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5376
Living Room / Re: Confessions of a drone warrior
« Last post by wraith808 on October 28, 2013, 07:23 PM »
While I will agree that the introduction of mortality and the visceral nature of being there is different, that still doesn't excuse IMO the denigration of any that serve in any capacity.  I'll just never get that.  There are also those that are in the conflict that are there for different reasons- they aren't all heroes, no matter what acts they perform.  Then there are those that are heroes, but are in the capacity of execution of the wrong thing.

There's also the fact that some of these people who are being denigrated for their part are preventing very real casualties on the ground.  For instance, if there wasn't the jamming screw up in the example in the article and they'd been able to tell the soldiers, "hey, there's an IED on the ground there", that would have saved real casualties.  And I'm sure that has happened in other cases.  Is that contribution to be denigrated?  And once you start making these sorts of distinctions... where do you draw the line?  What about sailors on a battleship giving offshore support?  What about pilots of a bomber?  Soldiers manning missile stations?
5377
Living Room / Re: Confessions of a drone warrior
« Last post by wraith808 on October 28, 2013, 04:18 PM »
^ What about the fact that he *was* diagnosed with PTSD?  And the new studies quoted in the article, i.e.

It was an unexpected diagnosis. For decades the model for understanding PTSD has been “fear conditioning”: quite literally the lasting psychological ramifications of mortal terror. But a term now gaining wider acceptance is “moral injury.” It represents a tectonic realignment, a shift from a focusing on the violence that has been done to a person in wartime toward his feelings about what he has done to others—or what he’s failed to do for them. The concept is attributed to the clinical psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, who in his book Achilles in Vietnam traces the idea back as far as the Trojan War. The mechanisms of death may change—as intimate as a bayonet or as removed as a Hellfire—but the bloody facts, and their weight on the human conscience, remain the same. Bryant’s diagnosis of PTSD fits neatly into this new understanding. It certainly made sense to Bryant. “I really have no fear,” he says now. “It’s more like I’ve had a soul-crushing experience. An experience that I thought I’d never have. I was never prepared to take a life.”

In 2011, Air Force psychologists completed a mental-health survey of 600 combat drone operators. Forty-two percent of drone crews reported moderate to high stress, and 20 percent reported emotional exhaustion or burnout. The study’s authors attributed their dire results, in part, to “existential conflict.” A later study found that drone operators suffered from the same levels of depression, anxiety, PTSD, alcohol abuse, and suicidal ideation as traditional combat aircrews. These effects appeared to spike at the exact time of Bryant’s deployment, during the surge in Iraq. (Chillingly, to mitigate these effects, researchers have proposed creating a Siri-like user interface, a virtual copilot that anthropomorphizes the drone and lets crews shunt off the blame for whatever happens. Siri, have those people killed.)

What if it has less to do with mortality than it does morality?
5378
Living Room / Re: Confessions of a drone warrior
« Last post by wraith808 on October 28, 2013, 01:36 PM »
It's the pig vs chicken scenario.  But to be fair, war, no matter if you're not directly in harms way, is hell.  Different people have differing contributions to the effort, but to denigrate these particular warriors seems unfair, and more leaning towards the old service rivalries, when without the drone intel (taking the assassinations off the table) their hazard levels would be much higher.
5379
Living Room / Re: Confessions of a drone warrior
« Last post by wraith808 on October 28, 2013, 12:48 PM »
That was a strikingly human perspective on drone warfare. It didn't really change my opinions of drones at all, but goddamn. It was a pretty emotional explanation of what the operators go through and their thought processes.
-p3lb0x (October 28, 2013, 12:41 PM)

The fusion of technology and human as an extension of firepower- we see the modern warrior on the ground and all of the equipment and technology making him into the techno-warrior.  But this... it seems more the definition of the warrior of a technological age.
5380
Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
« Last post by wraith808 on October 28, 2013, 12:23 PM »
A rather revealing and self-defining statement about one's personal standards and integrity.
-IainB (October 28, 2013, 08:33 AM)

