I agree with you up to that point. Why not drop a nuke off-shore?
They did test a nuke. The test was called Trinity.
Or did the US only have the capability to deliver two nukes, so none could be wasted?
The US apparently had only two nukes. The one called Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima and the one called Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. At the time that was supposedly the USAs total arsenal of nuclear weapons. The Japanese did not surrender after the Little Boy demolished Hiroshima though they had 3 days to do so before the destruction of Nagasaki. Since Japan didn't surrender after the US bombed an actual city, logically it seems rather unlikely (in hindsight) that they would have surrendered after seeing footage of Trinity or seeing a bomb dropped in the ocean.
The "no other options" answer just sounds like an excuse to me.
They had options. The problem was none were particularly attractive and all the ones likely to work would mean massive casualties. As horrible as the choice to use nuclear weapons was, you can make a reasonable argument it was the least worst option. If you disagree I can respect that but the argument remains a reasonable one.
I think the numbers speak for themselves and therein lies the big fat hole in your argument. (-$1.2 Trillion) at least.
After WWII we had a much larger debt as a percentage of GDP. This isn't the first time we've had to pay for an expensive conflict. Wars are expensive and always have been and always will be. For a country with a nearly $14 trillion GDP, $1 Trillion is doable - though stupid and wasteful.
I think expecting democracy there is a pipe dream. It would take at least 3 generations to assimilate them into that way thinking
And you are some kind of authoritative expert on Iraq? You have evidence for your opinions? You've been to Iraq and have seen what's going on yourself? I'm guessing none of the above.
You're deliberately ignoring the fact that FAR, FAR more conventional bombs were dropped than nukes. We're talking several orders of magnitude here.
So? A death is a death. The means matters little to the dead person.
The ratio makes them quite special.
No it doesn't. It just makes that individual weapon scarier but dead is dead. One million dead from one bomb or one million dead from a million bombs is still one million dead. Any conflict where nuclear weapons are considered is pretty much going to mean massive casualties even if they are never used. A nuclear weapon is just another way to kill a lot of people but hardly the only one.
All the kids that later died of cancer makes them special as hell.
So you don't care about the starvation, disease, death, maimings, destruction and other side effects of war? You think radiation is the only way to cause cancer? Man are you missing the big picture.
Asymmetric warfare isn't designed to 'win' in the conventional sense. Its designed to wear down the will of an invading force.
Certainly but there are plenty of methods of asymmetric warfare, including some non-violent ones. My argument is that suicide bombers simply are ineffective in the capacity of wearing down a force. It is a quite literally self defeating strategy.
Not in terms of absolute numbers or weapons, but certainly in morale.
Morale is important, no question. But again - show me the evidence that suicide bombers have meaningfully altered the equation of any any armed conflict. I'm a history buff and I can't think of a single instance where suicide bombers actually altered the final outcome of a conflict. I can think of last stand battles but no suicide bombings.
The allies never invaded the Japanese islands, did they?
Only because the atom bomb made it unnecessary. Had atomic weapons not been developed by 1945 or had Japan not surrendered after the second bomb (we only had two bombs at the time and we used both though the Japanese did not know that) the invasion would likely have occurred and there would have been massive casualties. The kamikaze didn't stop Japan from being conquered, didn't prevent invasion, didn't prevent occupation, nor did they even significantly slow the allied advance.
But then again, maybe even the most pro-war mother and father might stop for a second and wonder if their child really had to die, and whether he really had to be an occupying force in the first place.
I don't know any rational parent who doesn't wonder this.
You can argue the effectiveness of suicide bombing all you want, and you can tell a conquered people that it will do no good till you're blue in the face, but even if you're right, that's not going to stop them.
Quite right but I wasn't arguing the rationality of those who do it since they are clearly insane. Insane people don't do rational things and suicide bombing is in most cases quite irrational and ineffective. Presumably this irrationality is why they continue to engage in such ineffective tactics. I find it interesting that Ghandi managed to get the British out of India with peaceful methods while a few thousand miles to the west psychopaths persist in thinking blowing themselves and innocent people up will ever result in anything positive.
So, you are saying that that suicide bombers should just shut up and die?
No I'm saying they are tactical imbeciles who are defeating themselves. What difference does it make if they die in a hail of bullets or by blowing themselves up? Dead is dead. In the hail of bullets option they just might live to accomplish something another day. But doing it via suicide out of mere spite is just stupid, not to mention psychotic.
When given a choice between a miserable existence given to you by a hated enemy or taking a few "enemies" with you when you die, what would YOU chose?
Nice strawman argument. Taking enemies with you is fine but only if there is some tactical or strategic purpose to it. Claiming there is something ethical or justifiable about killing yourself and taking a bunch of innocent people with you is about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
Furthermore, even enemies don't have to remain so forever. The conflict between the US and Japan was about as intense as it gets. Millions lost their lives and there was such intense rage we can barely comprehend it 60 years later. Now Japan is among our closest allies and it didn't even take a single generation. Just being on the losing side of conflict doesn't doom the combatants to an eternity of misery. Life moves on and only those who dwell on past injuries will be doomed to a pathetic existence.
A slow death or a quick one?
We're all going to die. Why not try to accomplish something productive before you go?
Vengeance or humiliation?
Vengeance against whom? Explain to me how the 3000 victims in the world trade center were in any way deserving of their fate.
Doing SOMETHING or nothing?
A suicide bombing accomplishes nothing so I'm guessing you are voting for doing nothing. Dying is easy - actually doing something productive is hard. Suicide bombers are mentally unbalanced people taking the easy way out.
Think about it, it may be seem stupid and the bomber may have lost the conflict but just sitting around and letting someone push you around is not something most people would be willing to do
There are plenty of ways to push back that don't involve killing other people. Ghandi and Martin Luther King led peaceful revolutions that last to this day and led to them being honored throughout the world. I've never heard of a suicide bomber ever having any lasting effect on the world.
They grew a big enough backbone to stand up to you, despite the fact that you're war criminals who drop nukes on cities.
This has to be a troll but I'll bite anyway.
