First, launch escape systems only work if activated prior to an explosion. It won't save the lives of astronauts after the fact, the abort has to be done prior to the catastrophic event.
Second, of course the the Space Shuttle had Launch abort system. It had "Abort to Landing Site", "Transoceanic Abort Landing", "Abort Once Around", and "Abort to Orbit". Only Abort to Orbit was used in the program (STS-51-F):
First of all, the astronauts on the Challenger are suppose to have survived the initial explosion and there's evidence that at least some of them were conscience when they hit the water. NASA hasn't said much about it out of respect for the families. The explosion was calculated to have 'pushed' the shuttle away from the propellent tank that would have given a strong, but survivable 'kick.' The point being, an escape system might get you away from an exploding rocket, provided there's enough mass between the capsule and the failing stage and it reacts fast enough.
On the other hand, I've flown in a stunt plane, open cockpit, seat pack parachute. I can pretty much guarantee you that if the plane is spinning out of control, you're going to be pinned to your seat. You're only going to get out if the plane is flying straight and level. Those G-forces when a plane is spinning out of control is one of the reasons why the survival rate of WW-II bomber crews was so low after a plane was hit. That also makes the shuttle system for inflight bailout was pretty much worthless. So unless your point is that in an explosion, you're pretty much fucked either way, your comment doesn't help much. I know which one I'd fly on, assuming both were in service.
I always thought that the Constitution guaranteed a right to privacy in your own home, not in public. If you're out in public anyone, including the government, can audio/video record/listen. Except in cases where privacy is expected, e.g. restrooms. In years past, if you were walking down the street talking to a friend about robbing someone, and you didn't realize that a cop nearby overheard you. Well, too bad for you. Recording devices in public places are just an extension of that. OTOH, if a cop car today has some sensitive listening device on it and they cruise down neighborhood streets and overhear you in your house planning a crime, well, they can't use it. You're on private property and have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
I can't find a link to it, but a few years back someone developed an IC that accurately detected gunshots, ignoring other noise. It was developed specifically for triangulation to determine the location of a gunshot. The IC in no way recorded audio info, but looked for gunshot signatures in the sounds it picked up. IF someone set up a system using that IC and let the IC trigger an audio recording circuit, then you don't even have the issue of a buffer.
IIRC, the courts have always given officers latitude when it comes to their safety. When they are dealing with a suspect and there's a crowd around, they can require that everyone keep their distance so that none of the suspect's friends/family can attack them. Outside of that area, you should be able to record. Otherwise, the courts seem to have been pretty clear that, barring those circumstances, people can video/audio record police/public officials in public places. That does not mean that some officers won't abuse that right to protect themselves. On a previous/. article, someone suggested that if told to stop recording, you ask politely where you might do so. If the officer indicates that you can't, period, he's probably overstepping his authority.
You don't have to file a complaint with the police. You can always file a suit. As far as them destroying the video, yes, a real-time upload to a password-protected server would be the best protection against that. Then you'd have the video up to where they smash the phone/camera into the ground.
The article referenced doesn't support that position. The refugees were leaving North Korea ahead of the advancing North Korean troops. Sounds like their minds had been made up, or at least they wanted to get out of Dodge, but the US and South Koreans didn't want to deal with them. Bad all the way around, but no proof that they 'wanted' communism.
I could also argue that since resisting the communists was likely to get you killed or imprisoned, that those who supported communism did so only under duress.
It had nothing to do with protecting our allies, it had to do with protecting our business interest, which communism was an ideological threat to. The citizens of Vietnam and Korea wanted communism, and just like many other countries we took it away from them, so that we could continue to reap the rewards of our influence.
Really? Every citizen in Vietnam and Korea wanted communism? Next I suppose you're going to tell us that those not wanting communism were brainwashed/bribed by the US Industrial/Military Complex, while the USSR/China side was not.
IIRC Ford makes a diesel Escort for Europe, but the cost of getting the engine certified for use over here was so high they didn't think it was worth it.
If someone steals your idea, assuming you've created or are in the process of creating a product, then even if they get a patent, you've got prior art.
They've already done this with vitamins. There are no longer any domestic producers and the Chinese increased their prices as soon as the competition went away. Yes, we could re-enter the market, but the start up costs are non-trivial. And what's to stop the Chinese from doing the same thing all over again? That's what makes a significant barrier to market entry.
I've got a PC with a $12 webcam connected to the TV in my living room. A Mac mini works well for this, if you are so inclined. If the child is use to watching cartoons on the TV, they'll be more likely to see talking to the grands as a 'passive' pastime, instead of trying to play with the keyboard. A wireless/Bluetooth keyboard/mouse could of course be turned off and stashed away once the Skype connection is established. With the kid in the living room, it's more likely to be a 'family' event as well.
