Autopilot systems can and do fail on occasion. Or more precisely, the sensors that they rely on can be rendered inoperative, causing a failure or shutdown of the system. In most cases, you absolutely want the pilot to be able to manually override the computer in case something is obviously going wrong.

There's really no easy answer to the problem of potentially suicidal/homicidal pilots. Would you feel more or less safe without a human pilot on board? Even after this incident, I still want a pair of pilots up front able to use their own best judgment in a sticky situation, because the vast majority of the time, those two people are every bit as anxious to get back down to earth safely as I am.

I'm actually a professional videogame programmer, so I'm aware of the various disciplines involved. My point was this: if you're taking a C++ class, you're typically choosing the programming route (a CS degree), not one of the many other disciplines (designers, modellers, animators, texture artists, concept artists, writers, audio engineers, production, etc).

The implication of that post seemed to be that "I wanna make games" = "not serious", and therefore less likely to learn a "serious" language like C++. I just thought it was an odd thing to say when C++ happens to be the language of choice in the videogame industry.

That's sort of like proclaiming you want to be a mathematician and being put off by Calculus.

Of course there's an incentive. Just like with anything else, Heinz dominance in the ketchup market is not guaranteed. Consumers ALWAYS have the option of switching to another brand like Hunt's, or a generic store brand that's cheaper. Heinz wants give consumers a reason for choosing a slightly more expensive national brand, and a better bottle may be a part of that decision.

Moreover, what can you really do to market ketchup? It's not exactly a product that you can improve on in terms of the food itself. They've already been improving bottles in many ways (more convenient plastic squeeze bottles that you can store upside down, improved caps, tamper-resistant seals that are easier to open, etc), so it's very likely that they'll adopt this if the cost isn't exorbitant. In fact, they'll probably actually feature that bottle in a marketing campaign if it's a significant improvement from the current standard.

Keep in mind that the Strategic Bombing Survey's postwar analysis is not "official history". It's easy enough to find many dissenting opinions, so I don't think it's fair to call it "revisionist history" either way.

From the Wikipedia article covering the controversy of the atomic bomb attacks:

And if you want to go straight to the source:

It also goes on to discuss the opposing viewpoints, such as the Strategic Bombing Survey that you mentioned, as well as others.

So, in fairness I should refrain from saying that "the Japanese were unlikely to surrender before the bombing", and instead state "many of Japan's military leaders wished to continue the war". As to what would have really transpired with a different course of action, it's obviously a matter of speculation. My feeling, and that of many historians, is that it may have been extremely difficult for Emperor Hirohito to break the cabinet deadlock like he did had it not been for the two atomic attacks and the entry of Russia into the war against Japan.

I'd guess the general answer is: "Anything that pisses off a person in a position of authority."

The articles don't really get into specifics, but here's one example:

Translated into the US equivalent (as near as I can tell), if you said "I don't think the city of Trenton, New Jersey should be shut down for a day just because Governor Chris Christie died from a heart attack." (probably worded less politely, knowing teenagers), and then your friend "liked" that statement on Facebook, you BOTH could be arrested.

Neither, now that it's been found unconstitutional.

Not exactly. There actually was an important military base in the city (headquarters of the Japanese 5th Division and the 2nd Army Headquarters.), as well as many industrial targets, and it was an important port city. Keep in mind that Japan had converted most private enterprises and even many homes into places of war materiel production. There was no such thing as a non-militarized city in Japan at that time. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and several other cities had not been bombed only because they had been taken off the bombing list some time before. The idea was to keep some prime targets "pristine", so accurate bomb damage assessment could be done afterwards. Everyone was well aware there would be massive civilian casualties.

Truman knew exactly what he was doing, incidentally. It was true he had moral qualms, but it was reported his Secretary of State told him "What will you say, Mr. President, at your impeachment proceeding, when the American people learn that you had a weapon which could have ended the war and did not use it?" The US leadership also feared the planned invasion of Japan by the Soviet Union, with the real threat of Japan being split into a communist and democratic zones similar to Germany. The bombing was seen as the quickest and surest way to end the Pacific war

Many in the US leadership and military brass had also been wildly optimistic about the "imminent collapse of Nazi Germany", after which the fighting had gone on for half a year still. History is fairly clear that the Japanese were unlikely to surrender before the bombing. Even after the two atomic bombs were dropped and the Soviet Union joined the war, the Japanese military leadership was still evenly split about whether to continue the war. It took the emperor to make the final decision. Even after the emperor publicly surrendered (without ever using the word 'surrender' or 'defeat' in his speech), a small group of Japanese officers actually mutinied and invaded the palace, fortunately not succeeding.

