A segment of the population has views that are different from the average of the entire population.
Do the same thing with investment bankers and you'll see lots of gaps as well.
Do it with politicians versus everyone else... gaps.
Do it with police officers versus everyone... gaps.
Look at our little community here on slashdot. Are our views analogous to the general population? Nope. Lots of gaps.
So... I don't quite get the point of the survey. There have always been gaps between scientists and the general public and always will be just as there are gaps between any sub group and the whole and ALWAYS will be.
none of which mattes because Iraq is in no position to help Iran. Frankly, Iraq is hurting Iran more than anyone else. Isis is ripping Syria apart and Syria is Iran's only real ally.
To a certain extent, Iraq has restarted the Iraq-Iran war. They're crushing the Syrian resistance and with Syria falling apart Iran is alone.
As to the rest... you're just backing up what I said about ISIS undermining the Iranians.
Iran is getting isolated further and as they get closer to a bomb the arab states that are stable are getting closer to engaging in a rapid military build up with the notion of engaging Iran on their own.
If the US just walks away from the middle east... Iran will probably be annihilated.
This is just another reason why the Iranians are stupid. The US is well positioned to save them and ensure for them a prosperous safe country.
All they have to do is stop stroking the hate boner. The US would love to be good friends with the Iranians. We have great respect for them on many levels. But if they're working to kill us... then it would be irresponsible for us to not undermine them. We owe that to our children at the very least.
one of the dumber things a country can do if it wants to hurt the US is actually say they want to hurt us.
The US has a lot of "frienemies". Countries that smile at us and invite us to all the parties but talk shit and occasionally backstab us when they think they can get away with it.
No need to name names... you know who you are;-) *kiss kiss*
But you don't say death to America, engage in a nuclear weapons program, fund terrorist cells, and then think the US isn't going to have a response to all that crap. You do all that and you're begging for it.
They're fools. They should have made nice with us. It would have cost them nothing. Literally nothing. And they would be more prosperous, secure, and powerful as a result.
But by engaging a power ridiculously out of their weight class they ensured their people exist in an environment the US naturally must keep marginalized if only because again... it would be irresponsible for us not to undermine the Iranians. They've said they want us dead. So... we'd like to make that impractical. And the best way to do that is to make them too weak and distracted to even get off a cheap shot.
The closer Iran gets to being able to land a cheap shot... the more incentivized the US is to arrange matters such that Iran suffers a tragic accident.
Blowing on the flames between Shia and Sunni could well be seen in the US as a last or near last resort solution to the Iran problem. Here someone will say that is monstrous. But one must keep in mind that they only haven't gone to war with each other because we've kept the peace between them. If the Iranians wish to reward us for that by attacking us... then it might be just as simple as leaving the room for a moment... letting their natural inclination to kill each other take over... and then returning to the room with a bucket of popcorn... and if it becomes reasonable... possibly coming in the last moment to either spare Iran annihilation or make sure the blade cuts cleanly.
depends on how many powers are involved and whether they're being sneaky about it and how the bomb is made and who made it.
The question gets technical very quickly.
The simple answer is that who does it should be somewhat obvious from the geopolitics because you can look at who would benefit. Beyond that, you can examine the bomb residue to try and figure out who made it.
There is a big difference between US atomic bombs, Russian atomic bombs, etc.
Everything from how complete the detonation was to the ratios of isotopes you get after it goes off. Signatures.
If terrorists do it they'll claim responsibility because that's what terrorists do. And we know who their sponsors are.
Some detective work might be required if people are being cagey about it. But if it were as simple as sneaking a suitcase nuke into a city and then saying "wasn't me"... then it would have been tried during the cold war.
The Russians knew better than to do that. Just because we don't get a radar trace on a launch doesn't mean we can't figure out where it came from.
Wow... so much ignorance... I'll just skip to the bit I didn't already address.
Google's deployments are actually based on the licenses. They have a non-negotiable policy to do a roll out. They're going to do it the way they want to do it and not the way the city wants it done.
They tell you how they'll do it... and the city can either agree to it or not.
If they don't then Google doesn't show up.
NYC will probably NEVER sign that contract. Look at the cities that have. Notice how they're all over the place. They're not going for regional concentration. What is going on is that it is very rare for a city to be willing to sign a contract like that. And so you're just going to get these scattered eclectic cities/towns spread all over.
Do you really need me to get quotes from google and other stake holders where this shit is spelled out for you? Or do you realize that you stepped in dog shit and then put your foot directly into your mouth?
As to the license and the franchise, I'm conflating the two because they're not going to give you the franchise if they're not willing to give you the licenses.
Frankly, the franchise agreements should be retired as a concept and they should just have the conduit/pole licenses that should mostly be a matter of making sure the installation and maintenance is orderly and fees are collected sufficient to maintain and upgrade conduits as needed.
Again, its like the fucking taxi medallions. Its a racket.
What is your first language? If it isn't English this will be more understandable. I'll help you out here with all due humility and patience if English is not your first language.
If it is your first language... then you have no excuse.
Don't tell me what I want. I don't want one company to be able to dictate prices by controlling the cable.
And here someone that thinks they're being clever will just say "why not the government"... same problem. If you think that's cheaper its only because you don't understand they shifted the cost to the taxes.
You want a company doing it so there is cost compartmentalization and you don't want a monopoly.
Its not a secret, fucktwit. NYC is riddled with pipes of all kinds that have lots of space. In London they're actually running fiber in some Victorian brick tunnels at this point... because why not.
I'm so tired of your snarky half wise/idiot dipshits that enter every discussion, make some stupid comment that you think is clever, and then when challenged you run away thinking you accomplished something.
The city is riddle with pipes under every street. And beyond that, the fiber takes up less space than any other type of wiring. And the fiber is fucking cheap.
The big expense of wiring these cities is not the cable or labor. The expense is the license to run the cable.
The license often requires the ISP do things for the privilege to run cable. Often they have to agree to wire the whole city even though it is only profitable to wire certain neighborhoods. That inflates the cost of the operation quite significantly. It would be like requiring a sandwich shop to open franchises all over town if it wanted to open even ONE. And to make matters worse, there are fees for using the conduits which are often predatory. The cities have a monopoly themselves on the conduits so you can either pay them what they want or you don't get to run the cable.
