Does anyone really care?

Cheers,
Dave

I stay fit and will probably get a concealed carry permit at some point. Works for me. I also avoid bad neighborhoods.

Translation for the current discussion: If you're a corporation, straighten up and fly right. The best way to avoid being sued is to not do anything that would attract a law suit. Likewise, maintain/retain a legal team that is notoriously good (IBM and MoFo come to mind: the Nazgul eviserated the SCO legal team in a way that sends a loud and clear message of "don't mess with my client").

Cheers,
Dave

Been happy with Xfce on the laptop. It's an old single core 64 bit Athlon CPU with 1GB of RAM so Xfce is a good match for it (light weight). It's old but sufficient when I travel to check e-mail, open a ssh session back to the server at the house, etc. I'll try mate on something a little beefier.

Cheers,
Dave

The defedant always has the option of counter-suing the plantif. They can also file a complaint to the local bar association asserting barratry against the plantif's lawyers.

Cheers,
Dave

Have to agree. At least the communists had a philosophically consistent political platform. It may have been based on a failed belief system (dialectic materialism) that had no basis in reality but at least it flowed fairly consistently from there. Democrats on the other hand seem to only be concerned with getting re-elected and watching out for the causes supported by their left wing, limousine liberal benefactors. Whitness Harry Reid's crass behavior when it came to patent reform, the recent "crackdown" on the NSA, etc.

There really is a difference. Glad you pointed that out.

Cheers,
Dave

Running Gnome 2 here on Scientific Linux and CentOS. I tried Gnome 3 briefly on Fedora and rapidly switched to Xfce. Better fit for my old laptop anyway.

Cheers,
Dave

Running on a VT-100. If you needed another "window" you just commandeered another VT-100.

Cheers,
Dave

Actually, it didn't fail during WWII. You should review the US breakout from Normandy (Operation Cobra: month end July to early August 1944) and, in particular, what happened to the Panzer Lehr division. The division CO reported later that the division area looked like, "the surface of the moon." Carpet bombing basically removed that division as a fighting force. Another example where it worked was the air campaign against the Italian island of Pantelleria (mid-1943) which surrendered without a shot being fired to the invaision force after concerted "carpet bombing."

There are also examples where it didn't work (e.g., the British efforts to brakthrough at Caen). But simply saying, "it didn't work," is just wrong. Even where it appeared "not to work", it's hard to say what would have happened if there hadn't been a carpet bombing prior to the attack. Would the attack have been repulsed with even more casualties?

Cheers,
Dave

When you don't want them to know you're coming: stealth.

When you don't care if they know you're coming but don't want to get shot down: jam.

All current (B-2 and F-22) and past (F-117) stealth aircraft become "unstealthy" for weapons release. If you have achieved surprise, that doesn't matter. When it's not a surprise, well, that's how the Serbs shot down an F-117.

Cheers,
Dave

The politically correct term in today's environment is "long stick." I understand that the 750 lb. bombs typically dropped by B-52s for this kind of mission are extremely effective.

Cheers,
Dave

But the electronics bays are about the size of a typical garage and as easy to get into and out of. The airframe may have the radar cross section of a battleship but stick enough jammers in the electronics bays and you'd be surprised how hard it is to hit one.

Cheers,
Dave

Any chance we can get them to take some of our toxic politicians instead? Stick them some place really isolated in the outback where they just annoy each other. It would be a far greater service to the world than taking nuclear waste.

Cheers,
Dave

Just agreeing with you on the IT investment driving job demand observation. Had a contract end abruptly and have been getting several contacts a day from "recruiters" looking to place me at several different jobs in the area. Not as bad as the .com bubble of the late 1990s when anyone who could say "computer" could get a job but the job market has definitely a lot better than it was a few years ago.

Not saying you're totally wrong on your stock market observation but the Fed holding interest rates to near zero has meant a lot of people who would normally invest in bonds are putting money into the blue chip side of the stock market. That means more demand for stocks (and especially safe, blue chip, dividend paying stocks). Kind of goofy when stock in a company with $25+B market cap almost doubles in a year and it pays a good dividend.

Cheers,
Dave

One of my favorite treeware magazines is Air & Space Magazine published by the Smithsonian. They have a frequent series of articles on the theme, "Some ideas will never fly." Definitely a much more creative and well reasoned critique of a number of airplane ideas that, well, will never fly.

Several of the planes singled out by the BBC article really weren't all that bad when they were initially in service (Brewster Buffalo, Douglas TBD Devestator, Fairey Battle). They were just kept in service long after they should have been retired and their pilots and crews paid the price. That's not a fault of the airplane; it's a fault of the politicians who decided to spend the money to modenize elsewhere.

Cheers,
Dave

You seem to have left out all of the other highly successful campaigns mounted by Yamamoto prior to the tactical draw at the Coral Sea and defeat at Midway. Currently in my reading queue is "Island of Destiny" which asserts that Midway was only a temporary set back and it was the subsequent war of attrition in the Solomons that actually doomed the Japanese navy in WWII. If I recall correctly, the IJN gave the USN a very hard time in the Solomons. It was by no means a "done deal" until US war production actually started reaching the Pacific in 1943.

There is also no evidence that the Japanese suspected that the code had been broken after Yamamoto was shot down. The US continued patrols that followed the same pattern as the shoot down flight to help make it look like just a coincidence that our P-38s were there only to shoot down Yamamoto.

Cheers,
Dave