You know the GGP was talking about Richmond, BRITISH COLUMBIA, not Virginia, right?
With regard to Virginia drivers, I've seen the incidence of red light running climb steadily in the 30-odd years I've been driving here. I've also seen the number of cell phone zombies increase, and have to dodge them or stomp on the brakes as they swerve into my lane, totally oblivious to the world around them.
Thank heavens this law is going into effect soon. I wish it were stronger and covered all cell phone use.
That would make web browsing painful. Comcast has this boost feature that gives you +50% or so speed increase for the first 10+- secs of a connection. I can see it kick in on speedtest.net. Nice for getting website images, but useless (as intended) for torrents.
Not that I condone their tactics, but I think you're confusing bandwidth with usage. Assume I have a 20Mbit down connection and a 250GByte/mo cap. That's 100000 seconds or about 27.7 hours of full speed download.
I would _much_ rather have access to the full 20Mbit/sec with the cap than have them limit my download speed to 771kbit/s* so that it would be impossible for me to 'go over' my cap in any given month.
Your electrical service is the same way - they sell you (in the US) 120/240V service with a maximum draw of some number of amps (200 typically) - they don't guarantee that you can draw 200A all the time, just as a max. They 'oversubscribe' transformers just like internet access, taking use patterns into account.
As I recall back when I was studying, the feeling was that we should refrain from sensitive topics like religion and politics with foreign Hams so that they don't feel uncomfortable or get into hot water with their government.
Can you imagine the trouble a Cuban ham (for instance) would get into if we got him started talking politics and someone reported him? Ouch! I wouldn't want that on my conscience. I'd rather talk about old cars and warm weather.
There are plenty of other not-so-tolerant regimes out there that would likely punish their hams for wrongspeak.
I agree than 97.115 is a superset of why there are limitations on what we can do wrt other countries (and who can do it), but what other reason can you think of for the existence of 97.117? I don't think ragchewing is the issue - as long as you're off the calling freqs, what's the point of 599 QRZ all the time?
97.117 used to state very clearly that the message had to be so trivial that "...recourse to the public telecommunications service is not justified." That spells it out pretty clearly in my mind - if you have more than "Hello, station is..." to say, pick up the phone.
Since the FCC doesn't care about US telco profits, then the logical reason this rule exists is for the telcos in the other countries.
Not true. The old human ear has been surpassed by digital coding methods for a long time. It's now trivial for a DSP algorithm to decode signals 28 dB _below_ the noise floor. Signals you can't even hear it can decode. Look up WSPR for some amazing results.
The reason such topics are discouraged are clearly spelled out in 47 CFR 97.117 from 2004 (emphasis mine):
Sec. 97.117 International communications.
Transmissions to a different country, where permitted, shall be made in plain language and shall be limited to messages of a technical nature relating to tests, and, to remarks of a personal character for which, by reason of their unimportance, recourse to the public telecommunications service is not justified.
This US rule is a nod to the economics of communication and keeping Amateur Radio alive in other countries. Many foreign countries control their PT&T (Post, Telephone and Telegraph) and would otherwise forbid Amateur Radio if it cut into their revenue stream. The 2009 version is slightly different:
Sec. 97.117 International communications.
Transmissions to a different country, where permitted, shall be limited to communications incidental to the purposes of the amateur service and to remarks of a personal character.
I absolutely agree. I hear inverted bits and reversed letters the same. For instance, I confuse W (.--) with D (-..) and G (--.). 5 WPM was _hard_ for me.
Oddly, sending was never an issue - I could wail away at 20 wpm sending, but not hear a single character receiving.
Capturing the debris isn't the only function of an aerogel shield - hastening the decay of small but dangerous pieces of space junk by robbing them of velocity is also useful.
Not that we could put up an aerogel shield of sufficient size to make a single, tiny bit of difference...that's a different question.
You already need binoculars to see the ISS and then you can only spot it if the light reflects of it in the right way.
Patently false. Every overhead pass of the ISS results in a very bright, fast-moving display. In fact, the ISS is one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Most passes are magnitude -3.4 (very bright) to -3.0 (bright) - recall that stellar magnitudes are brighter the smaller the number, and are logarithmic. For reference, the brightest star is Sirius at magnitude -1.46. Venus is as bright as the maximum brightness of the ISS at magnitude -4.6, and Jupiter and Mars are only as bright as the dimmest overhead ISS passes at magnitude -2.9.
