Hearing the difference now isn’t the reason to encode to FLAC. FLAC uses lossless compression, while MP3 is ‘lossy’. What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps, assuming you have SATA – it’s about 15kbps on IDE, but only 7kbps on SCSI, due to rotational velocidensity. You don’t want to know how much worse it is on CD-ROM or other optical media.
LOL, a computer file that dries up and rots like a stored apple in midwinter. "Lossy" means that the compression method loses some of the subtler harmonics found in the raw music. Since most people cannot hear a difference in a 128 kbps rendering for a portable device and a lossless FLAC or raw PCM file; the point is kinda moot.
Record deterioration on storage media is totally different from a lossy compression codec. The Frauhoffer Codec, aka Motion Picture Experts Group Layer 3 encoding (MP3 for short), became a default standard as a most reasonable compromise between loss free digital encoding of audio and file size on storage media.
Underground you need more electrical insulation that also insulates the heat from dissipating. One reason you have to use a larger gauge wire for underground.
BTW, if the wire actually were in contact with the soil, it would be conduction and not convection. Convection is what you get with a natural fluid flow to carry off heat such as in air.
... it might be a sensible idea to bury electric cables rather than running them around on fragile masts and poles everywhere?
That makes sense until you get into areas where you have extremely permeable soil and a high water table such as on Caribbean islands and the lower two thirds of Florida.
Think of shorts to ground due to slow seepage water intrusion and buried cables where you have to do excavation to look for the problem.
What is even more insane is that the specifications that you are required by federal law to adhere to are behind a very expensive paywall. Yep, the ANSI standards are what you have to adhere to but you have to pay like crazy to read them.
Sigh.... "Basic Seamanship Qualification" became a year and a half paperwork drill for skills that can be taught in a week. Is basic seamanship being able to run the ship or is it getting two sign offs on every task and knowledge point someone from a training command can think up then pass a board convened consisting of senior enlisted and commissioned officers? It became the latter back when I was still in service. Being competent to do something and being "qualified" became absolutely totally different things.
Personally I don't think the pattern of mishaps in the Navy comes from a lack of redundancy in navigational methods but from a pervasive adoption of the paradigm that "Verbatim Compliance to Written Procedure is a Moral Imperative" (Quoting a certain Admiral there) Written procedure isn't adaptive to rapidly changing situations or situations driven by false perceptions. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VHXRYXzEVU
If you are talking custom programming for a specific task; the customer has to specify what is needed. There comes the rub as most people are not accustomed to defining what they want and think everyone sees things from their paradigm.
Writing code is first getting an algorithm to be operative on the specified task. Then translate the algorithm into a set of instructions a machine can use.
Then you integrate multiple tasks.
Teach some logic structure in MBA school and there will be less problems with coding.
Giggling at the 100M lines of code... he must be including all the lines of code from the CNC machines that made the components of the car.
The list of businesses going down from ten years ago has an interesting anomaly; the camera film business.
There is actually a resurgence of film cameras among art students. My local camera shop is almost totally digital these days but reports a huge surge in sales of low end film cameras and B&W film. The reason is the art department at a local University having a hugely popular program called "Photography as Art" and the advanced course goes into detail on how darkroom technique creatively works with the subject matter.
For businesses going down the tubes in the next decade; I think "record labels" will be one of the first to go. For actually purchasing music; a label is totally irrelevant. The RIAA is only relevant for dunning streaming services for royalties. If someone organizes an association of music producers; the RIAA will be defunct totally as a union of creative talents can replace an association of industrial record pressers and greedy copyright holders. "Burn to Order" will probably be common for physical recording media soon as the norm is digital. Streaming is the new radio. But those with more eclectic tastes will still want to own copies of what they like.
Oddly, as record labels die, there is a resurgence of vinyl record companies doing audiophile pressings. I wonder if there will be a resurgence of glass recording makers as those were considered the audiophile versions back when vinyl was the mundane norm?
