I wrote that with the assumption that most readers here haven't ever actually *seen* a chicken, much less a chicken coop. They may have spotted the wire at Home Depot, but that could be rare too. Last time I went looking for some, they had 3 rolls off in a corner that customers usually don't go to. It's strange that most Americans have never encountered livestock or a farm, even though they eat the results daily. Damned city dwellers.:) (said, as I'm writing this from a suburb, where there isn't anything resembling a farm for at least 20 miles in any direction)
The story was a little sparse on information, but one of the links goes to their page here: http://fabfi.fablab.af/. I didn't go through their docs, but I see that they do exist.
You should be able to figure most of it out just by looking at the pictures, if you have a bit of knowledge in the area.
The dishes appear to be offset parabolic dishes or troughs. Full wave for 2.4Ghz is about 4.9". So if you want to reflect that, you'd want to go smaller than 1/4 wave, or use a mesh with holes no wider or taller than 1.2". In the pictures, they appear to be using metallic window screen. You could probably get away with "chicken wire" (small mesh wire for chicken coops, so chicks can't escape). I haven't measured the spacing on those in years, but I do remember that it's small.
For your transceiver, stick your wireless USB device at the focal point, and back it with something to reflect the signal going the wrong way back into the dish, so your power won't be wasted. A curved piece of foil or some other metal will do the trick.
I'm suggesting putting the device on the focal point, rather than running an antenna from the device to the focal point, to eliminate loss from the length of the antenna wire.
"Borrowing" a satellite TV antenna (such as DishNetwork, DirectTV, or Sky), and replacing the LNB with your transmitter would serve the same purpose, but it will be more obvious. At a distance, window screen is effectively invisible.
If I remember the DefCon contest winners for long range wifi correctly, they used old C/KU residential dishes, with their transceiver at the original focal point. From what I understand, there is an effective size limitation, so going from 3 feet to 15 feet wide won't necessarily help your situation. A 100 foot wide antenna won't have an advantage over a 5 foot wide one, and you may degrade your signal due to receiving extraneous noise.
If you're crafting it yourself, you have to calculate your focal point. If you're using a previously used parabolic dish, the focal point has already been found for you.
You may have to mess around with polarity a bit. I believe most wifi operates with a vertical alignment, but does seem to survive ok with horizontal alignment. If you're going for long range service, getting the correct alignment is key.
When you're working with a target antenna miles in the distance, it's helpful to have a good telescope to find the correct direction. Fine tuning is easy enough by hand with a decent signal strength app (assuming your transceiver supports it). I've done it with good tools, and even just with Netstumbler. Move it around slowly until you reach maximum signal strength.
I've used professionally made antennas before. The longest term one was a 24dB parabolic at my house, and a 14dB panel at my office. The range was only 1/2 mile, but both sides reported 100% signal strength. That was very impressive, since they couldn't even get over 80% when they were within close proximity to each other with standard antennas. I ran with that for over a year, until our office moved. I was very happy having my own person T1 at the house, after office hours.
Consider this. If they *know* it's going to hit the Earth, and even estimate about where it will hit, there are three choices.
1) Tell the truth and say "It's going to hit here at this time, with the effective energy of X atomic bombs" (I love that SI unit). People will panic. You wouldn't get any sort or orderly evacuation. Imagine if it were to hit near a metro area in the US. Millions of people would be displaced, even if it's only temporary. Now, what if they were off by a couple hundred miles? Aw shit, sorry guys, we were wrong. You evacuated to the impact site. Doesn't matter much, since you're dead.
2) STFU and don't say anything. Always a good choice, except amateur astronomers will likely spot it too. Again, when that makes the news, there will be mass panic, and an abundance of bad intelligence on the impact location, strength, etc.
3) Say "Don't worry, it'll miss us." If that ends up being true, there is no mass panic. No evacuations. No looting, robbing, raping, or pillaging. Life goes on as boring as ever. If it does hit, they can say "Oops, sorry". I'm sure that would be accompanied with a detailed explanation of how they were unable to calculate for some unknown like a freak solar flare or something.
As someone else pointed out, they said it'll miss by about 12,000 kilometers. That sounds safe until you consider that the distance from the Earth to the Moon averages about 384,000 kilometers. Or how about this, the object is going to pass through Geostationary Orbit (GEO) twice (once coming, once going), and at least into Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). It won't be a danger to the ISS, who sits far below that. There are plenty of satellites floating around in MEO and GEO.
It's doubtful an object the size of that asteroid would intersect with a satellite, but it is a risk. That could result in extra space debris, or a rather uncoordinated reentry of a satellite or other "parked" space junk.
So, it's not just going to pass by harmless through empty space. It's going to pass through space where we have a bunch of shit laying around.
Myself, I'm not worried. It's a small rock that has a small risk of hitting the Earth or something close by. I won't discount the possibility that a fast moving rock may hit us very hard and very fast, but if it does, there isn't much we can do about it anyways. If it does hit us an cause an ELE, I'll work on what to do from there. With any luck, it won't crash through the roof of my office, and onto my desk.:)
It's not easy figuring what will run fast and what won't. For example, VCRs or DVRs that get their time from cable systems or the Internet probably won't be affected, but those with clocks tied to the electric current will be off a bit, Matsakis said.
Nope, the device won't be effected, because it updates from what should be a good source. The question is, is the broadcaster in sync with the same source?
I had a bastard of a time with a TiVo. It was fine at keeping time. I'd check it against my PC and my servers, which I *had* to keep in sync for things to work properly. The problem was, stations would be up to about +- 6 minutes. These were Series 2 TiVo's, so I had already adjusted their storage, so I had plenty of space to record. I always set it to extend the recording period to 5 minutes before the show, and 5 minutes after the end. Some stations were very predictable about their skewed times, and I could reduce that to exactly what it needed. Others drifted significantly, so I had to leave the wide window for them.
