A cell phone adapter was released in Japan for the Game Boy Color, and Pokemon Crystal was the pilot game to use it. I think one of the things keeping such devices being released in the states is our hodge-podge cellular networks.
What do you mean "most you can actually obtain?" In that time frame or ever?
My personal best is around 1:52 with 100% of the items. I suppose I could cut that down quite a bit shorter if I didn't go for all the items (especially in Crateria), but I'd rather get my time down while still getting all the times?
"has extremely low radar-cross section, very quiet engines, improved guidance systems and somewhat longer range than the earlier ALCM (about 3,000 km or 1,863 miles)."
The Atlantic Ocean at its narrowest seems to be around 2200 miles, but I don't think Sierra Leone will be involved in a shooting war with Brazil any time soon. It's about twice that to get from Portugal to Maine, similar to the distance from Pyongyang to Anchorage. From Pyongyang to Honolulu seems to be ~6500 miles.
In other words, you're still going to need a delivery system.
"With ACM, Soviet ground detection radars would be rendered obselete,"
Like the ones that helped shoot down an F-117 over Belgrade?
"and its very low noise signature meant ACM could also avoid detection by noise sensors, too."
No mention of thermal signature, which is the Achilles Heel of many aircraft (something the Soviets learned the hard way in Afghanistan).
"there is talk of restarting AGM-129 production with a conventional unitary or cluster muntion warhead version assisted by GPS guidance that will allow the older ALCM to be phased out."
With all these bells and whistles, who's going to pay for it? After all, we won't be shooting at anybody with anything resembling technological parity any time soon.
At any rate, this is all moot. It still flies like an airplane and therefore is still as vulnerable as an airplane. Giving something an ECM advantage doesn't make it physically impossible to shoot down (I reference the F-117 again). On the other hand, until SDI and/or ABL pan out, putting something on a fast ballistic trajectory does.
Cruise missiles do not fly intercontinental distances, at least no sane designs intended to carry thermonuclear warheads. And while they're nowhere near as visible as missiles coming in on a ballistic arc, they are very slow (compared to spacebourne weapons) and simple for conventional anti-air defenses to hit. Realistic nuclear cruise missiles are tactical weapons designed hundreds of miles at best, and even then require some sort of air superiority in the target zone and/or an undetected firing platform (such as a nuclear submarine). And this says nothing of the required technology base to build one.
Stratiegic Defense Initiative is intended to take out stratiegic nuclear weapons, the ones that are designed to cross oceans. And the only realistic way to get a missle to fly over oceans (without a fleet of B-52s hovering just outside the target's borders) is to lob them over a sub-orbital arc. These weapons are essentially in free-fall as soon as the boosters fall away, which happens well before the warhead crosses the target's horizon.
"but I'd assume any country capable of launching nukes from a distance could setup the missiles to fly erratic flight plans."
Consider the decades of time between the development of ICBMs and cruise missiles. And again, these missiles would have trouble crossing the Atlantic Ocean, let alone the Pacific. What are these missiles going to do, hook up to a refuelling jet two or three times during its flight?
The focus on stopping ballistic missiles is both because such missiles are the easiest to build (remember that ballistic missiles were used in WWII) and the most difficult to stop. Any other form of delivery can be stopped by conventional means.
"But what do I know, im just a geography nerd looking for anonymous lesbian three-ways"
Speaking as someone who went to my state's geography bee finals (many many years ago), trust me: It doesn't help. All it does do is help you get the blue piece of the pie in Trivial Pursuit.
"(B)ut to immediately jump into a hot political topic like the SDI star wars system and then vastly overgeneralize it with "It'll never work, because it relies on computers" shouldn't have any place in this story."
"Of course you still can't do anything with it and there is no DNS support and nobody seems to have a transition plan worth a damn, but you cannot blame Microsoft."
Yeah! Microsoft won't upgrade their DNS software until there's a new version of BIND (for some unrelated reason)!
"Only ancient servers use os/2 to run legacy apps."
If they're ancient, that means they have no apparent need to upgrade.
"I would be very supprised if any drivers for modern hardware are included."
