The "News" thread.

[Buster's Uncle]

It's got fighting in the NerdWars^TM beat by a mile for suck, that's for sure.

[Rusty Edge]

That's a slippery subject; armies run on bullying, by the nature of the thing.  A soldier is going to get told to go over the top when it's clearly not in his personal best interest, and he better be more afraid of Sarge than getting killed, or the army doesn't work as an army.  All the rest naturally follows.

Yeah, it naturally follows.
Of course we expect the coaches or officers or senior sergeants  to draw the line at broken bones, and intervene.
How useful is a soldier or athlete with a broken rib or arm?

West Point story. A cadet is standing guard duty. Another, more senior cadet inspects the guard's rifle. Finding no fault with the rifle or the guard , he orders the guard to curl his toes. Then the more senior cadet drives the bayonet through the end of the guard's shoe, missing the toes but destroying the shoe.

Suppose you were their senior officer, JarlWolf, how would you handle that one?

[Buster's Uncle]

Punish the senior for vandalizing the boot, at least?

[Rusty Edge]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/04/tech/innovation/apple-resound-hearing-aids/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

(CNN) -- People wait in long lines and even camp out to get their hands on new Apple devices as soon as they're available. But they drag their feet, sometimes for years, when it comes to purchasing another piece of technology that could greatly improve their lives: hearing aids.

Hearing-aid manufacturers and audiologists hope a new collaboration between them and Apple will help.

Danish hearing-aid company GN ReSound last week announced a new hearing aid that's compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Called LiNX, the device syncs wirelessly with the newest Apple mobile devices and takes advantage of iOS 7's new accessibility options for the hearing-impaired.

At its most basic level, the LiNX acts like a hybrid of hearing aids and stereo Bluetooth headphones. Phone calls, FaceTime chats, music, movies, turn-by-turn navigation or other audio can be streamed directly to a small earpiece. When they're not pulling in audio from a smartphone or tablet, the hearing aids work like normal, picking up in-person conversations and surrounding sounds.

Apple worked closely with ReSound on the hearing aid and assisted them in publicizing its launch. And this being Apple, there are plenty of bells and whistles packed into the device.

A feature called Live Listen turns an iOS device into microphone. If someone's in a loud environment -- a busy meeting, a sporting event, a noisy car -- and wants to focus on one person's voice and cut down on background noise, they can get a stream directly from the smartphone's mic to their ears. (This feature has the potential for some fun eavesdropping mischief.)

Using GPS, you can save custom settings for a specific location, say a movie theater or your cubicle at work, and get a pop-up notification on your mobile device asking whether you'd like to switch every time you return to that spot. Don't remember where you left your hearing aids? Use a phone or tablet to locate them.

Apple and the device's makers hope it will encourage more people with hearing loss to get help earlier.

"Right now, people wait about eight years on average between the time they think they have a hearing problem and when they see someone about it," said audiologist Dr. Ken Smith.

More than 36 million people in the U.S. have some hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, but only one out of five people who need a hearing aid actually have one.

Smith attributes this gap to antiquated stereotypes of hearing aids. People still picture the hardware as it was many years ago: large and obvious, making embarrassing whistling and beeping sounds, and ineffective at filtering out background noise.

But today's models are quieter, discreet and more effective. And sprinkling a bit of Apple's magic on the devices could help decrease the stigma of wearing them.

"The association with Apple is going to make a great difference in getting people in the door in the first place," Smith said.

Even the most advanced current hearing aids can still draw unwanted attention when wearers must reach to change the settings. For many hearing-impaired people, the biggest advantage of Apple-ized hearing aids is being able to control the devices' settings directly from a phone.

With Apple integration, wearers can make adjustments as easily as they can check e-mail or watch a video. Basic settings like battery life and volume are built directly into the iOS 7 operating system. More advanced settings such as treble and bass can be set using the more complicated ReSound app.

