I want an advanced armored exoskeleton. Make it fly too. I can do without the repulors if I MUST, but please do give me a big flamethrower and a chaingun on my model. Maybe some shoulder mounted RPG's too?
And here we have another person that will seem to drop off the face of the planet once Starcraft II ships. Please remember not to play for 48 hours without sleep while consuming only nachos and soda, we wouldn't want you to permanently drop off the face of the planet. OK, maybe not "we" but "somebody" out there would care.;-)
From an engineering perspective but not from a marketing perspective. What is the easily communicated value that more than overcomes the network effect of Windows' accumulated user knowledge (already knows how to use Windows and Office), file interoperability (nearly everyone else is using office), informal support (family and friends can often help),...; and overcomes the switching costs of installing Linux (possibly having to pay someone to do it), learning an entirely different operating system and set of applications, a lack of informal support (family and friends still on Windows),...
Now a company with support capacity and marketing abilities is needed if we want to see more than a 2% market share
Look at Macintosh. It is unix based, has a better user interface than Linux, more informal support, a major consumer brand name behind it, MS Office is natively available,... and it is around 5-6%. Once you have sold a person on leaving Windows you also have to sell them on going with Linux rather than Mac OS X. Consumers have options once they leave Windows, you can not assume they will go to Linux. Even if Linux were more competitive with Mac OS X, Apple's market share suggests that Linux can not really improve it's share much.
In short, merely being perfectly usable by grandma does not make Linux the viable alternative to Windows from the perspective of an *average consumer*. Our techno babble means nothing to them. Linux needs far more work to justify the switching costs in their eyes.
"The pilot enters inputs into a computer requesting particular actions and the computer decides if and how to implement those requests, i.e. maneuver or drop bomb."
Ah, no.
The computer decides HOW. The only time when it even comes close to "if" is if there's a fail-safe built in to the system -- and that's not so much deciding now to as being unable to figure out how.
I pulled an Obama, I poorly worded the above. I'm not saying you ask for a bomb and it decides to maneuver. I am saying you as for a maneuver and it decides if to perform the maneuver as requested (via stick and rudder), you ask for a bomb and it decides whether to drop. For example the flight control computer can "override" a pilot. If a maneuver is too hard it may moderate it, i.e. turn a command that would have resulted in a 10G maneuver into an 8G maneuver. You request one particular control surface to move and the computer decides to move different surfaces to perform the equivalent maneuver (as you said "figure out how"). Regarding dropping bombs, if the landing and arresting gear is down maybe it won't drop the bomb.
And if you think the Pilots in cockpits and controlling UAVs don't have to enter a specific command each and every time a weapon is fired, I've got a bridge to sell you
back in the day Hannibal would just start in the north and kill or enslave everyone till he hit the water in the south
FWIW that was Roman propaganda. Hannibal was pretty good at forming alliances with tribes/cities that were not the most enthusiastic of Roman supporters. The preceding should not be interpreted to suggest that Hannibal was an easy going guy, for example he had an "interesting" way of using Roman prisoners to motivate his troops. He once took two prisoners (soldiers) and forced them to fight to the death. After the fight the winner was brutally and publicly tortured to death. The lesson to his own troops, it is better to die in battle than to be at the mercy of your enemy.
There's something that really bothers me about this robotic warfare business - it doesn't seem fair to fight a war that doesn't put your troops at risk.
The last thing a nation and its combat troops want is a fair fight and equitable risks. They want weapons that reach farther than the enemy's, armor that can stop the enemy's, and they would prefer to sneak up on the enemy and employ weapons before the enemy is aware of their presence. Combat is not a sport, there is and should be nothing fair about it.
Software is already waving around, or more accurately flying around, weapons. Today, many a pilot does not directly manipulate control surfaces to maneuver or activate a solenoid (or whatever, you get the idea) to drop a bomb. The pilot enters inputs into a computer requesting particular actions and the computer decides if and how to implement those requests, i.e. maneuver or drop bomb.
The robots we are discussing here are somewhat comparable to modern combat aircraft. A person is making the decisions regarding maneuver and firing. One major difference is that the robot is remotely operated, unlike most aircraft.