Um... what kind of "modern hardware" would you need to put on a reliable server? IEEE 1394 controller? AGP graphics? If it works and does what it's supposed to, why "fix" it?
"It seems weird to use the old os2api's and the only software for os/2 is java enabled or maybe some ports of OSS."
If the software continues to work and do what it is supposed to, why do you need it to run "new" apps? Hell, unlike all of its competitors, OS/2 Warp 4 hasn't even reached its EOL yet.
"I would pick FreeBSD or Linux over this thank you."
Because why let your employer rely on IBM and their ilk to maintain the software when you can lock yourself into the position instead? Nothing like job security, hm? After all, I don't see you suggesting a commercial flavor of *nix there...
"You can never predict how the attack with occur."
No, I'd have to say that a ballistic flight path is very predictable, and have been for several centuries (in spite of what Pope Urban has to say). At worst they can try decoys, which can only be so effective when you're trying to hide in a vacuum against a black background.
"Instead at best you do tests over the ocean."
Over a patch of ocean bigger than the United States, and not giving the interceptor any prior knowledge of the incoming arc. If the system can identify, track, and launch against incoming ballistic targets in that environment, it can do it anywhere.
"But more concerning is the fact that despite their effort they cannot pass even their minimal tests, and resort to fraud instead."
I'm sorry, at what point did they say all testing was done and that they were going ahead with full deployment? The US backed out of the ABM treaty for the stated reason that current testing was bending the rules and there was concern that further testing may violate it. We abandoned the ABM treaty to continue testing, not because testing was complete.
"We have tried, and failed."
When last I heard, the system being tested hit at least a simple majority of targets used so far.
"The whole thing is military graft -- money being sent down a pit to profit defense companies."
I'm sorry, you seem to be confusing SDI with the ISS.:)
"Yes but SDI may end up actually sending a laser beam to burn your house down. A FUCKING LASER BEAM!"
OK, Ronnie Ray-Gun, real SDI involves ground based kinetic-kill interceptors. If something goes wrong, they go "splash" in the middle of your choice of three oceans (assuming they survive re-entry intact, since they weren't designed to).
If anything, SDI would be an insurance policy against the technical problems you seem so afraid of. Unlike the US arsenal which targets the middle of an ocean, Russian missiles default to a target within the US.
"He made that statement after we said no to the extension of the inspections."
No, he made the statement after the US and UK said they were willing to extend the inspections so long as an ultimatum was stated.
"So if we'd given it to him, they may have changed their tune."
We did, they didn't.
"Every petroleum company in the world wanted the sanctions lifted so they could do business there"
Actually, there has been little US interest in Iraqi oil. While places like France have been Iraq's biggest customers during the Oil for Food program, the US only purchased a pittance here and there, just enough to say that the US was trying to feed the Iraqi children.
And why should there be much interest in Iraqi oil? It's literally half-way around the world. If the entire Middle East were to suddenly stop selling oil to the US, it would be at least 8 months for the US to notice (that's how long it takes the tankers to get here). And even then, the US doesn't buy anywhere near as much Arab oil as we do from Venezuela, Mexico or Canada (for the half of our oil we don't get from Alaska, Texas or Louisiana). They're closer, they're friendlier, and they tend not to drive truck bombs into our buildings.
"France was not the only country to supply Iraq with weapons.",
On that I agree. During the sanctions regime, it seems Russia was the big "winner" there.
"I just think it's hypocritical to try and call out French commercial interests while pretending that US interests were entirely noble,"
While the US intentions weren't entirely noble, US policy on Iraq was far less related to the oil market than either the press or public opinion seem to suggest. It's safe to say that France's policy was more decided by oil than the US, even without considering all the corruption charges pending on Chirac for his dealings with TotalFinaElf.
"one would expect Canada, which is even larger than the US, less densly populated even in its populated areas, and much so in its rural areas,"
It looks to me like Canada doesn't exactly have a homogeneous population distribution. Once you get 50 or 100 miles away from the border, Ontario and Quebec look about as empty as Alaska, and even out west you can easily see all the lights clumping around places like Calgary. Heck, looking at the US east of the Mississippi, I'd say a good chunk of the US is more homogeneously distributed than even western Europe. Even South Korea is a bit more "clumpy."
