"No, the Western World doesn't have the balls to face evil anymore. We are...pussies."
No, we are PRACTICAL, and losing lives and treasure over a small country which isn't valuable is stupid. Good and Evil are merely expressions of preference, not reasons to seek suicide for people who are not important.
"How about we start with lower hanging fruit like weapons platforms that the military doesn't even want or need first?"
Better have an INFORMED panel do that, because the military doesn't procure systems on strictly functional grounds!
For example, we rent Russian Antonovs to haul MRAPs and other outsize cargo because airlift proponents don't have enough pull to get more C-17s. Congress intervened once and bought more, which was reviled as pork because the Air Force didn't ask for them.
Army vehicle proponent cliques mean the wheeled truck advocates compete with tracked vehicle advocates, so we get lots of wheeled police trucks with high ground pressure that don't do very well offroad (MRAP and Stryker rollovers are common). Meanwhile, tracked development languishes.
SecDef Gates is awesome, but the UNIFORMED bureaucracy will be there long after he's gone.
"And the rest of us won't need nukes to bomb that crap hole into the stone age."
Due to the preference for precision guided weapons which are effective against modern forces fighting conventional wars, air forces are now much smaller than in the days of the Korean War. Bombing on that scale with conventional weapons is not possible.
We don't have enough airframes to haul that much ordnance. Most of our conventional bomber fleet went to Davis-Monthan to get chopped up for scrap, along with vast fighter-bomber fleets which were not replaced airframe-for-airframe.
"Well, there is no cease fire from the early 50s, so lets go in and finish off all the big govt buildings in PY and demand surrender or else."
It won't impress the Norks. They were bombed flat by thousands of raids during the Korean War. They have spent their lives getting ready for the "Apocalypse".
The Norks have _demonstrated_ in a manner calculated to make the public think they are nuts, hence no necessity for propaganda from the West to that effect. Periodic raids on South Korea being salient examples...
"Kim and his people should soon realize that the "crazy Kim" story is being prepared for when the West takes him with the bravery of being out of range, and Kim will run off to China, begging for help."
You have overmuch faith in UAVs and Special Ops, and that doesn't explain why the folks propagating the image of the unstable Norks are the Norks themselves.
Scaring their southern brothers into funding their fun is a more logical explanation borne out by many years of actual success!
The way you win serious, existential wars is to kill everyone until there is no resistance. That's how WWII was won. There was no question that the Allies would kill Nazis and Japs until they STOPPED FIGHTING. Now we have laws against winning. Good luck beating people into submission with "moral righteousness" unless it's applied Albigensian Crusade-style.
"Godwin called, he'd like to remind you that 24 million is four holocausts."
Mao reunited China and killed easily that many directly and indirectly, Stalin led Russia in the destruction of the Wehrmacht after forging it into a modern military power by brute force, possibly killing more Soviets than Hitler.
They "won", clearly and unequivocally, the wars they fought. Fuck Godwin and the meme he rode in on.
"a cable stating that China would like to see North Korea taken over by the South is exactly the kind of thing that could potentially destabilize an already unstable situation."
Which is one reason I think the Wikileaks "leak" may be a ploy by the US to expose what cannot be formally "outed". It can open room for different thinking.
The Norks will froth, but that's what they always do and it can be taken for granted. Anyone who doesn't think its normal wasn't watching in the first place.
Not especially newsworthy. The Norks have been penis-waving for decades.
When we were serious we had nukes on aircraft sitting Zulu Alert in South Korea ready to erase the invading Nork hordes. They stayed in their box instead, but they still sent infiltrators and played the same game they do now.
Psychologically, it matters to the Norks. They don't think as we do.
BTW they nearly pushed the UN forces into the sea before reinforcements arrived. The nasty fate of Task Force Smith is still studied as an example of poor preparedness.
Google "Blue House Raid" for examples of how they do think.
Not at all. They are completely sane, and completely ruthless, and they don't think like you do so NEVER take North Korean propaganda at face value.
This is perfectly standard NK gamesmanship repeated down the decades. They are rational, calculating, and smarter than naive Westerners. This game is very old news, as any Cold War vet can attest.
The Norks are magnificent at classic Cold War penis-waving, they are the finest of trolls, and they are NOT going to commit suicide. Unlike Jihadists, who are horny to die for Allah, Norks leadership are rational and want to stay rich and powerful. Know and understand the difference.
