After reading the fantastic conspiracy theories, I must refer to Occam's Razor ("wiki" it).
I have to believe that someone is repeatedly dropping Occam's Razor and cutting the undersea cables.
This is a high-visibility item only because of the great boom in Internet traffic in recent years.
Cables get cut all the time. Older cables were wire and resulted in fewer channels lost per incident.
Modern cables are fiberoptic and "chock full o' channels". It is considered cheaper to repair damaged
cables in that area, precisely because it is shallow, rather than going to expense of properly entrenching
them.
It is done to them while they are asleep. Just subject them to thirty-five degree temperatures and they calm down significantly.
Plus, it's only done a femtosecond at a time, so if they blink they don't even notice.
Since there is no mention of instrumentation or tracking, I fail to see even the remotest point to this exercise. Who will know (or care) if this "plane" survives a Mach 7 reentry? It would take months or yers to deorbit if they just throw it out the shuttle. In the meantime, it joins all the orbiting debris as a hazard to near-Earth navigation. Even a paper airplane is a serious piece of debris if you are orbiting in the opposite direction. Kudos on the wind tunnel research, though. How about a study on the aerodynamics of a 20 thousand yen note with origami folds?
Because helium is the second smallest atom, it permeates most storage containers. Storage is marginally possible in very large volumes such as the national store because of low surface to volume ratios.
During the Sealab experiments, a major cost was replacing CRTS. The helium from the helium-oxygen atmosphere seeped into the cathode ray tubes rendering them useless. For the same reason, helium-neon laser tubes can be rejuvenated by immersion in a helium atmosphere.
The only known method of creating helium in quantity is nuclear fusion.
This helium shortage has been foretold for some time. I personally know of warnings from the 60s. It is one of the primary reasons for lack of commercial interest in modern lighter-than-air flight technologies.
I went through the registration and questionnaire process. At no time was I offered any kind of giveaway. I got as far as being told to download the monitoring program and stopped. I do not intend to install "spyware" without some kind of payoff. Possibly the free software is offered later, seems unlikely. From what I saw, I simply agree voluntarily to have everything on my computer monitored by Microsoft.
Look this gift horse in the mouth carefully.
It was bad enough having a pop tune like "Puff the Magic Dragon" stuck in my head for weeks. A pop song stuck in the road in the middle of my commute would result in a whole new type of road rage.
OMG! What if it was "A Small World After All"?
I had a similar problem. Desktop usage required switching eyeglasses frequently as I have become farsighted.
I bought a Logitech MX3200 Wireless Keyboard and Cordless Trackman Wheel trackball. My laptop sits on a small table 6 feet away (max range for the wireless keyboard/trackball). I have the video output plugged into a 30" TV (of course, any smaller digital TV is fine) I sit in the recliner with the keyboard on my lap and the trackball on the armrest (a bean bag can stabilize the trackball if it keeps falling off).
I doubt you would be happy with even a custom-built lapdesk. The last thing you need is another piece of furniture in the way while trying to exit a recliner. Beanbag base lapdesks rock too much and mouse and trackball are nearly impossible to handle.
My setup solved serious neck problems and improved my productivity by literally 500%. I actually mounted a second smaller TV on the wall above the 30" screen for "background" TV viewing. It is high enough in my field of vision that it "disappears" whenever I get into the "flow" of my work.
The only complaints I get are from my cats who were used to more laptime.
This story has popped up in different forms every ten years since the 30s. No one has been able to combine air and highway efficencies in a heavier-than-air craft.
Now a hydrogen powered car that could carry enough hydrogen to inflate its own balloon...now that's a pipe dream we could live with.
Still safer a helium fusion engine with enough helium for balloon....
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After reading the fantastic conspiracy theories, I must refer to Occam's Razor ("wiki" it). I have to believe that someone is repeatedly dropping Occam's Razor and cutting the undersea cables. This is a high-visibility item only because of the great boom in Internet traffic in recent years. Cables get cut all the time. Older cables were wire and resulted in fewer channels lost per incident. Modern cables are fiberoptic and "chock full o' channels". It is considered cheaper to repair damaged cables in that area, precisely because it is shallow, rather than going to expense of properly entrenching them.
It is done to them while they are asleep. Just subject them to thirty-five degree temperatures and they calm down significantly. Plus, it's only done a femtosecond at a time, so if they blink they don't even notice.
Since there is no mention of instrumentation or tracking, I fail to see even the remotest point to this exercise. Who will know (or care) if this "plane" survives a Mach 7 reentry? It would take months or yers to deorbit if they just throw it out the shuttle. In the meantime, it joins all the orbiting debris as a hazard to near-Earth navigation. Even a paper airplane is a serious piece of debris if you are orbiting in the opposite direction. Kudos on the wind tunnel research, though. How about a study on the aerodynamics of a 20 thousand yen note with origami folds?
Because helium is the second smallest atom, it permeates most storage containers. Storage is marginally possible in very large volumes such as the national store because of low surface to volume ratios. During the Sealab experiments, a major cost was replacing CRTS. The helium from the helium-oxygen atmosphere seeped into the cathode ray tubes rendering them useless. For the same reason, helium-neon laser tubes can be rejuvenated by immersion in a helium atmosphere. The only known method of creating helium in quantity is nuclear fusion. This helium shortage has been foretold for some time. I personally know of warnings from the 60s. It is one of the primary reasons for lack of commercial interest in modern lighter-than-air flight technologies.
I went through the registration and questionnaire process. At no time was I offered any kind of giveaway. I got as far as being told to download the monitoring program and stopped. I do not intend to install "spyware" without some kind of payoff. Possibly the free software is offered later, seems unlikely. From what I saw, I simply agree voluntarily to have everything on my computer monitored by Microsoft. Look this gift horse in the mouth carefully.
It was bad enough having a pop tune like "Puff the Magic Dragon" stuck in my head for weeks. A pop song stuck in the road in the middle of my commute would result in a whole new type of road rage. OMG! What if it was "A Small World After All"?
I had a similar problem. Desktop usage required switching eyeglasses frequently as I have become farsighted.
I bought a Logitech MX3200 Wireless Keyboard and Cordless Trackman Wheel trackball. My laptop sits on a small table 6 feet away (max range for the wireless keyboard/trackball). I have the video output plugged into a 30" TV (of course, any smaller digital TV is fine) I sit in the recliner with the keyboard on my lap and the trackball on the armrest (a bean bag can stabilize the trackball if it keeps falling off).
I doubt you would be happy with even a custom-built lapdesk. The last thing you need is another piece of furniture in the way while trying to exit a recliner. Beanbag base lapdesks rock too much and mouse and trackball are nearly impossible to handle.
My setup solved serious neck problems and improved my productivity by literally 500%.
I actually mounted a second smaller TV on the wall above the 30" screen for "background" TV viewing. It is high enough in my field of vision that it "disappears" whenever I get into the "flow" of my work.
The only complaints I get are from my cats who were used to more laptime.
This story has popped up in different forms every ten years since the 30s. No one has been able to combine air and highway efficencies in a heavier-than-air craft.
Now a hydrogen powered car that could carry enough hydrogen to inflate its own balloon...now that's a pipe dream we could live with.
Still safer a helium fusion engine with enough helium for balloon....