The cameras used in the Apollo program included a 70mm Hasselblad. IIRC, years ago as digital cameras struggled to pass the 2 to 3 megapixel range, it was said that to be equivalent to 35mm, you'd need 15-18 megapixel. That was, I believe, to match the grain densities of 64 or 100 speed film. So scale that up about 4x to go from 35mm to 70mm. I'd say those Hasselblads did just fine.
I'd argue that spectrum is limited. A lot of the spectrum in the chart you referenced is used by other countries too, and we have agreements with them. A lot of potentially open frequencies are not useful for cellular--too high of a frequency and the signals can't be picked up in buildings. Too low and the signals travel too far and the cell towers can't be too close together. Some services, like satellite, require wide buffer zones around their band. There was at least one discussion on/. about that. Receivers for low power transmitters can't handle high power transmitters on nearby frequencies. I agree that the technology has gotten better, e.g. at least some new GPS receivers can have some (limited) reception indoors, older ones couldn't. So in theory we could trade off some sensitivity for a sharper filter, but you can only go so far. I would guess that you are in the camp that says the GPS companies are too lazy or cheap, and that the space could be reallocated. I disagree. The military owns the GPS satellites, so their voice in the issue is not insignificant. Since we disagree on spectrum, we're going to disagree on how much competition there is/can be in the cellular market.
I hope you are right about their profit motive once they can charge varying rates during the day. I understand the power companies wanting to reduce peak demand--they end up throwing inefficient, costly, and higher polluting generators on-line to handle peak demand. The problem is, the current method of saving energy by using set back thermostats to raise the temperature during the day while a house is unoccupied actually increases the peak load: The thermostat drops the temperature in the early evening as people come home from work, which is also close to when the peak temperature of the day is reached. So set back operation saves overall energy usage, but makes peak demand worse. I can't think of any way to make the two goals compatible.
Yes, even Microsoft is doing it. For a long while companies like Microsoft and Macromedia (now part of Adobe) would seed their own cracked products on torrent sites, just so that they could gain market share (while maintaining their high official listed price). It seems piracy was helping those companies, not hurting them.
OK, well, I did a page search of the page that the link directs me to (http://stopsmartmeters.org) keywords 'brain tumors' and 'brain' and got no hits. Maybe I'm just stupid and missed something, but my reply was based upon what I read on that page. The general idea I got from that page was a claim that the utilities had a poor track record regarding health and safety and questions the intent of smart meter adoption by the utilities. Not that smart meters cause cancer. There will, of course, be some wacko subgroup that claims health risks. Kind of like autism and vaccines.
As I pointed out on the last part of my previous post, I think since smart meters allow for variable rates based upon time of day, the motive of the utilities may be more profit driven, even though they've suggested that consumers could reduce their bills by adjusting usage based upon time of day. As I indicated, I think standard 'set back while not at home' practices (saving energy) could actually increase homeowner's bills.
It's not the USPS but the UPU/ICAO that's banning international shipments of all lithium cells. The USPS is saying that they expect to be able to ship cells that are contained within consumer products in 2013, indicating that UPU and ICAO intend to allow that type of shipment. The USPS still allows some types of shipments within the US.
I doubt that they (UPU/ICAO) will allow bulk shipments of cells. When I worked for an IC manufacturer a few years back, we had some products (modules) that contained an IC and a lithium cell. ICAO started requiring that containers holding products with lithium cells be marked clearly that lithium cells were in the package. The link to the USPS contains verbiage about the restrictions on the amount of lithium, how it's packaged, and so on, is pretty much a copy of those previous ICAO restrictions. Those restrictions were in response to the fires from the damaged containers of bulk cells. The restrictions have been evolving since then. It sounds like a moratorium on international shipments until they can get the details of the restrictions worked out.
Unfortunately, I think for many religious people, going to church is a social club, and scholarship of one's faith has fallen by the wayside. That's why creationism is so worrisome to me: it doesn't just represent ignorance of biology, but a general anti-intellectual movement - so much so that people don't bother learning about the precepts of their own faith.
I got 30/32 on the "Are you smarter than an atheist?" test, for the record.
I've commented here so I can't mod you up.
A Presbyterian pastor once said "Science tells us how God did it, the Bible tells us why." It does seem that many Christians view their church as a social club rather than a way to study their faith. And that seems to fall over into their political beliefs as well. You don't have to be a Christian, or even believe in God, to read the history of the old testament and see that even when people start out with good intentions they still end up doing horrible things to each other. Yet apparently many Christians think we shouldn't burden corporations with those pesky regulations because, hey, they'll do what's right and those regulations will just kill jobs.
