Of course, most non-idiots have known for some time that the CIA and Mossad have been in a state of undeclared war with Iran for several years now
Several years? Try since the CIA overthrew the civilian government of Iran in 1953. And the Iranians haven't been sitting quietly and taking it like a victim. There is plenty of evidence that Iranian resources were being used to train and supply insurgents in Iraq and Palestine.
Iran was innocent when the CIA first got involved but these days they are playing the game with the big boys and getting what they deserve (as is the CIA).
What a load of crap. Most of those new PC users in the 80's weren't doing innovative new things on their new PC's, they were running the software that IT tested and deployed. PC's were mainly used to replace established pen & paper work practices, not so the users could innovate.
The same is true for smart phones. Most of the people who claim to need a smart phone to do their job are just replacing a laptop that did the same job. The smart phone might be slightly more convenient but it isn't some huge world changing innovation of that particular business use.
If people had of demanded that 25 year ago PC architectures should be connected to the modern Internet they would have been laughed out of the meeting. Don't blame IT for the fact that the underlying architecture of most smart phones is not suitable to secure business practices.
What I want to know is why the secondary coolant pumps were housed in tin sheds instead of say a concrete bunker like the primary reactor buildings?
I had just assumed for all these years that something as important as the secondary coolant system would be protected by more then some steel panelling. If they had of placed the secondaries in a concrete bunker on the side of the primary reactor building opposite the ocean then it would take a disaster big enough to crack the reactor building to put them out of commission.
It would probably end up cheaper then building a sea wall.
Then you simply redefine fairness and justice with a comprehensive propaganda campaign so that the average persons expectations are adjusted inline with what those in power want.
The program has been working wonderfully in America from what I have observed (how else do you explain people that demand to pay more for a private health system with worse outcomes then public health systems?).
I have personally seen arcing in house circuits that went on for months without serious issue (share house, one guy kept replacing the fuse incorrectly and it would end up arcing under load and then vaporising). I have only isolated the issue down to some major pieces of equipment (water heater, and pool pump system) but couldn't be bothered taking it further.
I just assume it is bad, local, wiring because my parents TV makes the same out-of-spec transformer whine* as TV's/monitors did in the share house with arcing fuses. But it is a rural area so anything could be on the local circuit.
* Which my parents can't hear. Even lots of people my own age can't hear those high frequencies.
I do wonder if perhaps the magnetization of the joists isn't a cause, but rather an effect of whatever is messing with their equipment.
Do they live in the beam path of a military grade over-the-horizon radar? Because that is about the only likely suspect (apart from batshit insane home owners).
My parents house has wiring so bad that it wipes out any AM radio (I discovered that when I took my shortwave rig there for a weekend) but it doesn't do anything to CRT/LCD monitors or affect FM TV/radio reception. To distort TV reception or interfere with electronics would take more power then I have ever seen bad wiring put out.
we are actively deployed and fighting battles where our soldiers and enemy combatants kill each other.
If that is the definition of war then the United States has never not been at war.
Indian's. Mexico. Canada. Spain. The Caribbean. Utah. pirates in what is now Libya. Korea 50's to today. Indo-China from the 50's to 75. South America. Caribbean again. Middle East. Somalia.
It would be a rare year in modern history where US forces did not fire a shot in anger.
No, the point is it is funny. That is it. Anonymous is in it for the lulz. If some of the horde gets taken out nobody really cares.
Also "LulzSec" are actually pretty terrible at hacking. Most of it is really low rent exploits and social engineering which is why it is so amusing how much "damage" they have caused. The only thing that makes them a cut above a thousand other minor hackers is that they are publicising it, which is exactly the best way to piss the corporations off. They don't care that much about the intrusions, just that their customers are finding out how unsafe these "trusted" companies are.
P.S. The real dangerous hackers live in non-extradition countries and have thugs with guns at hand. They aren't scared of the FBI.
