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Read something by Martin van Creveld if you want to understand what's going on. Through a Glass, Darkly is a good place to start.

I don't live in the US but I live very close and almost all of my IP traffic travels through the US at some point and my worry is that any business information collected by the US/CIA/FBI or other US agency would be made available to US companies. There have been court cases in the past of US sponsored spying benefiting US companies. They say they are after terrorist but who knows? With the knowledge of past activities of US spies and the current computing power of the US agencies all foreign businesses would be well advised to encrypt all sensitive information.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1994/05/dr eyfuss.html

http://web.nps.navy.mil/~relooney/4141_Spring2002. pdf

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/070200-02.ht m

Not using encryption is to believe GWB when he says "Trust me"

Water is most dense at 4 degrees celsius [...] the water in the ocean's depths is 4 degrees celsius

No. It's the pressure.

It is true that fresh water at one atmosphere is most dense at 4 degrees C. But neither of those is relevant here. See lovely chart here for temperature patterns above and below the thermocline.

http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/nsgtmohome.htm

Well actually, Man is encumbered by second thoughts about using animals for warfare, at least the United States has a clear record of caring for thier war animals, honoring thier deaths and caring for them.

""Thousands and thousands of dogs have given their lives for their handlers," said John Burnam, president of the Vietnam Dog Handlers Association and author of Dog Tags of Courage, a book detailing his experience as a handler in Vietnam. "They should be honored for their bravery and courage. A national memorial will honor all dogs in all wars."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/07/07 25_020725_wardogs.html

"One such hero pigeon, "President Wilson," died in June 1929. During the Meuse-Argonne offensive, "President Wilson" flew twenty-five miles in as many minutes under heavy machine gun and artillery fire with a shattered leg and a badly wounded breast.

Found dead at the age of eleven, he was stuffed, mounted, and donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

The last of the World War heroes, "Mocker," died at Monmouth in June 1937. Badly wounded, Mocker homed from the vicinity of Beaumont France on September 12, 1918 with a message giving the exact location of enemy heavy artillery batteries."

http://www.monmouth.army.mil/monmessg/newmonmsg/se p022005/m35pigeons.htm

http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mam mals/
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mam mals/veterinary.html

Well actually, Man is encumbered by second thoughts about using animals for warfare, at least the United States has a clear record of caring for thier war animals, honoring thier deaths and caring for them.

""Thousands and thousands of dogs have given their lives for their handlers," said John Burnam, president of the Vietnam Dog Handlers Association and author of Dog Tags of Courage, a book detailing his experience as a handler in Vietnam. "They should be honored for their bravery and courage. A national memorial will honor all dogs in all wars."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/07/07 25_020725_wardogs.html

"One such hero pigeon, "President Wilson," died in June 1929. During the Meuse-Argonne offensive, "President Wilson" flew twenty-five miles in as many minutes under heavy machine gun and artillery fire with a shattered leg and a badly wounded breast.

Found dead at the age of eleven, he was stuffed, mounted, and donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

The last of the World War heroes, "Mocker," died at Monmouth in June 1937. Badly wounded, Mocker homed from the vicinity of Beaumont France on September 12, 1918 with a message giving the exact location of enemy heavy artillery batteries."

http://www.monmouth.army.mil/monmessg/newmonmsg/se p022005/m35pigeons.htm

http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mam mals/
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mam mals/veterinary.html

Against who, exactly?

Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Maybe you've heard of one or two of their many outrages? If you're well informed there are another three, or four, or five or six other commonly known ones. (Actually, there are many more.) And this is not counting just one or two of the many widely known foiled plots.

They even need close scrutiny in prison.

How did this escape your attention?

