I did something similar to my server in 2005. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that (!) I hadn't made a backup in months and (2) the server hosted a disaster recovery project whose purpose was to guard against catastrophic data loss. A cobbler's bairns are aye the worst shod...
Oy, the Goyim.;) Perhaps she should have said something less offensive, such as "T-Mobile sucks the sweat off my grandpa's balls." Then everyone would be happy (especially her grandpa).
First of all, I apologize that it took me so long to reply, and that my reply is so long.
Rules of engagement vary with the specific mission, the unit, the combat theater, and even the year. However, the concept of PID (positive identification of threat) is always crucial. PID is the sine qua non of any ROE.
Double-tap is against ROE, and it always will be, because a "double-tap" consists of neutralizing a threat and then shooting the target again for 'good measure' even when it is no longer a threat. If it's not a threat, you're not allowed to shoot it, even if it WAS a threat earlier. If it's no longer a threat, then you don't have PID. If you don't have PID, you mustn't shoot it, even if ordered to, unless you want to get caught under a pissing contest between your Chain of Command and the ROE of your theater.
Double-tap is not to be confused with a controlled pair. Example: Room-clearing team enters the room. Target is acquired. Target is shot twice - bang, bang - and target goes down. That's a controlled pair. We use controlled pairs because the M4, with its shorter barrel (4" shorter than the M16) and collapsible buttstock, has a tendency to ice-pick the target, rather than giving the tumbling we need in order to make a nice hole. However, two holes in close proximity to one another can really mess up your day. Plus there are those blended-metal rounds that we're not allowed to use anymore.:( But I digress.
Example of double-tap: Room-clearing team enters the room. Target is acquired. Target is shot (controlled pair, whatever, doesn't matter). Target goes down. Target is no longer a threat; incapacitation, surrender, death, doesn't really matter. Target is not a threat AND YET some bozo shoots the target a second time because that's what people do in the movies. BAD.
Whether the foe is wounded or not is irrelevant. The question is, do you (the good guy) still have PID (positive identification of a threat/target)? If the guy is no longer a threat, he's not a valid target. It gets more complicated when you're talking about traffic control points, vehicles, etc. but here we're talking primarily about a bunch of guys who are walking down the road, minding their own business, with their weapons (if that's what they are) slung, NOT in their hands. They weren't a threat to begin with. Therefore, the gunner didn't have PID. Therefore, he shouldn't have even asked for permission to fire, because he didn't have PID. His Higher gave him permission to engage (G-d knows why), and from that point on, it was the responsibility of the gunner to kill the targets, period. He had permission (which he shouldn't have, but whatever); from that point on, KILL THEM. Don't half-ass the job and then come back to finish the job when they don't pose any kind of threat.
The worst thing you can do is engage a non-threat, half-ass the job, engage a non-threat AGAIN, and finally engage the non-threat a third time while someone is ferrying the injured to hospital. I know it didn't have a red cross on the side but it walked, talked, quacked like an ambulance. The gunner knew exactly what was going on -- the injured were being taken to get medical attention -- and he engaged the vehicle anyway.
Engaging a vehicle with 30mm cannon fire is fine: 30mm is anti-materiel, and a vehicle counts as materiel. Engaging a group of men with 30mm cannon fire because they MIGHT have weapons slung across their shoulders? I'm not sure whose bright idea that was.
Reasons? Absolutely. Valid reasons? I doubt it. If it were a valid engagement, no one would have tried to cover it up.
A fully automatic ANTI-MATERIEL weapon was discharged into a crowd. Anti-materiel weapons are designed to attack buildings, vehicles, etc.; it's not illegal to use them against personnel but it's definitely overkill, especially when all you have are some guys wandering around with shoulder-slung weapons (?). The weapons aren't in their hands, the men aren't preparing to fire, and some guy in a helicopter takes them down anyway. The Rules of Engagement do not permit unprovoked attacks on civilians, even if the civilians have weapons slung on their shoulders. Note, "slung", not "in their hands".
In case there's any doubt, I want to emphasize that I'm agreeing with you, not disagreeing.:)
I always feel like the key trouble with video of any military operation is that the general public has absolutely no basis from which to really understand what they're seeing -- the context of civilian day-to-day just doesn't create the sort of base of experience you need to watch this sort of video and draw decent conclusions from it.
I think you make a good argument. I would respond by pointing out that the Rules of Engagement (Iraq, 2007) are violated at least three times in that video. If you want a copy of the ROE, I'll dig it out of my tuffbox and post a copy. They're FOUO (For Office Use Only) but they're not Classified. People tell you they are but they're not.
