remember the case of the retired 93 year old telegraph operator who used a Morse key to send a text message faster than a teenager could send it via mobile phone
So you're saying that if I make a career out of sending text messages, when I'm 93 I will be able to do it as fast as I can now with a keyboard?
Disingenuous? How friggin' inane can you be? MS formats are INEXTENSIBLE. Translation: they can't be extended.
There is no reason for a sane format not to be extensible without having to modify the spec. For ODF, being XML, Microsoft could add a MS-watermark or MS-formula tag. Everyone else could choose to ignore it, and it would be known that the tag was MS specific. There could even be a specified way to handle unspecified tags. Display a message, for instance.
All it does is guarantee that they will always be playing second fiddle to the people who own the spec (ie, OO.org).
First, you might want to take a second look. OO.org doesn't 'own' the spec. By definition, the spec isn't owned by anyone. That's what makes it a 'standard' spec. FYI, it's not the spec, but the STANDARD that is at issue.
Second, no company wants to follow the standard. The customer wants a product that follows the standard. Why would Acme Bolts want to make standard 1/4-28 Class 8 bolts, when they could make their own 1/4-27.25 Class 8.1574 bolts? Because, nobody would buy them. Acme wouldn't even consider manufacturing such a beast, because they know it wouldn't sell. The customer would take a look at it and say, "What da' hell? Acme, are you trying to lock me into an incompatible bolt standard? Screw you!!" Acme doesn't want to manufacture to the standard, but they know their customers would march next door to Beta-Bolts if they tried such a trick. In the early part of the Industrial Revolution, we had such a situation. Every manufacturer had their own spec for bolt size and pitch. Customers got sick of it, and today you can buy a standard bolt from any hardware store without even knowing who manufactured it and have a reasonable expectation that it will fit. Microsoft has been operating a monopoly in a young industry, so they've been able to have their way with their customers. But the industry is growing up and adopting interoperability standards. Microsoft will have to do the same if they expect to stay around. At this point, "I want to change any thing at any time I chose" means either you didn't know what you were doing to begin with (watermarks and formulas are known quantities in the industry, for Pete's sake), or it indicates that you don't know how to write an extensible spec (watermarks are needed by a very small segment and shouldn't break the standard for the large segments).
What about the exploits that aren't accidents, but are actually designed in, ie (har-har) Active-X controls that allow anyone to execute arbitrary, unrestrained code on every system that visits a website. Paying for someone to report these obvious exploits would amount to paying someone to call you an idiot.
The author's problem is that he thinks Microsoft should be concerned about delivering a good product. Everyone privy to how corporations work knows that the goal is only to deliver a product that the customer will pay for.
A very special type of stupidity is involved: one that includes an understanding of the effects of the setuid bit, but excludes an understanding of the security implications.
Working in corporate America, this particular type of stupidity is all to common. The level of this stupidity is what I use to separate 'coders' from 'programmers'. The programmer will recognize and heed the system implications of the choices she makes. The coder just knows has to toggle levers and push buttons. He has an objective, and is oblivious to anything that isn't on a straight-line path to that point.
What the sales guy knows is that he'll set you up for a 2yr contract with the funds withdrawn directly from your account so that you don't feel it, but he also knows that you'll stop showing up after about a month. That's just the reality of what most people do. So he's not going to let you walk out the door without a contract. If he can't get you to sign up for $40/month, he'll shoot for $20. He'll drop to $10 if he thinks that is all he can get. Regardless, some income is better than none, because the equipment lease cost is set already. Same with software. The marginal cost of adding one more customer is nearly zero. MS can give huge discounts, but they're still pushing for the $40 membership.
The other thing to look at is that their monopoly power is built on more than network effects. The power to buy out any startup that might prove to be a competitor one day. Being able to hire top talent at discount rates with stock options as an incentive. Being able to pay off outrageously expensive lawsuits and legal judgements without feeling it. Having more money in the bank than most countries. All this depends on being able to squeeze the $40/month contract out of everyone. Not being able to do that leaves them with less ammunition to maintin the empire.