It's been possible for people to operate their hearing aids via custom remote controls and even link them to smartphones, but that has required an intermediary piece of hardware, most often a small, clunky box worn around the neck. Now, using a combination of Bluetooth and a proprietary Apple protocol, the LiNX hearing aids can communicate directly with Apple mobile devices.

Flashy features aside, just being able to make calls on a smartphone is a big step.

"Cell phone calls are something that are very difficult for hearing aids to do," said Laurel Christensen, chief audiologist at ReSound, who helped develop the device.

Smith, who is hearing-impaired himself and was part of an early test group using the hearing aids, said he used to avoid talking on his smartphone. When he did take a call, he would push the volume up on his phone and then place the receiver above his hearing aid, searching for the elusive sweet spot where he could best hear the caller. Now, he says, he actually prefers that people call him on his cell.

The hearing aids are still specialized medical devices, meaning you won't find them on the shelves of your local Apple store. Customers must have their hearing tested and get fitted for the devices by an audiologist.

And they're not cheap: A single LiNX hearing aid can cost about $3,000.

Apple added support for the new technology when it released iOS 7 last year, but these are the first hearing aids to actually work with many of the system's accessibility features. Because of the specialized technology, a third-party hearing-aid maker can't just jump in and create devices that work with iOS without partnering directly with Apple.

ReSound executives have not revealed whether they are developing hearing aids for Android devices or other platforms.

ReSound worked on this specific technology for almost two years, so other companies might have some catching up to do. However long it takes, this marriage of medical and consumer technology is the first step into a welcome future for hearing-impaired people.

"This is the first generation, but there's no doubt that what we can do by marrying a phone and a hearing aid will explode," Christensen said.


****************************************************

I'm not an apple guy. I use Siemens hearing aids. The pocket remote control I have can be used to beam the sound from my computer, television, or telephone directly into my hearing aids, and it can change the volume and tone. It also lets me select the program, be it normal, cell phone, Bluetooth, noisy environment or speech focus. The major drawback is battery life. Although now that I think about it, I could probably use it with the rechargeable battery device I have for my phone.

Anyway, this seems to be an advancement.

[Buster's Uncle]

I've been almost deaf enough to need a hearing aid since forever, and slowly getting worse all the time - but I would hope those suckers could actually be programmed from a real computer somehow...  Electronic noises irritate me enough to make a hearing aid not worth it yet; why would I want a cell phone?

[Buster's Uncle]

5 Key Facts About Crimea
LiveScience.com
By Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor  March 4, 2014 7:34 AM



Tuesday during a press conference, President Vladimir Putin said Russia has the right to 'take all measures' in Ukraine. It came as video surfaced of a confrontation between Russian and Ukraine soldiers.



In the ongoing international showdown between Russia and Ukraine, the region known as Crimea has emerged as the top prize — a position it has held, for better or worse, for millennia.

Russian-allied troops in Crimea have taken hold of key targets — including airports, government offices and military bases — and Russian military leaders demanded the complete surrender of all Ukrainian forces in Crimea on Monday (March 3).

What is it about this peninsula that makes it so desirable as a geopolitical trophy? The answer lies in Crimea's unique climate, diverse culture, geography and often-troubled history.


1. Crimea is semi-autonomous

Crimea has been a part of Ukraine since 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev "gave" it to Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. Since that time, Crimea has existed as a semi-autonomous region of the Ukrainian nation, with strong political bonds to Ukraine — and equally strong cultural ties to Russia.

Crimea has its own legislative body — the 100-member Supreme Council of Crimea — and executive power is held by a Council of Ministers, which is headed by a chairman who serves with the approval of the president of Ukraine. The courts, however, are part of the judicial system of Ukraine and have no autonomous authority.



The Crimean peninsula extends off the southern coast of Ukraine into the Black Sea.


2. Crimea's climate and geography

Crimea is surrounded almost completely by the Black Sea, and encompasses an area of about 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers), roughly the size of the state of Maryland. The peninsula is connected to the Ukrainian mainland by the narrow Isthmus of Perekop.