These payments often take the form of free service to city buildings, schools, etc.
There is plenty of room in the conduits for a LOT of cable. There are disused gas mains. Decommissioned sewer pipes. Decommissioned subway tunnels... etc etc etc.
In fact, many corporations in NYC do run their own cable. Many of the big investment banks and trading houses in Manhattan run their own cable. Its expensive but because of high frequency trading issues such as latency become a question of billions. So the trading houses throw sacks of cash, cocaine, and whores at the various city councillor until they get the permits they want.
I have no problem with that. My issue is rather that you have to throw sacks of cash, cocaine, and whores at these people to make them be reasonable. Short stuffing money in their pockets, cocaine up their nose, and whore sucking on their dicks they tend to tell everyone to just go fuck themselves. And it is that attitude that makes so many of our cities dysfunctional.
What do you think fucks up the education system, the police, the roads, etc?
Corruption, laziness, and incompetence. The cities survive despite these retards... not because of them.
The big universities can't even claim to get you work with a degree so why would you slap down that kind of money for a degree from what most consider an over priced diploma mill?
Israel's nukes aren't getting launched in anything but self defense.
And the thing is that if things go hot in the middle east, there is a good chance that Israel could actually either stay out of it entirely or even get backed up by the Saudis and Jordanians. They hate the Jews mostly for being non-muslim. But the thing is the Iranians are in their mind heretics to their faith and so not muslim either... and the Iranians are acting in an aggressive manner towards other nations in the region where as Israel only gets testy when either attacked or there is some blow up with the Palestinians.
The turks for example keep trying to send flotillas of weapons to the Palestinians.
The last flotilla was recently turned away and the israelis suggested they make their weapons dump in Syria next time. Which is looking increasingly like something that might happen. The Jordanians are livid with Isis.
So obviously making that dispute go nuclear couldn't possibly go wrong.
Think.
If your objective is to survive an indefinite enmity than you either need to strategically fatally cripple or destroy that rival or keep the conflict to a sustainable low burn. Or as the US did during the cold war... Both. During the Cold War we kept hostilities between the US and USSR manageable while at the same time undermining them strategically until through our actions and obvious flaws in their economic and political system they could not even pretend to sustain their super power status.
Escalating the whole thing to nuclear weapons is idiotic.
But that is what the Iranians want to do.
And the fuckwits think they're going to hurt the US with that little genius plan. As if a couple nukes are going to mean anything to the US. We fucking piss in Putin's face on a regular basis and that asshole has thousands of nukes.
Worst case, Iran sneaks a nuke into the US and flattens a city... and then Iran ceases to exist. All the soldiers, civilians, women, children, pets, parasites, and cockroaches.
The US will do what it can to avoid taking even that body blow. And it is not something we'll intentionally bait. But if everything goes tits up, we'll survive it and they won't.
Far more likely, the US is going to encourage regional enemies of the Iranians to engage them for us...so someone in the middle east is more likely to eat the one and only nuke the Iranians are likely to be able to detonate before they trigger the inevitable DEFCON 1 MAD response.
Incorrect. I am not assuming they're thinking rationally. To the contrary, I just pointed out they were thinking IRRATIONALLY. I pointed out that their actions harm their country in every measurable way while accomplishing nothing for it including their various religious objectives.
They're trading wealth, power, and security... for NOTHING.
that was my argument. How you got out of that the belief that I thought they were thinking rationally is beyond me.
You're forgetting that everyone in the region hates Iran... except syria... and syria is falling apart.
Iran economy is in shambles, they have no friends that are standing, and their activities are agitating the saudis, egyptians, Jordians, etc...
Iran is fucked. Be Kasparov for second. War game this out 10 moves in advance.
You'll see it is already checkmate on Iran.
If they continue with their nuke program... best case... the rest of the middle east which mostly hates them will get nukes about five minutes later... at which point what has Iran accomplished?
The US is not going to nuke Iran... but the saudis might... the egyptians might. The jordanians might.
The Iranians have overdosed on their "great satan" propaganda. They've destroyed themselves. For nothing.
Imagine a different world. A world where Iran wasn't going out of its way to be a dick head. Think of how wealthy they would be? They're a generally well educated and hard working country for the region. They could be an industrial power in the middle east. The Germany or Japan of the region. And look at what they are instead? A minor oil exporter and pistachio nut exporter... which the US is undercutting in both cases by producing lots of oil and lots of pistachios.
And what did they get in return for sacrificing all of that? Nothing. Power? None. Respect? None. Leverage? None. Diplomatic support? None.
They sacrificed everything for nothing.
Go through the world and show me how many countries have prospered in dicking with the US?
Is that Zero?... so... why do it? Besides fetal lead poisoning leading to chemically induced retardation... I'm at a loss as to what they think they're doing.
Yes yes... history... colonialism... so what? What relevance does that have on 2015? Oh that's right... none. The US was at war with the British Empire for about fifty years. Then the British stopped trying to reconquer us and we became buddies.
The Iranians should be trying to make friends with the US. It would mean an end to sanctions. It would mean military security. It would mean trade opportunities. Technology sharing...
They'd very rapidly become a great power.
But they've got such a raging hate boner that they can't see they're destroying themselves. FOR NOTHING.
I know... lets hire another monopoly. Or the people that think they're really being crafty will say "lets have the government do it"... because that isn't a monopoly... right guys? Right?
This isn't going to stop until you open up the right of way to run cable to everyone.
In new york there is PLENTY of room in the conduits to run as much cable as people could possibly want to run.
An individual building for example could run the cable for itself. The cost is trivial if we don't charge the licensing fees which tend to be extortion in the first place. Sort of like the cab medallions. The company pays more and gets a monopoly.
Charge less and open it up to more people to run cable.
The cost of running fiber from a building to the trunk is at most a couple thousand dollars in equipment. And we have so much dark fiber because it was determined that fiber is so cheap that it actually makes sense to over build your needs because the labor to install exceeds the cost of the equipment. Thus if the equipment cost is a couple grand... lets say the labor is another couple grand... compare that to how long the cable will last and how many tenants you have.
