"not even an improvement over an old invention."

Right. Because the Macintosh was exactly like the Xerox Star, right down to the three-button Mouse and Smalltalk commands. Which Jobs licensed for a very agreeable amount - and he then directed the improvements that led to the popular GUI-driven personal computer.

The iMac - a minimalist, low-cost, laptop-derived machine with a CRT that was extremely easy to set up and which was design-forward - good-looking enough to put it in the center of your living area and not hide under a desk. Yeah, that was totally already done.

I wonder sometimes if Slashdot has gotten any better, then I come over and read stuff like this in the 'discussion' and realize it's just the same old, same old.

For all his faults, he was terrific at determining what people actually wanted to buy and directing engineers to create that.

Your invention is worthless if no one uses it.

Yeah, you're right. Engineers would be so much better off if we just let them develop their ideas, market them, and fail in peace.

"Oh and I can see the fanbois are out modding again and taking everything personally."

Been here long?

Airliners carry transponders that squawk. Same diff.

"Either that, or the money is really going somewhere else and the F-35 development program is a scam."

CHEMTRAILS!

"But how many US pilots have been in an actual dogfight since, say WWII"

John McCain. You might have heard of him. He ran for president a while back.

Positive ID is obtained with IFF. Not sure why you'd have to wait until visual range for that.

TFX. The Navy's desires were built into the F-111 and they decided they wanted the F-14 anyway. This is the same story.

Procurement isn't about getting the right weapon. It's about exercising a decision-maker's ego and getting votes back home.

So the fuck what? Do you know what happens when you insist that every single dollar goes to to projects? You can't keep staff.

When there's no core funding for NGOs, they can only hire on a contract basis, which means that most of the people you want won't—can't—work for you, because they have families and stuff. And that means you get no decent skills on the ground. And that means you're flying in a bunch of outsiders who make a career out of this kind of thing, but who, no matter how well-intentioned, cannot know what things are like on the ground. And that means you waste time and money making mistakes that no local would ever make. And that means delays. And cost overruns....

... And before you know it, you're down $500 million and you've only built six houses.

No, it's an absurd comment. I don't think it needs down-modding, but only because it needs to stand as an exemplar of just how intellectually lazy religiousity can make you.

The entire structure on which science is built on philosophy, which is grounded in trying to answer exactly the kind of questions that lead us ultimately to issues like whether global trends are good or bad for us. And in the process of doing that, it also helps define exactly what the trends are, exactly who 'us' is, and for good measure, it also gives us more useful terms than 'good' and 'bad'.

Now, you may want to live in a world without nuance, but some of us are content with the ambiguity and uncertainty that this brings, because to live otherwise would be fundamentally dishonest.

So you can say, if you like, that science doesn't moralise, but that cuts the branch from the trunk. Science is 'Natural Philosophy', which is intended to investigate the world in which we live, and ultimately, to serve as a specific application of philosophy (literally, the love of knowledge), whose purpose, explicitly, is to explain what we're doing here and why.

I know. I was just having a lark. :-)

'A simple web-based IIiiheheheheh—Sorry. Aherm. A simple web-baHAHAHAHAHahaha!!! Phew! Sorry! Don't know what got into me. Let me try that again: A IDE, you say? And its... shchrmf web-ba...heheheh, I mean, uh web-bAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

*wipes tears away*

Sorry. I honestly don't know what got into me... WHEW!! All righty then. Sorry, just let me catch my breath and...

Now: A Simple. Web-based—mrfmmmmrfmmmffff—Web. Based....

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'm sorry. A web-based IDE! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Hey Chuck, get in here. This guy has a simple web-basedAAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Sorry, just read that, yeah, there. HAHAHAHAHA!

[Falls down. Dies laughing.]

I'm living on an alternate Earth from yours. It has cities outside the USA.

Living as I do in a city that was recently devastated by a super-hurricane (under 900 hPa in the eye), I'd like to second the other commenters in suggesting that you, sir, are indeed Exhibit A in this case. And may I suggest, sir, that you exhibit an airborne amorous manoeuvre on yon rolling doughnut.