Putting the rider in a reclined position, he's unable to use his body weight against the pedals. Using his arms,he's unable to brace his body to use the full power of his legs (by far more powerful than arms), and by using fixed gearing - the cyclist and the craft reaches max-rpm quickly. Adding gearing would allow the rider to get the rotors spinning with relative ease, then increase the rpm of the rotors by switching gears.
You, sir, obviously don't have much experience in cycling. Recumbent bicycles (where the rider is in a reclined position) are far more efficient than the vertical orientation. So much so that recumbent bicycles are banned from all major cycling competitions (Tour de France etc...) This is because rather than only having the ability to push/pull against gravity, the rider can instead push and pull against the seat itself, allowing them to put out significantly more power, and also be far more efficient because effectively they aren't lifting themselves with each stroke.
As far as the hand crank, that also makes sense since it's a way to harness the energy out of the arms which are otherwise deadweight in a test like this. You might as well extract as much energy from the rider/pilot's physique as you possibly can, rather than just letting them hang out where they're not doing much.
That's a good question. However, as an engineer, I feel obliged to point out that this exercise, while interesting, has absolutely zero practicality or usefulness. Even if you could reduce the helicopter's mass to zero, the amount of energy a human would have to expend to keep himself aloft is staggering. Obviously, a fit human can do it for a minute or three, an athlete like Lance Armstrong might be able to keep it up for 5-10, but that's it; after that, they'll be crashing.
Also, it doesn't involve spherical cows in a vacuum.
I'm running XBMC on an Asus EeeBox 1021P (Atom 510 w/ Nvidia ION2 graphics). Built the thing up with Debian, running Diskless no-less, and it is a fantastic HTPC. It will hapilly play whatever video files I throw at it, be they BluRay rips, high bitrate 1080p video, lower video, etc... The Nvidia closed source drivers, as built by the Debian packages, work well, and VDPAU works great. The great irony is that XBMC seems to draw less CPU time when running a 1080p video than it does displaying its own menus.
Transform gitmo into something worthy of human habitation and at least stop treating those who would be released as prisoners.
It would help if you actually knew what you're talking about. Unlike you, I have actually been to Gitmo, and have in fact been through the prisons there (They are actually the only prisons I have been inside, ironically). The primary prisons there are carbon copies of a US based maximum security prison, and a US based medium security prison, and there is also a dormitory setup for the low risk detainees. They are in every way treated as any other prisoner in the US would be treated, and based on what I saw with my own eyes, probably better. They aren't locked up 23 hours a day, and the food is actually pretty decent.
The main problem is they now have a large population on hand that they want to repatriate, but can't due to what is likely to occur to these people if they're sent home to their home countries. There are many people who are known to be of no threat, but if they are sent home their own government is likely to disappear or otherwise mistreat them.
Wait. A guy who's an economist and kept us from sinking unlike the US, or Europe and has pushed for actual free trade agreements(instead of fair trade agreements like NAFTA), is an idiot? Amazing.
Harper and his lapdogs did nothing of the sort. He was pushing for more deregulation in the banking sector, until things tanked, then took credit for what Paul Martin and the liberals achieved.
Harper is a liar and a crook, and that's all there is to it.
Finally, why does the summary identify the source as "the Bulletin" rather than spelling out the full name, and why is anyone reading what purports to be a scientific report from a purely political anti-nuclear lobbying organization? It's like getting your information on birth control from "Conservative Catholic Christians for Reproductive Oppression."
I don't know where you're getting your info, but The Bulletin is actually a rather neutral publication. For the most part, the articles tend to be in favour of civil nuclear power, assuming that proper safeguards are in place etc... They also do a good job of presenting multiple sides of many issues, giving equal space to each of the arguments.
For example, when discussing Iran's nuclear ambitions, they began with a well researched article on what Iran's current capabilities are, how much weapons grade material they may have produced by this point, and so on. There were then a couple of arguments as to whether Iran was planning on developing a weapon (one author arguing for, one against) and then a set of articles on what to do about it, ranging from doing nothing to a significant attack.
