Have you watched NASA TV when they aren't launching?
I've watched it at various times, including when the Sojourner rover landed at some early hour of the night, when Cassini entered orbit around Saturn, portions of several space walks, and even idle times during shuttle missions. Some things have been very fun and exciting, such as the Sojourner landing, but by and large it's dreadfully boring even for an avid NASA/aerospace fan, especially during large portions of space walks (which is just inherent to the careful and tedious activity they're doing).
While watching the activity live is a great option, they could really use some MythBusters style time lapse editing more often than not.
They don't need to blow things up all the time like MythBusters, but they are in sore need of post-editing of the live video in order to present it in a way that is more accessible to an average viewer and can skip the less interesting parts (such as the 10-20 minutes it takes to move the shuttle's robotic arm, or the slow work of the astronaut, etc).
NASA tries to do outreach and has a budget for it, although I'm sure it's rather small. I'm sure if they could just do more professional programs on NASA TV rather than relying so heavily on raw live footage they could get a lot more people excited about space science.
These are long-haul jets. A single flight crew cannot fly this thing, at least not to anywhere close its designed range. There must be a door to swap pilots and copilots.
But even if there were no door that wouldn't have any impact on security. The reason we take our shoes off isn't because of 9/11 but because of the 'shoe bomber'--the guy that tried to blow a hole in the fuselage using a small bomb in his shoe. If you want to guard against people trying to bring the plane down (rather than taking control of it) you still need ridiculous security.
I don't know about that. Whole Foods may be doing OK, but I don't see them ever overtaking Wal*Mart.
By and large people want to buy stuff that is cheap, filling and tastes good regardless of health issues (at least here in the US from what I've seen).
If the artificial meat is more expensive, then it will satisfy a niche market just as organic food does today.
PETA could demand it but how would that be any different than today?
I think the only way real meat would disappear is if it's the result of the market. If artificial meat could be produced more cheaply than natural meat then you should start to worry, especially if the quality is somewhat inferior but not so inferior that people don't buy it.
However, I think there will always be a market for natural meat. There's already plenty of proof that people are willing to pay more for grocery products viewed as superior in some way (Whole Foods for example).
Thanks. And I was correct in my understanding of how you used 'cut' right? I think some other posters are misreading your statement with the understanding that you removed 80% of the beeping noises from the movie:)
As far as I know, 'cut' only means 'add/create' in movie lingo. The use of it anywhere else in English means the complete opposite (well, in this case anyway. Obviously you weren't dividing beeping noises as a fabric of some kind:P ).
Cut in this case means add, not removed, right? Movie terminology often confuses me...
Along similar lines, what in the world does the 'best boy' do on the movie? Is he like the local eagle scout doing good deeds for the actors during the movie or something??:) (I really don't have a clue what the guy does, just always see one listed in the credits)
Well, the emergency brake would work, at least on the Prius. It is the same as emergency brakes on other cars and not computer-controlled or interfered with at all. The normal brake and accelerator are completely fly-by-wire on the Prius though, as is the shift lever and power switch so I really don't know how those would behave in this situation.
Of course, applying the emergency brake at high speeds would be very dangerous since you could easily lock your wheels and spin out of control. It would also be murder on your engine. That would definitely be a last resort for me (well, I guess rubbing my car against parked cars would truly be a last resort).
Seriously. I couldn't believe all of these serious responses to an obviously silly article. I thought it was rather funny myself (and I'm an American, so the humor wasn't lost on all of us for the record).
I was talking about real-time surveying done from a moving platform. The way it works is by keeping a very accurate position of the vehicle (to within millimeters), then using lasers to position nearby objects to similarly high accuracies relative to this vehicle.
If you wanted to survey the location of 10 fence posts using this system, the vehicle would drive by a fence at time t1, get its own position then the position of the fence. At time t2 it would pass the next fence post and perform the same procedure. And so on for the rest of the fence posts.
If it can accurately position each of these fences in an absolute frame of reference (which it does) then it obviously can accurately measure the distance between the posts (remember this is all done in real-time without stopping).
Also, in the case of this vehicle, it is probably determining its position at a very high rate, up to 20 times per second.
Your standard GPS will determine your position every second, not once every 5 seconds.
You can't determine distance to 100% accuracy no matter what kind of technology you use. You can determine it to a very high degree of accuracy though.