If you've never seen a bright ISS pass, it's worth seeing, especially if you can see the Space Shuttle flying in formation with it (it just launched this morning, so you're in luck). Check www.heavens-above.com or www.spaceweather.com for visibility predictions.
...clogged jets, cracked or otherwise damaged acceleration pump diaphragm, bent linkages, flooding,... grit caught up in the throttle butterfly such that it won't operate and the vehicle always runs rich or lean, if at all, or only operates at partial throttle. You can have endless failures in the vacuum system that handles the ignition timing advance...
All* of those are fail-safe scenarios; none of them would lead to uncontrolled acceleration. They are less reliable than electronic systems, but not necessarily safer. Huge difference.
*The exception would be grit that held the butterfly wide open.
Ah, you're correct. this site shows 210Pb as 'naturally occurring', which I thought implied 'not a daughter product', but as you said this site describes the decay chain from U238.
There is a big difference in lead with regard to radiation - the actual problem is the decay of Polonium (one of lead's daughter products). On an episode of "Treasure Quest", they made a big deal about explaining that chip manufacturers were willing to pay huge amounts of money for lead that was not contaminated with Polonium. It's called low alpha lead - here are some links:
Slashdot Mirror
That would be me, you insensitive clod!
You forgot your beret - your beret certainly _must've_ fallen off if you were that overcome.
Maybe he printed out each frame of the movie in ascii art and is going to compile a flip book. The audio will be more difficult, IMHO.
You know the GGP was talking about Richmond, BRITISH COLUMBIA, not Virginia, right?
With regard to Virginia drivers, I've seen the incidence of red light running climb steadily in the 30-odd years I've been driving here. I've also seen the number of cell phone zombies increase, and have to dodge them or stomp on the brakes as they swerve into my lane, totally oblivious to the world around them.
Thank heavens this law is going into effect soon. I wish it were stronger and covered all cell phone use.
Actually seen in the wild from a "Senior Java Programmer (tm)":
if (myObject.equals(null)) {
throw new Exception("Object is null");
}
That would make web browsing painful. Comcast has this boost feature that gives you +50% or so speed increase for the first 10+- secs of a connection. I can see it kick in on speedtest.net. Nice for getting website images, but useless (as intended) for torrents.
Not that I condone their tactics, but I think you're confusing bandwidth with usage. Assume I have a 20Mbit down connection and a 250GByte/mo cap. That's 100000 seconds or about 27.7 hours of full speed download.
I would _much_ rather have access to the full 20Mbit/sec with the cap than have them limit my download speed to 771kbit/s* so that it would be impossible for me to 'go over' my cap in any given month.
Your electrical service is the same way - they sell you (in the US) 120/240V service with a maximum draw of some number of amps (200 typically) - they don't guarantee that you can draw 200A all the time, just as a max. They 'oversubscribe' transformers just like internet access, taking use patterns into account.
* 250GB * 8 bits/byte / 2592000 sec/30 days = 771605 bits/sec
The same part that makes him like Will Smith in "Independence Day".
As I recall back when I was studying, the feeling was that we should refrain from sensitive topics like religion and politics with foreign Hams so that they don't feel uncomfortable or get into hot water with their government.
Can you imagine the trouble a Cuban ham (for instance) would get into if we got him started talking politics and someone reported him? Ouch! I wouldn't want that on my conscience. I'd rather talk about old cars and warm weather.
There are plenty of other not-so-tolerant regimes out there that would likely punish their hams for wrongspeak.
Nice chatting, btw. 73 de k4det
I agree than 97.115 is a superset of why there are limitations on what we can do wrt other countries (and who can do it), but what other reason can you think of for the existence of 97.117? I don't think ragchewing is the issue - as long as you're off the calling freqs, what's the point of 599 QRZ all the time?
97.117 used to state very clearly that the message had to be so trivial that "...recourse to the public ..." to say, pick up the phone.
telecommunications service is not justified." That spells it out pretty clearly in my mind - if you have more than "Hello, station is
Since the FCC doesn't care about US telco profits, then the logical reason this rule exists is for the telcos in the other countries.
Not true. The old human ear has been surpassed by digital coding methods for a long time. It's now trivial for a DSP algorithm to decode signals 28 dB _below_ the noise floor. Signals you can't even hear it can decode. Look up WSPR for some amazing results.
