I've given up trying to watch the olympics since the last few I watched chunks of were so heavily edited, and so horribly over commentated as to really ruin them.
Basically ou got the highlights and the bloopers, with commentary that would make Bob Sagat proud.
With 500 channels of cable/satellite it is a major shame that we can't have a dozen channels with nothing but live feed of virtually every venue in real time, with a 100% unedited repeat until the next day fires up. Instead I get a dozen channels of Law & Order reruns (Law & Order, Spedcial Ed. Unit).
"It's illegal to secretly record people, especially in their own homes (reasonable expectation of privacy). If you install a little camera in your neighbor's ceiling, you can bet you'll end up in jail. This is the same. "
Actually, it varies state to state. I've seen accounts multiple cases wherein people found out that indeed their neighbor had hidden a camera in the attic of their house to spy on their bedroom. In one case they ended up only being able to charge the dude with theft of the electricity, as the recording itself was not illegal in that state. Additionally since the guy was given a key to keep an eye on the place when they were out of town, trespassing was unlikely to stick.
If it indeed ist just a 1 mil thick water resistant conformal coat, then that far from guarantees electronics will still function.
A lot of electronics widgets at high operating frequencies (think cell phone RF stages) may not directly be damaged by the water, but the prescence of the water will disrupt their operation by bogging down high speed signals with the high dielectric constant of water (about 80), which is also usually VERY lossy. So expect digital things to go on the fritz till the water fully drains out, and RF stuff to be euqally fouled up with low or no output power until the water drains out fully.
Over temp and time conformal coats are are real double edged sword. SMT components (99% of the stuff in most of todays consumer electronics) can be damaged in thermal cycling as a result of confomral coating that wicks under their body and expands/contracts much faster than the cermaic bodies of the parts. I've suffered the wrath of multiple different conformal coatings in mil/aerospace and concluded that usually it creates about as much mahem as it prevents. YMMV.
In point of fact, GPS get's it's speeds from the relative Doppler shifts from the satellites it's getting info from. As a result, the indicated speed is much more accurate than the absolute position.
Absolute position accuracy is the result of lots of averaging. The data that the receiver has to work with is the delta in distance between multiple satellites, and the rate of change of that distance. From that info, and the details it knows (and constantly updates from the info in the GPS stream) about the sattelites' location and orbit it back calculates position.
Speed gets derived from the constantly updated cross correlations between satellite signals to derive extremely accurately the delta in speed and distance between satellite A and B. These correlations are happening in real time. The result is that speed is more accurate than position. When first starting up, a handheld often will give you 30-100m updates in position despite being stationary, especially height (the least accurate dimension on GPS). At the same time it very accurately shows your speed is at or very near zero.
Your speed is not calculated from your GPS position moment to moment, but more the other way around.
We are clearly overdue for a good and proper political revolution. Track down your senator, then tar and feather him. Even the ones voting against this bill should be beaten for the overall pathetic weak spined showing we've had fro them in the face of outright rape of the constitution and snubbing of the rule of law.
Given that so many well understood treatable and cureable diseases TODAY are not treated or cured, isn't it putting the cart before the horse to concentrate one life extension?
Given our overpopulation, limited natural resources, and great resistance to any sort of population control, throttling, etc, isn't age extension an irresponsible idea? Couldn't the effort be on making sure the earth is still habitable for at least another 1000 years?
Yes, June 20th should really be turned into National Waterboard your Representative Day, but at this point it's up to the Senate. I'm not sure how many of them are ALREADY wiretapped (Bush must have some sort of amazing leverage...), but clearly they have lost any sort of perspective as to why the Dem's got the boost in the last round of rigged elections. So I propose we The People go out and give our elected reps a taste of their own medicine.
A round or two of a stress positions while in extreme cold followed by a good old waterboarding session might do the trick. We can then staple gun a tracking device on their cranium and see how THEY like losing their rights. Maybe barcode tattoo them too, so they'll have an idea about what this whole Real ID thing is all about.
I tried the CIA right out of college, and they wanted the best and brightest too (who doesn't?). I imagine that DARPA is similar. They want the best and brightest, but still pay civil servant wages (30-40% below the industry), and now have crappier benefits than private industry as well (double the copays, much worse coverage).
