Yeah, I was surprised at the low-yield nukes, too, used in nuclear artillery and, my favorite, the nuclear land mine (intended to destroy tunnels, not to be run over). The Brookings Institute did a recent study of the total cost of the nuclear weapons program from Manhattan to now (~$5+ trillion?) and details the number and types of weapons and tests at different times. Look for it on their site.
One reason for the baby nukes suggested was the Army's desire for a piece of the nuclear pie; the armed services can be very competitive. The Army can't use the big yields very well, so little weapons were developed less than one kiloton. I think they backed off a while ago. Ground nukes also offered a risk of escalation in the face of advancing troops, when a use-it-or-lose-it situation could appear. Similar criticisms were made of forward placement of the Pershing missile in Western Europe IIRC.
Well, thanks for taking the time to explain yourself at length, and sign your name to it.
Yes, I made a mistake, I thought I conceded that. Too subtle. Yes, the Manhatten Project guy made a mistake, which I commented on in a throwaway joking line in a comment that went on to talk about the stuff I really thought interesting. Someone else mentioned the spelling error several posts earlier. As you perceive, I really wanted to talk about explosive yield, but it took several posts before interesting comments on that emerged; so I wish I'd left the first line out.
Reread my note. Of course I was saying typos in a post aren't very important. They're not, and I wasn't commenting on a post in the first place, but someone's splash page for a serious, official website.
This discussion really got going because I played along with the critics, and they didn't get it, even when I stuck in one of those smileys. I don't feel like a victim, I feel bad for getting a bunch of people stirred up over something I don't even care about. I can also be as stubborn as anyone.
While some of them admittedly do contain good content, many of them appear to contain showy philosophy, pedantry, or accounts of his many, many, many, many fields of expertise.
FWIW, I don't make stuff up, and do have an unusual resume -- only three manys, though. Thanks for the partial compliment, and I'll try not to be showy or pedantic -- or chatty. Peace?
Thanks. IIRC the most recent reason the incident was revisited came was the 1997 (?) pardon by President Clinton of one of the last living vets of the "mutiny." One of his better pardons.
Good point. I really don't know what was in most WWII bombs, though I assumed they were relatively primitive. Any thoughts on how TNT was chosen as the yardstick for nuclear bombs?
I, too, wish people would read for content rather than details and distractions. All too often the meaning of what they're reading floats on by. Here, for example.
When I remarked, "Note that your second sentence is a fragment -- and, worse, is complete nonsense," the first part was consciously snide, the second the point. See, it's mocking irony, in response to a patronizing post by a wannabe expert. You're now doing the same by assuming I'm unfamiliar with modern usage and require tedious correction on a tedious point.
Got it? No, you didn't, because you fell victim to pendantry.
A fair number more were killed in the massive Tokyo firebombing. I'm pretty sure they were abandoned in their cells to die. Many POW's were killed in the American attacks on Japanese shipping, presumably with American awareness of at least the risk.
There was also a proven concern that the Japanese would execute their POW's upon an American invasion. Extracting the Allies in Hiroshima would have been tricky one way or the other.
Tragic though that anyone died there. War against civilians is a paticularly filthy business.
There have, to be picky, been instances of the U.S. targeting its own people. Kent State comes to mind, not a whole lot less. It's tough to figure out what to call the Civil War.
Hypocrisy is no bar to valid criticism, and to call someone a hypocrite is not a counterargument. Besides, who's being the petty scold here?
Poor spelling is like ketchup on a tie -- not terribly important, but neither is it a good sign. If a writer didn't bother to go back and polish the little things, what else did they skimp on? Internet posts are far less formal and not worth extensive proofreading.
Note that your second sentence is a fragment -- and, worse, is complete nonsense.
I was sure the incident sounded familiar, but not for the reason stated.
Port Chicago is known as a tragedy and milestone in race relations in the U.S. military, which was segregated throughout WWII. Here is the Navy account, not bad in its honesty.
