The definition above is a visual description of what are generally caused by wind. You want definition 11 in your link.
No, definition 1 is correct. The "body" is not the ocean as a whole, it is the body of denser water within the ocean, and the "surface" is not that of the ocean, but the surface of the higher density water.
The full wave equations are the same, but at the surface there is a simplifying assumption that density of water is much greater than density of air and the density terms can be ignored. The density term is something like (d2-d1)/(d2+d1). If d1 (density of upper layer) is very small compared to d2 (density of lower layer) then that term is essentially d2/d2, or 1. That's not true for an internal wave at the boundary between water layers of different salinity or temperature.
This is an example of internal waves, although it is intended to evoke the calming effect of ocean surface waves. If you had just water and air in that box, the waves would be too small and fast, but by using two liquids of similar density the celerity and amplitude of the waves will be slower and larger, simulating the large scale behavior of ocean surface waves.
The turbulence as internal waves move is also not completely unknown. It is possible to see surface effects of internal waves created by ship wakes, for example.
Generally when talking about water, the definition of a wave specifies it is on the surface:
When oceanographers (the people involved in this report) talk about waves, they can be referring to any interfacial wave. The equations are the same, but the density difference between air and water for surface waves means the density components of the equations can be omitted for simplicity without loss of accuracy.
Internal waves are a long-known phenomenon. And no, they aren't talking about currents. Currents are something else which can be driven by waves, but are inherently due to pressure differences from any source, not just waves. E.g., a rip current can be driven by a non-uniform wave field creating different levels of setup on a beach, or by uniform waves on a non-uniform beach doing the same.
Well, considering that they only exist because of a difference in density between the upper and lower layers involved, the massive movement of colder/saltier/etc water will have a definite impact on what lives in that water.
"Internal waves" are no different than (i.e. obey the same scientific principles as) surface waves. They are both "interfacial waves". The difference is that the air/water density difference is much greater than the water/water density difference.
It has an impact on land-based life as it can drive upwelling, which both causes cooler temperatures near the shore and provides nutrients for sea life.
I'm not assuming that. Regardless of what you think about the issue that's the reality on the ground.
So argue to change that, not that governments should prohibit free people from doing stupid things with their own money.
And since we're in a democracy, that's the reality on the ground.
So you bring up a good point here. Governments do this because the people want it. It is a democracy. And yet the governments are corrupt if they allow people to build where they want. Therefore the standing argument is that government of, by, and for the people is inherently corrupt. I disagree.
I'm curious to know what you actually know about Australia? Does it extend beyond what you learnt on the Simpsons?
1) I don't watch the Simpsons. 2) I've been there many times. 3) It's a lovely place and the people are all very nice. 4) According to a friend of mine, they cheat at cricket. And 5) WHOOSH, it was a joke, mate.
There are other considerations as well. Houses require sewers and you do not want sewers filling full of salt water, it tends to cause lots disease when it floods out.
An interesting point. What "year" flood-plain would you prohibit building within? My house is just above the 100 year floodplain here. The sewer in front is below ground and below the floodplain. Should the person who built the house I live in have been prevented from doing so?
The entire southern part of the city I live in floods every few years. Should the city have prohibited building anything there? Or is it sufficient for the lenders to tell the buyers that they're in a flood zone and they're going to need to buy flood insurance to go with that mortgage?
Electricity is also problematic when it floods.
Electricity for the people who built a house in a flood area is problematic, but probably the least of their problems when it does flood. For others, if the grid is designed well, not so much of a problem. The fuses blow, limiting damage to the flood area.
Not to forget no, good people do not stand by, when people are being ripped off.
You are 1) assuming that someone who chooses to build in a flood area is being ripped off and not making a willful decision, and 2) that "people" and "government" are synonymous when it comes to authority to act. You are free to offer your advice to the guy who wants a million dollar house on stilts, but that doesn't mean the government should step in to prohibit his freedom to choose one.
The whole absurd notion of what business is if of mine
Freedom to do stupid things is not an absurd notion, and it really isn't any business of yours if someone you don't own chooses freely to knowingly do something stupid. What difference is there in the long run if that stupid person with a spare million bucks builds a house that is washed into the ocean or he stands on the streetcorner handing out hundred dollar bills to everyone who walks by?
and yes I would appreciate being warned when I am about to be ripped off.
