I submit that those poor students would never have been in the "market" in the first place (or at least those who could not afford some sort of scholarship or grant).
For those too poor to go to a university right out of high school, they can enter the job market (though that's pretty tough these days) or they can start at a community college and transfer (which is significantly cheaper). Everyone has the opportunity to go to college. Some people may just have to work harder or put off going for a little while to get there.
It'll be painful to fix, much like the spending reductions we'll need to see in the US budget to fix both the deficit and the debt, but by reducing the money supply, universities will see reduced student population and will be forced to reduce tuition to stay open (or lobby for more tax dollars, which should be avoided). Essentially, it would be popping this 'higher education bubble', though we would be doing it on purpose (as opposed to the housing bubble which popped (and is still popping) on its own).
If that's where you want to learn, then it is your responsibility to make it work. You have no inherent right to attend a private school, so the government should not be involved in ensuring you have access to one. If the private institution feels that they are better off pricing you out of their education, that is their prerogative. It would be nice to have the $50EE3 car, the $1EE6 house, and the $200EE3 education, but if they're out of your means, then they're out of your means and it's your responsibility to recognize that.
Likewise, public universities should not be funded with the idea that everyone should be able to afford to go as, again, getting a bachelors is not an inherent right and I don't want my tax money wasted towards that ideal. Scholarships, grants, etc... are available for those who have the abilities but not the means. If those families who have students with neither the ability to get a scholarship, grant, etc... nor the means to afford a college education make the poor choice to assume that debt, then that is a problem solely for them and their creditors. Again, I would rather not have my tax dollars flushed down that void, thanks.
Already been stated a few times, but I'd say that this has probable been driven by very poor media coverage. It is so poor that, as someone who has had several years "exposure" (hah) and training to nuclear reactors, I physically cringe and usually change the channel (or skip the post) when the topic comes up. The "experts" they brought on early on (and continue to do so, I assume) were laughable. I specifically remember one being a journalist who had covered the industry for a couple of years. She had absolutely no idea what was going on, but tossed out the same trash that was being said elsewhere (people exposed to radiation, extremely dangerous and life threatening...CHERNOBYL! THREE MILE ISLAND! 2012!!!~!~!@~!$#@!!!). Most of the others, I vaguely remember being mostly made up of theoretical nuclear physicists, lobbyists of one persuasion or another, and people who dealt in the field of nuclear weapons. Jokes, all of them. How hard would it have been to find an SRO at a running plant to ask questions of? You know, someone how actually has a clue?
I just wish that they would at least get the verbage right so they wouldn't sound like a retard on a bad day. It's like they've never heard of the term contamination before and just use the term 'radiation' for everything.
I took a few minutes to search, but wasn't able to find it. What percentage of oil use in the US (of worldwide) is by personal vehicles? Few vehicles have tanks over 50 gallons of gas, a small fraction compared to an airliner or train or ship. I don't have any concept over how much is used on oil-fired power plants. How much of the US use is dependent on personal vehicles? How much is used in power generation? How much is used in factories?
I guess my point is, if we all stopped driving cars and started using bicycles, how much would oil consumption in the US drop?
[...] but don't complain about gas tax increases or other driving charges to pay for your highways and to keep CO2 and oil consumption under control [...] Don't complain if state/federal tax money is spent on the more efficient population centers [..].
WTF is the government doing taxing me to limit my consumption of oil and CO2 generation? Tax me to have money to keep me safe, tax me for my use of public infrastructure to help maintain it, don't tax me as a way to tell me how to spend money I earned. If people are consuming too much oil, the price will rise and people adjust to consume less of it (at some point). Who are you to tell me or the rest of us that we are consuming too much oil? Who is the government to tell me the same thing? Certainly not the Aliso Viejo municipal government.
On a related note, if these more efficient population centers have more people living there, I would expect more taxes to be spent there.