My mom's DVR through her cable company is worse. Their clock is always wrong. It also doesn't have an option to set the time manually, nor update via ntp. You got exactly what the cable company gives you, and you're shit out of luck otherwise. She knows her clock is always +- 5 to +- 10 minutes wrong. It drifts over time too, so she's never quite sure if it's early or late. By drifting, I mean it can be -5 minutes one week, and +3 minutes the next week. I'm pretty sure they use an untrained monkey with a broken hourglass to adjust their clocks daily. So her DVR is damned close to worthless without setting +-10 minutes for everything. Even still, she ends up missing shows on a fairly regular basis. Besides that, she learned that her service is absolute crap. They overcompress everything, so they can fit data down the same pipe. She missed the last 15 minutes of an NCIS episode (70 years old, and loving spy shows. hehe). I grabbed it from a torrent, burned it to a DVD, and gave it to her to watch. She showed me how the original looked, compared to the torrent version. She's using my 10 year old 32" CRT TV, so the picture shouldn't be amazing. It definitely doesn't do anything resembling HD. Still, what she gets from her provider looks like it could have come off a 10 year old overplayed VHS tape. Unfortunately, she has exactly one choice of providers where she is. Trees block the view of the sky, so she can't get satellite anything. Only one provider runs that area. The only choice is to move, but she's only 15 years into a 30 year mortgage, so she can't even sell the house for what she owes. I was tempted to teach her the evils of torrents, but I don't want to be the one responsible if she gets on the shit end of a John/Jane Doe lawsuit from the RIAA/MPAA.
Since your SUV is your second car you can still get a hybrid or electric car for your primary car for your daily use, and still have that SUV to haul those bricks and plywood.:)
I could, and I've considered it, but I haven't seen anything that's what I want (i.e., something that works) at a price that is affordable. That's most of what I was trying to say, even if it didn't come out quite that way. Pricing is very important. If lots of units are sold, and they are popular, then when those drivers upgrade to the newer model years, those used vehicles will again be on the market.
Unfortunately, most of us don't have wads of cash laying around to blow on whatever. I bought my SUV for $1,750. It had some mechanical problems, which I repaired, bringing my total investment to $2,800. It's book value is $6,800.
Lets compare the current market value for first (US) model year of various hybrids... I'm using my area for these comparisons, on KBB. While the actual pricing could be argued, I'm using them for all the prices here. They're all being compared with standard equipment only.
2004 Toyota Prius $13,920. 2000 Honda Insight $6,575 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid $8,085 2007 Lexus GS 450h $32,365 2007 Nissan Altima Hybrid $17,550 KBB does not list the Tesla Roadster at all.
These days, even for people who have jobs (only 75% of the population now), dropping even $7k on a car is more than they can safely dispose with. Of course there is financing, which the dealerships will be happy to offer. Unfortunately, knowing the state things are in, who would consider financing a new or used car, paying the interest, and risking losing their transportation if they should miss a payment. Ya, it's a tough game. The few people I've known who have purchased vehicles recently (including the SUV referenced above) were all paid with cash. Of course they were all used, and each needed something (tires, tuneup, or whatever). Still, a few thousand out of pocket is much safer than tens of thousands in payments and thousands in interest.
On my primary vehicle, I paid almost double for it, including all the interest payments across the life of the loan. Even still, I found myself without work towards the end of the payments. I had two payments left to make, and they were ready to repossess it when I was 2 weeks late paying. I called to arrange things with them, and to give myself time to borrow the money from friends and family. The "negotiation" the finance company offered was for me to tell them the address it was at, so they could pick it up. And if you're wondering, it was the finance division of the big 3 US auto manufacturers, not some rip-off buy-here-pay-here.
With BS practices like that, I'm never financing a vehicle again.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Average size for an 11 year old female is 52" (4' 4") tall and 80 pounds. Compare that to the average weight for an 18 to 20 year old male, at 69" (5' 9") tall and 155 lbs.
By using the younger girl, they're saving 17" in cabin/seating space (non-linear due to the angle of the seat), and 75 pounds of weight.
Way back in the day, I had a little 50cc moped. Don't consider comparing it to the performance of current "pocket bikes". It was old and slow. It was my first "motorcycle" Ya, ya, not a motorcycle, but it was more than a bicycle, and I wasn't old enough to be licensed for motorcycles yet. I weighed about 130 pounds then, and could do 30 mph reasonably quickly. Again, that's compared to a bicycle, not to a real motorcycle or car.:) Someone who weighed about 180 tried to ride it. He could get up to 15mph, and it took about 4 times as long to get there.
I suspect there are a few other reasons they chose her in particular. She was probably mature enough to be able to drive it. I wouldn't think a 5 year old could do it safely, despite the advantage in weight (avg female: 39.6 lbs). She's probably a family member of someone involved, and they probably didn't have any adults of such a small stature to participate. I can't honestly say I know any adults quite that small, but I do know some females who are right around 5' tall, and weigh about 100 pounds. There's still an advantage over an average adult male, but not as significant.
A $50k novelty is still more affordable than a $100k novelty.
As for economy and TOC, I'm staying on what most people consider the less than green side. I have a sports car that gets 26mpg. It gets me and up to 3 passengers and luggage or groceries from Point A to Point B quickly. MSRP was around $38k, and I paid $25k one year used. Now at 11 years old and 120,000 miles, if it were a EV or hybrid, it would have likely required two battery swaps and who knows what other changes. What's MTBF on the motors they use? How do the electronics stand up in hot climates? As a good old fashion IC motor, it's required 2 water pumps, an alternator, and 2 new batteries, and a few other little things
I had a headlight fault in my car. It seems the ground wire to the headlights broke internally. 15 minutes and $5 in parts later it was fixed in the auto parts store parking lot. A friend of mine has a Prius. Hers has a headlight fault, where the headlights will just turn themselves off or flash, due to an overheating controller. It costs hundreds of dollars, and serious work to just get the light out. Google around for replacing a Prius headlight, and you'll see plenty of pictures where you have to take the front bumper off to accomplish it.
