Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Something more useful (Score 1) 285

If you know of a way to instantly test for actual intoxication of other drugs... 3) Profit! Ratio of aviation accidents caused by alcohol to other drugs = Large 'Following accidents, 91 employees -- averaging 18 out of every 1,000 -- tested positive for drug use. Random testing found just six out of every 1,000 employees tested positive. "This is a very, very rare occurrence," when compared to other industries such as trucking, where drug use is estimated at 20 to 30 out of every 1,000 employees, Li said.' http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/04/us-drug-use-linked-airplane-accidents-idUSTRE7235NY20110304

Comment Re:Midrange (Score 1) 275

Are you rational? MAD is not a theory, it is a doctrine, it is the state of your world. The United States and Russia have several thousand thermonuclear weapons they are ready to annhiliate each other with at a moment's notice. A flaw in the engineering of any component in this system is a flaw in the system. It's a system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System
What you don't have is a basic understanding of the functioning of the United States or Russia's strategic warning, communications, command and control, and delivery systems.
Here is a pretty clear reason why MAD is unreasonable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
Here is a list of military research by MIT which includes projects which destabilize the MAD model by introducing the possibility of delivery system defeat: http://web.mit.edu/pugwash/www/milres.html
You did not say it was moral, you said it was for the benefit of humanity.

Comment Re:Midrange (Score 1) 275

The problem with MAD is that it is predicated on the assumption that if no one conducts a first-strike, no one will have to counter-attack, and therefore there will be no nuclear war.
History has shown that only due to early warning system operators disobeying their training and exercising judgement that could have ended in trial by court martial and execution was the world saved from a computer error causing a nuclear holocaust which would result in the destruction of the bulk of the world north of the equator.
Nuclear weapons launch warning systems are fallible and have nearly caused the collapse of our civilization.
Please let us know if you have professional experience with nuclear weapons command and control or launch systems and therefore could contradict the publicly available information which indicates that these systems are unstable.

Comment How long (Score 1) 196

How long does the PRC have to engage in massive coordinated intrusions into western military, defense contractor, and commercial computer systems until people get it through their head that this is no conspiracy theory and it the only reason the west puts up with it is the economic barrel the chinese have us over.
If a country has invested multiple billions of dollars into the development of weapons capable of killing most of the population of the united states, I will not install black-box security software developed in that nation.

Comment Re:HMS Astute - rogue sailor (Score 1) 248

While that sailor was stopped by a civilian visitor, I think it's unreasonable to assume that this could have led to compromising the missile or propulsion systems of that ship. One danger of working around people with guns is that they can shoot you. One person dead, or five people dead, is not a catastrophic failure of an engineered system. One feature of the engineered system that is a ship's security force is that they are trained to kill renegades. This system did not fail in the case of the astute.

Comment Re:Professional Sabotage (Score 1) 248

Believe it or not, the safety analyses on military nuclear reactors include combat damage.
Your statement on safety analysis practices is either supposition of fabrication.
Failure analysis for pipe ruptures in nuclear systems is not done assuming the pipe slowly blows out, it's done assuming the pipe instantaneously ceases to exist.
What I am proposing is that sophisticated sabotage would be detected before it can be exploited, not that it cannot be carried out.
This is such crap, you might as well publish an article stating that an internal safety study concluded a bomber pilot with a nuclear weapon on board could crash his plane. The way you mitigate such failures is through personnel measures. Anyone who works in job where such measures are in place understands what I am talking about. This is why you do background investigations, psychological tests, and financial monitoring.

Comment Professional Sabotage (Score 1) 248

All the report says is that a nuclear engineer onboard could intentionally cause a meltdown. This is hardly salacious, anyone familiar with nuclear training programs would know that the training given to such engineers on cross-disciplinary systems and specific safeguards guarantees that an intelligent nuclear engineer onboard could disable the safety systems preventing overpower or prompt criticality. There are sufficient safeguards in place to prevent a rogue agent from significantly damaging a military reactor. The watchstanding and operations systems of military reactors and nuclear weapons control systems were designed to prevent serious damage by Soviet agents, and these systems will protect against the "rogue sailor."

Comment Re:Not really (Score 1) 327

This phenomenon is totally unrelated to depressurizing from a pressurized atmosphere, such as diving. The mechanism of the bends is dissolved gas coming out of solution in the body. The mechanism in this case is the rapid movement into an environment with a very low partial pressure of oxygen. Climbers of high peaks slowly acclimate to the elevation, thus giving the body time to physiologically adapt to the harsh conditions. Believe what you want, if you were dropped out of a helicopter onto the top of Everest, you'd be brain dead in 5 minutes. Any high-elevation climber will tell you the same thing.

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Working...