Don't forget, America is not the same as Americans. It is very hard for someone to maintain a deficit for any length of time as eventually credit gets maxed out and they can't get any loans. On the other hand, assuming a reasonable amount of debt in order to see a net reduction of spending (which is what the parent is talking about) is a reasonable goal.
I am correcting all of these price changes to account for inflation.
Say Bob is driving an SUV with oil prices as they currently are. 5 years down the road, he's seen them slowly grow to double what they are now. Assuming he maintains the same driving habits, he is now spending double on gas a year compared to what he used to be. He decides that he can't afford this. Now, he's been planning ahead since he reads/. and so can see the writing on the wall and has saved up enough money to buy a new vehicle with cash. He looks around and finds one that gets twice the gas mileage, based on his driving habits. By buying this car, he now will reduce his expenditure on gas by half, compared to if he didn't. Which means that, _in the long term_, he actually saved money by spending it (assuming his driving habits don't change).
Taking a loan out for a more efficient car may turn out to be more expensive in the short term as the payments + gas may cost more than just the gas for the old car, but once it is paid off (3-5 years) you will see benefits from the better gas mileage for the rest of the time you own that car.
Not to mention that with steam system maintenance comes pages and pages of quality assurance paperwork. Do the skimmers trust ships force to do that kind of work still, or would that be an IMA level job?
Is the steam going through it generated in the actual S/G's and so would that limit maintenance on the steam portion to nukes? I'd be pissed if I had a bunch of MIPs for coner equipment I had to maintain...though I guess that's what the electricians have to live with.
I listened to parts of it. It's about the level you'd expect from a small liberal arts college like Skidmore, about comparable to how we played in the USNA Midshipman Orchestra (which is to say, a big spectrum of ability since we took what we could get as musical ability there was definitely not a focus in terms of recruitment).
On the other hand, if you had a recording of students from, say, Curtis or Longy then you'd be hard pressed to tell that from the recording of an average professional orchestra. I'm pretty sure if musopen wanted to, given the nature of the project, institutions like those could be talked into helping for a reasonable donation.
Actually, that oil comment got me thinking. They have lots of oil, but can only extract it at a certain rate. Assuming this oil provides a significant portion of their GDP, why would they want to waste it domestically for energy production? Selling to foreign markets provides hard currency where using it domestically would only be like spinning a tire in mud?
As I recall, Canada did support D-Day at...Juno beach I believe. And they did beat off two invasions. One from the continental army in the war for independence, one from the US during the war of 1812. Hockey sticks may or may not have been involved, historians are not clear on that point.
The only difference between fuel grade and weapon grade uranium is the ratio of U-235 to U-238. All that really translates into is how much fissile uranium you have per gram of material (ie, you get more bang for your buck as the ratio favors 235). That is the only difference. Otherwise, it is still just neutrons smashing into atoms. There are many reactors today that use weapon grade uranium as fuel...hint, what reactors need to be physically small but last for a long time?
Insightful? Nope. Ignorant of the basic physics in nuclear reactors? Yep.
I know, I know, don't feed the trolls and all that.
I haven't heard anyone complaining about Iran being run by war-mongering mullah's lately...I have heard people complaining of Iran being run by war-mongering Ahmadinejad. Regardless of who his rhetoric is meant for, it is heard by the outside world and most of us as someone who speaks for Iran. If you could, please explain how violently putting down protesters is indicative of a democratic regime with checks and balances...because to me (and I am not Israeli nor do I have any connection to that country at all), it smacks of a power-hungry regime that will do anything to remain in power.
As for those observing the fuel cycle...what if Iran removes itself as a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty and removes the Russian and UN observers in a North Korean-esque move?
Those like Franken are hoping people are stupid enough to not look past the title to see what is actually in the bill and what it actually accomplishes.
You mean like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act?
Within the 2000 pages of the PPACA, we find such gems as the fact that businesses will have to file 1099s. Why is there tax legislation like that in a healthcare bill? We'll see in the coming months what got snuck into 2300 (!!) pages of the DFWSRCPA. Bonus points if you can find any congressman that thoroughly read either bill before voting yes on it.
