There's one big (by which I mean HUGE) problem with flywheels, particularly high-speed types. A flywheel is a large weight spinning around a central axis; it is a particularly efficient way of storing energy, if the bearings are good. Unfortunately, flywheels have another name: gyroscopes. Gyros are not used primarily for the purpose of storing energy, but they are functionally the same thing, a weight spinning around a central axis. Now, ask any pilot or physicist a few questions about gyros, and you'll hear the word "precession."
Precession is the tendency of a gyro react to an applied force as though the force was applied 90 degrees ahead in the direction of rotation; that is, if a gyro is spinning clockwise, and you apply a force at the top (12 o'clock) position, the gyro will react by moving in the direction of the force, but at the 3 o'clock (right side) position. The result of this precession in a car would be to induce a force 90 degrees away from an applied force. The applied force could be anything--a bump, a turn, or cresting a hill (changing directions in the vertical plane); cresting a hill is a particularly insidious problem, as it would reduce the weight on the wheels (if done at any significant speed, like on the highway), and thus reduce the traction between the tires and the ground. That processional force would tend to induce a roll, pitch, or yaw moment in the vehicle, depending on the applied force and the orientation of they gyro-flywheel. Such a force could be very strong indeed, as it is related to the mass and rotational speed of the gyro (related to stored energy); at 100,000 RPM, or even at lower RPM and significant mass, you are still faced with a potentially significant precessional force, which would tend to reduce the controllability of the vehicle. I, for one, would not want to be on the wrong end of that equation.
One possible solution to that problem is to use dual, contrarotating gyros, but that poses problems of its own. The gyros must be properly synchronized; loss of sync will result in one gyro having a stronger precessional moment than the other. Another is that a synchronization system adds weight, complexity (additional points of failure), and reduces efficiency of the system.
Lesser problems, also mentioned in other posts, include imbalance (a slight imbalance, rotated to high speed, will result in significant vibration, causing rough running and substantial bearing wear) and flywheel damage--the slightest imperfection in the flywheel, accelerated to 100,000 RPM, could easily result in flywheel failure, including the assiciated problems of shrapnel (ever see a rotating object come apart? pieces everywhere) and imbalance (lose a chunk, suddenly the balance is gone).
In short, while flywheels sound like a good solution, they are really quite impractical for automotive use. The drawbacks are far too significant, and have too much potential to be dangerous, to allow flywheels to be effectively used in cars.
(And yes, I know that cars do have small flywheels in the engine, but they are just that, small, and only spinning at a few thousand RPM's. They just provide steady energy for the engine between power strokes.)
First of all, let me inform you, dear reader, that some of this may not make sense immediately--I am replying to several posts in this thread, not only this one; I did so in this location because this is the post to which I most strongly wanted to reply. Also, let me apologize in advance if I step on anybody's toes, borrow your ideas without crediting you, etc.; I mean no harm or disrespect, I just don't know exactly whom I should credit, because there are so many people who have influenced the following opinion. That said, here goes:
Grateful, you say that "the profit models of hard merchandise simply are not applicable to software," because the marginal cost is lower. Specifically, you exemplify your argument with the concept that "'stealing' a song doesn't cost the shopkeeper, the music industry or the artist nearly as much as if someone stole a cd player, itself." This is true--the cost of the loss of a single CD, or even a single track, is significantly less than the cost of the loss of a CD player. There are, however, two flaws to this argument.
The first of these flaws is the scale of the theft. Yes, hard merchandise does cost more than intellectual property; to use your example of the music industry, the manufacture of a CD player may cost the company $50 in parts and labor, whereas the manufacture of a CD costs fifty cents. Your model breaks down, though, when you consider how the overall scale of the theft. Multiply the 50 cents by just one hundred instances, and you've arrived at the cost of one CD player. How many people use Napster alone? The last figures I heard put the number at something like 50 million users. With a base that large, it is very easy to see a hundred, a thousand, for some popular artists (Metallica, Britney Spears), even a million instances of theft. At one million instances, you are looking at the value equivalent of one thousand CD players. Multiply that again by the number of albums affected--assuming a conservative number of 10 albums in the life of an artist (highly conservative--my favorite artists, Chicago and Jimmy Buffett, have both released more than 30 albums), your value equivalent is that of ten thousand CD players.
([Digression] I am not attacking Napster here; I only used it as an example because it is the most popular of the sharing services. I personally feel that Napster, Inc. is not responsible for the actions of its users, any more than Smith & Wesson is responsible for the actions of the users of its products. The copyright infringement is the action of select users, not the service itself. [/Digression])
Second flaw: even assuming that my first argument is not valid, your opinion is predicated upon the idea that "'stealing' a song doesn't cost the shopkeeper, the music industry or the artist nearly as much as if someone stole a cd player, itself [emphasis added]." You argue that, because the theft is less severe, the rules should be different. This can be dissected on two levels. The first is that theft is wrong, regardless of the level. Case for analysis: if you hold a bank up, and net ten dollars, do you expect the DA to drop the case, because you didn't get ten thousand? "Well, yeah, your honor, I supposed I did hold up the First National, but I only got ten lousy bucks!" "Ten dollars? Case dismissed!" Such a judge would be disbarred, the prosecutor railed for legal malpractice. Another case: if I steal your car, it's grand theft auto, and you would be right to insist that the DA press charges. But if I were to siphon half your gas tank, the "end effect on the 'harmed party'" would be "quite different." Instead of being out several thousand dollars for your car, you'd be out twenty bucks for a tank of gas. This example also treats the idea that software theft is different than hardware theft because you still have the use of the item in question. If you really feel this way, please contact me with your name, address, and make/model of all vehicles owned by you; my gas gauge is getting perilously close to "E," and, as a poor broke college student, I can't afford to fill it right now.
The second part of the argument to this point is that the rules are, in fact, different, based upon the end effect. If I rob a bank and net ten grand, I'm going to spend a long time in a "Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison;" pull a convenience store stick-up, and I'll spend a year in a municipal jail, tops. Steal a pack of gum from said convenience store, and I'll probably get off with a suspended sentence. The rules do allow for varying the severity of the punishment according to the severity of the offense.
Now, for the part that responds to posts lower in the thread. If you haven't read the other posts in this thread, I advise you to do so now, because this will seem a lot more relevant after you do.
In a reply that appears to be two levels below this, dh003i writes that "If a law is wrong, you have no obligation to obey it." This falls into how you define "obligation" (no, we're not going to play Bubba Clinton-style word games here). Obligation, in the sense used by dh003i, seems to mean "moral obligation." I would agree with this statement, and extend it to include an idea put forth by TheGratefulNet: sometimes, you have not only the right, but the responsibility, to violate an unjust law. Grateful writes: "the colonial americans "ignored the law" of the british back about 200yrs ago and in the US this is regarded as a just and right thing [emphasis his]." I would agree with this statement--there are times when the law is wrong, and violating it would be correct (for example, certain civil rights cases come to mind, most notably the segregation cases of the 1960's.) With this argument, however, comes the caution that the victors get to write the history books.
