In addition to his reading comprehension fail, AC also has a problem with numbers. This is not 50 years:
He faces a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, but in a plea deal with prosecutors both sides said a term of 24 to 30 months is appropriate at sentencing April 18 before U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss of the District.
The book "The End of Averages" by Todd Rose was misquoted First of all the exact quote from the first paragraph of the book was this:
At its worst point, seventeen pilots crashed in a single day
There is a huge difference between crashing and dying.
Anyway, he (Teimann) got the sequence of events wrong, but the general gist of what he said follows the intent of the book. The crashing planes in the study were the in the 1940's. We're talking about planes like the P-80 and possibly the F-86. That was the first generation of jets and they had many many problems in design.
Here's where the average pilot comes in. Those planes (the 1940's) had been designed for the average pilot's size as measured in 1926. The cockpit was non-adjustable, so The Army/Air Force sought pilots whose size fit the planes, but only that person who matched the average 1926 pilot would fit properly. In the highly demanding jets of the late 1940's, a pilot that didn't fit could have problems when split second control reactions were needed, and those planes needed it.
The study conducted by Lieutenant Gilbert Daniels in 1950 which examined modern average pilot sizes, was completed in 1952. The upshot of that study was that the Air Force immediately decided to take the study's recommendation: Everyone is different, and to get the maximum performance from people you adjust the environment to the soldier, not the soldier.
The Air Force immediately mandated that the manufacturers make many elements of the cockpit be adjustable for the range of sizes from 5% to 95% of men from the seats, to pedal positions, to belts, and helmet straps, and so on. The result was that pilot performance soared and the US Air Force became the most dominant air force on the planet.
The book gives other example studies and goes on to say
Any system designed around the average person is doomed to fail
This is the gist of the book and what Michael Tiemann was getting at.
Anyway, the summary implied that the generation of planes designed in the 1950's were a generation of pilot killers. The 1950's planes had the cockpit fit problems solved. The crashing planes were in the late 1940's. The study was begun in 1950. Obviously, those crashes were not combat-related. Those planes were demanding and possibly evil, and a bad-fitting cockpit made it worse.
" an example from the 1950s US Air Force where the "myth of the average resulted in a generation of planes that almost no pilots could reliably fly, and which killed as many as 17 pilots in a single day"
Did I miss the part of the story that explains HOW it managed to kill 17 pilots in one day?
The book, The End of Average by Todd Rose was misquoted. First of all the exact quote from the first paragraph of the book was this:
At its worst point, seventeen pilots crashed in a single day
There is a huge difference between crashing and dying.
Anyway, he (Teimann) got the sequence of events wrong, but the general gist of what he said follows the intent of the book. The crashing planes in the study were the in the 1940's. We're talking about planes like the P-80 and possibly the F-86. That was the first generation of jets and they had many many problems in design. Here's where the average pilot comes in. Those planes had been designed for the average pilot's size as measured in 1926. The cockpit was non-adjustable, so The Army/Air Force sought pilots whose size fit the planes, but only that person who matched the average 1926 pilot would fit properly. In the highly demanding jets of the late 1940's, a pilot that didn't fit could have problems when split second control reactions were needed, and those planes needed it.
The study conducted by Lieutenant Gilbert Daniels in 1950 which examined modern average pilot sizes, was completed in 1952. The upshot of that study was that the Air Force immediately decided to take the study's recommendation: Everyone is different, and to get the maximum performance from people you adjust the environment to the soldier, not the soldier. The Air Force immediately mandated that the manufacturers make many elements of the cockpit be adjustable for the range of sizes from 5% to 95% of men from the seats, to pedal positions, to belts, and helmet straps, and so on. The result was that pilot performance soared and the US Air Force became the most dominant air force on the planet.
The book gives other example studies and goes on to say
Any system designed around the average person is doomed to fail
This is the gist of the book and what Michael Tiemann was getting at.
Anyway, the summary implied that the generation of planes designed in the 1950's were a generation of pilot killers. This is wrong, the book said the opposite. The 1950's planes had the cockpit fit problems solved.
I've been here for a while and am mostly happy with slashdot then and now.
Some of the things I don't like are not unique to slashdot but are rather a problem inherent in forums. I don't think they can be fixed. For one thing, it's obvious to me that in recent years there are many more children/teenager trolls on slashdot than there used to be. What can be done about that? I have no idea. I know many of them will grow up, but I don't want to wait for that. It's kind of like how you know I'm going to die before you and will stop posting then, but you wish it would stop now.