My second car is a used full size SUV. That's my spare vehicle, in case the first one is down for some reason, and for transporting anything larger than my car will carry. I dare anyone to consider doing home renovations driving a Tesla Roadster.:) You won't even fit a stack of bricks or a few sheets of plywood in a Prius.:) The mileage isn't great, but if I can accomplish in one trip what would take 4 in a smaller car, the effective efficiency is better. And sometimes there is just no substitute for an urban assault vehicle.:)
It's all about pricing. If you sell, as they called it, a "boutique" item, it will have limited acceptance. Only those with money to throw around will be able to afford them, and they will never become a high volume item.
I know a lot of Slashdot readers and car enthusiasts wanted them. We also don't have over $100k to drop on a 2 seat car that is still essentially a prototype.
If they had an entry level model priced for the average consumer, and possibly a mid-range and high-line car, that would satisfy the markets. More people would have bought one priced closer to $10k. At $109k, you can buy two of any of the common hybrid cars available, *AND* you could get parts and have it serviced almost anywhere. Those with the money will get the high line model. Many who look at the entry level model would consider or buy the mid-range model.
I was interested in buying a Tesla. I can't justify buying a novelty car for more than the current market value of an average home, regardless if it's better or worse for the environment.
Well, I do list tinfoil hat adjustments on the list of services I provide. It's not on the list, but we'll be more than happy to hand craft the finest tinfoil hats that money can buy. I can't disclose the secret materials we make it with, nor the testing procedures involved, but I can say that none of my clients has ever proven that any government, aliens, or bigfoot has penetrating their minds.:)
Don't bother. It was 90 minutes of my life wasted, that I'll never get back. At least I can say I slept through 30 minutes of it.
Basically, take some kids who want to be the center of attention, keep raising that attention level ad nauseum, and lowering their level of social graces until they finally roll the closing credits.
I think there was something about some web site, a boat, sleeping with groupies, and drugs.
There was probably more evidence to gather regarding the kiddy porn case. They'd have to carefully track down everything relating to the case. I'd assume that the defendant was pleading "not guilty", which will stretch out the time required. There's a chance of unidentified victims, so they'd have to follow down every lead to make sure the case was tried appropriately.
This case is a lot simpler. He *wants* to go to jail, so he'll plead guilty. The evidence will consist of the physical evidence from the scene, and the witness statements. That would most likely be wrapped up in a nice package with a bow for the courts in a few days.
You know, it's weird, but ya, it'll get you traffic.
One of the things I do is run a mainstream news site. In that, pedophiles get bused for all kinds of things. Those end up being keyword rich pages that seem to come up for all kinds of fucked up variations of what pedophiles look for. There's nothing like reviewing your logs to have an amazing disgust for society as we know it.
There is only one thing I feel good about. On some keywords and phrases, we come up in the top 3 results. So the pedophiles may be looking for underage smut, but instead they're presented with news stories about other pedophiles going to jail.
It seems like an acceptable solution to me. Pollute their searches with so many non-smut sites, preferably with news stories about long prison terms, or deaths by the hands of other inmates. Maybe it will help encourage them to make their best attempt at winning a Darwin Award.
[checking my inventory of firearms, ammunition, and other combat weapons]
You sir may be correct. While I do have plenty of powerful alternatives, and words are not the the strongest force I can use, I do chose to use intellectual discussion before escalating to other levels, including crude language, or lethal force.
I'd suspect it would take a while before commissioned officers would opt to go against the orders of their commanders, regardless if it's the "right" thing to do. Someone more in touch with their civilian life will see the "enemy" could be their own family and friends.
When a sufficient number of an officer's troops are either leaving or refusing to fight, it would help guide the officer to do the right thing. But, there is a swift and decisive action that can be taken against a traitor on the battlefield.
Likewise, an officer being seen to disobey their commanding officer's order may be turned on by his subordinates.
By no stretch of the imagination would it be a good scene anywhere. Even a loose knit group of insurgents would most likely have no command structure. 100 guys with guns may agree in concept on what they want to do, but in reality there will be many internal conflicts. Those conflicts can splinter a strong group into ineffective clusters of people with guns but no strategy.
If you don't believe that, show up to any club or group, and watch their little internal battles. It shows up in all of them at some point. For example, my mom lives in in a deed restricted community. Because of her experience as a club officer in the past, she was recruited. There are constantly power plays where someone thinks they can do the better job. They'll convince people to join one side or the other, there will be internal conflicts, and a lot of times the new leader will end up making the same decisions when all the information is presented.
So would an all-out civil war in the US work? Maybe, maybe not. Would it make things better? Possibly, but as we we see with changes of current politicians, the same nonsense keeps floating to the top. Corruption and power run hand in hand.
It's too easy to see the bigger payout and give in to the temptation. Would you want to do the right thing? Sure. Would $1,000,000 change your mind? For someone who's made $50k/yr, that's a lump sum payment of 20 years salary under the table. But some people stay strong. Maybe $10,000,000? $25,000,000? To those offering that kind of money, it's usually worth a whole lot more. But if money doesn't do it, maybe drugs, women, other luxuries.
If giving doesn't work, taking away can. especially in an anarchy/rebellion situation. Torture or death of family? Friends? Neighbors? Release of blackmail material, regardless if it's factual or not. The blackmail doesn't have to be about the target, it could be about anyone who they have a relationship with. It's all in how much someone wants something, regardless of how irrational it may be to a normal sane person.
Lots of people want things. People want to be rich and famous. They strive to have more money, the bigger house, the faster car, and the hotter girlfriend. What most people lack is the plan.
A group of people with guns with no solid military strategy, versus military with strategy, tactics, and training, and superior firepower, will find themselves as a tiny footnote in history as "the insurgents that were killed during...."