Not that I'm any kind of expert, but isn't WiMAX supposed to help us build such networks? The idea is to use point-to-multipoint WiMAX radios to cover spots as large as 40 miles in diameter, with local WiFI meshes at the ends. Then connect the WiMAX hubs together with point-to-point to make a higher level mesh. I've got a good place for a tower in my yard, and I'm up on a hill, so I'd like to be a hub. You can even support mobile guys with such a network. I hear that BellSouth asked the government for $6B (yes, billion) to rewire phone service in New Orleans. With wireless, it can be done so cheaply that companies donated the equipment needed for free. Remember BellSouth taking back the building they donated, because they were mad at New Orleans for accepting free internet service? If we want a separate, cheap, fast wireless mesh, all we need is for the government to let us. The big phone companies have a lot of pull, expecially with our current government. The FCC wont allow the wireless mesh. They simply wont allocate the bandwidth. In New Orleans, the FCC allowed an emergency license to some spectrum, which was key to enabling ultra-cheap internet service. Ham radio guys already have a tiny bit of frequency spectrum to play with. The result? They already have such a mesh, independent from the internet, and it's very cool. Check out: http://eng.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/aprs.html There are no real technical show-stoppers here, just big brother and phone companies whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

The difference is that Firewire supports ISOCHRONOUS data transfers.

It's sort of like the fact that The Truth is that recycling paper uses more energy and creates more pollution than harvesting virgin trees and using them for paper.

Where did you get your info about recycling paper? A quick google turned up this:

Recycling paper saves energy, water, space at landfills, and disposal fees. The paper industry saves about 20 percent of the energy required to make paper and paperboard from fresh lumber. Recycling paper also saves about 50 percent of the water required to produce paper from fresh lumber and alleviates the shortage of space at landfills. When waste paper is recycled instead of buried, each ton of waste paper saves the charge to municipalities for dumping, often called the tipping fee.
-- https://energy.navy.mil/awareness/365newfacts/365e wfacts10.html

though of course I'm not an expert - your claim about recycled paper just sounds like one of those myths going around that have no basis in fact. References?

The red cross on a white background has come to symbolize basically any emergency medical support. Like the term "Asprin," it is in broad use enough that it doesn't represent a company or group, but (in this case) a service.

It's not like it was a particularly original symbol to begin with.

This has become tiresome.

The Yorktown (CG-48) was in 1997 a test-bed for the Navy's Smart Ship program. USS Yorktown (CG-48) Test-beds are driven to failure. In 2004,the year of her retirement, Yorktown was assigned to Strike Group Wasp, a vote of confidence, I would think, in the vessel and in the technology. USS Yorktown Deploys as Part of Expeditionary Strike Group

I'm no rocket scientist, or even engineer, so I'm sure the engineers considered this, but why wasn't welding used instead? Is there some twisting involved at this joint? Also, if it's a simple o-ring, why wasn't a more sophisticated coupling seal used, or two rings, perhaps designed for different, but overlapping, temperature ranges? From my understanding, submarines typically use double seals as part of their L1/SS program. (Although it's worth mentioning that L1/SS was directly affected by the Challenger disaster, it had its origins in previous submarine engineering failures.) At the very least, using two identical rings eliminates a single point of failure.

See real bug at: http://history.navy.mil/photos/images/h96000/h9656 6kc.htm

It happened 9 September 1945 at Harvard University.

Yeah, that is odd, especially as I was talking about American citizens captured in the US. Who we did, indeed, tried during WWII, even while the war was going on. In civilian courts.(1)

No, the Nazi saboteurs were tried by a Military Commission, including the US citizens.

In fact, the courts ruled, during WWII, they must be tried in civilian courts if said courts were operating, unlike the military courts the president wanted to use.

That is wrong. I think that you are confusing things with a Civil War decision over the question of martial law.

However, every enemy soldier captures during WWII did, indeed, have access to a lawyer, and we did, indeed, tell people we had captured them. I'm sure that's just a minor point, though.

We informed the governments, as provided for in the Geneva Convention. Al Qaeda and kin do not qualify for the protections of the Geneva Convention. There are tests in the treaty to qualify for its protections, and they fail them.

Of course, we didn't capture random people handed to us by bounty hunters, but solely people in uniform on the battlefield, and there wouldn't have been a lot of point in them using lawyers to challenge their status, so almost none of them used a lawyer to do so.

On the contrary, we did intern large numbers of people toward the end of the war until their status could be settled. At that point there were many members of the Gestapo, SS and other criminal organizations that were trying to blend into the civilian population. It got sorted out over time.

With the war on terror, of course, there is plenty of reason for them to do that, because not only are many of them innocent, but the whole point of POWs is that you get returned after the war is over, and one's bothered to come up when that might be in the war on terror. So even if they are guilty of everything anyone vaguely asserted about them when given 500 dollars for turning a 'terrorist' over, they would still need to be entered into the legal system at some point.

