Sure you can make jokes about "if it was hard to write it should be hard to use" and such BUT I will ask you one very simple question.
Exactly how many race cars are automatics? None? Thank you very much.
You see there are two kind of people in this world. Those who know computers and those who don't.
First the last group. If you don't know anything about computers then good for you. Use whatever can get you through what you need to do with the minimal of difficulty. Best if you let people who know handle the complicated stuff so you can get on with your job. Power/control/flexibilty/cutting edge are to these people just fancy words for complicated/hard to learn/confusing/constantly changing. And they are right, not everyone needs to be a genius computer user. Micheal Schumacher has said more then ones that he knowns nothing about cars. Seems able to drive them pretty fast despite of it.
HOWEVER, not everyone knowns or doesn't want to know anything about computers. I and others like me know how things work and to us "easy to use" OS'es like Windows quickly become actually difficult to use. I can change the network settings of a linux machine far far faster then I can on a windows machine. I can secure a linux machine far far easier then a windows machine.
Not because linux is easier, it isn't, but because unlike windows Linux isn't dumbing me down either. Once you have climbed the learning curve then linux puts you in complete control. With windows there is always that "wizard" bit where someone in redmond is deciding what you can and cannot do.
A simple example. Most file systems both on linux and windows as default record the last time a file is accessed. This can be a problem if for some reason files are accessed a lot. Windows has a design feature wich causes the file explorer to access each file in a directory your viewing to get its info. Nice except if your on a slow drive with a few thousand files.
So on both linux and windows you can turn of this "last access" timestamp. Now I have for you an excersise. How do you turn it off in linux? Easy, edit fstab and add the word "noatime" to the mount options. Next is the windows method. Good luck.
Is the windows one easier? Perhaps, but it sure as hell isn't in the place you expected is it? Not anywhere near the GUI for managing your filesystems. Last time I used it was a dos command and a pretty arcana one at that.
Gentoo is "harder" to use then other linux distros. Well until you get past the learning curve. One big problem I have always had is that a lot of linux programs you install from source (because no rpm is available) need the header files of something else. Both Red-Hat and Suse and Mandrake had me trying to find the sources only to find that during the install, to save space, they were not included.
With gentoo, the sources are always there.
Just makes adding a new piece of software so much easier. If you know what your doing.
And that is why I use Gentoo. It allows me to use the skills I have learned. Unlike windows were I am often stuck.
All this crap about Linux not working with hardware X. Who the fuck gives a damn. I never had problems and I installed it on everything from laptop to ancient servers. Linux just works. Well it just works on hardware that is at least reasonably quality.
You have some piece of shit hardware? Well so what if it ain't supported. Don't use linux. Because I will tell you a little secret. NOBODY GIVES A DAMN ABOUT WHAT YOU USE.
But you ain't really having trouble with your soundcard. You say you like your music and you use an onboard unsupported soundcard. Those two don't add up. Only the crappiest cheapest jokes of soundcards are not supported, because the people who can write the drivers would never buy such a card or motherboard. Anyone who cares about how their PC sounds does not have a crappy onboard chip.
I thought the "oh my crappy soundchip" ain't supported had been replaced by "my digital camera". Your behind the times mate. Catch up.
It ain't nice that your cookie can be taken but that is the way it is. Google knows this and should protect against this. Just as it isn't nice that you can get into an accident but your car should still be designed to protect you against this.
Yes in an ideal world all browsers would be 100% safe but they are not. Cookies being stolen is sadly it seems a problem that can't be fixed. So GUARD against it. Google should know better. There are a lot of tricks you can use to make certain that a cookie is indeed from the right computer. I make my living selling that kinda knowledge and you ain't paying me so I am not gonna tell but it ain't so hard.
All it takes is a paranoid mind. With the web in the state it is in, you really can't be to paranoid when developing anything to run on the web.
There is a difference. Google so far hasn't earned the reputation of Microsoft. A reputation of ignoring known security holes and sitting on them until the shit hits the fan and then taking ages to fix anything.
Code exploits released with MS warnings are just way to get MS to move its lazy fat ass. Talk to the people that have tried to warn MS in the past before going public. After trying for months and months knowing that if the "whitehat" hacker knew then a "blackhat" hacker might also have found out with MS doing shit or even threathening the hacker warning them the world is no longer prepared to give MS a break.
Google has still got to ruin its reputation. It was warned and is acting upon it. Whitehats don't want holes to be exploited. They want them fixed. With google it seems enough to tell that the hole is there. With MS you must release the exploit code and create a security nightmare before MS will even think of reacting.
So yes, there are different standards. Not in what whitehats want to achieve but in what they need to do to get a company to react.
So they are not the same thing. The difference being the attitude of the company that has to fix the hole.
Everyone seems to claim that they are not. Apple says it is breaking even and the money is on the iPods and the music screwers claim that the prices have to go up because they ain't making enough profit on it (lets see 99 per song, 15 songs per album, exactly what is the price of an american CD? and how can something wich doesn't cost money to produce but raises the same kind of money as something wich costs a lot to produce or so they claim have less profit? ARRGH MY HEAD TRYING TO UNDERSTAND RIAA DOUBLESPEAK)
Of course laughing in the background are the credit card companies. Money in the bank. Each and every song bought makes them money and all the need to is a computer system they need anyway. Sweet.
The internet is a number of inventions put together, the idea of a open protocol that any computer network could talk to the outside regardless of what it used internally. It is also the idea that it not centralized like more tradionional networks so that it could survive outage.
Just like junkmail != Postal system, the internet != WWW. Rather just like junkmail uses the postal system to work, the WWW uses the internet. HOWEVER, the two are entirely unrelated. It would be very easy for me to send junkmail without using the postal system, just dropping flyers in your neighbourhood does that and it is easy to make a WWW site wich does not use the internet (A website using local links would do that href=/home/user/mysite/page2.html).
The internet existed long before WWW. This makes those predicting the end of the Internet because of spam or IE exploits so fucking hilarious. It is like saying roads are going to be destroyed because of traffic jams. What you say? We might all use rail transport instead? Rails are roads. Just as anything that will replace the internet will be the internet.
The internet is not a thing, it is an idea. The idea that you can connect individual networks to a central network that connects them all.
If I implemented my connection with the revolutionary new tech off Avian IP it would still be part of the internet even if noone else has packet delays == cat digestive system.
Creating doubts in the ranks of western nations. Oh perhaps if we let Israel be overrun then everything will be alright and we can all sleep save. We until turkey. And there are a lot of muslims in the balkans as well aren't there.
It been a while since 9/11, what exactly took him so long to get Israel into his arguments? Before it was americas support for the Saudi Arabia royal family.
