Meanwhile the eBays and Amazons are smart enough to keep the "goose laying the golden eggs" alive, content to dominate their marketplace and earn a decent margin rather than try to get a fat margin and instead create an opeing for a competitor
We are talking about American buinesses right? I most humbly disagree that ANY company I have seen or worked for is "smart enough" to not get really, really greedy. The ranks of companies that have enjoyed great success (for a while), grown too far, too fast, and then either downsized or been bankrupted should serve as warning for the rest of us. Kind of like driving through the mountains of Mexico and seeing six wooden crosses next to the road at some corner someone took too fast.
There is a new controversy going on regarding the M-16 and its' degree of rifling. The M-16A1 has a 1 in 12 inches rate of twist while the M-16A2 has a much tighter 1 in 7 inches rate of twist. Increasing the rate of twist increases the range over which the bullet will travel with stability. This has increased the effective range of the M-16 by quite a bit, at the expense of the degree of impact on soft targets. To exaggerate a bit, the M-16A2 reminds me of some of the older, small-calibre weapons that would fling bullets right through their victims with rather minimal impact. The French had accounts of shooting rebels stoned on hashish in North Africa as many as 17 times before bringing them down. That may have been the old Lebel rifles. My suggestion: try to hit a bone...
I partially agree with this post. Americans tend to overlook the very important Eastern Front in World War Two. The battles there were gargantuan in scope. Heck, Germany invaded on June 22 with OVER 200 DIVISIONS. When Guderian's Panzers surrounded Kiev, he bagged 600,000 prisoners. The scale was enormous.
The Soviets did not, however, defeat Germany single-handedly in "The Great Patriotic War". The around-the-clock bombing of Germany that began in earnest in the Fall of 1943 diverted enormous German resources in terms of electronics, nightfighters (thank you RAF Bomber Command), dayfighters (thank you 8th USAAF), antiaircraft guns (the 88's original purpose), fuel and ammunition. This bombing began in the fall of 1940 triggering Hitler's redirection of the Luftwaffe from destroying the RAF to bombing British cities. Frankly, much of this Anglo-American effort was intended to minimise casualties, whereas the Soviets were far less careful in spending troops' lives. Don't forget all the German resources expended building the West Wall, the U-boats, and the war in the Mediterranean Theatre. All of this was thereby kept away from places like Stalingrad, Kharkov, Kursk, and eventually Berlin. The Soviets built some great equipment like the T-34 tanks, Yak-3 fighters and the Sturmovik. Even an old Soviet should admit however that the supplies that came in through Iran and Murmansk were critical in keeping them in the war. American-built cargo trucks helped a lot. The Soviets' favourite aircraft was the ground-attack version of the Bell P-39 Airacobra.
We should all remember the words of Winston Churchill- The only thing worse than fighting with Allies is fighting without them.Excellent advice for a "war on terror", I would add.
Given your unneeded insults, I am hardly surprised to see you post as "Anonymous Coward".
I stand by my earlier contention regarding the designs of the M-16 and the AK. The M-16 is designed to foul the firing chamber. The "gas" you described in lieu of the propellant is produced by the rapid burning of the propellant. Your description reads as if all the gas (and propellant) follow the bullet out of the muzzle. Obviously, a little of it must be tapped off to cause the next round to be chambered. Inevitably, some of the unburnt propellant will even "turn the corner" and come back down the gas tube right along with all that hot gas headed for the bolt carrier key. Yes, any rifle will foul quickly when using blank ammunition, but the M-16 fouls more quickly than the AK because as soon as the rotary bolt rotates and begins to retract, the gas pushing it has an opening to vent downwards into the firing chamber. You seem to think the gas disappears somehow once the bolt begins to retract. As for the Kalashnikovs, I have had a few at different times and have disassembled and cleaned them many times. They definitely have FEWER moving parts than an M-16 and those parts are sturdier and less prone to breakage. I just spoke recently with a former Israeli tanker who said most of his fellow troopers preferred the M-4's because they are lighter and handier than the Galil, but they aren't as reliable- his words. Some troops can live with the occasional jam if it saves them from lugging around an extra two pounds everywhere they go. The thing I don't understand about the M-16 design's lack of a gas piston rod is that we used them on the M-1 and M-14. Hardly anyone complains of their reliability.
