Winnipeg is among Canadian cities where a North Korean nuclear missile could land if the U.S. shot it out of the sky with its ballistic missile defence technology.
That's the part where I stopped reading. You clearly don't understand your subject.
The really, really short version: The kill vehicles are exo-atmospheric. After an interception, nothing is going to come back to Earth except a few kilograms of dust smeared out over a hundred thousand square miles.
Are you trying to make a funny? Do you seriously think that you're the only person who's ever thought of bringing a nuclear weapon into the United States? We've had systems in place to prevent that kind of thing since the 1950s, and they've been under constant improvement ever since. Just what do you think they do at Oak Ridge, anyway?
As for the "simple EMP device" thing, please put down the comic book and step away from the keyboard. Post your present location and somebody will be along with a high-school physics textbook within the hour.
Finally, I don't know what the heck you're talking about regarding the flare thing. We're not referring to the AIM-9, here. I don't think bemoaning the state of the art of 1958 is really a productive line of discussion, do you?
I think you're forgetting the fact that the original "Star Wars" program --the Strategic Defense Initiative --was a phenomenal success. It literally brought the Soviets back to the table at Reykjavik after the failure of Geneva, and then President Reagan's refusal to disband it caused Gorbachev to go home empty-handed, leading directly to the hard-line coup that signaled the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991/1992.
The purpose of a weapons system is to blow something up -- an enemy soldier, a city, an incoming missile. But the higher purpose is to cause the enemy to alter his plans before carrying them out.
we have the technology to map the chemical composition of the surface of mars using satellites. i don't know why we don't have a similar set of satellites checking out earth for signs of nuclear material
Dingdingdingding! Give the man his kewpie doll.
(Except they're not satellites. But you're closer than you might realize to the truth.)
And no, to educate the world would cost many, many, many times more what we're spending on national defense. Yes, it costs more to build an aircraft carrier or an interceptor missile than an elementary school. But people seem to be oblivious of the fact that we'd need to build a million elementary schools... and staff them... and maintain them.
Foreign aid is a black hole. The only reason we still bother with it is because...well, even if it produces no tangible benefits for us, it's still the right thing to do.
But we still need aircraft carriers and interceptor missiles.
You're thinking of the ABM treaty, an obsolete piece of Cold War paper that was designed to put the brakes on the US/USSR arms race. We are, thankfully, no longer bound by the terms of that treaty.
Right now, the conflict between the US and the PRC is very, very cold, and it's likely to stay that way for a long time.
China and the United States don't really compete over resources. Yes, the US would love it if China would open up its markets more so we could sell our products there --markets are the most important resource of the 21st century --but it's not a big problem at this point. It's a small thing in the grand scheme of things.
That was also true of the USSR, but there's a critical difference between China and the USSR: The Soviets were ideological exporters. They had a policy of trying to export totalitarian communism -- by far the greatest evil of the 20th century --to wherever they could: Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, whatever. The possibility that the USSR would attempt to solve the Berlin problem once and for all by rolling tanks through the Fulda Gap was very real, and the war plans were all carved in stone. Nuclear conflict was seemingly inevitable.
That's not the case with China. They have chosen, if anything, to be ideological importers. The situations with Tibet, with Hong Kong, with the ROC are far from perfect, but they're also far from unstable.
China, as of this moment, seems to be a gentle giant. It would take something drastic, like a huge plague or a huge famine or a military coup d'etat, to change that.
Step one: Stop thinking that you understand the federal budget. It's clear that you don't.
Step two: Stop thinking of the government like it's a private citizen with a credit card. That analogy leads you to conclusions that aren't just wrong, they're really, really wrong.
Step three: Contemplate the cycle of investment in this country. For decades, United States bonds have been a sound investment, particularly for people who are at or nearing retirement and who don't want to take risks with their money. What would happen if the government eliminated the national debt? All those bonds would disappear, paid off in full, and there would be no more available. You'd end up with literally trillions of dollars in 401(k) plans, IRAs and pension plans and no low-risk way of investing it. Retirees would be forced to either make higher-risk investments (like in the stock market) or give up on the idea of ever making any money off of their savings.
We have Treasury bonds for a reason. Step three, after you've mastered steps one and two, is for you to understand this.
There are no loans. There are bonds, which are not loans but which do pay interest to the people and funds who buy them, and there are intragovernmental funds transfers, which are similar to loans but don't involve interest.
You're thinking of the government like it's a person with a credit card. That's a mistake. You need to think of it instead like a business that sells shares of stock. That's a much more accurate metaphor.
