I have only had the chance to use it for a short while, but yes, the player was really stylish, ergonomic and with good audio quality. I'm sure SS installs all sorts of nasty stuff on your PC, though (after the recent events, I consider Sony guilty until proven otherwise). Anyway the "poor uninstall support" (mentioned all over the web) is typical for spyware.
Isn't this error-prone? not to mention that it is a lot of tedious work!
Therefore, I propose this simple well-documented awk-script that will automatically comment *every line* (yes, you heard that right!), thereby making the code much more understandable:
I'm even willing to do the testing myself. All I need is:
* Siringes (5cc, 10cc, 50cc - just in case) * 1 truckload of NGF * around 1000 georgeous women (more is always better with statistics) * some privacy while conducting the experiments.
A friend of mine came in last year with a sony mp3 player (it must have been the RC5, for it was marketed as a "real" mp3 player). He's computer illiterate and wanted me to put some of his cd's on the stick. I don't have windows, so I just stuck it into the usb port and it showed up as a drive. I ripped the CD's under linux and copied the resulting mp3's. It didn't work. So I imagined there was something wrong with the mp3 format and tried different options for converting to mp3. Nothing worked, and he was going on vacation in a few days so it needed to be done asap. I spent all night trying to make it work.
Eventually, at 5AM, I gave up. I had my sister's computer at home for cleanup, and she had winXP. I installed SonicStage on it and copied the files using that crappy software. I suspected call-home "features", so I made sure it wasn't connected to the internet. Later, I didn't manage to uninstall it, so I just deleted the folder in program files. Now, I suspect there still are some "drivers" present. I'm not sure, maybe it's just an irrational fear, and I'm really just paranoid. Maybe not.
I recently read the "Rama" series by Arthur C. Clarke (later books together with Gentry Lee). There was a species, I'm not telling wich one in order not to spoil too much, but they had an interesting war policy. When they entered a war, the society was drastically transformed, and *every* individual involved in the war effort was automatically sheduled for termination (aka death) as soon as the war ended. This included their leaders. They immediatly started producing large amounts of offspring to replace them. There were two reasons. The first was that the individuals confronted with war would be emotionally unstable from the horrors of war, and could not adapt to civil life afterwards. The second was that war is an extreme solution, and their leaders would not begin a war needlessly because it meant they would die no matter the outcome.
It was a really cool part of the series, the species would first allow the agressors to bomb them without retaliation while sending multiple messages saying that they didn't realized who they were messing with and that they'd better stop now. Then after the final ultimatum, they were remorseless and would kill nearly everyone in one big blow.
I liked their attitude:-).
PS: The episode is in the final part, Rama Reveiled, so you'll need some time. Also, the ending isn't that spectacular, imho, but still I enjoyed reading it.
I only know of a record-setting balloon flight on Antartica, I found it back here, but possibly we're talking about the same mission. I know that gas seeping is a problem, helium molecules being that small, and 100 days is already a lot. If you need longer duration, refilling seems to be your only option. Maybe you can replace/add a tether with a light-weight tube that refills it from the ground. The good news is that getting helium up is not a big problem:-). But I'm not that sure that it solves the cost problem.
Three tethers, so what? Just imagine wind coming from one side, it will push the balloon away and the thether(s) in front will try to prevent it./. isn't the best place to make a drawing, but if you plot the force vectors yourself you'll see that the balloon is pushed down, the thethers in front will go more horizontally, and the thethers behind will loose tension.
The triangle is only stable if it has a solid frame, that you can compress an pull alike. Some tethers won't do it. You could argue that you can increase the lift of the balloon, thereby increasing the wind speed at wich the balloon will leave it's position, and in theory you are correct, but by doing so you'll also increase the balloon's size, hence it's drag, and basically you'll just nullify the effect. So you'll need an aerodynamic shape and have to make extra engineering efforts to position the -by then - zeppelin correctly facing the wind.
