It seems that one could possibly convince people to invest in purchasing this site and allowing it to be run by a community oversight committee of sorts though the funding parties would certainly want some control and veto power (as well as explicit ownership) and could probably run nothing but text based ads assuming we cheap bastards actually clicked on the ones that we found interesting. I suspect there would be some sort of no-compete but a jobs-offering (that is not abused and is realistic) alongside this would be awesome. We could even tie it in with custom profiles that offered freelance services and such. Hell, I would risk something for the potential on that. Assuming, of course, we would start clicking and buying stuff from ads. I suck - I do not even *see* ads here. Hell, I have to go through a bunch of steps just to get the JS to work.
By my count they are on their 87th chance. I have seen pissed at every change, even some that were imagined. I have yet to actually notice anyone leaving that said they were going to. I am sure some have - I do visit Soylent too, but I have not noticed any that do not also post here or they must use different IDs over there.
That is about on par. I paid for a CO (box on the side the road) and three miles of line (a neighbor added another mile and paid 2k IIRC) and my total bill was 30k and it included an extra (almost) half mile up the driveway.
LOL I was there in '88 or so. I left in '90 to go play nice with the UN and help security in what was left of Yugoslavia. At OCS, I was on the other side as an E5 - 3505 and I have no recollection what the color of the bathroom tiles were on the other side though I did get to traipse through once in a while. One gets to meander about a bit in motor pool. I have the utmost respect of officers, really - I do. I am not even chuckling when I type this. Their training is 10x worse than mine was. I used to like to stand outside graduation and make 'em salute me and collect my shiny half-dollar. I assume that tradition is still alive? Anyhow, my first bout of insanity was an 0311 (the entire time, thanks) from '77 to '81. I spent most of my time drinking and all in relative security. The reason for my return was some more of that GI Bill loving. I was reasonably well behaved, a bit of an alcoholic by then, but I was not misbehaved.
They had plenty of room at OCS while I was there. It was also rather beneficial to be the guy with the keys when you folks were out bivouacking. Yes, I had to spell-check that. Anyhow, being the guy who was able to get out and get beer was very useful and I met some interesting folks. Chances are very good you know some of them. The Marines have expanded a lot but not that much so as you would not know any of them. You ever get out to Tun's to go to a get-together?
I get a little tired of there is no such thing as an ex-Marine or former Marine (except DD) and the horah stuff. I managed to get my head squared away and have happily had an excellent life since. I still have pride but, honestly, I am far less a cheerleader today. I suppose it is theoretically possible to throw enough grunts at a nuke before it has the chance to explode but, well, that is kind of the reason I am not a cheerleader too. I am not sure how much sense that makes. Meh... Maybe you get it.
It was a long time ago so my memory is fuzzy but I think we actually had one at my school. I seem to recall that they took the rock back and gave us a tree. I was in high school as I recall. This would have been... 1970ish to 1974ish... I had discovered the joys of marijuana and attending a school where that was not expected so not searched for or the likes. Point is, my memory is very fuzzy but I could have sworn we had one. It was in the Astronomy section. My school had (still does) an observatory.
Thank you. I watch too many documentaries. Those who would use a nuke for this are not going to blow the object up - they are going to blow up near it so that they change the orbit. At least that is how I understand it.
This is not true. This is true for large companies, maybe. I owned a company, we eventually had offices in Florida, North Carolina, and California and two sub-offices (not full scale, was not needed - employees would go there for contracts) in Indiana and New Mexico. The unofficial company slogan was to treat everyone how you wanted to be treated. We did not abuse, overworks, or treat anyone unkind. Promotions to management staff was done from within, exclusively, to ensure the dynamics remained the same and were the same across the board. In the entire history of the company, while I owned it, we fired three people, laid off nobody, had less than a dozen move off to new employment, had a handful that went on to become mothers and did not return after their child was born, and had two people retire. As I said, this may be true for large companies. We had slightly fewer than 200 people when I sold the business. The company continues to run as its own separate entity within a much larger corporation. I understand it is much the same though there is less flexibility than there used to be.
You do not have to personally need it for it to be innovation. But, to be honest, I am not sure a different keyboard language layout is all that innovative but the point remains the same - your personal needs do not determine innovation.