When we rebelled against England, and won, we were right, because we defeated a government we felt was unjust. When the South rebelled against the Union, and lost, they were wrong, despite the fact that they acted in the very traditions upon which the Union was founded. Why the difference? Because they lost. At this point, then we come across a different definition of "obligation:" that of a legal obligation. Even if a law is morally wrong (making violation the proper course of action), you cannot violate the law and not expect to get caught for it. You can argue that the law is wrong, and sometimes you can even win with that argument. On the other hand, you can lose, and be punished according to the rules proscribed by the justice system. That is a risk you willingly accept when you choose to violate the law. Following your conscience is generally a good and safe path to follow; in fact, it is (in my humble opinion) the best course, because ultimately, you have only to answer to yourself (and to your conception of a Higher Being, if you are religious); in the same vein, though, when your conscience differs from the law, you do take the risk that you will be found guilty of violation of the law, and you will be appropriately (as defined by the justice system) dealt with. This means you may be telling your cellmate about your view that the law is wrong your case is on appeal. Like it or not, it is the way the system works, and the way it must work; imagine the chaos if you could get away with anything simply by claiming moral imperative ("Honest, your honor, I felt I had a moral duty to kill him!").
It's probably time for me to step off of my soapbox now. Half of you agree with me (and many of that half agreed before they read this), and the other half of you have already dismissed me as a crackpot sellout to the corporate side. Either way, I've influenced precious few of you. I bid you all happy reading, and ask only that you consider what I've said here with an open mind, if only for a moment.
This is true, but it also requires specialized hardware to be in the VCR and TV.
Macrovision Primer:
Automatic Gain Control: an automatic system for adjusting the amplification of a signal so that the output is at a standard level. This allows input signal variances to be compensated so that the TV displays consistently between sources. May be "fast" (responds quickly to change in signal level, similar to a "peak" level meter) or "slow" (responds to sloweer changes, like an "average" level meter"). TV's have slow AGC, VCR's have fast.
A frame of TV has several components. It contains a timing (sync) pulse, a threshold (black level, a baseline used by the AGC to determine what voltage corresponds to "black"), and the actual data being conveyed. Macrovision is a system of rapidly changing the black level, thus confusing a fast AGC and rendering the signal unwatchable, while (theoretically) leaving slow AGC's unaffected (as they respond to the average black level, not the instantaneous). By confusing the fast AGC of the VCR, the signal is deteriorated to the point where it is unwatchable. This system is augmented in newer equipment by Macrovision hardware, present in all newer VHS equipment (as required by JVC, the holder of the VHS license). 8mm does not have Macrovision circuitry, and is not affected by Macrovision; in this, it is like the "A" in the D2A2D of the previous post; however, when copying to 8mm, the Macrovision stays on the signal, it just doesn't manifest itself until copied back to VHS (i.e. the 8mm is a carrier, not affected by the disease).
If this new system can be implemented in such a way as to take advantage of differing signal properties of recording and playback equipment (note: most recording units do have different AGC's than most playback units), the system could conceivably work; this is unlikely, though, because TV signals carry information that is never viewable (by design); analog audio signals are pure signal, with no extraneous information. The best bet for such a system in audio would be to make a deal with the license holders for various recording technologies, and get the license holders to mandate the anti-copy hardware, the same way Macrovision is currently handled. This would likely result in a situation similar to the one with Macrovision, where old equipment becomes desirable specifically to circumvent copy prevention. Everything old is new again:-).
For a much better explanation of Macrovision, as well a plausible (read: I haven't tested it, but it looks reasonable) Macrovision remover, check out Antti Paarlahti's page here. Another Macrovision remover, this one using PIC's, can be found on Andrew McCubbin's page here
Actually, you are talking about two different things. Selective Availability, the degredation of the general-use signal, was turned off last January. However, you seem to have confused SA with the different codes available.
There are two (three, actually) codes transmitted by the GPS satellites. The C/A-code (coarse/acquisition) is the "general use" code, available to all, and (formerly) subject to SA. The P-code (precision code) is the "military" code; it requires special receivers, and you have to have a DoD license to get said receivers. The third code is the Y-code, and is used in conjunction with the P-code, and is not relevant for this discussion.
There is no way to get to the P-code from the C/A-code; the P-code is approximately 1 millisecond in length (1,024 bits, transmitted at 1.023 MHz); the P-code is a week long, even transmitted at ten times the rate (10.23 MHz).
The C/A- and P-codes are not "encrypted" in the classical sense of the word, they are just signal formats. (The P-code is encrypted to form the Y-code, but that's another matter.) SA does not perform any "encryption" on the C/A-code, it blurs the timing slightly between satellites, so your receiver doesn't know the precise length of time the signal took to arrive from the satellite. This causes the receiver to have a certain amount of ambiguity, and degrades the accuracy of the signal.
Please forgive my posting the extraordinarily obvious and simple solution to this problem, but instead of rectifying the AC, why not generate DC directly? Seems fairly simple, doesn't it?
Yes, I know this would require new generators, but if they're totally rebuilding the major links of the power grid, what's a couple of generators? Hell, most places need more power generators anyway; this wouldn't be a replacement, but an augmentataion.
Sorry for the obvious; I'll step back out of the real world now.
First of all, if I insinuated that crime could be traced to that one cause, I must apologize--while I believe that it is a factor, it is certainly not the whole cause. Blaming guns, either way, is like blaming computers for the actions of hackers.
That said, in answer to your question, I do trust my neighbor and/or myself with crime prevention. I do not mean to suggest that we should patrol the streets, taking responsibility for crime prevention for society at large, but that we are capable of previnting serious crimes against ourselves. For example, if somebody breaks into my house at three in the morning (example chosen because your burglary rate is quite high), do I really need to know what statute he is violating, and the exact wording, to defend myself? Similarly, if a woman is walking down the street and is attacked, does she need to know the precise legal definition of "rape" to be able to prevent one? I would say no.
Furthermore, for the police to be effective, they either have to witness the crime, or be summoned. In the case of the burglary, witnessing the crime would almost require being in the residence at the time. I don't know about you, but "a police officer in every house" strikes me as a bad idea (it would help the crime rate, but at the cost of civil rights/liberties). This leaves us to summon the police. Now I don't know about British crooks, but over here, the criminals aren't so polite as to allow you to make a phone call while they burglarize you. Matter of fact, they generally don't let you do much of anything. In the case of the rape victim, how would she summon the police? She might scream, and he might slit her throat. Crime victims generally don't have an option for contacting the police before or during the commission of a crime. That being the case, how can police prevent a crime? Yes, having more police on the street acts as a deterrent to some, but that effect is limited, and leads to a police state, something Americans tend to oppose.