And the answer to your other question is that North Korea is a very serious risk in reality. They are the worst-case scenario: A desperately poor country --emphasis on desperate--with militaristic ambitions and an absolute dictator who is obviously insane.
Kim Jong-Il lacks the ability to comprehend his own mortality, much less anyone else's. If there's a major nuclear attack in the next 10 years, it's going to come from North Korea.
Let me put it this way: Kim makes Castro look sane. And we all know how bugfuck-nuts Castro is.
That's almost entirely wrong. Sure, in the invasion we destroyed things like bridges. But the vast majority of the work going on in Iraq is on things like the electricity grid and the water network, infrastructures that crumbled under Saddam's woeful misrule. Not to mention building things like schools and hospitals which Saddam let literally fall apart over the past two decades. He decided he would rather spend the country's treasury on war with Iran, Kuwait, Israel, Bahrain, Qatar and the United States than on things like roads and power plants.
Somebody's going to have to chip in and bring Iraq into the 21st century. Why us? Because we can. No other reason at all.
This is really embarrassing. Whomever this "samzenpus" is, he should be ashamed of himself. Virtually nothing in this summary is correct.
The shutdown was triggered by a fault in the sensors in the kill vehicle's boost-stage rocket. This fault was detected during the regular pre-launch check and the decision was made at that time to scrub the test.
Yes, the target drone was lost, but guess what: That's what they're for. They exist only to be destroyed. The minute that candle was lit, that drone became a write-off. An expensive write-off, sure, but that's life.
The choices were to continue with the test and miss out on a big chunk of important telemetry --destroying an even more expensive kill vehicle in the process -- or to scrub the test, fix the sensor problem and try again with another target drone.
The choice made was the right one. Explaining this to your average wire service reporter is obviously not an easy task. But it's kind of embarrassing that a Web site that purports to carry "news for nerds" should just parrot the misinformation carried in the wire service report.
No, that's not what he said. He said that there were "constant upgrades." So far, I haven't heard about any. It sounds more like he's just looking for an excuse to badmouth Microsoft (and therefore drive up Slashdot's traffic figures) than anything else.
I wouldn't be surprised if this whole story were a plant.
It was necessary to be found innocent so the record of my arrest would be expunged.
There was no arrest. You're just kinda making stuff up now, I think.
If the arresting officer were concerned about costs, he could have ripped up the ticket
Destroy a court document that's probative into a pending case? Don't think so.
The problem, increasingly, are organizations that care if one was "ever charged with a crime of which they were not acquitted" or "ever arrested".
Why is this a problem? You were involved in an accident. You were accused of violating a traffic law. You want to cover up these facts, for some reason? You want to lie about it? You want to deceive people who ask you if you've ever been accused of breaking a traffic law?
Why do you want to lie? I think that's the more important question here.
Funny. I just happen to have a traffic ticket right here in front of me --I let my inspection sticker expire, and got pulled over for it last month. Nothing here about Miranda rights. To the contrary, it specifically says that it's a citation, not a record of arrest, and that failure to pay the fine or appear in court can result in the issuance of a warrant for arrest.
You've got the basic facts wrong here, buddy.
You were also right to be chastised by the judge. You wasted the court's time demanding a trial when the court was already willing the drop the charges. A speeding ticket, once dropped, ceases to exist. Your misunderstanding of how our legal system works cost the taxpayers money. And now you're spreading this ignorance around via the Internet. Shame on you.
No, that's not correct. When you are pulled over in a traffic stop, you are not under arrest.
Let's make this as simple as possible, because apparently details confuse people. Whenever a person is arrested anywhere in the United States of America, the arresting agent is required by law to inform that person of his rights.
When's the last time you got mirandized at a traffic stop?
To drive away from a traffic stop without permission is another violation --failure to obey a peace office--and if the circumstances are exigent, you can be arrested for it. But that's not the same as saying you're under arrest.
You can't be arrested without one of two things: a warrant, probable cause or exigent circumstances. This is something we call "due process," which means you can't be deprived of liberty without the application of the due process of law.
Once you are placed under arrest, the arresting agent (police, sheriff, whatever) is required by law to inform you explicitly of your rights.
When you're pulled over for a traffic stop, you are not under arrest. If probable cause exists or if there's an outstanding warrant, you can be arrested, but in the process you'll be informed of your rights and given the opportunity to ask for a lawyer.
They're called "CDs," dumbass. See, back when you were just a wee little boy, we had this method for delivering music that predated the Internet. It's called a "CD," and it's a shiny piece of metal about six inches across. A whole album could fit on one of those. Back in the 80s and 90s, lots of people bought lots of them. Now they're using that modern miracle, The Computer, to turn them into music that even a mouth-breathing hatchling like you can recognize.
