I really only know about the land-based ICBMs, so with the caveat that this doesn't include our SLBMs (Trident) and strategic bombers...
So long story short, we used to have crazy big nuclear arsenals back in the really tense days of the Cold War. Today, we still have a scary big nuclear arsenal, but it has only about 1/10th the destructive power of our previous arsenal. That arsenal is still capable of making life on earth pretty miserable, but it's not going to level the globe.
Pretty much the same is true of the SLBM's - we've gone from 41 subs w/ 16 tubes (656 tubes) to 16 subs w/24 tubes (384 tubes).
Gravity bombs are the same story - vast numbers have been decommissioned and recycled.
Tactical weapons (AFAPs and warheads for things like SUBROC) have essentially been eliminated entirely.
In this budget crisis, it is interesting to see the states in the biggest mess financially are the ones with the highest taxes.
That would be a good argument if it were based on reality. In reality, states financial distress right now directly correlates to the impact of the housing crises. See Nevada and Florida - two very tax friendly states.
And two states that depend heavily on travel and tourism for their income. Guess what economic activity is way down between high fuel prices, airline travel hassles, and the general state of the economy.
The disease is overpopulation - there's just too many people on planet earth, and even if you do cut back energy usage, you can't economize fast enough to keep up with geometric population growth.
Hello? The 70's are calling and wants its bugaboo-de-jour back.
Seriously, population isn't growing geometrically or even close to geometrically. The rate of increase has steadily been trending down for a decade or more, and (at least in the industrialized West) it looks as if population will top out around 2050 or so (IIRC).
There can be different architectures for computers, but, nowadays, for many of us, I'd say there is one particular model of an architecture that is likely to be the only one we're really familiar with, and that automatically comes to mind when one speaks of a computer architecture.
Which just goes to show how shockingly ignorant 'many of us' are.
Now if 'many of us' (brighter than the norm, or so the theory goes) can be so ignorant - why do we laugh at Joe Sixpack?
Yea, these are the guys (the feds) I want building cars, taking over health care...thanks god they are not building the planes. I'm just trying to think one government run organization that works as well as any private one. Any idea?
Under their control, 87,000 flights a day cross the skies of the US. Despite incredible crowding at and in the airspace surrounding a large number of airports, collisions are one-in-billions events. The vast majority depart and arrive without undue delay. (And anyone expecting no delay in such a dynamic system with so many variable is smoking some good stuff.)
In this incident, a problem was detected, backup procedures implemented, the problem was fixed, and full functionality was restored - all in a matter of hours without halting the system.
I'd be the first to admit that there are a lot of badly broken government programs - but in this case, you're just blowing smoke.
My previous Kodak camera had included a rechargeable battery.
Who cares what your previous camera came with? You weren't buying that camera were you?
Furthermore, I assumed that any "digital camera battery" ought to be rechargeable, same as a car battery, laptop battery, cellphone battery, etc.
You made a stupid assumption, it's your fault - not Kodak's.
If an appliance takes a specialized battery, it ought to clearly state as much if the battery it comes with is disposable.
Did the camera take a specialized battery, or a standard one you can pick up practically anywhere? (I.E. you're starting to try and move the goalposts and I'm not buying it.)
That's kind of like saying a rape victim was begging for it because she wore tight jeans. It's bullshit.
This excessively hyperbolic comparison makes Joseph Goebbels seem like a slight exaggerator.
Seriously, though. Didja have to pull out that old chestnut? When you've got a "feedback forum" you are literally "asking for it". If you fail to police it properly -- that is, to the standards of your organization -- then you're making the extremely naive assumption that everyone who comments has something descent and even valuable to add.
In other words, having been shown to be wrong, now you're moving the goalposts and still trying to find ways to blame the victim.
Also, when you say that these forums (fora?) are "[a] place for people to discuss the story - the same as Slashdot", that's not really true. They are almost always setup as un-threaded lists of comments on the main story.
