I'd be happy just to have a usable interface in a pair of normal glasses (non-correcting).
Ditto. I have extreme eye contact phobia and the thought of contacts gives me the willies with a touch of the heebie-jeebies. But I can totally dig standard glasses.
Richard Egan, it appears, was that sort of jerk. Offing yourself with a shotgun blast to the head in the linen closet? Sheesh.
I've seen police video of that. IR from the chopper, perp crashes his car and runs behind a house. With the cops closing in and no other way out he lifts up something long to his head and suddenly there's pieces flying and he's surrounded by light splotches, a big one running down the wall. There couldn't have been much of a head left. It was disgusting to see when the man was no more than a light blur of of gray against darker grays and blacks. I can't imagine how awful that wound look up close and personal.
War really does lead to some of our race's biggest advances.
Ants don't build a better anthill after you kick it over, they just build the same old design as before. Little boys with malicious hearts enjoy kicking the anthills over because they like making the little fuckers run about like mad.
In most cases kids quickly lose interest. "I want I want I want" quickly becomes "I'm bored" as the novelty wears off and the phone disappears into a drawer.
I was discussing this with my boss a little while ago, and he said his kids destroy half the stuff he buys for them, and that when we were growing-up we appreciated things more. And I replied, "That's because we didn't have anything. I had one record player and I treasured it like it was gold." He laughed and conceded the same was true for him.
What is given freely is not valued. Your girlfriend's virginity, worthless if given, of value only if taken!
Broken Aesops and kidding aside, there's so much to be said for teaching kids the value of something they've earned for themselves. Even if you end up helping to subsidize the purchase, the 10% of the price they put into it could well be the birthday and grandma money they saved up all year. It counts for something. I know I liked my first computer which was a family machine but I loved my second one which was the result of three years worth of xmas and bday funds and subsequent upgrades were paid for with the proceeds of my first job.
In my day, if we wanted to send a text message to a friend, we used an instant messenger! Or we even wrote out an email. It took time to sit down and put some thought into composing that message. None of this Twitter Trotter Twatter flim-flarn-flith. We had more than 140 characters to work with and could take the time to say something that was worth taking the time to say! And we sat at a keyboard. With a chair. Typed with our fingers instead of with our thumbs like savages.
If the little ankle-biters offer you any lip, send 'em to their rooms with nothing but bread, water, and 56k dial-up.
Japan was a militarily 3rd-rate impoverished country?
I believe he means since WWII. We haven't had a global war since then or a regional conflict where the US was met by forces with parity.
Submarines are historically the biggest threat to aircraft carriers (the Wasp and Yorktown come to mind) but they aren't invulnerable. Submarines have several drawbacks:
1) They can't keep up with a fast moving surface task force without giving away their location and losing sonar effectiveness. The best way for them to engage such a task force is to lie in wait for it but this isn't always possible if your enemy doesn't cooperate and go where you think he's going to go.
Depends on if you're talking nuke or diesel-electric.
2) They can't communicate in real time with their base and thus have a harder time taking advantage of other sensor platforms (aircraft, satellites, etc) that would help them locate their targets.
Sure they can, satellite uplink. They can't maintain highspeed contact if they're down a hundred feet but they still have the ULF antenna trailing behind. Low-bandwidth but it works.
And if you say a sub at the proper depth for running up a radio mast is too visible, then a carrier battlegroup is even more so!
3) They can't take advantage of long range stand-off weapons (missiles) without giving away their location.
The surface fleet isn't giving away their position only because it would already be known.
4) Their primary sensor platform (passive sonar) requires a fair amount of time to develop a targeting solution (see target motion analysis). This process is rendered much harder when tracking a target that is taking evasive action (random changes in course or speed) to complicate the process. Active sonar removes this limitation but gives away their location and subjects them to counter-attack.
Subs have active sonar and surface radar. I've not yet heard a submariner complaining about how long it takes to work up a firing solution with his equipment. Worked with a guy who was on the Los Angelas-class boats in the 80's and if the conversation ever went naval he'd do nothing but brag on what his torpedoes could do.