There is about a three orders of magnitude difference between warning someone who wants to build a house next to the ocean and the government prohibiting it. The statement that any government that allows it is corrupt implies that the government should prohibit it, and that's not the same thing as a warning.
Because when inevitable destruction occurs to the beach property, you'll get an interview on TV and sob and whine about how much you love your house which was just destroyed,
So what? Don't they have a right to free speech?
and then my tax payer dollars have to be invested in reconstructing the house that's in a dangerous place to build.
You assume that I think taxpayers should have to rebuild those houses. I've never said anything close to that. You have the right to build a house in a floodplain and the government isn't corrupt just because it doesn't stop you. That's what I said. I also think that the government should not be in the business of insurance -- any insurance.
That's why the government should stop the building of houses in dangerous areas.
No, that's why we should stop the government from being in the business of insurance, not why we should strip freedom of choice from people who want to spend their money stupidly. At best, government should protect its citizens from hidden dangers. Things that you can't see and can't get information about easily. But things that are painfully obvious to an observant person should be left up to that person to choose.
"I'm two feet above sea level here. I see waves coming up above that on the other side of the berm. I look at a map from ten years ago and see that the berm wasn't there then, which means maybe it won't be here in another ten. Maybe the storm I saw the other day that caused even bigger waves might push water over the berm and into my living room. Maybe I should think twice about spending a million bucks on a house here?"
The problem I have with the/. summaries is that they are missattributed. For example, in this/. article, the claim is:
mrflash818 writes:
immediately followed by a verbatim copy of a NOAA press release. Now, I don't have evidence that "mrflash818" is not the author of that press release, but the chances are unlikely. It would not be hard to find many many other examples where the quoted material has a byline that doesn't match the "xxx writes" attribution.
Please, attribute the true author and leave the handles and nics and pseudonyms out of it.
Low lying water front at this time is a truly horrible investment and governments who approve construction in low lying coastal areas are corrupt as hell.
I'm sorry, but if you want to build a house at the beach, why should it be the government's business to stop you? It's your money, you should be able to spend it the way you want. Call 1 877 CASH NOW. Why would a government that doesn't stop you be necessarily corrupt?
knowing full well, they will be flooded out because it is more profitable than just dumping the land alone.
If you buy a house in a known flood zone, whose fault is that? If you don't do due diligence before you buy, well, that's your problem, isn't it? It's not like some car dealer trying to sell you a lemon, the flood zone info is publicly available. And when you LOOK at the property and see that all the houses are built on stilts, you have no excuse.
I go to the Outer Banks on a regular basis. Anyone who goes there (to look at buying a house, e.g.) can see the problem. Who are you to tell them they can't build or buy there?
Other bad investments, coastal tourism companies, hotels chains with lots of at risk properties.
Ok. Don't invest in those companies. Your risk is gone.
Never make the mistake to think the deniers are disbelievers, they are not, all they care about is how much they can make and how much power they have
Unlike the people who get into cap-and-trade and other climate change investments to make a bundle of money from regulations they promote. Generation Investment Management.
It was observed that the Homo Sapiens were warned by their familial matriarch not to open the magic heating device before it had ceased to display magic properties. However, a subset of the pack ignored her and needlessly risked their genetic futures, creating the high probability of either individual sterility or dangerous mutations leading to unwarranted increased sentience or higher levels of rational thought.
Perhaps it happened a touch more often around noon,
If you read the paper, you'll find the histogram of events. The count for 1200 to 1300 local was 25, and if you combine the "lunch hour" (1100 to 1400) the total is 40. The total events attributed to FRB was 12. "A touch more" is an understatement. The paper makes the comment that they were probably under-detecting the "lunch hour" since that's when the dish was often down for maintenance.
there's also an interesting spike from 0800-0900, which I would guess is people getting to work nuking their first coffee of the day.
The problem is the data points were insufficient enough to put on a correlation -
"We're seeing random microwave bursts from terrestrial sources close to the antenna. Anyone have any ideas?"
