So are you saying that if the Chalenger or a similar spacecraft were to explode with nuclear material on board there would be no danger?
That depends. If it was carrying something like an RTG, then no, no danger. RTGs are packed in nearly indestructible casings that have been tested in multiple launch failures.
If it were carrying unprotected nuclear materials, then there is a danger of it raining down and causing several cases of cancer. However, I can't think of any reason for the shuttle to do this. Even if it did, the shuttle's trajectory takes it over the ocean so that the likeliness of human injury is as low as possible.
If the Challenger were carrying a bomb, then the above danger might apply. There's also the theoretical chance of an accidental detonation, but it's far lower than the chances of the bomb failing to explode when activated.
But it could blow up on the way there! Remeber Challenger?
1. Challenger was not carrying nuclear materials. 2. Depleted nuclear materials cannot blow up. 3. Non depleted fissionable materials cannot blow up without being packed inside a traditional explosive. 4. Fissionable materials are stored in neutron inhibiting material to prevent fission. 5. Accidental fission results in lots of heat and radiation. No boom. 6. Old style reactors could experience boiler explosions. (e.g. Chernobyl) This is on the order of an industrial disaster rather than a nuclear bomb. 7. Fission bombs need to be carefully shaped and triggered by explosives to blow up. 8. Fusion bombs (e.g. H-Bombs) require a fission bomb + a closed neutron reflector + a container of hydrogen/tritium. Remove any of these and fusion cannot occur.
Sorry, you're going to have to keep waiting.:-) Your response was well thought out and it mostly agreed with what I was saying.
I use my own tools as an example (primarily because I've gone through some pains to make a generic installer), but I'm really more concerned with all the non-technical software that Linux *could* have if installs weren't so difficult. Games are an obvious choice, but things like third party video players, commercial office suites, image editors, banking software, etc. are all candidates for software that people might want to get from a third party and/or pay for. Linux not only makes this difficult in its current incarnation, but the developers actually go out of their way to make binary software difficult.
When one considers that binaries on Unix have been figured out for 20+ years, the prevalent Linux attitude of compiling everything from source becomes very frustrating.
All of them, at least on my 3 systems at home were as easy as either: put in cd, or download binary. Then click on binary, and away you go!
It just so happens that I know a thing or two about this. And you CANNOT just double click on the binary. You first have to mark the binary as executable. This is a completely non-obvious step for anyone but technical users. How are users supposed to know that the file is an installer and not a text file? In my software, I add the ".sh" extension to make it look like a shell script. (The beginning of the file actually is a shell script, but that's irrelevant here.)
I apologize if I sound like I'm trolling, but the more that people say that Linux "has arrived for the Desktop", the more upset I get at the complete non-attention payed to a REAL install solution. I'm not even going to get into how upset I get every time I see "GLIBC2_3 Not Found!".
PLEASE! Fix Linux binary compatibility. It's the number one problem with the Linux Desktop today! If users could install their software in an easy to understand fashion, distros wouldn't NEED to bundle 5 CDs of software.
I have to wonder if Linux developers have missed the fact that a computer is supposed to run arbitrary programs. It seems that every distro is competing on how much software they can pre-bundle, because it's damn near impossible to do an "easy" install of anything.
To RPM, DEB, Apt-Get, EMerge, Yum, etc. fanboys: Online software catalogues are still bundling. I can't get commercial software out of the online catalogs, can I? And I certainly can't sell my database tools that way. So please don't even start with me, or I'll be forced to type a rather nasty reply.:-/
Cesium-137 has a half life about 30 years; long enough to last, short enought for relatively small volumes to be quite hellishly radioactive-- about 80 curies per gram, if I recall.
It's also primarily a Beta emitter. Quantities scattered in an explosion would tend to have a difficult time penetrating clothing and skin.
I've seen a ditz go into hysterics on learning her skeleton was mildly radioactive from the natural potassium.
Ok, now THAT is funny. I wish I'd been there to see it! =)
Have you even taken a radiation health physics class?
Yes, and no. Most of the knowledge I've obtained has been because I'm insanely curious. However, I did once work for a medical company that required me to take a class on radiation safety. They just used an electron beam, however, so it was a bit dull.
pha emitters are quite dangerous under the right conditions-- as you yourself noted, the real danger is in inhaling or ingesting radioisotopes.
