So find a company in China that doesn't have anyone that speaks English,...
I didn't say that. While they may have many english speakers they may not have a native english speaker. Having a native speaker involved can be advantageous.
... Thats like a CIA trained chef looking for work and applying at McDonalds...
Perhaps that acronym should be defined, something like "Culinary Institute of America" would be my first guess given the context. A "Central Intelligence Agency" trained chef would naturally have extremely limited career paths.;-)
In Canada, how many developer positions are filled by people unable to speak English or French? Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect to find a development position in any country where you can't speak the predominate language. OK, there may be cases where this works in Europe or India where English is often used to communicate between people of different regions. However English is not used in this manner in China.
Perhaps a more realistic plan would be to find a company that does outsourcing or otherwise deals with clients in the US. They may need someone to be a technical contact of some sort.
Again, no one is claiming that helicopters, equipment, training and processes have not improved. No one is claiming that even incremental improvements are unimportant, they save lives that would have been otherwise lost. All that is being questioned is whether the changes since the 1980s (the timeframe of the Soviet war) have been as dramatic as the introduction of the medevac/casevac helicopter with onboard medics/corpsman.
Your transistor analogy is quite the straw man.
Your appraisal of "fresh blood" seems off, or perhaps so brief it is misunderstood. It is not transfusions per se, its that doctors in Afghanistan have reported better results when the wounded initially receives fresh (collected within weeks not months) whole blood rather than plasma. I believe logistics have been updated accordingly. My understanding is that the controversy is whether to use it for the less seriously wounded (risks of disease transmission, etc), not whether it is a useful practice for the seriously wounded.
Combat triage is an excellent point, however it would seem to only come into play when there are mass casualties. My understanding is that the "fatally wounded" would be medevac'ed immediately if the capacity of the helicopter permitted. That triage prioritizes the order of evacuation and treatment received, it would not disallow evacuation. Its not clear to what degree evacuations were postponed and what effect that had on the 98% Vietnam era stat.
The problem of getting the wounded to hospitals made its most significant advance during Vietnam with large helicopters that could carry the wounded internally where specially trained medics were available. The wounded had a 98% survival rate.
"During World War II a wounded soldier had an 85% chance of surviving if he was treated by a medic within the first hour. This figure was three times higher than World War I survival statistics... In Vietnam, the medic's job was to treat and evacuate. Medevac helicopters now could bring medics on board to continue treating the wounded while transporting them back to the Field Hospitals. There was a 98% survival rate for soldiers who were evacuated within the first hour." http://www.1stcavmedic.com/medic_history.htm
You seem to overstate GPS navigation. Sure its helpful but between ground radar stations, VOR and other technologies available in Vietnam navigation was not a major problem. A friend's father flew "dust off" in Vietnam. Off all the problems he mentioned navigation was not one of them.
Of course we have better helicopter's today, better training, better processes (tourniquets in personal kits, clotting agents, fresh whole blood rather than plasma, etc)... however when you are starting at 98% survival the improvements are going to be incremental advances. Not the huge advances we saw from WW1 to WW2 to Vietnam.
You seem to forget to adjust for advancements in medical technology. Else you could argue that WW1 commanders were better at commanding then those in Napolenic times (they were not). Or you could simply notice the invention of antibiotics.
You also blatantly ignore that your comparison is for a war finished vs a war that is ongoing with no end in sight in spite of many claims of contrary.
The Soviets fought in the 1980s. Survival rates reached 99% decades earlier for those who got medical treatment.
The fact that the current US/NATO war is longer and ongoing, and has greater success and fewer casualties, actually strengthens my claim. Thank you.
Actually the wikipedia articles do cite contractors, about 1K killed. So US/NATO plus contractors is 4K compared to the Soviets 14K. The two wars are vastly different.
Contractor wounded are cited as "wounded and injured" so inclusion in this category is broader than the Soviet, US and NATO numbers. Still the contractor number ads 12K to the US/NATO numbers, far below that of the Soviet era. 35K US/NATO plus contractor wounded *and injured* vs 54K wounded for Soviet forces.
US/NATO is experiencing far more success, the tempo of attacks against troops and the gov't is far less, and suffering far fewer casualties than the Soviets.
