Posts by BillyMunny

Lockheed's ARRW hypersonic missile: Sometimes it flies, sometimes it just tries

Hypersonics is like Reagan's "Star Wars" but a SinoRussian Game Directed at the USA

When you see these tales of test, failures, and successes, always bear in mind that these new weapons are deep into the region of diminishing returns. Ronald Reagan bluffed the Soviet Union with the Strategic Defense Initiative / "Star Wars" in the 1980s. Its effect was to make the Soviets work on impossible projects and chase their tails, when more cheap and plentiful weapons could simply have been upgraded to remain effective tools of war.

Hypersonic weapons are the same exhausting game, but being used by Russia and China against the USA. Every team of scientists and every billion dollars devoted to the hypersonic weapons race is not making improvements to weapons like ramjet artillery, HIMARS, or the Rapid Dragon system. Those three things I just mentioned are deadly, and what keep Xi, Putin, and the DPRK Rocket Man awake at night.

Shiny things distract from useful things...

The unfavorable outcomes you allude to are not about weapons systems or ability to kill, but are political. The USA's knack for indiscriminate killing (more this than destruction of property) had the effect of alienating and enraging the populations where they went to fight. Nobody cares about new schools or roads, or a new government when the people are being killed and opportunists are getting rich.

The only reason those "angry men in sandals" are still alive is no one from the US / coalition saw further benefit to expending weapons on them. At some point, shooting them is just wasting ammo. Nothing personal - it's just business.

Voyager 2 found! Deep Space Network hears it chattering in space

Re: Deep Space Network station

Note what is said about the strength of Voyager 2's signal strength in those videos. It is strong - several dB above the noise, and stronger than other probes which you would expect to be stronger. Voyager 2 will run out of power for its communications before it is too far away to contact. Uh... as long as the spacecraft has its antenna pointed Earthward.

Twitter sues Brit non-profit, claims hate-speech reports scared off advertisers

Elon's Game: Buy and Destroy

He doesn't fool me. Elon is intentionally where he is. A meteor didn't strike Twitter, he did.

As far as the infestation of fascists and haters who drive away advertisers: Elon Musk made the platform a safe haven for them. The truth hurts, MF. His coup de grace was renaming it "X." WTF, have we not had enough "X" companies in the past? I was content to let Xerox have that...

How this startup tracked that Chinese spy balloon using AI

Re: Oh great.

So... what is your complaint? In my most humble opinion, the U2, SR-71, and all of the satellites are my tax money well spent. It is better to know your adversaries and friends than to not know them. And then it comes time to use applied violence, to use it where it needs to be used.

Tell me, do you believe your country does not spy? And is is spying if people leave an airplane or ship operating out in the open??

Surveillance is never ever going to stop. Best to find ways to conceal what you intend to keep private.

Utah outlaws kids' social media addiction, sets digital curfew

Dumbass Legislators of Red States

Those silly boomer lawmakers should learn a thing or two about how young people actually use the internet. Kids slip on and off of the darknet, where Utah's laws are meaningless, that they will just laugh and ignore these new laws. None of the red states have power in the cyberspace they wrongly think they own.

If you want kids to grow up and not be a bunch of incel basket cases, don't be a bunch of repressed, bigoted, bible banging, book burning, neo-nazi parents. Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Montana - all really FUBAR states who's problems are just beginning, not close to ending. Because the grownups were also raised by a bunch of repressed, bigoted, bible banging, book burning, neo-nazi parents.

Texas mulls law forcing ISPs to block access to abortion websites

Information Will Find A Way...

Silly, uninformed Texas legislators... I wonder which crony companies would like to have contracts to set up the required surveillance and enforcement of the proposed rules. Follow the $$$.

It is all for nothing, as it is trivially easy to defeat whatever is set up to block websites. Information wants to be free, and no regime has ever been successful at snuffing it out since the invention of the printing press. Check the history: book burnings and Great Firewalls are less effective and more theatrical.