Actually, my final qualification on active duty was fired using the same Colt-manufactured M-16A1 I carried to Saudi and Iraq, not an ink pen. BTW, I was picky about getting an actual Colt M-16 when I first reported to my unit.
I only implied that the M-16 had not been copied because I was unaware of any other nation having copied it or produced it under licence. Surely you understand that the ones produced under licence overseas may have been produced for other than strictly military reasons. Politicians and businessmen don't necessarily produce ideal military weapons, especially when their nations are not in immediate peril. Apparently, you are much more of the military firearms expert and I respect that. Just because you are anonymous (for now) does not mean you should be so insulting. Perhaps you view these "anti-M-16 posts" as endangering your livelihood?
I had an ancient Enfield (circa 1920's?) in.303 rimmed and it literally saved my life one day. Plenty of range, plenty of knockdown, and as trustworthy as an ugly girlfriend:)
I actually like some of the stuff I have read on the XM29 system, especially the proximity fused rounds, but it looks so beta that it should be a specialist's weapon initially while they work its' bugs out. It should not be fielded en masse until it has been proven battleworthy on the battlefield.
I must respectfully disagree with my Marine Corps fellow traveller here. As a former U.S. Army officer, I wielded an M-16A1 in the first Persian Gulf War. I found my M-16 was okay during peacetime, but had some doubts about it for wartime, due to my copious research beforehand. When the more senior officers traded in their M1911A1 Colt.45 ACP pistols for M-16A1's, I acquired one of those pistols as an addition to my personal armoury. I wanted the.45 with me on the off chance that I got into a firefight and the M-16 jammed.
The M-16 spokesman here says that it works fine if kept properly lubricated. I NEVER lubricated my M-16 during PGWI because I couldn't. The first (and last) time I did, it became utterly encrusted with sand. There was no escaping the sand in the Arabian deserts as it is a fine powder easily blown into the air or stirred into the air by vehicles and troops moving about. I wiped it down to a "near dry" condition and it was still caked in sand. It was only after a few more days and wipedowns that it finally dried out and quit being covered in sand. From then on, I just wiped it down with a dry cloth every day. Assuming the Marine above is correct, my M-16 was rendered just about useless. Basically, I would have had to begin dousing it in lubricant right when I actually needed it. Hopefully, that would not have been during one of the frequent "shamals" (sandstorms) we endured.
The most egregious design flaw of the M-16 is the reloading arrangement to support semi-automatic fire. A small gas tube taps the barrel near the front sight and carries some of the hot gas from the cartidge's detonation back to a very short tube or "catcher" just above the rotary bolt that houses the firing pin. This means you have crappy, government gunpowder blowing crap right into the most critical part of the weapon. This residue rapidly gums up the area where bullet meets bolt and firing pin. (This area is called the firing chamber.) This problem calls for either frequent lubrication to loosen the deposits or a tolerance for the occasional jam. An old neighbour of mine was fortunate enough to not have his M-16 jam when he found himself three feet from a Viet Cong in the jungles of Viet Nam. In that case, the M-16 beat the Kalashnikov.
Another M-16 design flaw is the weak recoil spring that pushes the bolt back into place to chamber the next round after one is fired. This spring and the earlier-mentioned fouling problem caused the addition of the "forward assist" for the M-16A1. Inevitably, experienced shooters will forget that forward assist at the wrong moment because no other weapon I know of has such a jury-rigged loading process as the M-16. Talk about cruft... The operator's manual for an M-16A1 or the current M-16A2 recommends the forward assist be pushed forward with the heel of the hand following each loading of a fresh magazine's first round. The M-16's predecessors; M-14, M-1 Garand, M1903 Springfield, the Krag- Jorgensen and "Trapdoor Springfields" had no need for such a procedure to be followed in the middle of a firefight.