The whole last mile ISP concept is stupid. The only real ISPs are the people the ISPs BUY bandwidth from in the first place. Qwest communications, L3... sure, ATT and Verizon own some trunk line but the majority of it is specialized players in that market.
THOSE are the real ISPs. Cut the last mile monopolies OUT of the market by letting more people run cable. You want to have some more control over it? Not just have it be literally any asshole doing it? Fine. FINE. But if you restrict who gets to lay cable to ONE organization be that public or private you're going to get fucked... there will be no lube... and while its happening the bastards will expect you to be a good girl and thank them for caring enough to give it to you. Don't even dare argue the point. They've fucked over pretty much every market they've been given dominion over and then they walk around expecting everyone to tell them what wonderful people they are for the privilege.
You confuse respect for high priority to undermine.
Look at the Russians... they have the second largest nuclear stockpile in the world.
Notice how we don't especially respect them do we? And are they profiting from their nukes?
Nope. They're suffering. They have an economy half the size of Italy.
And lets point out furthermore that the US does NOT need to invade a country to bring it down.
Look at this thing with ISIS... you see what that is doing to the region right? All of Iran's enemies are militarizing and sure... to defeat ISIS... but they all hate Iran too. And what is ISIS also doing? Crippling Syria which is Iran's only friend left in the region.
So think like a chess master here... play it out. Think ten moves ahead.
What is going to happen to Iran? It is already checkmate. Iran's only way out of it is to drop the nuclear program and stop being assholes.
If they don't stop, the sanctions, their increasingly militant regional enemies, and the growing political problems in the Iranian society are going to put their little ruling council's heads on sticks.
People always think the US is stupid... the US is a great deal less stupid than people appreciate mostly because we have some very clever people in our society and some great big idiots. And the clever people use the idiots as a smokescreen.
Iran is not helping themselves by going nuclear. Best case scenario is that they trigger a similar response from regional powers that ACTUALLY would like to nuke them. The US doesn't want to nuke Iran. We'd have done it already if we wanted to... but we don't. The Saudis, the Jordanians... ? yeah... they get hard thinking of Iran glowing in the dark.
I'd also like to point out that I really enjoy these types of discussion. Please don't take my aggressiveness as something emotional.
I am challenging you.
If my aggressiveness puts you off then know that isn't intentional. I don't want to silence you or censor you or shut you up or shut you down.
I want to engage you in an intellectual investigation where we both pool our knowledge of an issue and try try to enlighten each other through this sharing.
Even if I don't agree with you about a lot of things, I learn a lot when I have these discussions because you're forcing me to think through certain things. The sea ice vs sea rise calculation was not something I had done before. And even if I f'ed that up horribly it is precisely the sort of calculation that I think brings clarity to the matter because so many of these things are very difficult to measure. The zeta joules of the ocean for example... I have no idea how you'd even begin to audit that. Or the bazillion temperature stations across the planet that go through some sort of blackbox algorithm to output a faction of a degree warming... on stations that are typically barely accurate to the degree? Auditing this stuff is genuinely hard because the data sets are so large and often proprietary.
So I'm very interested in finding ball park estimates that are easily audited. And if the cilmate people are pushing numbers that are very different then... I'll have a very hard time believing those figures without understanding the problems with the ball park calculation.
One thing that I can think of off the top of my head that might screw up my sea ice versus sea rise calculation might be deep sea geological changes. If the crust bends in as water is added in... then the volume of the seas would increase more than the observable surface sea level.
As to my calculations... I really don't know what happened in there and I am genuinely hopeful you can set me straight on it. One thing I'm not sure of is what unit the gigatonnes were in... metric or imperial... I don't think that would matter in the context of how far off the numbers look. I mean... sure... that could bring the numbers closer to sense... but they're so far off anything that is possible that i'd have had to make other even bigger errors in there.
I don't know... looking forward to your response and please don't get upset with me. My point is not to piss you off but to get to the bottom of what appears to be a difference of perception between us.
I would like to believe I'm able to accept correction. I hope I'm not closed minded. I do try.
I would of course ask you to do the same thing... with no intention of implying an insult... just be patient with me and I'll be patient with you.:)
Actually it is common knowledge to people familiar with the subject. That you are unaware of it undermines your claims to actually being familiar in the first place.
Some of the corrections in there look like they're putting upwards of a.6 C temp bias on the sat data.
Again, this is common knowledge. There is your citation. Don't be stubborn or proud. It will undermine your intellectual credibility. This is common knowledge. Admit that and move on.
As to the oceans, I have a big problem with the units you're using in that graph... Zeta Joules? Why aren't you citing this as temperature? That's very odd. I don't know if I can even convert that back into temperature without more information. Do I have to literally take an estimate of the total planetary ocean volume and then figure out how many zeta joules it would take it to change the temperature? The use of that unit is very strange. I'd like that in temperature before I accept the finding please. For example, we'd need to see a significant temperature change or its just too likely to be a normal climate cycle. We have el nino and la nina and that is actually one of the shorter cycles. There are climate cycles that span centuries.
As to sea level rise, if you view the rise in geological time scales, you'll see that the modern changes are actually relatively placid. Do you want me to show you graphs with sea level changes over the last 20,000 years? The reality is that if you expand those graphs beyond the industrial revolution you'll see that the trend line actually extends well beyond our use of the evil fossil fuels. The seas have been rising since the end of the last ice age. It increases and decreases... contrary to what you think, we're actually in a plateau where it isn't changing much relative to before. I can cite the graphs if you're only familiar with sea level data cherry picked from the start of the industrial revolution. FYI, people that do that are attempting to bias the data by making it look like the trend line starts there. It doesn't.
BEWARE... back of napkin calculations coming.
As to ice melt... okay lets look at that: 200 gigatons is 200 billion tons ice is ~ 200 billion tons of sea water.
200,000,000,000 tons per year convert tons of sea water into cubic meters 195,698,545,959 cubic meters of water convert to cubic kilometers 195,698,546 cubic kilometers of water x 20 years
3,913,970,919 cubic kilometers of water
The surface of the world's oceans is ~ 361,740,000 square kilometers (aka 71 percent of the earth's total surface)
This is my own calculation and I must have made a serious error in there some where. Can you find where I did it? Because... if my math is right... and it can't be... then the seas should have risen miles above our heads. My figures don't make sense by magnitudes.
