Kamikaze's were not very effective. I thought any 6th grader knew that. Not to mention that previous plane strikes did not bring down the building either.
Here's some homework for you: devise a plan to bring down a skyscraper. Then execute it. I'd really like to know how that goes for you.
I think you're mostly spot-on. However, I fundamentally disagree with your assessment that the NSA doesn't spy on US citizens. If we take at face value what we know so far - secret taps inside network rooms in the US, taps on calls ending outside the US - then it is necessary that the NSA taps legitimate calls by US citizens without their knowledge and without oversight. As for wiretapping the whole US - we have some nifty technology that can sift through billions of data points and doing some routine sorting. Wiretapping the entire US is no longer a technological problem.
I'm perfectly happy to accept that we only know about the 0.1% of the cases where sigint failed. However, the failures that we have were ones where human intelligence was completely absent, and actually ignored. What this story shows is that you should never rely only on sigint to find out what your enemies are up to. Unfortunately, there has been a massive infatuation at the management level and up with electronics and toys, rather than the dirty business of putting shoes on the ground.
Let's see... - They bombed three highly defended buildings without using a single bomb.
To achieve this, they: 1) Identified weaknesses in the security at airports. 2) Identified weaknesses in the American response to highjackings. 3) Identified weaknesses in the immigration protocols of the US. 4) Lived for a set number of weeks in the US while (nearly) avoiding complete detection. 5) Evaded signal interception while carrying out worldwide communication.
Piloting the planes was actually the trivial part of this operation.
Your complaint that this was a junior high word problem is like complaining that the magician just used a mirror, a trap and a body double to perform the trick, and that there wasn't any actual magic involved. If you would have figured out the operational details of the attack while the WTC was still burning, I'd have been impressed. Instead, I just see someone whining that there wasn't enough magic.
There's one more aspect to the free market that's often overlooked: it requires perfect information to be available about all competitors and products. While not knowing that product B beats the pants of product A is also an entry barrier for the company that produces product B, that's not the common understanding that people have of it - nor is it ever mentioned outside of academic circles.
BTW, your argument is the reason that Britain bought all British rails, and leased its usage out to private companies. Kinda like the road system in the US. And, just like the road system, success is mixed. But it'd be worse if the rail and road system would be private as well - like we're finding out with private ownership of the fiber and copper.
There's a reason there's enough dark fiber out there to fix any possible "internet brownout" that might come up. If there'd just be a reason to use it.
What do you think Oil is? The carbon bonds in oil store energy. The electric charges in Lithium ions store energy. Hydrogen is an energy store.
The only difference between oil, lithium and hydrogen is that with oil, we're taking advantage of millions of years of work done by mother nature. The energy stored in oil has already been produced elsewhere, and it will run out at some point. Just like lithium will. Hydrogen we really won't run out, but there are a host of problems associated with turning it into a fuel.
There is really only a single unlimited and (on a human-scale) permanent source of energy in the entire solar system: that burning disk in the sky. Everything else is just a battery storing energy in one form or another.
You're assuming there's a replacement supplier available. In the case of ISPs, there are few choices, and sometimes no direct competitors (cable != dsl != fiber != satellite). And sometimes, there really is only one ISP that provides internet access with sub-second latency.
Are you kidding? Pretty much anybody I google these days has their facebook page as the first hit, if they have one. Now granted, most of those people don't have a Nobel Prize to their name, won an Olympic medal in a decathlon, shot up a school or got their name into the intarwebs in a similar manner.
But for Janet Sixpack and Vassily Wessel, facebook and linkedin are top of the page hits.
I believe the context here is "total" war. I.e. a war where people are already 100% against you, and nothing is gained from restraint. The last time that this was remotely true was WW2, and even then the Total war was stopped before reaching its logical conclusion: 100% annihilation of the enemy.
The day I get paid to wear Gucci, Polo or other brands where 50% of the price comes from the logo on the shirt is the day I'll actually wear it. In the meantime, I feel a little dirty every time I parade around in branded clothes.
Because for a lot of people, it IS magic. Seriously, people consider a computer to be like magic already. And that's just some code doing fairly predictable things with electronics. Now picture these same people exposed to quantum tunneling, spooky action at a distance and wave-particle duality.
I'd say that I'm surprised that there isn't a religion based on quantum mechanical terminology.
You're right. Sometimes I think that Slashdot will be the death of any good writing habits I ever had. Then again, I also get immediate corrections and criticism.:)
So what would you have him say? The American character is to follow? Granted, that may be closer to the truth, but really?
Is there any place in this country for politicians who don't say only what everyone agrees with (down with pedophiles!)? Or heck, where just on one occasion, the other team does something that will not be labeled as evil just because it's the other team?
