Chemical irritants (tear gas guns are mechanically fired hence immune to HERF), water cannon (where available and assuming the HERF doesn't bugger the fire engine electronic engine controls), batons, bag rounds and rubber bullets, and so forth.
After the first HERF shot, the many folks who sell HERF-immune systems will sell more HERF-immune systems. They read Slashdot too, BTW...
"Can't say I have the balls to put myself in the firing line, but I predict another "Kent State" within the next few years."
Kent State was an outcome of issuing only lethal weapons (rifles with ball ammo) that do not have a non-lethal mode of fire. It did get the point across, but it was awkward. We are no longer in the Cold War where the extreme stakes make murder by either side perfectly reasonable conduct.
Less-lethal weapons will continue to improve, making casualties less likely.
Use of LETHAL weapons against forces using less-lethal weapons won't win support and would be politically counterproductive.
While there are always a few people willing to open fire because their wittle feelings are hurt (and its easier than grassroots political activism) they will merely be exploited by their opponents as terrorists.
"Hell, I'll bet you dollars to donuts any man from the 50's driving that Bel-Air would have jumped right out of that wreck to help the crying sissy-boy with a cut lip driving that Malibu."
Back in the day, it was expected that the mere intimidation factor of troops carrying rifles with fixed bayonets would quell any riot. Instead, lack of non-lethal options contributed to the shootings at Kent State, Jackson State, and elsewhere.
Were I a rioter, I'd rather contend with weapons designed to be less-lethal than ball ammo, or nightsticks (skull fracture, anyone?), or pepper spray.
"Remember when cops used to wear the blue uniforms with the badge on the hat and do a beat through a neighborhood?"
I do, and I'm so old I remember when neighborhoods hadn't upped the stakes by becoming violent hellholes where cops didn't need military gear.:)
"The answer is holding their turf."
The only answer to force is superior force. The cops do protect me and my "turf", so me and millions like me don't mind if they inflict casualties on the enemy while they hold the thin blue line. I live a peaceful life and do not prey on others. I want those who would prey on me and take what is mine stopped, and I'm fine with the method being injurious or fatal. I worked for what I have. I mean to keep it.
I said "class", which/= "dictatorship". Neither Stalin or Caesar have anything to do with that. Invoking them is not different from what the confused Republicans do who compare Obama to Hitler and Stalin.
No one ever got power by defying the masses, while many both Bush and Obama very much included!) have got power by pandering to them. Pandering is mandatory, end of story.
Saying anything nasty about the masses is understandably unpopular given current ideological fashion, but intelligent folk should remember that the proles are not their friends. The herd are who persecute the intelligent and gifted, who support backward beliefs and superstition/religion, and in general retard social and scientific progress. They are led by manipulation, so why not both admit it and exploit it? You can't improve these people and they will crucify anyone who tries. One can seek positions of power and favor with groups the masses support, and a very few fortunates can do this and get power over those masses.
It is fashionable to complain about evil leaders, which ignores what the people demand in return for their votes!
Anyone seeking office must pander to the ignorance, bigotry, superstition, envy, sloth, avarice, nationalism, racism, ethnocentrism, and other lovely characteristics of their "base". I argue that the intelligent cannot win a direct confrontation, so the only logical option is to self-segregate, look to create healthy environments for themselves, and seek to exploit every useful opportunity to get money and power (which equal freedom). As for the masses, fuck 'em. Use intelligence and social mobility to escape the bottom, and Cthulhu take the hindmost.
"Now try to square that statement with the state of the US primary and secondary educational systems..."
The US is large, and the elite and uniquely gifted will continue to innovate.
The herd (often given more respect than it deserves, which is...none) will remain as it wants to be, ignorant, superstitious, and vile. The herd resents education, so instead of angering the beasts we should seek an "educated counterculture" that can become powerful. Let the beasts have their reality shows and their Bible, their bread and circuses. The idea that the masses can ever be educated and ennobled is absurd because they hate the idea.
In the way that gamer early-adopters help fund computer components the rest of us later buy for dirt cheap, early-adopter rich folk can fund tech that will trickle down. Toys don't have to be built on the scale (and at the massive risk level) of mass market products.
We are in the infancy of alternative vehicle tech. Lots of companies won't survive (no problem) but we need them to pursue development that large automakers will not.
Trading other types of performance for loiter time has paid off very nicely in the UAV world. Cost-per-hour and crew fatigue are other important factors.
"Here's a nice little car analogy : if you gave a modern car to someone used to a Model T, he would find changing gear awfully counter-intuitive, have to learn to drive again almost from the scratch, and complain loudly that it worked just fine so why the hell change it. The modern approach is still better."