When so many Californians believe that their new electric meters are going to be giving them cancer ( http://stopsmartmeters.org/ ), this is comes as no surprise at all. Also, crystal healing and homeopathy.
Reading the link, their talk about health issues (cancer is not mentioned at all), appears to be about the power company's overall lack of concern about health issues in power plant operations and such, not that they think the meters themselves could cause health issues. Maybe you should quit basing what you think about Californians from what you see on TMZ (To be fair, the way it's written, it's easy to mistake what they mean).
Here in North Texas, they bill the smart meters as a way that consumers could save money by cutting back during peak rates (variable rates, highest during high demand parts of the day). Of course, if I use my set-back thermostat in the summer to keep the house warmer during the day while I'm at work, then lower the temperature when I'm home in the evening, that kicks in extra usage during those peak hours. Net savings for me? Probably zip. Net to the electric company? Lower overall usage, higher average rate. Epic win--for them.
Is it over-regulation that allows only a few competitors to exist in the cell market? I'd think that it was the high cost to market entry that was the problem, especially since spectrum is limited and is expensive to acquire.
Yes, WS has always been more interested in their checking account than mine, just like everyone else. If you've ever run a small business, you know you can't charge too much (to feed your pocketbook) or your customers will go to someone else. Is it lack of competition that has caused them to be able to indulge in huge paydays, even when they screw up? Is this due to over or under-regulation? Certainly a free market, with no restrictions, results in monopolies. We've seen that. The point is, we need the right regulations, and only those regulations, to insure fair competition. The wrong ones, or not enough of the right ones, result in monopoly-like behavior--e.g. more interest in their pocketbook than ours, and the ability to indulge that in that behavior without consequences. OTOH, too many regulations and the market is needlessly limited.
Slashdot Mirror
Damn. conscious.
You're an idiot.
First, launch escape systems only work if activated prior to an explosion. It won't save the lives of astronauts after the fact, the abort has to be done prior to the catastrophic event.
Second, of course the the Space Shuttle had Launch abort system. It had "Abort to Landing Site", "Transoceanic Abort Landing", "Abort Once Around", and "Abort to Orbit". Only Abort to Orbit was used in the program (STS-51-F):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes
Additionally, there was equipment and flight software for crew inflight bailout:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/escape/inflight.html
This was not available during powered flight.
First of all, the astronauts on the Challenger are suppose to have survived the initial explosion and there's evidence that at least some of them were conscience when they hit the water. NASA hasn't said much about it out of respect for the families. The explosion was calculated to have 'pushed' the shuttle away from the propellent tank that would have given a strong, but survivable 'kick.' The point being, an escape system might get you away from an exploding rocket, provided there's enough mass between the capsule and the failing stage and it reacts fast enough.
On the other hand, I've flown in a stunt plane, open cockpit, seat pack parachute. I can pretty much guarantee you that if the plane is spinning out of control, you're going to be pinned to your seat. You're only going to get out if the plane is flying straight and level. Those G-forces when a plane is spinning out of control is one of the reasons why the survival rate of WW-II bomber crews was so low after a plane was hit. That also makes the shuttle system for inflight bailout was pretty much worthless. So unless your point is that in an explosion, you're pretty much fucked either way, your comment doesn't help much. I know which one I'd fly on, assuming both were in service.
I always thought that the Constitution guaranteed a right to privacy in your own home, not in public. If you're out in public anyone, including the government, can audio/video record/listen. Except in cases where privacy is expected, e.g. restrooms. In years past, if you were walking down the street talking to a friend about robbing someone, and you didn't realize that a cop nearby overheard you. Well, too bad for you. Recording devices in public places are just an extension of that. OTOH, if a cop car today has some sensitive listening device on it and they cruise down neighborhood streets and overhear you in your house planning a crime, well, they can't use it. You're on private property and have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
I can't find a link to it, but a few years back someone developed an IC that accurately detected gunshots, ignoring other noise. It was developed specifically for triangulation to determine the location of a gunshot. The IC in no way recorded audio info, but looked for gunshot signatures in the sounds it picked up. IF someone set up a system using that IC and let the IC trigger an audio recording circuit, then you don't even have the issue of a buffer.