We have strong indications that the CA-servers, although physically very securely placed in a tempest proof environment, were accessible over the network from the management LAN.
TEMPEST http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEMPEST is a method where you intercept EM radiation from a computer and use that to reconstruct some information about what that computer is doing. For example the US government could supposedly read CRT monitors from a fair distance away.
However, worrying about TEMPEST protection when you not only have those system connected to systems that are connected directly to the net, but use a single management username and password combo for your entire network is just insane. Even if the system wasn't connected to the Internet the freaking janitor could have placed a key-logger and had access to the entire system.
It is far cheaper to bribe one employee then spend millions setting up a modern TEMPEST system. I guess even the Dutch practice security theatre.
I think what he meant was if NH has less people then why can't CA balance the budget.
What is the portion of people in NH earning minimum wage or close to it? Stuff like "average" income can be meaningless depending on how you compile the statistics (eg rich ass Hollywood types balanced out by tons of poor people in CA, vs maybe mostly middle class people in NH). The rich will pay less tax on their fortunes then if that same overall amount of money was being earned by a bunch of middle class people, and the working poor are generally still a drain on the budget.
From what I hear California has caught the brand of bread-and-circuses government where everyone wants awesome programs but no one wants to raise taxes to pay for them. I am all for social programs but you need a solid tax base and frugal government initiatives to make it sustainable. You can't kill the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg just because the voters don't want to foot the bill.
You used to support Anonymous when they started? Would that be back when the thing Anonymous was most famous for was posting kiddy porn and gore on innocent forums, or when they invaded kids online games to chant racist slogans? Anonymous has never been about anything but amusing themselves. Occasionally they do something "good", but otherwise they are your typical anonymous Western teenagers and 20 somethings.
The fact that they're doing anything even remotely directed towards this drug cartel is showing some balls
No, it doesn't. "They" are behind 7 proxies and probably in Europe or Canada. Cartels might go after some poor bastard in Mexico or near the border who is annoying them online, but that is about it. Pissing off Mexican cartels online is about as scary as pissing off the North Koreans or the Chinese Communist Party, it is absolutely repercussion free for a first world citizen like myself.
Of course those actions appear petty. Petty is 99% of what Anonymous gets its kicks from. From abusing 12 year old girls (even if they kind of asked for it) to posting insulting comments about physically disabled people. The stuff like Project Chanology (the attacks on Scientology) was an aberration and really involved more non-Chan New Friends then it did Chan Old Friends, even though it started on the Chans. Anonymous originally got media attention for Habo Hotel/Second Life raids and harassing people on MySpace/Facebook.
Anonymous isn't your friend. Anonymous aren't moral crusaders. Anonymous are in it for the lulz.
Of course Anonymous has leaders. A leader is someone who inspires people to follow them. However those leaders normally aren't "defined" (ie have names, ranks, titiles etc) and arise out of the masses when someone feels strongly enough about an issue. There are plenty of people who organise outside the Chans on IRC etc and think themselves bigshots, but they have no more influence on Anonymous then any other anonymous poster*.
However if you lurk on the Chans enough, and spam your message enough, you will gain a following no matter how weak. But Anon will do anything, ranging from abusing 12 year old girls to tracking down animal abusers, if they find it amusing.
The problem the MiB types have is that they think that they can just identify a core group and remove them. That wouldn't stop the random chaos that Anonymous partakes in, because new "leaders" with new ideas for lulz would emerge.
The high profile hacking attacks aren't really "Anonymous" though, they are people who met on the Chans that decided to create more formalised groups with fixed agendas. Anyone can call themselves Anonymous, but the strength of the original idea relies on the Anonymous nature of Chan style image boards.
* Which is why I go to 4chan. It is interesting to have discussions without reputation and the like clouding the strength of an argument. On other forums you normally get insiders and outsiders and people react very differently to the same argument depending upon the screen name attached to it.
