Most arms races are just big bonfires on which money is thrown, that is until the uneasy equilibrium falters. We've seen it many times, in particular in the arms race that lead to WWI.
The closest to the Civil War is the Crimean War, which is essentially contemporary. The Napoleonic War was still essentially a conventional war; with the most unique aspect being the British Empire's naval blockade of the French Empire.
Sounds like its time for a naval force that just simply sinks pirate fishing fleets. The navies of the major military powers could use such fleets for target practice, maybe even the odd nuclear bomb test.
Oh for fuck's sakes. Slashdot was never just a tech site, or at least not in the last thirteen or fourteen years. Jesus Christ, the headline was good enough for you to determine what it was about, and yet you chose to come here and whine because it does it meet your private standards for a Slashdot article?
You are aware, I trust, that climatologists take into account historical fluctuations. You don't actually seriously believe that you have some special bit of knowledge here that people who have dedicated their lives to studying climate, including anomalies and cycles, have?
The US Civil War was among the first wars between industrial powers; the first war in which steam, telegraph and photograph played a significant role. Technology allowed for tactics that had never been able to be fully exploited before. Every general and every strategist in the rest of the world watched as the Union and the Confederacy used steam trains and telegraph outposts to coordinate supplies, troop movement, attacks, retreats and so on.
And then there is General Sherman's March to the Sea, that devastated Georgia, and presaged the kind of warfare that the next half century would bring. Sure, the Romans salted the fields of Carthage, but what the Union did to the Confederacy in the last year of the Civil War was a kind of war not seen before.
First of all, in Total War, there are no innocents. The US Civil War, where Total War was essentially invented, demonstrated that in modern warfare, every member of society becomes a part of the war machine.
As to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the Allies caused just as many death with conventional bombs. People concentrate on the nuclear devices dropped on those two cities, but don't seem to be aware of the massive conventional bombings of Japanese targets, in particular Tokyo, where somewhere between 75,000 and 200,000 people died.
Science may recognize it, but scientists rarely have a say in the actual application of new technologies. At that point we have to put our faith in our governments and commercial interests, and neither of these groups have proven all that reliable at using technology responsibly.
While I agree with your first point, as to the second point, I'd say the break between weapon and action began centuries ago with the development of artillery. Drones are really just part of a long chain of innovations that started with the invention of gunpowder. In fact, there were many who felt that firearms and cannon were dishonorable weapons, and a battle should be fought man to man on a field of battle, sword matched to sword.
At any rate, that robots would become our warriors was foreseen decades ago, and every advance in remote probes; whether they be in space, on land or in deep water, has always been as much about developing weapons technology as it has been about exploration. That is the way of science, discoveries that can benefit humanity greatly can also all too often be used as weapons.
I can't think of a worse test of geographical distance than latency. There are many reasons why people even a few miles from each other night have high latency.
Yes, and Maggie Smith, who basically carries Downton Abbey. Without her dialogue, frequently used to cut down all the characters, and sometime her own character, it would be just a rather dull soap opera costume drama.
There are certain actors whose ability to deliver their lines transcends the lines themselves. Rickman was one. It didn't really matter what he was playing, the voice alone was worth the price of admission. Christopher Walken is another one. I've seen him in the shittiest little films, but whenever he's on screen, somehow it just works. I'd put Samuel L. Jackson up there as well. Only he could make a movie as awful as Snakes On A Plain interesting.
Rickman will be missed. Most of us know him from Harry Potter and Galaxy Quest, but he was more renowned in Britain for his theater work.
For chrissakes, he just alienated about 85% of all the Geeks I know. Galaxy Quest is one of the best Star Trek movies ever made, and in no small part because Rickman's ability to deliver cutting dialogue was second to none. Only Kevin Spacey could rival Rickman for the heart-stopping put down.
Short of a built-in GPS unit in every computer that can signal where the device is on the globe, what exactly can even the media giants do? They're the ones that have fixated on IP addresses as the be-all and end-all of geolocation, and that is coming home to roost.
Maybe all these media companies should just sell their bloody products on the Internet, regardless of location of producer or consumer, and quit sawing off their own fucking legs.
Translation: Oh look, there's another source of CO2, so quickly let's blame it for everything and we can go on burning fossil fuels unimpeded!
I love deniers. On the one hand, they deny that CO2 has the physical properties every fucking physicist has understood for over a century, and then, on the other hand, every time some other source of CO2 is found, they declare "You see, that's why there's AGW!" The fact that they, like all other pseudo-scientific proponents can hold mutually exclusive views doesn't seem to bother them. All they care about is removing any responsibility human civilization might have for negative impacts on global climate, presumably so they can just carry on as usual, or in some cases, continue profiting from climate and environmental destruction.