Additionally, you mention the response time of your police after hours as being 20 minutes; what is it when the local officer is on duty? Ten minutes? Five? How long does it take to mug (rob on the street) somebody? Something in the neighborhood of thirty seconds. That means, in that five-minute response time, you can be mugged ten times! Many other crimes have similar time figures. When you consider the response time of police officers, their use declines from crime prevention to "cleaning up" after the fact, and attempting to bring the perpetrator to justice. Even if the perp is caught, though, the crime doesn't go away. Just because the rapist sits in a little cement box with metal bars on the window and door doesn't mean that the victim didn't have to suffer through his actions.
Last point: increased gun ownwership has been shown to lower crime rates. In 1982, Kennesaw County, Georgia, passed an ordinance requiring that every able-bodied head of household have a gun for defense of family and community. (Felons, the mentally ill, and conscientious objectors were excluded from the requirement.) In the intervening years since that law was enacted, crime in all categories has been reduced by over 80%, with murder and burglary falling more than 87%. Indeed, there have been only two murders since 1984, and both of them were stabbings. Incidentally, in the same time, their population has increased fourfold, from 5000 to 20,000. Another case in point: the state of Florida loosened its concealed-carry laws in 1988, at a time when violent crime rates increased 14% nationwide, the rate in Florida dropped 21%, and has consistently stayed lower than other states with more restrictive laws. Another locale experimenting with gun ownerhips is Virgin, Utah. Meanwhile, cities like New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC keep making it tougher to own a firearm (in fact, all three of these cities have forbidden it outright), and their crime rates are climbing. The evidence is pretty clear on this point.
Anyhow, sorry to stray so far off-topic; this subject just strikes a nerve within me. I'll step down again...
"Let me tell you about Florida politicians. I make them. I make them out a whole cloth just like a tailor makes a suit. I get their name in the newspaper, I get them some publicity and get them on the ballot. Then after the election we count the votes and if they don't turn out right, we re-count them and re-count them again until they do."
--Edward G. Robinson to Humphrey Bogart, Key Largo, 1946
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but England's crime rate is really not better than the US. Indeed, it is worse in several categories. Furthermore, where our crime rate has shown a decline over the past twenty or so years, the crime rate in the UK has been increasing over the same period; in some categories, our higher rate has become closer to Britain's, and in other categories, Britain's rate has passed ours. (Definition: "rate" refers to crimes per 1,000 people in their population. Yes, I know the US has more crimes; that tends to happen when you have a susbstantially larger population. When comparing apples to apples, though, the truth comes out.)
Don't take my word for it, though--read the US DoJ report on the comparative crime rates between our country and theirs. This report has been scrutinized by activists on both ends of the political spectrum, and has held up to all scrutiny. For other interesting information about Britain's failing attempt at crime control, check out the World Wide Web Gun Defense Clock. Pay particularly close attention to the passage from Marvin Wolfgang.
Incidentally, Britain is considered by the UN to be the second-worst violator of human rights in Europe (Italy is the worst). They routinely violate the rights of the accused, privacy has fallen by the wayside...
...but yeah, the Brits are doing something right.
Sorry, I'll step down off my soapbox now.
"Let me tell you about Florida politicians. I make them. I make them out a whole cloth just like a tailor makes a suit. I get their name in the newspaper, I get them some publicity and get them on the ballot. Then after the election we count the votes and if they don't turn out right, we re-count them and re-count them again
until they do."
--Edward G. Robinson to Humphrey Bogart, Key Largo, 1946
It's not ASCII, it's an accent. Musical notation uses a ">" character to indicate that a note should be accented (3/4 value and one dynamic level louder, give or take). An interesting use of symbols, but a poor choice if people don't get it.
Congrats on passing your checkride! I, too, am a pilot. I hold PP-ASEL, with Instrument (as of last November), and am working on Commercial. I'm an aviation major at the University of Oklahoma. Oh, and another of the replies to this post asks if by chance you mean Lubbock by northern Texas. If so, it's a small world--last semester, while working on Instrument, I flew down to Lubbock. Neat trip.
Better stop now, or else I'll never shut up...get me started on flying and pay the consequences!
As stated in at least one other post, the cell phone ban originally comes from the FCC, not the FAA. The reason transmitters are barred from use is not that they are likely to cause interference, but the slim possibility that they might. Equipment installed in aircraft goes through extensive and rigorous testing procedures to make sure that it will not cause interference to other systems, even under the worst of conditions. (This is also the main reason avionics are so expensive.) Your cell phone/ham tranceiver/walkie-talkie does not go through such testing, and is therefore not approved for use in flight. Receivers are also barred because almost all receivers (all modern designs) use a small oscillator as part of the reciever; under some conditions, that oscillator may act as a transmitter. Laptops, CD players, etc. are considered safe because the power levels, frequencies, etc. of their oscillators are such that they are not potential sources of problems, as well as the fact that they are generally well shielded.
Items such as GPS receivers are also prohibited, but may in some cases be used-. The prohibition is a general blanket statement by the FAA; Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR's) specifically state that the pilot-in-command (read: captain) has the final authority as to the flight. As such, the captain can allow you to use your GPS, ham transceiver, etc. Most won't (and shouldn't!) allow a transceiver, but often will allow a GPS, especially an aviation model. All you have to do is ask. Just remember, if the captain says no, the answer is NO!
(Incidentally, I am a pilot myself, as well as a ham and an electronics enthusiast.)
This might cause trouble for air-ground communications, but messages can be cached until such time as they can reliably be sent. The network within the aircraft would be nearly immune to disruption because it exists inside a metal structure (the aluminum fuselage), which has a shielding effect--a Faraday cage, to those familiar with physics. Thus, while the transmission of an e-mail to the ground may be delayed, the person would never see the trouble. Indeed, this is already the case--the aircraft only communicates with the ground at specified intervals, not constantly.
As for web browsing, the impermanent connection kinda precludes it.
Use your laptop and webcam as a black box for the airplane...or, as you fly over Iraq, snap a few pictures of that weapons complex, then upload/e-mail them to the CIA. Look, ma, no satellites!