I used to use a small regional carrier. They have been buying up other small regional carriers and are not so small any more. My service quality has lessened since this has started happening. They seem to have slowed down now. I am now able to go most places without incurring the wrath of National Roaming Fees but nation-wide service is now included in my plan...
I was pondering this after I posted. Wars might be fought with machines if the enemy is not also fielding machines. Otherwise, if they are, what is the point of machines destroying each other? I suppose it is as nonsensical as humans killing each other but, we are humans, it is what we do.
I returned to the top to point out that this is a novella. I do not think it is an uninteresting novella. If one is curious then it may well be worth reading. I can think of no TL;DR version except maybe, "Pipe Dream."
Do they make a combat flight simulator that is as accurate as the regular flight simulators? If so then someone should make a drone and have them fly missions in that game. I have no idea if they make combat flight simulators in the same level of quality that they make the regular ones. I do know, from watching - I have not played one in many years, that they make some very fantastically real simulations that require a whole bunch of complexity to play. From what I have witnessed (I am not certain) you can change the complexity and have many of the tasks go unautomated (Is that even a word? Spell check seems to indicate that it is not.) in the simulation. It would actually be kind of neat to learn one. A combat aircraft would be even more entertaining, to me. I would love to try refueling with the basket system or with the nozzle.
It would be awesome to first-person the whole HOTAS of an F-18 carrier launch! It would be neat to be on a scheduled mission and then get a broken arrow and have to manage fuel (and drop tanks) while avoiding AAA and an equivalent enemy plane. I think I would learn a lot. It would be even more impressive if these tied into history as well as being open enough to allow the fantastic. Even more entertaining might be an open engine that enables users to create maps, missions, enemies, and aircraft - like TSR taken to the next level. I think it may even work as a full fledged online game - even better if people can opt to play as things other than pilots. I imagine the size and compute power make this a rather advanced proposition though.
Hmm... Some sort of chair - with touch screens in the appropriate places so the "pilot" could actually change switches, have a peripheral view, and (of course) a variety of hydraulics to move the chair. Pedals and stick, as well as a steering wheel, should be included. A helmet that functions much like a real pilot's helmet would be nice. I see no need for the G-suit. Of course this should also allow, be open enough for, peaceful missions such as a regular flight simulator would offer.
This would be expensive, obviously, but I suspect it would be less expensive than we might think. It is not a full blown flight sim but is close enough. The price of these types of components has dropped a great deal. Online processing of some of the data may help but compute power is definitely an issue but I think we have computers, in homes, that could likely handle this well enough. Being open, but not free as in cost, would be ideal - perhaps the money can be made with the hardware and online access though provisioning the capacity to run one's own server should be there. I suppose that could be charged for as well as charging for hosted "worlds." Each hosted world could be professionally designed as well as allowing teams or persons to roll their own. It could be rolled into a giant sim that was able to allow one to game many aspects of a war environment. There could even be simultaneous ground actions taking place that impact the overall game results. Those rolls can be entirely or partially fulfilled by a player or a computer as could various aircraft as needed to complete the scenario.
I would buy into a game like that. I would even buy a copy (and likely the equipment) for a game like that. If someone has the chops and wants to seriously explore this then I would certainly be approachable for *some* financial backing (I suspect it would cost more to develop than I will ever be able to afford - even if I sell all my worldly goods and my ex-wife.) and I know a few others who may invest in something like that. This is not where I was originally intending this post to go but it seems that my head has decided that is where it should go. Seriously, open source the game and the engine and allow people to build on it. It should be un
I wish I had scrolled down a bit and read your post. I would have linked to it. There is nothing glorious or rewarding about killing people. Those who think combatants are typically desensitized to the enemy do not know better. Combatants often have empathy for one another. Harming someone who is there to do a job, just like you, is not something you look forward to. The cliché about not talking about it because they won't understand is bullshit. Humans are smart. They can understand. I have found it goes undiscussed because you do not want them to understand or you do not want to have a greater understanding of it yourself. I do recommend talking about it with an SO and, as importantly, a therapist. The therapist needn't be licensed. A chaplain is good - even if you are an atheist. A friend who was there, has been in similar, or just has a good ability to listen and to keep your information private is also a good option. Discussing it drunk is never a good idea.