The real question you have to ask yourself is "What is the sub intended for in the current environment?" Carriers are seen as a great way of showing the flag and even destroyers look impressive cruising about. Part of this is just the psychological impact of being seen. It's seen as harder to intimidate someone by telling him an American guided missile sub is off his coast and ready to rain down fire, please take our word for it. You but a CBG off his coast, presumably he sees it and is impressed by it. But personally I think it just makes them bigger targets.
In summary, it's a mistake to dismiss the submarine threat but it's also a mistake to assume that they will rule the waves in a future conflict. Submarines can only dominate the oceans in the absence of an effective ASW strategy (see the Pacific in WW2).
And a surface fleet can dominate the ocean in the absence of any threat capable of taking it out. Really, modern subs have advanced so far beyond WWII models that we're talking apples and oranges. The F-15 can carry more bombs than a B-17. A modern destroyer can knock a target out of the sky with a single missile. It would be like trying to compare WWII Panzers to mounted knights. Yes, tanks were the ultimate expression of ground power in WWII just like the knight was in the middle ages but the difference in technology and capabilities quickly moves the discussion to the absurd.
When such a strategy is implemented they are certainly manageable (see the Atlantic in WW2). We have a competent ASW strategy and the best technology in the world for the task. We also have the most effective ASW weapon available -- our own submarines.
Does this mean that we can expect to see unending series of cash-in sequels, like Spiderman 3, Fantastic Four 3, Iron Man 2, X-Men 4, etc?!? Oh wait...
It might be morbidly amusing to see how Disney retcons and bowlderizes some of the more questionable characters. G-rated Marvel Zombies? Lobo?
Or at least not very interested in mainstream American costumed super-hero books. Otherwise I'd be dying inside right now. I feel that way every time EA buys up another studio.
I am not so sure. You seem to forget that carrier fleets are as much a result of political posturing as necessity and are a direct outgrowth of US experiences in the WWII in the Pacific, which is to put it diplomatically a classic case of "fighting the last war". Also the US has never been truly tested on the seas against anyone but militarily 3rd-rate, impoverished countries. I seem to recall a saying the submariners are rather fond of, to the effect that in case of a serious modern naval conflict there would be only two classes of ships at seas: submarines and... "targets"!
Very important to note. Hell, the last time the US Army has ever had to face a lack of air superiority was in Korea. And the US Navy hasn't actually fought a serious blue water threat in all that time either.
The usual pattern in military thinking is that a system of tactics is worked out that incorporates the technology and national strengths of a given power. The system was good enough to put the people in charge where they are (or put their fathers and grandfathers there) so it's seen as a good thing. And with that much tradition and honor built up in the way things are done, nothing could possibly change it but for massive defeat on the battlefield, sometimes not even then.
The longer the peace won by the system of arms, the less likely it is that the leaders will perceive their weakness. The British refused to accept the danger posed to battleships by the torpedo. In their experience, the bigger the ship the more guns and thus the victory. They couldn't accept the thought of a smaller, almost disposable opponent capable of obliterating the larger, more expensive component. There had not been a shock like this in Europe since the crossbow. A proper longbow like the English used required a lifetime of training. A knight was ruinously expensive to train and equip but heavy cavalry was considered the king of the battlefield. But a crossbow meant any rude peasant with a weekend's training had the potential of taking out a knight. This was a threat to the very social order! Thus crossbows were banned from the "christian battlefield" for the longest time. You could use them against heathens but not against fellow believers.
Cruise missiles have made carriers very expensive floating targets. The Navy refuses to accept it, just like they refused to accept the power of the airplane. If not for WWII, battleships would still be seen as the center of the fleet's striking power to this very day.
Something else to ponder: the Soviet Union never invested in the massive carriers, focusing rather heavily on fast, long-range submarines instead. Presumably they also had "people thinking about fleet deployment for a living", don't you think? Or do you suppose they were all idiots, far beneath the American Super-Men, The Masters of the Universe?