The Harvard group postulates that we are much more likely to be contacted by aliens via laser, or other tight-beam system, as the narrower beam width would require less power (makes more effiecient use of power). This theory is right on the money--if the aliens are deliberately trying to contact us. Much more likely, however, is that we would pick up extraneous signals intended for their own use. For those who have seen Contact, think about how the otherworlders discovered us--they picked up the first signal we radiated into space with any significant power. We weren't trying to contact anybody, just send TV across the ocean; that the signal was radiated into space was merely a consequence of using radio as the method of transmission. Because radio signals tend to scatter, especially on that older technology, the signal was radiated in all directions, including "up." Detecting that accidental emission, the aliens determined that there was life on our planet. It is less like communication (a deliberate two-way discourse), and more like Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). And (don't all raise your hands at once) who knows who the leader in SIGINT is? The NSA! Odds are, the NSA is going to discover the signal before SETI, NASA, or any others. I don't mean to suggest that they will discover life--in my opinion, that is highly unlikely, simply because those aren't the types of signals NSA looks for--it would likely be chalked up as noise, and they would go back to monitoring Chinese satellite traffic. I am only saying that they would likely be the first to receive (detect) the presence of the signal. It would have to be analyzed in the proper context (enter SETI) to be recognized for what it is. The ultimate dream system for SETI would be to use the Areciebo (sp?) dish, the VLA, etc, as well as NSA's resources, use NSA's signal-detection and -processing systems, then use their own analysis tools. Imagine what a powerful combination that could be!
The point here is that we are far more likely to detect an alien civilization by listening for spurious emissions (SIGINT) than by searching for signals deliberatly aimed at us. In order to detect a laser aimed at us, we would have to examine every star capable of supporting life (same as with SIGINT), but they would also have to aim the signal at us deliberately--that is, they would have to have already detected us and decided to try to contact us. Think about that from their point of view--if you worked for SETI or NASA or others, would you be shining lasers into space to try to communicate with other planets that may or may not have life and may or may not be listening and may or may not even understand what they are looking for? I know I wouldn't, and I'm a supporter of SETI. Realistically, listening for broadcast signals is much more likely to yield results than looking for tight-beam communications.
Incidentally, I didn't bring up the NSA to suggest any sort of conspiracy, just to discuss the equipment differences. And, no, I really don't believe the US Government has been hiding aliens at Roswell for the last 40 years. To almost-quote Dave Barry, it isn't that I don't believe that aliens might have crashed at Roswell, I just don't believe that our government could successfully run a cover-up for that long.
Better yet: scan the page beneath, run OCR, run that through the fish, and display the output in a language of your choice. One step closer to a universal translator, and one step backwards for foreign language education in the schools:-)
One significant potential use for this is as an aircraft HUD. Several people have mentioned auto HUD's, but pilots have a much greater need for this than drivers. While the FLIR system that is an option in Caddies is a damned cool toy, as a pilot, I would be absolutely thrilled to have FLIR/Nav/performance data displayed on my windscreen. One of the major causes of crashes is pilot disorientation; pilots, lacking an outside reference, get vertigo, and don't know what the attitude of the aircraft is (they may have an artificial horizon, but it's very easy to dismiss a 3" gauge); if we had a system where all of the windows showed a real horizon line, situational awareness would be greatly improved. Additionally, the system could be used to provide steering cues (even to the degree of NASA's "Highway in the Sky" idea), weather information (look out the left window, see green radar returns; look out front, see yellow; Stormscope (lightning detector) data could also be shown), traffic info (put a highlight box around other air traffic, making it easier to find), or any other data you might like. The possibilities are truly endless; the bottom line, though, is that this could be an incredible tool for pilots of all aircraft (if inexpensive enough), and a great boon to aviation safety.
This is actually fairly old news--I gave a briefing on this to my ROTC class last year, in fact. The highlights of the briefing:
The airframe is a Boeing 747-400F, a standard commercial freighter, with modifications to house the laser.
Testing is slated to begin as early as 2003, with a seven-plane operational fleet in service as early as 2009.
The laser is to be a multi-megawatt oxygen-iodine system. A multi-hundred-kilowatt system was successfully flight-tested in 1998.
The system uses "adaptive optics," mirrors which can be deformed to correct for atmospheric effects such as "thermal bloom," the heating of air by the laser, causing distortion (like looking down a hot road).
The project is run by the Air Force Research Labs Directed Energy Directorate, based at Kirtland AFB, NM, and has been around in some form or other for at least 20 years.
Contractors include Boeing, TRW Space and Electronics Group (developing laser), and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space (developing beam- and fire-control systems).
Boeing and Rockwell competed for a $22 million concept-definition contract, with Boeing winning that contract, and the $1.3 billion Airborne Laser Program Definition and Risk Reduction contract.
The program calls for destruction of a boosting theater ballistic missile by the fall of 2002.
A follow-on contract of about $4.5 billion to complete engineering, manufacturing, development and production efforts of a seven aircraft fleet will be awarded following successful completion of the initial contract.
There were some really neat pictures of the airplane on the USAF website www.af.mil, as well as a couple of stories, but they've been relegated to the archives. One of those stories, from which most of this information is taken, can be found at http://www.af.mil/news/Jan2000/n20000124_000101.ht ml. Incidentally, the best description I've ever found of the optical technology can be found in Tom Clancy's The Cardinal of the Kremlin.
An additional note: there was mention that a computer would fire the laser, not a person. This is true, at least after a fashion. Yes, the computer actually fires the laser--this is necessary, as there is no human out there who has the timing to hit an object moving at 12,000 miles an hour. The system must first be armed, though, and this is done by a human. While I do understand the concern about a computer controlling the weapon, in this case, there is still a man in the loop.
As a private organization, the Catholic Church has every right to filter their internet access. While people may disagree with thier decision to do so (I do), the fact remains that they have no obligation to provide unfiltered access. Incidentally, as several posts have mentioned, they do provide unfiltered access upon request.
The real problem here is not simply the access restrictions, it is the conflicting doctrine of the church. The church does say that viewing pornography, et al, is a sin. This is not in dispute. But there is another point in church doctrine that is not compatible with content filtration--the doctrine of free will. The church asserts that man is given free will, the ability to do as he chooses. The church asserts that God grants the people the option to sin if they wish; the church says that the people have the option, and that the people should choose to behave themselves. Indeed, the entire concept of salvation, among the fundamental tenets of the church, is based upon voluntarily choosing to accept their beliefs. In light of this, it seems that implementing content filtration by default would mitigate the value of a person's choice not to view naughty websites; his free will has been diminished.
In short, the choice of the church to implement content filtration by default seems to be a complicated issue at best, and a contradiction of doctrine at worst. But, while it may be a breech of doctrine in the eyes of some, it is certainly within the church's rights to do so.
Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Catholic church. If I have offended anybody, or made mistakes on any details, I am sorry; I didn't mean to do it. This comment is based on my understanding and interpretation of Catholic beliefs. I welcome any relevant posts along this topic.
Slashdot Mirror
There's one big (by which I mean HUGE) problem with flywheels, particularly high-speed types. A flywheel is a large weight spinning around a central axis; it is a particularly efficient way of storing energy, if the bearings are good. Unfortunately, flywheels have another name: gyroscopes. Gyros are not used primarily for the purpose of storing energy, but they are functionally the same thing, a weight spinning around a central axis. Now, ask any pilot or physicist a few questions about gyros, and you'll hear the word "precession."
