Special Forces units have received training in handling horses and donkeys, because they turned out to be utterly necessary in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Army or marine units do not have the same level of autonomy as the Special Forces, which means the military would rather give them a technical solution than a living and breathing one.
Or, you can just use your special forces folks to train the grunts on horse and donkey handling. Somebody is going to have to be trained to use (and fix) robo mule.
More importantly, it's hard to round up enough local donkeys/horses for a large number of soldiers and you certainly can't airdrop them from a plane.
You BREED animals - that's how you make more of them. Happens pretty naturally. And you can do it in remarkably low tech circumstances. Instead of a complex of expensive buildings full of highly paid people, you can use a farm.
How far can a donkey travel for before "recharging"?
Pretty much all day. They should be given access to water every couple of hours.
How quiet is a donkey? Would the donkey sounds draw as much unwanted attention?
Not nearly as loud as the stupid Big Dog (the robot on which this thing was based).
How much money would it cost to pick up a donkey in a local market and then feed it?
Even in the US, donkeys cost anywhere between nothing and $1000. That's one hell of a lot cheaper than a complicated, high tech gizmo supplied by a single source vendor on contract to the military. Further, donkeys can make more donkeys. That's a trick that robotic gizmos have yet to figure out.
In terms of the size and shape of hand anatomy, the scientists point out that humans could have evolved manual dexterity with longer thumbs, but without the fingers and palms getting shorter.
What a bunch of nonsense. You postulate something on the basis of a weak anatomical correlate study and then you open it up to an evolutionary mechanism. There isn't anything to suggest that reproductive fitness (the thing that drives evolution) has anything to do with punching out competitors.
Yeah, lawyers need this sort of thing. You yell for Dabigatran in the ER for treatment of an acute DVT you're Doing It Wrong (it's for maintenance after initial treatment with heparin).
But WTF - what do you need a 'semantic web' for when you can just type in "Dabigatran" in your search engine of choice and get the information that you desire?
A semantic network would have all these things related and through the interaction of a human being would be able to provide the necessary information to explain what a sentence means.
Maybe Kurzweil can explain this sentence to me. I sure can't figure out where you are going.
You do realize that in Wyoming and Alaska you can pretty much shoot at anything and not hit a person? That said, the vast majority of violent deaths in Alaska are caused by drunk drivers. The second highest category of violent crime is due to drug dealing. And sexual assault is right up there as well. Not many gun related crimes, just a lot of drunken assholes.
So, if you ban alcohol, legalize other drugs and give women guns, we should live in Paradise!
It seems obvious at this point that guns, even legally owned, are safety hazard for everybody. If you own a car, you must pay for insurance. If you buy cigarettes, you need to pay large tax. We need to have significant gun tax, to cover costs to society. It should be large enough to discourage people from owning several guns they don't need, let's say to the tune of $200 per handgun per year, $1000 per semi automatic rifle. My guess would be, nobody would have a bunch of guns just laying around. Hey, you want to play around with guns, sure. Your constitutional right, of course. But now we need to put an armed policeman in every school, mall and movie theater to cover the possibility that you will go nuts and start shooting people. You have to pay the cost.
Ok, just as soon as alcohol, petroleum and a host of other items are taxed similarly.
I believe gun violence in America is more of a cultural problem than an availability problem. Having said that, I wouldn't mind there being mandatory shooting and safety classes for people who want to buy guns, maybe even a written competency test. We have them for people who want to drive cars, why not for people who want to carry guns in public?
We have this in many places. And it works just about as well as driving liscense laws.
Again, negligence. Doesn't make any difference that you are doing a 'battue' (flushing game, I had to look it up) - you look at what you're shooting BEFORE you shoot at it. Geocachers typically don't LOOK like turkeys even if the can act like one.
Wow. Virtually every statement in this post is incorrect.
OP, get off Slashdot and go to amsat.org
Now. Good bye.
Since this is an AC, I thought I'd repost it. AMSAT is exactly the organization you want. They are a group of amateur radio operators who have successfully built several communications satellites. Even if you choose to work with another group (or start your own), their experiences will be most helpful.
