is overwhelmingly obvious and quite undeniable. All subsequent versions of Windows have been based on the same core infrastructure inherited from NT.
So, how likely is it that an OS based on designs that go back to 1970 copies anything from an OS written in the early 1990s, and which borrowed heavily from a third OS written in the late 1970s?
In closing, I have a couple of other questions.
1. How much brass neck does it take for a company like Microsoft to accuse anyone else of infringing on its patents, given Microsoft's own track record of systematically taking other people's ideas and incorporating them in its products without payment or even acknowledgement? One could accurately sum up Microsoft's history as a process of taking ideas whose inventors have failed to capitalize on them, and turning them into revenue.
2. When can we hope for HP, which has presumably inherited DEC's patents and copyrights, to threaten Microsoft with legal action?
Unfortunately both of these questions are purely rhetorical.
"Using this technology, we'll be able to detect and weed out people who disagree with the current adminstration. That way, the US will be restored to its former glory".
Microsoft's "culture" can be summed up in one word: money. That is the bottom line and the motivation behind everything it does; which is why it has become the most successful software company ever.
The Internet used to be a geek's refuge - a place where adults exchanged views about important matters, and whiny people with emotional itches were noticeable by their absence. Another activity that was pretty rigorously excluded was "business" - defined (by me) as the attempt to earn the largest pile of money in the shortest time with the minimum effort, without being heavily punished by the criminal justice system. This blissful state of affairs still held good (more or less) when the sainted TBL invented the Web and gave it to us all without let, hindrance, or vig.
Pretty soon the Web grew and grew, and attracted the attention of those who perch, vulture-like, incessantly scanning the horizon for signs of free meals. How could they extract industrial quantities of money from this popular, but apparently useless phenomenon? The hunt was on, and an early burst of enthusiasm (the Dot Com era) led to general disappointment (the Dot Bomb crash).
But now there are more and more practical ways to make money from the Web, and those who find money more fascinating than technology, universal communication, planetary groupthink, etc., need a label to denote the Web in its capacity as a revenue stream. That is the essential meaning of "Web 2.0".
Many Americans believe that it is. But only in the sense that anyone, living anywhere in the world, should be subject to US justice for breaking US laws. Lesser breeds are welcome to cheat, rob, assault, murder, and torture one another - indeed, this is often positively encouraged - as long as no American loses out in the process.
There are two logically distinct and incompatible positions being confused here.
1. The USA is the world's most progressive nation, in the sense that it is the first and best democracy, the country in which the rule of law is most clearly supreme, and generally the most virtuous. Therefore it has a moral right, or even an obligation, to lead others towards the light (at least, those of them who survive the trip).
2. The USA is the world's most powerful nation, armed with weapons that could easily destroy any other nation utterly within less than a day. It can also launch bombs, missiles, or just thousands of heavily-armed soldiers, anywhere in the world. It even lays claim to military supremacy in space. Therefore, as the world's biggest gorilla, what it says goes; and it uses this dominance to further its own interests (including those of US corporations and citizens).
Either of these can be readily supported by various logical arguments. Unfortunately, they cannot both be true, as (2) gives the USA licence to disregard the supposed rights of other individuals, corporations, and nations where they clash with its own. However, many Americans tend to transpose deftly from one to the other in the same context - sometimes even within the same sentence. It would be nice to know which is the official position.
Yeah, but how long does it take to tear down the hardware before flight and reassemble it afterwards? And what is the error rate (mostly due to drives that don't work on arrival)?
Slashdot Mirror
"DEC and IBM had so much invested in mainframes they just couldn't imagine a world without them, so they clung to the past".
t echnology/believe-it-or-not-annual-ibm-mainframe-s ales-up-10.asp
http://blog.tmcnet.com/beyond-voip/miscellaneous-
"DEC's systems were a large computer surrounded by dumb terminals. They died because Olsen didn't want to know about the PC".
You might as well say "Wintel PCs have a 386 processor and run a crappy command-line apology for an operating system". That was true once... but long, long ago.
DEC did indeed specialize in the type of timesharing system you describe - in the 1970s and early 1980s. By 1985 it also sold excellent workstations comprising a MicroVAX box with a big bitmapped graphics monitor. Much like a top-end PC of today (although far less powerful due to Moore's Law, etc.) but running a rock-solid operating system and with networking software that was, in some respects, better than anything available today. I still haven't found an adequate replacement for VAXNotes. A VAXstation was absolutely compatible with the big "mother ship" VAX servers and with workgroup MicroVAX servers - they could even be clustered together in VAXClusters (whose features, AFAIK, haven't been surpassed to the present day). And then came Alpha, the fastest chip in the world. One software engineer I knew sat down at his new Alpha/VMS machine to run a benchmark. He just got the dollar prompt back. After a few tries he realized the Alpha was just running the benchmark in less than the time it took the prompt to reappear.