That is not to say the NK masses won't willingly die in droves if ordered, just like the last time, but that is what masses of simple people are for. The NK Army never lost a war, just battles. Don't forget that bit either.
That's a bit harsh, but not too far removed from the truth.
For gaming, running a Winbox makes sense. Computers are trivially expensive nowadays, so run several if you like and enjoy the benefits.
There isn't a need to CHOOSE between operating systems. Run one, some, or many. This is a geek forum, no? You can have all the computers you like, and with little effort you can have more than you'll ever need.
Complaining that Linux doesn't run popular games is like complaining your pliers make a lousy hammer.
The United Nations was a horrid mistake like the League of Nations before it.
World government by lawfare in a world mostly composed of anti-freedom governments was never a good idea. People should fear international law more than its absence.
Law is fine locally, useless internationally, because in the international context being free of law is an overwhelming advantage.
Hardware stores of the traditional sort are precisely the places customer service can be used to make a business profitable.
Our local hardware store (Wally's Hardware, Sumter, SC) in next to a Walmart and a Lowes. Instead of being crushed, it benefits from the traffic they generate.
Better selection of hardware ("choice" matters more than bulky displays), immediate greeting by people who actually know something about what they sell, and a friendly atmosphere allow it to thrive under the footprint of bigger retailers. ++ for the stainless and other fastener selection.
I don't work there, just a satisfied customer for more than 20 years.
Crippleware has its place, and I hope Google sells (other people) a metric shitload of these things so I can get a (used) one for almost nothing after (inevitably) enough people buy them expecting them to be a "regular compyooter".
Here's an archive of sorts for some niche products of yore and a reminder of the business models they served:
The French once had an admirable method of resetting their government when it got too corrupt. That method will never be obsolete so it should always be kept in mind as a final but valid option.
The high and mighty can be butchered if they get too far out of line, no qualms necessary.
"More threads on the Internet of people going, 'I can't find ucide-34235.fw' and 'why doesn't my wireless card work?!'"
New users should be discouraged from trying to use plain Debian as their introductory system. Debian should be kept pure and advanced with pure Free and Open goals in mind, but noobs don't need that in most cases.
"Let's assume that I, a third year software engineering student, don't have the basic skills required to maintain the computer."
I find your assumption reasonable. I'd have done backup/scan for problems/format/reinstall in a few hours and been back to business. "Winrot" is a normal expectation and being ready for it a normal precaution since the Windows 95 days.
"Or that the world's most used OS is a horrible piece of crap."
It could use a few enhancements...Take your current situation/learning opportunity:
I'm immediately functional when booting a live 'nix CD (you could be running one while you wait to un-hork your Windows system, it won't disturb it!) from which I can be installing as I work or post to Slashdot. Backups and restores, for example when upgrading hard disks, are a breeze without using proprietary software.
You CAN build some cool BartPE/WinPE live CDs/DVDs if you like that do similar things, but they are much less capable.
"Oh, and since almost all drinks come in plastic crates (also a deposit and reused) when you buy in quantity, including water, applejuice and Coca-Cola and the like,"
I love the crate system, which BTW is a most excellent way to carry beer. The ceramic "pop tops" with rubber gaskets on some bottles ensure reusability.
"Walmart does this with car batteries, charging something like $8 and gives it back when you bring you're old one in. But I don't know if that is voluntary on Walmart's behalf, and limited to my state or other states -- but it's a good system."
They can turn a nice profit on scrapping vehicle batteries, which have been recycled as long as they existed for their delicious lead. I keep a couple of dead batteries handy for exchange (so I can use marginal batteries for other applications) and accumulate as many as possible for scrap runs.
"of Hydrogen Too easy to make and too hard to control"
Show us pics and specs of your successful hydrogen-converted vehicle. No one can control YOUR personal production and use of hydrogen, so have at it, bitch-ass AC, and prove your point.
Hydrogen zealots are great at selling equipment to others, and that's about it. Don't fuck off and die, because fucking off wastes time. Just die.
Slashdot Mirror
"No, the Western World doesn't have the balls to face evil anymore. We are...pussies."
No, we are PRACTICAL, and losing lives and treasure over a small country which isn't valuable is stupid. Good and Evil are merely expressions of preference, not reasons to seek suicide for people who are not important.
They nearly pushed UN forces into the sea before US reinforcements arrived, which can quite reasonably be compared to China joining the fight.