Your characterization is not accurate for US forces. NATO forces may be less aggressive but US Army and US Marine forces set up bases/outposts in Taliban heartland or Taliban controlled territory. The US forces then conduct aggressive ground patrols. The Taliban has learned to relocate or limit their activities to largely remote/distant attacks. This is very different from the Soviet era where the Afghans conducted more aggressive toe-to-toe operations. If the Soviets had only received this level of resistance they may not have left, the Kremlin may have spun it in the press as only harassment. The two wars are vastly different in nature.
You're essentially arguing that USSR won its Afghan war.
Not really. The Afghan fighters of the Soviet-era were not reduced to roadside bombs. The had an offensive ground presence. This was possible only because of western assistance. In particular the US Stinger missile that kept Soviet air, in particular attack helicopters, at a distance. Without this western assistance the Soviets probably would have gotten things to the roadside bomb level, but that is not how things went. The two wars are not really comparable due to this western assistance in the Soviet case, the Soviets had to face Afghans actively backed by a superpower.
Artillery shells are in the process of becoming self guided. They are no longer limited to ballistic trajectories.
Besides, the ballistic models that the modern militaries use incorporate an incredible number of variables. This research would probably offer no practical improvement, it most likely uses a simplified model of air resistance.
That said I am no expert, I merely did a ballistics project as part of a differential equations class.
"-gravity is not a constant vector force downward. It is a radial force inward toward the center of the Earth, and its intensity varies with altitude."
for any calculations on a scale less than 10 miles, assuming a constant will give you the same answer within a margin of error that is outside the ability of any store bought calculator.
Brick and mortar only or app stores too? Can a calculator that offer 20 digits of precision get inside that margin? Many store bought, and many apps based upon the FPU - a bad idea for many reasons, only seem to offer around 14 give or take.
FWIW, the actual motivation for 20 digits of precision was to be able to handle calculations compatible with 64-bit results. Not the sort of exercise above.
And if one of your team members is suffering from PTSD or just freaks out?
Actually a live connection to your team members may help. You can be reassured when the stress is just beginning, talking it out is a known way reduce stress, the team is aware - no suffering is silence making it worse, the team is aware - the soldier can be removed from the battlefield pre-freakout, etc.
The most valuable part of machine assisted learning is the ability to move at your own pace. There are some OCW lectures I had to watch 3 or 4 times before I got it. Now matter how good a teacher is, no student is going to ask them to repeatsomething four times. The student will just nod and feign understanding, and the teacher will move on.
Depends on the tutor. Some will ask a question that is designed to demonstrate your understanding of the concept. It wasn't one-on-one but I've had professors who were notorious for posing questions to students to gauge their understanding of the topic at hand during a lecture. Nodding and feigning was hazardous to your grade, admitting your confusion was not.
Computer based lectures can also be helpful for those who are getting the material. You can get through it faster than if sitting in a classroom lecture, no interruptions from someone who is not getting it. And if you can play the lecture at 1.25 times normal speed then there can be a big win. Most of my classmates and I found that speed to be entirely equivalent to normal speed.
Was the teacher tutoring a single student, as the machine was? How does the machine do when teaching a group of 30? I suspect that all we have really learned is that individual tutoring is better for some topics.
Of course computers can be less expensive tutors so the approach does have merit.
>>>"corporations are people" thing was pure spin, the court never said that
You couldn't be more wrong. They did say that, back in a case of the 1890s,...
I was referring to the Citizen United decision. I actually read/skimmed through it at the time. It said two things. Groups of people have the same rights as individuals, groups may be corporations, trade unions, special interest groups, etc. A media corporation has no special rights or privileges with respect to speech, TV Network Inc has no more right to political speech and opinions than Widget Maker Inc.
Have your read that 1890s decision? I suspect you are repeating someone else interpretation/spin.
... and that precedent of treating a corporation as a person has been carried forward ever since.
Saying a corporation has the same rights as a natural person in a specific domain is hardly saying that corporations are people. Seems like spin to say so.
And as for whether corporations should have a right to speak? No.
Such logic will also silence trade unions, special interest groups, clubs, etc. Under the law groups of people are groups of people regardless of the motivation for which they have grouped.
... than this building I'm sitting in...
Straw man. Its the group of people sitting in the building that have the right to speech. Speech from the people directly, or through their company leadership, or through their union leadership, etc.
You examples are flawed. For example the financial firms gave to both sides. Eventually the bailout was supported by both parties. There was eventually a genuine fear of economic collapse. To say the bailouts were merely political payback is quite revisionist. Similarly it is a stretch to say the health care mandate was merely payback. There were many legitimate concerns regarding a public option and a mandate was a practical alternative.