The ROE exist for many reasons, one of which being to stop troops from doing boneheaded things. The man behind the trigger was far too enthusiastic (even swearing when he wasn't given permission to fire); his Higher finally relented, figuring the man was swearing because he had a target and wanted to take it down, not because he was an over-zealous cherry who wanted to make his dick feel bigger.
Americans don't really have ways to participate in organizations that will stop this sort of thing from happening.>
I respectfully disagree. If your country is at war, you have the option to join the military and make sure that it is fought honorably (I'm talking about "jus in bello", not "jus ad bellum"; I accept that the war in Iraq was and is illegally started).
The tape is, in my opinion, authentic. I was serving in the area at the time. I note four things in the tape:-
1. Double-tap --- engaging an individual or individuals after the threat has been eliminated.
2. Engaging personnel with anti-material weaponry; this isn't illegal but it looks bad.:-p
3. Failing to establish PID (Positive Identification of a threat) before engaging the "bongo truck" full of injured individuals.
4. Failing to establish PID before engaging what is, basically, a group of civilians wandering around the streets.
In essence, they shot some people for carrying weapons, then shot up the ambulance. I'm very saddened by this, since it's not the first violation of the ROE that I've encountered. The last one wasn't caught on tape. I had to put a stop to it myself.
It isn't like Wikipedia is some lame-ass piece of shareware I use twice a year; I use it almost every day, expecially when I'm arguing on Slashdot and need a quick citatation.
In other words, Wikipedia is most useful for half-baked citations in Debate Club-type situations.
Cool. I love Encyclopaedia Britannica too.
Oh, wait. You meant you were giving money to Wikipedia. BAD co-dependent enabler of half-assed articles by zealots. Bad! Bad!
Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia (or encyclopaedia). It is a wiki. It will always be a wiki... unless it establishes an editorial policy, pays specialists/academics to write articles, and restricts editing of said articles to a qualified few. In other words, as long as it's a wiki, it won't be an encyclopedia.
You're welcome to send them money but I can't help feeling that money would be better spent on a copy of Britannica. I simply don't trust a homebrew repository of 'knowledge'.
It's the egalitarianism that stops real academics from taking Wikipedia seriously. In fact, it's Wikipedia's basic nature that stops them from taking it seriously.
To make it even close to a decent information resource, we do indeed need "sensible restrictions". I propose we restrict the privilege of authoring to the people who have at least one Bachelor's degree each in the subject they're writing about.
If a palimpsest is an encyclopedia then one wall and no roof make a house.
"Those who review films for a living are notoriously unreliable, and in many cases, they miss the whole point altogether." - This is the main slashdot arrogance
That would explain the MPAA's intractible attitude to... almost everything. The MPAA's senior members all hang out at Slashdot.
That's why you have the grandfather/father/son backup scheme. If you lose one disk and find that another is corrupt, at least you have one good disk. The odds of all three disks being flawed are very small indeed.
In other news, a 35yo woman sues an 18yo man for emotional distress and misrepresentation after all his bragging about his phenomenal skills in bed turned out to be baseless. The woman is quoted as saying, "He's all sizzle and no steak. Well, there's a steak but it's not very filling."
My wife has been pregnant for 7 months (baby due in July) and my software project has been stalled for... 7 months.:)
Before you stand a wife, a baby, and a successful software project. Pick two.
Shrek II - "Dude, there's a depleted uranium wristwatch in your butt!"
Cross-platform compatibility was the problem
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Kylix, like the NVidia drivers, will run best on a particular release of Red hat. It takes effort to make Kylix run on anything else and it is next to impossible to make it generate binaries which run on more than one platform. That is one reason why it did not see widespread adoption: it's just too darn hard to make it generate useful software for more than one platform.
I'm not a member of the CommunistParty, I didn't vote for GeorgeBush and I am undecided on the subject of AffirmativeAction. If you're going to run words together to make NewOnes, try to do it with a SenseOfStyle.
DeathToArmorica!
A good nurse can tell by the smell
on
Sniffing Out Cancer
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
My grandmother did this for 20+ years. As head matron of a major metropolitan hospital, she learned that patients suffering from certain ailments exuded certain odors through their pores and often their breath too. My girlfriend, a nurse, told me something similar. The skin is one of the body's organs for expelling toxins, so it's no surprise that we can tell what toxins are in a person's body, for example, by sniffing them.
