I've never lived within 500 miles of my bank for the last 20 years. My paychecks are direct deposit, but my wife's aren't. This bank has the "easy deposit" method that Chase advertises, but they had it about three years before Chase. They also reimburse up to $20 in ATM fees per month. Since I almost never use cash, that's not too big of an issue. One run to ATM at the beginning of the month is usually enough. There's no easy way to deposit cash, so in cases where I have a small amount, I just use it as pocket money at the same rate I would have used my ATM withdrawal. If it's a large amount of cash, I go to a local credit union and get a cashier's check, which I can then deposit using my smartphone. Given the money I save in ATM fees, as well as all other banking fees, the cost of the occasional cashier's check is a good trade. Even if you're a waiter or something with a cash-heavy income stream, it's not terrible to get a cashier's check once a month, but that's an edge case where other options likely make more sense to you.
In short, there are banks out there who will cater to your needs if you just look for them. Based on your questions, it appears you're stuck in a rut with your banking relationship. Look around, there are a lot of alternatives out there.
I really like the little solar powered surfboard, though. I'd like one just a bit bigger with a cooler on board
Just went to a talk on those Wave Gliders by James Gosling (yes, that James Gosling). They're pretty cool little robots, but technically they don't surf. One of the questions asked by the audience was about scaling up the size of the robots. Mr. Gosling used the Nyquist Sampling Theorem to discuss why bigger would result in less power from the waves since the robot's locomotion is essentially based on spatially sampling wave height. Not to say there is an optimal size since sea state varies quite a bit, but the company has definitely thought about size and decided smaller is better. (cue horde of juvenile size jokes...)
If you are writing the lower level graphics libraries, math will be important
It's funny that the general advice I've seen has been that math is useful and good, but there are APIs for that, so you're OK. Let's put this into another famously divisive/. subject and see how it goes:
You don't need to know how to program, just use the tools that Apple gives you and you'll be fine.
You don't need to know statistics to understand climate science, just trust the data that random people hand you and be sure to flame anyone that doesn't.
At a minimum, it's important for no other reason than to be able to think independently, arrive at conclusions based on facts, and understand why you support or don't support something based on something other than "everyone else thinks so". Also, if you want to do fun stuff in computer science, you'll probably need to have some math. It's one thing to know how to use coordinate frame transformations from a library and another thing entirely to know what it means to use coordinate frame transformations. The former will be able to get the job done provided the spec is well written, the latter will be able to write something that is both elegant and correct for the desired purpose. The latter will also be able to point out all of the shortcomings of the spec before baking in all kinds of fun bugs.
Yeah, people like DeltaHawk who spent 20 years building a diesel aircraft engine in order to reduce fuel consumption and lead particulate without ever making a single sale sure are short sighted SOBs. Or perhaps you're thinking of those shortsighted morons in the Innovation 1000 study who spent $550B on R&D in 2010. Thank goodness we have/. to put a lid on hyperbole.
We could take a page from the military on this one. If you use a government-backed student loan to get your degree in a STEM subject, you are required to spend a minimum number of years "paying back" as a teacher. You would be salaried at the same rate as any other teacher of the same experience. The difference is that you took a Government loan to get your degree, so you should pay back the nice taxpayers by teaching that subject for X years.
Assuming the loan is for $80k to begin with, we can give those out "gratis" up front with the understanding that the payback is in teaching time. That would cost the same as what is proposed, but anyone who takes the loan would be under contract to teach for X years. In the end, you're addressing the availability of STEM degrees, availability of student loans, and STEM teacher supply all in one program for probably the cost of just the proposed program. It's just as voluntary, and has the added bonus of (possibly) increasing the number of students going into STEM fields. Throw in merit-based granting and you've got people competing to get a "free" education in STEM, so you know the teachers on the back end should be decent too.
Of course, the carrot has to have a stick. Something like, if you take the loan and switch degrees out of a STEM field, then you're on the hook for repaying the full cost of the loan. If you can't do the full x years of payback teaching, then you have to repay the loan on a pro-rata basis, etc. This is how military scholarships work, why not do it with STEM as well?
take away all the power and budget we can from the federal government, and it won't matter nearly so much.
If I only had mod points.
The problem isn't with which party is in charge, it's with how much whoever is in charge can do. I'm not calling for anarchy, but an awful lot of our problems stem from too much centralized control, not too little.