As above, now having been shown to be wrong, you're moving the goalposts. Threads are in no way needed for a functional discussion, many forums if many types across the internet do just fine without them. (Not to mention that threads are just one of several modes of displaying the conversation on Slashdot.)
I don't know how they do it - perhaps they simply check terrain in Google Earth and look for landscape that "shadows" a tower.
They probably use software like that a friend of mine uses when installing wireless telemetry for a local water utility. You input the tower height and antenna pattern, and the software compares that to a digital map* using a ray tracing type of process to determine signal coverage.
*By that I mean a map where the terrain information (lat, long, elevation) is stored in a database. Google Earth doesn't store terrain information, it stores images of the terrain and displays them.
Yeah, I made an uninformed decision when I bought the camera, but I felt that Kodak (yes, I'll name names) deliberately tried to leave it confusing so that people would do exactly as I did.
I see no confusion whatsoever - the package didn't say "rechargeable battery", and unsurprisingly didn't contain a rechargeable battery. It's not Kodak's fault you thought you were getting something for nothing.
And anyway, these reader feedback forums on newspapers' websites (and elsewhere) are just an open invitation for every crank, crackpot and wacko in town (and the whole internet) to post whatever vile, stupid, racist, crazy, nonsensical comment they can come up with.
No, they aren't "open invitations" for people to come in and misbehave. (Except for/b.) At least in the case of newspaper feedback forums they are place for people to discuss the story - the same as Slashdot.
Again, I say, if you create such a forum, you are begging for this kind of thing.
That's kind of like saying a rape victim was begging for it because she wore tight jeans. It's bullshit.
The reliability tests that are used to certify panels today are the result of 30 years of study and testing of panels in the field. They are the best ways we know to test reliability to ensure the rated lifetime. Its fine to be skeptical, but go study the science and at least be an informed skeptic.
Here's a free clue for you, since you so badly seem in need of one: Disagreeing with you doesn't mean I'm not informed.
The fact that I have personally seen old panels still working is not an anecdote. Especially as it's used to illustrate the point that there is existence proof that at least some panels can last that long.
You reporting what you saw is the very definition of an anecdote - especially since it used to provide an existence proof of panel lifespan. Data is 'X% of panel type Y survives Z years'. An anecdote is 'oh, I happened to see a very old panel the other day'.
Whether it will be economic or not remains to be seen.
Which, duh is precisely my point. If it's not economic to do so, it won't be done.
How long they are 'guaranteed' for is completely and utterly irrelevant. In the first place, trusting in that means trusting the company offering the guarantee will be around and will honor it, and in the second place that the owner will remember to invoke the 'guarantee' and obtain replacements.
Even if the 'guarantee' exists, and is honored, that still doesn't change what I said. Panels that need replacement for whatever reason mean new panels need to be manufactured. (Not to mention the new panels needed for new construction.)
That they can be economically recycled is an assumption, not a proven fact.
And personally, I don't think Bing is crap. It actually has some innovative features. I just don't have any incentive to switch from Google, especially with gmail and personalized home pages.
What does your email and home page provider have to do with what search engine you use?
Don't be an idiot. This is Bing we're talking about, not Yahoo. Do you really think 10% of people go to it on purpose? Outside of extreme geekdom, nobody's even heard of it yet.
Basically what this means is IE8 has, mostly as a result of automatic updates, reached about 10% market share among people who think the browser's location bar is a search box
Ah yes... It's just not possible that anyone could chose to use Bing. It's just not possible.
Well, you're 100% wrong. I use Bing's map search frequently because the "Bird's Eye" view is so dang useful when figuring out the approach route for a Geocache
No, the bulk of the 10% we're talking about here consists of people using the IE8 UI.
That's an assumption, not a fact. There is a difference.
You do know there is more to Yahoo! than just search? And in a lot of areas they are well ahead of Google.
If the other giants actually innovated instead of rehashing and hyping to death the same tired shit, maybe we'd have some real competition.
