Being a bit of an audio junky, I have number of audio components and receivers of various ages. One of the most obvious changes from my oldest pieces of equipment (a Pioneer SX-1250) and my newest (an Onkyo TS-XR876) is the change from nearly point-to-point wiring on the Pioneer, to flex ribbon wiring, SMDs, and digital components on the Onkyo.
Both receivers are beasts at about 45-60 pounds each, but the Pioneer has vastly lower parts count, and all of the parts are big, beefy, and through hole soldered. I'd bet that the Pioneer was also hand assembled versus the Onkyo.
On the plus side, the Onkyo is *vastly* more capable than the Pioneer -- it is nearly forty years newer. But that capability comes at a cost: Stuffing all of that digital circuitry, video processing & switching, and five extra audio channels creates a much more complicated circuit path and adds more possibility for crosstalk.
Hell, the most complicated the Pioneer gets is the Phono curve...
The Onkyo doesn't really sound inferior to the Pioneer, likely due to the fact that the Onkyo isn't the typical big box store receiver. Comparing the Pioneer to anything in Best Buy, the Pioneer is hands down superior. To my ears, at least.
by jeko (179919) Alter Relationship on Mon 02 May 05:23PM (#36005150)
Here's the problem with small claims court. You're responsible for collecting your own judgements. If you're suing "Bob's Restaurant and Bar," you can show up with a deputy and clean out the cash registers if necessary. If you're suing "Bob's Auto Yard," you can show up with a deputy and seize a car off the lot. If you're suing Bob, you can garnish Bob's wages.
I think you need start avoiding Bob in the future...
Can you show me a sport with more powerful engines where the vehicles have to last over 300km (actually, the engines have to do on average 4 races, including practice and qualifying, so it's more like 1500km per engine)? Further, I'd struggle to call a dragster a car at all, given that if you tried to drive it somewhere you'd rapidly run out of straight roads.
...but mass-produced using stick-type nitrocellulose/nitrogylcerin gunpowder (which fouled the barrel if the weapon was not cleaned regularly). The lack of cleaning supplies and instructions for troops didn't help matters either...
It's the other way around. The rifle was developed by Stoner to use flake powder. The US armories were setup to make ball powder. In addition, the ball powders of the day had excess calcium which contributed to clogged gas tubes, and the ball powder burned hotter which caused the carbon to adhere to the bolt. McNamara and his bean counters wanted the ball powder to save a few bucks.
It didn't help that the rifle was sold as 'self-cleaning', hence the lack of training and cleaning gear.
is there such a thing as an "accurised" M16? I.e. someone paying a fair amount of money to an armourer to tune a standard rifle for higher accuracy?
Yes, there are accurized AR-15s. Fully floated handguards, Kreiger stainless steel barrels with 1:7 or 1:8 twist, 1/4 MOA iron sights, and a two stage trigger. Mine also have additional lead weights in the handguards and stock to reduce shake. They are generally used for NRA High Power matches, and they cost about 2x what a standard AR costs.
Two manufacturers that come to mind are Compass Lake Engineering and White Oak Precision
(2) No-one is "obliged" to do anything well. There is no God in the sky instilling universal paternalistic values in you. Here's another philosophy: someone who is treated like shit ought to do the job badly until they're treated better, because otherwise people will get away with treating you and others like shit. Striking may be an option in some industries, but not everywhere.
Yes, you are.
If you've applied for and accepted a job, you know full well what the job's requirements are before you start. Accepting a job with a package shipping company, you know you may be working outside, moving hundreds of packages, and when the fall comes around, it will likely be cold and wet. You also accepted the pay and benefits package, so bitching about the pay is on you. No one press-ganged you into that job; You have the freedom to vote with your feet and move on.
What does paternalism have to do with job performance? It sounds more like you have a surplus of entitlement and petulance unchecked by reality...
As an extension of (2), if you want someone to do a job as well as you, make sure they're compensated as well as you. Supply/demand of skills may be relevant on a national scale, but to the individual what matters is whether his effort is worth his remuneration. If you don't like this, consider a less capitalistic model where a man works for more than himself.
Compensation is based on what you do, and the level of responsibility you have when you accepted your job. Sure, the manager gets more pay than you. But, he or she has likely been there longer than you, and is responsible for getting the packages moved in, sorted, and out in a timely manner. If that doesn't happen with regularity, then that manager is unlikely to keep that position. You want more pay? Do your job well and get promoted.
