Interestingly enough, the reason we're talking.40 rounds and not 9mm rounds is Clinton's assault weapon ban, which included a magazine limit of ten rounds.
Alas, the 9mm pistols popular at the time had 13-22 round magazines. When retooling for ten round magazines, it just made sense to redesign the barrel for a larger, more powerful round at the same time. After all, if the magazine could hold 19 9mm, it could easily hold 10.40 (or.45) as well.
Nonetheless, the USAF really hates having to provide close air support to the Army. And they really hate the A-10 because that's all it does.
Decommissioning the A-10 without turning it over to the Army is meant to sweeten the pot for the Air Force. Or, alternately, it's meant to be a deal-breaker, so that it looks like he's proposing downsizing the military while actually meaning to do nothing of the sort.
Which latter I believe in my more cynical moments. Note that absolutely none of these proposed changes will be made till long after Obama is no longer President, so there will be plenty of time to cancel this after Obama no longer needs the publicity and before it actually does anything meaningful.
Hagel wants to reduce the muscle while protecting the belly fat. He is going about it all wrong anyway.
No, he's eliminating the parts of the Regular Army that can be (relatively) easily replaced by National Guard troops in time of trouble. He's keeping in place things like divisional command structures (we already have two divisions that are nothing more than HQ's to be filled out with 3 NG Brigades each in time of trouble) and the rear area parts of the Army which are needed in case we have to suddenly expand the force.
Then again, he's getting rid of the A-10 also. Which is probably a bribe to the Air Force, since they've always hated having to provide close air support to the Army....
Property Tax, doesn't really fairly cover the population so a Farmer with a lot of land, will get a heavy tax, while a millionaire who is renting, will pay no tax (directly)
It should, perhaps, be noted that a famer with an average size farm (~440 acres) worth about the average price for farmland (~$5000 in New York State) IS a millionaire. Net worth, not even counting machinery and house/outbuildings (which will be worth the best part of a million by itself) will be around $2.2 million.
Hmm, plug in the 40cm rise expected this century, and I see a wee bit of land near San Fransisco Bay, plus some land around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
I'm not seeing a significant loss of farmland as a result, even if we assume everyone is too stupid to build a two foot high levee to protect the affected areas.
Actually, we could have the backup on the moon. It can be beamed from the moon just as easily as the primary solar power.
Nor does it require massive amounts of energy storage. Worst case seems to be about two hours of normal power output.
And since we know in advance when and how long eclipses last, it's not like it will catch us by surprise, so bringing backups online for the two hours in question would be a trivial exercise.
We have had ~20 lunar eclipses so far this century. for a total of about 15 hours of total eclipse (four or five times that of partial eclipse).
So, 14 years at 8766 hours per year is 122724 hours, less the (worst case assumption - a partial hour is a total loss of power) 90 hours (worst case) of eclipse, means we've lost a potential 0.075% of the total to eclipses.
A slightly more reasonable assumption is 52 hours lost in that time, or 0.04% of our power.
They would collect twice the energy if they were placed in orbit. According to TFA, the materials would come from earth, so why go to extra effort to take them down to the lunar surface, halving their effectiveness?
More like three times as effective in orbit.
On the other hand, once you get reach the point of making the structural elements from lunar aluminium, you reduce the amount of material to be lifted from Earth.
Also, what happens when there is a lunar eclipse?
Not much. A couple hours every few years doesn't amount to much power loss, really.
Biggest problem is that until you have the solar collectors completely circling the moon, you'll be producing power not much more than half the time, at best.
Also Atheism is not an organized institution like religions are, so there's no one that can speak "for" atheists
Other than the Pope, who can (at least theoretically) speak for all Roman Catholics, I can't think of a single religion that has someone who can (even theoretically) speak for the religion.
Protestants? Nope, in spite of what your prejudices may tell you, each church is independent, and even the pastor can't speak for his congregation without their permission.
Orthodox Church? Nope. The Patriarchs aren't responsible to any authority, each of them is the authority in his own area.
Hinduism? It is to laugh. Even treating Hinduism as a single religion is a bit chuckle-inducing.