You teach a fighter pilot that they're already dead, so they won't have fear (at least that's what Starbuck told me on an episode of Battlestar Galactica).
Seriously, though, fear can be debilitating in a combat zone. The US Marines are taught some of the craziest stuff. If you're being ambushed, attacked from both side, the response is to stand up, walk towards the attacker with guns ablaze. Your position is compromised, and you must fight your fear to hide, or the team will be picked off one by one. Such a drug would be useful in a war zone, IFF the fear were replace by training. A soldier would calmly aim each round instead of spraying ammunition haphazardly. OTOH, many a soldier has been literally frightened to death on a battlefield. The bullet killed him, but only because he was immobilized by the fear.
Opensource scare MS in their own product because they lose the level of control they are used to having. If the community changes the development and the model behind it or even changes the license to something MS wouldn't agree with (the community or sun) MS would be left out of the picture or force into a situation they might not like.
I think what you meant to say was that open-source scares MS, because they would want to modify the format when community or Sun wouldn't agree. Open formats tend to change very little once all the bases are covered, and when they are changed it because new and necessary features are being added. Microsoft likes to change their inextensible formats with every new version of the program, since it helps to push new sales. They wouldn't be able to drag the reluctant customers along if everyone could get support from the next supplier on the list.
I don't. I want a game that I can play without having to take a college course. I want a game that will let me get out of this damn chair and step away from this damn monitor. I want to PLAY!!. Wiiiiiii!!
I enjoyed FF12, but stuff like that made me wonder what the fuck Square was thinking. If Nintendo can make games that don't resort to that kind of bullshit just to sell a $20 game guide, them I'm all for it.
They were thinking that you would pay $20 for a game guide. You don't really think that someone just sits down and figures out which 4 of the hundreds of chests not to open, do you? 8*)
Yeah, my table saw has one of those guards. It sits under the table. Damn thing does nothing but get in the way unless you're ripping a fairly narrow board. Try slicing some plywood or ripping a slot with a dado blade sometime. It is the same thing with languages. Get one with lots of safeguards, and it is usually set up to do one thing well. It quickly becomes a PITA if you try to do anything outside of the padded room.
To bolster your point, though, most of the work people do daily can be accomplished quite well within the padded room. I'm currently working on sanity testing, and I don't need anything more than TCL. C would give me a lot more power to do other things, but the OSHA approved language is plenty powerful for what I need to accomplish.
I helped a compatriot set up a Squid server last year. He sets up networks for "assisted living" communities, and the old coots were always complaining that their stock updates weren't coming through fast enough. He monitored his upstream connection and concluded that 80% of the traffic was all going to a handful of sites. This make ISP caching VERY effective. $1500 for a PC with lots of hard-drives and a slew of memory, and no more complaints.
Parallels with the Internet can obviously be drawn. Rather than aiding the movement of physical commodities, the Internet aids the movement of intellectual commodities. It completes what the Industrial Revolution started. Now production of information is not tied to any location. It can be forged anywhere and transported to anywhere in a fraction of a second.
Two examples to draw your point more fully.
My wife's a real-estate agent. In years gone by, when you moved to a new town you wouldn't know where to look for houses. And if you were selling, getting the word out that yours was on the market was a lot of work. Real-estate agents had a lot of work to do. Now, a picture and a description gets dumped in the MLS. Now it's on the market. If you're buying, you look in the MLS. Easy communication has destroyed much of her value proposition as an agent, and is gutting the whole industry.
RIAA is in the same position my wife is in. Their value was in collecting artist and freeing them from having to market themselves. There was real work to do in getting the good artist presented to the public. Now they get in the way (and they damn well know it).
Many other industries are experiencing the same sort of "what'd'we do now" moments.
