No, leave it as is. For one reason, ethernet cables are often hand made or hand terminated. I've terminated 1000s of cables in my career, various lengths and runs. The current connector, while not perfect, is just about the right size for hand termination without expensive or specialized equipment. My bag always has a crimper and spare connectors in it. I can easily whip up a cable on a moments notice. If you go to a mini or micro connector, more specialized equipment will be involved that may not allow one to hand terminate a cable easily. If we lose that, we lose the versatility of the connector in general.
In terms of operating the weapon, there's little difference between the new LRASM and a classic Tomahawk or any other cruise misslle made in the last 30 years. It's just HughPickens being a sensationalist.
The actual report talks about AI based systems with kill authority (aka SkyNet).
For those not wanting to read anything historical. The confrontation comes because the Secure Boot option of UEFI (if enabled) only ships with Microsoft keys in the firmware. Thus, Microsoft's signing service is the only practical signing service and will only sign a PE executable. The solution that Matt and company came up with was to have a module vendor wrap their keys in a PE executable, have Microsoft sign them, and then ship the signed PE executable with the signed Linux kernel module. Verification of the signed Linux module thus requires the Linux kernel to load the PE executable, verify its signature, then extract the vendor keys and continue on.
Linus rightly called out the idea as moronic and stupid. The retorts basically came in the form of "Microsoft created the standard, and is the only viable signing service for the standard". Even though alternative options could of been had, they were deemed to complicated and involved.
Life would of been much easier of Microsoft would just sign X.509 certificates like the rest of the world.
Agreed, when it comes to the F-35, slashdot gets bombarded with the uninformed and the Anonymous Cowards. Short memory is an unfortunate human trait. As ejecitons from contemporary aircraft have never been problematic or ever killed pilots? Or is it simply that further testing of the Martin-Baker designed seat produced questionable result when constraining lightweight pilots? But I know it's more fun to simply trash talk the F-35 instead of preventing further deaths.
Unlike you, I research a topic before I comment on it. How is not seeing further or more clearly not improve situational awareness? How is having a secure datalink not improve situational awareness? The APG-81 is so good that the Dutch recently stated that a single F-35 improves the picture not only for itself, but for the flight of F-16s it was accompanying.
And then you go an talk about IESA, which leads me to believe you have no informed opinion. Hint, it's AESA. E-2s won't be going downtown with your strike package, F-35s will. The hi-lo-hi range of an F-16 with a typical combat load is 400nmi, that extends to almost 700nmi for the F-35. Which is why you never see an F-16 without a pair of 370gal EFTs. The F-35s best them with all internal stores. Another 'hour' of flight time gets you to places the 4th gen fighters can't. Pure and simple. Everyone is re-evaluating their CONOPS plans for when the F-35 arrives in numbers.
The problem is that they are not that cheap, nor are they absolutely current technology wise.
The F-35 will out range the F-14 and F-16. The F-15E will class it but only with external tanks (CFT + EFT). F-35's radar is superior to all examples listed. It has all aspect DAS for situational awareness. The list goes on...
And, when full rate production is 100% in 2019, you can have them for $75 million per copy (today's dollars). By comparison you can get an F-15 for about $85 million and an F-16 for about $50 million. Both are still in production, F-16s out of Fort Worth, TX and F-15s out of St. Louis, MO.
The reason is that most don't understand how the procurement process works nor do they understand that actual capabilities of the F-35. They can't envision what the superior SAR capability of the APG-81 brings (not to mention the LPI AA modes), nor how DAS plus the JHMCS makes the situational awareness capabilities of the aircraft magnitudes beyond anything currently flying. They also don't understand that an F-35 carries more fuel than a F-16 and F-15 combined. It has the legs to go where others can't and does it with a clean stealthy airframe. It is a game changing aircraft, just ask the Israeli's why they can't wait to get their hands on it.