Citizens United (CU) actually has little effect. Keep in mind that there is massive spin and exaggeration by opponents of the ruling. For example the "corporations are people" thing was pure spin, the court never said that. Brilliant spin, irresistible to the media, but spin none the less. All the court actually said was that groups of people have the same rights with respect to speech as individuals, and that media corporations have no special privileges regarding speech with respect to non-media corporations. Similarly the opponents of CU spin/distort the effect on public discourse, focusing only on corporations and ignoring the fact that it applies to any organization. Trade unions, interest groups, etc.
Payback hardly requires CU. For example the bundlers that aggregate many small donations and gain access/influence brought us Solyndra. These bundlers will continue to have greater influence than CU since they provide money directly to candidates. CU merely allows organizations to run ads without coordinating with clients. Again, ads can be ignored. And for those that are gullible they would be influence by only a few ads, the post-CU many ads will persuade very few *additional* likely voters. CU's effect is limited by diminishing returns, the very high expense of each additional person influenced. Again, Newt Gingrich could have had million of more ad dollars and he still would have lost.
You intentions are good but I think the wisdom of the founding fathers wins on this point. Direct democracy voting on issues is not the panacea one might think. For example look at California and its propositions system, it is largely what you are asking for and some really bad/dumb stuff gets passed.
The flaw in your plan, and a flaw the founding fathers presumably were expecting, is that direct democracy assumes a well informed electorate that seriously contemplates the issues and votes for the common good rather than self interest.
Slashdot Mirror
So find a company in China that doesn't have anyone that speaks English, ...
I didn't say that. While they may have many english speakers they may not have a native english speaker. Having a native speaker involved can be advantageous.
... Thats like a CIA trained chef looking for work and applying at McDonalds ...
Perhaps that acronym should be defined, something like "Culinary Institute of America" would be my first guess given the context. A "Central Intelligence Agency" trained chef would naturally have extremely limited career paths. ;-)
In Canada, how many developer positions are filled by people unable to speak English or French? Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect to find a development position in any country where you can't speak the predominate language. OK, there may be cases where this works in Europe or India where English is often used to communicate between people of different regions. However English is not used in this manner in China.
Perhaps a more realistic plan would be to find a company that does outsourcing or otherwise deals with clients in the US. They may need someone to be a technical contact of some sort.
Again, no one is claiming that helicopters, equipment, training and processes have not improved. No one is claiming that even incremental improvements are unimportant, they save lives that would have been otherwise lost. All that is being questioned is whether the changes since the 1980s (the timeframe of the Soviet war) have been as dramatic as the introduction of the medevac/casevac helicopter with onboard medics/corpsman.
Your transistor analogy is quite the straw man.
Your appraisal of "fresh blood" seems off, or perhaps so brief it is misunderstood. It is not transfusions per se, its that doctors in Afghanistan have reported better results when the wounded initially receives fresh (collected within weeks not months) whole blood rather than plasma. I believe logistics have been updated accordingly. My understanding is that the controversy is whether to use it for the less seriously wounded (risks of disease transmission, etc), not whether it is a useful practice for the seriously wounded.
Combat triage is an excellent point, however it would seem to only come into play when there are mass casualties. My understanding is that the "fatally wounded" would be medevac'ed immediately if the capacity of the helicopter permitted. That triage prioritizes the order of evacuation and treatment received, it would not disallow evacuation. Its not clear to what degree evacuations were postponed and what effect that had on the 98% Vietnam era stat.
The problem of getting the wounded to hospitals made its most significant advance during Vietnam with large helicopters that could carry the wounded internally where specially trained medics were available. The wounded had a 98% survival rate.
... In Vietnam, the medic's job was to treat and evacuate. Medevac helicopters now could bring medics on board to continue treating the wounded while transporting them back to the Field Hospitals. There was a 98% survival rate for soldiers who were evacuated within the first hour."
... however when you are starting at 98% survival the improvements are going to be incremental advances. Not the huge advances we saw from WW1 to WW2 to Vietnam.
"During World War II a wounded soldier had an 85% chance of surviving if he was treated by a medic within the first hour. This figure was three times higher than World War I survival statistics
http://www.1stcavmedic.com/medic_history.htm
You seem to overstate GPS navigation. Sure its helpful but between ground radar stations, VOR and other technologies available in Vietnam navigation was not a major problem. A friend's father flew "dust off" in Vietnam. Off all the problems he mentioned navigation was not one of them.