Comparing ethics from a time of total war is absurd beyond measure. Shall we get into the atrocities committed by all sides? There's plenty to go around. A nuke in a time of war is no more unethical than any other kind of massive scale bombing. FAR more people were killed with conventional bombing on both sides during WWII than by nukes and yet the nukes are somehow special? The nuke just has a bigger bang for the payload.
War is horrible but once there is a war the MOST unethical thing anyone can do is to prolong the war. It should be ended as quickly as possible and this is usually accomplished by using the most overwhelming force possible. Dropping two atomic weapons on Japan brought the war to an abrupt end and probably saved countless lives. Yes it was a horrible thing to do but there were NO options that were not horrible to consider. None.
On the other hand, the kill ratio in Iraq for coalition forces is 100:1 (1 coalition soldier dead for every 100 enemy combatants). Numbers like that make suicide bombing start to look pretty appealing.
No, that just means the bomber has lost the conflict but is to stupid to admit the fact. If suicide bombers had any tactical or strategic purpose to what they were doing, then perhaps you might have a point but they almost never do. They simply walk into a random crowd and kill a bunch of random people and accomplish nothing.
It doesn't weaken the stronger military by any meaningful amount, it just pisses them off. Even when public opinion is against a war suicide bombings aren't going to cause our military to quit and go home. At most it financially stresses the stronger party but it's hardly going to bankrupt the economy. We want out of Iraq but it isn't because of the suicide bombers - it's because it is a stupid, wasteful and unnecessary conflict which we should not have started in the first place.
The Japanese started using kamikaze tactics in WWII when the leadership already knew or should have known that the war was a lost cause. It was a futile and cowardly act by their leaders which in the end changed nothing. Similar actions in Iraq and other places will have similarly futile outcomes.
Advise you mean? Sorry but our government doesn't work like that. The president doesn't make all the decisions himself. If you think he does you've been watching too much The West Wing. The cabinet secretaries actually run the day to day operations and make many of the tactical decisions. They don't consult the president on every little issue but the president IS responsible for what they ultimately do.
Rulers take decisions and should be held accountable for them.
That's pretty much what I said. Did you actually read what you are responding to?
Putting every failure in a nation of 300 million on the shoulders of one man isn't a very progressive way of thinking.
No one who has a brain puts the blame solely at the feet of George Bush. The president is powerful and influential but not THAT powerful or THAT influential and he certainly doesn't act alone. His advisers and staff carry a significant measure of responsibility as does anyone who carried out US policy under his administration.
On the other hand the President is the leader; he hired his staff, he sets the direction on policy and he signed off on the behavior of those who ostensibly worked for him. A leader is responsible for those who work for him and what they do - good, bad or indifferent. George Bush IS more responsible for what happened on his watch than anyone else just as Barack Obama will be responsible for what happens during his term. Any pretense that they aren't is just excusing unacceptable behavior.
I always thought geeks loved to play with arcane tech, making this an ideal story.
Some do. Some don't. I fall into the don't category. I guess I'm not very sentimental. I love learning about history of it and admire how clever some of the solutions were in the face of the limitations of the day. There are some wonderful lessons to be learned. But I'm also old enough to have used some pretty arcane tech (by IT standards anyway) and I remember it's limitations well. There are very good reasons we don't use it anymore.
Personally it's not the tech but the information that I worry about. Old formats that we have lost the ability to read. The hardware exists to communicate and facilitate information. We can create new hardware but we can't always create new information.
No UAV is capable of fighting a mannned air craft and winning.
And your evidence for this is what? An unmanned craft can turn and accelerate at rates that would kill a pilot of a manned aircraft. They're lighter, smaller, faster, and more agile which are significant advantages. With stealth technology a UAV could potentially blow a manned aircraft out of the sky before the enemy pilot even knows the UAV is there. I buy the argument that UAVs are not yet able to dominate in a dog fight, but saying the can never win is a whole different argument and not an easy one to support.
If not for local ECM(jammers in other aircraft) screwing up the flight controls, then the simple fact that the manned aircraft can turn their head and see the planes over their shoulder let alone behind them.
It's quite possible to install sensors to allow a pilot of an unmanned craft to see in any direction - even simultaneously. For all we know there might already be sensors with full spherical vision available. The jamming is a bigger problem but presumably there are countermeasures for jamming as well. I don't think we're going to get rid of manned fighters anytime soon but there are plenty of missions where jamming is not a significant or an easily mitigated concern. Even manned fighters have to destroy radar and jamming equipment so they don't get shot down so it's a problem the US armed forces are more than passingly familiar with.
I think the point is more that if you're working at the kind of place where it's "up or out" and 80-hour weeks, you've probably made a bad decision somewhere along the line. If you WANT to work in that environment with those kinds of hours, you should probably see a shrink.
Nearly every entrepreneur, doctor, investment banker, and more than a few young lawyers work those kind of hours. Some endeavors require that sort of time commitment. Not a life for everyone to be sure and you may be right with your "see a shrink" comment but that's what it takes sometimes. It's not wrong though it might be a bit pathological.
I'm married to a physician and I generally tell people who are considering her profession that if you can imagine your self doing anything else you probably should do the something else. It has to be a calling because it is too hard otherwise. You'll basically give up a decade of your life just for training, work most holidays, work long and irregular hours, and miss a lot of "normal" life. The pay might be decent down the road but if helping people isn't something deep in your soul you'll probably burn out. Fortunately there seems to be enough people with that kind of commitment.
I explained that I liked my boring late-model sedan that always starts, always has heating or air conditioning, and unexcitingly goes along with whatever I ask from it.
I like what I heard Billy Joel once say on an episode of American Chopper: "I like how old thing look and how new things work."
It's fine to have nostalgia for older cars - even cool to a point. Mechanically however, most of them would be considered unreliable junk these days. Hell my family sedan is faster and handles better than most sports/muscle cars from before 1980. Cars with 200-300 horsepower are quite common these days even in relatively low end vehicles.