"The explosion at Port Chicago accounted for fifteen percent of all African-American casualties of World War II." Some 320 people were killed instantly, nearly all of them black. The ordnance loaders were a black unit. Hundreds of the survivors refused to return to work after the accident without safety changes. A couple hundred were summarily court-martialed, and 50 more were tried for mutiny with a possible death sentence.
The incident drew a great deal of attention, again not for allegedly being nuclear, and mau have factored into President Truman's historic integration of the military.
This may not be a technological angle, but it does emphasize that poor safety practice with conventional explosives caused the disaster, as I suggested in an earlier post.
Funny, isn't it, that the U.S. blowing up "its own people" is considered orders of magnitude worse than it blowing up other people? We do the latter from time to time, sometimes with regret.
We do apply a similar rule to other leaders; it is also thought reprehensible that Saddam Hussein used poison gas on "his own people," although I seriously doubt he consider the Kurds his people, or vice versa.
I don't think the U.S. would kill its own people deliberately, as least not often and outside of certain wars, but have noted a willingness to allow some to die by neglect. There's another odd distinction.
It's kind of like the moral repugnancy of someone killing their own family, though many of us are aware family might be the most tempting to kill. Not our families, mind you -- other people killing their own families.
I know it's consider incorrect around here to comment on spelling, but the author begins to lose credibility when he misspells "Manhattan Project" on his front page.
One observation is that many people are slow to draw the connection between nuclear and ordinary explosives because today's nuclear yields are so high. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki each had raw explosive power of around 10 kilotons each (the Nagasaki plutonium bomb was a good deal more powerful than the U-235 Hiroshima bomb, but because of inaccurate placement inflicted about half the damage). Nuclear explosions are worse for human life by heat and gamma radiation, but otherwise this tonnage could realistically be delivered by aircraft by conventional explosives or, in equivalent destructive terms, by firebomb bombardment such as had leveled most of Tokyo and Dresden.
So there was some resistance at the time to focusing on the nuclear program when waves of 1,000 B-29's delivering 10 tons each could do the same task with proven technology. In another parallel, some estimates are that the "$3 Billion Dollar Gamble" B-29 may have cost more to develop and build than the bomb!
Also, all large explosions assume the familiar mushroom cloud appearance.
I don't address at all the propriety of dropping "the bomb," just the reasons a conventional explosion might be mistaken for one.
The Audi 5000 debacle, mentioned by another poster was never fully resolved. Audi did have some defective transmissions, but just a few. The main factor appears to have been nonstandard pedal placement, such that someone going for the brake would hit the accelerator and go into a nightmare feedback loop, esp. because the Audis tended to idle high. IMHO the driver error was not continuing to press the accelerator down so much as shifting into gear without a foot on the brake; and the fundamental error was Audi's varying the pedal layout and not including an interlock preventing changing gears inless the brake was depressed (are these pretty much standard now?). Blaming to drivers -- and worse a cheesy sexist slur -- doesn't tell the complete story.
Search the web, there is a ton of info.
It is odd how all the worlds secrets are known only to a few impossibly inarticulate jackasses.
That's because the United Nations world gov't assimilates or murders the credible ones. Hear that knock at your door? Better answer it...
I don't mean to sound too severe, just to explain the "why" of the preflight. The kind of car accident you envision is not the sort a predrive could catch. Also, there are the little things -- I can't count how many (often humorous) accident reports turned on failure to preflight, like the taildragger pilot who didn't notice the stick in the rear was tied back and went up-then-down in a very abrupt and short flight. (Not hurt; that would ruin the fun.)
VFR? Boring. IFR with lightning and ice flying off the prop, much better. (Kidding, though it is more stimulating.):-) But flying is not inherently dangerous... or inherently safe. It is neat.
Insurance companies do compete on price, at least with the better risks. Who doesn't shop for insurance on price? Or hasn't heard those infernal Geico or Progressive ads?