Not really. Just a sociological observation. Not all lies are created equal. We all tell lies as we negotiate our daily existences. You don't believe me? Try for a day not to tell a lie like in the movie Liar Liar. When your missus asks you the next time "Does my bum look big in this?", just go ahead and say yes and see what happens...
-dr_andus (October 28, 2013, 11:14 AM)

^ This.  :Thmbsup:
5381
Living Room / Confessions of a drone warrior
« Last post by wraith808 on October 28, 2013, 12:02 PM »


Confessions of a Drone Warrior

He was an experiment, really. One of the first recruits for a new kind of warfare in which men and machines merge. He flew multiple missions, but he never left his computer. He hunted top terrorists, saved lives, but always from afar. He stalked and killed countless people, but could not always tell you precisely what he was hitting. Meet the 21st-century American killing machine. who's still utterly, terrifyingly human

More at link

“It’s like playing Dungeons & Dragons,” says Bryant. “Roll a d20 to see if you hit your target.” His training inspector, watching over his shoulder, would count down to impact and say, “Splash! You killed everyone.”

Within a few months he “went off” to war, flying missions over Iraq at the height of the conflict’s deadliest period, even though he never left Nevada.

There's a level of cognitive dissonance there that is ... staggering in it's implications.

“I kind of finished the night numb,” Bryant says. “Then you just go home. No one talked about it. No one talked about how they felt after anything. It was like an unspoken agreement that you wouldn’t talk about your experiences.”

Other members of his squadron had different reactions to their work. One sensor operator, whenever he made a kill, went home and chugged an entire bottle of whiskey. A female operator, after her first shot, refused to fire again even under the threat of court martial. Another pilot had nightmares after watching two headless bodies float down the Tigris. Bryant himself would have bizarre dreams where the characters from his favorite game, World of Warcraft, appeared in infrared.

What really strikes me from the recollections is that PTSD doesn't seem to require you to be on the ground, and this has a real effect on the so-called drone warriors also; one that's not being front and center.  Like executioners or anyone who deals in push button death.

He constructed a darkly appropriate syllabus for his occupation. He read the dystopian sci-fi classic Ender’s Game, about children whose violent simulated games turn out to be actual warfare. Then came Asimov, Bryant pondering his Three Laws of Robotics in an age of Predators and Hellfires. A robot may not injure a human being….

The future of authors' dark imaginations on stage today in our military.  Where has technology taken us?
5382
Living Room / Re: Yay! New Laws for Crowdfunding!
« Last post by wraith808 on October 27, 2013, 09:14 AM »
^ Don't kid a kidder.  That's code written by a political science major (and yes, I know a political science major that went into software development).
5383
General Software Discussion / Re: Sandboxie lifetime license discontinued
« Last post by wraith808 on October 26, 2013, 02:41 PM »
That means it does stop working... at least as purchased.  I have problems with that kind of licensing.
5384
Developer's Corner / Re: Contest: DARPA offers $2 milllion for security software to be written
« Last post by wraith808 on October 26, 2013, 09:02 AM »
Yes?
5385
Developer's Corner / Re: Contest: DARPA offers $2 milllion for security software to be written
« Last post by wraith808 on October 25, 2013, 02:44 PM »
How about Skynet?  That seems like an obvious one. ;D
5386
General Software Discussion / Re: typing in web browser makes it freeze
« Last post by wraith808 on October 25, 2013, 01:44 PM »
I have the same thing sometimes.  You might try to run Chrome's task manager.  I have this from time to time, and I can trace it back to extensions- ad block plus has been a big offender.
5387
Developer's Corner / Re: Contest: DARPA offers $2 milllion for security software to be written
« Last post by wraith808 on October 25, 2013, 12:25 PM »
What's the better response to this article?  Crickets and Silence?  Or Laughter?
5388
Living Room / Re: Going cold turkey on the unholy trinity
« Last post by wraith808 on October 24, 2013, 07:42 PM »
IMO, the most dangerous (and maybe I'd even label it as "evil") current aspect of web-centric computing is "dot net" (.Net)
-saralynn (October 24, 2013, 06:29 PM)

Just curious... why would you label .NET as evil?
5389
Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Last post by wraith808 on October 24, 2013, 02:04 PM »
Wow... take an economics class!