For those of you cheering the health care act's penalty, just think what you would say if the other side had exercised such power. For all of these executive orders, what if it were the other side? Just a hypothetical for you: now that Obama has successfully issued an executive order to DHS to not process certain illegal aliens, and that executive order has been defended by a large number of partisans, will those same partisans defend a Romney executive order that directs the IRS to simply not collect any penalties levied by the ACA? How about a Republican "tax" on abortion procedures? Would you be ok with that since you recognize the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the individual mandate as a tax under the taxing power of Congress? Would those pundits who cheered the decision still feel the same when its precedent is used on a subject contrary to their ideology? What about an individual mandate to purchase a gun or pay a penalty if you don't? After all, crime costs us just as much as those free riders at the emergency room. If you're worried about guns being used irresponsibly, we'll just create a mandate for all employers to provide safe gun ownership training and one hour a month at the shooting range. Feeling better about those ACA precedents yet?
Regardless of sides, the last 8 years have seen an unprecedented consolidation of power that can and will be abused by either side. The only fix is to get involved in your local politics and start getting people into office who will vote to cut back federal (and state) powers. The more demand there is for that kind of politician, the more of that kind of politician we will see. If you disagree with the Tea Party (who is for smaller government, but maybe not the parts you would like to see shrink), then get out and start your own movement (no, Occupy doesn't count - it's a failure as a political movement). No matter what, the future of America rests in its ability to walk back these power grabs and reestablish a constrained government with narrowly defined powers.
Please drop the auto insurance argument. You don't have to buy a car, you don't have to drive a car, and you only have to get insurance if you do one of those two things. This is very different in that your existence is the necessary and sufficient condition of being eligible for the mandate.
Taking four data points and not controlling for any other contributing factor you can say lots of things, but nothing meaningful.
Sorry, I don't think I'm understanding you. The assertion is: "voter participation of those between 18 and 34 (what I would consider to be the net generation) has increased, in many cases markedly". The numbers then show that the voter participation among those age groups has increased. What "controlling for any other contributing factor" is needed to reach the conclusion that the thesis is correct based on the data?
If you're referring to the next paragraph, he clearly starts with "One could argue". Not even remotely the same as claiming statistical correlation of any kind, just another thesis presented based on the (successful) validation of the original thesis.
I'm running smokeping on my home computer in order to show Comcast that their service actually does drop out at regular daily intervals and that it is not internal. The interesting trend that I see is in pinging the DNS servers. A ping to the comcast DNS server, presumably internal to their network, has a rtt of ~50ms. A ping to a Google server, presumably external to their network has a rtt of ~20ms. This has been consistent for about four months now. So how can they claim internal is easier?
I think your premise is right, but for the wrong reasons. Driver-less cars likely will eliminate car ownership, however, it will be in the form of a public commodity. Instead of hopping in my car to drive to the nearest mega-shopping extravaganza, followed by a restaurant, then a movie, I would just hop in the nearest available car, have it drive me to the first destination, then repeat for each subsequent destination. There's no need for the car to park, it can simply join a queue nearby, or head off to the next waiting passenger. You could keep a large portion of the fleet on the road with no reason to ever park anyway. The roads become your vehicle storage area and parking lots go away.
Driverless car = no need to park and wait for me = why not give a ride to someone else originating from my destination = on-demand carriage = very few personal cars.
Driverless is safer = politicians mandate use = no driving for you anyway = why own a car if I can't drive it? = no ownership
There's always the desire to be able to hop in a car and go with no pre-planning, no waiting, no calling for a car to come and waiting until the next available one can arrive, but we're already seeing strong social pressure to forgo some of those conveniences for the sake of reducing emissions and fuel usage. Given the rather large profit motive of being able to effectively charge per mile, the ease of scheduling cars to congregate in areas of high demand at proper times (a lot of cool statistical data modeling that Google is pretty good at doing), and the necessary communications infrastructure to make it all work, it seems the commercial application will be to provide fleet vehicles equivalent to taxi cabs. Taken to a logical conclusion, laws will eventually be passed that prohibit human drivers (since it's the human that adds most of the uncertainty to the equation), and it will become easier and cheaper to simply summon a driverless cab to go anywhere you want to go.
Cross country road trips can also work on the same principle. The logistics become interesting, but not insurmountable. Considering the cars can always drive themselves back to their origin if they aren't needed in the destination city, and you have a simple one-way rental method that simply includes the cost of the return trip as well.
Of course, this entire scheme will have to be nationalized at some point and fully regulated. That would allow cars to be shuttled from city to city and state to state as demand requires. What politician wouldn't love to be able to control how the entire country transports itself? I could see them outlawing "dumb" cars simply so they can hand out goodies in the form of more cars for cities that will vote for them. Imagine the politics then.