Going from Toslink to AES over XLR isn't job of a "dongle." It's the job of a piece of rackmount gear that's about nine and a half inches by two by six.
Going from a mini jack to analog XLR, however, is a piece of cake.
Which kinda demonstrates that optical digital out of an iPod would be a big ol' waste.
The iPod and Bluetooth don't have anything to do with each other. There's no Bluetooth transmitter on an iPod, nor are there any third-party add-ons that have one.
I think, possibly, that you don't know what you're talking about.
Because being able to quickly plug in digitally to a nearby amp for playback (parties!) or record (DJs!) is cool.
Ur. Maybe. Except in my experience most equipment you're going to find at places like that isn't going to have an optical input. It's going to have a balanced XLR input. But there's always an exception, I s'pose.
And as for the rest...did you really feel your comment was improved by the vulgar sexual imagery? Everything was going fine until you decided to get gross. Keep that in mind next time.
i have toslink optical in/out on my mobo, my minidisc has toslink input, my discman has toslink output, my 2 dvd players (one is a 5 disc changer) has toslink output, my surround sound reciever has 4 toslink inputs, and i have a USB toslink soundcard that came with my minidisc recorder that i can put on my laptop. they exist and are useful
I was reading kinda quickly, so I obviously missed it. Which of those devices is a portable music player that you carry around with you and that, while you do, you listen to exclusively with headphones?
if you put it in the dock, you then have to carry the dock around, or worse yet, move it every time you want to listen to it on your stereo or have it connected to your computer
Buy a second one. They're cheap, like $40.
i looked in my discman, the toslink connector isn't much bigger
Toslink is obsolete. The state of the art optical jack is a combination mini headphone jack and optical jack.
i would have paid an extra $100 for an ipod or something else with a toslink
No, you wouldn't have. That's a lie and you know it. If you were willing to put up with a piece of crap like a "zen touch" (capital letters are your friends, really), then there's nothing that could have persuaded you to buy an iPod at any price.
Slashdot Mirror
Winnipeg is among Canadian cities where a North Korean nuclear missile could land if the U.S. shot it out of the sky with its ballistic missile defence technology.
That's the part where I stopped reading. You clearly don't understand your subject.
The really, really short version: The kill vehicles are exo-atmospheric. After an interception, nothing is going to come back to Earth except a few kilograms of dust smeared out over a hundred thousand square miles.
I hope your teacher gave you an F.
Are you trying to make a funny? Do you seriously think that you're the only person who's ever thought of bringing a nuclear weapon into the United States? We've had systems in place to prevent that kind of thing since the 1950s, and they've been under constant improvement ever since. Just what do you think they do at Oak Ridge, anyway?
As for the "simple EMP device" thing, please put down the comic book and step away from the keyboard. Post your present location and somebody will be along with a high-school physics textbook within the hour.
Finally, I don't know what the heck you're talking about regarding the flare thing. We're not referring to the AIM-9, here. I don't think bemoaning the state of the art of 1958 is really a productive line of discussion, do you?
I think you're forgetting the fact that the original "Star Wars" program --the Strategic Defense Initiative --was a phenomenal success. It literally brought the Soviets back to the table at Reykjavik after the failure of Geneva, and then President Reagan's refusal to disband it caused Gorbachev to go home empty-handed, leading directly to the hard-line coup that signaled the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991/1992.
The purpose of a weapons system is to blow something up -- an enemy soldier, a city, an incoming missile. But the higher purpose is to cause the enemy to alter his plans before carrying them out.
we have the technology to map the chemical composition of the surface of mars using satellites. i don't know why we don't have a similar set of satellites checking out earth for signs of nuclear material
... and staff them ... and maintain them.
...well, even if it produces no tangible benefits for us, it's still the right thing to do.
Dingdingdingding! Give the man his kewpie doll.
(Except they're not satellites. But you're closer than you might realize to the truth.)
And no, to educate the world would cost many, many, many times more what we're spending on national defense. Yes, it costs more to build an aircraft carrier or an interceptor missile than an elementary school. But people seem to be oblivious of the fact that we'd need to build a million elementary schools
Foreign aid is a black hole. The only reason we still bother with it is because
But we still need aircraft carriers and interceptor missiles.
You're thinking of the ABM treaty, an obsolete piece of Cold War paper that was designed to put the brakes on the US/USSR arms race. We are, thankfully, no longer bound by the terms of that treaty.
Right now, the conflict between the US and the PRC is very, very cold, and it's likely to stay that way for a long time.