It's much easier to wire together a heterogeneous population because you just have to deal with sporadic, concentrated clumps here and there. You just need a whole bunch of short-range connections (such as DSL) with a few longer leads here and there to connect the clumps (A T-3 pipe here and there). An even distribution, on the other hand, is much trickier, requiring a whole mess of medium-to-long connections between users, where DSL doesn't reach far enough an a leased line is just way too expensive.
I'm sorry, but at first glance it doesn't look like comparisons between Canada and the US hold water.
Even ignoring the way France has vocally opposed simply continuing sanctions on Iraq for most of the 1990's, in March the US and UK proposed a compromise that would do exactly that. We were willing to extend the deadline for the use of military force as much as France would like. Chirac's response:
No conditionals of any way, shape or form. Chirac's government wasn't against the use of force "right now" or even "next month," they were opposed period and President Chirac himself said so in quite unequivocally (much like the way he told Eastern Europe to "shut up" and much like the way he stated that his stance on Iraq wouldn't harm Franco-American relations).
""The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea" Every news source outside of the US refers to it as such"
Yeah, and I suppose you're going to tell me that the abbreviation "DDR" didn't always refer to RAM either.:)
It's called "North Korea" simply as a conventional short-form of the name, much like how you would refer to "East Germany" and "West Germany" instead of DDR and BRD. "North Korea" simply has fewer syllables than "DPRK" and is similar to saying "America" and "Great Britain." Neither American continent is ruled by just one government and the island of Great Britain is a part of a larger government, but people still know what you mean.
Of course, if you really want to be technical, there is no "South Korea" either. It's the "Republic of Korea." Similarly, there is no Taiwan (even if you ignore the whole "One China Policy" thing). But who'd want to keep on reading sentences like "The United States of America borders on the United Mexican States" or "Some of the big players in Europe include the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Republic of France, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Russian Federation." About the only country I can think of whose "formal" name is the same as the informal one is Canada, and I think that's at least partly due to the fact that adding any more words to it would require two official names (one English, one French).
"First molecule to emit light when electricity is applied?"
From my understanding, it's a first because they went from electrical signal to light emission from individual molecules without any intermediary.
"That would surprise the people working on organic LEDs,"
Diodes aren't individual molecules, diodes are groups of molecules organized in a very specific way so that electricity can only flow through the group of molecules in one direction only. You're not going to get a single molecule to work like a diode without making Heisenberg angry.
"not to mention slightly older guys like Thom Edison,"
A light bulb is again something that works because it is a group of molecules. The electricity doesn't cause the molecules to emit photons directly, but instead it causes the average kinetic energy of all the molecules in the filament to increase (ie. "heats it up"). Only when these molecules have been excited do they start giving off photons. And then you have to make sure they don't come in contact with other certain molecules, like O2.
Well, it will technically be faster than electrical signals because electrical signals generally only travel around 0.6 c. Whether or not the end-user will see the difference, on the other hand, is a question of design.
Which means AMD's electricity-based chips will still be faster than any optics-based hardware Intel produces for quite a while now.:)
We've tried the whole "government encouragement" bit to an extent, except our phone companies aren't interested in having their cake if they can't eat it as well.
I expect the Baby Bells to be using this as an excuse to lobby our Congress to loosen up the Telecommunications Act of 1996 a bit...
"A liberty is a right to carry out some type of action without being obstructed by anyone else."
Ahem.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated(.)
No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law(.)
Slashdot Mirror
Probably not, but it's kinda hard to pay for a new ISP when nobody will give you a credit card.
"haven't noticed the NO WARRANTEE blurb in the MS EULA."
On the other hand, Microsoft software is "leased (not sold)," which means any damage done was done by Microsoft property.
A cell phone adapter was released in Japan for the Game Boy Color, and Pokemon Crystal was the pilot game to use it. I think one of the things keeping such devices being released in the states is our hodge-podge cellular networks.
