About ten years ago my family and I participated in a Nielsen survey for a week or so. Until I saw this post from FullCircle, I knew of nobody else who had done it.
I used to own trav.com, which in and of itself makes sense, since Travis is my name. However I got quite a few random emails from people in Sweden who visited my site. "Why Sweden?" I kept asking myself. Then I found out...
In Swedish, "trav" roughly translates to "trot." A popular sport in Sweden is horse racing, but the kind where the jockey rides in a small carriage behind the horse. This is known as "trotting." So fans would check trav.com expecting a horse racing site.
I had used an irrelevant name without even knowing it! Pretty funny huh??
OK maybe you had to be there.
Travis
P.S. Can anyone who knows Swedish language and culture verify any of this?
Upon further review, I should have said "the equatorial plane is tilted with respect to the Earth's orbital plane about the Sun". I think that makes more sense.
Not that anyone reads comments buried this far down, but hey.
A geosynchronous satellite should only be in Earth's shadow for a brief time each day
Remember that the Earth's equatorial plane is "tilted" with respect to the Earth-Sun plane by ~23 degrees. So a true geosynchronous satellite (0 degrees inclination) will not experience Earth eclipses of the sun every day. These type of eclipses will only occur for a few weeks centered around the equinoxes (i.e., March and September), and can last for up to an hour or so per day. The details will depend on the orbital elements of the satellite.
There are also those pesky lunar eclipses of the sun. These can occur at a maximum of once per 28 days. But in reality they don't occur that often, since the geometry doesn't always line up, so you're looking more at 2-4 of these per year.
I think we need to differentiate between "unstable" and "uncontrollable." True, we have *much* more experience controlling Earth orbiting spacecraft and the complex factors affecting their orbits (nonspherical Earth effects, Sun and Moon gravity, solar radiation pressure, etc.) But the article talks about gradual steps towards an end goal. Perhaps NASA should consider more unmanned spacecraft at the libration points to build up experience before trying a manned station. The question is, even though L1 is unstable, how difficult are the control laws? Difficult yes, but not impossible. The aerodynamics of fighter aircraft tend to be unstable (from what I understand) but controllable.
Also, as far as targeting L1.... Assume you're trying to get a vehicle into the L1 point in the Earth-Moon system. If you "miss" then you'll either end up in a large orbit about the Earth, or in an orbit about the Moon. I guess it's possible to fly by the Moon and gain enough energy to leave the Earth-Moon system (and end up in a heliocentric orbit) but at first blush that seems unlikely. Even if that does happen, the resulting orbit about the Sun would approximate the Earth's orbit (with perhaps a plane change). My point is that if the targeting is slightly wrong, you're not going to go careening through the galaxy on some random trajectory. Again, if they are more successful with unmanned spacecraft, the benefits seem to outweigh the possible risks.
I remember hearing that The Offspring wanted to release all the songs from their "Conspiracy of One" album for free on their web site, until the record label stepped in. Does anyone else remember this?
...the sails did not separate and deploy correctly.
I think the more precise way to say it is, the upper stage of the rocket did not separate correctly. From what I'm reading, this is a launch vehicle failure, not a solar sail failure. Launch vehicles fail from time to time. The public should not read this news item and say "Solar sails don't work."
There's a lot of discussion on ads in Satellite Radio. Here are the statements from XM's and Sirius' web pages. Do with them what you will.
XM:
To ensure that there's something for everyone on XM Radio, we will be providing a number of commercial-free music channels in popular formats. In addition, our limited-advertising channels will carry less than half of the advertising of a traditional AM or FM station.
Great idea! I wonder what the legal implications are though... Like is said elsewhere, these older games are treated as essentially public domain, even though they really aren't. I still love the idea though, and it may just take paying some royalties to the manufacturers.
From what I've heard, some big companies (Microsoft and Cisco in particular) count the stock options they give their employees against their revenue, and so end up paying little in taxes anyway.
Now if only the Belgian police would be so effective at arresting pedophiles...
It seems like it would be easy to track users who download illegal music, and so easy to catch. This leads to a paradox, in that the people who commit lesser crimes can be punished more severely. (Of course, what constitutes a lesser crime is a judgement call.)
Slashdot Mirror
About ten years ago my family and I participated in a Nielsen survey for a week or so. Until I saw this post from FullCircle, I knew of nobody else who had done it.