My hardware lab (last in HQ) got taken over for cube space, and my new location was now 20-30 miles from my main customer (ops folks), so they never came to see me anymore, and visa versa.
I left for private industry and in 12 months was making 50% more than as a public servant, and now just a few years later I've almost doubled my old gov't salary and live in a MUCH lower cost of living locale than the DC metro area. Much better people to live and work with too.
I wrote my 2 senators, and my rep immediately upon hearing this latest round of horse crap, just google a bit and find your guys, give them an earful:
"Dear Mr. Wu,
I am writing you regarding the most recent FISA reform bill that is soon to come up for a vote. I am deeply angered to find that this "bipartisan" bill once again aims to grant telecommunication companies blanket immunity. I strongly urge you to vote against it.
The American People (i.e. "We the People") have yet to have ANY significant disclosure as to what extent executive branch, complicit with some memeber of congress, conspired illegally with telecommunication companies to spy on the People. As a voter in our increasingly disgraced country I strongly urge you to vote against any bill that sweeps this affair under the rug. We the People demand accountability. We the People demand transparency in our government. We the People demand our constitutional right against illegal search and siezure.
Please do all that you can to reign in the executive branch to its constitional boundaries once again. Please use your office to demand that past and present illegal actions by the executive branch, and complicit memeber of congress be held to account. Our country's conscience demands it.
Thank you"
Other than that, vote every complicit SOB out of office as soon as possible. Enough angry people can occasionally rile up the Sheeple.
The board was in the field in a T&M application for about 1 year. Root cause pointed to 2 factors. First the board had very poor (actually out of spec) via to pad alignment. The result was significantly increased voltage density between the offending 12V via and the ground plane.
The second factor WAS RoHS compliant board prep and solder. Basically drilled and plated via holes are not 100% sealed (rough bits of fiberglass can still protude through the plating). The solder was one of these high Tin (97%) varieties, and we got dendrite growth (not the more common whisker growth) INSIDE the board along the fiberglass fibers between the via hole and the ground plane, creating a short from a ~30A power bus to ground. The board caught fire. Indications are that it creates a crappy short that repeatedly fries open, and regrows causing intermittents, then eventually enough heat for fire if the power supply can handle it. Higher power electronics with dendrite growth or tin whiskers may fail only briefly (or not at all) when a wimpy short occurs. Low power signal lines won't always have enough juice to overcome the short and may fully die on the very first short.
Our safety/reliability group said dendrite growth is a known, but poorly talked about issue that is greatly exacerbated by the lack of lead, and greatly increased board densities today.
To a previous post about melting points. Yes, Tin/Lead solder melts well below the melting point of either element in the alloy, at about 175-180C depending on the particulars.
NASA literature indicates that conformal coating is ineffective against whisker growth. At a previous defense sub-component job we had to resort to getting many parts re-plated with a tin/lead finish over their matte tin finish to comply with contract requirements. Most commercial off the shelf parts (COTS) are no longer available with anything but matte Tin, or other RoHS finishes. Many vendors changed finishes without any notice, creating havoc in our stick room.
Minor point, $137 per barrel is usually for "light sweet crude". Not all oils fields are created equal, many are heavy and bitter, with more contaminents, and longer carbon chains on average. So Oil from Alaska and Venezuala are cheaper as they require more complicated refining to use.
For example the refineries actually in Alaska (one in Fairbanks, one near Anchorage) do a lot of front end distilling of the easier to refine components that they prefer for refining purposes and feed the heavier products back into the pipeline (negligable effect on everyone else, but it keeps those two small refineries pretty simple).
Expect to see much more of the heavier nasty stuff ont he market as we use up the "good stuff".
Being somewhat overlooked at least in the US, and I suspect also in Japan, is the lack of long term investment in Engineers. Going to seminars, taking training classes, and even spending time learning new tools is always lowest priority. Basically companies only want to hire perfectly matched engineers who are current on state of the art tools/technology, use them till they are obsolete, and then "Right Size" them.
Instead of looking at new hires on a 20-30 year career cycle, folks get hired only looking at the next project or two on the books. If you can't keep your skills up to date while working the 60 hours a week to meet stupid and arbitrary deadlines, you are a marked man for the next layoff cycle. Once you've been through this cycle a couple times, how can you in your right mind reccomend this work for the next generation?
