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User: cusco

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  1. Re:that's misleading on Lockheed Claims Breakthrough On Fusion Energy Project · · Score: 1

    Sure you could weaponize it, you just need to add a step. Like a 100 MW laser on the back of that truck.

  2. Re:Of course! on Lockheed Claims Breakthrough On Fusion Energy Project · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apples and oranges. The F-35 is a Pentagon program designed to funnel taxpayer money to Lockheed to the end of time, the fusion project is their own money so it might actually be real.

  3. Re:Always a chuckle on The Great Robocoin Rip-off · · Score: 1, Funny

    Because of the thundering herds of lawyers that follow them around, since their answer to every obvious fault in their religion is "That would never happen because they would be sued!"

  4. Re:A Local Store For Local People. on Amazon Web Services To Build Two New Aussie Data Centers · · Score: 1

    Depends on the type and size of site, and the phase it's in. During construction, hundreds of people in the construction trades, especially since Amazon is building sites out as fast as they can pour concrete. Once construction is finished (or mostly finished) scores of people are busy installing racks, racking servers, running cables, etc. Once the site starts to go live the unskilled and semi-skilled trades mostly go away, except for a couple of dozen security and maintenance staff, and they add a couple dozen skilled staff for system operations. Ongoing operations require local contractors for maintenance of HVAC, fire, etc. systems, grounds and building maintenance, and the like, so they're generally happy when a DC opens in their area too. Additionally, building a data center normally requires an upgrade of the local electrical and telecom systems, which then attract other data centers and businesses. Generally it's a pretty good deal for an area.

  5. Re:Trading Freedom for Security? on Brits Must Trade Digital Freedoms For Safety, Says Crime Agency Boss · · Score: 1

    An even more amusing aspect of Gladio is that part of the funding was run through the Vatican Bank, and much of the organization and planning was done through the P2 Masonic Lodge (of which Berlusconi was a member at one point). Any of those points will make a lot of people blow their top, pointing fingers and screaming "Conspiracy Theorist!" Never mind that it's all well-documented.

  6. Re:Trading Freedom for Security? on Brits Must Trade Digital Freedoms For Safety, Says Crime Agency Boss · · Score: 2

    Just look at Operation Northwoods, a conspiracy by the Pentagon to carry out terror attacks against American targets to justify an attack on Cuba. It had been unanimously approved by the Joint Chiefs before an appalled President Kennedy canceled the project. To get to the Joint Chiefs scores of people had to be involved. No one ever talked, it never made it into the press, no documents were ever leaked. It was discovered by accident as part of a FOIA request on a peripherally-related subject. If you ask most people about it today they'll refuse to believe it, even if you show them the documentation.

  7. Re:He did some decent things as president. on How President Nixon Saved/Wrecked the American Space Program · · Score: 1

    Don't ever forget that Ford was a member of the Warren Commission and had signed on to the 'magic bullet' and other nonsense. I have difficulty figuring out what other qualification he brought to the table which could outweigh a number of other arguably better candidates.

  8. Re:These viral samples need to come with their own on GlaxoSmithKline Released 45 Liters of Live Polio Virus · · Score: 1

    There is a shortage of trained and competent people, worldwide, already. I'm a physical security professional, I've worked with a lot of good security personnel, and a lot more really, really bad. The really, really bad tend to be much cheaper and more plentiful. In the real world, which do you think chemical and drug companies are going to end up using?

  9. Re:Imagine the punishment it it killed millions on GlaxoSmithKline Released 45 Liters of Live Polio Virus · · Score: 1

    Which the taxpayers would pick up the tab for . . .

  10. Re:These viral samples need to come with their own on GlaxoSmithKline Released 45 Liters of Live Polio Virus · · Score: 2

    You obviously don't work with too many security guards, it's the kind of job a lot of people take after being fired from Walmart or McDonalds. Introduce one of these bozos into the mix and you've just quintupled the likelihood of a catastrophic release.

  11. Re:Could be dangerous on Four Charged With Stealing Army Helicopter Training Software · · Score: 1

    If one is sufficiently into the weaponry market to assemble an attack helicopter they can certainly come up with a few guns to put on it. The armament would likely be one of the easiest parts to acquire, as long as they have enough money. The largest non-governmental arsenal on Earth is located at the Blackwater (whatever their name is today) headquarters, where they also assemble their own versions of attack helicopters and armored vehicles and where you can lease a helicopter carrier and gunships.

  12. Re:It seems to me... on The Physics of Space Battles · · Score: 1

    If 70 to 90 percent of the universe is made up of stuff that we can't even detect yet except by its gross gravitational effects on galaxies then I think there is plenty of wiggle room to allow FTL travel, and the like. There may even be enough room for magic and miracles (some types of them, anyway) to fit.

  13. Re:Bioweapons are a real threat on The Myths and Realities of Synthetic Bioweapons · · Score: 2

    Military organizations never seem to have much trouble filling these jobs, even when the participants know it's illegal. Clinton was horrified when he found what was going on at Dugway and the other vile biowarfare sites the Pentagon has, and as Commander In Chief he instructed the military to cease all work on bio-weapons. The Pentagon's response was to rename the programs and move them to the Black Budget. No one even had to change cubicle.