Die shoe stores, Die! At least I hope they will but, alas, there are enough with a shoe shopping fetish to keep some open. Yet, if you are not of average size feet, you know the hate you have for all those stores with hundreds of style of shoe but all in average width. If you have wide or narrow feet, you are out of luck. If someone makes a way to print a template then photograph your feet on it as a way to make custom shoes by computer controlled manufacturing; they would automatically rule the 40 percent of feet that don't fit average sizing.
I get tired of a tragedy happening and getting a flood of stories and commentaries from talking heads far removed from what is actually happening.
Instead of the cited CNN link from the initial post; how about links to local to Las Vegas news sources that are not skewing the report to fit an ideological doctrine.
LOL, if they had the power plant and power distribution lines fixed so they could charge a power wall they wouldn't need the power wall in the first place.
Nice virtue signalling in the sending of high tech junk when funding a couple of dozen linemen and a cargo container of wire would get the problem actually resolved.
I remember how seamlessly Windows Phone worked with Windows XP. Then, suddenly, all support was dropped and a Windows Phone quit synchronizing with Windows. And people wonder why a Windows 10 phone was viewed as a toxic proposition. Useful items orphaned leaving consumers with a WTF moment.
Windows Phone Windows Mobile 5 (PDA OS) Windows Reader Streaming to Xbox360 Native video codecs in Windows 7 Windows Media Player (Under Win8, you had to pay extra to get it only to have it removed by the free Win10 upgrade)
The cited article didn't differentiate between self driving vehicles designed for human beings and self driving vehicles designed for freight only. I think it makes a difference. Who needs air bags and passenger roll bars if there are no living passengers?
Self driving cars lacking the safety requirements of a steering wheel, brake pedal, emergency brake, etc. might be acceptable for a car that can't be moved under manual control. But, it will be a while before I would trust a vehicle with no way to take manual control and get it out of a dangerous locale.
What safety requirements would be waived for self driving cars? The cited article seemed to be FUD mongering on the issue with no specifics on what is on the supposed waivers of safety features.
How many even own a shortwave receiver any more? How many commercial shortwave stations are still a viable business?
With internet and satellite broadcast, shortwave seems to be going the way of medium wave stations in the U.S. (commercial AM in the U.S. is "medium wave" to most of the world)
I dug the shortwave out of the emergency gear. The numbers stations are still there. I got a futball match out of Australia. A couple of music broadcasts in Spanish, And way too many radio televangelists. Voice of America was lacking. Pravda World was nowhere to be found. But, Al Jazeera has a SW station now.
The Apple Model has always been you can do what you want as long as it is on an Apple approved platform with Apple approved software. Dropping any hint of versatility at all for a one size fits all attitude served them well for their niche market for many decades.
Apple remains a good choice for a computing illiterate aging aunt who does email and the occasional streaming video. There are excellent graphics packages written for Apple and it became the default for people who know art but are clueless with computers.
But, if you need a custom box for a custom purpose; it isn't an Apple box you go to.
AT&T was broken up as a monopoly into the "Baby Bells". Then a company called SBC quietly bought up most of the Baby Bell companies during the dot com bubble then re branded themselves as AT&T again starting a new monopoly.
I still maintain the thesis that since the internet backbone was developed, bought, and paid for with tax money as a DARPA project; that makes it a public utility. What AT&T seems to want is like the old AOL model where their proprietary network content came lightning fast but their limited internet gateway worked at a crawl and competitors were often totally blocked.
If an ISP wants to host content only on their network for their customers; that isn't the internet and they are welcome to play silly buggers with it. But, selective throttling of content over the net is counter to the public weal. Customers should not be required to put up with it.
Actually, you could use a hydrogen fuel cell to charge batteries to run an electric car. But, the issue with hydrogen is the storage issue. It even permeates out of pressure cylinders sitting on the shelf.
Naaa, Facebook started as a trust fund baby bitch and schmooze site and it is still run the same way. Plebs can watch but get booted if they express a differing opinion.