Actually you are wrong, the case of actual, give a kid a peanut and they die due to anaphylaxis, nut allergy has increased massively in recent times (and there are several theories as to why, from industrial pollutants to kids having hypersensitive immune systems due to lack of germs). People who are "peanut intolerant" etc are normally whackos, but nut allergy is increasing and can be shown in double blind conditions. Unlike "electromagnetic sensitivity".
It's going to be a really really shit version of Deus Ex.
Except it is being made by Starbreeze studio who did the brilliant Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butchers Bay game. In fact playing DXHR I was struck by how much it owed to Riddick, but really didn't live up to the physicality of the "take downs" and melee combat in that game. I was against this Syndicate FPS until I saw that it was by Starbreeze, now I can't wait to play it.
And people need to realise that this is the announcement that the game is almost finished. NOT THAT DEVELOPMENT IS STARTING NOW. This game would have been in development before anyone knew anything about DXHR.
Except this game was in development before DXHR was released. The summary makes it sound like the announcement that they are starting development but the actual article is that they are announcing it is almost ready. Modern games take 3-4 years to make unless you are just re-heating the same old stuff (aka Call of Duty). As I have already said it is more about the current major settings for FPS being tired out. WWII and Modern day FPS have been done to death.
I suspect you are wrong. What the issue would be is that NASA doesn't produce this stuff, it pays contractors to develop it. And those contractors have the rights to the processes involved and it isn't like preserved food is cool and futuristic any more. It has been a long time since preserved food was such a novelty that people would pay a decent mark up for it (in the 19th century rich people used to serve horrid tinned meats because they were a novelty).
Fruitcake is great if it is a cake with some fruit in it. But so many people make a "fruitcake" that is more compressed fruit and nuts then anything resembling a cake, and is only fit for display purposes.
I doubt the success of Deus Ex: Human Revolution played much of a role in the decision because it will be 3-4 years before this Syndicate game hits the market (DX:HR started development in 2007). The games industry isn't like Hollywood where you can churn out a movie in 6-months to a year to ride the coat tails of a blockbuster.
Rather I think the games industry has entered a nostalgic era where the 20 and 30 somethings are pining for the games of their youth (and instead getting FPS re-makes in the same setting) AND the modern combat FPS is getting really bloody stale. Going to something like Cyberpunk is a better option then Yet-Another-Modern-Combat-Shooter OR even worse a return to Yet-Another-WWII-Shooter (remember when modern day shooters were a refreshing change from repeatedly storming Normandy?).
What's the point in recycling IPs if your target audience has never heard of them?
Easy, new ideas are hard to come up with. It is far easier to steal someone else's idea and re-implement them. Hollywood makes plenty of re-makes of movies that would have little relevance to modern audiences, but the ideas behind them are still good (and the average studio executive has a hard time deciding what to have for lunch).
FPS is probably my favourite genre, but even I am annoyed that we seem to only have three major genres any more: FPS, RTS, and RPG/"Adventure". I love a good turn based strategy or RPG but they aren't made by major studios any more, and the indie versions don't live up to the late 90's games.
IMO the reason everything is being re-made as an FPS is because they sell so well on console. A bad FPS on console probably out sells any other game genre on PC. Consoles are just not good for the old school complex genres like XCOM and major publishers pretty much don't make PC only games any more.
The reason civilian casualties were so high in the initial years of Iraq is because the US military had been deliberately equipped and trained to fight conventional wars against ex-Cold War opponents. The US military had NO INTEREST at the highest levels in counter-insurgency or "small wars" as a result of Vietnam and Operation Gothic Serpent (aka Black Hawk Down). If you go back and look at Gulf War I the leading Generals tried to get their Arab partners to carry most of the load because they did not want to "get involved" and end up with another Vietnam (and all those guys were Vietnam vets, so they knew the reality). In the Balkans conflicts the US tried to limit its involvement to an air campaign only, despite such an approach probably increasing civilian casualties (as you don't have eyes on the ground to verify targets).