Perhaps, good poster, you can point out where exactly in any of the material surrounding this research that it says "AGW is caused by the mid-ocean ridges." Go on, I openly challenge you to provide these citations.
I can see situations where using a kernel optimized to a specific hardware platform would be advantageous. Certainly there are embedded Linux installations where the kernel has been highly optimized.
Considering Bowie's contributions to digital music distribution, and he being one of the first people to recognize just what the Internet was going to mean to the music industry, I'd say that alone justifies a Slashdot article. The guy wasn't just a very good artist, he was also an extraordinarily canny businessman who foresaw how the business he was a part of was going to be shaken to the core even when "high speed Internet" meant a 14.4k modem.
Technology frequently runs roughshod over business models. I'm sure all those fletchers who were forced to find other work shook their fists at those dirty bastards with the gunpowder.
Intellectual property laws work well where the medium in question can guarantee scarcity. Analog recording quality is directly based upon how close to the original master your copy is, and thus owning first generation masters essentially guarantees you a monopoly on a good sounding recording. Digital recording means every copy retains absolute fidelity, and thus the scarcity disappears. You can use DRM and the courts to try to retain that scarcity, but ultimately it's just building mouse traps to try to catch ever-smarter mice.
I'm almost certain Bowie understood very well what digital recording was going to mean, particularly as it related to future publishing and recording royalties. He guaranteed himself a pretty significant payoff, knowing full well that they would likely exceed royalties. It also must have helped his bottom line when his heart problems forced him into retirement in 2003.
Of course, a lot of what Bowie learned came from the school of hard knocks. He, like a lot of recording artists, did some spectacularly bad business deals, particularly with his management, in the 1970s, and he went all out in the early and mid-80s to make music and do major tours that he knew would make him cash to recover financially.
As I recall, he actually sold futures on music he hadn't released yet. The guy was innovative in multiple fields, and presaged a lot of the ways music is made and distributed a decade before everyone else. He was a real innovator.
Slashdot Mirror
Most arms races are just big bonfires on which money is thrown, that is until the uneasy equilibrium falters. We've seen it many times, in particular in the arms race that lead to WWI.
The closest to the Civil War is the Crimean War, which is essentially contemporary. The Napoleonic War was still essentially a conventional war; with the most unique aspect being the British Empire's naval blockade of the French Empire.
Sounds like its time for a naval force that just simply sinks pirate fishing fleets. The navies of the major military powers could use such fleets for target practice, maybe even the odd nuclear bomb test.
Oh for fuck's sakes. Slashdot was never just a tech site, or at least not in the last thirteen or fourteen years. Jesus Christ, the headline was good enough for you to determine what it was about, and yet you chose to come here and whine because it does it meet your private standards for a Slashdot article?
You are aware, I trust, that climatologists take into account historical fluctuations. You don't actually seriously believe that you have some special bit of knowledge here that people who have dedicated their lives to studying climate, including anomalies and cycles, have?
The US Civil War was among the first wars between industrial powers; the first war in which steam, telegraph and photograph played a significant role. Technology allowed for tactics that had never been able to be fully exploited before. Every general and every strategist in the rest of the world watched as the Union and the Confederacy used steam trains and telegraph outposts to coordinate supplies, troop movement, attacks, retreats and so on.
And then there is General Sherman's March to the Sea, that devastated Georgia, and presaged the kind of warfare that the next half century would bring. Sure, the Romans salted the fields of Carthage, but what the Union did to the Confederacy in the last year of the Civil War was a kind of war not seen before.
First of all, in Total War, there are no innocents. The US Civil War, where Total War was essentially invented, demonstrated that in modern warfare, every member of society becomes a part of the war machine.
As to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the Allies caused just as many death with conventional bombs. People concentrate on the nuclear devices dropped on those two cities, but don't seem to be aware of the massive conventional bombings of Japanese targets, in particular Tokyo, where somewhere between 75,000 and 200,000 people died.
Science may recognize it, but scientists rarely have a say in the actual application of new technologies. At that point we have to put our faith in our governments and commercial interests, and neither of these groups have proven all that reliable at using technology responsibly.
While I agree with your first point, as to the second point, I'd say the break between weapon and action began centuries ago with the development of artillery. Drones are really just part of a long chain of innovations that started with the invention of gunpowder. In fact, there were many who felt that firearms and cannon were dishonorable weapons, and a battle should be fought man to man on a field of battle, sword matched to sword.