I wish there could be a way to have a separate fact-checker/ research section listing links to information on some of the things that people make assertions for that keep coming up such as what the metric system is, what the first computer virus was, what and why are females, common climate change assertions, links to data on energy production, and so on. But not things like "what's the best tank in WWII" Posters could add links below the topic and a one-line comment why it's relevant. It could have it's own mod system, and someone would have to weed out the goatse links. Sure, one could use a search engine, but not really. Google/Bing is becoming almost worthless.
I think we should be able to auction off our UID's on slashdot for gold coins. The site could take a cut.
I would like some articles to be AC only with no moderation and the post time limits reduced. Look at any of the women in the workplace articles or gamergate kind of submissions. You know it's going to be a shitstorm and the moderation is just going to be revenge mods anyway. Maybe we could have a vote tab (so/. doesn't blamed) so if enough people vote "free-for-all" (or shitstorm) after 250 posts, then it all gets converted to unmodded AC with the timer limits set to 1 or 2 minutes for everyone. And maybe get thread-locked after 12 hours. What fun that would be.
Any particular reason why we couldn't allow uploaded pics, movies, etc.? It's not a text-only world--except here.
Oh no, please no no no.
Videos of what? Case mods? How to create excel macros? Exciting new products for our data center? Videos take forever to transfer information. It's annoying to have a talking head head taking 10 minutes to get across a point that anyone could have read in 30 seconds. Putting up a video instead of typing it out is lazy. Videos are for cats, porn, and marketing stooges. Anyone who has a video they think we really really need to see can just post a link to their Facebook page.
I replied and said "not everyone believes in private health insurance", and indeed the Amish are exempt from that part of the ACA, much as they are exempt from social security.
You're right about the Amish, and I pretty much agree with you except for a definition in terms. "Private health insurance" is any insurance that is not public health insurance. Public health insurance is governmental plans such as medicare, medicaid, and similar state plans.
What the Amish is doing is private health insurance. The big insurance companies would like us to believe that they're the only alternative to public health insurance, but as the Amish (and others such as self insured affinity groups) have shown, you can have your own private insurance.
I think what you meant to say is "The Amish do not believe in public health insurance".
You seem to be replying to sjbe's assertion that "everyone uses the health care system". You provided an interesting link; however, the article you linked supports sjbe's assertion that everyone uses the health care system.
While practices vary by community, most Amish fund their health care through a system that merges church aid, benefit auctions and negotiated discounts with local hospitals - promising quick cash payment in exchange for lower rates.
The man from Kinzers said his community relies on two funds. Nearly every family contributes monthly to a hospital aid fund, while large bills are also paid with free-will offerings.
Some Amish carry benefit cards, which identify them as members of a community but do not bear names or photographs, to help hospitals keep track of those discounts.
What the Amish are doing is using the public health care system and they pay for care through their own community based insurance. This is much like any other insurance company's affinity group plan except for the details of how the plan is funded.
The faster the trading, the worse the swings will get.
The SEC's investigation into the 2010 Flash Crash, came to the exact opposite conclusion: that HFTs have a stabilizing influence on markets by providing liquidity. One of the reasons for the crash was that when prices moved outside of the expected range, many HFTers stopped trading, and the resulting drop in liquidity, and rise in spreads, caused some investors to panic.
I'm not seeing the statement that " HFTs have a stabilizing influence on markets by providing liquidity" in the SEC report for the big flash crash of 2010, nor statements to that effect. https://www.sec.gov/news/studi... It's full of statements like this:
In general, however, it appears that the 17 HFT firms traded with the price trend on May 6 and, on both an absolute and net basis, removed significant buy liquidity from the public quoting markets during the downturn.
However, for those who don't want to read the report, in no way is the SEC suggesting "the crash was caused by HFT traders".
Here is a recent SEC paper on HFT trading: https://www.sec.gov/marketstru... Regarding the benefits of HFT on the market, the research they analyzed suggests good benefits (increase liquidity and reduce volatility), but it depends. The benefits of passive HFT strategies seem to be quite positive and HFT's may be taking the place of market makers. Aggressive HFT strategies provide liquidity in stable markets, but has worsened volatility when the market experiences abberations
I don't think that I can ever comprehend the 4 simultaneous years within a single rotation of Earth about the Sun. What makes it hard for me is that I now know that I am educated stupid. I understand that this is the truth, but I cannot occupy more than a single corner at the same time. This is so hard for me - the not occupying or experiencing.