Funny story: A friend of mine who has an old Corvette was bragging about how cool and fast his car could go. His father listened patiently and then says "I'll kick your ass in my Cadillac". My friend sputtered in disbelief and then said "ok, let's go". So they run to the nearest bit of empty straight pavement. Sure enough his dad spools up that big 315HP Northstar engine and... well let's just say it wasn't much of a contest. My buddy's vette only kicks out 205HP so he should have seen that one coming. Good thing they weren't racing for pinks.
Since there is pretty much one Android device that means the only option is TMobile which is owned by Deutsche Telekom. Somehow presidential communications going through a foreign controlled mobile phone operator seems like just as bad an idea as using RIM which routes traffic through Canada. I guess they could switch it to AT&T if needed.
Would you then say that it's a reflection on US culture that such a response is considered not only valid, but an acceptable place to lie?
Nope. Because IT DOESN'T MATTER. It affects no one, hurts no one, causes no problems, and is a mere formality. If anything it is a positive thing because it shows that as a culture we choose a greeting that shows concern about others even if we don't always care. The MEANING of the inquiry is a greeting, not usually an actual question into the well being of the person being greeted and this is well understood. Furthermore it's likely that I might think sharing the actual nature of my present well being is none of your business. Should I just be a jackass and say "none of your business" because that would be telling the truth? No because that would be rude and benefits no one and you likely don't actually care anyway.
Sorry but life isn't so black and white that telling the truth is always right and lying is always wrong. It is naive to think otherwise. If that disturbs your need for nice clear rules in life... well, get used to it because life is like that.
I have lied in the past, but now I have a strict policy of honesty
You must not have a spouse.
Technically, that may make me dishonest, because I don't always share the truth
That's called lying by omission so you've now admitted that you actually do lie despite having lied when you said you didn't.
Lies aren't inherently evil or morally wrong. They often are but not always. As a simple example it's common for people in the US to greet each other with "how are you?" and we normally answer "good" or "fine" even if we aren't. That's potentially a lie but it doesn't matter because they weren't really asking how we were anyway. It's a social formality and we don't actually care about the answer. Lies happen all the time, sometimes for actually good purposes. Doctors are required to lie sometimes to protect patient confidentiality - and that is a Good Thing. (with apologies to Martha Stuart)
That which infuriates me the most about the tech sector is corporate executives building wealth upon the backs of laboring engineers. I have yet to receive an explanation as to why some VP somewhere gets to make ten times as much myself.
You won't like the explanation but I'll try. The reasons are complicated and numerous. What you have to remember is that I'm talking in general terms - overall markets, not specific cases.
The ability to effectively manage an organization is rare - rather like top flight engineering talent. A limited market for top talent is why pro athletes are paid so well - there simply aren't many people who can run as fast or jump as high or hit a ball as consistently. Likewise good leadership and decision making under uncertainty is really hard and people who are good at it are not common.
There is a competitive market for top management talent and demand is exceeding supply. Over in China getting talented middle managers is a huge problem because there is so much demand for them and too little supply. On Wall Street if pay isn't competitive the talent will walk out to door to your competitors so the companies are forced to pay more than they otherwise would prefer.
Folks at the top are in a position to negotiate or command a larger compensation package because they control the money and budgets and you as an engineer don't.
Engineers tend to avoid the political games and social interactions necessary to command larger salaries. Engineers often could get paid more if pay was their primary goal and they were willing to negotiate harder.
No one would take on the larger responsibility of being in management or higher if there were not additional compensation.
Is all this fair? I leave that to you but I would argue probably yes. Just because you do something valuable doesn't mean you are in a position to command a large amount of monetary compensation for what you do.
Why is balancing a checkbook a more executive skill than writing the tool that tool used to balance the checkbook?!?
That's your problem - you think being an executive is about balancing a checkbook. It's not and never will be. Doing good engineering is hard but so is management and the skill sets don't overlap much. Engineers create tools and that is incredibly valuable but using those tools is valuable too and we engineers tend to under-appreciate how valuable it really is.
I'm an engineer. My supervisor is an engineer. Our department head is an engineer. Our vice president is an engineer. Holy smokes, even the president of the company is an engineer. The CEO? He's a bean counter.
As someone who is both an engineer AND an accountant, I can assure you that your president, VP, and even department head are all de-facto accountants as well. Accounting isn't some mysterious thing that only accountants do. If you are responsible for a budget, or handle/manage cash in any way, shape or form, you are doing accounting. Even as an engineer if you have any responsibility for the cost of the product you are producing, congratulations, you are doing cost accounting.
Accounting is simply recording and monitoring what happens to the assets and liabilities of the company. It's as integral to management as math is to engineering. You simply can't manage a business without getting your fingers into accounting. Just because your diploma says engineering doesn't change that fact that it probably is part of your job. Being good at understanding cash flows might help you get to the top faster if that is what you want but you simply will NOT get to the top or stay there without understanding accounting.
There's frighteningly still a market for paper-tape based calculators (they cost a lot more than you'd think) for, primarily, older accountants who want everything on a tape total.
This is so true but sadly it's not just the old guys. I'm an accountant (and an engineer) and I can't fathom why anyone would use a paper tape calculator when they have a spreadsheet available. But many accountants just love them. Why? Because they are simple and they know how to use them. I'm not sure whether to laugh, ridicule or cry when I see someone punching in a column of numbers for the 4th time because they made a typo - again. Personally I think paper tape calculators should be banned but they'll be with us for a long time I'm afraid.
Be wary of most accountants, there's a reason it's not offered as a major at top schools
What are you talking about? It might be called a business administration degree with an accounting concentration but the result is the same and many of the top business schools offer such a degree. Accounting firms in fact virtually demand some sort of accounting focused curriculum if you want a job as a CPA. Even outside pure accounting firms, a huge number of accounting job posting "require" an undergrad degree in accounting.
- having brains in the field is more often a detriment than a benefit.
Sorry no, that just isn't true. An ability to tolerate boredom, follow arbitrary rules and poorly designed procedures perhaps, but stupidity will generally get you fired when you are handling the cash.
You don't actually use spreadsheets for anything do you? You sound like a moron to those of us who actually do use spreadsheets for something besides a grocery list.