It's basic economics. There's no profit to be made from the Manhattan project or the LHC (at least none in the foreseeable future). Ergo, corporations will not invest in projects like them. Why do you think that IBM and ATT scuttled their pure research arms?
Private industry can be expected to do one thing well: look out for its bottom-line. This is great for material sciences and symptom-treating drugs, all things that can be expected to contribute to the bottom line in the foreseeable future. But it is absolute crap for fundamental research, where you're constantly chasing after what-ifs and weird events. In those cases, you have no idea what is a red herring, a dead end or the next E=MC^2. This is something that only government will fund, and therefore should fund.
I hope more people read this. A fighter plane escort means two things: - the authorities know the plane is there - the decision to shoot it down has not been taken
All of this means in turn that the situation is considered to be under control.
I'm worried when I hear fighter jets screaming above my head at full after-burner - it means they're in a hurry. I'm worried when I see a lone jet plane on a path that is clearly not a regular flight path - it means it either is in trouble, or trying to get into trouble.
But a jet escorted by a fighter plane is not part of any of those scenarios. Unless someone completely fucks up, and then we're right back into the territory of paranoia and irrational risk assessment.
Yes, but you know that the odds of something actually going down is very low. A big contingent of police is always there for intimidation. If they're there for an actual problem, you'd be aware of it long before you reach that point.
Why the hell is this modded troll? It's the fucking truth. A low-flying plane is not a problem, it happens all the time. A low-flying plane, escorted by a fighter, is not one either.
And for those who panic at the sight of a low-flying jet - I suggest moving out of a major city into the boonies. Otherwise, you're not going to lead anything remotely resembling a productive life.
Well, that would make the Zeebo $80 pretax. That's actually a much better deal than I initially thought, and much more inline with what I thought it would have to cost.
Let's see - an XBox Arcade costs $200 and has pretty much everything the Zeebo has, minus built-in wireless. I fail to see what market they're going for...
Now if that console would be $50, maybe $75, they'd have a shot at getting into the middle-class market in emerging economies. And considering the hardware involved, I don't see how it would be that hard to get there.
Slashdot Mirror
Kamikaze's were not very effective. I thought any 6th grader knew that. Not to mention that previous plane strikes did not bring down the building either.
Here's some homework for you: devise a plan to bring down a skyscraper. Then execute it. I'd really like to know how that goes for you.
I think you're mostly spot-on. However, I fundamentally disagree with your assessment that the NSA doesn't spy on US citizens. If we take at face value what we know so far - secret taps inside network rooms in the US, taps on calls ending outside the US - then it is necessary that the NSA taps legitimate calls by US citizens without their knowledge and without oversight. As for wiretapping the whole US - we have some nifty technology that can sift through billions of data points and doing some routine sorting. Wiretapping the entire US is no longer a technological problem.
I'm perfectly happy to accept that we only know about the 0.1% of the cases where sigint failed. However, the failures that we have were ones where human intelligence was completely absent, and actually ignored. What this story shows is that you should never rely only on sigint to find out what your enemies are up to. Unfortunately, there has been a massive infatuation at the management level and up with electronics and toys, rather than the dirty business of putting shoes on the ground.
Let's see...
- They bombed three highly defended buildings without using a single bomb.
To achieve this, they:
1) Identified weaknesses in the security at airports.
2) Identified weaknesses in the American response to highjackings.
3) Identified weaknesses in the immigration protocols of the US.
4) Lived for a set number of weeks in the US while (nearly) avoiding complete detection.
5) Evaded signal interception while carrying out worldwide communication.
Piloting the planes was actually the trivial part of this operation.
Your complaint that this was a junior high word problem is like complaining that the magician just used a mirror, a trap and a body double to perform the trick, and that there wasn't any actual magic involved. If you would have figured out the operational details of the attack while the WTC was still burning, I'd have been impressed. Instead, I just see someone whining that there wasn't enough magic.
There's one more aspect to the free market that's often overlooked: it requires perfect information to be available about all competitors and products. While not knowing that product B beats the pants of product A is also an entry barrier for the company that produces product B, that's not the common understanding that people have of it - nor is it ever mentioned outside of academic circles.
BTW, your argument is the reason that Britain bought all British rails, and leased its usage out to private companies. Kinda like the road system in the US. And, just like the road system, success is mixed. But it'd be worse if the rail and road system would be private as well - like we're finding out with private ownership of the fiber and copper.
There's a reason there's enough dark fiber out there to fix any possible "internet brownout" that might come up. If there'd just be a reason to use it.
What do you think Oil is? The carbon bonds in oil store energy. The electric charges in Lithium ions store energy. Hydrogen is an energy store.
The only difference between oil, lithium and hydrogen is that with oil, we're taking advantage of millions of years of work done by mother nature. The energy stored in oil has already been produced elsewhere, and it will run out at some point. Just like lithium will. Hydrogen we really won't run out, but there are a host of problems associated with turning it into a fuel.