I don't say it cannot be done - you can probably even use a single tether and use GPS measurements of the balloon as an indication of wind speed if you are willing to drop the requirement about wind speeds at different heights, but I'm afraid you're not talking about a hobby project, but about a commercial undertaking with quite some investment capital and research.
I don't have any OM ambitions for the moment, besides the OM is also my father (that's getting way to freudian for my likings:-) ). I never got my license before because I had way too many hobbies already, and I didn't have a compelling reason to get a license. But my interests in robotics led me to ballooning, and a HAM license makes sense if you want to gather telemetry from a probe. Besides, I find the current trend of declining participation in hobby clubs disturbing, and things like these can potentially renew the interest of young people (and increase the co-operation between different hobbies, see before). Bottom line, I believe that projects like these can help in countering the decline.
Of course, the worst case scenario is that HAM's and amateur astronomers can't stand each other, leading to a civil war. But that's only the pessimist in me talking (yeah, I know, he's good:-) ).
Indeed, the post makes much more sense if he intends to use three tethers fixed to the ground instead of three tethers fixed to the balloon 8-). My mental model was completely wrong.
Simply by using common sense, won't tethered balloons have to follow the same regulations as pylons? As long as you stay below the maximum height, there shouldn't be any problem, if you want to go higher, you need to get a permit.
And thanks for the links, I'm learning a lot today:). (the previous reply is very interesting too)
Whoohoo! Jackpot! All the info I was looking for in one post! I can't thank you enough! I'd kiss you if it weren't for the fact that a) you live too far away, and b) I don't kiss guys;)
It's a semi-long-term project, I'm still studying to get my HAM licence, but you really increased my motivation to get it real soon now! Ballooning seems like a fun way to get people together, young and old, both from the local HAM-club and the astronomy club (another hobby of mine).
Basically there seem to be some complaints, mainly that the guy is too slow (reads his e-mail once per 10 days), he only accepts US$ and no Euro's, a complaint about conversion rates, and one person on the forum had his stamps delivered with some damages. The seller is a lawyer, so going to court is second nature to him.
If only he read his e-mail more frequently and tried to be a salesman instead of a lawyer, this would have been unneccessary it seems.
Sending a weather balloon up in the sky is one of my dreams too. I'm not an expert -yet;) - but I'll give you the things I found out already.. Mistakes may be plentiful, so if anyone can point them out they are free to do so.
A weather balloon will continue to rise until it pops. Helium is lighter than air no matter the altitude, so ignoring the helium loss and the extra pressure inside the balloon due to the tension of the balloon itself, there is no point of equilibrium. I think you can theoretically create such a point, but it would rise so slowly that it would be unpractical.
So I was thinking to send one up that is already at/near equilibrium at ground level, aided by a second "booster" balloon to get it up in the air fast. The second balloon would either have to pop sooner than the first one, or else it would have to be cut off by the payload at a certain height. This can be done with a glow wire wound around a nylon tether, eg. After that, the fligt duration will be mainly limited by helium seeping out of the baloon, and I have no idea how long it can last.
I'm thinking to put a simple QRP (=low power) HAM transmitter on board, together with a few simple sensors (pressure and temperature readings). Recovery is unlikely, so a GPRS receiver is way to expensive IMO.
I don't know much about the legal aspects, but I doubt some nation will spend mega$$$ to shoot down a 25$ (?) balloon payload if it happens to drift into their territory. And even if they do, I won't care much (unless if they try to send me the bill - but I plan to include Bill Gates' address on the probe just for that reason 8-) ).
A. Coward: Wind speed can vary significantly with elevation, so I want to make measurements quite high
This is the part that has got me puzzled. You want to measure wind speeds high up in the air to assess possible wind turbine placings (you're a bored millionaire or what?), even though you realize ground level wind speed and high altitude wind speeds are unrelated?!? I really don't get it. Also, anemometers won't work, because the balloon is drifting along with the wind, so measured wind speed will be close to zero, even though the balloon can be moving at 100km/h. What you need to measure is the position of the balloon over time, and from that data you can deduce the wind speed.
