Why do you think it was secret?
Why do you think nobody noticed?
Do you think they just began on it since sanctions?

Every major power has had back-burner development of this stuff since the cold war.
The only "secret" was how much progress they made. That it existed, you can freely take for granted.

Just how you can take for granted that everyone is working on genetic weapons, everyone is working on directed energy weapons, everyone is working on infrastructure hacking weapons, everyone is working on automated robotic weapons, etc.

Do you think there is a better / more-cost-efficient place for Russia to spend defense dollars, than on a system which can trade the price of a missile for the price of an aircraft carrier?
I would be more surprised if they hadn't put their money into a program such as this.

Look at what progress China has made :
Which country is fielding a rail gun today? China.
Which country is fielding a man portable laser rifle? China
Which country has demonstrated quantum entanglement encrypted communication? China.

The world is moving on, while we stand around confidently patting ourselves on the back.

-scheherazade

I'm pretty sure that if the tables were turned and somehow Hillary ran as a Republican, the Democrats would have voted for Trump as well. We tend to overlook things like reason and sanity in the USA when it comes to people/teams/etc that we hate.

Plus Trump was selling a message that a lot of people bought into, that they were somehow going to go back to a time when factory and coal jobs were a thing for middle class union type people. People who didn't work in those fields knew it was bogus from the get go, but when you live in a shitty area and desperately want to scroll back progress so that you can get your guaranteed 30+ an hour job/lifetime pension without a college education, you tend to overlook small things like guys grabbing pussies.

You are right, in a sane country Hillary probably would have been elected. She also probably wouldn't have been eligible to run because she would have beaten out Obama in 2008. She didn't because people were so desperate for something, anything to change in our fucked up government that they went with Obama. Hell, I even voted for him the first time. But, we lost our sanity sometime around the period when elected an actor over a generally 'nice guy' kind of president. Said actor/governor then instituted the following amazing things:

* The War on Drugs - utter failure
* Reaganomics - depends on who you ask, but it pretty much fucked us for years to come.
* Wonderful changes and cuts to education - See previous. They are still trying to undo the fuckery that was done to education in the 80's.
* Increased military spending to astronomical levels - pretty much fucked anyone not working for defense contractors.
* Destabilized Nicaragua and pissed off Iran worse at us - yeah, that didn't work out for us.
* Largely ignored the AIDs epidemic - tragedy on multiple levels.
* Etc

That fucker is still viewed as one of the best presidents and Carter as one of the worst.

1. I completely agree, assuming that he did do it.

2. If you spent all of your life in a field of endeavor and someone came to you saying, we would like to add you to (as you said) one of the most important roles in the USA and the absolute defining pinnacle of your life's career, would you feel perfectly fine if you did not get that position because of something you did as a drunken minor and never repeated again?

Now, assuming you would not feel fine with #2, how would you feel if you had that shot ruined because of a false claim? I am willing to bet Merrick Garland is still pretty salty over having it denied to him, which it shouldn't have been.

My biggest issue with this is that if this had been announced when it was first known, we could have had an investigation. If he had been proven to have done it, off with his head. But everything I am seeing continually points to delaying tactics designed around the midterms. The Democrats and Republicans both know that if a couple of seats flip flop, then neither one will get the candidate they want. So the Reps want to confirm Kavanaugh no matter what and the Dems want to delay no matter what. I don't think a single one of them on either side gives two shits about Dr. Ford, she is just a means to an end even if she is telling the truth.

*quality

So Ah when are they going to do a story of the time the Cleveland Indians had Mini Bat Night? Or the time they had Dog Bone night. I'm not making this up. They gave out free cookies in the shape of dog bones and half way thru the game the fans started raining them down on the field. Awe Cleveland how can you not love that town.

It's amazing how well the creature effects on Predator (and Aliens) have aged. Some of the other effects (the camouflage, the opening shot of the spaceship*) are obviously very 80s, but the creature itself still holds up.

*promote one of my all time favourite movies and a true legend in his field; Stan Winston.

* shouldn't have been in the movie!

Meh, personally I believe it is in decline because of the last part of the 3rd wave and most of the 4th wave of feminism. Many new feminists, in my opinion, are more concerned with a sense of 'revenge' than one of equality between sexes. This has led to a backlash within the male community, specifically men who either prefer to play the field or the crazy mgtow/incel communities.