I leave it to the reader to decide if this is utopian or dystopian.
I stand corrected. Here's more discussion to include some FAR references since the parent relies on his own authority.
The FAA regulates maintenance through FAR part 43. Far 43.1 states that the rules of that part do (b) "...not apply to any aircraft for which an experimental airworthiness certificate has been issued, unless a different kind of airworthiness certificate had been previously issued".
In effect what this means is that any person may perform maintenance, preventive maintenance, rebuilding, overhauling or alternations to an experimental aircraft, unless that aircraft had previously held another type of airworthiness certificate, i.e. standard, utility, acrobatic, transport, etc. If it is an amateur built aircraft, then anyone can do the maintenance.
However, all experimental operating limitations contain additional limiting factors. You will nearly always find a statement worded something like "This aircraft cannot be flown unless it has received, within the preceding 12 calendar months, a condition inspection conducted in accordance with the scope and detail of Appendix D of part 43, and the inspection is recorded in the aircraft records." Further, the limitations usually also say "Only the builder, when certificated as the repairman, mechanics holding an A & P rating, and appropriately rated repair stations may conduct the condition inspection required by the operating limitations". If the aircraft is turbine powered, or surplus military, there may be additional limitations which mandate a licensed mechanic perform the work.
The net effect, and to answer your question, is: 1. The operating limitations will tell you who can do the work. 2. If amateur-built, you probably can do the work, except for the annual "condition inspection". and 3. That condition inspection will probably have to be done by an A & P, since there are no "appropriately rated repair stations" for non-certified experimental aircraft that I know of.
I can legally do all the maintenance and mods I wish myself, and not be shackled by the FAA regs that restrict what you can and can't do to mod a factory airplane
Not true. If you build the aircraft yourself (51% rule), and you apply for and hold the aircraft repairman certificate, then you can do whatever you want to that plane. If you buy it from someone else, you cannot obtain the repairman certificate for it, and any maintenance that would require an A&P on a certified aircraft would require that same A&P on your experimental aircraft.
You go on to say that in the next few sentences, but I thought it was important to be very clear on the difference since most of the people reading this thread don't know the difference between a C-150 and 747.
I call BS on the summary. It says "The process has no fundamental experimental boundaries and it is thought it will transform sub-atomic scale transmission imaging". But TFA actually states "A typical electron or X-ray microscope image is about one hundred times more blurred than the theoretical limit defined by the wavelength. In this project, the eventual aim is to get the best-ever pictures of individual atoms in any structure seen within a three-dimensional object."
If they're measuring the wave diffraction as it passes through the atomic structure, then the diffraction limit is most definitely a "fundamental...boundary". If the addition of the word "experimental" means that they found no boundaries in their experiments, that just means they haven't gotten to the diffraction limit of the atomic aperture for those wavelengths yet (i.e. we're not even close to the fundamental boundaries, so we'll say our results are not limited in any way in our experiments). Either way, not a great way to talk about the results - too much sensationalism, not enough science.
In the past two years, Congress has returned the U.S. to good financial standing at the UN and honored its obligations by fully funding the regular and peacekeeping budgets.
At the very least you could have looked this up in the 11 seconds it took me. Also, the US accounts for 22% of the UN funding, which is almost twice that of the second biggest contributor (Japan). We were in arrears for not paying the full assessment, not for withholding the full amount. I can't find data on it, but the maximum amount we are quoted to be in arrears on is a little over $1B. That's less than 1/3d of what we paid in 2011 even though we've been in arrears since 1995, so clearly we're still funding a very large part of the UN, just not at the full rate they think we should fund. Most of this comes from our assertion that 25% assessment is too high, so the UN has dropped it to 22%. I'm going to guess that we were not paying the delta between those two, but can't confirm it. I'm sure someone else will provide the needed data.
Of course what's really scary are the number of evangelicals who are HOPING that the end times are here and are willing, again, to do anything to bring it about.
You're obviously not well read and don't understand what the end times as described in Christian scripture entail. They can't be hurried or brought about by anyone's actions. The bible repeatedly enjoins believers to be prepared by living righteous lives, but never once does it say you can make it happen by anything you do. Evangelicals can hope for the end times all they want - that won't make it happen any faster or slower.
Maybe that's why the founding fathers put such a clear line between Church and State (please read Jefferson's exact, specific, detailed words on the subject before claiming otherwise).