Inflation (a *decrease* in a currency's value) is a completely different phenomenon from the price of a currency going UP (which is an *increase* in a currency's value).

You see, "inflation", as we usually encounter it, is due to an increase in the *amount* of money in circulation (not necessarily *physical* currency, mind you, as many people are paid, these days, with direct-deposit, and we buy things with a debit card, so no physical currency ever moved through our bank account. So, we're talking about the total amount of bank-account assets plus their cash minus their debts). When the amount of money in the economy goes up, that's more money people can spend on items in the market. And, since every price is the result of an invisible bidding war between buyers on a non-infinite supply of goods, if people *can* spend more money on something, some *will* spend more on it, and the price will be driven up.

When this happens, the price of the *currency* drops. It doesn't cost you as much, in terms of other currencies, to purchase it, because it doesn't have as much purchasing power. For example, suppose the British pound and the American dollar were trading 1:1. Suppose a candy-bar costs 1 dollar or 1 pound. Then, the American gov't prints a bunch of money and pays the people to build a bunch of roads or whatever. Now, the American people have twice as much money in their pocket, so they're going to be able to pay twice as much for a candy-bar, so the price of candy-bars goes up to 2 dollars. Meanwhile, a candy-bar *still* costs 1 British pound. And the *exchange* rate becomes 1 British pound buys 2 American dollars. *THAT* is inflation.

This is the opposite of what's happening with Bitcoin. A bitcoin's price, in terms of other currencies, has been going *up*, even though the supply of bitcoins has been (slowly) increasing. This is due to increased demand for it as more and more merchants accept it (which is the same as "demand" increasing).

Renegade are you posting in comments again?  ;D
5390
Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]
« Last post by wraith808 on October 24, 2013, 02:01 PM »
Apparently American Banks think we're playing Monopoly

86-Apparently-American-banks-play-Monopoly.jpg
5391
General Software Discussion / Re: Sandboxie lifetime license discontinued
« Last post by wraith808 on October 24, 2013, 12:45 PM »
My next release won't be a free upgrade. I'll be making a blog post for reasons when I'm near to release.
-Renegade (October 24, 2013, 06:02 AM)

That's a bit different from what they are doing.  I understand paying for an upgrade- that's fine.  But when you have to pay every year in order to keep using the software that you paid for?  That's SaaS by another name.
5392
General Software Discussion / Re: Is the day of the paid OS over?
« Last post by wraith808 on October 23, 2013, 10:50 PM »
The big things to me that make it seem a lot more than 8.1:

Just those to me trump the upgrade that 8.1 is.  I'm still waiting rather than being an early adopter, but it looks like a legitimate upgrade to me.  Of course YMMV.
5393
General Software Discussion / Re: Is the day of the paid OS over?
« Last post by wraith808 on October 23, 2013, 09:44 PM »
I'm really starting to long for products and services that charge enough for each item/service to make a reasonable profit on that item/service.  What a crazy idea.
-mouser (October 23, 2013, 09:34 PM)

You are... but most people aren't.

Look at the new iPhone 5c(heap).  The phone itself is $100... you can get it for $50 at wal-mart.  But you have to get a dataplan.  The $15 a month plan is a joke... so you're looking at $25 for 2 years + your voice plan- all to pay for a $500 (or less) phone.