No, they don't have to be entered into the legal system. The findings could be essentially administrative, much like the determination of POW status.

As far as the issue of "returning after the war", ... well, that is part of the hazard of taking up arms to make war as a member of a non-state actor without diplomatic recognition, and acting outside the law, isn't it? If it had been, say, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta that had taken up arms against the US, there would have been a non-state actor with diplomatic status who would be accountable for the actions of its members, a semblance of control, and would be likely to adhere to the law of war. As it is, Al Qaeda and kin are making war not merely outside the law, but often violate the law of war, and as a result they have very little legal protection and enormous personal risk. (The hazards of becoming a martyr, I guess.) Since their ultimate goal is to reestablish the Caliphage, this could be a very long war. Some of them may be held for a very long time. It should come as no surprise that a number of fighters have been captured, released based on lies, and then recaptured on the battlefield. That makes for a subtle problem.

For those in who suffer the indignities, torture, and gagging suffocation of being on the No More Connectivity Intranet... ouch.

You gotta love a multi-million dollar boondogle with highlights like this:

Only one in four of our users now wants to stab out their eyes with a government pen!
"The latest Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) Customer Satisfaction Survey results continued to show slow but steady improvement in user satisfaction with NMCI and EDS related services. For the second quarter of 2005, overall NMCI customer satisfaction increased two percent to 76 percent."

Name renaming by the Department of Redundacy Dept.
"The Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN-RDA), Mr. John Young, has restructured the NMCI office. Previously called the NMCI Directors Office, this office has been renamed the 'Direct Reporting Program Manager (DRPM) NMCI.'"

Reassembling random Dilbert quotes generates a Mission Statement
"NMCI is an initiative that launches the Department of the Navy's (DoN) first step toward reaching both Joint Vision 2010 and Joint Vision 2020's goal of information superiority for the Department of Defense. NMCI delivers a comprehensive, end-to-end information services to the DoN through a common computing and communications environment. This will enhance system and software interoperability and, in turn, enhance information exchange capability for garrisoned and deployed forces as well as individual users. "

:-(

But at least EDS is making lots of money!

:-)

GPS time is off by 14 seconds.

In fact, I would go even further and say that I would like to live in a world where anyone can live where ever they want and cross any border without restriction. The United States would probably see an increase in terrorism (more large buildings getting knocked down, etc.) but I would personally be willing to accept that in exchange for the freedom to travel and live anywhere in the world without government interference.

That's mighty big of you.

Would you volunteer to be in one of those buildings if I benefited and you were the one who died?

On second thought you don't need to worry about volunteering. Someone is already hard at work trying to make some choices for you..... and 3,999,999 other Americans. Of course maybe you don't need to worry too much since they are working toward their own vision of a borderless world, of sorts. Of course you might find the embrace of government they intend to be a little close for your tastes. But, hey, what can you do? Take the good with the bad, right?

Here's what happened. After 9/11, authorities found a bunch of e-mail addresses and phone numbers in the phones and computers of confirmed terrorists. They tracked down those leads. Most of the people the NSA started eavesdropping on -- about 7,000 -- lived overseas, and their phone calls were to other foreigners living abroad. But, according to Risen's book, "about 500 people" living in the U.S. who were in contact with suspected terrorists had their communications tapped. Risen calls this "large-scale" spying on the American people even though, as the Weekly Standard recently noted, this constitutes "1.7 ten-thousandths of 1 percent of the U.S. population."

My first thought in reading about huge magnetic fields was that this is the modern-day equivilant of The "Philadelphia Experiment". If you've seen the move by the same name you know the basics. Supposedly the US Navy tested using huge magnetic fields around a ship in the 1940's to see if it would make it invisible. The story goes that the ship disappeared but also phase-shifted and some sailors on board ended up partially embedded within the hull of the ship when it finally re-appeared.

So would we get leap seconds if the speed of light were changing?

Almost certainly not. Leap seconds have to do with the rotation of the Earth, compared to very high precision atomic clocks. The Earth's rotation is irregular, on the order of msec per day.

http://maia.usno.navy.mil/plot-eop.html

shows multiple plots comparing the observed irregularities compared with physical models for the tidal and atmospheric forces believed to contribute to these irregularities.