Or the military had an approved flight path for low flight under visual flight rules. Do you think the local TV station chopper stays above 500 feet? Or police and rescue helicopters for that matter.
You just don't go below 500 feet until in touch with a controlling tower.
You might be surprised at how many National Guard "training missions" include communicating what they can see to local law enforcement. As long as they don't actually do anything it doesn't invoke Posse Comitatus.
Most part time soldiers or even active duty actually like the idea of helping search for lost people and don't object to reporting drug gardens or hot spots on infrared that could be a meth lab.
And strictly military training missions... the purpose of a helicopter is to be able to fly low and slow. Part the training involves a lot of touch and go practice and navigation drills through and landing in various terrains. To quote my cousin, the USMC chopper pilot, "If you didn't get the wheels muddy, you didn't train." He also says it is polite to the Crew Chief to drag the wheels through a body of water to rinse them off before returning to base too.
I'll wager the closest airport had that helicopter on radar and knew what they were doing. A drone coming up that doesn't register on radar worth a crud; wild card. And, if the drone pilot had been operating legally, he would have gotten the drone out of the way when the chopper approached.
The military was flying with a trained pilot, IFF gear, and a valid flight plan.
Hobby drones are limited to line of sight flight of the operator. Are forbidden from flying over public areas where people congregate (No flying over Disneyworld. No flying over the football game.) And forbidden from flying over private property without the permission of the owner. (No flying over your neighbor's teenage daughter sunbathing in the back yard.) You can fly a hobby drone on your own property or in public areas where people are not congregating as long as you keep it under control, in line of sight, outside of two miles from an airport, and below 400 feet. And the gross weight of a hobby drone and any payload must by less than 55 lbs. These are not some new, restrictive, rules but a variation of what has been in place regarding hobby aircraft for many decades.
Furthermore, you cannot use a hobby drone or aircraft for commercial purposed. People have been arrested for using a cheap drone to take pictures on the beach and offering to sell them to tourists.
If you want to go outside of those restrictions; you need a licensed drone pilot, registration of the drone with the FAA and the registration displayed on the aircraft, and have a transponder installed so the ID shows up on air traffic control radar.
And to get to be a licensed drone pilot you have to go to the same "ground school" as a general aviation pilot where you learn, in excruciating detail, the legal requirements of operating an aircraft legally. Once the course has been completed, tests passed, and a certified instructor has observed you are competent to operate a drone safely (logged enough hours on training flights) The paperwork goes to the FAA along with licensing fees and you get back a drone pilot's license.
So, the drone operator was in violation of several federal laws. If the DOJ chose to prosecute; the person could get a decade in jail and a felony record. More likely it will be a fine by local courts and possibly be required to reimburse the DoD for the cost of repairs to the aircraft he damaged while unlawfully operating a drone.
Since cow farts have zero impact on increasing carbon loading in the atmosphere as they in no way reintroduce primordial carbon sequestered geologically; efforts to breed methane free cows would not be a cost effective thing to do. Now, as a doomsayer method to get a bunch of grant money... spot on!
The best power factor on electric generators and electric motors is about 28% so a system where electric cars are the main transportation method would require much more power than using internal combustion engines where the source of power is contained in the vehicle instead of at two removes. And, since a huge portion of electricity is generated using fossil fuels, you will find that overall electric cars as they exist today burn more fossil fuel than internal combustion. Want to minimize your transportation carbon footprint? Get a hybrid with diesel generator and run it on biodiesel. Zero added carbon to the environment.
TANSTAAFL - check the whole story before making decisions.
Harumph.... you expect an actor to run a public health treatment campaign?
Reagan did what the leader of a large organization does when he is effective... "Hey Koop! Yeah, you Mr. Surgeon General. Get us a plan on this HIV thing." Now, how many Surgeon Generals have had press conferences since C. Everett Koop? I know I can't remember any. Koop totally pissed off the reporters because he refused to be intimidated in saying anything he couldn't back up with data. Meanwhile the yellow press reporters were trying to increase ad revenue by convincing the masses that we are all gonna die within a decade.