I'm not sure who your plural noun "We" refers to. Surely not the country responsible for Hiroshima, the Dresden bombing,...
In both cases the US did not initiate the intentional targeting of civilians, it responded in kind. The Japanese were notoriously brutal in this respect (China). Also, in Europe the US greatly increased the risk to its air crews by preferring to bomb in daylight so that military targets could be more precisely targeted. This was in part motivated by concerns for civilian casualties. In contrast to the British preference for night bombing which generally carpet bombed cities. Dresden was closer to this latter case.
... the Mai Lai massacre,...
An aberration by one small unit. Other US troops went into harms way to rescue the civilians being attacked and threatened to fire on the attackers. The commander who ordered the attack was prosecuted.
... cluster bombing of civilian populated areas in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc., etc., etc.
Precision bombs, not cluster bombs, are generally used for strikes in or near populated areas. Cluster bombs are generally used against large military formations or military areas such as airfields. In any case, the US is working pretty hard at avoiding civilian casualties. When such casualties have occurred it is usually the result of faulty intelligence or some other error (similar to friendly fire), not the indiscriminate use of area weapons.
Oddly, they're saying a language which is slower for people to write, and considerably more obscure than most languages, is the reason something is done under-budget and quickly? It seems like those traits would make it more secure, but take much longer to make...
Ada may force more up front design and less seat of the pants hacking. This can lead to fewer bugs and less reworking of code. Some of the worst code I've seen came from otherwise intelligent people who jump write in and expeditiously write a lot of code fast rather than taking some time to think about things. Sadly, others end up having to spend time cleaning up such messes, or it ships and users end up with buggy code.
I'm usually not happy with things in C/C++ until the third rewrite, perhaps in Ada I'd be happy on the second rewrite.:-)
"some attacks on soldiers demonstrate no consideration for civilian casualties"
When we kill civilians it's called "collateral damage".
Note the words "no consideration" above. We try to avoid collateral damage, even to the extent that we occasionally put our troops in greater danger. In contrast, the enemy includes some who consider the civilian casualties a bonus because they are from the "other" school of Islam and are therefore heretics deserving death, and some who consider the civilian casualties a blessing because they are from the "same" school of Islam and are there righteous true believers who have died in a struggle to defend the faith and are therefore martyrs who are entering paradise.
When a roadside bomb attacking military vehicles is "terrorism", the word has lost all meaning.... considers roadside bombs to be "terrorism", then as you say, the word has lost all meaning.
It is now just a propaganda ploy.
Please don't mix logic with political spin, it undermines an otherwise valid point. Singling out Bush by name is misleading, his usage of the word is hardly any different than administrations before him, republican and democrat, and its current usage goes back farther than you suggest. More importantly, Iraq is an exceptionally poor example of this otherwise valid point. In addition to the fact that those targeting soldiers one day also target civilians on other days, some attacks on soldiers demonstrate no consideration for civilian casualties. The word's formal definition applies quite well to insurgents in Iraq, little propaganda is needed.
Re:Flashbacks and incontinence
on
The DIY Tank
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· Score: 1
Thanks for that. I honestly never felt comfortable talking to him about it. He was still quite angry. It was sad, really, but I understood where was coming from.
I've had the privilege of talking to veterans in my family, including those who served in the pacific and in europe during WW2. There seems to be two camps. One that continues to demonize their former enemy. The other that looks at the their former enemy and realizes that the people who start wars and those that fight wars are two different groups, that many who did the fighting were no different than them - just born at the "wrong" time and place and serving a government that did not deserve their loyalty.
It is not uncommon to find pacific veterans in the former and european veterans in the latter. Part of this was due to the ability to empathize with the enemy. In europe many american soldiers saw a similar culture, perhaps even the culture of their ancestors. Many american soldiers of german or italian descent wondered if they would be on the "other side" if their father or grandfather had not emigrated to america. Japan was a more alien culture to begin with, and the more horrendous nature of the combat made empathy nearly impossible. The rare atrocities committed against american soldiers by the germans were the norm (or mild) compared to the japanese. One approach I found useful when talking to an "angry" pacific veteran is to point out that the japanese he sees today are those he liberated, that they grew up in a modern democratic system that respects human rights and freedom rather than a medieval-like imperial system that worships only the emporer and subjugates all to the emporer's will. You will probably never change the pacific veteran's feelings about those he fought, but you might be able to get him to take a second look at those who grew up after the war. That he didn't just liberate western europe and the south-west/central pacific, he also liberated the future generations of germany and japan.
