I'm not working for any of the parties, but I sure would like to:-)
Trimming a traction kite takes significant power i.e. arm strength for a smallish kite. The motors will not be RC servo sized.
Work out the internal resistance for a thin light wire running 1Km. Doubt it is feasible to send power or information along such a line.
This letting in and out is where I really have issues. Time spent reeling the kite in will kill over all efficiency.
A simple single line foil kite provides the KISS method to do this but you need to turn constant pull into power. The best I could think of was Pizo-electric.
I think you'll find the kite lines are different material for power/traction kites and toy/single line kites. I'm pretty sure it's cut by friction not broken by load.
600lbs, I doubt the line alone will weigh 600lbs for a kite at 30,000ft. I'm thinking kevlar/spectra lines at least an inch in diameter. The ship kites look like they have a 3" diameter line!
Then add in wind load and kite pull! The weight of the lines becomes a big concern in this endeavor.
Control line drag, 30,000ft induces a lot of delay etc. Where is the computer and control equipment? On the ground will not the control delay crash the kite. Aloft, how do we get enough power up to the motors controlling the kite.
Conversion to electricity. I see no way to efficiently generate power from a kite. If I have constant pull on the line how do I transfer that to rotation without letting out line?
The reason for a simple syntax is to reduce spending time teaching things that are not important. Syntax is not important in learning to program!
Concepts are such things as Turing, Shannon, Von Neuman, Imperitive, OO, functional, relational, algorithims etc. Things that do not change from one implementation to the next.
Implementation is stuff that changes from language to language, OS to OS etc.
The only thing I would like to see is all exams open to all people at all ages. This would probably mean some sort of exam week and maybe some sort of central control.
Anybody can work if they have passed the requisite exams otherwise you wait until 14 before you can earn your salt.
I think the issue is not that people are un-educated but rather they do not wish to become educated. There must be motivations in a society for people to become educated not just trained.
Education is not required by law school attendance is.
The reason for school is to cage all the kids, free up more adults for the workforce and to train the next generation of worker bees. Follow orders blindly, do as everyone else does, do not question imposed authority etc is what you are taught in school. But most of all do not think for yourself, do not hold independent ideas and do not think you know better than those in charge.
As an adult with a honors degree etc and 20+ years of work experience in engineering I am 100% against mandatory schooling the damage done to the young mind is devastating and in the majority of cases irreversible.
Your post would seem to show a remarkable lack of thinking on just what School is and is for. I would suggest you read how and why mandatory schooling was introduced in the US.
They don't even have to say the T word. Basically, the constitution was buried by Ashcroft. A man so scared of breasts he had statues covered up to hide them. So scared of liberty he had it written out of the law books.
I rather suspect you have never installed let alone retro fitted a cage. EMF leaks everywhere, replace all windows with metaled glass, all doors need to be backed up, any vents need mesh, plastic pipes etc etc etc.
It's a nightmare which is why emf shielded buildings are usually built to spec by specialists.
Most employees do not want to work for a company on a down swing. Most good employees can get a job elsewhere.
The result of a round of layoffs is the company dumps the people it wants and then it's better people leave of their own accord.
Downward spiral is then begun and very difficult to escape. Layoffs are a strong signal that a company is finished. It might take time but very rarely are they a prelude to a turnaround.
The only way to turn around a company is to fire management senior and junior. But that is almost never the solution taken.
Which company are you employed by? I'd like to know so that I do not bother to interview there?
Just a side note. As a manager there is not a single thing you can do that directly contributes to your perceived effectiveness. The perception of your teams' progress is the measure of your performance.
So stop whining about certain people and concentrate on making it as easy as possible for your team to succeed. In most companies that means clearing the road not driving the bus.
The big idea is not to teach them how to do something in one language but to teach them the concepts that will allow them to learn how to do it in any language.
If the kids really are gifted then the class time is too valuable to have them sat there pounding keyboards, that's manual labor. Treat the class as lectures/discussions with experimenting on computers left up to them.
Try and get them to learn about the lectures subject matter before the class e.g. publish a schedule and make it clear they are expected to have read so and so pages before the class.
If they are gifted and motivated this will be as close to the Platonic style of teaching as you can get.
The side effect is that you have prepared them to succeed in college if they can get the idea of using lectures as a review of what they already know.
Is NASA trying to do anything new or is it just re-living old glories? We did this already now get on with something new.
I'm all for new science I am not for keeping a bunch of useless wanna bes in jobs on the public dollar.
Mars is/was new. Sending the rovers was great. We need to send some more/better rovers. Which planet do we need to send rovers to next. IMHO, this is what NASA should be doing for the next 50 years, cheap rocket delivery of data gathering rovers.
The shuttle missions should be put out to tender and NASA should not bid. Why? Because if you fail to deliver do not expect ever to get another tender. LEO etc should all be commercial by now.