What do you mean "most you can actually obtain?" In that time frame or ever?
My personal best is around 1:52 with 100% of the items. I suppose I could cut that down quite a bit shorter if I didn't go for all the items (especially in Crateria), but I'd rather get my time down while still getting all the times?
"has extremely low radar-cross section, very quiet engines, improved guidance systems and somewhat longer range than the earlier ALCM (about 3,000 km or 1,863 miles)."
The Atlantic Ocean at its narrowest seems to be around 2200 miles, but I don't think Sierra Leone will be involved in a shooting war with Brazil any time soon. It's about twice that to get from Portugal to Maine, similar to the distance from Pyongyang to Anchorage. From Pyongyang to Honolulu seems to be ~6500 miles.
In other words, you're still going to need a delivery system.
"With ACM, Soviet ground detection radars would be rendered obselete,"
Like the ones that helped shoot down an F-117 over Belgrade?
"and its very low noise signature meant ACM could also avoid detection by noise sensors, too."
No mention of thermal signature, which is the Achilles Heel of many aircraft (something the Soviets learned the hard way in Afghanistan).
"there is talk of restarting AGM-129 production with a conventional unitary or cluster muntion warhead version assisted by GPS guidance that will allow the older ALCM to be phased out."
With all these bells and whistles, who's going to pay for it? After all, we won't be shooting at anybody with anything resembling technological parity any time soon.
At any rate, this is all moot. It still flies like an airplane and therefore is still as vulnerable as an airplane. Giving something an ECM advantage doesn't make it physically impossible to shoot down (I reference the F-117 again). On the other hand, until SDI and/or ABL pan out, putting something on a fast ballistic trajectory does.
Cruise missiles do not fly intercontinental distances, at least no sane designs intended to carry thermonuclear warheads. And while they're nowhere near as visible as missiles coming in on a ballistic arc, they are very slow (compared to spacebourne weapons) and simple for conventional anti-air defenses to hit. Realistic nuclear cruise missiles are tactical weapons designed hundreds of miles at best, and even then require some sort of air superiority in the target zone and/or an undetected firing platform (such as a nuclear submarine). And this says nothing of the required technology base to build one.
Stratiegic Defense Initiative is intended to take out stratiegic nuclear weapons, the ones that are designed to cross oceans. And the only realistic way to get a missle to fly over oceans (without a fleet of B-52s hovering just outside the target's borders) is to lob them over a sub-orbital arc. These weapons are essentially in free-fall as soon as the boosters fall away, which happens well before the warhead crosses the target's horizon.
"but I'd assume any country capable of launching nukes from a distance could setup the missiles to fly erratic flight plans."
Consider the decades of time between the development of ICBMs and cruise missiles. And again, these missiles would have trouble crossing the Atlantic Ocean, let alone the Pacific. What are these missiles going to do, hook up to a refuelling jet two or three times during its flight?
The focus on stopping ballistic missiles is both because such missiles are the easiest to build (remember that ballistic missiles were used in WWII) and the most difficult to stop. Any other form of delivery can be stopped by conventional means.
"But thanks for the Canada bit, I guess I knew that, but it had never been made obvious to me."
Remember: The Factbook is our friend.
"But what do I know, im just a geography nerd looking for anonymous lesbian three-ways"
Speaking as someone who went to my state's geography bee finals (many many years ago), trust me: It doesn't help. All it does do is help you get the blue piece of the pie in Trivial Pursuit.
But the game will still require IPX/SPX for multiplayer support.
"(B)ut to immediately jump into a hot political topic like the SDI star wars system and then vastly overgeneralize it with "It'll never work, because it relies on computers" shouldn't have any place in this story."
Welcome to Slashdot!
"Of course you still can't do anything with it and there is no DNS support and nobody seems to have a transition plan worth a damn, but you cannot blame Microsoft."
Yeah! Microsoft won't upgrade their DNS software until there's a new version of BIND (for some unrelated reason)!
"Only ancient servers use os/2 to run legacy apps."
If they're ancient, that means they have no apparent need to upgrade.