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/systime.html

Has the basic length-of-day variation.

There is no reason to believe that the Earth rotation is particularly affected by a change in the free-structure constant, in a way that would not also affect atomic clocks. The idea that some basic change to physical constants is giving us leap seconds is pretty much nonsense.

So would we get leap seconds if the speed of light were changing?

Almost certainly not. Leap seconds have to do with the rotation of the Earth, compared to very high precision atomic clocks. The Earth's rotation is irregular, on the order of msec per day.

http://maia.usno.navy.mil/plot-eop.html

shows multiple plots comparing the observed irregularities compared with physical models for the tidal and atmospheric forces believed to contribute to these irregularities.

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/systime.html

Has the basic length-of-day variation.

There is no reason to believe that the Earth rotation is particularly affected by a change in the free-structure constant, in a way that would not also affect atomic clocks. The idea that some basic change to physical constants is giving us leap seconds is pretty much nonsense.

Actually air and water act the same way in terms of fluid dynamics.
https://wwwcfs.cnet.navy.mil/ttfbangor/pers_dev/st arbase/fluid.htm

GPS time just counts intervals, and it started the count in weeks, days, seconds in January, 1980. The system is aware if UTC though, and one of the various messages sent from the satellites includes the UTC offset. So if you receive and decode that message you'd know the UTC time.

As of yesterday, the difference between UTC and GPS time is 14 seconds.
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/series14.txt

-WS

Some Navy people still think it was rude to kick out the Chief of Naval Operations, who used to live there, so the Vice President could move in.

Ada Lovelace was a complete fruitloop. She had a highly overinflated opinion of herself, and didn't create nearly as much as she was given credit for. Read The Cogwheel Brain by Doron Swade. It has exceprts from letters where she gushes about her on genius.

If you want a proper early female geek I'd suggest Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper. The "inventor" of the software bug. There were probably a decent number working in Blethcley park during the Second World War.

I realize that you said "approximately" but currently only 5 of our 12 aircraft carriers are away from their homeport: http://www.navy.mil/palib/news/.www/status.html

I followed your wiki link to the article on SIPRNet. It mentions that the network is for the transmission of classified documents, including (SECRET//NOFORN) documents. Not being a conspiracy theorist, I wondered what NOFORN meant.

I googled it, and this is the first page that comes up.

I'm wondering when the feds are coming to knock down my door now... I mean... I wonder how much stuff like this is on teh intarwebs? When you go to the root website, it pops a javascript clickyesbox telling you in no uncertain terms that if you're reading this, you shouldn't be.

Hey let's try and keep a grip: neighbour is a relative term in Alaska...

The VPL DataGlove grew out of a glove interface created by Tom Zimmerman in the 1980's, hooked up to an Atari computer to allow him to "play" air-guitar. A few years later he and Jaron Lanier got together to advance the device to become what is known as the VPL DataGlove. A quick search of google will yield many links, here is a representative one.

The DataGlove (and similar input devices) helped to define the concept of what we know as "virtual reality" today, however, due to the patents on the device, we have not seen many glove implementations since then. Data gloves have remained a niche market - most methods of employing them have been explored (and further patented). Of these devices, we have seen simple contact sensor gloves, to the VPL-guided Mattel PowerGlove (for the Nintendo, but hacked to be used on other platforms as well, most notably the PC with Bernie Rohl and Dave Stampe's Rend386 and derivatives), and the Dextrous Handmaster (an articulated exo-skeleton that fitted around the hand and measured bend angles via hall-effect sensors - fairly accurate, but an absolute pain to put on and configure for each user), among others. The last of the consumer-grade gloves seem to be the P5 Virtual Controller. It seems to be based on similar technology as the Mattel PowerGlove. Same as the PowerGlove, it has been a failure in the marketplace (it can be picked up fairly cheap on Ebay and other places).