Ancient history...there were two services that allowed quasi-battle.net like games: Kali and Kahn. I believe Kali was the original. IIRC, it was written by Jay Cotton, and you could get a registration number for $15. You would dial into one of their servers and it offered chat services and you could organize games. Kahn was something similar. It was similar to dialing into Prodigy or AOL (or Compuserve, etc...). I believe it was just an IPX-TCP/IP wrapper. Blizzard eventually released a WC2 version called War2 Battlenet Edition which brought it into a more "modern" age and allowed playing over the internet as we know it.
When offshore, there are long (loooong) stretches where you can just sit down and focus on something else. Assuming this boat would have other amenities such as weatherfax, AIS, radar, GPS and auto-helm (which most blue-water cruising boats do have these days, btw), there could be days and days at a time where someone sailing single-handed would be able to do work for as long as desired with the occasional glance around the horizon for bad weather or ships.
And if you sail with a crew (ie, wife), they can take care of everything while you work.
Not that I disagree that safe sailing requires constant monitoring, but that becomes second nature pretty quick. After sufficient time on and around boats, you get a feel for when things change even if you aren't paying constant attention. When the wind changes or shifts, the boat feels and acts differently. If a storm closes in on you, the wave state may begin picking up and the barometric pressure will drop (something that can actually be felt). Any competent sailor keeps those little things like that in the back of his mind even if his attention is focused elsewhere.
"I dont need to memorize every equation known the man. If I'm doing work... I look up the equation. Why then are the grades in school dependant on my remembering the equations?"
Getting my degree in aero/astro, my instructors emphasized understanding the equations vice memorizing them. I think pretty much every upper division course allowed us a page or two for an equation sheet. The trick was that the test questions would require you to understand the principles of what the equation was saying, so it generally wasn't just plug and chug (and if it was, easy points).
There are some fundamentals that need to be memorized (F=d(mv)/dt, h=r X v, v=ir), but beyond that, rote memorization of something like the Transport Theorem, Laplace Transforms, or the derivation of the two-body equation is ridiculous, and would be indicative of a poorly run class.
Have you been through bootcamp? Fortunately I was one of the last few to go through REAL navy basic back at the turn of the century, before these new-fangled barracks popped up and this new battle stations building thingamajig came out.
I also had the good fortune of being a member of the last REAL plebe summer at the US Naval Academy before they put air conditioning in Bancroft Hall (WTF?!!!).
In basic we did a little PT, a bit more marching. It was enough to get through the physical tests...especially since the policy then was that every attempt counted (talking about push-ups and sit-ups). We also got beat down by the RDCs (think drill sergeants) quite a bit. That probably helped the most.
Plebe summer was 5 days a week of 90 minutes of PT at 5 in the morning which, as a skinny, out of shape 20-something, destroyed me every time. But damned if it didn't get me in shape. Add in another 6 days of whatever sport we chose in the afternoon for a few hours and chopping all around the hallway (knees up and moving at a rapid pace) and that really helped strength and endurance.
Really, emulating the video workouts on something like the P90X routine (which quite a few formerly fatty friends swear by) would be much, much more beneficial than doing DDR for an hour.
Motivation in the situation we're talking about (basic training) is effectively provided externally, believe it or not. Those that can't deal with it should be shown the door after given a few weeks to acclimate to how much life sucks during these times...not everyone is cut out for military service, and part of boot camp is identifying those people and weeding them out. There's nothing wrong with that.
"Fifth, do you honestly believe that any of these people believe that the rest of their careers as soldiers will literally be spent playing DDR and Wii Fit? Not even the dumbest recruit would be THAT stupid, so it's a non-argument."
Yes, absolutely there are. I know and have worked with people that stupid. They tend to work the hardest and have the best attitude, though. Regardless, it is actually a fair argument to make. Seriously, not joking.
"To sum it up - you can't just go the full monty and expect it to work. You need to build people up, and that journey starts with a first step. Like it or not, that's the way reality works."