"I don't know, I need my first cup of coffee before I can think about complicated stuff. Let me nuke a cuppa and I'll be right back..."
Yes. Couples who decide they don't want any more children and she doesn't want to muck with her hormones or get her tubes tied and he doesn't want to wear balloons for the next fifteen years get divorced and remarried and suddenly not being able to have kids becomes an issue for the new wife, for one example.
A reversal was a $20,000 procedure with a 30+ percent failure rate.
Yes, cutting/cauterizing a small tube is pretty easy. Sewing it back up after a few years is not.
I still think the patient was putting one over on his co-workers, though.
I think the fact that anyone knew he was feeling anything in that area means something was being pulled, maybe not the leg.
They did not spend millions of dollars looking for the microwave oven,
Time on a radio telescope and the associated equipment (including supercomputer time) is not free. Perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but not excessive considering the venue of my comment.
and they knew all along that the signal was man-made.
I'll yield on that one.
The paper says the properties of the signal "suggested" it was in the near field. It was only TFA (BBC) that says:
After 17 years of fruitlessly searching the galaxy,
Figuring out precisely which item made it is the kind of thing that gets you in the newspapers,
Figuring out that a microwave oven generated microwave signals picked up by a microwave antenna at the same building may make the newspapers in Australia, but in advanced countries it wouldn't. OTH, we do have to own the idea that people in the US don't seem to understand that cell phones use radio waves, so nobody is completely innocent. The difference is that these are radio astronomy scientists and the cell-phone ignoramii are mostly Joe Sixpack and his cousin Bubba types.
Can you begrudge them their 15 minutes of fame?
You think someone becomes famous because they discover the obvious? You ought to read the paper. It's a hoot.
First, they used a communications receiver with a directional antenna that made a full circle every 20 minutes and obtained 0.1 sec of data at any given frequency. That they thought this receiver would observe RFI that lasts for 200ms and occurs rarely (three events during Jan-Mar 2015) is, well, not flattering to their experiment design qualifications.
Then they tested three microwaves at three locations by looking for emissions while heating a cup of water for 10 - 60s. Interestingly, they found perytons during this test. What they couldn't figure out is how the microwave they were testing at the time could have gotten a signal to the antenna -- it was blocked. A real puzzler. Then they found out that they had forgotten their control protocol for the experiment. Someone was using one of the other two microwave ovens while they were testing the third. Basic science: if you want to test object A for causality, you don't allow object B to be used at the same time. Corollary 1: if you're just going to come up with reasons why the observations were impossible, why bother making them in the first place?
Long story short: a facility that needs to avoid RFI at microwave frequencies took no precautions to avoid RFI at microwave frequencies and spent a lot of time (where the Beeb comes up with 17 years I can't determine) trying to figure out where the RFI they were seeing came from, and quite a bit of time analyzing what they knew was RFI so they could distinguish what they already knew was RFI from signals they already know are galactic in origin.
Anyone who knows that radio waves aren't magic and that microwave ovens are called microwave ovens because they use microwave radiation is scratching his head wondering why they didn't just get rid of the microwave ovens 17 years ago and not put 17 years worth of scientific research into galactic radio phenomena in jeopardy. The fact that they now have to defend the observations of FRB as real could have been prevented by one simple rule: no sources of RF on site. That they've publicly admitted they didn't take this obvious, basic preventative measure isn't "fame".
There are various clips that can be used by physicians in performing vasectomies. The use of clips can shorten the procedure time slightly and will leave permanent staple-like devices, smaller than an eraser head, within the scrotum. The clips vary in price from a few dollars for titanium clips to as much as $400 additional cost for plastic VasClips.
Power is killed, but the magnetron keeps spinning and some microwaves can escape.
Magnetrons don't spin. The electrons in a magnetron spin (all electrons have spin) and they circulate in a cylindrical chamber. The magnetron itself doesn't move and it has no moving parts to "keep spinning".
The frequency is determined for the most part by the physical dimensions of the magnetron (effectively forming an LC circuit), but the frequency will "chirp" as the voltage on the tube changes.
That's the source of the "FRB" (fast radio burst) they were seeing.
