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User: Dails

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  1. Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 on Iran Tests Naval Cruise Missile During War Games · · Score: 1

    No, and in fact swarm tactics are a major area of research, especially at the Naval War College. It wasn't long after this exercise that the US Navy developed anti-swarm tactics, and those are evolving all the time.

  2. Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 on Iran Tests Naval Cruise Missile During War Games · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Clearly you've never played organized sports. It's not like every practice is a scrimmage; there are times when you set up a scenario where the opposing players run a certain play to see if your play works against it. If you didn't do this you couldn't choose what to practice. How much better would a team get if the guy playing the opposing quarterback quit each time this happened? van Ripen wasn't some no-nonsense tell-it-like-it-is leader, he was a whiner and cared more about personal credit than about testing tactics against tactics and improving, which is the whole point of a wargame. And by the way, in what sense is this a media ploy? You get a couple of articles about a given exercise and...that's it. These wargames are quite costly and the lessons we want to learn/theories we want to test are very well defined ahead of time to avoid wasting that money. If this was a media ploy it'd be the equivalent of you buying a giant tv and hiding it in your living room as you step outside and tell people you have a big tv.

  3. Re:Still haven't gotten over 1945... on Was Russia Behind Stuxnet? · · Score: 1

    This would, in fact, be news to everyone. This sentence:

    a massive wave of anti-Russian propaganda cooked by the rampant Nazi lobby inside the GOP.

    is SO ridiculous that it sounds like something you'd say while playing the Steve Jackson game Illuminati, where you frequently say things like "The FBI, using the Boy Scouts, will try to control the South American Nazis aided by 10 million dollars from the Swiss Bankers."

    What terrifying is that you might actually believe your point of view to be common sense accepted by everyone. Yikes.

  4. Re:Propaganda on Was Russia Behind Stuxnet? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm pretty sure that nobody was caught with a hand of any color, which is basically why stuxnet was such a significant piece of work. You negate your own credibility by calling this inaccurate propaganda when you, in one poorly-constructed sentence, make inaccurate and baseless accusations.

  5. Re:How could he have been stopped? on Identifying Nuclear Scientists Willing To Sell Their Knowledge · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Come on. It's always amusing to see people bash the US for things that, heads up, literally EVERY country does. Here's the cycle:

    1. My country can leverage x for economic gain (everything is about economic gain, even military power)
    2. Suchandsuch is happening that threatens our x
    3. Choose:
              a. Be fair, let it happen, watch your country grow poorer
              b. Be unfair, stop it from happening, allow your country to flourish

    If your responsibility as the leader of your country was to ensure the economic prosperity of your country, what kind of an idiot would you be to choose 3a? Would you stand before your people and say "Yes, we could have avoided this recession, but I really thought that deserved the money more this time."

  6. Different folders for different tasks on Putting Emails In Folders Is a Waste of Time, Says IBM Study · · Score: 1

    At any given time I have about 20 different tasks of varying timelines that need to get done. Lots of emails regarding those separate things, all relevant, will come in. I have a folder titled FORAC (for action, we love our acronyms in the military) and subfolders for specific tasks, each containing all the relevant emails. When I need something, I just hit up that folder. When the task is done, I move that subfolder to FORAC Complete so I can still reference it, but it's not in my FORAC folder. This tremendously helps me keep track of rapidly changing requirements and updates.

  7. Re:Fragile? on North Korea Forced US Reconnaissance Plane To Land · · Score: 1

    Where is that established?

    As for fractions, if you really wanted to politicianize it, you could argue that it could mean more than what you're spending and that you're referring to an improper fraction. BOOM. I'm running for office just based on that.

  8. Re:"Military exercise near the North Korean border on North Korea Forced US Reconnaissance Plane To Land · · Score: 1

    Sounds like you don't have a whole lot of military experience. Just peruse Wikipedia about the relevant topics and you'll find what you're missing.

  9. Re:Fragile? on North Korea Forced US Reconnaissance Plane To Land · · Score: 1

    You don't have to think of them. The US National Strategy and National Military Strategy are unclassified and available for public perusal. Since you won't go read them, I'll gives a few points:

    1. A global, credible military presence has a moderating effect on military conflicts.
    2. The world economy is so globalized now that America must protect the economic interests of itself and it's allies in order to maintain economic stability.

    There are more important points, and those two are summaries that you need to read the whole document(s) to understand, but that should be good enough for now.

  10. Re:Fragile? on North Korea Forced US Reconnaissance Plane To Land · · Score: 1

    Please provide actual criticism instead of ad hominem. I would actually like to see an intelligent rebuttal.

    Also, Firefox wants to correct "hominem" to "Eminem." It might be time to switch browsers.

  11. Re:The question isn't the fragility of systems. on North Korea Forced US Reconnaissance Plane To Land · · Score: 1

    Ameri-eurocentric? Sooo...one side. I assume, then, that yours is a Germanitalian-Japan centric view? I wonder if somebody blurred the facts in the other direction would you be so quick to criticize them with country names

  12. Re:Timothy the Troll (Re:No it doesn't) on North Korea Forced US Reconnaissance Plane To Land · · Score: 1

    I guess I never read about the requirement to talk about how editor is, because these posts seem to happen with nearly every story. I would imagine the HR guidance for Slashdot editors doesn't factor in angry user comments too heavily, so what is the point of these? You're not even commenting on the article, you're commenting on one line in the metadata for it. You probably didn't even get to the summary before you had decided to complain. Aside from all of that, you described an editor posting a summary and a story and then criticized him for...what...letting people comment on it? I don't understand. Try to be a little happier and complain less.