Now the annual sea level rise is about 2.6mm per year.
Taking the global ocean square surface area and multiplying it by 2.6mm So that is 2.6e-6 kilometers... or 0.0000026 x ~ 361,740,000 square kilometers (aka 71 percent of the earth's total surface)
~ 941 cubic kilometers of sea water. Convert to meters 941,000 cubic meters of sea water... convert cubic meters to metric tons 961,683 metric tons of ice.
Again... show me the error I made here.
The math isn't making any sense and I am quite comfortable with accepting I made a mistake in here somewhere and take no shame in that since I don't do these calculations often and it would be very easy to make a silly mistake.
But please... you can see from these rough calculations that either my math is massively wrong or the predictions make zero sense.
I must have made some big mistakes in there. But I think this line of investigation would be illuminating. I'd like to compare estimated ocean rise with water volume
And Americans invented the first carrier caterpult. I believe the wright brothers actually did that. It wasn't approved because the Navy didn't like the way it worked. It used a large weight that was dropped. The weight went through some pullies to convert some of the torque to speed.
The big flaw of the Wright model if there even was one was that the weight came down onto a big metal plate on the carrier deck. Frankly I think the plate should have been able to negate the damage of that. But the Navy didn't like it.
The compromise should have been dropping the weights over the sides of the ship like anchors. The weights wouldn't even need to touch the water. I think it only needed to drop 12 feet or something.
Anyway, what the british did or did not invent is of little value if they opt to not use it.
The existing harriers are contextually superior for the british. They can actually afford harriers for one thing. And really the only advantage of the F35 is the stealth which... probably doesn't matter.
Saying logistics is important is not something I'm contradicting.
I already pointed out to you that we had far more machines and more logistical complexity during WW2 and we were fine.
Seriously, what do you even think the logistical issue is here?
Repair parts? That's about it... no?
On the basis of repair parts you can't justify a plane that is much more expensive and much less capable.
The Navy, Army, etc would much rather have more planes that work better and have to deal with a couple extra crates of spare parts at a large airfield. Note I say large airfield. because the smaller ones aren't going to have this diversity. The airfields tend to specialize in these situations as the different departments grab their own territory and then put their hardware in place.
And on top of that, the Navy is talking about putting high end 3d printers on their ships so they can MAKE parts.
Regardless, that is the last time I'm talking about logistics. The logistical problem with having 12 planes is not a big problem. Having planes that are too expensive and don't work well is a bigger problem and it can't be solved without splitting the plane up to more specialized planes.
I assume you're not going to be mentally able to move beyond this issue... I know that sounds offensive but it isn't intentional... you're just not seeing how myopic and stubborn you're sounding on the issue. So... unless you move on beyond logistics... kindly don't waste any more of my time.
First, the logistical complexity thing is bullshit. I'm not listening to that anymore. We had lots and lots of different things going at once during WW2 and it was fine.
All this logistical crap boils down to is MONEY.
And the money issue would be relevant if not for the fact that 12 different craft are actually cheaper than one generalized craft.
The reason being that it is more effective, more efficient, more survivable, and does not need to be changed unless something happens to the baffle field in relation to it specifically.
So for example, if you have an all in one craft... not only does it have all the other problems I pointed out, but if ANY ONE of the things it is supposed to do becomes obsolete, the entire craft has to be changed. Where as with 12... only the one that is actually effected has to change.
Take all the hardware we still use that we developed during Vietnam. Why do we still use that stuff nearly unchanged from that point? Because nothing has really changed for them.
So for example the A10 still works just fine. The AC130 Specter works just fine. The B52 works just fine.
The only relevant thing that has changed is that AA missiles have gotten better.
That's it.
The latest Russian or Chinese or any nation's tank is fucking meat against an A10. None of them can defend themselves. The reactive armor, the faster speed... none of it matters. The A10 chews threw modern tanks pretty much the same way it did through tanks of its era.
So you need tech that deal with the AA... you need stealth and drones etc. But you don't need all of that in one package. That's crazy.
You have some stealth capable deep strike craft that can penetrate enemy territory and knock out their air defense. There are some very good cruise missiles that are excellent for that as well. And once they've done their work those tanks are naked. The tank crews might as well just get out of the tank and go find a trench. The tank is garbage once air cover is gone.
And this is the thing with the F35. Do the marines need a VTOL stealthy jet that has very little weapon's capacity, very short range, can't dog fight, is poor at supporting ground troops... etc etc etc. No they don't.
Its garbage.
As I said, give the marines the VTOL jet from Boeing. Its every bit as good as the F35 minus the stealth... and the stealth is not something the marines need... and its way cheaper which means the marines can have more of them.
Frankly the marines would probably be better served with attack helicopters. That seems more their speed. I know the Navy Seals like their attack helicopters.
As to the Navy... they have no need for the F35 PERIOD. They have super carriers so they can launch less annoying airplanes.
The F15, F16, and 18 are all quite capable. What they lack is the stealth... and frankly the value of that is increasingly dubious.
The army has a completely different mentality than the Marines or the Navy or the air force. First, the marines all about logistics. That is their bread and butter. And beyond that they always have big airfields because they need them for the cargo planes and the bigger bombers which is what they prefer. So the army doesn't need the F35 either.
As to the Air force... the plane they want is the F22. Ideally they wouldn't touch the F35 and if you push them on the issue, they'd prefer the drones over the F35.
Its an impressive airplane but war is about achieving military goals and the F35 is not a good tool for that.
Its too many things and it does them all badly.
The biggest problem is the VTOL and the stealth. Both of those features are really hard to put into an airframe.
The VTOL makes the plane very heavy and means you can't put much into it and it means the plane can't have proper wings because it has to narrower if it is VTOL. The stealth basically compounds that situation because stealth also means you don't want big wings and on top of that you can't carry very much because ever
Slashdot Mirror
*chuckles*
Whatever you say, comrade. We'll see how this plays out. *kiss kiss*
A segment of the population has views that are different from the average of the entire population.
Do the same thing with investment bankers and you'll see lots of gaps as well.
Do it with politicians versus everyone else... gaps.
Do it with police officers versus everyone... gaps.
Look at our little community here on slashdot. Are our views analogous to the general population? Nope. Lots of gaps.