This guy wants to create a fundamentalist muslims world. Now you just have to ask youreselve where you are going to so say no. It doesn't matter were you draw the line in the sand. Sooner or later he will be there and you will have to either stand or surrender.
Do not use his public speeches to learn what he wants. Use what he says when the world ain't listening. The speeches he makes to his own followers. Those tell a completly different story. He doesn't really care about the palestines. Same as saddam never did or any arabian leader. If they did they would have taken the refugees into their own country and created a palestine state on their own soil.
The western way of life is his enemy. There is nothing you can do to appease him as your filthy heathen dog breath is what he wants stopped. But he ain't gonna say that on a tape send to the western world. That might unite the world against him. No instead he sends a tape guaranteed to get the west to fight amongst themselves.
Real world politics ain't choosing the side who is right. It is choosing the side wich is least objectionable. Even bush wins that one by a landslide. Hell, stalin would win. And talking about WW2 leaders. Trying to appease Bin Laden is like trying to appease Hitler. Those who would be the allies thought that Hitler could be appeased by giving him Polen. That worked well, didn't it?
Many mass murderes, child rapist, self-proclaimed messiahs have a high intelligence. Doesn't mean they are nice people.
Certain religions, notably christians and muslims, have at their core the simple fact that everyone who is not one of them is evil. The christians have mostly managed to defeat themselves to the point that it is now a very different religion then the one that went on crusades to spread the fate.
Spreading the fate meaning of course converting or killing everyone in their path.
This has now changed were the majority of who now call themselves christians are quit prepared to live next to a heathen and not set them on fire. Some even are so liberal as to suggest that other religions may have a validity as well. Freaky.
Before you pat yourselve on the back as the great enlightened western christian remember it was very very different only a few decades ago and just try to imagine a non-"god bless america" spouting president.
Anyway the muslim religion is a slightly different affair, not much but enough to mean that "defending the fate by the sword" is still considered reasonably by some who claim to be muslim.
Turkey is currently a very intresting example. Turkey is a bit of an outsider. It is not part of arabia apparently, you should hear immigrant turks and marrokans talk about each other. The KKK could take lessons. Anyway turks are apparently closer to europeans then arabians. Currently turkey pretty much has its heart set on joining the Europian Union (EU) wich is not exactly winning itself a lot of friends in arab. It is also remarkably neutral to Israel (partly perhaps because commenting on oppressing palestines might get people to point the similar oppression of Koerds/kurds?).
But there is a problem with turkey. It has a very weird goverment structure. While it has a very strict segregation between church and state wich is the way europeans like it, this is only there because the military wich is extremely powerfull says that it must be so. If the EU gets its way and turkey will become closer to a western democracy might there be a danger that the citizens will vote for putting religion back into the state? At the moment it is secular but only because the military comes down like a ton of bricks on anyone who wants to destroy the work of Atta Turk.
Why should the citizens of Turkey vote to put their country, by western standards, back into the dark ages? Well gee, you might as well ask why certain westerners still believe in the monarchie even free countries like france have people who want to put royalty back as the head of state. Same with russia were you got people who want the tsaars back.
Where ever you go you will have people who don't like the way things are and think that if only you go back to the days of old it will all be alright again.
Turkey is currently going through a lot of change. Partly it is becoming extremely western with freedom of religion for all and more and more people "enjoying" an allmost western style of live. But other parts of it are extremely poor with communities torn apart because the old rules no longer apply.
So Turkey, a very western nation that can only be called a muslim state because the majority of its citizens go to the moskee (and not because it follows muslim law wich is how well muslims define a muslim country) is at a crossroad. Either it goes west and is accepted into the EU and the people elect to stay secular (Ultimate politics irony, to get accepted into the EU it has to be secular and at the same time give up military control that enforces secularity).
Back to answering your question
Now ask youreselve this. With knowing this about turkey, what do you think Al Quada and people like them thinks about this. Is turkey a western puppet? Or free muslims choosing their own path. Mmm?
Oh the military is part of nato and gets american aid.
Well the answer I am afraid has already been given as Turkey is having its own terrorist war with muslims fundam
The mafia is also very nice and friendly, as long as you pay them and don't go to the police or hinder their enforcers they will not put you at the bottom of the river in concrete overshoes. Nice guys ain't they?
Same thing really with organisations like this. As long as the world lets them be, allows their members into their countries to convert citizens, allows them to build a super powerfull base then they won't harm you, promise, honestly.
Every speech, every statement said by anyone must be tested against the agenda that person has. Goes for people like Bush where you constantly have to ask if what he is saying in election speeches compares to his personal and those of his backers agenda. Same for Kerry. Same for Bin Laden.
If you read the speech carefully you see that it blames everything on somebody else. What this means is easy. If only the world had done everything the way he wanted to then he wouldn't have to do the things he did. Sounds like the excuses of a wifebeater to me. If only she had dinner ready in time he wouldn't have had to beat her into hospital. Not his fault, clearly it is the wives fault.
To understand this tape you have to understand one single thing. The world is divided. Not just the west but the muslim world as well. There are even muslims who, shock and horror, think that the Israely conflict is kept in place by certain muslims because it is very handy distractor from internal affairs. Who dare to ask the question why exactly no arab nation has taking in the palestine refugees. And just why the occupied terrortories with all the hard Israely rule are actually one of the very few muslim democracies in the region. Dangerous thoughts. Especially to Al Quada and there backers.
So this message can be seen in the following light. Trying to get the weaker westerners (those who would give into bullies/mafia/abusive spouses) to think that if only they give Al Quada everything it wants it will let them in peace. Won't work. Give a bully a finger and tommorow he will be back for the hand.
It is also trying to get those muslims who are in the doubt to switch sides. Or at least create conflict.
A united world is the greatest enemie of terrorists. What do you think Bin Ladens agenda really is. World peace? Harmony between muslims and the west? Religious tolerance?
Don't forget he and his followers/backers had decades in Afghanistan to shape that country to their vision. We also had refugees fleeing to the infidel west for the same amount of decades.
This is a political speech. Trust it like you trust any political speech.
That is one interpertation. Doesn't explain the withdrawal from Iraq does it?
No I am sorry made but spain has made the dumbest move in history and will doubtlessly pay for it. Because everyone now knows that spain bows to terrorism. ETA certainly knows. They been only doing "limited" attacks but do you really think no splinter group within ETA is now considering doing a massive civilian attack? It worked once, it might work again.
Opens with couple on a beach the young woman goes swimming and dons her Swimp3. At first everyhing is nice and romantic but then we hear the music. From the bottom of the sea comes mean ultimate terror. The LAWYER.
they ain't vulnerabilities, they are features. Remember if something goes wrong with windows it is the fault of the drivers, the hardware or the user. NEVER EVER Microsoft.