You also demonstrate why relying on wheels is not always an effective way to determine distance. There is no middle wheel so one side or the other will be used to determine distance. While usually it's assumed that this averages out over time, it isn't always the case (such as for shipping companies like UPS that try to minimize left turns for efficiency and safety reasons).
A GPS, on the other hand, is fixed to your vehicle so will always measure its average distance traveled (rather than how far one side of a vehicle travels vs another, something nobody ever cares about).
Never say never. At a recent GPS trade show some of the most popular devices for sale were systems that combined lasers and high-precision GPS receivers so that once properly rigged on a vehicle drive-by surveying could be done, accurately positioning all objects within a certain range of the vehicle as it drives by.
Suffice it to say, if you can do that you can also accurately measure distances with GPS. Obviously, that is an extreme example but even consumer GPS receivers can measure distances rather accurately. While there are errors in your exact position, these errors change slowly so that the next position returned by your receiver will have nearly the same position errors as the previous position which gives a very accurate change in position from one second to the next.
To rely solely on the wheels of your car you would need to know its radius to an extremely high degree of precision in order to match the accuracy of the distance returned by a GPS receiver.
Roads don't need to be straight in order to get good distances as measured by a GPS. If you are turning sharply, you slow down so there will still be positions returned by the GPS during the turn. When you are moving faster you cannot turn as quickly. The only time you would have trouble is if there is a huge tree canopy or urban corridor blocking the GPS signals.
Why? For yet another conspiracy theory with no proof?
I'm sure not all conspiracy theories are wrong, but it had sure better have some proof first.
Everything in my previous post is public information. I would like to see some evidence to back up the claims of TFloore before giving it any thought.
The only part of TFloore's post that I know off the top of my head is accurate is that yes, Pickens did need right-of-way access to build the high-powered transmission lines to the proposed wind farm. This is a problem that has been identified in other studies about wind farms in general, in that the US power grid needs a more modern transmission system to support projects like this. It's still a rather Byzantine system with local grids still not always cooperating well with others and various other problems.
Also, the issue of the right-of-way was not Pickens' only problem. He was also having difficulty getting financing (at least that's what he said on his last interview on Charlie Rose and until I hear differently, with proof, I'm not going to believe otherwise).
The largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world, Vestas, has just built a plant in Colorado and is building a second. However, due to the credit crisis they are having a harder time selling turbines worldwide since its difficult for customers to get financing.
The reason the project in Texas is going forward is because one of the few countries in the world that is still in a good position to finance, China, is willing to do so with the obvious catch that he must use Chinese turbines.
I think once the credit market improves US-built turbines will be more attractive for other projects. The reason Vestas is building the two plants in Colorado is because there are many skilled laborers there that cost less to employ than similar ones in Europe (a Vestas plant over there was closed due to the creation of the new plants in Colorado).
To Pickens' credit, he tried hard for years to get financing for this project, but if he was to get this thing going while he was still alive this was probably the only way for him to proceed. I think it's still a smart move and hopefully will lead to similar projects in other states. If his project succeeds it should make it easier for other companies to get domestic financing so won't be forced to purchase Chinese turbines in the future.
The military uses GPS for targeting. It's not going away until a higher-resolution replacement is found.
The GPS consumer market is a great way for the manufacturers to ditch the receivers that don't pass military QC.
Also, like you say, the most important places to have GPS are places where there isn't cell coverage. They still sell satellite phones for a reason. Not everyone used GPS to get to the store.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by manufacturers ditching receivers that don't pass military QC. Many GPS manufacturers don't make military-specific GPS receivers at all. The primary difference between a consumer and military receiver is the military receiver can decode the code on the encrypted frequency. However, with the corrections provided by WAAS and with selective availability turned off (as it has been for years now) this isn't that big of a deal if you are in North America.
Regardless, you are talking about two totally different markets. Consumer GPS receivers aren't at all nor ever were designed for military use and aren't being 'ditched'. In addition, consumer research is at times ahead of military research. For example, at a recent GPS expo various manufacturers demonstrated new receivers that could determine accurate positions indoors. Professional GPS receivers (but still not military, so no access to the encrypted code on the second frequency) can now be used to do drive-by surveys in combination with a system of lasers.
