"AND it included provision for direct Federal veto of state laws."
You strongly implied that the Supremacy Clause was the only provision, and the only reason why it was rejected, when really everything hinged on apportionment. And even then, the entire plan wasn't scrapped, but modified as part of the Connecticut Compromise.
"Yes, again, BUT... that only applies to the 18 enumerated powers that were given the Federal government."
Your original words:
That plan called for putting into the Constitution language such that the Federal government could override state law whenever the two conflicted. That plan was overwhelmingly voted down.
You made no qualifiers. You stated the Framers overwhelmingly rejected federal supremacy.
"research how a number of the Northern states used nullification to reject Fugitive Slave Laws and other legislation."
Found unconstitutional in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. States' unilateral attempts to ignore all federal laws generally was found unconstitutional in Texas v. White. States' attempts to nullify federal integration laws were found unconstitutional in Cooper v. Aaron.
"Not to mention more recent examples, like medical marijuana"
Gonzales v. Raich. The US Justice Department's unilateral decision to deprioritize enforcement doesn't mean it has been overturned, let alone nullified by California's actions.
"No less than 25 states have passed resolutions and even state Constitutional amendments rejecting the Real ID Act."
State compliance with REAL ID has always been voluntary. Failure to comply simply results in the federal government ceasing to recognize ID issued by those states as valid for very specific purposes, e.g. non-compliant ID can still be used to demonstrate eligibility for employment.
"No less than 25 states have passed resolutions and even state Constitutional amendments rejecting the Real ID Act."
Congress' unilateral decision to extend deadlines for a law with voluntary compliance does not affirm a state's right to unilateral nullification of federal compulsion.
"Do you actually think Congress was given the power to determine what Congress (and the rest of the Federal government) has the power to do?"
Then I ask again: what is the point of Congress? If there can be no valid debate, why allow debate at all?
"The answer is an emphatic NO and even the Supreme Court will tell you -- has told you -- that."
The Supreme Court of the United States has emphatically and explicitly avoided getting involved with political questions, repeatedly stating that the interpretation of various clauses of the federal constitution is best left to the legislature.
"He was there later,"
Thomas Jefferson was not at the Annapolis Convention, which called for a new constitution. Thomas Jefferson was not at the Philadelphia Convention, which drafted the constitution. Thomas Jefferson was not in Richmond, or anywhere else in his home commonwealth, or even the United States, when the Virginia General Assembly voted to ratify. He was in Paris for the entire process. When he finally returned, the Constitution had been in force for fifteen months and the First Congress had been sitting for six. He was not there, "later" or otherwise.
In contrast, John Marshall was in Richmond, serving in the General Assembly, during Virginia's ratification vote. John Marshall was appointed by a duly-elected president, with the advice and consent of a duly-elected Senate, to the position of Chief Justice. So why the hell do some cherry-picked, tangential, personal remarks by an uninvolved Jefferson invalidate Marshall's finding in Marbury v. Madison, that it is the role of the federal courts to determine what is and is not constitutional?
"Even if I didn't specifically cite the source, you could have foun
"The Virginia Plan was proposed. That plan called for putting into the Constitution language such that the Federal government could override state law whenever the two conflicted."
No, it was the plan to have the national legislature apportioned by population, giving big states like New York and (wait for it...) Virginia the advantage in lawmaking. It was, predictably, rejected by the smaller states, like Connecticut, who produced the compromise of a bicameral legislature, one chamber apportioned while the other had equal representation.
"That plan was overwhelmingly voted down."
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
--Article VI, clause 2, emphasis mine.
"The Supreme Court can declare that certain things are un-Constitutional, but it is not the final arbiter of what is Constitutional. Only the States are empowered to do that."
"NO branch of the Federal Government, including the Supreme Court, was given authority to decide what the Federal Government may or may not do. That power was left to the States themselves."
Then what, exactly, is the point of Congress? If there's hard-and-fast answers to all possible political questions about what the government can and cannot, will or won't, should and shouldn't do, what's the point of having a deliberative body at all, let alone a deliberative lawmaking body?
"Allowing the Federal government decide what its own powers may be is called "putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse","
No, it's called "the political process." And if there is going to be a metaphor involving foxes and henhouses, the fox is the states themselves, whose efforts to cripple the federal government under the Articles of Confederation were the entire catalyst for the Annapolis Convention to begin with.
"and the Founding Fathers were much too smart for that. Want proof?"
Can I have a side-order of context with your proof?
