Which means absolutely nothing because you can't actually use any of that firepower in any conflict short of "Civilization as we know it is coming to an end." That's not to dispute the rest of your points, which are mostly valid, but let us leave the SSBN out of the calculation of modern naval firepower. They have a specific mission: deterrence. The day they are called upon to loft their birds is the day that mission has failed.

There is an argument to be made that we need more ships, particularly attack submarines and surface combatants. The former will prove decisive in any conflict with the PRC and the latter are needed for missile defense, amongst other missions. Unfortunately most of the shipbuilding budget is going to the Gerald Ford CVNs while the looming Ohio replacement is going to consume billions more. Both are needed at the end of the day, so unless we're going to throw more money at the Navy I'm not sure what the solution is. I'd opt for throwing more money at them, since it takes decades to build a modern Navy, and it can't be used (as easily) for interventionist adventures in the same manner as a standing army....

I had a lot of sympathy for people on Facebook 4-5 years ago. After several years of repeated stories in the mainstream press about privacy violations, anyone who still has an account is guilty of wilful stupidity.

There have been extraordinary advances in our understanding of science and technology in just the last few hundred years. We can now do something effective about disease, drought, and the like. It's now counterproductive to expend the energy on worshiping an extreme being in hopes that they will resolve these things -- that energy would be better spent addressing the problem with science or engineering.

Unfortunately, religion brings with it irrational behavior that disrupts society. Consider the Crusades or, more recently, radical Islam killing "non-believers" (well, not really NON believers, believers in a slightly different mystical entity). Or, consider the bigotry justified by religion that is widespread in the United States.

Nothing prevents people from helping others in their society who are needy even though neither themselves or those they are helping believe in a deity.

IMHO, religion is now largely superfluous and, on the balance, does more harm than good. Unfortunately, humans evolve slowly so the genetic propensity to follow a religion will probably outlast mankind. However, I wish I could see the look on the face of the last human as they realize they are going to die and their imaginary god isn't going to do a thing about it.

I'm sure that it will use a lookup table, but it's also going to have to build those tables dynamically because due to the nature of mechanical devices. 1) no two are identical and 2) they wear while in use, especially while running near the edge of materials technology, further exacerbating point #1. You really do need a learning control system if you're not in a perfect world, or doing something hilariously easy — which this isn't.

Well THAT is fucking offensive, the way you said "codifying" it sounded like "codpiece".

Yes? Well then...

Baldric... Bring me... The Black Russian!

Needless to say, by disagreeing, I mark myself as an un-person.

Needless, pointless, and untrue. Someone else may so choose to regard you; you, however, are not that at all, and anyone who takes the attitude that you are, as you put it, an "unperson", is solely responsible for that attitude. You're still you, just as worthy as ever.

Consider the source, soldier on. Defy invalid social norms.

Some things are just not done, and are socially unacceptable this is one of them.

Socially unacceptable is one thing. And the appropriate response from you when faced with something you identify as such is also social: adjust your respect, relationship(s) and commentary according to the social cues you are given.

Relying on coercion and/or violence exerted by your government so you can assure that the general social environment is only populated by speech you approve of is something else entirely. It reeks of abject failure on your part, and on the part of your legislators. Such government-based active repression is one of the very few things that is more despicable than intentionally offensive speech presented without even a suggestion of humor.

> But as an athiest, my very existence is 'offensive' to muslims.

I'm an atheist as well. And I am aware that some Muslims proactively take offense because of my lack of belief.

However, you should be aware that of the five pillars of Islam, none say or imply one word about "hating atheists." That's just crap out of the Koran, which is a mish-mosh of uncorrelated and unordered quotes. Only fanatics take the violent sections of the Koran seriously. Not that there aren't enough fanatics to go around, of course.

> Are you suggesting that I should commit suicide to appease the Muslims?

Not in the least. I wasn't suggesting anyone should commit suicide, or in any way alter who or what they are. These are not things that give offense. You have not chosen to be atheist in order to give offense, have you? I presume you're atheist because you find that to be a comfortable state of mind, one that correlates well with what you observe of the world around you. Nothing to do with giving offense at all. I'm not wrong, am I? If I am, please let me know... that's a whole 'nuther bag of wolverines.

Simply being (existing as) atheist is not giving offense. That is the same as the case where someone is simply "being atheist" or "being Christian" or "being Muslim" or "being a rock collector."

When such provokes an "offended" response, we are merely seeing examples of the common practice by muddy thinkers of taking offense for any, or no, sane reason...

> Go Fuck Yourself ...Just as you have here. Brilliant to have so cleverly put yourself in exactly the same unreasonable club with those nasty, hateful, offended Islamists, isn't it? :)

What secure OS do you run where the video codecs have had a full security review? Google found (and fixed) around 300 exploitable holes in libavcodec / libavformat in the last year. Do you want to bet that they found them all? Do you always run video codecs in an unprivileged process?

Sorry if the truth hurts, but that's how the shit flies. Sure, some do it out of patriotism and with enough "the enemy is everywhere and trying to kill YOUR CHILDREN" propaganda anyone can be very patriotic until they find out that at the other side there's just exactly the same ordinary guy trying to live his life and getting by somehow. Few and far between are the hyped up supersoldiers who'll die gladly for land and fame. Usually you have a bunch of people who just want to make another day go by.

It's not the ordinary guy that "hates" you. Far from it, usually they don't give a shit about you. It's just like it is over here: The real assholes are up at the top. Kill them and the world is a better place.

Unfortunately, even the furnace won't function in most places without power, so electricity is a necessity. Most of our equipment is very poorly thought-out like this. When I installed a replacement on-demand water heater in this house, I could get the same model with different suffixes corresponding to three different ignition systems: a plug-in, on-demand spark ignition; a dynamo-based, on-demand spark ignition; or a tradtional pilot, with a piezo igniter. I chose the piezo igniter because I know I live in the boonies and the power can go off here, and I still want to have hot water if that happens. Of course, having flow takes a generator, but it doesn't take a whole-house generator and the pump house is significantly distant from the house.

You ALL seem to be forgetting interleave, which is the one motion-enabling technology most responsible for reasonable motion effects on television. (NTSC TV of course also has a higher frame rate: 29.97 fps.)

1080p (p for progressive, i.e. one full frame at a time like film) became the norm because of its higher pixel-per-second count. But let's not forget about 1080i, where the i is for interleave. 1080i shows motion much better.

So it isn't me, it is kinda odd that this guy's defection comes conveniently at exactly this point in time?

Some people really know to come right on cue.

Love of Country sure is much easier if you're part of the nobility. Actually, fuck the country, but as long as it makes my life pleasurable at the expense of the 99% of the rest, what's not to love?