"I would be very supprised if any drivers for modern hardware are included."
Um... what kind of "modern hardware" would you need to put on a reliable server? IEEE 1394 controller? AGP graphics? If it works and does what it's supposed to, why "fix" it?
"It seems weird to use the old os2api's and the only software for os/2 is java enabled or maybe some ports of OSS."
If the software continues to work and do what it is supposed to, why do you need it to run "new" apps? Hell, unlike all of its competitors, OS/2 Warp 4 hasn't even reached its EOL yet.
"I would pick FreeBSD or Linux over this thank you."
Because why let your employer rely on IBM and their ilk to maintain the software when you can lock yourself into the position instead? Nothing like job security, hm? After all, I don't see you suggesting a commercial flavor of *nix there...
"You can never predict how the attack with occur."
:)
No, I'd have to say that a ballistic flight path is very predictable, and have been for several centuries (in spite of what Pope Urban has to say). At worst they can try decoys, which can only be so effective when you're trying to hide in a vacuum against a black background.
"Instead at best you do tests over the ocean."
Over a patch of ocean bigger than the United States, and not giving the interceptor any prior knowledge of the incoming arc. If the system can identify, track, and launch against incoming ballistic targets in that environment, it can do it anywhere.
"But more concerning is the fact that despite their effort they cannot pass even their minimal tests, and resort to fraud instead."
I'm sorry, at what point did they say all testing was done and that they were going ahead with full deployment? The US backed out of the ABM treaty for the stated reason that current testing was bending the rules and there was concern that further testing may violate it. We abandoned the ABM treaty to continue testing, not because testing was complete.
"We have tried, and failed."
When last I heard, the system being tested hit at least a simple majority of targets used so far.
"The whole thing is military graft -- money being sent down a pit to profit defense companies."
I'm sorry, you seem to be confusing SDI with the ISS.
"Yes but SDI may end up actually sending a laser beam to burn your house down. A FUCKING LASER BEAM!"
OK, Ronnie Ray-Gun, real SDI involves ground based kinetic-kill interceptors. If something goes wrong, they go "splash" in the middle of your choice of three oceans (assuming they survive re-entry intact, since they weren't designed to).
If anything, SDI would be an insurance policy against the technical problems you seem so afraid of. Unlike the US arsenal which targets the middle of an ocean, Russian missiles default to a target within the US.
"He made that statement after we said no to the extension of the inspections."
No, he made the statement after the US and UK said they were willing to extend the inspections so long as an ultimatum was stated.
"So if we'd given it to him, they may have changed their tune."
We did, they didn't.
"Every petroleum company in the world wanted the sanctions lifted so they could do business there"
Actually, there has been little US interest in Iraqi oil. While places like France have been Iraq's biggest customers during the Oil for Food program, the US only purchased a pittance here and there, just enough to say that the US was trying to feed the Iraqi children.
And why should there be much interest in Iraqi oil? It's literally half-way around the world. If the entire Middle East were to suddenly stop selling oil to the US, it would be at least 8 months for the US to notice (that's how long it takes the tankers to get here). And even then, the US doesn't buy anywhere near as much Arab oil as we do from Venezuela, Mexico or Canada (for the half of our oil we don't get from Alaska, Texas or Louisiana). They're closer, they're friendlier, and they tend not to drive truck bombs into our buildings.
"France was not the only country to supply Iraq with weapons.",
On that I agree. During the sanctions regime, it seems Russia was the big "winner" there.
"I just think it's hypocritical to try and call out French commercial interests while pretending that US interests were entirely noble,"
While the US intentions weren't entirely noble, US policy on Iraq was far less related to the oil market than either the press or public opinion seem to suggest. It's safe to say that France's policy was more decided by oil than the US, even without considering all the corruption charges pending on Chirac for his dealings with TotalFinaElf.