China and the United States don't really compete over resources. Yes, the US would love it if China would open up its markets more so we could sell our products there --markets are the most important resource of the 21st century --but it's not a big problem at this point. It's a small thing in the grand scheme of things.
That was also true of the USSR, but there's a critical difference between China and the USSR: The Soviets were ideological exporters. They had a policy of trying to export totalitarian communism -- by far the greatest evil of the 20th century --to wherever they could: Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, whatever. The possibility that the USSR would attempt to solve the Berlin problem once and for all by rolling tanks through the Fulda Gap was very real, and the war plans were all carved in stone. Nuclear conflict was seemingly inevitable.
That's not the case with China. They have chosen, if anything, to be ideological importers. The situations with Tibet, with Hong Kong, with the ROC are far from perfect, but they're also far from unstable.
China, as of this moment, seems to be a gentle giant. It would take something drastic, like a huge plague or a huge famine or a military coup d'etat, to change that.
Step one: Stop thinking that you understand the federal budget. It's clear that you don't.
Step two: Stop thinking of the government like it's a private citizen with a credit card. That analogy leads you to conclusions that aren't just wrong, they're really, really wrong.
Step three: Contemplate the cycle of investment in this country. For decades, United States bonds have been a sound investment, particularly for people who are at or nearing retirement and who don't want to take risks with their money. What would happen if the government eliminated the national debt? All those bonds would disappear, paid off in full, and there would be no more available. You'd end up with literally trillions of dollars in 401(k) plans, IRAs and pension plans and no low-risk way of investing it. Retirees would be forced to either make higher-risk investments (like in the stock market) or give up on the idea of ever making any money off of their savings.
We have Treasury bonds for a reason. Step three, after you've mastered steps one and two, is for you to understand this.
Do you understand how the federal budget works?
There are no loans. There are bonds, which are not loans but which do pay interest to the people and funds who buy them, and there are intragovernmental funds transfers, which are similar to loans but don't involve interest.
You're thinking of the government like it's a person with a credit card. That's a mistake. You need to think of it instead like a business that sells shares of stock. That's a much more accurate metaphor.
And the answer to your other question is that North Korea is a very serious risk in reality. They are the worst-case scenario: A desperately poor country --emphasis on desperate--with militaristic ambitions and an absolute dictator who is obviously insane.
Kim Jong-Il lacks the ability to comprehend his own mortality, much less anyone else's. If there's a major nuclear attack in the next 10 years, it's going to come from North Korea.
Let me put it this way: Kim makes Castro look sane. And we all know how bugfuck-nuts Castro is.
That's almost entirely wrong. Sure, in the invasion we destroyed things like bridges. But the vast majority of the work going on in Iraq is on things like the electricity grid and the water network, infrastructures that crumbled under Saddam's woeful misrule. Not to mention building things like schools and hospitals which Saddam let literally fall apart over the past two decades. He decided he would rather spend the country's treasury on war with Iran, Kuwait, Israel, Bahrain, Qatar and the United States than on things like roads and power plants.
Somebody's going to have to chip in and bring Iraq into the 21st century. Why us? Because we can. No other reason at all.
This is really embarrassing. Whomever this "samzenpus" is, he should be ashamed of himself. Virtually nothing in this summary is correct.
The shutdown was triggered by a fault in the sensors in the kill vehicle's boost-stage rocket. This fault was detected during the regular pre-launch check and the decision was made at that time to scrub the test.
Yes, the target drone was lost, but guess what: That's what they're for. They exist only to be destroyed. The minute that candle was lit, that drone became a write-off. An expensive write-off, sure, but that's life.
The choices were to continue with the test and miss out on a big chunk of important telemetry --destroying an even more expensive kill vehicle in the process -- or to scrub the test, fix the sensor problem and try again with another target drone.
The choice made was the right one. Explaining this to your average wire service reporter is obviously not an easy task. But it's kind of embarrassing that a Web site that purports to carry "news for nerds" should just parrot the misinformation carried in the wire service report.
Someone want to educate Crumbz on the DPRK's No Dong and Taepo Dong missiles?
Or at least the expression "don't put all your eggs in the counter-terrorism basket?"
No, that's not what he said. He said that there were "constant upgrades." So far, I haven't heard about any. It sounds more like he's just looking for an excuse to badmouth Microsoft (and therefore drive up Slashdot's traffic figures) than anything else.
I wouldn't be surprised if this whole story were a plant.
It was necessary to be found innocent so the record of my arrest would be expunged.
There was no arrest. You're just kinda making stuff up now, I think.
If the arresting officer were concerned about costs, he could have ripped up the ticket
Destroy a court document that's probative into a pending case? Don't think so.