IIRC, the courts have always given officers latitude when it comes to their safety. When they are dealing with a suspect and there's a crowd around, they can require that everyone keep their distance so that none of the suspect's friends/family can attack them. Outside of that area, you should be able to record. Otherwise, the courts seem to have been pretty clear that, barring those circumstances, people can video/audio record police/public officials in public places. That does not mean that some officers won't abuse that right to protect themselves. On a previous /. article, someone suggested that if told to stop recording, you ask politely where you might do so. If the officer indicates that you can't, period, he's probably overstepping his authority.
You don't have to file a complaint with the police. You can always file a suit. As far as them destroying the video, yes, a real-time upload to a password-protected server would be the best protection against that. Then you'd have the video up to where they smash the phone/camera into the ground.
IANAL
The article referenced doesn't support that position. The refugees were leaving North Korea ahead of the advancing North Korean troops. Sounds like their minds had been made up, or at least they wanted to get out of Dodge, but the US and South Koreans didn't want to deal with them. Bad all the way around, but no proof that they 'wanted' communism.
I could also argue that since resisting the communists was likely to get you killed or imprisoned, that those who supported communism did so only under duress.
It had nothing to do with protecting our allies, it had to do with protecting our business interest, which communism was an ideological threat to. The citizens of Vietnam and Korea wanted communism, and just like many other countries we took it away from them, so that we could continue to reap the rewards of our influence.
Really? Every citizen in Vietnam and Korea wanted communism? Next I suppose you're going to tell us that those not wanting communism were brainwashed/bribed by the US Industrial/Military Complex, while the USSR/China side was not.
IIRC Ford makes a diesel Escort for Europe, but the cost of getting the engine certified for use over here was so high they didn't think it was worth it.
drive for fun
Potholes, buses and slow-moving idiots aren't fun.
People who drive slower than you are idiots. People who drive faster than you are maniacs.--George Carlin
If someone steals your idea, assuming you've created or are in the process of creating a product, then even if they get a patent, you've got prior art.
Suppose someone wants to put the flag back up after it fell down?
They've already done this with vitamins. There are no longer any domestic producers and the Chinese increased their prices as soon as the competition went away. Yes, we could re-enter the market, but the start up costs are non-trivial. And what's to stop the Chinese from doing the same thing all over again? That's what makes a significant barrier to market entry.
I've got a PC with a $12 webcam connected to the TV in my living room. A Mac mini works well for this, if you are so inclined. If the child is use to watching cartoons on the TV, they'll be more likely to see talking to the grands as a 'passive' pastime, instead of trying to play with the keyboard. A wireless/Bluetooth keyboard/mouse could of course be turned off and stashed away once the Skype connection is established. With the kid in the living room, it's more likely to be a 'family' event as well.
The cameras used in the Apollo program included a 70mm Hasselblad. IIRC, years ago as digital cameras struggled to pass the 2 to 3 megapixel range, it was said that to be equivalent to 35mm, you'd need 15-18 megapixel. That was, I believe, to match the grain densities of 64 or 100 speed film. So scale that up about 4x to go from 35mm to 70mm. I'd say those Hasselblads did just fine.
I'd argue that spectrum is limited. A lot of the spectrum in the chart you referenced is used by other countries too, and we have agreements with them. A lot of potentially open frequencies are not useful for cellular--too high of a frequency and the signals can't be picked up in buildings. Too low and the signals travel too far and the cell towers can't be too close together. Some services, like satellite, require wide buffer zones around their band. There was at least one discussion on /. about that. Receivers for low power transmitters can't handle high power transmitters on nearby frequencies. I agree that the technology has gotten better, e.g. at least some new GPS receivers can have some (limited) reception indoors, older ones couldn't. So in theory we could trade off some sensitivity for a sharper filter, but you can only go so far. I would guess that you are in the camp that says the GPS companies are too lazy or cheap, and that the space could be reallocated. I disagree. The military owns the GPS satellites, so their voice in the issue is not insignificant. Since we disagree on spectrum, we're going to disagree on how much competition there is/can be in the cellular market.
I hope you are right about their profit motive once they can charge varying rates during the day. I understand the power companies wanting to reduce peak demand--they end up throwing inefficient, costly, and higher polluting generators on-line to handle peak demand. The problem is, the current method of saving energy by using set back thermostats to raise the temperature during the day while a house is unoccupied actually increases the peak load: The thermostat drops the temperature in the early evening as people come home from work, which is also close to when the peak temperature of the day is reached. So set back operation saves overall energy usage, but makes peak demand worse. I can't think of any way to make the two goals compatible.
Yes, even Microsoft is doing it. For a long while companies like Microsoft and Macromedia (now part of Adobe) would seed their own cracked products on torrent sites, just so that they could gain market share (while maintaining their high official listed price). It seems piracy was helping those companies, not hurting them.
