Agiel

Notes on airlines overbooking:

Using an example for munitions, the rule of thumb is that a very reliable, dependable system will have a reliability of at least 95%. Even so, that 5% it doesn't work is very much a statistically significant eventuality. For military planners such probabilities are wholly acceptable (which is in part the tragedy of submunition weapons: Even if the detonation rate is 99%, well, there are at around 200 bomblets dispensed). And given that the primary methods of NCTR include radar imaging (basically SAR mapping applied to aircraft scale) that would easily distinguish two types of aircraft that couldn't look more different and jet engine modulation that would easily discern a close air-support aircraft with high-bypass engines built for long loiter times and fuel economy from a fighter designed for sustained afterburner for high-speed intercepts and in furballs and the Russian MoD's initial claims suggests something that goes beyond a simple glitch in the system.

Lunatic fringes ascendant and Mid-East horror shows getting you down? This will turn that frown upside down: I however am curious about the man or woman underneath the costume and whether he or she is having as much joy performing as everyone around since I could imagine if it was one degree hotter than 70 it'd be hell to wear that.

For fighter aircraft perhaps it doesn't have the speed and acuity that is preferable, but as I've elaborated before with ground-based platforms processing power is not an issue and could easily have distinguished between aircraft types. Translation: There likely never was an aircraft anywhere close to MH-17 as the Bill Sweetman article points out (who by the way is one of _the_ military aerospace authorities out there). The point we've been driving home both here and in the "alternative facts" thread the playbook of the Kremlin and their imitators has been to lie early, lie often, lie fast. Muddy the waters and you can get away with anything, convince your base of anything, as This Modern World so aptly put it (props to Raithe): Speaking of which, the first professional independent BDA came in from Imagesat International came in (for some reason over the weekend visiting the site got you to a 403 Forbidden, but it's back up now): http://www.imagesatintl.com/us-strike-syria/ In short, it perforates the Russian MoD's claims that only 23 missiles hit the target, and that in fact 58 hit the facility on at least 44 separate DMPIs (also mentioning that there were overkill allowances on certain targets, likely on high-priority targets like the CW storage facilities, just as I have said before). As for the total damage it caveats that the warheads might not have been sufficient for certain targets, but just as I posted before seemingly cosmetic damage to something like a hardened shelter is not necessarily indicative of whether or not whatever was inside would have survived intact. And as has been brought up total efficacy may have been mitigated by the fact that they were warned of the strike in advance, probably in order to leave avenues of de-escalation open. Now why would the Russian MoD try to downplay the Tomahawk strike? Well Putin has to appear as an outwardly strong leader to maintain his power base and has built an image of not backing down. That Russian forces could not, or as some are suspecting, did not do anything to try and intercept the missiles if it were in their ability for political reasons, somewhat damages that image of Putin (and in light of the possible four Kalibr missiles of 26 the Caspian fleet launched back in October of '15 that malfunctioned, it probably pays to depict Western systems as clunkers).

Acuity and speed is also dependent on processing power. Since ground-based EW platforms like Tin Shield don't have to worry as much about weight considerations compared to a Su-27, and thanks to Moore's Law you can fit a Cray in a command post, Russian early warning could easily have distinguish between a twin-engine air superiority fighter and a close-air support aircraft. Why the Su-25 is important is because once the reality dawned on the Kremlin their playbook dictated that they lie, quickly. Come up with lies faster than journalists could ask questions (as Gromnir is apt to point out with his Chicago reference, "Flim-flam, razzle dazzle them" and the truth gets muddied). They pulled the Frogfoot (about the only Ukrainian aircraft that had any business in that theater) detail out of their asses to keep the heat off their Donbass proxies, if only for the next half hour in the news cycle. And guess what? The Kremlin's useful idiots kept spouting their lies well after details arose that completely shot up the Su-25 story.

