I'd be curious to know how specifically the US government benefits from the oil in Iraq after a war. Keep in mind that Saddam (is that his surname?) could very well destroy all of his oil facilities and set all his wells alight if he senses the end is nigh.
Or we could just ask for the embargo to be lifted, but that would only incrementally increase the supply. Remember, he is "smuggling" oil to anybody that wants to turn their head and buy it.
Now, to all those Political/Economic geniuses out there that pose the crackpot theory you and I are challenging, please look up "fungible commodity", see how it applies to oil.
I meant my statement to indicate the furthest that I would go in accepting the doubters argumentation. I can see, if I try really hard, how NASA MIGHT have been tempted to "help photography along" ie. retouch photos if they got a bunch of not very good material back.
Then there would not have been any need to admit that one of the astronauts pointed a television camera at the Sun and killed the camera, they could have just gone on faking/enhansing. Forgot what mission that was, but I remember when it happened.
I leave the "web search and link drill" as an exercise for the reader.
Documents about them stating things along those lines? I am not really following you. Their own literature is the documentation.
I suggest you go back a few years (around the 1970's I think) and look at what Greenpeace was spinning about how the environment would be today and you will see what I mean.
I used to believe some of what those crackpots said back then, but their predictions never pan out, or worse, they just change the date on when some catastrophy will occur.
My favorite was their objection to the ongoing human presance in Antartica, so they put a base there themselves.
As for links, if you can't find any yourself then you just don't want to look.
First, conspiracy theorists are motivated by a profound mistrust of the government.
I do not accept the premise that people that write and profit from crackpot theories are motivated in this way. They are motivated by the same thing that motivates Greenpeace: money. To keep the money rolling in they have to create hysteria and ignore facts.
Now, you do have a bit of a point with the education system as a "cure" for the folks that send money to these hucksters, but they are playing on human nature and you really can not educate all of that away.
I keep multiple copies of that on 5.25, 3.5, CD, DVD and punchcards hidden throughout Northern Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. My home copies are on 2 identical RAID 5 systems backed up to compressed Exabyte tape librarys (one in my apartment, one connected wirelessly to my garage on the same property but 3 buildings away). The apartments have a sprinkler system, so the RAID and Exabyte cabinets are tented with plastic. Working on an archive for my vehicle that backs up through an 802.11a connection whenever I park in the garage.
It was just my defense contracting work I was talking about here
Interesting choice of pejorative statements just because their population density is different that the, obviously backward, town where your school computer was not used in your presance.
I graduated from highschool in 1980, attended 2 different schools in the Knoxville, TN area and both had computers maintained by the students way back then. Not sure what my first school had, since I did not take a computer class until 1977, but it did use punch cards. The machine I was familiar with was a DEC machine hooked to 3 teletype terminals and paper tape memory.
Even years later, rural highschools in the area were using microcomputers to enhance the football coach's play-calling ability and defense coordination. How do I know this? One of the coaches was a helicopter pilot in my National Guard unit and told us about the setup during a bad weather day. BTW, the coaches were the ones setting up the computers and programming them. So much for the stupid hick jock theory.
In the same area, my son received his CCNA through his highschool during his Junior year. All of the equipment and instruction was provided by Cisco, free. The networking cable was surplus and installed by the students in the networking classes. The T-1 line was provided, free, by the local phone company. So much for the the direction of "welfare cashflow".
The only thing holding back computing in schools is people like *you* that assume just because *your* school was full of helpless, clueless dolts that a smaller school *must* have a lesser level of ability, be it their accent that you do not like or some other non-issue.
Re:autoratation
on
Fanwing Planes?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The sprag clutch is a one way clutch. If power is applied it engages and drives the shaft to the rotor mast (if I remember correctly where it is located. for this discussion it is just important that it is in tthe drivetrain). When power is removed it disengages and allows the system to turn without the friction of the "dead" or reduced RPM engine dragging it down.
A sprag clutch failure does result in rotor RPM being coupled to engine RPM. An engine failure at this time would be catastrophic.
Yes, landing with no power is reliable, since you WILL land if you loose power;-) The main thing you are looking for when you loose power is a clear place to land and you don't need much room since you can land, safely and reliably, no power, within the dimensions of the aircraft and without a "slide" or runout.