Configure anything to auto and it will choose 10MB/half-duplex. Auto-configuration on ethernet is an ugly, stop-gap of a hack of the 10MB standard that has never worked...could never work...reliably. The inability to renegotiate is the problem.
Network access within a corporation has been ubiquitous, fast, and reliable for the past 20 years and thin clients haven't gotten far. So now that Microsoft enters the fray with their swiss-cheese virus fodder, we're supposed to surrender our data to some poorly defined "cloud" network. Not only do we have the problems of maintaining a network well enough to get our data in house, but the data is surrendered to a company that has shown time after time that it is willing to cut the nuts off of a business partner for a dollar.
No. This is nothing more that Microsoft's swan song. Vista is a bust, and their lunch is slowly being eaten by Apple and Linux. They're scrambling to find something to replace the glory products of yesteryear as they slowly slip into irrelevancy. The company still has some power left to broker, but it is slipping away at an increasing rate as people realize that there are better products to be had for less money.
Software as a service is a valid business model. It actually works in some situations. But Microsoft's view of it is a way to rent their software, with the idea of retaining more control, the emphasis being on control/revenue retention vs supplying a service. I expect Microsoft will push this as hard as they possibly can, and make some significant wins (No one every got fired....). I also expect they will have an even larger defection rate to open source solutions. If you're going to rent solutions, you might as well rent the ones that work and the prices are lower because there's competition.
Kinda got away from me there, but my point was to why nobody seems to give a flyin' fuck anymore.
Clinton's impeachment wasnt' over squirting on an intern. It was about presenting a bald face lie to judge and jury. The people saw that he was above the law and walked away from it. Same with Simpson. Same with the Rodney King Beaters, and the rioters afterwards. Recently, it is the same thing with Paris Hilton.
Either we have the rule of law, or we don't. It's not a new tale. It's what brought down King Arthur. People don't seem to care, because everyone sees that justice isn't blind and how you're treated by the court system depends more on your lawyers salary than your citizenship; furthermore, the people are right. If you're going to get smacked down whether you do wrong or no, you might as well have some fun.
Slick Willy got a blowjob and it was the end of the world,
No. Slick Willy used the power of his office to sexually harass female employees with impunity. I've known men who were fired for speaking to the wrong woman and she reports that she felt 'uncomfortable'. Policemen beat the shit out of a drugged-up black man and get away scott free, until other black people start a riot. Then the feds step in and subject the policemen to double-jeopardy. Simpson kills his wife but beats the wrap because he has expensive lawyers. If you lay out of work and live off welfare, the goverment will give you crappy healthcare. If you work your ass off 70hrs a week, you can get your employer to give you crappy healthcare.
American Spirit is all but dead. Noone cares or is too busy shoveling themselves out of debt in our insane buy now pay later, keeping up with the Jones' culture.
No one cares because we all realize that the system is rigged. We might as well buy now because we'll pay later whether we buy now or not.
...could have been a chance to have some real commentary on modern issues, but it quickly devolved into just a chance for people to fight each other. There was no real discussion, no real logic...
Kinda reminds me of how people REALLY act and react.
Even worse, the conclusion he draws doesn't even make sense. Linux helps Windows domination in the enterprise (where it is a monopoly) when users switch to it at home (where Windows is also a monopoly)? How-d-hell does that work?
How many of these probes could we have launched if we spent money making a cheap launch system instead of ICBMs?
None.
The whole "let's put a man on the moon thing"? Yeah, that was just a cover so that a lot of engineers could have free reign to design nuclear warhead delivery systems before the Russians did. For the strategist that were actually controlling the purse strings, the "One giant leap for mankind" was really "One small step for a man, now can we get back to work before the commies kill us all."
Without the drive to develop ICBMs, there never would have been a space program. Don't feel bad, though. We also wouldn't have jet engines if there wasn't a need to fly faster than the enemy.
I have a projector at home. True, it isn't as large as the theater, but you sit much closer. Actually, you sit where you damn well please. Arrive late to a popular showing, and get stuck in the front row. You sit staring straight up, only able to capture a portion of the screen in your field of view. Bigger is not always better (at least that's what she said).