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I've given up trying to watch the olympics since the last few I watched chunks of were so heavily edited, and so horribly over commentated as to really ruin them.
Basically ou got the highlights and the bloopers, with commentary that would make Bob Sagat proud.
With 500 channels of cable/satellite it is a major shame that we can't have a dozen channels with nothing but live feed of virtually every venue in real time, with a 100% unedited repeat until the next day fires up. Instead I get a dozen channels of Law & Order reruns (Law & Order, Spedcial Ed. Unit).
"It's illegal to secretly record people, especially in their own homes (reasonable expectation of privacy). If you install a little camera in your neighbor's ceiling, you can bet you'll end up in jail. This is the same. "
Actually, it varies state to state. I've seen accounts multiple cases wherein people found out that indeed their neighbor had hidden a camera in the attic of their house to spy on their bedroom. In one case they ended up only being able to charge the dude with theft of the electricity, as the recording itself was not illegal in that state. Additionally since the guy was given a key to keep an eye on the place when they were out of town, trespassing was unlikely to stick.
If it indeed ist just a 1 mil thick water resistant conformal coat, then that far from guarantees electronics will still function.
A lot of electronics widgets at high operating frequencies (think cell phone RF stages) may not directly be damaged by the water, but the prescence of the water will disrupt their operation by bogging down high speed signals with the high dielectric constant of water (about 80), which is also usually VERY lossy. So expect digital things to go on the fritz till the water fully drains out, and RF stuff to be euqally fouled up with low or no output power until the water drains out fully.
Over temp and time conformal coats are are real double edged sword. SMT components (99% of the stuff in most of todays consumer electronics) can be damaged in thermal cycling as a result of confomral coating that wicks under their body and expands/contracts much faster than the cermaic bodies of the parts. I've suffered the wrath of multiple different conformal coatings in mil/aerospace and concluded that usually it creates about as much mahem as it prevents. YMMV.
In point of fact, GPS get's it's speeds from the relative Doppler shifts from the satellites it's getting info from. As a result, the indicated speed is much more accurate than the absolute position.
Absolute position accuracy is the result of lots of averaging. The data that the receiver has to work with is the delta in distance between multiple satellites, and the rate of change of that distance. From that info, and the details it knows (and constantly updates from the info in the GPS stream) about the sattelites' location and orbit it back calculates position.
Speed gets derived from the constantly updated cross correlations between satellite signals to derive extremely accurately the delta in speed and distance between satellite A and B. These correlations are happening in real time. The result is that speed is more accurate than position. When first starting up, a handheld often will give you 30-100m updates in position despite being stationary, especially height (the least accurate dimension on GPS). At the same time it very accurately shows your speed is at or very near zero.
Your speed is not calculated from your GPS position moment to moment, but more the other way around.
We are clearly overdue for a good and proper political revolution. Track down your senator, then tar and feather him. Even the ones voting against this bill should be beaten for the overall pathetic weak spined showing we've had fro them in the face of outright rape of the constitution and snubbing of the rule of law.
Given that so many well understood treatable and cureable diseases TODAY are not treated or cured, isn't it putting the cart before the horse to concentrate one life extension?
Given our overpopulation, limited natural resources, and great resistance to any sort of population control, throttling, etc, isn't age extension an irresponsible idea? Couldn't the effort be on making sure the earth is still habitable for at least another 1000 years?
Dude, what's with the beard?
Yes, June 20th should really be turned into National Waterboard your Representative Day, but at this point it's up to the Senate. I'm not sure how many of them are ALREADY wiretapped (Bush must have some sort of amazing leverage...), but clearly they have lost any sort of perspective as to why the Dem's got the boost in the last round of rigged elections. So I propose we The People go out and give our elected reps a taste of their own medicine.
A round or two of a stress positions while in extreme cold followed by a good old waterboarding session might do the trick. We can then staple gun a tracking device on their cranium and see how THEY like losing their rights. Maybe barcode tattoo them too, so they'll have an idea about what this whole Real ID thing is all about.
How's the job market in Canada?
I tried the CIA right out of college, and they wanted the best and brightest too (who doesn't?). I imagine that DARPA is similar. They want the best and brightest, but still pay civil servant wages (30-40% below the industry), and now have crappier benefits than private industry as well (double the copays, much worse coverage).
