Sounds perfect for Slashdot!

You should try reading more, rather than aborting the first time something doesn't match your armchair-commander factoids.

There is always a risk of civilian air traffic in war zones, usually on a flight path to "get the hell out". Such flights are closely monitored, but they're still a concern for patrols. There's also noncombatant humanitarian aid, neutral observers, and allied flights that don't always communicate properly. Even though outside traffic is routed around combat areas, pilots still need to be aware of every friend and foe in the area.

...and until humans are entirely out of the war, automatic detection will not work as flawlessly as you seem to think. Humans are responsible for maintaining and turning on the identification transponders, humans are responsible for programming the computers, and humans are responsible for all of the nuance of political situations. Even if we assume the computer's programmed correctly, that's not much help if the threat's identifier is malfunctioning. Would a computer of current technology recognize that a plane making a 120-degree turn could be trying to signal for help? It's not a common signal, but as a last-hope effort to identify yourself, it's an option. A human pilot could observe that the threat is making no aggressive motions, know the relative comparison between the two aircraft, any other threats or targets in the area, and choose to cautiously stay distant while watching to see if the pilot makes more 120-degree turns. That kind of decision requires a situational awareness that computers do not currently offer, nor have I seen any indication that upcoming technology will support it.

Those shot down in friendly-fire accidents would likely disagree. Even in a war zone, there's other friendly and civilian aircraft in the skies.

Modern air combat is very different from the dancing dogfights of the World Wars. Nowadays pilots first rely on electronic identification (radar and radio signatures), visual identification, and tactical analysis. That last point is something computers are terrible at, and not particularly promising for the near future. A human pilot can be told in a briefing what new tactics an enemy is using, while a computer will require a more time-costly reconfiguration, at best. While identifying a potential enemy, pilots rely heavily on the as-yet-unsurpassed signal processing capacity of a device known as a "human brain", to determine whether a particular observation is just sensor noise or actually something meaningful. When a mistake costs lives, knowing what's a useful identifier is crucial, and computers just aren't flexible enough for that yet.

Once an identification is made, the fighter can deploy weapons, adjust speed, and maneuver around, while still outside the range of enemy fighters. By the time the enemy even knows he's been spotted, missiles are locked and inbound. Countermeasures have a chance of confusing the missile, but counter-countermeasures reduce that chance, especially when paired with the fighter's sensor suite, now observing from a different angle. If a modern air fight requires extreme maneuverability or multiple attack runs, something has gone horribly wrong.

That's why we use nukes all the time now, right?

The entire plane is modular, upgradeable, and works mostly the same across all three variants. The biggest benefit to the F-35 is that large portions of the training, documentation, and maintenance materials can be shared by all users of the plane, significantly reducing operating the expense to run a fleet.

TFA is really just whining about the fact that this plane took 15 years to develop, and the Pentagon's purchasing process doesn't allow revisions until after delivery. Highlighting a component that's now obsolete just makes a good headline.

TFA answers your question:

I've worked for defense projects, and this is accurate. Once the Pentagon approves a design, the "delivery" phase has to happen before the "revise" phase. The only exception is if the government wants to change requirements, but that puts the bad PR on politicians, rather than on the contractor.

The F-35 doesn't hit initial operating capacity (IOC) until mid-2015, at which point the military will actually start flying the plane, and report back with deficiencies (like outdated avionics) to be fixed. Yes, it comes at a price, as several hundred planes have been built to the original specs, but Congress accepts that cost to keep up the charade that their IOC requirements were reasonable.

Not really. The F-35 airframe is mostly just a shell around the modular components, which already come from many different companies. The reason switching vendors doesn't often happen is the same as in any other manufacturing project. There's a significant retooling expense while a new supplier familiarizes themselves with the platform and interfaces, even though they are usually standardized and government-specified.

None of that really matters. A computer isn't trusted to make judgement calls like a human, and the military still likes having pilots making tactical decisions while they're out in the battlefield, with a full awareness of the reality that they're raining death on other people. That's why the Air Force still wants humans in the cockpit, preferring drones only for recon and very limited air strikes.

Any concerns about an EMP are moot. All electronics are shielded, regardless of the nature of the pilot.

is the number of Astroturfer comments. I'd like to see some effort made to find and eliminate them.

because most of the games that came with the consoles were digital copies. This was done because digital copies are cheaper (no disc pressing, and yes, at these volumes it's an expense worth talking about) and there's not second hand market depressing the price of the physical copies in store. Having a pack in game basically tanks the value of the game at retail because of how the used market works.

make movies look like they were shot on a daytime TV cam to me. I saw Braveheart on one of those modern tvs and I suppose the lighting was more natural, but it was considerably less dramatic. It just killed it for me. Also (and this is mostly just me) I can perceive noticeable drops in framerate on those newer tvs. The rate goes up and down like crazy. Drives me nuts.

Do you have some evidence of this claim?

This study indicates otherwise. Rather than showing an increase in vehicle damage, there was an observed decrease in reports of inappropriate behavior.

You say that like the groups are separate.

Obama's aligned with the typically-liberal Democrat party. Liberals tend to believe that one of the government's jobs is to make things better for the jobless, the disenfranchised, the dispossessed, the poor, the hungry, and the downtrodden, so he's pushed programs that aim to help such folks.

Of course, that's countered by the Republican conservatives, who tend to believe that everyone can make their own fate, so those programs are forced to be either opt-in or neutered. If you want to rebel against the government's control, you have that freedom to forge your own way in life.

The end result is a system where assistance is tied to one's embrace of government. Sure, one can stay independent, but that's likely how he got to be jobless, disenfranchised, dispossessed, poor, hungry, and/or downtrodden in the first place.

How so? The "No True Scotsman" fallacy doesn't apply. You know, people _can_ lie and misrepresent themselves. It can happen in the real world. And you don't get to just yell "No True Scotsman" to make it go away. The hilarious thing is you're actually quoting a fallacy that doesn't apply to misdirect the conversation away from the dirty little secret: that socialism works; and that the overwhelming weight of evidence is that it's alternatives do not.

It's the old "No True Scottsman" argument. At any rate what you're describing is called _communism_. You can have socialism (large scale involvement by a central power in the well being of the common man along with wealth distribution) and still have ownership. You just don't allow ownership to become power at the expense of people's well being. As soon as you do that you've just crossed over to socialism.

businesses flock to Canada because their socialized medicine is so much cheaper than America's employer based system. Germany's Unionized car manufacturing is the envy of the world. Meanwhile the UK, who implemented American style policies under Thacher, has been in a nose dive for decades. Where in the world have you been?

When they come asking what we spent all their money on we'll just say: "All these Bombs and missiles..."

and the only real navy in the worlds. Our military can defend our country against anything, and we can pretty much seize anything we want. China isn't a credible threat. We still have more than enough nukes to make the world uninhabitable and any time we stop feeding their population they collapse...