NASA should be doing blue sky not repeating itself or ferrying kiddies toy experiments around.
like all corporate jobs do as your managers tell you. It matters not if you are wrong or right, it matters not if they are wrong or right, it matters not if you are both wrong, it matters not if you are both right. It matters that they directly control how much you earn and how happy you will be in your role and there is not a damn thing you can do except resign to change things.
Do not publicly dis-agree with your management
Try and make your managers look good
Understand the business you are working in, not just the tech e.g. what is AP/AR/GL
Whatever language you are told to use is OK they all do pretty much the same things using different words. Learn concepts not implementations.
Make efforts to meet your users they are your clients and be respectful to them
The only book you need to pick up is from the pragmatic programmers 'The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master' remember although this book details how to do software dev your management overrides this unless you can convince them otherwise.
There are many other books to pick up but in general pick up classic books not how-tos e.g. pick up Mythical Man Month not Dummies guide to HTML, pick up OOA/OOD/OOP rather than the latest O'Reilly, pick up HTDP/SICP rather than Javascript in 24hrs.
If you wish to transcend the mediocre be prepared to understand that most dev shops are truly mediocre. The current status quo in development is in reality piss poor performance.
Slashdot Mirror
But lifting turbines has been proposed by other groups in this problem space.
Soft and hard tethered flying vehicles have been proposed to lift said turbines.
The bullshit stops when one of these groups gets paid for power to the grid.
A few groups are in the design phase.
I saw Saul Griffiths talk on TED about this. Long on hyperbole short on details.
Until they put up a kite and sell the power it's all fluff.
Get back to us when you have that surge protection set up.
Thanks for the links.
I'm even more convinced they are going down the wrong route.
Kites flown to generate more lift take up a lot of sky. Simple single line foils can be stacked very close together and would move as a flock.
I'm not working for any of the parties, but I sure would like to :-)
Trimming a traction kite takes significant power i.e. arm strength for a smallish kite. The motors will not be RC servo sized.
Work out the internal resistance for a thin light wire running 1Km. Doubt it is feasible to send power or information along such a line.
This letting in and out is where I really have issues. Time spent reeling the kite in will kill over all efficiency.
A simple single line foil kite provides the KISS method to do this but you need to turn constant pull into power. The best I could think of was Pizo-electric.
I think you'll find the kite lines are different material for power/traction kites and toy/single line kites. I'm pretty sure it's cut by friction not broken by load.
600lbs, I doubt the line alone will weigh 600lbs for a kite at 30,000ft. I'm thinking kevlar/spectra lines at least an inch in diameter. The ship kites look like they have a 3" diameter line!
Then add in wind load and kite pull! The weight of the lines becomes a big concern in this endeavor.
I've seen some TED videos about this.
Two questions :-
Control line drag, 30,000ft induces a lot of delay etc. Where is the computer and control equipment? On the ground will not the control delay crash the kite. Aloft, how do we get enough power up to the motors controlling the kite.
Conversion to electricity. I see no way to efficiently generate power from a kite. If I have constant pull on the line how do I transfer that to rotation without letting out line?
I take it you are not a pilot or a kite flyer?
Work out just how much load is on a line 30,000ft in the air. Now do some calcs based on a light plane hitting that line.
Basically the light plane is going to get cut in half and maybe take down one or two kites.
1920 OMG Commies
1930 OMG Fascists
1940 OMG Fascists
1950 OMG Commies
1960 OMG Commies
1970 OMG Commies
1980 OMG Japan
1990 OMG Iraq
2000 OMG Muslims
Basically, the US has always had a national fear to attack. Independent thought is rare and independent action even rarer in the US.
Now shut up and go watch the TV.
Syntax is not a concept it's an implementation.
The reason for a simple syntax is to reduce spending time teaching things that are not important. Syntax is not important in learning to program!
Concepts are such things as Turing, Shannon, Von Neuman, Imperitive, OO, functional, relational, algorithims etc. Things that do not change from one implementation to the next.
Implementation is stuff that changes from language to language, OS to OS etc.
Should have used Logo/Scheme/Lisp. You'll spend more time teaching syntax rather than programming/logic.
Take a look at
CompuSci without Computers
How To Design Programs
The only thing I would like to see is all exams open to all people at all ages. This would probably mean some sort of exam week and maybe some sort of central control.
Anybody can work if they have passed the requisite exams otherwise you wait until 14 before you can earn your salt.
I think the issue is not that people are un-educated but rather they do not wish to become educated. There must be motivations in a society for people to become educated not just trained.
Education is not required by law school attendance is.
The reason for school is to cage all the kids, free up more adults for the workforce and to train the next generation of worker bees. Follow orders blindly, do as everyone else does, do not question imposed authority etc is what you are taught in school. But most of all do not think for yourself, do not hold independent ideas and do not think you know better than those in charge.