We would usually practice autorotations in conjunction with a simulated forced landing, with the instructor chopping the throttle while announcing "forced landing" and the response is to call for the governer switch to be set to emergency as you drop the collective and setup an approach to your selected landing spot. During the process, the engine is providing no power to the rotor system, but it is sitting at idle waiting to be "run up" again in case of an emergency or completion of the maneuver.
The only time that I "banged one up" was practicing night low-level (50') autos and I was landing hard on an asphault strip. Cracked a skid shoe (metal part under the skid for flight school aircraft because of the extra wear the maneuvers put on the aircraft) in the process.
Some time before I stopped flying the Army stopped doing auto's to the ground outside of flight school and unit instructors since the statistics were lining up that we were breaking more aircraft on landing than the number of engine failures were producing, or something like that.
If Microsoft can be aware of losses in the tens of thousands of dollars then they will quickly reverse their stance on modding. Still, modding is a very good way of sticking it to them.
Humm, I like the thought but I am really not sure that MS cares if they loose money in that area.
Recently I heard a report that the only thing MS makes money on is their operating system and most/all of their other efforts loose money. Granted, most of their other efforts are designed to support use of their OS and I am a bit fuzzy on how XBox promotes this.
I keep thinking back to the 70's (or was it early 80's?) when GMAC, GM's credit arm ("public" company with all shares owned by GM) began 0% interest offers (lots of strings) on new GM cars. We had to study this in an advanced topics Finance class. The instructor wanted us to value the firm after the new loan product was out.
After the excercise he wanted to know why GM would do such a thing. He seemed suprized when I said "to sell cars, period". That idea had never dawned on him all the times he taught the course and apparently nobody else had suggested it. It seemed obvious to me and my team mates too, but they were just too tired of the guy to suggest it.
Re:autoratation
on
Fanwing Planes?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Very true. However, while flying a helicopter (not the fancy new ones *cough*blackhawk*cough* that fly themselves way too mch) one is constantly working, thus not bored. When I got to fly airplanes I had to work to stay awake!
Yea, I prefer things to go along as planned (never really happens) without any of the wrong lights coming on and with all the instruments "in the green", etc. but the feeling that an airplane does not "need" a person inside to keep going where it was pointed vs. the feeling of commanding the aircraft that will crash if you do not pay constant attention just seems too "steady state" for me.
Re:autoratation
on
Fanwing Planes?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Very good description. And the way we "de clutch" the engine (in the UH-1Hs that I flew) was a "sprag clutch" that would allow the engine power to go to the transmission system but would disengage if it was not driving the rotor, thus not dragging down the trans/rotor/etc.
Sorry that I missed answering part of Ender Ryan's question. Yes, I have autorotated meny times, it is something we practiced in flight school and throughout the time I was flying. Since I began flying helicopters and then learned to fly airplanes much later, autorotation seems "normal" to me and gliding an airplane seems "boring". Just a perspective thing.
When we autorotate, the aircraft moves down through the air gives the effect of air moving up through the rotor blades keeping them turning and allows for maneuvering. Not necessary forward motion, but you do need forward motion to stay in the optimum range.
When nearing the ground the inertia of the blades is enough to allow for an increase in collective pitch and a soft landing (if they were kept at the proper RPM by the proper airspeed/descent).
If I remember correctly, 1500' per min in descent was pretty much normal until the last 50'.
As a former Rotary Wing Aviator...
on
Fanwing Planes?
·
· Score: 5, Funny
My Right to autorotate shall not be abridged!
Otherwise it sounds cool, might get one for my ex-wife;-)
All kidding aside, isn't obliteration by some natural force exactly what the "Earth First" people are asking for when they advocate the cessation and regression of the industrial revolution?
Kinda puzzled why thouse folks live in houses, drive cars and use computers/other electrical devices, but that question is for the next "hydrogen power will save the earth" story.
My word! If our leasure society has now "advanced" to where some no longer have enough real issues to protest, now they are staging virtual protests against virtual foodstuffs.