No, I don't like insurance companies. Nor do I like insurance fraud. I used to do medical imaging, and a surprising number of people who'd had accidents openly shared that they hoped to cash in on minor injuries. I guess the theory is that I've been paying for everyone else to do it, now's my turn. A lawyer friend said it used to be that people would come in with injury claims, tell him the details, and he'd tell them what he thought it was worth. Now they argue with him... "My brother-in-law got XXX for such-and-such!"
Hmmm.. aren't there some "if you see X and can help, you must help" laws on some books? I vaguely recall some case where someone got in legal shit for not calling the cops when they witnessed -- wtf was it, someone shooting someone else? something like that. You're the lawyer, YOU go look it up:)
"No duty to rescue" is probably the #1 issue that pisses off first-year law students. By the time you're a third year you wouldn't care.:) yes, there are a couple of laws (NH? VT?), but they carry minimal penalties and I think are rarely enforced. Fortunately, few people act like this, and in any event all have to be careful they didn't do something to bring about the predicament. Oh, and to be complete, you do have to rescue someone you have a special duty to, like your child or prisoner or whatever.
I'd wonder about this Frex fellow too, except his full name is For Example:)
Well, then I'd be even more afraid of him.
[reads Palsgraf] Argh. My brain hurts. I'm gonna sue you for negligent infliction of pain and suffering.
No, you mean intentional infliction of emotional distress, and your claim is a nonstarter, else hundreds of thousands of law students would be suing their instructors. You're going to need some work....
Dude, the vast majority of sexual harassment lawsuits are bogus.
Source? I don't buy "vast majority" without numbers.
Anyway, again, I appreciate the risk of misuse and abuse, but not people saying they should destroy their records to avoid getting tagged for what they did do.
You can be forced to produce most recorded information (save what is privileged) or to testify (except not to incriminate yourself in a criminal proceeding, or to reveal what is privileged). Either kind of evidence can be falsified, by forgery or perjury. The kind of trouble you describe is that your records might make it more difficult to lie. I'm not too sympathetic.
On the other hand, where it can be a problem is when the records are misunderstood or misused. That is bad.
People from President Nixon to Oliver North to these stock analysts have been nailed by their own records.
However, many employers keep on archiving because they know these records can protect them as defendants, and they may even hope to be honest.
I am a flight instructor, CFII, about 2000 hours. You may psychologically feel more comfortable in the air, but that's exactly the attitude that can set you up for a big disappointment.
Well, the circumstances are much different. With an airplane, land with a flat tire and you may die. With an airplane, run out of gas and you may die. Car drivers can meet the same fate, but it's a whole lot less likely, and they usually take fewer people with them.
There's an old expression: "Aviation is not in itself inherently dangerous. But to an even greater extent than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity, or neglect."
[... or re Air Traffic Control, "What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies. If ATC screws up, the pilot dies."]
I looked at some of the links and see no evidence. The tags look prototype, and annyway there's no way to connect my tires to me without the serial numbers having been recorded and connected. My mechanic is much too nice to do that. Moreover, I don't see why they'd go to all this trouble to track me when I already have a chip in my brain.
Seriously, 90% of the foregoing is conspiracy claptrap. The remaining 10% is interesting but not yet reality. But where the writer lacks evidence he or she conveniently flashes "TOP SECRET."
For the record, the problem with Audi was more complex than female (read: incompetent) drivers. Even if the driver was stomping on the accelerator, there's a good question why it rarely happened in the Audi 5000 and not others Audis, or cars in general. Small minds don't bother themselves with these questions.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I was surprised at the low-yield nukes, too, used in nuclear artillery and, my favorite, the nuclear land mine (intended to destroy tunnels, not to be run over). The Brookings Institute did a recent study of the total cost of the nuclear weapons program from Manhattan to now (~$5+ trillion?) and details the number and types of weapons and tests at different times. Look for it on their site.
One reason for the baby nukes suggested was the Army's desire for a piece of the nuclear pie; the armed services can be very competitive. The Army can't use the big yields very well, so little weapons were developed less than one kiloton. I think they backed off a while ago. Ground nukes also offered a risk of escalation in the face of advancing troops, when a use-it-or-lose-it situation could appear. Similar criticisms were made of forward placement of the Pershing missile in Western Europe IIRC.