Precession is the tendency of a gyro react to an applied force as though the force was applied 90 degrees ahead in the direction of rotation; that is, if a gyro is spinning clockwise, and you apply a force at the top (12 o'clock) position, the gyro will react by moving in the direction of the force, but at the 3 o'clock (right side) position. The result of this precession in a car would be to induce a force 90 degrees away from an applied force. The applied force could be anything--a bump, a turn, or cresting a hill (changing directions in the vertical plane); cresting a hill is a particularly insidious problem, as it would reduce the weight on the wheels (if done at any significant speed, like on the highway), and thus reduce the traction between the tires and the ground. That processional force would tend to induce a roll, pitch, or yaw moment in the vehicle, depending on the applied force and the orientation of they gyro-flywheel. Such a force could be very strong indeed, as it is related to the mass and rotational speed of the gyro (related to stored energy); at 100,000 RPM, or even at lower RPM and significant mass, you are still faced with a potentially significant precessional force, which would tend to reduce the controllability of the vehicle. I, for one, would not want to be on the wrong end of that equation.
One possible solution to that problem is to use dual, contrarotating gyros, but that poses problems of its own. The gyros must be properly synchronized; loss of sync will result in one gyro having a stronger precessional moment than the other. Another is that a synchronization system adds weight, complexity (additional points of failure), and reduces efficiency of the system.
Lesser problems, also mentioned in other posts, include imbalance (a slight imbalance, rotated to high speed, will result in significant vibration, causing rough running and substantial bearing wear) and flywheel damage--the slightest imperfection in the flywheel, accelerated to 100,000 RPM, could easily result in flywheel failure, including the assiciated problems of shrapnel (ever see a rotating object come apart? pieces everywhere) and imbalance (lose a chunk, suddenly the balance is gone).
In short, while flywheels sound like a good solution, they are really quite impractical for automotive use. The drawbacks are far too significant, and have too much potential to be dangerous, to allow flywheels to be effectively used in cars.
(And yes, I know that cars do have small flywheels in the engine, but they are just that, small, and only spinning at a few thousand RPM's. They just provide steady energy for the engine between power strokes.)
A use for my college cafeteria!
First of all, let me inform you, dear reader, that some of this may not make sense immediately--I am replying to several posts in this thread, not only this one; I did so in this location because this is the post to which I most strongly wanted to reply. Also, let me apologize in advance if I step on anybody's toes, borrow your ideas without crediting you, etc.; I mean no harm or disrespect, I just don't know exactly whom I should credit, because there are so many people who have influenced the following opinion. That said, here goes:
Grateful, you say that "the profit models of hard merchandise simply are not applicable to software," because the marginal cost is lower. Specifically, you exemplify your argument with the concept that "'stealing' a song doesn't cost the shopkeeper, the music industry or the artist nearly as much as if someone stole a cd player, itself." This is true--the cost of the loss of a single CD, or even a single track, is significantly less than the cost of the loss of a CD player. There are, however, two flaws to this argument.
The first of these flaws is the scale of the theft. Yes, hard merchandise does cost more than intellectual property; to use your example of the music industry, the manufacture of a CD player may cost the company $50 in parts and labor, whereas the manufacture of a CD costs fifty cents. Your model breaks down, though, when you consider how the overall scale of the theft. Multiply the 50 cents by just one hundred instances, and you've arrived at the cost of one CD player. How many people use Napster alone? The last figures I heard put the number at something like 50 million users. With a base that large, it is very easy to see a hundred, a thousand, for some popular artists (Metallica, Britney Spears), even a million instances of theft. At one million instances, you are looking at the value equivalent of one thousand CD players. Multiply that again by the number of albums affected--assuming a conservative number of 10 albums in the life of an artist (highly conservative--my favorite artists, Chicago and Jimmy Buffett, have both released more than 30 albums), your value equivalent is that of ten thousand CD players.
([Digression] I am not attacking Napster here; I only used it as an example because it is the most popular of the sharing services. I personally feel that Napster, Inc. is not responsible for the actions of its users, any more than Smith & Wesson is responsible for the actions of the users of its products. The copyright infringement is the action of select users, not the service itself. [/Digression])
Second flaw: even assuming that my first argument is not valid, your opinion is predicated upon the idea that "'stealing' a song doesn't cost the shopkeeper, the music industry or the artist nearly as much as if someone stole a cd player, itself [emphasis added]." You argue that, because the theft is less severe, the rules should be different. This can be dissected on two levels. The first is that theft is wrong, regardless of the level. Case for analysis: if you hold a bank up, and net ten dollars, do you expect the DA to drop the case, because you didn't get ten thousand? "Well, yeah, your honor, I supposed I did hold up the First National, but I only got ten lousy bucks!" "Ten dollars? Case dismissed!" Such a judge would be disbarred, the prosecutor railed for legal malpractice. Another case: if I steal your car, it's grand theft auto, and you would be right to insist that the DA press charges. But if I were to siphon half your gas tank, the "end effect on the 'harmed party'" would be "quite different." Instead of being out several thousand dollars for your car, you'd be out twenty bucks for a tank of gas. This example also treats the idea that software theft is different than hardware theft because you still have the use of the item in question. If you really feel this way, please contact me with your name, address, and make/model of all vehicles owned by you; my gas gauge is getting perilously close to "E," and, as a poor broke college student, I can't afford to fill it right now.
The second part of the argument to this point is that the rules are, in fact, different, based upon the end effect. If I rob a bank and net ten grand, I'm going to spend a long time in a "Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison;" pull a convenience store stick-up, and I'll spend a year in a municipal jail, tops. Steal a pack of gum from said convenience store, and I'll probably get off with a suspended sentence. The rules do allow for varying the severity of the punishment according to the severity of the offense.
Now, for the part that responds to posts lower in the thread. If you haven't read the other posts in this thread, I advise you to do so now, because this will seem a lot more relevant after you do.
In a reply that appears to be two levels below this, dh003i writes that "If a law is wrong, you have no obligation to obey it." This falls into how you define "obligation" (no, we're not going to play Bubba Clinton-style word games here). Obligation, in the sense used by dh003i, seems to mean "moral obligation." I would agree with this statement, and extend it to include an idea put forth by TheGratefulNet: sometimes, you have not only the right, but the responsibility, to violate an unjust law. Grateful writes: "the colonial americans "ignored the law" of the british back about 200yrs ago and in the US this is regarded as a just and right thing [emphasis his]." I would agree with this statement--there are times when the law is wrong, and violating it would be correct (for example, certain civil rights cases come to mind, most notably the segregation cases of the 1960's.) With this argument, however, comes the caution that the victors get to write the history books.
When we rebelled against England, and won, we were right, because we defeated a government we felt was unjust. When the South rebelled against the Union, and lost, they were wrong, despite the fact that they acted in the very traditions upon which the Union was founded. Why the difference? Because they lost. At this point, then we come across a different definition of "obligation:" that of a legal obligation. Even if a law is morally wrong (making violation the proper course of action), you cannot violate the law and not expect to get caught for it. You can argue that the law is wrong, and sometimes you can even win with that argument. On the other hand, you can lose, and be punished according to the rules proscribed by the justice system. That is a risk you willingly accept when you choose to violate the law. Following your conscience is generally a good and safe path to follow; in fact, it is (in my humble opinion) the best course, because ultimately, you have only to answer to yourself (and to your conception of a Higher Being, if you are religious); in the same vein, though, when your conscience differs from the law, you do take the risk that you will be found guilty of violation of the law, and you will be appropriately (as defined by the justice system) dealt with. This means you may be telling your cellmate about your view that the law is wrong your case is on appeal. Like it or not, it is the way the system works, and the way it must work; imagine the chaos if you could get away with anything simply by claiming moral imperative ("Honest, your honor, I felt I had a moral duty to kill him!").
It's probably time for me to step off of my soapbox now. Half of you agree with me (and many of that half agreed before they read this), and the other half of you have already dismissed me as a crackpot sellout to the corporate side. Either way, I've influenced precious few of you. I bid you all happy reading, and ask only that you consider what I've said here with an open mind, if only for a moment.
This is true, but it also requires specialized hardware to be in the VCR and TV.
Macrovision Primer:
Automatic Gain Control: an automatic system for adjusting the amplification of a signal so that the output is at a standard level. This allows input signal variances to be compensated so that the TV displays consistently between sources. May be "fast" (responds quickly to change in signal level, similar to a "peak" level meter) or "slow" (responds to sloweer changes, like an "average" level meter"). TV's have slow AGC, VCR's have fast.
A frame of TV has several components. It contains a timing (sync) pulse, a threshold (black level, a baseline used by the AGC to determine what voltage corresponds to "black"), and the actual data being conveyed. Macrovision is a system of rapidly changing the black level, thus confusing a fast AGC and rendering the signal unwatchable, while (theoretically) leaving slow AGC's unaffected (as they respond to the average black level, not the instantaneous). By confusing the fast AGC of the VCR, the signal is deteriorated to the point where it is unwatchable. This system is augmented in newer equipment by Macrovision hardware, present in all newer VHS equipment (as required by JVC, the holder of the VHS license). 8mm does not have Macrovision circuitry, and is not affected by Macrovision; in this, it is like the "A" in the D2A2D of the previous post; however, when copying to 8mm, the Macrovision stays on the signal, it just doesn't manifest itself until copied back to VHS (i.e. the 8mm is a carrier, not affected by the disease).
If this new system can be implemented in such a way as to take advantage of differing signal properties of recording and playback equipment (note: most recording units do have different AGC's than most playback units), the system could conceivably work; this is unlikely, though, because TV signals carry information that is never viewable (by design); analog audio signals are pure signal, with no extraneous information. The best bet for such a system in audio would be to make a deal with the license holders for various recording technologies, and get the license holders to mandate the anti-copy hardware, the same way Macrovision is currently handled. This would likely result in a situation similar to the one with Macrovision, where old equipment becomes desirable specifically to circumvent copy prevention. Everything old is new again :-).
For a much better explanation of Macrovision, as well a plausible (read: I haven't tested it, but it looks reasonable) Macrovision remover, check out Antti Paarlahti's page here. Another Macrovision remover, this one using PIC's, can be found on Andrew McCubbin's page here
Hope this is useful to somebody!
Actually, you are talking about two different things. Selective Availability, the degredation of the general-use signal, was turned off last January. However, you seem to have confused SA with the different codes available.
There are two (three, actually) codes transmitted by the GPS satellites. The C/A-code (coarse/acquisition) is the "general use" code, available to all, and (formerly) subject to SA. The P-code (precision code) is the "military" code; it requires special receivers, and you have to have a DoD license to get said receivers. The third code is the Y-code, and is used in conjunction with the P-code, and is not relevant for this discussion.
There is no way to get to the P-code from the C/A-code; the P-code is approximately 1 millisecond in length (1,024 bits, transmitted at 1.023 MHz); the P-code is a week long, even transmitted at ten times the rate (10.23 MHz).
The C/A- and P-codes are not "encrypted" in the classical sense of the word, they are just signal formats. (The P-code is encrypted to form the Y-code, but that's another matter.) SA does not perform any "encryption" on the C/A-code, it blurs the timing slightly between satellites, so your receiver doesn't know the precise length of time the signal took to arrive from the satellite. This causes the receiver to have a certain amount of ambiguity, and degrades the accuracy of the signal.
For more information on the system, check out the Naval Observatory's site on GPS.
This just in...the stolen source code was originally kept on a server at Los Alamos...details at 11...
For the History Challenged, Reagan left office in 1988...
Please forgive my posting the extraordinarily obvious and simple solution to this problem, but instead of rectifying the AC, why not generate DC directly? Seems fairly simple, doesn't it?
Yes, I know this would require new generators, but if they're totally rebuilding the major links of the power grid, what's a couple of generators? Hell, most places need more power generators anyway; this wouldn't be a replacement, but an augmentataion.
Sorry for the obvious; I'll step back out of the real world now.
There's only one kind of bottle that anybody at the FBI knows, and they're all drinking out of it.
Funny, I've seen something like this before...can't quite remember where, though...
Oh, yes, that's right. Microsoft.
First of all, if I insinuated that crime could be traced to that one cause, I must apologize--while I believe that it is a factor, it is certainly not the whole cause. Blaming guns, either way, is like blaming computers for the actions of hackers.
That said, in answer to your question, I do trust my neighbor and/or myself with crime prevention. I do not mean to suggest that we should patrol the streets, taking responsibility for crime prevention for society at large, but that we are capable of previnting serious crimes against ourselves. For example, if somebody breaks into my house at three in the morning (example chosen because your burglary rate is quite high), do I really need to know what statute he is violating, and the exact wording, to defend myself? Similarly, if a woman is walking down the street and is attacked, does she need to know the precise legal definition of "rape" to be able to prevent one? I would say no.