There is really only a single unlimited and (on a human-scale) permanent source of energy in the entire solar system: that burning disk in the sky. Everything else is just a battery storing energy in one form or another.
You're assuming there's a replacement supplier available. In the case of ISPs, there are few choices, and sometimes no direct competitors (cable != dsl != fiber != satellite). And sometimes, there really is only one ISP that provides internet access with sub-second latency.
Are you kidding? Pretty much anybody I google these days has their facebook page as the first hit, if they have one. Now granted, most of those people don't have a Nobel Prize to their name, won an Olympic medal in a decathlon, shot up a school or got their name into the intarwebs in a similar manner.
But for Janet Sixpack and Vassily Wessel, facebook and linkedin are top of the page hits.
I believe the context here is "total" war. I.e. a war where people are already 100% against you, and nothing is gained from restraint. The last time that this was remotely true was WW2, and even then the Total war was stopped before reaching its logical conclusion: 100% annihilation of the enemy.
The day I get paid to wear Gucci, Polo or other brands where 50% of the price comes from the logo on the shirt is the day I'll actually wear it. In the meantime, I feel a little dirty every time I parade around in branded clothes.
Yes. Now stop trying to feed your inferiority complex by pointing out how hypocritical you think everybody is.
Because for a lot of people, it IS magic. Seriously, people consider a computer to be like magic already. And that's just some code doing fairly predictable things with electronics. Now picture these same people exposed to quantum tunneling, spooky action at a distance and wave-particle duality.
I'd say that I'm surprised that there isn't a religion based on quantum mechanical terminology.
You're right. Sometimes I think that Slashdot will be the death of any good writing habits I ever had. Then again, I also get immediate corrections and criticism. :)
Why are you not complaining now that the current administration is putting us further and faster in debt than the last administration?
Because I realize that an economy grinding to a complete halt now is worse than a debt problem 30 years down the line (when the treasuries mature)?
Which tea party were you at?
Mine. No, you were not invited. Or are you implying that the only ones that count are the ones you know about?
So what would you have him say? The American character is to follow? Granted, that may be closer to the truth, but really?
Is there any place in this country for politicians who don't say only what everyone agrees with (down with pedophiles!)? Or heck, where just on one occasion, the other team does something that will not be labeled as evil just because it's the other team?
It's basic economics. There's no profit to be made from the Manhattan project or the LHC (at least none in the foreseeable future). Ergo, corporations will not invest in projects like them. Why do you think that IBM and ATT scuttled their pure research arms?
How was the Manhattan project cost-efficient? If it would have been, the private sector would have done it.
Private industry can be expected to do one thing well: look out for its bottom-line. This is great for material sciences and symptom-treating drugs, all things that can be expected to contribute to the bottom line in the foreseeable future. But it is absolute crap for fundamental research, where you're constantly chasing after what-ifs and weird events. In those cases, you have no idea what is a red herring, a dead end or the next E=MC^2. This is something that only government will fund, and therefore should fund.
What about reducing spending? I hear that the budgets for the DoD, Social Security and Medicaid could use a little trimming.
I hope more people read this. A fighter plane escort means two things:
- the authorities know the plane is there
- the decision to shoot it down has not been taken
All of this means in turn that the situation is considered to be under control.
I'm worried when I hear fighter jets screaming above my head at full after-burner - it means they're in a hurry. I'm worried when I see a lone jet plane on a path that is clearly not a regular flight path - it means it either is in trouble, or trying to get into trouble.
But a jet escorted by a fighter plane is not part of any of those scenarios. Unless someone completely fucks up, and then we're right back into the territory of paranoia and irrational risk assessment.
Yes, but you know that the odds of something actually going down is very low. A big contingent of police is always there for intimidation. If they're there for an actual problem, you'd be aware of it long before you reach that point.
As a rule of thumb, flights of the two presidential planes aren't advertised very much. But it might have been useful in this particular case.
Why the hell is this modded troll? It's the fucking truth. A low-flying plane is not a problem, it happens all the time. A low-flying plane, escorted by a fighter, is not one either.
And for those who panic at the sight of a low-flying jet - I suggest moving out of a major city into the boonies. Otherwise, you're not going to lead anything remotely resembling a productive life.
Well, that would make the Zeebo $80 pretax. That's actually a much better deal than I initially thought, and much more inline with what I thought it would have to cost.
Let's see - an XBox Arcade costs $200 and has pretty much everything the Zeebo has, minus built-in wireless. I fail to see what market they're going for...
Now if that console would be $50, maybe $75, they'd have a shot at getting into the middle-class market in emerging economies. And considering the hardware involved, I don't see how it would be that hard to get there.