Then there were DEC's PCs, which were badly marketed but represented great value at the time. In retrospect launching three different families wasn't the smartest move... But DEC's big blunder was failing to understand the commercial software market. If it "... died because Olsen didn't want to know about the PC," then why didn't HP, IBM, and Sun die with it? Not to mention companies like Tandem. Sure, HP and IBM had PC divisions, but they were never business-critical. Their big computers went right on selling alongside the PCs.
Oh, and about "not wanting to know about the PC"... DEC marketed the first PC in the world, namely the PDP-1, in 1960. True, it was a bit pricey, but computers did cost a lot back then. In every other way, the PDP-1 fulfilled the description of a personal computer.
While we're on this subject - well, close enough, anyway - can anyone enlighten me as to whether copyright can be transferred without payment or other compensation? For example, if Slashdot decided to claim all our contributions as its own property - just because they appear on its Web site - would that hold up? How about Amazon, which invites all and sundry to contribute reviews, and claims that those reviews then become its "property" although it offers no payment for them?
"You forgot Hitler!"
I was avoiding Godwin's Law. Hmmmm, maybe that should be expanded to include Stalin. But then, its whole point is that far more people refer to Hitler than to Stalin, even though it is far from clear which (if either) was worse.
"I'm sure the Huns appreciated Attila's success in war, but I don't think anyone loved Stalin".
Not so. By many reputable accounts very large numbers of Soviet citizens quite sincerely worshipped him, and lamented his death. Just as many US citizens continue to swear by (rather than at) the current incumbent, quite regardless of events in the fact-based world.
"And hopefully no one loves the mini-Hitlers who go around modding conservative posts "flamebait"".
I call Godwin! 8-)
"He generally does what he thinks is best, regardless of how the public is going to receive it, which is why people like me love him".
Attila generally did what he thought best, regardless of how the local people were going to receive it, which was why the Huns loved him.
Genghis Khan generally did what he thought best, regardless of how the local people were going to receive it, which was why the Mongols loved him.
Stalin generally did what he thought best, regardless of how the people were going to receive it, which was why the Communist Party of the Soviet Union loved him.
"...the official story is still that they shot down a retired communications satellite..."
I guess it *became* retired, right there.
"...by the rate their military spending is going it wont be long before they actually out pace us [if not already]..."
i tary-report_n.htm
That turns out not to be the case. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-06-11-mil
Note that the USA spent about $529 billion on armaments in 2006, whereas China spent nearly $50 billion - maybe 9 percent as much, 9.5 percent at most. When you bear in mind that China has about four times as many people as the USA, the disparity becomes even more glaring. At least the USA no longer spends more on arms than the rest of the world combined. In 2006 it contributed a mere 46% of the world total.
As one reader of US Today's article ("The Mick") points out: "The United States spends $40 per person on defense for every $1 China does. I don't see why China's spending is such a big deal particularly because it not only has a large land mass to defend, but it borders on near-lawless Afghanistan and a few near-lawless former members of the Soviet Union".
"It can cut metal, heal burns and kill cancer tumors -- all without damaging heat.
"All you need is one of his ultrashort pulse, or USP, lasers, he said. To change the function, just change the software".
Hmmmm. So this laser can do different things. One moment, it's a deadly weapon. The next, it's a harmless cosmetic aid.
And which of these things it does will be determined by... software? Written and maintained by whom? With what sort of utterly foolproof user interface?
Can you say "Therac-25"?
You do not want to be anywhere near something like this:
h _v53n1.pdf
http://www.nagt.org/files/nagt/jge/abstracts/Dutc
Rather like the carbon and nitrogen cycles, there is a continuous process whereby experts in given domains coin new jargon terms. They do this because the terms are needed. Blog, folksonomy, and so on... all useful, meaningful, crisply denoting ideas that otherwise would have to be laboriously explained using several words (or even several sentences).
People outside the charmed circle of that specific domain of expertise react in diverse ways. Most totally ignore the alien jargon - quite rightly, too. I don't worry about Chinese usage, for the simple reason that I don't live in China and don't speak any Chinese. In short, it's none of my business.