I am reminded when they tried to compare Apache holes with IIS. They only listed the ones on the default IIS but ALL the ones that could affect Apache with all the extras added.
Look I will tell you a little secreat. You know how to tell when a Microsoft employee is lying? His mouth is open.
You can say a lot about the US goverment but the part that actually does things is hardly linux hostile.
Linux is used by the fbi for forensic research. The NSA added valuable code to linux to make it a lot more secure for the user and didn't even add any backdoors for evil agents to activate your computer over the net and hypnotize your dog into telling on you. NASA uses it in some roles. The army has switched from windows for it future soldier computer system to linux because they said that windows sucked donkey balls and even with billions to throw at it they couldn't get it stable were linux could and could do it on cheaper more robuust hardware. Well they didn't say as goverment never uses statements shorter then 10 pages but that is the gist of it.
So where the british goverment has said that linux can be considered, the germans have one town swithing the US has billions invested in it AND is giving back to the world free open code that did something amazingly usefull.
MS must be having a fit. Loosing contracts as the US army is not good.
It knows it can't compete at the top with companies like SAP. It says it doesn't want to but really it can't Not just that it ain't got the code. No one in their right mind would a major supply system on an OS everyone knows crashes. Often. (No don't tell me how XP is much more stable, when boeing is doing last minute ordering a reboot costs millions.)
And now it is loosing contracts to people who really should buy into the MS spin hook line and sinker. Some geeks running linux is bad enough, but generals buying it? What next? The suits at wall street, OOps to late. The suits at IBM? Oops to late.
So the US is plenty linux friendly. Just in a different way. Munich buying linux is nice for IBM and Suse (or was it redhat) but it means shit for the rest of us.
NSA adding security features as opensource to linux is very very nice indeed. Thank you american taxpayer for supporting our communist OS.
SWG is an Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game set in the Star Wars universe and extended universe. Right? Well no.
It ain't really all that massive. Perhaps it would have been if SOE had managed the 1 million subscribers they had aimed for, although how their hardware and software would have coped is beyond me. The few people that are playing are further devided over a dozen different server clusters meaning they will never meet each other. So if you start on a server you will play with perhaps a total of 1000 other players if your lucky. Or rather more accurate, 1000 other accounts. Many hardcore players operate more then one account. The number of total players must therefore be lower then what sony claims.
Is any of this important? Well yeah. SWG has a complex economy that is based on there being enough players to keep the economy balanced. Supply and demand and scale of economy. However because of the few number of players and SOE hopless balancing the player class of Image Designer can be very very very hard to find. Doctors are essential because they buff the stats and without them the fights become impossible very quickly. At times on my server the entire game grinds to a halt because no doctors are buffing the stats of players. This is ultimate the death of a lot of online games. To few people playing and to many advanced players so far ahead that many newbies are instantly turned off.
But lets say you persist. You now create a character on one of the servers hoping to find the server with the most fun community. Selecting sex is pure cosmetic but race is not. Sadly because of some stupid decisions by SOE (you will see a lot of these but nothing compared to your stupidity to pay them each and every month) humans are the best class. Armour was absent for along time for wookies making them useless in the thougher fights.
But you persist and choose a race. Now you gotta choose your starting job. Well actually don't bother. It costs 100 credits to train in a new job so any newbie can easily get basic training in every job out there (except politician I will come to this one). A smart newbie does this as early on it is really really helpfull to be able to help yourselve.
The early jobs are melee (hit things with a stick), ranger (shoot at things), medic (poke players with needles), artisan (make things to hit or shoot thing with), entertainer (stand in boring cantina listening to a 10 second music sample being played over and over again watching the same motion captured animation that is fun once twice or a hundreth times but wich you will have to watch a gazillion times) and finally scout (walk faster up hills and get resources from critters).
Well you can start as an artisan but artisan need resources to make things wich you don't have or any money to buy them with. There are crafting missions that pay you but they pay so low that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the most brafe.
So we are going to be involved in some way with combat. Choosing melee means you will be running after everything running away from you while shooting at you. Ranged means you will be trying to snipe things biting your arm off.
Your character has 3 main bars. Strenght, action and mind. They could have named them anything as strength does not make you stronger and action does not make you faster. The whole deal is that you have an X number of strenght but also a value Y indicating how much strenght something will cost and a value Z indicating how much strenght you recover. Same for action and mind. For instance when a medic heals someone he uses up a certain amount of mind points. How many exactly depends on how high Y is. If Z is high enough he will recover the lost points without the main bar ever dropping. If not then the act of constantly healing will slowly deplete the bar until you no longer can take an action.
Weapon use deplets all bars but varies per weapon wich is used more. The smart people will have thought of something. The value of the main bar is of no imp
There are many things you can say about SWG and JTL but commeting that the game can't be played without a joystick is like bad mouthing Half-Life 2 because you need a keyboard wich you didn't need for wolfenstein.
No fuck duh! JTL is finally creating some twitch element in the game that was before just hitting the right buttons to perform some moves. However most people made a macro so their toon would do a certain sequence of attacks all the time optomized for their style of play.
JTL is different. It is far more based on your skill as a pilot. Two things limit your capabilties. The type of your hardware, dictating stuff like damage, speed, shield power. You also learn skills needed to things like shift your shields. But turning and keeping behind your enemy is purely based on your skills with a joystick.
Many people have complained that SWG had no twitch. Now people are complaining that JTL is twitch.
If you played any of the old Star Wars games like X-Wing, tie-fighter etc etc then you will find a lot of JTL awfully familiar except you now operate with larger planets in the background. They added some missions that are more complext then "fly to X kill Y fly back to Z" but nothing so far approaching the complexity of X-wing or its sequels.
All in all it ain't bad, just horribly bugged.
Do I recommended it? Absolutly not. If you still haven't been seduced by SWG then JTL won't do it either. I played an imperial in the beta and one of the early missions has you walking on the ground. So far space mission payout is also very low, although my ship was made out of superior looted equipment I think that will soon be adjusted meaning you will have to do ground stuff to get the cash. In the beta it would have been impossible to fly enough missions to pay for a new ship.
Personally I would stay away from the game. SWG can be fun but it is dying. The time when a new player could find a group hunt easily is gone. Wait to see if JTL attracts enough new players to become intresting again. It was fun when the 14-day trial got a load of new players who were not trapped into grinding boxes. The uptake was however very low. Many enjoyed the game itself but found that to many of the other players were to involved in a solo grind.
Fun can be had in SWG but with WoW so close, why should you bother to try to find it?
That has been the ultimate failure of Bush but also Clinton, the other bush, reagan... (before is before my time so I couldn't say).