So... I don't quite get the point of the survey. There have always been gaps between scientists and the general public and always will be just as there are gaps between any sub group and the whole and ALWAYS will be.
Meaningless.
none of which mattes because Iraq is in no position to help Iran. Frankly, Iraq is hurting Iran more than anyone else. Isis is ripping Syria apart and Syria is Iran's only real ally.
To a certain extent, Iraq has restarted the Iraq-Iran war. They're crushing the Syrian resistance and with Syria falling apart Iran is alone.
As to the rest... you're just backing up what I said about ISIS undermining the Iranians.
Iran is getting isolated further and as they get closer to a bomb the arab states that are stable are getting closer to engaging in a rapid military build up with the notion of engaging Iran on their own.
If the US just walks away from the middle east... Iran will probably be annihilated.
This is just another reason why the Iranians are stupid. The US is well positioned to save them and ensure for them a prosperous safe country.
All they have to do is stop stroking the hate boner. The US would love to be good friends with the Iranians. We have great respect for them on many levels. But if they're working to kill us... then it would be irresponsible for us to not undermine them. We owe that to our children at the very least.
one of the dumber things a country can do if it wants to hurt the US is actually say they want to hurt us.
The US has a lot of "frienemies". Countries that smile at us and invite us to all the parties but talk shit and occasionally backstab us when they think they can get away with it.
No need to name names... you know who you are ;-) *kiss kiss*
But you don't say death to America, engage in a nuclear weapons program, fund terrorist cells, and then think the US isn't going to have a response to all that crap. You do all that and you're begging for it.
They're fools. They should have made nice with us. It would have cost them nothing. Literally nothing. And they would be more prosperous, secure, and powerful as a result.
But by engaging a power ridiculously out of their weight class they ensured their people exist in an environment the US naturally must keep marginalized if only because again... it would be irresponsible for us not to undermine the Iranians. They've said they want us dead. So... we'd like to make that impractical. And the best way to do that is to make them too weak and distracted to even get off a cheap shot.
The closer Iran gets to being able to land a cheap shot... the more incentivized the US is to arrange matters such that Iran suffers a tragic accident.
Blowing on the flames between Shia and Sunni could well be seen in the US as a last or near last resort solution to the Iran problem. Here someone will say that is monstrous. But one must keep in mind that they only haven't gone to war with each other because we've kept the peace between them. If the Iranians wish to reward us for that by attacking us... then it might be just as simple as leaving the room for a moment... letting their natural inclination to kill each other take over... and then returning to the room with a bucket of popcorn... and if it becomes reasonable... possibly coming in the last moment to either spare Iran annihilation or make sure the blade cuts cleanly.
Which ever is seen as the most appropriate.
depends on how many powers are involved and whether they're being sneaky about it and how the bomb is made and who made it.
The question gets technical very quickly.
The simple answer is that who does it should be somewhat obvious from the geopolitics because you can look at who would benefit. Beyond that, you can examine the bomb residue to try and figure out who made it.
There is a big difference between US atomic bombs, Russian atomic bombs, etc.
Everything from how complete the detonation was to the ratios of isotopes you get after it goes off. Signatures.
If terrorists do it they'll claim responsibility because that's what terrorists do. And we know who their sponsors are.
Some detective work might be required if people are being cagey about it. But if it were as simple as sneaking a suitcase nuke into a city and then saying "wasn't me"... then it would have been tried during the cold war.
The Russians knew better than to do that. Just because we don't get a radar trace on a launch doesn't mean we can't figure out where it came from.
Wow... so much ignorance... I'll just skip to the bit I didn't already address.
Google's deployments are actually based on the licenses. They have a non-negotiable policy to do a roll out. They're going to do it the way they want to do it and not the way the city wants it done.
They tell you how they'll do it... and the city can either agree to it or not.
If they don't then Google doesn't show up.
NYC will probably NEVER sign that contract. Look at the cities that have. Notice how they're all over the place. They're not going for regional concentration. What is going on is that it is very rare for a city to be willing to sign a contract like that. And so you're just going to get these scattered eclectic cities/towns spread all over.
Do you really need me to get quotes from google and other stake holders where this shit is spelled out for you? Or do you realize that you stepped in dog shit and then put your foot directly into your mouth?
As to the license and the franchise, I'm conflating the two because they're not going to give you the franchise if they're not willing to give you the licenses.
Frankly, the franchise agreements should be retired as a concept and they should just have the conduit/pole licenses that should mostly be a matter of making sure the installation and maintenance is orderly and fees are collected sufficient to maintain and upgrade conduits as needed.
Again, its like the fucking taxi medallions. Its a racket.
... so you're illiterate?
What is your first language? If it isn't English this will be more understandable. I'll help you out here with all due humility and patience if English is not your first language.
If it is your first language... then you have no excuse.
Don't tell me what I want. I don't want one company to be able to dictate prices by controlling the cable.
And here someone that thinks they're being clever will just say "why not the government"... same problem. If you think that's cheaper its only because you don't understand they shifted the cost to the taxes.
You want a company doing it so there is cost compartmentalization and you don't want a monopoly.
*laughs*
Its not a secret, fucktwit. NYC is riddled with pipes of all kinds that have lots of space. In London they're actually running fiber in some Victorian brick tunnels at this point... because why not.
I'm so tired of your snarky half wise/idiot dipshits that enter every discussion, make some stupid comment that you think is clever, and then when challenged you run away thinking you accomplished something.
The city is riddle with pipes under every street. And beyond that, the fiber takes up less space than any other type of wiring. And the fiber is fucking cheap.
The big expense of wiring these cities is not the cable or labor. The expense is the license to run the cable.
The license often requires the ISP do things for the privilege to run cable. Often they have to agree to wire the whole city even though it is only profitable to wire certain neighborhoods. That inflates the cost of the operation quite significantly. It would be like requiring a sandwich shop to open franchises all over town if it wanted to open even ONE. And to make matters worse, there are fees for using the conduits which are often predatory. The cities have a monopoly themselves on the conduits so you can either pay them what they want or you don't get to run the cable.
These payments often take the form of free service to city buildings, schools, etc.