It is debatable while such input devices fail with the consumer, but I believe that part of reason can be traced to two factors: 3D position tracking and virtual display technology. The first factor can be explained by the fact that there are very few 3D position and orientation tracking technologies out there that combine speed and accuracy with quick setup, that are not encumbered in some way by patents. Magnetic tracking systems are out - even if they could work in a home environment (which is doubtful - they are difficult to get set up properly in a lab environment), both Polhemus and Ascension have such systems locked up tight in patents - if you want a magnetic tracker, you either attempt to build it yourself (I only know of one such attempt which was mostly successful), or you go to them and spend a lot of money (prices have come down, but you are still looking at over $2000.00 for a simple two sensor system). Many other companies have gone the route of inbound or outbound camera systems with IR markers (both passive and active). These can be a pain to set up and properly track, because unlike magnetic trackers, line-of-sight is a must. Thus multiple cameras and multiple IR markers must be used and tracked to maintain state. The P5 (and others) use a scaled down version of this system. The last method used is typically ultrasonic - which was used by the Mattel PowerGlove, as well as a 3D tracking system developed by Logitech. Such a system is also line-of-sight, but it also suffers from multi-path interference and absorption issues that introduce jitter and reduce accuracy.

Regardless of all of this, none of these systems really make sense when used to control the movement of an FPS or other avatar on a small two dimensional screen. All of these technolgies tend to be best used in an immersive environment, or in a CAVE-like setting. Unfortunately, both of these technologies - that of immersive HMDs or CAVE environments with shutter glasses - have been out of reach for most consumers, and they have their own issues which cause consumers to avo

BBC article completely misses the point. The international time reference, since the 1950's, has been UTC, and used tuned according
to atomic clocks, not the earth's rotation. There are time references used specifically for astronomy, such as sidereal time, solar time, etc... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_time) There is absolutely no reason why astronomical time references have to match precisely to the time reference used by normal people.

The problem is that, today, there is no algorithm for knowing when to insert leap seconds ahead of time, which means you cannot calculate any time accurate to the second which is more than 18 months in the future, because you have no idea whether or not they will decide to insert a leap second. Nor is there any algorithm, other than a table of the known values to determine when to insert leap seconds. Add that they used to add them in June in some years, and December in others, and sometimes had two in the same year, and you get a feel for how chaotic it is.

Accumulate these differences over twenty years, and you have a serious problem. That is why the global positioning system uses it's own time reference, which has no leap seconds. When you're calculating position based on propagation delays, leap seconds are a mess. so GPS time is currently (http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/gpstt.html) fourteen or fifteen seconds different from UTC. (how many leap seconds since 1999? no way to calculate, you just have to know.) Seconds are the basis for all computer based time scales. These little nudges make very little sense. It would be far smarter to insert a leap minute, every... oh... 90 years. Or make the leap second insertion an algorithmic event, and not some random decision negotiated among a committee of astronomers.

I definitely don't understand why the Americans would propose dumping UTC. After all, leap seconds are for the convenience of the public.
If they are so interested in avoiding leap seconds, why don't they just use TAI and let the others keep using UTC?

Actually, it is CDR, at least in the Navy, which (in the US at least) is the only service to have Commander as an officer rank. Take a look here, if you don't believe me: http://www.history.navy.mil/books/OPNAV20-P1000/C. htm Granted the book in citation there is WW2 abbreviations, but, having been in the Navy since then, and having a brother who is a Commander, I can tell you the CDR remains the abbreviation for Commander in the Navy. And while we're at it there's also: LCDR -- Lieutenant Commander. Perhaps you are confusing a commander (leader of an operation) with Commander (a naval rank, O5 = to a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army/ AF/ MC)?

True, the competition is fierce, but "most benign" award probably not apt one. That's too much like also-flopped "featherweight elephant class" or "congenial axe murderer award".

btw, here's an incomplete list of US military interventions. I know that this is not a complete list because there were many covert ones. Some are justifiable, some are not. Some should have been there that weren't, like Rwanda. France and Belgium were evil but that was before my life time, and I suspect yours (unless you're 200).

The point being is that there are *many* and one can argue about specifics in this or that case, but the shear number should make all ponder what it is that make humans such war-like creatures. And the role of a military.

"This report lists 234 instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes...."
http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/foabroad.htm

Oh, and the list continues to grow: Afganistan and Iraq. Haiti again. etc....