You don't need as much volume or bass at home. Sit on the speaker if you really want to shake, but proximity and clarity trumps "volume to drown noisy moviegoers" in my book.
The big advantage of home theater is that you can pause, rewind, and re-watch the whole movie if you please. They never pause the movie for me to get a snack at the theaters. Bastards.
I wouldn't pay for a 50" plasma though. Get a $400 projector and connect it to your MythTV box. Connect a decent set of speakers with a seperate subwoofer. Put the subwoofer under your couch. You're biggest problem will then be finding enough movies that are actually worth watching.
They're not measuring 1.5Gs. They're are measuring to design load safety factors. The plane is designed to 3 or so Gs for normal category aircraft, and then tested to 4.5Gs. The only GA aircraft designed to 8Gs would be those designed to be aerobatic. Your typical Cessna or Cherokee trainer is designed to 3 G for normal category use or 4.5 for utility category. The POH (pilot's operating handbook) will list different numbers for the maximum gross weight when the plane is to be used in one or the other.
Aerobatic aircraft are supposed to be unstable. You don't get a 720dps roll rate with 5 degrees of dihedral. If you can afford a $300,000 two-seat airplane to fly to airshows, you can certainly afford an autopilot. Your lack of knowledge on that point assures me that you've never flown one to an airshow. I've flown one for about three minutes. I did two rolls. One very badly, and the next wouldn't win a competition. Flew out of Cox airfield in Apex, NC. Denny Mercer, the owner, was PIC (pilot-in-command) from the back seat. Denny decided it was time to go back to the airport before I had a chance to do a loop (and I concurred), because he saw the sweat beading up behind my earlobes...ie, one of the first signs of airsickness 8*).
The Extra-300 wing is completely carbon fiber and was tested to 20Gs. At that point, the test fixture broke leaving the wing undamaged.
A Boeing is not in the same league as the round-the-world-nonstop aircraft, where wing flexibility has been paramount. Nor is it under the same stresses as a fighter aircraft.
Bull! The forces are exactly the same. The laws of physics do not change from aircraft to aircraft or when you enter military airspace.
How much data has been gathered on fatigue?
The copyright date on the plans for my Dyke Delta is 1962. Composites weren't new then. This is OLD technology and very well understood.
If the wings are highly flexible, will this affect lift or other characteristics?
Yes. But it is easy to predict and design a layup schedule that will account for it.
Of course, with the rise in popularity of Blended Wing Bodies and Waveriders, there is the question of why Boeing is even sill using the tube-with-wings design.
Dude, you're freakin' out over there use of composite structures, and then you wonder why they don't introduce a completely radical flying-wing design? How about this.... none of the airlines would board the damn things because they think passengers would wonder if Boeing did all the proper testing, but "don't know for a fact what data they have".
There's also other problems, lack of window seats, ability to modify models for different configurations or engines not being the least, but the big killer is that people are afraid of new technologies.
Not only Boeing, but all manufacturers of type-certificated aircraft, from the lowly Cessna-152 to the Airbus A340. Safety factor is 1.5 for the wings and most of the other structures. The landing gear are designed to 2.0 (I believe). There are several other categories, and they're all called out in the FARs. AC-43B is the source, but I'm building from plans and haven't delved to much into the design criteria.
Suprisingly, the 3Gs aren't that difficult to hit, because they don't have to be sustained to break the airframe. A good hard landing from a micro downburst could do it. Accidentally hitting a developing thunderstorm embedded in a solid layer is another possibility.
I believe airliners are built to the utility category (+6/-4 Gs ?). I say that because the pilot that barrel rolled the 737 prototype did not loose his pilot's certificate.
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remember the case of the retired 93 year old telegraph operator who used a Morse key to send a text message faster than a teenager could send it via mobile phone
So you're saying that if I make a career out of sending text messages, when I'm 93 I will be able to do it as fast as I can now with a keyboard?