Do your gun toting friends know how to do anything pesky like... um... being able to fly a fighter jet? It's not just "I've flown a RC airplane", or even "I have 10,000 hours in a F-16 in Microsoft Flight Simulator". Someone actually capable of flying, typed in that aircraft, and skilled enough to train other pilots in those aircraft. And beyond that, shipping out ammunition and fuel, since they'd now have to set up a brand new air base somewhere. Supplies, tools, or and I forgot the support crews. Check up on how often they do complete rebuilds of the engines on a fighter.
And yes, in war gaming that we've done, little details like "How do you get a fighter jet in the air from a hostile air base" was addressed.
Oddly enough, military bases are well defended. Air bases have aircraft. Even 1000 people with rifles and pickup trucks are little risk to an airbase that will scramble every working AH-64 Apache and fighter aircraft they have. If the threat is large enough, they'll scramble aircraft from other nearby bases. Needless to say, the number of surviving "insurgents" would go to 0 before the first "insurgent" even put his ass in the cockpit of a single plane.
No offense intended or anything. It's just that without a viable strategy, it will be a complete and lethal failure.
I did mental wargames with some experienced folks (experienced military, not role playing games). The "mass defections from the military" wouldn't happen in the beginning. It would be several waves into the conflict before you saw company or brigade strength units changing over to defend the civilians. Until then, the civilian losses would be massive. A few practiced hunters may make good snipers, and get some shots in before their positions are obliterated. Your typical street thug would be little more than meat shields. A M1028/XM1028 will turn a street full of insurgents into a red stain on the same street and surrounding buildings. Go to 1:18 in the video.
Then consider This Survey. The last item is most important. I cannot find any confirmation that it is a hoax, and have heard from people who were in the active military that they took part of the survey.
Previous presidential actions have made it legal to put American troops on American streets. Putting them on the street doesn't mean that they'd leave their guns at the base, and ask people politely to behave. The military aren't sworn to defend the people (any more), they're sworn to protect the United States, as ordered by the President. Or more specifically (my own emphasis added):
I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
People tend to remember the orders of the POTUS and officers part, over the constitution.
I wouldn't want to be in the first, second, or third waves. There won't be many survivors on the civilian side.
You know, that's one of the things I was pondering as I watched that.
Sure, they had some neat toys used innovatively. They also had heavier artillery than most Americans will ever get our hands on. Fully automatic weapons? Chain guns? Crates full of ammo? Missiles?
Here in America, the US Constitution was written to ensure that the people would run the nation, and that we would never be oppressed by our own government. In the days of muskets and cutlasses the common citizens were on equal ground with the government. Our government has ensured that an open rebellion would be easily quashed by the military.
We have citizens who could produce weapons for our own defense, either during an internal conflict, or by an outside aggressor. Building your own chain gun, or even upgrading a commercially available weapon beyond government acceptable specifications without the appropriate licensing, is forbidden.
We are given the illusion of equality to the government. But if there is a civil insurrection, those involved would be quickly annihilated with superior firepower.
I pulled together a short and not all inclusive list for only the Christians. "Lord", "I Am", "The Father Almighty", "The One", "Dominus", "Wonderful", "Yahweh", "Iehouah", "Lehoua", "Jehovia", "Jehovia-jireh", "YHWH", "I Am Who I Am" or "I Will Be What I Will Be", and "Bob".
He doesn't use that last one a lot, and it doesn't find it's way into many modern bibles.:)
Ya, I know it's there. Part of it is laziness on my behalf. I work with enough different languages, that irregularities in syntax highlighting of any sort become a problem. It's easier to not have them at all.
Once upon a time, I did set up all the toolbars in a way that I was comfortable with. I only did it at work though, and not at home, so I never ended up using them. I do like the vertical line showing the matching of brackets.:)
In real life (as I know it), I end up working on a lot of different machines. Sometimes I'm sitting on my home machine. Sometimes a laptop, a friends computer, or on the console of some random machine that either belongs to my employer, or someone I'm doing a favor for. I may have UltraEdit in front of me right now (as matter of fact, it's open right now), but I may get a random call from someone asking to get on their server and fix something. Despite how much I don't like notepad, if I have to get on a Windows machine and make changes quick, that may be my only solution.
The only other thing I use UltraEdit for is the FTP/SCP manager. Pointy-clickie to a file is nice. I only use it as a comfortable text editor though. Anything more cripples me from being able to perform at my best under any circumstances.
I'll concede to that. And you are correct, it's only in common usage, because the modern Christian bible says so.
"A dude name 'God' is protecting me". Its like how "Christ" turned into Jesus' last name, and not just a common job description of the time (yes, a wee bit flippant, I apologize).
That actually reminds me of a story. And yes, I'll be kind enough to drift off on a tangent. I used to live next door to a police officer. He said that they had responded to an incident where a man was pushed in front of a bus. They interviewed everyone that had possibly seen anything. The majority of them were homeless people. Most of them said "Jesus did it" (the anglo pronunciation, not the hispanic pronunciation). They were absolutely positive it was Jesus. No question about it. It was Jesus.
They finally interviewed a moderately sane person, who explained what the hell everyone else was talking about. The victim was a business person who walked several blocks to work every morning. Every day, he'd give a few of the homeless people some money. This particular morning he didn't have any cash (his wallet was found in his pocket, with no cash). One mentally unstable homeless man took great offense to this. He got very angry, and the victim tried to apologize, but the unstable homeless man wasn't interested in hearing excuses. In the middle of their altercation, he shoved the victim into the road, in front of the bus.
The unstable homeless man went by the name "Jesus".
Slashdot Mirror
I wrote that with the assumption that most readers here haven't ever actually *seen* a chicken, much less a chicken coop. They may have spotted the wire at Home Depot, but that could be rare too. Last time I went looking for some, they had 3 rolls off in a corner that customers usually don't go to. It's strange that most Americans have never encountered livestock or a farm, even though they eat the results daily. Damned city dwellers. :) (said, as I'm writing this from a suburb, where there isn't anything resembling a farm for at least 20 miles in any direction)
The story was a little sparse on information, but one of the links goes to their page here: http://fabfi.fablab.af/. I didn't go through their docs, but I see that they do exist.