To put it bluntly, most of the articles within the publication are written by people within the nuclear industry who actually know what they are talking about. The only people that would generally consider it rabidly anti-nuclear are those who a) haven't read it and b) are rabidly pro-nuclear.
This is what I just put together. System PXE Boots Debian, and starts up XBMC within about 20 seconds. When running, it's only 25 watts or so, and it boots fast enough that I have no problems shutting it down when not in use. Plays 1080p high profile smooth as silk.
Small scale hydro can make a heck of a lot of sense. I work with a small community high in the mountains of Washington State, where the primary power supply is a small scale hydro-electric generation system. The funny part is that this technology isn't "new"... The turbines and generators they're using have patent plates on them that read 10-04-86, and that's not 1986. Despite being easily 100 years old, the technology is still easy to maintain, and efficient. Based on the electrical output compared to the water flow, we figure this plant is about 80% efficient, which is pretty good.
In the summer, the system will generate upwards of 250kW of power, which is more than adequate for the community. In the winter, this does drop down to 30kW or so, but that is still more or less sufficient for the lower winter population.
The water supply for this system comes off a small creek flowing down the mountain, about 300' up there is a small diversion dam that the creek flows into. Water will either flow into the penstock, or continue down the creek depending on demand. As a side note, the water pressure is sufficient to push some of the water through the entire water treatment plant, and then into a storage tank, to supply the community's drinking water without the use of a single pump.
You can't expect humans to be in something tiny for that long without going completely insane (unless you can make them hibernate for most of it somehow).
I don't know, a significant portion of the/. crowd spends their time in their parent's basement... not sure that this is much different.;)
The only reason this is a so-called disease is because Big Pharma makes tons of money on trying to medicate the children of America. What if this was not a "disability" but actually just the next step in evolution of human beings? What if there is actually nothing wrong at all? I believe ADHD isn't a malady.
You're a moron. Had I not been diagnosed back when I was in grade 8, I would not be anywhere near as successful as I am today. Over the past 20 years, I have gone off of my medication multiple times (at least once for well over a year) and you want to know what happened? In one case, I failed out of Engineering school, in another I was effectively unemployed for a year after graduation.
The only reason why I successfully completed high school, and then my Engineering degree, is because of the diagnosis and treatment. For me, the evidence is irrefutable; the medications are the difference between me being an unemployed geek bum living in my parents basement, and being a productive member of society.
Have you ever taken Adderall? It sounds like you haven't. I used to take it. I could always stop taking it without any major problem. I used to take large doses of ephedra on a daily basis as well and that was also easy to stop taking. I think getting off of most anti-depressants is more difficult.
For me, when I was on dex, the hardest thing wasn't going off of it, it was starting back up again. The first day I would take it, I would be awake all night with absolutely no sleep, and then spend the next few days seriously sleep deprived. I've now switched back to a Ritalin based medication (Concerta) and the problems have gone away. I can go on and off of it at will, especially important with my current job (I do intercontinental travel for work, and so there's no way to take this stuff on a regular schedule).
But you don't need it to function. If you think that, then you're an addict and you should lay off it for a while.
Define function. If you mean sitting on my ass mindlessly flipping through the channels while the day disappears, then yeah you're right. If you mean meeting deadlines, staying (reasonably) organized and actually getting something useful accomplished in a given day, you could not be more wrong.
I occasionally take medication vacations (usually when I'm on vacation) and I'll be blunt, I'm usually disappointed with myself afterwards for not meeting any of the goals I had set for myself during the time off. I wind up getting distracted by the latest shiny thing to enter my life, and never get that hike done, change the oil in my car, etc...