A good leader should be able once elected to then be a leader to the whole country. Not just those that voted for him. Simply put considering the recent american election results a democrat should be half repiblican and a republican half democrat BECAUSE THAT IS HOW THE AMERICAN PUBLIC VOTED.
If you are reading about the current election you get the idea that 50% of america totally distrusts the other 50% of america. The democrats think the republicans will create a police state ruled by big business, the republicans think the democrats want to invite the UN as a police force to control their right to carry machine guns.
This article is about a list found. While there is some smoke here you can see the democrats leaping off to conclusions that just ain't supported by the findings but you also see the republicans leaping to defences that just ain't supported by history. It ain't that both are wrong, it is that both seem not to care about the truth instead twisting the few facts known to suit their mindset.
The "war on terror" has this as well. Republicans think that if only america hits hard enough the world will come to heel. Never realizing that perhaps the world is barking and biting precisly because america is hitting it.
The democrats seem to believe that its current enemies could have been apeaced if only it had done X or hadn't done Y. They never seem to capable of realizing that perhaps its current enemies hate america because it is there. That just being a democracy with freedom of religion is enough to be a bitter enemy.
The most amusing is the example of foreign support for the iraq war. Democrats seem to claim that it should have had support and that countries like france, germany and russia took the moral highroad by not giving support. Like hell. These countries had major money intrests in Iraq and didn't want to lose them. More recent evidence suggests that Iraq was even buying politicians in europe. Before people cry "Republican propaganda" think this. These are the same politicians who said they would vote against software patents and didn't. The same politicians who voted for DMCA style regulation desptite the publics opinion. If they are morally and ethically corrupt on one subject why should we trust them on others?
However republicans seem somehow to believe that foreign support is not needed and that america can stand alone to defend the entire world from evil. Worse that any who speak against them are part of the evil. That americans need not be held accountable for such silly little things as war crimes. There was even an attempt by republicans to pass allow allowing a friendly country (holland) to be invaded and its soldiers killed to "rescue" any american brought before the international court. A greater insult to the world could not have been delivered as america was at the same time busy to get other countries war criminals before those same courts. One law for the world, another for america. Talk about giving fuel to america haters.
But the most worrying thing is that these ideas seem to split america right down the middle. It doesn't matter who wins the election, the other side will spent the next four years bitterly opposing everything just because they didn't win.
Bush or Kerry has a far more important job to do then "the war on terror" or "domestic economy" or any of that crap. Their most important challenge is to turn their 50.0000000000001 election lead into something like 75% "well I don't agree with everything but overall he ain't a bad leader for america right now, next election he may be a goner but for now he is doing okay enough to not constantly be trying to get him out". Can either Bush or Kerry do that? I don't think so.
Note that this is not a typical american issue, other countries are having real problems with the nature of democracy right now. It is just that dutch internal politics have little effect on the rest of the world. But when america shivers the world trembles.
Because it is fucking broken mister genius. Geez. A piece of heavy equipment that moves with crushing weight without a safety switch? Good fucking luck getting that passed.
It would be like making an elevator whose doors just close on time and don't bother with sensing if anyone is behind them. A train or similar wich is operated by a driver who cannot see what is happening behind them without an emergecy brake.
I can just see this parking sytem in use. Stupid car owner puts the system on, child gets in between the system whole idiot is on te phone, child gets crushed because the car can't sense a collision and just keeps pushing.
Isn't the whole point of parking helping system that they STOP PEOPLE FROM HAVING ACCIDENTS? A system that makes people give up control and not pay attention can only be successfull if the system can pay attention.
Like the elevator wich check if something is between the doors and does not work until everything is clear.
Surely I don't even have to explain why video for the driver isn't a good idea? Lawsuits are not all evil, often they are the only way for the average voter to influence society. For every frivolous lawsuit there important ones who get society or companies to clean up their act.
I meant that more americans have now been killed in this war with the "stick and stones" weapons of the WW4 then with weapons from the previous world wars, the traditional weapons like tanks and machine guns.
The death toll of 9/11 is still higher then the number of soldiers killed. It tells you something both about the enermous strength of america that in the ground battle it simply couldn't be touched and the enormous weakness that a small squad armed with cheap knives could do so much damage.
Lets see 20 words beginning with a certain letter in 90 seconds. Harder then you may think because 90 seconds go fast when you are stressed. As any person is in a test. It is why people on quiz shows are always so stupid. Or why you always think of the witty comeback on the way home.
Anyway she reports a 20% increase. Hmm, if I get my math right that mean they got 24 words in 90 seconds?
Now it all depends on how the results were calculated. It obviously had some kind of effect if EVERYONE who had the current did 20% better then those who didn't. But this is never the case. Not everyone without the current would have gotten 20. Some would have gotten 16, some 24. Same with the current applied.
The study is far to small and inprecise. We are only talking a few words more. Because the subjects who received the current knew it (they reported an icchy feeling) the test is not really blind as these test need to be. That might have inspired them to do better.
If the same can be done with more complex language tests then it could prove that something is happening here other then the placebo effect.
Anyway I am the kind of person who always gets electric/static shocks from everything, by this logic I should be a language genius. I am not.
Gee gods, don't have to worry about terrain and collisions and such when flying?
Someone shoot this guy if he ever comes within a mile of a plane.
The cruise missle system was such an achievement precisly because it did worry about the terrain. It could follow the terrain at low level flying between hills and other obstructions to its target.
Same with the tornado aircraft wich again is so effective because it is constantly trying to keep as close as possible to the terrain while avoid collisions.
This stuff is actually very very complex and so far can only be done when the computer on board knows exactly what to expect and is having plenty of power to spare (both the missle and missle don't really have to worry about weather conditions as the more glider based predator) to climb or turn as needed.
Yes on the ground you have some other aspects but you have some huge advantages. You can reverse (something that is very very hard to do in a jet) have a turning circle that is not measured in miles. Have brakes that actually slow you before the end of the centurie and can always just stand still and look around.
Also most storms do not tend to blow a car all over the place, try flying a remote in anything but a calm wind and you will agree that a car is just so much easier.
Flying is not easier then driving. You gain some ease in detecting obstacles (everything you detect is an obstacle to be avoided) but loose in having to control something in a far more fluid enviroment. A car driving up an incline that is to steep will simply come to a stop. An aircraft trying to climb to fast to avoid a hill will either stall and crash or plow into the hill.
You say you feel strongly on the subject of the use of drugs. When you were asked this question your body reacted and this was detected.
Polygraphs pick up body reaction. Sadly to few are used and humans are to complex to truly be able to tell why a person reacts.