Some others love to plunder specialist terms from other people's domains. IT is a classic case in point: think of all the words and phrases, from "interface" to "ping", "access", and "download", that have crept into everyday discourse. Like a jackdaw stealing shiny objects to decorate its nest, many people seem to feel that larding their conversation with these clever-sounding terms will gain them more respect. Of course, they usually misunderstand the jargon they borrow, and thus use it incorrectly. Often enough, this incorrect usage then becomes standard, by sheer weight of numbers.
A third group react to other people's jargon by resenting and condemning it. They typically complain that the language is being polluted and degraded, failing to understand that the many sets of specialist jargon are like optional extensions to the basic language. As the waiter says in the old cartoon, "Eef you don' like heem, don' eat heem".
"Welcome to Soviet Amerika."
So you think it is repressive, or even Fascist, for companies to be allowed to choose when and how they make public announcements? In extreme cases, the consequences of a single unguarded statement by any employee of a company to any representative of the media can be utterly disastrous to that company - and its employees, shareholders, suppliers, and even customers.
That is why companies carefully choose public spokespersons, who usually have appropriate authority, knowledge, and training. The alternative to having closed meetings like this one would simply be not have any meetings at all.
The issue of whether the meeting should have been described as "public" is separate; that decision is hard to understand or justify. But it was a relatively minor mistake.
"Allow me to introduce you to a concept called the law of unintended consequences..."
Otherwise known as "stupidity".
'COBOL has been around for over 50 years; C for nearly 50.'
Uh-oh. Before everyone else piles on, apologies for those gross inaccuracies. COBOL has been around for 48 years, and C for 35. It just seems longer.
Reports of almost everything's "death" are greatly exaggerated. What journalists mean when they write that something is "dead" is that they don't feel like writing about it any more. Generally, that means it's about ready for serious use. Remember the definition of a "legacy" application? One that works.
In about 1990 some analyst (Gartner, I think) reported that there were about 100 billion lines of COBOL in use. Since 2000, I have seen that figure revised to about 200 billion lines. Now, while I doubt if the amount of COBOL has actually doubled in the last 15-20 years, I strongly suspect it has substantially increased. Moreover, COBOL applications drive a surprising proportion of the world's really important transactions. If you doubt this, ask IBM.
Same goes for C. Sure, commentators on the PC apps market may be seeing less of it these days, what with C#, Java, PHP, Ruby, Perl, etc. That's partly because people are using more structured and OO languages, but also because many developers work at a higher level of abstraction. That means they need scripting languages, not low-level 3GLs like C. Nevertheless, C is still the classic system programming language. If those pundits even realised there is an embedded systems market, they might get a clue.
AFAICS, one of the industry's biggest problems today is that it is getting assimilated to the fashion/entertainment industry. COBOL has been around for over 50 years; C for nearly 50. We've had Java for 12 years or so. But now new languages, frameworks, etc. are popping up and flashing by in weeks or months. No one really has time to learn how best to use them.
'I have a suit, a hat with FBI on it, and a plane ticket. Anyone want to join me in a little penetration "testing"? ;)'
Carefully, though. You might end up penetrating Guantanamo.
"Where are the high paying jobs for those who are good in math and science?"
Essentially the same as the high paying jobs for those who are not good in math and science.
http://www.searls.com/m+n.html
Note, in particular, Bill Gates' notorious "Pearl Harbor" speech of December 7th 1995, in which he warned of the emerging global threat from Java and Netscape. The author of the page cited above, Doc Searls, seemed to think that all the warlike references were just good clean fun. Gates began his speech as follows:
MR. GATES: Well, good morning. I was realizing this morning that December 7th is kind of a famous day. (Laughter.) Fifty-four years ago or something. And I was trying to think if there were any parallels to what was going on here. And I really couldn't come up with any. The only connection I could think of at all was that probably the most intelligent comment that was made on that day wasn't made on Wall Street, or even by any type of that analyst; it was actually Admiral Yamomoto, who observed that he feared they had awakened a sleeping giant. (Laughter.)
Searls' comment on this? 'I see. The "veiled threat" was Bill's opening laugh line. Even if this was "a veiled threat," it was made in good humor'.
It was news to me at the time (1995), and still is now, that there was anything funny about Pearl Harbor. From what I know of Americans' feelings of patriotism, I would have expected Gates. remarks to raise a storm of protest. But no one said a word.
So it goes.
Microsoft should now list exactly which patents it is referring to, and how the Linux kernel infringes upon them. At worst, the Linux team can then rewrite the offending code so that it no longer infringes.