There is plenty of room in the conduits for a LOT of cable. There are disused gas mains. Decommissioned sewer pipes. Decommissioned subway tunnels... etc etc etc.
In fact, many corporations in NYC do run their own cable. Many of the big investment banks and trading houses in Manhattan run their own cable. Its expensive but because of high frequency trading issues such as latency become a question of billions. So the trading houses throw sacks of cash, cocaine, and whores at the various city councillor until they get the permits they want.
I have no problem with that. My issue is rather that you have to throw sacks of cash, cocaine, and whores at these people to make them be reasonable. Short stuffing money in their pockets, cocaine up their nose, and whore sucking on their dicks they tend to tell everyone to just go fuck themselves. And it is that attitude that makes so many of our cities dysfunctional.
What do you think fucks up the education system, the police, the roads, etc?
Corruption, laziness, and incompetence. The cities survive despite these retards... not because of them.
The big universities can't even claim to get you work with a degree so why would you slap down that kind of money for a degree from what most consider an over priced diploma mill?
Israel's nukes aren't getting launched in anything but self defense.
And the thing is that if things go hot in the middle east, there is a good chance that Israel could actually either stay out of it entirely or even get backed up by the Saudis and Jordanians. They hate the Jews mostly for being non-muslim. But the thing is the Iranians are in their mind heretics to their faith and so not muslim either... and the Iranians are acting in an aggressive manner towards other nations in the region where as Israel only gets testy when either attacked or there is some blow up with the Palestinians.
The turks for example keep trying to send flotillas of weapons to the Palestinians.
The last flotilla was recently turned away and the israelis suggested they make their weapons dump in Syria next time. Which is looking increasingly like something that might happen. The Jordanians are livid with Isis.
So obviously making that dispute go nuclear couldn't possibly go wrong.
Think.
If your objective is to survive an indefinite enmity than you either need to strategically fatally cripple or destroy that rival or keep the conflict to a sustainable low burn. Or as the US did during the cold war... Both. During the Cold War we kept hostilities between the US and USSR manageable while at the same time undermining them strategically until through our actions and obvious flaws in their economic and political system they could not even pretend to sustain their super power status.
Escalating the whole thing to nuclear weapons is idiotic.
But that is what the Iranians want to do.
And the fuckwits think they're going to hurt the US with that little genius plan. As if a couple nukes are going to mean anything to the US. We fucking piss in Putin's face on a regular basis and that asshole has thousands of nukes.
Worst case, Iran sneaks a nuke into the US and flattens a city... and then Iran ceases to exist. All the soldiers, civilians, women, children, pets, parasites, and cockroaches.
The US will do what it can to avoid taking even that body blow. And it is not something we'll intentionally bait. But if everything goes tits up, we'll survive it and they won't.
Far more likely, the US is going to encourage regional enemies of the Iranians to engage them for us...so someone in the middle east is more likely to eat the one and only nuke the Iranians are likely to be able to detonate before they trigger the inevitable DEFCON 1 MAD response.
Incorrect. I am not assuming they're thinking rationally. To the contrary, I just pointed out they were thinking IRRATIONALLY. I pointed out that their actions harm their country in every measurable way while accomplishing nothing for it including their various religious objectives.
They're trading wealth, power, and security... for NOTHING.
that was my argument. How you got out of that the belief that I thought they were thinking rationally is beyond me.
Nope. Does your town have pot holes in it? Who is responsible for those roads?
Look at US public schools. How is that working out?
I don't trust the government to run it. They fuck up everything else.
You're forgetting that everyone in the region hates Iran... except syria... and syria is falling apart.
Iran economy is in shambles, they have no friends that are standing, and their activities are agitating the saudis, egyptians, Jordians, etc...
Iran is fucked. Be Kasparov for second. War game this out 10 moves in advance.
You'll see it is already checkmate on Iran.
If they continue with their nuke program... best case... the rest of the middle east which mostly hates them will get nukes about five minutes later... at which point what has Iran accomplished?
The US is not going to nuke Iran... but the saudis might... the egyptians might. The jordanians might.
The Iranians have overdosed on their "great satan" propaganda. They've destroyed themselves. For nothing.
Imagine a different world. A world where Iran wasn't going out of its way to be a dick head. Think of how wealthy they would be? They're a generally well educated and hard working country for the region. They could be an industrial power in the middle east. The Germany or Japan of the region. And look at what they are instead? A minor oil exporter and pistachio nut exporter... which the US is undercutting in both cases by producing lots of oil and lots of pistachios.
And what did they get in return for sacrificing all of that? Nothing. Power? None. Respect? None. Leverage? None. Diplomatic support? None.
They sacrificed everything for nothing.
Go through the world and show me how many countries have prospered in dicking with the US?
Is that Zero?... so... why do it? Besides fetal lead poisoning leading to chemically induced retardation... I'm at a loss as to what they think they're doing.
Yes yes... history... colonialism... so what? What relevance does that have on 2015? Oh that's right... none. The US was at war with the British Empire for about fifty years. Then the British stopped trying to reconquer us and we became buddies.
The Iranians should be trying to make friends with the US. It would mean an end to sanctions. It would mean military security. It would mean trade opportunities. Technology sharing...
They'd very rapidly become a great power.
But they've got such a raging hate boner that they can't see they're destroying themselves. FOR NOTHING.
The ISP monopolies behave like monopolies.
I know... lets hire another monopoly. Or the people that think they're really being crafty will say "lets have the government do it"... because that isn't a monopoly... right guys? Right?
This isn't going to stop until you open up the right of way to run cable to everyone.
In new york there is PLENTY of room in the conduits to run as much cable as people could possibly want to run.
An individual building for example could run the cable for itself. The cost is trivial if we don't charge the licensing fees which tend to be extortion in the first place. Sort of like the cab medallions. The company pays more and gets a monopoly.
Charge less and open it up to more people to run cable.
The cost of running fiber from a building to the trunk is at most a couple thousand dollars in equipment. And we have so much dark fiber because it was determined that fiber is so cheap that it actually makes sense to over build your needs because the labor to install exceeds the cost of the equipment. Thus if the equipment cost is a couple grand... lets say the labor is another couple grand... compare that to how long the cable will last and how many tenants you have.