Cheers,
-b

I have read the article and I found no explaination at all about how the clock can calculate the local time including the leap second. Ok, the clock have a synchronization of the earth rotation using the sunlight, but this in no way synchronized to the local time. First current local time is an offset of UTC and UTC is an offet to TAI and TAI is a averge of many atomic clocks, so the basic of our local time is not astronomic, but atomic (http://cr.yp.to/proto/utctai.html). This clock can be a impressive model of the astronomic motion, but this is the wrong way to tel the local time. Second, even for the astronomic motion I have doubts, since I never see a paper telling that the earth axis motion can be know for 10'000 year. But you can find papers that tel exactly the opposite: this motion is largely unpredictable as now for a such long time. See this URL about how complexe is the earth rotation axis http://mb-soft.com/public/precess.html and this URL about why this is impossible to predict at full precision this movement http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~rfisher/Ephemerides/earth_ rot.html. Did you know that such bulltins exists ftp://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/iersexp.sup ? Last, did you realiste that the local time is an human concept that have radicaly changed in less than one century ? How can someone assert that this will not change in 10'000 year ? Juste an exemple: the Asian earthquake end last year did have an observable impact on the earth roation, see http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/jan/HQ_05011_ earthquake.html. So keep in mind this basic facts: 1) astronomic motion is unpredictable in full precision for long time; 2) local time in based on atomic observation plus offset to keep it compatible with astronomic observation, not the opposit!

--Grace Hopper

She also said that, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission." So would everyone stop making bloody announcements and just get the standards DONE WITH!

(For those who are interested, the context was a Chips Ahoy! magazine interview in which she threw a question back at the interviewer about when the magazine was going to get their subscription-handling computer system fixed. The interviewer replied that they were working on it. She replied that they should "just do it" and then quoted the line above. The original article can be found here.)

Interferometry.

Because this depend of the earth roation speed variation that no one can predict for a such long time now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second
http://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/bulletinc.dat
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/eo/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/whatiseop.html

Last prediction are for one year ahead at most:
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/ser7.dat

Did you realize that the next new year will be after the 31 december 2005 at 23 hour 59 minute and 60 seconde, not 59 seconde ? So this clock will show false time in a few months, no needs to wait 10'000 year!!!

Because this depend of the earth roation speed variation that no one can predict for a such long time now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second
http://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/bulletinc.dat
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/eo/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/whatiseop.html

Last prediction are for one year ahead at most:
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/ser7.dat

Did you realize that the next new year will be after the 31 december 2005 at 23 hour 59 minute and 60 seconde, not 59 seconde ? So this clock will show false time in a few months, no needs to wait 10'000 year!!!

Because this depend of the earth roation speed variation that no one can predict for a such long time now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second
http://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/bulletinc.dat
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/eo/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/whatiseop.html

Last prediction are for one year ahead at most:
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/ser7.dat

Did you realize that the next new year will be after the 31 december 2005 at 23 hour 59 minute and 60 seconde, not 59 seconde ? So this clock will show false time in a few months, no needs to wait 10'000 year!!!

Because this depend of the earth roation speed variation that no one can predict for a such long time now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second
http://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/bulletinc.dat
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/eo/leapsec.html
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/whatiseop.html

Last prediction are for one year ahead at most:
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/ser7.dat

Did you realize that the next new year will be after the 31 december 2005 at 23 hour 59 minute and 60 seconde, not 59 seconde ? So this clock will show false time in a few months, no needs to wait 10'000 year!!!

This means that the failure rate can actually increase by several orders of magnitude in a very brief period.

I'd like to see some real data supporting this offhand statement. Essentially, it's claiming to be able to predict the failure rate better than the guys who actually designed and operate these satellites and have access to more data than you.
I'm not buying it. Also, both common sense and research will point out that the GPS system was put into service over a period of time. There's a pretty large diversity of launch and operational dates up there.

The probability of failure due to wear out cannot possibly be extrapolated from observing the failure probability during the first and second periods, because the causes are completely different.

The oldest satellite up there was launched in 1990. The first GPS satellite was launched in 1978. We have 27 years worth of data, besides the original system calculations that were done.

Coping up with an increasing failure rate could easily have been thwarted by budget cuts.