You should be able to figure most of it out just by looking at the pictures, if you have a bit of knowledge in the area.
The dishes appear to be offset parabolic dishes or troughs. Full wave for 2.4Ghz is about 4.9". So if you want to reflect that, you'd want to go smaller than 1/4 wave, or use a mesh with holes no wider or taller than 1.2". In the pictures, they appear to be using metallic window screen. You could probably get away with "chicken wire" (small mesh wire for chicken coops, so chicks can't escape). I haven't measured the spacing on those in years, but I do remember that it's small.
For your transceiver, stick your wireless USB device at the focal point, and back it with something to reflect the signal going the wrong way back into the dish, so your power won't be wasted. A curved piece of foil or some other metal will do the trick.
I'm suggesting putting the device on the focal point, rather than running an antenna from the device to the focal point, to eliminate loss from the length of the antenna wire.
"Borrowing" a satellite TV antenna (such as DishNetwork, DirectTV, or Sky), and replacing the LNB with your transmitter would serve the same purpose, but it will be more obvious. At a distance, window screen is effectively invisible.
If I remember the DefCon contest winners for long range wifi correctly, they used old C/KU residential dishes, with their transceiver at the original focal point. From what I understand, there is an effective size limitation, so going from 3 feet to 15 feet wide won't necessarily help your situation. A 100 foot wide antenna won't have an advantage over a 5 foot wide one, and you may degrade your signal due to receiving extraneous noise.
If you're crafting it yourself, you have to calculate your focal point. If you're using a previously used parabolic dish, the focal point has already been found for you.
You may have to mess around with polarity a bit. I believe most wifi operates with a vertical alignment, but does seem to survive ok with horizontal alignment. If you're going for long range service, getting the correct alignment is key.
When you're working with a target antenna miles in the distance, it's helpful to have a good telescope to find the correct direction. Fine tuning is easy enough by hand with a decent signal strength app (assuming your transceiver supports it). I've done it with good tools, and even just with Netstumbler. Move it around slowly until you reach maximum signal strength.
I've used professionally made antennas before. The longest term one was a 24dB parabolic at my house, and a 14dB panel at my office. The range was only 1/2 mile, but both sides reported 100% signal strength. That was very impressive, since they couldn't even get over 80% when they were within close proximity to each other with standard antennas. I ran with that for over a year, until our office moved. I was very happy having my own person T1 at the house, after office hours.
I'm uncertain that I understand that. Could you compare it to a dual-state cat in a box? :)
Of course that's what they said.
Consider this. If they *know* it's going to hit the Earth, and even estimate about where it will hit, there are three choices.
1) Tell the truth and say "It's going to hit here at this time, with the effective energy of X atomic bombs" (I love that SI unit). People will panic. You wouldn't get any sort or orderly evacuation. Imagine if it were to hit near a metro area in the US. Millions of people would be displaced, even if it's only temporary. Now, what if they were off by a couple hundred miles? Aw shit, sorry guys, we were wrong. You evacuated to the impact site. Doesn't matter much, since you're dead.
2) STFU and don't say anything. Always a good choice, except amateur astronomers will likely spot it too. Again, when that makes the news, there will be mass panic, and an abundance of bad intelligence on the impact location, strength, etc.
3) Say "Don't worry, it'll miss us." If that ends up being true, there is no mass panic. No evacuations. No looting, robbing, raping, or pillaging. Life goes on as boring as ever. If it does hit, they can say "Oops, sorry". I'm sure that would be accompanied with a detailed explanation of how they were unable to calculate for some unknown like a freak solar flare or something.
As someone else pointed out, they said it'll miss by about 12,000 kilometers. That sounds safe until you consider that the distance from the Earth to the Moon averages about 384,000 kilometers. Or how about this, the object is going to pass through Geostationary Orbit (GEO) twice (once coming, once going), and at least into Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). It won't be a danger to the ISS, who sits far below that. There are plenty of satellites floating around in MEO and GEO.
It's doubtful an object the size of that asteroid would intersect with a satellite, but it is a risk. That could result in extra space debris, or a rather uncoordinated reentry of a satellite or other "parked" space junk.
So, it's not just going to pass by harmless through empty space. It's going to pass through space where we have a bunch of shit laying around.
Myself, I'm not worried. It's a small rock that has a small risk of hitting the Earth or something close by. I won't discount the possibility that a fast moving rock may hit us very hard and very fast, but if it does, there isn't much we can do about it anyways. If it does hit us an cause an ELE, I'll work on what to do from there. With any luck, it won't crash through the roof of my office, and onto my desk. :)
How would you go about getting DC out of phase? :) Wrong polarity, maybe.
I suspect they go the DC route to avoid problems with distant sources and their phase.
I like this part.
Nope, the device won't be effected, because it updates from what should be a good source. The question is, is the broadcaster in sync with the same source?
I had a bastard of a time with a TiVo. It was fine at keeping time. I'd check it against my PC and my servers, which I *had* to keep in sync for things to work properly. The problem was, stations would be up to about +- 6 minutes. These were Series 2 TiVo's, so I had already adjusted their storage, so I had plenty of space to record. I always set it to extend the recording period to 5 minutes before the show, and 5 minutes after the end. Some stations were very predictable about their skewed times, and I could reduce that to exactly what it needed. Others drifted significantly, so I had to leave the wide window for them.