Or maybe put them in context first. Jefferson was writing to the Danbury Baptists in response to their letter expressing worry that the government will trample on their religious liberties. In fact, they say in their letter that their concern is that the government views their rights as "favors granted, and not as inalienable rights"; they then ask Jefferson to reassure them the government will not attempt to remove their liberties with laws. Jefferson responds very clearly that "religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions". There is not a single reference anywhere, in either of those communications, of a fear of religion having influence on government, which is how "separation of church and state" has been construed since. Again, you apparently have never read any of this, so please do as you encourage and go read it yourself.
blowing up the world won't automatically send them (and their families!) to Heaven
That's Islam, not Christianity. Please inform yourself. Your ignorance is stunning.
To go where you wish is a right as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13) and the USA is a signatory.
Interesting right. I wish to go to Area 51, followed by a tour of all the Hollywood mansions (inside each one, not just a curbside view), then into a few bank vaults. How dare anyone usurp my right to do so!
Seriously though, without a driver's license there are still ample means of going where I want to go within reason. I can take the bus, train, airplane, taxi, walk, or hitchhike. The main obstacle to my personal movement is the private property of others, which is rightly protected as well under article 17 (thus showing my previous paragraph to be utter fallacy for those too dense to understand sarcasm). The UN also acknowledges that countries can create and enforce immigration and emigration laws (they do talk about xenophobia and mistreatment of migrants, but their focus is on businesses and individuals versus governments). So in reality, that right isn't what you think it is.
In this case, the family was restricted from leaving by the airline, not a government. Ostensibly, the reason is that the airline doesn't want to be responsible for them should they arrive in their destination country and be denied access due to a bad passport. I think it's a bad call on the part of AA, and they should be duly chastised by the public, but this isn't a violation of UN Human Rights.
I leave you with a quote from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights just to bolster my argument:
To be born free means that all people have an equal right to freedom. But freedom does not mean that we can do anything we want, nor can freedom for some mean limiting the freedom of others. Though we are born free, we live in a community that functions because there is an understanding among its members; in other words, it has rules and requires responsibilities.
To back up the AC, his post is completely correct. FAA Advisory Circular 91-57 allows individuals to fly remotely controlled aircraft up to 400 feet in altitude, within visual range at all times. This does not apply to university craft, craft owned by a business, or craft owned "by the public" such as police, military, or any city/county UAVs. You have to be able to demonstrate to the FAA that you are flying solely for entertainment/education and that you are only spending your own money on it, and not making any profit off the venture. In fact, it is against FAA regulations for non-individuals to even fly remote controlled aircraft under this AC (I know this based on a very tense and bitter fight with FAA officials over an R/C club on a military installation using donated money to purchase aircraft).
There exist a wide range of technologies for sending telemetry from air to ground over the 2.4GHz and 900MHz ISM bands. (a few examples). There is no need or reason for a ham license whatsoever since it's only purpose is to allow you to fly beyond visual line of sight. The claim that it is necessary is flat wrong.
On to the "anyone can build one" discussion: it's absolutely true. I've built a total of 6 UAVs over the last 5 years. Average cost is $1k if you don't crash it during testing. The typical route is to take an ARF model, add a commercially available autopilot, hook up the servos, put in a bigger engine, battery packs, etc. On-board computers (not counting the autopilot itself) are almost never needed because these vehicles have to be operated line of sight anyway. If you want to do on-board computation, there are a wide variety of options from Gumstix, to pc104 form factor systems. All telemetry is usually handled on the 900 MHz ISM band which I have personally flown as far as 15km (in a UAV-approved range with all of the proper approvals) using a Yagi antenna that was self-steered from the telemetry data. The link still had plenty of signal left on it, but the UAV didn't have the legs to go further and still complete its mission.
Moral of the story: learn the rules and stick to them. The FAA does not accept "but I heard someone did it on/." as an excuse, and they have a tendency to not only shut down the idiot that didn't follow the rules, but every other person conducting UAV research who is even remotely associated with that club/institution/location.
Bravo! Thank you for outlining the pressure on the IT staff and the need to "get it done right". Hopefully those on/. who don't understand IT will at least begin to think that it is a profession that requires years of experience to even begin to understand all the nuances involved as result of your post. Thank you.