The GPS system is run by the military, not NASA or the FAA. They have PLENTY of money. The curent cost is around $400 million/year which is nothing for those guys. The overall military budget is more than $400 billion. Proportionately, paying my phone bill is a bigger expense for me than maintaining the GPS system is for these guys.

So, there may be gaping holes in his assumptions, but not in his logic. Previous posts were attacking his logic rather than his assumption with flawed arguments.

It think there are problems with both, but I suspect we're using slightly different meaning for the word logic.

The U.S. Navy made very substantial contributions to the GPS program. They were the pioneers in satellite-based navigation.

From: ftp://tycho.usno.navy.mil/pub/gps/gpstd.txt

A. BLOCK II/IIA/IIR/IIR-M INDIVIDUAL SATELLITE STATUS

SVN PRN
15 15 Launched 01 OCT 1990; usable 15 OCT 1990; operating on Cs std
24 24 Launched 04 JUL 1991; usable 30 AUG 1991; operating on Cs std
25 25 Launched 23 FEB 1992; usable 24 MAR 1992; operating on Cs std
                    Scheduled unusable 20 Oct 0130 to 1330 UT for repositioning
                      maintenance (NANU 2005131/14 OCT)
26 26 Launched 07 JUL 1992; usable 23 JUL 1992; operating on Rb std
27 27 Launched 09 SEP 1992; usable 30 SEP 1992; operating on Rb std
29 29 Launched 18 DEC 1992; usable 05 JAN 1993; operating on Rb std
30 30 Launched 12 SEP 1996; usable 01 OCT 1996; operating on Rb std
31 31 Launched 30 MAR 1993; usable 13 APR 1993; operating on Rb std
                    Unusable 14 Apr 1634 UT and will remain unusable until
                      further notice (NANU 2005055)
32 01 Launched 22 NOV 1992; usable 11 DEC 1992; operating on Cs std
33 03 Launched 28 MAR 1996; usable 09 APR 1996; operating on Cs std
34 04 Launched 26 OCT 1993; usable 22 NOV 1993; operating on Rb std
35 05 Launched 30 AUG 1993; usable 28 SEP 1993; operating on Cs std
36 06 Launched 10 MAR 1994; usable 28 MAR 1994; operating on Rb std
37 07 Launched 13 MAY 1993; usable 12 JUN 1993; operating on Rb std
38 08 Launched 06 NOV 1997; usable 18 DEC 1997; operating on Cs std
39 09 Launched 26 JUN 1993; usable 20 JUL 1993; operating on Cs std
40 10 Launched 16 JUL 1996; usable 15 AUG 1996; operating on Cs std
41 14 Launched 10 NOV 2000; usable 10 DEC 2000; operating on Rb std
43 13 Launched 23 JUL 1997; usable 31 JAN 1998; operating on Rb std
44 28 Launched 16 JUL 2000; usable 17 AUG 2000; operating on Rb std
45 21 Launched 31 MAR 2003; usable 12 APR 2003; operating on Rb std
                    Unusable 13 Oct 0217 to 0905 UT due to repositioning
                      maintenance (NANUs 2005129, 2005130/13 OCT)
46 11 Launched 07 OCT 1999; usable 03 JAN 2000; operating on Rb std
47 22 Launched 21 DEC 2003; usable 12 JAN 2004; operating on Rb std
51 20 Launched 11 MAY 2000; usable 01 JUN 2000; operating on Rb std
53 17 Launched 26 SEP 2005
                    For more information about PRN17/SVN53, see:
                      http://www.spaceflightnow.com/delta/d313a/
54 18 Launched 30 JAN 2001; usable 15 FEB 2001; operating on Rb std
56 16 Launched 29 JAN 2003; usable 18 FEB 2003; operating on Rb std
59 19 Launched 20 MAR 2004; usable 05 APR 2004; operating on Rb std
60 23 Launched 23 JUN 2004; usable 09 JUL 2004; operating on Rb std
61 02 Launched 06 NOV 2004; usable 22 NOV 2004; operating on Rb std

if you studied much history, you would find it highly unusual for democracies to go to war with one another...