The first step of the journey is breaking them down. The arrival by bus and immediate searching of all luggage by the MAs, spending the night getting in-processed, hair buzzed, everything issued, taking a short nap sitting cross-legged on the floor with your head on your sea-bag in front of you, getting up before dawn and marching all over the place...I could go on and on. Those are immediate interruptions of your prior routine. It shocks the body and the mind and makes you pliable for a short period as well as teaching you to work with, essentially, strangers as you all cope with this new, terrible, de-spiriting new turn all your lives have taken. It provides a common low point for everyone to look back on and say "well, as terrible as things seem right now, at least I'm not back in boot camp".
Personally, I think the change would be ridiculous. But as long as new sailors are produced that'll have the mental and physical strength to literally drag me out of a burning compartment or jump in rapidly rising water to help slap on a band-it kit or whatnot, and will be able to sit at their panels and do their jobs when being chased down by a torpedo or during a jam dive or some other doomsday scenario then that's all I really care about. I don't see learning to be brave by playing DDR.
Another contributing factor to losing out to the soviets was the issue of overflight rights. At the time, we had been sending spy planes to take pictures of soviet territory (despite their objections). Since satellites would be flying over foreign countries, the issue of satellite overflight rights had to be decided (especially so we could use them to spy on the sovs). The US had two options: get their first (with the glory of being first), and hope that their were no foreign objections. After an orbit or two, the issue would be settled much like the right of free passage in the ocean. The second option was to let the soviets get their first and not bring the issue up. The latter option provided the easiest route.
I'm not saying Vanguard rockets were sabotaged, but it may have slowed down the acquisition bureaucracy enough to give the USSR the edge.
Only stuck in LEO in terms of manned missions...we send autonomous to other planets fairly regularly. The theoretical knowledge is well-known, the technical skill is also available. What are we missing in terms of having to go through a learning curve?
Optical sensors would be pretty useless for collision avoidance when under water. Try taking underwater pictures using a camera at 50 feet to get a feel for the distance you can see something. Now, take that distance and imagine two WWII aircraft carriers going, say, 5 knots on a collision course suddenly seeing each other at this point. While turning, all ships have something called advance and transfer where advance is the distance on the original course a ship travels during the turn and the transfer is the distance a ship travels in the final course during a turn. There is also serious lag time between a rudder order and the beginning of movement when driving at slow speed.
To toss some numbers in there, lets say we have a wambodyne optical sensor that will see something at 100 yds at a depth of 100 feet. with a 10 knot closure speed, that will give both boats 20 seconds to maneuver prior to collision. So that means 20 seconds for the following: Joe watchstander manning this sensor says "OOD, Contact on optical sensor, range 100 yards, narrow angle on the bow!", the OOD would then respond: "Helm, right hard rudder!" or "Helm, All back emergency!" On receipt of the rudder order, the helmsman would then have to physically move the rudder, and then the ship would take some time before beginning to turn. For the speed order, the helmsman would have to ring up the bell on the engine order telegraph, and then watchstanders in the engineroom would need time to get done what they need to get done. Getting the reports and orders out, for a good watch team, could be done in 5 seconds or so, leaving a whole 15 seconds to move however many thousands of tons those ships are.
And don't forget: if using optics would be advantageous to have when driving slowly, subs would wander around with their periscopes up while under water...
I imagine they have in-house beta people specifically trying to break the game. The public beta tests have traditionally been more for balance purposes. The 'room full of monkeys' effect of public betas do find some glitches but, imho, balance is the important thing for them.
Per UN Security Council Resolution 1441, Iraq was in material breach of the terms agreed in the ceasefire from the previous war and subsequent resolutions. They were given 30 days to comply with the resolution under the threat of "serious consequences". This resolution was unanimously passed by the UN Security Council prior to the commencement of hostilities after the 30 days had passed.
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I submit that those poor students would never have been in the "market" in the first place (or at least those who could not afford some sort of scholarship or grant).
