To short stock properly, you need to borrow it and then sell it. This implies that there are shares available for loan which in the case of SCOX, there aren't. Most of SCOs shares are locked up and the free float is comparatively small. Shorting would be a dangerous proposition as it is relatively easy for the price to be moved against you.
A put option would be better, but it would have to be OTC (there are no exchange traded options for SCOX) and again, it is probably too illiquid to do anything, so nobody will write that option for you.
I don'tt mean setting the destination of a plane sitting at JFK to be the Whitehouse as the computer saying "I'm sorry, I can't do that".
As far as I am aware from the PR twaddle, as you approach a no-fly zone, the controls should resist you unless you point away from it byt the application of a bias. This means that near such a zone, you lose the ability to point the aircraft towards the zone, even if that is the correct direction to be taken away.
It should be first mentioned that the events on the 9th September are a one-of. They even failed later that day. In fact, at the time, ATC wasn't even aware until a late stage that anything was wrong on the flight. Talk about bolting the stable door after the horse has gone...
I actually like many aspects of FBW but this isn't FBW, it is where the pilot is no longer in true command of the aircraft. Actually I look forward to the concepts such as NASA's highways in the sky, which imply effectively a close cooperation between a national network of ATC systems and the aircraft.
When these innovations are complete, effectively we can have no-go zones, and all kinds of other things (maybe even Moeller's Flying cars). However while pilots remain in charge, they sometimes have to choose a heading which is is quite different to that wanted because of weather conditions.
Howeverm there are a lot of non-FBW aircraft around, and they will continue to be around. Forget a 747-200, even a 737 packs quite some kinetic energy.
The good old fashioned transponder isn't mandatory. It only takes a reg change to make it so. If an aircraft's transponder fails, then ATC can flag the event and divert the aircraft. The thing is that it sqawks an ID together with altitude info. Without the transponder a blip is another blip. It will still be visible with a velocity vector. However, ATC computers don't have a standardised procedure to deal with a transponder switched off. If the plane passes between two ATC centres, i.e., a handoff from en-Route to Terminal Approach, the situation is harder as they don't coordinate very well.
I read the FAQ, and feel that the situation has been oversimplified. Many of the problems have been studied before in other contexts. For example there was a lot about coupling an EGPWS to a 'stick puller' to prevent CFIT, it hasn't happened. If the controls can totally override the pilot, then it becomes possible to hijack a plane without ever being on it. This is infinitely more dangerous.
First, I should say that the primary method of navigation between airports remains VOR and DME and other remain officially secondary methods. I guess your Prof should know that. GPS is officially not to be used as a primary system because of the susceptibility of civillian equipment to jamming or other outages. It should be remembered that other position dependent systems such as EGPWS are purely advisory.
Sometimes a plane's GPS may be corrected by ground-based transmitters (DGPS). This transmission isn't 'signed' and could easily provide a path for erroneous transmissions. The encrypted channels that you refer to are reserved for military use. If you have to give them to everybody (at least to all aircraft in the US), you might as well give them to the world. AFAIK, the military system doesn't use a public-key type system and to change it would require major system changes.
Not all aircraft have Inertial Navigation fitted either (the small giros for attitude and heading may not be accurate enough over distance) and many don't have any fly by wire. In which case, the primary means of instrument navigation remains old-fashioned VOR and DME beacons. Localisation before landing can simply be obtained by enabling the transponder (ideally mode 3, that is with altitude info).
Which VOR and DME beacons you use remains soemthing that is set via the flightplan on the FMS. However it can be overriden because at anytime you may choose a different route (i.e., to land because of an onboard emergency). On the systems that I have seen, you can still put in beacon frequencies by hand and set their position (normally it comes from a Jeppson's table but that may have problems).
I smell a scam on the Department of Homeland Insecurity money pile. A better solution would be to simply require transponders to be enabled which would allow the ground to see what is happening.
FWIT, I have worked on avionics (Navigation systems incl. GPS), crypto and can just about fly a light aircraft.