And especially ditto Islam, where any clergyman can issue a fatwa telling another clergyman he's an idiot, or call for anything at all (including blueberry scones for breakfast). Only actual strength a fatwa has is what any particular Muslim gives it.
Note that this particular fatwa will be largely ignored outside the occasional look-at-the-funny-Muslims news article in the west, and the congregations of the particular clergymen who issued the fatwa.
not sending military forces into countries blindly.
Yah, then there was Libya. French sent forces in, then a couple days later had to come, hat in hand, to the USA - "uh, we don't have enough bombs to get this done...could we borrow some of your bombs, please?"
I think it would be possible to design a two-part artificial vertebrum (a doral part and a ventral part) that would press together and form a solid-enough substitute.
Almost certainly.
But how would you get the old deteriorated vertebrum out without damaging the spine and spinal nerves?
Don't know, but I'll bet they'll be doing it within five years, and it'll be routine within ten years.
...if the authors of TFA and TFS are aware that there's a difference between "precise" and "accurate".
TFA seems to be trying to use "precise" to mean "both precise and accurate", TFS just summarizes TFA without noticing that there's a distinction to be made.
DO remember that there IS a difference:
3.14159 is much more precise than 3.14.
But if the actual value is 3.141, then 3.14 is more accurate than 3.14159.
And I'm betting that at least one/. entity is going to focus like a laser on 3.14159 being an approximation of pi, and therefore 3.141 is NOT accurate at all. Alas for that entity, I picked 3.141 as the target number purely arbitrarily, and the only relation to pi is the lemon meringue on one of my keys from dessert.
Not like the dinosaurs are missing, really. I have a dinosaur feeder in my backyard, and it's usually pretty busy with the branch of dinosauria that survived. My favorites are the yellow-butted warblers....
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Interestingly enough, the reason we're talking .40 rounds and not 9mm rounds is Clinton's assault weapon ban, which included a magazine limit of ten rounds.
Alas, the 9mm pistols popular at the time had 13-22 round magazines. When retooling for ten round magazines, it just made sense to redesign the barrel for a larger, more powerful round at the same time. After all, if the magazine could hold 19 9mm, it could easily hold 10 .40 (or .45) as well.
Not going to argue, since I agree completely.
Nonetheless, the USAF really hates having to provide close air support to the Army. And they really hate the A-10 because that's all it does.
Decommissioning the A-10 without turning it over to the Army is meant to sweeten the pot for the Air Force. Or, alternately, it's meant to be a deal-breaker, so that it looks like he's proposing downsizing the military while actually meaning to do nothing of the sort.
Which latter I believe in my more cynical moments. Note that absolutely none of these proposed changes will be made till long after Obama is no longer President, so there will be plenty of time to cancel this after Obama no longer needs the publicity and before it actually does anything meaningful.
No, he's eliminating the parts of the Regular Army that can be (relatively) easily replaced by National Guard troops in time of trouble. He's keeping in place things like divisional command structures (we already have two divisions that are nothing more than HQ's to be filled out with 3 NG Brigades each in time of trouble) and the rear area parts of the Army which are needed in case we have to suddenly expand the force.
Then again, he's getting rid of the A-10 also. Which is probably a bribe to the Air Force, since they've always hated having to provide close air support to the Army....
No, I am not flight. Are you flight?
I would assume "arse".
It should, perhaps, be noted that a famer with an average size farm (~440 acres) worth about the average price for farmland (~$5000 in New York State) IS a millionaire. Net worth, not even counting machinery and house/outbuildings (which will be worth the best part of a million by itself) will be around $2.2 million.
A lot of farmland?
Hmm, plug in the 40cm rise expected this century, and I see a wee bit of land near San Fransisco Bay, plus some land around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
I'm not seeing a significant loss of farmland as a result, even if we assume everyone is too stupid to build a two foot high levee to protect the affected areas.
Actually, we could have the backup on the moon. It can be beamed from the moon just as easily as the primary solar power.
Nor does it require massive amounts of energy storage. Worst case seems to be about two hours of normal power output.
And since we know in advance when and how long eclipses last, it's not like it will catch us by surprise, so bringing backups online for the two hours in question would be a trivial exercise.