The ruskies were a continental power, not a maritime one. They did not need to control the sea lines of communication, only deny them to their enemies. Soviet naval doctrine was based around this. Their ships were ridiculously overgunned (well, overmissiled) and were considered to not have as good of sea-keeping characteristics as British and American ships. But their whole point was to act as ship-killers. So no long overseas deployments, no long patrols. The subs were meant to be the far-ranging vessels and they were loaded with all sorts of carrier-killing missiles. Their heavy bomber fleets were built with the same intention.
If you sunk every merchantman in the Soviet fleet, they'd get by. Contrast this with the US. We're a maritime nation and the sea lanes are the veins through which our economy flows. We need oil, we need raw resources. At this point, we don't make shit in this country and depend on imports for some embarrassingly essential shit. If we don't control the sea, we die.
Towards the end of the Soviet Union was looking to construct proper carriers. This signaled a change in doctrine
Ok, this is many things but it is not a troll. Must we go through this every time a new set of idiots starts to get mod points?
If anything, I should be modded up for not making the easy dick joke! Petrified wood? Talk about low-hanging fruit! (which in itself could be easily subverted into a sexual reference. High five!)
The Internet facilitates easy plagiarism. I assume papers for sale on the 'net generally have good grammar. Is it possible an increase in Internet plagiarism caused the increase in literary quality?
We certainly know no-child-left-behind did not help the early stages of the pipeline.
That's an expensive hack! Especially when the typical methods are practically free. I wonder how effective it is.
You know, it might be cheaper to just "accidentally" drop usb drives near the office or, if you're not targeting a particular office specifically, leave the drives in coffee shops and local restaurants. Someone takes it home and tries looking at it, pwnage.
When you hear about these compensation packages the execs are getting, it makes you wonder how far that could stretch if divided equitably amongst the workers.
The sad truth is that people don't seem to want to pay more for quality, they'll only pay more for fashion. When Macs were sold based on their utility, they eventually lost out to the up and coming Wintel systems that weren't as good but were a whole lot cheaper. The Mac CEO at the time was advised to cut the price and he said "No, people will pay for quality." No, they didn't. Not enough of them. And Mac didn't really make a comeback until Steve Jobs made them sexy again, made technology dance to the same tune as fashion. Suddenly Apple is chic and cool and people are happy to pay ridiculous gobs of money.
That's not entire true, and not everyone agrees with you.
The company I work for makes CBT courses like what you see here, and the military is one of our clients. We don't get broad open contracts, we have to bid and compete for them, and the scope of work is limited to the CBT that we're creating. The prices the military pays are the same prices that corporations pay (in fact, we even discount the military's price because they've been so consistent in giving us work).
Ok, I'll give you that. The government is paying a very reasonable rate for crap.
Seeing as it's already Wednesday, the work's either in progress or already completed. Read through the comments, OP, and either congratulate yourself on your idea or bite your knuckles and say "Oh, shit!"
When this topic gets reposted you'll be able to let us know whether the doomsayers were right.
According to what I saw in the first video, this wouldn't be possible. Rather, you are able to fight in the past that has real influences on your present but you aren't able to truly fight your opponent when they are starting out. On top of that, you can see where your opponent is in your time stream. And on top of that, you can speed up how fast you flow through time. Since most RTS's are based on reaction time (hence the title of the genre), it becomes very obvious to me that the default strategy is to get into the game and crank your speed up as fast as it will go. Then beat your opponent to your resource rich future and send units back in time. Always fight as far back in the past as you can.
The correct strategy is to send one unit back in time to kill your opponent's mother before he was even born. If that fails, you have one more shot before the sequels get crappy.
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I'd be happy just to have a usable interface in a pair of normal glasses (non-correcting).
Ditto. I have extreme eye contact phobia and the thought of contacts gives me the willies with a touch of the heebie-jeebies. But I can totally dig standard glasses.
Cuz that would be awesome.
Richard Egan, it appears, was that sort of jerk. Offing yourself with a shotgun blast to the head in the linen closet? Sheesh.
I've seen police video of that. IR from the chopper, perp crashes his car and runs behind a house. With the cops closing in and no other way out he lifts up something long to his head and suddenly there's pieces flying and he's surrounded by light splotches, a big one running down the wall. There couldn't have been much of a head left. It was disgusting to see when the man was no more than a light blur of of gray against darker grays and blacks. I can't imagine how awful that wound look up close and personal.