For 5 years, programmers, web "designers" and system administrators surfed porn sites claiming it was research, posted self-congratulatory remarks on chat sites and general did little if any work at all. Now they are being required to justify their enormous salaries and all they can do is whine about their "exponentially" grow TODO list. Cry me a river.
From a different perspective I can generally agree with you.
As a functional analyst, there are many data application related initiatives that I *could* do myself. However, the technicals have a fit if any functional proposes to even make their own analysis tools.
Solution: I just do it myself and have stopped bothering to bring it up to the techies. When a result is needed, I have the answer in seconds instead of weeks, i.e., I do not have to print out report after report and "hand jam" them into a spreadsheet when a few simple select queries in Access on my desktop will do.
BTW, the last time I had a request for a new report, I submitted the PCR and provided, for my poor "over worked" coworkers, an "example" of the output I was looking for along with an Access query that would provide the correct result.
The technical lead came back with "if the functional has already developed it, he should be the developer for the PCR". My reply that it was just an example, not in Oracle but in Access, as stated plainly on the request, I am not a developer I am a functional, I don't know *your* system, seemed to just bounde off the tech lead.
Essentially, she wanted the tech group to get the charge number, hours, money and the solution. The techies finally completed the report generator in a few months, with me testing.
No thanks, I will just do my own data mining. If I had my way our entire "tech staff" would be replaced by 3 UNIX admins to keep track of some file servers while the rest of us do the real work.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be curious to know how specifically the US government benefits from the oil in Iraq after a war. Keep in mind that Saddam (is that his surname?) could very well destroy all of his oil facilities and set all his wells alight if he senses the end is nigh.
Or we could just ask for the embargo to be lifted, but that would only incrementally increase the supply. Remember, he is "smuggling" oil to anybody that wants to turn their head and buy it.
Now, to all those Political/Economic geniuses out there that pose the crackpot theory you and I are challenging, please look up "fungible commodity", see how it applies to oil.
I meant my statement to indicate the furthest that I would go in accepting the doubters argumentation. I can see, if I try really hard, how NASA MIGHT have been tempted to "help photography along" ie. retouch photos if they got a bunch of not very good material back.
Then there would not have been any need to admit that one of the astronauts pointed a television camera at the Sun and killed the camera, they could have just gone on faking/enhansing. Forgot what mission that was, but I remember when it happened.
I leave the "web search and link drill" as an exercise for the reader.
Documents about them stating things along those lines? I am not really following you. Their own literature is the documentation.
I suggest you go back a few years (around the 1970's I think) and look at what Greenpeace was spinning about how the environment would be today and you will see what I mean.
I used to believe some of what those crackpots said back then, but their predictions never pan out, or worse, they just change the date on when some catastrophy will occur.
My favorite was their objection to the ongoing human presance in Antartica, so they put a base there themselves.
As for links, if you can't find any yourself then you just don't want to look.
First, conspiracy theorists are motivated by a profound mistrust of the government.
I do not accept the premise that people that write and profit from crackpot theories are motivated in this way. They are motivated by the same thing that motivates Greenpeace: money. To keep the money rolling in they have to create hysteria and ignore facts.
Now, you do have a bit of a point with the education system as a "cure" for the folks that send money to these hucksters, but they are playing on human nature and you really can not educate all of that away.
That is easily an illegal violation of the PPV agreement, a commercial showing (barter counts too). Try a better analogy.
"This has some obvious problems, but it is worth discussing. The biggest problem I see is
where vaporware fits into the equation."
In this case, vaporware = "profit"
Given that you have marketed it correctly.
Responses like this (and the troll mod) were why I was giggling in the first place ;-)
Thank you!
Montag
I see the Space Shuttle land with a parachute every few weeks! What is the big deal with this! How is this news, for nerds or anybody else?
hehe... err... trying to keep from giggling
Ooops! In my other post I forgot about my porn!
I keep multiple copies of that on 5.25, 3.5, CD, DVD and punchcards hidden throughout Northern Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. My home copies are on 2 identical RAID 5 systems backed up to compressed Exabyte tape librarys (one in my apartment, one connected wirelessly to my garage on the same property but 3 buildings away). The apartments have a sprinkler system, so the RAID and Exabyte cabinets are tented with plastic. Working on an archive for my vehicle that backs up through an 802.11a connection whenever I park in the garage.