An interesting comment in the reference is that the cavity looks like the rotating part of a revolver, and was first manufactured by using a revolver die.
Best to hit the stop button and wait a second before opening the door.
The door button on all the microwaves I've used unlatches the door and triggers the interlock, but you still have to pull the door open. If you're so impatient that you can get the door open after hitting the button before the supply voltage to the magnetron drops below operating levels, you maybe ought to eat the raviolis or chili cold out of the can.
I'm surprised it was written at all. Would YOU want anyone to know that you'd spent 17 years looking out into the galaxy for a signal that only occurred during office hours on weekdays and came from the microwave oven in your own break room? It would be much less embarrassing to just buy a new microwave and let the signals mysteriously disappear. Maybe attribute them to some convenient change in the galactic environment. Or maybe even better to remove sources of microwaves from the vicinity of an operating radio astronomy telescope?
If they eluded observation for 17 years, how did they know they were happening? Perhaps "elude identification"?
And a signal that happens only on weekdays during office hours? They thought there was any chance that these were extraterrestrial in origin? "Searching the galaxy for 17 years.." How did the aliens get our calendar to know when we have weekends? (I know -- they went into the Home Depot and picked up a free one before going out front to find temp work for the day...) That still doesn't explain only during office hours.
The abstract tells a fascinating story all by itself. The signals that they were searching for were 2.3-2.5GHz, but the microwave emits at 1.4GHz. Therefore, the microwave is guilty. And then they needed to make sure that the "fast radio bursts" that these emissions mimicked did actually exist and weren't just another form of "microwave fail".
News for nerds, stuff that matters: microwave ovens emit radio waves when they break. Good to know. "Local radio observatory doesn't enforce their own 'radio quiet zone' to keep from chasing self-created interference, wastes millions of dollars looking for broken microwave oven..."
To assume it's not an evil plot would require the assumption that United had lawyers so inexperienced that they didn't know they were filing in the wrong venue.
They didn't know what the judge would rule until he made the ruling, or that there would be a ruling. You talk like it is a cut and dried issue, and it isn't. They filed in the jurisdiction where the alleged damages were taking place, and which is probably also the jurisdiction specified in the contract for carriage that the customers who were buying the tickets were subject to.
The claim that the defendants don't have significant presence in Illinois for purposes of legal action, in the context of an Internet-based service, is just ridiculous. The judge is applying brick-and-mortar rules to a global network.
The one real issue I see (as mentioned in TFA) is that when you skip the second leg, they will wait at the gate until they're sure you're not coming.
They may not know you're "not coming" until they do a seat count and see that you aren't there. Then they have to figure out who is missing and maybe pull your luggage. That's a significant delay.
They can't really delay the flights very long over this,
If you've checked a bag, they have to delay. Otherwise they won't delay very long over this and that may keep them from putting someone else in that seat -- costing them revenue.
In short, the airlines lose nothing,
Wrong. At worst they have an empty seat they could have sold at full price weeks in advance. Usually they can fill the seat with a standby pax who pays less than full fare for standby. Both are losses. At best, they will have a full fare pax who was bumped from a previous flight, and that's when they lose the least.
Include in that loss estimate the lost revenue when a full-fare pax trying to reserve a seat cannot get one on that flight and has to go via another airline to meet his schedule.
While it's complicated to determine exactly what the loss is overall, there are times when they lose a full fare, and times when they lose only the time it takes to deal with filling the seat. On average, that's a loss.
I thought it was a TSA regulation that it is not permitted for your luggage to travel on a different plane than you.
I believe that the rules say YOU cannot cause your baggage to go on a flight you aren't on. I.e., you can't check in and then not get on. That's to keep you from planting a bomb in your baggage and then not being on the plane. But if the airline puts your bag on another plane, you can't plan that.
Airlines do it all the time, too. Weight limits may make your luggage be held for the next flight, or it may not make a connection.
Thus, yes, they'd have to pull your luggage off the plane if you didn't get on.
When you're on a stopover with no equipment change, you got on the plane in New York and you might not get off in Chicago. They don't know who got off, the scanners don't keep track of that.
