...has been available for decades. This is nothing more than a regular R/C control system built into a Predator looking body. R/C planes have had the ability to drop small loads, on command, forever. Little charges, dropshapes, parachute loads...
This is nothing new. Cool looking, but not really new
Wasn't there an instance of a Soviet Mig penetrating a few hundred miles up the Mississippi river basin back in the 60s?
I don't think so. I've never heard of it, anyway. Launched from where? Cuba? Did he land (we WOULD have found links for that), or get back out? MiG range was not that great. But still, a lone aircraft, especially a smallish fighter, can't do a whole lot of damage.
After all, most of our plans for nuclear war with the USSR were based on some of bombers penetrating their airspace undetected to a certain point.
That's what the DEW Line was for. To hopefully detect bombers coming over Canada. We routinely detected and shadowed Bear bombers up and down the East Ccoast.
Now..was there a contingency plan for a hijack of a civilian airliner? Sure. Find it, and follow it until it lands. F-15's from Otis, MA were on the way to the 'find' part when the hijacks took on a whole different aspect.
Was there a contingency plan for what to do after an airliner flies into a building? Maybe, but it didn't involve the Air Force.
There are two ways to stop that sort of attack: 1) Shadow each and every one of the hundreds of daily flights, in case it turns rogue and goes off course. Shoot it down. 2) Prevent the hijacker from taking control of the aircraft. Either before he gets on, or with good cockpit doors and/or security in the cabin.
The CIA/FI had some nebulous ideas about 'sometime, somewhere, we think these guys are planning to hijack and use a civilian aircraft'
Did that get filtered to the DoD? Were there fighter jets trailing every airliner, ready to shoot it down in case this happened?
Obviously not.
And when it became clear what was going on, the jets that were scrambled were onscene as fast humanly as possible. They can only fly so fast.
...is the one thing you don't want in warfare. If at all possible, put yourself on the more powerful side.
2 reasons: 1)It is less likely that others will attack you 2)It is more likely that you will 'win' if they do attack you. And win speedily, saving lives overall. A long, dragout fight is far more harmful than a quick, decisive victory.
The concept of 'hostile' aircraft popping up in the interior of the country just wasn't imagined. Any hostile aircraft would have been coming over either of the oceans. The alert jets on both coasts were to take care of any.
A (previously) normal hijacking ("Take me to Cuba!"), was planned for. If necessary, alert jets would have escorted them until they landed. A scenario which has happened many, many times.
Analogy: You have a defense system for your house. Locks on the doors and windows. Presumably, these will keep the bad guys out, or a least make enough noise so that you can get your secondary defense system, the baseball bat under your bed.
Now...if the bad guy, masquerading as your best friend, materializes out of thin air, right next to your bed, your outer defenses have already been breached, and you don't have time to employ your secondary. There is only so much you can do.
nstead of getting a handfull of 20's at the ATM, we can get a magcard printed up for us and chunked out. No need to have any identifying features.
Would you accept this as a full replacement for actual, anonymous bills? I sure wouldn't. And if that idea were proposed, the outcry would be phenomenal. *Especially* here on/.. "What? No more truly anonyous money? Too easy to track/turn off/hack/counterfeit." Such a card could still be quite easily tracked back to *you*, even if it held no personal data. Card filled up at ATM X, last Tuesday at 4:06:37 PM, in the amount of $80. Trivial to backtrack through bank records to see whose account it came out of.
With the advances we've made in materials science, don't you think we'd have some interesting polymeres to manufacture papers and inks out of? Now thats a good idea, but what does it really gain us over the current security systems in paper notes? Longevity, maybe.
What's really wrong with paper notes? Just because it's old tech does not mean it's bad.
BB Stacker on the F/A-18 would be a ordnance specialist, someone who does storage, testing & mounting; I understand the USAF uses 3 or 4 separate people for the job; we never had that luxury.
In the USAF, this is two separate career fields. Storage, handling, inspection, transportation (BB Stacker), and Aircraft Armament (load, test, repair the actual aircraft. Basically, everything from the pickle button to the target)
It *could* be one career field, but then you'd have aircraft qualified guys driving 1/2 to the other side of the base to get weapons when they should be fixing/loading aircraft. So, make a specialty to store and bring us the bombs/missiles.
