Desert Tortoise comments

Get them some anti-ship missiles. Even if they are only mockups, it will put the fear in the Chinese pirate.

Philippines bought an unspecified quantity of BrahMos anti-ship cruise missiles from India last year.

Not mentioned is that the Italians sent the aircraft carrier Cavour and it's air wing of F-35Bs to this same exercise, a first for the Italians.

Btw, the Command Pilots of the two helicopters should have been communicating and coordinating their attack staying out of each others way. There are four crew members on each helo, the Command Pilot, co-pilot and two sensor operators. There is a big radar on the chin. The pilots have a tactical display between them that should show the other helicopter (and any other aircraft), any ships in the formation, any sonobuoys already deployed and the supposed "datum" or position of the adversary submarine. The ship will have identical information on displays in their Combat Information Center. Together the two helos are going to deploy sonobuoys in a pattern to refine the datum until they are pretty certain where the sub is. At that point one of the helos descends to a 40 foot hover and lowers their sonar into the water to listen for the sub. They might have to take turns leapfrogging the sub as the sub an hear the helos and will be trying to wriggle out of the trap they have set. At some point when close enough one helo that has its sonar in the water goes active and pings the sub. Up till that point they have used sonar passively, just listening which only tells you the direction to the sub. An active ping with a good return gives you direction and distance or range. Now you know exactly where the sub is. When they get a solid return the other helo flies right over the sub, confirms there is a large metal body down there with a magnetic anomaly detector streaming behind the helos and drops torpedoes. Two dipping sonar helos with competent crews are a submarines worst enemy. There had to be a beakdown in comms and in the most basic coordination for such a mishap to occur.

It says in the article each one was under control of a ship based officer giving instructions. Perhaps read the whole article before making a baseless attack on my good character.

You don't understand aviation. See and Avoid over rules any outside direction. It is one of the most fundamental rules in aviation. If a controller tells you to do something and you see it may cause a collision you don't do it. The pilot has ultimate responsibility for the safe conduct of any flight.

I have flown off ships. That was my life for a long time. I was a Navy helicopter pilot. I know their world. I know that mission. Night time ASW is a little dangerous. You have to pay attention. If you have situational awareness you are going to tell the controller his direction is dangerous. And after the flight was over you might even be justified to climb up to the Combat Information Center and have a nice little chat about which one of you stupid MFs was trying to kill me.

And from a Western business perspective, Singapore is an easy sell.

Not really. Aside from a horrible climate Singapore is hideously expensive. It is also only very slightly less oppressive than PRC. Two reporters for Time Magazine wrote an account of how Lee Kwan Yew came to power at the conclusion of British colonial rule, an account identical to my own argument in my Masters Thesis against including Singapore among the world's democracies. It emphatically is not. But writing that so offended the PAP the two reporters for TIme were arrested and caned. Can't say the truth in Singapore, no different from PRC. And business knows this.

And then there are the ridiculous fines for not flushing the toilet or laying down for a snooze on the grass in a public park. I still cherish a map of Singapore I purchased there in a book store comparing it to one of our own US Navy charts. The map from the Singapore has huge blank areas and is highly censored. You can see what is in the blank spaces on the Navy chart, reservoirs, water treatment facilities, military bases and airfields, etc.

It’s called negligence and criminal proceedings are needed to punish those responsible.

Pilots are required to "see and avoid" at all times. The pilots are all dead. Who are you going to prosecute. They already paid the ultimate price for their mistake.

Some of you who never served in the military and never flew military aircraft ( I flew that same mission for a time in a much older helicopter ) have some funny notions.

The whole attraction of the far right is fear. That is all they have to sell. Whites fear losing their social and economic superiority to non-whites. They fear being left behind in wealth due in many cases to not having a competitive education. They fear losing jobs as the worlds economy changes and makes the industries they work in obsolete. And lacking a college degree or just being stuck in their ways finding work in a new industry is not so easy for them. They don't want to change and resent the changes they see all around them. It makes them insecure and that makes it easy for far right, cough cough, "leaders" to exploit their fears.

So they scapegoat anyone who isn't white as the root cause of their angst when really they need to look in the mirror and ask why they cannot keep up and compete? The world has pretty much always been about change. Sometimes change is achingly slow, other times is is lighting fast. But one thing is certain, there are nations that are changing and adapting, leading the way with new technologies and ways of doing business and they really don't mind if some of the worlds great nations turn inward and fail to compete. It makes it easier for them to succeed if we turn inward and put up barriers. They are going to charge ahead and set the pace. You can either keep up or get buried. Those of us who are adaptable and thrive on change are going to be the winners. The rest get left in the dust. What about you?