Also I think that one has the prescription it shouldn't be considered a prescription for life! We don't treat most other medications that way. Instead we try to get the patients off of the medication, reduce the dosage over time, etc. Figure out the minimum that the child needs to function, figure out alternative solutions.
How well is that working out for Type 1 Diabetes?
Some things are chronic conditions. It is what it is, and the price of the medication is the price of being a functional member of society.
So let me get this straight. What you're saying is that ADHD is an over diagnosed disease that you personally have been diagnosed with... and what's more, you have found that with the intake of prescribed amphetamine, your attention span increases?
That's exactly the way it works. For those of us who have AD(H)D, the stimulants in correct dosage have the opposite effect as to what you would expect. For me personally, my productivity goes through the floor if I am off my meds. I pretty much lose any sense of organization and prioritization, and wind up working on whatever I see as shiniest in that instant. The whole "I suffer from Attention Defici... hey wanna go ride bikes?" is truer than you'd think.
I myself am on Concerta, which is an ultra-slow release version of Ritalin (Adderal did weird nasty shit to my personality and sleep patterns) which works a treat. It really does feel like a good, strong cup of coffee in the morning and not much else. I can actually partially self medicate by using significant quantities of coffee, but then my sleep patterns are really destroyed.
Detailed studies carried out by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) in 2003 reported an excess of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma near UK nuclear plants. Those are plants that did not have major accidents. This was an official government report using large amounts of evidence and has not been robustly refuted by any yet. The government's position has always been that there is no danger, so naturally they were not happy when this came out.
Did they perform a similar study on the cancers of people downwind from coal power plants? There are far too many variables in cancer risks to narrow it down to just the nuclear power plant. I recall a similar study that showed elevated cancer risk allegedly from high voltage power lines and substations. In the end, it turned out that A) the data was cherry picked to support the conclusion and B) the affected areas had old, leaking transformers which were releasing PCBs into the environment.
As a Christian, I'm against gay marriage from a religious point of view. However as an American, I believe in the freedom of religion and association.
As a Christian, you should also know that the Bible is virtually silent on the subject. The only real biblical basis for condemning homosexuality comes from the Old Testament, and even then only puts it at the same level as wearing clothes of mixed fibres, planting in the corners of your field, and picking up sticks upon the Sabbath. If you're willing to condem someone for wearing a cotton/poly blend t-shirt, that's your prerogative, but I don't think you'll have friends for very long.
Conversely, in the New Testament Jesus constantly gives us the example of dining with and caring for those who are outcasts from their society. If anything, the New Testament calls us to reach out to, welcome, and embrace those of other sexual orientations. In the end, the real question is "How can we not welcome them?" It is our duty as Christians to care for those who are on the outside, to welcome into the community, and to celebrate them.
What about them? I think that homeless shelters are a Good Thing, and certainly so in the case of helping kids who had no choice about the situation they were born into. But let's be real--the kids have the same genetics as their parents. If the parents were losers then odds are the kids are too.
Translation: "Are there no prisons? Are there no poor houses?"
Does it do MKVs with ASS/SRT subs too? If it does then I might replace my Xbox with one of them.
Mine does. I jailbroke it and installed XBMC for accessing my media library. It will happily play.mkv with subtitles and all the other stuff, then when I want the oficial stuff, I just exit out and go back to the AppleTV interface. It works a treat.
That might work on a woman. Most guys would have no idea. We don't care avout the colour of the outside of our suitcases, much less the inside of them.
The trick here is that they don't actually care what your answer is, it's about *how* you answer. If you're a guy and go "hell if I know" that's fine. If you do that and start getting all panicky, then that tweaks them to probe further. My sister used to work the Canadian side of the Canada-US border. They would employ the same technique. Ask a series of random questions, and if they got a funny feeling about the way someone was answering, they'd wave you over for secondary inspection.