This led in the early 21st century to a military that was not equipped in the slightest to fight either a counter-insurgency OR fight in a way that limited civilian casualties. It was trained in the Cold War style where a commanders number one priority was carrying out the mission and keeping his troops alive, even if this meant dropping a 1000 pound bomb on a village with two snipers in it. In conventional war civilians have always got the worst of it, the various bombing campaigns of WWII mostly did no real military or industrial damage and just slaughtered civilians.
This is way so much of the direct fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan after the invasions fell to Special Forces units as they were trained for counter-insurgency and limited warfare. But Special Forces soldiers take a long time to train.
You can't take an 18 year old, give them 6 months to a year of basic infantry training, and expect them to be able to fight a counter-insurgency with low civilian casualties. Especially when, politically, every friendly casualty costs you more then a thousand foreign civilians dead, which is the reality of the modern media war.
Nope, because even crappy kits would be better then no-kits, whereas the Commodore and Amiga "come backs" didn't fill any gaps. I find it an indictment of Australian culture (and most other Western countries aren't that much different) that the main source of basic kits like crystal radios is dodgy Chinese copies with incomprehensible instructions.
These kinds of kits is how you get kids interested in engineering, and how you educate others on basic principles of the technology we rely on.
It is lucky DIY was only mostly dead for twenty years, because the effects if the gap had of been larger would have been the final blow in Western economies competing with Chinese ones.
Here in Australia you do get "some EE" knowledge through an electrical apprenticeships (I have been researching it recently because that is what I am trying to get into). However you don't need advanced calculus and physics to pull cable and wire junction boxes, and having a degree doesn't mean people will follow directions or work to the standard correctly either (just ask my Civil Engineer friend about architects).
I think apprenticeships are the superior training method for any work that doesn't involve just sitting in an office. Writing essays on the difference between the TCP/IP model and the OSI model doesn't prepare you for real work in networking.
P.S. There is a reason you get Data & Comms techs to run networking cable and not electricians.
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IIRC Heroin was developed as a less addictive substitute for morphine. The history of opioid development is amusing in a macabre fashion.
Of course, most non-idiots have known for some time that the CIA and Mossad have been in a state of undeclared war with Iran for several years now
Several years? Try since the CIA overthrew the civilian government of Iran in 1953. And the Iranians haven't been sitting quietly and taking it like a victim. There is plenty of evidence that Iranian resources were being used to train and supply insurgents in Iraq and Palestine.
Iran was innocent when the CIA first got involved but these days they are playing the game with the big boys and getting what they deserve (as is the CIA).
What a load of crap. Most of those new PC users in the 80's weren't doing innovative new things on their new PC's, they were running the software that IT tested and deployed. PC's were mainly used to replace established pen & paper work practices, not so the users could innovate.
The same is true for smart phones. Most of the people who claim to need a smart phone to do their job are just replacing a laptop that did the same job. The smart phone might be slightly more convenient but it isn't some huge world changing innovation of that particular business use.
If people had of demanded that 25 year ago PC architectures should be connected to the modern Internet they would have been laughed out of the meeting. Don't blame IT for the fact that the underlying architecture of most smart phones is not suitable to secure business practices.
What I want to know is why the secondary coolant pumps were housed in tin sheds instead of say a concrete bunker like the primary reactor buildings?
I had just assumed for all these years that something as important as the secondary coolant system would be protected by more then some steel panelling. If they had of placed the secondaries in a concrete bunker on the side of the primary reactor building opposite the ocean then it would take a disaster big enough to crack the reactor building to put them out of commission.
It would probably end up cheaper then building a sea wall.
Then you simply redefine fairness and justice with a comprehensive propaganda campaign so that the average persons expectations are adjusted inline with what those in power want.
The program has been working wonderfully in America from what I have observed (how else do you explain people that demand to pay more for a private health system with worse outcomes then public health systems?).