Looks like Monsieur Macron's gamble paid off. I'll bet Herr Scholz is relieved!

Not the plane, still by far the most reliable plane, but you do need to get rid of DEI and affirmative action first and foremost.

Where does DEI figure into Boeing's problems? All the bad decisions were made by white males? The whistle -blowers were white males too.

And nobody goes to jail? That isn't justice.

That does not mean the measures are because of that useless, as long as lives are saved there is a perfectly valid justification in using them, even if they are not perfect or could be replaced with people acting properly 100% of the time.

I have had autopilots try to kill me more than once. I don't trust a lot of this automation. Tesla is almost the poster child of how awful these features can be they cause so many collisions and allisions with fixed objects. I trust my own skills more than what we used to call derisively "George".

Also, EVs usually have the brake on just by removing your food from the accelerator, so people who drive EVs learn to drive differently.

Lol.

Completely unnecessary technofix. Just go back to manual cars; these problems with "pushing the accelerator instead of the brake" only occur with automatic cars.

That is probably the first time I ever gave a comment of yours an up vote O_O

The tech will work. Some cars already have similar technology now. When cruise control is set will not let you get too close to the car in front and will automatically brake if the car in front stops or slows down.

When we bought our most recent "car", actually a Ford Transit Connect Van, I deliberately sought out a clean older one built before that self braking feature was mandatory. I emphatically DO NOT want my car thinking and making control inputs for me. I had enough scares from the auto pilots on expensive military helicopters that are tested far more thoroughly than any car design. I don't want to be driving on a curvy mountain road that is wet and/or snowy/icy and have the stupid self braking radar thingie see a guardrail on a corner and tap the brakes and send me skidding into the rail when I had everything under control.

Hong Kong is just another repressed and repressive communist Chinese city now. Everything that made it special has been destroyed by Xi Jinping and Làhm Jehng Yuht-ngòh, aka Carrie Lam.

One positive thing I will say for unintended acceleration. When Audi was being wire brushed over unintended acceleration back in the early 1990s I was able to negotiate a killer deal on a clean used Audi 90. Thousands less than same year BMW 3-Series or Mercedes 190. Manual trans so no worries about unintended acceleration. There was a little truth to the scandal too as one day the engine did accelerate out of control. But I pushed the clutch in and turned the engine off. Simple. On my car it was a problem with the cruise control. I still have that car. So in a sense unintended acceleration gifted me with some unintended depreciation, and a killer deal on what has been a really wonderful automobile.

Can't improve safety in this way.

Based on what evidence? obviously just claiming this is useless have no value unless you can prove it, it makes perfect sense.

These systems are just band-aids for poor driving habits and inadequate driver training. Nothing more, and they are not fool proof.

When I was in high school we had a semester of driver education, classroom training on rules of the road and good driving habits that included driving simulators followed by a semester of driver training with driving instructors in real live cars out in LA traffic. Today in the US you can get a drivers license by passing a written and driving test with no formal training. A relative can train you, and teach you all their bad habits. Drivers need to learn how to threshold brake and how to get out of a skid to be safe on the road but hardly anybody has that kind of skill any more unless they autocross or compete in an amateur road racing class. I was asked to teach my wife's adult daughter how to drive by my wife. She and my wife don't have the kind of relationship where she can teach her daughter anything ( lol !). So I did. Taught her three point turn abouts and parallel parking like we had to demonstrate in driver training. I thought they tested that but they didn't. Wasted my time in a sense but maybe some of it stuck. She flunked her first driving test. She made a left turn when the light turned green right in front of the oncoming cars. I was stunned. Where did she learn that move from? Then I visited Shanghai and that is how everybody drives there. Sigh.

All the electronics in the world won't compensate for poor driving habits and a lack of ability to control a car.

Personal drone transportation would solve this congestion.

Lol, are you serious? You would just add a third dimension of chaos. Gridlock up down and sideways. And the crashes ..................

Don't say anything, just remove the buoy. If the Chinese set up another, remove it too. SImple.

Brave and Duck Duck Go. Just saying ..............