For those too poor to go to a university right out of high school, they can enter the job market (though that's pretty tough these days) or they can start at a community college and transfer (which is significantly cheaper). Everyone has the opportunity to go to college. Some people may just have to work harder or put off going for a little while to get there.
It'll be painful to fix, much like the spending reductions we'll need to see in the US budget to fix both the deficit and the debt, but by reducing the money supply, universities will see reduced student population and will be forced to reduce tuition to stay open (or lobby for more tax dollars, which should be avoided). Essentially, it would be popping this 'higher education bubble', though we would be doing it on purpose (as opposed to the housing bubble which popped (and is still popping) on its own).
If that's where you want to learn, then it is your responsibility to make it work. You have no inherent right to attend a private school, so the government should not be involved in ensuring you have access to one. If the private institution feels that they are better off pricing you out of their education, that is their prerogative. It would be nice to have the $50EE3 car, the $1EE6 house, and the $200EE3 education, but if they're out of your means, then they're out of your means and it's your responsibility to recognize that.
Likewise, public universities should not be funded with the idea that everyone should be able to afford to go as, again, getting a bachelors is not an inherent right and I don't want my tax money wasted towards that ideal. Scholarships, grants, etc... are available for those who have the abilities but not the means. If those families who have students with neither the ability to get a scholarship, grant, etc... nor the means to afford a college education make the poor choice to assume that debt, then that is a problem solely for them and their creditors. Again, I would rather not have my tax dollars flushed down that void, thanks.
Already been stated a few times, but I'd say that this has probable been driven by very poor media coverage. It is so poor that, as someone who has had several years "exposure" (hah) and training to nuclear reactors, I physically cringe and usually change the channel (or skip the post) when the topic comes up. The "experts" they brought on early on (and continue to do so, I assume) were laughable. I specifically remember one being a journalist who had covered the industry for a couple of years. She had absolutely no idea what was going on, but tossed out the same trash that was being said elsewhere (people exposed to radiation, extremely dangerous and life threatening...CHERNOBYL! THREE MILE ISLAND! 2012!!!~!~!@~!$#@!!!). Most of the others, I vaguely remember being mostly made up of theoretical nuclear physicists, lobbyists of one persuasion or another, and people who dealt in the field of nuclear weapons. Jokes, all of them. How hard would it have been to find an SRO at a running plant to ask questions of? You know, someone how actually has a clue?
I just wish that they would at least get the verbage right so they wouldn't sound like a retard on a bad day. It's like they've never heard of the term contamination before and just use the term 'radiation' for everything.
I took a few minutes to search, but wasn't able to find it. What percentage of oil use in the US (of worldwide) is by personal vehicles? Few vehicles have tanks over 50 gallons of gas, a small fraction compared to an airliner or train or ship. I don't have any concept over how much is used on oil-fired power plants. How much of the US use is dependent on personal vehicles? How much is used in power generation? How much is used in factories?
I guess my point is, if we all stopped driving cars and started using bicycles, how much would oil consumption in the US drop?
[...] but don't complain about gas tax increases or other driving charges to pay for your highways and to keep CO2 and oil consumption under control [...] Don't complain if state/federal tax money is spent on the more efficient population centers [..].
WTF is the government doing taxing me to limit my consumption of oil and CO2 generation? Tax me to have money to keep me safe, tax me for my use of public infrastructure to help maintain it, don't tax me as a way to tell me how to spend money I earned. If people are consuming too much oil, the price will rise and people adjust to consume less of it (at some point). Who are you to tell me or the rest of us that we are consuming too much oil? Who is the government to tell me the same thing? Certainly not the Aliso Viejo municipal government.
On a related note, if these more efficient population centers have more people living there, I would expect more taxes to be spent there.
Don't forget, America is not the same as Americans. It is very hard for someone to maintain a deficit for any length of time as eventually credit gets maxed out and they can't get any loans. On the other hand, assuming a reasonable amount of debt in order to see a net reduction of spending (which is what the parent is talking about) is a reasonable goal.