He'd have far less to do (no manual start, no manual spark advance) and since people of that generation had a MUCH stronger mechanical background than is average today, he'd be able to pick it up easily. He'd understand a conventional clutch (common then) as easily as the Model T transmission which is an ancestor (using manually actuated bands) of modern automatics. Given the rapidity with which the Model T was supplanted by vehicles with modern features, it's arguable how strongly a "T" owner would reject change. I grew up with mentors whose early cars were Model T Fords (cheap back in their youth) and while they were nostalgic enough to collect and enjoy restoring 'em, they preferred 1950's and later vehicles for regular use.
It's sheet metal, not machined from stock, so that machine shop would have to produce dies for the job. Do-able, but it would be several hundred dollars worth of work at least for the shell, then more money to duplicate the lens. Looks like a generic add-on light of the era.
Posting the thing in Hemmings Motor News along with contacting appropriate firms for help would make much more sense.
Anyone who restores old cars should be thoroughly familiar with Hemmings, which has been around for decades:
Military use of cursive tends to be in signatures, not text that actually conveys content.
For example, USAF aircraft forms use manual block printing to document maintenance, not cursive. The advantage of manual paper forms is portability and ease of use. Adding cursive would be damaging to the maintenance documentation process which is vital to aircraft safety. The content is later used to type data into a computer which is the most efficient way to share and track maintenance info. Use of cursive would be flagged as a discrepancy during a forms review.
Cursive is pretty when done well, otherwise it's illegible crap. Be glad the (Yank, I can't speak for the RAF) aircraft you call in don't have their maintenance and weapons load documented that way, because some poor airman reading it at night in the rain has enough to deal with.
Military systems are a mix of automation and manual controls. Using them as an example of "doing things manually" isn't the best choice. Human cross-checking before permitting action/= manually putting a bomb on target, especially a bomb delivered by aircraft that cannot even fly (A-10 in manual reversion excepted) without flight control computers.:)
"The forum is largely populated with philistines who couldn't give a fuck about anything as individual as handwriting."
Philistines who need to communicate, as opposed to wank/create art. Wanking/artistry has an important place, but the only plus for cursive writing was speed due to not having to lift the pen or pencil between letters.
Where is is used today, it contributes to errors (medical prescriptions come to mind). It should no longer be taught in school because in the modern world it is less effective for communication than block printing.
"Maybe he's arguing that industry should be dictated to by consumers, through the government the consumers elect? That's what government is supposed to be -- the collective will of the people voting for it."
What the consumers purchase is a direct expression of their will. What a government composed mostly of appointed officials whose agendas are not directly set by the people is something different.
We don't _need_ supersonic aircraft for passenger use, the public didn't want to pay for it, so Concorde is history. We need to haul people in bulk at low cost per seat, low fuel expense, and with as little pollution as practical.
We don't _need_ to hurry putting _people_ in space, because the rest of our supporting technology can be developed less expensively (and without the loss-multiplier effect when expensive manned systems crash). We do _need_ robots and to develop remotely-manned systems for use on and off-world. Never send a human to do a machines job. Just as we use ROVs under the ocean because the environment is hostile and they are cheaper than manned systems, so we should deal with space exploration. The purpose of space exploration is to learn about the universe. The purpose of human sustainment experiments is only to learn how to sustain humans. These things are not the same.
The commercial world will eventually develop ways to send rich tourists to space, which is perfectly appropriate. NASA should be doing pure research, not romantic tourism. So what if other countries put up more people sooner? We do the very same thing they did with our previous research and exploit it later.
"there are estimates that human trafficking has almost a million victims "
Sources? Prostitution arrests should provide supporting demographic data if indeed the problem is that vast. "Almost a million victims" is the population of a good-sized city.
Exaggerating a problem is common when one is part of an organization offering a "solution", or when one wants to sell newspapers, get page hits, etc.
That was the custom in many USAF shops where I worked. Endless computer security briefings don't make near the impact of romantic odes to ones entire section (if you were lucky) and sometimes senior leadership.
Slashdot Mirror
"How do you think the police will respond?"
Chemical irritants (tear gas guns are mechanically fired hence immune to HERF), water cannon (where available and assuming the HERF doesn't bugger the fire engine electronic engine controls), batons, bag rounds and rubber bullets, and so forth.
After the first HERF shot, the many folks who sell HERF-immune systems will sell more HERF-immune systems.
They read Slashdot too, BTW...
"Can't say I have the balls to put myself in the firing line, but I predict another "Kent State" within the next few years."
Kent State was an outcome of issuing only lethal weapons (rifles with ball ammo) that do not have a non-lethal mode of fire. It did get the point across, but it was awkward. We are no longer in the Cold War where the extreme stakes make murder by either side perfectly reasonable conduct.
Less-lethal weapons will continue to improve, making casualties less likely.