Slashdot Mirror
The definition above is a visual description of what are generally caused by wind. You want definition 11 in your link.
No, definition 1 is correct. The "body" is not the ocean as a whole, it is the body of denser water within the ocean, and the "surface" is not that of the ocean, but the surface of the higher density water.
The full wave equations are the same, but at the surface there is a simplifying assumption that density of water is much greater than density of air and the density terms can be ignored. The density term is something like (d2-d1)/(d2+d1). If d1 (density of upper layer) is very small compared to d2 (density of lower layer) then that term is essentially d2/d2, or 1. That's not true for an internal wave at the boundary between water layers of different salinity or temperature.
This is an example of internal waves, although it is intended to evoke the calming effect of ocean surface waves. If you had just water and air in that box, the waves would be too small and fast, but by using two liquids of similar density the celerity and amplitude of the waves will be slower and larger, simulating the large scale behavior of ocean surface waves.
The turbulence as internal waves move is also not completely unknown. It is possible to see surface effects of internal waves created by ship wakes, for example.
Generally when talking about water, the definition of a wave specifies it is on the surface:
When oceanographers (the people involved in this report) talk about waves, they can be referring to any interfacial wave. The equations are the same, but the density difference between air and water for surface waves means the density components of the equations can be omitted for simplicity without loss of accuracy.
Internal waves are a long-known phenomenon. And no, they aren't talking about currents. Currents are something else which can be driven by waves, but are inherently due to pressure differences from any source, not just waves. E.g., a rip current can be driven by a non-uniform wave field creating different levels of setup on a beach, or by uniform waves on a non-uniform beach doing the same.
"Internal waves" are no different than (i.e. obey the same scientific principles as) surface waves. They are both "interfacial waves". The difference is that the air/water density difference is much greater than the water/water density difference.
It has an impact on land-based life as it can drive upwelling, which both causes cooler temperatures near the shore and provides nutrients for sea life.
I'm not assuming that. Regardless of what you think about the issue that's the reality on the ground.
So argue to change that, not that governments should prohibit free people from doing stupid things with their own money.
And since we're in a democracy, that's the reality on the ground.
So you bring up a good point here. Governments do this because the people want it. It is a democracy. And yet the governments are corrupt if they allow people to build where they want. Therefore the standing argument is that government of, by, and for the people is inherently corrupt. I disagree.
I'm curious to know what you actually know about Australia? Does it extend beyond what you learnt on the Simpsons?
1) I don't watch the Simpsons. 2) I've been there many times. 3) It's a lovely place and the people are all very nice. 4) According to a friend of mine, they cheat at cricket. And 5) WHOOSH, it was a joke, mate.
There are other considerations as well. Houses require sewers and you do not want sewers filling full of salt water, it tends to cause lots disease when it floods out.
An interesting point. What "year" flood-plain would you prohibit building within? My house is just above the 100 year floodplain here. The sewer in front is below ground and below the floodplain. Should the person who built the house I live in have been prevented from doing so?
The entire southern part of the city I live in floods every few years. Should the city have prohibited building anything there? Or is it sufficient for the lenders to tell the buyers that they're in a flood zone and they're going to need to buy flood insurance to go with that mortgage?
Electricity is also problematic when it floods.
Electricity for the people who built a house in a flood area is problematic, but probably the least of their problems when it does flood. For others, if the grid is designed well, not so much of a problem. The fuses blow, limiting damage to the flood area.
Not to forget no, good people do not stand by, when people are being ripped off.
You are 1) assuming that someone who chooses to build in a flood area is being ripped off and not making a willful decision, and 2) that "people" and "government" are synonymous when it comes to authority to act. You are free to offer your advice to the guy who wants a million dollar house on stilts, but that doesn't mean the government should step in to prohibit his freedom to choose one.
The whole absurd notion of what business is if of mine
Freedom to do stupid things is not an absurd notion, and it really isn't any business of yours if someone you don't own chooses freely to knowingly do something stupid. What difference is there in the long run if that stupid person with a spare million bucks builds a house that is washed into the ocean or he stands on the streetcorner handing out hundred dollar bills to everyone who walks by?
and yes I would appreciate being warned when I am about to be ripped off.
