Posts by Bumpy Cat

Re: A Call to action

Far better to send all the women into exile. In one generation the Saudi problem will be solved.

Re: gawd help us

I think the problem is the type of ex-military people you encountered. There's a certain small subset of senior officers who don't actually have any talent aside from following a process and giving orders - which makes them very similar to most senior civil servants or senior bosses in big gov contractors.

It's this unholy triage - big contractors, senior civil servants and senior brass - which make MoD procurement such an utter, ongoing disaster.

The majority of leaders I have met in the Army are good, by necessity. It's in the civilian world that management seems to be generally awful.

Re: Hmmm...

Why explore space? It has been answered already, better than I could:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

Re: is this the same Facebook

Not entirely - there was a good article on the people Farcebook uses as moderators. Basically, poor English speakers are what they like, so there's a lot of people in developing countries. They have fairly conservative or traditional views on nudity, sex and abortion, but aren't so bothered by violence.

http://gawker.com/5885714/inside-facebooks-outsourced-anti+porn-and-gore-brigade-where-camel-toes-are-more-offensive-than-crushed-heads

Not everything in the world is the fault of the US.

Re: Past lives

Muiderpoort?

So what did happen there? Google doesn't seem to have anything interesting to say about Muiderpoort.

Re: Other Uses of Firewalls

One answer: China. China would never firewall off NK. All internet access to NK goes through China, and some of the NK units are apparently even working from China.

China backs NK to the hilt, regardless of the cost. The thought of facing a unified democratic Korea terrifies China, for economic, social and strategic reasons. Also, they still pay lip service to the communist alliance, even though China is now a gerontocratic kleptocracy and NK a dystopian Confucian autocracy.

Kim Jong Un could sleep with Xi Jinping's wife and kick his dog and China would still support NK. Hell, in addition to their worldwide low-key heroin operation, NK runs a massive crystal meth distribution network in neighbouring provinces of China, and STILL China does nothing.

I'm not defending them 100%, but the energy companies only make a small profit percentage-wise. Of course it's billions of pounds - if you provide a service to millions of people you will be making billions.

The lack of foresight and poor short-term planning is not really up to the energy companies, either - that's 100% the responsibility of DECC or whatever they're called these days. DECC under Miliband was really DCC, since they apparently didn't give a shit about energy provision.

Re: Witch woman

If you're at work, do not GIS "Dragons Crown Sorceress". Lessons learned.

Gold phones?

One of these is not like the others ;) While I think gold phones are pretty ugly, bad taste is (regrettably) not a shooting offense.

Re: terrorism, not war

The clandestine war has been going on for a while, and in both directions. It's not like Iran is an innocent babe in the woods here - they've been attacking random Jews worldwide for decades:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing

Re: multiple spacewalks = lots of air?

The ISS is low by orbital standards. Bringing an enormous, irregularly-shaped blob of ice and dust into an orbit that low would most likely see it fall to pieces and then to earth, making a pretty light show for the people below.

The ISS apogee is 418 km, while even a geostationary orbit is 36000 km. With an asteroid, you really want to park it far away, and the moon is ten times geostationary at about 360000, which is nice and far away but still somewhere we have gone before (and hopefully again soon).

Re: Can't do the time, don't do the crime @ Bumpy Cat

@Potsherd

Don't try that one on me. I did a tour of Afghan three years ago, and worked closely with the ANP and ANA. My team coordinated reconstruction with the provincial governor's office.

The guys shooting at us, meanwhile, were a mix of Afghans and Pakistanis, with a smattering of Chechens and Arabs. They beat, shot, imprisoned and extorted the local people - basically a cross between bandits and mafia. The "hostile force" was the Taliban.

Re: Poor Julian

It sounds like the problem is that the actual council of the party, which is supposed to direct things, was making decisions which were ignored by people on the ground. It would be like the Cabinet making a decision to do X, and the Civil Service deciding to do Y anyway ... oh.

Re: I'll say it, since nobody else has the guts to

"I bet the Jews did this!" That's pretty blatant racism there, Steven. The guy is a US citizen, but because of his ethnicity you assume that he did this evil deed. It also fits the classic anti-semitic trope of Jews controlling things. Moreover, as others have pointed out, it's a stupid suggestion too. Do you think there's some special flag in the reporting process for reports from Palestine?

As for getting on watchlists - get over yourself. A stupid comment on a random website doesn't warrant attention from the security services, or you'd be watching most of twitter.

Broadly speaking, where does this hostility and suspicion of Israel come from? Sure they're not perfect, but what country is? Right next door there's a civil war raging that's killed more people in two years than all Arab-Israeli wars in history.

He was travelling from a meeting with Edward Snowden's contact, to a meeting with Glenn Greenwald, paid for by the Guardian. Whether this was appropriate or proportionate is up for debate, but he was not stopped just for being associated with Greenwald.

Re: Passion is one thing

It was marked as stable. If he didn't believe that and ran tests/compiled it all himself, (1) he'd run out of time, (2) he'd be criticized for not trusting his devs.

You're not going to disappear into prison for posting something bad about the state?

I like the idea, but you might find yourself detained and beaten with a rubber hose until you provide the plaintext. I'd hate to have to make a breakthrough on Linear-A while being interrogated. They'd probably steal the credit too.

Re: Novel tactics and surprise @murph

Indeed - the armoured/motoized spearhead was a novel concept in 1939/40 and punched deep into the opposing forces lines, fracturing the resistance and allowing the footsloggers to mop up.

By 1943/44 everyone had got it, though, thus the stunning failures of the German Army in 1944. At Falaise they tried their usual armoured attack, and the US/UK said "Haha, nope", sidestepped the attack, and attacked on the flanks, leading to the cheery sight of a quarter-million Germans trying to run away down one road. The Soviets, meanwhile, launched Operation Bagration which utterly demolished the German Army's eastern front, and this time it wasn't at the cost of a hundred thousand Russian lives.

Re: Barrel

Diplomatic bags do not allow live human contents. There was a Nigerian attempt at that (with an unwilling tranportee) a while back.

Re: Irony

@Triggerfish

Yeah, I didn't think you meant it that way, but it read that way and I wanted to clear that up. :)

It's always converts and clueless who take anything to extremes - unfortunately in some mosques there are people who are willing to steer that to violence. I remember reading an interview with one radical female convert to Islam; she said when she converted she told her children that Islam prohibited alcohol. Her eight-year-old daughter asked her "Does that mean you won't drink so much any more, mummy?", and when the woman replied yes, the daughter said "Yay!". Lady, if your eight-year-old daughter is worried about your drinking, the problem is not alcohol, or Western society, it's you.

Re: Thats all we need

First time I've ever said this, but this better be a Rickroll ...

Re: New US kit

It's a front view of a helicopter, with feathery bird wings.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=us+army+air+assault+badge