Why just military?
For city police departments they'll be cheaper than helicopter hours. They'll be (un)seen over London, Los Angeles or other large metropolis in the near future.
9 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Jan 2012
A few points from a former Xerox product design engineer.
Printer makers sell printers at cost and sometimes at a loss. The money is in the consumables.
One-time eeproms in laser cartridges is an old idea. I don't recall it being afoul the courts, but it was more expensive to manufacture.
Laser toner often has a slightly different formula for each printer model (such as quantity of microscopic carrier beads) and a generic refill can mess up the internal developers.
Sometime you can score and find a the same printer on sale for cheaper than the cost of a round of toner and an imaging unit. Which might be ok unless the toner cartridges are only good for 100 prints (usually at most 1/4 full).
Civ V was launched buggy as hell, and it's Steam DRM often crashed on me. I hope Firaxis doesn't repeat that. I also hope I don't need to buy a new computer to play it.
Yah, I still play the original X-COM, and X-COM TFTD, and I agree that it has had many memorable moments - maybe more than any other game I've played.
Hmmm, it's snowing out and I don't have to go to work today.... Where's that disk...
Here's a little exercise that everyone can do.
Draw a large 2x2 grid on a sheet of paper. Label the the columns "No GW" and "Yes GW". Label the two rows "No Effort" and "Max Effort". Now fill en each of the four squares with both the expected outcome and the worst outcome.
The easy one is No GW and No Effort. Global warming is not a problem and we put no effort into combating it. Business as usual.
Next is No GW and Max Effort. Se we spend a huge sum and there was no need. I bet we'll find that we not only improved the livability of this planet, but also will probably discover new technologies. This might just make the investments worthwhile.
Now consider Yes GW and Max Effort. If GW is a fact, then this is where we want to be. Will it be enough? Who knows. But as above, we'll at least improve things somewhat and maybe save us from disaster.
Finally, Yes GW and No Effort. Global Warming proving to be real and possibly deadly, and nothing done about it is the least desirable outcome. Frankly, the minimum "worst" would be a serious downgrading of the planet's livability, and likely large-scale famine. The maximum "worst" would be mass extinctions of plants and animals, and an enormous toll on the human population, including the tiny, but nonetheless real, possibility of human extinction.
So, for me, the two No Effort squares yield Neutral and Bad results, whereas the two Max Effort squares yield Expensive But Good and Absolutely Necessary results. So even if I did not have an opinion on whether Global Warming was a real and present danger or not, logic tells me the payoff is better if we treat it as such.