Sanctions Or Not, Iranian Competition Yields Successful UAVs 147
garymortimer writes with word of the result from a high-tech student competition that doesn't come with sponsorship from DARPA or Mobil — far from it. Instead, the sponsors include "military and non-military organizations" within Iran. "In this competition, participants must provide a UAV equipped with a camera to search a 10 square kilometer area for at least 40 minutes to find 3 square meter marks on the ground with different English letters on them. Finding ground targets and reporting the geo location are criterion for choosing the contest winner." (This article updates another from last year, which gives some more details about the competition.)
Re:X-Prize (Score:4, Insightful)
I really could give a shit about who likes what. If someone is a threat, they are gonna have to answer to the rest of us.
Typical government lapdog mentality: If we rattle a saber at someone and they don't flinch, they are a threat and must be cowed.
Re:if you were stuck in Iran.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Iran hasn't invaded any nations causing a doubling of overall mortality and the deaths of a million people.
There is a HUGE difference. First of all, when I served in the military, I was greeted with open arms by the people in the country I was "invading". No matter how hard I tried, I was not allowed to pay for anything. Even if I could convince the vendor to take my money, someone would always step up and pay for whatever I was trying to pay for. I didn't buy a whole lot, not wanting to take advantage of my hosts' hospitality and gratitude.
Next, any civilian casualties resulting from our "invasion" was purely accidental. The US and her allies went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, even if it sometimes meant letting the target go. You'll also notice that the US military does not hide behind human shields made of women and children.
So, again, if you think it's the same thing, you are manipulating the facts in your own head to fit what already believe to be true.
Re:if you were stuck in Iran.. (Score:2, Insightful)
So the 100,000+ civilians killed in Iraq was accidental. I'm sure that makes them feel much better.
No, but it made the families of the MILLIONS killed feel better to know that something was finally being done about it. Also, that 100,000 number is bullshit.
Is that also representative of the family members of some of those accidental deaths?
No. It's representative of the people whose families were tortured and killed by the previous government ON PURPOSE! You know, like when they would kidnap a mother, rape and kill her and then send the video tape to the family kinda thing. But yeah, it's the same thing as a civilian who dies because the bridge he was driving on was blown up at 3:00 am to avoid civilian casualties.
You have that in common with the 9/11 terrorists.
Actually, hijackers, by their very nature are hiding behind the civilians on the plane. Notice that no one hijacks a FedEx transport, for example. The passengers on the plane are their human shields.
Anything else I can answer for you, jackhole? Do you stand idly buy as that drunk beats the shit out of his girlfriend at the bar? Do you still do nothing when moves onto her children? If you hear a woman being raped outside your window, do you just watch and say, "That's unfortunate. She should do something about that"?
Re:if you were stuck in Iran.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, obviously there was a large miscalculation on how quickly the Germans could advance through Belgium (and in hoping that they would respect Belgium's neutral status), but France's was not the only fighting force to be outmaneuvered by the German Blitzkrieg, and France was highly outnumbered to boot. The whole meme of France learning nothing from World War 1 is way overblown. If the Germans had moved the same way that they had in World War 1, France would have been in great shape. The real problem is that they spent too much effort responding to what they learned from World War 1, and war had changed (despite what Ron Perlman would have you believe).