Yes, it can be put back together. But no, it's not in 'fly-away' condition.
There are several ex-military jets in private hands. F-4's, F-86's, etc. And you can just return it to weapons capable status. *All* of the fire control circuitry will have been removed. And without that, a missile won't launch in anything other than a randowm direction, if at all.
Given the restrictions on actually flying ex-military aircraft, it would be easier for a purported terrorist to drop a case of TNT out the door of a Cessna.
So migrating a large governemtal user base from Windows to Linux is experiencing some difficulties. Gee...whodathunk? Only the (very vocal)/. fanbois predicted an easy transition. "Just install Linux! All your problems will be solved!"
The real outcome will be in 3 or 4 years. Everything will have been transitioned and shakendown. Then, and only then can we see if has actually been beneficial or not. We can see the parts where a unified Linux base has worked, and where it has failed.
Why is it better to pay for a support contract to use another companies geeks than your own? The other geeks are looking out for their corporate bottom line, not your bottom line. They have no vested interest in your success or failure. Every customer is just like the other.
Because most companies are not in the business of creating custom software.
i.e. "Do we need a whole software development and support department to build/customise this particular tool? Why?"
Economies of scale. It's often cheaper to hire a company that already does this, than to duplicate their efforts and build our own department to do this.
Scale this up, and ask, "Why should we buy RedHat Enterprise, instead of writing our own operating system from scratch?"
You're looking at it all wrong. You need to balance a efw things.
1. Functionality 2. Cost 3. Risk
You need to balance those 3 things, to arrive at a solution to fit a particular need. And not all solutions will end up at the same answer.
Functionality - what are the available packages that will perform this specific task? List them *all*.
Cost - what are the total costs? Training, support, purchase, time wasted because it does not work quite the way you need. Is it as fast?
Risk - What risks are associated with each? Will it break? Will the suppliers/developers be around in a few years? Will it talk seamlessly with the other offices? Will it break other things we have in production?
Present a balanced appraisal of each solution. The best option is not necessarily open source, nor is it necessarily closed source. Each aapplication is different.
To run a corporate webserver, Linux+Apache may well be the best solution. For running the payroll for 60,000 people, a client ADP app on Windows might be the best.
But you won't know until you analyze each specific need as it comes along.
Sometimes, the more costly solution is the best, because cheaper solutions do not work as well. And all the fanboy ranting in the world won't change that.
The bosses care about two things. Running the business, and growing the business. Anthing else is secondary.
Another thing that worries me is if they DO start regulating VoIP, who's to say they won't suddenly start looking at chat, or e-mail?
They might. Or they might bring the same reliability and featureset (911, etc) to VOIP as exists in landline comms now.
God help us if the Feds suddenly decide that chat networks have to be reconfigured so that they can 'tap' ICQ. Or e-mail? Follow the same line of thought and PGP becomes illegal.
And they'll find that the 'stupid' nature of the 'Net and smart endpoints prevents this. Tapping in only really works with a smart network, such as the curren hpone system. Unless of course you consider Echelon, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
It's electric. I guess you could try to bean him with the battery pack.
Does the U.S. armed forces even allow women as fighter pilots yet? i
For about a decade now.
Just think about this: How much does a shotgun shell weight?
Not much, but how much does the gun needed to fire it weigh?
This kind of system
...has been available for decades. This is nothing more than a regular R/C control system built into a Predator looking body. R/C planes have had the ability to drop small loads, on command, forever. Little charges, dropshapes, parachute loads...
This is nothing new. Cool looking, but not really new
Wasn't there an instance of a Soviet Mig penetrating a few hundred miles up the Mississippi river basin back in the 60s?
I don't think so. I've never heard of it, anyway. Launched from where? Cuba? Did he land (we WOULD have found links for that), or get back out? MiG range was not that great.
But still, a lone aircraft, especially a smallish fighter, can't do a whole lot of damage.
After all, most of our plans for nuclear war with the USSR were based on some of bombers penetrating their airspace undetected to a certain point.
That's what the DEW Line was for. To hopefully detect bombers coming over Canada. We routinely detected and shadowed Bear bombers up and down the East Ccoast.