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One standard to rule them all, One index to find them,
One group to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
I've never lived within 500 miles of my bank for the last 20 years. My paychecks are direct deposit, but my wife's aren't. This bank has the "easy deposit" method that Chase advertises, but they had it about three years before Chase. They also reimburse up to $20 in ATM fees per month. Since I almost never use cash, that's not too big of an issue. One run to ATM at the beginning of the month is usually enough. There's no easy way to deposit cash, so in cases where I have a small amount, I just use it as pocket money at the same rate I would have used my ATM withdrawal. If it's a large amount of cash, I go to a local credit union and get a cashier's check, which I can then deposit using my smartphone. Given the money I save in ATM fees, as well as all other banking fees, the cost of the occasional cashier's check is a good trade. Even if you're a waiter or something with a cash-heavy income stream, it's not terrible to get a cashier's check once a month, but that's an edge case where other options likely make more sense to you.
In short, there are banks out there who will cater to your needs if you just look for them. Based on your questions, it appears you're stuck in a rut with your banking relationship. Look around, there are a lot of alternatives out there.
I really like the little solar powered surfboard, though. I'd like one just a bit bigger with a cooler on board
Just went to a talk on those Wave Gliders by James Gosling (yes, that James Gosling). They're pretty cool little robots, but technically they don't surf. One of the questions asked by the audience was about scaling up the size of the robots. Mr. Gosling used the Nyquist Sampling Theorem to discuss why bigger would result in less power from the waves since the robot's locomotion is essentially based on spatially sampling wave height. Not to say there is an optimal size since sea state varies quite a bit, but the company has definitely thought about size and decided smaller is better. (cue horde of juvenile size jokes...)
If you are writing the lower level graphics libraries, math will be important
It's funny that the general advice I've seen has been that math is useful and good, but there are APIs for that, so you're OK. Let's put this into another famously divisive /. subject and see how it goes:
At a minimum, it's important for no other reason than to be able to think independently, arrive at conclusions based on facts, and understand why you support or don't support something based on something other than "everyone else thinks so". Also, if you want to do fun stuff in computer science, you'll probably need to have some math. It's one thing to know how to use coordinate frame transformations from a library and another thing entirely to know what it means to use coordinate frame transformations. The former will be able to get the job done provided the spec is well written, the latter will be able to write something that is both elegant and correct for the desired purpose. The latter will also be able to point out all of the shortcomings of the spec before baking in all kinds of fun bugs.
History has shown that high taxes on the rich do NOT harm the economy
History has also shown that higher taxes != higher revenue, but that's not your point, is it?
Yeah, people like DeltaHawk who spent 20 years building a diesel aircraft engine in order to reduce fuel consumption and lead particulate without ever making a single sale sure are short sighted SOBs. Or perhaps you're thinking of those shortsighted morons in the Innovation 1000 study who spent $550B on R&D in 2010. Thank goodness we have /. to put a lid on hyperbole.
We could take a page from the military on this one. If you use a government-backed student loan to get your degree in a STEM subject, you are required to spend a minimum number of years "paying back" as a teacher. You would be salaried at the same rate as any other teacher of the same experience. The difference is that you took a Government loan to get your degree, so you should pay back the nice taxpayers by teaching that subject for X years.
Assuming the loan is for $80k to begin with, we can give those out "gratis" up front with the understanding that the payback is in teaching time. That would cost the same as what is proposed, but anyone who takes the loan would be under contract to teach for X years. In the end, you're addressing the availability of STEM degrees, availability of student loans, and STEM teacher supply all in one program for probably the cost of just the proposed program. It's just as voluntary, and has the added bonus of (possibly) increasing the number of students going into STEM fields. Throw in merit-based granting and you've got people competing to get a "free" education in STEM, so you know the teachers on the back end should be decent too.
Of course, the carrot has to have a stick. Something like, if you take the loan and switch degrees out of a STEM field, then you're on the hook for repaying the full cost of the loan. If you can't do the full x years of payback teaching, then you have to repay the loan on a pro-rata basis, etc. This is how military scholarships work, why not do it with STEM as well?
take away all the power and budget we can from the federal government, and it won't matter nearly so much.
If I only had mod points.
The problem isn't with which party is in charge, it's with how much whoever is in charge can do. I'm not calling for anarchy, but an awful lot of our problems stem from too much centralized control, not too little.
