No, the reality is the details of the actual technical article referred to all nuclear submarines. There was only a brief mention of the Virginia class as a (what I guess we would both agree) somewhat stupid example.

Effective range of a Trident II nuclear missile: 6000+ miles.

Nuclear subs are not stealthy to get close their target. Nuclear subs are stealthy to be by FAR the most difficult nuclear platform to hit in a first strike, while still being able to hit targets VERY FAR AWAY.

Could be. But then again, if you are starting a question to an automated information service with "Do you think...", you deserve whatever you get :)

[I have to say my favorite horribly bad Siri response so far is to "Siri, where is the closest bagel shop?"]

Me: Do you think the freshman Congressman from California's Twelfth deserved to sit on HUAC, and how did that impact his future relationship with J. Edgar?

Siri: I think, therefore I am. But let's not put Descartes before the horse.

I have a hard time believing that Siri knows about this Slashdot post yet (it will...) but that answer is still highly (uncannily?!) appropriate to the original article...

On the topic of not commenting on rumors, this one was even more fun:

Wow, 5 sentences of non comments. I'm thinking IBM PR doesn't understand what "no comment" really means.

The majority of the *jobs* associated with manufacturing the A-380 are in Europe. In fact, the process by which the parts are assembled, transported, etc through the EU is fascinating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

And the reverse is true for the 747 - much of the labor-intensive assembly is in Everett, WA, of course.

Wholesale cost of the parts is a poor metric for claiming where something is "built", especially in the political arena, where manufacturing jobs are what gets votes...

I think the fact that the 747 can go Mach 0.9 @ 45,000 feet while the C-5 can only do Mach 0.79 @ 36,000 feet is probably another major strike against it. 25% higher altitude and 14% faster is a big selling point in a passenger plane carrying valuable personnel...

I just love how the highly compromised F-35 is now up to about $115-$140M each, while the horribly overpriced but unquestionably best fighter in the world F-22 is now looking almost affordable at a cool $150M.

Then again, not sure I'd question canceling most of these programs. In the future fighters will probably only be needed for interception (assuming stealth isn't totally defeated by S/A missiles) - attack roles will be mostly drones that will cost a tiny fraction of these costs...

No, that's just not true in the slightest, since we are talking where it was built. Boeing is hugely overwhelmingly built in the US, and Airbus in Europe (as much by political decree as anything but it's a fact).

The Galaxy is utterly different than a passenger plane like the 747.

Significantly slower, worse safety record, horribly worse range (you don't want to be in-flight refueling every 2500 miles), and in no way adapted to a 2-level, passenger focused layout they obviously want in "Air Force One". Not to mention the last C-5 was built in 1989. They just don't want to recondition a 25 year old plane as the flagship aircaft of the United States...

Yeah, duh, that was the joke...

Except for that episode that created two Rikers...

When those people are some of the most senior at Google and they have practically given up on it, yeah, it is evidence. Hell, one of them *ran* Google's apps and ad business for almost a decade...

True about the URL - but also of my 20-ish G+ friends, almost half are GOOGLE EMPLOYEES (and ALL are techies). And among them I only have 4 posts in the last month.

Except the "inane people" on FB are 10x more populous and 20x more likely to click on ads. The market doesn't give a shit about "technical communities", it cares about eyeballs.