  14. Re:Monsters? on The Myths and Realities of Synthetic Bioweapons · · Score: 1

    The reason Ken Alibek was given a visa and citizenship almost overnight when he defected from the Soviet Union was because of his work on 'black pox', a smallpox/Marburg chimera. They had combined the two and came up with an air-transmissible hemorrhagic virus that worked.

    Oh, you meant the monster. Never mind.

  15. Re:Still not easy on The Myths and Realities of Synthetic Bioweapons · · Score: 2

    Everyone is over-thinking this. All they really need is to get a tourist, work or student visa for some innocent illiterate campesino somewhere (preferably non-African), tell them they won a "lottery" or something that gets them a well-paying job in the US, infect them with Ebola, put them on a plane with instructions how to get on the subway, and tell them that their new employer will meet them at Grand Central Station. Even if they didn't infect anyone as they waited there all day, getting sicker and sicker, for someone who never showed up the resulting panic would cause almost as many problems as an actual outbreak. Remember, the goal isn't casualties, it's instilling fear in the target population.

  16. Re:while... on Indian Mars Mission Has Completed 95% of Its Journey Without a Hitch · · Score: 1

    Japan has stagnated,

    Today. Apparently you've forgotten the entire period from 1946 to 1999. Like I said, short attention span.

    China's overwhelming advantage over India and much of the rest of the world is its 5000 years of centralization, plans that would have been non-starters in a decentralized government and economy, like One Child and the open development of the Great Firewall, are acceptable there. Brasil is a special case, drastically underpopulated and resource-rich, while India is the exact opposite. You're not even comparing apples and oranges, more like apples and Barkaloungers.

    Where would India be today without Indira Gandhi's education program? One only needs to look at its neighbors Pakistan and Bangladesh to see, and that was the intent of the British when they left behind a deliberately non-functional government. Where will India be in half a century if it continues to slowly and thoughtfully expand its space program? Neither you nor I can even guess, except to say far ahead of where it would be without that completely home-grown, internally-sourced, high technology industry.

    Stand back and take the long view, look forward a generation or two. Other cultures do it, which is why Japan, China and India have repeatedly risen from the ashes like the phoenix.

  17. Re:Spider legs on European Space Agency Picks Site For First Comet Landing In November · · Score: 1

    Problem with that is there isn't enough gravity for your spider to be able to walk, about 1/10,000 g. Every leg thrust, no matter how weak, would bounce the thing up off the surface. Rather than looking all bad-ass walking around, your robotic spider would look rather silly bunny-hopping about.

  18. Re:A good slice of luck. on European Space Agency Picks Site For First Comet Landing In November · · Score: 1

    Mass. Remember, this thing has taken a decade to even **GET** to the comet, if they had added more mass they very likely could not have reached the comet at all with the launchers available to them.

  19. Re:Sounds challenging. on European Space Agency Picks Site For First Comet Landing In November · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually the comet does not have enough gravity of its own to allow the spacecraft to orbit it, so Rosetta is in a solar orbit just inside of 67P. Since in that orbit it would quickly outpace the comet ESA has devised a generally triangular flight path that keeps it relatively close while enabling the best use of solar illumination.

  20. Re:Another... on Canon Printer Hacked To Run Doom Video Game · · Score: 1

    There is no evidence that anyone is attacking printers via the route Mr Jordon found.

    Yet. They left "yet" off the end of that sentence.

  21. Re:Why the inferiority complex? on Indian Mars Mission Has Completed 95% of Its Journey Without a Hitch · · Score: 1

    "massively expensive mission" my ass. One of their industrial tycoons spent more than the cost of this entire mission a few years ago on his daughter's wedding.

  22. Re:while... on Indian Mars Mission Has Completed 95% of Its Journey Without a Hitch · · Score: 2

    Back in the 1970s Indira Gandhi unveiled a program to update the Indian educational system, especially the higher education, with an emphasis on computing. The portion of the world that was not laughing at the idea of Indian computer programmers and technicians was berating the Indian government for wasting money that could have been spent feeding the poor. Today that expenditure of several billion rupees over the last few decades brings in many tens of billions of dollars in investment and revenue to India every year.

    Americans now have such a short attention span that any investment that requires more than a couple of years for payback is unthinkable any longer. This is the real reason why Asia is today's industrial powerhouse, they don't hesitate to build a factory or power station that will take ten or twenty years to be paid off. American executives won't spend a penny on something that doesn't improve the stock price before they move to their next post in the game of 'executive musical chairs'.

  23. Re:Bikes lanes are nice on Surprising Result of NYC Bike Lanes: Faster Traffic for Cars · · Score: 2

    In 1980 the two southbound lanes of the Sunshine Skyway were knocked into Tampa Bay by a freighter. Until the new bridge was constructed the two lanes of the remaining half of the bridge every year carried more vehicles in less average time and with fewer accidents than when it was four lanes.

  24. Re:Science creates understanding of a real world. on How Scientific Consensus Has Gotten a Bad Reputation · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I didn't think so.

  25. Re:Science creates understanding of a real world. on How Scientific Consensus Has Gotten a Bad Reputation · · Score: 1

    Thanks for that. One-stop shopping, rather than having to send people hither and yon.