Yes, our troop need both hi and lo CAS protection. The A-10/Tucano along with the F-35 is a great combination, but Congress won't fully allocate the money for both. So the choice is hard, but has to be made. The A-10 fleet isn't going anywhere at the current moment it will be flying until 2020. And the reserve hogs will remain in backup status.
If you've got another spare 500 million laying around, sure. Like the OP stated, with enough money anything is possible (even designing an entirely new SST). But, in the case with the 593s, they were designed to work specifically with the air frame, intakes and nozzles. At mach 2 supersonic flight, thrust generation breaks down to roughly 8% from the engine compressor core, 29% from the nozzle, and 63% from the intake. It really is a magnificent system. More complex systems exist (aka SR-71, etc), but they are to be considered fully unified from a design standpoint.
So a new engine would mean a new intake design and nozzle, which further translates into structural modification to the wings, which translates into the aircraft no longer being allowed to operate under it's current type certificate by the authorities. This means the aircraft would end up needing to be re-certified through an approved flight test program to operated under an amended/derived type certificate. Aka, you might as well just build a new aircraft (you're going to burn through the $$ anyway).
This and the fact that you also need to get a valid airworthiness certificate from the local authorities for it to fly. Getting that without OEM support is not impossible, it's just improbable for this aircraft. We keep WWII aircraft flying with one off machined parts all the time, but those parts are not difficult to machine by a modern shop. The materials used are common and the older manufacturing techniques aren't cutting edge anymore. Those older aircraft also tend to have much more simple control mechanisms (Concorde was a primitive partial fly by wire system). You would end up scouring collectors and museums for spares, not to mention corralling certified maintenance techs to work it.
Then we get to the engines, they'll need to be rebuilt and eventually be rebladed. There are enough surplus parts to keep the J79s from the 60's going, but there were thousands of those built. The Olympus 593s were a one off just for the Concord, not a lot of surplus parts floating around. Manufacturing new blades would be incredibly cost prohibitive.
My personal belief, if they want to throw billions into it, the best they'll be able to do is static runs and taxi displays. I don't think they'll get it into the air again and certainly not carrying passengers. I just don't think they have the muster to get a full D check completed and any local authorities to authorize it.
A good write up on what it would take. Impossible, no, improbable, yes.
First run 707-020 and 707-320 intercontinentals were turbojet powered. But the most numerous 707 models (707-320B and 707-320C) were JT3D turbofan powered aircraft. It should also be noted that 707s were still being built in the 90s.
Andy Ritger at Nvidia is already in talks with Ben Skeggs and Martin Peres with Nouveau. They're are going to hash out the details at XDC2014. The impact for Nouveau is in the packaging and distribution parts of the cycle, not development. Also, it was Nvidia who reached out to Nouveau, not the other way around. Nvidia has their reasons for doing this, but it's not an anti FOSS thing. It's more likely one of the more sane reasons posted above.
I agree. The submitter doesn't know the industry. It's also a rather dubious claim becuase ACARS is fitted to every 777 that rolls off the line from Boeing. This includes ACARS with SATCOM, VHF, and HF capability. There's no need to "install" it.
The only argument is did Malaysian airlines fully utilize the service. To receive ACARS data remotely requires a subscription service to SITA, which can be rather expensive. No go and force this on an airline that's been on the verge of bankruptcy for quite some time.
There's no mandate that airlines use remote ACARS and I don't believe that they should be. Locating the aircraft sooner will not bring those people back. The submitter also forgets that it took 2 years to recover the FDR and CVR from AF447 and that plane sent loads of ACARS data via SATCOM link prior to the crash.
Primary return data is most likely available for the initial part of the descent (maybe down to 10,000 AGL), regardless of SSR MODE-S data. The Gulf is covered pretty well radar wise (not counting military sets) Ref: See page 2. The difficulty is collecting, combining, and analysing all the CD2 data from the primary returns. Even then, the general public may not be advised of the outcome of the analysis until well after the search.