It was just my defense contracting work I was talking about here
What do you do to protect your backups?
:(
I use the squirrel method, hiding my data on the drives of unsuspecting dupes all over the internet.
Unfortunately, I can't remember where all of these bits are, so if my primary system gets messed up I am going to be dataless
From the description of scooping out the DNA from an existing bug and adding new DNA, this sounds more like the documentry "Species".
And they took precautions to keep it from getting away too, remember? They made it female so it could be "easier to control".
Also, as pointed out in the movie, these guys must not have not been around many women.
Interesting choice of pejorative statements just because their population density is different that the, obviously backward, town where your school computer was not used in your presance.
I graduated from highschool in 1980, attended 2 different schools in the Knoxville, TN area and both had computers maintained by the students way back then. Not sure what my first school had, since I did not take a computer class until 1977, but it did use punch cards. The machine I was familiar with was a DEC machine hooked to 3 teletype terminals and paper tape memory.
Even years later, rural highschools in the area were using microcomputers to enhance the football coach's play-calling ability and defense coordination. How do I know this? One of the coaches was a helicopter pilot in my National Guard unit and told us about the setup during a bad weather day. BTW, the coaches were the ones setting up the computers and programming them. So much for the stupid hick jock theory.
In the same area, my son received his CCNA through his highschool during his Junior year. All of the equipment and instruction was provided by Cisco, free. The networking cable was surplus and installed by the students in the networking classes. The T-1 line was provided, free, by the local phone company. So much for the the direction of "welfare cashflow".
The only thing holding back computing in schools is people like *you* that assume just because *your* school was full of helpless, clueless dolts that a smaller school *must* have a lesser level of ability, be it their accent that you do not like or some other non-issue.
The sprag clutch is a one way clutch. If power is applied it engages and drives the shaft to the rotor mast (if I remember correctly where it is located. for this discussion it is just important that it is in tthe drivetrain). When power is removed it disengages and allows the system to turn without the friction of the "dead" or reduced RPM engine dragging it down.
;-) The main thing you are looking for when you loose power is a clear place to land and you don't need much room since you can land, safely and reliably, no power, within the dimensions of the aircraft and without a "slide" or runout.
A sprag clutch failure does result in rotor RPM being coupled to engine RPM. An engine failure at this time would be catastrophic.
Yes, landing with no power is reliable, since you WILL land if you loose power
We would usually practice autorotations in conjunction with a simulated forced landing, with the instructor chopping the throttle while announcing "forced landing" and the response is to call for the governer switch to be set to emergency as you drop the collective and setup an approach to your selected landing spot. During the process, the engine is providing no power to the rotor system, but it is sitting at idle waiting to be "run up" again in case of an emergency or completion of the maneuver.
The only time that I "banged one up" was practicing night low-level (50') autos and I was landing hard on an asphault strip. Cracked a skid shoe (metal part under the skid for flight school aircraft because of the extra wear the maneuvers put on the aircraft) in the process.
Some time before I stopped flying the Army stopped doing auto's to the ground outside of flight school and unit instructors since the statistics were lining up that we were breaking more aircraft on landing than the number of engine failures were producing, or something like that.
If Microsoft can be aware of losses in the tens of thousands of dollars then they will quickly reverse their stance on modding. Still, modding is a very good way of sticking it to them.
Humm, I like the thought but I am really not sure that MS cares if they loose money in that area.
Recently I heard a report that the only thing MS makes money on is their operating system and most/all of their other efforts loose money. Granted, most of their other efforts are designed to support use of their OS and I am a bit fuzzy on how XBox promotes this.
I keep thinking back to the 70's (or was it early 80's?) when GMAC, GM's credit arm ("public" company with all shares owned by GM) began 0% interest offers (lots of strings) on new GM cars. We had to study this in an advanced topics Finance class. The instructor wanted us to value the firm after the new loan product was out.
After the excercise he wanted to know why GM would do such a thing. He seemed suprized when I said "to sell cars, period". That idea had never dawned on him all the times he taught the course and apparently nobody else had suggested it. It seemed obvious to me and my team mates too, but they were just too tired of the guy to suggest it.
