For a Billion dollars a year you could have a fence of humans with guns every six feet for 53 miles and pay them $21,440 to just stand there.
Extend that distance to 50 yds (easy rifle range, moderate pistol range) between humans and you get over half a million dollars per person-year. You offer to pay $100k/yr to sit in a lawn chair with binoculars and defend our border, I bet lots of people would take you up on it. It'd spark local business, too. Think of it as a 53 mile, 1866 person breakfast/lunch/dinner cart goldmine.
The mainstream media outlets thought they were making fun of the Tea Party rallies when in fact they were unintentionally making them all the more mainstream and respectable.
It clearly backfired on the leftist mainstream media last November.
But couldn't you send a more useful waveform such as a 1-Wire data stream? You could have all sorts of standard sensors/etc on the dev board with an 1-Wire bus.
At 16KHz max clock rate, you probably could just send the 1-Wire waveform directly and square up any audio filter-induced droop in the receiver.
I had a 45 (an actual record, for you yutes) of that mission audio when I was a kid. I thought it was the coolest thing. The record, IIRC, was orange in color.
GNURadio is so powerful yet so poorly documented. The USRP2 hardware is wicked-expensive (and now end-of-life), but really powerful. The N210 is its replacement.
I agree, hence the "very simple" in my reply. I bet they are extremely limited, but fast. Other brands/models of FPGAs have different definitions of 'complex' - Altera has some pretty smokin' FPGAs, too.
My bet is 1,000 very simple cores - most decent-sized FPGAs contain 10's or 100's of thousands of 'logic blocks'. The Spartan 6 series has between 3,840 and 147,443 logic blocks.
(2) They are highly toxic, even more toxic than the widely-used hydrazines, which can kill you in several interesting ways.
(3) They're so unstable, you have to keep them under impossible conditions
That reminds me of a hazmat situation involving pentaborane that happened in the 80's near me. One of my best friends as exposed, died and was resuscitated several times. He suffered organ damage and lost many of his early memories.
I recall there being a Range Safety system that can be fired to split the SRB open, releasing the pressure. Odds are the RSO wouldn't be able to fire the charges in the 100 mS it takes to exceed load limits due to an asymmetrical SRB firing.
It was a big deal, and with the help of the internet it flared up around the country and world. I remember it being a low point of hysteria vs reason.
There was grave doubt that Cassini would be launched at the time since it unfortunately followed on the heels of the ill-fated Russian Mars 96 probe that crashed into South America with 0.44 lbs of Plutonium onboard. IIRC the President had to sign off on its launch - that certainly is odd for something that should've been a routine scientific activity.
I agree that solar panels were likely the best choice for the MER rovers from a weight perspective, but so much capability was left back on earth because of that decision. I look forward to the new rover; bigger, badder, and powerful!
I understand your point of view, but most Americans I know see it the other way - we want to choose the way we live, and have input into those things that affect our lives. Having a large, monolithic government that moves slowly and is not responsive to the wishes of the people is antithetical to democracy.
I'd rather be able to have a say in whether my state levies taxes on income, sales, or both, whether or not the death penalty is used, whether or not people are allowed to carry concealed weapons, how my tax dollars are spent on education, etc.
A single government that attempts to please everyone will end up pleasing no one - I'd rather keep things small, nimble, and responsive. The duplication of services isn't that big of a deal; unifying things like driver's licenses under federal control would likely cost more overall - things like that don't seem to scale well, especially when Washington gets involved.
I'm not sure that they couldn't have used an MMRTG on the rovers, at least from a mass standpoint (I couldn't find dimensions for the MMRTG). According to the wikipedia article, it masses in at 48 kg and produces 125W electrical at the start of the mission (2.5 kWh/day). The Mars Explorer Rover article states that the solar panels produce 140W peak for only 4 hours/day (0.6 kWh/day). The batteries that supplement the solar cells mass 14.3kg, and the panels themselves along with the associated hinges/etc to unfurl them together likely weigh about the same as an RTG. The benefit of having constantly-available power to drive where you want, when you want, 24x7, and to be able to run any experiment any time far outweighs the risks of using marginally-sufficient solar panels.