And Crimea — which rests about 200 miles (322 km) northwest of Sochi, Russia — enjoys the same mild, year-round climate as the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. The climate is a big reason why Russian leaders are so adamant about keeping Crimea within their sphere: The Black Sea is Russia's only warm-water port.

Though Crimea is recognized worldwide as a part of Ukraine, the Russian Navy has kept its Black Sea Fleet stationed at a naval base in Sevastopol (in southern Crimea) since the late 1700s. In 2010, Russia negotiated an agreement that allows the country to share the all-important Sevastopol naval base through 2042, in exchange for deep discounts of about $40 billion on natural gas from Russia.


3. Gas and grains drive the economy

Beyond the strategic importance of Crimea and Ukraine, the situation in the region is complicated by both the abundance and scarcity of certain natural resources.

Ukraine has been called "the breadbasket of Russia" for centuries, since the region produced much of the grain needed to feed the country's vast czarist empire. Even today, Ukraine is one of the world's largest producers of corn and wheat, and much of that passes through Crimean ports. (More than 50 percent of the Crimean economy is devoted to food production and distribution industries, according to Ukrainian government figures.)



As Ukraine is tugged by the East and the West, many in Crimea welcome Russia’s aggressive stance, hoping Moscow will secure their place in a fractured future.


But the semiarid climate that makes Crimea such a popular tourist destination also makes the peninsula largely dependent on Ukraine for water, as well as about 70 percent of its food, according to Slate.

The energy picture in Crimea and Ukraine is also tricky: Crimea relies on Ukraine for much of its electricity, and Europe relies on Russia for about 25 percent of its natural gas, according to CNN. Furthermore, the natural gas that Russia sends to Europe travels largely through pipelines that snake across the Ukrainian landscape.

That's why any instability in the region is bound to send shock waves through international energy markets: Crude-oil prices jumped by $2.33 a barrel on Monday (March 3), due in large part to jitters over the Russian aggression in Crimea, according to the Associated Press.


4. The Crimean War

If you're looking for a time when the geopolitical scene in Crimea was stable, you won't have much luck. The peninsula has, throughout its long history, been occupied by ancient Greeks, Romans, Goths, Huns, Ottomans, Mongols, Venetians and Nazi Germans. [In Photos: Amazing Ruins of the Ancient World]

From 1853 to 1856, the Crimean War roiled the area, as France, England and the Ottoman Empire fought the Russians for control of Crimea and the Black Sea. Russia eventually lost and ceded its claim to the peninsula, but not before the cities and villages of Crimea were ravaged.



Oleg, a Ukrainian soldier at the Belbek military base, kisses his girlfriend Svetlana through the gates of the base entrance on March 3, 2014 in Lubimovka, Ukraine. Tensions at the base, where between 100 and 200 Ukrainian soldiers are stationed, are high as a 4pm deadline reportedly given by Russian troops for the Ukrainians to surrender passed and locals feared the Russians might attack tonight. Heavily-armed soldiers who are not displaying identifying insignia but are widely believed to be Russians have blockaded several Ukrainian military bases across Crimea. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)


Despite its devastation, the Crimean War was noteworthy for several advances: Florence Nightingale and Russian surgeons introduced modern methods of nursing and battlefield care that are still in use today; the Russians soon abolished their medieval system of serfdom (in which peasants were bound to serve landowners, even as soldiers); and the use of photography and the telegraph gave the war a distinctly modern cast.


5. Crimean Tatars wield influence

For proof that the past is never really gone, you need look no further than Crimea, home to an ancient ethnic group known as the Tatars, who still wield considerable influence.

Primarily Muslim, the Tatars of Crimea were instrumental in making the peninsula one of the centers of Islamic culture. They were also known as slave traders who raided lands as far north as modern-day Poland.

The Tatars didn't fare well in the Crimean War or in later conflicts, and many fled the region. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin may have dealt the Tatars their cruelest blow: By shipping food out of Crimea to central Russia in the 1920s, Stalin starved hundreds of thousands of Tatars.