Psychologically, which is what matters TO THE NORKS, they didn't lose NK.
"How else are we all going to learn Mandarin?"
From the new owners of our places of employment.
"How about we start with lower hanging fruit like weapons platforms that the military doesn't even want or need first?"
Better have an INFORMED panel do that, because the military doesn't procure systems on strictly functional grounds!
For example, we rent Russian Antonovs to haul MRAPs and other outsize cargo because airlift proponents don't have enough pull to get more C-17s. Congress intervened once and bought more, which was reviled as pork because the Air Force didn't ask for them.
Army vehicle proponent cliques mean the wheeled truck advocates compete with tracked vehicle advocates, so we get lots of wheeled police trucks with high ground pressure that don't do very well offroad (MRAP and Stryker rollovers are common). Meanwhile, tracked development languishes.
SecDef Gates is awesome, but the UNIFORMED bureaucracy will be there long after he's gone.
"And the rest of us won't need nukes to bomb that crap hole into the stone age."
Due to the preference for precision guided weapons which are effective against modern forces fighting conventional wars, air forces are now much smaller than in the days of the Korean War. Bombing on that scale with conventional weapons is not possible.
We don't have enough airframes to haul that much ordnance. Most of our conventional bomber fleet went to Davis-Monthan to get chopped up for scrap, along with vast fighter-bomber fleets which were not replaced airframe-for-airframe.
"Well, there is no cease fire from the early 50s, so lets go in and finish off all the big govt buildings in PY and demand surrender or else."
It won't impress the Norks. They were bombed flat by thousands of raids during the Korean War. They have spent their lives getting ready for the "Apocalypse".
Shock and Awe don't work on Serious People.
The Norks have _demonstrated_ in a manner calculated to make the public think they are nuts, hence no necessity for propaganda from the West to that effect. Periodic raids on South Korea being salient examples...
"Kim and his people should soon realize that the "crazy Kim" story is being prepared for when the West takes him with the bravery of being out of range, and Kim will run off to China, begging for help."
You have overmuch faith in UAVs and Special Ops, and that doesn't explain why the folks propagating the image of the unstable Norks are the Norks themselves.
Scaring their southern brothers into funding their fun is a more logical explanation borne out by many years of actual success!
The way you win serious, existential wars is to kill everyone until there is no resistance. That's how WWII was won. There was no question that the Allies would kill Nazis and Japs until they STOPPED FIGHTING. Now we have laws against winning. Good luck beating people into submission with "moral righteousness" unless it's applied Albigensian Crusade-style.
"Godwin called, he'd like to remind you that 24 million is four holocausts."
Mao reunited China and killed easily that many directly and indirectly, Stalin led Russia in the destruction of the Wehrmacht after forging it into a modern military power by brute force, possibly killing more Soviets than Hitler.
They "won", clearly and unequivocally, the wars they fought. Fuck Godwin and the meme he rode in on.
"a cable stating that China would like to see North Korea taken over by the South is exactly the kind of thing that could potentially destabilize an already unstable situation."
Which is one reason I think the Wikileaks "leak" may be a ploy by the US to expose what cannot be formally "outed". It can open room for different thinking.
The Norks will froth, but that's what they always do and it can be taken for granted. Anyone who doesn't think its normal wasn't watching in the first place.
Not especially newsworthy. The Norks have been penis-waving for decades.
When we were serious we had nukes on aircraft sitting Zulu Alert in South Korea ready to erase the invading Nork hordes. They stayed in their box instead, but they still sent infiltrators and played the same game they do now.
Psychologically, it matters to the Norks. They don't think as we do.
BTW they nearly pushed the UN forces into the sea before reinforcements arrived. The nasty fate of Task Force Smith is still studied as an example of poor preparedness.
Google "Blue House Raid" for examples of how they do think.
Not at all.
They are completely sane, and completely ruthless, and they don't think like you do so NEVER take North Korean propaganda at face value.
This is perfectly standard NK gamesmanship repeated down the decades. They are rational, calculating, and smarter than naive Westerners. This game is very old news, as any Cold War vet can attest.
The Norks are magnificent at classic Cold War penis-waving, they are the finest of trolls, and they are NOT going to commit suicide. Unlike Jihadists, who are horny to die for Allah, Norks leadership are rational and want to stay rich and powerful. Know and understand the difference.