The archivist at an un-named museum took film that I had (oddly, also of Korea) and restored it and put it in on DVD. They also returned the original film.
I do not discuss it much but I was unfortunate enough to be in combat (Marine, twice - I had to pay for school somehow) and I did not take any pictures during it. I did take some afterwards. They were carefully taken and are not gore but I still do not show them to people normally. I can not imagine being a combat photographer - I have the utmost respect for them, almost as much as I have for a corpsman. In the Marines they are, at least, all riflemen. Anyhow, no, I did not kill anyone during combat or anything like that, at least I do not believe I did... The movies it is not - nor is it the range. I had no exact idea of where my rounds were going to end up. I sure as hell was not sticking my head out to sight in either.
Another interesting tidbit... You may not like this? No, I did not fire my weapon on your behalf. Nobody did. We do not care about you or your freedom. I fired my weapon because the Marine next to me was firing his - it was for him that I was willing to kill or die. It is laughable that folks (the patriotic ones with the yellow ribbons on their SUV) thank me (and others) for fighting on their behalf. You kind of chuckle and smile. It is not worth the effort to explain it to them and they would not understand even if you did.
Do not get me wrong, I am proud of my service. Had I been in a position to kill I would have done so. I would have regretted it. Maybe I did harm someone? I will never know but I am really good at telling myself that I did not. Either way, this is about as much detail as I get into. It should be obvious why - I would rather not think about much/all of it and would really like to not know some things. The biggest thing I can say is that it is not like the movies. The other is that it is a farce, I think, when people say you can not understand if you were not there. No, I can communicate it well enough. You can understand. However, chances are good that you do not want to.
To tie this up, sometimes I wish footage was available. We did not have cell phones then but many of us had cameras. There was no combat photographer present. Other times I am glad that there was no video made. I do not want to see that shit. Obviously I flip-flop on this. I suspect this is why none of the WWII or Korean vets watched the documentaries. I do not know of many normal Viet Nam vets that watch movies or documentaries either. (I do know two that dwell on the documentaries and watch movies where they complain about how they are inaccurate. Then they get more drunk and sometimes agitated. They are not normal.)
Technical difficulties dropped the drone. They will look into that. The pilot will be black bagged, stuffed into an ammo box, and dropped out of a C-130 over the South Pacific. "No, ma'am, your son disappeared and we have no idea where to find him, sometimes kids just run away. He will probably turn up though."
You do know that the people in physical combat are there for *days* at a time sometimes, yes? As in days - no sleep. No drugs to keep you awake. No smoking (most of the time). No relief until it gets there. No promotions either, no general comes stomping down to pin a medal on your chest three days later either. (Such does happen, it is just not the norm.) At worst you get to spend a few sleepless, dangerous, days functioning as platoon leader because your SSgt is dead, you do not get to keep that rank. You do not even respawn. Never mind the noise or smells.
I can't believe any other part of the military would push people in combat arms that hard with so little chance of academic breaks or promotion opportunities. Especially promotions.
That is what I am addressing. No academic breaks or promotional opportunities really. You might, if you are lucky and alive, come out an E4. You might. Any academic time is spent gearing up for your potential next conflict, upgrading your education for your MOS, weapons training, and additional education in H2H combat training.
I get a kick out of people who think that wars will be fought with machines battling against one another. That would be dumb. In fact, it is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard anyone espouse and mean it. No, wars will involve dead people. Destroying some machine does not have the same value. Somebody is going to skip destroying the machine so that they can kill the operators, designers, or builders.
It is funny that you say that when you have never fired at anyone in any situation. What makes you think you will have no problem with it? Are we supposed to believe you are somehow "tougher" than these folks?
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It seems that one could possibly convince people to invest in purchasing this site and allowing it to be run by a community oversight committee of sorts though the funding parties would certainly want some control and veto power (as well as explicit ownership) and could probably run nothing but text based ads assuming we cheap bastards actually clicked on the ones that we found interesting. I suspect there would be some sort of no-compete but a jobs-offering (that is not abused and is realistic) alongside this would be awesome. We could even tie it in with custom profiles that offered freelance services and such. Hell, I would risk something for the potential on that. Assuming, of course, we would start clicking and buying stuff from ads. I suck - I do not even *see* ads here. Hell, I have to go through a bunch of steps just to get the JS to work.