Btw, the instruments are run by multiple computers. Usually, pilot and co-pilot have two separated systems (Many years ago, I worked for a while on Avionics). However, they aren't independently programmed like the FCCs. On the A320 it was three systems on two architectures produced by three different development teams. However, they follow the same specs, and sometimes the specs were definitely not as well written as they could be.
This is by intention and even advertised as they are even advertised as ensuring "the pilot flies with the engine in an optimum configuration for lower fuel and maintenance costs".
Sorry, sometimes you need to get at every bit of power reserve or you need to make a strange manouver but you really don't want the computers to stop them.
GPWS is essentially just a downward and slightly forward pointing radar altimeter. This is the thing that gives verbal warning messages when you are to low but not in a landing configuration. It is more or less useless in mountainous terrain. You are probably referring to EGPWS which has a database of terrain heights and uses your position and heading to say whether you are about to fly into a mountain. The issue is how fine grained it is. The original just divided the world into squares with minimum altitudes). However, this is next to useless with some airports (such as Innsbruck) where the approach is down a valley.
Disclaimer: I am not a commercial pilot but have flown a plane (light aircraft only).
The problem is weather. If you want to get to A, you sometimes point the aircraft at B. The wind plus your heading and velocity will result in a true track.
When you are landing, if you get caught in a microburst or CAT, you may sometimes need to take special actions which require pointing the aircraft in strange directions. This is especcially true if you want to do a 'go round'.
Such systems have been discussed before, but have largely been discounted because of this. I guess someone here is just screwing for pork from the Department of Homeland Insecurity.
On some flights, the Air Marshall has the ability to alert the cockpit through a concealed button. This implies that the Air Marshall has to be in a pre-assigned seat.
How does the RAT deploy w/o hydraulic pressure? Unlike a gas, a liquid isn't compressible, so it just isn't possible to leave a spare tank of fluid under pressure for such things.
I was under the impression from the Gimli incident, that you had to hand crank it down.
I look around at my various desktops and see Hubble images. The thing is that I'm not the only one. It seems that plenty of non-geeks also find the pictures aethetically pleasing. As for the science, plenty of it has come from the telescope.
This means that those with the money (congress) like it. The administrators like it because here is a project that has made good (albeit after a bumpy start). When an administrator chooses to invest in an existing project, it is lower risk than something new.
NASA has budget problems, but please remember that a lot of it is coming from the bad decisions made on the manned space program. At the same time, without a manned program, Hubble wouldn't be there.
Lets put this into perspective, NASA in a year uses than what it takes to run the US part of the Iraq occupation for a month. I feel for your budget problems, but in reality, NASA is underfunded for what it does.
You have a US training and Spanish, why not just head south. Working in foreign countries may not pay that well, but I assure you that you can live on a lot less. The only issue is that the savings you make aren't worth much.
However, the experience that you get is invaluable and will look good later on the resume. The maintrick for resume engineering is to work for a recognisable organisation.
Usually it just means having some staff around to ensure you are correctly briefed before you go somewhere. Things can happen in such countries that do not happen at home (you definitely aren't in Kansas anymore), but in reality it can also be more interesting.
I do suspect that offshore resources will be perceived as less competitive over time. This is because there are hidden management and communications costs in dealing with offshore resources that raise their effective cost.
That is a little of an understatement. When you outsource down the road, you can have regular meetings. When you outsource to India, essentially it takes a say to get Email queries answered. The problem is that unless you are doing really basic stuff, they may no know your problem domain. Expect to spend a lot of time on formal documentation.
The last problem is overselling. Yes, the offshore company may have large numbers of programmer's but it will generally want to keep them busy, If there is a major problem, they may not have spare resources to throw.
I outsourced a project to Russia but then found that I had to spend about a week every two months on site with them, to get a real idea of what was happening. This isn't a big problem because Moscow and St. Petersburg are great cities to visit, but on the other hand they are very expensive to stay in.
Remember that the company operates out of an international tax haven. They are neither a US, nor a company under any standard western jurisdiction. Even ebfore they outsourced to India, they would 'outsource' to armies of underpaid and underskilled grad programmers. Every so often the screw ups show, and Accenture pays a lot to keep it out of the news.