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." -- Thomas Jefferson
First and foremost, TJ wasn't there, he was in France. I likely know more about what happened in Philadelphia than he ever did.
Secondly, this quote doesn't appear real, but rather a mash-up of two unrelated quotes, one where he expresses his concerns that the "specifically enumerated" powers don't include a national bank (Hamilton disagreed; the bank was his idea), and one where he insists that Congress' ability to "provide for the general welfare" is limited "only" to levying and expending taxes towards that goal.
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare(...)"--James Madison
Awfully popular on Tea Party websites (much like the previous manufactured quote), but nobody likes talking about the source. The best I've found is a claim that this was from a debate in the House of Representatives. Y'know, after the ratification, debating what the government can and can't do... i.e. the political process.
By the way, Jimmy was the primary architect of the Virginia Plan you vilify. Maybe you should look for other people to defend your ideals.
"...the government of the United States is a definite government(...)" -- James Madison
This one actually has a verifiable source! Once again, a debate in an already-established House of Representatives. H
First and foremost, the applications listed by the OP are all pretty bandwidth-heavy. Off-the-shelf, standards-compliant hardware (and it'd be a very dusty shelf) will only put 10 Mbps over coaxial. Anything more would be vendor-specific and pretty pricey.
Secondly, even if 10 Mbps worked for you, you'd have to either burden yourself with a bunch of fugly matching transformers and such (introducing more points of failure), or cut off the F-connectors and put on some BNCs, which is much more complicated than putting connectors on the ends of UTP. Even the handtools are considerably more expensive, thanks to thicker jackets, thicker cores, and more exacting requirements (e.g. cutting through the jacket but not damaging the braided sheath).
Parent is right that the OP would be better served just by running UTP. The new cabling, connectors, and handtools would be cheaper than the hardware required to use the existing cabling, probably take less time, and be easier to use. Personally, I'd invest a bit more on some future-proof cat-6a cabling (still don't see 10 GBps ethernet on consumer-grade hardware).
A cable's impedance varies directly with its length; if your cable has a characteristic impedance (e.g. ohms/meter) 3/2 higher than the standard, then simply make sure your runs are less than 2/3 of the standard's maximum lengths (185 m for 10Base2).
But ultimately, I think you got that "50 ohm" number from the required termination at the ends of the cable, not the characteristics of the cable itself (bandwidth in general is usually a greater concern in cabling than impedance specifically). As others have pointed out, matching transformers would work just fine to prevent reflections without having to pull the wiring.
This is all moot, since the ethernet standards for coax only go up to 10 Mbps (all higher speeds are UTP-only). Off-the-shelf components (and it'd be a very dusty shelf, if we're talking coaxial ethernet) won't support the network speeds necessary for the applications the OP listed.
Besides, OP only said there were "coaxial" cables, not that the cables were or were not intended for television.
When you're talking "trillions," there's really not much difference between degrees Celsius and kelvins. And all "four trillion degrees Celsius" means to the layman is "really fucking hot."
So... why not just "4 terakelvins?" Or is it exakelvins?
"Citation needed. Tone down the karma-whoring hyperboles to yourselves and stick to what you KNOW to be a fact."
A quartz timepiece, such as the ones used in just about all consumer clocks, watches, computers, cell phones, GPS receivers, etc. will typically gain or lose about half a second every day (up to 15 seconds a month) without correction. On the other hand, much smaller mechanical timepieces than this, which are substantially similar but don't have the luxury of relatively massive moving parts to easily overcome friction, will typically gain or lose about a tenth of a second every day (up to 3 seconds a month) without correction.
So at least half an order of magnitude more accurate than the clock used in the computer you're reading this on, and with this particular clock I'd be surprised if it was even that close.
"No, there isn't anything in the article to indicate that it is pendulum driven,"
It's not pendulum driven, it's spring driven, as mentioned at 4:02 in the linked YouTube video. The pendulum only regulates the release of the tension in the spring.
And if you click on the linked Wikipedia article, which has a direct link to this particular clock, you'll find that
The Corpus Clock's clockwork is entirely mechanically controlled, without any computer programming, and electricity is used only to power an electric motor, which winds up the mechanism, and to power the blue LEDs that shine behind the slits in the clock's face.
"An escapement is just a mechanism to link the movement to something with periodicity."
"There's nothing in the article to indicate what it uses as a timebase, except a comment about an "electric motor." AC line frequency, the same as my bedroom alarm clock?"
The base is the grasshopper escapement, the entire point of the clock, what it commemorates, and what the article is all about. The motor is used to wind the clock's spring, which is released from tension at a steady rate by the swinging of the escapement.
