That's correct, we're not at war with Pakistan. We're at war with certain militant religious groups, in an effort known for some time as the International War on Terror. The position of both the US government and Pakistan is that we're allies. Pakistan just has an infestation of those enemy combatants operating out of its NW region.
And the options you provided are insufficient. Pakistan does gripe about the occasional strike, while being careful to maintain that we're allies in our efforts, all while cashing our billion dollar checks. The Pakistanis have actually even fired on us in border skirmishes over sovereign air space, where they were actually in Afghanistan (whoops), but been careful to point out that we're friends.
International politics + bullshit posturing + non-uniformed enemy combatants + borders in the mountains of nowhere + big money + hackish foreign military = Difficult Mess.
Sometimes things just aren't as simple as we'd like them to be.
Not really. Considering the usefulness of a technology naturally deals with context of alternatives. With a manned aerial strike, you're still going to have to deal with the response, but you put one of our guys in harm's way, too.
If you're making the argument that we shouldn't be flying any missions in NW Pakistan, then maybe I agree, but that's not really saying anything useful and specific about the use of drones (the topic of the question).
I would add that this really isn't too painfully specific to any profession or major. Anyone here ever perused listings on an online dating site? A ridiculously high percentage of them (by my very scientific sampling) spend time talking about how smart they are, and how they just can't stand "stupid people".
Or perhaps you've heard the saying about 75% of people think they're above average? I'm sure there's a real study behind that, somewhere, but it strikes a chord for all of us, either way.;)
So yeah, most of us are probably a little too generous with our self image. If it's not, "I'm really, really, ridiculously good looking"*, then it's probably, "I'm really, really clever." Maybe that's just healthy and normal.
It's war, not a courtroom. The burden of proof is a little different and combatants don't get trials.
There are two questions here, though. Most here would probably say we shouldn't be there at all. But the other question is about the use of drones specifically as a weapon of the military and CIA in the context of fighting wars.
The GP makes a very valid point. I think we can agree we're not talking about the indiscriminate carpet bombing of Dresden, or dropping an A-bomb. So would everyone be better off if we were using cruise missiles, aerial bombardment by manned aircraft, and marines on the ground? I don't think so, but it's a good question.
We've spent trillions of dollars trying to take the death out of war, in small increments. And we're better at it than anyone has been since we were fighting with rocks and sticks. Unfortunately, it's something we'll never master and we have to keep asking ourselves if new tech is better or worse within the context of war. That is to say, "always bad".
And much of it will always have to do with who is pulling the trigger, and why.
Or, perhaps they feel using a drone to make an attack, rather than risking American soldiers, is the better choice?
This. I watched one of the debates through xbl, the questions and available answers are trash.
People watching the debates through xbl (and voting) were also overwhelmingly liberal, so it's not as though they were just stereotypical right wing warhawks, itching to bomb everything in sight.
So yes, I expect the result on that very informal survey mirrors my own opinion on the subject. Put as few Americans in harms way as possible. That doesn't mean I want innocent people to die.
My understanding was that NFC can (and should) be used exactly like that, where as a transport the limited range has some very small amount of utility in the way of security, but that you're meant to implement higher level cryptographic protocols on top, per application.
The project leader for Bob was Karen Fries, a Microsoft researcher. The design was based on research by Professors Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves of Stanford University.[7] At one point, Bill Gates's wife Melinda Gates worked as one of the Marketing Managers on the project.[8] Microsoft originally owned the domain name bob.com, but traded it to Bob Kerstein for the windows2000.com domain name.[9]
Northsideâ(TM)s enrollment for the 2012-2013 school year is expected to be 99,439, which makes us the fourth largest school district in Texas behind Houston, Dallas, and Cypress-Fairbanks. Though we are opening up only one new school for the 2012-13 school year, we remain one of the fastest growing districts in Texas.
That's 0.0032 misreported, assuming your 180 day number is correct and they don't include summer school, etc. That's pretty close to being in line with the example, which was 8 miscounted in a day, at one school. If there were 2,000 kids in that school (typical for a school where I live), they'd average about 6 miscounts per day from band practices running long, late students, etc.
Or makes the student's parents pay for it when it breaks, like they do with textbooks.
Eh, at $30/student/day, good luck competing with these numbers...
The article said one recent morning at Anson Jones, where 1,200 attend, the regular roll counted reported 71 students absent. The RFID system corrected that number, showing eight of the 71 were actually in school that day. The map showed several students were in the band hall where practice ran late, while others were near the office. The school would have lost $240 that day if the chips would not have been in effect.
Pascual Gonzalez, Northside's communications director told NBC that he estimates the district has been losing about $1.7 million a year because of underreported attendance. He also said the RFID cost was $261,000 and should pay for itself within one year.
#2 Can we blow this up? Slashdot. Reddit. Anywhere you post political talk -- they need to see this. I'm not a fringe candidate. Any research at all reveals I am a calm and rational proponent of the ideas of liberty. Video Bloggers? What do you think?