Now can someone tell me why Sir Kenneth Calman got his knighthood?
Sometimes you get a gong just for surviving long enough to get to the top. This applies particularly to permanent undersecretaries. I guess the same may apply to chief scientists despite any cockupos that you presided over (as long as you followed orders)
Um no. I don't mean British civil servants, but the equivalent would apply. For example, I would regard employees of the EU also as civil servants. Many of them are member's of their own civil service before secondment to the EU.
Certainly, I have worked a long time ago at a couple of establishments and the majority of people were scientific grade civil servants.
It is a publicly run (and financed) institution and people working there would be classed either as civil servants or as contractor employees by the British. Those working on the JET project, an international research project based out of Culham were regarded in this way. JET was much like CERN, international with finance coming from a hodge-podge of countries that do not coincide with any special grouping like the EU.
To quote one of the better writers on the British constitution Walter Baghot:
"it isn't what the monarch does that is important. It is what the monarch doesn't do".
From the Cromwell's time it was decided that having an active head-of-state as in the US was a bad idea. Other countries have a passive head of state like Germany or Israel where the president is for ceremonial puposes only.
Although the Queen must approve laws preneted to her by Parliament, she has the right to be consulted, to advise and to warn. Her political experience is unique and is recognised by all prime ministers.
Her last but most significant power is to appoint a government. In crude terms, this is based on a majority in parliament, but with more than two parties it is possible that no one has the majority. She has to recognise the largest power grouping.
If your company produces massive exports for the UK and raises the international profile of the UK, then you maz be eligable for an honour. British pop-stars are one aspect of this, but only if they have been around for ages and haven't moved all their money offshore.
In the UK, few civil servants ever become rich from their jobs. Working at CERN, Sir Tim was ultimately just another Civil Servant and could only be compensated as such. Recognition for civil servants comes through the honours system. In this case it was richly deserved.
Yes, the Israeli people would love it if the finance ministry stopped collecting tax returns. You are quite right, with so many resources directed against the Palastinians, Israelis aren't that well off. The promotion and use of alternatives to closed source and expensive software is eminently sensible.
Apart from the problem that everytime the Israelis raid the Palastinian AUthority, they trash the computer systems - the Palastinians could use OO too. They have less money (the computers were paid for by the EU), what they have tends to be older and they must handle now communications in English, Arabic and Hebrew.
For me, I'm a home office with a BRI ISDN line ( = 2 channels) coming in with flat-rate ADSL. From this, I drive 6 analog lines on a PABX and two ISDN phones on a single S0 internal bus. The hardware is getting old, and I would like to replace it. IP telephony is still at the stage of a 'nice to have' rather than a necessity and I still can usually save enough with LCR (Least cost routing) as there aren't enough IP telephones out there that I want to communicate with.
So, what I'm looking for is firstly a completely programmable PABX, which Asterisk/Digium can give me, but VOIP is still 'out there'. On this basis, the cards alone would cost significantly more than a SOHO PABX with the equivalent capacity and then I should dedicate a computer to the job.
The reason that I'm interested is that I would like to sell configured boxes (a PABX/Router) as part of my smaller consulting gigs and at the low end, it remains a little pricey even though it would help lever out IP telephony.
I guess they don't get the quantity to get the price for the line cards down.
A basic 4 analog plus 1 S0 internal PABX costs under 300 Euros at the moment. I realise that you can do a lot more with Asterisk (incl. VOIP), but remembering that you need to tie up a PC for it, I would like to see the line cards somewhat cheaper.
Many years ago, maybe mid nineties, I was using an Alpha system. The CPU was pedestrian by modern standards but the I/O was fast. Already Digital had their fibre channels, but what really was interesting was that they supported a standard PCI bus. I think around 16 of them. Yep, that is 16 separate PCI busses.
I know this cost a lot of $ in those days, but couldn't this be done a lot cheaper now by having multiple busses?
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A put option would be better, but it would have to be OTC (there are no exchange traded options for SCOX) and again, it is probably too illiquid to do anything, so nobody will write that option for you.