There is about a three orders of magnitude difference between warning someone who wants to build a house next to the ocean and the government prohibiting it. The statement that any government that allows it is corrupt implies that the government should prohibit it, and that's not the same thing as a warning.
Because when inevitable destruction occurs to the beach property, you'll get an interview on TV and sob and whine about how much you love your house which was just destroyed,
So what? Don't they have a right to free speech?
and then my tax payer dollars have to be invested in reconstructing the house that's in a dangerous place to build.
You assume that I think taxpayers should have to rebuild those houses. I've never said anything close to that. You have the right to build a house in a floodplain and the government isn't corrupt just because it doesn't stop you. That's what I said. I also think that the government should not be in the business of insurance -- any insurance.
That's why the government should stop the building of houses in dangerous areas.
No, that's why we should stop the government from being in the business of insurance, not why we should strip freedom of choice from people who want to spend their money stupidly. At best, government should protect its citizens from hidden dangers. Things that you can't see and can't get information about easily. But things that are painfully obvious to an observant person should be left up to that person to choose.
"I'm two feet above sea level here. I see waves coming up above that on the other side of the berm. I look at a map from ten years ago and see that the berm wasn't there then, which means maybe it won't be here in another ten. Maybe the storm I saw the other day that caused even bigger waves might push water over the berm and into my living room. Maybe I should think twice about spending a million bucks on a house here?"
The same organization who has, in the past, used the wrong paint on or miss-sited the instruments used for the surface observations.
mrflash818 writes:
immediately followed by a verbatim copy of a NOAA press release. Now, I don't have evidence that "mrflash818" is not the author of that press release, but the chances are unlikely. It would not be hard to find many many other examples where the quoted material has a byline that doesn't match the "xxx writes" attribution.
Please, attribute the true author and leave the handles and nics and pseudonyms out of it.
Low lying water front at this time is a truly horrible investment and governments who approve construction in low lying coastal areas are corrupt as hell.
I'm sorry, but if you want to build a house at the beach, why should it be the government's business to stop you? It's your money, you should be able to spend it the way you want. Call 1 877 CASH NOW. Why would a government that doesn't stop you be necessarily corrupt?
knowing full well, they will be flooded out because it is more profitable than just dumping the land alone.
If you buy a house in a known flood zone, whose fault is that? If you don't do due diligence before you buy, well, that's your problem, isn't it? It's not like some car dealer trying to sell you a lemon, the flood zone info is publicly available. And when you LOOK at the property and see that all the houses are built on stilts, you have no excuse.
I go to the Outer Banks on a regular basis. Anyone who goes there (to look at buying a house, e.g.) can see the problem. Who are you to tell them they can't build or buy there?
Other bad investments, coastal tourism companies, hotels chains with lots of at risk properties.
Ok. Don't invest in those companies. Your risk is gone.
Never make the mistake to think the deniers are disbelievers, they are not, all they care about is how much they can make and how much power they have
Unlike the people who get into cap-and-trade and other climate change investments to make a bundle of money from regulations they promote. Generation Investment Management.
It was observed that the Homo Sapiens were warned by their familial matriarch not to open the magic heating device before it had ceased to display magic properties. However, a subset of the pack ignored her and needlessly risked their genetic futures, creating the high probability of either individual sterility or dangerous mutations leading to unwarranted increased sentience or higher levels of rational thought.
FTFY.
If you assume the word "galaxy" implies "aliens," you're going to have a hard time understanding any radio astronomy.
Whoosh. And I thought the comment about Home Depot would be a dead giveaway that the aliens bit was a joke.
Perhaps it happened a touch more often around noon,
If you read the paper, you'll find the histogram of events. The count for 1200 to 1300 local was 25, and if you combine the "lunch hour" (1100 to 1400) the total is 40. The total events attributed to FRB was 12. "A touch more" is an understatement. The paper makes the comment that they were probably under-detecting the "lunch hour" since that's when the dish was often down for maintenance.
there's also an interesting spike from 0800-0900, which I would guess is people getting to work nuking their first coffee of the day.