Don't get me wrong, women DESERVE equal rights. I just feel that some are fighting to shift the rights in their favor to make up for the years that men were dominant. That path leads to ruin I think.

In any case, I may be talking out of my ass, since my Wife and I have been together since 1992. I wouldn't even know where to start trying to meet and marry someone today.

*blocked in Canada.

I kind of wish that there was a set of fields for each video where you could put alt links for unblock videos instead of having to hunt through the comments when one is available.

*comedy *wtf

I saw this on the local news' web site: http://abc7.com/pets-animals/cows-corner-fleeing-suspect-in-florida-field/3904551/

Your assumption is incorrect. As I've stated repeatedly, I think people should be seen and assessed individually on the totality of their character. It's just that I see the inpracticality of that in institutional settings where a few people must assess tens of thousands of applicants in months. That necessitates putting people into groups and making assumptions, sometimes by necessity that's by race. Fund education better, they might screen better. Fund all education better, they might be able to abandon all criteria beyond past performance, but that just won't happen (but $12 billion for Trump's trade war's damage to soy bean farmers, no problem, who's next?).

Ahhh....but those discriminatory practices have, and still are encoded in the law against these groups in many forms. Some have been rectified, many not, and never has there been a reasonable attempt to make up the shortfalls/damages these policies have caused these groups over decades and centuries. If I beat you daily and take your lunch until 11th grade, then stop, it's still horrifically unfair of me to insist you meet weight requirements to be on my JV wrestling team and yet not offer you weight training and free lunch to help you get there. Same goes for groups, however you wish to divide them, that have been downtrodden.
Creating policies to address the damage done in order to get the long abused back to their natural ability level isn't bad unless they aren't ever modified once equality is reached. We aren't close yet.

Some won't, most do. You make a thousand little sacrifices for the greater good daily, one more won't hurt you. If your ability is actually equal to the poor kid trying to take your place, the advantages you have over them should make that point abundantly clear and your scores should be excessively higher. If they aren't, you just aren't taking advantage of your advantages, making them the better choice.

Time will tell, but I don't see this as political, I see it as rational realism vs irrational tribal wishful thinking.
My parents both worked at Stanford, and are Republicans, and both support giving less advantaged students more opportunities to excell, and both think diversity on campus benefits everyone to the extent that it merits using race and gender as points to consider during the application process if that's what it takes to get diversity.

Your main problem seems to be that it's decided purely by race. Let me again attempt dissuade you of that notion. Race is only one tiny part of the equation, and it's only part because they tried not including race and, for reasons I've been excessively sesquipedelien about, that left many races vastly underrepresented because they don't have the tools required to compete, be that education, finances, support of family, support of community, extra curricular opportunities, safety in their neighborhood, transportation, etc., much of which is caused by centuries of codified law that kept them poor, uneducated, and powerless to change that status. No white male with a 1600 and 4.0 is being turned away for a black woman with 1000 and 2.9, they might be turned away for a black woman with 1550 and 3.8 because she likely worked much harder to achieve those scores, indicating she'll do even better on a level field.

I don't see why Republicans care, they're now the proudly ignorant party of anti-intellectualism who claim all higher education is nothing but a bastion of liberal lefty PC thugs doin book lernin. Y'all don't want none of that no how. ;-)

Edit: note, according to reports I saw years ago, without racial preferencing FOR white kids, many universities would be nearly all Asian because their cultures value education above most other things so, in general, they test better than other groups.

@newtboy,
"Yeah, that's honest, move to a profession where one single specific type of performance is the entire job..."

Take any highly competitive field and you've got similar professional grading based upon excellence in the field. Legal, Medical, Engineering, the same kind of professionals can be found hunting for top tier talent in any of these, no different than the NBA. Their criteria can be every bit as colour blind and there is strong economic incentives to do so to boot.

"Side note: there have been some who suggested affirmative action in sports, requiring a certain number of white players on teams. Indeed, there were white leagues that fought tooth and nail to not let even the most talented non whites participate. Just sayin...."
And that would be racist, and it was wrong, and it's something we should be glad to be rid of.

Just sayin....

"Race is considered, period."
Reasonable, non-racist people are going to disagree with you. They are going to, correctly, call your policy racist.

Can you really not see the other side that thinks fighting racism with racism is the wrong approach?

