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Comment Re:Update cycles (Score 1) 391

But I don't see why I have to buy everything at once?

Because some thing don't upgrade well individually.

Say you want a new processor. Unfortunately, that sometimes requires a new mainboard, and new RAM. The new mainboard might require a new power supply, and since the old PC case doesn't have front-panel USB 3.0 connectors, you're getting a new case, too.

While you're at it, you might as well upgrade your video card and hard drives, and at that point you've ended up with an almost completely new PC.

Comment Most accident scenarios ... (Score 1) 133

... unfortunately only regard one major failure (e.g. main coolant feeding line failure), with other failures (e.g. one emergency generator fails) covered by redundancies.

This might work for technical breakdowns, but not for external events. ("All coolant pumps and emergency generators fail - because the whole power plant compound is under three meters of water.").

Comment Bloat vs. clutter. (Score 1) 322

space shows how bad the bloat has gotten.

You have a point. Lets put it this way: I don't really care if the OS eats up 5 MB or 50 GB of my hard drive as space is cheap these days. I do mind, however, if the OS or the software it is bundled with is annoying, obtrusive, obnoxious, useless, superfluous, unnecessary or outdated and makes me spend time to get rid of it.

Comment Re:cause and/or those responsible (Score 1) 667

Certainly the government admitted to shooting down the plane.

Admission, in a legal sense, usually implies not only admitting the facts, but also that there was an error or wrongdoing by the party doing the admitting.

And this has not happened.

Its also really hard for the US to offer an apology to Iran

Oh, um, yeah. Maybe they could offer an apology to the relatives of the people that got killed? Most, if not all of them, never took any hostages in any embassy. Some of them weren't even Iranians.

Nobody can say the US didn't admit to shooting down the airbus, and the US government did offer up an explanation.

And that isn't an "admission" in a legal sense - since they give themselves an acquittal in the same paragraph.

People may not like the explanation, or agree with it, but at least the US stood up for its actions.

If you call giving yourself a complete acquittal "standing up to your actions", yes.

Comment Re:cause and/or those responsible (Score 1) 667

Bullshit.

What you're quoting isn't an apology or an acknogledgment of wrongdoing.

"The U.S. government deeply regrets this incident,"

To feel regret over something isn't the same as apologizing for it. You can feel sorry (i.e. feel regret) if a relative of your friend dies. That doesn't mean that you were involved in any way in the death of that relative.

Comment Re:I don't see the problem. (Score 1) 667

Unfortunately, they were not trained in distinguishing civilian from military planes.

As someone else stated, the system should be doing this automatically, and you need to override this safety to fire on planes with civilian transponders.

I hope this safety is more than a pop-up window:

Target is civilian. Fire anyway? yes/no/cancel

Comment Re:I don't see the problem. (Score 1) 667

It takes a conscious effort and training in advanced operation of the Gadfly to disable the civilian IFF safety of a Gadfly system,

And you're sure there isn't an unofficial (maybe even unwritten) checklist with things to do if the missile doesn't launch, that, somewhere close to the bottom of the list, contains the point "Try disabling the IFF decoder."?

They managed to blow up a nuclear reactor by doing things they shouldn't have been doing while trying to make it work a certain way ...

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