Reagan delegated to his expert on public health serving in the cabinet.
Back in the 80s when the military was being told that HIV was 100 percent fatal in ten years and had a 25% transmission rate (much higher than the common cold); I was told to sit down and shut up when I opined that we would more likely find a portion of the population would be found to be carriers but asymptomatic and some people would have a natural immunity and the fatality rate would taper off when information was in hand.
A vaccine for a rapidly modifying virus, such as HIV or influenza, is quite problematic. I'm glad to see someone is making some progress.
As to the "it's a faggot disease" crowd; I was happy to find out the Dental Technician I served with in the Navy was still around and on his 26th year of antivirals to keep his HIV infection under control. He was bitten by a patient. No longer able to care for patients, he works in a prosthodontic lab making crowns and dentures. He made the crown I had put in last year and sent a note for me to call along with the tooth sent to my dentist. I had a sphincter tightening 18 months after responding to an accident and getting blood all the way up to my elbows and sprayed into my face from a girl we later found was HIV positive. Back in the 80s; they wouldn't declare you free of infection until they had three tests negative taken six months apart in addition to an initial negative test. A nurse I knew in the service died of HIV contracted by an inadvertent needle stick caused by a recalcitrant ER patient. Even if the majority of documented cases are from gay men; it ain't a faggot disease.
The impression from history always had me thinking the Castillians and Andalusians considered Catalans to be the ignorant rednecks of Spain. Shoot, Catalan is even a different language from Spanish. I don't have a dog in that hunt but the view from a distance does make a case for cultural and political independence.
Slashdot Mirror
Hearing the difference now isn’t the reason to encode to FLAC. FLAC uses lossless compression, while MP3 is ‘lossy’. What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps, assuming you have SATA – it’s about 15kbps on IDE, but only 7kbps on SCSI, due to rotational velocidensity. You don’t want to know how much worse it is on CD-ROM or other optical media.
LOL, a computer file that dries up and rots like a stored apple in midwinter.
"Lossy" means that the compression method loses some of the subtler harmonics found in the raw music. Since most people cannot hear a difference in a 128 kbps rendering for a portable device and a lossless FLAC or raw PCM file; the point is kinda moot.
Record deterioration on storage media is totally different from a lossy compression codec. The Frauhoffer Codec, aka Motion Picture Experts Group Layer 3 encoding (MP3 for short), became a default standard as a most reasonable compromise between loss free digital encoding of audio and file size on storage media.
Underground you need more electrical insulation that also insulates the heat from dissipating. One reason you have to use a larger gauge wire for underground.
BTW, if the wire actually were in contact with the soil, it would be conduction and not convection. Convection is what you get with a natural fluid flow to carry off heat such as in air.
... it might be a sensible idea to bury electric cables rather than running them around on fragile masts and poles everywhere?
That makes sense until you get into areas where you have extremely permeable soil and a high water table such as on Caribbean islands and the lower two thirds of Florida.
Think of shorts to ground due to slow seepage water intrusion and buried cables where you have to do excavation to look for the problem.
What is even more insane is that the specifications that you are required by federal law to adhere to are behind a very expensive paywall.
Yep, the ANSI standards are what you have to adhere to but you have to pay like crazy to read them.
https://webstore.ansi.org/?source=google&adgroup=ansi_standards&keyword=ansi%20standards&gclid=Cj0KEQjwjdLOBRCkoYX9vtaFv-UBEiQAWPn4YKHfrFmEJK2iADV6rHWLO6K55vJBVdiYaQf3rKdQRuUaAgQj8P8HAQ
Sigh.... "Basic Seamanship Qualification" became a year and a half paperwork drill for skills that can be taught in a week. Is basic seamanship being able to run the ship or is it getting two sign offs on every task and knowledge point someone from a training command can think up then pass a board convened consisting of senior enlisted and commissioned officers?
It became the latter back when I was still in service. Being competent to do something and being "qualified" became absolutely totally different things.