Tank driving down street ...
on
The DIY Tank
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· Score: 1
Can't wait to see someone driving one of these and talking on a cell phone.
The shareholders hear only the sounds that money makes, and they are going to sell out quickly,...
Shareholders are supposed to sell when they receive an advantageous offer. Advantageous being a return that is more likely greater than holding the stock. What do you think shareholders are, some sort of fanboys? More importantly, why do think the founders of the company went public and brought in shareholders, it was so that the founders could pocket a lot of money. So now the story that the founders sold to the shareholders turns out not to be true, and the shareholders are looking for their best option. This is the way public financing works.
... especially in the midst of this recession.
The motivation to sell in this specific case is not the recession but a failed business model.
FWIW, the midst of a recession is usually the time to buy. The onset of a recession is usually the time to sell.
The Iraqui insurgents have figured out a doctrine that works against armor. That's new.
Uh, you really should study a little history before making such statements. Except for a very brief period after the tank's introduction during World War 1, countering armor was a known. Something that many an ordinary infantry was taught over the last 70+ years. All the insurgents have discovered is that pointing a weapon in the general direction of an enemy and saying a prayer while shooting, relying on God to guide your projectile to the target and make it effective, does not work and that adopting well known infantry tactics do work. All these guys had to do was find one of the millions of field manuals printed and distributed during the cold war.
Dune is incredibly relevant to our times because it shows how an oppressive power structure exploits a people's resources and make enemies of the natives...
That is not relevant to our times, it is relevant to all of human history.
... Dune provides insight into what makes an extremist and their motivations.
No, *extremists* are usually looking for any excuse or pretext to justify their actions. Legitimate grievances are not required.
While there are elements taken from Islamic culture Dune is more rooted in Arabic culture, elements that pre-date Islam. The GP's post was only partly nonsense.
... but if the acting is supurb, and they're telling a good story, then I'm happy.
Maybe, if you have not read the book. The 1980s theatrical movie had good acting and a good story but plot elements really knocked the movie down a notch, for example for many who read the book the sound based weapons were a strong negative. The Fremen won fights because their environment and culture made them tough, it was not a technological gimmick. The movie discarded a major element of the book, people adapting to and being influenced (culturally and physically) by their environment.
I don't see why a terrorist who hates this country and the people in it, would sell useful harmless products like software when the terrorist could sell crack or meth.
Because they are selling the pirated software on the streets of their own countries, and/or they are selling the discs or tapes to a third party who will actually do the importation. They aren't in the US.
You are looking at piracy from the wrong perspective. It is not what percentage of the street vendors selling CDs for $1 are supporting terrorism, it is what percentage of terrorist funding comes from selling CDs, DVDs, VHSs, etc? How many pirates are supporting terrorists is irrelevant, the only relevant issue is how much of terrorist funding can be disrupted by a piracy crackdown.
I'm not aware of any actual empirical standard of beauty.
According to research that I ran across in a university library years ago, beauty highly correlates with the symmetry of facial features. Such symmetry is believed to be an indicator of genetic health.
According to a show on the discovery channel certain proportions and ratios are considered universally attractive, culturally independent. This included both facial and body ratios. It didn't really matter whether the culture preferred skinny or normal body types, the favored ratios of the features were consistent. IIRC the favored body ratios correlated with child bearing success.
We are hard wired for "beauty" and it is mathematically based.
Slashdot Mirror
The Cylons were created by Man. They Evolved. They Rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a Plan.
:-)
I take it you missed last Friday's episode. The Cylons no longer have a plan.
Lifting stuff, we have forklifts for that. Much simpler and cheaper.
Really, you've seen many forklifts in the field unloading Hueys or Blackhawks, or unpacking a palette from a Chinook or Hercules?
Heavy weapons? Is the US military's problem really a lack of firepower? I seriously doubt it.