It seems the theory is, "Make a big enough stink, this ABC affiliate will cave." It doesn't look like there's been any back-and-forth with ABC on this, though. And she did include her name and email address. And their phone number is right on their website.
Asking them about it seems like the first, and most appropriate course of action. Don't just assume it's a conspiracy and grab the pitchforks. Just a thought.
It doesn't say anything about who has to make the contributions. By the sound of things it could be people from his neighborhood. It doesn't have to be Halliburton.
And really, I'd bet it's more of a "If you don't have $50k, you don't actually have a serious campaign" type of requirement, in their opinion. I don't think it's a conspiracy to make sure you have corporate overlords, it's to make sure they don't have 500 whackjobs on stage preaching about all manner of insanity.
No, I'm not a serious gardener so I won't disagree with you, but we always had one when I was growing up and I don't think we ever used any pesticides.
Maybe we were just lucky... I assumed that was perfectly normal for a small garden.
Yeah, it's hobby gardening automation. You can do a whole lot now on virtually no budget, and that's cool.
But yeah, "organic" is just a free buzzword here. I don't think many hobby gardeners were going to be using large amounts of dangerous pesticide in a 4' garden regardless of whether or not there's a microcontroller in there.
The images of a base showed up, so they gave everyone the specs and capabilities of the radar system in their request to hide the base again? That doesn't seem very clever.
"Dear Google, we see you're showing images of Area 51. This is the base where we hide all the alien corpses and spacecraft we've collected over the years, so we'd really appreciate it if you blur the aerial photography. Thanks!"
Slashdot Mirror
That's correct, we're not at war with Pakistan. We're at war with certain militant religious groups, in an effort known for some time as the International War on Terror. The position of both the US government and Pakistan is that we're allies. Pakistan just has an infestation of those enemy combatants operating out of its NW region.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_North-West_Pakistan
And the options you provided are insufficient. Pakistan does gripe about the occasional strike, while being careful to maintain that we're allies in our efforts, all while cashing our billion dollar checks. The Pakistanis have actually even fired on us in border skirmishes over sovereign air space, where they were actually in Afghanistan (whoops), but been careful to point out that we're friends.
International politics + bullshit posturing + non-uniformed enemy combatants + borders in the mountains of nowhere + big money + hackish foreign military = Difficult Mess.
Sometimes things just aren't as simple as we'd like them to be.
As you probably saw from the posts before yours, this is a pretty common phenomenon... not just a saying I made up for slashdot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
https://www.google.com/search?q=everyone+thinks+they're+above+average
Not really. Considering the usefulness of a technology naturally deals with context of alternatives. With a manned aerial strike, you're still going to have to deal with the response, but you put one of our guys in harm's way, too.
If you're making the argument that we shouldn't be flying any missions in NW Pakistan, then maybe I agree, but that's not really saying anything useful and specific about the use of drones (the topic of the question).
Agreed.
I would add that this really isn't too painfully specific to any profession or major. Anyone here ever perused listings on an online dating site? A ridiculously high percentage of them (by my very scientific sampling) spend time talking about how smart they are, and how they just can't stand "stupid people".
Or perhaps you've heard the saying about 75% of people think they're above average? I'm sure there's a real study behind that, somewhere, but it strikes a chord for all of us, either way. ;)
So yeah, most of us are probably a little too generous with our self image. If it's not, "I'm really, really, ridiculously good looking"*, then it's probably, "I'm really, really clever." Maybe that's just healthy and normal.
* I hope you read that in a Zoolander voice.
It's war, not a courtroom. The burden of proof is a little different and combatants don't get trials.
There are two questions here, though. Most here would probably say we shouldn't be there at all. But the other question is about the use of drones specifically as a weapon of the military and CIA in the context of fighting wars.
The GP makes a very valid point. I think we can agree we're not talking about the indiscriminate carpet bombing of Dresden, or dropping an A-bomb. So would everyone be better off if we were using cruise missiles, aerial bombardment by manned aircraft, and marines on the ground? I don't think so, but it's a good question.
We've spent trillions of dollars trying to take the death out of war, in small increments. And we're better at it than anyone has been since we were fighting with rocks and sticks. Unfortunately, it's something we'll never master and we have to keep asking ourselves if new tech is better or worse within the context of war. That is to say, "always bad".
And much of it will always have to do with who is pulling the trigger, and why.
Relevant talk by Malcolm Gladwell on the Norden bombsight (and drone use):
http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell.html
It really does cover this issue better than anything we're going to say here.
Or, perhaps they feel using a drone to make an attack, rather than risking American soldiers, is the better choice?
This. I watched one of the debates through xbl, the questions and available answers are trash.
People watching the debates through xbl (and voting) were also overwhelmingly liberal, so it's not as though they were just stereotypical right wing warhawks, itching to bomb everything in sight.