@newtboy
Short sighted tribal reasoning was electing a lying cheeto with anger issues because it wore red.
Fair enough

"Objecting to using race as one of many criteria for admission in favor of a single test that clearly benefits your group..."
I see the misunderstanding, I specifically did not ask for a test benefiting a group, but instead specifically asked for one that did NOT. I'll quote myself again:"a color blind computational method of creating a qualification score for candidates."

Since the school admission examples seem to be encouraging misunderstanding, let's change fields. The NBA draft doesn't come down to a single score, but it does have a best effort by professional experts to select the top candidates based upon ability and projected ability at the sport of basketball. By all appearances, that process could be said to "clearly benefit 'a' group", but because I am confident the process is color blind and selecting candidates based upon ability I like it.

To introduce race as a consideration instead is racism, period. You can argue that fighting racism with racism is justified or even desirable, but at least have the honestly to call it that.

Try reading again. You have it totally backwards.

When was I insulting or dismissive? Because it was unforseen that educated people would elect a bombastic insulting sexist popularist con man who was obviously lying to them simply because he wore a red hat and tie? Those are facts, not opinion. Many of them are saying how much they regret it now.

I offered solutions you appeared to agree with, like funding lower education so everyone has a decent, if not equal, opportunity to get an education.
Using race as ONE criteria amongst many for admission is not ideal, as I said, but until a better system for identifying and addressing financial and societal issues that stymie opportunities for people often based on their pigmentation is created, it's the best we've got.

What we don't have is what you imply is the problem.....rich white men with 1570 SAT scores (old school SAT, I don't know how it's scored now) and 3.9 gpas are not being turned away from Yale to make room for indigent African American women with 990 SATs and 2.7 gpas...but the Latina woman with 1550 and 3.6 gpa earned while raising 2 siblings and holding a full time job, yeah, she gets the slot, and that's proper. One skewed test that benefits one privileged group is hardly a decent measure of their work ethic or intelligence....often it's only an indication they hired the right student to take the SAT for them. There were at least 3 hired test takers out of 30 students taking the PSAT when I took it, we talked afterwards.

It is the right (and people making the arguments you are) who are far more insulting and dismissive of non white people's frustrations at being racially discriminated against....to a level and consistency exponentially higher than the trifling discriminations whites suffer. That doesn't mean some whites don't suffer some deleterious effects, it means they come out way ahead in the discrimination game.

You wish to ignore all racial discrimination and racial obstacles except that single instance you can point to where it doesn't come out in your favor, then suddenly racism IS a problem that needs eradicating....but only the kind that harms white guys, forget the myriad of insurmountable racist mountains non whites climb daily, both institutional and societal, this speed bump for whites is unconscionable and must be removed immediately!

Come back and whine about institutional anti white bias when anti white racism permeates every facet of your life but not when your race doesn't give you a free leg up that one time. Maybe talk to your right wing friends about why funding education for others is good for you as step one towards eliminating programs like this that address inequities in opportunities, and giving the less fortunate extra opportunity to overcome their situation is good for all. After reasonable basic educational opportunities are available for all, schools will still take the student's home life, finances, and extra curricular activities into account....with luck that will be on an individual basis eventually, but that's not likely until education reforms occur that give everyone an opportunity to display their skills on a more level field..

Jaron Lanier is a Computer scientist, composer, visual artist and author. He is considered a founding father of the field of virtual reality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaron_Lanier

He is certainly NOT mainstream but most definitely NOT a crackpot.

His ideas and musings should be considered.

Wrong

The Burnie loving nut Shooting the Congressional ball field last year.

https://wtop.com/alexandria/2017/06/14231771/

"Maps" doesn't adequately describe the extent of information that things like these convey. They are more like "animated visualizations".

I took a computer graphics class in college where we learned about data visualization. One of the most famous examples in that field is Charles Joseph Minard's map/visualization of Napolean's march into Russia in 1812. On the surface, it is a 2D map. However, the width of the line showing the path of advancement conveys troop numbers, the color denotes whether they were advancing or retreating, and a connected chart below shows the air temperatures that the soldiers were exposed to, etc.

Basically, at a glance you can easily see the broad strokes of the advance and retreat, and you can get much more depth of information if you look a little closer. These kinds of animated visualizations are definitely continuing on in that same vein -- packing a lot of information into a presentation method that is easy to pick up and also very deep with some more inspection.

Wikipedia article about Minard showing that famous Napolean march visualization if anyone is interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard