I can see a use for this aircraft as an air ambulance. Many of us live out in the sticks far away from a level 1 Trauma facility. Helicopters are wonderful for saving lives. I have seen it make a diffrence many times and we are only a 20 minute flight from a Level 1 trauma center VS a 90 minute drive in traffic. There are places in the world that are much farther away than that. If it can land in a small area like a helicopter and then have a higher speed flight, there is an increased chance of saving lives in the remote corners of our globe.
I recently came across some of my ham radio notes that I had made back in 1992 involving some circuits, semiconductors, and specific radio information. I honestly can't remember how I dug it up, how much time it took, or where I found it. These days if I want to know something about anything, I can usually find it out within a few moments, or if it's really tough, at most a few hours. I'm not sure what I would do today without the internet, I fear that I have lost whatever research skills I had back then.
First, millions of people are keeping them from making millions of extra. Then they get embarrassed by suing the wrong person. Now the Kazaa people are suing them....again. will there be no end to their persecution?
I spend a great deal of time watching the DX clusters over telnet, playing with digital modes on HF and VHF, and logging. All with my computers, using whatever OS I happen to be playing on at at the time.
As many amateur radio operators know, Dayton, Ohio is home to the best (IMHO) hamfest there is. 3 Days of the most amazing surplus you can imagine. The Radio Shack tent usually has piles of interesting things for pretty good prices. The MECI tent is even better. If you truly like surplus and sifting through tons of junk, you MUST go, it's in May.
My father is retired from the Railroad and I remember him telling me one year that for one reason or another (don't recall those details, but if you like I could make them up), the office building in the yard had to cut back on it's electrical use. So they pulled two engines off of some side tracks, pulled them right up next to the building and had the electricians wire them up to the office. They ran them that way for several months.
I am one of the original 'pilot users' for the starband system since September 2000. For an initial lump sum they sent me a Dell 500 MHz Celeron system complete with two pci cards installed for the satellite dish. For the first several months it was fantastic, except for the upload speeds (2-3k). As soon as they started to develop their 180 modem for the system things started going a bit downhill, speeds got slower, connection was inconsistent etc. Rumor was that we'd get the offer to upgrade to the 180 modem...that rumor floated until they started to develop the 360 modem. Then the rumor was that we were going to be the beta testers for those, we were the guinea pigs after all. Well, the average new subscriber was being issued the new 360 modem and the network started slowing down a bit further. We were told that we would be getting upgraded sometime this past winter and the network became nearly useless. Outdated cluster software was blamed, so they moved us to a new cluster. The network became comepletely useless, couldn't even download an entire weather radar jpg. Well, somehow one of the other testers wrestled a new server address from tech support. Several of us jumped immediately to the new server. That was about 8 weeks ago and things have been somewhat stable again. A few important points: I am still using the PCI cards, I am still not getting good upload speeds. The upload speeds are better than they used to be, but nowhere near 150k, hell, nowhere near 56k even.
Things you won't do with starband:
VPN Voice/Video conferencing Surf during a heavy thunderstorm Anything fast other than ports 80 and 119 traffic Online games Get good tech-support Run an Microsoft-free network.
There is no Linux support whatever. I run Linux on the 'big' conmputer and the Dell is still the server running Windows.
What you *CAN* do with Starband:
Surf like a madman Download (from http) like a madman Stream Audio (via http) like a madman Cruise high-speed usenet until your eyes bug out
You've guessed it, I'm a bug-eyed madman now. That being said, am I unhappy with Starband? I am happy enough that I am still using it at a discounted 'pilot user' rate now. When it is working, it's a whole lot better than a dialup. I have no other options here at all, and the phone lines are even nasty here. Overall, Starband has been good to me. But at times it has been very, very bad to me.
Moonelf Give me ambiguity, or give me something else!
I would recommend having remote access to your patient records with a PDA. That way, when you are anywhere but the office and the Emergency Department of a local hospital calls you, and you know they will at bad times, you can pull up the patient info no matter where you are. I know I would love to have access to some things like that on the ambulance...hmm, come to think of it, I'm in charge of our computer system, I better get to work hehehe.
The highlight of the film for me was during one of the several dozen quiet and non-eventful moments when someone about halfway back in the theatre let loose a healtht and hearty belch which was greeted by applause from young and old alike. After about the first 30 minutes, it turned into one of the largest MST3K events I've seen. It sorta felt like being at the Rocky Horror Picture Show....did I mention that I saw this in the same town that hosts Purdue University?
Slashdot Mirror
Has anyone seen the movie Fallen?
You are posting on Slashdot and expecting us to believe you went to a dance club?
...I swear I haven't been to any porn sites...
You call that bad? We have to use LifePak 11s at our service.
Moonelf
I can see a use for this aircraft as an air ambulance. Many of us live out in the sticks far away from a level 1 Trauma facility. Helicopters are wonderful for saving lives. I have seen it make a diffrence many times and we are only a 20 minute flight from a Level 1 trauma center VS a 90 minute drive in traffic. There are places in the world that are much farther away than that. If it can land in a small area like a helicopter and then have a higher speed flight, there is an increased chance of saving lives in the remote corners of our globe.
Seems realistic, useful even.
I recently came across some of my ham radio notes that I had made back in 1992 involving some circuits, semiconductors, and specific radio information. I honestly can't remember how I dug it up, how much time it took, or where I found it. These days if I want to know something about anything, I can usually find it out within a few moments, or if it's really tough, at most a few hours. I'm not sure what I would do today without the internet, I fear that I have lost whatever research skills I had back then.
First, millions of people are keeping them from making millions of extra. Then they get embarrassed by suing the wrong person. Now the Kazaa people are suing them....again. will there be no end to their persecution?
I spend a great deal of time watching the DX clusters over telnet, playing with digital modes on HF and VHF, and logging. All with my computers, using whatever OS I happen to be playing on at at the time.
N9POA
As many amateur radio operators know, Dayton, Ohio is home to the best (IMHO) hamfest there is. 3 Days of the most amazing surplus you can imagine. The Radio Shack tent usually has piles of interesting things for pretty good prices. The MECI tent is even better. If you truly like surplus and sifting through tons of junk, you MUST go, it's in May.
My father is retired from the Railroad and I remember him telling me one year that for one reason or another (don't recall those details, but if you like I could make them up), the office building in the yard had to cut back on it's electrical use. So they pulled two engines off of some side tracks, pulled them right up next to the building and had the electricians wire them up to the office. They ran them that way for several months.
I am one of the original 'pilot users' for the starband system since September 2000. For an initial lump sum they sent me a Dell 500 MHz Celeron system complete with two pci cards installed for the satellite dish. For the first several months it was fantastic, except for the upload speeds (2-3k). As soon as they started to develop their 180 modem for the system things started going a bit downhill, speeds got slower, connection was inconsistent etc. Rumor was that we'd get the offer to upgrade to the 180 modem...that rumor floated until they started to develop the 360 modem. Then the rumor was that we were going to be the beta testers for those, we were the guinea pigs after all. Well, the average new subscriber was being issued the new 360 modem and the network started slowing down a bit further. We were told that we would be getting upgraded sometime this past winter and the network became nearly useless. Outdated cluster software was blamed, so they moved us to a new cluster. The network became comepletely useless, couldn't even download an entire weather radar jpg. Well, somehow one of the other testers wrestled a new server address from tech support. Several of us jumped immediately to the new server. That was about 8 weeks ago and things have been somewhat stable again. A few important points: I am still using the PCI cards, I am still not getting good upload speeds. The upload speeds are better than they used to be, but nowhere near 150k, hell, nowhere near 56k even.
Things you won't do with starband:
VPN
Voice/Video conferencing
Surf during a heavy thunderstorm
Anything fast other than ports 80 and 119 traffic
Online games
Get good tech-support
Run an Microsoft-free network.
There is no Linux support whatever. I run Linux on the 'big' conmputer and the Dell is still the server running Windows.
What you *CAN* do with Starband:
Surf like a madman
Download (from http) like a madman
Stream Audio (via http) like a madman
Cruise high-speed usenet until your eyes bug out
You've guessed it, I'm a bug-eyed madman now. That being said, am I unhappy with Starband? I am happy enough that I am still using it at a discounted 'pilot user' rate now. When it is working, it's a whole lot better than a dialup. I have no other options here at all, and the phone lines are even nasty here. Overall, Starband has been good to me. But at times it has been very, very bad to me.
Moonelf
Give me ambiguity, or give me something else!
Did anyone else catch the date of that article? Do they observe April Fools day in the UK?
I would recommend having remote access to your patient records with a PDA. That way, when you are anywhere but the office and the Emergency Department of a local hospital calls you, and you know they will at bad times, you can pull up the patient info no matter where you are. I know I would love to have access to some things like that on the ambulance...hmm, come to think of it, I'm in charge of our computer system, I better get to work hehehe.
The highlight of the film for me was during one of the several dozen quiet and non-eventful moments when someone about halfway back in the theatre let loose a healtht and hearty belch which was greeted by applause from young and old alike. After about the first 30 minutes, it turned into one of the largest MST3K events I've seen. It sorta felt like being at the Rocky Horror Picture Show....did I mention that I saw this in the same town that hosts Purdue University?