Well, thanks for taking the time to explain yourself at length, and sign your name to it.
Yes, I made a mistake, I thought I conceded that. Too subtle. Yes, the Manhatten Project guy made a mistake, which I commented on in a throwaway joking line in a comment that went on to talk about the stuff I really thought interesting. Someone else mentioned the spelling error several posts earlier. As you perceive, I really wanted to talk about explosive yield, but it took several posts before interesting comments on that emerged; so I wish I'd left the first line out.
Reread my note. Of course I was saying typos in a post aren't very important. They're not, and I wasn't commenting on a post in the first place, but someone's splash page for a serious, official website.
This discussion really got going because I played along with the critics, and they didn't get it, even when I stuck in one of those smileys. I don't feel like a victim, I feel bad for getting a bunch of people stirred up over something I don't even care about. I can also be as stubborn as anyone.
While some of them admittedly do contain good content, many of them appear to contain showy philosophy, pedantry, or accounts of his many, many, many, many fields of expertise.
FWIW, I don't make stuff up, and do have an unusual resume -- only three manys, though. Thanks for the partial compliment, and I'll try not to be showy or pedantic -- or chatty. Peace?
Thanks. IIRC the most recent reason the incident was revisited came was the 1997 (?) pardon by President Clinton of one of the last living vets of the "mutiny." One of his better pardons.
Good point. I really don't know what was in most WWII bombs, though I assumed they were relatively primitive. Any thoughts on how TNT was chosen as the yardstick for nuclear bombs?
There's a big difference between a demonstration and the armed seizure of a military installation.
;-)
Now, which was which?
I wasn't really comparing, just casting about for ideas. Civilians clearly suffered a great deal in the course of the Civil War, for better or worse.
Good one! :) But you see, my point was to criticize a critic, not be a pedant or set an example. And I was successful, on the second half anyway.
I, too, wish people would read for content rather than details and distractions. All too often the meaning of what they're reading floats on by. Here, for example.
When I remarked, "Note that your second sentence is a fragment -- and, worse, is complete nonsense," the first part was consciously snide, the second the point. See, it's mocking irony, in response to a patronizing post by a wannabe expert. You're now doing the same by assuming I'm unfamiliar with modern usage and require tedious correction on a tedious point.
Got it? No, you didn't, because you fell victim to pendantry.
A fair number more were killed in the massive Tokyo firebombing. I'm pretty sure they were abandoned in their cells to die. Many POW's were killed in the American attacks on Japanese shipping, presumably with American awareness of at least the risk.
There was also a proven concern that the Japanese would execute their POW's upon an American invasion. Extracting the Allies in Hiroshima would have been tricky one way or the other.
Tragic though that anyone died there. War against civilians is a paticularly filthy business.
There have, to be picky, been instances of the U.S. targeting its own people. Kent State comes to mind, not a whole lot less. It's tough to figure out what to call the Civil War.
You make far too much of far too little.
Hypocrisy is no bar to valid criticism, and to call someone a hypocrite is not a counterargument. Besides, who's being the petty scold here?
Poor spelling is like ketchup on a tie -- not terribly important, but neither is it a good sign. If a writer didn't bother to go back and polish the little things, what else did they skimp on? Internet posts are far less formal and not worth extensive proofreading.
Note that your second sentence is a fragment -- and, worse, is complete nonsense.
If you really were smart you'd have known that 66666 is an invalid ZIP. See usps.gov. :P
When I lived in Chicago I learned the nickname for Scary, Indiana, which i believe led the state and even Chicago in murders.
I was sure the incident sounded familiar, but not for the reason stated.
Port Chicago is known as a tragedy and milestone in race relations in the U.S. military, which was segregated throughout WWII. Here is the Navy account, not bad in its honesty.