Dvorak doesn't even know the difference between finance and accounting. Accountants don't really spend a lot of time with spreadsheets. I know because I am a certified accountant myself. Spreadsheets are used far more by finance analysts. Accountants track what happened in the past much like a secretary keeps minutes of a meeting. Finance analysts try to predict what will happen in the future and their main tool is the spreadsheet. These are not normally the same person though there obviously is overlap. Anyone who actually knows anything about business understands the difference but apparently Dvorak is not among them.
Dvorak blames for elevating once lowly bean counters to the executive suite and enabling them to make some truly horrible decisions
Right, because no one ever made horrible business decisions before the spreadsheet. Sigh... Used properly, spreadsheets let us make more informed, rational decisions instead of shooting from the hip. Modern finance would literally be impossible without spreadsheets or something very much like them. Ever tried to manage a company's books? Without spreadsheets and accounting software you need an army of workers to track the paperwork and calculate the numbers. Furthermore hand calculating results in errors and lots of them. Sure spreadsheets can be used badly like any other tool. They certainly are no magic cure-all for bad analysis and decision making. But that's the user not the tool.
Dvorak asks in the article:
How often in years pastâ"the pre-spreadsheet era, that isâ"did an accountant take over a company?
Frequently. John D Rockefeller was an accountant before he was a titan of industry. There are countless other examples. Accounting is what allows managers of businesses to understand what is going on. Every business manager is by necessity an accountant to some degree. Without accounting they are no different than an airplane pilot without any instruments. It should surprise no one that the people who understand the cash flows best often rise to positions of control, including the role of CEO. A spreadsheet and other computerized tools simply make the job easier and more productive. Apparently Dvorak thinks we should rely on slide rules and multiplication tables and ledger books instead.
Dvorak further asserts:
Cars are shoddy, consumer goods are junk. Toxic substances are in the food supply. Lead is in toys. Most of what we buy is made cheaply elsewhere.
Further evidence of Dvorak's stupidity.
Cars are better now than they ever have been by pretty much any objective measure you care to use. They're more reliable, the last longer, they perform better, they're more comfortable, etc. I know a lot of folks like classic cars for their styling and nostalgia but they were worse mechanically in most cases.
I have no idea what consumer goods he's referring to in particular. There have always been junky consumer goods and quality ones. Yes we have a more disposable approach these days (which isn't a good thing) but that doesn't mean the products are automatically junk. Some are, some are not.
Toxic substances have always been in the food supply but again we (in the US at least) have safer and more plentiful food today than at any time in history.
As for making stuff cheaply elsewhere, that has ALWAYS happened and always will. That's comparative advantage at work. The mere fact that something can be produced less expensively in one location than another says nothing automatically about its quality. It can be better or worse but that's due to other factors besides merely production location. Likewise cost varies because of any number of factors besides just quality. Cheaper does not automatically mean worse.
Because the classic iPhone is huge heavy brick that many potential customers would be embarresed lugging around.
Yes there are smaller phones available but I've yet to meet ANYONE who objected to the iPhone by calling it a "huge heavy brick" or that they would be embarrassed by it. Quite the opposite actually - it's something of a status symbol if anything. ANY form factor will have tradeoffs. If you don't like the ones Apple chose then shut up and buy a different phone.
The iPhone isn't for everyone and it is ok if you don't want one. I carry a different phone myself because I travel places for work where flashing a several hundred dollar phone is a bad idea. But if you are going to object to criticize the iPhone you can find far better arguments than to call it a "huge heavy brick" which it very clearly is not. The virtual keyboard, the so-so camera, the API, the lack of a removable battery, the lack of removable storage, etc are all perfectly valid criticisms depending on what you expect out of a phone. But a "brick"? Pul-eeeze.
In my shop, a tech once hooked up a used-oil barrel to the new-oil pump, meaning they pumped old, dirty oil into peoples cars.
Interesting to know. Thanks.
Other things can also go wrong.
Don't I know it. My father had an oil pan plug stripped of its threads. I had a K&N filter replaced after I told them not to touch it. I had them tear a perfectly good filter removing it to show me that it was clean. I'm never going to have transmission fluid changed in a quick change place again due to a poorly done change. I've had them lie to me about the amount of oil that was put in. Quick change places can be fine but I don't trust them much.
There is also a convenience to having them know your customer history
Certainly but they can have a customer history without my address. They have the VIN, license plate number and my name which I would think is more than adequate. Like you I prefer to keep unnecessary information private. My address is certainly not necessary to pump oil and never will be.
I've stopped shopping at stores that use my credit card as a way to get me on their mailing list. On vacation, we bought some chocolates at Harry & David. When we got back, there was a catalog from them in our mail with my name (not "Resident") in the address.
I'm not saying you're wrong but you do realize it is far more likely that they got your name and address from a local mailing list vendor than from your credit card? Especially around the holidays. There are countless services available that can target promotional mailings for a fee. There are all sorts of public sources for this information including housing records. (seriously - buy a house and you will get spammed with more refinancing offers than you can imagine) I get Harry & David catalogs too (no I don't want them), with my name on them and I've never purchased anything from H&D. They also will send you catalogs if someone else buys you a gift from H&D.
That's not to say they don't use credit card into. I never give a zip code, phone number or any other info when checking out because it can be cross referenced. I nearly called the cops on the guys at Jiffy Lube once because they drained the oil in my car and then insisted they needed my address to put oil back in. They do have a legal right to ask and can refuse service if I don't provide the information but then I have a legal right to shop elsewhere as well.
The $100 number came from a report I saw a while back but you don't have to take my word for it. You can safely disagree with the number because it depends on how you do the accounting. (disclosure - I'm a certified accountant as well as an industrial engineer) Any profit number for a particular vehicle will be an estimate since the auto companies don't break this stuff out enough to really know for sure. The largest number I've seen for profits per Prius is $1100/vehicle which I regard as optimistic because the R&D costs have been huge. Toyota admitted that the Prius lost money for the first 3-5 years after it was introduced which makes sense. Estimates vary on the profitability of the Prius but due to the added expense of the new technology it is widely considered to be at best marginally profitable and might even be losing money though I doubt it.
