Bombs cannot hold terrain.
Constantly bombing the same place to avoid that the enemy retakes it is not a viable proposition.
You make sense, but what you're describing really sounds to me more like a peacekeeping operation, or, if there's still fighting going on, mop-up work after the bombers are done. So in that sense, yes, you do need ground troops. But clearly it's the bombing that does the vast majority of the total damage to the enemy.
Drone Wars
on
The Drone War
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I think that as long as only one side is largely using machines to fight, then such "Drone Wars" will still be considered carefully and prudently, due to the possibility of the loss of human life. Once both sides are doing it, though, I do agree that the use of such technology will be approved much more readily.
Still, I don't think that they'll become knee-jerk reactions to future crises due to the lingering potential of the death of innocent bystanders (nobody looks good when they kill civilians.)
Incidentally, I don't understand why the talking heads were talking about the great need for ground troops. Certainly, it's a little difficult to bomb a deep cave, but I think Desert Storm showed us that with the technology that we currently possess, bombing certainly can make the efforts of ground troops little more than "limited skirmishes", as Mike Myers described the ground war in Iraq in "Wayne's World".
Good point. I wonder, though, if enough people will become enough tech-savvy that workarounds and hacks will still become widespread enough, or if those creating the hacks will make them simple enough for most people.
Also, what about the culture that has sprung up on the internet of not wanting to pay for things (God, we're all such freeloaders)? Is that going to hurt paid-for video over the internet the way it has killed music?
"The encrypted CD will be an absolute nightmare," said Hock Leow, chief technology officer for Creative Labs, which sells portable MP3 players. "This will cause a big backlash from consumers."
Well, it's nice to see that at least someone in the article recognizes encrypted CDs for what they are.
But I wonder if the people trying to flag these videos to prevent their transmission over the internet ever heard of hackers? I find it hard to believe that by now they can be so naive as to think that they'll be able to pull this off.
but did the information on the fark.com website even mention a reason to use this? Or are they just going to assume that we're all so eager and willing to download music from them just so that the artists get paid that we'll sign up for the service in a heartbeat?
A good thought on the idea of having cultural commentaries with SF books. As a classicist myself (and having read Clyde Pharr's edition of the Aeneid), I can say that a commentary is definitely a useful tool.
However, the danger with commentaries in general is that they can become too expansive. I was reading some Horace recently with a commentary at the back of the book, and I realized before too long that I was spending more time reading English than reading Latin! Now, it's not quite such a big deal if the commentary and the text are in the same language, but it's still a concern. I do think you've got a point, though.
It's asking an awful lot of someone to learn Russian just so that he can read some of the literature for pleasure, don't you think?
And you're right about most educated people outside the U.S. speaking at least one other language. Of course, that language happens to be English in almost every case.
Besides, I think that there are other European languages that would be more useful to someone in general than Russian if they just wanted to have another language for the hell of it (French and German come to mind immediately.) I know that graduate programs in my discipline (Classical Stuides) and I'm sure in many others require proficiency in foreign languages such as German and French. I can't imagine too many that would require Russian, though.
So I guess Russian sci-fi from, say, the Cold War includes stuff like indoor plumbing, supermarkets with actual food, and the freedom of uncensored thought?
The name is not "Windows" but "Lindows" which gives the impression that it's not Windows but somehow connected to Windows.
Isn't this the problem? Windows doesn't want its brand name to be associated with something that's not Microsoft, so naturally they're going to fight it.
if Microsoft were truly believers of free competition and innovation they'd leave this alone
Who besides Microsoft ever said they were such believers? (And have they ever even said this???)
I think windows should be a generic term anyway, whether I'm running Windows, X or BeOS I call those boxes on the screen 'windows', therefore any derivatives of the name should be allowed I think
That'd be nice, but I wouldn't expect it to happen anytime soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Bombs cannot hold terrain. Constantly bombing the same place to avoid that the enemy retakes it is not a viable proposition.
