these anti-vax idiots are gonna keep us in permanent lockdown and masks as this virus mutates around our countermeasures

When you have neither speed nor maneuverability, it's your own durability that is in question, not the opponents durability.

It took the capture of the Akutan zero, its repair, and U.S. flight testing, to work out countermeasures to the zero.

The countermeasures were basically :
- One surprise diving attack and run away with momentum, or just don't fight them.
- Else bait your pursuer into a head-on pass with an ally (Thatch weave) (which, is still a bad position, only it's bad for everyone.)

Zero had 20mm cannons. The F4F had .50's. The F4F did not out gun the zero. 20mms only need a couple rounds to down a plane.

Durability became a factor later in the war, after the U.S. brought in better planes, like the F4U, F6F, Mustang, etc... while the zero stagnated in near-original form, and Japan could not make planes like the N1K in meaningful quanitties, or even provide quality fuel for planes like the Ki84 to use full power.

History is history. We screwed up at the start of WW2. Hubris/pride/confidence made us dismiss technologies that came around to bite us in the ass hard, and cost a lot of lives.




Best rockets since the 1960's? Because it had the biggest rocket?
What about reliability, consistency, dependability.
If I had to put my own life on the line and go to space, and I had a choice, I would pick a Russian rocket.

-scheherazade

BTW, somebody mentioned to me that the plane more than likely was helped out by the counter-action of the *kick* it would have received when the pilot ejected from the cockpit. I fully agree with this and it was something I initially missed for a bit.

So, instead--using what I said; do the same thing, but add a countermeasure device on the topside that "fires" off --exactly like a pilot ejecting--though it may need a tad more force, since the pilot is still in the plane--and perhaps everything will work out.

We can all have our pipe-dreams...

Would have made an ideal cheap export weapon for our then "friends" to use in counter-insurgency.

Low countermeasures, not bulletproofed, one engine---anywhere where the pilots were a relatively cheap commodity, it would have been a useful add on.

Anywhere else, for US Forces, given the cost of training pilots---
Probably not really economical.

If the Army was allowed to have fixed wing aircraft (it's not; that's part of the deal with having the Air Force)---then I bet they'd would have wanted it for a counter-insurgency role, where the other guy had no airplanes and no SAMS/heavy anti aircraft---but that doesn't describe the world of the 1980s and the Fulda Gap very accurately lol

>> ^Januari:

You know i told myself there just HAD to be more to this story when i saw the title... then i watched the video... and wow.. just wow... Has to be one of the most irresponsible uses of authority i've seen in a long time. Really just incredible.


Yeah, when I first started hearing about it, I thought they were leaving out pertinent information, but nope, the head of police tried to make it sound like it was a 'rolling blockade', but it was most definitely not, the cars were stopped for a couple of minutes, at a standstill, when the car crashed into them.

They'd been tracking the guy for over a hundred kms, how could they not have had time to get out countermeasures or do something else other than just park a bunch of civilians across a road?

>> ^DrewNumberTwo:

Your car analogy is accurate, but misleading. If the car were newer, then it would in fact be against patent law to make one on your own. The SCO case is, I believe, patent law, not copyright.
I don't get your argument regarding publishing companies of various kinds trying to make money for themselves and not paying artists much. This is the old "artists deserve more money" argument. Frankly, they don't. And I'm saying that as an artist. If you're an artist and you give someone your art in exchange for whatever percentage, then you've agreed to that amount and you deserve that amount, and no more. The fact is, selling art is hard. It might not seem that way because we see it everywhere, but having art sitting in your house or on your computer and making money off of it is just plain difficult. The easiest route is frequently to let someone else do that for you, and to artists who can't afford a cup of coffee, making some decent cash sounds like a good deal.
Artists who don't want to go that route are free to keep their content and sell it themselves.


If the car were newer it'd be illegal to sell it. If you made one for your own use, there shouldn't be any legal recourse for the company to follow. It's been a long standing tradition that reverse engineering is allowed, only broken with the digital age and "no bypassing of countermeasures".

SCO is patent law, but they were selling licenses to "guarantee" people they won't be prosecuted once they won. They were selling something they hadn't even proven they owned yet...another aspect of the digital world that's broken. People without the legal rights claiming they do and infringing. Businesses do it all the time by taking other people's pictures and using them in their ads. Even Congressional members have been caught doing it....they don't understand why it's frustrating for a "normal" person who can actually be sued when it happens.

