71–80 of 141 posts
the U.S. military found pirated drone video feeds on other militant laptops What is the meaning of "pirated" here? Are they going to sue militants for copyright infringement?
Folks are using "pirate" to mean "intercept" or "surreptitiously copy", rather than the traditional usage (leaving aside the even older meaning, of course) of simply "distribute copyrighted material".
the U.S. military found pirated drone video feeds on other militant laptops What is the meaning of "pirated" here? Are they going to sue militants for copyright infringement?
Perhaps they're using it in a sense similar to "pirate radio".
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i'm sure lack of reliability is part of their business plan. You make the perfect humvee, and suddenly the army stops buying as many. There is a reason the AK47 is so much more reliable than the M16. And it's been out for like 60 years now.
"... There is a reason the AK47 is so much more reliable than the M16 ..." There is nothing worse than "language" or "editor" wars, except maybe arguments over "weapon of choice" ~ http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/m16-vs-ak47-iraqi-...
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The question is, what do our defence contractors care more about: making their weapons actually work? Or merely selling them?
The later is true. There is a large, high througput, revolving door between DoD and large contractors. Yesterday's generals are today's board members and C*Os of large defense contractors. When something is purchased, or a bid is chosen, it is often because of those conections not because a product is inherently better. The result is a lot of overpriced, under-performing equipment. The amount of waste is just ridicul…
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This is the mistake that allowed the Serbs to shoot down a Stealth bomber; aircrews communicating on open channels. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-10-26-serb-stealth_x... "At times, they acted like amateurs," Dani said, listing some ways the Serbs managed to breach NATO communications security, including eavesdropping on pilots' conversations with AWACS surveillance planes.
A bit of a nitpick, but no stealth bomber has ever been shot down. That was a stealth fighter.
According to Wikipedia, that is how you turn $737M into smoke.
the U.S. military found pirated drone video feeds on other militant laptops What is the meaning of "pirated" here? Are they going to sue militants for copyright infringement?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The later is true. There is a large, high througput, revolving door between DoD and large contractors. Yesterday's generals are today's board members and C*Os of large defense contractors. When something is purchased, or a bid is chosen, it is often because of those conections not because a product is inherently better. The result is a lot of overpriced, under-performing equipment. The amount of waste is just ridicul…
This is also an apt description of the relationship between the FDA and large pharmaceutical companies. Also, the USDA and large food companies. There are likely many more examples. It's a systemic problem of our structure of government.
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AK is the Perl of the weapons. I had to use AK-47 for year (serving in the Bulgarian army). It was easy to clean, assemble, disassemble, but every weapon was a bit-off due to the production (or heavy usage, don't know). So to get good results you have to learn where your weapon strays.
How much does that affect a user? I mean, if you take the time to learn how much it strays, are you at that point just as accurate as someone with a more accurate weapon? I've never used a gun so I'm curious.