I'll agree with you on that when it comes to Bing - but Google is busily innovating because other than in search and ads, they're #2 or #3 in a lot of places.
Any sort of energy that is released in the term of a second or so is useless against anything but stationary targets where you can assume you will hit the same point for that entire second.
That's based on two mistaken assumptions: First, that the last doesn't have any tracking and pointing mechanism. Second, that only delivering 100% of the energy onto the target is militarily useful.
Bullets on the other hand expend their energy in a range of ten thousandths of a second.
Yet, fighters and soldiers both are equipped with machine guns because it's hard to get a bullet on target.
Just make your missiles spin and any energy hitting them will be over a very large area.
That would be true - if spinning the missile was easy. For a large variety of reasons, missile designers go to great lengths to prevent their missiles from spinning. (And the other aircraft, manned and unmanned, that will be main target of a laser equipped fighter can't spin.)
The interesting part of the movie isn't necessarily how Los Angeles is destroyed as much as why people in government and in echelons of the super-wealthy keep it a secret. That's what the movie is really about, and it's something that will probably get more examination over time, as the film settles into its place in film history.
It'll settle somewhere on the list of "films that pandered to current hysteria with a superficial political plot but which are now meaningless" In ten years, like so many others of it's ilk it will be all but forgotten. It'll fill the nights on AMC or TNN when some other channel has a real ratings draw and there's nothing better to show or when one of the stars kicks the bucket. If you're lucky, in twenty years it'll be featured in a book on the hysterics of this era.
Yes, I've watched this movie several hundred times now and have had a lot of time to think about it.
The longer you have to think about something, the longer you have to start seeing things that aren't there.
Slashdot Mirror
[Citation Needed]
Seriously, college students aren't exactly known for being wealthy and/or having significant amounts of disposable income.
Duh. That your claim that state financial distress was directly correlated to the impact of the housing crisis is suspect, if not outright bogus.
Pretty much the same is true of the SLBM's - we've gone from 41 subs w/ 16 tubes (656 tubes) to 16 subs w/24 tubes (384 tubes).
Gravity bombs are the same story - vast numbers have been decommissioned and recycled.
Tactical weapons (AFAPs and warheads for things like SUBROC) have essentially been eliminated entirely.
Especially since the vast majority of Californians live where the cost of gas to get the untaxed TV far, far, outweighs any possible savings.
And two states that depend heavily on travel and tourism for their income. Guess what economic activity is way down between high fuel prices, airline travel hassles, and the general state of the economy.
Hello? The 70's are calling and wants its bugaboo-de-jour back.
Seriously, population isn't growing geometrically or even close to geometrically. The rate of increase has steadily been trending down for a decade or more, and (at least in the industrialized West) it looks as if population will top out around 2050 or so (IIRC).
I wouldn't complain about Microsoft's activity when you link to Wikipedia rather than the author's own page on sparklines.
Bravo, bravo! A few minor nits to pick and some stylistic points, but against such a performance I'll let them pass. Again, bravo!
Repeating the usual party line like a parrot, all the while ignoring the points I made, very impressive.
Not.
Which just goes to show how shockingly ignorant 'many of us' are.
Now if 'many of us' (brighter than the norm, or so the theory goes) can be so ignorant - why do we laugh at Joe Sixpack?
Under their control, 87,000 flights a day cross the skies of the US. Despite incredible crowding at and in the airspace surrounding a large number of airports, collisions are one-in-billions events. The vast majority depart and arrive without undue delay. (And anyone expecting no delay in such a dynamic system with so many variable is smoking some good stuff.)
In this incident, a problem was detected, backup procedures implemented, the problem was fixed, and full functionality was restored - all in a matter of hours without halting the system.
I'd be the first to admit that there are a lot of badly broken government programs - but in this case, you're just blowing smoke.
Who cares what your previous camera came with? You weren't buying that camera were you?
You made a stupid assumption, it's your fault - not Kodak's.