OK, you obviously never saw the guy carrying the M60 and its ammo.
No car analogy yet... forklift was as close as I could get :)
:-)
Who needs a car, just run down the freeway at 60 mph in the exoskeleton.
I want an advanced armored exoskeleton. Make it fly too. I can do without the repulors if I MUST, but please do give me a big flamethrower and a chaingun on my model. Maybe some shoulder mounted RPG's too?
;-)
And here we have another person that will seem to drop off the face of the planet once Starcraft II ships. Please remember not to play for 48 hours without sleep while consuming only nachos and soda, we wouldn't want you to permanently drop off the face of the planet. OK, maybe not "we" but "somebody" out there would care.
Linux is technically ready for the desktop.
...; and overcomes the switching costs of installing Linux (possibly having to pay someone to do it), learning an entirely different operating system and set of applications, a lack of informal support (family and friends still on Windows), ...
... and it is around 5-6%. Once you have sold a person on leaving Windows you also have to sell them on going with Linux rather than Mac OS X. Consumers have options once they leave Windows, you can not assume they will go to Linux. Even if Linux were more competitive with Mac OS X, Apple's market share suggests that Linux can not really improve it's share much.
From an engineering perspective but not from a marketing perspective. What is the easily communicated value that more than overcomes the network effect of Windows' accumulated user knowledge (already knows how to use Windows and Office), file interoperability (nearly everyone else is using office), informal support (family and friends can often help),
Now a company with support capacity and marketing abilities is needed if we want to see more than a 2% market share
Look at Macintosh. It is unix based, has a better user interface than Linux, more informal support, a major consumer brand name behind it, MS Office is natively available,
In short, merely being perfectly usable by grandma does not make Linux the viable alternative to Windows from the perspective of an *average consumer*. Our techno babble means nothing to them. Linux needs far more work to justify the switching costs in their eyes.
"The pilot enters inputs into a computer requesting particular actions and the computer decides if and how to implement those requests, i.e. maneuver or drop bomb."
:-)
Ah, no. The computer decides HOW. The only time when it even comes close to "if" is if there's a fail-safe built in to the system -- and that's not so much deciding now to as being unable to figure out how.
I pulled an Obama, I poorly worded the above. I'm not saying you ask for a bomb and it decides to maneuver. I am saying you as for a maneuver and it decides if to perform the maneuver as requested (via stick and rudder), you ask for a bomb and it decides whether to drop. For example the flight control computer can "override" a pilot. If a maneuver is too hard it may moderate it, i.e. turn a command that would have resulted in a 10G maneuver into an 8G maneuver. You request one particular control surface to move and the computer decides to move different surfaces to perform the equivalent maneuver (as you said "figure out how"). Regarding dropping bombs, if the landing and arresting gear is down maybe it won't drop the bomb.
And if you think the Pilots in cockpits and controlling UAVs don't have to enter a specific command each and every time a weapon is fired, I've got a bridge to sell you
That was my point.
back in the day Hannibal would just start in the north and kill or enslave everyone till he hit the water in the south
FWIW that was Roman propaganda. Hannibal was pretty good at forming alliances with tribes/cities that were not the most enthusiastic of Roman supporters. The preceding should not be interpreted to suggest that Hannibal was an easy going guy, for example he had an "interesting" way of using Roman prisoners to motivate his troops. He once took two prisoners (soldiers) and forced them to fight to the death. After the fight the winner was brutally and publicly tortured to death. The lesson to his own troops, it is better to die in battle than to be at the mercy of your enemy.
There's something that really bothers me about this robotic warfare business - it doesn't seem fair to fight a war that doesn't put your troops at risk.
The last thing a nation and its combat troops want is a fair fight and equitable risks. They want weapons that reach farther than the enemy's, armor that can stop the enemy's, and they would prefer to sneak up on the enemy and employ weapons before the enemy is aware of their presence. Combat is not a sport, there is and should be nothing fair about it.
Software is already waving around, or more accurately flying around, weapons. Today, many a pilot does not directly manipulate control surfaces to maneuver or activate a solenoid (or whatever, you get the idea) to drop a bomb. The pilot enters inputs into a computer requesting particular actions and the computer decides if and how to implement those requests, i.e. maneuver or drop bomb.