It's called "Free Space Loss" Even with a directional antenna, your signal is still subject to the inverse square law. As such, even though there isn't actually atennuation of any kind in a free space, your signal still drops markedly over a long distance. Between the surface of the earth and a satellite in geo-synchronous orbit (such as the DirecTV satellites, which is a hell of a lot of bandwidth) there is about 220dB of free-space loss. This isn't caused by atmospherics, it's just the drop-off due to distance.
Think about it this way: each transponder (transmitter) on the satellite is about 100 watts at most. Yes, there is a lot of gain that comes from the antenna onboard the satellite, but in the end, that 100 watts is spread out over the entire united states (in the case of DirecTV) so the actual power that can be received on one of those little pizza sized dishes is pretty tiny. The way that we model/handle this is with the concept of free-space loss.
IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist) but from what little I do not getting into a solar polar orbit is extremely difficult. To date only one probe I know of has done this - Ulysses. And to do it required a Jupiter gravity assist to get it there. Besides, getting into a polar orbit will not reduce the glare of the sun. Finally, it will probably take less propellant to exit the solar system than take a grav slingshot into solar polar orbit.
It's actually not hard (Ulysses slingshot on Jupiter wasn't all that special) it's just that it's rather uncommon since unless you're looking at the sun (or outwards), there's not much to look at outside the ecliptic.
The answer to cold climates is layers. As a field Engineer, I've also worked in the arctic. The key for cold weather is to have multiple layers so that you can adjust the amount of clothing as required. Goretex shell outer layer, fleece, maybe a fleece vest, shirt, polypro underwear. Basically you want to be just warm enough that you're comfortable, not so warm that you sweat. Sweat makes you wet, wet means cold.
Also, when it's cold, if you keep your head and your feet warm, the rest of you has a better chance of staying warm as well. Finally, if you're going to be sleeping where it's cold, make sure to take a leak before you go to bed. Nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night with a full bladder, and dreading going out.
Slashdot Mirror
Putting the rider in a reclined position, he's unable to use his body weight against the pedals. Using his arms,he's unable to brace his body to use the full power of his legs (by far more powerful than arms), and by using fixed gearing - the cyclist and the craft reaches max-rpm quickly. Adding gearing would allow the rider to get the rotors spinning with relative ease, then increase the rpm of the rotors by switching gears.
You, sir, obviously don't have much experience in cycling. Recumbent bicycles (where the rider is in a reclined position) are far more efficient than the vertical orientation. So much so that recumbent bicycles are banned from all major cycling competitions (Tour de France etc...) This is because rather than only having the ability to push/pull against gravity, the rider can instead push and pull against the seat itself, allowing them to put out significantly more power, and also be far more efficient because effectively they aren't lifting themselves with each stroke.
As far as the hand crank, that also makes sense since it's a way to harness the energy out of the arms which are otherwise deadweight in a test like this. You might as well extract as much energy from the rider/pilot's physique as you possibly can, rather than just letting them hang out where they're not doing much.
That's a good question. However, as an engineer, I feel obliged to point out that this exercise, while interesting, has absolutely zero practicality or usefulness. Even if you could reduce the helicopter's mass to zero, the amount of energy a human would have to expend to keep himself aloft is staggering. Obviously, a fit human can do it for a minute or three, an athlete like Lance Armstrong might be able to keep it up for 5-10, but that's it; after that, they'll be crashing.
Also, it doesn't involve spherical cows in a vacuum.
I'm running XBMC on an Asus EeeBox 1021P (Atom 510 w/ Nvidia ION2 graphics). Built the thing up with Debian, running Diskless no-less, and it is a fantastic HTPC. It will hapilly play whatever video files I throw at it, be they BluRay rips, high bitrate 1080p video, lower video, etc... The Nvidia closed source drivers, as built by the Debian packages, work well, and VDPAU works great. The great irony is that XBMC seems to draw less CPU time when running a 1080p video than it does displaying its own menus.
What about a spherical horse in a vacuum?
Transform gitmo into something worthy of human habitation and at least stop treating those who would be released as prisoners.