However I am deeply sceptical of this whole claim, and find it very suspicious that Microsoft has not given any details but prefers to stick to vague sabre-rattling. Until specifics are published, we will have to conclude that Microsoft is merely bluffing: trying to frighten off the weaker and less determined Linux users by the threat of legal action.
At a technical level, it is always possible that any given piece of code infringes upon someone's patents. But how likely is it in this case? Consider that Linux is essentially a clean-room rewrite of Unix, whose design dates from 1970 and the following years. Now recall that, after the original Windows turned out to be too unreliable a foundation, Microsoft hired some ex-DEC software engineers in the early 1990s, leading to the creation of Windows NT - whose similarity to OpenVMS is overwhelmingly obvious and quite undeniable. All subsequent versions of Windows have been based on the same core infrastructure inherited from NT.
So, how likely is it that an OS based on designs that go back to 1970 copies anything from an OS written in the early 1990s, and which borrowed heavily from a third OS written in the late 1970s?
In closing, I have a couple of other questions.
1. How much brass neck does it take for a company like Microsoft to accuse anyone else of infringing on its patents, given Microsoft's own track record of systematically taking other people's ideas and incorporating them in its products without payment or even acknowledgement? One could accurately sum up Microsoft's history as a process of taking ideas whose inventors have failed to capitalize on them, and turning them into revenue.
2. When can we hope for HP, which has presumably inherited DEC's patents and copyrights, to threaten Microsoft with legal action?
Unfortunately both of these questions are purely rhetorical.
"Using this technology, we'll be able to detect and weed out people who disagree with the current adminstration. That way, the US will be restored to its former glory".
Typo alert! Don't you mean "agree"?
Microsoft's "culture" can be summed up in one word: money. That is the bottom line and the motivation behind everything it does; which is why it has become the most successful software company ever.
"the internet was never that way. Perhaps some predessor prior to the Internet, but never the internet."
OK then, ARPAnet. I didn't want to clutter my earlier post with excessive pedantry, but that's what I meant.
The Internet used to be a geek's refuge - a place where adults exchanged views about important matters, and whiny people with emotional itches were noticeable by their absence. Another activity that was pretty rigorously excluded was "business" - defined (by me) as the attempt to earn the largest pile of money in the shortest time with the minimum effort, without being heavily punished by the criminal justice system. This blissful state of affairs still held good (more or less) when the sainted TBL invented the Web and gave it to us all without let, hindrance, or vig.
Pretty soon the Web grew and grew, and attracted the attention of those who perch, vulture-like, incessantly scanning the horizon for signs of free meals. How could they extract industrial quantities of money from this popular, but apparently useless phenomenon? The hunt was on, and an early burst of enthusiasm (the Dot Com era) led to general disappointment (the Dot Bomb crash).
But now there are more and more practical ways to make money from the Web, and those who find money more fascinating than technology, universal communication, planetary groupthink, etc., need a label to denote the Web in its capacity as a revenue stream. That is the essential meaning of "Web 2.0".
"Well the US is not the World Police".
Many Americans believe that it is. But only in the sense that anyone, living anywhere in the world, should be subject to US justice for breaking US laws. Lesser breeds are welcome to cheat, rob, assault, murder, and torture one another - indeed, this is often positively encouraged - as long as no American loses out in the process.
There are two logically distinct and incompatible positions being confused here.
1. The USA is the world's most progressive nation, in the sense that it is the first and best democracy, the country in which the rule of law is most clearly supreme, and generally the most virtuous. Therefore it has a moral right, or even an obligation, to lead others towards the light (at least, those of them who survive the trip).
2. The USA is the world's most powerful nation, armed with weapons that could easily destroy any other nation utterly within less than a day. It can also launch bombs, missiles, or just thousands of heavily-armed soldiers, anywhere in the world. It even lays claim to military supremacy in space. Therefore, as the world's biggest gorilla, what it says goes; and it uses this dominance to further its own interests (including those of US corporations and citizens).
Either of these can be readily supported by various logical arguments. Unfortunately, they cannot both be true, as (2) gives the USA licence to disregard the supposed rights of other individuals, corporations, and nations where they clash with its own. However, many Americans tend to transpose deftly from one to the other in the same context - sometimes even within the same sentence. It would be nice to know which is the official position.
Yeah, but how long does it take to tear down the hardware before flight and reassemble it afterwards? And what is the error rate (mostly due to drives that don't work on arrival)?