"one would expect Canada, which is even larger than the US, less densly populated even in its populated areas, and much so in its rural areas,"
It looks to me like Canada doesn't exactly have a homogeneous population distribution. Once you get 50 or 100 miles away from the border, Ontario and Quebec look about as empty as Alaska, and even out west you can easily see all the lights clumping around places like Calgary. Heck, looking at the US east of the Mississippi, I'd say a good chunk of the US is more homogeneously distributed than even western Europe. Even South Korea is a bit more "clumpy."
It's much easier to wire together a heterogeneous population because you just have to deal with sporadic, concentrated clumps here and there. You just need a whole bunch of short-range connections (such as DSL) with a few longer leads here and there to connect the clumps (A T-3 pipe here and there). An even distribution, on the other hand, is much trickier, requiring a whole mess of medium-to-long connections between users, where DSL doesn't reach far enough an a leased line is just way too expensive.
I'm sorry, but at first glance it doesn't look like comparisons between Canada and the US hold water.
Even ignoring the way France has vocally opposed simply continuing sanctions on Iraq for most of the 1990's, in March the US and UK proposed a compromise that would do exactly that. We were willing to extend the deadline for the use of military force as much as France would like. Chirac's response:No conditionals of any way, shape or form. Chirac's government wasn't against the use of force "right now" or even "next month," they were opposed period and President Chirac himself said so in quite unequivocally (much like the way he told Eastern Europe to "shut up" and much like the way he stated that his stance on Iraq wouldn't harm Franco-American relations).
""The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea" Every news source outside of the US refers to it as such"
:)
Yeah, and I suppose you're going to tell me that the abbreviation "DDR" didn't always refer to RAM either.
It's called "North Korea" simply as a conventional short-form of the name, much like how you would refer to "East Germany" and "West Germany" instead of DDR and BRD. "North Korea" simply has fewer syllables than "DPRK" and is similar to saying "America" and "Great Britain." Neither American continent is ruled by just one government and the island of Great Britain is a part of a larger government, but people still know what you mean.
Of course, if you really want to be technical, there is no "South Korea" either. It's the "Republic of Korea." Similarly, there is no Taiwan (even if you ignore the whole "One China Policy" thing). But who'd want to keep on reading sentences like "The United States of America borders on the United Mexican States" or "Some of the big players in Europe include the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Republic of France, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Russian Federation." About the only country I can think of whose "formal" name is the same as the informal one is Canada, and I think that's at least partly due to the fact that adding any more words to it would require two official names (one English, one French).
"First molecule to emit light when electricity is applied?"
From my understanding, it's a first because they went from electrical signal to light emission from individual molecules without any intermediary.
"That would surprise the people working on organic LEDs,"
Diodes aren't individual molecules, diodes are groups of molecules organized in a very specific way so that electricity can only flow through the group of molecules in one direction only. You're not going to get a single molecule to work like a diode without making Heisenberg angry.
"not to mention slightly older guys like Thom Edison,"
A light bulb is again something that works because it is a group of molecules. The electricity doesn't cause the molecules to emit photons directly, but instead it causes the average kinetic energy of all the molecules in the filament to increase (ie. "heats it up"). Only when these molecules have been excited do they start giving off photons. And then you have to make sure they don't come in contact with other certain molecules, like O2.
"What is is that carbon nanotubes can't do?"
Be cheap.
Well, it will technically be faster than electrical signals because electrical signals generally only travel around 0.6 c. Whether or not the end-user will see the difference, on the other hand, is a question of design.
:)
Which means AMD's electricity-based chips will still be faster than any optics-based hardware Intel produces for quite a while now.
"thanks to government encouragement,"
We've tried the whole "government encouragement" bit to an extent, except our phone companies aren't interested in having their cake if they can't eat it as well.
I expect the Baby Bells to be using this as an excuse to lobby our Congress to loosen up the Telecommunications Act of 1996 a bit...
Yeah, DPRK is still working on "America's Twenty-Four Hours of Continuous Electricity" dream.
"A good movie to illustrate the good side of Canada is 'Bowling for Columbine'. It's one of the main reasons I'm thinking about moving."
Take Michael Moore with you. Please!
Ahem.
Except that France's position was that they would veto anything under any circumstance. No conditionals mentioning "inadequate evidence" involved.