Slashdot Mirror

and .edu, I'd guess.

Those are almost all state, local, or private. But there are a few run by the feds, such as www.usma.edu and www.usna.edu, which default to vanilla http.

This is also a huge problem for spaceborne radiometers that observe the Earth's surface (example paper). A radiometer is essentially a very sensitive receiver, and there are portions of the UHF and microwave spectrum reserved specifically for scientific research so that terrestrial stations don't interfere with the measurements. Unfortunately, interference may occur from transmitters directly in the band, from adjacent channels, or inadvertent harmonics from poorly-filtered transmitters. Pinpointing and correcting these sources is a logistical nightmare, especially when you have to deal with every individual country's RF regulators.

Probably not much brighter than what we consider reasonably bright...

From what evidence did you draw this conclusion? I'm not personally qualified to assess Ramanujan's brilliance (and neither are you, I suspect), but G.H. Hardy, the western mathematicion who worked most closely with Ramanujan, certainly was. What did he think? "I have never met his equal, and can compare him only with Euler or Jacobi." By all accounts, Ramanujan's abilities went way, way beyond "not much brighter than what we consider reasonably bright". He possessed one of the most gifted mathematical minds in recent history.

Not quite full HD but still is a higher res: 1081 x 541
  http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/so432web/ww15mgh.jpg

While you need one to relay lots of info to earth, not all the sats have to be heavy carriers; Think of little home routers vs the large routers that are used at ISPs. What is needed INITIALLY is a simple network that can send moderate (ok small) amounts of data that would allow several other sats to send information via these relays. Something like marscom would make sense, combined with ONE TDRSS like system located at earth-moon L1. Keep in mind that since we have so few sats there and for relatively short time, we simply need the ability to talk to them when they are on backside. Later, when more sats are up there, then it would make sense to put up large high bandwidth ones.

Department of Energy Handbooks (specifically 1011 / 1013 / 1014 series): http://www.hss.energy.gov/NuclearSafety/techstds/standard/standard.html

That's about as 'just the facts' as you can get, which comes in handy from an adult learning / slashdot-oriented user perspective.

Hope this helps...

http://www.usna.edu/EE/ee301/internal/Applied_EngineeringPrinciples.pdf

Chapter 1 covers electrical, chapter 2 covers electronic. The remaining chapters dive into nuclear power field topics (chemistry, mechanics, reactor theory - also very handy for those interested in 'just the facts' for those topics). This reference is about as technical as it gets without venturing into "If I told you I'd have to kill you" territory.

It's awesome that the Naval Academy has an unclassified version out there...

Back in 1993 when I got my ticket and very first radio (a Heath HW2P handheld that I believe only did 2 watts out on battery), I also got a Kantronics KPC-3 packet TNC and hand-built a cable to go from it to the handheld radio. I hooked up a twinlead J-pole antenna and hung it inside the patio door of my second-floor apartment, then waited for the Mir space station to come over. I did a quick "c r0mir" and was shocked to see a connection established to the packet BBS on the station! That definitely started it all.

As well, once in 1995 or so I had a 5-minute conversation with a cosmonaut on Mir from my car with 5 watts into a 1/2 wave 2 meter vertical on the way from Omaha to Sioux City.

I've also hit Mir via my Kenwood TH-D7A handheld radio with a built-in TNC. If you look in here and search for N0ZHY, you'll see packets I sent from Omaha through Mir which were picked up in Maryland! This was using only the standard rubber-duck antenna.

So it can definitely be done - and remember, good hams only use the power they need!

73 de K0RUS

Here is the US international layout for OLPC:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Keyboard_layouts

Here is the Konyin layout for the US (you have to click on VIEW LAYOUT under UNITED STATES):

http://www.konyin.com/?page=home&menuitem=1

Maybe Konyin thinks that they invented making additional languages/scripts/special characters available via additional shift characters, but that's ridiculous; here is the Windows US International keyboard layout:

http://www.usna.edu/LangStudy/US-InternationalLayout.html

See, lots of special characters via AltGr.

Some of us add that hardware ourselves for fun - see http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/aprs.html

when i evaluate your slashdot name
exp(pi*sqrt(163))
i get 2.62537E+17

exp(pi*sqrt(163)) evaluates to an integer.
Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) had this intuition and calculated it without a computer, using only brain power (and a lot of paper, I guess).
Ramanujan

Get back in your crypt, Jones.
Undead are unwelcome on slashdot.