I have personally seen arcing in house circuits that went on for months without serious issue (share house, one guy kept replacing the fuse incorrectly and it would end up arcing under load and then vaporising). I have only isolated the issue down to some major pieces of equipment (water heater, and pool pump system) but couldn't be bothered taking it further.
I just assume it is bad, local, wiring because my parents TV makes the same out-of-spec transformer whine* as TV's/monitors did in the share house with arcing fuses. But it is a rural area so anything could be on the local circuit.
* Which my parents can't hear. Even lots of people my own age can't hear those high frequencies.
I do wonder if perhaps the magnetization of the joists isn't a cause, but rather an effect of whatever is messing with their equipment.
Do they live in the beam path of a military grade over-the-horizon radar? Because that is about the only likely suspect (apart from batshit insane home owners).
My parents house has wiring so bad that it wipes out any AM radio (I discovered that when I took my shortwave rig there for a weekend) but it doesn't do anything to CRT/LCD monitors or affect FM TV/radio reception. To distort TV reception or interfere with electronics would take more power then I have ever seen bad wiring put out.
we are actively deployed and fighting battles where our soldiers and enemy combatants kill each other.
If that is the definition of war then the United States has never not been at war.
Indian's. Mexico. Canada. Spain. The Caribbean. Utah. pirates in what is now Libya. Korea 50's to today. Indo-China from the 50's to 75. South America. Caribbean again. Middle East. Somalia.
It would be a rare year in modern history where US forces did not fire a shot in anger.
No, the point is it is funny. That is it. Anonymous is in it for the lulz. If some of the horde gets taken out nobody really cares.
Also "LulzSec" are actually pretty terrible at hacking. Most of it is really low rent exploits and social engineering which is why it is so amusing how much "damage" they have caused. The only thing that makes them a cut above a thousand other minor hackers is that they are publicising it, which is exactly the best way to piss the corporations off. They don't care that much about the intrusions, just that their customers are finding out how unsafe these "trusted" companies are.
P.S. The real dangerous hackers live in non-extradition countries and have thugs with guns at hand. They aren't scared of the FBI.
My favourite part of the article:
We have strong indications that the CA-servers, although physically very securely placed in a tempest proof environment, were accessible over the network from the management LAN.
TEMPEST http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEMPEST is a method where you intercept EM radiation from a computer and use that to reconstruct some information about what that computer is doing. For example the US government could supposedly read CRT monitors from a fair distance away.
However, worrying about TEMPEST protection when you not only have those system connected to systems that are connected directly to the net, but use a single management username and password combo for your entire network is just insane. Even if the system wasn't connected to the Internet the freaking janitor could have placed a key-logger and had access to the entire system.
It is far cheaper to bribe one employee then spend millions setting up a modern TEMPEST system. I guess even the Dutch practice security theatre.
I think what he meant was if NH has less people then why can't CA balance the budget.
What is the portion of people in NH earning minimum wage or close to it? Stuff like "average" income can be meaningless depending on how you compile the statistics (eg rich ass Hollywood types balanced out by tons of poor people in CA, vs maybe mostly middle class people in NH). The rich will pay less tax on their fortunes then if that same overall amount of money was being earned by a bunch of middle class people, and the working poor are generally still a drain on the budget.
From what I hear California has caught the brand of bread-and-circuses government where everyone wants awesome programs but no one wants to raise taxes to pay for them. I am all for social programs but you need a solid tax base and frugal government initiatives to make it sustainable. You can't kill the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg just because the voters don't want to foot the bill.
You used to support Anonymous when they started? Would that be back when the thing Anonymous was most famous for was posting kiddy porn and gore on innocent forums, or when they invaded kids online games to chant racist slogans? Anonymous has never been about anything but amusing themselves. Occasionally they do something "good", but otherwise they are your typical anonymous Western teenagers and 20 somethings.
The fact that they're doing anything even remotely directed towards this drug cartel is showing some balls
No, it doesn't. "They" are behind 7 proxies and probably in Europe or Canada. Cartels might go after some poor bastard in Mexico or near the border who is annoying them online, but that is about it. Pissing off Mexican cartels online is about as scary as pissing off the North Koreans or the Chinese Communist Party, it is absolutely repercussion free for a first world citizen like myself.