Is this about the claims that the USA got an unfair amount of IPV4 address space early on and should give some of it to the third world countries in case they might need it some day?
Left and right. That sounds one-dimensional to me.
Heh, good one.
I would like to claim that I was counting crossing the street as the second dimension, but I only thought of that just now, so I can't make that claim honorably.
Didn't Bowie strike an unusual deal a few years ago where he sold all his past AND future music rights?
That and he also had, sorta, his own boutique bank for a while "BowieBanc" with a branded mastercard. Didn't do well though. Back in the 1990's he had his own ISP, bowienet which I don't really understand.
How is it that you don't know what are the topics at the top of the slashdot web page? It says: Topics: Devices Build Entertainment Technology Open Source Science YRO
This article is about Davis Bowie, so it concerns 1) entertainment; music 2) technology; digital distribution of music 3) YRO; copyright issues
So far the articles I saw made no mention of his adventure as a banker and alternative currencies. Bowie was a more interesting person than your typical rock star.
It sounds to me like the missile was to be shipped to an address in Florida, but it was placed on an Air France airplane that had an intermediate stop in Cuba. Cuban customs found the missile and impounded it.
From where I sit, the only interest the US government has in Cuba is Florida's 29 electoral college votes. And those 29 votes are dependent upon Florida's 1.2 million Cuban-Americans who historically only ask for one thing: A hard line against the communist regime in Cuba. It's an easy call for any politician.
Numbers matter less than the meaning they are intended to convey. Mathematics is a language first and foremost.
Numbers absolutely do matter. So now you claiming it was hyperbole? That you were exaggerating for effect and made up the number dozens. OK, I'll buy that you now claim it was a false statement of exaggeration for effect. Leave off the numbers next time and just say " lots" or " many times"; because then it would be a true statement.
And yeah, numbers do matter. This is a tech site, not a safe space for the math-impaired.
Did you count that Eisenhower invaded Vietnam to overthrow the government before the elections could take place? And part of it is that many of the CIA actions are still classified. And can we count the failed ones? We have plenty. We have tried to overthrow Russia, most of the middle east, parts of Africa, and much of South America.
That the government lies to us about what they did and when doesn't make it untrue.
Try to remember that this is the assertion that I oppose: "fund a coup to replace that leader with a puppet military dictator like youve done dozens of times since world war 2"
There are not US funded coups of elected leader "dozens of times since world war 2". Dozens? That is simply NOT true. Want to prove me wrong? Then post a list of dozens of elected leaders that were overthrown by US funded coups. And stop responding with two or three names. A dozen is twelve. Dozens is some multiple of twelve or more.
As a side issue, Eisenhower did NOT invade Vietnam. That is simply untrue. Did not happen. I do count Vietnam although the coup overthrew Diem had NO USA involvement, we (Kennedy administration) knew about it and promised to not interfere. (Diem was the guy that canceled the election you mentioned) I was a college student in the 1960/70's, so yeah, the subject of Vietnam did come up from time to time and I, along with everyone I knew, was and am very interested in what happened there. As for my being fooled by government lies, you may be surprised to learn this, but the government is no the only source of information here. College professors don't always echo the government's line. The press in the USA back then most certainly did not parrot the government's story either. The local SDS chapter did not echo the government's line. And guess what? It turns out that you can get news from other countries press even back then before the Internet. Please don't try to guess what I believe, or what I know, or what side I'm on in these things. You Don't Know Me.
Once again, the assertion that I object to is the "USA overthrew dozens of elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military dictators since WWII". I'm not saying they never happened, I know they did. I was around when they happened.
But the operative terms here are dozens, elected leaders, puppet governments.
Wave your hands in the air, babble about secret coups, whatever, but until you produce a list of dozens of overthrown countries, your assertion is false.
Slashdot Mirror
What I got from Avatar is that we should have kept some smallpox handy.
Reading comprehension fail.
In addition to his reading comprehension fail, AC also has a problem with numbers. This is not 50 years:
He faces a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, but in a plea deal with prosecutors both sides said a term of 24 to 30 months is appropriate at sentencing April 18 before U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss of the District.
The book "The End of Averages" by Todd Rose was misquoted
First of all the exact quote from the first paragraph of the book was this:
At its worst point, seventeen pilots crashed in a single day
There is a huge difference between crashing and dying.