I am in favor of licensing citizens without criminal records to own books. However, before you leave the book shop the book owner should have valid certificates from certified book safety training schools. Add a tax about equal to the price of the book. Use that money to enforce education. Add to this expensive fines for violation of grammar or book use regulations with payment of intellectual property damages. Want to dispute a law book? Go right ahead, but the fine for that would be $20,000 plus all expenses for reeducation plus court costs, plus paying for the time spent by law enforcement on the violation. Oh. And for malicious disagreement with the Ministry of Truth, the license to own books is permanently suspended and all books are confiscated.
No doubt it can be done with the proper training, practice, and a properly setup rifle. I'd also bet that it would take quite a few shots for all but the most proficient. Bear in mind, most hunters are shooting 'minute of deer', not to NRA High Power or F Class levels of competence.
Every Fudd hunter I have ever known shoots, at most, 4-8 rounds per season, and two to three of those were used to check zero in October.
Of the competitors and hunters that I know personally, none are vandals.
...but apparently they can shoot the much more difficult to hit cable?
That makes zero sense.I'll challenge anyone on this board to shoot at a cable, strung between poles, and actually hit it.
For those of you without any experience (COD doesn't count)hitting a target that small isn't trivial. Bear in mind the target is what, 10 yards up with either the sky or the trees as a backdrop. If it happens, it's chance I'd blame rather than asshattery.
I've not had Maker's Mark, so I won't comment on the quality. But there are some very good American whiskeys:
Baker's 7
Booker's
Basil Hayden
Black Maple Hill
Old Potrero
And if you are partial to rye whiskey:
Sazerac 18
True, they won't taste like Scotch whisky, but that is the point. None of the singles taste the same, and having a bourbon or rye now and then adds variety.
I think we're at the point of comparing vastly different types of work. While you do make the point that you are comparing an extreme, I would say that this would be the leg prosthetic (rough) equivalent of the mechanical advantage a bicycle provides.
Logically, the bicycle provides a mechanical advantage. You trade an increased rate or motion (pedaling) for short gearing uphill, or more muscle input for taller gearing (more speed) on level terrain. Both of which take advantage of levers (pedals) and gearing to optimize your work over time for a particular workload. In addition, the whole character of your motion is modified to remove the work put into moving your body in the vertical plane a runner contends with.
My argument is this: The current state of un-powered prostetics are not augments to human musculature.
That whooshing noise is the point flying above your head...
The energy stored in the carbon-carbon spring is to replace the energy *supplied by the muscles in your thigh, calf, and foot*. You have two feet (presumably) and muscles. You don't need stored energy from mechanics because you have renewable, on-demand, energy. Leg prosthetics aren't currently self powered, so the stored energy in the 'spring' attempts to bridge the gap. For current daily wear prostehtics, the energy returned is about 50-80% of what would have been provided by a natural leg. Even if the sprinter's prosthesis returned 100% efficiency, it isn't adding any additional power to the forward stride, only what was input by the athlete.
The legs worn by athletes may *seem* to give a boost, but if that were true, the sprinter would be bounding down the track like a long-jumper. All of the energy to get the sprinter down the track is coming from muscles and/or body mass. In this case, some of that energy is stored, and that energy is then released on pronation, but it isn't supplemental power. If the leg were totally inert, a peg leg, the sprinter could get down the track, but all of the energy expended would be lost on impact, so there would be no rhythym, no chance for any speed.
I've read nearly all of the comments thus far, and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in the general lack of clue. I have had a prosthetic right leg for going on 13 years now. This is my third model.
The first was pretty much carbon-fibre, carbon-carbon, and titanium. The foot provided a bit of energy return to simulate the toe-push on pronation, but was not like the real thing.
The second foot added an articulated ankle which aided on uneven terrain, but was still not very lifelike.
The third has similar foot to the first, but added a shock-absorber and a vacuum system. Although this leg has some of the best of the current technology, at the end of the day, it sucks. [1]
Understand that I can walk pretty well. Most days, or when I'm not tired from walking all day long, my gait is indistinguishable from other folks. However, even though my 'foot' does provide *some* energy return, it in no way approaches the muscular push-off normal toes provide when walking. (I expect most folks don't even know or feel that they do this any longer.) Of course, I don't have one of the sprinter foots this runner will use in competition. They are specific to that function and just wouldn't work as daily 'footwear'.
All of that is immaterial. His feet don't 'give him way more energy' than a naturally footed sprinter. They can't. The only energy they store is that which is put there by the runner. I haven't studied his running style, but I expect that he has modified his style to maximize the energy put into the foot, and that the foot unloads the energy back into his lower leg on rolling off of the toe. Now, this is unnatural and required a great deal of training before he mastered it well enough to beat footed sprinters. I call bullshit on the IAAF.
That energy is not 'free'. He's had to train to get more fit than footed runners because his gait will not be a natural bone/muscle gait.
So, everyone wants mech warriors and augmentation. Big deal...
I'd like to be able to walk normally again.
While my prosthetic is made of groovy materials (carbon-carbon, carbon fibre and titanium), it lacks even the most basic of control. Sure, there is a small amount of feedback as the carbon-carbon 'foot' flexes, but I have no true ankle control.
I have been waiting for realistic 'active' prosthetics for over ten years now, and hopefully this technology will be available in a relatively reasonable time frame.
Me? I'd be happy to be able to manipulate a gas pedal, or walk on sand without slipping backwards.
Slashdot Mirror
And secondly, do we not teach aircrews what meaconing is any longer?
Easily solved with a 30+ year old INS system...
Being a bit of an audio junky, I have number of audio components and receivers of various ages. One of the most obvious changes from my oldest pieces of equipment (a Pioneer SX-1250) and my newest (an Onkyo TS-XR876) is the change from nearly point-to-point wiring on the Pioneer, to flex ribbon wiring, SMDs, and digital components on the Onkyo.
Both receivers are beasts at about 45-60 pounds each, but the Pioneer has vastly lower parts count, and all of the parts are big, beefy, and through hole soldered. I'd bet that the Pioneer was also hand assembled versus the Onkyo.
On the plus side, the Onkyo is *vastly* more capable than the Pioneer -- it is nearly forty years newer. But that capability comes at a cost: Stuffing all of that digital circuitry, video processing & switching, and five extra audio channels creates a much more complicated circuit path and adds more possibility for crosstalk.
Hell, the most complicated the Pioneer gets is the Phono curve...
The Onkyo doesn't really sound inferior to the Pioneer, likely due to the fact that the Onkyo isn't the typical big box store receiver. Comparing the Pioneer to anything in Best Buy, the Pioneer is hands down superior. To my ears, at least.
m
by jeko (179919) Alter Relationship on Mon 02 May 05:23PM (#36005150)
Here's the problem with small claims court. You're responsible for collecting your own judgements. If you're suing "Bob's Restaurant and Bar," you can show up with a deputy and clean out the cash registers if necessary. If you're suing "Bob's Auto Yard," you can show up with a deputy and seize a car off the lot. If you're suing Bob, you can garnish Bob's wages.
I think you need start avoiding Bob in the future...
by beowulfcluster
According to this: http://mitnse.com/2011/03/18/what-is-criticality/ [mitnse.com], any reactor is supercritical when it's starting up.
OP was likely thinking prompt critical...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_critical#Critical_versus_prompt-critical
m
Can you show me a sport with more powerful engines where the vehicles have to last over 300km (actually, the engines have to do on average 4 races, including practice and qualifying, so it's more like 1500km per engine)? Further, I'd struggle to call a dragster a car at all, given that if you tried to drive it somewhere you'd rapidly run out of straight roads.
How about a SCORE Trophy truck?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCORE_Trophy_Truck/
True, these engines are regularly rebuilt, but they have been used for the Baja 1000.
m
When he realizes his error, will he name is newborn son 'Facepalm'?
m
by flyneye (84093) writes:
Just build a small EMP generator. You may fry tech for blocks around but that drone will drop like a fly sprayed w/ RAID.
Shame about all those folks with pacemakers...
m
There are no such things as defensive or "primarily defensive" weapons.
Of course there are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIWS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_missile
m
...but mass-produced using stick-type nitrocellulose/nitrogylcerin gunpowder (which fouled the barrel if the weapon was not cleaned regularly). The lack of cleaning supplies and instructions for troops didn't help matters either...