Of course those actions appear petty. Petty is 99% of what Anonymous gets its kicks from. From abusing 12 year old girls (even if they kind of asked for it) to posting insulting comments about physically disabled people. The stuff like Project Chanology (the attacks on Scientology) was an aberration and really involved more non-Chan New Friends then it did Chan Old Friends, even though it started on the Chans. Anonymous originally got media attention for Habo Hotel/Second Life raids and harassing people on MySpace/Facebook.
Anonymous isn't your friend. Anonymous aren't moral crusaders. Anonymous are in it for the lulz.
Of course Anonymous has leaders. A leader is someone who inspires people to follow them. However those leaders normally aren't "defined" (ie have names, ranks, titiles etc) and arise out of the masses when someone feels strongly enough about an issue. There are plenty of people who organise outside the Chans on IRC etc and think themselves bigshots, but they have no more influence on Anonymous then any other anonymous poster*.
However if you lurk on the Chans enough, and spam your message enough, you will gain a following no matter how weak. But Anon will do anything, ranging from abusing 12 year old girls to tracking down animal abusers, if they find it amusing.
The problem the MiB types have is that they think that they can just identify a core group and remove them. That wouldn't stop the random chaos that Anonymous partakes in, because new "leaders" with new ideas for lulz would emerge.
The high profile hacking attacks aren't really "Anonymous" though, they are people who met on the Chans that decided to create more formalised groups with fixed agendas. Anyone can call themselves Anonymous, but the strength of the original idea relies on the Anonymous nature of Chan style image boards.
* Which is why I go to 4chan. It is interesting to have discussions without reputation and the like clouding the strength of an argument. On other forums you normally get insiders and outsiders and people react very differently to the same argument depending upon the screen name attached to it.
Actually you are wrong, the case of actual, give a kid a peanut and they die due to anaphylaxis, nut allergy has increased massively in recent times (and there are several theories as to why, from industrial pollutants to kids having hypersensitive immune systems due to lack of germs). People who are "peanut intolerant" etc are normally whackos, but nut allergy is increasing and can be shown in double blind conditions. Unlike "electromagnetic sensitivity".
It's going to be a really really shit version of Deus Ex.
Except it is being made by Starbreeze studio who did the brilliant Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butchers Bay game. In fact playing DXHR I was struck by how much it owed to Riddick, but really didn't live up to the physicality of the "take downs" and melee combat in that game. I was against this Syndicate FPS until I saw that it was by Starbreeze, now I can't wait to play it.
And people need to realise that this is the announcement that the game is almost finished. NOT THAT DEVELOPMENT IS STARTING NOW. This game would have been in development before anyone knew anything about DXHR.
Except this game was in development before DXHR was released. The summary makes it sound like the announcement that they are starting development but the actual article is that they are announcing it is almost ready. Modern games take 3-4 years to make unless you are just re-heating the same old stuff (aka Call of Duty). As I have already said it is more about the current major settings for FPS being tired out. WWII and Modern day FPS have been done to death.
I suspect you are wrong. What the issue would be is that NASA doesn't produce this stuff, it pays contractors to develop it. And those contractors have the rights to the processes involved and it isn't like preserved food is cool and futuristic any more. It has been a long time since preserved food was such a novelty that people would pay a decent mark up for it (in the 19th century rich people used to serve horrid tinned meats because they were a novelty).
Fruitcake is great if it is a cake with some fruit in it. But so many people make a "fruitcake" that is more compressed fruit and nuts then anything resembling a cake, and is only fit for display purposes.
I doubt the success of Deus Ex: Human Revolution played much of a role in the decision because it will be 3-4 years before this Syndicate game hits the market (DX:HR started development in 2007). The games industry isn't like Hollywood where you can churn out a movie in 6-months to a year to ride the coat tails of a blockbuster.