The Kalashnikov designs use a metal rod to collect the gas from a bullet's detonation to push the bolt back. This small but significant difference from the M-16 means the vast majority of the gunpowder residue never reaches the firing chamber of an AK. This is a huge help in not gumming up a Kalashnikov when it is being used. Another tremendous advantage of the Kalashnikovs on campaign is the small number of parts they have. Having field stripped AK's and M-16's many, many times, an M-16 has about three times as many parts. These parts are typically much smaller and more prone to breakage on the lighter M-16. Some of those parts are not "idiot proofed" either. When it's 3 am and you are running on six hours sleep in the last three nights, the last thing you need is to be sure to put some cotter pin in only from the right as the weapon won't fire if that pin was inserted from the lef
and ne'er the twain shall meet. This is a probably going to work out as well as the Babelfish idea in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The East Coast is practically another Galaxy to those of us on the West Coast. Putting up an extended LAN ain't gonna change THAT!
So Google is going to stop indexing blogs along with all other web pages in order to reduce worthless hits to queries. Why should this be such a big deal?
I am looking through the posts here and can't get over the obvious power that Google is now exerting over the Web. Other posters have all sorts of tips and tricks for trying to get Google's attention or manipulate it when necessary. The reason they have put in the time and effor to do so is that web sites that don't get picked up by Google just don't get visited.
A few months ago someone posted and mentioned Google-Watch.org This site is worth a visit. Since Google has become so many web users' default search page, Google now wields so much power that they are bending the web around them to suit their own corporate purposes. There are rumours of Microsoft buying Google. You want a frightening monopoly scenario? Try combining a desktop OS monopoly with the cookie-based records of millions of web users and Microsoft's well-known penchant for hyper-aggressive marketing and you have a potentially lethal Force on the web. A friend of mine was running an improperly-registered version of MS Office and following an upgrade of Internet Explorer, his MS Office was disabled. Of course, when I run Windows Update on a machine, I am assured that MS is not collecting any information about that system. Sure.
Who doesn't believe that this change in Google's policy will leave blogging unaffected? Obviously many bloggers enjoy having their content show up on Google and now that is being dampened. What is next from the almighty Google? What other form of web content will they choose to dump into the Internet's equivalent of Siberia?
All of this makes me wonder if there isn't some latent human tendency to put all power into one entity. Surely Linux users, many of whom are bloggers and serious Google users, should see there is tremendous danger in continuing to allow Google to exert so much power over the Web.
I am kicking myself now because when the big names were down in the dumps (Cisco, Amazon, Yahoo, etc) I kept thinking that I should buy them since they had built up such solid brand names. Now I read at ft.com that some of their valuations are up 5X from the dumps.
On the plus side, I had the good sense not to invest in I.T. since I was already working in it. Growing up in the oil patch and watching that rise and fall at least gave me some sense of caution about these bubbles.
Next time I am going to be ready to come down on the carrion like a good vulture after the bubble has burst.
Microsoft insiders frequently use the heck out of VMWare. I got the impression Connectix is just starting to go head-to-head with VMWare instead of being totally focused on "Virtual PC for the Mac". VMWare has been making BUSHELS of cash from their core products and those products have been advancing rapidly in terms of usability and stability. (Note: I run three or four VM's at a time in my job everyday. Started with VMWare 2.0) I have been seeing more and more copies of VMWare out there and recommend the product all the time. I figure M$ wants to get a big piece of this virtual machining pie as it must be highly profitable. For now... Once they get in, maybe they can choke the life out of VMWare with low prices for "Microsoft VirtualPC" and then price their own product just a bit less than VMWare's current price levels after VMWare has met with an unfortunate merger into Computer Associates (where old software goes to die as Minasi says).
Another issue here might be M$ Datacentre Server which will soon be running on systems with 128 CPU's. Only a nut would do that with one instance of a Windows Server executing. More likly M$ wants to run gobs of VM's on such systems as IBM has been doing the last few years such as the the IBM Mainframe with 1024 virtual Linux servers running simultaneously.
VMWare, it's been a great run and we will miss you. WAKE UP THE FTC!!!