It's the other way around. The rifle was developed by Stoner to use flake powder. The US armories were setup to make ball powder. In addition, the ball powders of the day had excess calcium which contributed to clogged gas tubes, and the ball powder burned hotter which caused the carbon to adhere to the bolt. McNamara and his bean counters wanted the ball powder to save a few bucks.
It didn't help that the rifle was sold as 'self-cleaning', hence the lack of training and cleaning gear.
m
is there such a thing as an "accurised" M16? I.e. someone paying a fair amount of money to an armourer to tune a standard rifle for higher accuracy?
Yes, there are accurized AR-15s. Fully floated handguards, Kreiger stainless steel barrels with 1:7 or 1:8 twist, 1/4 MOA iron sights, and a two stage trigger. Mine also have additional lead weights in the handguards and stock to reduce shake. They are generally used for NRA High Power matches, and they cost about 2x what a standard AR costs.
Two manufacturers that come to mind are Compass Lake Engineering and White Oak Precision
m
(2) No-one is "obliged" to do anything well. There is no God in the sky instilling universal paternalistic values in you. Here's another philosophy: someone who is treated like shit ought to do the job badly until they're treated better, because otherwise people will get away with treating you and others like shit. Striking may be an option in some industries, but not everywhere.
Yes, you are.
If you've applied for and accepted a job, you know full well what the job's requirements are before you start. Accepting a job with a package shipping company, you know you may be working outside, moving hundreds of packages, and when the fall comes around, it will likely be cold and wet. You also accepted the pay and benefits package, so bitching about the pay is on you. No one press-ganged you into that job; You have the freedom to vote with your feet and move on.
What does paternalism have to do with job performance? It sounds more like you have a surplus of entitlement and petulance unchecked by reality...
As an extension of (2), if you want someone to do a job as well as you, make sure they're compensated as well as you. Supply/demand of skills may be relevant on a national scale, but to the individual what matters is whether his effort is worth his remuneration. If you don't like this, consider a less capitalistic model where a man works for more than himself.
Compensation is based on what you do, and the level of responsibility you have when you accepted your job. Sure, the manager gets more pay than you. But, he or she has likely been there longer than you, and is responsible for getting the packages moved in, sorted, and out in a timely manner. If that doesn't happen with regularity, then that manager is unlikely to keep that position. You want more pay? Do your job well and get promoted.
Corrected:
I am in favor of licensing citizens without criminal records to own books. However, before you leave the book shop the book owner should have valid certificates from certified book safety training schools. Add a tax about equal to the price of the book. Use that money to enforce education. Add to this expensive fines for violation of grammar or book use regulations with payment of intellectual property damages. Want to dispute a law book? Go right ahead, but the fine for that would be $20,000 plus all expenses for reeducation plus court costs, plus paying for the time spent by law enforcement on the violation. Oh. And for malicious disagreement with the Ministry of Truth, the license to own books is permanently suspended and all books are confiscated.
That silly Bill of Rights...
m
No doubt it can be done with the proper training, practice, and a properly setup rifle. I'd also bet that it would take quite a few shots for all but the most proficient. Bear in mind, most hunters are shooting 'minute of deer', not to NRA High Power or F Class levels of competence.
Every Fudd hunter I have ever known shoots, at most, 4-8 rounds per season, and two to three of those were used to check zero in October.
Of the competitors and hunters that I know personally, none are vandals.
m
...but apparently they can shoot the much more difficult to hit cable?
That makes zero sense.I'll challenge anyone on this board to shoot at a cable, strung between poles, and actually hit it.
For those of you without any experience (COD doesn't count)hitting a target that small isn't trivial. Bear in mind the target is what, 10 yards up with either the sky or the trees as a backdrop. If it happens, it's chance I'd blame rather than asshattery.
m
I've not had Maker's Mark, so I won't comment on the quality. But there are some very good American whiskeys:
Baker's 7
Booker's
Basil Hayden
Black Maple Hill
Old Potrero
And if you are partial to rye whiskey:
Sazerac 18
True, they won't taste like Scotch whisky, but that is the point. None of the singles taste the same, and having a bourbon or rye now and then adds variety.
m
I've seen this same experiment in 'Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead'... Feather and a bowling/bocce ball if I recall correctly. m
Among our weapons are fear, surprise, a two dollar fine... and Guy Fawkes!
m
Or the .338 Lapua magnum and the .416 Barrett.