I am correcting all of these price changes to account for inflation.
Say Bob is driving an SUV with oil prices as they currently are. 5 years down the road, he's seen them slowly grow to double what they are now. Assuming he maintains the same driving habits, he is now spending double on gas a year compared to what he used to be. He decides that he can't afford this. Now, he's been planning ahead since he reads /. and so can see the writing on the wall and has saved up enough money to buy a new vehicle with cash. He looks around and finds one that gets twice the gas mileage, based on his driving habits. By buying this car, he now will reduce his expenditure on gas by half, compared to if he didn't. Which means that, _in the long term_, he actually saved money by spending it (assuming his driving habits don't change).
Taking a loan out for a more efficient car may turn out to be more expensive in the short term as the payments + gas may cost more than just the gas for the old car, but once it is paid off (3-5 years) you will see benefits from the better gas mileage for the rest of the time you own that car.
Not to mention that with steam system maintenance comes pages and pages of quality assurance paperwork. Do the skimmers trust ships force to do that kind of work still, or would that be an IMA level job?
Is the steam going through it generated in the actual S/G's and so would that limit maintenance on the steam portion to nukes? I'd be pissed if I had a bunch of MIPs for coner equipment I had to maintain...though I guess that's what the electricians have to live with.
I listened to parts of it. It's about the level you'd expect from a small liberal arts college like Skidmore, about comparable to how we played in the USNA Midshipman Orchestra (which is to say, a big spectrum of ability since we took what we could get as musical ability there was definitely not a focus in terms of recruitment).
On the other hand, if you had a recording of students from, say, Curtis or Longy then you'd be hard pressed to tell that from the recording of an average professional orchestra. I'm pretty sure if musopen wanted to, given the nature of the project, institutions like those could be talked into helping for a reasonable donation.
Actually, that oil comment got me thinking. They have lots of oil, but can only extract it at a certain rate. Assuming this oil provides a significant portion of their GDP, why would they want to waste it domestically for energy production? Selling to foreign markets provides hard currency where using it domestically would only be like spinning a tire in mud?
As I recall, Canada did support D-Day at...Juno beach I believe. And they did beat off two invasions. One from the continental army in the war for independence, one from the US during the war of 1812. Hockey sticks may or may not have been involved, historians are not clear on that point.
The only difference between fuel grade and weapon grade uranium is the ratio of U-235 to U-238. All that really translates into is how much fissile uranium you have per gram of material (ie, you get more bang for your buck as the ratio favors 235). That is the only difference. Otherwise, it is still just neutrons smashing into atoms. There are many reactors today that use weapon grade uranium as fuel...hint, what reactors need to be physically small but last for a long time?
Insightful? Nope. Ignorant of the basic physics in nuclear reactors? Yep.
I know, I know, don't feed the trolls and all that.
I haven't heard anyone complaining about Iran being run by war-mongering mullah's lately...I have heard people complaining of Iran being run by war-mongering Ahmadinejad. Regardless of who his rhetoric is meant for, it is heard by the outside world and most of us as someone who speaks for Iran. If you could, please explain how violently putting down protesters is indicative of a democratic regime with checks and balances...because to me (and I am not Israeli nor do I have any connection to that country at all), it smacks of a power-hungry regime that will do anything to remain in power.
As for those observing the fuel cycle...what if Iran removes itself as a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty and removes the Russian and UN observers in a North Korean-esque move?
Those like Franken are hoping people are stupid enough to not look past the title to see what is actually in the bill and what it actually accomplishes.
You mean like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act?
Within the 2000 pages of the PPACA, we find such gems as the fact that businesses will have to file 1099s. Why is there tax legislation like that in a healthcare bill? We'll see in the coming months what got snuck into 2300 (!!) pages of the DFWSRCPA. Bonus points if you can find any congressman that thoroughly read either bill before voting yes on it.