The whole last mile ISP concept is stupid. The only real ISPs are the people the ISPs BUY bandwidth from in the first place. Qwest communications, L3... sure, ATT and Verizon own some trunk line but the majority of it is specialized players in that market.
THOSE are the real ISPs. Cut the last mile monopolies OUT of the market by letting more people run cable. You want to have some more control over it? Not just have it be literally any asshole doing it? Fine. FINE. But if you restrict who gets to lay cable to ONE organization be that public or private you're going to get fucked... there will be no lube... and while its happening the bastards will expect you to be a good girl and thank them for caring enough to give it to you. Don't even dare argue the point. They've fucked over pretty much every market they've been given dominion over and then they walk around expecting everyone to tell them what wonderful people they are for the privilege.
Says the AC?
Your name is literally anonymous coward. You're literally too chicken shit to even use a fake name. And you presume to judge me?
You're garbage. Another AC waste of oxygen.
So you admit you tried to strawman me.
Fuck off, retard.
You confuse respect for high priority to undermine.
Look at the Russians... they have the second largest nuclear stockpile in the world.
Notice how we don't especially respect them do we? And are they profiting from their nukes?
Nope. They're suffering. They have an economy half the size of Italy.
And lets point out furthermore that the US does NOT need to invade a country to bring it down.
Look at this thing with ISIS... you see what that is doing to the region right? All of Iran's enemies are militarizing and sure... to defeat ISIS... but they all hate Iran too. And what is ISIS also doing? Crippling Syria which is Iran's only friend left in the region.
So think like a chess master here... play it out. Think ten moves ahead.
What is going to happen to Iran? It is already checkmate. Iran's only way out of it is to drop the nuclear program and stop being assholes.
If they don't stop, the sanctions, their increasingly militant regional enemies, and the growing political problems in the Iranian society are going to put their little ruling council's heads on sticks.
People always think the US is stupid... the US is a great deal less stupid than people appreciate mostly because we have some very clever people in our society and some great big idiots. And the clever people use the idiots as a smokescreen.
Iran is not helping themselves by going nuclear. Best case scenario is that they trigger a similar response from regional powers that ACTUALLY would like to nuke them. The US doesn't want to nuke Iran. We'd have done it already if we wanted to... but we don't. The Saudis, the Jordanians... ? yeah... they get hard thinking of Iran glowing in the dark.
I'd also like to point out that I really enjoy these types of discussion. Please don't take my aggressiveness as something emotional.
I am challenging you.
If my aggressiveness puts you off then know that isn't intentional. I don't want to silence you or censor you or shut you up or shut you down.
I want to engage you in an intellectual investigation where we both pool our knowledge of an issue and try try to enlighten each other through this sharing.
Even if I don't agree with you about a lot of things, I learn a lot when I have these discussions because you're forcing me to think through certain things. The sea ice vs sea rise calculation was not something I had done before. And even if I f'ed that up horribly it is precisely the sort of calculation that I think brings clarity to the matter because so many of these things are very difficult to measure. The zeta joules of the ocean for example... I have no idea how you'd even begin to audit that. Or the bazillion temperature stations across the planet that go through some sort of blackbox algorithm to output a faction of a degree warming... on stations that are typically barely accurate to the degree? Auditing this stuff is genuinely hard because the data sets are so large and often proprietary.
So I'm very interested in finding ball park estimates that are easily audited. And if the cilmate people are pushing numbers that are very different then... I'll have a very hard time believing those figures without understanding the problems with the ball park calculation.
One thing that I can think of off the top of my head that might screw up my sea ice versus sea rise calculation might be deep sea geological changes. If the crust bends in as water is added in... then the volume of the seas would increase more than the observable surface sea level.
As to my calculations... I really don't know what happened in there and I am genuinely hopeful you can set me straight on it. One thing I'm not sure of is what unit the gigatonnes were in... metric or imperial... I don't think that would matter in the context of how far off the numbers look. I mean... sure... that could bring the numbers closer to sense... but they're so far off anything that is possible that i'd have had to make other even bigger errors in there.
I don't know... looking forward to your response and please don't get upset with me. My point is not to piss you off but to get to the bottom of what appears to be a difference of perception between us.
I would like to believe I'm able to accept correction. I hope I'm not closed minded. I do try.
I would of course ask you to do the same thing... with no intention of implying an insult... just be patient with me and I'll be patient with you. :)
Actually it is common knowledge to people familiar with the subject. That you are unaware of it undermines your claims to actually being familiar in the first place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Some of the corrections in there look like they're putting upwards of a .6 C temp bias on the sat data.
Again, this is common knowledge. There is your citation. Don't be stubborn or proud. It will undermine your intellectual credibility. This is common knowledge. Admit that and move on.
As to the oceans, I have a big problem with the units you're using in that graph... Zeta Joules? Why aren't you citing this as temperature? That's very odd. I don't know if I can even convert that back into temperature without more information. Do I have to literally take an estimate of the total planetary ocean volume and then figure out how many zeta joules it would take it to change the temperature? The use of that unit is very strange. I'd like that in temperature before I accept the finding please. For example, we'd need to see a significant temperature change or its just too likely to be a normal climate cycle. We have el nino and la nina and that is actually one of the shorter cycles. There are climate cycles that span centuries.
As to sea level rise, if you view the rise in geological time scales, you'll see that the modern changes are actually relatively placid. Do you want me to show you graphs with sea level changes over the last 20,000 years? The reality is that if you expand those graphs beyond the industrial revolution you'll see that the trend line actually extends well beyond our use of the evil fossil fuels. The seas have been rising since the end of the last ice age. It increases and decreases... contrary to what you think, we're actually in a plateau where it isn't changing much relative to before. I can cite the graphs if you're only familiar with sea level data cherry picked from the start of the industrial revolution. FYI, people that do that are attempting to bias the data by making it look like the trend line starts there. It doesn't.
BEWARE... back of napkin calculations coming.
As to ice melt... okay lets look at that: 200 gigatons is 200 billion tons ice is ~ 200 billion tons of sea water.