At any rate, that robots would become our warriors was foreseen decades ago, and every advance in remote probes; whether they be in space, on land or in deep water, has always been as much about developing weapons technology as it has been about exploration. That is the way of science, discoveries that can benefit humanity greatly can also all too often be used as weapons.
I doubt you even know what Communism is. It isn't simply a progressive tax system, or even income redistribution.
I thought it was because he was a mid-transition transexual. Caitlyn Jenner uses less mascara.
I can't think of a worse test of geographical distance than latency. There are many reasons why people even a few miles from each other night have high latency.
Why not just a divining rod?
Yes, and Maggie Smith, who basically carries Downton Abbey. Without her dialogue, frequently used to cut down all the characters, and sometime her own character, it would be just a rather dull soap opera costume drama.
I didn't know Scrimm had died. Wow, now I am depressed.
There are certain actors whose ability to deliver their lines transcends the lines themselves. Rickman was one. It didn't really matter what he was playing, the voice alone was worth the price of admission. Christopher Walken is another one. I've seen him in the shittiest little films, but whenever he's on screen, somehow it just works. I'd put Samuel L. Jackson up there as well. Only he could make a movie as awful as Snakes On A Plain interesting.
Rickman will be missed. Most of us know him from Harry Potter and Galaxy Quest, but he was more renowned in Britain for his theater work.
For chrissakes, he just alienated about 85% of all the Geeks I know. Galaxy Quest is one of the best Star Trek movies ever made, and in no small part because Rickman's ability to deliver cutting dialogue was second to none. Only Kevin Spacey could rival Rickman for the heart-stopping put down.
Short of a built-in GPS unit in every computer that can signal where the device is on the globe, what exactly can even the media giants do? They're the ones that have fixated on IP addresses as the be-all and end-all of geolocation, and that is coming home to roost.
Maybe all these media companies should just sell their bloody products on the Internet, regardless of location of producer or consumer, and quit sawing off their own fucking legs.
All that matters is cheap energy and investors making money. Fuck absolutely every fucking thing else. Money is the only fucking thing that matters.
Translation: Oh look, there's another source of CO2, so quickly let's blame it for everything and we can go on burning fossil fuels unimpeded!
I love deniers. On the one hand, they deny that CO2 has the physical properties every fucking physicist has understood for over a century, and then, on the other hand, every time some other source of CO2 is found, they declare "You see, that's why there's AGW!" The fact that they, like all other pseudo-scientific proponents can hold mutually exclusive views doesn't seem to bother them. All they care about is removing any responsibility human civilization might have for negative impacts on global climate, presumably so they can just carry on as usual, or in some cases, continue profiting from climate and environmental destruction.
Perhaps, good poster, you can point out where exactly in any of the material surrounding this research that it says "AGW is caused by the mid-ocean ridges." Go on, I openly challenge you to provide these citations.
I can see situations where using a kernel optimized to a specific hardware platform would be advantageous. Certainly there are embedded Linux installations where the kernel has been highly optimized.
Because France has never faced terrorists acts before today...
Considering Bowie's contributions to digital music distribution, and he being one of the first people to recognize just what the Internet was going to mean to the music industry, I'd say that alone justifies a Slashdot article. The guy wasn't just a very good artist, he was also an extraordinarily canny businessman who foresaw how the business he was a part of was going to be shaken to the core even when "high speed Internet" meant a 14.4k modem.
Technology frequently runs roughshod over business models. I'm sure all those fletchers who were forced to find other work shook their fists at those dirty bastards with the gunpowder.
Intellectual property laws work well where the medium in question can guarantee scarcity. Analog recording quality is directly based upon how close to the original master your copy is, and thus owning first generation masters essentially guarantees you a monopoly on a good sounding recording. Digital recording means every copy retains absolute fidelity, and thus the scarcity disappears. You can use DRM and the courts to try to retain that scarcity, but ultimately it's just building mouse traps to try to catch ever-smarter mice.
I'm almost certain Bowie understood very well what digital recording was going to mean, particularly as it related to future publishing and recording royalties. He guaranteed himself a pretty significant payoff, knowing full well that they would likely exceed royalties. It also must have helped his bottom line when his heart problems forced him into retirement in 2003.
Of course, a lot of what Bowie learned came from the school of hard knocks. He, like a lot of recording artists, did some spectacularly bad business deals, particularly with his management, in the 1970s, and he went all out in the early and mid-80s to make music and do major tours that he knew would make him cash to recover financially.
As I recall, he actually sold futures on music he hadn't released yet. The guy was innovative in multiple fields, and presaged a lot of the ways music is made and distributed a decade before everyone else. He was a real innovator.