I tend to think Toyota is at least making a modest profit on the Prius (or was until recently) depending on how you do the accounting. I think if they were to fully apply all the costs of R&D to the Prius it probably is a breakeven proposition at best but Toyota is probably not fully allocating the R&D costs for hybrid technology. That's not unusual BTW - there are good reasons not to fully allocate costs. The Prius is a technology test bed and a great marketing tool for Toyota so there are benefits even if the vehicle itself isn't terribly profitable.
But they offer nothing. No cash back. No Hawiian trips. No 0% financing. The market demand for them is strong enough that when every other segment for them is dropping, the Prius continues to sell. Seems like a pretty strong indication of consumer demand to me;)
The Toyota Prius was the 10th best selling vehicle by volume in the US from Jan-April of 2008. Nice sales figures but hardly indicative of overwhelming demand for hybrids. You will note that the Prius is the only hybrid vehicle on the list.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you up to that point. Why not drop a nuke off-shore?
They did test a nuke. The test was called Trinity.
Or did the US only have the capability to deliver two nukes, so none could be wasted?
The US apparently had only two nukes. The one called Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima and the one called Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. At the time that was supposedly the USAs total arsenal of nuclear weapons. The Japanese did not surrender after the Little Boy demolished Hiroshima though they had 3 days to do so before the destruction of Nagasaki. Since Japan didn't surrender after the US bombed an actual city, logically it seems rather unlikely (in hindsight) that they would have surrendered after seeing footage of Trinity or seeing a bomb dropped in the ocean.
The "no other options" answer just sounds like an excuse to me.
They had options. The problem was none were particularly attractive and all the ones likely to work would mean massive casualties. As horrible as the choice to use nuclear weapons was, you can make a reasonable argument it was the least worst option. If you disagree I can respect that but the argument remains a reasonable one.
I think the numbers speak for themselves and therein lies the big fat hole in your argument.
(-$1.2 Trillion) at least.
After WWII we had a much larger debt as a percentage of GDP. This isn't the first time we've had to pay for an expensive conflict. Wars are expensive and always have been and always will be. For a country with a nearly $14 trillion GDP, $1 Trillion is doable - though stupid and wasteful.
I think expecting democracy there is a pipe dream. It would take at least 3 generations to assimilate them into that way thinking
And you are some kind of authoritative expert on Iraq? You have evidence for your opinions? You've been to Iraq and have seen what's going on yourself? I'm guessing none of the above.
You're deliberately ignoring the fact that FAR, FAR more conventional bombs were dropped than nukes. We're talking several orders of magnitude here.
So? A death is a death. The means matters little to the dead person.
The ratio makes them quite special.
No it doesn't. It just makes that individual weapon scarier but dead is dead. One million dead from one bomb or one million dead from a million bombs is still one million dead. Any conflict where nuclear weapons are considered is pretty much going to mean massive casualties even if they are never used. A nuclear weapon is just another way to kill a lot of people but hardly the only one.
All the kids that later died of cancer makes them special as hell.
So you don't care about the starvation, disease, death, maimings, destruction and other side effects of war? You think radiation is the only way to cause cancer? Man are you missing the big picture.
Asymmetric warfare isn't designed to 'win' in the conventional sense. Its designed to wear down the will of an invading force.
Certainly but there are plenty of methods of asymmetric warfare, including some non-violent ones. My argument is that suicide bombers simply are ineffective in the capacity of wearing down a force. It is a quite literally self defeating strategy.
Not in terms of absolute numbers or weapons, but certainly in morale.
Morale is important, no question. But again - show me the evidence that suicide bombers have meaningfully altered the equation of any any armed conflict. I'm a history buff and I can't think of a single instance where suicide bombers actually altered the final outcome of a conflict. I can think of last stand battles but no suicide bombings.
The allies never invaded the Japanese islands, did they?
Only because the atom bomb made it unnecessary. Had atomic weapons not been developed by 1945 or had Japan not surrendered after the second bomb (we only had two bombs at the time and we used both though the Japanese did not know that) the invasion would likely have occurred and there would have been massive casualties. The kamikaze didn't stop Japan from being conquered, didn't prevent invasion, didn't prevent occupation, nor did they even significantly slow the allied advance.
But then again, maybe even the most pro-war mother and father might stop for a second and wonder if their child really had to die, and whether he really had to be an occupying force in the first place.
I don't know any rational parent who doesn't wonder this.
You can argue the effectiveness of suicide bombing all you want, and you can tell a conquered people that it will do no good till you're blue in the face, but even if you're right, that's not going to stop them.
Quite right but I wasn't arguing the rationality of those who do it since they are clearly insane. Insane people don't do rational things and suicide bombing is in most cases quite irrational and ineffective. Presumably this irrationality is why they continue to engage in such ineffective tactics. I find it interesting that Ghandi managed to get the British out of India with peaceful methods while a few thousand miles to the west psychopaths persist in thinking blowing themselves and innocent people up will ever result in anything positive.
So, you are saying that that suicide bombers should just shut up and die?
No I'm saying they are tactical imbeciles who are defeating themselves. What difference does it make if they die in a hail of bullets or by blowing themselves up? Dead is dead. In the hail of bullets option they just might live to accomplish something another day. But doing it via suicide out of mere spite is just stupid, not to mention psychotic.
When given a choice between a miserable existence given to you by a hated enemy or taking a few "enemies" with you when you die, what would YOU chose?
Nice strawman argument. Taking enemies with you is fine but only if there is some tactical or strategic purpose to it. Claiming there is something ethical or justifiable about killing yourself and taking a bunch of innocent people with you is about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
Furthermore, even enemies don't have to remain so forever. The conflict between the US and Japan was about as intense as it gets. Millions lost their lives and there was such intense rage we can barely comprehend it 60 years later. Now Japan is among our closest allies and it didn't even take a single generation. Just being on the losing side of conflict doesn't doom the combatants to an eternity of misery. Life moves on and only those who dwell on past injuries will be doomed to a pathetic existence.
A slow death or a quick one?
We're all going to die. Why not try to accomplish something productive before you go?
Vengeance or humiliation?
Vengeance against whom? Explain to me how the 3000 victims in the world trade center were in any way deserving of their fate.