A simple test is a pedophile image. Both a pedo and a normal person would react with an increased heart rate. The pedo because he is excited, the normal person because of revulsion.
Only when you would start to measure things like blood chemistry and brain activity would you be able to do a true polygraph.
At the moment it is like trying to tell if someone if is lying in an interview by crossing their arms (said to be a typical defensive position). It might just be they are hiding a stain they suddenly spotted, are cold, trying to stop their arms from moving because they are expressive people and been told off about it, just plain nervous about job interviews, trying to hide their beer belly, are just listening to what your saying and really thinking about it.
Polygraphs are a tool, not 100% reliable but an indication for investigators in wich direction they could be looking for more solid evidence.
Those who riducle polygraphs forget one tiny little detail. Most criminals are not smart, prepared, cool blooded and calculated offenders. Just as often as not the polygraph is a bluff wich the criminal will fail just because they know they are guilty and will be found out.
Smart people beating a police polygraph is a total lie. Smart people are never even questioned by the police.
What you show is that people can defeat the polygraph if they are lying. What is far more important is if the polygraph says people lie when they are telling the truth.
Falls positives is what I am worried about. People being convicted because they were nervous and upset about being charged with something they didn't do.
The american economy is totally and completly depended on the rest of the world playing its game. Check wich countries dared to accept euros instead of dollars for their oil and what happened to them.
If the rest of the world made a united attempt to reduce america it would happen. Not that it is ever likely to happen.
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Exactly how many race cars are automatics? None? Thank you very much.
You see there are two kind of people in this world. Those who know computers and those who don't.
First the last group. If you don't know anything about computers then good for you. Use whatever can get you through what you need to do with the minimal of difficulty. Best if you let people who know handle the complicated stuff so you can get on with your job. Power/control/flexibilty/cutting edge are to these people just fancy words for complicated/hard to learn/confusing/constantly changing. And they are right, not everyone needs to be a genius computer user. Micheal Schumacher has said more then ones that he knowns nothing about cars. Seems able to drive them pretty fast despite of it.
HOWEVER, not everyone knowns or doesn't want to know anything about computers. I and others like me know how things work and to us "easy to use" OS'es like Windows quickly become actually difficult to use. I can change the network settings of a linux machine far far faster then I can on a windows machine. I can secure a linux machine far far easier then a windows machine.
Not because linux is easier, it isn't, but because unlike windows Linux isn't dumbing me down either. Once you have climbed the learning curve then linux puts you in complete control. With windows there is always that "wizard" bit where someone in redmond is deciding what you can and cannot do.
A simple example. Most file systems both on linux and windows as default record the last time a file is accessed. This can be a problem if for some reason files are accessed a lot. Windows has a design feature wich causes the file explorer to access each file in a directory your viewing to get its info. Nice except if your on a slow drive with a few thousand files.
So on both linux and windows you can turn of this "last access" timestamp. Now I have for you an excersise. How do you turn it off in linux? Easy, edit fstab and add the word "noatime" to the mount options. Next is the windows method. Good luck.
Is the windows one easier? Perhaps, but it sure as hell isn't in the place you expected is it? Not anywhere near the GUI for managing your filesystems. Last time I used it was a dos command and a pretty arcana one at that.
Gentoo is "harder" to use then other linux distros. Well until you get past the learning curve. One big problem I have always had is that a lot of linux programs you install from source (because no rpm is available) need the header files of something else. Both Red-Hat and Suse and Mandrake had me trying to find the sources only to find that during the install, to save space, they were not included.
With gentoo, the sources are always there.
Just makes adding a new piece of software so much easier. If you know what your doing.
And that is why I use Gentoo. It allows me to use the skills I have learned. Unlike windows were I am often stuck.
You have some piece of shit hardware? Well so what if it ain't supported. Don't use linux. Because I will tell you a little secret. NOBODY GIVES A DAMN ABOUT WHAT YOU USE.
But you ain't really having trouble with your soundcard. You say you like your music and you use an onboard unsupported soundcard. Those two don't add up. Only the crappiest cheapest jokes of soundcards are not supported, because the people who can write the drivers would never buy such a card or motherboard. Anyone who cares about how their PC sounds does not have a crappy onboard chip.
I thought the "oh my crappy soundchip" ain't supported had been replaced by "my digital camera". Your behind the times mate. Catch up.
Yes in an ideal world all browsers would be 100% safe but they are not. Cookies being stolen is sadly it seems a problem that can't be fixed. So GUARD against it. Google should know better. There are a lot of tricks you can use to make certain that a cookie is indeed from the right computer. I make my living selling that kinda knowledge and you ain't paying me so I am not gonna tell but it ain't so hard.
All it takes is a paranoid mind. With the web in the state it is in, you really can't be to paranoid when developing anything to run on the web.
Code exploits released with MS warnings are just way to get MS to move its lazy fat ass. Talk to the people that have tried to warn MS in the past before going public. After trying for months and months knowing that if the "whitehat" hacker knew then a "blackhat" hacker might also have found out with MS doing shit or even threathening the hacker warning them the world is no longer prepared to give MS a break.
Google has still got to ruin its reputation. It was warned and is acting upon it. Whitehats don't want holes to be exploited. They want them fixed. With google it seems enough to tell that the hole is there. With MS you must release the exploit code and create a security nightmare before MS will even think of reacting.
So yes, there are different standards. Not in what whitehats want to achieve but in what they need to do to get a company to react.
So they are not the same thing. The difference being the attitude of the company that has to fix the hole.
Of course laughing in the background are the credit card companies. Money in the bank. Each and every song bought makes them money and all the need to is a computer system they need anyway. Sweet.
The internet is a number of inventions put together, the idea of a open protocol that any computer network could talk to the outside regardless of what it used internally. It is also the idea that it not centralized like more tradionional networks so that it could survive outage.
Just like junkmail != Postal system, the internet != WWW. Rather just like junkmail uses the postal system to work, the WWW uses the internet. HOWEVER, the two are entirely unrelated. It would be very easy for me to send junkmail without using the postal system, just dropping flyers in your neighbourhood does that and it is easy to make a WWW site wich does not use the internet (A website using local links would do that href=/home/user/mysite/page2.html).
The internet existed long before WWW. This makes those predicting the end of the Internet because of spam or IE exploits so fucking hilarious. It is like saying roads are going to be destroyed because of traffic jams. What you say? We might all use rail transport instead? Rails are roads. Just as anything that will replace the internet will be the internet.
The internet is not a thing, it is an idea. The idea that you can connect individual networks to a central network that connects them all.
If I implemented my connection with the revolutionary new tech off Avian IP it would still be part of the internet even if noone else has packet delays == cat digestive system.