Now..was there a contingency plan for a hijack of a civilian airliner? Sure. Find it, and follow it until it lands. F-15's from Otis, MA were on the way to the 'find' part when the hijacks took on a whole different aspect.
Was there a contingency plan for what to do after an airliner flies into a building? Maybe, but it didn't involve the Air Force.
There are two ways to stop that sort of attack:
1) Shadow each and every one of the hundreds of daily flights, in case it turns rogue and goes off course. Shoot it down.
2) Prevent the hijacker from taking control of the aircraft. Either before he gets on, or with good cockpit doors and/or security in the cabin.
You tell me which is more effective.
The CIA/FI had some nebulous ideas about 'sometime, somewhere, we think these guys are planning to hijack and use a civilian aircraft'
Did that get filtered to the DoD? Were there fighter jets trailing every airliner, ready to shoot it down in case this happened?
Obviously not.
And when it became clear what was going on, the jets that were scrambled were onscene as fast humanly as possible. They can only fly so fast.
a fair playing field
...is the one thing you don't want in warfare. If at all possible, put yourself on the more powerful side.
2 reasons:
1)It is less likely that others will attack you
2)It is more likely that you will 'win' if they do attack you. And win speedily, saving lives overall. A long, dragout fight is far more harmful than a quick, decisive victory.
1 v 1 with any weapons system is a suckers bet.
The concept of 'hostile' aircraft popping up in the interior of the country just wasn't imagined. Any hostile aircraft would have been coming over either of the oceans. The alert jets on both coasts were to take care of any.
A (previously) normal hijacking ("Take me to Cuba!"), was planned for. If necessary, alert jets would have escorted them until they landed. A scenario which has happened many, many times.
Analogy:
You have a defense system for your house. Locks on the doors and windows. Presumably, these will keep the bad guys out, or a least make enough noise so that you can get your secondary defense system, the baseball bat under your bed.
Now...if the bad guy, masquerading as your best friend, materializes out of thin air, right next to your bed, your outer defenses have already been breached, and you don't have time to employ your secondary.
There is only so much you can do.
Whatever can be done, shoudl be done.
Remove all the cars. Problem solved.
n the Soviet Russian point of view, USA is the baddie!
In the Soviet Russian point of view, USA was always the baddie. Except when we were giving them money, food, and tanks to help defeat Hitler.
And the other, more prevalent game is:
"$Topic is broken/failing/invading our rights/simply wrong. Let's blame..."
A) America
B) America
C) America
D) America
E) Humanity in general
nstead of getting a handfull of 20's at the ATM, we can get a magcard printed up for us and chunked out. No need to have any identifying features.
/.. "What? No more truly anonyous money? Too easy to track/turn off/hack/counterfeit."
Would you accept this as a full replacement for actual, anonymous bills? I sure wouldn't. And if that idea were proposed, the outcry would be phenomenal. *Especially* here on
Such a card could still be quite easily tracked back to *you*, even if it held no personal data.
Card filled up at ATM X, last Tuesday at 4:06:37 PM, in the amount of $80. Trivial to backtrack through bank records to see whose account it came out of.
With the advances we've made in materials science, don't you think we'd have some interesting polymeres to manufacture papers and inks out of?
Now thats a good idea, but what does it really gain us over the current security systems in paper notes? Longevity, maybe.
What's really wrong with paper notes? Just because it's old tech does not mean it's bad.
The paper bank note is 200 year old technology so why don't I hear ANYTHING about a replacement for the banknote?
Replacement such as...?
Coins? Tried that. The Susan B. has not fared well.
Debit/credit cards? They're OK, but not as a *full* replacement for paper notes.
Any other ideas? Twigs with notches in them?
sizeable screen (at least 12")
decent storage (40GB+)
and a long battery life.
Choose any two. They're not quite there yet.
Yet, amazingly enough, USAF jets don't fall out of the sky any more than Navy jets. So someone must be doing something right...:)
BB Stacker on the F/A-18 would be a ordnance specialist, someone who does storage, testing & mounting; I understand the USAF uses 3 or 4 separate people for the job; we never had that luxury.