And because you didn't RTFA in your effort to be a smart-ass, you've come out looking like a dumb-ass for not understanding the concept of a pendulum clock. This right here is an indicator of why the "technology" tag is appropriate for this: people here (such as yourself) don't know how it works.
"This is 100% art. It uses nothing more technologically noteworthy than a bunch of blue LEDs and a grasshopper escapement."
Because a mechanical timepiece isn't "technology?" Or does it only qualify as "technology" if it's less than ten years old?
"and the grasshopper escapement is almost 3 centuries old."
Does it no longer work? Has the warranty expired?
Without external communications capabilities (e.g. WWVB or NTP), I guarantee you that this clock keeps more accurate time than any timepiece you've ever owned.
"Indeed: the real problem is that the states are letting the people choose the electors, when it ought to be the state legislature doing it!"
Have you looked at your state legislature lately? Do you know who your state legislators are? Do you even know what your state legislature as called, as well as the names of its houses?
I'm in favor of what you propose, as well as what another respondent said about repealing the Seventeenth, but that would require that voters not only trust their state legislatures (which they don't, not that they've been given much reason to), but that they know their legislatures.
Reform the legislatures into more trustworthy bodies (say, by eliminating gerrymandering, or by implementing ranked voting, or both), then you can start looking at how they apply to the federal government.
Says the man who launched a tirade that confuses "force" with "power."
"if you did, you'd realize that at a constant speed, the engine is just offseting resisting forces."
On the ground: friction
In the air: friction + gravity
"take a boeing 747-400. the combined thrust of four Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines (one of the available choices for the type) is a maximum of 396,160 lbf, the maximum takeoff weight of the aircraft is 875,000 lb. so, how's possible that "much of the engine's power" is used to support the weight if the engines' thrust is less than the total weight?"
Short answer, they're called "wings"
Somewhat longer answer:
"Force" isn't conserved, energy is conserved. Energy is the scalar product of force and displacement (energy in your preferred units: ft-lbf). Unless the aircraft is intended to climb vertically, all the engines need to do is impart enough horizontal kinetic energy into the wings to allow them to impart enough vertical kinetic energy on the air to push down with enough force to offset the plane's weight. The downward force of the wings and the horizontal force of the engines are not directly related, but the energy output of the engine must necessarily be greater than the desired energy of the deflected air (plus whatever energy is needed to keep the plane moving forward) in order to stay aloft.
As you noted, once at cruising altitude, it takes very little energy to maintain the desired horizontal velocity, but a great deal of energy is still needed to maintain the desired vertical velocity (namely, zero). Cut back on the throttle, and the plane starts to descend, even if atmospheric drag is considered to be zero.
"the same engine on a car or train would never achieve the same efficiency - AT THE SAME SPEEDS"
The linear velocity of the vehicle as a whole, or the radial velocity of the turbine? Oh, and guess what: the energy output of a turbine associated with its peak efficiency need not be the energy output required to keep a plane aloft at its desired cruising speed.
"turbofans are more efficient in high altitudes and high speeds than at lower ones."
Turbines need not be open-ended. Turbines that power ships and locomotives are closed loops which control the qualities of its working fluid in ways that an open-ended jet engine can't hope to achieve.
"the only way to make a land vehicle that's more efficient than a modern jet plane is to put them on tracks (steel-on-steel have less drag than ruber-on-asphalt), power it with electricity and make sure the power comes from a wire instead of heavy, on-board batteries. electric engines are the only thing that beats a turbofan in efficiency."
The diesel turbines used to power the electric motors of modern freight locomotives are comparable in size and power output of the jet turbines that are put on each wing of a commercial airliner. And yet consider both the cargo capacity and fuel requirements for a commercial airliner and a freight train. The plane may be able to carry tons, but the train can carry thousands of tons, using the same mass of fuel, over the same desired distance.
"Water has a non-zero viscosity so don't tell me about boats."
None of the engine room's horsepower goes into keeping the ship afloat, not even in a submarine.
"Boats are slow thus need to be huge to carry all the food and drinking water."
And yet a cabin aboard honest-to-God cruise from San Diego to Honolulu and back, with all the entertainment and such on top of the "food and water," is about the same price as a first-class round-trip ticket between the two cities, which covers nothing more than a comfy chair and a single meal.