Of course we have better helicopter's today, better training, better processes (tourniquets in personal kits, clotting agents, fresh whole blood rather than plasma, etc)
Fear mongering. It sells...
The fear of backdoors and data snooping are a bit hysterical.
However the fear of a chip being remotely shutdown, possible damaged, is quite plausible and a far more practical method of attack.
You seem to forget to adjust for advancements in medical technology. Else you could argue that WW1 commanders were better at commanding then those in Napolenic times (they were not). Or you could simply notice the invention of antibiotics.
You also blatantly ignore that your comparison is for a war finished vs a war that is ongoing with no end in sight in spite of many claims of contrary.
The Soviets fought in the 1980s. Survival rates reached 99% decades earlier for those who got medical treatment.
The fact that the current US/NATO war is longer and ongoing, and has greater success and fewer casualties, actually strengthens my claim. Thank you.
Actually the wikipedia articles do cite contractors, about 1K killed. So US/NATO plus contractors is 4K compared to the Soviets 14K. The two wars are vastly different.
Contractor wounded are cited as "wounded and injured" so inclusion in this category is broader than the Soviet, US and NATO numbers. Still the contractor number ads 12K to the US/NATO numbers, far below that of the Soviet era. 35K US/NATO plus contractor wounded *and injured* vs 54K wounded for Soviet forces.
The two wars are vastly different in nature.
To put some numbers behind this statement I did a quick check of wikipedia.
Soviet
Time: 9 years
Troops: 115K
Killed: 14K
Wounded: 54K
Civilians Killed: 600K–2,000K
US/NATO
Time: 11 years
Troops: 129K
Killed: 3K
Wounded: 23K
Civilians Killed: 15K
US/NATO is experiencing far more success, the tempo of attacks against troops and the gov't is far less, and suffering far fewer casualties than the Soviets.
Your characterization is not accurate for US forces. NATO forces may be less aggressive but US Army and US Marine forces set up bases/outposts in Taliban heartland or Taliban controlled territory. The US forces then conduct aggressive ground patrols. The Taliban has learned to relocate or limit their activities to largely remote/distant attacks. This is very different from the Soviet era where the Afghans conducted more aggressive toe-to-toe operations. If the Soviets had only received this level of resistance they may not have left, the Kremlin may have spun it in the press as only harassment. The two wars are vastly different in nature.
You're essentially arguing that USSR won its Afghan war.
Not really. The Afghan fighters of the Soviet-era were not reduced to roadside bombs. The had an offensive ground presence. This was possible only because of western assistance. In particular the US Stinger missile that kept Soviet air, in particular attack helicopters, at a distance. Without this western assistance the Soviets probably would have gotten things to the roadside bomb level, but that is not how things went. The two wars are not really comparable due to this western assistance in the Soviet case, the Soviets had to face Afghans actively backed by a superpower.
M1 Carbines were carried by some Marine officers in the early years.
Artillery shells are in the process of becoming self guided. They are no longer limited to ballistic trajectories.
Besides, the ballistic models that the modern militaries use incorporate an incredible number of variables. This research would probably offer no practical improvement, it most likely uses a simplified model of air resistance.
That said I am no expert, I merely did a ballistics project as part of a differential equations class.
"-gravity is not a constant vector force downward. It is a radial force inward toward the center of the Earth, and its intensity varies with altitude."
for any calculations on a scale less than 10 miles, assuming a constant will give you the same answer within a margin of error that is outside the ability of any store bought calculator.
Brick and mortar only or app stores too? Can a calculator that offer 20 digits of precision get inside that margin? Many store bought, and many apps based upon the FPU - a bad idea for many reasons, only seem to offer around 14 give or take.
FWIW, the actual motivation for 20 digits of precision was to be able to handle calculations compatible with 64-bit results. Not the sort of exercise above.
Saying "let's think about this a little more" is a step in the right direction.
And if one of your team members is suffering from PTSD or just freaks out?
Actually a live connection to your team members may help. You can be reassured when the stress is just beginning, talking it out is a known way reduce stress, the team is aware - no suffering is silence making it worse, the team is aware - the soldier can be removed from the battlefield pre-freakout, etc.
See another reply: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2871821&cid=40099389.