The publisher argument was to show that the traditional way of publishing is no longer relevant in the digital market. They are trying to muscle in after the fact, in spite of customers and in spite of self published authors to dictate what everything should sell for and how it should be sold. They are failing overall, but it doesn't change the fact that they are trying. They are also going after the libraries and trying to undermine the lending system the libraries have, after they've already sold them the goods. So here, the publishing houses are using their wealth and power to attempt to stop distribution channels they don't control much like the RIAA. NYT won't acknowledge self-published authors on their best seller lists, because of it's ties to publishing, in another attempt to discredit non-publisher affiliated authors.

The law is there to protect people, not the people who have corporate backing. A self pubbed author makes 70% of book sale price on Amazon, less than 15% if it's through publisher. The self-pubbed author pricing is usually less than 5 dollars...something around 3 dollars usually. And the publisher authors usually sell for hard back prices, 15 dollars or so. They want to force everyone to sell books at the 15 dollar mark, when self-pubbed authors have found that under 5 bucks gets them the most coverage AND money. So despite the evidence, the big pubs are attempting to influence the market and infringing on the rights (not necessary their copyrights, but I believe they are by attempting to prevent them from distributing it as the people want and the author wants) of the other authors to sell their works as they see fit by attempting to take over the market places.

The future of publishing houses looks like they will have to become small electronic based outfits that provide the author with an editor, cover artwork (relevant and beneficial to sales of book), and possibly facilitate audio book deals and other countries markets so the author can continue writing instead of marketing. For a 15-20% percentage of sales so they have an incentive to do it right and sell quantities at the popular pricing schemes instead of taking the lion's share and scooping up all authors so they get enough to stay afloat despite the content creators getting crumbs. But it still doesn't mean they should be attempting to prevent non-affiliated authors from being noticed and selling books as they see fit due to deals they make on behalf of all "book sales" they control or not.

I'm late to this thread and didn't read all the comments. Sorry.

Only a couple things:

- When assigning channels for a submitted video, it would be REALLY nice if hovering over a channel for a second or so brought up a COMPLETE and SPECIFIC description of EXACTLY what kind of video warrants said channel flag. Also, when "nochannel" is invoked, the subsequent siftbot comment links to the applicable section of the FAQ which contains NO HELPFUL INFORMATION on proper channel assignments. A complete list somewhere WITH DESCRIPTIONS would also be helpful.

- Sift Lounge. I want to be able to see who is present without having to join. Hovering over the Sift Lounge link should bring up a list of current... loungers. Also, it would be awesome to be able to have a private conversation within the lounge (if this is already possible... nm). Multiple rooms would be cool, but private conversations/rooms should be limited to two members as a clique countermeasure.

Apart from the fact that countermeasures are effective with a polygraph, there is no way one can detect "truth" if the subject truly beliefs what they say is true. Martha Farah has done a number of studies on false memories; neither a polygraph or fMRI lie detection is going to find the "truth" in these situations.

>> ^K0MMIE:
>> ^mauz15:
you're referring to that account who posted about taxes. I noticed it, but 3 spam posts a day? I have a hard time believing that.

http://commercial.videosift.com/talk/Income-Tax
http://commercial.videosift.com/talk/online-tax
http://commercial.videosift.com/talk/tax-preparation
http://news.videosift.com/talk/IRS-Tax-Extension
Believe whatever you'd like. Subscribe to sift talk posts via RSS to see stuff that has already been discarded. But don't base something on your hunches.




4 instances from only 2 accounts in a single week. Where is this constant every day spam problem? Again, no one is saying spam here does not exists but I don't think the amount is necessarily enough to take such extreme measures for every new member. Nothing is being based on hunches, it is based on the fact I visit the site's recent comment section and the siftalk section often. I am sure if the spam was so constant and out of control then the admins would have done something about it already.

Secondly, understand my skepticism on this when:

1. according to you, the constant bans and discards are working to the point where many of us don't notice it.

2. You lay out an argument for restricting new accounts in a very strict and limited manner as a countermeasure to deal with the spam. By that logic, anyone can assume the spam problem is very serious and therefore out of control (is not out of control if you need to use RSS to see it) since one of the solutions is to make it more difficult for new members be it spammer or not, to be able to interact in this place.

