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Nordic wrote:Pretty easy to speculate on this one.

SDI is a scam. It doesn't work and will never work for some very basic reasons.

However it was a big big part of the Reagan nonsense, and was the biggest potential gravyy train for the war profiteer industry since the invention of the machine gun.

The whole premise of SDI is that it's literally designed to be constantly upgraded at an astronomical cost. Which is directly tied to the reason it will never actually work: an enemy can always overwhelm whatever system exists by throwing more missiles at it than the system is designed to handle.

These missiles don't even have to be real missiles, they can be decoys or any other kinds of chaff that will use up the available "attention span" of the system.

The whole goal with this system was to get it started in the first place get any first generation system in place so that they would have reason to constantly "upgrade" it for generations to come.

However all the scientists knew it was a bogus system (because to be effective againsy nuke missiles it has to be 100 percent effective but never would be) and a lot of them were very frustrated by the Reagan's admin's insistence on the damn thing being used. My dad was one of these guys but didn't work directly with SDI so he never got too - ahem - depressed about it.

jingofever wrote:EDIT: from another Risks posting:

A Computer News investigation has established that most of the men were involved in computer simulation, arguably the key which opens the door to some of Britain's most secret defence technology.....

Professor who helped death riddle spy get job at MI6
Yakub Qureshi
August 28, 2010
manchester evening news

The professor who helped death-riddle MI6 man Gareth Williams begin his intelligence career has told of his shock at the tragedy.

Gareth, whose body was found stuffed inside a bag at his flat, gained a PhD in computer game technology at Manchester University. Prof Terry Hewitt has described how he helped the ‘exceptional’ maths scholar secure his first job with the government’s codebreaking agency, GCHQ.


Professor Terry Hewitt

Prof Hewitt, who now works for Bangor University, told the MEN: “He came into my office one day and said ‘I’m going to GCHQ’. He had to tell me as I was his referee for his vetting. MI5 eventually got hold of me and examined me about him.

“He worked very well. He was clearly a very able student. He came to us at the age of 18 – four years younger than most postgraduate students.

“He was modelling how light reflects on surfaces. His knowledge of maths skills and computing techniques would make him attractive to them.”

His PhD thesis, entitled ‘Methods for Global Illumination Models’, examined how light and shade could be replicated in computer games.

The subject involved the study of complex mathematical calculations and advanced computer technology.

Prof Hewitt, a computer graphics expert who left Manchester in 2008, added that Mr Williams – whose mysterious death has sparked fears over possible security breaches – was friendly but ‘reserved’ with staff and fellow students.

Searcher08 wrote:There was something very odd that happened to GEC. It was a huge sprawling conglomerate grown and managed hardball by Sir Arnold Weinstock who was a tough but pretty fair guy by all accounts and a cautious risk taker - a real builder. The people who followed him seemed to ram the great GEC nito the ground through fear and hubris. He was a legendary hard worker, helped grow a huge number of manufacturing companies, stuck with it and grew it for nearly four decades.

The way that GEC was torpedoed was one of the worst things that happened to British manufacturing - I bet there is some very murky stuff around it as Weinstock has created about £3billion in CASH at the bank - they used everything he had created as a piggy bank - to take out huge loans. Weinstock saw his share holding which he had grown over 36 years to be worth £400 million (and still kept invested in the frikkin company) reduced to 2 million by The City equivalents of Gordon Gekko.