My mom's DVR through her cable company is worse. Their clock is always wrong. It also doesn't have an option to set the time manually, nor update via ntp. You got exactly what the cable company gives you, and you're shit out of luck otherwise. She knows her clock is always +- 5 to +- 10 minutes wrong. It drifts over time too, so she's never quite sure if it's early or late. By drifting, I mean it can be -5 minutes one week, and +3 minutes the next week. I'm pretty sure they use an untrained monkey with a broken hourglass to adjust their clocks daily. So her DVR is damned close to worthless without setting +-10 minutes for everything. Even still, she ends up missing shows on a fairly regular basis. Besides that, she learned that her service is absolute crap. They overcompress everything, so they can fit data down the same pipe. She missed the last 15 minutes of an NCIS episode (70 years old, and loving spy shows. hehe). I grabbed it from a torrent, burned it to a DVD, and gave it to her to watch. She showed me how the original looked, compared to the torrent version. She's using my 10 year old 32" CRT TV, so the picture shouldn't be amazing. It definitely doesn't do anything resembling HD. Still, what she gets from her provider looks like it could have come off a 10 year old overplayed VHS tape. Unfortunately, she has exactly one choice of providers where she is. Trees block the view of the sky, so she can't get satellite anything. Only one provider runs that area. The only choice is to move, but she's only 15 years into a 30 year mortgage, so she can't even sell the house for what she owes. I was tempted to teach her the evils of torrents, but I don't want to be the one responsible if she gets on the shit end of a John/Jane Doe lawsuit from the RIAA/MPAA.
[tangent mode off]
Hmmm, that's interesting, there are extraneous characters. Disregard anything that resembles a capital A, or a double dash.
I'll be happy to oblige you, since your machine seems to have faulty localization abilities.
My apologies for characters that don't show up properly here. Similar replacements have been used. Some units have been adjusted for ease of reading.
52 inches = 8.828Ã--10^-12 AU = 2.889 cubit = 1.3208 meters = 1.396Ã--10^-16 LY
80 pounds = 1.82447708Ã--10^-29 Mo = 5.71 stone = 36.28 kilogram
30 mph = 4.473e-8 C (in a vacuum) = 26.06 knots = 48.28 kph = 0.039 mach (on a standard day, under standard conditions)
And of course, as my old pal Al used to say, "it's all relative".
I could, and I've considered it, but I haven't seen anything that's what I want (i.e., something that works) at a price that is affordable. That's most of what I was trying to say, even if it didn't come out quite that way. Pricing is very important. If lots of units are sold, and they are popular, then when those drivers upgrade to the newer model years, those used vehicles will again be on the market.
Unfortunately, most of us don't have wads of cash laying around to blow on whatever. I bought my SUV for $1,750. It had some mechanical problems, which I repaired, bringing my total investment to $2,800. It's book value is $6,800.
Lets compare the current market value for first (US) model year of various hybrids... I'm using my area for these comparisons, on KBB. While the actual pricing could be argued, I'm using them for all the prices here. They're all being compared with standard equipment only.
2004 Toyota Prius $13,920.
2000 Honda Insight $6,575
2003 Honda Civic Hybrid $8,085
2007 Lexus GS 450h $32,365
2007 Nissan Altima Hybrid $17,550
KBB does not list the Tesla Roadster at all.
These days, even for people who have jobs (only 75% of the population now), dropping even $7k on a car is more than they can safely dispose with. Of course there is financing, which the dealerships will be happy to offer. Unfortunately, knowing the state things are in, who would consider financing a new or used car, paying the interest, and risking losing their transportation if they should miss a payment. Ya, it's a tough game. The few people I've known who have purchased vehicles recently (including the SUV referenced above) were all paid with cash. Of course they were all used, and each needed something (tires, tuneup, or whatever). Still, a few thousand out of pocket is much safer than tens of thousands in payments and thousands in interest.
On my primary vehicle, I paid almost double for it, including all the interest payments across the life of the loan. Even still, I found myself without work towards the end of the payments. I had two payments left to make, and they were ready to repossess it when I was 2 weeks late paying. I called to arrange things with them, and to give myself time to borrow the money from friends and family. The "negotiation" the finance company offered was for me to tell them the address it was at, so they could pick it up. And if you're wondering, it was the finance division of the big 3 US auto manufacturers, not some rip-off buy-here-pay-here.
With BS practices like that, I'm never financing a vehicle again.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Average size for an 11 year old female is 52" (4' 4") tall and 80 pounds. Compare that to the average weight for an 18 to 20 year old male, at 69" (5' 9") tall and 155 lbs.
By using the younger girl, they're saving 17" in cabin/seating space (non-linear due to the angle of the seat), and 75 pounds of weight.
Way back in the day, I had a little 50cc moped. Don't consider comparing it to the performance of current "pocket bikes". It was old and slow. It was my first "motorcycle" Ya, ya, not a motorcycle, but it was more than a bicycle, and I wasn't old enough to be licensed for motorcycles yet. I weighed about 130 pounds then, and could do 30 mph reasonably quickly. Again, that's compared to a bicycle, not to a real motorcycle or car. :) Someone who weighed about 180 tried to ride it. He could get up to 15mph, and it took about 4 times as long to get there.
I suspect there are a few other reasons they chose her in particular. She was probably mature enough to be able to drive it. I wouldn't think a 5 year old could do it safely, despite the advantage in weight (avg female: 39.6 lbs). She's probably a family member of someone involved, and they probably didn't have any adults of such a small stature to participate. I can't honestly say I know any adults quite that small, but I do know some females who are right around 5' tall, and weigh about 100 pounds. There's still an advantage over an average adult male, but not as significant.
A $50k novelty is still more affordable than a $100k novelty.