Disingenuous? How friggin' inane can you be? MS formats are INEXTENSIBLE. Translation: they can't be extended.
There is no reason for a sane format not to be extensible without having to modify the spec. For ODF, being XML, Microsoft could add a MS-watermark or MS-formula tag. Everyone else could choose to ignore it, and it would be known that the tag was MS specific. There could even be a specified way to handle unspecified tags. Display a message, for instance.
All it does is guarantee that they will always be playing second fiddle to the people who own the spec (ie, OO.org).
First, you might want to take a second look. OO.org doesn't 'own' the spec. By definition, the spec isn't owned by anyone. That's what makes it a 'standard' spec. FYI, it's not the spec, but the STANDARD that is at issue.
Second, no company wants to follow the standard. The customer wants a product that follows the standard. Why would Acme Bolts want to make standard 1/4-28 Class 8 bolts, when they could make their own 1/4-27.25 Class 8.1574 bolts? Because, nobody would buy them. Acme wouldn't even consider manufacturing such a beast, because they know it wouldn't sell. The customer would take a look at it and say, "What da' hell? Acme, are you trying to lock me into an incompatible bolt standard? Screw you!!" Acme doesn't want to manufacture to the standard, but they know their customers would march next door to Beta-Bolts if they tried such a trick. In the early part of the Industrial Revolution, we had such a situation. Every manufacturer had their own spec for bolt size and pitch. Customers got sick of it, and today you can buy a standard bolt from any hardware store without even knowing who manufactured it and have a reasonable expectation that it will fit. Microsoft has been operating a monopoly in a young industry, so they've been able to have their way with their customers. But the industry is growing up and adopting interoperability standards. Microsoft will have to do the same if they expect to stay around. At this point, "I want to change any thing at any time I chose" means either you didn't know what you were doing to begin with (watermarks and formulas are known quantities in the industry, for Pete's sake), or it indicates that you don't know how to write an extensible spec (watermarks are needed by a very small segment and shouldn't break the standard for the large segments).
What about the exploits that aren't accidents, but are actually designed in, ie (har-har) Active-X controls that allow anyone to execute arbitrary, unrestrained code on every system that visits a website. Paying for someone to report these obvious exploits would amount to paying someone to call you an idiot.
The author's problem is that he thinks Microsoft should be concerned about delivering a good product. Everyone privy to how corporations work knows that the goal is only to deliver a product that the customer will pay for.
A very special type of stupidity is involved: one that includes an understanding of the effects of the setuid bit, but excludes an understanding of the security implications.
Working in corporate America, this particular type of stupidity is all to common. The level of this stupidity is what I use to separate 'coders' from 'programmers'.
The programmer will recognize and heed the system implications of the choices she makes.
The coder just knows has to toggle levers and push buttons. He has an objective, and is oblivious to anything that isn't on a straight-line path to that point.
Bingo.
Ever sign up for a gym membership?
What the sales guy knows is that he'll set you up for a 2yr contract with the funds withdrawn directly from your account so that you don't feel it, but he also knows that you'll stop showing up after about a month. That's just the reality of what most people do. So he's not going to let you walk out the door without a contract. If he can't get you to sign up for $40/month, he'll shoot for $20. He'll drop to $10 if he thinks that is all he can get. Regardless, some income is better than none, because the equipment lease cost is set already. Same with software. The marginal cost of adding one more customer is nearly zero. MS can give huge discounts, but they're still pushing for the $40 membership.
The other thing to look at is that their monopoly power is built on more than network effects. The power to buy out any startup that might prove to be a competitor one day. Being able to hire top talent at discount rates with stock options as an incentive. Being able to pay off outrageously expensive lawsuits and legal judgements without feeling it. Having more money in the bank than most countries. All this depends on being able to squeeze the $40/month contract out of everyone. Not being able to do that leaves them with less ammunition to maintin the empire.