Slashdot Mirror
I did something similar to my server in 2005. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that (!) I hadn't made a backup in months and (2) the server hosted a disaster recovery project whose purpose was to guard against catastrophic data loss. A cobbler's bairns are aye the worst shod...
Oy, the Goyim. ;) Perhaps she should have said something less offensive, such as "T-Mobile sucks the sweat off my grandpa's balls." Then everyone would be happy (especially her grandpa).
I guess that explains why I always feel the urge to do a security audit before Yom Kippur.
I'm depressed that your comment hasn't been marked '+5 Churchillian'.
The M4 or M16 can be made full auto "easily". Go to the 23&P Technical Manual, which is unclassified, for more information.
Suddenly the 2012 presidential election looks more interesting.
Semper Fee.
First of all, I apologize that it took me so long to reply, and that my reply is so long.
Rules of engagement vary with the specific mission, the unit, the combat theater, and even the year. However, the concept of PID (positive identification of threat) is always crucial. PID is the sine qua non of any ROE.
Double-tap is against ROE, and it always will be, because a "double-tap" consists of neutralizing a threat and then shooting the target again for 'good measure' even when it is no longer a threat. If it's not a threat, you're not allowed to shoot it, even if it WAS a threat earlier. If it's no longer a threat, then you don't have PID. If you don't have PID, you mustn't shoot it, even if ordered to, unless you want to get caught under a pissing contest between your Chain of Command and the ROE of your theater.
Double-tap is not to be confused with a controlled pair. Example: Room-clearing team enters the room. Target is acquired. Target is shot twice - bang, bang - and target goes down. That's a controlled pair. We use controlled pairs because the M4, with its shorter barrel (4" shorter than the M16) and collapsible buttstock, has a tendency to ice-pick the target, rather than giving the tumbling we need in order to make a nice hole. However, two holes in close proximity to one another can really mess up your day. Plus there are those blended-metal rounds that we're not allowed to use anymore. :( But I digress.
Example of double-tap: Room-clearing team enters the room. Target is acquired. Target is shot (controlled pair, whatever, doesn't matter). Target goes down. Target is no longer a threat; incapacitation, surrender, death, doesn't really matter. Target is not a threat AND YET some bozo shoots the target a second time because that's what people do in the movies. BAD.
Whether the foe is wounded or not is irrelevant. The question is, do you (the good guy) still have PID (positive identification of a threat/target)? If the guy is no longer a threat, he's not a valid target. It gets more complicated when you're talking about traffic control points, vehicles, etc. but here we're talking primarily about a bunch of guys who are walking down the road, minding their own business, with their weapons (if that's what they are) slung, NOT in their hands. They weren't a threat to begin with. Therefore, the gunner didn't have PID. Therefore, he shouldn't have even asked for permission to fire, because he didn't have PID. His Higher gave him permission to engage (G-d knows why), and from that point on, it was the responsibility of the gunner to kill the targets, period. He had permission (which he shouldn't have, but whatever); from that point on, KILL THEM. Don't half-ass the job and then come back to finish the job when they don't pose any kind of threat.
The worst thing you can do is engage a non-threat, half-ass the job, engage a non-threat AGAIN, and finally engage the non-threat a third time while someone is ferrying the injured to hospital. I know it didn't have a red cross on the side but it walked, talked, quacked like an ambulance. The gunner knew exactly what was going on -- the injured were being taken to get medical attention -- and he engaged the vehicle anyway.
Engaging a vehicle with 30mm cannon fire is fine: 30mm is anti-materiel, and a vehicle counts as materiel. Engaging a group of men with 30mm cannon fire because they MIGHT have weapons slung across their shoulders? I'm not sure whose bright idea that was.
You're right. We should be authorized to kill people we don't like, and then kill their friends. Where do you live?
Reasons? Absolutely. Valid reasons? I doubt it. If it were a valid engagement, no one would have tried to cover it up. A fully automatic ANTI-MATERIEL weapon was discharged into a crowd. Anti-materiel weapons are designed to attack buildings, vehicles, etc.; it's not illegal to use them against personnel but it's definitely overkill, especially when all you have are some guys wandering around with shoulder-slung weapons (?). The weapons aren't in their hands, the men aren't preparing to fire, and some guy in a helicopter takes them down anyway. The Rules of Engagement do not permit unprovoked attacks on civilians, even if the civilians have weapons slung on their shoulders. Note, "slung", not "in their hands". In case there's any doubt, I want to emphasize that I'm agreeing with you, not disagreeing. :)
I always feel like the key trouble with video of any military operation is that the general public has absolutely no basis from which to really understand what they're seeing -- the context of civilian day-to-day just doesn't create the sort of base of experience you need to watch this sort of video and draw decent conclusions from it.