Indeed. If inhaled Plutonium can be quite dangerous. Ingestion doesn't seem to cause too much trouble as your body just passes it through.
As I noted, this is why you powderize the radioisope beforehand for this sort of weapon: to increase the chance of dust particles being inhaled.
A few points:
1. AFAIK, Plutonium is EXTREMELY hard to machine. That means that just about anything short of a nuke would not be able to powerize the material.
2. Plutonium is very heavy. If dispersed into the air, it will come back to the ground very quickly. This minimizes the amount of time that people outdoors would be in danger.
3. I'd almost welcome Bin Laden attempting to machine Pu-238 into a fine power. He and his men would probably inhale enough of the stuff in the process that we wouldn't have to worry about them for much longer. (Ok, so I'm a bit morbid. I'm feeling punchy today.)
The threat from a radiologic dust bomb isn't the initial short term exposure; it's the long term threat.
Let's consider for a moment what might happen to the radiological materials if they were dispersed in a city:
1. We deploy our Evil Radioisotopes Weapon (TM) 2. The blast carries the materials to within a 1 mile radius. 3. The isotopes come raining down from above. Anyone who was near the blast is probably already injured, but has also inhaled radioisotopes. Sadly, these people will most likely die.:-( 4. The radioisotopes hit the ground. Given that the bomb couldn't have dispersed more than a dozen or so pounds of material (and that is probably high) radiation levels are most likely not lethal. Given that concrete is an excellent shield, buildings absorb a lot of the radiation. 5. Street sweepers and rain wash away the majority of the isotopes. They end up traveling through the sewers. 6. Treatment plants remove many of the isotopes. Some make it into the rivers and settle to the bottom. Since water is a very good shield, the radiation levels are not detectably higher than normal.
Now I'm not saying that someone detonating a dirty bomb is a good thing. In fact I hope it never happens. But it simply wouldn't be that effective of a weapon.
Software has little to nothing to do with it. The embargoes are on the hardware necessary to do the dirty work. Software embargoes are primary for reasons of security. i.e. Make sure that your opponent is less organized than you are. Encryption software is about the only software (that I'm aware of) that actually gets classified as a weapon.
Water does absorb neutrons but the primary use is to slow down escaping neutrons to the thermal energy level and reflect them back to the uranium source so they can be absorbed by more uranium to sustain the reaction.
But for an H-Bomb, you're primary purpose is to reflect as much force toward the center as possible. Uranium is so strong that it will allow enough pressure to build up for Hydrogen Fusion to occur. (The Hydrogen/Tritum is suspended in the center of the shell.) In that situation, water would act more like a neutron absorber instead of a reflector.
Your problem is that you're trying to build a fission reactor instead of a fusion bomb. In a fusion bomb, the fission event is merely a trigger. There's no need (and in fact it would be detrimental) to attempt to sustain a super-critical reaction.
I was referring to the Fission reactor he had on the Delorean *before* he installed Mr. Fusion. Converting that much thermal energy into electricity tends to require equipment much larger than that seen on the back of the car. Not to mention the amount of shielding that was suspiciously missing...
Go check it out and decide for yourself. While you're at it, you might even want to check out the specs. A word of caution, however. The specs are really intended for card and GL server manufacturers. As a result, it tends to go into a lot of details that are often irrelevant to developing OpenGL applications.
Much better would be some of the FRIGGIN HUGE non-fissile radioisotopes that are essentially just plain missing over there, and could provide a weapon nearly as effective.
Bull. Dirty-bombs don't work very well for several reasons:
1. Building materials just happen to be the right stuff to shield against radiation.
2. The most dangerous materials are the extremely "hot" ones that are fresh out of a reactor. In order to be that hot, they have a half-life of seconds to barely a few years. By the time it would be "stolen", it would be ineffective!
3. Radiation by itself is far less of a problem than inhaling or ingesting radioisotopes. This stuff tends to be filtered by water plants. Farms in the local vicinity (yeah, right) would no longer be able to sell their produce, however.
In the end, you'll pretty much do nothing more than increase everyone's chance of getting cancer. <sarcasm>What an effective terrorist weapon</sarcasm>
There's also the question as to whether or not Bin Laden would have competent enough people to know what they're stealing. For example, spreading a bunch of plutonium (Alpha Emitter) would be laughable.
Plutonium? No problem. Just look up the Lybians...
Amazing how Doc Brown built such a tiny thermal reactor. And even managed to get a few Gigajoules of energy within seconds! That invention alone must have made him rich beyond belief!
As usual, Wikipedia has the scoop. Basically, the discoverer named it "Aluminum". However, he quickly realized that his name wasn't in line with the standard, so he changed it to "Aluminium". But by that time, the lack of an 'i' had already caught on with the public. Thus Americans completely switched to calling it "Aluminum". The international standards agencies were much slower and didn't officially switch until ~1990, and as a result many Brits and French grew up learning "Aluminium", but are now incorrect!:-D
Reading the article (yeah, I probably should have done that first), it looks like it's only for cases of coke. One of the cans is actually a plastic cell phone that's shaped like a can. To me it seems that you could cheat it by tapping the imprints of the cans on the case. The first one that feels like plastic is your winner.
Of course, that document started saying something like "go to your local grocery store and buy 3 kg of U-235":)
Then use an old buick as a shell. Carefully pack the entire contraption in a few tons of traditional explosives like plastique or nitroglycerin....
The really amusing part is that it isn't all that hard to build an atomic bomb. Only two ingredients are difficult to come by:
1. Enriched U-235 or Pu-239. The enrichment process requires a massive chemicals and refining infrastructure. Pu-239 is produced inside worked reactors and is carefully accounted for by UN watchdogs. Plus the Pu-239 has to be very pure. If it contains a large amount of Pu-238, it will be useless.
2. The initial charge has to be carefully shaped or else the bomb will fizzle. The only known ways to test a design are by actually blowing one up or running computer simulations. The former is rather noticeable, while the later is the reason we put an embargo on computing technology to certain countries.
If you want to know how to build a hydrogen bomb, go do a search for the Progressive article. Good luck on manufacturing a uranium neutron reflector!
So is "tinfoil," aka aluminum foil, aka Reynolds Wrap.
Better not tell him that, either!
side note: AFAIK, foil was originally made of Tin. At some point aluminum and steel became cheaper and usage of tin declined. These days some people still call it "tin foil", but its correct name is actually "aluminum foil".
However it is possible that you might be able to use some sort of metal detector to find the more unsusual components...The composition has to be completely different. There might be a weight difference as well.
It's probably nothing more than a micro-circuit board wrapped in plastic. I sincerely doubt you'd get much of a reading on it. Similarly, it would be so light as to only add an ounce or two to the can.
Hmmmm. Those wall stud detetcors have a setting for detecting electrical current. That might pick up the battery...
I'm thinking that it doesn't get activated until you press the button. That would make it difficulty to detect the EM from the battery. Besides, the battery is probably nothing more than a hearing aid battery for one time use. I doubt it would have much EM field at all. Not to mention that the can is a natural conductor...
The real question is how it's mounted on the can. If you can figure that out, you might be able to use a sonoprobe. i.e. Tap on the right spot and see how hollow it sound.:-D
I was referring to software engineering. Can't remember the last time I actually needed to use anything more than high school + a some basic college math. Matrix math is about the most complex thing I can think of needing.
That's not to say that you shouldn't *learn* the more complex maths, but they aren't often a requirement in most of what software engineers do.
Off the top of my head, the translation formula for points is:
Let x1 = 3D X coordinate Let y1 = 3D Y coordinate Let z1 = 3D Z coordinate
Let x2 = 2D X coordinate Let y2 = 2D Y coordinate
Let cx = Center of Screen X Let cy = Center of Screen Y
x2 = x1/z1 - cx y2 = cy - y1/z1
There's a great tutorial by KiwiDog here. (Just search the page for KiwiDog. I'd link directly, but Geocities has one of those annoying referal blockers.)
And, I guess that technically it's all trig [d*cos(artan(dx/dy) ) kind of stuff], fairly simple actually . . . but there's no way it would have been doable w/o having had the practice of Vector Calc back in the day.
Indeed. Some of the stuff that seemed very hard when I was younger. With age and education, I find that stuff that used to be difficult is now almost second nature.:-)
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When you are talking about sending tons of material to the Sun, the numbers become insane.
Answers in order of power:
1. Pulsed Nuclear Rocket (Orion)
2. Nuclear Salt Water Rocket
3. Nuclear Thermal Rocket (e.g. NERVA, Gas Core)
4. Nuclear Electric Ion Propulsion
All of the above (save for development needed for NSWR) are existing technology.