Slashdot Mirror
We are talking about American buinesses right? I most humbly disagree that ANY company I have seen or worked for is "smart enough" to not get really, really greedy. The ranks of companies that have enjoyed great success (for a while), grown too far, too fast, and then either downsized or been bankrupted should serve as warning for the rest of us. Kind of like driving through the mountains of Mexico and seeing six wooden crosses next to the road at some corner someone took too fast.
There is a new controversy going on regarding the M-16 and its' degree of rifling. The M-16A1 has a 1 in 12 inches rate of twist while the M-16A2 has a much tighter 1 in 7 inches rate of twist. Increasing the rate of twist increases the range over which the bullet will travel with stability. This has increased the effective range of the M-16 by quite a bit, at the expense of the degree of impact on soft targets. To exaggerate a bit, the M-16A2 reminds me of some of the older, small-calibre weapons that would fling bullets right through their victims with rather minimal impact. The French had accounts of shooting rebels stoned on hashish in North Africa as many as 17 times before bringing them down. That may have been the old Lebel rifles. My suggestion: try to hit a bone...
I partially agree with this post. Americans tend to overlook the very important Eastern Front in World War Two. The battles there were gargantuan in scope. Heck, Germany invaded on June 22 with OVER 200 DIVISIONS. When Guderian's Panzers surrounded Kiev, he bagged 600,000 prisoners. The scale was enormous.
The Soviets did not, however, defeat Germany single-handedly in "The Great Patriotic War". The around-the-clock bombing of Germany that began in earnest in the Fall of 1943 diverted enormous German resources in terms of electronics, nightfighters (thank you RAF Bomber Command), dayfighters (thank you 8th USAAF), antiaircraft guns (the 88's original purpose), fuel and ammunition. This bombing began in the fall of 1940 triggering Hitler's redirection of the Luftwaffe from destroying the RAF to bombing British cities. Frankly, much of this Anglo-American effort was intended to minimise casualties, whereas the Soviets were far less careful in spending troops' lives. Don't forget all the German resources expended building the West Wall, the U-boats, and the war in the Mediterranean Theatre. All of this was thereby kept away from places like Stalingrad, Kharkov, Kursk, and eventually Berlin. The Soviets built some great equipment like the T-34 tanks, Yak-3 fighters and the Sturmovik. Even an old Soviet should admit however that the supplies that came in through Iran and Murmansk were critical in keeping them in the war. American-built cargo trucks helped a lot. The Soviets' favourite aircraft was the ground-attack version of the Bell P-39 Airacobra.
We should all remember the words of Winston Churchill- The only thing worse than fighting with Allies is fighting without them.Excellent advice for a "war on terror", I would add.
Given your unneeded insults, I am hardly surprised to see you post as "Anonymous Coward".
I stand by my earlier contention regarding the designs of the M-16 and the AK. The M-16 is designed to foul the firing chamber. The "gas" you described in lieu of the propellant is produced by the rapid burning of the propellant. Your description reads as if all the gas (and propellant) follow the bullet out of the muzzle. Obviously, a little of it must be tapped off to cause the next round to be chambered. Inevitably, some of the unburnt propellant will even "turn the corner" and come back down the gas tube right along with all that hot gas headed for the bolt carrier key. Yes, any rifle will foul quickly when using blank ammunition, but the M-16 fouls more quickly than the AK because as soon as the rotary bolt rotates and begins to retract, the gas pushing it has an opening to vent downwards into the firing chamber. You seem to think the gas disappears somehow once the bolt begins to retract. As for the Kalashnikovs, I have had a few at different times and have disassembled and cleaned them many times. They definitely have FEWER moving parts than an M-16 and those parts are sturdier and less prone to breakage. I just spoke recently with a former Israeli tanker who said most of his fellow troopers preferred the M-4's because they are lighter and handier than the Galil, but they aren't as reliable- his words. Some troops can live with the occasional jam if it saves them from lugging around an extra two pounds everywhere they go. The thing I don't understand about the M-16 design's lack of a gas piston rod is that we used them on the M-1 and M-14. Hardly anyone complains of their reliability.