  13. Re:Time to Usable on Windows 8 To Feature 'Fast Startup Mode' · · Score: 1

    I'm a naval officer, so my workplace is a ship integrated with all the relevant networks and systems of the US military. Stuff takes forever on the machines on the ship, but it's a different network environment than a typical corporate setup, I imagine. Our networks are under constant surveillance and attack all the time, so there are frequent patches (some which can't afford to be put off until a scheduled time), virtual machines, bootloaders, logins, logins within logins, lots of cross-system connections, etc. Add on top of all that the fact that at sea all of the bandwidth is satcom and a good chunk of it is encrypted and you have a giant tangle of a network to work with. This is something all modern navies deal with, so while I empathize with the general populace and agree that it's silly, it could be worse.

    Oh, also, if it is an IT mismanagement you probably have the option of firing your IT staff and/or switching to another architecture. The good ol' US of A no longer has that option: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/hp-holds-navy-network-hostage/

  14. Re:GOOD FOR HER! on 18-Year-Old Student Discovers Comet Break-Up · · Score: 1

    Yes, I do speak English and so I understood the sentence. The grammar crumbles when that half-sentence construct takes up half the paragraph. It should be just a few, like "The Larch! The Fir! The mighty Scots Pine!" and go back to actual sentences. Just like in programming, just because it works doesn't mean it's good.

  15. Re:The C programming language on What Is the Most Influential Programming Book? · · Score: 1

    Could this be one of those literary devices where they say one thing but are actually talking about another?!

  16. Re:Bah! Pretenders! on What Is the Most Influential Programming Book? · · Score: 2

    Ever looked at the assembly produced by a for loop? It uses jmp calls. jmp is the exact same thing as goto. If your professor is telling you that gotos are bad, they're either not very good professor or you're in a 100 level CS course where they don't want to confuse you too much.

  17. Re:GOOD FOR HER! on 18-Year-Old Student Discovers Comet Break-Up · · Score: 0

    You forgot to write the predicates for like half of your sentences. Also, don't forget Kevin Bacon.

  18. Re:Solar Power? on Among the Costs of War: $20B In Air Conditioning · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's all true, but for as inefficient as it may seem, there are reasons for all of those. IAAAMO (I am an American military officer), and I can attest to the nature of the American military; we are an incredibly capable organization and almost unstoppable at the tasks we are equipped and trained for, but we were never designed to be agile or efficient. I'm a naval officer, so ships are what I know, and ships are damn expensive. Not just building, but designing, testing the designing, reworking requirements, testing requirements, adjusting for how much training would be required for the equipment vs how much we can do, ammunition and fuel consumption rates vs. supply capabilities, etc. The ships on the water now were on the drawing board twenty years ago (some of the tech in them is newer and could be installed on them because of the long dev time). We (the Navy) have fewer than 300 ships. Imagine an army of 300,000, each one with a set of gear. You want to change one piece, it's not one piece, it's 300,000 pieces. You want a new tent? It's not a new tent, it's 50,000 new tents. You can call it waste in government if you like (I know you didn't), but it's really just the nature of operating an enormous organization. You think lean, corporate giants where profit is king are different? They are not. Ask anyone who works at Raytheon, Microsoft, Apple, Maersk, etc.

  19. Re:Common knowledge on C++ the Clear Winner In Google's Language Performance Tests · · Score: 1

    Oh, of course. I write games myself for recreation, and while there are still substantial technical differences in indie and AAA games (there are some really, really smart people working on AAA games coming up with really clever programming techniques), the primary difference is level of effort. If you have the money to pay a lot of artists and programmers to hack on something for 8+ hours a day for two years, you're going to get an amazing product. With three(ish) guys working on something for two hours a day for however long they maintain interest, you'll probably get a fun game that you would have paid $30 for 10 years ago.

  20. Re:Java is fast on C++ the Clear Winner In Google's Language Performance Tests · · Score: 1

    Thank you. The real reason Java is preferable to C++ (not always, don't jump down my throat) is the same reason that C++ is preferable to assembly (not always, don't jump down my throat): the less efficient code is more than made up for in the faster dev time. The dev time gap between Java and C++ is much smaller than C++ vs assembly, but the principle is the same.

  21. Re:What are these games? on Steam Now Offering Free-To-Play Games · · Score: 1

    Lucky for you, they're free to try:

    http://store.steampowered.com/

  22. Re:A suspiciously round number. on Turkish Police Nab 32 Suspects Tied To Anonymous · · Score: 1

    Good man.

  23. Re:Don't forget everyone else! on How Journalists Data-Mined the Wikileaks Docs · · Score: 1

    Well this dynamic is partly why the world is the way it is.

    The word dynamic here is perfect to describe this; the equilibrium of the world is such that if any entity (country, state, politician, military force, etc) won't take unfair or aggressive advantage of something, there will be another equal entity to fill that void. That's why it's silly to point out any one country for doing this kind of thing, because even if a country isn't, given the chance or risk:reward ratio, it would.

    We can accept the way it is, but not agree that it should be that way.

    But that attitude means it will never change. Sure, no blood for oil! I'm against foreign wars! Oh, but I'll also blame the government or big business or whomever if gas prices rise any higher. If you're against something, be against it. I'm in the military, so if someone gives me an order I don't like, I can either deal with it and follow the order, or I can decide I can't follow the order legally or in good conscience and refuse, but like everyone else I'd have to pay the consequences.

  24. Re:Don't forget everyone else! on How Journalists Data-Mined the Wikileaks Docs · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying it's fine to kill foreigners to keep a higher standard of living, I'm just saying that it's silly and hypocritical for people to make the kind of arguments I mentioned. The response after yours puts it more accurately; it's very Faustian, but it is in fact the way the world works. See my response to that for more.

  25. Re:Equation on Turkish Police Nab 32 Suspects Tied To Anonymous · · Score: 1

    You should use QBASIC. You don't have to LET it do anything :)