That's not such a simple issue. There's correlation, but there's also correlation between peace and wealth of nations, their historic geographic isolation from one another, the rise of the cold war's stabilizing influence during the peak period of democritization, and a number of factors, suggesting that the correlation is not the causation.

track record of the USA is astrounding

On what count?

shit! i thought that was just taking a 15 minute nap. when i went to sleep we didn't have a single advesary capable of naval warfare. will this accoustic fuck-all-other-life-machine-thing also protect a warship from a powerboat sailed alongside a warship, filled with explosives and detonated? oh, wait, we have defenses (big guns) against that and they failed.

non-entrenched military folk agree, the threat don't come in neatly wrapped borders anymore.

How convenient that a "simple blood test" has been found to test for such subjective mental states as anxiety disorders and depression. The President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health "recommends" psychological testing for all Americans, and wants to ensure by law that every school-age child has been offered such an exam.

History time and again records governments continually abusing the power accorded by such sweeping initiatives, interpreted as mandates by sycophantic minions. Why should modern government be any different?

The real questions are: Who determines what is to be considered a mental illness? Which authorities control who is tested for mental illness and how? What will be done to the mentally ill under the aegis of treatment? Who stands to profit from it all?

The Columbia University TeenScreen Program is the pilot program mentioned in the report as the model program to administer such a CBT test. Their pilot test is already being given to kids in at least 27 states, in at least 69 schools.

At the Teenscreen website, under the "Setting The Record Straight About TeenScreen" page, the group argues that the language in the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, couched in terms of "universal screening" does not mean "mandatory screening."

Yes, Teenscreen does not advocate forced psychological testing at their website. However, Teenscreen can only vouchsafe for itself.

Teenscreen may indeed be an organization of integrity; the question is not how are the recommendations of the President's Commission being tested, but what will be the future of the initiative advocated!

Governments do not have a good track record being trusted to endorse and administer psychological testing of the citizenry. More than plaintive appeals as to Teenscreen's integrity are needed to dispell the fact that governments in both the distant and recent past have used official definitions of "mental health" as a means to control, imprison and torture citizens. The more wide-spread such programs become, the more likely they will be used nefariously. American forms of eugenics are alive and well.

Teenscreen cannot speak for the aims of government, nor for what government does with the information once it is collected by organizations such as Teenscreen. Presumeably such information will be subject to government review.

With the acknowledged surveillance of all network communications by Navy operations it is doubtful that client-professional privilege could be maintained, even if private organizations were to retain some semblance of separation between their testing of individuals in public settings and the government's pervasive snooping.

For more, see: www.inforwars.net

/. is not a wide audiance. I like /. but to see it as a wide audiance is uhmm, ignorant. btw you seem to be crippled by a desperate need to look good, maybe you're sterotypic view of the Chinese is comically tied to the "antideluvian" image of saving face.
Sad really.

And as far as the Japanese economy after WWII, they did produce crap. It took them decades to make quality goods for export.

After World War II, MacArthur served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP). His first responsibility was overseeing the reconstruction in Japan. Though it was officially an effort of the Allies, the US was firmly in control, and MacArthur was effectively the dictator of Japan during this period." If, as you post, Japan took decades to make quality goods, then the decades must amount to no more than two. And those two decades may amount to no more than overcoming the Overlordship of el Supremo MacArthur.

Maybe if you knocked off the knee-jerk slurs against Americans and either did some exporting or read some history...

Actually, as it applies to you, it's a bitch slapping of you as an American.

I ran an export company that dealt exclusively with Japan (I'm Canadian). It wasn't a big company (we did about a million dollars a week), but I did it all, with the help of a secretary and the connections of the owner a descendent relative of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. I happily was able to visit Japan and travel while writting the costs off.

One of my undergrad majors was economics. I like to think I can still stay with an elementary discussion of economics and business (extensive commerce courses and business law plus 2/3 years general accounting).

Prior to shifting my major I studied the humanities. I've read widely in the history of Japan. I had an onging interest in a comparative study of the Britan and Japan, given their both island states.

In terms of the economic history of Japan my readings rely primarily on the Cambridge Economic History; although I did read more widely on the Meiji Revolution.

Culturally I rely extensively on George Samson's 3-volume History of Japan. In terms of Literature I've read everything I could find from the Tale of the Genji on up.

So bitch, there you have it. Now do ya wanna play who knows more?

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/international_dat e.html No, the difference accross the International Date Line is always 1 day (24hours) apart.