Personally I don't think the pattern of mishaps in the Navy comes from a lack of redundancy in navigational methods but from a pervasive adoption of the paradigm that "Verbatim Compliance to Written Procedure is a Moral Imperative" (Quoting a certain Admiral there)
Written procedure isn't adaptive to rapidly changing situations or situations driven by false perceptions.
Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VHXRYXzEVU
If you are talking custom programming for a specific task; the customer has to specify what is needed. There comes the rub as most people are not accustomed to defining what they want and think everyone sees things from their paradigm.
Writing code is first getting an algorithm to be operative on the specified task. Then translate the algorithm into a set of instructions a machine can use.
Then you integrate multiple tasks.
Teach some logic structure in MBA school and there will be less problems with coding.
Giggling at the 100M lines of code... he must be including all the lines of code from the CNC machines that made the components of the car.
The list of businesses going down from ten years ago has an interesting anomaly; the camera film business.
There is actually a resurgence of film cameras among art students. My local camera shop is almost totally digital these days but reports a huge surge in sales of low end film cameras and B&W film. The reason is the art department at a local University having a hugely popular program called "Photography as Art" and the advanced course goes into detail on how darkroom technique creatively works with the subject matter.
For businesses going down the tubes in the next decade; I think "record labels" will be one of the first to go. For actually purchasing music; a label is totally irrelevant. The RIAA is only relevant for dunning streaming services for royalties. If someone organizes an association of music producers; the RIAA will be defunct totally as a union of creative talents can replace an association of industrial record pressers and greedy copyright holders. "Burn to Order" will probably be common for physical recording media soon as the norm is digital. Streaming is the new radio. But those with more eclectic tastes will still want to own copies of what they like.
Oddly, as record labels die, there is a resurgence of vinyl record companies doing audiophile pressings. I wonder if there will be a resurgence of glass recording makers as those were considered the audiophile versions back when vinyl was the mundane norm?
Die shoe stores, Die!
At least I hope they will but, alas, there are enough with a shoe shopping fetish to keep some open. Yet, if you are not of average size feet, you know the hate you have for all those stores with hundreds of style of shoe but all in average width. If you have wide or narrow feet, you are out of luck.
If someone makes a way to print a template then photograph your feet on it as a way to make custom shoes by computer controlled manufacturing; they would automatically rule the 40 percent of feet that don't fit average sizing.
I get tired of a tragedy happening and getting a flood of stories and commentaries from talking heads far removed from what is actually happening.
Instead of the cited CNN link from the initial post; how about links to local to Las Vegas news sources that are not skewing the report to fit an ideological doctrine.
http://www.fox5vegas.com/
http://news3lv.com/news/nation-world/former-fbi-profiler-brad-garrett-what-we-know-so-far-about-las-vegas-sniper
LOL, if they had the power plant and power distribution lines fixed so they could charge a power wall they wouldn't need the power wall in the first place.
Nice virtue signalling in the sending of high tech junk when funding a couple of dozen linemen and a cargo container of wire would get the problem actually resolved.
I remember how seamlessly Windows Phone worked with Windows XP. Then, suddenly, all support was dropped and a Windows Phone quit synchronizing with Windows. And people wonder why a Windows 10 phone was viewed as a toxic proposition. Useful items orphaned leaving consumers with a WTF moment.
Windows Phone
Windows Mobile 5 (PDA OS)
Windows Reader
Streaming to Xbox360
Native video codecs in Windows 7
Windows Media Player (Under Win8, you had to pay extra to get it only to have it removed by the free Win10 upgrade)
The cited article didn't differentiate between self driving vehicles designed for human beings and self driving vehicles designed for freight only. I think it makes a difference. Who needs air bags and passenger roll bars if there are no living passengers?
Self driving cars lacking the safety requirements of a steering wheel, brake pedal, emergency brake, etc. might be acceptable for a car that can't be moved under manual control. But, it will be a while before I would trust a vehicle with no way to take manual control and get it out of a dangerous locale.