Furthermore, for the police to be effective, they either have to witness the crime, or be summoned. In the case of the burglary, witnessing the crime would almost require being in the residence at the time. I don't know about you, but "a police officer in every house" strikes me as a bad idea (it would help the crime rate, but at the cost of civil rights/liberties). This leaves us to summon the police. Now I don't know about British crooks, but over here, the criminals aren't so polite as to allow you to make a phone call while they burglarize you. Matter of fact, they generally don't let you do much of anything. In the case of the rape victim, how would she summon the police? She might scream, and he might slit her throat. Crime victims generally don't have an option for contacting the police before or during the commission of a crime. That being the case, how can police prevent a crime? Yes, having more police on the street acts as a deterrent to some, but that effect is limited, and leads to a police state, something Americans tend to oppose.
Additionally, you mention the response time of your police after hours as being 20 minutes; what is it when the local officer is on duty? Ten minutes? Five? How long does it take to mug (rob on the street) somebody? Something in the neighborhood of thirty seconds. That means, in that five-minute response time, you can be mugged ten times! Many other crimes have similar time figures. When you consider the response time of police officers, their use declines from crime prevention to "cleaning up" after the fact, and attempting to bring the perpetrator to justice. Even if the perp is caught, though, the crime doesn't go away. Just because the rapist sits in a little cement box with metal bars on the window and door doesn't mean that the victim didn't have to suffer through his actions.
Last point: increased gun ownwership has been shown to lower crime rates. In 1982, Kennesaw County, Georgia, passed an ordinance requiring that every able-bodied head of household have a gun for defense of family and community. (Felons, the mentally ill, and conscientious objectors were excluded from the requirement.) In the intervening years since that law was enacted, crime in all categories has been reduced by over 80%, with murder and burglary falling more than 87%. Indeed, there have been only two murders since 1984, and both of them were stabbings. Incidentally, in the same time, their population has increased fourfold, from 5000 to 20,000. Another case in point: the state of Florida loosened its concealed-carry laws in 1988, at a time when violent crime rates increased 14% nationwide, the rate in Florida dropped 21%, and has consistently stayed lower than other states with more restrictive laws. Another locale experimenting with gun ownerhips is Virgin, Utah. Meanwhile, cities like New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC keep making it tougher to own a firearm (in fact, all three of these cities have forbidden it outright), and their crime rates are climbing. The evidence is pretty clear on this point.
Anyhow, sorry to stray so far off-topic; this subject just strikes a nerve within me. I'll step down again...
"Let me tell you about Florida politicians. I make them. I make them out a whole cloth just like a tailor makes a suit. I get their name in the newspaper, I get them some publicity and get them on the ballot. Then after the election we count the votes and if they don't turn out right, we re-count them and re-count them again until they do."
--Edward G. Robinson to Humphrey Bogart, Key Largo, 1946
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but England's crime rate is really not better than the US. Indeed, it is worse in several categories. Furthermore, where our crime rate has shown a decline over the past twenty or so years, the crime rate in the UK has been increasing over the same period; in some categories, our higher rate has become closer to Britain's, and in other categories, Britain's rate has passed ours. (Definition: "rate" refers to crimes per 1,000 people in their population. Yes, I know the US has more crimes; that tends to happen when you have a susbstantially larger population. When comparing apples to apples, though, the truth comes out.)
Don't take my word for it, though--read the US DoJ report on the comparative crime rates between our country and theirs. This report has been scrutinized by activists on both ends of the political spectrum, and has held up to all scrutiny. For other interesting information about Britain's failing attempt at crime control, check out the World Wide Web Gun Defense Clock. Pay particularly close attention to the passage from Marvin Wolfgang.
Incidentally, Britain is considered by the UN to be the second-worst violator of human rights in Europe (Italy is the worst). They routinely violate the rights of the accused, privacy has fallen by the wayside...
...but yeah, the Brits are doing something right.
Sorry, I'll step down off my soapbox now.
"Let me tell you about Florida politicians. I make them. I make them out a whole cloth just like a tailor makes a suit. I get their name in the newspaper, I get them some publicity and get them on the ballot. Then after the election we count the votes and if they don't turn out right, we re-count them and re-count them again until they do."
--Edward G. Robinson to Humphrey Bogart, Key Largo, 1946
It's not ASCII, it's an accent. Musical notation uses a ">" character to indicate that a note should be accented (3/4 value and one dynamic level louder, give or take). An interesting use of symbols, but a poor choice if people don't get it.
They get sent to a nice old man named Kris Kringle in a New York court, just in time to get him released for Christmas.
Combine this with the Air Force's laser-armed 747, and you've got an awesome game...
Congrats on passing your checkride! I, too, am a pilot. I hold PP-ASEL, with Instrument (as of last November), and am working on Commercial. I'm an aviation major at the University of Oklahoma. Oh, and another of the replies to this post asks if by chance you mean Lubbock by northern Texas. If so, it's a small world--last semester, while working on Instrument, I flew down to Lubbock. Neat trip.
Better stop now, or else I'll never shut up...get me started on flying and pay the consequences!
As stated in at least one other post, the cell phone ban originally comes from the FCC, not the FAA. The reason transmitters are barred from use is not that they are likely to cause interference, but the slim possibility that they might. Equipment installed in aircraft goes through extensive and rigorous testing procedures to make sure that it will not cause interference to other systems, even under the worst of conditions. (This is also the main reason avionics are so expensive.) Your cell phone/ham tranceiver/walkie-talkie does not go through such testing, and is therefore not approved for use in flight. Receivers are also barred because almost all receivers (all modern designs) use a small oscillator as part of the reciever; under some conditions, that oscillator may act as a transmitter. Laptops, CD players, etc. are considered safe because the power levels, frequencies, etc. of their oscillators are such that they are not potential sources of problems, as well as the fact that they are generally well shielded. Items such as GPS receivers are also prohibited, but may in some cases be used-. The prohibition is a general blanket statement by the FAA; Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR's) specifically state that the pilot-in-command (read: captain) has the final authority as to the flight. As such, the captain can allow you to use your GPS, ham transceiver, etc. Most won't (and shouldn't!) allow a transceiver, but often will allow a GPS, especially an aviation model. All you have to do is ask. Just remember, if the captain says no, the answer is NO! (Incidentally, I am a pilot myself, as well as a ham and an electronics enthusiast.)
This might cause trouble for air-ground communications, but messages can be cached until such time as they can reliably be sent. The network within the aircraft would be nearly immune to disruption because it exists inside a metal structure (the aluminum fuselage), which has a shielding effect--a Faraday cage, to those familiar with physics. Thus, while the transmission of an e-mail to the ground may be delayed, the person would never see the trouble. Indeed, this is already the case--the aircraft only communicates with the ground at specified intervals, not constantly. As for web browsing, the impermanent connection kinda precludes it.
Use your laptop and webcam as a black box for the airplane...or, as you fly over Iraq, snap a few pictures of that weapons complex, then upload/e-mail them to the CIA. Look, ma, no satellites!
The Harvard group postulates that we are much more likely to be contacted by aliens via laser, or other tight-beam system, as the narrower beam width would require less power (makes more effiecient use of power). This theory is right on the money--if the aliens are deliberately trying to contact us. Much more likely, however, is that we would pick up extraneous signals intended for their own use. For those who have seen Contact, think about how the otherworlders discovered us--they picked up the first signal we radiated into space with any significant power. We weren't trying to contact anybody, just send TV across the ocean; that the signal was radiated into space was merely a consequence of using radio as the method of transmission. Because radio signals tend to scatter, especially on that older technology, the signal was radiated in all directions, including "up." Detecting that accidental emission, the aliens determined that there was life on our planet. It is less like communication (a deliberate two-way discourse), and more like Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). And (don't all raise your hands at once) who knows who the leader in SIGINT is? The NSA! Odds are, the NSA is going to discover the signal before SETI, NASA, or any others. I don't mean to suggest that they will discover life--in my opinion, that is highly unlikely, simply because those aren't the types of signals NSA looks for--it would likely be chalked up as noise, and they would go back to monitoring Chinese satellite traffic. I am only saying that they would likely be the first to receive (detect) the presence of the signal. It would have to be analyzed in the proper context (enter SETI) to be recognized for what it is. The ultimate dream system for SETI would be to use the Areciebo (sp?) dish, the VLA, etc, as well as NSA's resources, use NSA's signal-detection and -processing systems, then use their own analysis tools. Imagine what a powerful combination that could be!
The point here is that we are far more likely to detect an alien civilization by listening for spurious emissions (SIGINT) than by searching for signals deliberatly aimed at us. In order to detect a laser aimed at us, we would have to examine every star capable of supporting life (same as with SIGINT), but they would also have to aim the signal at us deliberately--that is, they would have to have already detected us and decided to try to contact us. Think about that from their point of view--if you worked for SETI or NASA or others, would you be shining lasers into space to try to communicate with other planets that may or may not have life and may or may not be listening and may or may not even understand what they are looking for? I know I wouldn't, and I'm a supporter of SETI. Realistically, listening for broadcast signals is much more likely to yield results than looking for tight-beam communications.
Incidentally, I didn't bring up the NSA to suggest any sort of conspiracy, just to discuss the equipment differences. And, no, I really don't believe the US Government has been hiding aliens at Roswell for the last 40 years. To almost-quote Dave Barry, it isn't that I don't believe that aliens might have crashed at Roswell, I just don't believe that our government could successfully run a cover-up for that long.
Better yet: scan the page beneath, run OCR, run that through the fish, and display the output in a language of your choice. One step closer to a universal translator, and one step backwards for foreign language education in the schools :-)
One significant potential use for this is as an aircraft HUD. Several people have mentioned auto HUD's, but pilots have a much greater need for this than drivers. While the FLIR system that is an option in Caddies is a damned cool toy, as a pilot, I would be absolutely thrilled to have FLIR/Nav/performance data displayed on my windscreen. One of the major causes of crashes is pilot disorientation; pilots, lacking an outside reference, get vertigo, and don't know what the attitude of the aircraft is (they may have an artificial horizon, but it's very easy to dismiss a 3" gauge); if we had a system where all of the windows showed a real horizon line, situational awareness would be greatly improved. Additionally, the system could be used to provide steering cues (even to the degree of NASA's "Highway in the Sky" idea), weather information (look out the left window, see green radar returns; look out front, see yellow; Stormscope (lightning detector) data could also be shown), traffic info (put a highlight box around other air traffic, making it easier to find), or any other data you might like. The possibilities are truly endless; the bottom line, though, is that this could be an incredible tool for pilots of all aircraft (if inexpensive enough), and a great boon to aviation safety.
The airframe is a Boeing 747-400F, a standard commercial freighter, with modifications to house the laser.
Testing is slated to begin as early as 2003, with a seven-plane operational fleet in service as early as 2009.
The laser is to be a multi-megawatt oxygen-iodine system. A multi-hundred-kilowatt system was successfully flight-tested in 1998.
The system uses "adaptive optics," mirrors which can be deformed to correct for atmospheric effects such as "thermal bloom," the heating of air by the laser, causing distortion (like looking down a hot road).
The project is run by the Air Force Research Labs Directed Energy Directorate, based at Kirtland AFB, NM, and has been around in some form or other for at least 20 years.
Contractors include Boeing, TRW Space and Electronics Group (developing laser), and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space (developing beam- and fire-control systems).
Boeing and Rockwell competed for a $22 million concept-definition contract, with Boeing winning that contract, and the $1.3 billion Airborne Laser Program Definition and Risk Reduction contract.
The program calls for destruction of a boosting theater ballistic missile by the fall of 2002.
A follow-on contract of about $4.5 billion to complete engineering, manufacturing, development and production efforts of a seven aircraft fleet will be awarded following successful completion of the initial contract.
t ml. Incidentally, the best description I've ever found of the optical technology can be found in Tom Clancy's The Cardinal of the Kremlin.
There were some really neat pictures of the airplane on the USAF website www.af.mil, as well as a couple of stories, but they've been relegated to the archives. One of those stories, from which most of this information is taken, can be found at http://www.af.mil/news/Jan2000/n20000124_000101.h
An additional note: there was mention that a computer would fire the laser, not a person. This is true, at least after a fashion. Yes, the computer actually fires the laser--this is necessary, as there is no human out there who has the timing to hit an object moving at 12,000 miles an hour. The system must first be armed, though, and this is done by a human. While I do understand the concern about a computer controlling the weapon, in this case, there is still a man in the loop.
As a private organization, the Catholic Church has every right to filter their internet access. While people may disagree with thier decision to do so (I do), the fact remains that they have no obligation to provide unfiltered access. Incidentally, as several posts have mentioned, they do provide unfiltered access upon request.
The real problem here is not simply the access restrictions, it is the conflicting doctrine of the church. The church does say that viewing pornography, et al, is a sin. This is not in dispute. But there is another point in church doctrine that is not compatible with content filtration--the doctrine of free will. The church asserts that man is given free will, the ability to do as he chooses. The church asserts that God grants the people the option to sin if they wish; the church says that the people have the option, and that the people should choose to behave themselves. Indeed, the entire concept of salvation, among the fundamental tenets of the church, is based upon voluntarily choosing to accept their beliefs. In light of this, it seems that implementing content filtration by default would mitigate the value of a person's choice not to view naughty websites; his free will has been diminished.
In short, the choice of the church to implement content filtration by default seems to be a complicated issue at best, and a contradiction of doctrine at worst. But, while it may be a breech of doctrine in the eyes of some, it is certainly within the church's rights to do so.
Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Catholic church. If I have offended anybody, or made mistakes on any details, I am sorry; I didn't mean to do it. This comment is based on my understanding and interpretation of Catholic beliefs. I welcome any relevant posts along this topic.