I concur that it did not break up at altitude, otherwise the debris field would of been located relatively close to the flight path.
Other notable water crashes took many years to determine their final outcomes. I agree with the sentiment, we need to be patient and let the experts do their work.
Most center surveillance radars have a range of 200 - 250NM (ARSR-3, ARSR-4, AN/FPS-117, AN/FPS-67B). Secondary beacon radars have a range of about 190NM for 1090ES equipped transponders.
You are correct in assuming most high altitude center control ops, for aircraft in cruise, rely heavily on MODE-S data. This is transponder data and not primary radar echo return data.
Terminal radar, the kind you see at your local airport, mostly relies on primary radar data. But at a shorter range (~50NM).
The reasons for the difference are many, but come down to accuracy and overlap. Center controllers use a mosaic of data from multiple radars that must average primary returns, this leads to slight disagreements on the true location of the aircraft. The MODE-S data is constant though, so it is preferred. In terminal environments, there's usually a single radar set. So the primary data is more useful in terms of accuracy for spacing the aircraft (they can pack them in tighter more safely). Terminal radar sets also have a higher scan rate.
MH370 was over the Gulf of Thailand and was under coverage of about three different radars. Even if the transponder was turned off, primary return data would still be available for the track. CrimsonAvenger has a valid point, but the last known location of the flight was far off shore and at a cruising altitude. So we could possibly speculate that line of sight was not a big factor.
There's a lot of big mysteries and speculation at this point, but we just need to give it time. They will eventually find the wreckage and hopefully determine they cause. There are many historical crashes that required more searching than has been applied to MH370 (AF447). In the meantime, grab some popcorn and enjoy the conspiracy theories...
Late followup to this. It is non officially planned and Kristian is working on it. And if he is working on it, it should arrive by the time Wayland is slated to take over from X.org.
A libwayland application may start up a proxy compositor on the machine (server, appliance, closet PC in your example) and blit the compressed damaged regions over the network. Or an RDP (or SPICE, VNC) server could offer the proxy compositor (even through SSH).
He also has commented on examples of a rolling hash algorithm to instruct the client to reposition damaged regions vs re-blitting their contents.
Now that the 1.0 specification has been released, I hope to see others helping out in the area of remoting. Nobody's going to deny that Wayland can't do everything X11 can do today, but they're also not positioning Wayland to replace X11 _today_.
For everyone bitching about Wayland vs X11 and network transparency, you need to watch this talk by Kristian Høgsberg. Keith and the rest of the devs have always said that remoting would eventually come down the pipeline.
And for everyone else talking about efficiency of sending pixmaps via the network, you should learn how your current stack actually works. It will be much better with Wayland.
I've used X11 since 1995, I'm very fond of it. But I also realize it needs to go...
The machine in the video is an ES&S IVotronic terminal. It's the same terminal I voted on this morning. It directly appears the digitizer is incorrectly calibrated. What the video author doesn't show is the paper tabulator in the lower left corner. It would of clearly showed his vote being tallied incorrectly. Perhaps he was voting Romney and didn't want his cast vote shown, but the paper trail recorder clearly shows your selection in the window. It even shows when you got back and correct a selection. Now, they key is that each candidate field on the screen is independently calibrated and can be re-calibrated in under a minute by any third party.
At minimum, this terminal should of been isolated and inspected for tampering. Hopefully that was the ultimate outcome. I know I would of not left the area until a proper election official arrived.
For those not RTFA, they are referring to using Ethernet in professional live broadcast situations. Aka, newsroom or outdoor sporting broadcasts where cable bundles are still common. I believe they are imagining a world where a broadcast truck rolls up to a stadium and runs a few pair of 100Gbe fiber vs a large coax bundle. This could save considerable time and money. Some interesting bw numbers:
SD 270 Mbit/s Interlaced HD 1485 Mbit/s Progressive HD 2970 Mbit/s
Yes, there are many HAMs around working on custom SDRs. HPSDR is one I have some exposure to. It handles RX/TX and comes with open schematics. There are some HAMs doing some really cool stuff with it.
