design high end interfaces for home theaters (where the remote it's self costs around $2500.00US or more.) and the number one thing my customers like is not the fancy graphics, cool animations or nicely laid out controls on the touchscreen.. but the VOLUME CONTROL HARD BUTTONS built into the side edge.
A $2500 remote, and you make do with +/- buttons to adjust the volume? Augh! +/- buttons are a miserable way to adjust such an analogue function. Adjustment is either too slow (going up/down 1 dB per keypress) or too fast (when you hold the button down and the acceleration function kicks in). A linear slider or a rotary knob is much better: it allows both fine control, and huge, fast adjustments (without too much overshoot) when needed.
As far as I know, there are only two remotes that get this right: the Philips SRU 9600, and Quad once had a remote like this.
I'm using a Griffin Powermate to control the volume when watching TV on my computer. It's brilliant.
A Phalanx weighs about 6 tons loaded. The system carries enough ammo for a few engagements. It's no problem to bring in a second truck for reloading. 20mm rounds weigh 100 g apiece, so a full ammo load (1500 rounds) is about 150 kg.
That's no worse than having to supply the fuel for a laser.
Most planes have a dedicated instrument for just that purpose: the altimeter. IMHO GPS altitude is at best a backup.
For higher altitudes, the altimeter usually measures the air pressure. This isn't a problem-free method. You have to set the altimeter before each flight (to compensate for the height above sea level of the airport you're at). It's also not very accurate, as the indicated height varies with the barometric pressure. Incorrectly-set altimeters have been known to cause crashes.
A GPS altimeter would solve all this. Connect the GPS unit with a terrain map, and you're even better off: you'll know both your altitude above sea level, and above the local terrain.
Wouldn't this make it possible for an attacker to lock-on to the GPS location transmission and launch a fire-and-forget SAM?
In theory, yes. But you'd have to design and build such a missile first, and that isn't trivial. Much easier to steal a current-generation infrared-guided SAM instead.
Whatever the shortcomings of the current radar system, radars tend to work regardless of the planes condition, and regardless of its position. Heck, IIRC planes only need special equipment to identify themselves, not to tell if they are actually there, and where they are.
That's incorrect. ATC radar does not supply the 3-D position of the aircraft, it can only see range and bearing. The height is supplied by the transponder on the aircraft (the same that also broadcasts its ID code).
What I'd really like is a memory stick / card / flash / whatever music recording/playback system in a hi-fi equipment format. Wouldn't mind a rackmount version, either.
Marantz has several of those, in rackmount and portable formats.
A GPS-only system has its flaws, but the current system isn't perfect either. The radars used for traffic control often supply only a 2-D picture (range and bearing coordinates). Height information is supplied by a transponder on the aircraft (this system is called SSR). Transponders have been known to fail, or be set incorrectly (which means the aircraft is misidentified).
Also, the current system means that the air traffic controller has to match a radar blip to a transponder signal. AFAIK, this is done manually at the moment, since the information isn't conclusive: you only know that the transponder signal is at the same bearing as the radar return. Since it's possible to have more than one aircraft at the same bearing, errors are possible. If you use GPS, the transponder will send a complete set of coordinates, which can be matched to radar blips unambiguously.
GPS won't be used for the final approach, the existing ILS covers that (and is independent of the air traffic control system).
If you want to disrupt service in an area, what's easier? Shoot down all GPS satellites that appear over the horizon, or take out a single radar antenna?
Reliable cover for the whole planet is a solved problem: the current constellation (24 satellites?) handles this well enough (maybe except for the polar region; launching a few more satellites would solve this). The European system will provide redundancy.
40x what? I hate these marketing 'performance figures'. Are they still basing these figures on CD-ROM speeds (1x = 150 kbyte/s)? What's wrong with specifying the speed as 6 Mbyte/s instead?
TFA is ludicrously positive about the 8-track. In practice, this is one format that deserved to die a quick death. The 'endless loop' cassette format meant that 8-track was very susceptible to jamming, and that the tape wore down rather quickly. It also makes fast-forwarding difficult, and rewinding impossible. Incredibly, TFA tries to sell this as an advantage. Also, the cassettes were large and unwieldy. Had 8-track been the dominant format, the Walkman wouldn't have happened.
No, for once, this was a format war that ended as it should, with the superior format (Philips Compact Cassette) wiping out all competition.
Nonsense. The Apollo designs are still available, and there's Apollo hardware scattered all over, including three complete Saturn Vs. Destroying the tooling is done routinely in aerospace projects for non-nefarious purposes. The tooling for an aircraft isn't something you park in the shed; you need a storage space the size of an aircraft hangar to store it all. If your project ends and you know you won't be needing the tooling any more, why bother storing it? Tooling is also expensive, and consists of recyclable materials. At the time the SR-71 production run ended (including enough spares to last the projected lifetime of the aircraft) the aerospace industry was hugely optimistic. They were proably busy thinking about the SR-71's successor already, and had no idea the aircraft would still be in use 30 years later. Another argument not to keep 'old junk' in storage for too long.
The Avro Arrow is another matter. That was a deliberate attempt to destroy all information on the project.
I expect the line-of-sight requirement is a dealbreaker for 'personal area network' type situations. I've got my computer underneath my desk, and all gadgets that could possibly benefit from high-speed wireless links are above the desk. Reconfiguring my desk to provide LOS for everything (including keeping the desk clean, no stacks of paper between the computer and the gadgets) would be a major PITA. I'll stick with wired connections, thank you.
High-speed wireless could be useful for 'last mile' connections, but I doubt 10+-GHz networks will take off for home or office use.
AIU, that would be "Or a bombe, and a team of cryptographers". Cracking an Enigma message was a two-step process. 1. create a 'menu', a set of clues to be fed into the bombe, basically bringing down the number of possible combinations to a manageable level. The menu was created manually. 2. let the bombe do its run.
I think it has a lot to do with print fonts being designed specifically for the eye,
And screen fonts aren't? That's just plain wrong. IMO, you're better off with a font that's been designed for on-screen use, at a font size and spacing that's appropriate for your monitor, viewing distance and eyesight. Reading a book in Arial 10 on your 20" 1600 x 1200 monitor will induce headaches. Switch to a font like Verdana, increase size to something like 14pt and things will get a lot easier.
The non-white background is a good tip, though.
Scanned pages have a major drawback: you're stuck with the page layout of the original, you can't scale the information to fit an arbitrary reading window. The pagination can induce odd jumps when you move around the page: you lose track of where you are. Scanned pages are unsuitable for small devices. I wouldn't want to read a scanned book on my Palm TX, but HTML and other dynamic formats are fine.
No, video STILL sucks, especially Flash. At least other formats I can force to play in VLC, which has a relatively non-sucky UI. The Flash player seems to be designed to offer no control at all, which is bloody annoying.
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design high end interfaces for home theaters (where the remote it's self costs around $2500.00US or more.) and the number one thing my customers like is not the fancy graphics, cool animations or nicely laid out controls on the touchscreen.. but the VOLUME CONTROL HARD BUTTONS built into the side edge.
A $2500 remote, and you make do with +/- buttons to adjust the volume? Augh! +/- buttons are a miserable way to adjust such an analogue function. Adjustment is either too slow (going up/down 1 dB per keypress) or too fast (when you hold the button down and the acceleration function kicks in).
A linear slider or a rotary knob is much better: it allows both fine control, and huge, fast adjustments (without too much overshoot) when needed.
As far as I know, there are only two remotes that get this right: the Philips SRU 9600, and Quad once had a remote like this.
I'm using a Griffin Powermate to control the volume when watching TV on my computer. It's brilliant.
A Phalanx weighs about 6 tons loaded. The system carries enough ammo for a few engagements. It's no problem to bring in a second truck for reloading. 20mm rounds weigh 100 g apiece, so a full ammo load (1500 rounds) is about 150 kg.
That's no worse than having to supply the fuel for a laser.
Most planes have a dedicated instrument for just that purpose: the altimeter. IMHO GPS altitude is at best a backup.
For higher altitudes, the altimeter usually measures the air pressure. This isn't a problem-free method. You have to set the altimeter before each flight (to compensate for the height above sea level of the airport you're at). It's also not very accurate, as the indicated height varies with the barometric pressure. Incorrectly-set altimeters have been known to cause crashes.
A GPS altimeter would solve all this. Connect the GPS unit with a terrain map, and you're even better off: you'll know both your altitude above sea level, and above the local terrain.
Losing GPS doesn't have to mean you're flying blind. You can always add an inertial navigation system as a backup.
Wouldn't this make it possible for an attacker to lock-on to the GPS location transmission and launch a fire-and-forget SAM?
In theory, yes. But you'd have to design and build such a missile first, and that isn't trivial. Much easier to steal a current-generation infrared-guided SAM instead.
Whatever the shortcomings of the current radar system, radars tend to work regardless of the planes condition, and regardless of its position.
Heck, IIRC planes only need special equipment to identify themselves, not to tell if they are actually there, and where they are.
That's incorrect. ATC radar does not supply the 3-D position of the aircraft, it can only see range and bearing. The height is supplied by the transponder on the aircraft (the same that also broadcasts its ID code).
What I'd really like is a memory stick / card / flash / whatever music recording/playback system in a hi-fi equipment format. Wouldn't mind a rackmount version, either.
Marantz has several of those, in rackmount and portable formats.
A GPS-only system has its flaws, but the current system isn't perfect either.
The radars used for traffic control often supply only a 2-D picture (range and bearing coordinates). Height information is supplied by a transponder on the aircraft (this system is called SSR). Transponders have been known to fail, or be set incorrectly (which means the aircraft is misidentified).
