DARPA Strikes Again

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,626
No matter your politics or what your thoughts on US defense, some great technologies come out of DARPA. This time around we see it impacting com systems that will filter down to troops on the ground.

DARPA may have found the next stage for miniaturizing communications systems in a way that will make even the current slim systems look as bulky and outdated as the giant computers of the 1950's look to us today. DARPA has created a tiny, all silicon radio transmitter chip that, while lighter and and less-expensive, is actually more powerful than the current gallium-arsenide standard.
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Cue hippies screaming about the Military-Industrial Complex and big pharma/tobacco/soda...
 
"Its efficient silicon construction will significantly reduce SWAP [size, weight, and power] requirements for millimeter-wave applications, including compact satellite communications ground terminals for frontline troops," Palmer said. " These new capabilities will provide connectivity to more service members faster and at lower cost."
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in other words, get ready for satellite connected smartphones in the next ten years or so. No more coverage maps or dropped calls because you're too far away from a tower. Now we get dropped calls because a storm cloud moved in over you.
 
mesyn191 said:
Cue idiots screaming govt. can do no right/builds/does nothing.
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The US federal government can't:

1. help the poor properly. (more than 80% of the money that goes toward welfare, food stamps, and medicaid goes toward management of their over-complicated system. Small, local charities are five times more efficient, and are being run out of business by other government policies.)
2. manage resources (The Interior Department, EPA, and FDA are so overpopulated with incompetent people they can't even be bothered to hunt down who has been crapping in their hallways.)
3. provide services (ever try to get a passport? nuff said right there.)
4. properly stop the influx of drugs and drug carriers (do I really need to explain this?)
5. properly defend us from terrorists (the border is so porous that children are now coming in in record numbers. How hard can it be to stop kids from crossing the border?? How can they expect to stop terrorists if they can't stop kids?)

However, they do have a few working departments that are mostly staffed with good people. DARPA and the CDC are two. I like those guys, mostly. It's the upper level management that still don't trust.
 
dgingeri said:
3. provide services (ever try to get a passport? nuff said right there.)
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Eh? I did last year. It took about 10 minutes at the post office (did the app ahead of time online and printed it) and got my passport within 2 weeks.
 
Anyone else read this and think of the new Total Recall movie where the printed plastic in the guy's hand is his phone?
 
dgingeri said:
The US federal government can't:

1. help the poor properly. (more than 80% of the money that goes toward welfare, food stamps, and medicaid goes toward management of their over-complicated system. Small, local charities are five times more efficient, and are being run out of business by other government policies.)
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The poor need to learn how to help themselves. The cycle of poverty in the country is horrible. Where I live there are a lot of people who live off the system. Why? Because it is easy and requires no effort. People learn from their parents.

dgingeri said:
4. properly stop the influx of drugs and drug carriers (do I really need to explain this?)
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Well if they would actually secure the boarder with Mexico, that would be a step. Enforce the laws on the books. Stop plea-bargaining people on drug charges.

dgingeri said:
5. properly defend us from terrorists (the border is so porous that children are now coming
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When was the last attack on the US soil?
 
Sorry, if ANY such organization like DARPA received the same funding, they will pump out the same good shit with proper people. They get billions in funding, if not more through shadow funds ($50-65 billion no one knows about)
 
Between government funding of public Universities (EG: Government sponsored research labs), DARPA, and the military, three is NO major technology in the post WW2 era that has not been discovered/created without the direct financial aid of the US government. None.
 
schizrade said:
Cue hippies screaming about the Military-Industrial Complex and big pharma/tobacco/soda...
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I see the right wing whackos screaming about big pharma too, as well as monsanto and so on. There's a reason why a radical liberal like Clarence Thomas so easily became a radical conservative. There's a radio guy (who make CT look like a moderate) who did the same thing.


With that said, I think DARPA provides us with a lot of great stuff, just like NASA. And I'm a lot more of a Dove than a Hawk.
 
rokar said:
The poor need to learn how to help themselves. The cycle of poverty in the country is horrible. Where I live there are a lot of people who live off the system. Why? Because it is easy and requires no effort. People learn from their parents.



Well if they would actually secure the boarder with Mexico, that would be a step. Enforce the laws on the books. Stop plea-bargaining people on drug charges.