It would help if you actually knew what you're talking about. Unlike you, I have actually been to Gitmo, and have in fact been through the prisons there (They are actually the only prisons I have been inside, ironically). The primary prisons there are carbon copies of a US based maximum security prison, and a US based medium security prison, and there is also a dormitory setup for the low risk detainees. They are in every way treated as any other prisoner in the US would be treated, and based on what I saw with my own eyes, probably better. They aren't locked up 23 hours a day, and the food is actually pretty decent.
The main problem is they now have a large population on hand that they want to repatriate, but can't due to what is likely to occur to these people if they're sent home to their home countries. There are many people who are known to be of no threat, but if they are sent home their own government is likely to disappear or otherwise mistreat them.
Wait. A guy who's an economist and kept us from sinking unlike the US, or Europe and has pushed for actual free trade agreements(instead of fair trade agreements like NAFTA), is an idiot? Amazing.
Harper and his lapdogs did nothing of the sort. He was pushing for more deregulation in the banking sector, until things tanked, then took credit for what Paul Martin and the liberals achieved.
Harper is a liar and a crook, and that's all there is to it.
Finally, why does the summary identify the source as "the Bulletin" rather than spelling out the full name, and why is anyone reading what purports to be a scientific report from a purely political anti-nuclear lobbying organization? It's like getting your information on birth control from "Conservative Catholic Christians for Reproductive Oppression."
I don't know where you're getting your info, but The Bulletin is actually a rather neutral publication. For the most part, the articles tend to be in favour of civil nuclear power, assuming that proper safeguards are in place etc... They also do a good job of presenting multiple sides of many issues, giving equal space to each of the arguments.
For example, when discussing Iran's nuclear ambitions, they began with a well researched article on what Iran's current capabilities are, how much weapons grade material they may have produced by this point, and so on. There were then a couple of arguments as to whether Iran was planning on developing a weapon (one author arguing for, one against) and then a set of articles on what to do about it, ranging from doing nothing to a significant attack.
To put it bluntly, most of the articles within the publication are written by people within the nuclear industry who actually know what they are talking about. The only people that would generally consider it rabidly anti-nuclear are those who a) haven't read it and b) are rabidly pro-nuclear.
This is what I just put together. System PXE Boots Debian, and starts up XBMC within about 20 seconds. When running, it's only 25 watts or so, and it boots fast enough that I have no problems shutting it down when not in use. Plays 1080p high profile smooth as silk.
Small scale hydro can make a heck of a lot of sense. I work with a small community high in the mountains of Washington State, where the primary power supply is a small scale hydro-electric generation system. The funny part is that this technology isn't "new"... The turbines and generators they're using have patent plates on them that read 10-04-86, and that's not 1986. Despite being easily 100 years old, the technology is still easy to maintain, and efficient. Based on the electrical output compared to the water flow, we figure this plant is about 80% efficient, which is pretty good.
In the summer, the system will generate upwards of 250kW of power, which is more than adequate for the community. In the winter, this does drop down to 30kW or so, but that is still more or less sufficient for the lower winter population.
The water supply for this system comes off a small creek flowing down the mountain, about 300' up there is a small diversion dam that the creek flows into. Water will either flow into the penstock, or continue down the creek depending on demand. As a side note, the water pressure is sufficient to push some of the water through the entire water treatment plant, and then into a storage tank, to supply the community's drinking water without the use of a single pump.
You can't expect humans to be in something tiny for that long without going completely insane (unless you can make them hibernate for most of it somehow).
I don't know, a significant portion of the /. crowd spends their time in their parent's basement... not sure that this is much different. ;)
Larry Wall is a linguistics expert - he took that skill and wrote perl.
Did he have a lobotomy first? (ducking/running)
The only reason this is a so-called disease is because Big Pharma makes tons of money on trying to medicate the children of America. What if this was not a "disability" but actually just the next step in evolution of human beings? What if there is actually nothing wrong at all? I believe ADHD isn't a malady.