I think you make a good argument. I would respond by pointing out that the Rules of Engagement (Iraq, 2007) are violated at least three times in that video. If you want a copy of the ROE, I'll dig it out of my tuffbox and post a copy. They're FOUO (For Office Use Only) but they're not Classified. People tell you they are but they're not.
The ROE exist for many reasons, one of which being to stop troops from doing boneheaded things. The man behind the trigger was far too enthusiastic (even swearing when he wasn't given permission to fire); his Higher finally relented, figuring the man was swearing because he had a target and wanted to take it down, not because he was an over-zealous cherry who wanted to make his dick feel bigger.
Americans don't really have ways to participate in organizations that will stop this sort of thing from happening.>
I respectfully disagree. If your country is at war, you have the option to join the military and make sure that it is fought honorably (I'm talking about "jus in bello", not "jus ad bellum"; I accept that the war in Iraq was and is illegally started).
1. Double-tap --- engaging an individual or individuals after the threat has been eliminated.
2. Engaging personnel with anti-material weaponry; this isn't illegal but it looks bad. :-p
3. Failing to establish PID (Positive Identification of a threat) before engaging the "bongo truck" full of injured individuals.
4. Failing to establish PID before engaging what is, basically, a group of civilians wandering around the streets.
In essence, they shot some people for carrying weapons, then shot up the ambulance. I'm very saddened by this, since it's not the first violation of the ROE that I've encountered. The last one wasn't caught on tape. I had to put a stop to it myself.
In other words, Wikipedia is most useful for half-baked citations in Debate Club-type situations.
I couldn't agree more.
Cool. I love Encyclopaedia Britannica too. Oh, wait. You meant you were giving money to Wikipedia. BAD co-dependent enabler of half-assed articles by zealots. Bad! Bad! Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia (or encyclopaedia). It is a wiki. It will always be a wiki... unless it establishes an editorial policy, pays specialists/academics to write articles, and restricts editing of said articles to a qualified few. In other words, as long as it's a wiki, it won't be an encyclopedia. You're welcome to send them money but I can't help feeling that money would be better spent on a copy of Britannica. I simply don't trust a homebrew repository of 'knowledge'.
It's the egalitarianism that stops real academics from taking Wikipedia seriously. In fact, it's Wikipedia's basic nature that stops them from taking it seriously.
To make it even close to a decent information resource, we do indeed need "sensible restrictions". I propose we restrict the privilege of authoring to the people who have at least one Bachelor's degree each in the subject they're writing about.
If a palimpsest is an encyclopedia then one wall and no roof make a house.
"Those who review films for a living are notoriously unreliable, and in many cases, they miss the whole point altogether." - This is the main slashdot arrogance ... almost everything. The MPAA's senior members all hang out at Slashdot.
That would explain the MPAA's intractible attitude to
That's why you have the grandfather/father/son backup scheme. If you lose one disk and find that another is corrupt, at least you have one good disk. The odds of all three disks being flawed are very small indeed.
In other news, a 35yo woman sues an 18yo man for emotional distress and misrepresentation after all his bragging about his phenomenal skills in bed turned out to be baseless. The woman is quoted as saying, "He's all sizzle and no steak. Well, there's a steak but it's not very filling."
My wife has been pregnant for 7 months (baby due in July) and my software project has been stalled for... 7 months. :)
Before you stand a wife, a baby, and a successful software project. Pick two.
Domo origato, Mr Lodato.
Shrek II - "Dude, there's a depleted uranium wristwatch in your butt!"
Kylix, like the NVidia drivers, will run best on a particular release of Red hat. It takes effort to make Kylix run on anything else and it is next to impossible to make it generate binaries which run on more than one platform. That is one reason why it did not see widespread adoption: it's just too darn hard to make it generate useful software for more than one platform.
DeathToArmorica!
My grandmother did this for 20+ years. As head matron of a major metropolitan hospital, she learned that patients suffering from certain ailments exuded certain odors through their pores and often their breath too. My girlfriend, a nurse, told me something similar. The skin is one of the body's organs for expelling toxins, so it's no surprise that we can tell what toxins are in a person's body, for example, by sniffing them.