You teach a fighter pilot that they're already dead, so they won't have fear (at least that's what Starbuck told me on an episode of Battlestar Galactica).
Seriously, though, fear can be debilitating in a combat zone. The US Marines are taught some of the craziest stuff. If you're being ambushed, attacked from both side, the response is to stand up, walk towards the attacker with guns ablaze. Your position is compromised, and you must fight your fear to hide, or the team will be picked off one by one. Such a drug would be useful in a war zone, IFF the fear were replace by training. A soldier would calmly aim each round instead of spraying ammunition haphazardly. OTOH, many a soldier has been literally frightened to death on a battlefield. The bullet killed him, but only because he was immobilized by the fear.
Opensource scare MS in their own product because they lose the level of control they are used to having. If the community changes the development and the model behind it or even changes the license to something MS wouldn't agree with (the community or sun) MS would be left out of the picture or force into a situation they might not like.
I think what you meant to say was that open-source scares MS, because they would want to modify the format when community or Sun wouldn't agree. Open formats tend to change very little once all the bases are covered, and when they are changed it because new and necessary features are being added. Microsoft likes to change their inextensible formats with every new version of the program, since it helps to push new sales. They wouldn't be able to drag the reluctant customers along if everyone could get support from the next supplier on the list.
I want games involving more than one button.
I don't. I want a game that I can play without having to take a college course. I want a game that will let me get out of this damn chair and step away from this damn monitor. I want to PLAY!!. Wiiiiiii!!
I enjoyed FF12, but stuff like that made me wonder what the fuck Square was thinking. If Nintendo can make games that don't resort to that kind of bullshit just to sell a $20 game guide, them I'm all for it.
They were thinking that you would pay $20 for a game guide. You don't really think that someone just sits down and figures out which 4 of the hundreds of chests not to open, do you? 8*)
Yeah, my table saw has one of those guards. It sits under the table. Damn thing does nothing but get in the way unless you're ripping a fairly narrow board. Try slicing some plywood or ripping a slot with a dado blade sometime. It is the same thing with languages. Get one with lots of safeguards, and it is usually set up to do one thing well. It quickly becomes a PITA if you try to do anything outside of the padded room.
To bolster your point, though, most of the work people do daily can be accomplished quite well within the padded room. I'm currently working on sanity testing, and I don't need anything more than TCL. C would give me a lot more power to do other things, but the OSHA approved language is plenty powerful for what I need to accomplish.
I helped a compatriot set up a Squid server last year. He sets up networks for "assisted living" communities, and the old coots were always complaining that their stock updates weren't coming through fast enough. He monitored his upstream connection and concluded that 80% of the traffic was all going to a handful of sites. This make ISP caching VERY effective. $1500 for a PC with lots of hard-drives and a slew of memory, and no more complaints.
Parallels with the Internet can obviously be drawn. Rather than aiding the movement of physical commodities, the Internet aids the movement of intellectual commodities. It completes what the Industrial Revolution started. Now production of information is not tied to any location. It can be forged anywhere and transported to anywhere in a fraction of a second.
Two examples to draw your point more fully.
My wife's a real-estate agent. In years gone by, when you moved to a new town you wouldn't know where to look for houses. And if you were selling, getting the word out that yours was on the market was a lot of work. Real-estate agents had a lot of work to do. Now, a picture and a description gets dumped in the MLS. Now it's on the market. If you're buying, you look in the MLS. Easy communication has destroyed much of her value proposition as an agent, and is gutting the whole industry.
RIAA is in the same position my wife is in. Their value was in collecting artist and freeing them from having to market themselves. There was real work to do in getting the good artist presented to the public. Now they get in the way (and they damn well know it).
Many other industries are experiencing the same sort of "what'd'we do now" moments.
Configure anything to auto and it will choose 10MB/half-duplex. Auto-configuration on ethernet is an ugly, stop-gap of a hack of the 10MB standard that has never worked...could never work...reliably. The inability to renegotiate is the problem.