That is not to say the NK masses won't willingly die in droves if ordered, just like the last time, but that is what masses of simple people are for.
The NK Army never lost a war, just battles. Don't forget that bit either.
That's a bit harsh, but not too far removed from the truth.
For gaming, running a Winbox makes sense. Computers are trivially expensive nowadays, so run several if you like and enjoy the benefits.
There isn't a need to CHOOSE between operating systems. Run one, some, or many. This is a geek forum, no? You can have all the computers you like, and with little effort you can have more than you'll ever need.
Complaining that Linux doesn't run popular games is like complaining your pliers make a lousy hammer.
The United Nations was a horrid mistake like the League of Nations before it.
World government by lawfare in a world mostly composed of anti-freedom governments was never a good idea. People should fear international law more than its absence.
Law is fine locally, useless internationally, because in the international context being free of law is an overwhelming advantage.
Hardware stores of the traditional sort are precisely the places customer service can be used to make a business profitable.
Our local hardware store (Wally's Hardware, Sumter, SC) in next to a Walmart and a Lowes. Instead of being crushed, it benefits from the traffic they generate.
Better selection of hardware ("choice" matters more than bulky displays), immediate greeting by people who actually know something about what they sell, and a friendly atmosphere allow it to thrive under the footprint of bigger retailers. ++ for the stainless and other fastener selection.
I don't work there, just a satisfied customer for more than 20 years.
Just boot an .iso image of a live distro with a persistent home partition for storage. No need for a VM.
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-multiboot-usb/
Crippleware has its place, and I hope Google sells (other people) a metric shitload of these things so I can get a (used) one for almost nothing after (inevitably) enough people buy them expecting them to be a "regular compyooter".
Here's an archive of sorts for some niche products of yore and a reminder of the business models they served:
http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl
"Where is that legendary fighting French spirit?"
It began to die when De Gaulle sold out Algeria.
The French once had an admirable method of resetting their government when it got too corrupt. That method will never be obsolete so it should always be kept in mind as a final but valid option.
The high and mighty can be butchered if they get too far out of line, no qualms necessary.
"More threads on the Internet of people going, 'I can't find ucide-34235.fw' and 'why doesn't my wireless card work?!'"
New users should be discouraged from trying to use plain Debian as their introductory system. Debian should be kept pure and advanced with pure Free and Open goals in mind, but noobs don't need that in most cases.
Different tools for different jobs.
"Correlation != Causation."
The window begets not the window licker.
"Let's assume that I, a third year software engineering student, don't have the basic skills required to maintain the computer."
I find your assumption reasonable. I'd have done backup/scan for problems/format/reinstall in a few hours and been back to business. "Winrot" is a normal expectation and being ready for it a normal precaution since the Windows 95 days.
"Or that the world's most used OS is a horrible piece of crap."
It could use a few enhancements...Take your current situation/learning opportunity:
I'm immediately functional when booting a live 'nix CD (you could be running one while you wait to un-hork your Windows system, it won't disturb it!) from which I can be installing as I work or post to Slashdot. Backups and restores, for example when upgrading hard disks, are a breeze without using proprietary software.
You CAN build some cool BartPE/WinPE live CDs/DVDs if you like that do similar things, but they are much less capable.
"Oh, and since almost all drinks come in plastic crates (also a deposit and reused) when you buy in quantity, including water, applejuice and Coca-Cola and the like,"
I love the crate system, which BTW is a most excellent way to carry beer. The ceramic "pop tops" with rubber gaskets on some bottles ensure reusability.
"Walmart does this with car batteries, charging something like $8 and gives it back when you bring you're old one in. But I don't know if that is voluntary on Walmart's behalf, and limited to my state or other states -- but it's a good system."
They can turn a nice profit on scrapping vehicle batteries, which have been recycled as long as they existed for their delicious lead. I keep a couple of dead batteries handy for exchange (so I can use marginal batteries for other applications) and accumulate as many as possible for scrap runs.
"of Hydrogen Too easy to make and too hard to control"
Show us pics and specs of your successful hydrogen-converted vehicle. No one can control YOUR personal production and use of hydrogen, so have at it, bitch-ass AC, and prove your point.
Hydrogen zealots are great at selling equipment to others, and that's about it. Don't fuck off and die, because fucking off wastes time. Just die.
The shitstorm of commercials and space-filler programming made me despise most TV years ago. No wonder the "choiceful" internet is gaining ground.