By my count they are on their 87th chance. I have seen pissed at every change, even some that were imagined. I have yet to actually notice anyone leaving that said they were going to. I am sure some have - I do visit Soylent too, but I have not noticed any that do not also post here or they must use different IDs over there.
That is about on par. I paid for a CO (box on the side the road) and three miles of line (a neighbor added another mile and paid 2k IIRC) and my total bill was 30k and it included an extra (almost) half mile up the driveway.
LOL I was there in '88 or so. I left in '90 to go play nice with the UN and help security in what was left of Yugoslavia. At OCS, I was on the other side as an E5 - 3505 and I have no recollection what the color of the bathroom tiles were on the other side though I did get to traipse through once in a while. One gets to meander about a bit in motor pool. I have the utmost respect of officers, really - I do. I am not even chuckling when I type this. Their training is 10x worse than mine was. I used to like to stand outside graduation and make 'em salute me and collect my shiny half-dollar. I assume that tradition is still alive? Anyhow, my first bout of insanity was an 0311 (the entire time, thanks) from '77 to '81. I spent most of my time drinking and all in relative security. The reason for my return was some more of that GI Bill loving. I was reasonably well behaved, a bit of an alcoholic by then, but I was not misbehaved.
They had plenty of room at OCS while I was there. It was also rather beneficial to be the guy with the keys when you folks were out bivouacking. Yes, I had to spell-check that. Anyhow, being the guy who was able to get out and get beer was very useful and I met some interesting folks. Chances are very good you know some of them. The Marines have expanded a lot but not that much so as you would not know any of them. You ever get out to Tun's to go to a get-together?
I get a little tired of there is no such thing as an ex-Marine or former Marine (except DD) and the horah stuff. I managed to get my head squared away and have happily had an excellent life since. I still have pride but, honestly, I am far less a cheerleader today. I suppose it is theoretically possible to throw enough grunts at a nuke before it has the chance to explode but, well, that is kind of the reason I am not a cheerleader too. I am not sure how much sense that makes. Meh... Maybe you get it.
It was a long time ago so my memory is fuzzy but I think we actually had one at my school. I seem to recall that they took the rock back and gave us a tree. I was in high school as I recall. This would have been... 1970ish to 1974ish... I had discovered the joys of marijuana and attending a school where that was not expected so not searched for or the likes. Point is, my memory is very fuzzy but I could have sworn we had one. It was in the Astronomy section. My school had (still does) an observatory.
His brain was easy to find. It was all over the car, in his wife's hand, and some left in his skull. You do not think we saved it, do you?
Tinfoil hat posts go to the top of the page. Moderate tech goes in the middle. Serious discussion goes at the bottom.
Thank you. I watch too many documentaries. Those who would use a nuke for this are not going to blow the object up - they are going to blow up near it so that they change the orbit. At least that is how I understand it.
This is not true. This is true for large companies, maybe. I owned a company, we eventually had offices in Florida, North Carolina, and California and two sub-offices (not full scale, was not needed - employees would go there for contracts) in Indiana and New Mexico. The unofficial company slogan was to treat everyone how you wanted to be treated. We did not abuse, overworks, or treat anyone unkind. Promotions to management staff was done from within, exclusively, to ensure the dynamics remained the same and were the same across the board. In the entire history of the company, while I owned it, we fired three people, laid off nobody, had less than a dozen move off to new employment, had a handful that went on to become mothers and did not return after their child was born, and had two people retire. As I said, this may be true for large companies. We had slightly fewer than 200 people when I sold the business. The company continues to run as its own separate entity within a much larger corporation. I understand it is much the same though there is less flexibility than there used to be.
AC or not... If it was told to you in confidence, why are you sharing it?
You do not have to personally need it for it to be innovation. But, to be honest, I am not sure a different keyboard language layout is all that innovative but the point remains the same - your personal needs do not determine innovation.