"The explosion at Port Chicago accounted for fifteen percent of all African-American casualties of World War II." Some 320 people were killed instantly, nearly all of them black. The ordnance loaders were a black unit. Hundreds of the survivors refused to return to work after the accident without safety changes. A couple hundred were summarily court-martialed, and 50 more were tried for mutiny with a possible death sentence.
The incident drew a great deal of attention, again not for allegedly being nuclear, and mau have factored into President Truman's historic integration of the military.
This may not be a technological angle, but it does emphasize that poor safety practice with conventional explosives caused the disaster, as I suggested in an earlier post.
Oh, fie on you. It's not like I'm getting paid for this!
:)
Note that spelling was a minor point, not the only point.
Besides, even people in glass houses can throw stones accurately.
Funny, isn't it, that the U.S. blowing up "its own people" is considered orders of magnitude worse than it blowing up other people? We do the latter from time to time, sometimes with regret.
We do apply a similar rule to other leaders; it is also thought reprehensible that Saddam Hussein used poison gas on "his own people," although I seriously doubt he consider the Kurds his people, or vice versa.
I don't think the U.S. would kill its own people deliberately, as least not often and outside of certain wars, but have noted a willingness to allow some to die by neglect. There's another odd distinction.
It's kind of like the moral repugnancy of someone killing their own family, though many of us are aware family might be the most tempting to kill. Not our families, mind you -- other people killing their own families.
I know it's consider incorrect around here to comment on spelling, but the author begins to lose credibility when he misspells "Manhattan Project" on his front page.
One observation is that many people are slow to draw the connection between nuclear and ordinary explosives because today's nuclear yields are so high. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki each had raw explosive power of around 10 kilotons each (the Nagasaki plutonium bomb was a good deal more powerful than the U-235 Hiroshima bomb, but because of inaccurate placement inflicted about half the damage). Nuclear explosions are worse for human life by heat and gamma radiation, but otherwise this tonnage could realistically be delivered by aircraft by conventional explosives or, in equivalent destructive terms, by firebomb bombardment such as had leveled most of Tokyo and Dresden.
So there was some resistance at the time to focusing on the nuclear program when waves of 1,000 B-29's delivering 10 tons each could do the same task with proven technology. In another parallel, some estimates are that the "$3 Billion Dollar Gamble" B-29 may have cost more to develop and build than the bomb!
Also, all large explosions assume the familiar mushroom cloud appearance.
I don't address at all the propriety of dropping "the bomb," just the reasons a conventional explosion might be mistaken for one.
The Audi 5000 debacle, mentioned by another poster was never fully resolved. Audi did have some defective transmissions, but just a few. The main factor appears to have been nonstandard pedal placement, such that someone going for the brake would hit the accelerator and go into a nightmare feedback loop, esp. because the Audis tended to idle high. IMHO the driver error was not continuing to press the accelerator down so much as shifting into gear without a foot on the brake; and the fundamental error was Audi's varying the pedal layout and not including an interlock preventing changing gears inless the brake was depressed (are these pretty much standard now?). Blaming to drivers -- and worse a cheesy sexist slur -- doesn't tell the complete story.
:)
Search the web, there is a ton of info.
It is odd how all the worlds secrets are known only to a few impossibly inarticulate jackasses.
That's because the United Nations world gov't assimilates or murders the credible ones. Hear that knock at your door? Better answer it...
See, I'm not always serious.
I don't mean to sound too severe, just to explain the "why" of the preflight. The kind of car accident you envision is not the sort a predrive could catch. Also, there are the little things -- I can't count how many (often humorous) accident reports turned on failure to preflight, like the taildragger pilot who didn't notice the stick in the rear was tied back and went up-then-down in a very abrupt and short flight. (Not hurt; that would ruin the fun.)
:-) But flying is not inherently dangerous ... or inherently safe. It is neat.
VFR? Boring. IFR with lightning and ice flying off the prop, much better. (Kidding, though it is more stimulating.)
Insurance companies do compete on price, at least with the better risks. Who doesn't shop for insurance on price? Or hasn't heard those infernal Geico or Progressive ads?
... "My brother-in-law got XXX for such-and-such!"
