Well, did you ever hear about the top-secret WWII antisubmarine-warfare program to teach seagulls to defecate on periscopes? And I bet you think I'm making this one up.
The kamizake onslaughts against outlying destroyers on "picket duty" on the edges of carrier task forces grew so horrendous that some DD crews supposedly made giant signs out of bedsheets reading "CARRIERS THIS WAY."
(sorry for not proofreading)The PS is correct. Frank Whittle had had the idea up to a static-thrust-test proof of concept, but the MOD considered the jet relatively unreliable (arguable) and a fuel hog (undeniable). V-1 buzz bombs and the advent of Luftwaffe rocket- and jet-propelled manned aircraft made these detractions less important.
The paint schemes weren't silly; you just don't understand their true intent, which was to make visual ID and target ranging more difficult. The zebra pattern, when viewed from afar, was supposedly harder to focus on from periscopes and (optical) fire-control directors.
...like Iwo Jima and Okinawa where the first several waves of Marines took something on the order of 90% casualties.
Beg to differ, AC. It was horrendous, but nowhere near 90%. In fact, it was lower than Omaha Beach or Tarawa were. (However, we kept losing Marines because the Japanese fought like hell for ever square inch of that island and refused to surrender.) The Marine Corps and Navy learned a hell of a lot about how NOT to storm a beach after reviewing the mistakes made at Tarawa (and God, were there ever some). Like paying attention when people who know the tidal and reef environment, having the UDTs (the ur-SEALs) perform a hydrographic survey and reconnaisance, plastering the beach right up to while the first wave's going in, having the correct equipment to get over a shallow reef and across the beach under fire the whole way, etc.
Tarawa was expensive tuition, but the Japanese knew they were screwed when, as one of their Imperial Marine officers put it, "The dead Marine kept coming."
Computer software prices will crash when the need for constant upgrades disappears, and this is only a matter of time, leading computer and software expert Linus Torvalds said on Thursday.
I'm ignorant on this subject (among lots of others:D). Can somebody explain to me why the need for constant upgrades is going to disappear and how that's supposed to translate into crashing software prices?
I keep praying Adobe will drop the single-seat price of FrameMaker to around $200, but knowing Adobe, that's just not going to happen, no matter how infrequently necessary software upgrades become.
Donning Dr. Ruth persona... Considering the schizoid way we Westerners tend to deal with sexual issues in general, I wonder with what kind of juvenile derision any kind of "Microgravity Kama Sutra" will be greeted. OTOH, Playboy and a host of mainstream women's magazines seem to have a good handle on discussing sex matters in a frank, clear adult manner, so once the subject goes from hypothetical to practical, that's where I'd look for advice first.
Witness the stunning number of domains porn sites have come up with - and that without even any use of certain words.
Reminds me of the old joke about the difference between a circus and a whorehouse: a cunning array of stunts versus a stunning...oh, never mind.
Re:Combat Armor isn't that far off, after all...
on
Project Grizzly
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· Score: 1
Just put a small, durable computer in there(Image Recognition, targeting, et al...) and some weapons, and you'd have one heck of a marine unit.
Don't think so. Wear this plus the gear you've added, plus another 60+ lbs of personal gear and weapons, water, etc. and then go on a route march or assault an enemy position? Naaaah. Nobody's said this'll stop bullets and shrapnel -- just bears. Besides, like somebody pointed out, there's the "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up" factor.
Y'know, this technology could replace MedicAlert bracelets. Imagine tattooing/implanting Alzheimer's-disease patients, so if they wander off, they're that much easier to identify. (Before you flame me, I spent a night along with a bunch of my neighbors helping look for one's lost father, whom the cops later found a half mile away on a stranger's porch.)
(snort) Baloney. 'Personal helicopter' my starboard nacelle! I bet 99% of the people who would try learning to fly a personal helicopter would die in their first solo attempt.
I've pissed off a few NASCAR fans around my office by pointing out that when it came to driving a helo, Davey Allison turned out to be just another dead rotorhead wannabee. (He'd just gotten his license and bought his own bird, but he forgot the two cardinal rules of low-altitude flying and approaches: (1) Know where your tail rotor is in relation to everything it could possibly come in contact with, and (2) Pay attention to the surface winds.) If that sounds harsh, too fscking bad. Helicopters simply are not forgiving machines.
Fixed-wing aircraft require some practice, but helicopters demand religious fervor. Helo pilots are born, not made. (And only an Army or Air Force puke would call them "choppers."
Navy RM's are no longer taught Morse as of (I believe) a year ago, and there are damn few left in the fleet who can use Morse. There's a small but vocal contingent of old-timers out there who suggest that losing a low-tech skill like Morse could put us at a disadvantage in a crunch -- like an InfoWar scenario where EMP and HERF are employed to knock back more sophisticated communications techniques.