200,000,000,000 tons per year
convert tons of sea water into cubic meters
195,698,545,959 cubic meters of water
convert to cubic kilometers
195,698,546 cubic kilometers of water
x 20 years
3,913,970,919 cubic kilometers of water
The surface of the world's oceans is
~ 361,740,000 square kilometers (aka 71 percent of the earth's total surface)
This is my own calculation and I must have made a serious error in there some where. Can you find where I did it? Because... if my math is right... and it can't be... then the seas should have risen miles above our heads. My figures don't make sense by magnitudes.
Now the annual sea level rise is about 2.6mm per year.
Taking the global ocean square surface area and multiplying it by 2.6mm
So that is 2.6e-6 kilometers... or 0.0000026
x
~ 361,740,000 square kilometers (aka 71 percent of the earth's total surface)
~ 941 cubic kilometers of sea water.
Convert to meters
941,000 cubic meters of sea water...
convert cubic meters to metric tons
961,683 metric tons of ice.
Again... show me the error I made here.
The math isn't making any sense and I am quite comfortable with accepting I made a mistake in here somewhere and take no shame in that since I don't do these calculations often and it would be very easy to make a silly mistake.
But please... you can see from these rough calculations that either my math is massively wrong or the predictions make zero sense.
I must have made some big mistakes in there. But I think this line of investigation would be illuminating. I'd like to compare estimated ocean rise with water volume
And Americans invented the first carrier caterpult. I believe the wright brothers actually did that. It wasn't approved because the Navy didn't like the way it worked. It used a large weight that was dropped. The weight went through some pullies to convert some of the torque to speed.
The big flaw of the Wright model if there even was one was that the weight came down onto a big metal plate on the carrier deck. Frankly I think the plate should have been able to negate the damage of that. But the Navy didn't like it.
The compromise should have been dropping the weights over the sides of the ship like anchors. The weights wouldn't even need to touch the water. I think it only needed to drop 12 feet or something.
Anyway, what the british did or did not invent is of little value if they opt to not use it.
The existing harriers are contextually superior for the british. They can actually afford harriers for one thing. And really the only advantage of the F35 is the stealth which... probably doesn't matter.
Saying logistics is important is not something I'm contradicting.
I already pointed out to you that we had far more machines and more logistical complexity during WW2 and we were fine.
Seriously, what do you even think the logistical issue is here?
Repair parts? That's about it... no?
On the basis of repair parts you can't justify a plane that is much more expensive and much less capable.
The Navy, Army, etc would much rather have more planes that work better and have to deal with a couple extra crates of spare parts at a large airfield. Note I say large airfield. because the smaller ones aren't going to have this diversity. The airfields tend to specialize in these situations as the different departments grab their own territory and then put their hardware in place.
And on top of that, the Navy is talking about putting high end 3d printers on their ships so they can MAKE parts.
Regardless, that is the last time I'm talking about logistics. The logistical problem with having 12 planes is not a big problem. Having planes that are too expensive and don't work well is a bigger problem and it can't be solved without splitting the plane up to more specialized planes.
I assume you're not going to be mentally able to move beyond this issue... I know that sounds offensive but it isn't intentional... you're just not seeing how myopic and stubborn you're sounding on the issue. So... unless you move on beyond logistics... kindly don't waste any more of my time.
First, the logistical complexity thing is bullshit. I'm not listening to that anymore. We had lots and lots of different things going at once during WW2 and it was fine.
All this logistical crap boils down to is MONEY.
And the money issue would be relevant if not for the fact that 12 different craft are actually cheaper than one generalized craft.
The reason being that it is more effective, more efficient, more survivable, and does not need to be changed unless something happens to the baffle field in relation to it specifically.
So for example, if you have an all in one craft... not only does it have all the other problems I pointed out, but if ANY ONE of the things it is supposed to do becomes obsolete, the entire craft has to be changed. Where as with 12... only the one that is actually effected has to change.
Take all the hardware we still use that we developed during Vietnam. Why do we still use that stuff nearly unchanged from that point? Because nothing has really changed for them.
So for example the A10 still works just fine. The AC130 Specter works just fine. The B52 works just fine.
The only relevant thing that has changed is that AA missiles have gotten better.
That's it.
The latest Russian or Chinese or any nation's tank is fucking meat against an A10. None of them can defend themselves. The reactive armor, the faster speed... none of it matters. The A10 chews threw modern tanks pretty much the same way it did through tanks of its era.
So you need tech that deal with the AA... you need stealth and drones etc. But you don't need all of that in one package. That's crazy.
You have some stealth capable deep strike craft that can penetrate enemy territory and knock out their air defense. There are some very good cruise missiles that are excellent for that as well. And once they've done their work those tanks are naked. The tank crews might as well just get out of the tank and go find a trench. The tank is garbage once air cover is gone.
And this is the thing with the F35. Do the marines need a VTOL stealthy jet that has very little weapon's capacity, very short range, can't dog fight, is poor at supporting ground troops... etc etc etc. No they don't.
Its garbage.
As I said, give the marines the VTOL jet from Boeing. Its every bit as good as the F35 minus the stealth... and the stealth is not something the marines need... and its way cheaper which means the marines can have more of them.
Frankly the marines would probably be better served with attack helicopters. That seems more their speed. I know the Navy Seals like their attack helicopters.
As to the Navy... they have no need for the F35 PERIOD. They have super carriers so they can launch less annoying airplanes.
The F15, F16, and 18 are all quite capable. What they lack is the stealth... and frankly the value of that is increasingly dubious.
The army has a completely different mentality than the Marines or the Navy or the air force. First, the marines all about logistics. That is their bread and butter. And beyond that they always have big airfields because they need them for the cargo planes and the bigger bombers which is what they prefer. So the army doesn't need the F35 either.
As to the Air force... the plane they want is the F22. Ideally they wouldn't touch the F35 and if you push them on the issue, they'd prefer the drones over the F35.
Its an impressive airplane but war is about achieving military goals and the F35 is not a good tool for that.
Its too many things and it does them all badly.
The biggest problem is the VTOL and the stealth. Both of those features are really hard to put into an airframe.
The VTOL makes the plane very heavy and means you can't put much into it and it means the plane can't have proper wings because it has to narrower if it is VTOL. The stealth basically compounds that situation because stealth also means you don't want big wings and on top of that you can't carry very much because ever
quote where I said I was trying to win over AC trolls?
I said that NO WHERE. Kill yourself. Slowly and painfully.