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I think such situations are rather big risk that a community that already wasn't very active atrophies or splits and then atrophies. With code bases like that there's also a lot of maintenance so being able to run an old version is not necessarily enough.

Yeah that ability to use old code is great as an emergency escape hatch but it's not really a viable day-to-day document editing strategy.

What maintenance are you talking about? I'm quite sure I could open any document on my computer with a libreoffice version from ten years ago. The functionality doesn't magically rot away...

Security vulnerabilities for one obvious example

Police have to be winning the war on drugs but not literally taking that financing that doesn't require congressional oversight away from the CIA.

One could say the same thing about virus scanners. They are obviously too little too late "security" so standards that require them have given up on real requirements like a way to achieve actual assurance of no buffer overflows. Nonetheless, an implementation to such a standard that chooses any off the shelf scanner is a lot less work than implementing a new scanner.

This is exactly the situation I think of when I hear news of rescue missions. Running a rescue in a place with functional air defense is a recursive rescue problem that could quickly get out of control.

Isn't that basically the plotline of the Blackhawk Down movie?

And, more importantly, the real-life events on which it's based?


Exactly what happens to me in Kerbel Space Program.

Rescue team for the rescue team.


The first time I ever attempted a rescue mission in KSP, I ended up stranding 5 different kerbals in various orbita nearby trying to get the first one, and of course every one was a bigger and more complicated craft trying to save as many kerbals as possible. Eventually I just gave up and put a giant cross memorial in orbit, part as a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion, and part as a memorial to the like 6 kerbals I left stranded in space.

Kerbals don't need food or water and can live forever on a limited air supply. I once rescued a kerbal who got stuck around their equivalent of Venus for multiple years. So it's all fine, they'll patiently wait...

Did you tactically forgot to put parachute on the landing pod? Or run out of fuel mid mission?

Slaps car, thsi baby can fit soo many rescue teams in it

The US did it all the time in Vietnam.

And it did sometimes get way out of control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Bat_21_Bravo

My neighbor was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, the one mentioned in this article who came back with over 100 bullet holes in his helicopter after the rescue operation: https://historynet.com/rescue-in-death-valley-with-hhm-163-t... That rescue wasn't to retrieve a pilot, but nearly 200 surviving soldiers being overrun.

It's difficult to squeeze stories out of him, mostly because it was so long ago and ancient history to him. Just to put his timeline in perspective, after the war he befriended a captain of the White Russian Navy who had to flee after losing the Russian Revolution. Alot of White Russians ended up in San Francisco, which is where my neighbor settled down in the '60s. He was also a military escort for Nelson Rockefeller, I think during one Rockefeller's campaigns. Once a staunch Republican, needless to say he's not a fan of where the Republican Party has ended up since then. Still a gung-ho Marine, though, who keeps insisting on climbing over our 10-foot fence whenever he locks himself out of his house, which means I have to jump the fence. Were it anyone else I'd just call and pay for a locksmith myself, or badger him to finally give me copies of his keys.


Thanks for sharing, that's a crazy read.

That's an example of things getting out of control.

Possibly the best example

Not sure if it was actually used, but a fun idea for pilot recovery..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_ROE_Rotorcycle


The Fulton recovery system[1] using a self-inflating balloon was used in production.

Though if Iranian air defenses are capable of shooting down an F-15, mounting a rescue operation with a C-130 may not be the brightest idea.

Anyone know the minimum speed of a B-2?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery...


>Lifted off the ground, the pig began to spin as it flew through the air at 125 miles per hour (200 km/h). It arrived on board uninjured, but in a disoriented state. When it recovered, it attacked the crew.

Understandable


Iranian Air defense getting lucky is different to it being impenetrable.

This is not a binary situation, and a lucky F-15 kill would not make it a good idea to concentrate more assets in an area where the US will now focus more resources.


…against the viet cong, where the biggest risk was the pilot getting pierced from small arms fire (in addition to the helo going down from pilot error). Quite different from the anti-air weapons modern day Iran possesses.

Are you aware that hundreds of American fixed wing aircraft were lost to surface to air missiles in North Vietnam? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._aircraft_losses_t...

Ah yeah, well I didn’t know it was that high!

But I’m responding to the rescue mission comment, which, since Vietnam, have overwhelmingly employed helicopters (Huey’s then, Black Hawks today). But machinery aside, the larger point is that air operations will likely go worse here than they did in Vietnam, unfortunately for both sides.


Or a MiG-17 that could outrate your F-4/F-105 at every subsonic flight regime.

You're conflating the Viet Cong with North Vietnam.

I imagine Trump would threaten to nuke a major city if it didnt stop and pilots werent returned safe. Not that I agree, but I think that's what he would emotionally do.

In my view it is more important to stop using software keys so probably use sk (fido) for both host and user.. From there CAs would be a next step.. The level of documentation and example setups is astoundingly poor if you even look at step 2 for any feature. I.e. SK keys are reasonably understood for user keys but the setup as host keys is vague and needs testing to see if it really works.

Eh, with browsers you can tell the user to go to hell if they don't like a secure but broken experience. The problem in most software is that you commit to bad ideas and then have to upset people who have higher status than the software dev that would tell them to go to hell.

I think most far from center paper writers are more successful if they don't let reality limit their ideas. Probably few consider a real idiot with enough power to ruin them as a threat when they start putting pen to page.

"Be careful what you wish for, it might come true"

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