The very same turbine that can transport cargo on the scale of Mg through the air can, over the same distance, consuming the same mass of fuel, comfortably transport cargo on the scale of Gg on land or sea. When you're talking three orders of magnitude, it doesn't matter if your cargo is people and you need to consider life support.
Better still, if you don't have to worry about supporting the weight of the engine, you don't need to blow money on more exotic manufacturing material (and the associated support costs), using ferrous metals in your turbines with only a negligible loss to efficiency.
"A cruise ship is not going to beat a 777."
According to the Wikipedia entry on the GE90, two of which power the Boeing 777, a single one "delivers a power which is roughly equivalent to 111,526 hp, twice the power of the Titanic." The 777 doesn't have to beat a single cruise ship, it has to beat four.
"The Peeters report flies in the face of reality, in which gains in jet engine efficiency over the last 40 years have been astounding. Contrast those gains with the popular Cadillac Escalade and similar SUV's whose mileage per gallon is often measured in single digits, and whose efficiencies have gone in the opposite direction. "
Where can I get myself fuel efficiency information on a 1968 Cadillac Escalade?
Aircraft have one advantage only: speed. The simple physics of the matter is that an engine used to power an aircraft will never have the same fuel efficiency as putting the same damned engine in a car or a train or any other vehicle where much of the engine's power is put into supporting the weight of the vehicle.
So your turbines have shown increased efficiency over 40 years ago. That doesn't explain why it's better to put that turbine into an airplane rather than a locomotive.
"bit shamefull to abuse this day, on which the world remembers the victims of this horrible disaster to make these statements how usefull it could be for science."
For seven years now, the events have been used over and over again for political benefit, used to implement draconian legislation and launch wholly unrelated wars, and to extend the political careers of men who have nothing else going for them but fear-mongering.
Nobody that day was asking to be remembered as "true American heroes" for doing nothing more patriotic than trying to earn a paycheck in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody wanted to be used as political martyrs to extend the careers of politicians that, based on the returns from New York and New Jersey in the years since, they never would have voted for were they still living. At least using the incident as an impetus to more fully explore the properties of steel is actually useful and will help save and improve lives, which is far, far more noble than anything that their deaths have been used for to date.
"The target audience is those who believe that the political process requires more than just showing up to vote once every four years"
You mean they show up once every two years, at least? Because even at just the federal level, there's more than just presidential elections. That's what you're alluding to, right? Or did the frequency of attendance not cross your mind?
On a good cycle, we might get 60 % of the enfranchised to show up for a presidential election. Instead of giving even more homework assignments to them (on top of, say, trying to wrap our heads around state constitutional amendment proposals), how about seeing what can be done to involve the other 40 %?
"Nintendo and Microsoft aren't competing for the same market niche, and apparently the author doesn't realize that."
Have you taken a look at Wii Ware and Xbox Live Arcade recently?
"The Wii is for casual gaming, the XBox and PS are for hardcore gaming."
Yes, that's why Microsoft bundles their Xbox 360 with such hardcore games like Uno and Pac-Man CE, or why their memory cards come with 70-hour gems like Geometry Wars and Worms.
"The XBox360 is getting a lot of negative press, but I think they made the right call by launching early."
Maybe they're making more money on game licensing fees thanks to launching early, maybe they're not. But I don't think the people that are on their second, third, or even sixth Xbox 360 will be rushing out to buy Microsoft's latest and greatest the next time around. To say the very least, the launch of the Xbox 360's successor will be underwhelming for Microsoft, possibly to the point of making the PlayStation 3's launch look successful.
"They've been able to displace a lot of the negative press by extending the warranty and making sure that people get their xbox's replaced."
Except that the warranty famously is only extended for a particular error code. The new phrase of the day is red light of death, an error currently plaguing the Xbox 360 that produces only a single red light rather than three, for which Microsoft will not offer warranty service past the first year. And by many accounts, they're caused by the same factor: slipshod soldering that can't handle the thermal expansion from power cycling, only when it hits the GPU instead of the CPU it produces a different error code.
If the hardware failure issues of the Xbox 360 really is 'old news,' why is Microsoft still refusing to answer questions about it?
Slashdot Mirror
"AND it included provision for direct Federal veto of state laws."
You strongly implied that the Supremacy Clause was the only provision, and the only reason why it was rejected, when really everything hinged on apportionment. And even then, the entire plan wasn't scrapped, but modified as part of the Connecticut Compromise.
"Yes, again, BUT... that only applies to the 18 enumerated powers that were given the Federal government."
Your original words:
You made no qualifiers. You stated the Framers overwhelmingly rejected federal supremacy.