As far as I am aware from the PR twaddle, as you approach a no-fly zone, the controls should resist you unless you point away from it byt the application of a bias. This means that near such a zone, you lose the ability to point the aircraft towards the zone, even if that is the correct direction to be taken away.
I actually like many aspects of FBW but this isn't FBW, it is where the pilot is no longer in true command of the aircraft. Actually I look forward to the concepts such as NASA's highways in the sky, which imply effectively a close cooperation between a national network of ATC systems and the aircraft.
When these innovations are complete, effectively we can have no-go zones, and all kinds of other things (maybe even Moeller's Flying cars). However while pilots remain in charge, they sometimes have to choose a heading which is is quite different to that wanted because of weather conditions.
Howeverm there are a lot of non-FBW aircraft around, and they will continue to be around. Forget a 747-200, even a 737 packs quite some kinetic energy.
The good old fashioned transponder isn't mandatory. It only takes a reg change to make it so. If an aircraft's transponder fails, then ATC can flag the event and divert the aircraft. The thing is that it sqawks an ID together with altitude info. Without the transponder a blip is another blip. It will still be visible with a velocity vector. However, ATC computers don't have a standardised procedure to deal with a transponder switched off. If the plane passes between two ATC centres, i.e., a handoff from en-Route to Terminal Approach, the situation is harder as they don't coordinate very well.
I read the FAQ, and feel that the situation has been oversimplified. Many of the problems have been studied before in other contexts. For example there was a lot about coupling an EGPWS to a 'stick puller' to prevent CFIT, it hasn't happened. If the controls can totally override the pilot, then it becomes possible to hijack a plane without ever being on it. This is infinitely more dangerous.
Sometimes a plane's GPS may be corrected by ground-based transmitters (DGPS). This transmission isn't 'signed' and could easily provide a path for erroneous transmissions. The encrypted channels that you refer to are reserved for military use. If you have to give them to everybody (at least to all aircraft in the US), you might as well give them to the world. AFAIK, the military system doesn't use a public-key type system and to change it would require major system changes.
Not all aircraft have Inertial Navigation fitted either (the small giros for attitude and heading may not be accurate enough over distance) and many don't have any fly by wire. In which case, the primary means of instrument navigation remains old-fashioned VOR and DME beacons. Localisation before landing can simply be obtained by enabling the transponder (ideally mode 3, that is with altitude info).
Which VOR and DME beacons you use remains soemthing that is set via the flightplan on the FMS. However it can be overriden because at anytime you may choose a different route (i.e., to land because of an onboard emergency). On the systems that I have seen, you can still put in beacon frequencies by hand and set their position (normally it comes from a Jeppson's table but that may have problems).
I smell a scam on the Department of Homeland Insecurity money pile. A better solution would be to simply require transponders to be enabled which would allow the ground to see what is happening.
FWIT, I have worked on avionics (Navigation systems incl. GPS), crypto and can just about fly a light aircraft.
This is by intention and even advertised as they are even advertised as ensuring "the pilot flies with the engine in an optimum configuration for lower fuel and maintenance costs".
Sorry, sometimes you need to get at every bit of power reserve or you need to make a strange manouver but you really don't want the computers to stop them.
GPWS is essentially just a downward and slightly forward pointing radar altimeter. This is the thing that gives verbal warning messages when you are to low but not in a landing configuration. It is more or less useless in mountainous terrain. You are probably referring to EGPWS which has a database of terrain heights and uses your position and heading to say whether you are about to fly into a mountain. The issue is how fine grained it is. The original just divided the world into squares with minimum altitudes). However, this is next to useless with some airports (such as Innsbruck) where the approach is down a valley.
The problem is weather. If you want to get to A, you sometimes point the aircraft at B. The wind plus your heading and velocity will result in a true track.
When you are landing, if you get caught in a microburst or CAT, you may sometimes need to take special actions which require pointing the aircraft in strange directions. This is especcially true if you want to do a 'go round'.
Such systems have been discussed before, but have largely been discounted because of this. I guess someone here is just screwing for pork from the Department of Homeland Insecurity.