I work on the move all the time and am very rarely in an office. My HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon 4G is one of the key factors that allows me to actually work _and_ get out and enjoy society. I've fielded calls and worked issues sitting in my car in a Target parking lot. But, that's what I do. I basically get paid to be available at a moments notice and provide support. I am happy with the trade off. I get great flexibility, and in return, give up some of my personal freedom.
So, here's my biggest issue to date. Smart devices are getting too big to be truly portable. Try dragging a 4.5" device around the gym on an armband. Or find a place for it on a 5 mile run. I need to be connected, but sometimes only really need the old school phone/texting features. What I would love to see is carriers offer a single phone number that will route to multiple SIMs in multiple devices. That way, when i don't need the power and bulk of the Thunderbolt, I can grab a small and pocketable device instead.
Perhaps Google voice can accommodate this? Anybody have any experience with it?
Doubtful. Current carrier fleet defenses are pretty impressive (forward to 2:30) already. And the Nimitz class carriers now use RIM-116 point defense systems (a carrier never travels alone).
The laser defense is just the last layer of the strategy and part of the overall big dick swinging contest. The Air Force is working on it, the Army is working on it, and the Navy wants its part.
I could see its use for cooking UAVs and other type stuff where you don't want to be wasting $1M missile shots. It's definitely a more economical weapon (sans development cost). It's also more effective against high trajectory fire, similar to MTHEL's capability.
Slashdot Mirror
No, leave it as is. For one reason, ethernet cables are often hand made or hand terminated. I've terminated 1000s of cables in my career, various lengths and runs. The current connector, while not perfect, is just about the right size for hand termination without expensive or specialized equipment. My bag always has a crimper and spare connectors in it. I can easily whip up a cable on a moments notice. If you go to a mini or micro connector, more specialized equipment will be involved that may not allow one to hand terminate a cable easily. If we lose that, we lose the versatility of the connector in general.
In terms of operating the weapon, there's little difference between the new LRASM and a classic Tomahawk or any other cruise misslle made in the last 30 years. It's just HughPickens being a sensationalist.
The actual report talks about AI based systems with kill authority (aka SkyNet).
For those not wanting to read anything historical. The confrontation comes because the Secure Boot option of UEFI (if enabled) only ships with Microsoft keys in the firmware. Thus, Microsoft's signing service is the only practical signing service and will only sign a PE executable. The solution that Matt and company came up with was to have a module vendor wrap their keys in a PE executable, have Microsoft sign them, and then ship the signed PE executable with the signed Linux kernel module. Verification of the signed Linux module thus requires the Linux kernel to load the PE executable, verify its signature, then extract the vendor keys and continue on.
Linus rightly called out the idea as moronic and stupid. The retorts basically came in the form of "Microsoft created the standard, and is the only viable signing service for the standard". Even though alternative options could of been had, they were deemed to complicated and involved.
Life would of been much easier of Microsoft would just sign X.509 certificates like the rest of the world.
Read more about it here.
Agreed, when it comes to the F-35, slashdot gets bombarded with the uninformed and the Anonymous Cowards. Short memory is an unfortunate human trait. As ejecitons from contemporary aircraft have never been problematic or ever killed pilots? Or is it simply that further testing of the Martin-Baker designed seat produced questionable result when constraining lightweight pilots? But I know it's more fun to simply trash talk the F-35 instead of preventing further deaths.
Unlike you, I research a topic before I comment on it. How is not seeing further or more clearly not improve situational awareness? How is having a secure datalink not improve situational awareness? The APG-81 is so good that the Dutch recently stated that a single F-35 improves the picture not only for itself, but for the flight of F-16s it was accompanying.