It been a while since 9/11, what exactly took him so long to get Israel into his arguments? Before it was americas support for the Saudi Arabia royal family.
This guy wants to create a fundamentalist muslims world. Now you just have to ask youreselve where you are going to so say no. It doesn't matter were you draw the line in the sand. Sooner or later he will be there and you will have to either stand or surrender.
Do not use his public speeches to learn what he wants. Use what he says when the world ain't listening. The speeches he makes to his own followers. Those tell a completly different story. He doesn't really care about the palestines. Same as saddam never did or any arabian leader. If they did they would have taken the refugees into their own country and created a palestine state on their own soil.
The western way of life is his enemy. There is nothing you can do to appease him as your filthy heathen dog breath is what he wants stopped. But he ain't gonna say that on a tape send to the western world. That might unite the world against him. No instead he sends a tape guaranteed to get the west to fight amongst themselves.
Real world politics ain't choosing the side who is right. It is choosing the side wich is least objectionable. Even bush wins that one by a landslide. Hell, stalin would win. And talking about WW2 leaders. Trying to appease Bin Laden is like trying to appease Hitler. Those who would be the allies thought that Hitler could be appeased by giving him Polen. That worked well, didn't it?
Certain religions, notably christians and muslims, have at their core the simple fact that everyone who is not one of them is evil. The christians have mostly managed to defeat themselves to the point that it is now a very different religion then the one that went on crusades to spread the fate.
Spreading the fate meaning of course converting or killing everyone in their path.
This has now changed were the majority of who now call themselves christians are quit prepared to live next to a heathen and not set them on fire. Some even are so liberal as to suggest that other religions may have a validity as well. Freaky.
Before you pat yourselve on the back as the great enlightened western christian remember it was very very different only a few decades ago and just try to imagine a non-"god bless america" spouting president.
Anyway the muslim religion is a slightly different affair, not much but enough to mean that "defending the fate by the sword" is still considered reasonably by some who claim to be muslim.
Turkey is currently a very intresting example. Turkey is a bit of an outsider. It is not part of arabia apparently, you should hear immigrant turks and marrokans talk about each other. The KKK could take lessons. Anyway turks are apparently closer to europeans then arabians. Currently turkey pretty much has its heart set on joining the Europian Union (EU) wich is not exactly winning itself a lot of friends in arab. It is also remarkably neutral to Israel (partly perhaps because commenting on oppressing palestines might get people to point the similar oppression of Koerds/kurds?).
But there is a problem with turkey. It has a very weird goverment structure. While it has a very strict segregation between church and state wich is the way europeans like it, this is only there because the military wich is extremely powerfull says that it must be so. If the EU gets its way and turkey will become closer to a western democracy might there be a danger that the citizens will vote for putting religion back into the state? At the moment it is secular but only because the military comes down like a ton of bricks on anyone who wants to destroy the work of Atta Turk.
Why should the citizens of Turkey vote to put their country, by western standards, back into the dark ages? Well gee, you might as well ask why certain westerners still believe in the monarchie even free countries like france have people who want to put royalty back as the head of state. Same with russia were you got people who want the tsaars back.
Where ever you go you will have people who don't like the way things are and think that if only you go back to the days of old it will all be alright again.
Turkey is currently going through a lot of change. Partly it is becoming extremely western with freedom of religion for all and more and more people "enjoying" an allmost western style of live. But other parts of it are extremely poor with communities torn apart because the old rules no longer apply.
So Turkey, a very western nation that can only be called a muslim state because the majority of its citizens go to the moskee (and not because it follows muslim law wich is how well muslims define a muslim country) is at a crossroad. Either it goes west and is accepted into the EU and the people elect to stay secular (Ultimate politics irony, to get accepted into the EU it has to be secular and at the same time give up military control that enforces secularity).
Back to answering your question
Now ask youreselve this. With knowing this about turkey, what do you think Al Quada and people like them thinks about this. Is turkey a western puppet? Or free muslims choosing their own path. Mmm?
Oh the military is part of nato and gets american aid.
Well the answer I am afraid has already been given as Turkey is having its own terrorist war with muslims fundam
The mafia is also very nice and friendly, as long as you pay them and don't go to the police or hinder their enforcers they will not put you at the bottom of the river in concrete overshoes. Nice guys ain't they?
Same thing really with organisations like this. As long as the world lets them be, allows their members into their countries to convert citizens, allows them to build a super powerfull base then they won't harm you, promise, honestly.
Every speech, every statement said by anyone must be tested against the agenda that person has. Goes for people like Bush where you constantly have to ask if what he is saying in election speeches compares to his personal and those of his backers agenda. Same for Kerry. Same for Bin Laden.
If you read the speech carefully you see that it blames everything on somebody else. What this means is easy. If only the world had done everything the way he wanted to then he wouldn't have to do the things he did. Sounds like the excuses of a wifebeater to me. If only she had dinner ready in time he wouldn't have had to beat her into hospital. Not his fault, clearly it is the wives fault.
To understand this tape you have to understand one single thing. The world is divided. Not just the west but the muslim world as well. There are even muslims who, shock and horror, think that the Israely conflict is kept in place by certain muslims because it is very handy distractor from internal affairs. Who dare to ask the question why exactly no arab nation has taking in the palestine refugees. And just why the occupied terrortories with all the hard Israely rule are actually one of the very few muslim democracies in the region. Dangerous thoughts. Especially to Al Quada and there backers.
So this message can be seen in the following light. Trying to get the weaker westerners (those who would give into bullies/mafia/abusive spouses) to think that if only they give Al Quada everything it wants it will let them in peace. Won't work. Give a bully a finger and tommorow he will be back for the hand.
It is also trying to get those muslims who are in the doubt to switch sides. Or at least create conflict.
A united world is the greatest enemie of terrorists. What do you think Bin Ladens agenda really is. World peace? Harmony between muslims and the west? Religious tolerance?
Don't forget he and his followers/backers had decades in Afghanistan to shape that country to their vision. We also had refugees fleeing to the infidel west for the same amount of decades.
This is a political speech. Trust it like you trust any political speech.
No I am sorry made but spain has made the dumbest move in history and will doubtlessly pay for it. Because everyone now knows that spain bows to terrorism. ETA certainly knows. They been only doing "limited" attacks but do you really think no splinter group within ETA is now considering doing a massive civilian attack? It worked once, it might work again.
RIAA
Opens with couple on a beach the young woman goes swimming and dons her Swimp3. At first everyhing is nice and romantic but then we hear the music. From the bottom of the sea comes mean ultimate terror. The LAWYER.
I am reminded when they tried to compare Apache holes with IIS. They only listed the ones on the default IIS but ALL the ones that could affect Apache with all the extras added.