So are you saying that if the Chalenger or a similar spacecraft were to explode with nuclear material on board there would be no danger?
That depends. If it was carrying something like an RTG, then no, no danger. RTGs are packed in nearly indestructible casings that have been tested in multiple launch failures.
If it were carrying unprotected nuclear materials, then there is a danger of it raining down and causing several cases of cancer. However, I can't think of any reason for the shuttle to do this. Even if it did, the shuttle's trajectory takes it over the ocean so that the likeliness of human injury is as low as possible.
If the Challenger were carrying a bomb, then the above danger might apply. There's also the theoretical chance of an accidental detonation, but it's far lower than the chances of the bomb failing to explode when activated.
Does that answer your question?
But it could blow up on the way there! Remeber Challenger?
1. Challenger was not carrying nuclear materials.
2. Depleted nuclear materials cannot blow up.
3. Non depleted fissionable materials cannot blow up without being packed inside a traditional explosive.
4. Fissionable materials are stored in neutron inhibiting material to prevent fission.
5. Accidental fission results in lots of heat and radiation. No boom.
6. Old style reactors could experience boiler explosions. (e.g. Chernobyl) This is on the order of an industrial disaster rather than a nuclear bomb.
7. Fission bombs need to be carefully shaped and triggered by explosives to blow up.
8. Fusion bombs (e.g. H-Bombs) require a fission bomb + a closed neutron reflector + a container of hydrogen/tritium. Remove any of these and fusion cannot occur.
Any questions?
Waiting for the rather nasty reply, Batman. ;-)
:-) Your response was well thought out and it mostly agreed with what I was saying.
Sorry, you're going to have to keep waiting.
I use my own tools as an example (primarily because I've gone through some pains to make a generic installer), but I'm really more concerned with all the non-technical software that Linux *could* have if installs weren't so difficult. Games are an obvious choice, but things like third party video players, commercial office suites, image editors, banking software, etc. are all candidates for software that people might want to get from a third party and/or pay for. Linux not only makes this difficult in its current incarnation, but the developers actually go out of their way to make binary software difficult.
When one considers that binaries on Unix have been figured out for 20+ years, the prevalent Linux attitude of compiling everything from source becomes very frustrating.
iTunes Music Store is just a cover for Apple to sell the greatest major-record-label-circumvention device ever constructed.
Uh huh. And absolutely nobody rips all those CDs they've been collecting since the 80's, right?
All of them, at least on my 3 systems at home were as easy as either: put in cd, or download binary. Then click on binary, and away you go!
It just so happens that I know a thing or two about this. And you CANNOT just double click on the binary. You first have to mark the binary as executable. This is a completely non-obvious step for anyone but technical users. How are users supposed to know that the file is an installer and not a text file? In my software, I add the ".sh" extension to make it look like a shell script. (The beginning of the file actually is a shell script, but that's irrelevant here.)
I apologize if I sound like I'm trolling, but the more that people say that Linux "has arrived for the Desktop", the more upset I get at the complete non-attention payed to a REAL install solution. I'm not even going to get into how upset I get every time I see "GLIBC2_3 Not Found!".
PLEASE! Fix Linux binary compatibility. It's the number one problem with the Linux Desktop today! If users could install their software in an easy to understand fashion, distros wouldn't NEED to bundle 5 CDs of software.
I have to wonder if Linux developers have missed the fact that a computer is supposed to run arbitrary programs. It seems that every distro is competing on how much software they can pre-bundle, because it's damn near impossible to do an "easy" install of anything.
:-/
To RPM, DEB, Apt-Get, EMerge, Yum, etc. fanboys: Online software catalogues are still bundling. I can't get commercial software out of the online catalogs, can I? And I certainly can't sell my database tools that way. So please don't even start with me, or I'll be forced to type a rather nasty reply.
Cesium-137 has a half life about 30 years; long enough to last, short enought for relatively small volumes to be quite hellishly radioactive-- about 80 curies per gram, if I recall.
:-(
It's also primarily a Beta emitter. Quantities scattered in an explosion would tend to have a difficult time penetrating clothing and skin.
I've seen a ditz go into hysterics on learning her skeleton was mildly radioactive from the natural potassium.
Ok, now THAT is funny. I wish I'd been there to see it! =)
Have you even taken a radiation health physics class?