I used to use a small regional carrier. They have been buying up other small regional carriers and are not so small any more. My service quality has lessened since this has started happening. They seem to have slowed down now. I am now able to go most places without incurring the wrath of National Roaming Fees but nation-wide service is now included in my plan...
I was pondering this after I posted. Wars might be fought with machines if the enemy is not also fielding machines. Otherwise, if they are, what is the point of machines destroying each other? I suppose it is as nonsensical as humans killing each other but, we are humans, it is what we do.
I returned to the top to point out that this is a novella. I do not think it is an uninteresting novella. If one is curious then it may well be worth reading. I can think of no TL;DR version except maybe, "Pipe Dream."
Do they make a combat flight simulator that is as accurate as the regular flight simulators? If so then someone should make a drone and have them fly missions in that game. I have no idea if they make combat flight simulators in the same level of quality that they make the regular ones. I do know, from watching - I have not played one in many years, that they make some very fantastically real simulations that require a whole bunch of complexity to play. From what I have witnessed (I am not certain) you can change the complexity and have many of the tasks go unautomated (Is that even a word? Spell check seems to indicate that it is not.) in the simulation. It would actually be kind of neat to learn one. A combat aircraft would be even more entertaining, to me. I would love to try refueling with the basket system or with the nozzle.
It would be awesome to first-person the whole HOTAS of an F-18 carrier launch! It would be neat to be on a scheduled mission and then get a broken arrow and have to manage fuel (and drop tanks) while avoiding AAA and an equivalent enemy plane. I think I would learn a lot. It would be even more impressive if these tied into history as well as being open enough to allow the fantastic. Even more entertaining might be an open engine that enables users to create maps, missions, enemies, and aircraft - like TSR taken to the next level. I think it may even work as a full fledged online game - even better if people can opt to play as things other than pilots. I imagine the size and compute power make this a rather advanced proposition though.
Hmm... Some sort of chair - with touch screens in the appropriate places so the "pilot" could actually change switches, have a peripheral view, and (of course) a variety of hydraulics to move the chair. Pedals and stick, as well as a steering wheel, should be included. A helmet that functions much like a real pilot's helmet would be nice. I see no need for the G-suit. Of course this should also allow, be open enough for, peaceful missions such as a regular flight simulator would offer.
This would be expensive, obviously, but I suspect it would be less expensive than we might think. It is not a full blown flight sim but is close enough. The price of these types of components has dropped a great deal. Online processing of some of the data may help but compute power is definitely an issue but I think we have computers, in homes, that could likely handle this well enough. Being open, but not free as in cost, would be ideal - perhaps the money can be made with the hardware and online access though provisioning the capacity to run one's own server should be there. I suppose that could be charged for as well as charging for hosted "worlds." Each hosted world could be professionally designed as well as allowing teams or persons to roll their own. It could be rolled into a giant sim that was able to allow one to game many aspects of a war environment. There could even be simultaneous ground actions taking place that impact the overall game results. Those rolls can be entirely or partially fulfilled by a player or a computer as could various aircraft as needed to complete the scenario.
I would buy into a game like that. I would even buy a copy (and likely the equipment) for a game like that. If someone has the chops and wants to seriously explore this then I would certainly be approachable for *some* financial backing (I suspect it would cost more to develop than I will ever be able to afford - even if I sell all my worldly goods and my ex-wife.) and I know a few others who may invest in something like that. This is not where I was originally intending this post to go but it seems that my head has decided that is where it should go. Seriously, open source the game and the engine and allow people to build on it. It should be un
I wish I had scrolled down a bit and read your post. I would have linked to it. There is nothing glorious or rewarding about killing people. Those who think combatants are typically desensitized to the enemy do not know better. Combatants often have empathy for one another. Harming someone who is there to do a job, just like you, is not something you look forward to. The cliché about not talking about it because they won't understand is bullshit. Humans are smart. They can understand. I have found it goes undiscussed because you do not want them to understand or you do not want to have a greater understanding of it yourself. I do recommend talking about it with an SO and, as importantly, a therapist. The therapist needn't be licensed. A chaplain is good - even if you are an atheist. A friend who was there, has been in similar, or just has a good ability to listen and to keep your information private is also a good option. Discussing it drunk is never a good idea.