Use of LETHAL weapons against forces using less-lethal weapons won't win support and would be politically counterproductive.
While there are always a few people willing to open fire because their wittle feelings are hurt (and its easier than grassroots political activism) they will merely be exploited by their opponents as terrorists.
"Hell, I'll bet you dollars to donuts any man from the 50's driving that Bel-Air would have jumped right out of that wreck to help the crying sissy-boy with a cut lip driving that Malibu."
Assuming he wasn't ejected. :P
Have some Signal 30:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx-rXEdaGao
"Now imagine your wife or girlfriend, with a can of soda constantly in her hand, weighing 300 pounds."
Too skinny.
(I'm a feeder, you insensitive clod!)
"To run a live CD of Linux... wouldn't the BIOS have to be set to boot from CD-ROM? The locked BIOS?"
I'd just run an .iso of the live CD using QEMU. Free, portable, and fun.
It won't hork any Windows settings and allows a student to experiment with a variety of OS.
http://www.oszoo.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
"The economist's big idea is that the "invisible hand" of market forces will lead us to an ideal world."
The invisible hand of Wall Street just recently squeezed our collective invisible nuts quite smartly.
Regulate The Hand.
Those so-called barriers don't always work.
Back in the day, it was expected that the mere intimidation factor of troops carrying rifles with fixed bayonets would quell any riot. Instead, lack of non-lethal options contributed to the shootings at Kent State, Jackson State, and elsewhere.
Were I a rioter, I'd rather contend with weapons designed to be less-lethal than ball ammo, or nightsticks (skull fracture, anyone?), or pepper spray.
"Remember when cops used to wear the blue uniforms with the badge on the hat and do a beat through a neighborhood?"
I do, and I'm so old I remember when neighborhoods hadn't upped the stakes by becoming violent hellholes where cops didn't need military gear. :)
"The answer is holding their turf."
The only answer to force is superior force. The cops do protect me and my "turf", so me and millions like me don't mind if they inflict casualties on the enemy while they hold the thin blue line. I live a peaceful life and do not prey on others. I want those who would prey on me and take what is mine stopped, and I'm fine with the method being injurious or fatal. I worked for what I have. I mean to keep it.
I said "class", which /= "dictatorship". Neither Stalin or Caesar have anything to do with that. Invoking them is not different from what the confused Republicans do who compare Obama to Hitler and Stalin.
No one ever got power by defying the masses, while many both Bush and Obama very much included!) have got power
by pandering to them. Pandering is mandatory, end of story.
Saying anything nasty about the masses is understandably unpopular given current ideological fashion, but intelligent folk should remember that the proles are not their friends. The herd are who persecute the intelligent and gifted, who support backward beliefs and superstition/religion, and in general retard social and scientific progress. They are led by manipulation, so why not both admit it and exploit it? You can't improve these people and they will crucify anyone who tries. One can seek positions of power and favor with groups the masses support, and a very few fortunates can do this and get power over those masses.
It is fashionable to complain about evil leaders, which ignores what the people demand in return for their votes!
Anyone seeking office must pander to the ignorance, bigotry, superstition, envy, sloth, avarice, nationalism, racism, ethnocentrism, and other lovely characteristics of their "base". I argue that the intelligent cannot win a direct confrontation, so the only logical option is to self-segregate, look to create healthy environments for themselves, and seek to exploit every useful opportunity to get money and power (which equal freedom). As for the masses, fuck 'em. Use intelligence and social mobility to escape the bottom, and Cthulhu take the hindmost.
"Now try to square that statement with the state of the US primary and secondary educational systems..."
The US is large, and the elite and uniquely gifted will continue to innovate.
The herd (often given more respect than it deserves, which is...none) will remain as it wants to be, ignorant, superstitious, and vile. The herd resents education, so instead of angering the beasts we should seek an "educated counterculture" that can become powerful. Let the beasts have their reality shows and their Bible, their bread and circuses. The idea that the masses can ever be educated and ennobled is absurd because they hate the idea.
In the way that gamer early-adopters help fund computer components the rest of us later buy for dirt cheap, early-adopter rich folk can fund tech that will trickle down. Toys don't have to be built on the scale (and at the massive risk level) of mass market products.
We are in the infancy of alternative vehicle tech. Lots of companies won't survive (no problem) but we need them to pursue development that large automakers will not.
Trading other types of performance for loiter time has paid off very nicely in the UAV world.
Cost-per-hour and crew fatigue are other important factors.
"You need someone who nobody sympathizes with, like aliens or nazis or corporations."
I for one would welcome our alien Nazi corporate overlords!
"Here's a nice little car analogy : if you gave a modern car to someone used to a Model T, he would find changing gear awfully counter-intuitive, have to learn to drive again almost from the scratch, and complain loudly that it worked just fine so why the hell change it. The modern approach is still better."