Also, the current system means that the air traffic controller has to match a radar blip to a transponder signal. AFAIK, this is done manually at the moment, since the information isn't conclusive: you only know that the transponder signal is at the same bearing as the radar return. Since it's possible to have more than one aircraft at the same bearing, errors are possible. If you use GPS, the transponder will send a complete set of coordinates, which can be matched to radar blips unambiguously.
GPS won't be used for the final approach, the existing ILS covers that (and is independent of the air traffic control system).
If you want to disrupt service in an area, what's easier? Shoot down all GPS satellites that appear over the horizon, or take out a single radar antenna?
Reliable cover for the whole planet is a solved problem: the current constellation (24 satellites?) handles this well enough (maybe except for the polar region; launching a few more satellites would solve this). The European system will provide redundancy.
That $140 CF card is only 40x.
40x what? I hate these marketing 'performance figures'. Are they still basing these figures on CD-ROM speeds (1x = 150 kbyte/s)?
What's wrong with specifying the speed as 6 Mbyte/s instead?
And another
TFA is ludicrously positive about the 8-track. In practice, this is one format that deserved to die a quick death. The 'endless loop' cassette format meant that 8-track was very susceptible to jamming, and that the tape wore down rather quickly. It also makes fast-forwarding difficult, and rewinding impossible. Incredibly, TFA tries to sell this as an advantage.
Also, the cassettes were large and unwieldy. Had 8-track been the dominant format, the Walkman wouldn't have happened.
No, for once, this was a format war that ended as it should, with the superior format (Philips Compact Cassette) wiping out all competition.
Whoever set those squirrels loose, should have fed them some cola first. Then no puny human would have been able to catch them.
Nonsense. The Apollo designs are still available, and there's Apollo hardware scattered all over, including three complete Saturn Vs.
Destroying the tooling is done routinely in aerospace projects for non-nefarious purposes. The tooling for an aircraft isn't something you park in the shed; you need a storage space the size of an aircraft hangar to store it all. If your project ends and you know you won't be needing the tooling any more, why bother storing it?
Tooling is also expensive, and consists of recyclable materials.
At the time the SR-71 production run ended (including enough spares to last the projected lifetime of the aircraft) the aerospace industry was hugely optimistic. They were proably busy thinking about the SR-71's successor already, and had no idea the aircraft would still be in use 30 years later. Another argument not to keep 'old junk' in storage for too long.
The Avro Arrow is another matter. That was a deliberate attempt to destroy all information on the project.
Yes.
the only winning move is not to play...
I expect the line-of-sight requirement is a dealbreaker for 'personal area network' type situations. I've got my computer underneath my desk, and all gadgets that could possibly benefit from high-speed wireless links are above the desk. Reconfiguring my desk to provide LOS for everything (including keeping the desk clean, no stacks of paper between the computer and the gadgets) would be a major PITA. I'll stick with wired connections, thank you.
High-speed wireless could be useful for 'last mile' connections, but I doubt 10+-GHz networks will take off for home or office use.
Bletchley Park not only has Enigma machines, they have recently completed a replica Bombe, and they're working on a replica Colossus.
Or a bombe
AIU, that would be "Or a bombe, and a team of cryptographers". Cracking an Enigma message was a two-step process.
1. create a 'menu', a set of clues to be fed into the bombe, basically bringing down the number of possible combinations to a manageable level. The menu was created manually.
2. let the bombe do its run.
this page claims modern computers can crack an Enigma message in "a few minutes".
But a recent effort to crack some M4 messages using distributed computing estimated some 10,000 PC-hours to break a message.
Now nobody will be able to understand what I'm saying.
Except that they'll also store and supply the books themselves (scanned and/or as text), if available.
I think it has a lot to do with print fonts being designed specifically for the eye,
And screen fonts aren't? That's just plain wrong. IMO, you're better off with a font that's been designed for on-screen use, at a font size and spacing that's appropriate for your monitor, viewing distance and eyesight. Reading a book in Arial 10 on your 20" 1600 x 1200 monitor will induce headaches. Switch to a font like Verdana, increase size to something like 14pt and things will get a lot easier.
The non-white background is a good tip, though.
Scanned pages have a major drawback: you're stuck with the page layout of the original, you can't scale the information to fit an arbitrary reading window. The pagination can induce odd jumps when you move around the page: you lose track of where you are. Scanned pages are unsuitable for small devices. I wouldn't want to read a scanned book on my Palm TX, but HTML and other dynamic formats are fine.
ZOMG! There's someone who actually reads the manual!
(faints)
All video STILL sucks except for Flash.
No, video STILL sucks, especially Flash. At least other formats I can force to play in VLC, which has a relatively non-sucky UI. The Flash player seems to be designed to offer no control at all, which is bloody annoying.
A large number of tech writers -- I wouldn't call them journalists and sully my own profession
But sullying mine isn't a problem, huh? Technical writer == someone who writes technical documentation, e.g. product manuals. Technical writer != FUD-spreading blogger.
--
hcdejong
(technical writer)