What safety requirements would be waived for self driving cars? The cited article seemed to be FUD mongering on the issue with no specifics on what is on the supposed waivers of safety features.
How many even own a shortwave receiver any more?
How many commercial shortwave stations are still a viable business?
With internet and satellite broadcast, shortwave seems to be going the way of medium wave stations in the U.S. (commercial AM in the U.S. is "medium wave" to most of the world)
I dug the shortwave out of the emergency gear. The numbers stations are still there. I got a futball match out of Australia. A couple of music broadcasts in Spanish, And way too many radio televangelists. Voice of America was lacking. Pravda World was nowhere to be found. But, Al Jazeera has a SW station now.
The Apple Model has always been you can do what you want as long as it is on an Apple approved platform with Apple approved software. Dropping any hint of versatility at all for a one size fits all attitude served them well for their niche market for many decades.
Apple remains a good choice for a computing illiterate aging aunt who does email and the occasional streaming video. There are excellent graphics packages written for Apple and it became the default for people who know art but are clueless with computers.
But, if you need a custom box for a custom purpose; it isn't an Apple box you go to.
AT&T was broken up as a monopoly into the "Baby Bells".
Then a company called SBC quietly bought up most of the Baby Bell companies during the dot com bubble then re branded themselves as AT&T again starting a new monopoly.
I still maintain the thesis that since the internet backbone was developed, bought, and paid for with tax money as a DARPA project; that makes it a public utility. What AT&T seems to want is like the old AOL model where their proprietary network content came lightning fast but their limited internet gateway worked at a crawl and competitors were often totally blocked.
If an ISP wants to host content only on their network for their customers; that isn't the internet and they are welcome to play silly buggers with it. But, selective throttling of content over the net is counter to the public weal. Customers should not be required to put up with it.
Actually, you could use a hydrogen fuel cell to charge batteries to run an electric car. But, the issue with hydrogen is the storage issue. It even permeates out of pressure cylinders sitting on the shelf.
Refresh in a drop down menu. Doh!
And, in a client app, the "check mail" button is a refresh.
Naaa, Facebook started as a trust fund baby bitch and schmooze site and it is still run the same way. Plebs can watch but get booted if they express a differing opinion.
Or the military had an approved flight path for low flight under visual flight rules.
Do you think the local TV station chopper stays above 500 feet? Or police and rescue helicopters for that matter.
You just don't go below 500 feet until in touch with a controlling tower.
You might be surprised at how many National Guard "training missions" include communicating what they can see to local law enforcement. As long as they don't actually do anything it doesn't invoke Posse Comitatus.
Most part time soldiers or even active duty actually like the idea of helping search for lost people and don't object to reporting drug gardens or hot spots on infrared that could be a meth lab.
And strictly military training missions... the purpose of a helicopter is to be able to fly low and slow. Part the training involves a lot of touch and go practice and navigation drills through and landing in various terrains. To quote my cousin, the USMC chopper pilot, "If you didn't get the wheels muddy, you didn't train." He also says it is polite to the Crew Chief to drag the wheels through a body of water to rinse them off before returning to base too.
I'll wager the closest airport had that helicopter on radar and knew what they were doing. A drone coming up that doesn't register on radar worth a crud; wild card. And, if the drone pilot had been operating legally, he would have gotten the drone out of the way when the chopper approached.
The military was flying with a trained pilot, IFF gear, and a valid flight plan.
Hobby drones are limited to line of sight flight of the operator. Are forbidden from flying over public areas where people congregate (No flying over Disneyworld. No flying over the football game.) And forbidden from flying over private property without the permission of the owner. (No flying over your neighbor's teenage daughter sunbathing in the back yard.) You can fly a hobby drone on your own property or in public areas where people are not congregating as long as you keep it under control, in line of sight, outside of two miles from an airport, and below 400 feet. And the gross weight of a hobby drone and any payload must by less than 55 lbs. These are not some new, restrictive, rules but a variation of what has been in place regarding hobby aircraft for many decades.
