tired_man

What a load of fluff. I'm glad wired hasn't endangered it's preeminent position as the tech equivalent of the National Enquirer.

Mick Resnick's "Feelies" is based around future society where this has happened.

Cruise missiles that aren't supersonic aren't of much use. As long as they're in the air, they're targets.

The author painted a very gloomy picture for the carrier. But it isn't all one-sided. In a wartime situation, the carrier would have a much deeper defense. Several hundred miles or more. The E-2 EAWS aircraft easily provide coverage over a 500 mile bubble. Paired with other maritime surveillance aircraft and satellite imagery, they'd have a handle on the nearest aggressors and plan accordingly. Even supersonic missiles need time to travel 2-300 miles.

You know the funny thing? When I was in, the idea was that we'd get off that one big Alpha strike. After that, well.. No one expected to be around long enough to ever recover aircraft if it came down to cases, and the aircraft probably wouldn't be coming back anyway.

War sucks, people die. But the side with better weapons loses fewer people and the best probable chance of surviving. No sane person wants a war, especially the military. That's the sole purview of insane politicians.

Sure, the CVNs are big and their expensive. No argument. But they also have better manning and logistics requirements when compared to multiple smaller decks. Most people fail to realize that the avionics systems in those planes require dedicated test systems that in themselves costs many millions of dollars each and require very, very, well trained technicians to maintain and repair them. That is in addition to the technicians who actually repair the avionics systems.

Then there are the jet's engines. They also require a substantial capital expense for the maintenance systems.

Everything that is found on a big deck is also required on a smaller deck. And you don't get much of a break, either. If a big deck needs four expensive avionics test systems, then the smaller carrier may only need two. In some cases, there might only be on of a particular test bench on the CVN. But that one needs to exist on each smaller carrier. By the time you have three smaller carriers, the capital costs are already higher than for a CVN.

Don't get me started on trained personnel. The shop supplies the basic cadre for the intermediate maintenance shops and each squadron kicks in some technicians to support their systems. Those shops ran two 12 hours shifts (someone jump in if this has changed). Want to take a guess at many more maintenance people it would take to man three smaller ships vs one larger ship?

Aircraft maintenance is more than poking around with a multimeter, swapping tubes to get the radios working, or swapping out a cylinder on a recip engine. Systems are more computerized and require intelligent people to operate them.

You can't stuff 40-50 aircraft onto something with a cat and arresting gear without also providing all of the very expensive ancillary repair systems to support them.

The days of the jeep carrier are long gone.

Author apparently doesn't know that carrier task groups typically travel with their own attack sub. If there is a possibility of hostile submarines, someone will be more than willing to stuff mk48 up their tail.

But that was half the fun of doing learning to hack on a C64. Adding coder tools typed in from MLX code from Compute! or Compute!'s Gazette and learning assembly by taking apart programs in Monitor was a deep learning experience for many beginning 6502 coders.

It's sad that they didn't last, but the chip was simply an evolutionary dead end. I've recently thought about finding one to give my grandson in an attempt to pry away from a tablet his parents gave him.

The crop of tablet/cell-addicted kids is a sad state of affairs.

For most things, my C720 Chromebook runs Ubuntu and handle any tasks I need. Don't equate price with utility ;-)

TIFF. It might have been handy in certain instances, but IMHO, it was never been a big deal except in the page-layout world. And even then, having an eps was better.

I missed that cluster of madness for firefox, I guess. Had I known that Mozilla would turn out this way, I would never have donated money. My name is on their full-page NYT ad and poster.

I wonder if they'd give me a refund?

> > Mozilla was driven into the ground by better competition

> I thought it was Microsoft's anti-competitive strategy? (bundling IE, changing the API's to break netscape, etc.)

I thought it was Mozilla's utter lack of regard for the their userbase.

That is their prerogative, though, and I don't begrudge them the opportunity to try. But short of setting up in-store cell systems that cut out those of the individual carriers, I don't see how they'll manage it.

I never use in-store wifi and only turn on data if _I_ need data. I'm always amazed by people who complain about battery life, yet wander around with wifi,data, and bluetooth running 24/7. :-)

The more you know.

Like most sheep, they're marching to slaughter and don't care. I have friends who have plain, old dumb cells that can't even text. But they are reaching retirement age and it doesn't matter for them. Persons who take an interest in their environment and safety will find out and take measures to safeguard their privacy, but the others, like sheep, will blithely ignore everything and continue to broadcast every facet of their lives to anyone who will listen. There's no hope for them.

I can't even be bothered explaining it to them any longer.

Turn off location services. I don't think many people actually need to walk around with GPS active.

All the more reason to use a custom ROM.

Unless Google Play Services can somehow turn on GPS without it registering as a battery usage item, I doubt they are successful in tracking me.

I happy she was able to check out on her own terms rather than being forced into a miserable existence.

You're right! This is a welcome addition.