What is with people and lunar eclipses???
We have had ~20 lunar eclipses so far this century. for a total of about 15 hours of total eclipse (four or five times that of partial eclipse).
So, 14 years at 8766 hours per year is 122724 hours, less the (worst case assumption - a partial hour is a total loss of power) 90 hours (worst case) of eclipse, means we've lost a potential 0.075% of the total to eclipses.
A slightly more reasonable assumption is 52 hours lost in that time, or 0.04% of our power.
Note that, excluding the landing part, it takes about 10% more deltaV to reach lunar orbit than to reach geosynch orbit.
More like three times as effective in orbit.
On the other hand, once you get reach the point of making the structural elements from lunar aluminium, you reduce the amount of material to be lifted from Earth.
Not much. A couple hours every few years doesn't amount to much power loss, really.
Biggest problem is that until you have the solar collectors completely circling the moon, you'll be producing power not much more than half the time, at best.
The Lunar equator is 11,000 Kilometers long.
And I thank you for removing your genes from the gene pool.
Other than the Pope, who can (at least theoretically) speak for all Roman Catholics, I can't think of a single religion that has someone who can (even theoretically) speak for the religion.
Protestants? Nope, in spite of what your prejudices may tell you, each church is independent, and even the pastor can't speak for his congregation without their permission.
Orthodox Church? Nope. The Patriarchs aren't responsible to any authority, each of them is the authority in his own area.
Hinduism? It is to laugh. Even treating Hinduism as a single religion is a bit chuckle-inducing.
Ditto Buddhism. DItto Shinto. Ditto Animism. Ditto Paganism (neo- or otherwise).
And especially ditto Islam, where any clergyman can issue a fatwa telling another clergyman he's an idiot, or call for anything at all (including blueberry scones for breakfast). Only actual strength a fatwa has is what any particular Muslim gives it.
Note that this particular fatwa will be largely ignored outside the occasional look-at-the-funny-Muslims news article in the west, and the congregations of the particular clergymen who issued the fatwa.
Ditto.
PasswordSafe leaves me two passwords to remember, one to get into PasswordSafe, one to unlock the encryption on my laptop harddrive.
I keep a copy of PasswordSafe & its database on a flashdrive, so I can take it with me pretty much anywhere.
Yah, then there was Libya. French sent forces in, then a couple days later had to come, hat in hand, to the USA - "uh, we don't have enough bombs to get this done...could we borrow some of your bombs, please?"
Got a clue for you - noone called (or calls) them "freedom fries". "French fries", maybe, "fries" more often.
Kind of ironic you should be calling other people stupid when you can't spell "for"....
And voila.
Yes, it's still bad to try to write a word you've only heard before. If you guess wrong, you tend to look amazingly stupid....
Second time in two weeks I've seen this particular error - what's with guessing the spelling of "voila" recently? Was it used in a movie?
Did you weight the risk of a malicious attack on your car via its over-the-air update capability?
The Banker? Because without him, those technology CEO's wouldn't have any money to make things and contribute to society.
Almost certainly.
Don't know, but I'll bet they'll be doing it within five years, and it'll be routine within ten years.
...if the authors of TFA and TFS are aware that there's a difference between "precise" and "accurate".
TFA seems to be trying to use "precise" to mean "both precise and accurate", TFS just summarizes TFA without noticing that there's a distinction to be made.
DO remember that there IS a difference:
3.14159 is much more precise than 3.14.
But if the actual value is 3.141, then 3.14 is more accurate than 3.14159.
And I'm betting that at least one /. entity is going to focus like a laser on 3.14159 being an approximation of pi, and therefore 3.141 is NOT accurate at all. Alas for that entity, I picked 3.141 as the target number purely arbitrarily, and the only relation to pi is the lemon meringue on one of my keys from dessert.
Our star.
Our orbit.
And it's unlikely the Earth will still be here after Sol expands past our orbit, then contracts. Possible, but moderately unlikely.
Not like the dinosaurs are missing, really. I have a dinosaur feeder in my backyard, and it's usually pretty busy with the branch of dinosauria that survived. My favorites are the yellow-butted warblers....