Yes, and no. Most of the knowledge I've obtained has been because I'm insanely curious. However, I did once work for a medical company that required me to take a class on radiation safety. They just used an electron beam, however, so it was a bit dull.
pha emitters are quite dangerous under the right conditions-- as you yourself noted, the real danger is in inhaling or ingesting radioisotopes.
Indeed. If inhaled Plutonium can be quite dangerous. Ingestion doesn't seem to cause too much trouble as your body just passes it through.
As I noted, this is why you powderize the radioisope beforehand for this sort of weapon: to increase the chance of dust particles being inhaled.
A few points:
1. AFAIK, Plutonium is EXTREMELY hard to machine. That means that just about anything short of a nuke would not be able to powerize the material.
2. Plutonium is very heavy. If dispersed into the air, it will come back to the ground very quickly. This minimizes the amount of time that people outdoors would be in danger.
3. I'd almost welcome Bin Laden attempting to machine Pu-238 into a fine power. He and his men would probably inhale enough of the stuff in the process that we wouldn't have to worry about them for much longer. (Ok, so I'm a bit morbid. I'm feeling punchy today.)
The threat from a radiologic dust bomb isn't the initial short term exposure; it's the long term threat.
Let's consider for a moment what might happen to the radiological materials if they were dispersed in a city:
1. We deploy our Evil Radioisotopes Weapon (TM)
2. The blast carries the materials to within a 1 mile radius.
3. The isotopes come raining down from above. Anyone who was near the blast is probably already injured, but has also inhaled radioisotopes. Sadly, these people will most likely die.
4. The radioisotopes hit the ground. Given that the bomb couldn't have dispersed more than a dozen or so pounds of material (and that is probably high) radiation levels are most likely not lethal. Given that concrete is an excellent shield, buildings absorb a lot of the radiation.
5. Street sweepers and rain wash away the majority of the isotopes. They end up traveling through the sewers.
6. Treatment plants remove many of the isotopes. Some make it into the rivers and settle to the bottom. Since water is a very good shield, the radiation levels are not detectably higher than normal.
Now I'm not saying that someone detonating a dirty bomb is a good thing. In fact I hope it never happens. But it simply wouldn't be that effective of a weapon.
Open Source software excepted, of course.
Software has little to nothing to do with it. The embargoes are on the hardware necessary to do the dirty work. Software embargoes are primary for reasons of security. i.e. Make sure that your opponent is less organized than you are. Encryption software is about the only software (that I'm aware of) that actually gets classified as a weapon.
Water does absorb neutrons but the primary use is to slow down escaping neutrons to the thermal energy level and reflect them back to the uranium source so they can be absorbed by more uranium to sustain the reaction.
But for an H-Bomb, you're primary purpose is to reflect as much force toward the center as possible. Uranium is so strong that it will allow enough pressure to build up for Hydrogen Fusion to occur. (The Hydrogen/Tritum is suspended in the center of the shell.) In that situation, water would act more like a neutron absorber instead of a reflector.
Your problem is that you're trying to build a fission reactor instead of a fusion bomb. In a fusion bomb, the fission event is merely a trigger. There's no need (and in fact it would be detrimental) to attempt to sustain a super-critical reaction.
I was referring to the Fission reactor he had on the Delorean *before* he installed Mr. Fusion. Converting that much thermal energy into electricity tends to require equipment much larger than that seen on the back of the car. Not to mention the amount of shielding that was suspiciously missing...
Go check it out and decide for yourself. While you're at it, you might even want to check out the specs. A word of caution, however. The specs are really intended for card and GL server manufacturers. As a result, it tends to go into a lot of details that are often irrelevant to developing OpenGL applications.
What makes a uranium neutron different from any other neutron?
You're not funny.
Hydrogen Hydroxide aka Dihydrogen Monoxide reflects neutrons pretty well.
Actually, it absorbs neutron. You're still not funny.
Of course the dangers of Hydrogen Hydroxide are still being studied.
Groan...
Sorry bub, keep trying.
Much better would be some of the FRIGGIN HUGE non-fissile radioisotopes that are essentially just plain missing over there, and could provide a weapon nearly as effective.
Bull. Dirty-bombs don't work very well for several reasons:
1. Building materials just happen to be the right stuff to shield against radiation.
2. The most dangerous materials are the extremely "hot" ones that are fresh out of a reactor. In order to be that hot, they have a half-life of seconds to barely a few years. By the time it would be "stolen", it would be ineffective!