How about taking an overdose of some very fun drug while enjoying the company of a well-paid lady friend?
At least you came before you went?
Imagine how fucked up that would be for her to experience, a man dying inside her. Don't be so inconsiderate.
War really does lead to some of our race's biggest advances.
Ants don't build a better anthill after you kick it over, they just build the same old design as before. Little boys with malicious hearts enjoy kicking the anthills over because they like making the little fuckers run about like mad.
Sure. Why not? When my 6-year-old nephew asked, "How do babies get in mommys bellies?"
Show 'em the face-hugger scene from Alien.
In most cases kids quickly lose interest. "I want I want I want" quickly becomes "I'm bored" as the novelty wears off and the phone disappears into a drawer.
I was discussing this with my boss a little while ago, and he said his kids destroy half the stuff he buys for them, and that when we were growing-up we appreciated things more. And I replied, "That's because we didn't have anything. I had one record player and I treasured it like it was gold." He laughed and conceded the same was true for him.
What is given freely is not valued. Your girlfriend's virginity, worthless if given, of value only if taken!
Broken Aesops and kidding aside, there's so much to be said for teaching kids the value of something they've earned for themselves. Even if you end up helping to subsidize the purchase, the 10% of the price they put into it could well be the birthday and grandma money they saved up all year. It counts for something. I know I liked my first computer which was a family machine but I loved my second one which was the result of three years worth of xmas and bday funds and subsequent upgrades were paid for with the proceeds of my first job.
In my day, if we wanted to send a text message to a friend, we used an instant messenger! Or we even wrote out an email. It took time to sit down and put some thought into composing that message. None of this Twitter Trotter Twatter flim-flarn-flith. We had more than 140 characters to work with and could take the time to say something that was worth taking the time to say! And we sat at a keyboard. With a chair. Typed with our fingers instead of with our thumbs like savages.
If the little ankle-biters offer you any lip, send 'em to their rooms with nothing but bread, water, and 56k dial-up.
Japan was a militarily 3rd-rate impoverished country?
I believe he means since WWII. We haven't had a global war since then or a regional conflict where the US was met by forces with parity.
Submarines are historically the biggest threat to aircraft carriers (the Wasp and Yorktown come to mind) but they aren't invulnerable. Submarines have several drawbacks:
1) They can't keep up with a fast moving surface task force without giving away their location and losing sonar effectiveness. The best way for them to engage such a task force is to lie in wait for it but this isn't always possible if your enemy doesn't cooperate and go where you think he's going to go.
Depends on if you're talking nuke or diesel-electric.
2) They can't communicate in real time with their base and thus have a harder time taking advantage of other sensor platforms (aircraft, satellites, etc) that would help them locate their targets.
Sure they can, satellite uplink. They can't maintain highspeed contact if they're down a hundred feet but they still have the ULF antenna trailing behind. Low-bandwidth but it works.
And if you say a sub at the proper depth for running up a radio mast is too visible, then a carrier battlegroup is even more so!
3) They can't take advantage of long range stand-off weapons (missiles) without giving away their location.
The surface fleet isn't giving away their position only because it would already be known.
4) Their primary sensor platform (passive sonar) requires a fair amount of time to develop a targeting solution (see target motion analysis). This process is rendered much harder when tracking a target that is taking evasive action (random changes in course or speed) to complicate the process. Active sonar removes this limitation but gives away their location and subjects them to counter-attack.
Subs have active sonar and surface radar. I've not yet heard a submariner complaining about how long it takes to work up a firing solution with his equipment. Worked with a guy who was on the Los Angelas-class boats in the 80's and if the conversation ever went naval he'd do nothing but brag on what his torpedoes could do.
The real question you have to ask yourself is "What is the sub intended for in the current environment?" Carriers are seen as a great way of showing the flag and even destroyers look impressive cruising about. Part of this is just the psychological impact of being seen. It's seen as harder to intimidate someone by telling him an American guided missile sub is off his coast and ready to rain down fire, please take our word for it. You but a CBG off his coast, presumably he sees it and is impressed by it. But personally I think it just makes them bigger targets.