He'd have far less to do (no manual start, no manual spark advance) and since people of that generation had a MUCH stronger mechanical background than is average today, he'd be able to pick it up easily. He'd understand a conventional clutch (common then) as easily as the Model T transmission which is an ancestor (using manually actuated bands) of modern automatics. Given the rapidity with which the Model T was supplanted by vehicles with modern features, it's arguable how strongly a "T" owner would reject change. I grew up with mentors whose early cars were Model T Fords (cheap back in their youth) and while they were nostalgic enough to collect and enjoy restoring 'em, they preferred 1950's and later vehicles for regular use.
"I just think there might be a reason why nobody uses rear wheel steering."
Apply brakes in a curve and you'd promptly swap ends. It would steer like a pallet jack.
It's sheet metal, not machined from stock, so that machine shop would have to produce dies for the job.
Do-able, but it would be several hundred dollars worth of work at least for the shell, then more money to duplicate the lens. Looks like a generic add-on light of the era.
Posting the thing in Hemmings Motor News along with contacting appropriate firms for help would make much more sense.
Anyone who restores old cars should be thoroughly familiar with Hemmings, which has been around for decades:
http://www.hemmings.com/
"On the other hand, they've allowed us to settle into a basically constant series of low-level conflicts across the globe."
Those were normal long before nukes were even a dream.
War was and is often useful, so there will be war.
Since you use the military as an example....
Military use of cursive tends to be in signatures, not text that actually conveys content.
For example, USAF aircraft forms use manual block printing to document maintenance, not cursive. The advantage of manual paper forms is portability and ease of use. Adding cursive would be damaging to the maintenance documentation process which is vital to aircraft safety. The content is later used to type data into a computer which is the most efficient way to share and track maintenance info. Use of cursive would be flagged as a discrepancy during a forms review.
Cursive is pretty when done well, otherwise it's illegible crap. Be glad the (Yank, I can't speak for the RAF) aircraft you call in don't have their maintenance and weapons load documented that way, because some poor airman reading it at night in the rain has enough to deal with.
Military systems are a mix of automation and manual controls. Using them as an example of "doing things manually" isn't the best choice. Human cross-checking before permitting action /= manually putting a bomb on target, especially a bomb delivered by aircraft that cannot even fly (A-10 in manual reversion excepted) without flight control computers. :)
"The forum is largely populated with philistines who couldn't give a fuck about anything as individual as handwriting."
Philistines who need to communicate, as opposed to wank/create art.
Wanking/artistry has an important place, but the only plus for cursive writing was speed due to
not having to lift the pen or pencil between letters.
Where is is used today, it contributes to errors (medical prescriptions come to mind).
It should no longer be taught in school because in the modern world it is less effective for
communication than block printing.
"And yet you registered for a slashdot account."
My social interaction is restricted to 4chan where my info will be respected.
"Maybe he's arguing that industry should be dictated to by consumers, through the government the consumers elect? That's what government is supposed to be -- the collective will of the people voting for it."
What the consumers purchase is a direct expression of their will. What a government composed mostly of appointed officials whose agendas are not directly set by the people is something different.
Technological progress doesn't always equal "going faster".
We don't _need_ supersonic aircraft for passenger use, the public didn't want to pay for it, so Concorde is history. We need to haul people in bulk at low cost per seat, low fuel expense, and with as little pollution as practical.
We don't _need_ to hurry putting _people_ in space, because the rest of our supporting technology can be developed less expensively (and without the loss-multiplier effect when expensive manned systems crash). We do _need_ robots and to develop remotely-manned systems for use on and off-world. Never send a human to do a machines job. Just as we use ROVs under the ocean because the environment is hostile and they are cheaper than manned systems, so we should deal with space exploration. The purpose of space exploration is to learn about the universe. The purpose of human sustainment experiments is only to learn how to sustain humans. These things are not the same.
The commercial world will eventually develop ways to send rich tourists to space, which is perfectly appropriate.
NASA should be doing pure research, not romantic tourism. So what if other countries put up more people sooner? We do the very same thing they did with our previous research and exploit it later.
"there are estimates that human trafficking has almost a million victims "
Sources? Prostitution arrests should provide supporting demographic data if indeed the problem is that vast.
"Almost a million victims" is the population of a good-sized city.
Exaggerating a problem is common when one is part of an organization offering a "solution", or when one wants to sell newspapers, get page hits, etc.
That was the custom in many USAF shops where I worked. Endless computer security briefings don't make near the impact of romantic odes to ones entire section (if you were lucky) and sometimes senior leadership.
"....Abbie Hoffman isn't going to appreciate this, me thinks."
Probably not, since he either suicided or OD'ed in 1989.