The RTG used in Cassini-Huygens, New Horizons, Galileo probe, and the Ulysses probe were twice as efficient (5.26 We/kg vs 2.8 We/kg) as the current model.
That's exactly the wrong way to think about it. Instead of having a monolithic, one-size-fits-all way of doing things, we have 50 different areas in which different ideas can be tested, and the best solution _for the people of that state_ can be chosen.
The federal government was originally designed and intended to play referee between the states and provide LIMITED services that made sense (postal service, military, etc). It has way overstepped its original mandate.
You're not forced to move - it's your choice. Moving state-to-state is a lot less difficult that moving to a new country - often you can still work for the same company, you're still afforded the same civil rights/protections/etc. You get all the benefits of the Constitution and Bill of Rights but choice in the details of other aspects of life.
Out of curiosity, are you a US citizen? You sound like a non-citizen that doesn't 'get it' with regard to how the US is structured.
There is no question of the association allowing a satellite dish.
If you live in the US, you're covered by Federal Law. Now you just need to find an acceptable signal. I'm in Richmond, VA and have the 'east coast' Dish Network dish that works right in the middle of my tree-heavy property. It uses sats at 61.5, 72, and 77 degrees west.
I agree. This site has some calculations of power density vs distance - truly remarkable feat, if you ask me.
The High Gain Antenna on Voyager 1 has gain of 48.15 dB, making the Effective Radiated Power 1,384,500 W, or 61.43 dBW. The Goldstone 70m antenna has about 75 dB of gain. This Path-loss calculator shows that the signal is -179 dBW as received from 17.3 billion km away. That's 1.26 x 10^-18 W, or 1.26 attowatts.
If we had the collective courage [read - no enviro-wackos] to use RTGs on our Mars probes, we wouldn't have lost Spirit to freezing temperatures brought on by low power from the solar cells.
We used 'em on quite a few spacecraft - why they aren't used more often for solar power-limited missions escapes me.
"A ~0.2 kg block of pure Gd148 (~1 inch^3) initially yields ~120 watts, sufficient in theory to meet the complete basal power needs of an entire human body for ~1 century..."
Since when were semi-automatic firearms the ultimate tactical weapon of the evil-doing belligerent revolutionist masses? Do people even know what semi-automatic means or has the media completely succeeded in demonizing them beyond rational logic?
1) Since Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Diane Feinstein rolled out poor old Brady and forced thru the ill-fated assault weaponban (now sunsetted).
2) They've succeeded. Between the media and entertainment businesses, 'everyone' knows that M16's are evil, and that pistols are meant to be fired with the grip held horizontally.
The ban was laughable - it depended on how evil the gun looked, not on its mechanisms. (aftermarket stock = evil, standard wood stock ok).
What's the real difference? It's still government, who cares where it comes from?
The huge, super-important point that you're missing is that is you don't like the laws of one state, YOU CAN MOVE TO ANOTHER. If you think you're sales tax is too high, MOVE TO ANOTHER. If you don't like states with "Shall Issue" concealed handgun permits or that espouse the Castle Doctrine, MOVE. You can't move out from under the federal government without emigrating.
The point of the United States is that the states are (mostly) independent - IMHO they should be competing for citizens, and in some cases, they are. When taxes get crazy in NY or CA, for example, people move to other states more to their liking.
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For a Billion dollars a year you could have a fence of humans with guns every six feet for 53 miles and pay them $21,440 to just stand there.
Extend that distance to 50 yds (easy rifle range, moderate pistol range) between humans and you get over half a million dollars per person-year. You offer to pay $100k/yr to sit in a lawn chair with binoculars and defend our border, I bet lots of people would take you up on it. It'd spark local business, too. Think of it as a 53 mile, 1866 person breakfast/lunch/dinner cart goldmine.
The mainstream media outlets thought they were making fun of the Tea Party rallies when in fact they were unintentionally making them all the more mainstream and respectable.
It clearly backfired on the leftist mainstream media last November.