In summary, it's a mistake to dismiss the submarine threat but it's also a mistake to assume that they will rule the waves in a future conflict. Submarines can only dominate the oceans in the absence of an effective ASW strategy (see the Pacific in WW2).
And a surface fleet can dominate the ocean in the absence of any threat capable of taking it out. Really, modern subs have advanced so far beyond WWII models that we're talking apples and oranges. The F-15 can carry more bombs than a B-17. A modern destroyer can knock a target out of the sky with a single missile. It would be like trying to compare WWII Panzers to mounted knights. Yes, tanks were the ultimate expression of ground power in WWII just like the knight was in the middle ages but the difference in technology and capabilities quickly moves the discussion to the absurd.
When such a strategy is implemented they are certainly manageable (see the Atlantic in WW2). We have a competent ASW strategy and the best technology in the world for the task. We also have the most effective ASW weapon available -- our own submarines.
Does this mean that we can expect to see unending series of cash-in sequels, like Spiderman 3, Fantastic Four 3, Iron Man 2, X-Men 4, etc?!? Oh wait...
It might be morbidly amusing to see how Disney retcons and bowlderizes some of the more questionable characters. G-rated Marvel Zombies? Lobo?
Or at least not very interested in mainstream American costumed super-hero books. Otherwise I'd be dying inside right now. I feel that way every time EA buys up another studio.
I am not so sure. You seem to forget that carrier fleets are as much a result of political posturing as necessity and are a direct outgrowth of US experiences in the WWII in the Pacific, which is to put it diplomatically a classic case of "fighting the last war". Also the US has never been truly tested on the seas against anyone but militarily 3rd-rate, impoverished countries. I seem to recall a saying the submariners are rather fond of, to the effect that in case of a serious modern naval conflict there would be only two classes of ships at seas: submarines and ... "targets"!
Very important to note. Hell, the last time the US Army has ever had to face a lack of air superiority was in Korea. And the US Navy hasn't actually fought a serious blue water threat in all that time either.
The usual pattern in military thinking is that a system of tactics is worked out that incorporates the technology and national strengths of a given power. The system was good enough to put the people in charge where they are (or put their fathers and grandfathers there) so it's seen as a good thing. And with that much tradition and honor built up in the way things are done, nothing could possibly change it but for massive defeat on the battlefield, sometimes not even then.
The longer the peace won by the system of arms, the less likely it is that the leaders will perceive their weakness. The British refused to accept the danger posed to battleships by the torpedo. In their experience, the bigger the ship the more guns and thus the victory. They couldn't accept the thought of a smaller, almost disposable opponent capable of obliterating the larger, more expensive component. There had not been a shock like this in Europe since the crossbow. A proper longbow like the English used required a lifetime of training. A knight was ruinously expensive to train and equip but heavy cavalry was considered the king of the battlefield. But a crossbow meant any rude peasant with a weekend's training had the potential of taking out a knight. This was a threat to the very social order! Thus crossbows were banned from the "christian battlefield" for the longest time. You could use them against heathens but not against fellow believers.
Cruise missiles have made carriers very expensive floating targets. The Navy refuses to accept it, just like they refused to accept the power of the airplane. If not for WWII, battleships would still be seen as the center of the fleet's striking power to this very day.
Something else to ponder: the Soviet Union never invested in the massive carriers, focusing rather heavily on fast, long-range submarines instead. Presumably they also had "people thinking about fleet deployment for a living", don't you think? Or do you suppose they were all idiots, far beneath the American Super-Men, The Masters of the Universe?
The ruskies were a continental power, not a maritime one. They did not need to control the sea lines of communication, only deny them to their enemies. Soviet naval doctrine was based around this. Their ships were ridiculously overgunned (well, overmissiled) and were considered to not have as good of sea-keeping characteristics as British and American ships. But their whole point was to act as ship-killers. So no long overseas deployments, no long patrols. The subs were meant to be the far-ranging vessels and they were loaded with all sorts of carrier-killing missiles. Their heavy bomber fleets were built with the same intention.