Did the camera take a specialized battery, or a standard one you can pick up practically anywhere? (I.E. you're starting to try and move the goalposts and I'm not buying it.)
In other words, having been shown to be wrong, now you're moving the goalposts and still trying to find ways to blame the victim.
As above, now having been shown to be wrong, you're moving the goalposts. Threads are in no way needed for a functional discussion, many forums if many types across the internet do just fine without them. (Not to mention that threads are just one of several modes of displaying the conversation on Slashdot.)
Neither email validation nor captcha will stop bored and/or stupid people, won't even slow 'em down much.
They probably use software like that a friend of mine uses when installing wireless telemetry for a local water utility. You input the tower height and antenna pattern, and the software compares that to a digital map* using a ray tracing type of process to determine signal coverage.
*By that I mean a map where the terrain information (lat, long, elevation) is stored in a database. Google Earth doesn't store terrain information, it stores images of the terrain and displays them.
I see no confusion whatsoever - the package didn't say "rechargeable battery", and unsurprisingly didn't contain a rechargeable battery. It's not Kodak's fault you thought you were getting something for nothing.
No, they aren't "open invitations" for people to come in and misbehave. (Except for /b.) At least in the case of newspaper feedback forums they are place for people to discuss the story - the same as Slashdot.
That's kind of like saying a rape victim was begging for it because she wore tight jeans. It's bullshit.
Here's a free clue for you, since you so badly seem in need of one: Disagreeing with you doesn't mean I'm not informed.
You reporting what you saw is the very definition of an anecdote - especially since it used to provide an existence proof of panel lifespan. Data is 'X% of panel type Y survives Z years'. An anecdote is 'oh, I happened to see a very old panel the other day'.
Which, duh is precisely my point. If it's not economic to do so, it won't be done.
How long they are 'guaranteed' for is completely and utterly irrelevant. In the first place, trusting in that means trusting the company offering the guarantee will be around and will honor it, and in the second place that the owner will remember to invoke the 'guarantee' and obtain replacements.
Even if the 'guarantee' exists, and is honored, that still doesn't change what I said. Panels that need replacement for whatever reason mean new panels need to be manufactured. (Not to mention the new panels needed for new construction.)
That they can be economically recycled is an assumption, not a proven fact.
Learn to think, rather than parroting.
What does your email and home page provider have to do with what search engine you use?
Ah yes... It's just not possible that anyone could chose to use Bing. It's just not possible.
Well, you're 100% wrong. I use Bing's map search frequently because the "Bird's Eye" view is so dang useful when figuring out the approach route for a Geocache
That's an assumption, not a fact. There is a difference.
Given that none of today's panels have been in service 20 years, I'm skeptical.
That's an anecdote, not data. Learn to tell the difference.
An assumption, not a fact. Learn to tell the difference.
You do know there is more to Yahoo! than just search? And in a lot of areas they are well ahead of Google.
I'll agree with you on that when it comes to Bing - but Google is busily innovating because other than in search and ads, they're #2 or #3 in a lot of places.
That's based on two mistaken assumptions: First, that the last doesn't have any tracking and pointing mechanism. Second, that only delivering 100% of the energy onto the target is militarily useful.
Yet, fighters and soldiers both are equipped with machine guns because it's hard to get a bullet on target.
That would be true - if spinning the missile was easy. For a large variety of reasons, missile designers go to great lengths to prevent their missiles from spinning. (And the other aircraft, manned and unmanned, that will be main target of a laser equipped fighter can't spin.)
It'll settle somewhere on the list of "films that pandered to current hysteria with a superficial political plot but which are now meaningless" In ten years, like so many others of it's ilk it will be all but forgotten. It'll fill the nights on AMC or TNN when some other channel has a real ratings draw and there's nothing better to show or when one of the stars kicks the bucket. If you're lucky, in twenty years it'll be featured in a book on the hysterics of this era.
The longer you have to think about something, the longer you have to start seeing things that aren't there.