I've loved my HP HDX series laptop. Now, it's probably the largest laptop you will ever buy, but for development it is awesome. It has an 18.4" display, built-in blue ray ROM, and two internal hard drives and an e-sata port for a hot-swappable external. I can easily run two virtual machines at the same time on it (using Vista as the host operating system) and there's enough screen space to arrange your development environment however you want.
If that is too large for you they also have a 16" version of the laptop.
As for its portability, I have hauled it all over Europe via backpack (using one of the giant Rick Steves traveling backpacks). It worked for me, but I'm young and didn't have to walk miles with it or anything. It was just small enough to be used on all the flights I've taken on so far. If it was any larger you'd have to be in business class to use it without interfering with others.
Nothing is stopping the mechanics from being mechanics or engineers from being engineers. Nobody forced him to do anything. He worked diligently as a mechanic for years, eventually owning his own small airplane repair shop. However, business dried up at one point and he decided he'd rather design airplanes and had some specific ideas of how to do it but wanted to be formally trained first.
However, you're correct that everyone cannot become anything and I would never dispute that. On the other hand, the great majority of people are capable of more than what they are currently accomplishing and I certainly include myself among them--I know that I've never worked as hard as this guy for any length of time and could certainly achieve more if I did.
Even he could never hope to become an astronaut for example. He'd run out of time--it would simply take him too long to get the necessary degrees to meet the minimum requirements if nothing else. I would never aspire to be an astronaut either--I might marginally be capable of it but it would take so much additional studying and very hard work that I know it isn't for me.
But while achieving the very highest of goals is quite unlikely for virtually anyone regardless of how hard they work, I would argue that if he can get an aerospace degree from a respected 4-year program with, essentially, an average intelligence then anyone who isn't mentally handicapped can get a university degree and with a strong enough work ethic can even get an engineering degree.
As a sibling poster mentions, airplanes aren't designed by individuals, but by groups. I would certainly value having someone like him on my team. First, he was very driven (probably the most driven person I've ever met) and that tends to rub off on others. Second, he was extremely enthusiastic which is also infectious. Third, while he would likely be the slowest person on the team in regards to math and using design software, that doesn't mean he would make any more mistakes than others (he was very careful) and he had real-world experience of the proper dimensions of various parts so it would be relatively easy for him to tell if the dimensions of a part he designed were off by a significant margin. He'd also probably be more than willing to put in extra time to make up for his slowness--he certainly did during college.
While part of our training is to try to pass our calculations with a reality test (by visualizing whether it physically made sense), it's mostly lip service for inexperienced engineers and is something that must be learned after being hired--he'd definitely have an advantage over other newly graduating engineers in that department.
I can almost promise you that a strong enough work ethic can make up for any lack of innate ability. For example, a student that graduated with my aerospace engineering class took one of the most unlikely paths to get his degree.
He barely graduated high school, taking the minimum possible math courses (not even algebra). He got a technical degree and worked for over 15 years as an airplane mechanic. He finally decided that he wanted to design airplanes, and tried going to one of the major public universities in Colorado (University of Colorado, Boulder). He could only get in after taking some algebra classes at a community college--finally getting in a year later on a provisional basis. He was completely computer illiterate without a clue of how to type and hadn't written an essay in almost 20 years.
Yet, with a lot of hard work he made it and graduated. Believe me, math was not his strong suit and he is not a genius/gifted person but by working very diligently and with the help of other students he was able to get good enough to pass the exams. On the required curriculum you graduated just 3 credit hours shy of an applied math minor.
Now how you instill that kind of work ethic into someone I have absolutely no idea, but I'm positive that anyone that isn't mentally handicapped is capable of it--it's a matter of will and perseverance.
Or have no radio, never watch Fox News and only watch MSNBC (to get a fill of liberal screehes I guess).
When Bush Jr was president, where were the liberal equivalent of the tea parties? Or the screaming town halls with guys showing up with guns? Where were the liberals that thought Bush was the Antichrist?
Now, let's consider this error in context of its article relative to the errors in the Washington Times article.
First, the title of the Washington Post article is "The $1,300 Mission to Fell ACORN Duo in Sting Video Say Their Effort Was Independent." This error has no direct impact on the accuracy of the article's title--it still was an independent, $1,300 effort to stop ACORN regardless of motive.