For those of you cheering the health care act's penalty, just think what you would say if the other side had exercised such power. For all of these executive orders, what if it were the other side? Just a hypothetical for you: now that Obama has successfully issued an executive order to DHS to not process certain illegal aliens, and that executive order has been defended by a large number of partisans, will those same partisans defend a Romney executive order that directs the IRS to simply not collect any penalties levied by the ACA? How about a Republican "tax" on abortion procedures? Would you be ok with that since you recognize the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the individual mandate as a tax under the taxing power of Congress? Would those pundits who cheered the decision still feel the same when its precedent is used on a subject contrary to their ideology? What about an individual mandate to purchase a gun or pay a penalty if you don't? After all, crime costs us just as much as those free riders at the emergency room. If you're worried about guns being used irresponsibly, we'll just create a mandate for all employers to provide safe gun ownership training and one hour a month at the shooting range. Feeling better about those ACA precedents yet?
Regardless of sides, the last 8 years have seen an unprecedented consolidation of power that can and will be abused by either side. The only fix is to get involved in your local politics and start getting people into office who will vote to cut back federal (and state) powers. The more demand there is for that kind of politician, the more of that kind of politician we will see. If you disagree with the Tea Party (who is for smaller government, but maybe not the parts you would like to see shrink), then get out and start your own movement (no, Occupy doesn't count - it's a failure as a political movement). No matter what, the future of America rests in its ability to walk back these power grabs and reestablish a constrained government with narrowly defined powers.
Wrong. It was always a tax. Just some people were not smart enough to understand it.
Yeah, those morons
Please drop the auto insurance argument. You don't have to buy a car, you don't have to drive a car, and you only have to get insurance if you do one of those two things. This is very different in that your existence is the necessary and sufficient condition of being eligible for the mandate.
Taking four data points and not controlling for any other contributing factor you can say lots of things, but nothing meaningful.
Sorry, I don't think I'm understanding you. The assertion is: "voter participation of those between 18 and 34 (what I would consider to be the net generation) has increased, in many cases markedly". The numbers then show that the voter participation among those age groups has increased. What "controlling for any other contributing factor" is needed to reach the conclusion that the thesis is correct based on the data?
If you're referring to the next paragraph, he clearly starts with "One could argue". Not even remotely the same as claiming statistical correlation of any kind, just another thesis presented based on the (successful) validation of the original thesis.
I'm running smokeping on my home computer in order to show Comcast that their service actually does drop out at regular daily intervals and that it is not internal. The interesting trend that I see is in pinging the DNS servers. A ping to the comcast DNS server, presumably internal to their network, has a rtt of ~50ms. A ping to a Google server, presumably external to their network has a rtt of ~20ms. This has been consistent for about four months now. So how can they claim internal is easier?
I think your premise is right, but for the wrong reasons. Driver-less cars likely will eliminate car ownership, however, it will be in the form of a public commodity. Instead of hopping in my car to drive to the nearest mega-shopping extravaganza, followed by a restaurant, then a movie, I would just hop in the nearest available car, have it drive me to the first destination, then repeat for each subsequent destination. There's no need for the car to park, it can simply join a queue nearby, or head off to the next waiting passenger. You could keep a large portion of the fleet on the road with no reason to ever park anyway. The roads become your vehicle storage area and parking lots go away.
Driverless car = no need to park and wait for me = why not give a ride to someone else originating from my destination = on-demand carriage = very few personal cars.
Driverless is safer = politicians mandate use = no driving for you anyway = why own a car if I can't drive it? = no ownership
There's always the desire to be able to hop in a car and go with no pre-planning, no waiting, no calling for a car to come and waiting until the next available one can arrive, but we're already seeing strong social pressure to forgo some of those conveniences for the sake of reducing emissions and fuel usage. Given the rather large profit motive of being able to effectively charge per mile, the ease of scheduling cars to congregate in areas of high demand at proper times (a lot of cool statistical data modeling that Google is pretty good at doing), and the necessary communications infrastructure to make it all work, it seems the commercial application will be to provide fleet vehicles equivalent to taxi cabs. Taken to a logical conclusion, laws will eventually be passed that prohibit human drivers (since it's the human that adds most of the uncertainty to the equation), and it will become easier and cheaper to simply summon a driverless cab to go anywhere you want to go.
Cross country road trips can also work on the same principle. The logistics become interesting, but not insurmountable. Considering the cars can always drive themselves back to their origin if they aren't needed in the destination city, and you have a simple one-way rental method that simply includes the cost of the return trip as well.
Of course, this entire scheme will have to be nationalized at some point and fully regulated. That would allow cars to be shuttled from city to city and state to state as demand requires. What politician wouldn't love to be able to control how the entire country transports itself? I could see them outlawing "dumb" cars simply so they can hand out goodies in the form of more cars for cities that will vote for them. Imagine the politics then.
I leave it to the reader to decide if this is utopian or dystopian.