The local digipeter picks up the APRS packet and forwards it to another digipeter or an internet-connected station, at which point the packet information is visible on several web sites.

Creating a mesh of access points for 802.11b is not a trivial task, but proper coordination within a municipiality could create a geek-administered metro area network similar to the APRS network.

This great practically self-taught Indian mathematician might have said differently.

Also, a brief look into the history of mathematics will reveal a decimal system in use in India around 2100BC, the development of theories of a solar-centric solar system, and pi around 500 AD, and tangible proof of the development of zero and negative numbers around 650-ish AD (the 7th century, and yes, this is a huge accomplishment nit-wit). Additonally, the term sine is derived from an Indian word, as trigonometry originated there, though you likely never made it through algebra.

The contributions made by the people of the Indian subcontinent are far from trivial. Sounds like someone also needs a history lesson.

I found a well-written tutorial (PDF file) from the Naval Academy on the subject of submarine air treatment. A spacecraft would have to deal with the same problems, even though the corrective measures might be different.

What would be a "killer app" for me would be a OSS tool to do terrain elevation modeling using DTED/DEM/SDTS datasets to do radio network modeling including radio path profiling, LOS profiles including fresnel zone projection. Given GPS coordinates, antennae elevations above ground level (AGL), and frequency and polarization of the radio signal the tool should be able to give path length, azimuth, verticle declination, freznel zone intrusion, etc.

Two so-called "free-ware" (as in cost, not OSS!) that I have used are MicroDEM/Terrabase from Prof. Peter Guth of the Oceanography Department, U.S. Naval Academy http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/mic rodem.htm/ and Radio Mobile http://www.cplus.org/rmw/english1.html/ by Roger Coudé VE2DBE. Both programs have some powerful features, BUT...

The problems I have with both of the programs:
1) Buggy
2) Windows Only
3) Not OSS
4) Poor/inconsistent UI

Unfortunately, both of these programs appear to be written by folks who have much more skill/knowledge about the subjects (GIS and radio telemetry) than they do about programming.

If they would only release the code under an OSS licensing scheme, perhaps others (professional SW developers?) could clean up (rewrite?) and improve/expand the capabilities. And we could have cross-platform availability to boot!

...beat the Navy -- what are they thinking, taking on the NSA?

At least they got home field advantage...

It should be pointed out that America (the country) exists because of the extermination of tens of millions of Native Americans. Also nothing to sneeze at when talking about "murderous regimes ever to see the face of the globe". But somehow that never gets included.

The major is housed in the Computer Science department, but there are courses designed specifically for IT students and faculty uniquely dedicated to the major. More information is available at the link above.

Perhaps Army and Air Force have similar programs in their respective academies??

Perhaps, but does your river Servern have a Naval Academy for the largest navy in the world on it? Were any cities on your river ever national capitals for the most powerful nation in the world? And is it ever referred to as the sailing capital of the world?

Thanks, I'll look for his book as the library today.

Debunking is intellectually challenging because here are a set of facts you can't add to or modify, and here is (hypothetical) cretin who requires the most brutally elegant of persuasion to come around. Imagine explaining something to someone with the mental age of a five year-old, not because the hoaxsters are idiots but because that's the fun of the challenge. To can't send the hoaxsters to the Moon, however tempting it would be, for reasons of expense and that they'll disbelieve the experience anyway. (Thank you Capricorn One.)

Remember, it's not about proof but persuasion. You can't just throw a sheaf of paper and pictures on the table and say, figure it out. A famed critic-killer is Pasteur's swan-necked flasks.

So the challenge: What do you think, based on what we've done so far, can be used to construct the ideal, concise argument that we went to the Moon?

An example is an IMHO irrefutable debunk of the backlighting theories can be found here.

But your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with the killer argument that settles the whole thing. Think of it as the simplest proof of the Pythagorean Theorem (there are many alternatives). Sell the solution to NASA, or in the spirit of free info just post it here.

My joking argument is that it would have been a hell of a lot easier to go to the Moon, and probably cheaper, that create a sinister murderous hoax of such dimensions. More seriously, who really thinks our government is this competent?!? NASA bumbling is ironically a beautiful defense.

That said, it's amazing that a group of people who live their lives by such a strict code of honor (Read it here if you're interested.) think so little about the issue. Computers weren't up to the task of sharing music when I was at USNA, but software piracy was rampant.