OK this may be a little OT...
I used to own trav.com, which in and of itself makes sense, since Travis is my name. However I got quite a few random emails from people in Sweden who visited my site. "Why Sweden?" I kept asking myself. Then I found out...
In Swedish, "trav" roughly translates to "trot." A popular sport in Sweden is horse racing, but the kind where the jockey rides in a small carriage behind the horse. This is known as "trotting." So fans would check trav.com expecting a horse racing site.
I had used an irrelevant name without even knowing it! Pretty funny huh??
OK maybe you had to be there.
Travis
P.S. Can anyone who knows Swedish language and culture verify any of this?
Upon further review, I should have said "the equatorial plane is tilted with respect to the Earth's orbital plane about the Sun". I think that makes more sense.
Not that anyone reads comments buried this far down, but hey.
Travis
A geosynchronous satellite should only be in Earth's shadow for a brief time each day
Remember that the Earth's equatorial plane is "tilted" with respect to the Earth-Sun plane by ~23 degrees. So a true geosynchronous satellite (0 degrees inclination) will not experience Earth eclipses of the sun every day. These type of eclipses will only occur for a few weeks centered around the equinoxes (i.e., March and September), and can last for up to an hour or so per day. The details will depend on the orbital elements of the satellite.
There are also those pesky lunar eclipses of the sun. These can occur at a maximum of once per 28 days. But in reality they don't occur that often, since the geometry doesn't always line up, so you're looking more at 2-4 of these per year.
Travis
It was just a couple of weeks ago that DirecWay accounced they were closing up...
You're thinking DirecTVDSL, their land-line based DSL service (they bought out Telocity a while back). DirecWay will still be around.
Travis
I think we need to differentiate between "unstable" and "uncontrollable." True, we have *much* more experience controlling Earth orbiting spacecraft and the complex factors affecting their orbits (nonspherical Earth effects, Sun and Moon gravity, solar radiation pressure, etc.) But the article talks about gradual steps towards an end goal. Perhaps NASA should consider more unmanned spacecraft at the libration points to build up experience before trying a manned station. The question is, even though L1 is unstable, how difficult are the control laws? Difficult yes, but not impossible. The aerodynamics of fighter aircraft tend to be unstable (from what I understand) but controllable.
Also, as far as targeting L1.... Assume you're trying to get a vehicle into the L1 point in the Earth-Moon system. If you "miss" then you'll either end up in a large orbit about the Earth, or in an orbit about the Moon. I guess it's possible to fly by the Moon and gain enough energy to leave the Earth-Moon system (and end up in a heliocentric orbit) but at first blush that seems unlikely. Even if that does happen, the resulting orbit about the Sun would approximate the Earth's orbit (with perhaps a plane change). My point is that if the targeting is slightly wrong, you're not going to go careening through the galaxy on some random trajectory. Again, if they are more successful with unmanned spacecraft, the benefits seem to outweigh the possible risks.
Just my $.02
Travis
...that Vulcan dude from last week's Enterprise is still living in Pennsylvania??
Travis
I remember hearing that The Offspring wanted to release all the songs from their "Conspiracy of One" album for free on their web site, until the record label stepped in. Does anyone else remember this?
Travis
I think the more precise way to say it is, the upper stage of the rocket did not separate correctly. From what I'm reading, this is a launch vehicle failure, not a solar sail failure. Launch vehicles fail from time to time. The public should not read this news item and say "Solar sails don't work."
Travis
There's a lot of discussion on ads in Satellite Radio. Here are the statements from XM's and Sirius' web pages. Do with them what you will.
XM: To ensure that there's something for everyone on XM Radio, we will be providing a number of commercial-free music channels in popular formats. In addition, our limited-advertising channels will carry less than half of the advertising of a traditional AM or FM station.
Sirius: 50 channels of commercial-free music.
Travis
Travis
I'm curious about this statement, why did you say that exactly? (or was it just sarcasm)
Travis
From what I've heard, some big companies (Microsoft and Cisco in particular) count the stock options they give their employees against their revenue, and so end up paying little in taxes anyway.
Can anyone else say wether this is true or not?
It seems like it would be easy to track users who download illegal music, and so easy to catch. This leads to a paradox, in that the people who commit lesser crimes can be punished more severely. (Of course, what constitutes a lesser crime is a judgement call.)
Travis