As for economy and TOC, I'm staying on what most people consider the less than green side. I have a sports car that gets 26mpg. It gets me and up to 3 passengers and luggage or groceries from Point A to Point B quickly. MSRP was around $38k, and I paid $25k one year used. Now at 11 years old and 120,000 miles, if it were a EV or hybrid, it would have likely required two battery swaps and who knows what other changes. What's MTBF on the motors they use? How do the electronics stand up in hot climates? As a good old fashion IC motor, it's required 2 water pumps, an alternator, and 2 new batteries, and a few other little things
I had a headlight fault in my car. It seems the ground wire to the headlights broke internally. 15 minutes and $5 in parts later it was fixed in the auto parts store parking lot. A friend of mine has a Prius. Hers has a headlight fault, where the headlights will just turn themselves off or flash, due to an overheating controller. It costs hundreds of dollars, and serious work to just get the light out. Google around for replacing a Prius headlight, and you'll see plenty of pictures where you have to take the front bumper off to accomplish it.
My second car is a used full size SUV. That's my spare vehicle, in case the first one is down for some reason, and for transporting anything larger than my car will carry. I dare anyone to consider doing home renovations driving a Tesla Roadster. :) You won't even fit a stack of bricks or a few sheets of plywood in a Prius. :) The mileage isn't great, but if I can accomplish in one trip what would take 4 in a smaller car, the effective efficiency is better. And sometimes there is just no substitute for an urban assault vehicle. :)
It's all about pricing. If you sell, as they called it, a "boutique" item, it will have limited acceptance. Only those with money to throw around will be able to afford them, and they will never become a high volume item.
I know a lot of Slashdot readers and car enthusiasts wanted them. We also don't have over $100k to drop on a 2 seat car that is still essentially a prototype.
If they had an entry level model priced for the average consumer, and possibly a mid-range and high-line car, that would satisfy the markets. More people would have bought one priced closer to $10k. At $109k, you can buy two of any of the common hybrid cars available, *AND* you could get parts and have it serviced almost anywhere. Those with the money will get the high line model. Many who look at the entry level model would consider or buy the mid-range model.
I was interested in buying a Tesla. I can't justify buying a novelty car for more than the current market value of an average home, regardless if it's better or worse for the environment.
Including that post and this one? About 92. :)
Well, I do list tinfoil hat adjustments on the list of services I provide. It's not on the list, but we'll be more than happy to hand craft the finest tinfoil hats that money can buy. I can't disclose the secret materials we make it with, nor the testing procedures involved, but I can say that none of my clients has ever proven that any government, aliens, or bigfoot has penetrating their minds. :)
Don't bother. It was 90 minutes of my life wasted, that I'll never get back. At least I can say I slept through 30 minutes of it.
Basically, take some kids who want to be the center of attention, keep raising that attention level ad nauseum, and lowering their level of social graces until they finally roll the closing credits.
I think there was something about some web site, a boat, sleeping with groupies, and drugs.
There was probably more evidence to gather regarding the kiddy porn case. They'd have to carefully track down everything relating to the case. I'd assume that the defendant was pleading "not guilty", which will stretch out the time required. There's a chance of unidentified victims, so they'd have to follow down every lead to make sure the case was tried appropriately.
This case is a lot simpler. He *wants* to go to jail, so he'll plead guilty. The evidence will consist of the physical evidence from the scene, and the witness statements. That would most likely be wrapped up in a nice package with a bow for the courts in a few days.
You know, it's weird, but ya, it'll get you traffic.
One of the things I do is run a mainstream news site. In that, pedophiles get bused for all kinds of things. Those end up being keyword rich pages that seem to come up for all kinds of fucked up variations of what pedophiles look for. There's nothing like reviewing your logs to have an amazing disgust for society as we know it.
There is only one thing I feel good about. On some keywords and phrases, we come up in the top 3 results. So the pedophiles may be looking for underage smut, but instead they're presented with news stories about other pedophiles going to jail.
It seems like an acceptable solution to me. Pollute their searches with so many non-smut sites, preferably with news stories about long prison terms, or deaths by the hands of other inmates. Maybe it will help encourage them to make their best attempt at winning a Darwin Award.
[checking my inventory of firearms, ammunition, and other combat weapons]
You sir may be correct. While I do have plenty of powerful alternatives, and words are not the the strongest force I can use, I do chose to use intellectual discussion before escalating to other levels, including crude language, or lethal force.
I'd suspect it would take a while before commissioned officers would opt to go against the orders of their commanders, regardless if it's the "right" thing to do. Someone more in touch with their civilian life will see the "enemy" could be their own family and friends.
When a sufficient number of an officer's troops are either leaving or refusing to fight, it would help guide the officer to do the right thing. But, there is a swift and decisive action that can be taken against a traitor on the battlefield.
Likewise, an officer being seen to disobey their commanding officer's order may be turned on by his subordinates.
By no stretch of the imagination would it be a good scene anywhere. Even a loose knit group of insurgents would most likely have no command structure. 100 guys with guns may agree in concept on what they want to do, but in reality there will be many internal conflicts. Those conflicts can splinter a strong group into ineffective clusters of people with guns but no strategy.
If you don't believe that, show up to any club or group, and watch their little internal battles. It shows up in all of them at some point. For example, my mom lives in in a deed restricted community. Because of her experience as a club officer in the past, she was recruited. There are constantly power plays where someone thinks they can do the better job. They'll convince people to join one side or the other, there will be internal conflicts, and a lot of times the new leader will end up making the same decisions when all the information is presented.
So would an all-out civil war in the US work? Maybe, maybe not. Would it make things better? Possibly, but as we we see with changes of current politicians, the same nonsense keeps floating to the top. Corruption and power run hand in hand.
It's too easy to see the bigger payout and give in to the temptation. Would you want to do the right thing? Sure. Would $1,000,000 change your mind? For someone who's made $50k/yr, that's a lump sum payment of 20 years salary under the table. But some people stay strong. Maybe $10,000,000? $25,000,000? To those offering that kind of money, it's usually worth a whole lot more. But if money doesn't do it, maybe drugs, women, other luxuries.
If giving doesn't work, taking away can. especially in an anarchy/rebellion situation. Torture or death of family? Friends? Neighbors? Release of blackmail material, regardless if it's factual or not. The blackmail doesn't have to be about the target, it could be about anyone who they have a relationship with. It's all in how much someone wants something, regardless of how irrational it may be to a normal sane person.
