Fjordmonkey

The best bet on that thing is isolating the networks that actually handle civic systems completely from the rest of the 'net. Or better yet: Never put them on a network at all, anyway. You cannot compare a local entity like a traffic-light system, or even a city/county-wide power-control grid, to the 'Net. The scale is so grossly different, and the mechanisms that make it work aren't anywhere close to comparable. If you love snow, you should go there :D They've gotten about 60cm so far, and there's a storm-front coming in that will give Beaufort 10-weather and most likely even more snow in the coming days :P If you look past the techincal issues of doing what you say (and they are truly massive), the main problem with doing so is that it's not something that's seemed like a democratic thing to do. It's something that's not in agreement with the principles of democracy, and it WILL be viewed as the government imposing their rules about what's moral and what's not, what's right and what's wrong on a very personal level. Which again isn't something you'll be able to implement in this day and age. Hell, think of what would happen if Washington tried to implement a limitation on what US citizens could view and find on the net on the scale that you suggest. I'm pretty sure that you can see think about the consequences of such an action, given where your profile say you live. Anarchy, indeed. One of the main issues with regulation comes not just in the form of who's to say that what's right for you is right for me. It's also a question of the technical aspect of the whole idea. In order to have the level of control over the network traffic you'd need to effectively stop people from accessing whatever they want on the net, you'd have to limit the number of uplinks to a handful, install servers and systems powerful enough to handle the immense amount of traffic all the way down to a packet-level (which is a serious bitch in terms of cost and administration even for corporate networks, which is where I reside), and then route ALL network-traffic in and out of the country through them. And even then you wouldn't be able to stop things. You see, people have been saying that the 'Net needs to be regulated since it's inception back in the good ol' analog modem-times. But even by then it was too late, since the use of the 'Net went through the roof as soon as people understood the implications it had for business. And now, given how globally connected everything is both in business and pleasure, imposing any sort of control over it is damn near impossible without also severely disrupting global business. Of course, one can argue that this probably wouldn't be such a bad thing, but that is as it is. So, once again: You cannot stop the signal.

You can't regulate anarchy, which the internet pretty much is. That's where you, and most of the politicians and/or special interest groups that think that they can stamp out such things such as racism, porn, terrorism or bullying on the net, go severely wrong. And at this point in history, where you can hardly get two people to agree on what color the sky is, you'd be hard pressed to get people to even agree on a common set of regulations. There's just too many differing interest in it to reach a consensus on it. Hell, the ONLY way you'd get any sort of regulation of the 'Net is if each country set up a ruleset to apply to the internal 'Net of their country, and then firewalled the hell out of the country worse than what China currently has. And good luck with that, my friend. So again: You can't stop the signal.

You cannot regulate that which is already anarchy and outside anyone's control in terms of content, and you cannot regulate anything unless you can get people to agree on which regulations to enforce. And good luck with that.

I'll just quote Firefly: You can't stop the signal, Mal. The Internet is an almost Newtonian entity. For every attempt to stop it, censor it or limit it, there's a reaction in the form of proxies, workarounds and loopholes. Unless they radically change the IPv4 or IPv6-protocols, people will find a way around whatever anyone comes up with.

Probably Pakistani Air Force Chengdu J-7's. I first took them for MiG-21-F13's, but the markings on the aircraft labels them as Pakistani aircraft, and thus the J-7/F-7 is more likely. Wingshape is also different from the -21.

Too bad, really. It looked good in it :D

Nice! I thought it was a Viggen at first, then I realized that it's a much sleeker machine. Is this a test-paint, or will Gripens fly operationally with this paint on them?

Nice! I knew about the ventral rocketpack, but never seen pics of it actually being fired. Excellent find :D

Hmm, I thought the Lightnings had capabilities to carry both fueltanks and rocketpods on top of the wings. Edit: Seems like we were both right, Vanveken :) The Saudi Lightnings flew with a combination Fueltank and Rocketpod, called the Matra JL-100.

Have you seen the English Electric Lightning with it's rocketpods on top of the wings? :D Even cooler.

Excellent find!

Funny you should mention that, as the US Navy deployed carriers and/or carrier battle groups both to Haiti after the earthquake there, and to Japan after the tsunami hit. The USS Carl Winston went to Haiti, and the USS Ronald Reagan went to Japan. So yes indeed, a carrier and/or carrier battle group DO render humanitarian aid, and don't just defend/take land. Sending an aircraft-carrier and it's battle-group makes sense. You've got a high level of c3-capabilities which may or may not have been destroyed in the area affected by whatever natural disaster that's taken place, you have the ability to offer protection and security for a rather large area quickly, and you can be on-station for a long time, providing things such as clean water and high-level ER-functionality/trauma-rooms, plus you have the manpower available to help with both the cleanup and rebuilding of the affected areas. And if you look at the bigger picture, there's the added bonus of goodwill, positive press and nice-weather politics involved with such a thing. I doubt that sending the Reagan to Japan after the Tsunami created MORE animosity between the two people.