I've read the entire article including the error in question. The very next statement, which was not a mistake, is:
"Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization," he said. "No one was holding this organization accountable. No one in the media is putting pressure on them. We wanted to do a stunt and see what we could find."
Now you can argue all you want how important this error was to the effect of this article. However, it certainly is true that ACORN does focus on getting poor, largely African American and Latinos out to vote and they mostly vote against Republicans.
There are many other quotes and statements in that article that are completely accurate and certainly support the article. I fail to see how this one mistake picks apart the article at all.
However, in the case of the Washington Times piece, the title was "EXCLUSIVE: Porn surfing rampant at U.S. science foundation."
This is so easy to pick apart it's ridiculous. It can be done in a single sentence: 10 people were reprimanded, 7 involving viewing porn--how is that 'rampant' at an organization of the size of the NSF?
Provide an example please. I hear this generic comment often when someone picks apart a Washington Times article yet the person never replies with a specific counterexample. Remember, this was not an opinion piece so please provide an article not in the opinion section of the Washington Post that you can pick apart as easily in just a few minutes. Until then I call BS.
God I hope you're joking--otherwise, wow. That's all I can say, especially responding to the excellent post by Jamie pointing out most of the flaws in this particular article including shameless half-truths and lies. Glenn Beck is as objective as the Washington Times.
I read the first three words and that was enough for me. I'm glad you took the time to specifically point out the flaws in this particular story for those who aren't familiar with the complete lack of journalistic integrity at that paper and may have otherwise taken the article seriously.
From my point of view, it may as well be "The Onion reports..." with the only difference that it isn't intended to be haha funny but actually trying to fool you instead.
Sigh, I have to agree. According to their website their target customer is architects (trying to make a good impression on clients presumably), high-end gamers (presumably the highest end gamers who have absolutely unlimited budgets) and content creators thanks to its thermal properties.
I don't see how this case could possibly be worth $700 to anyone that cares anything about money though (except for perhaps the architects). Sure, it looks pretty but it's also huge, heavy, difficult to clean and awfully expensive for a case.
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Have you watched NASA TV when they aren't launching?
I've watched it at various times, including when the Sojourner rover landed at some early hour of the night, when Cassini entered orbit around Saturn, portions of several space walks, and even idle times during shuttle missions. Some things have been very fun and exciting, such as the Sojourner landing, but by and large it's dreadfully boring even for an avid NASA/aerospace fan, especially during large portions of space walks (which is just inherent to the careful and tedious activity they're doing).
While watching the activity live is a great option, they could really use some MythBusters style time lapse editing more often than not.
They don't need to blow things up all the time like MythBusters, but they are in sore need of post-editing of the live video in order to present it in a way that is more accessible to an average viewer and can skip the less interesting parts (such as the 10-20 minutes it takes to move the shuttle's robotic arm, or the slow work of the astronaut, etc).
NASA tries to do outreach and has a budget for it, although I'm sure it's rather small. I'm sure if they could just do more professional programs on NASA TV rather than relying so heavily on raw live footage they could get a lot more people excited about space science.
These are long-haul jets. A single flight crew cannot fly this thing, at least not to anywhere close its designed range. There must be a door to swap pilots and copilots.
But even if there were no door that wouldn't have any impact on security. The reason we take our shoes off isn't because of 9/11 but because of the 'shoe bomber'--the guy that tried to blow a hole in the fuselage using a small bomb in his shoe. If you want to guard against people trying to bring the plane down (rather than taking control of it) you still need ridiculous security.
I don't know about that. Whole Foods may be doing OK, but I don't see them ever overtaking Wal*Mart.
By and large people want to buy stuff that is cheap, filling and tastes good regardless of health issues (at least here in the US from what I've seen).
If the artificial meat is more expensive, then it will satisfy a niche market just as organic food does today.
PETA could demand it but how would that be any different than today?
I think the only way real meat would disappear is if it's the result of the market. If artificial meat could be produced more cheaply than natural meat then you should start to worry, especially if the quality is somewhat inferior but not so inferior that people don't buy it.
However, I think there will always be a market for natural meat. There's already plenty of proof that people are willing to pay more for grocery products viewed as superior in some way (Whole Foods for example).