This problem is not confined to Japan. US headlight standards are such that no manufacturer can sell their existing adaptive headlight systems in the US and the standards for adaptive headlights the US is considering are not compliant with the standards for these systems in the rest of the world. Many cars have the adaptive system hardware but not the software. If the US were to simply adopt the existing global standard, auto makers could squirt a quick software change into existing cars and they would have working adaptive headlights. But, if the US goes with a different standard that will force a global redesign just for the US market unless the rest of the world decides to adopt a new US standard.

There are two sets of emissions standards in use just in the US, the California emissions standards also adopted by a handful of other states, and the US Government standard which is less stringent. Most auto manufacturers sell cars in the US that meet California emissions just to save time and money on the test procedures involved but some companies like Harley Davidson do not. And those California emissions standards are not the same as those of the EU, China or Australia. Auto makers have a tough time keeping track of and testing to comply with the large variety of national standards that exist.

And who knew there was an Italian expat community in TJ? Another surprise.

The shoes are to protect their paw pads from being burned on hot pavement. In the summer I wait until dusk to walk. The sidewalks cool off pretty fast when there is no direct sunlight.

Everyone says dogs don't sweat but when I brush my Huskies during our walks their flanks are often sweaty.

TJ ! A city who's name translates as "Aunt Jane". TJ is famous, or infamous, for many things but I never imagined food was one of those things. Learn something new every day.

I don't think there will be a hung jury this time. I think the prosecutors have him nailed but of course nothing is certain until the jury foreman reads the verdict. Fingers crossed. Anyone who rings a bell to call his wife needs to spend some time in the gray bar hotel.

If I had to limit my dog walking to temps below 28C I wouldn't be able to walk dogs for half the year where I live /: Either walk in the early morning or wait until dusk, and even then we have temps well into the 30s late into the night. In fact this week night time temps probably wont go below 27C. I don't think those shoes would last on my dogs. They would chew them off in minutes.

Corporate lawsuits are never that clear 

This would be a criminal prosecution rather than a civil lawsuit and that would very much require a jury trial.

If AI is labour saving and reduces the need for so many employees, are we going to see huge staff cuts and tax reductions as a result?

It has nothing to do with saving labor or reducing the number of employees. AI in a military organization is going to be used to speed up the decision making process and improve decisions during combat. Imagine a group of ships under sustained attack, missiles coming in from two directions and attacking aircraft approaching from yet another direction. Sorting out the various attacks, deciding what weapons to employ on each and in what order takes time for humans to accomplish. Using AI as part of a battle management system can speed up the decision making process and greatly reduce mistakes because you already taught the system how to respond to a whole big menu of threats. Think about it, you have to have all these different ships respond in the most efficient and effective manner possible. Multiple commanders, multiple crews but an integrated battle management system talking to all the ships and using AI can speed up the defensive response quite a bit.

In a sense the Aegis battle management system that has been around since the 1980s is an early form of AI since it can automate the response to an attack. It just wasn't called AI back then.

When it comes to the body, no means no and trying to change a no to a yes by coercion is wrong.

There are matters that are larger than your individual wants. Nobody lives in a bubble free from interactions with others. We have obligations that transcend your individual wants and one of those obligations is to be vaccinated against communicable diseases. You emphatically do not have a right to pass an infection on to others. In fact everyone has a right to expect their neighbor to be vaccinated and take other precautions to prevent death and serious injury from a pandemic. It is called being a mature adult. You might try being one sometime. It's not all about you!

Sounds like there’s a cunning plan afoot.

Plenty more gain of function being done worldwide.

In case you haven't noticed there is a variety of bird flu that has jumped species to mammals including cattle and there multiple documented cases of this bird flu jumping from cattle to humans. No human to human infections know as of now but it is only a matter of time.

No cunning plan or gain of function involved. Just the natural evolution of a virus that will very likely become a pandemic unless people pull their heads out of their rectums soon.

Tariffs generally are to be avoided as they generally reward laziness and lack of innovation on the part of the protected industry. But the PRC government has a bad habit of subsidizing an industry in order to allow that industry to undercut the price of international competitors and force them all out of business, leaving only the Chinese company to dominate that industry. Countering Chinese subsidies with targeted countervailing tariffs or subsidizing the domestic competitor are about all a nation can do when faced with a Chinese company backed by the Chinese taxpayers hard earned determined to put you out of business at any cost.