When was the last attack on the US soil?
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Why just recently, but you won't hear about it in the mainstream media:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-border-mexico-20140402-story.html#page=1

So yes, secure the border with Mexico.
 
gamerk2 said:
Between government funding of public Universities (EG: Government sponsored research labs), DARPA, and the military, three is NO major technology in the post WW2 era that has not been discovered/created without the direct financial aid of the US government. None.
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The transistor at Bell Labs
 
4saken said:
Govt funding there too. :)
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Nope.

http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHprint/v024n2/p0133-p0166.pdf

Government Support of the Semiconductor
Industry: Diverse Approaches and
Information Flows
Daniel Holbrook •
Department of History
Carnegie Mellon University

....In the early 1950s Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) was the
world's richest source of technical and scientific information about
transistors and semiconductor materials. BTL garnered the first
military contract for R&D in transistor technology, a Joint Services
contract issued in 1949 and extended consistently throughout the
1950s..
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Transistor was invented in 1947
 
When government gives money for research and then gets out of the way things get done. When government gives money for research then stands over the shoulders of researchers and tell them what they should be finding you get the idiocy of the fabricated global warming data.
 
dgingeri said:
The US federal government can't:
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Not gonna bother doing a effort post explaining how wrong your comment here is because [1]some of your 'examples' are little more than hyperbolic (can't get passports? really!?) to put it politely and [2]suggest gross naivety/ignorance of the effect 'shrink govt. so its small enough to drown in a bathtub' policies and politicians have had on govt. agencies over the last few decades. Trying to post enough to fix both of those issues would probably take pages at best and I'm not interested in putting forth the proper effort ATM.

Sorry.

So real short version:

If you expect govt. to be perfect you will of course be severely disappointed. But then everything ever will disappoint you too.

There are however a lot of good things that modern govt's do either via agencies, funding, or by providing services, that are taken for granted today yet in the past were considered unheard of and were flat out not provided at all via private funding or charities of any sort. So could the govt. be better ran?

Absolutely.

Does that mean the idea 'there are problems with the govt. therefore it can do nothing right' is any less stupid and knee jerk?

Of course not.
 
gamerk2 said:
Between government funding of public Universities (EG: Government sponsored research labs), DARPA, and the military, three is NO major technology in the post WW2 era that has not been discovered/created without the direct financial aid of the US government. None.
Click to expand...
Funding of private companies.
 
mesyn191 said:
Not gonna bother doing a effort post explaining how wrong your comment here is because [1]some of your 'examples' are little more than hyperbolic (can't get passports? really!?) to put it politely and [2]suggest gross naivety/ignorance of the effect 'shrink govt. so its small enough to drown in a bathtub' policies and politicians have had on govt. agencies over the last few decades. Trying to post enough to fix both of those issues would probably take pages at best and I'm not interested in putting forth the proper effort ATM.

Sorry.

So real short version:

If you expect govt. to be perfect you will of course be severely disappointed. But then everything ever will disappoint you too.

There are however a lot of good things that modern govt's do either via agencies, funding, or by providing services, that are taken for granted today yet in the past were considered unheard of and were flat out not provided at all via private funding or charities of any sort. So could the govt. be better ran?

Absolutely.

Does that mean the idea 'there are problems with the govt. therefore it can do nothing right' is any less stupid and knee jerk?

Of course not.
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How about looking into how DARPA is run and operated before you project their seeming success over the whole government. Trust me, no other non-miliatary government bureaucracy is managed like DAPRA for long.
 
ON TOPIC POSTS ONLY. THIS IS NOT A GOVERNMENT DISCUSSION.
 
So as a layman, would be interesting what the range/bandwith of one of these guys would be. Pretty interesting news.
 
I plugged an Atari 2600 cartridge in the wrong way a few times. That picture kind of reminds me of what Raiders of the Lost Ark looked like when it was on the fritz. :eek:
 
rokar said:
Well if they would actually secure the boarder with Mexico, that would be a step. Enforce the laws on the books. Stop plea-bargaining people on drug charges.
Click to expand...

We need people in jail on drug charges! :rolleyes:
 
m heisty said:
When government gives money for research and then gets out of the way things get done. When government gives money for research then stands over the shoulders of researchers and tell them what they should be finding you get the idiocy of the fabricated global warming data.
Click to expand...

In other news, evolution is a liberal lie and GMOs are killing us all and life expectancy will rise dramatically if all farming was organic.
 
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