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User: tsotha

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  1. Re:May I suggest on No More Lee-Enfield: Canada's Rangers To Get a Tech Upgrade · · Score: 1

    Modern infantry tactics are all about suppressive fire. Which you can't do with a bolt action rifle. There's a reason everyone uses assault rifles. I would be shocked if the reason this is just happening now isn't just a combination of neglect and lack of funds.

    Beyond that, soldiers do carry more stuff. Depending on the situation, a US soldier may have 120-150 pounds ("Emergency Approach March") to carry plus body armor and rifle. There's simply more useful gear than there used to be. Everyone complains about it, but nobody wants to get rid of anything. Soldiers would like to ditch the armor, but they're not allowed to because their commanders don't want to explain to grieving widows (and the press) why Joe wasn't wearing his armor when he got shot.

    It's probably even worse in Northern Canada, since you'd have all sorts of extra stuff to deal with the cold.

    So yeah, you shave off pounds where you can. Not only is a modern assault rifle lighter than an Enfield (I own one - holding that sucker level from a standing position gets old really fast), more importantly the ammo is much lighter.

  2. Re:May I suggest on No More Lee-Enfield: Canada's Rangers To Get a Tech Upgrade · · Score: 1

    Right, which is why the US army has been unable to get the money to replace the M16/M4 in the half dozen times it's tried.

  3. Re:Link to the study. on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    Wait, what? So to give you shorter telomeres it has to be sweetened and carbonated? That seems... unlikely.

  4. Re:Engineers have no future. on Cisco Exec: Turnover In Engineering No Problem · · Score: 1

    You don't ask.

  5. Re:Engineers have no future. on Cisco Exec: Turnover In Engineering No Problem · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's my experience too. It's healthy for a company to lose a few percent of its people - after awhile you accumulate dead wood. But once you start treating your technical people like drop-in disposable parts, nobody actually cares if the company is successful. Why would they?

  6. Re:Bull on Who's In Charge During the Ebola Crisis? · · Score: 1

    I hope you didn't write anything good after the first sentence, because I didn't read past that.

  7. Bull on Who's In Charge During the Ebola Crisis? · · Score: 2

    We've had many epidemics in the US. We've had scarlet fever, tuberculosis, cholera, typhus, polio, dengue, malaria, leprosy, influenza named after various places and creatures... the list is endless.

    The problem is the CDC lost focus. With a relative lack of communicable diseases for going on five decades, like all bureaucracies with not enough to do they started expanding their portfolio to include lots of things you wouldn't think belong under "disease control" and took their eye off the ball. Now that we have a bona fide health threat all they know how to do is hold press conferences telling us not to worry.

    The one thing the CDC doesn't need is more power and money. They already have broad emergency powers, and if they have enough money to do gun control studies and lesbian weight gain studies they already have too much money.

    As a side note, the director would be a lot easier to support if he wasn't obviously lying when he says there's nothing to worry about. We're not children, buddy, so don't treat us like children. Obviously this strain of Ebola is quite a bit more contagious than earlier strains, and it falls in about the middle of the lethality range normal for that disease (20%-80%). We should be restricting travel from affected countries, and anyone coming in from those countries should be quarantined for 21 days.

  8. Small "companies" were always the problem on Open Invention Network Grows Despite Patent Troll Death Knell · · Score: 1

    True "patent trolls", the way I've always understood them, were always small companies. Once large companies start suing each other it becomes MAD. I win in Korea with patent A, you win in the US, you sue me in the EU with patent B, I sue you in China with patent C... Look at the way the Samsung-Apple war played out (is that over?).

    But if the company is just a patent portfolio, there's no way for the victim to retaliate. The cheapest way out is to settle, which gives them enough money to go after the next guy (hopefully one of your competitors).

  9. Facts of life on Glut of Postdoc Researchers Stirs Quiet Crisis In Science · · Score: 1

    This is a situation faced by millions. You want to do something for a living but there aren't any jobs. They should really accept that fact and move on like everyone else. It's particularly hard to have sympathy in that this isn't something that just happened yesterday - it's been a long time since getting an academic position was likely. Longer than it takes to get a PhD.

  10. What about Mozilla? on Complain About Comcast, Get Fired From Your Job · · Score: 1

    I find it pretty amusing the same people who cheered the firing of Brendan Eich are outraged over this case. Let's not be hypocritical here.