Also note that wind turbines are placed based on avg. *long term* wind speeds, not on ad hoc measurements from a single balloon. You'll have to make measurements for multiple years.
So, based on all those arguments, I think your idea is majorly flawed, or else I've misunderstood you. Sorry in either case;-)
The story: some moronic gangsters tried to steal my portable a couple of years ago. They didn't expect a geek willing to defend it with his life, and the beat me up severely. I managed to keep my portable because I managed to maneuvre myself in the middle of the street blocking all traffic and drawing too much attention.
Anyway, since then I'm much more afraid, and have a panic attack once in a while. Eventually I went to see a psychologist and she learned me this "progressive relaxation". It helps, but I'm still not the person I once was. I do the excercises before going to bed, because I have troubles falling to sleep, and relive the attack frequently.
It's really cool, after the excercise I feel detached from my body and really really calm. Quite often I fall asleep before finishing the complete set of excersises. I didn't know it was related to self-hypnosis though.
Re:Won't work well with significant others...
on
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Shouldn't that become GNU/Apple? You could have fooled me it was a security report for some GNU/Linux distro.. Well, except for the Safari part..
Time to ask RMS about his opinion on this..
I guess so, I don't know of much chemicals that cannot be synthesised. At what cost, that's a different story.
:).
Anyway, if the nest is inside your house you might have a problem
I have only had the chance to use it for a short while, but yes, the player was really stylish, ergonomic and with good audio quality. I'm sure SS installs all sorts of nasty stuff on your PC, though (after the recent events, I consider Sony guilty until proven otherwise). Anyway the "poor uninstall support" (mentioned all over the web) is typical for spyware.
He must be a Libra. The match with this horoscope is really stunning.
Is that a pencil sticking out of your ear?
With comments like these, could you please add "Warning: spoiler!!!" to the title? Thanks a lot for giving away the ending! Sheesh!
Isn't this error-prone? not to mention that it is a lot of tedious work!
Therefore, I propose this simple well-documented awk-script that will automatically comment *every line* (yes, you heard that right!), thereby making the code much more understandable:
# awk '{print $0 "\n//" $0}' undocumented_source_file.c > documented_source_file.c
awk '{print $0 "\n//" $0}' undocumented_source_file.c > documented_source_file.c
I'm even willing to do the testing myself. All I need is:
* Siringes (5cc, 10cc, 50cc - just in case)
* 1 truckload of NGF
* around 1000 georgeous women (more is always better with statistics)
* some privacy while conducting the experiments.
*Please* let me sacrifice my life for science!
Just make your software 3 laws safe. Problem solved.
...it needs to quickly copy...
And very quickly, at that. Google announced it a few weeks ago, and now M$ has it's own. Is this industrial espionage at work or only bluff?
A friend of mine came in last year with a sony mp3 player (it must have been the RC5, for it was marketed as a "real" mp3 player). He's computer illiterate and wanted me to put some of his cd's on the stick. I don't have windows, so I just stuck it into the usb port and it showed up as a drive. I ripped the CD's under linux and copied the resulting mp3's. It didn't work. So I imagined there was something wrong with the mp3 format and tried different options for converting to mp3. Nothing worked, and he was going on vacation in a few days so it needed to be done asap. I spent all night trying to make it work.
Eventually, at 5AM, I gave up. I had my sister's computer at home for cleanup, and she had winXP. I installed SonicStage on it and copied the files using that crappy software. I suspected call-home "features", so I made sure it wasn't connected to the internet. Later, I didn't manage to uninstall it, so I just deleted the folder in program files. Now, I suspect there still are some "drivers" present. I'm not sure, maybe it's just an irrational fear, and I'm really just paranoid. Maybe not.
Bottom line: I vowed never to buy Sony. Ever.