Actually, my final qualification on active duty was fired using the same Colt-manufactured M-16A1 I carried to Saudi and Iraq, not an ink pen. BTW, I was picky about getting an actual Colt M-16 when I first reported to my unit.
I only implied that the M-16 had not been copied because I was unaware of any other nation having copied it or produced it under licence. Surely you understand that the ones produced under licence overseas may have been produced for other than strictly military reasons. Politicians and businessmen don't necessarily produce ideal military weapons, especially when their nations are not in immediate peril. Apparently, you are much more of the military firearms expert and I respect that. Just because you are anonymous (for now) does not mean you should be so insulting. Perhaps you view these "anti-M-16 posts" as endangering your livelihood?
I had an ancient Enfield (circa 1920's?) in .303 rimmed and it literally saved my life one day. Plenty of range, plenty of knockdown, and as trustworthy as an ugly girlfriend :)
I actually like some of the stuff I have read on the XM29 system, especially the proximity fused rounds, but it looks so beta that it should be a specialist's weapon initially while they work its' bugs out. It should not be fielded en masse until it has been proven battleworthy on the battlefield.
I must respectfully disagree with my Marine Corps fellow traveller here. As a former U.S. Army officer, I wielded an M-16A1 in the first Persian Gulf War. I found my M-16 was okay during peacetime, but had some doubts about it for wartime, due to my copious research beforehand. When the more senior officers traded in their M1911A1 Colt .45 ACP pistols for M-16A1's, I acquired one of those pistols as an addition to my personal armoury. I wanted the .45 with me on the off chance that I got into a firefight and the M-16 jammed.
The M-16 spokesman here says that it works fine if kept properly lubricated. I NEVER lubricated my M-16 during PGWI because I couldn't. The first (and last) time I did, it became utterly encrusted with sand. There was no escaping the sand in the Arabian deserts as it is a fine powder easily blown into the air or stirred into the air by vehicles and troops moving about. I wiped it down to a "near dry" condition and it was still caked in sand. It was only after a few more days and wipedowns that it finally dried out and quit being covered in sand. From then on, I just wiped it down with a dry cloth every day. Assuming the Marine above is correct, my M-16 was rendered just about useless. Basically, I would have had to begin dousing it in lubricant right when I actually needed it. Hopefully, that would not have been during one of the frequent "shamals" (sandstorms) we endured.
The most egregious design flaw of the M-16 is the reloading arrangement to support semi-automatic fire. A small gas tube taps the barrel near the front sight and carries some of the hot gas from the cartidge's detonation back to a very short tube or "catcher" just above the rotary bolt that houses the firing pin. This means you have crappy, government gunpowder blowing crap right into the most critical part of the weapon. This residue rapidly gums up the area where bullet meets bolt and firing pin. (This area is called the firing chamber.) This problem calls for either frequent lubrication to loosen the deposits or a tolerance for the occasional jam. An old neighbour of mine was fortunate enough to not have his M-16 jam when he found himself three feet from a Viet Cong in the jungles of Viet Nam. In that case, the M-16 beat the Kalashnikov.
Another M-16 design flaw is the weak recoil spring that pushes the bolt back into place to chamber the next round after one is fired. This spring and the earlier-mentioned fouling problem caused the addition of the "forward assist" for the M-16A1. Inevitably, experienced shooters will forget that forward assist at the wrong moment because no other weapon I know of has such a jury-rigged loading process as the M-16. Talk about cruft... The operator's manual for an M-16A1 or the current M-16A2 recommends the forward assist be pushed forward with the heel of the hand following each loading of a fresh magazine's first round. The M-16's predecessors; M-14, M-1 Garand, M1903 Springfield, the Krag- Jorgensen and "Trapdoor Springfields" had no need for such a procedure to be followed in the middle of a firefight.