"research how a number of the Northern states used nullification to reject Fugitive Slave Laws and other legislation."
Found unconstitutional in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. States' unilateral attempts to ignore all federal laws generally was found unconstitutional in Texas v. White. States' attempts to nullify federal integration laws were found unconstitutional in Cooper v. Aaron.
"Not to mention more recent examples, like medical marijuana"
Gonzales v. Raich. The US Justice Department's unilateral decision to deprioritize enforcement doesn't mean it has been overturned, let alone nullified by California's actions.
"No less than 25 states have passed resolutions and even state Constitutional amendments rejecting the Real ID Act."
State compliance with REAL ID has always been voluntary. Failure to comply simply results in the federal government ceasing to recognize ID issued by those states as valid for very specific purposes, e.g. non-compliant ID can still be used to demonstrate eligibility for employment.
"No less than 25 states have passed resolutions and even state Constitutional amendments rejecting the Real ID Act."
Congress' unilateral decision to extend deadlines for a law with voluntary compliance does not affirm a state's right to unilateral nullification of federal compulsion.
"Do you actually think Congress was given the power to determine what Congress (and the rest of the Federal government) has the power to do?"
Then I ask again: what is the point of Congress? If there can be no valid debate, why allow debate at all?
"The answer is an emphatic NO and even the Supreme Court will tell you -- has told you -- that."
The Supreme Court of the United States has emphatically and explicitly avoided getting involved with political questions, repeatedly stating that the interpretation of various clauses of the federal constitution is best left to the legislature.
"He was there later,"
Thomas Jefferson was not at the Annapolis Convention, which called for a new constitution. Thomas Jefferson was not at the Philadelphia Convention, which drafted the constitution. Thomas Jefferson was not in Richmond, or anywhere else in his home commonwealth, or even the United States, when the Virginia General Assembly voted to ratify. He was in Paris for the entire process. When he finally returned, the Constitution had been in force for fifteen months and the First Congress had been sitting for six. He was not there, "later" or otherwise.
In contrast, John Marshall was in Richmond, serving in the General Assembly, during Virginia's ratification vote. John Marshall was appointed by a duly-elected president, with the advice and consent of a duly-elected Senate, to the position of Chief Justice. So why the hell do some cherry-picked, tangential, personal remarks by an uninvolved Jefferson invalidate Marshall's finding in Marbury v. Madison, that it is the role of the federal courts to determine what is and is not constitutional?
"Even if I didn't specifically cite the source, you could have foun
/sigh
"The Virginia Plan was proposed. That plan called for putting into the Constitution language such that the Federal government could override state law whenever the two conflicted."
No, it was the plan to have the national legislature apportioned by population, giving big states like New York and (wait for it...) Virginia the advantage in lawmaking. It was, predictably, rejected by the smaller states, like Connecticut, who produced the compromise of a bicameral legislature, one chamber apportioned while the other had equal representation.
"That plan was overwhelmingly voted down."
--Article VI, clause 2, emphasis mine.
"The Supreme Court can declare that certain things are un-Constitutional, but it is not the final arbiter of what is Constitutional. Only the States are empowered to do that."
South Carolina called, they want their Nullification Crisis back.
"NO branch of the Federal Government, including the Supreme Court, was given authority to decide what the Federal Government may or may not do. That power was left to the States themselves."
Then what, exactly, is the point of Congress? If there's hard-and-fast answers to all possible political questions about what the government can and cannot, will or won't, should and shouldn't do, what's the point of having a deliberative body at all, let alone a deliberative lawmaking body?
"Allowing the Federal government decide what its own powers may be is called "putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse","
No, it's called "the political process." And if there is going to be a metaphor involving foxes and henhouses, the fox is the states themselves, whose efforts to cripple the federal government under the Articles of Confederation were the entire catalyst for the Annapolis Convention to begin with.
"and the Founding Fathers were much too smart for that. Want proof?"
Can I have a side-order of context with your proof?
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." -- Thomas Jefferson
First and foremost, TJ wasn't there, he was in France. I likely know more about what happened in Philadelphia than he ever did.
Secondly, this quote doesn't appear real, but rather a mash-up of two unrelated quotes, one where he expresses his concerns that the "specifically enumerated" powers don't include a national bank (Hamilton disagreed; the bank was his idea), and one where he insists that Congress' ability to "provide for the general welfare" is limited "only" to levying and expending taxes towards that goal.