Rather I think the games industry has entered a nostalgic era where the 20 and 30 somethings are pining for the games of their youth (and instead getting FPS re-makes in the same setting) AND the modern combat FPS is getting really bloody stale. Going to something like Cyberpunk is a better option then Yet-Another-Modern-Combat-Shooter OR even worse a return to Yet-Another-WWII-Shooter (remember when modern day shooters were a refreshing change from repeatedly storming Normandy?).
What's the point in recycling IPs if your target audience has never heard of them?
Easy, new ideas are hard to come up with. It is far easier to steal someone else's idea and re-implement them. Hollywood makes plenty of re-makes of movies that would have little relevance to modern audiences, but the ideas behind them are still good (and the average studio executive has a hard time deciding what to have for lunch).
FPS is probably my favourite genre, but even I am annoyed that we seem to only have three major genres any more: FPS, RTS, and RPG/"Adventure". I love a good turn based strategy or RPG but they aren't made by major studios any more, and the indie versions don't live up to the late 90's games.
IMO the reason everything is being re-made as an FPS is because they sell so well on console. A bad FPS on console probably out sells any other game genre on PC. Consoles are just not good for the old school complex genres like XCOM and major publishers pretty much don't make PC only games any more.
The reason civilian casualties were so high in the initial years of Iraq is because the US military had been deliberately equipped and trained to fight conventional wars against ex-Cold War opponents. The US military had NO INTEREST at the highest levels in counter-insurgency or "small wars" as a result of Vietnam and Operation Gothic Serpent (aka Black Hawk Down). If you go back and look at Gulf War I the leading Generals tried to get their Arab partners to carry most of the load because they did not want to "get involved" and end up with another Vietnam (and all those guys were Vietnam vets, so they knew the reality). In the Balkans conflicts the US tried to limit its involvement to an air campaign only, despite such an approach probably increasing civilian casualties (as you don't have eyes on the ground to verify targets).
This led in the early 21st century to a military that was not equipped in the slightest to fight either a counter-insurgency OR fight in a way that limited civilian casualties. It was trained in the Cold War style where a commanders number one priority was carrying out the mission and keeping his troops alive, even if this meant dropping a 1000 pound bomb on a village with two snipers in it. In conventional war civilians have always got the worst of it, the various bombing campaigns of WWII mostly did no real military or industrial damage and just slaughtered civilians.
This is way so much of the direct fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan after the invasions fell to Special Forces units as they were trained for counter-insurgency and limited warfare. But Special Forces soldiers take a long time to train.
You can't take an 18 year old, give them 6 months to a year of basic infantry training, and expect them to be able to fight a counter-insurgency with low civilian casualties. Especially when, politically, every friendly casualty costs you more then a thousand foreign civilians dead, which is the reality of the modern media war.
Nope, because even crappy kits would be better then no-kits, whereas the Commodore and Amiga "come backs" didn't fill any gaps. I find it an indictment of Australian culture (and most other Western countries aren't that much different) that the main source of basic kits like crystal radios is dodgy Chinese copies with incomprehensible instructions.
These kinds of kits is how you get kids interested in engineering, and how you educate others on basic principles of the technology we rely on.
It is lucky DIY was only mostly dead for twenty years, because the effects if the gap had of been larger would have been the final blow in Western economies competing with Chinese ones.
Here in Australia you do get "some EE" knowledge through an electrical apprenticeships (I have been researching it recently because that is what I am trying to get into). However you don't need advanced calculus and physics to pull cable and wire junction boxes, and having a degree doesn't mean people will follow directions or work to the standard correctly either (just ask my Civil Engineer friend about architects).
I think apprenticeships are the superior training method for any work that doesn't involve just sitting in an office. Writing essays on the difference between the TCP/IP model and the OSI model doesn't prepare you for real work in networking.
P.S. There is a reason you get Data & Comms techs to run networking cable and not electricians.