Oh great. As if amateur (and some professional) astronomers don't have enough light pollution to deal with! This would extent twilight and thus reduce the useful observing time.
When Heathkit was in its heyday, the cost of assembly was a very large part of the cost of the product. With the advent of automated assembly, the labor cost became insignificant and a kit could no longer compete on price. In fact, the kit became MORE expensive because of the cost of developing a by-the-number assembly manual. The kit-building community kept Heathkit going even then for a while.
But I remember the last Heathkit I constructed. It was an FM radio tuner. The "kit" came with a palletized, pre-assembled circuit board. Instead of mounting parts and soldering, you snapped the various boards apart -- the interconnect cables were already attached -- assembled the chassis and screwed the boards in place. There were two solder connections -- for the power cord! And the "kit" was about 30% more expensive than a similar tuner from Radio Shack.
1. Don't be too concerned. This is more an issue for astronauts (minor inconvenience) and satellites (possible software outages), unless you live at high latitudes, in which case auroras are cool!
2. X5 is strong but not catastrophic -- this might affect shortwave reception but it's not going to take down the power grid.
I have a Kindle Keyboard (eInk-based) e-reader and a Kindle Fire (LCD-based) e-reader / tablet. I do notice that the KF is more distracting to use, though easier to navigate with. And both of these are designed to be content delivery devices and are products from the same company. I would imagine that a more general-purpose tablet (or worse yet, a netbook with an eReader app) would be more distracting yet.
It's probably a "think of the children" issue. All those pervert tourists using the hotel's ($50 or more per week!!!) internet service to view pr0n must be stopped!
Though why anybody would go to Hawaii and spend all their time viewing internet pr0n is something I can't fathom.
Guilty as charged! I'm geeky enough to carry techie toys whenever I go on vacation. And I spend untold hours doing word processing to capture the experience -- when I'm not using the portable to manage my photography. Last trip, I added a "Kindle Keyboard" to the mix; that eliminated the need for the stack of books I usually pack. My portable also runs some astronomy apps that I've written -- I love viewing the night sky from exotic locations.
I've just gotten a Kindle Fire tablet. For what PerlJedi wants to do, it's probably not the right choice -- no keyboard, for one thing. It isn't the best tool for my purposes either due to the lack of a keyboard and no ability to copy files between a pair of USB-connected devices. So I'll probably continue to travel with my XO-1 laptop and the Kindle Keyboard, at least until Amazon starts selling a docking station or something.
I'm a recent Kindle (Keyboard and Fire) owner. I probably spend US$50 a month on books. Over the years, I've accumulate a collection large enough to make me worry about how much floor loading my attic can stand. So having new books reduced to bits seems attractive. And the Kindle is often just easier to work with since I can adjust the print size to suit my vision comfort. Since I got my Kindle Keyboard (in August), I've downloaded and read about 100 titles. Not all of them were novel-length; I'd say on average the "book" was more like novella-length.
Also, I find myself buying eBooks that I'd probably not buy as pBooks (physical books), partly because they're cheaper and partly because they are impulse buys -- it takes me a few seconds to get a book over the internet and about two hours to drive to the nearest bookstore, buy a book and drive home. I found half a dozen authors I now buy regularly that I probably never would be reading if I'd had time to second-guess the "hmm... that looks interesting" reaction.
EBS tests happen about once a month at various times of the day. I didn't realize that it wasn't a coordinated test -- I never tried changing channels / stations during the 30-second test. We had a severe flood in my area a few months ago and there was an actual EBS message, so the system does see some real use.
Thanks for that reference. Now that I know I have some hope of that working, I'll do some experimenting -- I have six months or so, after all.
By my calculations, a 1mm diameter hole should be idea for a 3-foot projection distance (best compromise between sharpness due to small aperture and diffraction blurring due to small aperture). What I'd planned to do was to pack in my suitcase a camera obscurra made from a long, narrow cardboard box but folded flat. On site (yes, the leeward side of the island), I'd unfold the thing and use a camera tripod to steady it. I may elaborate the idea by adding a second square-cross-section tube at right angles which I'd view through. This would improve contrast.
My choice of Kauai is because local sunset occurs latest on that island. The timing of the transit is such that fourth contact is just about sunset out there. (In Massachusetts, second contact is about at local sunset.)
I could perhaps ship it to the hotel I plan to stay at, but it's a risk I'd rather not take since there definitely would not be an opportunity to confirm it arrived and ensure a replacement. And this transit is a twice-in-a-lifetime event.
Next June, I plan to travel from Boston to Hawaii (probably Kauai) to view the transit of Venus. I can take a small (90mm mak cas) telescope and a solar filter, but trying to cope with airline carry-on luggage restrictions and get a 4" diameter, 10" long aluminum cylinder through airport security is going to be a pain. Can viewing the transit be done using a camera obscura technique like one might use for viewing a partial solar eclipse?
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Oh great. As if amateur (and some professional) astronomers don't have enough light pollution to deal with! This would extent twilight and thus reduce the useful observing time.
Get a tablet. Preferably a tranquilizar tablet.
As the saying goes, "Those who live by the sword die by the sword".