At least he asked the National Academy of Sciences to do the study. While composed of fallible and potentially biased human beings, institutionally it prides itself on being primarily a scientific body. They are more likely to come up with a reasonable thesis on the subject than most.
...of why these mass murders are not being caught by the mental health system? Before we jump to conclusions and condemn the tools used by these insane criminals, we need to find out WHY someone would want to commit mass murder and WHY the mental health system is not catching these people long before they commit these acts of murder.
Because the human mind is the most difficult thing we can study. You can't do many (ethical) experiments. We don't really know how it works. The drugs we have are more like hand grenades than surgical scalpels.
And, on top of that, we have a culture that values personal independence and choice. We have laws that prevent overzealous incarceration. We've clearly rigged it so that some people that should be committed to a controlled psychiatric environment are left free at the expense of letting a few crazies do bad things. If you want to incarcerate huge swaths of the population who MIGHT cause the occasional major violent crime to catch those few people that probably will go out and hurt somebody, then you have to start at the level of the social contract.
That said, we can do better in terms of mental health. It's underfunded - both at the research and the clinical level. We're getting better at our understanding of how the brain works. But we should not ever strive to have a population of 'right thinking' harmless zombies. That cure is much worse than the disease.
Slashdot Mirror
he should think again.
Or just think. First time hurts, after that it gets easier.
Maybe if you had a clue.... Temps have been rising CINCE that ICE AGE... Oh wait, that truth gets in the way of your dilusionary comment.... sorry...
Time rate of change. An important construct. Think about it.
And do check those spellings....
That said, one of the easiest changes to make is for governments to start giving incentives for telecommuting.
Sorry. Not going to happen on any grand scale. You'll will have to shower and dress regularly for some time yet.
Special Forces units have received training in handling horses and donkeys, because they turned out to be utterly necessary in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Army or marine units do not have the same level of autonomy as the Special Forces, which means the military would rather give them a technical solution than a living and breathing one.
Or, you can just use your special forces folks to train the grunts on horse and donkey handling. Somebody is going to have to be trained to use (and fix) robo mule.
More importantly, it's hard to round up enough local donkeys/horses for a large number of soldiers and you certainly can't airdrop them from a plane.
You BREED animals - that's how you make more of them. Happens pretty naturally. And you can do it in remarkably low tech circumstances. Instead of a complex of expensive buildings full of highly paid people, you can use a farm.
And animals of all sorts have been air dropped.
ASFAIK, The US Military no longer has any stables for training soldiers in handling horses or donkeys
We still have farms, fields and oats. That, along with some vets and a couple of privates, is all that you really need.
Horses for courses.
How much can a donkey carry?
Up to 250 pounds.
How far can a donkey travel for before "recharging"?
Pretty much all day. They should be given access to water every couple of hours.
How quiet is a donkey? Would the donkey sounds draw as much unwanted attention?
Not nearly as loud as the stupid Big Dog (the robot on which this thing was based).
How much money would it cost to pick up a donkey in a local market and then feed it?
Even in the US, donkeys cost anywhere between nothing and $1000. That's one hell of a lot cheaper than a complicated, high tech gizmo supplied by a single source vendor on contract to the military. Further, donkeys can make more donkeys. That's a trick that robotic gizmos have yet to figure out.
Like this thing is going to be bullet resistant? You could armor-up a mule pretty easily.
It wasn't "for" anything.
In terms of the size and shape of hand anatomy, the scientists point out that humans could have evolved manual dexterity with longer thumbs, but without the fingers and palms getting shorter.
What a bunch of nonsense. You postulate something on the basis of a weak anatomical correlate study and then you open it up to an evolutionary mechanism. There isn't anything to suggest that reproductive fitness (the thing that drives evolution) has anything to do with punching out competitors.
I see your fist and raise the ante with a club.
Yeah, lawyers need this sort of thing. You yell for Dabigatran in the ER for treatment of an acute DVT you're Doing It Wrong (it's for maintenance after initial treatment with heparin).
