Article

2024-02-21 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

The US military has a 'Gradually, Then Suddenly' problem

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-02-21 00:00|| || Front Page|| [35 views ] Top

#1 I would caution against confusing a "problem" with a plan.

Posted by Besoeker 2024-02-21 02:04|| 2024-02-21 02:04|| Front Page Top

#2 Maybe its [well past] time to reconsider being the 'world's policeman'. As we've posted, why are we defending someone else's border way over there on the globe and [other than Texas] absolutely unwilling to defend our own right here. You have one job and you are failing it.

Posted by Procopius2k 2024-02-21 07:39|| 2024-02-21 07:39|| Front Page Top

#3 The Trump administration's policy makes sense to me: demand that allied countries take primary responsibility for defense in their region and then the US will back them up.

Posted by Vernal Hatfield3347 2024-02-21 10:50|| 2024-02-21 10:50|| Front Page Top

#4 "Two-thirds of the new officers commissioned in 2014 would be in the bottom one-third of the class of 1980."

A daring analyst would then cross reference the demographics of that cohort and discover the DEI cancer in full bloom!

Posted by NoMoreBS 2024-02-21 13:54|| 2024-02-21 13:54|| Front Page Top

#5 Someone, anyone, what is it as a society we have gained ?

Posted by Besoeker 2024-02-21 14:16|| 2024-02-21 14:16|| Front Page Top

#6 We at least won't be losing our "best and brightest" in pointless neocon proxy wars.

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-02-21 14:23|| 2024-02-21 14:23|| Front Page Top

#7 /\ Perhaps that is the goal.

Posted by Besoeker 2024-02-21 14:25|| 2024-02-21 14:25|| Front Page Top

#8 If these are the officers that will lead US troops against US citizens, I like our chances.

Unpack that one...

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-02-21 14:40|| 2024-02-21 14:40|| Front Page Top

#9 #5 These are cadets from a military school, right? So why is everybody (at least in line#1) overweight?

Posted by Grom the Reflective 2024-02-21 14:43|| 2024-02-21 14:43|| Front Page Top

#10 West Point Grom, where black females have special exceptions on their way to the stars.

Posted by NoMoreBS 2024-02-21 15:38|| 2024-02-21 15:38|| Front Page Top

#11 Whole generations of young men are now freed from the anguish of disappointing their fathers by not attending West Point.

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-02-21 16:20|| 2024-02-21 16:20|| Front Page Top

#12 I wonder how many might discover the answer ?

A bottle is half filled with 8 ounces of solvent. If 20% evaporates, how many ounces of solvent will the bottle now hold?

Posted by Besoeker 2024-02-21 16:23|| 2024-02-21 16:23|| Front Page Top

#13 ^ They have been told since pre-K there will be no math...

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-02-21 16:29|| 2024-02-21 16:29|| Front Page Top

#14 Too difficult? Ok, we'll ghettoize it.

If your Glock magazine contains 17 rounds. You fire 5/17th's of the ammo in your mag. You remove the magazine and give a half dozen rounds to a brother. How many rounds remain until you must reload ?

Posted by Besoeker 2024-02-21 16:41|| 2024-02-21 16:41|| Front Page Top

#15 B, when I studied for my first MS certification, the instructor explained how to read the questions. He said there would be irrelevant details intended to mask what was really being asked. I bring that up because in your first example, I couldn't understand what the size of the bottle (half-filled means 16 oz bottle) had to do with the fact that there would be 6.4 oz left after reducing by 20%.

If I got it wrong, I missed what the question actually asked because I couldn't grasp what the 16 oz bottle had to do with it.

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-02-21 16:59|| 2024-02-21 16:59|| Front Page Top

#16 Relevant? Yes, 16 oz is total bottle capacity. Total capacity after fluid reduction is the question.

.20 x 8 oz = 1.6 oz
8 - 1.6 = 6.4
16 - 6.4 = 9.6 oz
9.6 = remaining total capacity

Posted by Besoeker 2024-02-21 17:21|| 2024-02-21 17:21|| Front Page Top

#17 See. I didn't read it that way. I'd have got it wrong.

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-02-21 17:47|| 2024-02-21 17:47|| Front Page Top

#18 16oz is the answer. You don’t even know your own question.

Posted by Vinegar Greque3942 2024-02-21 18:40|| 2024-02-21 18:40|| Front Page Top

#19 "additional" is the operative phrase

Posted by Frank G 2024-02-21 18:46|| 2024-02-21 18:46|| Front Page Top

#20 Vinegar, please concentrate on the Glock problem.

Posted by Besoeker 2024-02-21 18:59|| 2024-02-21 18:59|| Front Page Top

#21 The question didn't ask how many additional ounces, it just asked how many ounces a bottle half full at 8 ounces, it will hold 16 ounces when full. Evaporation is immaterial. In psych there is an old term called functional fixedness, which blinds reasoning to non-traditional pathways.

The classic is the question about how to make a box. In the premise, the reader is told he is presented with a 4x4 ft sheet of plywood, two saws, a hammer, a 90 steel degree measure, a wedge, a can of red paint a box of 10p nails and a tape measure. The challenge is to produce, in any form, in any style, a simple box, in 1 hour.

The actual solution is merely to dump out the nails and voila, challenge completed. But the box of nails is rarely seen as a "box" rather it is nails and the challenge shadows thinking into formatting the components into something.

QED

Posted by NoMoreBS 2024-02-21 19:19|| 2024-02-21 19:19|| Front Page Top

#22 Yes, I felt the question was ambiguous. Frank supplied the missing piece.

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-02-21 19:38|| 2024-02-21 19:38|| Front Page Top

#23 Had a math teacher who, at the end of the week, would put up a problem which was sometimes mathematical and sometimes a riddle. Great teacher.

Eldest got a fantastic history lesson the other day. Put nine hours into a project, quotes, citations, bibliography, the works. Gets to class and teacher says don't turn it in, everyone gets an 85%. Called a Buffer Student to ease classroom disruptions, knows for a fact nobody around even cracked a book. Talk about pissed. off.

"Why even do the work?! What is the motivation?"

"So...what you really got was a history lesson on Communism?"

Posted by swksvolFF 2024-02-21 19:58|| 2024-02-21 19:58|| Front Page Top

#24 *unfortunately, that was not the history lesson exercise.

"Pretty sure I would have pulled a strong A."
"Your points have been redistributed to those who didn't work, Komrade. What do you think of Equity?"
"fuuuuuk."

Posted by swksvolFF 2024-02-21 22:16|| 2024-02-21 22:16|| Front Page Top

23:36 Angealing B. Hayes4677
23:15 Skidmark
22:16 swksvolFF
21:58 trailing wife
21:55 Angealing B. Hayes4677
20:42 M. Murcek
20:34 Woozle Glamp3497
19:58 swksvolFF
19:55 lord garth
19:40 Alistaire Gurly-Brown8890
19:38 M. Murcek
19:19 NoMoreBS
19:13 Rex Mundi
19:10 Rex Mundi
19:05 SteveS
19:02 Alistaire Gurly-Brown8890
18:59 Besoeker
18:49 Frank G
18:47 Frank G
18:46 Frank G
18:45 SteveS
18:43 Frank G
18:41 swksvolFF
18:40 Vinegar Greque3942