Doing SOMETHING or nothing?
A suicide bombing accomplishes nothing so I'm guessing you are voting for doing nothing. Dying is easy - actually doing something productive is hard. Suicide bombers are mentally unbalanced people taking the easy way out.
Think about it, it may be seem stupid and the bomber may have lost the conflict
but just sitting around and letting someone push you around is not something most people would be willing to do
There are plenty of ways to push back that don't involve killing other people. Ghandi and Martin Luther King led peaceful revolutions that last to this day and led to them being honored throughout the world. I've never heard of a suicide bomber ever having any lasting effect on the world.
They grew a big enough backbone to stand up to you, despite the fact that you're war criminals who drop nukes on cities.
This has to be a troll but I'll bite anyway.
Comparing ethics from a time of total war is absurd beyond measure. Shall we get into the atrocities committed by all sides? There's plenty to go around. A nuke in a time of war is no more unethical than any other kind of massive scale bombing. FAR more people were killed with conventional bombing on both sides during WWII than by nukes and yet the nukes are somehow special? The nuke just has a bigger bang for the payload.
War is horrible but once there is a war the MOST unethical thing anyone can do is to prolong the war. It should be ended as quickly as possible and this is usually accomplished by using the most overwhelming force possible. Dropping two atomic weapons on Japan brought the war to an abrupt end and probably saved countless lives. Yes it was a horrible thing to do but there were NO options that were not horrible to consider. None.
On the other hand, the kill ratio in Iraq for coalition forces is 100:1 (1 coalition soldier dead for every 100 enemy combatants). Numbers like that make suicide bombing start to look pretty appealing.
No, that just means the bomber has lost the conflict but is to stupid to admit the fact. If suicide bombers had any tactical or strategic purpose to what they were doing, then perhaps you might have a point but they almost never do. They simply walk into a random crowd and kill a bunch of random people and accomplish nothing.
It doesn't weaken the stronger military by any meaningful amount, it just pisses them off. Even when public opinion is against a war suicide bombings aren't going to cause our military to quit and go home. At most it financially stresses the stronger party but it's hardly going to bankrupt the economy. We want out of Iraq but it isn't because of the suicide bombers - it's because it is a stupid, wasteful and unnecessary conflict which we should not have started in the first place.
The Japanese started using kamikaze tactics in WWII when the leadership already knew or should have known that the war was a lost cause. It was a futile and cowardly act by their leaders which in the end changed nothing. Similar actions in Iraq and other places will have similarly futile outcomes.
Advisers advice.
Advise you mean? Sorry but our government doesn't work like that. The president doesn't make all the decisions himself. If you think he does you've been watching too much The West Wing. The cabinet secretaries actually run the day to day operations and make many of the tactical decisions. They don't consult the president on every little issue but the president IS responsible for what they ultimately do.
Rulers take decisions and should be held accountable for them.
That's pretty much what I said. Did you actually read what you are responding to?
Putting every failure in a nation of 300 million on the shoulders of one man isn't a very progressive way of thinking.
No one who has a brain puts the blame solely at the feet of George Bush. The president is powerful and influential but not THAT powerful or THAT influential and he certainly doesn't act alone. His advisers and staff carry a significant measure of responsibility as does anyone who carried out US policy under his administration.
On the other hand the President is the leader; he hired his staff, he sets the direction on policy and he signed off on the behavior of those who ostensibly worked for him. A leader is responsible for those who work for him and what they do - good, bad or indifferent. George Bush IS more responsible for what happened on his watch than anyone else just as Barack Obama will be responsible for what happens during his term. Any pretense that they aren't is just excusing unacceptable behavior.
I always thought geeks loved to play with arcane tech, making this an ideal story.
Some do. Some don't. I fall into the don't category. I guess I'm not very sentimental. I love learning about history of it and admire how clever some of the solutions were in the face of the limitations of the day. There are some wonderful lessons to be learned. But I'm also old enough to have used some pretty arcane tech (by IT standards anyway) and I remember it's limitations well. There are very good reasons we don't use it anymore.
Personally it's not the tech but the information that I worry about. Old formats that we have lost the ability to read. The hardware exists to communicate and facilitate information. We can create new hardware but we can't always create new information.
No UAV is capable of fighting a mannned air craft and winning.
And your evidence for this is what? An unmanned craft can turn and accelerate at rates that would kill a pilot of a manned aircraft. They're lighter, smaller, faster, and more agile which are significant advantages. With stealth technology a UAV could potentially blow a manned aircraft out of the sky before the enemy pilot even knows the UAV is there. I buy the argument that UAVs are not yet able to dominate in a dog fight, but saying the can never win is a whole different argument and not an easy one to support.
If not for local ECM(jammers in other aircraft) screwing up the flight controls, then the simple fact that the manned aircraft can turn their head and see the planes over their shoulder let alone behind them.
It's quite possible to install sensors to allow a pilot of an unmanned craft to see in any direction - even simultaneously. For all we know there might already be sensors with full spherical vision available. The jamming is a bigger problem but presumably there are countermeasures for jamming as well. I don't think we're going to get rid of manned fighters anytime soon but there are plenty of missions where jamming is not a significant or an easily mitigated concern. Even manned fighters have to destroy radar and jamming equipment so they don't get shot down so it's a problem the US armed forces are more than passingly familiar with.
I think the point is more that if you're working at the kind of place where it's "up or out" and 80-hour weeks, you've probably made a bad decision somewhere along the line. If you WANT to work in that environment with those kinds of hours, you should probably see a shrink.
Nearly every entrepreneur, doctor, investment banker, and more than a few young lawyers work those kind of hours. Some endeavors require that sort of time commitment. Not a life for everyone to be sure and you may be right with your "see a shrink" comment but that's what it takes sometimes. It's not wrong though it might be a bit pathological.
I'm married to a physician and I generally tell people who are considering her profession that if you can imagine your self doing anything else you probably should do the something else. It has to be a calling because it is too hard otherwise. You'll basically give up a decade of your life just for training, work most holidays, work long and irregular hours, and miss a lot of "normal" life. The pay might be decent down the road but if helping people isn't something deep in your soul you'll probably burn out. Fortunately there seems to be enough people with that kind of commitment.