My hardware lab (last in HQ) got taken over for cube space, and my new location was now 20-30 miles from my main customer (ops folks), so they never came to see me anymore, and visa versa.
I left for private industry and in 12 months was making 50% more than as a public servant, and now just a few years later I've almost doubled my old gov't salary and live in a MUCH lower cost of living locale than the DC metro area. Much better people to live and work with too.
I wrote my 2 senators, and my rep immediately upon hearing this latest round of horse crap, just google a bit and find your guys, give them an earful:
"Dear Mr. Wu,
I am writing you regarding the most recent FISA reform bill that is soon to come up for a vote. I am deeply angered to find that this "bipartisan" bill once again aims to grant telecommunication companies blanket immunity. I strongly urge you to vote against it.
The American People (i.e. "We the People") have yet to have ANY significant disclosure as to what extent executive branch, complicit with some memeber of congress, conspired illegally with telecommunication companies to spy on the People. As a voter in our increasingly disgraced country I strongly urge you to vote against any bill that sweeps this affair under the rug. We the People demand accountability. We the People demand transparency in our government. We the People demand our constitutional right against illegal search and siezure.
Please do all that you can to reign in the executive branch to its constitional boundaries once again. Please use your office to demand that past and present illegal actions by the executive branch, and complicit memeber of congress be held to account. Our country's conscience demands it.
Thank you"
Other than that, vote every complicit SOB out of office as soon as possible. Enough angry people can occasionally rile up the Sheeple.
The board was in the field in a T&M application for about 1 year. Root cause pointed to 2 factors. First the board had very poor (actually out of spec) via to pad alignment. The result was significantly increased voltage density between the offending 12V via and the ground plane. The second factor WAS RoHS compliant board prep and solder. Basically drilled and plated via holes are not 100% sealed (rough bits of fiberglass can still protude through the plating). The solder was one of these high Tin (97%) varieties, and we got dendrite growth (not the more common whisker growth) INSIDE the board along the fiberglass fibers between the via hole and the ground plane, creating a short from a ~30A power bus to ground. The board caught fire. Indications are that it creates a crappy short that repeatedly fries open, and regrows causing intermittents, then eventually enough heat for fire if the power supply can handle it. Higher power electronics with dendrite growth or tin whiskers may fail only briefly (or not at all) when a wimpy short occurs. Low power signal lines won't always have enough juice to overcome the short and may fully die on the very first short. Our safety/reliability group said dendrite growth is a known, but poorly talked about issue that is greatly exacerbated by the lack of lead, and greatly increased board densities today. To a previous post about melting points. Yes, Tin/Lead solder melts well below the melting point of either element in the alloy, at about 175-180C depending on the particulars. NASA literature indicates that conformal coating is ineffective against whisker growth. At a previous defense sub-component job we had to resort to getting many parts re-plated with a tin/lead finish over their matte tin finish to comply with contract requirements. Most commercial off the shelf parts (COTS) are no longer available with anything but matte Tin, or other RoHS finishes. Many vendors changed finishes without any notice, creating havoc in our stick room.
Minor point, $137 per barrel is usually for "light sweet crude". Not all oils fields are created equal, many are heavy and bitter, with more contaminents, and longer carbon chains on average. So Oil from Alaska and Venezuala are cheaper as they require more complicated refining to use. For example the refineries actually in Alaska (one in Fairbanks, one near Anchorage) do a lot of front end distilling of the easier to refine components that they prefer for refining purposes and feed the heavier products back into the pipeline (negligable effect on everyone else, but it keeps those two small refineries pretty simple). Expect to see much more of the heavier nasty stuff ont he market as we use up the "good stuff".
Being somewhat overlooked at least in the US, and I suspect also in Japan, is the lack of long term investment in Engineers. Going to seminars, taking training classes, and even spending time learning new tools is always lowest priority. Basically companies only want to hire perfectly matched engineers who are current on state of the art tools/technology, use them till they are obsolete, and then "Right Size" them. Instead of looking at new hires on a 20-30 year career cycle, folks get hired only looking at the next project or two on the books. If you can't keep your skills up to date while working the 60 hours a week to meet stupid and arbitrary deadlines, you are a marked man for the next layoff cycle. Once you've been through this cycle a couple times, how can you in your right mind reccomend this work for the next generation?