Very true. However, while flying a helicopter (not the fancy new ones *cough*blackhawk*cough* that fly themselves way too mch) one is constantly working, thus not bored. When I got to fly airplanes I had to work to stay awake!
Yea, I prefer things to go along as planned (never really happens) without any of the wrong lights coming on and with all the instruments "in the green", etc. but the feeling that an airplane does not "need" a person inside to keep going where it was pointed vs. the feeling of commanding the aircraft that will crash if you do not pay constant attention just seems too "steady state" for me.
Very good description. And the way we "de clutch" the engine (in the UH-1Hs that I flew) was a "sprag clutch" that would allow the engine power to go to the transmission system but would disengage if it was not driving the rotor, thus not dragging down the trans/rotor/etc.
Sorry that I missed answering part of Ender Ryan's question. Yes, I have autorotated meny times, it is something we practiced in flight school and throughout the time I was flying. Since I began flying helicopters and then learned to fly airplanes much later, autorotation seems "normal" to me and gliding an airplane seems "boring". Just a perspective thing.
Ah, I finally caught that when someone else posted a quote from the article. It was /. before I got to it and was at the mercy of the story poster.
I gave a short explaination in in this post.
Essentually, it is a controlled landing with a very rapid rate of descent until the last 50' or so.
Pretty close actually.
When we autorotate, the aircraft moves down through the air gives the effect of air moving up through the rotor blades keeping them turning and allows for maneuvering. Not necessary forward motion, but you do need forward motion to stay in the optimum range.
When nearing the ground the inertia of the blades is enough to allow for an increase in collective pitch and a soft landing (if they were kept at the proper RPM by the proper airspeed/descent).
If I remember correctly, 1500' per min in descent was pretty much normal until the last 50'.
My Right to autorotate shall not be abridged!
;-)
Otherwise it sounds cool, might get one for my ex-wife
All kidding aside, isn't obliteration by some natural force exactly what the "Earth First" people are asking for when they advocate the cessation and regression of the industrial revolution?
Kinda puzzled why thouse folks live in houses, drive cars and use computers/other electrical devices, but that question is for the next "hydrogen power will save the earth" story.
My word! If our leasure society has now "advanced" to where some no longer have enough real issues to protest, now they are staging virtual protests against virtual foodstuffs.
sigh...
And if you were into turning frogs into beautiful girls for your Amazon colony you would be a robo-hottie.
Actually, the converse is how I "fix" windows systems.
Example
me: "DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!"
someone else: "What's wrong?"
me: It won't work!
someone else: now observing "Looks fine to me"
me: "It always works with a witness, where were you before my deadline?"
Are you the real Ann Coulter or am I just happy to see you?
For 5 years, programmers, web "designers" and system administrators surfed porn sites claiming it was research, posted self-congratulatory remarks on chat sites and general did little if any work at all. Now they are being required to justify their enormous salaries and all they can do is whine about their "exponentially" grow TODO list. Cry me a river.
From a different perspective I can generally agree with you.
As a functional analyst, there are many data application related initiatives that I *could* do myself. However, the technicals have a fit if any functional proposes to even make their own analysis tools.
Solution: I just do it myself and have stopped bothering to bring it up to the techies. When a result is needed, I have the answer in seconds instead of weeks, i.e., I do not have to print out report after report and "hand jam" them into a spreadsheet when a few simple select queries in Access on my desktop will do.
BTW, the last time I had a request for a new report, I submitted the PCR and provided, for my poor "over worked" coworkers, an "example" of the output I was looking for along with an Access query that would provide the correct result.
The technical lead came back with "if the functional has already developed it, he should be the developer for the PCR". My reply that it was just an example, not in Oracle but in Access, as stated plainly on the request, I am not a developer I am a functional, I don't know *your* system, seemed to just bounde off the tech lead.
Essentially, she wanted the tech group to get the charge number, hours, money and the solution. The techies finally completed the report generator in a few months, with me testing.
No thanks, I will just do my own data mining. If I had my way our entire "tech staff" would be replaced by 3 UNIX admins to keep track of some file servers while the rest of us do the real work.