I explained that I liked my boring late-model sedan that always starts, always has heating or air conditioning, and unexcitingly goes along with whatever I ask from it.
I like what I heard Billy Joel once say on an episode of American Chopper: "I like how old thing look and how new things work."
It's fine to have nostalgia for older cars - even cool to a point. Mechanically however, most of them would be considered unreliable junk these days. Hell my family sedan is faster and handles better than most sports/muscle cars from before 1980. Cars with 200-300 horsepower are quite common these days even in relatively low end vehicles.
Funny story: A friend of mine who has an old Corvette was bragging about how cool and fast his car could go. His father listened patiently and then says "I'll kick your ass in my Cadillac". My friend sputtered in disbelief and then said "ok, let's go". So they run to the nearest bit of empty straight pavement. Sure enough his dad spools up that big 315HP Northstar engine and... well let's just say it wasn't much of a contest. My buddy's vette only kicks out 205HP so he should have seen that one coming. Good thing they weren't racing for pinks.
He can switch to an Android device...
Since there is pretty much one Android device that means the only option is TMobile which is owned by Deutsche Telekom. Somehow presidential communications going through a foreign controlled mobile phone operator seems like just as bad an idea as using RIM which routes traffic through Canada. I guess they could switch it to AT&T if needed.
Would you then say that it's a reflection on US culture that such a response is considered not only valid, but an acceptable place to lie?
Nope. Because IT DOESN'T MATTER. It affects no one, hurts no one, causes no problems, and is a mere formality. If anything it is a positive thing because it shows that as a culture we choose a greeting that shows concern about others even if we don't always care. The MEANING of the inquiry is a greeting, not usually an actual question into the well being of the person being greeted and this is well understood. Furthermore it's likely that I might think sharing the actual nature of my present well being is none of your business. Should I just be a jackass and say "none of your business" because that would be telling the truth? No because that would be rude and benefits no one and you likely don't actually care anyway.
Sorry but life isn't so black and white that telling the truth is always right and lying is always wrong. It is naive to think otherwise. If that disturbs your need for nice clear rules in life... well, get used to it because life is like that.
I have lied in the past, but now I have a strict policy of honesty
You must not have a spouse.
Technically, that may make me dishonest, because I don't always share the truth
That's called lying by omission so you've now admitted that you actually do lie despite having lied when you said you didn't.
Lies aren't inherently evil or morally wrong. They often are but not always. As a simple example it's common for people in the US to greet each other with "how are you?" and we normally answer "good" or "fine" even if we aren't. That's potentially a lie but it doesn't matter because they weren't really asking how we were anyway. It's a social formality and we don't actually care about the answer. Lies happen all the time, sometimes for actually good purposes. Doctors are required to lie sometimes to protect patient confidentiality - and that is a Good Thing. (with apologies to Martha Stuart)
That which infuriates me the most about the tech sector is corporate executives building wealth upon the backs of laboring engineers. I have yet to receive an explanation as to why some VP somewhere gets to make ten times as much myself.
You won't like the explanation but I'll try. The reasons are complicated and numerous. What you have to remember is that I'm talking in general terms - overall markets, not specific cases.
Is all this fair? I leave that to you but I would argue probably yes. Just because you do something valuable doesn't mean you are in a position to command a large amount of monetary compensation for what you do.
Why is balancing a checkbook a more executive skill than writing the tool that tool used to balance the checkbook?!?
That's your problem - you think being an executive is about balancing a checkbook. It's not and never will be. Doing good engineering is hard but so is management and the skill sets don't overlap much. Engineers create tools and that is incredibly valuable but using those tools is valuable too and we engineers tend to under-appreciate how valuable it really is.
I'm an engineer. My supervisor is an engineer. Our department head is an engineer. Our vice president is an engineer. Holy smokes, even the president of the company is an engineer. The CEO? He's a bean counter.
As someone who is both an engineer AND an accountant, I can assure you that your president, VP, and even department head are all de-facto accountants as well. Accounting isn't some mysterious thing that only accountants do. If you are responsible for a budget, or handle/manage cash in any way, shape or form, you are doing accounting. Even as an engineer if you have any responsibility for the cost of the product you are producing, congratulations, you are doing cost accounting.
Accounting is simply recording and monitoring what happens to the assets and liabilities of the company. It's as integral to management as math is to engineering. You simply can't manage a business without getting your fingers into accounting. Just because your diploma says engineering doesn't change that fact that it probably is part of your job. Being good at understanding cash flows might help you get to the top faster if that is what you want but you simply will NOT get to the top or stay there without understanding accounting.
There's frighteningly still a market for paper-tape based calculators (they cost a lot more than you'd think) for, primarily, older accountants who want everything on a tape total.
This is so true but sadly it's not just the old guys. I'm an accountant (and an engineer) and I can't fathom why anyone would use a paper tape calculator when they have a spreadsheet available. But many accountants just love them. Why? Because they are simple and they know how to use them. I'm not sure whether to laugh, ridicule or cry when I see someone punching in a column of numbers for the 4th time because they made a typo - again. Personally I think paper tape calculators should be banned but they'll be with us for a long time I'm afraid.
Be wary of most accountants, there's a reason it's not offered as a major at top schools
What are you talking about? It might be called a business administration degree with an accounting concentration but the result is the same and many of the top business schools offer such a degree. Accounting firms in fact virtually demand some sort of accounting focused curriculum if you want a job as a CPA. Even outside pure accounting firms, a huge number of accounting job posting "require" an undergrad degree in accounting.
- having brains in the field is more often a detriment than a benefit.
Sorry no, that just isn't true. An ability to tolerate boredom, follow arbitrary rules and poorly designed procedures perhaps, but stupidity will generally get you fired when you are handling the cash.
Excel is just VisiCalc with buttons.
You don't actually use spreadsheets for anything do you? You sound like a moron to those of us who actually do use spreadsheets for something besides a grocery list.