Pranksters planting signs? Hmm... how many times have I actually seen this in my entire lifetime? Oh yeah... zero. Let's see... how easy would it be to simply put a logical limiter so it doesn't ever read 170mpg instead of 70mph? Trivial.

This technology is simply an incremental step to a completely autonomous car, in case you didn't figure that out. You're going to see more and more incremental steps like this as we move along the path first to partially autonomous and finally fully autonomous vehicles over the next decade or two.

I think we've got a long way to go to catch up to India or China.

Amazon is a pretty good example of bucking the trend. They've caused plenty of conniptions among the Wall Street "in-crowd" by eschewing short term profits, and instead investing in long term strategies. Look at where they're at compared to IBM now. Wall street only cares about the next quarter's earnings.

The US doesn't have the explosive growth of China (which is showing signs of slowing, btw), but that's only because China is transitioning from third-world to first-world status. That doesn't mean the US is necessarily in decline, just that it's relative dominance is decreasing. There's nothing wrong with that. We'll remain competitive for the foreseeable future, because this is still a country where start-ups can make it big. When that changes, you know we'll be in trouble.

Notice I said a *slow death*. They've been declining for a while. Given their size, they can still probably hold out for another couple of decades, but unless they take some radical reforming steps, like cutting down it's 13 layers of management and bureaucracy, and actually attempting to innovate rather than simply grabbing onto anything that looks profitable (like this boneheaded move), they'll just dwindle down to nothing. Remember, it took about fifteen years for Kodak to implode from when they were still a behemoth. Sheer inertia can keep a massive company going for a very long time.

I think you're underestimating how easily and quickly both technology and infrastructure can be copied given a concerted effort. The Chinese are absolutely brilliant at creating clones of American-designed products. What can take generations to invent for the first time can be duplicated in mere years. Consider the case of the Americans and the atomic bomb technology, and how quickly the Russians achieved parity. Or consider Germany's initial lead in rocketry and then the US / Russia catching up to them in mere years. This is all done with high-level transfer of knowledge. Once you know how something is done, it's much, much easier to duplicate those results rather than inventing all that technology through expensive R&D the first time.

China has clearly indicated that they're not interested in long-term relationships with the west in terms of critical technological infrastructure, and honestly, I can't really blame them. Would we want to buy Chinese-designed operating systems and computer systems? We're already starting to become wary of products *built* in China, let alone designed there. They're going to absorb and utilized the knowledge gained from IBM far faster than people are predicting, and once their industry is kick-started, they'll say goodbye to IBM. This is essentially a one-time sale for IBM - they're just selling off their IP and expertise for short term profits.

However nuanced you believe this move to be, I just don't see it that way. It's nothing but a short-term profit grab that will hurt IBM in the long run. You don't see the most successful tech companies racing to sell their IP or expertise to the Chinese... only their manufacturing. And that's only if they feel it's worth giving up their control over that process - note that Intel keeps it's fab plants mostly in the US or other first-world countries. That's because IP/expertise *is* the crown jewels of a tech company.

IBM is already dying a slow death, desperate to snap out of years of declining revenue. This will just hasten it by a few more years.

And this will be the last of the money made by IBM in China. They're going to spend a few more years teaching other companies everything they know, and then the Chinese will kick them out and undercut them with their own technology. Just brilliant, IBM. *golf clap* Now they're actually training their own competitors for some short term profits.

If you haven't yet sold your IBM stocks in the last few decades, now might be the time to do so.

I've always rationalized it like this: in the films, they always showed the last shot that blew up the ship, since that was more dramatic. In addition to the Y-Wing squad leader you mentioned, Porkins ship was damaged and ultimately destroyed by the turret fire from the Death Star's tower cannons (very similar to WW2 flak towers, btw).

The shield on Hoth was explained via dialogue. Not only did it make for my favorite battle in the entire serious, it was specifically designed as protection against bombardment from space. By the time the shield went down, the base was nearly evacuated of personnel, and the imperial troops were already closing in. Obviously, a massed ground attack was NOT what Darth Vader had in mind as an optimal strategy, and as we saw, it gave the rebels just enough time to evacuate and scatter. I've always wondered what Vader would have done instead.

Oh, and I forgot a huge shield-related plot point in the original Star Wars movie: "The shaft is ray-shielded so you'll have to use proton torpedoes".

In the prequels, we saw them on the Naboo fighter ships. Also, don't forget the destroyer droids with their bubble shields, and the Gungans with their animal-mounted battlefield shields, and even hand-held shields. There are plenty more examples from the next two movies as well.

In the original trilogy, I don't recall seeing the shields themselves, but both the rebels (on Hoth) and the empire (on Endor) protected their assets with large, ground-based shield generators. There are also references in the dialogue as well ("Switch your deflectors on - double front!").

You really blocked out a lot, didn't you...