Ancient history...there were two services that allowed quasi-battle.net like games: Kali and Kahn. I believe Kali was the original. IIRC, it was written by Jay Cotton, and you could get a registration number for $15. You would dial into one of their servers and it offered chat services and you could organize games. Kahn was something similar. It was similar to dialing into Prodigy or AOL (or Compuserve, etc...). I believe it was just an IPX-TCP/IP wrapper. Blizzard eventually released a WC2 version called War2 Battlenet Edition which brought it into a more "modern" age and allowed playing over the internet as we know it.
Looks like an alternative to SeaClear, thanks for the link!
IAAOS (I am an offshore sailor)...
When offshore, there are long (loooong) stretches where you can just sit down and focus on something else. Assuming this boat would have other amenities such as weatherfax, AIS, radar, GPS and auto-helm (which most blue-water cruising boats do have these days, btw), there could be days and days at a time where someone sailing single-handed would be able to do work for as long as desired with the occasional glance around the horizon for bad weather or ships.
And if you sail with a crew (ie, wife), they can take care of everything while you work.
Not that I disagree that safe sailing requires constant monitoring, but that becomes second nature pretty quick. After sufficient time on and around boats, you get a feel for when things change even if you aren't paying constant attention. When the wind changes or shifts, the boat feels and acts differently. If a storm closes in on you, the wave state may begin picking up and the barometric pressure will drop (something that can actually be felt). Any competent sailor keeps those little things like that in the back of his mind even if his attention is focused elsewhere.
"I dont need to memorize every equation known the man. If I'm doing work... I look up the equation. Why then are the grades in school dependant on my remembering the equations?"
Getting my degree in aero/astro, my instructors emphasized understanding the equations vice memorizing them. I think pretty much every upper division course allowed us a page or two for an equation sheet. The trick was that the test questions would require you to understand the principles of what the equation was saying, so it generally wasn't just plug and chug (and if it was, easy points).
There are some fundamentals that need to be memorized (F=d(mv)/dt, h=r X v, v=ir), but beyond that, rote memorization of something like the Transport Theorem, Laplace Transforms, or the derivation of the two-body equation is ridiculous, and would be indicative of a poorly run class.
Have you been through bootcamp? Fortunately I was one of the last few to go through REAL navy basic back at the turn of the century, before these new-fangled barracks popped up and this new battle stations building thingamajig came out.
I also had the good fortune of being a member of the last REAL plebe summer at the US Naval Academy before they put air conditioning in Bancroft Hall (WTF?!!!).
In basic we did a little PT, a bit more marching. It was enough to get through the physical tests...especially since the policy then was that every attempt counted (talking about push-ups and sit-ups). We also got beat down by the RDCs (think drill sergeants) quite a bit. That probably helped the most.
Plebe summer was 5 days a week of 90 minutes of PT at 5 in the morning which, as a skinny, out of shape 20-something, destroyed me every time. But damned if it didn't get me in shape. Add in another 6 days of whatever sport we chose in the afternoon for a few hours and chopping all around the hallway (knees up and moving at a rapid pace) and that really helped strength and endurance.
Really, emulating the video workouts on something like the P90X routine (which quite a few formerly fatty friends swear by) would be much, much more beneficial than doing DDR for an hour.
Motivation in the situation we're talking about (basic training) is effectively provided externally, believe it or not. Those that can't deal with it should be shown the door after given a few weeks to acclimate to how much life sucks during these times...not everyone is cut out for military service, and part of boot camp is identifying those people and weeding them out. There's nothing wrong with that.
"Fifth, do you honestly believe that any of these people believe that the rest of their careers as soldiers will literally be spent playing DDR and Wii Fit? Not even the dumbest recruit would be THAT stupid, so it's a non-argument."
Yes, absolutely there are. I know and have worked with people that stupid. They tend to work the hardest and have the best attitude, though. Regardless, it is actually a fair argument to make. Seriously, not joking.
"To sum it up - you can't just go the full monty and expect it to work. You need to build people up, and that journey starts with a first step. Like it or not, that's the way reality works."