Look I will tell you a little secreat. You know how to tell when a Microsoft employee is lying? His mouth is open.
You will have had the hologrind (if you don't know, count yourselve lucky.) We have the FS grind.
Sadly I am not as smart as you, I am still hooked. Whoever doubted the evercrack jokes, they are real. It is an adiction.
Linux is used by the fbi for forensic research. The NSA added valuable code to linux to make it a lot more secure for the user and didn't even add any backdoors for evil agents to activate your computer over the net and hypnotize your dog into telling on you. NASA uses it in some roles. The army has switched from windows for it future soldier computer system to linux because they said that windows sucked donkey balls and even with billions to throw at it they couldn't get it stable were linux could and could do it on cheaper more robuust hardware. Well they didn't say as goverment never uses statements shorter then 10 pages but that is the gist of it.
So where the british goverment has said that linux can be considered, the germans have one town swithing the US has billions invested in it AND is giving back to the world free open code that did something amazingly usefull.
MS must be having a fit. Loosing contracts as the US army is not good.
It knows it can't compete at the top with companies like SAP. It says it doesn't want to but really it can't Not just that it ain't got the code. No one in their right mind would a major supply system on an OS everyone knows crashes. Often. (No don't tell me how XP is much more stable, when boeing is doing last minute ordering a reboot costs millions.)
And now it is loosing contracts to people who really should buy into the MS spin hook line and sinker. Some geeks running linux is bad enough, but generals buying it? What next? The suits at wall street, OOps to late. The suits at IBM? Oops to late.
So the US is plenty linux friendly. Just in a different way. Munich buying linux is nice for IBM and Suse (or was it redhat) but it means shit for the rest of us.
NSA adding security features as opensource to linux is very very nice indeed. Thank you american taxpayer for supporting our communist OS.
It ain't really all that massive. Perhaps it would have been if SOE had managed the 1 million subscribers they had aimed for, although how their hardware and software would have coped is beyond me. The few people that are playing are further devided over a dozen different server clusters meaning they will never meet each other. So if you start on a server you will play with perhaps a total of 1000 other players if your lucky. Or rather more accurate, 1000 other accounts. Many hardcore players operate more then one account. The number of total players must therefore be lower then what sony claims.
Is any of this important? Well yeah. SWG has a complex economy that is based on there being enough players to keep the economy balanced. Supply and demand and scale of economy. However because of the few number of players and SOE hopless balancing the player class of Image Designer can be very very very hard to find. Doctors are essential because they buff the stats and without them the fights become impossible very quickly. At times on my server the entire game grinds to a halt because no doctors are buffing the stats of players. This is ultimate the death of a lot of online games. To few people playing and to many advanced players so far ahead that many newbies are instantly turned off.
But lets say you persist. You now create a character on one of the servers hoping to find the server with the most fun community. Selecting sex is pure cosmetic but race is not. Sadly because of some stupid decisions by SOE (you will see a lot of these but nothing compared to your stupidity to pay them each and every month) humans are the best class. Armour was absent for along time for wookies making them useless in the thougher fights.
But you persist and choose a race. Now you gotta choose your starting job. Well actually don't bother. It costs 100 credits to train in a new job so any newbie can easily get basic training in every job out there (except politician I will come to this one). A smart newbie does this as early on it is really really helpfull to be able to help yourselve.
The early jobs are melee (hit things with a stick), ranger (shoot at things), medic (poke players with needles), artisan (make things to hit or shoot thing with), entertainer (stand in boring cantina listening to a 10 second music sample being played over and over again watching the same motion captured animation that is fun once twice or a hundreth times but wich you will have to watch a gazillion times) and finally scout (walk faster up hills and get resources from critters).
Well you can start as an artisan but artisan need resources to make things wich you don't have or any money to buy them with. There are crafting missions that pay you but they pay so low that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the most brafe.
So we are going to be involved in some way with combat. Choosing melee means you will be running after everything running away from you while shooting at you. Ranged means you will be trying to snipe things biting your arm off.
Your character has 3 main bars. Strenght, action and mind. They could have named them anything as strength does not make you stronger and action does not make you faster. The whole deal is that you have an X number of strenght but also a value Y indicating how much strenght something will cost and a value Z indicating how much strenght you recover. Same for action and mind. For instance when a medic heals someone he uses up a certain amount of mind points. How many exactly depends on how high Y is. If Z is high enough he will recover the lost points without the main bar ever dropping. If not then the act of constantly healing will slowly deplete the bar until you no longer can take an action.
Weapon use deplets all bars but varies per weapon wich is used more. The smart people will have thought of something. The value of the main bar is of no imp
No fuck duh! JTL is finally creating some twitch element in the game that was before just hitting the right buttons to perform some moves. However most people made a macro so their toon would do a certain sequence of attacks all the time optomized for their style of play.
JTL is different. It is far more based on your skill as a pilot. Two things limit your capabilties. The type of your hardware, dictating stuff like damage, speed, shield power. You also learn skills needed to things like shift your shields. But turning and keeping behind your enemy is purely based on your skills with a joystick.
Many people have complained that SWG had no twitch. Now people are complaining that JTL is twitch.
If you played any of the old Star Wars games like X-Wing, tie-fighter etc etc then you will find a lot of JTL awfully familiar except you now operate with larger planets in the background. They added some missions that are more complext then "fly to X kill Y fly back to Z" but nothing so far approaching the complexity of X-wing or its sequels.
All in all it ain't bad, just horribly bugged.
Do I recommended it? Absolutly not. If you still haven't been seduced by SWG then JTL won't do it either. I played an imperial in the beta and one of the early missions has you walking on the ground. So far space mission payout is also very low, although my ship was made out of superior looted equipment I think that will soon be adjusted meaning you will have to do ground stuff to get the cash. In the beta it would have been impossible to fly enough missions to pay for a new ship.
Personally I would stay away from the game. SWG can be fun but it is dying. The time when a new player could find a group hunt easily is gone. Wait to see if JTL attracts enough new players to become intresting again. It was fun when the 14-day trial got a load of new players who were not trapped into grinding boxes. The uptake was however very low. Many enjoyed the game itself but found that to many of the other players were to involved in a solo grind.
Fun can be had in SWG but with WoW so close, why should you bother to try to find it?
A good leader should be able once elected to then be a leader to the whole country. Not just those that voted for him. Simply put considering the recent american election results a democrat should be half repiblican and a republican half democrat BECAUSE THAT IS HOW THE AMERICAN PUBLIC VOTED.
If you are reading about the current election you get the idea that 50% of america totally distrusts the other 50% of america. The democrats think the republicans will create a police state ruled by big business, the republicans think the democrats want to invite the UN as a police force to control their right to carry machine guns.