3. Radiation by itself is far less of a problem than inhaling or ingesting radioisotopes. This stuff tends to be filtered by water plants. Farms in the local vicinity (yeah, right) would no longer be able to sell their produce, however.
In the end, you'll pretty much do nothing more than increase everyone's chance of getting cancer. <sarcasm>What an effective terrorist weapon</sarcasm>
There's also the question as to whether or not Bin Laden would have competent enough people to know what they're stealing. For example, spreading a bunch of plutonium (Alpha Emitter) would be laughable.
Plutonium? No problem. Just look up the Lybians...
Amazing how Doc Brown built such a tiny thermal reactor. And even managed to get a few Gigajoules of energy within seconds! That invention alone must have made him rich beyond belief!
As usual, Wikipedia has the scoop. Basically, the discoverer named it "Aluminum". However, he quickly realized that his name wasn't in line with the standard, so he changed it to "Aluminium". But by that time, the lack of an 'i' had already caught on with the public. Thus Americans completely switched to calling it "Aluminum". The international standards agencies were much slower and didn't officially switch until ~1990, and as a result many Brits and French grew up learning "Aluminium", but are now incorrect! :-D
Actually, it makes it easier for sonic detection.
Reading the article (yeah, I probably should have done that first), it looks like it's only for cases of coke. One of the cans is actually a plastic cell phone that's shaped like a can. To me it seems that you could cheat it by tapping the imprints of the cans on the case. The first one that feels like plastic is your winner.
Of course, that document started saying something like "go to your local grocery store and buy 3 kg of U-235" :)
Then use an old buick as a shell. Carefully pack the entire contraption in a few tons of traditional explosives like plastique or nitroglycerin....
The really amusing part is that it isn't all that hard to build an atomic bomb. Only two ingredients are difficult to come by:
1. Enriched U-235 or Pu-239. The enrichment process requires a massive chemicals and refining infrastructure. Pu-239 is produced inside worked reactors and is carefully accounted for by UN watchdogs. Plus the Pu-239 has to be very pure. If it contains a large amount of Pu-238, it will be useless.
2. The initial charge has to be carefully shaped or else the bomb will fizzle. The only known ways to test a design are by actually blowing one up or running computer simulations. The former is rather noticeable, while the later is the reason we put an embargo on computing technology to certain countries.
If you want to know how to build a hydrogen bomb, go do a search for the Progressive article. Good luck on manufacturing a uranium neutron reflector!
So is "tinfoil," aka aluminum foil, aka Reynolds Wrap.
Better not tell him that, either!
side note: AFAIK, foil was originally made of Tin. At some point aluminum and steel became cheaper and usage of tin declined. These days some people still call it "tin foil", but its correct name is actually "aluminum foil".
However it is possible that you might be able to use some sort of metal detector to find the more unsusual components...The composition has to be completely different. There might be a weight difference as well.
:-D
It's probably nothing more than a micro-circuit board wrapped in plastic. I sincerely doubt you'd get much of a reading on it. Similarly, it would be so light as to only add an ounce or two to the can.
Hmmmm. Those wall stud detetcors have a setting for detecting electrical current. That might pick up the battery...
I'm thinking that it doesn't get activated until you press the button. That would make it difficulty to detect the EM from the battery. Besides, the battery is probably nothing more than a hearing aid battery for one time use. I doubt it would have much EM field at all. Not to mention that the can is a natural conductor...
The real question is how it's mounted on the can. If you can figure that out, you might be able to use a sonoprobe. i.e. Tap on the right spot and see how hollow it sound.
You just ruined my best source of tin for my hats, Coca-Cola.
Should I even tell the poor sap that cans are made of aluminum?
I was referring to software engineering. Can't remember the last time I actually needed to use anything more than high school + a some basic college math. Matrix math is about the most complex thing I can think of needing.
That's not to say that you shouldn't *learn* the more complex maths, but they aren't often a requirement in most of what software engineers do.
Sorry if I was confusing.
The biggest disadvantage is the loss of formatting. It's not a big deal for fiction, but technical manuals (especially with diagrams) are a no-go.
And, I guess that technically it's all trig [d*cos(artan(dx/dy) ) kind of stuff], fairly simple actually . . . but there's no way it would have been doable w/o having had the practice of Vector Calc back in the day.
Indeed. Some of the stuff that seemed very hard when I was younger. With age and education, I find that stuff that used to be difficult is now almost second nature.