The reason such topics are discouraged are clearly spelled out in 47 CFR 97.117 from 2004 (emphasis mine):
Sec. 97.117 International communications.
Transmissions to a different country, where permitted, shall be made
in plain language and shall be limited to messages of a technical nature
relating to tests, and, to remarks of a personal character for which, by
reason of their unimportance, recourse to the public telecommunications
service is not justified.
This US rule is a nod to the economics of communication and keeping Amateur Radio alive in other countries. Many foreign countries control their PT&T (Post, Telephone and Telegraph) and would otherwise forbid Amateur Radio if it cut into their revenue stream. The 2009 version is slightly different:
Sec. 97.117 International communications.
Transmissions to a different country, where permitted, shall be
limited to communications incidental to the purposes of the amateur
service and to remarks of a personal character.
[71 FR 25982, May 3, 2006]
I absolutely agree. I hear inverted bits and reversed letters the same. For instance, I confuse W (.--) with D (-..) and G (--.). 5 WPM was _hard_ for me.
Oddly, sending was never an issue - I could wail away at 20 wpm sending, but not hear a single character receiving.
FYI, here's a nifty site with the semaphore and Morse signals the parent mentions. Here's the Dry, Boring Federal PDF.
You realize that name just means "One, One, Seven"-ium, right? 115 is Ununpentium (tm Intel), 116 is Ununhexium, etc.
Capturing the debris isn't the only function of an aerogel shield - hastening the decay of small but dangerous pieces of space junk by robbing them of velocity is also useful.
Not that we could put up an aerogel shield of sufficient size to make a single, tiny bit of difference...that's a different question.
Most estimates about cosmology - from Universe's age to the distance to nearest stars - were off by far greater amount until the last century or so...
So at what point in history did scientists believe the age of the universe to be 137.5 uS and the distance to Alpha Centauri 401 m?
14 orders of magnitude is _enormous_, unless you're talking about the relative strengths of the fundamental forces.
Ah yes, the smell of burnt clutch material. It does smell of burnt resistors/circuit boards, doesn't it?
You already need binoculars to see the ISS and then you can only spot it if the light reflects of it in the right way.
Patently false. Every overhead pass of the ISS results in a very bright, fast-moving display. In fact, the ISS is one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Most passes are magnitude -3.4 (very bright) to -3.0 (bright) - recall that stellar magnitudes are brighter the smaller the number, and are logarithmic. For reference, the brightest star is Sirius at magnitude -1.46. Venus is as bright as the maximum brightness of the ISS at magnitude -4.6, and Jupiter and Mars are only as bright as the dimmest overhead ISS passes at magnitude -2.9.
If you've never seen a bright ISS pass, it's worth seeing, especially if you can see the Space Shuttle flying in formation with it (it just launched this morning, so you're in luck). Check www.heavens-above.com or www.spaceweather.com for visibility predictions.
...clogged jets, cracked or otherwise damaged acceleration pump diaphragm, bent linkages, flooding, ... grit caught up in the throttle butterfly such that it won't operate and the vehicle always runs rich or lean, if at all, or only operates at partial throttle. You can have endless failures in the vacuum system that handles the ignition timing advance ...
All* of those are fail-safe scenarios; none of them would lead to uncontrolled acceleration. They are less reliable than electronic systems, but not necessarily safer. Huge difference.
*The exception would be grit that held the butterfly wide open.
Nomad, is that you? Did you ever find Roykirk?
Ah, you're correct. this site shows 210Pb as 'naturally occurring', which I thought implied 'not a daughter product', but as you said this site describes the decay chain from U238.
The Semiconductor article says that the Polonium comes from 210Pb:
"It is produced by the decay of 210Pb, which has a half-life over 22 years. If left in the sample, 210Pb would act as a long-term source of 210Po."
The ratios of lead isotopes determines the Polonium concentration, not uranium and not naturally-occurring Polonium.
...examples where F1 developments Post 1994 are in common mass produced production cars.
Many performance road cars owe their seamless shift transmissions to F1.
There is a big difference in lead with regard to radiation - the actual problem is the decay of Polonium (one of lead's daughter products). On an episode of "Treasure Quest", they made a big deal about explaining that chip manufacturers were willing to pay huge amounts of money for lead that was not contaminated with Polonium. It's called low alpha lead - here are some links:
Semiconductor International Article
mentions the show
Finacial Article