The problem, increasingly, are organizations that care if one was "ever charged with a crime of which they were not acquitted" or "ever arrested".
Why is this a problem? You were involved in an accident. You were accused of violating a traffic law. You want to cover up these facts, for some reason? You want to lie about it? You want to deceive people who ask you if you've ever been accused of breaking a traffic law?
Why do you want to lie? I think that's the more important question here.
Funny. I just happen to have a traffic ticket right here in front of me --I let my inspection sticker expire, and got pulled over for it last month. Nothing here about Miranda rights. To the contrary, it specifically says that it's a citation, not a record of arrest, and that failure to pay the fine or appear in court can result in the issuance of a warrant for arrest.
You've got the basic facts wrong here, buddy.
You were also right to be chastised by the judge. You wasted the court's time demanding a trial when the court was already willing the drop the charges. A speeding ticket, once dropped, ceases to exist. Your misunderstanding of how our legal system works cost the taxpayers money. And now you're spreading this ignorance around via the Internet. Shame on you.
No, that's not correct. When you are pulled over in a traffic stop, you are not under arrest.
Let's make this as simple as possible, because apparently details confuse people. Whenever a person is arrested anywhere in the United States of America, the arresting agent is required by law to inform that person of his rights.
When's the last time you got mirandized at a traffic stop?
To drive away from a traffic stop without permission is another violation --failure to obey a peace office--and if the circumstances are exigent, you can be arrested for it. But that's not the same as saying you're under arrest.
You're not too smart, are you?
I'm confused. If your system works, why are you upgrading?
I'm pretty sure you're looking for a problem here.
Have you considered a pencil and a ledger sheet? It's cheap, and I promise you it'll be more reliable than most of the software you'll describing.
Of course, you may not want to pay the "pencil tax."
Nope, that's not correct. In fact, it's completely backwards.
Nope, that's completely wrong.
You can't be arrested without one of two things: a warrant, probable cause or exigent circumstances. This is something we call "due process," which means you can't be deprived of liberty without the application of the due process of law.
Once you are placed under arrest, the arresting agent (police, sheriff, whatever) is required by law to inform you explicitly of your rights.
When you're pulled over for a traffic stop, you are not under arrest. If probable cause exists or if there's an outstanding warrant, you can be arrested, but in the process you'll be informed of your rights and given the opportunity to ask for a lawyer.
Um. I have an alternate suggestion that's just so crazy it might work.
Don't break any laws.
I know, I know. It's amazing that I'm giving such sage advice away for free. Just consider it to be an act of charity on my part.
They're called "CDs," dumbass. See, back when you were just a wee little boy, we had this method for delivering music that predated the Internet. It's called a "CD," and it's a shiny piece of metal about six inches across. A whole album could fit on one of those. Back in the 80s and 90s, lots of people bought lots of them. Now they're using that modern miracle, The Computer, to turn them into music that even a mouth-breathing hatchling like you can recognize.
And anyway, okay, maybe one dongle is required.
Going from Toslink to AES over XLR isn't job of a "dongle." It's the job of a piece of rackmount gear that's about nine and a half inches by two by six.
Going from a mini jack to analog XLR, however, is a piece of cake.
Which kinda demonstrates that optical digital out of an iPod would be a big ol' waste.
The iPod and Bluetooth don't have anything to do with each other. There's no Bluetooth transmitter on an iPod, nor are there any third-party add-ons that have one.
I think, possibly, that you don't know what you're talking about.
Because being able to quickly plug in digitally to a nearby amp for playback (parties!) or record (DJs!) is cool.
...did you really feel your comment was improved by the vulgar sexual imagery? Everything was going fine until you decided to get gross. Keep that in mind next time.
Ur. Maybe. Except in my experience most equipment you're going to find at places like that isn't going to have an optical input. It's going to have a balanced XLR input. But there's always an exception, I s'pose.
And as for the rest
I was reading kinda quickly, so I obviously missed it. Which of those devices is a portable music player that you carry around with you and that, while you do, you listen to exclusively with headphones?
if you put it in the dock, you then have to carry the dock around, or worse yet, move it every time you want to listen to it on your stereo or have it connected to your computer
Buy a second one. They're cheap, like $40.
i looked in my discman, the toslink connector isn't much bigger
Toslink is obsolete. The state of the art optical jack is a combination mini headphone jack and optical jack.
i would have paid an extra $100 for an ipod or something else with a toslink
No, you wouldn't have. That's a lie and you know it. If you were willing to put up with a piece of crap like a "zen touch" (capital letters are your friends, really), then there's nothing that could have persuaded you to buy an iPod at any price.
Once again we see that some people have no taste.