But couldn't you send a more useful waveform such as a 1-Wire data stream? You could have all sorts of standard sensors/etc on the dev board with an 1-Wire bus.
At 16KHz max clock rate, you probably could just send the 1-Wire waveform directly and square up any audio filter-induced droop in the receiver.
The whole abortion was replaced with a small PCB containing...
PCBs!?!?! They're HORRIBLY dangerous! Oh, that's PCB, not PCB.
All cars that are the same color must have the same keys!
Thank heavens I had my car painted a custom color just last week. No one can break into it now!
I had a 45 (an actual record, for you yutes) of that mission audio when I was a kid. I thought it was the coolest thing. The record, IIRC, was orange in color.
GNURadio is so powerful yet so poorly documented. The USRP2 hardware is wicked-expensive (and now end-of-life), but really powerful. The N210 is its replacement.
Yes.
I agree, hence the "very simple" in my reply. I bet they are extremely limited, but fast. Other brands/models of FPGAs have different definitions of 'complex' - Altera has some pretty smokin' FPGAs, too.
My bet is 1,000 very simple cores - most decent-sized FPGAs contain 10's or 100's of thousands of 'logic blocks'. The Spartan 6 series has between 3,840 and 147,443 logic blocks.
All the cyclists that ride in my neighborhood think they're invincible.
(2) They are highly toxic, even more toxic than the widely-used hydrazines, which can kill you in several interesting ways.
(3) They're so unstable, you have to keep them under impossible conditions
That reminds me of a hazmat situation involving pentaborane that happened in the 80's near me. One of my best friends as exposed, died and was resuscitated several times. He suffered organ damage and lost many of his early memories.
See also: http://www.scribd.com/doc/15062569/Pentaborane-Taming-the-Dragonpdf
I recall there being a Range Safety system that can be fired to split the SRB open, releasing the pressure. Odds are the RSO wouldn't be able to fire the charges in the 100 mS it takes to exceed load limits due to an asymmetrical SRB firing.
That's true of the main engines, but not the solids. The explosive bolts holding the shuttle to the pad are fired before the SRBs are lit.
Easy there, no need for histrionics.
Did you happen to read any of the articles I linked to? At KSC, at least 1,000 people were protesting, and many were arrested trying to climb the fences. They even organized a shrimp-boat protest to prevent the launch. 15 congresscritters sent a petition to President Clinton. A statement was read the the UN.
It was a big deal, and with the help of the internet it flared up around the country and world. I remember it being a low point of hysteria vs reason.
There was grave doubt that Cassini would be launched at the time since it unfortunately followed on the heels of the ill-fated Russian Mars 96 probe that crashed into South America with 0.44 lbs of Plutonium onboard. IIRC the President had to sign off on its launch - that certainly is odd for something that should've been a routine scientific activity.
I agree that solar panels were likely the best choice for the MER rovers from a weight perspective, but so much capability was left back on earth because of that decision. I look forward to the new rover; bigger, badder, and powerful!
I understand your point of view, but most Americans I know see it the other way - we want to choose the way we live, and have input into those things that affect our lives. Having a large, monolithic government that moves slowly and is not responsive to the wishes of the people is antithetical to democracy.
I'd rather be able to have a say in whether my state levies taxes on income, sales, or both, whether or not the death penalty is used, whether or not people are allowed to carry concealed weapons, how my tax dollars are spent on education, etc.
A single government that attempts to please everyone will end up pleasing no one - I'd rather keep things small, nimble, and responsive. The duplication of services isn't that big of a deal; unifying things like driver's licenses under federal control would likely cost more overall - things like that don't seem to scale well, especially when Washington gets involved.
Thank you for your reasoned reply.