The archivist at an un-named museum took film that I had (oddly, also of Korea) and restored it and put it in on DVD. They also returned the original film.
I do not discuss it much but I was unfortunate enough to be in combat (Marine, twice - I had to pay for school somehow) and I did not take any pictures during it. I did take some afterwards. They were carefully taken and are not gore but I still do not show them to people normally. I can not imagine being a combat photographer - I have the utmost respect for them, almost as much as I have for a corpsman. In the Marines they are, at least, all riflemen. Anyhow, no, I did not kill anyone during combat or anything like that, at least I do not believe I did... The movies it is not - nor is it the range. I had no exact idea of where my rounds were going to end up. I sure as hell was not sticking my head out to sight in either.
Another interesting tidbit... You may not like this? No, I did not fire my weapon on your behalf. Nobody did. We do not care about you or your freedom. I fired my weapon because the Marine next to me was firing his - it was for him that I was willing to kill or die. It is laughable that folks (the patriotic ones with the yellow ribbons on their SUV) thank me (and others) for fighting on their behalf. You kind of chuckle and smile. It is not worth the effort to explain it to them and they would not understand even if you did.
Do not get me wrong, I am proud of my service. Had I been in a position to kill I would have done so. I would have regretted it. Maybe I did harm someone? I will never know but I am really good at telling myself that I did not. Either way, this is about as much detail as I get into. It should be obvious why - I would rather not think about much/all of it and would really like to not know some things. The biggest thing I can say is that it is not like the movies. The other is that it is a farce, I think, when people say you can not understand if you were not there. No, I can communicate it well enough. You can understand. However, chances are good that you do not want to.
To tie this up, sometimes I wish footage was available. We did not have cell phones then but many of us had cameras. There was no combat photographer present. Other times I am glad that there was no video made. I do not want to see that shit. Obviously I flip-flop on this. I suspect this is why none of the WWII or Korean vets watched the documentaries. I do not know of many normal Viet Nam vets that watch movies or documentaries either. (I do know two that dwell on the documentaries and watch movies where they complain about how they are inaccurate. Then they get more drunk and sometimes agitated. They are not normal.)
0311 and 3505 respectively.
Technical difficulties dropped the drone. They will look into that. The pilot will be black bagged, stuffed into an ammo box, and dropped out of a C-130 over the South Pacific. "No, ma'am, your son disappeared and we have no idea where to find him, sometimes kids just run away. He will probably turn up though."
You do know that the people in physical combat are there for *days* at a time sometimes, yes? As in days - no sleep. No drugs to keep you awake. No smoking (most of the time). No relief until it gets there. No promotions either, no general comes stomping down to pin a medal on your chest three days later either. (Such does happen, it is just not the norm.) At worst you get to spend a few sleepless, dangerous, days functioning as platoon leader because your SSgt is dead, you do not get to keep that rank. You do not even respawn. Never mind the noise or smells.
I can't believe any other part of the military would push people in combat arms that hard with so little chance of academic breaks or promotion opportunities. Especially promotions.
That is what I am addressing. No academic breaks or promotional opportunities really. You might, if you are lucky and alive, come out an E4. You might. Any academic time is spent gearing up for your potential next conflict, upgrading your education for your MOS, weapons training, and additional education in H2H combat training.
I get a kick out of people who think that wars will be fought with machines battling against one another. That would be dumb. In fact, it is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard anyone espouse and mean it. No, wars will involve dead people. Destroying some machine does not have the same value. Somebody is going to skip destroying the machine so that they can kill the operators, designers, or builders.
What color are the head's floor tiles in the candidates barracks at OCS?
It is funny that you say that when you have never fired at anyone in any situation. What makes you think you will have no problem with it? Are we supposed to believe you are somehow "tougher" than these folks?
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
I am not proud. Low hanging fruit and all. (Added for whitespace.)
They want 200 million, they are claimed to be worth 2 billion. They are not, of course, trying to get 2b dollars.
I had to look. 1988 Democratic National Convention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
See the History section.
You just do not know who the machines are.