I know that I didn't even see the irony in playing my pirated copy of Doom for a few minutes before heading to Smoke Hall to sit on an Honor Board.

Here is the proper link.

Vague, isn't it?

This does the heart good to read all this stuff again. Hello to you fellow grads!

When I was a midshipman, I ran an online web site that wasn't particularly favorable to USNA. It took the Commandant a year to figure out it was me, but when he did, I was threatened with a Court Martial if I didn't hand the site over to him so that it could become a legimate "Log" again.

The reason it was against the rules for me to create such a site was that I was using the USNA network inappropriately. This of course, is a very broad rule and open to interpretation by the Commandant, and he interpreted in a way not favorable to my cause.

Also having been one of the two midshipmen responsible for the computer systems and their various uses, did not help my argument.

In any event, part of my job was to monitor the networks for mp3's and such, and we had to "crack down" a few times. It was always a slap on the wrist, especially when it was a group of midshipmen.

If I had to guess, the Academy leadership wants to stop this activity once and for all, and this is a good way to make the mids scared of being kicked out.

I was scared enough to give them back The Log, two days before graduation, when they gave me the choice.

-Salty Sam '01

IIRC the below site should still have the rules for the USNA network.

MISLO Web Site

Poe might not be considered a cosmologist, but he was certainly a cryptographer -- or at least a dabbler in the field. Like many very creative geeks, he did have something of a substance abuse problem. BTW, Absinthe is making something of a comeback in Europe -- the bar at one of the local universities here sells a drink based on Absinthe.

Interesting paper on Poes death.

The US Naval Academy is participating in this contest. Their vehicle is powered by ... a pc104 running Windows 98...

Some people might say that the navy hasn't learned anything from the past...

This reminds me of a friend I had at the US Naval Academy. As an Electrical Engineer he chose to work on a Rail Gun as his Senior Design Project.

About 3/4th of the way through the semester he came to my room raving about the "Break through" he had that day.

The next morning he went back to the lab only to find it completely cleaned out. All of his notes had been confiscated. He was told that the project was now classified "SECRET." As we, lowly midshipmen, only held "CONFIDENTIAL" clearances, he could no longer access his own work!

He got an "A" on the project.

http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/pcsat.html

You can find a picture of the satelite and a bunch of info about the project here. http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/pcsat.html

-Russ

If all goes well, you should be able to at least hear the downlink packets with a VHF scanner and 1/4 wave vertical antenna (YMMV). You will need a AX.25 TNC and terminal or comparable sound-card software to see the telemetry from the satellite and APRS position reports that get relayed through the satellite. Note that locations in the US will have to wait about 9 orbits before they can hear anything.

More info on the PCSAT web page. You can learn more about amateur radio at the ARRL web page and about amateur satellites at the AMSAT web page.

73, KA1LM

If all goes well, you should be able to at least hear the downlink packets with a VHF scanner and 1/4 wave vertical antenna (YMMV). You will need a AX.25 TNC and terminal or comparable sound-card software to see the telemetry from the satellite and APRS position reports that get relayed through the satellite. Note that locations in the US will have to wait about 9 orbits before they can hear anything.

More info on the PCSAT web page. You can learn more about amateur radio at the ARRL web page and about amateur satellites at the AMSAT web page.

73, KA1LM

David Brown

USNA, Class of 1987

But "Ivy League schools" are not the best option for everyone. And I'm not refering to those who couldn't get in anyway, I'm refering to the high schooler who is trying to decide between engineering at Berkeley, Cal Tech, MIT, and Stanford. (Yes, I'm from California. Bit of a bias, but I am also looking at the U.S. News ranking of the best undergraduate engineering schools with Ph.D. programs. Sometimes 'best' needs to be defined in terms of what you want. If you want an education which emphasizes practical, hands-on, do it yourself, go out to the shop and weld yourself a bike, you might not get as much as you want at an Ivy League school as you would at others.

I know, I go to a great school. Cal Poly was ranked 4th in the nation for the best undergraduate engineering schools without Ph.D. programs, ie. we concentrate on teaching undergraduate engineering. To compare, the US service academies (West Point, Annapolis, and US Air Force Academy) all rank below us, and they are considered world-class. Our graduates are known for being good engineers the first week on the job, quality contributors, intelligent people.

Basically, you don't need Ivy to be great.

Louis Wu

Thinking is one of hardest types of work.