You make sense, but what you're describing really sounds to me more like a peacekeeping operation, or, if there's still fighting going on, mop-up work after the bombers are done. So in that sense, yes, you do need ground troops. But clearly it's the bombing that does the vast majority of the total damage to the enemy.
I think that as long as only one side is largely using machines to fight, then such "Drone Wars" will still be considered carefully and prudently, due to the possibility of the loss of human life. Once both sides are doing it, though, I do agree that the use of such technology will be approved much more readily.
Still, I don't think that they'll become knee-jerk reactions to future crises due to the lingering potential of the death of innocent bystanders (nobody looks good when they kill civilians.)
Incidentally, I don't understand why the talking heads were talking about the great need for ground troops. Certainly, it's a little difficult to bomb a deep cave, but I think Desert Storm showed us that with the technology that we currently possess, bombing certainly can make the efforts of ground troops little more than "limited skirmishes", as Mike Myers described the ground war in Iraq in "Wayne's World".
Good point. I wonder, though, if enough people will become enough tech-savvy that workarounds and hacks will still become widespread enough, or if those creating the hacks will make them simple enough for most people.
Also, what about the culture that has sprung up on the internet of not wanting to pay for things (God, we're all such freeloaders)? Is that going to hurt paid-for video over the internet the way it has killed music?
Well, it's nice to see that at least someone in the article recognizes encrypted CDs for what they are.
But I wonder if the people trying to flag these videos to prevent their transmission over the internet ever heard of hackers? I find it hard to believe that by now they can be so naive as to think that they'll be able to pull this off.
I think the biggest "what if" is what if B.J. Blazkowicz hadn't rescued the Spear of Destiny from the Nazis? Man, we would've been screwed.
Well, if one of these asteroids ever does actually hit the earth, at least it's one less asteroid we have to look for. :)
Alright, I guess I did, as illustrated in the post just above my last post, but come on, I find it hard to believe that these people are that naive.
but did the information on the fark.com website even mention a reason to use this? Or are they just going to assume that we're all so eager and willing to download music from them just so that the artists get paid that we'll sign up for the service in a heartbeat?
They probably shouldn't have tried connecting through AOL and its filtering settings, for starters....
A good thought on the idea of having cultural commentaries with SF books. As a classicist myself (and having read Clyde Pharr's edition of the Aeneid), I can say that a commentary is definitely a useful tool.
However, the danger with commentaries in general is that they can become too expansive. I was reading some Horace recently with a commentary at the back of the book, and I realized before too long that I was spending more time reading English than reading Latin! Now, it's not quite such a big deal if the commentary and the text are in the same language, but it's still a concern. I do think you've got a point, though.
It's asking an awful lot of someone to learn Russian just so that he can read some of the literature for pleasure, don't you think?
And you're right about most educated people outside the U.S. speaking at least one other language. Of course, that language happens to be English in almost every case.
Besides, I think that there are other European languages that would be more useful to someone in general than Russian if they just wanted to have another language for the hell of it (French and German come to mind immediately.) I know that graduate programs in my discipline (Classical Stuides) and I'm sure in many others require proficiency in foreign languages such as German and French. I can't imagine too many that would require Russian, though.
So I guess Russian sci-fi from, say, the Cold War includes stuff like indoor plumbing, supermarkets with actual food, and the freedom of uncensored thought?
The name is not "Windows" but "Lindows" which gives the impression that it's not Windows but somehow connected to Windows.
Isn't this the problem? Windows doesn't want its brand name to be associated with something that's not Microsoft, so naturally they're going to fight it.
if Microsoft were truly believers of free competition and innovation they'd leave this alone
Who besides Microsoft ever said they were such believers? (And have they ever even said this???)
I think windows should be a generic term anyway, whether I'm running Windows, X or BeOS I call those boxes on the screen 'windows', therefore any derivatives of the name should be allowed I think
That'd be nice, but I wouldn't expect it to happen anytime soon.