Network access within a corporation has been ubiquitous, fast, and reliable for the past 20 years and thin clients haven't gotten far. So now that Microsoft enters the fray with their swiss-cheese virus fodder, we're supposed to surrender our data to some poorly defined "cloud" network. Not only do we have the problems of maintaining a network well enough to get our data in house, but the data is surrendered to a company that has shown time after time that it is willing to cut the nuts off of a business partner for a dollar.
No. This is nothing more that Microsoft's swan song. Vista is a bust, and their lunch is slowly being eaten by Apple and Linux. They're scrambling to find something to replace the glory products of yesteryear as they slowly slip into irrelevancy. The company still has some power left to broker, but it is slipping away at an increasing rate as people realize that there are better products to be had for less money.
Software as a service is a valid business model. It actually works in some situations. But Microsoft's view of it is a way to rent their software, with the idea of retaining more control, the emphasis being on control/revenue retention vs supplying a service. I expect Microsoft will push this as hard as they possibly can, and make some significant wins (No one every got fired....). I also expect they will have an even larger defection rate to open source solutions. If you're going to rent solutions, you might as well rent the ones that work and the prices are lower because there's competition.
I agree. Now, use the frog-in-boiling-water analogy. Bush gets away with it, because Clinton led the way after Nixon made the first crack.
Once everyone sees Lady Justice peaking under the blindfold, everyone gets jaded real quick.
Kinda got away from me there, but my point was to why nobody seems to give a flyin' fuck anymore.
Clinton's impeachment wasnt' over squirting on an intern. It was about presenting a bald face lie to judge and jury. The people saw that he was above the law and walked away from it. Same with Simpson. Same with the Rodney King Beaters, and the rioters afterwards. Recently, it is the same thing with Paris Hilton.
Either we have the rule of law, or we don't. It's not a new tale. It's what brought down King Arthur. People don't seem to care, because everyone sees that justice isn't blind and how you're treated by the court system depends more on your lawyers salary than your citizenship; furthermore, the people are right. If you're going to get smacked down whether you do wrong or no, you might as well have some fun.
Slick Willy got a blowjob and it was the end of the world,
No. Slick Willy used the power of his office to sexually harass female employees with impunity. I've known men who were fired for speaking to the wrong woman and she reports that she felt 'uncomfortable'.
Policemen beat the shit out of a drugged-up black man and get away scott free, until other black people start a riot. Then the feds step in and subject the policemen to double-jeopardy.
Simpson kills his wife but beats the wrap because he has expensive lawyers.
If you lay out of work and live off welfare, the goverment will give you crappy healthcare. If you work your ass off 70hrs a week, you can get your employer to give you crappy healthcare.
American Spirit is all but dead. Noone cares or is too busy shoveling themselves out of debt in our insane buy now pay later, keeping up with the Jones' culture.
No one cares because we all realize that the system is rigged. We might as well buy now because we'll pay later whether we buy now or not.
...could have been a chance to have some real commentary on modern issues, but it quickly devolved into just a chance for people to fight each other. There was no real discussion, no real logic...
Kinda reminds me of how people REALLY act and react.
Spot on, dude.
Even worse, the conclusion he draws doesn't even make sense. Linux helps Windows domination in the enterprise (where it is a monopoly) when users switch to it at home (where Windows is also a monopoly)? How-d-hell does that work?
How many of these probes could we have launched if we spent money making a cheap launch system instead of ICBMs?
None.
The whole "let's put a man on the moon thing"? Yeah, that was just a cover so that a lot of engineers could have free reign to design nuclear warhead delivery systems before the Russians did. For the strategist that were actually controlling the purse strings, the "One giant leap for mankind" was really "One small step for a man, now can we get back to work before the commies kill us all."
Without the drive to develop ICBMs, there never would have been a space program. Don't feel bad, though. We also wouldn't have jet engines if there wasn't a need to fly faster than the enemy.