No, I don't like insurance companies. Nor do I like insurance fraud. I used to do medical imaging, and a surprising number of people who'd had accidents openly shared that they hoped to cash in on minor injuries. I guess the theory is that I've been paying for everyone else to do it, now's my turn. A lawyer friend said it used to be that people would come in with injury claims, tell him the details, and he'd tell them what he thought it was worth. Now they argue with him
Address all correspondence and service of process to:
Douwe, Cheatum, & Howe
123 Gotohell Plaza
Gary, Indiana 66666
Include your name, address, and $1000.
Hmmm.. aren't there some "if you see X and can help, you must help" laws on some books? I vaguely recall some case where someone got in legal shit for not calling the cops when they witnessed -- wtf was it, someone shooting someone else? something like that. You're the lawyer, YOU go look it up :)
:) yes, there are a couple of laws (NH? VT?), but they carry minimal penalties and I think are rarely enforced. Fortunately, few people act like this, and in any event all have to be careful they didn't do something to bring about the predicament. Oh, and to be complete, you do have to rescue someone you have a special duty to, like your child or prisoner or whatever.
:)
"No duty to rescue" is probably the #1 issue that pisses off first-year law students. By the time you're a third year you wouldn't care.
I'd wonder about this Frex fellow too, except his full name is For Example
Well, then I'd be even more afraid of him.
[reads Palsgraf] Argh. My brain hurts. I'm gonna sue you for negligent infliction of pain and suffering.
No, you mean intentional infliction of emotional distress, and your claim is a nonstarter, else hundreds of thousands of law students would be suing their instructors. You're going to need some work....
Dude, the vast majority of sexual harassment lawsuits are bogus.
Source? I don't buy "vast majority" without numbers.
Anyway, again, I appreciate the risk of misuse and abuse, but not people saying they should destroy their records to avoid getting tagged for what they did do.
You can be forced to produce most recorded information (save what is privileged) or to testify (except not to incriminate yourself in a criminal proceeding, or to reveal what is privileged). Either kind of evidence can be falsified, by forgery or perjury. The kind of trouble you describe is that your records might make it more difficult to lie. I'm not too sympathetic.
On the other hand, where it can be a problem is when the records are misunderstood or misused. That is bad.
People from President Nixon to Oliver North to these stock analysts have been nailed by their own records.
However, many employers keep on archiving because they know these records can protect them as defendants, and they may even hope to be honest.
I am a flight instructor, CFII, about 2000 hours. You may psychologically feel more comfortable in the air, but that's exactly the attitude that can set you up for a big disappointment.
Well, the circumstances are much different. With an airplane, land with a flat tire and you may die. With an airplane, run out of gas and you may die. Car drivers can meet the same fate, but it's a whole lot less likely, and they usually take fewer people with them.
There's an old expression: "Aviation is not in itself inherently dangerous. But to an even greater extent than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity, or neglect."
[... or re Air Traffic Control, "What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies. If ATC screws up, the pilot dies."]
Why do I not see these goofs even with preview?
why it rarely happened in the Audi 5000 and not others Audis, or cars in general
should be:
why it happened in the Audi 5000 and rarely other Audis, or cars in general
Just in case someone gets confused. And someone will.
And this isn't a troll or off-topic because .....?
I looked at some of the links and see no evidence. The tags look prototype, and annyway there's no way to connect my tires to me without the serial numbers having been recorded and connected. My mechanic is much too nice to do that. Moreover, I don't see why they'd go to all this trouble to track me when I already have a chip in my brain.
Seriously, 90% of the foregoing is conspiracy claptrap. The remaining 10% is interesting but not yet reality. But where the writer lacks evidence he or she conveniently flashes "TOP SECRET."
For the record, the problem with Audi was more complex than female (read: incompetent) drivers. Even if the driver was stomping on the accelerator, there's a good question why it rarely happened in the Audi 5000 and not others Audis, or cars in general. Small minds don't bother themselves with these questions.
(Now watch -- I'll be called the troll here)