But WTF - what do you need a 'semantic web' for when you can just type in "Dabigatran" in your search engine of choice and get the information that you desire?
A semantic network would have all these things related and through the interaction of a human being would be able to provide the necessary information to explain what a sentence means.
Maybe Kurzweil can explain this sentence to me. I sure can't figure out where you are going.
Slashdot's summary function:
.
You read it here first!
Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all.
Mien Fuhrer! I can walk!
You do realize that in Wyoming and Alaska you can pretty much shoot at anything and not hit a person? That said, the vast majority of violent deaths in Alaska are caused by drunk drivers. The second highest category of violent crime is due to drug dealing. And sexual assault is right up there as well. Not many gun related crimes, just a lot of drunken assholes.
So, if you ban alcohol, legalize other drugs and give women guns, we should live in Paradise!
So was Murphy.
Except that only things in recent history that routinely have Firewire are Macs - which this software (apparently) doesn't deal with.
(But Saint Jobs is thinking of the Faithful and deprecating Firewire, just in case).
How about just being reasonable. The 787 is having the same sorts of problems that every new plane gets.
It seems obvious at this point that guns, even legally owned, are safety hazard for everybody. If you own a car, you must pay for insurance. If you buy cigarettes, you need to pay large tax. We need to have significant gun tax, to cover costs to society. It should be large enough to discourage people from owning several guns they don't need, let's say to the tune of $200 per handgun per year, $1000 per semi automatic rifle. My guess would be, nobody would have a bunch of guns just laying around. Hey, you want to play around with guns, sure. Your constitutional right, of course. But now we need to put an armed policeman in every school, mall and movie theater to cover the possibility that you will go nuts and start shooting people. You have to pay the cost.
Ok, just as soon as alcohol, petroleum and a host of other items are taxed similarly.
EVERY firearm was originally designed for military use. Get over it already.
I believe gun violence in America is more of a cultural problem than an availability problem. Having said that, I wouldn't mind there being mandatory shooting and safety classes for people who want to buy guns, maybe even a written competency test. We have them for people who want to drive cars, why not for people who want to carry guns in public?
We have this in many places. And it works just about as well as driving liscense laws.
Again, negligence. Doesn't make any difference that you are doing a 'battue' (flushing game, I had to look it up) - you look at what you're shooting BEFORE you shoot at it. Geocachers typically don't LOOK like turkeys even if the can act like one.
That's Hunting 101.
Wow. Virtually every statement in this post is incorrect.
OP, get off Slashdot and go to amsat.org
Now. Good bye.
Since this is an AC, I thought I'd repost it. AMSAT is exactly the organization you want. They are a group of amateur radio operators who have successfully built several communications satellites. Even if you choose to work with another group (or start your own), their experiences will be most helpful.
That's Ovaltine. Read the label.
Imagine a spherical potato....
At least he asked the National Academy of Sciences to do the study. While composed of fallible and potentially biased human beings, institutionally it prides itself on being primarily a scientific body. They are more likely to come up with a reasonable thesis on the subject than most.
...of why these mass murders are not being caught by the mental health system? Before we jump to conclusions and condemn the tools used by these insane criminals, we need to find out WHY someone would want to commit mass murder and WHY the mental health system is not catching these people long before they commit these acts of murder.
Because the human mind is the most difficult thing we can study. You can't do many (ethical) experiments. We don't really know how it works. The drugs we have are more like hand grenades than surgical scalpels.
And, on top of that, we have a culture that values personal independence and choice. We have laws that prevent overzealous incarceration. We've clearly rigged it so that some people that should be committed to a controlled psychiatric environment are left free at the expense of letting a few crazies do bad things. If you want to incarcerate huge swaths of the population who MIGHT cause the occasional major violent crime to catch those few people that probably will go out and hurt somebody, then you have to start at the level of the social contract.
That said, we can do better in terms of mental health. It's underfunded - both at the research and the clinical level. We're getting better at our understanding of how the brain works. But we should not ever strive to have a population of 'right thinking' harmless zombies. That cure is much worse than the disease.
Chess is a war game....