According to the Wall St Journal the US Army has canceled the Long Endurance Multi Intelligence Vehicle project. This was to be a 300 foot long blimp with an endurance of weeks. It would float above the battlefield and furnish reconnaissance video, wifi, cold beer and everything else to troops below. Apparently the program was planned to cost $517 million, of which $275 million has been spent.
Question 1: How in the name of all that is holy can you spend $275 million on a single blimp? It's not like it is new technology. Count Zeppelin had them flying better than 100 years ago.
Question 2: Can it survive a surface to air missile?
Friday, February 15, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Pre School
I remember childhood as being really cool, up until I had to start going to school at age six. Before that dread day, life was good, I played in the street with a regular gang of kids every day that it didn't rain. This was before computer games, Sesame Street, or even TV.
And now Obama is proposing to end the good part of childhood at four years old, instead of six. And he is telling us that real learning takes place at age four, learning so valuable that we must take our kids away from good times and toss them into school.
I didn't even do kindergarten myself, and I never missed it. School started with first grade and I did as well as any other kid in the class.
Far as I can see, pre kindergarten schooling is state sponsored day care. The kids don't learn anything, but parents can drop their kids off as they go to work. With so many people out of work, you'd think there would be plenty of unemployed family members to look after kids while parents are out earning a living.
And now Obama is proposing to end the good part of childhood at four years old, instead of six. And he is telling us that real learning takes place at age four, learning so valuable that we must take our kids away from good times and toss them into school.
I didn't even do kindergarten myself, and I never missed it. School started with first grade and I did as well as any other kid in the class.
Far as I can see, pre kindergarten schooling is state sponsored day care. The kids don't learn anything, but parents can drop their kids off as they go to work. With so many people out of work, you'd think there would be plenty of unemployed family members to look after kids while parents are out earning a living.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Cybersecurity
All sorts of companies are getting hacked these days. Latest victims to fess up are newspapers, the NY Times, the Journal, and WashPost. Congress has ignored prodding to pass a cybersecurity law. So Obama is calling a "voluntary" meeting to OK some "voluntary" standards and then promise to implement them. I don't know just what Uncle Sam is gonna propose, so here are my recommendations.
1. Everyone has to use long and strong passwords, and all passwords are changed every couple of months.
2. Signals to control machinery shall never go over the public internet. No remote controlled machine shall ever accept commands from the public internet.
3. Private networks never accept login from off the premises, from the public internet, or from a dial up connection.
4. All laptops must have full disc encryption to protect contents and passwords should the laptop fall into hostile hands..
5. Autorun must be disabled on all computers to prevent malicious programming from automatically uploading and executing off CDs and flashdrives..
6. Use nothing but secure email clients and browsers. Secure means never executing any sort of programming received over the internet or as an attachment. Secure email clients and browsers will only display mail and websites, they will never execute programming of any sort. To my knowledge no commercial email or browser programs are secure, they will all download and execute malicious programming with no assistance on the part of the user, or notification that they are doing so.
Companies need to understand that poor security will give competitors access to their bids, customer lists, their designs and trade secrets, their books, their employee lists, and any other intellectual property they own. No company can win a bid when the competitor knows just how much they bid for a job. The risks ought to be obvious to even the stupidest of suits.
1. Everyone has to use long and strong passwords, and all passwords are changed every couple of months.
2. Signals to control machinery shall never go over the public internet. No remote controlled machine shall ever accept commands from the public internet.
3. Private networks never accept login from off the premises, from the public internet, or from a dial up connection.
4. All laptops must have full disc encryption to protect contents and passwords should the laptop fall into hostile hands..
5. Autorun must be disabled on all computers to prevent malicious programming from automatically uploading and executing off CDs and flashdrives..
6. Use nothing but secure email clients and browsers. Secure means never executing any sort of programming received over the internet or as an attachment. Secure email clients and browsers will only display mail and websites, they will never execute programming of any sort. To my knowledge no commercial email or browser programs are secure, they will all download and execute malicious programming with no assistance on the part of the user, or notification that they are doing so.
Companies need to understand that poor security will give competitors access to their bids, customer lists, their designs and trade secrets, their books, their employee lists, and any other intellectual property they own. No company can win a bid when the competitor knows just how much they bid for a job. The risks ought to be obvious to even the stupidest of suits.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Lithium batteries
Aviation Week came in today. They haven't pinned the lithium battery fires on anything yet. They are now talking about doing the paperwork to change over to some other kind of battery. They haven't committed to this yet, but they are worrying that it might become necessary. If so, they worry that FAA paperwork will take months.
North Korean Nukes
The newsies have been chattering about the North Korean nuclear test all day. Amid the torrent of words on both lefty NPR and righty Fox, the one important number has NOT been given. A further example of innumeracy among the newsies. They can't count, can't add, can't subtract.
The missing number is yield, in kilotons. The first two North Korean tests were fizzles. Their yield was so low (1 kiloton) as to tell us something went wrong and the bomb barely went off. Any decent sort of nuke ought to have a 20 kiloton or better yield.