I have a projector at home. True, it isn't as large as the theater, but you sit much closer. Actually, you sit where you damn well please. Arrive late to a popular showing, and get stuck in the front row. You sit staring straight up, only able to capture a portion of the screen in your field of view. Bigger is not always better (at least that's what she said).
You don't need as much volume or bass at home. Sit on the speaker if you really want to shake, but proximity and clarity trumps "volume to drown noisy moviegoers" in my book.
The big advantage of home theater is that you can pause, rewind, and re-watch the whole movie if you please. They never pause the movie for me to get a snack at the theaters. Bastards.
I wouldn't pay for a 50" plasma though. Get a $400 projector and connect it to your MythTV box. Connect a decent set of speakers with a seperate subwoofer. Put the subwoofer under your couch. You're biggest problem will then be finding enough movies that are actually worth watching.
Why is this marked interesting?
They're not measuring 1.5Gs. They're are measuring to design load safety factors. The plane is designed to 3 or so Gs for normal category aircraft, and then tested to 4.5Gs. The only GA aircraft designed to 8Gs would be those designed to be aerobatic. Your typical Cessna or Cherokee trainer is designed to 3 G for normal category use or 4.5 for utility category. The POH (pilot's operating handbook) will list different numbers for the maximum gross weight when the plane is to be used in one or the other.
Aerobatic aircraft are supposed to be unstable. You don't get a 720dps roll rate with 5 degrees of dihedral. If you can afford a $300,000 two-seat airplane to fly to airshows, you can certainly afford an autopilot. Your lack of knowledge on that point assures me that you've never flown one to an airshow. I've flown one for about three minutes. I did two rolls. One very badly, and the next wouldn't win a competition. Flew out of Cox airfield in Apex, NC. Denny Mercer, the owner, was PIC (pilot-in-command) from the back seat. Denny decided it was time to go back to the airport before I had a chance to do a loop (and I concurred), because he saw the sweat beading up behind my earlobes...ie, one of the first signs of airsickness 8*).
The Extra-300 wing is completely carbon fiber and was tested to 20Gs. At that point, the test fixture broke leaving the wing undamaged.
A Boeing is not in the same league as the round-the-world-nonstop aircraft, where wing flexibility has been paramount. Nor is it under the same stresses as a fighter aircraft.
.... none of the airlines would board the damn things because they think passengers would wonder if Boeing did all the proper testing, but "don't know for a fact what data they have".
Bull! The forces are exactly the same. The laws of physics do not change from aircraft to aircraft or when you enter military airspace.
How much data has been gathered on fatigue?
The copyright date on the plans for my Dyke Delta is 1962. Composites weren't new then. This is OLD technology and very well understood.
If the wings are highly flexible, will this affect lift or other characteristics?
Yes. But it is easy to predict and design a layup schedule that will account for it.
Of course, with the rise in popularity of Blended Wing Bodies and Waveriders, there is the question of why Boeing is even sill using the tube-with-wings design.
Dude, you're freakin' out over there use of composite structures, and then you wonder why they don't introduce a completely radical flying-wing design? How about this
There's also other problems, lack of window seats, ability to modify models for different configurations or engines not being the least, but the big killer is that people are afraid of new technologies.
Not only Boeing, but all manufacturers of type-certificated aircraft, from the lowly Cessna-152 to the Airbus A340. Safety factor is 1.5 for the wings and most of the other structures. The landing gear are designed to 2.0 (I believe). There are several other categories, and they're all called out in the FARs. AC-43B is the source, but I'm building from plans and haven't delved to much into the design criteria.
Suprisingly, the 3Gs aren't that difficult to hit, because they don't have to be sustained to break the airframe. A good hard landing from a micro downburst could do it. Accidentally hitting a developing thunderstorm embedded in a solid layer is another possibility.
I believe airliners are built to the utility category (+6/-4 Gs ?). I say that because the pilot that barrel rolled the 737 prototype did not loose his pilot's certificate.