This article is about a list found. While there is some smoke here you can see the democrats leaping off to conclusions that just ain't supported by the findings but you also see the republicans leaping to defences that just ain't supported by history. It ain't that both are wrong, it is that both seem not to care about the truth instead twisting the few facts known to suit their mindset.
The "war on terror" has this as well. Republicans think that if only america hits hard enough the world will come to heel. Never realizing that perhaps the world is barking and biting precisly because america is hitting it.
The democrats seem to believe that its current enemies could have been apeaced if only it had done X or hadn't done Y. They never seem to capable of realizing that perhaps its current enemies hate america because it is there. That just being a democracy with freedom of religion is enough to be a bitter enemy.
The most amusing is the example of foreign support for the iraq war. Democrats seem to claim that it should have had support and that countries like france, germany and russia took the moral highroad by not giving support. Like hell. These countries had major money intrests in Iraq and didn't want to lose them. More recent evidence suggests that Iraq was even buying politicians in europe. Before people cry "Republican propaganda" think this. These are the same politicians who said they would vote against software patents and didn't. The same politicians who voted for DMCA style regulation desptite the publics opinion. If they are morally and ethically corrupt on one subject why should we trust them on others?
However republicans seem somehow to believe that foreign support is not needed and that america can stand alone to defend the entire world from evil. Worse that any who speak against them are part of the evil. That americans need not be held accountable for such silly little things as war crimes. There was even an attempt by republicans to pass allow allowing a friendly country (holland) to be invaded and its soldiers killed to "rescue" any american brought before the international court. A greater insult to the world could not have been delivered as america was at the same time busy to get other countries war criminals before those same courts. One law for the world, another for america. Talk about giving fuel to america haters.
But the most worrying thing is that these ideas seem to split america right down the middle. It doesn't matter who wins the election, the other side will spent the next four years bitterly opposing everything just because they didn't win.
Bush or Kerry has a far more important job to do then "the war on terror" or "domestic economy" or any of that crap. Their most important challenge is to turn their 50.0000000000001 election lead into something like 75% "well I don't agree with everything but overall he ain't a bad leader for america right now, next election he may be a goner but for now he is doing okay enough to not constantly be trying to get him out". Can either Bush or Kerry do that? I don't think so.
Note that this is not a typical american issue, other countries are having real problems with the nature of democracy right now. It is just that dutch internal politics have little effect on the rest of the world. But when america shivers the world trembles.
It would be like making an elevator whose doors just close on time and don't bother with sensing if anyone is behind them. A train or similar wich is operated by a driver who cannot see what is happening behind them without an emergecy brake.
I can just see this parking sytem in use. Stupid car owner puts the system on, child gets in between the system whole idiot is on te phone, child gets crushed because the car can't sense a collision and just keeps pushing.
Isn't the whole point of parking helping system that they STOP PEOPLE FROM HAVING ACCIDENTS? A system that makes people give up control and not pay attention can only be successfull if the system can pay attention.
Like the elevator wich check if something is between the doors and does not work until everything is clear.
Surely I don't even have to explain why video for the driver isn't a good idea? Lawsuits are not all evil, often they are the only way for the average voter to influence society. For every frivolous lawsuit there important ones who get society or companies to clean up their act.
The death toll of 9/11 is still higher then the number of soldiers killed. It tells you something both about the enermous strength of america that in the ground battle it simply couldn't be touched and the enormous weakness that a small squad armed with cheap knives could do so much damage.
Anyway she reports a 20% increase. Hmm, if I get my math right that mean they got 24 words in 90 seconds?
Now it all depends on how the results were calculated. It obviously had some kind of effect if EVERYONE who had the current did 20% better then those who didn't. But this is never the case. Not everyone without the current would have gotten 20. Some would have gotten 16, some 24. Same with the current applied.
The study is far to small and inprecise. We are only talking a few words more. Because the subjects who received the current knew it (they reported an icchy feeling) the test is not really blind as these test need to be. That might have inspired them to do better.
If the same can be done with more complex language tests then it could prove that something is happening here other then the placebo effect.
Anyway I am the kind of person who always gets electric/static shocks from everything, by this logic I should be a language genius. I am not.
Someone shoot this guy if he ever comes within a mile of a plane.
The cruise missle system was such an achievement precisly because it did worry about the terrain. It could follow the terrain at low level flying between hills and other obstructions to its target.
Same with the tornado aircraft wich again is so effective because it is constantly trying to keep as close as possible to the terrain while avoid collisions.
This stuff is actually very very complex and so far can only be done when the computer on board knows exactly what to expect and is having plenty of power to spare (both the missle and missle don't really have to worry about weather conditions as the more glider based predator) to climb or turn as needed.
Yes on the ground you have some other aspects but you have some huge advantages. You can reverse (something that is very very hard to do in a jet) have a turning circle that is not measured in miles. Have brakes that actually slow you before the end of the centurie and can always just stand still and look around.
Also most storms do not tend to blow a car all over the place, try flying a remote in anything but a calm wind and you will agree that a car is just so much easier.
Flying is not easier then driving. You gain some ease in detecting obstacles (everything you detect is an obstacle to be avoided) but loose in having to control something in a far more fluid enviroment. A car driving up an incline that is to steep will simply come to a stop. An aircraft trying to climb to fast to avoid a hill will either stall and crash or plow into the hill.
Polygraphs pick up body reaction. Sadly to few are used and humans are to complex to truly be able to tell why a person reacts.
A simple test is a pedophile image. Both a pedo and a normal person would react with an increased heart rate. The pedo because he is excited, the normal person because of revulsion.
Only when you would start to measure things like blood chemistry and brain activity would you be able to do a true polygraph.
At the moment it is like trying to tell if someone if is lying in an interview by crossing their arms (said to be a typical defensive position). It might just be they are hiding a stain they suddenly spotted, are cold, trying to stop their arms from moving because they are expressive people and been told off about it, just plain nervous about job interviews, trying to hide their beer belly, are just listening to what your saying and really thinking about it.
Polygraphs are a tool, not 100% reliable but an indication for investigators in wich direction they could be looking for more solid evidence.
Those who riducle polygraphs forget one tiny little detail. Most criminals are not smart, prepared, cool blooded and calculated offenders. Just as often as not the polygraph is a bluff wich the criminal will fail just because they know they are guilty and will be found out.
Smart people beating a police polygraph is a total lie. Smart people are never even questioned by the police.
Falls positives is what I am worried about. People being convicted because they were nervous and upset about being charged with something they didn't do.
If the rest of the world made a united attempt to reduce america it would happen. Not that it is ever likely to happen.
stupid americans and their imperial system, I blame bush.