The robots we are discussing here are somewhat comparable to modern combat aircraft. A person is making the decisions regarding maneuver and firing. One major difference is that the robot is remotely operated, unlike most aircraft.
I'm not sure who your plural noun "We" refers to. Surely not the country responsible for Hiroshima, the Dresden bombing, ...
... the Mai Lai massacre, ...
... cluster bombing of civilian populated areas in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc., etc., etc.
In both cases the US did not initiate the intentional targeting of civilians, it responded in kind. The Japanese were notoriously brutal in this respect (China). Also, in Europe the US greatly increased the risk to its air crews by preferring to bomb in daylight so that military targets could be more precisely targeted. This was in part motivated by concerns for civilian casualties. In contrast to the British preference for night bombing which generally carpet bombed cities. Dresden was closer to this latter case.
An aberration by one small unit. Other US troops went into harms way to rescue the civilians being attacked and threatened to fire on the attackers. The commander who ordered the attack was prosecuted.
Precision bombs, not cluster bombs, are generally used for strikes in or near populated areas. Cluster bombs are generally used against large military formations or military areas such as airfields. In any case, the US is working pretty hard at avoiding civilian casualties. When such casualties have occurred it is usually the result of faulty intelligence or some other error (similar to friendly fire), not the indiscriminate use of area weapons.
Oddly, they're saying a language which is slower for people to write, and considerably more obscure than most languages, is the reason something is done under-budget and quickly? It seems like those traits would make it more secure, but take much longer to make...
:-)
Ada may force more up front design and less seat of the pants hacking. This can lead to fewer bugs and less reworking of code. Some of the worst code I've seen came from otherwise intelligent people who jump write in and expeditiously write a lot of code fast rather than taking some time to think about things. Sadly, others end up having to spend time cleaning up such messes, or it ships and users end up with buggy code.
I'm usually not happy with things in C/C++ until the third rewrite, perhaps in Ada I'd be happy on the second rewrite.
"some attacks on soldiers demonstrate no consideration for civilian casualties"
When we kill civilians it's called "collateral damage".
Note the words "no consideration" above. We try to avoid collateral damage, even to the extent that we occasionally put our troops in greater danger. In contrast, the enemy includes some who consider the civilian casualties a bonus because they are from the "other" school of Islam and are therefore heretics deserving death, and some who consider the civilian casualties a blessing because they are from the "same" school of Islam and are there righteous true believers who have died in a struggle to defend the faith and are therefore martyrs who are entering paradise.
When a roadside bomb attacking military vehicles is "terrorism", the word has lost all meaning. ... considers roadside bombs to be "terrorism", then as you say, the word has lost all meaning.
It is now just a propaganda ploy.
Please don't mix logic with political spin, it undermines an otherwise valid point. Singling out Bush by name is misleading, his usage of the word is hardly any different than administrations before him, republican and democrat, and its current usage goes back farther than you suggest. More importantly, Iraq is an exceptionally poor example of this otherwise valid point. In addition to the fact that those targeting soldiers one day also target civilians on other days, some attacks on soldiers demonstrate no consideration for civilian casualties. The word's formal definition applies quite well to insurgents in Iraq, little propaganda is needed.
Thanks for that. I honestly never felt comfortable talking to him about it. He was still quite angry. It was sad, really, but I understood where was coming from.
I've had the privilege of talking to veterans in my family, including those who served in the pacific and in europe during WW2. There seems to be two camps. One that continues to demonize their former enemy. The other that looks at the their former enemy and realizes that the people who start wars and those that fight wars are two different groups, that many who did the fighting were no different than them - just born at the "wrong" time and place and serving a government that did not deserve their loyalty.