Anyway, he (Teimann) got the sequence of events wrong, but the general gist of what he said follows the intent of the book.
The crashing planes in the study were the in the 1940's. We're talking about planes like the P-80 and possibly the F-86.
That was the first generation of jets and they had many many problems in design.
Here's where the average pilot comes in. Those planes (the 1940's) had been designed for the average pilot's size as measured in 1926. The cockpit was non-adjustable, so The Army/Air Force sought pilots whose size fit the planes, but only that person who matched the average 1926 pilot would fit properly. In the highly demanding jets of the late 1940's, a pilot that didn't fit could have problems when split second control reactions were needed, and those planes needed it.
The study conducted by Lieutenant Gilbert Daniels in 1950 which examined modern average pilot sizes, was completed in 1952.
The upshot of that study was that the Air Force immediately decided to take the study's recommendation:
Everyone is different, and to get the maximum performance from people you adjust the environment to the soldier, not the soldier.
The Air Force immediately mandated that the manufacturers make many elements of the cockpit be adjustable for the range of sizes from 5% to 95% of men from the seats, to pedal positions, to belts, and helmet straps, and so on. The result was that pilot performance soared and the US Air Force became the most dominant air force on the planet.
The book gives other example studies and goes on to say
Any system designed around the average person is doomed to fail
This is the gist of the book and what Michael Tiemann was getting at.
Anyway, the summary implied that the generation of planes designed in the 1950's were a generation of pilot killers.
The 1950's planes had the cockpit fit problems solved.
The crashing planes were in the late 1940's. The study was begun in 1950. Obviously, those crashes were not combat-related. Those planes were demanding and possibly evil, and a bad-fitting cockpit made it worse.
Did I miss the part of the story that explains HOW it managed to kill 17 pilots in one day?
The book, The End of Average by Todd Rose was misquoted.
First of all the exact quote from the first paragraph of the book was this:
At its worst point, seventeen pilots crashed in a single day
There is a huge difference between crashing and dying.
Anyway, he (Teimann) got the sequence of events wrong, but the general gist of what he said follows the intent of the book.
The crashing planes in the study were the in the 1940's. We're talking about planes like the P-80 and possibly the F-86. That was the first generation of jets and they had many many problems in design.
Here's where the average pilot comes in. Those planes had been designed for the average pilot's size as measured in 1926. The cockpit was non-adjustable, so The Army/Air Force sought pilots whose size fit the planes, but only that person who matched the average 1926 pilot would fit properly. In the highly demanding jets of the late 1940's, a pilot that didn't fit could have problems when split second control reactions were needed, and those planes needed it.
The study conducted by Lieutenant Gilbert Daniels in 1950 which examined modern average pilot sizes, was completed in 1952. The upshot of that study was that the Air Force immediately decided to take the study's recommendation: Everyone is different, and to get the maximum performance from people you adjust the environment to the soldier, not the soldier. The Air Force immediately mandated that the manufacturers make many elements of the cockpit be adjustable for the range of sizes from 5% to 95% of men from the seats, to pedal positions, to belts, and helmet straps, and so on. The result was that pilot performance soared and the US Air Force became the most dominant air force on the planet.
The book gives other example studies and goes on to say
Any system designed around the average person is doomed to fail
This is the gist of the book and what Michael Tiemann was getting at.
Anyway, the summary implied that the generation of planes designed in the 1950's were a generation of pilot killers.
This is wrong, the book said the opposite. The 1950's planes had the cockpit fit problems solved.
I've been here for a while and am mostly happy with slashdot then and now.
Some of the things I don't like are not unique to slashdot but are rather a problem inherent in forums.
I don't think they can be fixed.
For one thing, it's obvious to me that in recent years there are many more children/teenager trolls on slashdot than there used to be.
What can be done about that? I have no idea.
I know many of them will grow up, but I don't want to wait for that. It's kind of like how you know I'm going to die before you and will stop posting then, but you wish it would stop now.
I wish there could be a way to have a separate fact-checker/ research section listing links to information on some of the things that people make assertions for that keep coming up such as what the metric system is, what the first computer virus was, what and why are females, common climate change assertions, links to data on energy production, and so on. But not things like "what's the best tank in WWII"
Posters could add links below the topic and a one-line comment why it's relevant. It could have it's own mod system, and someone would have to weed out the goatse links.