I think we're at the point of comparing vastly different types of work. While you do make the point that you are comparing an extreme, I would say that this would be the leg prosthetic (rough) equivalent of the mechanical advantage a bicycle provides.
Logically, the bicycle provides a mechanical advantage. You trade an increased rate or motion (pedaling) for short gearing uphill, or more muscle input for taller gearing (more speed) on level terrain. Both of which take advantage of levers (pedals) and gearing to optimize your work over time for a particular workload. In addition, the whole character of your motion is modified to remove the work put into moving your body in the vertical plane a runner contends with.
My argument is this: The current state of un-powered prostetics are not augments to human musculature.
That whooshing noise is the point flying above your head...
The energy stored in the carbon-carbon spring is to replace the energy *supplied by the muscles in your thigh, calf, and foot*. You have two feet (presumably) and muscles. You don't need stored energy from mechanics because you have renewable, on-demand, energy. Leg prosthetics aren't currently self powered, so the stored energy in the 'spring' attempts to bridge the gap. For current daily wear prostehtics, the energy returned is about 50-80% of what would have been provided by a natural leg. Even if the sprinter's prosthesis returned 100% efficiency, it isn't adding any additional power to the forward stride, only what was input by the athlete.
The legs worn by athletes may *seem* to give a boost, but if that were true, the sprinter would be bounding down the track like a long-jumper. All of the energy to get the sprinter down the track is coming from muscles and/or body mass. In this case, some of that energy is stored, and that energy is then released on pronation, but it isn't supplemental power. If the leg were totally inert, a peg leg, the sprinter could get down the track, but all of the energy expended would be lost on impact, so there would be no rhythym, no chance for any speed.
I've read nearly all of the comments thus far, and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in the general lack of clue. I have had a prosthetic right leg for going on 13 years now. This is my third model.
The first was pretty much carbon-fibre, carbon-carbon, and titanium. The foot provided a bit of energy return to simulate the toe-push on pronation, but was not like the real thing.
The second foot added an articulated ankle which aided on uneven terrain, but was still not very lifelike.
The third has similar foot to the first, but added a shock-absorber and a vacuum system. Although this leg has some of the best of the current technology, at the end of the day, it sucks. [1]
Understand that I can walk pretty well. Most days, or when I'm not tired from walking all day long, my gait is indistinguishable from other folks. However, even though my 'foot' does provide *some* energy return, it in no way approaches the muscular push-off normal toes provide when walking. (I expect most folks don't even know or feel that they do this any longer.) Of course, I don't have one of the sprinter foots this runner will use in competition. They are specific to that function and just wouldn't work as daily 'footwear'.
All of that is immaterial. His feet don't 'give him way more energy' than a naturally footed sprinter. They can't. The only energy they store is that which is put there by the runner. I haven't studied his running style, but I expect that he has modified his style to maximize the energy put into the foot, and that the foot unloads the energy back into his lower leg on rolling off of the toe. Now, this is unnatural and required a great deal of training before he mastered it well enough to beat footed sprinters. I call bullshit on the IAAF.
That energy is not 'free'. He's had to train to get more fit than footed runners because his gait will not be a natural bone/muscle gait.
Oh, yeah, aerodynamics my ass...
[1] Compared to a real foot.
Scanning... too much work. Try one of these:
http://www.betterlight.com/products4X5.asp
Yes, not the least expensive device, and it requires infrastructure, but for $10K you get 36mp @ 48-bit, 12-stops of DR.
To a SAN storage array. Get a dvd burner array...
So, everyone wants mech warriors and augmentation. Big deal...
I'd like to be able to walk normally again.
While my prosthetic is made of groovy materials (carbon-carbon, carbon fibre and titanium), it lacks even the most basic of control. Sure, there is a small amount of feedback as the carbon-carbon 'foot' flexes, but I have no true ankle control.
I have been waiting for realistic 'active' prosthetics for over ten years now, and hopefully this technology will be available in a relatively reasonable time frame.
Me? I'd be happy to be able to manipulate a gas pedal, or walk on sand without slipping backwards.