How really, really weird reality follows fiction sometimes...

The idea was that, at some point and after enough mods, you become distanced from your own humanness and humanity itself; at what point do you become a cyborg and no longer human?

Cyberpsychosis - Cyberpunk, the Game (1989) http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/edgerunners/wikis/cyberpsychosis

There a WaWa (convenient store) not to far from me here in Va where one of the clerks is named Strider and freely admits his dad was a Tolkein fanatic. Are they going to sue him and his dad for the use of the name? I'm now more convinced California is 'The land of fruits and nuts'... ; \

Temple University School of Journalism led to Macs to LANs to WANs to and Network Architecture and Design. The whole Left Brain/Right Brain thing and the ability to actually write documentation while I engineer and design a network has actually brought me more pay since most engineers can't write much less spell to save their lives. You don't *need* to be an EE to learn IT - all it takes is passion, drive, dedication and, most of all, a genuine love for what you're doing. (Many thanks to Bo Gong and the GreyPeak/USWEBCKS senior engineers who gave me a break 18 years ago)

We're not allowed to land! ;)

How many reader on *THIS* board have been downrange? Sorry, sipping a latte' at Starbucks just doesn't count, so don't presume to hold a moral high ground over people who've been there and done that. After 3 tours downrange, no, I don't see a problem with it; it's a pile of spoiled meat made up of dead shitheads who were trying to kill them a few minutes earlier; it's counting coup and as old as man has been walking upright.

(Sorry MooCow, I couldn't resist) Haiti, Iraq, and Afghanistan. as funding dries up and the major withdrawals start to happen, these jobs are going to become rarer and rarer until the next SHTF event. The pay sucks anymore and the hours are 12x7 on most contracts now a days to maximize profit, leave is limited and can be expensive as 130K doesn't go far if you have a family. My experience was great pay with travel where I got to see the nice and not-so-nice parts of the world and now, after 3 deployments in 5 years, I'm divorced father of 4. Not a sob story, but a cautionary tale about good money, time away, and doing this with a family. Seriously, don't do it if you have young or teen kids or you're taking off to get away from your spouse on a 'working vacation' in a combat zone; do it with a set of goals in mind (save money for school, house, paying off debts, etc) and do it for the clearance and then move your butt straight to DC afterwards - that's where you can use your SECRET clearance and maximize any sandbox experience as well. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. -Doc-

The drones don't, the pilots of the drones do. They even file flight plans in combat zones as well.

If you all look at the effectiveness of TF ODIN in Iraq and Afghanistan, you will understand why this technology cannot - ever - be allowed domestic utilization. Keep in mind that the drones see in nearly every spectra and through surfaces, can loiter for extremely long periods of time while nearly invisible, and is incredibly effective in the observance and prosecution of a designated target. (If you're in a drone's sights, you're a 'target' not a 'suspect') The power and ability of a domestic drone system combined with something like Palantir would rip the definition of privacy right out of the dictionary and put it in the trash. The is nearly no one who can truly - read: openly - explain the degree of power and impact of an integrated system like this would have on our day to day lives as Americans.

Hardly a secret since Palantir has been around for nearly a decade.

Overall, I've been majorly disappointed with all of the UBISOFT games over the last 3-5 years; post the REDSTORM acquisition, they had a couple of good title runs and then just effectively died from a quality standpoint. Ubi, I will mourn your passing because at this rate it's obvious you're terminal.

No $#|7....

Let me introduce you to Microsoft, Cisco, and IBM and unless you've been living under a rock for the last 20+ years, that's the way the companies make their money.

Not for any altruistic reasons, just for the sheer insanity of giving this over to an AI (however crude) and the potential abuses of a system without conscience or mercy. All joking aside, this does leave the door open to having it bite us in the ass.