There once was a song lyric that "love will find a way," but it is more true that "information - love or hate - will find a way."

Re: Freaks

After Texas burns to the ground, the rest of the USA will continue to retain the ruins so that they don't even escape in death. We'll make Texas the largest contiguous wildlife refuge in North America.

Elon Musk to abused Twitter users: Your tormentors are coming back

FK Elon Musk.

Twitter was once great, but now it is just another 4Chan-like environment. May it circle the drain and then disappear forever.

Windows Subsystem for Linux now packaged as a Microsoft Store app

Good for your granddaughter; she seems sharp and witty. Doubly good for her that she can use Slackware. (grin) Someday she's going to find things like Void and Nix, and things are going to pop as though it is Guy Fawkes day.

Some of my Linux bro's don't much like WSL. However, I see it as putting Linux before a vast audience of people who will find ways to solve problems with it - to make it work for them. Whether they adopt Linux as their daily driver matters far less than using it to do specific things they can't do as well in pure Windows.

FAA wants pilots to be less dependent on computer autopilots

Your're funny. Ever considered a career in comedy?

I flew my a$$ off as a flight instructor and commuter pilot before going to Boeings. As much as I complained way back when about ratty airplanes with no autopilots (or the 727 which had a really annique one), the hand flying gave life saving skills. Hell, I hit birds on RWY 4 more than a few times at LGA and was just lucky and never lost power. Sully did great and I postulate that other well seasoned pilots would do well too. It is good to have skill AND some good luck to help. May the unskilled and unlucky rest in peace.

I'll say this: lots of good pilots still die because of things which were not of their making. Bad happened. Bad things will happen again.

But bad things happen worse and more often to the reckless or the unprepared. Airlines are squeezing the system such that the recent generation of pilots are not getting the experience they need in terms of manual flying and exercising the judgements that go with it. They don't learn to manage time, workload, and develop discipline and a sense of when things are getting too risky. So they get into things they cannot get out of.

Children of the Magenta Line v2.0

The issue is not new, ref the video I used to title this reply. The magenta line is the path programmed into the autoflight system, which the current generation of ab-initio pilots are dependent on.

Accidents with similar root causes have happened since Asiana 214 - see the Airbus wreck in Pakistan, where the pilots did a FUBAR descent, scraped engines on the runway, rejected the landing, and finished the crash after a dual engine failure on the downwind leg. Another doozie happened in India, where the crew tried to hurry in during heavy rain, flew an unstabilized approach, and then overran the runway (smashing into a brick wall).

I do not blame the pilots. Like Cerberus, some airlines insist that we "stay profiecient" while at the same time insisting that we engage the autopilot as soon as practicable after takeoff, keeping it on until nearing the runway on landing. No BS -- I used to hand fly from takeoff until cruise during my last job in the USA. When that company closed, I found myself in Asia, in a company with more money than sense. They would analyse flight data and call us on the phone to complain if they saw my long periods of hand flying. The young copilots were afraid to buck the bosses, so they became dependent on the autoplot. They were really bad at landing. Not just in crosswinds and gusty conditions, but often on smooth days. They scared the cr*p out of me multiple times.

There are two pilots in the front seats because THREAT ERROR MANAGEMENT works better when two people are working together to stay within the safety margins.

This is an airline management problem. They see autopilots as "liability management" where programming skill seems superior to manual flying ability. I tell you, pilots need to hand fly much more often than they do, in order to exercise those skills. It is a brain exercise as much as it is one involving hands, eyes, and feet.

Children of the Magenta Line is no mere "boomer complaint." It is a real issue; going to single pilot ops is going to make things much worse.

60 countries sign declaration to keep future internet open

Unrestrict Encryption

WTF is it with the Russo / Sino trolls in here, advocating an encryption ban?

We need MORE encryption, end to end. Otherwise, we are not safe to speak our minds or have confidence that we are not being surveilled. Without encryption (and associated AUTHENTICATION), we cannot trust the security of transactions.