Furthermore, you cannot use a hobby drone or aircraft for commercial purposed. People have been arrested for using a cheap drone to take pictures on the beach and offering to sell them to tourists.
If you want to go outside of those restrictions; you need a licensed drone pilot, registration of the drone with the FAA and the registration displayed on the aircraft, and have a transponder installed so the ID shows up on air traffic control radar.
And to get to be a licensed drone pilot you have to go to the same "ground school" as a general aviation pilot where you learn, in excruciating detail, the legal requirements of operating an aircraft legally. Once the course has been completed, tests passed, and a certified instructor has observed you are competent to operate a drone safely (logged enough hours on training flights) The paperwork goes to the FAA along with licensing fees and you get back a drone pilot's license.
So, the drone operator was in violation of several federal laws. If the DOJ chose to prosecute; the person could get a decade in jail and a felony record. More likely it will be a fine by local courts and possibly be required to reimburse the DoD for the cost of repairs to the aircraft he damaged while unlawfully operating a drone.
Since cow farts have zero impact on increasing carbon loading in the atmosphere as they in no way reintroduce primordial carbon sequestered geologically; efforts to breed methane free cows would not be a cost effective thing to do. Now, as a doomsayer method to get a bunch of grant money... spot on!
The best power factor on electric generators and electric motors is about 28% so a system where electric cars are the main transportation method would require much more power than using internal combustion engines where the source of power is contained in the vehicle instead of at two removes. And, since a huge portion of electricity is generated using fossil fuels, you will find that overall electric cars as they exist today burn more fossil fuel than internal combustion. Want to minimize your transportation carbon footprint? Get a hybrid with diesel generator and run it on biodiesel. Zero added carbon to the environment.
TANSTAAFL - check the whole story before making decisions.
Transparent aluminum? Isn't that called "sapphire"?
Oh, you want it both transparent and ductile? Good luck.
Harumph.... you expect an actor to run a public health treatment campaign?
Reagan did what the leader of a large organization does when he is effective... "Hey Koop! Yeah, you Mr. Surgeon General. Get us a plan on this HIV thing." Now, how many Surgeon Generals have had press conferences since C. Everett Koop? I know I can't remember any. Koop totally pissed off the reporters because he refused to be intimidated in saying anything he couldn't back up with data. Meanwhile the yellow press reporters were trying to increase ad revenue by convincing the masses that we are all gonna die within a decade.
Reagan delegated to his expert on public health serving in the cabinet.
Back in the 80s when the military was being told that HIV was 100 percent fatal in ten years and had a 25% transmission rate (much higher than the common cold); I was told to sit down and shut up when I opined that we would more likely find a portion of the population would be found to be carriers but asymptomatic and some people would have a natural immunity and the fatality rate would taper off when information was in hand.
A vaccine for a rapidly modifying virus, such as HIV or influenza, is quite problematic. I'm glad to see someone is making some progress.
As to the "it's a faggot disease" crowd; I was happy to find out the Dental Technician I served with in the Navy was still around and on his 26th year of antivirals to keep his HIV infection under control. He was bitten by a patient. No longer able to care for patients, he works in a prosthodontic lab making crowns and dentures. He made the crown I had put in last year and sent a note for me to call along with the tooth sent to my dentist. I had a sphincter tightening 18 months after responding to an accident and getting blood all the way up to my elbows and sprayed into my face from a girl we later found was HIV positive. Back in the 80s; they wouldn't declare you free of infection until they had three tests negative taken six months apart in addition to an initial negative test. A nurse I knew in the service died of HIV contracted by an inadvertent needle stick caused by a recalcitrant ER patient. Even if the majority of documented cases are from gay men; it ain't a faggot disease.
The impression from history always had me thinking the Castillians and Andalusians considered Catalans to be the ignorant rednecks of Spain. Shoot, Catalan is even a different language from Spanish.
I don't have a dog in that hunt but the view from a distance does make a case for cultural and political independence.