Maybe this guy was researching a novel.
Tom Clancy got pulled in the the US gov't after he published the Hunt for Red October because some of what Clancy had gleaned from unclassified sources made the gov't nervous. Clancy told them where he got the data and to f*ck off...
>They sure as hell aren't worth thousands of dollars.
Spoken like someone who has not crawled on their hands and knees for years to master a musical instrument (or voice) and create a unique sound...
Don't punish the artists because the music industry is stupid, hidebound, and greedy: give the artists their due, for Gods' sake!
Coolest Mars Probe Ever is now enroute: Mars Space Laboratory
It has, like, lasers and neutron beams, dude!!!
That could only happen if Schroedinger's cat was and was not dead.
We've always been at war with Eastasia...
Circular Error Probability (CEP, also circular error probable, circle of equal probability)
"It is defined as a circle, centered about the mean, whose boundary is expected to include 50% of the population within it."
Basically, the size of the circle around the target inside which your shots land. The smaller, the better.
Actually, Marshall jumped Eisenhower to the top because Eisenhower impressed the hell out of Marshall during 1941 war games in Louisiana when a lot of the show was a mess from career Regular Army clowns screwing up. Eisenhower got a lot of stuff done right despite the chaos and systemic cluster-fucks.
Marshall ruthlessly cleaned house after the mess and Eisenhower got jumped over a lot of RA types. People were pissed, but it kind of worked out OK, didn't it.
>The Cold War arose because of the Russian fear of the nuclear-armed US
Um, OK, but let's not forget that it also arose because the USSR wanted to keep all the land it could after Germany fell over, and was pretty nasty about how they kept it. Go look into how they never pulled back to the agreed-upon demarcation lines (Elbe River) in 1945 and how they grabbed Czechoslovakia in 1948 (can you say "defenestration"?) and a few other countries along the way.
I'm pretty far to the left, but let's not be naive here...
The other problem is that so many think that documentation is unnecessary. And if it is done at all, 80% of the time it's slapdash at the last minute and often after the developers are gone.
How do I know? I started as a software engineer and have been writing tech docs for over 20 years. I can't tell you how many times all I had was a design spec (un-updated since the start of the project), the final product, and nowhere near enough time to document a huge product.
Don't blame me if your tech docs suck. I keep getting laid off or harassed out when I try to do it right (it costs money and time, and they don't like that).
PS If you want to find out the TRUTH about your HW and SW products, read all the appendices at the rear of the doc. That's where we wily old pros stick the data you need but that marketing, development, etc don't want you to know.
>Why is the CIA attacking anything?
Because George the First, as CIA head, decided to save money by cutting out pretty much all HUMINT in favor of cheaper ELINT, so we lost almost ANYbody on the ground in the Middle East. So now we don't know who is who or who is where, so we blow up who and what we can when we get hints. Only we miss a lot, given time lag, questionable intel data, and (apparently) bad targeting software.
Joke now popular in Pakistan: "Why did the Pakistani girl break up with her American boyfriend? Because he always launches his missiles from 10,000 feet."
Nice going, George: BOTH of you.
cf "Company Man," Mother Jones, October, 1988
Bah, amateurs: REAL computer operation personnel can breathe Halon...
No No No:
Professor: "Darn. We needed a big laser. Oh well, throw it all into the moat with the sharks."
No No No:
Professor: "Darn. We needed a big laser. Oh well, throw it into the moat with the sharks."
Is there any clear scoop on whether locals are identifiable in the released docs? If so, I'm disgusted at Wikileaks, but I'm in no position to read the docs and the reports vary.
Yes, we very closely agree. Damaging troop morale is a bad idea, especially for stupid reasons. Anybody at the pointy end of the spear needs and deserves all the support they can get, in all manners and methods.
Isn't it possible that telling the rest of the world the truth wouldn't lower troop morale since maybe troopers would be happy to know that the truth was out so changes could be made (better strategy if possible or withdrawal if no better options exist) instead of feeling damned to a unending, doomed mess? I don't know the answer, and I pose the question seeking honest replies.
And let me be clear: if I thought these leaks were dangerous, I'd be screaming for the heads of Manning et alia; I'm no knee-jerk peacenik (but I am a peacenik). Our military personnel are too precious to squander, and God bless them for signing up.
With your bare hands?!?