Staying at my parents' place for the weekend to help them move. Walked in on my mom watching Fifty Shades of Grey, which shouldn't really surprise me (in my childhood days, one positive point in their criteria over whether a movie was one they should rent was if it had Arnold Schwarzenegger, which led to them renting Jingle All the Way and Junior). I did my best to persuade her that it wasn't worth her time for the sake of preserving some measure of taste, unfortunately to no avail.

Uh... with the processing power that availed itself in the late '80s, yes you could: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_MASINT#Non-Cooperative_Target_Recognition http://www.theiet.org/resources/books/rsna/artr.cfm?origin=/books-radarauto There were even reports of particularly adept operators of older systems like the SA-5 Gammon who were able to identify aircraft by staring at the raw oscilloscopic radar returns.

You realise that even if one accepts the claim that only 23 targets were hit, common targeting procedure is to double (or even triple or quadruple, depending on target priority) up on munitions against one target for redundancy's sake (in the event defenders are attempting to intercept the missiles, or in case of weapon failure)? Or that many cruise missiles, particularly when used against hardened targets, detonate post-penetration so showing the exterior of a hangar after the strike may be misleading? GBU-39 in this case, but same idea. https://youtu.be/VplddV722wo?t=1m And, you know, Russian MoD? They also said at first a Su-25 shot down an 777 flying at 33,000 ft with an AA-8 Aphid with a 3kg warhead.

Given that the Russians were given some warning of the attack, I wouldn't be surprised if Putin thought the solution was something straight out of that movie Fail Safe: "Welp, you done 'effed up Assad, so you'll have to take this one on the chin."

Sweet lord of mercy, Bannon is _finally_ off the NSC and McMaster now sets the agenda: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-05/bannon-removed-from-national-security-council-role-in-shakeup?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=bd&utm_campaign=hosted&cmpId=yhoo.hosted

An observation I made: I can't help but feel that based on the ads they put out half of Matrix/Slitherine's lineup are turn-based games based on Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front in general.

Re: ISPs selling our internet browsing histories -

Ever Heard Of The British Museum's Long-Lost 'Porn Room'?

We should note that Flynn is being represented by Robert Kelner, who backed Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn when they ran in the 2016 election, later founded Stand Up Republic, and are among the strongest voices calling for an independent inquiry into Kremlin-support for Trump.

Given the trajectory of Bethesda RPGs, they would likely strip down the character creation mechanics, which was one of the things Arcanum was actually lauded for. As for myself, my idea for a RTwP RPG featuring Eldar Harlequins still stands.

Well a $40 million budget for a AAA title is _anemic_ and EA probably got what it paid for when the budget was $8 million per annum. For context, GTAV had a budget of $265 million and MGSV had a budget of $80 million (in a country that says nuts to workplace amenities and overtime pay bonuses, no less).

From the folks what made the Wargame series:

Some of my paintings: And this one should surprise nobody I painted:

Interesting analysis of a little gem from Ice-Pick Lodge: It's a game that has a special place in my heart for the reason that playing it helped me kick a bout of depression from a creative rut. Hope you guys enjoy!

About half of the first game's quests involved zombies of one kind of another, so really nothing new I think that comment was more a reference to how those faces might provoke a "Jesus! F***! Kill it with fire!" reaction in those when first confronting them.

Think I may find myself in a Dragon Age 2 situation for this game where great improvements in a certain area (ironically enough character models and animations, which were a big step up from Origins) are offset several-fold in others (poor environment art, re-used areas, bad encounter design, and regressive RPG systems) to make a game one of the few I actually loathed. It seems the effort to deliver on the initial promise of the big open environments to explore with the Mako from Mass Effect 1 will be overshadowed by the bad animations, uncanny valley faces, and poor writing this time around.

Is it a stand-alone game, or is it an expansion/DLC for the main Ghost Recon game released not too long ago? Stand-alone game separate from that F2P adversarial shooter that came out a while ago (and folded shortly after).

Well, take heart in the fact that your card will probably allow you to utterly beast the next big things of the next 2 years.