So yes, I expect the result on that very informal survey mirrors my own opinion on the subject. Put as few Americans in harms way as possible. That doesn't mean I want innocent people to die.
That might be the first time anyone ever accused me of being a microsoft shill. ;)
I've had no problems with it. I particularly like the voice control.
The joke of it is that there hasn't been much in the way of gaming for the thing... which is really what it was supposed to be for.
Slashdot is dying.
Has Netcraft confirmed this? We'll hang it on the wall next to BSD, I suppose.
I prefer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejSRqO74Lik
But seriously, just remember "meme" sounds like "gene".
Yeah that's a good one to use the little flag button on.
My understanding was that NFC can (and should) be used exactly like that, where as a transport the limited range has some very small amount of utility in the way of security, but that you're meant to implement higher level cryptographic protocols on top, per application.
Wha?
The project leader for Bob was Karen Fries, a Microsoft researcher. The design was based on research by Professors Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves of Stanford University.[7] At one point, Bill Gates's wife Melinda Gates worked as one of the Marketing Managers on the project.[8] Microsoft originally owned the domain name bob.com, but traded it to Bob Kerstein for the windows2000.com domain name.[9]
From their site...
Northsideâ(TM)s enrollment for the 2012-2013 school year is expected to be 99,439, which makes us the fourth largest school district in Texas behind Houston, Dallas, and Cypress-Fairbanks. Though we are opening up only one new school for the 2012-13 school year, we remain one of the fastest growing districts in Texas.
That's 0.0032 misreported, assuming your 180 day number is correct and they don't include summer school, etc. That's pretty close to being in line with the example, which was 8 miscounted in a day, at one school. If there were 2,000 kids in that school (typical for a school where I live), they'd average about 6 miscounts per day from band practices running long, late students, etc.
Or makes the student's parents pay for it when it breaks, like they do with textbooks.
Eh, at $30/student/day, good luck competing with these numbers...
The article said one recent morning at Anson Jones, where 1,200 attend, the regular roll counted reported 71 students absent. The RFID system corrected that number, showing eight of the 71 were actually in school that day. The map showed several students were in the band hall where practice ran late, while others were near the office. The school would have lost $240 that day if the chips would not have been in effect.
Pascual Gonzalez, Northside's communications director told NBC that he estimates the district has been losing about $1.7 million a year because of underreported attendance. He also said the RFID cost was $261,000 and should pay for itself within one year.
For your own sake, I'd consider the two separately. One is something you have in writing, the other is an accusation.
I assume you haven't raised $50k total for your campaign? What did they say about the polling requirement?
I guess the other side of that is, "Why come up with a way to mine an asteroid if the legal semantics won't allow you to mine it anyway?"
I agree that it's probably not a huge issue that can't be ironed* out, though.
* Yeah, I did that. Deal with it.
So what is it, just a story to tell?
The answer is on his site:
#2 Can we blow this up? Slashdot. Reddit. Anywhere you post political talk -- they need to see this. I'm not a fringe candidate. Any research at all reveals I am a calm and rational proponent of the ideas of liberty. Video Bloggers? What do you think?
It seems the theory is, "Make a big enough stink, this ABC affiliate will cave." It doesn't look like there's been any back-and-forth with ABC on this, though. And she did include her name and email address. And their phone number is right on their website.
Asking them about it seems like the first, and most appropriate course of action. Don't just assume it's a conspiracy and grab the pitchforks. Just a thought.
It doesn't say anything about who has to make the contributions. By the sound of things it could be people from his neighborhood. It doesn't have to be Halliburton.
And really, I'd bet it's more of a "If you don't have $50k, you don't actually have a serious campaign" type of requirement, in their opinion. I don't think it's a conspiracy to make sure you have corporate overlords, it's to make sure they don't have 500 whackjobs on stage preaching about all manner of insanity.
Too little information here.
What are the criteria for being included in these independent polls? Does one normally request inclusion?
Have you asked ABC about these requirements?
No, I'm not a serious gardener so I won't disagree with you, but we always had one when I was growing up and I don't think we ever used any pesticides.
Maybe we were just lucky... I assumed that was perfectly normal for a small garden.
Yeah, it's hobby gardening automation. You can do a whole lot now on virtually no budget, and that's cool.
But yeah, "organic" is just a free buzzword here. I don't think many hobby gardeners were going to be using large amounts of dangerous pesticide in a 4' garden regardless of whether or not there's a microcontroller in there.
I wish Slashdot would turn to crowdsourcing for its headlines.
They do.
The images of a base showed up, so they gave everyone the specs and capabilities of the radar system in their request to hide the base again? That doesn't seem very clever.
"Dear Google, we see you're showing images of Area 51. This is the base where we hide all the alien corpses and spacecraft we've collected over the years, so we'd really appreciate it if you blur the aerial photography. Thanks!"
When living your life often requires internet access, then it becomes a right.
False. Also, living life does not require internet access.