I stand corrected. Here's more discussion to include some FAR references since the parent relies on his own authority.
The FAA regulates maintenance through FAR part 43. Far 43.1 states that the rules of that part do (b) "...not apply to any aircraft for which an experimental airworthiness certificate has been issued, unless a different kind of airworthiness certificate had been previously issued".
In effect what this means is that any person may perform maintenance, preventive maintenance, rebuilding, overhauling or alternations to an experimental aircraft, unless that aircraft had previously held another type of airworthiness certificate, i.e. standard, utility, acrobatic, transport, etc. If it is an amateur built aircraft, then anyone can do the maintenance.
However, all experimental operating limitations contain additional limiting factors. You will nearly always find a statement worded something like "This aircraft cannot be flown unless it has received, within the preceding 12 calendar months, a condition inspection conducted in accordance with the scope and detail of Appendix D of part 43, and the inspection is recorded in the aircraft records." Further, the limitations usually also say "Only the builder, when certificated as the repairman, mechanics holding an A & P rating, and appropriately rated repair stations may conduct the condition inspection required by the operating limitations". If the aircraft is turbine powered, or surplus military, there may be additional limitations which mandate a licensed mechanic perform the work.
The net effect, and to answer your question, is: 1. The operating limitations will tell you who can do the work. 2. If amateur-built, you probably can do the work, except for the annual "condition inspection". and 3. That condition inspection will probably have to be done by an A & P, since there are no "appropriately rated repair stations" for non-certified experimental aircraft that I know of.
won't be able to carry any luggage if all 4 seats are full
Unfortunately, that's true of almost any certified 4 seat airplane.
I can legally do all the maintenance and mods I wish myself, and not be shackled by the FAA regs that restrict what you can and can't do to mod a factory airplane
Not true. If you build the aircraft yourself (51% rule), and you apply for and hold the aircraft repairman certificate, then you can do whatever you want to that plane. If you buy it from someone else, you cannot obtain the repairman certificate for it, and any maintenance that would require an A&P on a certified aircraft would require that same A&P on your experimental aircraft.
You go on to say that in the next few sentences, but I thought it was important to be very clear on the difference since most of the people reading this thread don't know the difference between a C-150 and 747.
Give it a day....
start using their lobbying power to make that cost even larger so no one else can enter the market and provide competition.
FTFY
To target everyone would be a total waste of resources
Not to mention unconstitutional and illegal Oh wait, Obama's continuing the Bush policy? Never mind. Totally different then.
I call BS on the summary. It says "The process has no fundamental experimental boundaries and it is thought it will transform sub-atomic scale transmission imaging". But TFA actually states "A typical electron or X-ray microscope image is about one hundred times more blurred than the theoretical limit defined by the wavelength. In this project, the eventual aim is to get the best-ever pictures of individual atoms in any structure seen within a three-dimensional object."
If they're measuring the wave diffraction as it passes through the atomic structure, then the diffraction limit is most definitely a "fundamental...boundary". If the addition of the word "experimental" means that they found no boundaries in their experiments, that just means they haven't gotten to the diffraction limit of the atomic aperture for those wavelengths yet (i.e. we're not even close to the fundamental boundaries, so we'll say our results are not limited in any way in our experiments). Either way, not a great way to talk about the results - too much sensationalism, not enough science.
In the past two years, Congress has returned the U.S. to good financial standing at the UN and honored its obligations by fully funding the regular and peacekeeping budgets.
How the US funds the UN
FY2011 - CIPA - $1.887B, CIO - $1.518B, Regular Budget - $516M
At the very least you could have looked this up in the 11 seconds it took me. Also, the US accounts for 22% of the UN funding, which is almost twice that of the second biggest contributor (Japan). We were in arrears for not paying the full assessment, not for withholding the full amount. I can't find data on it, but the maximum amount we are quoted to be in arrears on is a little over $1B. That's less than 1/3d of what we paid in 2011 even though we've been in arrears since 1995, so clearly we're still funding a very large part of the UN, just not at the full rate they think we should fund. Most of this comes from our assertion that 25% assessment is too high, so the UN has dropped it to 22%. I'm going to guess that we were not paying the delta between those two, but can't confirm it. I'm sure someone else will provide the needed data.
Of course what's really scary are the number of evangelicals who are HOPING that the end times are here and are willing, again, to do anything to bring it about.
You're obviously not well read and don't understand what the end times as described in Christian scripture entail. They can't be hurried or brought about by anyone's actions. The bible repeatedly enjoins believers to be prepared by living righteous lives, but never once does it say you can make it happen by anything you do. Evangelicals can hope for the end times all they want - that won't make it happen any faster or slower.