The problem is the data points were insufficient enough to put on a correlation -
"We're seeing random microwave bursts from terrestrial sources close to the antenna. Anyone have any ideas?"
"I don't know, I need my first cup of coffee before I can think about complicated stuff. Let me nuke a cuppa and I'll be right back..."
Undo? So they're actually providing for that now?
Yes. Couples who decide they don't want any more children and she doesn't want to muck with her hormones or get her tubes tied and he doesn't want to wear balloons for the next fifteen years get divorced and remarried and suddenly not being able to have kids becomes an issue for the new wife, for one example.
A reversal was a $20,000 procedure with a 30+ percent failure rate.
Yes, cutting/cauterizing a small tube is pretty easy. Sewing it back up after a few years is not.
I still think the patient was putting one over on his co-workers, though.
I think the fact that anyone knew he was feeling anything in that area means something was being pulled, maybe not the leg.
They did not spend millions of dollars looking for the microwave oven,
Time on a radio telescope and the associated equipment (including supercomputer time) is not free. Perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but not excessive considering the venue of my comment.
and they knew all along that the signal was man-made.
I'll yield on that one. The paper says the properties of the signal "suggested" it was in the near field. It was only TFA (BBC) that says:
Figuring out precisely which item made it is the kind of thing that gets you in the newspapers,
Figuring out that a microwave oven generated microwave signals picked up by a microwave antenna at the same building may make the newspapers in Australia, but in advanced countries it wouldn't. OTH, we do have to own the idea that people in the US don't seem to understand that cell phones use radio waves, so nobody is completely innocent. The difference is that these are radio astronomy scientists and the cell-phone ignoramii are mostly Joe Sixpack and his cousin Bubba types.
Can you begrudge them their 15 minutes of fame?
You think someone becomes famous because they discover the obvious? You ought to read the paper. It's a hoot.
First, they used a communications receiver with a directional antenna that made a full circle every 20 minutes and obtained 0.1 sec of data at any given frequency. That they thought this receiver would observe RFI that lasts for 200ms and occurs rarely (three events during Jan-Mar 2015) is, well, not flattering to their experiment design qualifications.
Then they tested three microwaves at three locations by looking for emissions while heating a cup of water for 10 - 60s. Interestingly, they found perytons during this test. What they couldn't figure out is how the microwave they were testing at the time could have gotten a signal to the antenna -- it was blocked. A real puzzler. Then they found out that they had forgotten their control protocol for the experiment. Someone was using one of the other two microwave ovens while they were testing the third. Basic science: if you want to test object A for causality, you don't allow object B to be used at the same time. Corollary 1: if you're just going to come up with reasons why the observations were impossible, why bother making them in the first place?
Long story short: a facility that needs to avoid RFI at microwave frequencies took no precautions to avoid RFI at microwave frequencies and spent a lot of time (where the Beeb comes up with 17 years I can't determine) trying to figure out where the RFI they were seeing came from, and quite a bit of time analyzing what they knew was RFI so they could distinguish what they already knew was RFI from signals they already know are galactic in origin.
Anyone who knows that radio waves aren't magic and that microwave ovens are called microwave ovens because they use microwave radiation is scratching his head wondering why they didn't just get rid of the microwave ovens 17 years ago and not put 17 years worth of scientific research into galactic radio phenomena in jeopardy. The fact that they now have to defend the observations of FRB as real could have been prevented by one simple rule: no sources of RF on site. That they've publicly admitted they didn't take this obvious, basic preventative measure isn't "fame".
Why would they have used staples?
Easier to undo. From here:
Power is killed, but the magnetron keeps spinning and some microwaves can escape.
Magnetrons don't spin. The electrons in a magnetron spin (all electrons have spin) and they circulate in a cylindrical chamber. The magnetron itself doesn't move and it has no moving parts to "keep spinning".
The frequency is determined for the most part by the physical dimensions of the magnetron (effectively forming an LC circuit), but the frequency will "chirp" as the voltage on the tube changes. That's the source of the "FRB" (fast radio burst) they were seeing.
An interesting comment in the reference is that the cavity looks like the rotating part of a revolver, and was first manufactured by using a revolver die.
Best to hit the stop button and wait a second before opening the door.