Lots of people want things. People want to be rich and famous. They strive to have more money, the bigger house, the faster car, and the hotter girlfriend. What most people lack is the plan.
A group of people with guns with no solid military strategy, versus military with strategy, tactics, and training, and superior firepower, will find themselves as a tiny footnote in history as "the insurgents that were killed during...."
Do your gun toting friends know how to do anything pesky like ... um ... being able to fly a fighter jet? It's not just "I've flown a RC airplane", or even "I have 10,000 hours in a F-16 in Microsoft Flight Simulator". Someone actually capable of flying, typed in that aircraft, and skilled enough to train other pilots in those aircraft. And beyond that, shipping out ammunition and fuel, since they'd now have to set up a brand new air base somewhere. Supplies, tools, or and I forgot the support crews. Check up on how often they do complete rebuilds of the engines on a fighter.
And yes, in war gaming that we've done, little details like "How do you get a fighter jet in the air from a hostile air base" was addressed.
Oddly enough, military bases are well defended. Air bases have aircraft. Even 1000 people with rifles and pickup trucks are little risk to an airbase that will scramble every working AH-64 Apache and fighter aircraft they have. If the threat is large enough, they'll scramble aircraft from other nearby bases. Needless to say, the number of surviving "insurgents" would go to 0 before the first "insurgent" even put his ass in the cockpit of a single plane.
No offense intended or anything. It's just that without a viable strategy, it will be a complete and lethal failure.
I did mental wargames with some experienced folks (experienced military, not role playing games). The "mass defections from the military" wouldn't happen in the beginning. It would be several waves into the conflict before you saw company or brigade strength units changing over to defend the civilians. Until then, the civilian losses would be massive. A few practiced hunters may make good snipers, and get some shots in before their positions are obliterated. Your typical street thug would be little more than meat shields. A M1028/XM1028 will turn a street full of insurgents into a red stain on the same street and surrounding buildings. Go to 1:18 in the video.
Then consider This Survey. The last item is most important. I cannot find any confirmation that it is a hoax, and have heard from people who were in the active military that they took part of the survey.
Previous presidential actions have made it legal to put American troops on American streets. Putting them on the street doesn't mean that they'd leave their guns at the base, and ask people politely to behave. The military aren't sworn to defend the people (any more), they're sworn to protect the United States, as ordered by the President. Or more specifically (my own emphasis added):
People tend to remember the orders of the POTUS and officers part, over the constitution.
I wouldn't want to be in the first, second, or third waves. There won't be many survivors on the civilian side.
You know, that's one of the things I was pondering as I watched that.
Sure, they had some neat toys used innovatively. They also had heavier artillery than most Americans will ever get our hands on. Fully automatic weapons? Chain guns? Crates full of ammo? Missiles?
Here in America, the US Constitution was written to ensure that the people would run the nation, and that we would never be oppressed by our own government. In the days of muskets and cutlasses the common citizens were on equal ground with the government. Our government has ensured that an open rebellion would be easily quashed by the military.
We have citizens who could produce weapons for our own defense, either during an internal conflict, or by an outside aggressor. Building your own chain gun, or even upgrading a commercially available weapon beyond government acceptable specifications without the appropriate licensing, is forbidden.
We are given the illusion of equality to the government. But if there is a civil insurrection, those involved would be quickly annihilated with superior firepower.
I pulled together a short and not all inclusive list for only the Christians. "Lord", "I Am", "The Father Almighty", "The One", "Dominus", "Wonderful", "Yahweh", "Iehouah", "Lehoua", "Jehovia", "Jehovia-jireh", "YHWH", "I Am Who I Am" or "I Will Be What I Will Be", and "Bob".
He doesn't use that last one a lot, and it doesn't find it's way into many modern bibles. :)
Ya, I know it's there. Part of it is laziness on my behalf. I work with enough different languages, that irregularities in syntax highlighting of any sort become a problem. It's easier to not have them at all.
Once upon a time, I did set up all the toolbars in a way that I was comfortable with. I only did it at work though, and not at home, so I never ended up using them. I do like the vertical line showing the matching of brackets. :)
In real life (as I know it), I end up working on a lot of different machines. Sometimes I'm sitting on my home machine. Sometimes a laptop, a friends computer, or on the console of some random machine that either belongs to my employer, or someone I'm doing a favor for. I may have UltraEdit in front of me right now (as matter of fact, it's open right now), but I may get a random call from someone asking to get on their server and fix something. Despite how much I don't like notepad, if I have to get on a Windows machine and make changes quick, that may be my only solution.
The only other thing I use UltraEdit for is the FTP/SCP manager. Pointy-clickie to a file is nice. I only use it as a comfortable text editor though. Anything more cripples me from being able to perform at my best under any circumstances.
I'll concede to that. And you are correct, it's only in common usage, because the modern Christian bible says so.
That actually reminds me of a story. And yes, I'll be kind enough to drift off on a tangent. I used to live next door to a police officer. He said that they had responded to an incident where a man was pushed in front of a bus. They interviewed everyone that had possibly seen anything. The majority of them were homeless people. Most of them said "Jesus did it" (the anglo pronunciation, not the hispanic pronunciation). They were absolutely positive it was Jesus. No question about it. It was Jesus.
They finally interviewed a moderately sane person, who explained what the hell everyone else was talking about. The victim was a business person who walked several blocks to work every morning. Every day, he'd give a few of the homeless people some money. This particular morning he didn't have any cash (his wallet was found in his pocket, with no cash). One mentally unstable homeless man took great offense to this. He got very angry, and the victim tried to apologize, but the unstable homeless man wasn't interested in hearing excuses. In the middle of their altercation, he shoved the victim into the road, in front of the bus.
The unstable homeless man went by the name "Jesus".
Now back to our regularly scheduled tangent. :)