Dvorak doesn't even know the difference between finance and accounting. Accountants don't really spend a lot of time with spreadsheets. I know because I am a certified accountant myself. Spreadsheets are used far more by finance analysts. Accountants track what happened in the past much like a secretary keeps minutes of a meeting. Finance analysts try to predict what will happen in the future and their main tool is the spreadsheet. These are not normally the same person though there obviously is overlap. Anyone who actually knows anything about business understands the difference but apparently Dvorak is not among them.
Dvorak blames for elevating once lowly bean counters to the executive suite and enabling them to make some truly horrible decisions
Right, because no one ever made horrible business decisions before the spreadsheet. Sigh... Used properly, spreadsheets let us make more informed, rational decisions instead of shooting from the hip. Modern finance would literally be impossible without spreadsheets or something very much like them. Ever tried to manage a company's books? Without spreadsheets and accounting software you need an army of workers to track the paperwork and calculate the numbers. Furthermore hand calculating results in errors and lots of them. Sure spreadsheets can be used badly like any other tool. They certainly are no magic cure-all for bad analysis and decision making. But that's the user not the tool.
Dvorak asks in the article:
How often in years pastâ"the pre-spreadsheet era, that isâ"did an accountant take over a company?
Frequently. John D Rockefeller was an accountant before he was a titan of industry. There are countless other examples. Accounting is what allows managers of businesses to understand what is going on. Every business manager is by necessity an accountant to some degree. Without accounting they are no different than an airplane pilot without any instruments. It should surprise no one that the people who understand the cash flows best often rise to positions of control, including the role of CEO. A spreadsheet and other computerized tools simply make the job easier and more productive. Apparently Dvorak thinks we should rely on slide rules and multiplication tables and ledger books instead.
Dvorak further asserts:
Cars are shoddy, consumer goods are junk. Toxic substances are in the food supply. Lead is in toys. Most of what we buy is made cheaply elsewhere.
Further evidence of Dvorak's stupidity.
Because the classic iPhone is huge heavy brick that many potential customers would be embarresed lugging around.
Yes there are smaller phones available but I've yet to meet ANYONE who objected to the iPhone by calling it a "huge heavy brick" or that they would be embarrassed by it. Quite the opposite actually - it's something of a status symbol if anything. ANY form factor will have tradeoffs. If you don't like the ones Apple chose then shut up and buy a different phone.
The iPhone isn't for everyone and it is ok if you don't want one. I carry a different phone myself because I travel places for work where flashing a several hundred dollar phone is a bad idea. But if you are going to object to criticize the iPhone you can find far better arguments than to call it a "huge heavy brick" which it very clearly is not. The virtual keyboard, the so-so camera, the API, the lack of a removable battery, the lack of removable storage, etc are all perfectly valid criticisms depending on what you expect out of a phone. But a "brick"? Pul-eeeze.
In my shop, a tech once hooked up a used-oil barrel to the new-oil pump, meaning they pumped old, dirty oil into peoples cars.
Interesting to know. Thanks.
Other things can also go wrong.
Don't I know it. My father had an oil pan plug stripped of its threads. I had a K&N filter replaced after I told them not to touch it. I had them tear a perfectly good filter removing it to show me that it was clean. I'm never going to have transmission fluid changed in a quick change place again due to a poorly done change. I've had them lie to me about the amount of oil that was put in. Quick change places can be fine but I don't trust them much.
There is also a convenience to having them know your customer history
Certainly but they can have a customer history without my address. They have the VIN, license plate number and my name which I would think is more than adequate. Like you I prefer to keep unnecessary information private. My address is certainly not necessary to pump oil and never will be.
I've stopped shopping at stores that use my credit card as a way to get me on their mailing list. On vacation, we bought some chocolates at Harry & David. When we got back, there was a catalog from them in our mail with my name (not "Resident") in the address.
I'm not saying you're wrong but you do realize it is far more likely that they got your name and address from a local mailing list vendor than from your credit card? Especially around the holidays. There are countless services available that can target promotional mailings for a fee. There are all sorts of public sources for this information including housing records. (seriously - buy a house and you will get spammed with more refinancing offers than you can imagine)
I get Harry & David catalogs too (no I don't want them), with my name on them and I've never purchased anything from H&D. They also will send you catalogs if someone else buys you a gift from H&D.
That's not to say they don't use credit card into. I never give a zip code, phone number or any other info when checking out because it can be cross referenced. I nearly called the cops on the guys at Jiffy Lube once because they drained the oil in my car and then insisted they needed my address to put oil back in. They do have a legal right to ask and can refuse service if I don't provide the information but then I have a legal right to shop elsewhere as well.
Do you have a source on that $100 number?
The $100 number came from a report I saw a while back but you don't have to take my word for it. You can safely disagree with the number because it depends on how you do the accounting. (disclosure - I'm a certified accountant as well as an industrial engineer) Any profit number for a particular vehicle will be an estimate since the auto companies don't break this stuff out enough to really know for sure. The largest number I've seen for profits per Prius is $1100/vehicle which I regard as optimistic because the R&D costs have been huge. Toyota admitted that the Prius lost money for the first 3-5 years after it was introduced which makes sense. Estimates vary on the profitability of the Prius but due to the added expense of the new technology it is widely considered to be at best marginally profitable and might even be losing money though I doubt it.
I tend to think Toyota is at least making a modest profit on the Prius (or was until recently) depending on how you do the accounting. I think if they were to fully apply all the costs of R&D to the Prius it probably is a breakeven proposition at best but Toyota is probably not fully allocating the R&D costs for hybrid technology. That's not unusual BTW - there are good reasons not to fully allocate costs. The Prius is a technology test bed and a great marketing tool for Toyota so there are benefits even if the vehicle itself isn't terribly profitable.
But they offer nothing. No cash back. No Hawiian trips. No 0% financing. The market demand for them is strong enough that when every other segment for them is dropping, the Prius continues to sell. Seems like a pretty strong indication of consumer demand to me ;)
The Toyota Prius was the 10th best selling vehicle by volume in the US from Jan-April of 2008. Nice sales figures but hardly indicative of overwhelming demand for hybrids. You will note that the Prius is the only hybrid vehicle on the list.