Re: PC--What is it good for?

<rja.carnegie@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:7ea09b8c-34ae-4c3b-9a25-c7bb61b41c62@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Dec 14, 12:36 pm, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
>> <rja.carne...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>
>>
news:1e5ac08a-0f99-4628-a9a8-616c199f406a@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Dec 14, 1:23 am, "Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1b_nos...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>> > wrote:
>> >> "Nate Edel" <archm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>
>> >>news:g0n835x351.ln2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> >> > In rec.arts.sf.written C.O. Jones <ap...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >> >> Jasper Janssen <jas...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >> >> > >One word: Humvee.
>>
>> >> >> > >Trickle-down tech is almost inevitable.
>>
>> >> >> > play at going across rough terrain, but not do anything when
they
>> >> >> > get
>> >> >> > where they're going). The H2 Hummer on the other hand is a 
>> >> >> > minivan
>> >> >> > with
>> >> >> > a
>> >> >> > bodykit. It's no closer a relation than the relevant Dinky Toy
is 
>> >> >> > to
>> >> >> > the
>> >> >> > HMMWV.
>>
>> >> >> Are you seriously missing the point? Do you understand the phrase
>> >> >> "trickle down tech?" Trickle down tech is the Civilian Hummer.
What
>> >> >> you
>> >> >> are talking is military surplus. BIG difference.
>>
>> >> > Except for the H1, there is no "trickle down tech," just 
>> >> > trickle-down
>> >> > marketing.
>>
>> >> WWII radiophones became walkie talkies and cell phones.
>>
>> >> Tanks became armored limos.
>>
>> >> And of course military firearms become civilian firearms.
>>
>> >> -- Ken from Chicago
>>
>> > Am I missing a joke?  I don't think cell phones are relatives of
>> > walkie-talkies,
>>
>> http://www.nextel.com/en/services/walkietalkie/overview.shtml
>
> That looks like cell phones emulating walkie talkies.
>
> Now, the art of ****table radio communications gear probably was driven
> by military needs - I'll give you that.  And the walkie talkie is
> really a military tool.  But I haven't seen yet that cell radio,
> handset to base to network to base to handset country/world wide, is
> military.

Huh?

Military communications is to the squad on the other side
> of the river or between squad and command.  They probably have cell
> phones /now/.

Cell phones ARE radios.

>>  an armoured limousine is a limousine with armour
>>
>> > incor****ated,
>>
>> A tank is an automobile with armor (and guns) incor****ated.
>
> No.  A tank is about as similar to an automobile as it is to a
> locomotive.  A locomotive needs rails, a car pretty much needs road, a

"A car ... needs a road"?

Don't.

As one who has made many a flawed argument for far too long I know from
weak 
arguments grasping at straws. No, cars do NOT "need" roads. Many modern
cars 
drive much better on roads but roads are not 100 percent needed. Moreover 
many turn of the 20th century cars were designed and built at a time when 
roads--especially modern paved streets--were few and far between 
countrywide. The Ford Model T was designed explicitly to run offroad, to
say 
nothing of modern "off-road" cars.

> tank works on any solid ground.  You could have started from an
> armoured car, but there were civilian cars - and for that matter
> armour - before there were armoured cars or tanks, out of which I
> think armoured cars came last, i.e. where infrastructure development
> and military aviation meant that it was likely you'd be somewhere you
> could drive on wheels and with a risk of being shot at and you needed
> a vehicle designed accordingly.  Automobiles started out as fairly
> useless toys for rich folks - junk that you wouldn't /want/ to take to
> war.  Hmm...  I must admit that the Great War had aeroplanes.  But
> they weren't very reliable, as I understand.  And neither were the
> tanks.  Trucks and cars, they did have, too - but not close to the
> trenches.

What does reliability have to do with it?

>> > and only a few specific professions such as organised
>> > crime require military-type weapons.
>>
>> And firearms are only sold to civilians are for jobs?
>
> Society frowns on recreational use of military-specification
> ordnance.  Since deer do not drive armoured cars.

American is not the be-all end-all of society. And not all of American 
society is urban.

> The other main recreational use of big guns that I am aware of is to
> have an attractive young woman in swimming costume fire the thing

So if you're not aware of it then it doesn't exist?

> while you watch what that does to the swimming costume, and while I
> recognise the charm of this, it doesn't really have to be authentic
> equipment or pointed anywhere in particular - although I suppose
> actual veterans might disagree on that point, and demand that the same
> model weapon that they themselves slept with every night of their tour
> of duty should be used.
>
> In other words, you tell me.
>
>> Btw, muskets used to be for musketeers but are now sold to civilians as
>> shotguns.
>
> That's not trickle, it's glacial.  Anyway, the British government is
> going the other way, /banning/ the trade in replica samurai swords.

Plenty of governments don't give a rat's crap if you have military
weapons, 
from glocks, AK-47s, surface to air missiles, to rocket grenades, bio 
weapons, up to nukes--if you can afford em.

-- Ken from Chicago