"Old Man's War" series, especially the second book "The Ghost Brigades". See BrainPal in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man's_War.
"Old Man's War" was a great book for me. IMHO right up there with Starship Trooper, Forever War and Armor.
The most valuable part of machine assisted learning is the ability to move at your own pace. There are some OCW lectures I had to watch 3 or 4 times before I got it. Now matter how good a teacher is, no student is going to ask them to repeatsomething four times. The student will just nod and feign understanding, and the teacher will move on.
Depends on the tutor. Some will ask a question that is designed to demonstrate your understanding of the concept. It wasn't one-on-one but I've had professors who were notorious for posing questions to students to gauge their understanding of the topic at hand during a lecture. Nodding and feigning was hazardous to your grade, admitting your confusion was not.
Computer based lectures can also be helpful for those who are getting the material. You can get through it faster than if sitting in a classroom lecture, no interruptions from someone who is not getting it. And if you can play the lecture at 1.25 times normal speed then there can be a big win. Most of my classmates and I found that speed to be entirely equivalent to normal speed.
Was the teacher tutoring a single student, as the machine was? How does the machine do when teaching a group of 30? I suspect that all we have really learned is that individual tutoring is better for some topics.
Of course computers can be less expensive tutors so the approach does have merit.
The reason a corporation should not have a voice is that it represents just the views of upper management and not all of its employees.
The exact same logic can silence trade unions. Not all members agree with union leadership.
>>>"corporations are people" thing was pure spin, the court never said that
You couldn't be more wrong. They did say that, back in a case of the 1890s, ...
I was referring to the Citizen United decision. I actually read/skimmed through it at the time. It said two things. Groups of people have the same rights as individuals, groups may be corporations, trade unions, special interest groups, etc. A media corporation has no special rights or privileges with respect to speech, TV Network Inc has no more right to political speech and opinions than Widget Maker Inc.
Have your read that 1890s decision? I suspect you are repeating someone else interpretation/spin.
... and that precedent of treating a corporation as a person has been carried forward ever since.
Saying a corporation has the same rights as a natural person in a specific domain is hardly saying that corporations are people. Seems like spin to say so.
And as for whether corporations should have a right to speak? No.
Such logic will also silence trade unions, special interest groups, clubs, etc. Under the law groups of people are groups of people regardless of the motivation for which they have grouped.
... than this building I'm sitting in ...
Straw man. Its the group of people sitting in the building that have the right to speech. Speech from the people directly, or through their company leadership, or through their union leadership, etc.
You examples are flawed. For example the financial firms gave to both sides. Eventually the bailout was supported by both parties. There was eventually a genuine fear of economic collapse. To say the bailouts were merely political payback is quite revisionist. Similarly it is a stretch to say the health care mandate was merely payback. There were many legitimate concerns regarding a public option and a mandate was a practical alternative.
Citizens United (CU) actually has little effect. Keep in mind that there is massive spin and exaggeration by opponents of the ruling. For example the "corporations are people" thing was pure spin, the court never said that. Brilliant spin, irresistible to the media, but spin none the less. All the court actually said was that groups of people have the same rights with respect to speech as individuals, and that media corporations have no special privileges regarding speech with respect to non-media corporations. Similarly the opponents of CU spin/distort the effect on public discourse, focusing only on corporations and ignoring the fact that it applies to any organization. Trade unions, interest groups, etc.
Payback hardly requires CU. For example the bundlers that aggregate many small donations and gain access/influence brought us Solyndra. These bundlers will continue to have greater influence than CU since they provide money directly to candidates. CU merely allows organizations to run ads without coordinating with clients. Again, ads can be ignored. And for those that are gullible they would be influence by only a few ads, the post-CU many ads will persuade very few *additional* likely voters. CU's effect is limited by diminishing returns, the very high expense of each additional person influenced. Again, Newt Gingrich could have had million of more ad dollars and he still would have lost.
Could not agree more. Like in Switzerland, where citizens can directly vote issues they feel important.
Counterexample: California.
... want to be able to vote issues ...
You intentions are good but I think the wisdom of the founding fathers wins on this point. Direct democracy voting on issues is not the panacea one might think. For example look at California and its propositions system, it is largely what you are asking for and some really bad/dumb stuff gets passed.
The flaw in your plan, and a flaw the founding fathers presumably were expecting, is that direct democracy assumes a well informed electorate that seriously contemplates the issues and votes for the common good rather than self interest.