I recently read the "Rama" series by Arthur C. Clarke (later books together with Gentry Lee). There was a species, I'm not telling wich one in order not to spoil too much, but they had an interesting war policy. When they entered a war, the society was drastically transformed, and *every* individual involved in the war effort was automatically sheduled for termination (aka death) as soon as the war ended. This included their leaders. They immediatly started producing large amounts of offspring to replace them. There were two reasons. The first was that the individuals confronted with war would be emotionally unstable from the horrors of war, and could not adapt to civil life afterwards. The second was that war is an extreme solution, and their leaders would not begin a war needlessly because it meant they would die no matter the outcome.
:-).
It was a really cool part of the series, the species would first allow the agressors to bomb them without retaliation while sending multiple messages saying that they didn't realized who they were messing with and that they'd better stop now. Then after the final ultimatum, they were remorseless and would kill nearly everyone in one big blow.
I liked their attitude
PS: The episode is in the final part, Rama Reveiled, so you'll need some time. Also, the ending isn't that spectacular, imho, but still I enjoyed reading it.
Just FTR: I do.
I only know of a record-setting balloon flight on Antartica, I found it back here, but possibly we're talking about the same mission. I know that gas seeping is a problem, helium molecules being that small, and 100 days is already a lot. If you need longer duration, refilling seems to be your only option. Maybe you can replace/add a tether with a light-weight tube that refills it from the ground. The good news is that getting helium up is not a big problem :-). But I'm not that sure that it solves the cost problem.
Three tethers, so what? Just imagine wind coming from one side, it will push the balloon away and the thether(s) in front will try to prevent it. /. isn't the best place to make a drawing, but if you plot the force vectors yourself you'll see that the balloon is pushed down, the thethers in front will go more horizontally, and the thethers behind will loose tension.
The triangle is only stable if it has a solid frame, that you can compress an pull alike. Some tethers won't do it. You could argue that you can increase the lift of the balloon, thereby increasing the wind speed at wich the balloon will leave it's position, and in theory you are correct, but by doing so you'll also increase the balloon's size, hence it's drag, and basically you'll just nullify the effect. So you'll need an aerodynamic shape and have to make extra engineering efforts to position the -by then - zeppelin correctly facing the wind.
I don't say it cannot be done - you can probably even use a single tether and use GPS measurements of the balloon as an indication of wind speed if you are willing to drop the requirement about wind speeds at different heights, but I'm afraid you're not talking about a hobby project, but about a commercial undertaking with quite some investment capital and research.
I don't have any OM ambitions for the moment, besides the OM is also my father (that's getting way to freudian for my likings:-) ). I never got my license before because I had way too many hobbies already, and I didn't have a compelling reason to get a license. But my interests in robotics led me to ballooning, and a HAM license makes sense if you want to gather telemetry from a probe. Besides, I find the current trend of declining participation in hobby clubs disturbing, and things like these can potentially renew the interest of young people (and increase the co-operation between different hobbies, see before). Bottom line, I believe that projects like these can help in countering the decline.
:-) ).
Of course, the worst case scenario is that HAM's and amateur astronomers can't stand each other, leading to a civil war. But that's only the pessimist in me talking (yeah, I know, he's good
Indeed, the post makes much more sense if he intends to use three tethers fixed to the ground instead of three tethers fixed to the balloon 8-). My mental model was completely wrong.
:). (the previous reply is very interesting too)
Simply by using common sense, won't tethered balloons have to follow the same regulations as pylons? As long as you stay below the maximum height, there shouldn't be any problem, if you want to go higher, you need to get a permit.
And thanks for the links, I'm learning a lot today
Whoohoo! Jackpot! All the info I was looking for in one post! I can't thank you enough! I'd kiss you if it weren't for the fact that a) you live too far away, and b) I don't kiss guys ;)
:)
It's a semi-long-term project, I'm still studying to get my HAM licence, but you really increased my motivation to get it real soon now! Ballooning seems like a fun way to get people together, young and old, both from the local HAM-club and the astronomy club (another hobby of mine).