Sure, one could use a search engine, but not really. Google/Bing is becoming almost worthless.
I think we should be able to auction off our UID's on slashdot for gold coins. The site could take a cut.
I would like some articles to be AC only with no moderation and the post time limits reduced. /. doesn't blamed) so if enough people vote "free-for-all" (or shitstorm) after 250 posts, then it all gets converted to unmodded AC with the timer limits set to 1 or 2 minutes for everyone. And maybe get thread-locked after 12 hours. What fun that would be.
Look at any of the women in the workplace articles or gamergate kind of submissions.
You know it's going to be a shitstorm and the moderation is just going to be revenge mods anyway.
Maybe we could have a vote tab (so
Any particular reason why we couldn't allow uploaded pics, movies, etc.? It's not a text-only world--except here.
Oh no, please no no no.
Videos of what? Case mods? How to create excel macros? Exciting new products for our data center?
Videos take forever to transfer information.
It's annoying to have a talking head head taking 10 minutes to get across a point that anyone could have read in 30 seconds.
Putting up a video instead of typing it out is lazy. Videos are for cats, porn, and marketing stooges.
Anyone who has a video they think we really really need to see can just post a link to their Facebook page.
A 7 digit UID is now a loyal old fart? This site has changed. (Do we still do my UID is lower than your's any more?)
You betcha we still do. Mind you I'm scared of waking up the really low UIDs
Then don't walk on our graves.
I replied and said "not everyone believes in private health insurance", and indeed the Amish are exempt from that part of the ACA, much as they are exempt from social security.
You're right about the Amish, and I pretty much agree with you except for a definition in terms.
"Private health insurance" is any insurance that is not public health insurance. Public health insurance is governmental plans such as medicare, medicaid, and similar state plans.
What the Amish is doing is private health insurance. The big insurance companies would like us to believe that they're the only alternative to public health insurance, but as the Amish (and others such as self insured affinity groups) have shown, you can have your own private insurance.
I think what you meant to say is "The Amish do not believe in public health insurance".
The Amish
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/...
Not everyone believes in private insurance.
You seem to be replying to sjbe's assertion that "everyone uses the health care system".
You provided an interesting link; however, the article you linked supports sjbe's assertion that everyone uses the health care system.
While practices vary by community, most Amish fund their health care through a system that merges church aid, benefit auctions and negotiated discounts with local hospitals - promising quick cash payment in exchange for lower rates.
The man from Kinzers said his community relies on two funds. Nearly every family contributes monthly to a hospital aid fund, while large bills are also paid with free-will offerings.
Some Amish carry benefit cards, which identify them as members of a community but do not bear names or photographs, to help hospitals keep track of those discounts.
What the Amish are doing is using the public health care system and they pay for care through their own community based insurance.
This is much like any other insurance company's affinity group plan except for the details of how the plan is funded.
The faster the trading, the worse the swings will get.
The SEC's investigation into the 2010 Flash Crash, came to the exact opposite conclusion: that HFTs have a stabilizing influence on markets by providing liquidity. One of the reasons for the crash was that when prices moved outside of the expected range, many HFTers stopped trading, and the resulting drop in liquidity, and rise in spreads, caused some investors to panic.
I'm not seeing the statement that " HFTs have a stabilizing influence on markets by providing liquidity" in the SEC report for the big flash crash of 2010, nor statements to that effect. https://www.sec.gov/news/studi...
It's full of statements like this:
In general, however, it appears that the 17 HFT firms traded with the price trend on May 6 and, on both an absolute and net basis,
removed significant buy liquidity from the public quoting markets during the downturn.
However, for those who don't want to read the report, in no way is the SEC suggesting "the crash was caused by HFT traders".
Here is a recent SEC paper on HFT trading:
https://www.sec.gov/marketstru...
Regarding the benefits of HFT on the market, the research they analyzed suggests good benefits (increase liquidity and reduce volatility), but it depends.
The benefits of passive HFT strategies seem to be quite positive and HFT's may be taking the place of market makers.
Aggressive HFT strategies provide liquidity in stable markets, but has worsened volatility when the market experiences abberations
I don't think that I can ever comprehend the 4 simultaneous years within a single rotation of Earth about the Sun.
What makes it hard for me is that I now know that I am educated stupid.
I understand that this is the truth, but I cannot occupy more than a single corner at the same time.
This is so hard for me - the not occupying or experiencing.