In the USAF, this is two separate career fields. Storage, handling, inspection, transportation (BB Stacker), and Aircraft Armament (load, test, repair the actual aircraft. Basically, everything from the pickle button to the target)
It *could* be one career field, but then you'd have aircraft qualified guys driving 1/2 to the other side of the base to get weapons when they should be fixing/loading aircraft. So, make a specialty to store and bring us the bombs/missiles.
And you can just return it to weapons capable status.
Yes, yes...preview blah blah. Obviously that should read can't.
What say we see who buys it and offer ourselves as ground crew?
Also, there are several orgs around the country rebuilding WWII aircraft. Most would welcome volunteer help if you've got any aircraft experience.
I've got a friend who's a BB stacker
We resent that...;) I'm a USAF ex-weapons specialist. (F-15 & -16). BB stackers are bomb dump guys. 'Storage & Handling', not aircraft.
So....specialists we'd need might be:
Avionics
Weapons
Hydraulics
Engines
Crew Chief
Life Support
Flight Controls
Sheet metal/Corrosion Control
Others?
A relevant stack of T.O.'s
And anyone working on this would need to be A&P certified.
is tihs. Not quite flyable condition...;)
Yes, it can be put back together. But no, it's not in 'fly-away' condition.
There are several ex-military jets in private hands. F-4's, F-86's, etc. And you can just return it to weapons capable status. *All* of the fire control circuitry will have been removed. And without that, a missile won't launch in anything other than a randowm direction, if at all.
Given the restrictions on actually flying ex-military aircraft, it would be easier for a purported terrorist to drop a case of TNT out the door of a Cessna.
So migrating a large governemtal user base from Windows to Linux is experiencing some difficulties. Gee...whodathunk? /. fanbois predicted an easy transition. "Just install Linux! All your problems will be solved!"
Only the (very vocal)
The real outcome will be in 3 or 4 years. Everything will have been transitioned and shakendown. Then, and only then can we see if has actually been beneficial or not. We can see the parts where a unified Linux base has worked, and where it has failed.
Why is it better to pay for a support contract to use another companies geeks than your own? The other geeks are looking out for their corporate bottom line, not your bottom line. They have no vested interest in your success or failure. Every customer is just like the other.
Because most companies are not in the business of creating custom software.
i.e. "Do we need a whole software development and support department to build/customise this particular tool? Why?"
Economies of scale. It's often cheaper to hire a company that already does this, than to duplicate their efforts and build our own department to do this.
Scale this up, and ask, "Why should we buy RedHat Enterprise, instead of writing our own operating system from scratch?"
You're looking at it all wrong. You need to balance a efw things. 1. Functionality
2. Cost
3. Risk
You need to balance those 3 things, to arrive at a solution to fit a particular need. And not all solutions will end up at the same answer. Functionality - what are the available packages that will perform this specific task? List them *all*.
Cost - what are the total costs? Training, support, purchase, time wasted because it does not work quite the way you need. Is it as fast?
Risk - What risks are associated with each? Will it break? Will the suppliers/developers be around in a few years? Will it talk seamlessly with the other offices? Will it break other things we have in production?
Present a balanced appraisal of each solution. The best option is not necessarily open source, nor is it necessarily closed source. Each aapplication is different.
To run a corporate webserver, Linux+Apache may well be the best solution. For running the payroll for 60,000 people, a client ADP app on Windows might be the best.
But you won't know until you analyze each specific need as it comes along.
Sometimes, the more costly solution is the best, because cheaper solutions do not work as well. And all the fanboy ranting in the world won't change that.
The bosses care about two things. Running the business, and growing the business. Anthing else is secondary.
Another thing that worries me is if they DO start regulating VoIP, who's to say they won't suddenly start looking at chat, or e-mail?
They might. Or they might bring the same reliability and featureset (911, etc) to VOIP as exists in landline comms now.
God help us if the Feds suddenly decide that chat networks have to be reconfigured so that they can 'tap' ICQ. Or e-mail? Follow the same line of thought and PGP becomes illegal.
And they'll find that the 'stupid' nature of the 'Net and smart endpoints prevents this. Tapping in only really works with a smart network, such as the curren hpone system. Unless of course you consider Echelon, etc.
I guess that keeps them from running our lives, though.
They're just practicing, honing up their skills. Then, when it comes time for you, you have no chance.