The Kalashnikov designs use a metal rod to collect the gas from a bullet's detonation to push the bolt back. This small but significant difference from the M-16 means the vast majority of the gunpowder residue never reaches the firing chamber of an AK. This is a huge help in not gumming up a Kalashnikov when it is being used. Another tremendous advantage of the Kalashnikovs on campaign is the small number of parts they have. Having field stripped AK's and M-16's many, many times, an M-16 has about three times as many parts. These parts are typically much smaller and more prone to breakage on the lighter M-16. Some of those parts are not "idiot proofed" either. When it's 3 am and you are running on six hours sleep in the last three nights, the last thing you need is to be sure to put some cotter pin in only from the right as the weapon won't fire if that pin was inserted from the lef
and ne'er the twain shall meet. This is a probably going to work out as well as the Babelfish idea in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The East Coast is practically another Galaxy to those of us on the West Coast. Putting up an extended LAN ain't gonna change THAT!
So Google is going to stop indexing blogs along with all other web pages in order to reduce worthless hits to queries. Why should this be such a big deal?
I am looking through the posts here and can't get over the obvious power that Google is now exerting over the Web. Other posters have all sorts of tips and tricks for trying to get Google's attention or manipulate it when necessary. The reason they have put in the time and effor to do so is that web sites that don't get picked up by Google just don't get visited.
A few months ago someone posted and mentioned Google-Watch.org This site is worth a visit. Since Google has become so many web users' default search page, Google now wields so much power that they are bending the web around them to suit their own corporate purposes. There are rumours of Microsoft buying Google. You want a frightening monopoly scenario? Try combining a desktop OS monopoly with the cookie-based records of millions of web users and Microsoft's well-known penchant for hyper-aggressive marketing and you have a potentially lethal Force on the web. A friend of mine was running an improperly-registered version of MS Office and following an upgrade of Internet Explorer, his MS Office was disabled. Of course, when I run Windows Update on a machine, I am assured that MS is not collecting any information about that system. Sure.
Who doesn't believe that this change in Google's policy will leave blogging unaffected? Obviously many bloggers enjoy having their content show up on Google and now that is being dampened. What is next from the almighty Google? What other form of web content will they choose to dump into the Internet's equivalent of Siberia?
All of this makes me wonder if there isn't some latent human tendency to put all power into one entity. Surely Linux users, many of whom are bloggers and serious Google users, should see there is tremendous danger in continuing to allow Google to exert so much power over the Web.
I am kicking myself now because when the big names were down in the dumps (Cisco, Amazon, Yahoo, etc) I kept thinking that I should buy them since they had built up such solid brand names. Now I read at ft.com that some of their valuations are up 5X from the dumps.
On the plus side, I had the good sense not to invest in I.T. since I was already working in it. Growing up in the oil patch and watching that rise and fall at least gave me some sense of caution about these bubbles.
Next time I am going to be ready to come down on the carrion like a good vulture after the bubble has burst.
KRUD (Kevin's Redhat Uber Distribution) is a growing phenomenon spreading out of Colorado, for those who might not know.
I absolutely hate these minimalist...
Watch it! You are insulting my Bauhaus-bred mind! Less is more. Einfach. The universe trends towards entropy and chaos, simple order is the remedy.
Keep your hands off my BIOS!
Profit
Microsoft insiders frequently use the heck out of VMWare. I got the impression Connectix is just starting to go head-to-head with VMWare instead of being totally focused on "Virtual PC for the Mac". VMWare has been making BUSHELS of cash from their core products and those products have been advancing rapidly in terms of usability and stability. (Note: I run three or four VM's at a time in my job everyday. Started with VMWare 2.0) I have been seeing more and more copies of VMWare out there and recommend the product all the time. I figure M$ wants to get a big piece of this virtual machining pie as it must be highly profitable. For now... Once they get in, maybe they can choke the life out of VMWare with low prices for "Microsoft VirtualPC" and then price their own product just a bit less than VMWare's current price levels after VMWare has met with an unfortunate merger into Computer Associates (where old software goes to die as Minasi says).
Another issue here might be M$ Datacentre Server which will soon be running on systems with 128 CPU's. Only a nut would do that with one instance of a Windows Server executing. More likly M$ wants to run gobs of VM's on such systems as IBM has been doing the last few years such as the the IBM Mainframe with 1024 virtual Linux servers running simultaneously.
VMWare, it's been a great run and we will miss you. WAKE UP THE FTC!!!