Maybe that's why the founding fathers put such a clear line between Church and State (please read Jefferson's exact, specific, detailed words on the subject before claiming otherwise).
Or maybe put them in context first. Jefferson was writing to the Danbury Baptists in response to their letter expressing worry that the government will trample on their religious liberties. In fact, they say in their letter that their concern is that the government views their rights as "favors granted, and not as inalienable rights"; they then ask Jefferson to reassure them the government will not attempt to remove their liberties with laws. Jefferson responds very clearly that "religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions". There is not a single reference anywhere, in either of those communications, of a fear of religion having influence on government, which is how "separation of church and state" has been construed since. Again, you apparently have never read any of this, so please do as you encourage and go read it yourself.
blowing up the world won't automatically send them (and their families!) to Heaven
That's Islam, not Christianity. Please inform yourself. Your ignorance is stunning.
To go where you wish is a right as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13) and the USA is a signatory.
Interesting right. I wish to go to Area 51, followed by a tour of all the Hollywood mansions (inside each one, not just a curbside view), then into a few bank vaults. How dare anyone usurp my right to do so!
Seriously though, without a driver's license there are still ample means of going where I want to go within reason. I can take the bus, train, airplane, taxi, walk, or hitchhike. The main obstacle to my personal movement is the private property of others, which is rightly protected as well under article 17 (thus showing my previous paragraph to be utter fallacy for those too dense to understand sarcasm). The UN also acknowledges that countries can create and enforce immigration and emigration laws (they do talk about xenophobia and mistreatment of migrants, but their focus is on businesses and individuals versus governments). So in reality, that right isn't what you think it is.
In this case, the family was restricted from leaving by the airline, not a government. Ostensibly, the reason is that the airline doesn't want to be responsible for them should they arrive in their destination country and be denied access due to a bad passport. I think it's a bad call on the part of AA, and they should be duly chastised by the public, but this isn't a violation of UN Human Rights.
I leave you with a quote from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights just to bolster my argument:
To be born free means that all people have an equal right to freedom. But freedom does not mean that we can do anything we want, nor can freedom for some mean limiting the freedom of others. Though we are born free, we live in a community that functions because there is an understanding among its members; in other words, it has rules and requires responsibilities.
To back up the AC, his post is completely correct. FAA Advisory Circular 91-57 allows individuals to fly remotely controlled aircraft up to 400 feet in altitude, within visual range at all times. This does not apply to university craft, craft owned by a business, or craft owned "by the public" such as police, military, or any city/county UAVs. You have to be able to demonstrate to the FAA that you are flying solely for entertainment/education and that you are only spending your own money on it, and not making any profit off the venture. In fact, it is against FAA regulations for non-individuals to even fly remote controlled aircraft under this AC (I know this based on a very tense and bitter fight with FAA officials over an R/C club on a military installation using donated money to purchase aircraft).
There exist a wide range of technologies for sending telemetry from air to ground over the 2.4GHz and 900MHz ISM bands. (a few examples). There is no need or reason for a ham license whatsoever since it's only purpose is to allow you to fly beyond visual line of sight. The claim that it is necessary is flat wrong.
On to the "anyone can build one" discussion: it's absolutely true. I've built a total of 6 UAVs over the last 5 years. Average cost is $1k if you don't crash it during testing. The typical route is to take an ARF model, add a commercially available autopilot, hook up the servos, put in a bigger engine, battery packs, etc. On-board computers (not counting the autopilot itself) are almost never needed because these vehicles have to be operated line of sight anyway. If you want to do on-board computation, there are a wide variety of options from Gumstix, to pc104 form factor systems. All telemetry is usually handled on the 900 MHz ISM band which I have personally flown as far as 15km (in a UAV-approved range with all of the proper approvals) using a Yagi antenna that was self-steered from the telemetry data. The link still had plenty of signal left on it, but the UAV didn't have the legs to go further and still complete its mission.
Moral of the story: learn the rules and stick to them. The FAA does not accept "but I heard someone did it on /." as an excuse, and they have a tendency to not only shut down the idiot that didn't follow the rules, but every other person conducting UAV research who is even remotely associated with that club/institution/location.
Bravo! Thank you for outlining the pressure on the IT staff and the need to "get it done right". Hopefully those on /. who don't understand IT will at least begin to think that it is a profession that requires years of experience to even begin to understand all the nuances involved as result of your post. Thank you.