It's the mentality of consumers today that's causing the switch.  They'd rather the hand taking from their pocket under the table rather than just putting the money in plain view.
5394
General Software Discussion / Re: Is the day of the paid OS over?
« Last post by wraith808 on October 23, 2013, 08:29 PM »
The Apple hype machine is way too strong. Mavericks is not far from a SP or an upgrade like 8.1, both free. I have checked many "what's new" articles (because admittedly I am not a user) and if you have paid for 10.6+ (for example), why should this NOT be free?
-rgdot (October 23, 2013, 06:35 PM)

Actually, there's a lot new over mountain lion.

A good overview - http://arstechnica.c...e/2013/10/os-x-10-9/

24 pages.  And it's not fluff.
5395
General Software Discussion / Re: Is the day of the paid OS over?
« Last post by wraith808 on October 23, 2013, 06:31 PM »
I've started with Apple a bit... it's depressing, but I just haven't had good experience with Linux when I tried it before.  I'm past the point of wanting to learn how to use something... I just want it to work.
5396
General Software Discussion / Is the day of the paid OS over?
« Last post by wraith808 on October 23, 2013, 04:20 PM »
In general, as time has gone on, the number of paid OSes has dropped.  From BeOS, AmigaOS, and OS/2, as MS Windows proliferation killed off the aspirants to the throne, they also had a side effect- that there were more free OSes, and less paid ones, as it became clear that Microsoft was the only OS that could make money off of this basic functionality.  The only other paid OS out there for a long time has been OS X.

Then, with Lion, they moved to a digital distribution, and with Mountain Lion, they dropped the price to $19.99.  Now, OS X 10.9 Mavericks has been released - for free.

This leaves MS as the only paid OS provider, and they have been making missteps left and right it seems.

Are the days of MS using Windows for a large revenue sink over?  Or will they prevail against the winds of change, continuing on as they have been?

As an aside, it is very apparent also that this is where the walled garden gets us- the vertical integration path where the profits can be made from other parts of the revenue stream rather than an up front cost.

References:
http://www.wired.com...pple-ends-paid-oses/
http://www.slate.com...aid_os_upgrades.html
5397
Living Room / Re: Yay! New Laws for Crowdfunding!
« Last post by wraith808 on October 23, 2013, 12:17 PM »
Well, considering the fact that the returns on 'investments' on kickstarter/indiegogo are products and not hard curry, I'm not sure that the applicability is there.  And looking at the proposed legislature, I hope it's not.  Because they change the barrier to entry drastically, where this barrier was the reason that crowdfunding became popular in the first place.

While it is true that there are scams, we can't say that anything the feds try to regulate aren't scams also.  So this seems to try to solve a problem that they should perhaps solve on the larger scale first and leave the couple of negative examples as just that?  A couple of negative examples?
5398
Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Last post by wraith808 on October 22, 2013, 10:53 AM »
It's very much like gold, IMO, and the reason that we moved away from the gold standard (and the reason that I think it was a good thing to move away from it).  It's a commodity, which means that it *is* an investment.  Just one that is used as currency also.
5399
Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]
« Last post by wraith808 on October 21, 2013, 04:22 PM »
Yeah... i saw her on the show.  It was disconcerting and cool at the same time.
-wraith808 (October 20, 2013, 10:09 AM)

I thought it was more cool than disconcerting. It's about people "walking the walk" of "innovating creatively". So at like age 8 she wasn't singing Miley Cyrus, she was singing "Teen metal".

I'll offer this as the equally funny counterpoint from the other side of life!
The Zimmers!
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=-m0EZO5O2dM


-TaoPhoenix (October 21, 2013, 03:44 PM)

Well, the disconcerting part to me had nothing to do with song choice, but rather blowing out her vocal cords.  Most people think that screamo is just screaming and there is no art to it.  But there is.  And many people have ended up with blown vocal cords, vocal nodules, and many other vocal debilities from that misconception. http://www.drugs.com...-cord-disorders.html
5400
Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]
« Last post by wraith808 on October 20, 2013, 10:09 AM »
Yeah... i saw her on the show.  It was disconcerting and cool at the same time.
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