Thanks. And I was correct in my understanding of how you used 'cut' right? I think some other posters are misreading your statement with the understanding that you removed 80% of the beeping noises from the movie :)
As far as I know, 'cut' only means 'add/create' in movie lingo. The use of it anywhere else in English means the complete opposite (well, in this case anyway. Obviously you weren't dividing beeping noises as a fabric of some kind :P ).
Cut in this case means add, not removed, right? Movie terminology often confuses me...
Along similar lines, what in the world does the 'best boy' do on the movie? Is he like the local eagle scout doing good deeds for the actors during the movie or something?? :) (I really don't have a clue what the guy does, just always see one listed in the credits)
Well, the emergency brake would work, at least on the Prius. It is the same as emergency brakes on other cars and not computer-controlled or interfered with at all. The normal brake and accelerator are completely fly-by-wire on the Prius though, as is the shift lever and power switch so I really don't know how those would behave in this situation.
Of course, applying the emergency brake at high speeds would be very dangerous since you could easily lock your wheels and spin out of control. It would also be murder on your engine. That would definitely be a last resort for me (well, I guess rubbing my car against parked cars would truly be a last resort).
Seriously. I couldn't believe all of these serious responses to an obviously silly article. I thought it was rather funny myself (and I'm an American, so the humor wasn't lost on all of us for the record).
I was talking about real-time surveying done from a moving platform. The way it works is by keeping a very accurate position of the vehicle (to within millimeters), then using lasers to position nearby objects to similarly high accuracies relative to this vehicle.
If you wanted to survey the location of 10 fence posts using this system, the vehicle would drive by a fence at time t1, get its own position then the position of the fence. At time t2 it would pass the next fence post and perform the same procedure. And so on for the rest of the fence posts.
If it can accurately position each of these fences in an absolute frame of reference (which it does) then it obviously can accurately measure the distance between the posts (remember this is all done in real-time without stopping).
Also, in the case of this vehicle, it is probably determining its position at a very high rate, up to 20 times per second.
Your standard GPS will determine your position every second, not once every 5 seconds.
You can't determine distance to 100% accuracy no matter what kind of technology you use. You can determine it to a very high degree of accuracy though.
You also demonstrate why relying on wheels is not always an effective way to determine distance. There is no middle wheel so one side or the other will be used to determine distance. While usually it's assumed that this averages out over time, it isn't always the case (such as for shipping companies like UPS that try to minimize left turns for efficiency and safety reasons).
A GPS, on the other hand, is fixed to your vehicle so will always measure its average distance traveled (rather than how far one side of a vehicle travels vs another, something nobody ever cares about).
Why the heck can't these people just pop the shift lever to neutral? I can't imagine how that wouldn't stop them from accelerating.
Never say never. At a recent GPS trade show some of the most popular devices for sale were systems that combined lasers and high-precision GPS receivers so that once properly rigged on a vehicle drive-by surveying could be done, accurately positioning all objects within a certain range of the vehicle as it drives by.
Suffice it to say, if you can do that you can also accurately measure distances with GPS. Obviously, that is an extreme example but even consumer GPS receivers can measure distances rather accurately. While there are errors in your exact position, these errors change slowly so that the next position returned by your receiver will have nearly the same position errors as the previous position which gives a very accurate change in position from one second to the next.
To rely solely on the wheels of your car you would need to know its radius to an extremely high degree of precision in order to match the accuracy of the distance returned by a GPS receiver.
Roads don't need to be straight in order to get good distances as measured by a GPS. If you are turning sharply, you slow down so there will still be positions returned by the GPS during the turn. When you are moving faster you cannot turn as quickly. The only time you would have trouble is if there is a huge tree canopy or urban corridor blocking the GPS signals.
Why? For yet another conspiracy theory with no proof?
I'm sure not all conspiracy theories are wrong, but it had sure better have some proof first.
Everything in my previous post is public information. I would like to see some evidence to back up the claims of TFloore before giving it any thought.
The only part of TFloore's post that I know off the top of my head is accurate is that yes, Pickens did need right-of-way access to build the high-powered transmission lines to the proposed wind farm. This is a problem that has been identified in other studies about wind farms in general, in that the US power grid needs a more modern transmission system to support projects like this. It's still a rather Byzantine system with local grids still not always cooperating well with others and various other problems.
Also, the issue of the right-of-way was not Pickens' only problem. He was also having difficulty getting financing (at least that's what he said on his last interview on Charlie Rose and until I hear differently, with proof, I'm not going to believe otherwise).