And then you go an talk about IESA, which leads me to believe you have no informed opinion. Hint, it's AESA. E-2s won't be going downtown with your strike package, F-35s will. The hi-lo-hi range of an F-16 with a typical combat load is 400nmi, that extends to almost 700nmi for the F-35. Which is why you never see an F-16 without a pair of 370gal EFTs. The F-35s best them with all internal stores. Another 'hour' of flight time gets you to places the 4th gen fighters can't. Pure and simple. Everyone is re-evaluating their CONOPS plans for when the F-35 arrives in numbers.
The problem is that they are not that cheap, nor are they absolutely current technology wise.
The F-35 will out range the F-14 and F-16. The F-15E will class it but only with external tanks (CFT + EFT). F-35's radar is superior to all examples listed. It has all aspect DAS for situational awareness. The list goes on...
And, when full rate production is 100% in 2019, you can have them for $75 million per copy (today's dollars). By comparison you can get an F-15 for about $85 million and an F-16 for about $50 million. Both are still in production, F-16s out of Fort Worth, TX and F-15s out of St. Louis, MO.
The reason is that most don't understand how the procurement process works nor do they understand that actual capabilities of the F-35. They can't envision what the superior SAR capability of the APG-81 brings (not to mention the LPI AA modes), nor how DAS plus the JHMCS makes the situational awareness capabilities of the aircraft magnitudes beyond anything currently flying. They also don't understand that an F-35 carries more fuel than a F-16 and F-15 combined. It has the legs to go where others can't and does it with a clean stealthy airframe. It is a game changing aircraft, just ask the Israeli's why they can't wait to get their hands on it.
Hmmm, Senior Levels? GENERAL MARK A. WELSH III Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force is a former A-10 pilot. He knows CAS very well and will quickly point out that the USAF flys over 20,000 CAS sorties per year.
Yes, our troop need both hi and lo CAS protection. The A-10/Tucano along with the F-35 is a great combination, but Congress won't fully allocate the money for both. So the choice is hard, but has to be made. The A-10 fleet isn't going anywhere at the current moment it will be flying until 2020. And the reserve hogs will remain in backup status.
If you've got another spare 500 million laying around, sure. Like the OP stated, with enough money anything is possible (even designing an entirely new SST). But, in the case with the 593s, they were designed to work specifically with the air frame, intakes and nozzles. At mach 2 supersonic flight, thrust generation breaks down to roughly 8% from the engine compressor core, 29% from the nozzle, and 63% from the intake. It really is a magnificent system. More complex systems exist (aka SR-71, etc), but they are to be considered fully unified from a design standpoint.
So a new engine would mean a new intake design and nozzle, which further translates into structural modification to the wings, which translates into the aircraft no longer being allowed to operate under it's current type certificate by the authorities. This means the aircraft would end up needing to be re-certified through an approved flight test program to operated under an amended/derived type certificate. Aka, you might as well just build a new aircraft (you're going to burn through the $$ anyway).
This and the fact that you also need to get a valid airworthiness certificate from the local authorities for it to fly. Getting that without OEM support is not impossible, it's just improbable for this aircraft. We keep WWII aircraft flying with one off machined parts all the time, but those parts are not difficult to machine by a modern shop. The materials used are common and the older manufacturing techniques aren't cutting edge anymore. Those older aircraft also tend to have much more simple control mechanisms (Concorde was a primitive partial fly by wire system). You would end up scouring collectors and museums for spares, not to mention corralling certified maintenance techs to work it.
Then we get to the engines, they'll need to be rebuilt and eventually be rebladed. There are enough surplus parts to keep the J79s from the 60's going, but there were thousands of those built. The Olympus 593s were a one off just for the Concord, not a lot of surplus parts floating around. Manufacturing new blades would be incredibly cost prohibitive.
My personal belief, if they want to throw billions into it, the best they'll be able to do is static runs and taxi displays. I don't think they'll get it into the air again and certainly not carrying passengers. I just don't think they have the muster to get a full D check completed and any local authorities to authorize it.