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare(...)"--James Madison
Awfully popular on Tea Party websites (much like the previous manufactured quote), but nobody likes talking about the source. The best I've found is a claim that this was from a debate in the House of Representatives. Y'know, after the ratification, debating what the government can and can't do... i.e. the political process.
By the way, Jimmy was the primary architect of the Virginia Plan you vilify. Maybe you should look for other people to defend your ideals.
"...the government of the United States is a definite government(...)" -- James Madison
This one actually has a verifiable source! Once again, a debate in an already-established House of Representatives. H
Yeah, you could, but why?
First and foremost, the applications listed by the OP are all pretty bandwidth-heavy. Off-the-shelf, standards-compliant hardware (and it'd be a very dusty shelf) will only put 10 Mbps over coaxial. Anything more would be vendor-specific and pretty pricey.
Secondly, even if 10 Mbps worked for you, you'd have to either burden yourself with a bunch of fugly matching transformers and such (introducing more points of failure), or cut off the F-connectors and put on some BNCs, which is much more complicated than putting connectors on the ends of UTP. Even the handtools are considerably more expensive, thanks to thicker jackets, thicker cores, and more exacting requirements (e.g. cutting through the jacket but not damaging the braided sheath).
Parent is right that the OP would be better served just by running UTP. The new cabling, connectors, and handtools would be cheaper than the hardware required to use the existing cabling, probably take less time, and be easier to use. Personally, I'd invest a bit more on some future-proof cat-6a cabling (still don't see 10 GBps ethernet on consumer-grade hardware).
A cable's impedance varies directly with its length; if your cable has a characteristic impedance (e.g. ohms/meter) 3/2 higher than the standard, then simply make sure your runs are less than 2/3 of the standard's maximum lengths (185 m for 10Base2).
But ultimately, I think you got that "50 ohm" number from the required termination at the ends of the cable, not the characteristics of the cable itself (bandwidth in general is usually a greater concern in cabling than impedance specifically). As others have pointed out, matching transformers would work just fine to prevent reflections without having to pull the wiring.
This is all moot, since the ethernet standards for coax only go up to 10 Mbps (all higher speeds are UTP-only). Off-the-shelf components (and it'd be a very dusty shelf, if we're talking coaxial ethernet) won't support the network speeds necessary for the applications the OP listed.
Besides, OP only said there were "coaxial" cables, not that the cables were or were not intended for television.
"four trillion degrees Celsius"
When you're talking "trillions," there's really not much difference between degrees Celsius and kelvins. And all "four trillion degrees Celsius" means to the layman is "really fucking hot."
So... why not just "4 terakelvins?" Or is it exakelvins?
"TFA says that it only tells time right every 5 minutes!!"
Every five minutes precisely, not 4:59, not 5:01.
"Citation needed. Tone down the karma-whoring hyperboles to yourselves and stick to what you KNOW to be a fact."
A quartz timepiece, such as the ones used in just about all consumer clocks, watches, computers, cell phones, GPS receivers, etc. will typically gain or lose about half a second every day (up to 15 seconds a month) without correction. On the other hand, much smaller mechanical timepieces than this, which are substantially similar but don't have the luxury of relatively massive moving parts to easily overcome friction, will typically gain or lose about a tenth of a second every day (up to 3 seconds a month) without correction.
So at least half an order of magnitude more accurate than the clock used in the computer you're reading this on, and with this particular clock I'd be surprised if it was even that close.
"No, there isn't anything in the article to indicate that it is pendulum driven,"
It's not pendulum driven, it's spring driven, as mentioned at 4:02 in the linked YouTube video. The pendulum only regulates the release of the tension in the spring.
And if you click on the linked Wikipedia article, which has a direct link to this particular clock, you'll find that
"An escapement is just a mechanism to link the movement to something with periodicity."
Like, say, the bob swinging underneath the clock?
"There's nothing in the article to indicate what it uses as a timebase, except a comment about an "electric motor." AC line frequency, the same as my bedroom alarm clock?"
The base is the grasshopper escapement, the entire point of the clock, what it commemorates, and what the article is all about. The motor is used to wind the clock's spring, which is released from tension at a steady rate by the swinging of the escapement.
And because you didn't RTFA in your effort to be a smart-ass, you've come out looking like a dumb-ass for not understanding the concept of a pendulum clock. This right here is an indicator of why the "technology" tag is appropriate for this: people here (such as yourself) don't know how it works.
"This is 100% art. It uses nothing more technologically noteworthy than a bunch of blue LEDs and a grasshopper escapement."