It is not uncommon to find pacific veterans in the former and european veterans in the latter. Part of this was due to the ability to empathize with the enemy. In europe many american soldiers saw a similar culture, perhaps even the culture of their ancestors. Many american soldiers of german or italian descent wondered if they would be on the "other side" if their father or grandfather had not emigrated to america. Japan was a more alien culture to begin with, and the more horrendous nature of the combat made empathy nearly impossible. The rare atrocities committed against american soldiers by the germans were the norm (or mild) compared to the japanese. One approach I found useful when talking to an "angry" pacific veteran is to point out that the japanese he sees today are those he liberated, that they grew up in a modern democratic system that respects human rights and freedom rather than a medieval-like imperial system that worships only the emporer and subjugates all to the emporer's will. You will probably never change the pacific veteran's feelings about those he fought, but you might be able to get him to take a second look at those who grew up after the war. That he didn't just liberate western europe and the south-west/central pacific, he also liberated the future generations of germany and japan.
Can't wait to see someone driving one of these and talking on a cell phone.
It will probably be something close to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vESIVemfG8
I remember quite a few people who thought the gunfire in Saving Private Ryan sounded fakey -- precisely because it didn't.
:-)
Sounded fake to me, I was not wearing ear protection and I was not partially deaf with ringing ears.
Shareholders are not supposed to do anything.
I used "supposed to" not in a literal sense, rather in a "rational behavior indicates" sense.
The shareholders hear only the sounds that money makes, and they are going to sell out quickly, ...
... especially in the midst of this recession.
Shareholders are supposed to sell when they receive an advantageous offer. Advantageous being a return that is more likely greater than holding the stock. What do you think shareholders are, some sort of fanboys? More importantly, why do think the founders of the company went public and brought in shareholders, it was so that the founders could pocket a lot of money. So now the story that the founders sold to the shareholders turns out not to be true, and the shareholders are looking for their best option. This is the way public financing works.
The motivation to sell in this specific case is not the recession but a failed business model.
FWIW, the midst of a recession is usually the time to buy. The onset of a recession is usually the time to sell.
The Iraqui insurgents have figured out a doctrine that works against armor. That's new.
Uh, you really should study a little history before making such statements. Except for a very brief period after the tank's introduction during World War 1, countering armor was a known. Something that many an ordinary infantry was taught over the last 70+ years. All the insurgents have discovered is that pointing a weapon in the general direction of an enemy and saying a prayer while shooting, relying on God to guide your projectile to the target and make it effective, does not work and that adopting well known infantry tactics do work. All these guys had to do was find one of the millions of field manuals printed and distributed during the cold war.
Dune is incredibly relevant to our times because it shows how an oppressive power structure exploits a people's resources and make enemies of the natives ...
... Dune provides insight into what makes an extremist and their motivations.
That is not relevant to our times, it is relevant to all of human history.
No, *extremists* are usually looking for any excuse or pretext to justify their actions. Legitimate grievances are not required.
While there are elements taken from Islamic culture Dune is more rooted in Arabic culture, elements that pre-date Islam. The GP's post was only partly nonsense.
... but if the acting is supurb, and they're telling a good story, then I'm happy.
Maybe, if you have not read the book. The 1980s theatrical movie had good acting and a good story but plot elements really knocked the movie down a notch, for example for many who read the book the sound based weapons were a strong negative. The Fremen won fights because their environment and culture made them tough, it was not a technological gimmick. The movie discarded a major element of the book, people adapting to and being influenced (culturally and physically) by their environment.
I don't see why a terrorist who hates this country and the people in it, would sell useful harmless products like software when the terrorist could sell crack or meth.
Because they are selling the pirated software on the streets of their own countries, and/or they are selling the discs or tapes to a third party who will actually do the importation. They aren't in the US.
You are looking at piracy from the wrong perspective. It is not what percentage of the street vendors selling CDs for $1 are supporting terrorism, it is what percentage of terrorist funding comes from selling CDs, DVDs, VHSs, etc? How many pirates are supporting terrorists is irrelevant, the only relevant issue is how much of terrorist funding can be disrupted by a piracy crackdown.
I'm not aware of any actual empirical standard of beauty.
According to research that I ran across in a university library years ago, beauty highly correlates with the symmetry of facial features. Such symmetry is believed to be an indicator of genetic health.
According to a show on the discovery channel certain proportions and ratios are considered universally attractive, culturally independent. This included both facial and body ratios. It didn't really matter whether the culture preferred skinny or normal body types, the favored ratios of the features were consistent. IIRC the favored body ratios correlated with child bearing success.
We are hard wired for "beauty" and it is mathematically based.