A good write up on what it would take. Impossible, no, improbable, yes.
First run 707-020 and 707-320 intercontinentals were turbojet powered. But the most numerous 707 models (707-320B and 707-320C) were JT3D turbofan powered aircraft. It should also be noted that 707s were still being built in the 90s.
While everyone speculates on GC vs heap vs what flavor is my coffee, ERAM approach systems use ADA as the language of choice.
reference
Andy Ritger at Nvidia is already in talks with Ben Skeggs and Martin Peres with Nouveau. They're are going to hash out the details at XDC2014. The impact for Nouveau is in the packaging and distribution parts of the cycle, not development. Also, it was Nvidia who reached out to Nouveau, not the other way around. Nvidia has their reasons for doing this, but it's not an anti FOSS thing. It's more likely one of the more sane reasons posted above.
So everyone just relax their sphincters a bit....
I agree. The submitter doesn't know the industry. It's also a rather dubious claim becuase ACARS is fitted to every 777 that rolls off the line from Boeing. This includes ACARS with SATCOM, VHF, and HF capability. There's no need to "install" it.
The only argument is did Malaysian airlines fully utilize the service. To receive ACARS data remotely requires a subscription service to SITA, which can be rather expensive. No go and force this on an airline that's been on the verge of bankruptcy for quite some time.
There's no mandate that airlines use remote ACARS and I don't believe that they should be. Locating the aircraft sooner will not bring those people back. The submitter also forgets that it took 2 years to recover the FDR and CVR from AF447 and that plane sent loads of ACARS data via SATCOM link prior to the crash.
Primary return data is most likely available for the initial part of the descent (maybe down to 10,000 AGL), regardless of SSR MODE-S data. The Gulf is covered pretty well radar wise (not counting military sets) Ref: See page 2. The difficulty is collecting, combining, and analysing all the CD2 data from the primary returns. Even then, the general public may not be advised of the outcome of the analysis until well after the search.
I concur that it did not break up at altitude, otherwise the debris field would of been located relatively close to the flight path.
Other notable water crashes took many years to determine their final outcomes. I agree with the sentiment, we need to be patient and let the experts do their work.
IANAATC, but...
Most center surveillance radars have a range of 200 - 250NM (ARSR-3, ARSR-4, AN/FPS-117, AN/FPS-67B). Secondary beacon radars have a range of about 190NM for 1090ES equipped transponders.
You are correct in assuming most high altitude center control ops, for aircraft in cruise, rely heavily on MODE-S data. This is transponder data and not primary radar echo return data.
Terminal radar, the kind you see at your local airport, mostly relies on primary radar data. But at a shorter range (~50NM).
The reasons for the difference are many, but come down to accuracy and overlap. Center controllers use a mosaic of data from multiple radars that must average primary returns, this leads to slight disagreements on the true location of the aircraft. The MODE-S data is constant though, so it is preferred. In terminal environments, there's usually a single radar set. So the primary data is more useful in terms of accuracy for spacing the aircraft (they can pack them in tighter more safely). Terminal radar sets also have a higher scan rate.
MH370 was over the Gulf of Thailand and was under coverage of about three different radars. Even if the transponder was turned off, primary return data would still be available for the track. CrimsonAvenger has a valid point, but the last known location of the flight was far off shore and at a cruising altitude. So we could possibly speculate that line of sight was not a big factor.
There's a lot of big mysteries and speculation at this point, but we just need to give it time. They will eventually find the wreckage and hopefully determine they cause. There are many historical crashes that required more searching than has been applied to MH370 (AF447). In the meantime, grab some popcorn and enjoy the conspiracy theories...
Late followup to this. It is non officially planned and Kristian is working on it. And if he is working on it, it should arrive by the time Wayland is slated to take over from X.org.