During World War II, Crimean Tatars were deported by the thousands to serve as laborers and other menial workers in Russia under inhuman conditions — about half the Tatar population reportedly died as a result. [Video - World War II Underwater Graveyard Discovered]

After the fall of the Soviet empire, Tatars began to return to their ancestral Crimean homeland, where they now number about 250,000 — roughly 12 percent of the Crimean population.

For obvious reasons, the Crimean Tatars take a dim view of renewed Russian incursions into their homeland, and are likely to put up some resistance. "If there is a conflict, as the minority, we will be the first to suffer," Crimean Tatar Usein Sarano told Reuters. "We are scared for our families, for our children."

They may be outnumbered, however: While much of western Ukraine favors a greater political, economic and cultural alliance with Western Europe and the United States, the majority of those in eastern Ukraine and Crimea — where many residents are ethnic Russians — look to Moscow for leadership and support.

http://news.yahoo.com/5-key-facts-crimea-123447547.html

[JarlWolf]

Suppose you were their senior officer, JarlWolf, how would you handle that one?

From that situation, if I had all the information (the problem with bullying is surveillance and knowing who does what and so forth)
I would make that senior cadet check and clean his entire platoon's issued rifles and bayonets, and then I would re-direct a bit of his salary to cover the costs of those issued boots.

And I'd also give him a stern stare down and talking to. If he showed any disobedience or dared talk back or question my authority on the matter, I'd make him be responsible for cleaning all equipment used by his platoon after training runs for a week. Dealing with muddy, dirty, dusty gear and stinky helmets and other equipment for an entire week will make him think twice about damaging issued military gear. That's not only disrespecting your fellow comrade but also disrespecting your issued equipment, which is an insult to your military.


I once had a prank done by a bunch of grunts on another grunt, where they literally sh*tted in his helmet before a training exercise. I do got to admit it was kinda funny looking back; but even though I did grin- they were still doing latrine duty for a week, dealing with sh*t. Make a sh*tty joke and you deal with sh*t, its fair. I have a sense of humour too.

Edit: Though, I didn't punish every prank. Some were well deserved and fairly funny; when I was instructing on how to deal with semtex a bunch of wiseguys shaped the explosive charges in the shape of male genitalia to put it bluntly, and while I did stop the lesson when I saw it and gave them a stare down, we all couldn't help but laugh. Sure, it was immature but a good commander in my eyes is a commander who can connect with, and control his men. It inspires loyalty- and obedience. And a good commander will know when and where and how to act, which comes with experience from serving.

[Buster's Uncle]

Nothing for extremely dangerous action?  He could have seriously injured the junior cadet, and that's surely not okay...

[Buster's Uncle]

[JarlWolf]

Nothing for extremely dangerous action?  He could have seriously injured the junior cadet, and that's surely not okay...

I forgot to mention I'd be hawking them at every moment I saw them, but I thought that was presumed. And by hawking, meaning if I see them slipping up it means a quick crack on the back.


And if they did actually injure the cadet? I'd demote them, and depending on how bad it was, maybe even discharge them for reckless behaviour.

[Rusty Edge]

Thanks, Jarl, that makes sense.
 
To me that's a pretty serious situation. An upperclassman being petty, and also showing off. The trouble is serious when he misses the next time he does it, or some other uperclassman copies his behavior and misses.  Somehow you have to make an example of him before that happens.

Likewise the paramount importance of a soldier's ability to march and run. Destroy a shoe and you destroy that. You could lose a man, or worse, a straggler could give away the position of an entire unit, and it could be lost.

I considered what I might do, but I had no idea of how to make the punishment fit the crime.

Your helmet story is pretty funny. 

[Geo]

There's quite a difference in scale between bullying ln West Point and Soviet conscript regiments though. I don 't know the number in a typical year at West Point, but it probably doesn' t exceed the low hundreds. The number of Soviet conscripts any given semester on the other hand must number the thousands, if not the low ten thousands...

[Buster's Uncle]

And not a lot of those are going on to be officers, either.