Because a mechanical timepiece isn't "technology?" Or does it only qualify as "technology" if it's less than ten years old?
"and the grasshopper escapement is almost 3 centuries old."
Does it no longer work? Has the warranty expired?
Without external communications capabilities (e.g. WWVB or NTP), I guarantee you that this clock keeps more accurate time than any timepiece you've ever owned.
"Indeed: the real problem is that the states are letting the people choose the electors, when it ought to be the state legislature doing it!"
Have you looked at your state legislature lately? Do you know who your state legislators are? Do you even know what your state legislature as called, as well as the names of its houses?
I'm in favor of what you propose, as well as what another respondent said about repealing the Seventeenth, but that would require that voters not only trust their state legislatures (which they don't, not that they've been given much reason to), but that they know their legislatures.
Reform the legislatures into more trustworthy bodies (say, by eliminating gerrymandering, or by implementing ranked voting, or both), then you can start looking at how they apply to the federal government.
Look pretty, but maintenance is even worse than piston engines. Vane seals still don't last anywhere near as long as piston o-rings.
"seems you know jack shit about physics."
Says the man who launched a tirade that confuses "force" with "power."
"if you did, you'd realize that at a constant speed, the engine is just offseting resisting forces."
On the ground: friction
In the air: friction + gravity
"take a boeing 747-400. the combined thrust of four Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines (one of the available choices for the type) is a maximum of 396,160 lbf, the maximum takeoff weight of the aircraft is 875,000 lb. so, how's possible that "much of the engine's power" is used to support the weight if the engines' thrust is less than the total weight?"
Short answer, they're called "wings"
Somewhat longer answer:
"Force" isn't conserved, energy is conserved. Energy is the scalar product of force and displacement (energy in your preferred units: ft-lbf). Unless the aircraft is intended to climb vertically, all the engines need to do is impart enough horizontal kinetic energy into the wings to allow them to impart enough vertical kinetic energy on the air to push down with enough force to offset the plane's weight. The downward force of the wings and the horizontal force of the engines are not directly related, but the energy output of the engine must necessarily be greater than the desired energy of the deflected air (plus whatever energy is needed to keep the plane moving forward) in order to stay aloft.
As you noted, once at cruising altitude, it takes very little energy to maintain the desired horizontal velocity, but a great deal of energy is still needed to maintain the desired vertical velocity (namely, zero). Cut back on the throttle, and the plane starts to descend, even if atmospheric drag is considered to be zero.
"the same engine on a car or train would never achieve the same efficiency - AT THE SAME SPEEDS"
The linear velocity of the vehicle as a whole, or the radial velocity of the turbine? Oh, and guess what: the energy output of a turbine associated with its peak efficiency need not be the energy output required to keep a plane aloft at its desired cruising speed.
"turbofans are more efficient in high altitudes and high speeds than at lower ones."
Turbines need not be open-ended. Turbines that power ships and locomotives are closed loops which control the qualities of its working fluid in ways that an open-ended jet engine can't hope to achieve.
"the only way to make a land vehicle that's more efficient than a modern jet plane is to put them on tracks (steel-on-steel have less drag than ruber-on-asphalt), power it with electricity and make sure the power comes from a wire instead of heavy, on-board batteries. electric engines are the only thing that beats a turbofan in efficiency."
The diesel turbines used to power the electric motors of modern freight locomotives are comparable in size and power output of the jet turbines that are put on each wing of a commercial airliner. And yet consider both the cargo capacity and fuel requirements for a commercial airliner and a freight train. The plane may be able to carry tons, but the train can carry thousands of tons, using the same mass of fuel, over the same desired distance.
"Water has a non-zero viscosity so don't tell me about boats."
None of the engine room's horsepower goes into keeping the ship afloat, not even in a submarine.
"Boats are slow thus need to be huge to carry all the food and drinking water."
And yet a cabin aboard honest-to-God cruise from San Diego to Honolulu and back, with all the entertainment and such on top of the "food and water," is about the same price as a first-class round-trip ticket between the two cities, which covers nothing more than a comfy chair and a single meal.
The very same turbine that can transport cargo on the scale of Mg through the air can, over the same distance, consuming the same mass of fuel, comfortably transport cargo on the scale of Gg on land or sea. When you're talking three orders of magnitude, it doesn't matter if your cargo is people and you need to consider life support.
Better still, if you don't have to worry about supporting the weight of the engine, you don't need to blow money on more exotic manufacturing material (and the associated support costs), using ferrous metals in your turbines with only a negligible loss to efficiency.