This article really explains it: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_13655311
The largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world, Vestas, has just built a plant in Colorado and is building a second. However, due to the credit crisis they are having a harder time selling turbines worldwide since its difficult for customers to get financing.
The reason the project in Texas is going forward is because one of the few countries in the world that is still in a good position to finance, China, is willing to do so with the obvious catch that he must use Chinese turbines.
I think once the credit market improves US-built turbines will be more attractive for other projects. The reason Vestas is building the two plants in Colorado is because there are many skilled laborers there that cost less to employ than similar ones in Europe (a Vestas plant over there was closed due to the creation of the new plants in Colorado).
To Pickens' credit, he tried hard for years to get financing for this project, but if he was to get this thing going while he was still alive this was probably the only way for him to proceed. I think it's still a smart move and hopefully will lead to similar projects in other states. If his project succeeds it should make it easier for other companies to get domestic financing so won't be forced to purchase Chinese turbines in the future.
The military uses GPS for targeting. It's not going away until a higher-resolution replacement is found.
The GPS consumer market is a great way for the manufacturers to ditch the receivers that don't pass military QC.
Also, like you say, the most important places to have GPS are places where there isn't cell coverage. They still sell satellite phones for a reason. Not everyone used GPS to get to the store.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by manufacturers ditching receivers that don't pass military QC. Many GPS manufacturers don't make military-specific GPS receivers at all. The primary difference between a consumer and military receiver is the military receiver can decode the code on the encrypted frequency. However, with the corrections provided by WAAS and with selective availability turned off (as it has been for years now) this isn't that big of a deal if you are in North America.
Regardless, you are talking about two totally different markets. Consumer GPS receivers aren't at all nor ever were designed for military use and aren't being 'ditched'. In addition, consumer research is at times ahead of military research. For example, at a recent GPS expo various manufacturers demonstrated new receivers that could determine accurate positions indoors. Professional GPS receivers (but still not military, so no access to the encrypted code on the second frequency) can now be used to do drive-by surveys in combination with a system of lasers.
I've loved my HP HDX series laptop. Now, it's probably the largest laptop you will ever buy, but for development it is awesome. It has an 18.4" display, built-in blue ray ROM, and two internal hard drives and an e-sata port for a hot-swappable external. I can easily run two virtual machines at the same time on it (using Vista as the host operating system) and there's enough screen space to arrange your development environment however you want.
If that is too large for you they also have a 16" version of the laptop.
As for its portability, I have hauled it all over Europe via backpack (using one of the giant Rick Steves traveling backpacks). It worked for me, but I'm young and didn't have to walk miles with it or anything. It was just small enough to be used on all the flights I've taken on so far. If it was any larger you'd have to be in business class to use it without interfering with others.
The base 18" version comes in at around $1200.
Nothing is stopping the mechanics from being mechanics or engineers from being engineers. Nobody forced him to do anything. He worked diligently as a mechanic for years, eventually owning his own small airplane repair shop. However, business dried up at one point and he decided he'd rather design airplanes and had some specific ideas of how to do it but wanted to be formally trained first.
However, you're correct that everyone cannot become anything and I would never dispute that. On the other hand, the great majority of people are capable of more than what they are currently accomplishing and I certainly include myself among them--I know that I've never worked as hard as this guy for any length of time and could certainly achieve more if I did.
Even he could never hope to become an astronaut for example. He'd run out of time--it would simply take him too long to get the necessary degrees to meet the minimum requirements if nothing else. I would never aspire to be an astronaut either--I might marginally be capable of it but it would take so much additional studying and very hard work that I know it isn't for me.
But while achieving the very highest of goals is quite unlikely for virtually anyone regardless of how hard they work, I would argue that if he can get an aerospace degree from a respected 4-year program with, essentially, an average intelligence then anyone who isn't mentally handicapped can get a university degree and with a strong enough work ethic can even get an engineering degree.
As a sibling poster mentions, airplanes aren't designed by individuals, but by groups. I would certainly value having someone like him on my team. First, he was very driven (probably the most driven person I've ever met) and that tends to rub off on others. Second, he was extremely enthusiastic which is also infectious. Third, while he would likely be the slowest person on the team in regards to math and using design software, that doesn't mean he would make any more mistakes than others (he was very careful) and he had real-world experience of the proper dimensions of various parts so it would be relatively easy for him to tell if the dimensions of a part he designed were off by a significant margin. He'd also probably be more than willing to put in extra time to make up for his slowness--he certainly did during college.