If you sunk every merchantman in the Soviet fleet, they'd get by. Contrast this with the US. We're a maritime nation and the sea lanes are the veins through which our economy flows. We need oil, we need raw resources. At this point, we don't make shit in this country and depend on imports for some embarrassingly essential shit. If we don't control the sea, we die.
Towards the end of the Soviet Union was looking to construct proper carriers. This signaled a change in doctrine
You have cleverly replied to yourself as AC complaining of the moderation... then replied to your AC reply. Nicely done!
Not that anyone would believe me but no, the AC wasn't me. I don't use sock puppets, even anonymous sock puppets.
Ok, this is many things but it is not a troll. Must we go through this every time a new set of idiots starts to get mod points?
If anything, I should be modded up for not making the easy dick joke! Petrified wood? Talk about low-hanging fruit! (which in itself could be easily subverted into a sexual reference. High five!)
And naked?
The Internet facilitates easy plagiarism. I assume papers for sale on the 'net generally have good grammar. Is it possible an increase in Internet plagiarism caused the increase in literary quality?
We certainly know no-child-left-behind did not help the early stages of the pipeline.
Just a thought...
-jolly
That's an expensive hack! Especially when the typical methods are practically free. I wonder how effective it is.
You know, it might be cheaper to just "accidentally" drop usb drives near the office or, if you're not targeting a particular office specifically, leave the drives in coffee shops and local restaurants. Someone takes it home and tries looking at it, pwnage.
Maybe banning violence would help to cut down on the violence in that country.
When you hear about these compensation packages the execs are getting, it makes you wonder how far that could stretch if divided equitably amongst the workers.
The sad truth is that people don't seem to want to pay more for quality, they'll only pay more for fashion. When Macs were sold based on their utility, they eventually lost out to the up and coming Wintel systems that weren't as good but were a whole lot cheaper. The Mac CEO at the time was advised to cut the price and he said "No, people will pay for quality." No, they didn't. Not enough of them. And Mac didn't really make a comeback until Steve Jobs made them sexy again, made technology dance to the same tune as fashion. Suddenly Apple is chic and cool and people are happy to pay ridiculous gobs of money.
Go figure.
That's not entire true, and not everyone agrees with you.
The company I work for makes CBT courses like what you see here, and the military is one of our clients. We don't get broad open contracts, we have to bid and compete for them, and the scope of work is limited to the CBT that we're creating. The prices the military pays are the same prices that corporations pay (in fact, we even discount the military's price because they've been so consistent in giving us work).
Ok, I'll give you that. The government is paying a very reasonable rate for crap.
My wife and I are 41 and 43. That "old fart" stigma is not related to age but to how far a stick is up their rectum.
*raises eyebrow* Kiiinky.
Well the slab gets poured on Wednesday
Seeing as it's already Wednesday, the work's either in progress or already completed. Read through the comments, OP, and either congratulate yourself on your idea or bite your knuckles and say "Oh, shit!"
When this topic gets reposted you'll be able to let us know whether the doomsayers were right.
According to what I saw in the first video, this wouldn't be possible. Rather, you are able to fight in the past that has real influences on your present but you aren't able to truly fight your opponent when they are starting out. On top of that, you can see where your opponent is in your time stream. And on top of that, you can speed up how fast you flow through time. Since most RTS's are based on reaction time (hence the title of the genre), it becomes very obvious to me that the default strategy is to get into the game and crank your speed up as fast as it will go. Then beat your opponent to your resource rich future and send units back in time. Always fight as far back in the past as you can.
The correct strategy is to send one unit back in time to kill your opponent's mother before he was even born. If that fails, you have one more shot before the sequels get crappy.
Trademarks help protect corporate and product identity, and Photoshop is one of Adobe's most valuable trademarks. By following the below guidelines, you can help Adobe protect the Photoshop brand name.
Gosh, I want to help!
CORRECT: Without Adobe® Photoshop®, goatse.cx would not have been possible! (he used a rolled up manual to achieve that gape.)
Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.