As an adult with a honors degree etc and 20+ years of work experience in engineering I am 100% against mandatory schooling the damage done to the young mind is devastating and in the majority of cases irreversible.
Your post would seem to show a remarkable lack of thinking on just what School is and is for. I would suggest you read how and why mandatory schooling was introduced in the US.
They don't even have to say the T word. Basically, the constitution was buried by Ashcroft. A man so scared of breasts he had statues covered up to hide them. So scared of liberty he had it written out of the law books.
So you end up with the weight on the floor?
That's far to subtle a pun for /. readers to fathom.
Not hard?
I rather suspect you have never installed let alone retro fitted a cage. EMF leaks everywhere, replace all windows with metaled glass, all doors need to be backed up, any vents need mesh, plastic pipes etc etc etc.
It's a nightmare which is why emf shielded buildings are usually built to spec by specialists.
It's worse than that for a company.
Most employees do not want to work for a company on a down swing. Most good employees can get a job elsewhere.
The result of a round of layoffs is the company dumps the people it wants and then it's better people leave of their own accord.
Downward spiral is then begun and very difficult to escape. Layoffs are a strong signal that a company is finished. It might take time but very rarely are they a prelude to a turnaround.
The only way to turn around a company is to fire management senior and junior. But that is almost never the solution taken.
Which company are you employed by? I'd like to know so that I do not bother to interview there?
Just a side note. As a manager there is not a single thing you can do that directly contributes to your perceived effectiveness. The perception of your teams' progress is the measure of your performance.
So stop whining about certain people and concentrate on making it as easy as possible for your team to succeed. In most companies that means clearing the road not driving the bus.
A mainframe, I would have killed to get time on a mainframe.
I had a 4004 based machine with 1k of memory. Toggle switches and light bulbs were it baby. And I had to build it myself without a PCB.
You and your fancy mainframes.....
To begin with let's take the computer out of programming Computer Science UnPlugged
There are three environments I'd recommend for teaching programming.
SmallTalk/Squeak coupled with Squeak by Example
Scheme/PLT Scheme coupled with How To Design Programs
Logo/Berkeley Logo coupled with Computer Science Logo Style
The big idea is not to teach them how to do something in one language but to teach them the concepts that will allow them to learn how to do it in any language.
If the kids really are gifted then the class time is too valuable to have them sat there pounding keyboards, that's manual labor. Treat the class as lectures/discussions with experimenting on computers left up to them.
Try and get them to learn about the lectures subject matter before the class e.g. publish a schedule and make it clear they are expected to have read so and so pages before the class.
If they are gifted and motivated this will be as close to the Platonic style of teaching as you can get.
The side effect is that you have prepared them to succeed in college if they can get the idea of using lectures as a review of what they already know.
and other useless 60s phrases.
Is NASA trying to do anything new or is it just re-living old glories? We did this already now get on with something new.
I'm all for new science I am not for keeping a bunch of useless wanna bes in jobs on the public dollar.
Mars is/was new. Sending the rovers was great. We need to send some more/better rovers. Which planet do we need to send rovers to next. IMHO, this is what NASA should be doing for the next 50 years, cheap rocket delivery of data gathering rovers.
The shuttle missions should be put out to tender and NASA should not bid. Why? Because if you fail to deliver do not expect ever to get another tender. LEO etc should all be commercial by now.
NASA should be doing blue sky not repeating itself or ferrying kiddies toy experiments around.
If this is true then your mainframe guys need to be fired ASAP.
It used to be a standing joke that nobody got fired for buying IBM but they did if it EVER went down unplanned.
Also the throughput on a mainframe is truly astounding. I hate to think just how bad the software must be for a mainframe to be considered slow!
In general,
like all corporate jobs do as your managers tell you. It matters not if you are wrong or right, it matters not if they are wrong or right, it matters not if you are both wrong, it matters not if you are both right. It matters that they directly control how much you earn and how happy you will be in your role and there is not a damn thing you can do except resign to change things.
Do not publicly dis-agree with your management
Try and make your managers look good
Understand the business you are working in, not just the tech e.g. what is AP/AR/GL
Whatever language you are told to use is OK they all do pretty much the same things using different words. Learn concepts not implementations.
Make efforts to meet your users they are your clients and be respectful to them
The only book you need to pick up is from the pragmatic programmers 'The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master' remember although this book details how to do software dev your management overrides this unless you can convince them otherwise.
There are many other books to pick up but in general pick up classic books not how-tos e.g. pick up Mythical Man Month not Dummies guide to HTML, pick up OOA/OOD/OOP rather than the latest O'Reilly, pick up HTDP/SICP rather than Javascript in 24hrs.
If you wish to transcend the mediocre be prepared to understand that most dev shops are truly mediocre. The current status quo in development is in reality piss poor performance.
It's salmon and cream cheese