You're a moron. Had I not been diagnosed back when I was in grade 8, I would not be anywhere near as successful as I am today. Over the past 20 years, I have gone off of my medication multiple times (at least once for well over a year) and you want to know what happened? In one case, I failed out of Engineering school, in another I was effectively unemployed for a year after graduation.
The only reason why I successfully completed high school, and then my Engineering degree, is because of the diagnosis and treatment. For me, the evidence is irrefutable; the medications are the difference between me being an unemployed geek bum living in my parents basement, and being a productive member of society.
Have you ever taken Adderall? It sounds like you haven't. I used to take it. I could always stop taking it without any major problem. I used to take large doses of ephedra on a daily basis as well and that was also easy to stop taking. I think getting off of most anti-depressants is more difficult.
For me, when I was on dex, the hardest thing wasn't going off of it, it was starting back up again. The first day I would take it, I would be awake all night with absolutely no sleep, and then spend the next few days seriously sleep deprived. I've now switched back to a Ritalin based medication (Concerta) and the problems have gone away. I can go on and off of it at will, especially important with my current job (I do intercontinental travel for work, and so there's no way to take this stuff on a regular schedule).
But you don't need it to function. If you think that, then you're an addict and you should lay off it for a while.
Define function. If you mean sitting on my ass mindlessly flipping through the channels while the day disappears, then yeah you're right. If you mean meeting deadlines, staying (reasonably) organized and actually getting something useful accomplished in a given day, you could not be more wrong.
I occasionally take medication vacations (usually when I'm on vacation) and I'll be blunt, I'm usually disappointed with myself afterwards for not meeting any of the goals I had set for myself during the time off. I wind up getting distracted by the latest shiny thing to enter my life, and never get that hike done, change the oil in my car, etc...
Also I think that one has the prescription it shouldn't be considered a prescription for life! We don't treat most other medications that way. Instead we try to get the patients off of the medication, reduce the dosage over time, etc. Figure out the minimum that the child needs to function, figure out alternative solutions.
How well is that working out for Type 1 Diabetes?
Some things are chronic conditions. It is what it is, and the price of the medication is the price of being a functional member of society.
So let me get this straight. What you're saying is that ADHD is an over diagnosed disease that you personally have been diagnosed with... and what's more, you have found that with the intake of prescribed amphetamine, your attention span increases?
That's exactly the way it works. For those of us who have AD(H)D, the stimulants in correct dosage have the opposite effect as to what you would expect. For me personally, my productivity goes through the floor if I am off my meds. I pretty much lose any sense of organization and prioritization, and wind up working on whatever I see as shiniest in that instant. The whole "I suffer from Attention Defici... hey wanna go ride bikes?" is truer than you'd think.
I myself am on Concerta, which is an ultra-slow release version of Ritalin (Adderal did weird nasty shit to my personality and sleep patterns) which works a treat. It really does feel like a good, strong cup of coffee in the morning and not much else. I can actually partially self medicate by using significant quantities of coffee, but then my sleep patterns are really destroyed.
Detailed studies carried out by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) in 2003 reported an excess of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma near UK nuclear plants. Those are plants that did not have major accidents. This was an official government report using large amounts of evidence and has not been robustly refuted by any yet. The government's position has always been that there is no danger, so naturally they were not happy when this came out.
Did they perform a similar study on the cancers of people downwind from coal power plants? There are far too many variables in cancer risks to narrow it down to just the nuclear power plant. I recall a similar study that showed elevated cancer risk allegedly from high voltage power lines and substations. In the end, it turned out that A) the data was cherry picked to support the conclusion and B) the affected areas had old, leaking transformers which were releasing PCBs into the environment.
As a Christian, I'm against gay marriage from a religious point of view. However as an American, I believe in the freedom of religion and association.