Interesting. I didn't know Rugby was in the VLF band. That's probably more efficient for you Brits, considering you're an island and can radiate directly off the continental shelf. Mostly we Yanks use the ELF grid out of northern Michigan, which radiates right thru the Earth. Using a half-click or so of wire for the antenna, you could easily build an ELF receiver, although the FCC, the NSA and the Navy might get kind of interested in why you were bothering.
For you uninitiated Linuxheads, the stuff we're talking here has incredible penetration power -- basically, anywhere subs are likely to operate -- but horrible bandwidth. A xmission for a very simple code meaning "USS So-and-so, hit your next window for satcom message to follow" can take on the order of minutes for a few bytes.
Read The Hunt for Red October, which is a bit dated and necessarily kinda squirrely on details but gives you a general sense of how the procedure works.
(Geez, this thread is starting to read like something outta sci.military.naval.)
Oh, by the way, just to provide some additional context: I'm in Columbia, SC, which got worked over by Hugo and is now squarely on the projected path of Floyd.
...I've submitted two stories about Microsoft in the last couple of weeks (one about plans for tablet computing, one about a study of the expected rollout costs for Win2K). I figgered they'd be of some interest to the/. community, even if they're about the Evil Empire(TM). AFAIK, they never appeared on/.
It's sort of newsworthy that there's a webcam devoted to Floyd (tho it's not like webcams are exactly news), and the guys do have the pics on Linux boxes. But for my money, the good Cmdr & co. dropped the ball editorially.
The other day a co-worker, a developer with a Palm III, said to me, "Hey, Bill! Wanna see what I'me doing with my Palm lately?" I took a pass on that one.
Grasping here at another opportunity to be wrong, but I think a high-quality wok is pretty doggone close to a paraboloid. I think I'd still rather be several thousand yards away & pull the trigger by remote control, just the same.
I've adopted a somewhat more low-tech approach to the driving-while-phoning problem. I put a sign in my windshield that says, in reversed print, HANG UP AND DRIVE THE CAR.
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Well, did you ever hear about the top-secret WWII antisubmarine-warfare program to teach seagulls to defecate on periscopes? And I bet you think I'm making this one up.
The kamizake onslaughts against outlying destroyers on "picket duty" on the edges of carrier task forces grew so horrendous that some DD crews supposedly made giant signs out of bedsheets reading "CARRIERS THIS WAY."
(sorry for not proofreading)The PS is correct. Frank Whittle had had the idea up to a static-thrust-test proof of concept, but the MOD considered the jet relatively unreliable (arguable) and a fuel hog (undeniable). V-1 buzz bombs and the advent of Luftwaffe rocket- and jet-propelled manned aircraft made these detractions less important.
the PS is correct. Frank Whittle had had the idea up to a static-thrust-test proof of con
The paint schemes weren't silly; you just don't understand their true intent, which was to make visual ID and target ranging more difficult. The zebra pattern, when viewed from afar, was supposedly harder to focus on from periscopes and (optical) fire-control directors.
Beg to differ, AC. It was horrendous, but nowhere near 90%. In fact, it was lower than Omaha Beach or Tarawa were. (However, we kept losing Marines because the Japanese fought like hell for ever square inch of that island and refused to surrender.) The Marine Corps and Navy learned a hell of a lot about how NOT to storm a beach after reviewing the mistakes made at Tarawa (and God, were there ever some). Like paying attention when people who know the tidal and reef environment, having the UDTs (the ur-SEALs) perform a hydrographic survey and reconnaisance, plastering the beach right up to while the first wave's going in, having the correct equipment to get over a shallow reef and across the beach under fire the whole way, etc.
Tarawa was expensive tuition, but the Japanese knew they were screwed when, as one of their Imperial Marine officers put it, "The dead Marine kept coming."
A cylindrical bomb, rotatating on its axis, that's designed to fracture a dam. See "The Dam Busters."
Computer software prices will crash when the need for constant upgrades disappears, and this is only a matter of time, leading computer and software expert Linus Torvalds said on Thursday.
I'm ignorant on this subject (among lots of others :D). Can somebody explain to me why the need for constant upgrades is going to disappear and how that's supposed to translate into crashing software prices?
I keep praying Adobe will drop the single-seat price of FrameMaker to around $200, but knowing Adobe, that's just not going to happen, no matter how infrequently necessary software upgrades become.