3. Your siftalk needs more info. How was I, or any other reader supposed to know about using RSS to see what you are talking about? or are you assuming everyone here knows exactly about this problem based on the 7 lines of text you provided?

Well there is a more basic idea than law at stake here as VJ points out. Making just owning a gun a crime is an overly huge power of the government, much akin to prohibition of alcohol. However, I can't say I agree with his anarchism.

I think the main ploy to the ordinary man to give up his second amendment rights to bear arms usually comes with the idea of enhanced safety of all. If people don't have guns, then less violent crime will happen, or at least the violent crime won't be as easy to comment and take to the point of lethality. But this is a slippery slope of logic that I don't see any reasonable ending point to. You can carry that argument in every direction without bounds that aren't completely subjective. For instance, cars make bank robberies much easier to commit. Should the general populous not have access because it would make all of our dollar bills safer?

Gun laws seem very close in relation to drug laws, to make criminals out of people that have committed no other crime than possessing something. That is a moral problem. How is it right for a person to be brought to trial for committing no crime against his fellow man. A man going to jail because of his hypothetical use of a device in a violent manor is unjust and has no logical end.

No one can ignore the horrible atrocities that have happened in the recent upsurge of school shootings. The ease in which massive harm can be committed with automatic weapons is all to apparent. But making guns illegal doesn't solve that problem. In fact, it only gives power to those rouge elements in society that have no respect for the law. I find a similar parallel in the video game industry with all the new copyright protection methods. Hackers easily thwart all the new countermeasures within weeks or less, but the ordinary person has to deal with a whole new level of stress when dealing with the program (program stalls, interference with hardware settings and various others). I am not commenting on the legality of these copyright measures, but how they negatively affect the ordinary person and do nothing to stop the criminal.

It is a fact that in a free society, horrible things will happen. When such a thing happens, it is the immediate instinct to react. And what better way to react than with the false but convincing argument that more government controls will help the situation. You can outlaw criminal behavior as much as you want, but that doesn't eliminate crime. The fact is, the more unnecessary laws you create the more criminals you create, of which most are collateral damage, ordinary persons thrown in jail in the pursuit of unobtainable perfect safety.

In a free society, we have to get used to the fact that instead of a monarch committing atrocities on us, it will be our neighbors. A hard but certain truth when considering any law you would wish to create. In that, you want all the liberties you can get to ensure you freedoms will be preserved.

I'm sure this will accelerate the development of EMP Grenades as a countermeasure.

"In 2000 and 2001 THEL shot down 28 Katyusha artillery rockets and 5 artillery shells. On November 4, 2002, THEL shot down an incoming artillery shell. A mobile version has completed successful testing. During a test conducted on Aug. 24, 2004 the system successfully shot down multiple mortar rounds. The test represented actual mortar threat scenarios. Targets were intercepted by the THEL testbed and destroyed; both single mortar rounds and salvo were tested.

Even though military experts such as the former head of the Administration for the Development of Weapons and the Technological Industry, Aluf Yitzhak Ben Yisrael, were calling for the implementation of the THEL, the project was discontinued.

In theory certain countermeasures could reduce the effectiveness of THEL. These could include heat hardening and reflective coating of the projectiles, which would increase the necessary laser exposure time. However THEL has primarily been developed to intercept relatively primitive threats such as homemade Qassam rockets and World War II-era Katyusha rockets, which thus far have not incorporated sophisticated countermeasures."


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

Good observations.

Also important to carefully consider mechanisms to combat "sock-puppetry", which your article cites as a way to harm digg and other sites (including this one, really). I wonder if others have yet come up with an effective system to allow people to sign up their new user accounts but avoid the spammer problem cited above (and occasionally witnessed here in the past)?

An automatic daemon that checks for redundant accounts with the same IP is one potential response, although that can be spoofed with multiple IP's.

Another control, although somewhat more draconian, would be to limit the # of "new user accounts" that vote on a queued vid. While this would prevent the rudimentary attacks seen in the past, again, this could be overcome by someone setting up a series of 'sockpuppet' accounts far in advance, and then pouncing whenever the system's limit expired.

Quite a challenge - and I wonder how many countermeasures are feasible against it, and which are more practical than others?

And yes, in theory this comment still relates to the exam I'm writing - hurray for using extracurriculars to study!