73's,
ON????
I speak Dutch, and searching in google for the seller's name and "postzegels" (Dutch for stamps), I found a thread on the forums of ebay (also in Dutch): http://forums.ebay.nl/thread.jspa?threadID=1000006 05&tstart=120&mod=1093984729600.
Basically there seem to be some complaints, mainly that the guy is too slow (reads his e-mail once per 10 days), he only accepts US$ and no Euro's, a complaint about conversion rates, and one person on the forum had his stamps delivered with some damages. The seller is a lawyer, so going to court is second nature to him.
If only he read his e-mail more frequently and tried to be a salesman instead of a lawyer, this would have been unneccessary it seems.
Sending a weather balloon up in the sky is one of my dreams too. I'm not an expert -yet ;) - but I'll give you the things I found out already.. Mistakes may be plentiful, so if anyone can point them out they are free to do so.
;-)
A weather balloon will continue to rise until it pops. Helium is lighter than air no matter the altitude, so ignoring the helium loss and the extra pressure inside the balloon due to the tension of the balloon itself, there is no point of equilibrium. I think you can theoretically create such a point, but it would rise so slowly that it would be unpractical.
So I was thinking to send one up that is already at/near equilibrium at ground level, aided by a second "booster" balloon to get it up in the air fast. The second balloon would either have to pop sooner than the first one, or else it would have to be cut off by the payload at a certain height. This can be done with a glow wire wound around a nylon tether, eg. After that, the fligt duration will be mainly limited by helium seeping out of the baloon, and I have no idea how long it can last.
I'm thinking to put a simple QRP (=low power) HAM transmitter on board, together with a few simple sensors (pressure and temperature readings). Recovery is unlikely, so a GPRS receiver is way to expensive IMO.
I don't know much about the legal aspects, but I doubt some nation will spend mega$$$ to shoot down a 25$ (?) balloon payload if it happens to drift into their territory. And even if they do, I won't care much (unless if they try to send me the bill - but I plan to include Bill Gates' address on the probe just for that reason 8-) ).
A. Coward: Wind speed can vary significantly with elevation, so I want to make measurements quite high
This is the part that has got me puzzled. You want to measure wind speeds high up in the air to assess possible wind turbine placings (you're a bored millionaire or what?), even though you realize ground level wind speed and high altitude wind speeds are unrelated?!? I really don't get it. Also, anemometers won't work, because the balloon is drifting along with the wind, so measured wind speed will be close to zero, even though the balloon can be moving at 100km/h. What you need to measure is the position of the balloon over time, and from that data you can deduce the wind speed.
Also note that wind turbines are placed based on avg. *long term* wind speeds, not on ad hoc measurements from a single balloon. You'll have to make measurements for multiple years.
So, based on all those arguments, I think your idea is majorly flawed, or else I've misunderstood you. Sorry in either case
Great. Give it two weeks and he'll end each story with "BTW, I'm typing this with my penis." Just let it be.
Progressive relaxation? Rings a bell!
The story: some moronic gangsters tried to steal my portable a couple of years ago. They didn't expect a geek willing to defend it with his life, and the beat me up severely. I managed to keep my portable because I managed to maneuvre myself in the middle of the street blocking all traffic and drawing too much attention.
Anyway, since then I'm much more afraid, and have a panic attack once in a while. Eventually I went to see a psychologist and she learned me this "progressive relaxation". It helps, but I'm still not the person I once was. I do the excercises before going to bed, because I have troubles falling to sleep, and relive the attack frequently.
It's really cool, after the excercise I feel detached from my body and really really calm. Quite often I fall asleep before finishing the complete set of excersises. I didn't know it was related to self-hypnosis though.
Girlfriend dissappears in a puff of logic.
Excuse me, is that TTL logic or CMOS logic?
Now *that* is a sticky situation...
What's yours?