Umm, you mean 1968, right? Or can I borrow your time machine? :)
Donning Dr. Ruth persona... Considering the schizoid way we Westerners tend to deal with sexual issues in general, I wonder with what kind of juvenile derision any kind of "Microgravity Kama Sutra" will be greeted. OTOH, Playboy and a host of mainstream women's magazines seem to have a good handle on discussing sex matters in a frank, clear adult manner, so once the subject goes from hypothetical to practical, that's where I'd look for advice first.
What the hell does "31337" mean, anyway?
Heeeeere, kitty kitty. (Petting tiger) Nice kitty. Good kitty.
Witness the stunning number of domains porn sites have come up with - and that without even any use of certain words.
Reminds me of the old joke about the difference between a circus and a whorehouse: a cunning array of stunts versus a stunning...oh, never mind.
Just put a small, durable computer in there(Image Recognition, targeting, et al...) and some weapons, and you'd have one heck of a marine unit.
Don't think so. Wear this plus the gear you've added, plus another 60+ lbs of personal gear and weapons, water, etc. and then go on a route march or assault an enemy position? Naaaah. Nobody's said this'll stop bullets and shrapnel -- just bears. Besides, like somebody pointed out, there's the "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up" factor.
Y'know, this technology could replace MedicAlert bracelets. Imagine tattooing/implanting Alzheimer's-disease patients, so if they wander off, they're that much easier to identify. (Before you flame me, I spent a night along with a bunch of my neighbors helping look for one's lost father, whom the cops later found a half mile away on a stranger's porch.)
(snort) Baloney. 'Personal helicopter' my starboard nacelle! I bet 99% of the people who would try learning to fly a personal helicopter would die in their first solo attempt.
I've pissed off a few NASCAR fans around my office by pointing out that when it came to driving a helo, Davey Allison turned out to be just another dead rotorhead wannabee. (He'd just gotten his license and bought his own bird, but he forgot the two cardinal rules of low-altitude flying and approaches: (1) Know where your tail rotor is in relation to everything it could possibly come in contact with, and (2) Pay attention to the surface winds.) If that sounds harsh, too fscking bad. Helicopters simply are not forgiving machines.
Fixed-wing aircraft require some practice, but helicopters demand religious fervor. Helo pilots are born, not made. (And only an Army or Air Force puke would call them "choppers."
More quasi- sci.military.naval stuff, eh?
Navy RM's are no longer taught Morse as of (I believe) a year ago, and there are damn few left in the fleet who can use Morse. There's a small but vocal contingent of old-timers out there who suggest that losing a low-tech skill like Morse could put us at a disadvantage in a crunch -- like an InfoWar scenario where EMP and HERF are employed to knock back more sophisticated communications techniques.
Interesting. I didn't know Rugby was in the VLF band. That's probably more efficient for you Brits, considering you're an island and can radiate directly off the continental shelf. Mostly we Yanks use the ELF grid out of northern Michigan, which radiates right thru the Earth. Using a half-click or so of wire for the antenna, you could easily build an ELF receiver, although the FCC, the NSA and the Navy might get kind of interested in why you were bothering.
For you uninitiated Linuxheads, the stuff we're talking here has incredible penetration power -- basically, anywhere subs are likely to operate -- but horrible bandwidth. A xmission for a very simple code meaning "USS So-and-so, hit your next window for satcom message to follow" can take on the order of minutes for a few bytes.
Read The Hunt for Red October, which is a bit dated and necessarily kinda squirrely on details but gives you a general sense of how the procedure works.
(Geez, this thread is starting to read like something outta sci.military.naval.)
I wonder how many people got the pun...
Oh, by the way, just to provide some additional context: I'm in Columbia, SC, which got worked over by Hugo and is now squarely on the projected path of Floyd.
You guys 'n' gals have a nice day.
...I've submitted two stories about Microsoft in the last couple of weeks (one about plans for tablet computing, one about a study of the expected rollout costs for Win2K). I figgered they'd be of some interest to the /. community, even if they're about the Evil Empire(TM). AFAIK, they never appeared on /.
It's sort of newsworthy that there's a webcam devoted to Floyd (tho it's not like webcams are exactly news), and the guys do have the pics on Linux boxes. But for my money, the good Cmdr & co. dropped the ball editorially.
Disgruntledly yours.
The other day a co-worker, a developer with a Palm III, said to me, "Hey, Bill! Wanna see what I'me doing with my Palm lately?" I took a pass on that one.
Grasping here at another opportunity to be wrong, but I think a high-quality wok is pretty doggone close to a paraboloid. I think I'd still rather be several thousand yards away & pull the trigger by remote control, just the same.
My pet fantasy du jour: Britney Spears with laryngitis.
I've adopted a somewhat more low-tech approach to the driving-while-phoning problem. I put a sign in my windshield that says, in reversed print, HANG UP AND DRIVE THE CAR.