[Rusty Edge]

They did rein things in since then, but by now it could be worse than it ever was, or non-existent.
I've been out of touch with it for a long time.
My school chum dropped out of the army before Desert Storm, he came back from a deployment one time, and realized his family was growing up without him. So he resigned his commission, and got a job with a pharmaceutical company, using his engineering skills to make sure that the dust was blowing the right way in the factory.

[Rusty Edge]

From The Washington Post-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-to-settle-the-ukraine-crisis-start-at-the-end/2014/03/05/46dad868-a496-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html?hpid=z2

How the Ukraine crisis ends


   


    
 

By  Henry A. Kissinger,   
 






Henry A. Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977.

 Public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation. But do we know where we are going? In my life, I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally. The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins.

Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them.
Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia’s borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States.

The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709, were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia.

The European Union must recognize that its bureaucratic dilatoriness and subordination of the strategic element to domestic politics in negotiating Ukraine’s relationship to Europe contributed to turning a negotiation into a crisis. Foreign policy is the art of establishing priorities.

The Ukrainians are the decisive element. They live in a country with a complex history and a polyglot composition. The Western part was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939 , when Stalin and  Hitler divided up the spoils. Crimea,  60 percent of whose population is Russian  , became part of Ukraine  only in 1954 , when Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, awarded it as part of the 300th-year celebration of a Russian agreement with the Cossacks. The west is largely Catholic; the east largely Russian Orthodox. The west speaks Ukrainian; the east speaks mostly Russian. Any attempt by one wing of Ukraine to dominate the other — as has been the pattern — would lead eventually to civil war or break up. To treat Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would scuttle for decades any prospect to bring Russia and the West — especially Russia and Europe — into a cooperative international system.   

Ukraine has been independent for only 23 years; it had previously been under some kind of foreign rule since the 14th century. Not surprisingly, its leaders have not learned the art of compromise, even less of historical perspective. The politics of post-independence Ukraine clearly demonstrates that the root of the problem lies in efforts by Ukrainian politicians to impose their will on recalcitrant parts of the country, first by one faction, then by the other. That is the essence of the conflict between Viktor Yanu­kovych and his principal political rival, Yulia Tymo­shenko. They represent the two wings of Ukraine and have not been willing to share power. A wise U.S. policy toward Ukraine would seek a way for the two parts of the country to cooperate with each other. We should seek reconciliation, not the domination of a faction.

Russia and the West, and least of all the various factions in Ukraine, have not acted on this principle. Each has made the situation worse. Russia would not be able to impose a military solution without isolating itself at a time when many of its borders are already precarious. For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.

Putin should come to realize that, whatever his grievances, a policy of military impositions would produce another Cold War. For its part, the United States needs to avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be patiently taught rules of conduct established by Washington. Putin is a serious strategist — on the premises of Russian history. Understanding U.S. values and psychology are not his strong suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point of U.S. policymakers.

Leaders of all sides should return to examining outcomes, not compete in posturing. Here is my notion of an outcome compatible with the values and security interests of all sides:

1. Ukraine should have the right to choose freely its economic and political associations, including with Europe.

2. Ukraine should not join NATO, a position I took seven years ago, when it last came up.

3. Ukraine should be free to create any government compatible with the expressed will of its people. Wise Ukrainian leaders would then opt for a policy of reconciliation between the various parts of their country. Internationally, they should pursue a posture comparable to that of Finland. That nation leaves no doubt about its fierce independence and cooperates with the West in most fields but carefully avoids institutional hostility toward Russia.

4. It is incompatible with the rules of the existing world order for Russia to annex Crimea. But it should be possible to put Crimea’s relationship to Ukraine on a less fraught basis. To that end, Russia would recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea. Ukraine should reinforce Crimea’s autonomy in elections held in the presence of international observers. The process would include removing any ambiguities about the status of the Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol.

These are principles, not prescriptions. People familiar with the region will know that not all of them will be palatable to all parties. The test is not absolute satisfaction but balanced dissatisfaction. If some solution based on these or comparable elements is not achieved, the drift toward confrontation will accelerate. The time for that will come soon enough.