It's not a problem unless all four corner days are off and thus the four corners of the cube.
Is this about the claims that the USA got an unfair amount of IPV4 address space early on and should give some of it to the third world countries in case they might need it some day?
Left and right. That sounds one-dimensional to me.
Heh, good one.
I would like to claim that I was counting crossing the street as the second dimension, but I only thought of that just now, so I can't make that claim honorably.
Did the submitter even read the article?
The new account was not named "Batman". It was named "1MB@tMaN".
Horoscopes are almost always "accurate."
A typical horoscope in the paper:
"Virgo - look both ways before crossing the street."
See? Accurate!
The advice is good, but incomplete.
His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.
What you said + and
Yes, real banks get robbed,
And real commercial banks don't debit the depositors for the money that was taken.
Didn't Bowie strike an unusual deal a few years ago where he sold all his past AND future music rights?
That and he also had, sorta, his own boutique bank for a while "BowieBanc" with a branded mastercard. Didn't do well though.
Back in the 1990's he had his own ISP, bowienet which I don't really understand.
How is this tech news?
How is it that you don't know what are the topics at the top of the slashdot web page? It says:
Topics: Devices Build Entertainment Technology Open Source Science YRO
This article is about Davis Bowie, so it concerns
1) entertainment; music
2) technology; digital distribution of music
3) YRO; copyright issues
So far the articles I saw made no mention of his adventure as a banker and alternative currencies.
Bowie was a more interesting person than your typical rock star.
So you're actually in lower Alabama. Ayup, there's no Castro in them parts.
It sounds to me like the missile was to be shipped to an address in Florida, but it was placed on an Air France airplane that had an intermediate stop in Cuba.
Cuban customs found the missile and impounded it.
Is that a little closer to what happened?
From where I sit, the only interest the US government has in Cuba is Florida's 29 electoral college votes.
And those 29 votes are dependent upon Florida's 1.2 million Cuban-Americans who historically only ask for one thing: A hard line against the communist regime in Cuba. It's an easy call for any politician.
http://dictionary.reference.co...
Numbers matter less than the meaning they are intended to convey. Mathematics is a language first and foremost.
Numbers absolutely do matter.
So now you claiming it was hyperbole? That you were exaggerating for effect and made up the number dozens.
OK, I'll buy that you now claim it was a false statement of exaggeration for effect.
Leave off the numbers next time and just say " lots" or " many times"; because then it would be a true statement.
And yeah, numbers do matter. This is a tech site, not a safe space for the math-impaired.
Did you count that Eisenhower invaded Vietnam to overthrow the government before the elections could take place? And part of it is that many of the CIA actions are still classified. And can we count the failed ones? We have plenty. We have tried to overthrow Russia, most of the middle east, parts of Africa, and much of South America.
That the government lies to us about what they did and when doesn't make it untrue.
Try to remember that this is the assertion that I oppose:
"fund a coup to replace that leader with a puppet military dictator like youve done dozens of times since world war 2"
There are not US funded coups of elected leader "dozens of times since world war 2". Dozens? That is simply NOT true.
Want to prove me wrong? Then post a list of dozens of elected leaders that were overthrown by US funded coups.
And stop responding with two or three names. A dozen is twelve. Dozens is some multiple of twelve or more.
As a side issue, Eisenhower did NOT invade Vietnam. That is simply untrue. Did not happen.
I do count Vietnam although the coup overthrew Diem had NO USA involvement, we (Kennedy administration) knew about it and promised to not interfere. (Diem was the guy that canceled the election you mentioned)
I was a college student in the 1960/70's, so yeah, the subject of Vietnam did come up from time to time and I, along with everyone I knew, was and am very interested in what happened there.
As for my being fooled by government lies, you may be surprised to learn this, but the government is no the only source of information here. College professors don't always echo the government's line. The press in the USA back then most certainly did not parrot the government's story either. The local SDS chapter did not echo the government's line. And guess what? It turns out that you can get news from other countries press even back then before the Internet.
Please don't try to guess what I believe, or what I know, or what side I'm on in these things. You Don't Know Me.
Once again, the assertion that I object to is the "USA overthrew dozens of elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military dictators since WWII".
I'm not saying they never happened, I know they did. I was around when they happened.
But the operative terms here are dozens, elected leaders, puppet governments.
Wave your hands in the air, babble about secret coups, whatever, but until you produce a list of dozens of overthrown countries, your assertion is false.