Dude, you're talking to Slashdot geeks, our idea of 'cooking' is 30 seconds in a microwave...

(Except for the lucky ones who live in their Mom's basement.. Mom probably takes pity on them once in awhile and feeds them decent food.)

The fact that you believe they are all just different versions of the 'same thing' tells me you should be asking google, wikipedia, or somebody what those different entities actually *do*. They are each solutions to *different problems*. They each came into being because the other services didn't have, or could not provide, a solution to some new 'problem'.

a) USMC came into existence because the Navy needed soldiers to defend ships, and do amphibious assaults. The Army couldn't do these things, and, understandably, didn't really *want* to.

b) USN Aviation is an extremely specialized form of combat aviation. If you don't see the differences between them, go ask a USAF pilot if he's ever landed a jet on an aircraft carrier. Now guess what dominates the training of USN pilots...

c) USMC Aviation came into being because of the MC's need for extreme/aggressive/close-in air support, since they typically can not rely on heavy artillery support, at least in amphibious assaults. They have historically, and still to a lesser extent today, do things that no other air force will/can do, because helping the grunt on the ground is their only reason for existence.

Go back especially to WWII and look at the operational differences between USMC air groups and USAF air groups. Their formation of 'Air Liaison Parties' to coordinate air support for/with invading troops (and landing with them) was not something the USAAF was doing:

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

Also note that 'b' above applies here too, many USMC combat air groups are also (and need to be) carrier-qualified.

d) USCG != USN. They aren't, and never were, meant to be the same, or even similar. USCG began life as, believe it or not, maritime 'revenue agents', in the Department of *Treasury*, not Defense. Their original job was to catch smugglers. Then they were merged with the 'life-saving service' (which they still excel at) to form the USCG. The USN can't do this, for one thing, the USN has no law-enforcement powers (the USCG is the only military branch that can wield the same authority as a civilian police officer). Also, if you need rescuing from a sinking or sunk ship at sea, the USCG is the better choice, because that is their specialty, and a focus of their training, something that simply does not have the same priority with the USN (and I say that as an ex-USN guy).

On the other hand, the USCG doesn't use any weapons heavier than .50cal MGs & their largest ships are smaller then USN destroyers (and aren't designed for naval combat - their ability to take and survive damage is limited), so if somebody needs their maritime ass kicked, guess who I'm gonna call? You call on the USCG to enforce the law and help save sailors in distress, you call on the USN when a hostile naval force needs an attitude adjustment. See the difference?

e) When you need to drive in a nail, you don't reach for a screwdriver...

No.

The frequency overlap was a separate issue, and it was an issue that had other NATO members concerned as well, not just the US: NATO relies on GPS as well.

The US threatened to shoot down Galileo satellites if that system was used by, for example, China for precision-guided attacks against US forces in some hypothetical future conflict. Since China is, or was, a participant in the Galileo project, that hypothetical scenario was not an academic one.

And the only reason that 'threat' was ever made was because of the initial stance of the Galileo people that they would never turn off the Galileo system even if it was being used for weapons targeting by someone in a war with the US.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/milspace-04zc.html

Seriously, what did you expect us to say? If the tables were turned, what would you do?

Whatever was actually said, the US and Europe came to an agreement over Galileo way back in 2004, so this is all old (and misleading) news...

Take away the DRM, and *all* formats would 'just work', since, for those that need to, converting between them would be trivial/automatic.

Yes, thats why I said 'almost', but as far as IE goes, I suspect that our ability to break its stranglehold on the net had more to do with MS's own complacency as anything else (allowing IE's technology to stagnate). By the time they belatedly realized IE's monopoly position was in trouble, they had to restart their R&D on IE's technology/codebase, and that took too much time. By the time they caught up with FF, IE's monopoly position in the market was gone.

Of course, people like you and I helped as well. Like you, I steered a lot of my Win-using family to FF as well. :)

I do agree that monopolies are not *impossible* to break, just that they're very hard to break.

Only for power plants that can be built anywhere, and they're put near urban areas for the obvious reason: thats where the consumers are.

Not by as much as you're thinking. Otherwise, power plants in the Arizona desert or the Hoover Dam would be uneconomical. Electricity can be transmitted for hundreds of miles before the losses become severe, and in an emergency, or during periods of extreme demand, those losses are still acceptable: there's a reason we have a *national* electricity grid.

LOL, you have a very quaint notion of who rural people are, but I suppose everyone has to have a least one deceit.

It got the *wrong* message across. :)

My understanding of English says that this sentence is listing 3 'non-US' solutions: (1) pebble bed, (2) thorium, (3) Hyperion. The 'and' is normally used for last item in a list like this, it does not separate the last item from the previous ones (the adjective used as the prefix to the list still applies to it). Just an FYI.

Hyperion is a private startup, the taxpayers are not involved.

You didn't specify imminent implementations (I don't know of any), only 'solutions'. My only point was that US companies and research institutions are just as heavily involved in PBMR design/research as anyone else.

As for why there are no current implementations, have you considered the possibility that PBMR designs might have issues of their own? Perhaps it just needs a little more work before it can become viable, and that work is being done by many, including US companies/universities.

I most certainly did notice the 'era' word. Chernobyl's RBMK reactors didn't have a proper containment building. Nobody in the West has ever built a nuclear plant without one. Nobody in the West, including Westinghouse, has ever built *anything* like the RBMK-1000.

The odd reason in this case was that the criticism was BS.

Wait, is there someplace thats getting free telephone service? Where? I wanna move there!

How typical.

Hint: the telephone subsidy is much like the expansion of the USPS back in the old days. It was not to make it free for anyone, but just to make it *available* to everyone.

And if you don't get why extending mail and telephone was considered so important, why not read some of the history of those times. A large country thats disconnected and out of touch with itself could never move beyond the 2nd-world stage... never become what we are now.

Because of the higher population (more people == more taxes), sure, but can they *feed* themselves? Didn't think so.

Good thing they didn't do that in 1781, otherwise you and I would still be having to bow to royalty...

Have we forgotten about those 'freedom fries' already? Or DijonGate? And what those spawned?

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

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

Take note of where that last one originated, not Fox *News*, but close enough.

And Sean Hannity's fit over POTUS's use of Dijon mustard is hilarious, in a sad, insane kind of way. (google it)

Yes, silly and stupid, and it mainly died out fairly quickly, but the trolls and morons just can't let it go.

So its mainly joking (British & American) and partly redneck arrogance (at least American - do the Brits have an equivalent of rednecks?).

They'd better not, I'm sure the Tolkien Estate would have something to say about that (and at least would have a better case than the current trolls).

Just send in the lawyer troops, keep the Nazgul in reserve, in case that lost ring shows up (or Microsoft gets frisky).

Except for the lawyers. (Not necessarily saying thats a bad thing, of course...)

Otherwise, I like it, but it won't happen. Makes too much sense.

CmdrTaco has a half-dozen replicants locked up in a basement in front of monitors doing meta-meta-moderation, 24-7. They don't eat or sleep, helluva investment.

Now if he could just teach those guys how to program, and then cut them loose on slashcode...

...Profit!