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Comment: Re:Rushing?! For What?! (Score 2) 446

by Gryle (#39239471) Attached to: Math Textbooks a Textbook Example of Bad Textbooks
...arithmetic hasn't changed at all in the past 100 years. American History from 1500 to 1900 hasn't changed in the past 100 years. Newtonian physics hasn't changed in the past 100 years either

I agree with you on the math and the physics portion, but there is a valid reason to update history books. While the events haven't changed, our understanding of them has. New research brings new documents to light or shows new connections between peoples and events, some of which change the way in which we view things. I'm not saying history books need to be updated as often as they are, but revising them every 5-10 years to reflect our current understanding of history isn't a bad thing.

Comment: Re:Shoes change ... (Score 1) 502

by Gryle (#39159217) Attached to: The correct number of shoes to own:
Seconded. In college I owned 4 pairs of shoes: one each of hiking boots, black dress shoes, sneakers, and flip-flops. After graduating and joining the military, I now own 8 types of shoes, 13 pairs in total in total.
3 pairs of hot-weather combat boots and 2 pairs of waterproof/cold-weather combat boots (issued by the military)
1 pair of black dress shoes for my dress uniform
1 pair of civilian black dress shoes (the same ones from college)
1 pair of jump boots (also for my dress uniform)
1 pair of hiking boots (also the same ones from college)
1 pair of work boots (for inclement weather and manual labor)
1 pair of running shoes that I have to replace yearly
1 pair of casual sneakers (for summer fishing and light yard work)
1 pair of oxford/boot hybrid-thingies for buisiness casual occasions

Of course I wear generally wear the same pair of combat boots five days a week, so there's that to ponder.

Comment: Re:Fragile? (Score 2) 417

by Gryle (#37367192) Attached to: North Korea Forced US Reconnaissance Plane To Land
This left me scratching my head, actually. After Korea, what conflicts were those where U.S. forces have came into open confrontation with Soviet-doctrine troops? Vietnam was, arguably, closer to a "counterinsurgency campaign", really. Do you mean Iraq? these guys were so outclassed hardware it's not even funny, so I don't think it's a meaningful comparison.

I believe the OP is referring to the wars-by-proxy of the Cold War era, where the Soviets would arm one side, the US would arm the other. The Yom Kippur War comes to mind.

Comment: Re:You know... that might not be a bad idea... (Score 1) 277

by Gryle (#36655586) Attached to: America: Like It Or Unfriend It
Not unreasonable, but still wrong. The Spanish-American war was between the US and Spain, mainly over stuff occurring in the Caribbean and the Philippines. The Battle of the Alamo was fought when the Texians (name given to the predominantly Anglo rebels) revolted against the Mexican government. If anything, the Alamo is aligned with the Mexican-American war. One of the causes was the US annexation of Texas since Mexico still considered Texas as part of its territory in spite of the Treaty of Velasco nine years earlier.

Wikipedia gives a fairly even-handed treatment of the Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War, and the Texas War of Independence, which given the massive amount of contention and conspiracy theories running around in academic circles on those subject is tricky to do.

Comment: Re:does it worry anyone else (Score 1, Offtopic) 134

by Gryle (#36595598) Attached to: Wildfire Threatens Los Alamos Labs
I don't work at Los Alamos, but I do work with sensitive government items, and it's bit more than that actually. Government accountability of sensitive* stuff like this isn't a one-and-done. Inventories of sensitive items are done at regular intervals to make sure that what we said was there last week is actually still here this week. If it ain't, we backtrack to find out where the heck it went off to and whose soul to obliterate for not keep track of their stuff.

*Stuff the US government doesn't want falling into the hands of anyone other than the US government

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