"A cruise ship is not going to beat a 777."
According to the Wikipedia entry on the GE90, two of which power the Boeing 777, a single one "delivers a power which is roughly equivalent to 111,526 hp, twice the power of the Titanic." The 777 doesn't have to beat a single cruise ship, it has to beat four.
"The Peeters report flies in the face of reality, in which gains in jet engine efficiency over the last 40 years have been astounding. Contrast those gains with the popular Cadillac Escalade and similar SUV's whose mileage per gallon is often measured in single digits, and whose efficiencies have gone in the opposite direction. "
Where can I get myself fuel efficiency information on a 1968 Cadillac Escalade?
Aircraft have one advantage only: speed. The simple physics of the matter is that an engine used to power an aircraft will never have the same fuel efficiency as putting the same damned engine in a car or a train or any other vehicle where much of the engine's power is put into supporting the weight of the vehicle.
So your turbines have shown increased efficiency over 40 years ago. That doesn't explain why it's better to put that turbine into an airplane rather than a locomotive.
"Even if those gallons are US gallons (approx 5/6 of an Imperial gallon)"
Pedantry for the phail!
When 802.11n gets finalized, we'll all be using it to play DN4E over IPv6 from our flying cars.
"From the people that brought you Pipe Dream Stuck in Committee comes..."
"if a group of lions is coming there's a huge benefit to not being around."
I can has cro-magnon burger?
"bit shamefull to abuse this day, on which the world remembers the victims of this horrible disaster to make these statements how usefull it could be for science."
For seven years now, the events have been used over and over again for political benefit, used to implement draconian legislation and launch wholly unrelated wars, and to extend the political careers of men who have nothing else going for them but fear-mongering.
Nobody that day was asking to be remembered as "true American heroes" for doing nothing more patriotic than trying to earn a paycheck in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody wanted to be used as political martyrs to extend the careers of politicians that, based on the returns from New York and New Jersey in the years since, they never would have voted for were they still living. At least using the incident as an impetus to more fully explore the properties of steel is actually useful and will help save and improve lives, which is far, far more noble than anything that their deaths have been used for to date.
"And here I thought I was paying attention to SI conventions."
"Hectare" is not an SI unit.
There is no "thousands of hectares," there is only "tens of millions of square meters," or "thousands of square hectometers," if you prefer.
"They didn't lift a finger to do something about home security."
Unlike the DS, the Wii supports WPA2. Not even the Xbox 360 does that.
"The target audience is those who believe that the political process requires more than just showing up to vote once every four years"
You mean they show up once every two years, at least? Because even at just the federal level, there's more than just presidential elections. That's what you're alluding to, right? Or did the frequency of attendance not cross your mind?
On a good cycle, we might get 60 % of the enfranchised to show up for a presidential election. Instead of giving even more homework assignments to them (on top of, say, trying to wrap our heads around state constitutional amendment proposals), how about seeing what can be done to involve the other 40 %?
"Nintendo and Microsoft aren't competing for the same market niche, and apparently the author doesn't realize that."
Have you taken a look at Wii Ware and Xbox Live Arcade recently?
"The Wii is for casual gaming, the XBox and PS are for hardcore gaming."
Yes, that's why Microsoft bundles their Xbox 360 with such hardcore games like Uno and Pac-Man CE, or why their memory cards come with 70-hour gems like Geometry Wars and Worms.
"The XBox360 is getting a lot of negative press, but I think they made the right call by launching early."
Maybe they're making more money on game licensing fees thanks to launching early, maybe they're not. But I don't think the people that are on their second, third, or even sixth Xbox 360 will be rushing out to buy Microsoft's latest and greatest the next time around. To say the very least, the launch of the Xbox 360's successor will be underwhelming for Microsoft, possibly to the point of making the PlayStation 3's launch look successful.
"They've been able to displace a lot of the negative press by extending the warranty and making sure that people get their xbox's replaced."
Except that the warranty famously is only extended for a particular error code. The new phrase of the day is red light of death, an error currently plaguing the Xbox 360 that produces only a single red light rather than three, for which Microsoft will not offer warranty service past the first year. And by many accounts, they're caused by the same factor: slipshod soldering that can't handle the thermal expansion from power cycling, only when it hits the GPU instead of the CPU it produces a different error code.
If the hardware failure issues of the Xbox 360 really is 'old news,' why is Microsoft still refusing to answer questions about it?
Oh yeah, here!
7 years ago? God I'm old.
Seriously, this is the first time I've done one of these kinds of posts.