The first step of the journey is breaking them down. The arrival by bus and immediate searching of all luggage by the MAs, spending the night getting in-processed, hair buzzed, everything issued, taking a short nap sitting cross-legged on the floor with your head on your sea-bag in front of you, getting up before dawn and marching all over the place...I could go on and on. Those are immediate interruptions of your prior routine. It shocks the body and the mind and makes you pliable for a short period as well as teaching you to work with, essentially, strangers as you all cope with this new, terrible, de-spiriting new turn all your lives have taken. It provides a common low point for everyone to look back on and say "well, as terrible as things seem right now, at least I'm not back in boot camp".
Personally, I think the change would be ridiculous. But as long as new sailors are produced that'll have the mental and physical strength to literally drag me out of a burning compartment or jump in rapidly rising water to help slap on a band-it kit or whatnot, and will be able to sit at their panels and do their jobs when being chased down by a torpedo or during a jam dive or some other doomsday scenario then that's all I really care about. I don't see learning to be brave by playing DDR.
So...if I was one of the guys running one of the aforementioned plants in the Navy, should I consider myself a contractor or a government employee?
Beer and slashdot don't mix. Their->There (x2)
Another contributing factor to losing out to the soviets was the issue of overflight rights. At the time, we had been sending spy planes to take pictures of soviet territory (despite their objections). Since satellites would be flying over foreign countries, the issue of satellite overflight rights had to be decided (especially so we could use them to spy on the sovs). The US had two options: get their first (with the glory of being first), and hope that their were no foreign objections. After an orbit or two, the issue would be settled much like the right of free passage in the ocean. The second option was to let the soviets get their first and not bring the issue up. The latter option provided the easiest route.
I'm not saying Vanguard rockets were sabotaged, but it may have slowed down the acquisition bureaucracy enough to give the USSR the edge.
Only stuck in LEO in terms of manned missions...we send autonomous to other planets fairly regularly. The theoretical knowledge is well-known, the technical skill is also available. What are we missing in terms of having to go through a learning curve?
Optical sensors would be pretty useless for collision avoidance when under water. Try taking underwater pictures using a camera at 50 feet to get a feel for the distance you can see something. Now, take that distance and imagine two WWII aircraft carriers going, say, 5 knots on a collision course suddenly seeing each other at this point. While turning, all ships have something called advance and transfer where advance is the distance on the original course a ship travels during the turn and the transfer is the distance a ship travels in the final course during a turn. There is also serious lag time between a rudder order and the beginning of movement when driving at slow speed.
To toss some numbers in there, lets say we have a wambodyne optical sensor that will see something at 100 yds at a depth of 100 feet. with a 10 knot closure speed, that will give both boats 20 seconds to maneuver prior to collision. So that means 20 seconds for the following: Joe watchstander manning this sensor says "OOD, Contact on optical sensor, range 100 yards, narrow angle on the bow!", the OOD would then respond: "Helm, right hard rudder!" or "Helm, All back emergency!" On receipt of the rudder order, the helmsman would then have to physically move the rudder, and then the ship would take some time before beginning to turn. For the speed order, the helmsman would have to ring up the bell on the engine order telegraph, and then watchstanders in the engineroom would need time to get done what they need to get done. Getting the reports and orders out, for a good watch team, could be done in 5 seconds or so, leaving a whole 15 seconds to move however many thousands of tons those ships are.
And don't forget: if using optics would be advantageous to have when driving slowly, subs would wander around with their periscopes up while under water...
I imagine they have in-house beta people specifically trying to break the game. The public beta tests have traditionally been more for balance purposes. The 'room full of monkeys' effect of public betas do find some glitches but, imho, balance is the important thing for them.
Per UN Security Council Resolution 1441, Iraq was in material breach of the terms agreed in the ceasefire from the previous war and subsequent resolutions. They were given 30 days to comply with the resolution under the threat of "serious consequences". This resolution was unanimously passed by the UN Security Council prior to the commencement of hostilities after the 30 days had passed.
Not quite an illegal war.