It's interesting to see how the rotorblades flex when resonance sets in and before the pilot gets the bird off the ground. Easy to see why those forces will destroy a helicopter as well.

Better late then never, so BIRFY HAPDAY!!

I never understood the big hubbub over this, and I never will. If they didn't want people posting the pics on forums, they really shouldn't have put them onto the 'net in the first place.

Since she's the human equivalent of a Red Dragon and has a temper that would surpass one, yes :D Hell, wouldn't even dare to do anyone else, as she'd nail me to the wall by the balls, upside down, stark naked.

I personally couldn't care less about intent, and am more interested in effect. I intend to get laid today, but that doesn't mean a thing if the missus don't see it the same way.

I'll be concerned when I hear or read something I didn't hear back when Win95 came along. And even IF what Wolfie posted comes to pass, there's many ways for me to bypass it, for example sticking to building my own computers OR buying one that doesn't come with a Microsoft-OS on it. Until then I couldn't really give a damn. To think that Microsoft would alienate millions of customers this way is quite frankly idiotic. What Microsoft do on Microsoft-branded hardware is one thing, to think that they will get the major manufacturers of computers and hardware in on such a scheme is something I find ludicrous. Microsoft is powerful and the market-leader in operating-system almost to the point of being a monopolist, but they're not THAT powerful.

Would be interesting to see the Loss-of-aircraft report in such an event :P Not every day a designated CAS/BAI-aircraft shoots down an aircraft with A/G munitions, and even rarer to down a multi-billion dollar aircraft.

The fun thing with the movie-analogy is that you cannot legally sell it or even publicly show it and still be within copyright law. That, of course, is a whole different ballgame. And if you ever sit down and read through an EULA of just about any software-product, you will see that damn near all of them are exactly the same: You don't own the product, you have basically bought a right to use it. That's the way it's been with licensed software for decades, and that's most likely never going to change. Simple solution: Don't buy a netbook with a Microsoft-OS on it. There's always alternatives for those smart enough to look for them. Sadly, most people looking for a netbook or even a computer for everyday use don't care about which OS is on it as long as it works for their needs. Gamers, and especially simmers, are far more critical when it comes to buying things, and fine-read the specs and any review of the product we can come across. It won't be the beginning of the end for MS, since you have untold millions of people that, as mentioned before, don't care what's on the box as long as it works. The same people also haven't bothered to read the EULA past the two first lines before hitting accept, which at that point they've signed off just about any and every right they have to complain about it. Until there's a viable option for gaming (and I don't consider Linux to be one) built on open standards, or viable systems for businesses that has all the bells&whistles that you have from Microsoft, MS will still be a powerhouse and can dictate what happens when, where and how. Many will probably brindle at the bit when I claim Linux isn't viable for businesses, but there's still few, if any, open-source systems that can rival for example Microsoft Exchange Server and the Windows Server-family for non-specialized systems use.

If you don't like it, build your own damn computer, and install whatever you like on it. Not hard at all to do, contrary to popular belief. All in all: Much ado about EXTREMELY little.

It's strange how people will flail at Microsoft because of Windows 8, to be honest. Is it perfect? Nope, definitely not. Is it the utter disaster that some would have it to be? Nah, far from it. I'm currently running Win8 Pro on my lappie, the gamebox and on my auxillary box/mediacenter/chatbox at home, without any issues apart from the fact that Cliffs of Dover doesn't work on it (but hey, CLoD has it's fair share of issues regardless, so meh). Apart from that, I don't really have any gripes with Win8, although it took a few days of "zomgzwtf is this!!!?" before I started to understand where to find things and how to get things done. Hell, much about the noise regarding Windows 8 smacks of the same noise people came with when Windows 95 came out. Bah, now I feel old...

I learned to ALWAYS wear a double set of earprotection the hard way, standing between two F16's when they fired up. I only had one yellow earplug in, and I've lost the ability to hear sounds above a certain frequency in my right ear because of it. JFS'es are bleedin' loud! Standing inside a hardened concrete shelter when the jet fires up also tends to teach you that you can never let your guard down when it comes to protecting your hearing. And while a civilian ramp isn't enclosed like a HAS, you still need to protect your hearing in any way possible.

Can't help it, but there's a brutal beauty in the Phantom.

Wish I still worked on Vipers :( But yes, earplugs and then the big defenders. Cuts down the higher-frequency noise very nicely. If that's not enough, you can always go fork out the money for custom-made, noice-cancelling earplugs. I know that quite a few Crewchiefs at Ørland MAS and Bodø MAS here in Norway use those.