On some flights, the Air Marshall has the ability to alert the cockpit through a concealed button. This implies that the Air Marshall has to be in a pre-assigned seat.
I was under the impression from the Gimli incident, that you had to hand crank it down.
This means that those with the money (congress) like it. The administrators like it because here is a project that has made good (albeit after a bumpy start). When an administrator chooses to invest in an existing project, it is lower risk than something new.
NASA has budget problems, but please remember that a lot of it is coming from the bad decisions made on the manned space program. At the same time, without a manned program, Hubble wouldn't be there.
Lets put this into perspective, NASA in a year uses than what it takes to run the US part of the Iraq occupation for a month. I feel for your budget problems, but in reality, NASA is underfunded for what it does.
However, the experience that you get is invaluable and will look good later on the resume. The maintrick for resume engineering is to work for a recognisable organisation.
Usually it just means having some staff around to ensure you are correctly briefed before you go somewhere. Things can happen in such countries that do not happen at home (you definitely aren't in Kansas anymore), but in reality it can also be more interesting.
The last problem is overselling. Yes, the offshore company may have large numbers of programmer's but it will generally want to keep them busy, If there is a major problem, they may not have spare resources to throw.
I outsourced a project to Russia but then found that I had to spend about a week every two months on site with them, to get a real idea of what was happening. This isn't a big problem because Moscow and St. Petersburg are great cities to visit, but on the other hand they are very expensive to stay in.
Remember that the company operates out of an international tax haven. They are neither a US, nor a company under any standard western jurisdiction. Even ebfore they outsourced to India, they would 'outsource' to armies of underpaid and underskilled grad programmers. Every so often the screw ups show, and Accenture pays a lot to keep it out of the news.
Certainly, I have worked a long time ago at a couple of establishments and the majority of people were scientific grade civil servants.
It is a publicly run (and financed) institution and people working there would be classed either as civil servants or as contractor employees by the British. Those working on the JET project, an international research project based out of Culham were regarded in this way. JET was much like CERN, international with finance coming from a hodge-podge of countries that do not coincide with any special grouping like the EU.
Although the Queen must approve laws preneted to her by Parliament, she has the right to be consulted, to advise and to warn. Her political experience is unique and is recognised by all prime ministers.
Her last but most significant power is to appoint a government. In crude terms, this is based on a majority in parliament, but with more than two parties it is possible that no one has the majority. She has to recognise the largest power grouping.
If your company produces massive exports for the UK and raises the international profile of the UK, then you maz be eligable for an honour. British pop-stars are one aspect of this, but only if they have been around for ages and haven't moved all their money offshore.
In the UK, few civil servants ever become rich from their jobs. Working at CERN, Sir Tim was ultimately just another Civil Servant and could only be compensated as such. Recognition for civil servants comes through the honours system. In this case it was richly deserved.
Yes, the Israeli people would love it if the finance ministry stopped collecting tax returns. You are quite right, with so many resources directed against the Palastinians, Israelis aren't that well off. The promotion and use of alternatives to closed source and expensive software is eminently sensible.
Apart from the problem that everytime the Israelis raid the Palastinian AUthority, they trash the computer systems - the Palastinians could use OO too. They have less money (the computers were paid for by the EU), what they have tends to be older and they must handle now communications in English, Arabic and Hebrew.
So, what I'm looking for is firstly a completely programmable PABX, which Asterisk/Digium can give me, but VOIP is still 'out there'. On this basis, the cards alone would cost significantly more than a SOHO PABX with the equivalent capacity and then I should dedicate a computer to the job.
The reason that I'm interested is that I would like to sell configured boxes (a PABX/Router) as part of my smaller consulting gigs and at the low end, it remains a little pricey even though it would help lever out IP telephony.
A basic 4 analog plus 1 S0 internal PABX costs under 300 Euros at the moment. I realise that you can do a lot more with Asterisk (incl. VOIP), but remembering that you need to tie up a PC for it, I would like to see the line cards somewhat cheaper.
I know this cost a lot of $ in those days, but couldn't this be done a lot cheaper now by having multiple busses?