In case you don't remember, there was significant public protest over Cassini:
1 2 3 4 5, etc
I'm not sure that they couldn't have used an MMRTG on the rovers, at least from a mass standpoint (I couldn't find dimensions for the MMRTG). According to the wikipedia article, it masses in at 48 kg and produces 125W electrical at the start of the mission (2.5 kWh/day). The Mars Explorer Rover article states that the solar panels produce 140W peak for only 4 hours/day (0.6 kWh/day). The batteries that supplement the solar cells mass 14.3kg, and the panels themselves along with the associated hinges/etc to unfurl them together likely weigh about the same as an RTG. The benefit of having constantly-available power to drive where you want, when you want, 24x7, and to be able to run any experiment any time far outweighs the risks of using marginally-sufficient solar panels.
The RTG used in Cassini-Huygens, New Horizons, Galileo probe, and the Ulysses probe were twice as efficient (5.26 We/kg vs 2.8 We/kg) as the current model.
That's exactly the wrong way to think about it. Instead of having a monolithic, one-size-fits-all way of doing things, we have 50 different areas in which different ideas can be tested, and the best solution _for the people of that state_ can be chosen.
The federal government was originally designed and intended to play referee between the states and provide LIMITED services that made sense (postal service, military, etc). It has way overstepped its original mandate.
You're not forced to move - it's your choice. Moving state-to-state is a lot less difficult that moving to a new country - often you can still work for the same company, you're still afforded the same civil rights/protections/etc. You get all the benefits of the Constitution and Bill of Rights but choice in the details of other aspects of life.
Out of curiosity, are you a US citizen? You sound like a non-citizen that doesn't 'get it' with regard to how the US is structured.
There is no question of the association allowing a satellite dish.
If you live in the US, you're covered by Federal Law. Now you just need to find an acceptable signal. I'm in Richmond, VA and have the 'east coast' Dish Network dish that works right in the middle of my tree-heavy property. It uses sats at 61.5, 72, and 77 degrees west.
I agree. This site has some calculations of power density vs distance - truly remarkable feat, if you ask me.
The High Gain Antenna on Voyager 1 has gain of 48.15 dB, making the Effective Radiated Power 1,384,500 W, or 61.43 dBW. The Goldstone 70m antenna has about 75 dB of gain. This Path-loss calculator shows that the signal is -179 dBW as received from 17.3 billion km away. That's 1.26 x 10^-18 W, or 1.26 attowatts.
If we had the collective courage [read - no enviro-wackos] to use RTGs on our Mars probes, we wouldn't have lost Spirit to freezing temperatures brought on by low power from the solar cells.
We used 'em on quite a few spacecraft - why they aren't used more often for solar power-limited missions escapes me.
Even if you don't go the whole RTG route, including a small chunk of Gd148 would've kept Spirit from freezing. From http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/6.3.7.1.htm:
"A ~0.2 kg block of pure Gd148 (~1 inch^3) initially yields ~120 watts, sufficient in theory to meet the complete basal power needs of an entire human body for ~1 century..."
You didn't attend R-MC, did you?
...and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
That's a strange way to word it.
So that covers Speech and Debate. What about voting? Can't they be prosecuted for casting an unconstitutional vote? To me that's mini-treason.
Since when were semi-automatic firearms the ultimate tactical weapon of the evil-doing belligerent revolutionist masses? Do people even know what semi-automatic means or has the media completely succeeded in demonizing them beyond rational logic?
1) Since Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Diane Feinstein rolled out poor old Brady and forced thru the ill-fated assault weapon ban (now sunsetted).
2) They've succeeded. Between the media and entertainment businesses, 'everyone' knows that M16's are evil, and that pistols are meant to be fired with the grip held horizontally.
The ban was laughable - it depended on how evil the gun looked, not on its mechanisms. (aftermarket stock = evil, standard wood stock ok).
What's the real difference? It's still government, who cares where it comes from?
The huge, super-important point that you're missing is that is you don't like the laws of one state, YOU CAN MOVE TO ANOTHER. If you think you're sales tax is too high, MOVE TO ANOTHER. If you don't like states with "Shall Issue" concealed handgun permits or that espouse the Castle Doctrine, MOVE. You can't move out from under the federal government without emigrating.
The point of the United States is that the states are (mostly) independent - IMHO they should be competing for citizens, and in some cases, they are. When taxes get crazy in NY or CA, for example, people move to other states more to their liking.