As a Christian, you should also know that the Bible is virtually silent on the subject. The only real biblical basis for condemning homosexuality comes from the Old Testament, and even then only puts it at the same level as wearing clothes of mixed fibres, planting in the corners of your field, and picking up sticks upon the Sabbath. If you're willing to condem someone for wearing a cotton/poly blend t-shirt, that's your prerogative, but I don't think you'll have friends for very long.
Conversely, in the New Testament Jesus constantly gives us the example of dining with and caring for those who are outcasts from their society. If anything, the New Testament calls us to reach out to, welcome, and embrace those of other sexual orientations. In the end, the real question is "How can we not welcome them?" It is our duty as Christians to care for those who are on the outside, to welcome into the community, and to celebrate them.
What about them? I think that homeless shelters are a Good Thing, and certainly so in the case of helping kids who had no choice about the situation they were born into. But let's be real--the kids have the same genetics as their parents. If the parents were losers then odds are the kids are too.
Translation: "Are there no prisons? Are there no poor houses?"
Does it do MKVs with ASS/SRT subs too? If it does then I might replace my Xbox with one of them.
Mine does. I jailbroke it and installed XBMC for accessing my media library. It will happily play .mkv with subtitles and all the other stuff, then when I want the oficial stuff, I just exit out and go back to the AppleTV interface. It works a treat.
That might work on a woman. Most guys would have no idea. We don't care avout the colour of the outside of our suitcases, much less the inside of them.
The trick here is that they don't actually care what your answer is, it's about *how* you answer. If you're a guy and go "hell if I know" that's fine. If you do that and start getting all panicky, then that tweaks them to probe further. My sister used to work the Canadian side of the Canada-US border. They would employ the same technique. Ask a series of random questions, and if they got a funny feeling about the way someone was answering, they'd wave you over for secondary inspection.
It's called "Free Space Loss" Even with a directional antenna, your signal is still subject to the inverse square law. As such, even though there isn't actually atennuation of any kind in a free space, your signal still drops markedly over a long distance. Between the surface of the earth and a satellite in geo-synchronous orbit (such as the DirecTV satellites, which is a hell of a lot of bandwidth) there is about 220dB of free-space loss. This isn't caused by atmospherics, it's just the drop-off due to distance.
Think about it this way: each transponder (transmitter) on the satellite is about 100 watts at most. Yes, there is a lot of gain that comes from the antenna onboard the satellite, but in the end, that 100 watts is spread out over the entire united states (in the case of DirecTV) so the actual power that can be received on one of those little pizza sized dishes is pretty tiny. The way that we model/handle this is with the concept of free-space loss.
IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist) but from what little I do not getting into a solar polar orbit is extremely difficult. To date only one probe I know of has done this - Ulysses. And to do it required a Jupiter gravity assist to get it there. Besides, getting into a polar orbit will not reduce the glare of the sun. Finally, it will probably take less propellant to exit the solar system than take a grav slingshot into solar polar orbit.
It's actually not hard (Ulysses slingshot on Jupiter wasn't all that special) it's just that it's rather uncommon since unless you're looking at the sun (or outwards), there's not much to look at outside the ecliptic.
These are all too common - reasons to hate FB. Honestly, what's the company going to do next, name Zuckeberg "Dear Leader"?
I hear that job just came open!
The answer to cold climates is layers. As a field Engineer, I've also worked in the arctic. The key for cold weather is to have multiple layers so that you can adjust the amount of clothing as required. Goretex shell outer layer, fleece, maybe a fleece vest, shirt, polypro underwear. Basically you want to be just warm enough that you're comfortable, not so warm that you sweat. Sweat makes you wet, wet means cold.
Also, when it's cold, if you keep your head and your feet warm, the rest of you has a better chance of staying warm as well. Finally, if you're going to be sleeping where it's cold, make sure to take a leak before you go to bed. Nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night with a full bladder, and dreading going out.