The door button on all the microwaves I've used unlatches the door and triggers the interlock, but you still have to pull the door open. If you're so impatient that you can get the door open after hitting the button before the supply voltage to the magnetron drops below operating levels, you maybe ought to eat the raviolis or chili cold out of the can.
I'm surprised it was written at all. Would YOU want anyone to know that you'd spent 17 years looking out into the galaxy for a signal that only occurred during office hours on weekdays and came from the microwave oven in your own break room? It would be much less embarrassing to just buy a new microwave and let the signals mysteriously disappear. Maybe attribute them to some convenient change in the galactic environment. Or maybe even better to remove sources of microwaves from the vicinity of an operating radio astronomy telescope?
And a signal that happens only on weekdays during office hours? They thought there was any chance that these were extraterrestrial in origin? "Searching the galaxy for 17 years.." How did the aliens get our calendar to know when we have weekends? (I know -- they went into the Home Depot and picked up a free one before going out front to find temp work for the day...) That still doesn't explain only during office hours.
The abstract tells a fascinating story all by itself. The signals that they were searching for were 2.3-2.5GHz, but the microwave emits at 1.4GHz. Therefore, the microwave is guilty. And then they needed to make sure that the "fast radio bursts" that these emissions mimicked did actually exist and weren't just another form of "microwave fail".
News for nerds, stuff that matters: microwave ovens emit radio waves when they break. Good to know. "Local radio observatory doesn't enforce their own 'radio quiet zone' to keep from chasing self-created interference, wastes millions of dollars looking for broken microwave oven..."
yum install tcpdump
One does not simply fly into Mordor.
I've got a postal worker on a gyrocopter that proves you're wrong.
To assume it's not an evil plot would require the assumption that United had lawyers so inexperienced that they didn't know they were filing in the wrong venue.
They didn't know what the judge would rule until he made the ruling, or that there would be a ruling. You talk like it is a cut and dried issue, and it isn't. They filed in the jurisdiction where the alleged damages were taking place, and which is probably also the jurisdiction specified in the contract for carriage that the customers who were buying the tickets were subject to.
The claim that the defendants don't have significant presence in Illinois for purposes of legal action, in the context of an Internet-based service, is just ridiculous. The judge is applying brick-and-mortar rules to a global network.
The one real issue I see (as mentioned in TFA) is that when you skip the second leg, they will wait at the gate until they're sure you're not coming.
They may not know you're "not coming" until they do a seat count and see that you aren't there. Then they have to figure out who is missing and maybe pull your luggage. That's a significant delay.
They can't really delay the flights very long over this,
If you've checked a bag, they have to delay. Otherwise they won't delay very long over this and that may keep them from putting someone else in that seat -- costing them revenue.
In short, the airlines lose nothing,
Wrong. At worst they have an empty seat they could have sold at full price weeks in advance. Usually they can fill the seat with a standby pax who pays less than full fare for standby. Both are losses. At best, they will have a full fare pax who was bumped from a previous flight, and that's when they lose the least.
Include in that loss estimate the lost revenue when a full-fare pax trying to reserve a seat cannot get one on that flight and has to go via another airline to meet his schedule.
While it's complicated to determine exactly what the loss is overall, there are times when they lose a full fare, and times when they lose only the time it takes to deal with filling the seat. On average, that's a loss.
I thought it was a TSA regulation that it is not permitted for your luggage to travel on a different plane than you.
I believe that the rules say YOU cannot cause your baggage to go on a flight you aren't on. I.e., you can't check in and then not get on. That's to keep you from planting a bomb in your baggage and then not being on the plane. But if the airline puts your bag on another plane, you can't plan that.
Airlines do it all the time, too. Weight limits may make your luggage be held for the next flight, or it may not make a connection.
Thus, yes, they'd have to pull your luggage off the plane if you didn't get on.
When you're on a stopover with no equipment change, you got on the plane in New York and you might not get off in Chicago. They don't know who got off, the scanners don't keep track of that.
The judge didn't rule on venue without it being challenged by the defense. United didn't pick this court by accident.
Right. They picked it because they are headquartered in Illinois. It's not some evil plot.