  11. Re:Orbital Vehicle? on NASA's Space Launch System Searches For a Mission · · Score: 1

    If we combined a rather large vehicle meant to return with a shuttle-type profile (ceramic heat shield and glide control)...

    I'm not convinced the shuttle has much to teach us beyond "don't do it this way". Powered landing has all sorts of advantages over wings, and I think that's where we should be concentrating our efforts.

  12. Do we need this? on NASA's Space Launch System Searches For a Mission · · Score: 1

    Can anyone explain to me why we need the SLS when SpaceX is on track to provide the same functionality for a tiny fraction of the price?

  13. Re:Why? on EU's Top Court May Define Obesity As a Disability · · Score: 1

    While that's probably true it has nothing whatsoever to do with the legal concept of obesity as a disability.

  14. Why? on EU's Top Court May Define Obesity As a Disability · · Score: 1

    It is seen as especially significant because of rising obesity levels in Europe and elsewhere, including the US.

    Eh... no. This decision will have no effect on the US whatsoever. Or are you trying to say obesity in the US had some effect on the European decision? Either way, it's not relevant.

  15. Re:Even higher! on Seattle Approves $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage · · Score: 1

    Australia has a pretty high cost of living, too. But more importantly, Australia has a more sensible immigration policy than the US and hasn't flooded the low end of the job market with unskilled labor.

  16. Re:Even higher! on Seattle Approves $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage · · Score: 1

    Yes. We can look and see the relatively high cost of living that goes along with it, plus a very high youth unemployment.

  17. How many years? on Could High Bay-Area Prices Make Sacramento the Next Big Startup Hub? · · Score: 1

    How many years have I been hearing this? The South Bay was too expensive. Everyone was moving to Vegas, or Austin, or Massachusetts. They moved all right - to the only place outside Manhattan that was more expensive. Like real estate prices you have to believe it can't go on forever, but it can go on a lot longer than you expected.

  18. Re:Article summary doesn't match article content on ISS Studies Show Bacteria From Earth Could Colonize Mars · · Score: 2

    That's what I was thinking. Putting earth bacteria on mars is like dropping naked people on the north pole and saying "go forth and multiply". I can't imagine them colonizing anything except in tandem with humans.

  19. Re:"Contract is not up for competition" on SpaceX Files Suit Against US Air Force · · Score: 1

    Less cynically, Air Force brass have been burned over and over again by companies who lowballs bids and can't deliver. It's human nature to try to steer contracts to companies that have made good on promises in the past.

    My was in the Air Force and worked on big contracted projects. You would not believe how often the AF has to deal with companies taking progress payments and then declaring bankruptcy.

    Of course the really big contracting decisions are all made on Capitol Hill *cough*F-35*cough*.

  20. Re:Not practical as contact lenses on Contact Lenses With Infrared Vision? · · Score: 1

    The latest infrared goggles actually integrate infrared and normal vision. Probably be awhile before we can fit all that processing into contacts, though.

  21. Re:Wow, that was so full of stupid... on WSJ: Prepare To Hang Up the Phone — Forever · · Score: 1

    Roads. Of course they had some bureaucracy to work through.

  22. Re:Wow, that was so full of stupid... on WSJ: Prepare To Hang Up the Phone — Forever · · Score: 1

    In the actual real world (outside of your worker's paradise) having companies lay their own cable works better, because otherwise there's no incentive for the company that owns the cable to keep overhead expenses down. That's the way it was done in my town, and it works quite well.

  23. Re:Any actual police work? on Anti-Game-Violence Legislator Arrested, Faces Gun Trafficking Charges · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can you imagine a scenario where an FBI informant would be able to lead a principled gun control advocate down the path of importing machine guns and rocket launchers? Can you imagine a scenario where a clean politician is even associating with the head of the SF Chinese mafia?

  24. Re:Any actual police work? on Anti-Game-Violence Legislator Arrested, Faces Gun Trafficking Charges · · Score: 1

    Is anything real? Are you?

  25. Did anyone read the idictment? on Anti-Game-Violence Legislator Arrested, Faces Gun Trafficking Charges · · Score: 1

    it's wild. Apparently the guy running the show was the "Dragonhead" of a tong in San Francisco. Seriously? They still have titles like that? It's like a freakin' Bruce Lee movie.