While part of our training is to try to pass our calculations with a reality test (by visualizing whether it physically made sense), it's mostly lip service for inexperienced engineers and is something that must be learned after being hired--he'd definitely have an advantage over other newly graduating engineers in that department.
I can almost promise you that a strong enough work ethic can make up for any lack of innate ability. For example, a student that graduated with my aerospace engineering class took one of the most unlikely paths to get his degree.
He barely graduated high school, taking the minimum possible math courses (not even algebra). He got a technical degree and worked for over 15 years as an airplane mechanic. He finally decided that he wanted to design airplanes, and tried going to one of the major public universities in Colorado (University of Colorado, Boulder). He could only get in after taking some algebra classes at a community college--finally getting in a year later on a provisional basis. He was completely computer illiterate without a clue of how to type and hadn't written an essay in almost 20 years.
Yet, with a lot of hard work he made it and graduated. Believe me, math was not his strong suit and he is not a genius/gifted person but by working very diligently and with the help of other students he was able to get good enough to pass the exams. On the required curriculum you graduated just 3 credit hours shy of an applied math minor.
Now how you instill that kind of work ethic into someone I have absolutely no idea, but I'm positive that anyone that isn't mentally handicapped is capable of it--it's a matter of will and perseverance.
Or have no radio, never watch Fox News and only watch MSNBC (to get a fill of liberal screehes I guess).
When Bush Jr was president, where were the liberal equivalent of the tea parties? Or the screaming town halls with guys showing up with guns? Where were the liberals that thought Bush was the Antichrist?
They did make a mistake on that article, admitted it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092103762.html and also posted feedback on the specific mistake here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092503359.html
The article in question is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091704805.html
Now, let's consider this error in context of its article relative to the errors in the Washington Times article.
First, the title of the Washington Post article is "The $1,300 Mission to Fell ACORN
Duo in Sting Video Say Their Effort Was Independent." This error has no direct impact on the accuracy of the article's title--it still was an independent, $1,300 effort to stop ACORN regardless of motive.
I've read the entire article including the error in question. The very next statement, which was not a mistake, is:
"Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization," he said. "No one was holding this organization accountable. No one in the media is putting pressure on them. We wanted to do a stunt and see what we could find."
Now you can argue all you want how important this error was to the effect of this article. However, it certainly is true that ACORN does focus on getting poor, largely African American and Latinos out to vote and they mostly vote against Republicans.
There are many other quotes and statements in that article that are completely accurate and certainly support the article. I fail to see how this one mistake picks apart the article at all.
However, in the case of the Washington Times piece, the title was "EXCLUSIVE: Porn surfing rampant at U.S. science foundation."
This is so easy to pick apart it's ridiculous. It can be done in a single sentence: 10 people were reprimanded, 7 involving viewing porn--how is that 'rampant' at an organization of the size of the NSF?
Provide an example please. I hear this generic comment often when someone picks apart a Washington Times article yet the person never replies with a specific counterexample. Remember, this was not an opinion piece so please provide an article not in the opinion section of the Washington Post that you can pick apart as easily in just a few minutes. Until then I call BS.
"The Washington Times tries to be objective."
God I hope you're joking--otherwise, wow. That's all I can say, especially responding to the excellent post by Jamie pointing out most of the flaws in this particular article including shameless half-truths and lies. Glenn Beck is as objective as the Washington Times.
I read the first three words and that was enough for me. I'm glad you took the time to specifically point out the flaws in this particular story for those who aren't familiar with the complete lack of journalistic integrity at that paper and may have otherwise taken the article seriously.
From my point of view, it may as well be "The Onion reports..." with the only difference that it isn't intended to be haha funny but actually trying to fool you instead.
Sigh, I have to agree. According to their website their target customer is architects (trying to make a good impression on clients presumably), high-end gamers (presumably the highest end gamers who have absolutely unlimited budgets) and content creators thanks to its thermal properties.
I don't see how this case could possibly be worth $700 to anyone that cares anything about money though (except for perhaps the architects). Sure, it looks pretty but it's also huge, heavy, difficult to clean and awfully expensive for a case.