A libwayland application may start up a proxy compositor on the machine (server, appliance, closet PC in your example) and blit the compressed damaged regions over the network. Or an RDP (or SPICE, VNC) server could offer the proxy compositor (even through SSH).
He also has commented on examples of a rolling hash algorithm to instruct the client to reposition damaged regions vs re-blitting their contents.
Now that the 1.0 specification has been released, I hope to see others helping out in the area of remoting. Nobody's going to deny that Wayland can't do everything X11 can do today, but they're also not positioning Wayland to replace X11 _today_.
For those too lazy, fast forward to the 1:10 mark and watch. You'll realize that the remoting prototype for Walyand is pretty damn sweet.
For everyone bitching about Wayland vs X11 and network transparency, you need to watch this talk by Kristian Høgsberg. Keith and the rest of the devs have always said that remoting would eventually come down the pipeline.
And for everyone else talking about efficiency of sending pixmaps via the network, you should learn how your current stack actually works. It will be much better with Wayland.
I've used X11 since 1995, I'm very fond of it. But I also realize it needs to go...
The machine in the video is an ES&S IVotronic terminal. It's the same terminal I voted on this morning. It directly appears the digitizer is incorrectly calibrated. What the video author doesn't show is the paper tabulator in the lower left corner. It would of clearly showed his vote being tallied incorrectly. Perhaps he was voting Romney and didn't want his cast vote shown, but the paper trail recorder clearly shows your selection in the window. It even shows when you got back and correct a selection. Now, they key is that each candidate field on the screen is independently calibrated and can be re-calibrated in under a minute by any third party.
At minimum, this terminal should of been isolated and inspected for tampering. Hopefully that was the ultimate outcome. I know I would of not left the area until a proper election official arrived.
Insightful write up. Getting rare here on ./
For those not RTFA, they are referring to using Ethernet in professional live broadcast situations. Aka, newsroom or outdoor sporting broadcasts where cable bundles are still common. I believe they are imagining a world where a broadcast truck rolls up to a stadium and runs a few pair of 100Gbe fiber vs a large coax bundle. This could save considerable time and money. Some interesting bw numbers:
SD 270 Mbit/s
Interlaced HD 1485 Mbit/s
Progressive HD 2970 Mbit/s
Yes, there are many HAMs around working on custom SDRs. HPSDR is one I have some exposure to. It handles RX/TX and comes with open schematics. There are some HAMs doing some really cool stuff with it.
What I really want?
I work on the move all the time and am very rarely in an office. My HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon 4G is one of the key factors that allows me to actually work _and_ get out and enjoy society. I've fielded calls and worked issues sitting in my car in a Target parking lot. But, that's what I do. I basically get paid to be available at a moments notice and provide support. I am happy with the trade off. I get great flexibility, and in return, give up some of my personal freedom.
So, here's my biggest issue to date. Smart devices are getting too big to be truly portable. Try dragging a 4.5" device around the gym on an armband. Or find a place for it on a 5 mile run. I need to be connected, but sometimes only really need the old school phone/texting features. What I would love to see is carriers offer a single phone number that will route to multiple SIMs in multiple devices. That way, when i don't need the power and bulk of the Thunderbolt, I can grab a small and pocketable device instead.
Perhaps Google voice can accommodate this? Anybody have any experience with it?
Very little mention of the actual product. Here's the image gallery for, what I assume, are the skimmer.
Doubtful. Current carrier fleet defenses are pretty impressive (forward to 2:30) already. And the Nimitz class carriers now use RIM-116 point defense systems (a carrier never travels alone).
The laser defense is just the last layer of the strategy and part of the overall big dick swinging contest. The Air Force is working on it, the Army is working on it, and the Navy wants its part.
I could see its use for cooking UAVs and other type stuff where you don't want to be wasting $1M missile shots. It's definitely a more economical weapon (sans development cost). It's also more effective against high trajectory fire, similar to MTHEL's capability.