Question for the world's newsies. Did this North Korean test yield enough to make us think they have it working right? A yield of 20 kilotons makes them a nuclear power. One kiloton makes them wannabes.
The chattering classes have taken the North Korean claim of "miniaturized" to mean the bomb is small enough to put on their ballistic missile. You can believe as much of that as you want to.
The missing number is yield, in kilotons. The first two North Korean tests were fizzles. Their yield was so low (1 kiloton) as to tell us something went wrong and the bomb barely went off. Any decent sort of nuke ought to have a 20 kiloton or better yield.
Question for the world's newsies. Did this North Korean test yield enough to make us think they have it working right? A yield of 20 kilotons makes them a nuclear power. One kiloton makes them wannabes.
The chattering classes have taken the North Korean claim of "miniaturized" to mean the bomb is small enough to put on their ballistic missile. You can believe as much of that as you want to.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Battlestar Galactica revival
The Sci-Fi channel ran a new feature length Battlestar Galactica last night. I'm an old fan, I can remember watching the very first episode on TV, with a bunch of techie friends from work, lo these many years ago. So I watched this one.
Note to all camera men. Buy a tripod. Use it. The camera bounced, jounced, jiggled and wavered thru out the two hours of the show. The action scenes switched the camera from one viewpoint to another too fast for anyone to keep up with. The color kept fading out to black and white or sepia. I know some Hollywood wienies think this is artistic. I think it means my color TV set is dying. The space combat scenes were a moving blur of fuzzy space vessels and brilliant explosions. You couldn't tell who was blowing up, good guys or bad guys. The space combat scenes would have been better if the space vessels had carried distinctive paint jobs, unit insignia, tail numbers, names, anything to tell one from another. This camera man was into dark and gloomy. All the scenes were poorly lighted, many so dim I failed to recognize faces. Too many backlit scenes where the cast appears as pure black silhouettes.
The cast was mediocre. Most of them mumbled so badly that I kept missing the punch lines. We have young ensign Hotshot, fresh out of the Academy, full of piss & vinegar, joining his first combat unit. Instead of jumping into the cockpit of a colonial Viper, he gets assigned to fly a trashhauler, a little cargo ship. Said trashhauler comes equipped with a co-pilot with an attitude and a short and curly beard, who has put in his paperwork to get out of the service when his hitch is up. Mysterious and domineering woman is a passenger who later reveals secret orders to fly deep into Cylon space.
The plot was predictable, up until the twist ending, involving appalling treachery. Ensign Hotshot spends a good deal of time yelling at the co-pilot, who has objections to flying a suicide mission. Good leadership technique they teach at that Academy. Despite a steamy love scene, Ensign Hotshot never establishes a real relationship with mysterious brunette passenger.
Too bad. I was up for some light entertainment of the action adventure sort. This fairly expensive to make two hour show wasn't very entertaining.
Note to all camera men. Buy a tripod. Use it. The camera bounced, jounced, jiggled and wavered thru out the two hours of the show. The action scenes switched the camera from one viewpoint to another too fast for anyone to keep up with. The color kept fading out to black and white or sepia. I know some Hollywood wienies think this is artistic. I think it means my color TV set is dying. The space combat scenes were a moving blur of fuzzy space vessels and brilliant explosions. You couldn't tell who was blowing up, good guys or bad guys. The space combat scenes would have been better if the space vessels had carried distinctive paint jobs, unit insignia, tail numbers, names, anything to tell one from another. This camera man was into dark and gloomy. All the scenes were poorly lighted, many so dim I failed to recognize faces. Too many backlit scenes where the cast appears as pure black silhouettes.
The cast was mediocre. Most of them mumbled so badly that I kept missing the punch lines. We have young ensign Hotshot, fresh out of the Academy, full of piss & vinegar, joining his first combat unit. Instead of jumping into the cockpit of a colonial Viper, he gets assigned to fly a trashhauler, a little cargo ship. Said trashhauler comes equipped with a co-pilot with an attitude and a short and curly beard, who has put in his paperwork to get out of the service when his hitch is up. Mysterious and domineering woman is a passenger who later reveals secret orders to fly deep into Cylon space.
The plot was predictable, up until the twist ending, involving appalling treachery. Ensign Hotshot spends a good deal of time yelling at the co-pilot, who has objections to flying a suicide mission. Good leadership technique they teach at that Academy. Despite a steamy love scene, Ensign Hotshot never establishes a real relationship with mysterious brunette passenger.
Too bad. I was up for some light entertainment of the action adventure sort. This fairly expensive to make two hour show wasn't very entertaining.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Words of the Weasel, Panetta style
Panetta said, "You can't willy-nilly send
F-16s there and blow the hell out of the place. ... You have to have good
intelligence."
Panetta apparently has never heard the phrase "Show of Force".
A couple of fighters just orbiting low over the consulate would mightily discourage terrorists climbing the wall and give a real shot in the arm to the defenders.
And this guy was our defense secretary ?
Panetta apparently has never heard the phrase "Show of Force".
A couple of fighters just orbiting low over the consulate would mightily discourage terrorists climbing the wall and give a real shot in the arm to the defenders.
And this guy was our defense secretary ?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)