Reference?
OK, well, I did a page search of the page that the link directs me to (http://stopsmartmeters.org) keywords 'brain tumors' and 'brain' and got no hits. Maybe I'm just stupid and missed something, but my reply was based upon what I read on that page. The general idea I got from that page was a claim that the utilities had a poor track record regarding health and safety and questions the intent of smart meter adoption by the utilities. Not that smart meters cause cancer. There will, of course, be some wacko subgroup that claims health risks. Kind of like autism and vaccines.
As I pointed out on the last part of my previous post, I think since smart meters allow for variable rates based upon time of day, the motive of the utilities may be more profit driven, even though they've suggested that consumers could reduce their bills by adjusting usage based upon time of day. As I indicated, I think standard 'set back while not at home' practices (saving energy) could actually increase homeowner's bills.
It's not the USPS but the UPU/ICAO that's banning international shipments of all lithium cells. The USPS is saying that they expect to be able to ship cells that are contained within consumer products in 2013, indicating that UPU and ICAO intend to allow that type of shipment. The USPS still allows some types of shipments within the US.
I doubt that they (UPU/ICAO) will allow bulk shipments of cells. When I worked for an IC manufacturer a few years back, we had some products (modules) that contained an IC and a lithium cell. ICAO started requiring that containers holding products with lithium cells be marked clearly that lithium cells were in the package. The link to the USPS contains verbiage about the restrictions on the amount of lithium, how it's packaged, and so on, is pretty much a copy of those previous ICAO restrictions. Those restrictions were in response to the fires from the damaged containers of bulk cells. The restrictions have been evolving since then. It sounds like a moratorium on international shipments until they can get the details of the restrictions worked out.
Typical politician. Avoided answering the question. Called the other person names. Oh, wait, this is /.
I think the gist of the post is that shit bills can get passed into law, regardless of the country.
Unfortunately, I think for many religious people, going to church is a social club, and scholarship of one's faith has fallen by the wayside. That's why creationism is so worrisome to me: it doesn't just represent ignorance of biology, but a general anti-intellectual movement - so much so that people don't bother learning about the precepts of their own faith.
I got 30/32 on the "Are you smarter than an atheist?" test, for the record.
I've commented here so I can't mod you up.
A Presbyterian pastor once said "Science tells us how God did it, the Bible tells us why." It does seem that many Christians view their church as a social club rather than a way to study their faith. And that seems to fall over into their political beliefs as well. You don't have to be a Christian, or even believe in God, to read the history of the old testament and see that even when people start out with good intentions they still end up doing horrible things to each other. Yet apparently many Christians think we shouldn't burden corporations with those pesky regulations because, hey, they'll do what's right and those regulations will just kill jobs.
Why round the figure to 97% Why express it as a percentage at all?
If you had faith in math, you wouldn't need to ask that question.
When so many Californians believe that their new electric meters are going to be giving them cancer ( http://stopsmartmeters.org/ ), this is comes as no surprise at all. Also, crystal healing and homeopathy.
Reading the link, their talk about health issues (cancer is not mentioned at all), appears to be about the power company's overall lack of concern about health issues in power plant operations and such, not that they think the meters themselves could cause health issues. Maybe you should quit basing what you think about Californians from what you see on TMZ (To be fair, the way it's written, it's easy to mistake what they mean).
Here in North Texas, they bill the smart meters as a way that consumers could save money by cutting back during peak rates (variable rates, highest during high demand parts of the day). Of course, if I use my set-back thermostat in the summer to keep the house warmer during the day while I'm at work, then lower the temperature when I'm home in the evening, that kicks in extra usage during those peak hours. Net savings for me? Probably zip. Net to the electric company? Lower overall usage, higher average rate. Epic win--for them.
Is it over-regulation that allows only a few competitors to exist in the cell market? I'd think that it was the high cost to market entry that was the problem, especially since spectrum is limited and is expensive to acquire.
Yes, WS has always been more interested in their checking account than mine, just like everyone else. If you've ever run a small business, you know you can't charge too much (to feed your pocketbook) or your customers will go to someone else. Is it lack of competition that has caused them to be able to indulge in huge paydays, even when they screw up? Is this due to over or under-regulation? Certainly a free market, with no restrictions, results in monopolies. We've seen that. The point is, we need the right regulations, and only those regulations, to insure fair competition. The wrong ones, or not enough of the right ones, result in monopoly-like behavior--e.g. more interest in their pocketbook than ours, and the ability to indulge that in that behavior without consequences. OTOH, too many regulations and the market is needlessly limited.