As a white male, my standardized test scores were not quite enough to qualify for certain scholarships, special programs, etc.

A black male classmate of mine, with lower test scores, did qualify for all kinds of stuff based on those test scores plus his race...

I prefer it being "spelled out in black and white" minority race, disadvantaged sex, poverty background, whatever, as long as the rules are written and followed.

So much of life is decided based on unwritten, subjective decision making that so often boils down to these factors, but is unspoken, and can also hide nepotism, and worse.

Funny, I've worked in a bunch of different jobs since the 1980s, the stats ran like this:

Factory intern: lots of women, all in assembly. Repair techs were all ex-Navy and all male. Managers were all male. Out of 500 employees, there was one token male assembler and one token female manager.

Grocery stocker: all stockmen were male, all baggers were male, all managers and department heads were male, all cashiers and the office girl were female, except for one flamer... this is a major chain with hundreds of stores, they're all staffed basically this way.

First "real" job: hired as the 4th male in an all male software department, adjacent to 4 other males in electrical, serving a production floor that had 4 male engineers and techs, plus 2 women who did wire wrap. Later added one woman in QA, three more doing assembly, and a string of all male software interns.

Big company, R&D engineering, 30 people, 28 male engineers plus 2 "documentation specialists" who seemed like secretaries to me.

String of small companies, roughly 80 engineering like colleagues in total, one female.

If it's illegal, there's a whole lot of law breakin' goin' on.

Discrimination by sex is allowed in more circumstances than race, religion, disability, etc.

Discrimination by age is even more permissible, but still forbidden in some circumstances.

For particulars, consult a lawyer familiar with the case law, and hope he's not lying to you to push his own personal agenda.

That's why we still have the cruise missiles, but it's a shame to waste them on adobe huts...

I was at U of Miami in 1990, they were just finishing up fancy new Physics and Engineering buildings, funded in large part by the Regan programs...

That explains it... all I ever heard were "big shells," assumed they were simple artillery.

A Toyota Yaris with a 3" solid steel rod welded to the engine block will hurt quite a bit at 40mph, even if it is reinforced concrete. Now, repeat ram the wall 40 times...

I seem to remember stories of "ships offshore" during Vietnam firing something like a 16" gun to take out bridges 80+ miles inland... Could be distorting something, too lazy to Wikipedia right now.

Now, picture a beowulf cluster of these rail guns firing an anti-aircraft pattern up from the National Mall toward an incoming aircraft....

What's the kinetic energy after 1 minute of ballistic flight?

It's what we're working on instead of the Large Hadron Collider / CERN.

Probably would work better if the emplacements were on the Moon.

Depends, is the target a bridge or a building?

Striking moving targets from 100 mile range is ballsy, even for the Navy.

At last, the US Navy, for so long the consumer of more tax dollars than NASA by some crazy high multiple, can be just as effective, but with a lower economic burden.

How does the rail gun range compare to the "big" conventional guns. I know the conventionals can take out bridges 100 miles inland.