When Heathkit was in its heyday, the cost of assembly was a very large part of the cost of the product. With the advent of automated assembly, the labor cost became insignificant and a kit could no longer compete on price. In fact, the kit became MORE expensive because of the cost of developing a by-the-number assembly manual. The kit-building community kept Heathkit going even then for a while.
But I remember the last Heathkit I constructed. It was an FM radio tuner. The "kit" came with a palletized, pre-assembled circuit board. Instead of mounting parts and soldering, you snapped the various boards apart -- the interconnect cables were already attached -- assembled the chassis and screwed the boards in place. There were two solder connections -- for the power cord! And the "kit" was about 30% more expensive than a similar tuner from Radio Shack.
de WA1GSF. I haven't been on the air much since 1980, though.
I hope they eliminate all of the Congresscritters from providing genetic material in this study. Otherwise the signal-to-noise ratio suffers.
All DNS resolution will be behind a TSA checkpoint.
That we have yet another Cold Fusion experiment?
1. Don't be too concerned. This is more an issue for astronauts (minor inconvenience) and satellites (possible software outages), unless you live at high latitudes, in which case auroras are cool!
2. X5 is strong but not catastrophic -- this might affect shortwave reception but it's not going to take down the power grid.
That explains why DNA has so much bloatware and runs only on ancient hardware.
I have a Kindle Keyboard (eInk-based) e-reader and a Kindle Fire (LCD-based) e-reader / tablet. I do notice that the KF is more distracting to use, though easier to navigate with. And both of these are designed to be content delivery devices and are products from the same company. I would imagine that a more general-purpose tablet (or worse yet, a netbook with an eReader app) would be more distracting yet.
chasing autonomous cars? Or robot cats?
And assume that all the available search engines are evil, too. Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
...to do no Evi
It's probably a "think of the children" issue. All those pervert tourists using the hotel's ($50 or more per week!!!) internet service to view pr0n must be stopped!
Though why anybody would go to Hawaii and spend all their time viewing internet pr0n is something I can't fathom.
Guilty as charged! I'm geeky enough to carry techie toys whenever I go on vacation. And I spend untold hours doing word processing to capture the experience -- when I'm not using the portable to manage my photography. Last trip, I added a "Kindle Keyboard" to the mix; that eliminated the need for the stack of books I usually pack. My portable also runs some astronomy apps that I've written -- I love viewing the night sky from exotic locations.
I've just gotten a Kindle Fire tablet. For what PerlJedi wants to do, it's probably not the right choice -- no keyboard, for one thing. It isn't the best tool for my purposes either due to the lack of a keyboard and no ability to copy files between a pair of USB-connected devices. So I'll probably continue to travel with my XO-1 laptop and the Kindle Keyboard, at least until Amazon starts selling a docking station or something.
I'm a recent Kindle (Keyboard and Fire) owner. I probably spend US$50 a month on books. Over the years, I've accumulate a collection large enough to make me worry about how much floor loading my attic can stand. So having new books reduced to bits seems attractive. And the Kindle is often just easier to work with since I can adjust the print size to suit my vision comfort. Since I got my Kindle Keyboard (in August), I've downloaded and read about 100 titles. Not all of them were novel-length; I'd say on average the "book" was more like novella-length.
Also, I find myself buying eBooks that I'd probably not buy as pBooks (physical books), partly because they're cheaper and partly because they are impulse buys -- it takes me a few seconds to get a book over the internet and about two hours to drive to the nearest bookstore, buy a book and drive home. I found half a dozen authors I now buy regularly that I probably never would be reading if I'd had time to second-guess the "hmm... that looks interesting" reaction.
EBS tests happen about once a month at various times of the day. I didn't realize that it wasn't a coordinated test -- I never tried changing channels / stations during the 30-second test. We had a severe flood in my area a few months ago and there was an actual EBS message, so the system does see some real use.
Thanks for that reference. Now that I know I have some hope of that working, I'll do some experimenting -- I have six months or so, after all.
By my calculations, a 1mm diameter hole should be idea for a 3-foot projection distance (best compromise between sharpness due to small aperture and diffraction blurring due to small aperture). What I'd planned to do was to pack in my suitcase a camera obscurra made from a long, narrow cardboard box but folded flat. On site (yes, the leeward side of the island), I'd unfold the thing and use a camera tripod to steady it. I may elaborate the idea by adding a second square-cross-section tube at right angles which I'd view through. This would improve contrast.
My choice of Kauai is because local sunset occurs latest on that island. The timing of the transit is such that fourth contact is just about sunset out there. (In Massachusetts, second contact is about at local sunset.)
Make the practice of medicine illegal.
I could perhaps ship it to the hotel I plan to stay at, but it's a risk I'd rather not take since there definitely would not be an opportunity to confirm it arrived and ensure a replacement. And this transit is a twice-in-a-lifetime event.
Next June, I plan to travel from Boston to Hawaii (probably Kauai) to view the transit of Venus. I can take a small (90mm mak cas) telescope and a solar filter, but trying to cope with airline carry-on luggage restrictions and get a 4" diameter, 10" long aluminum cylinder through airport security is going to be a pain. Can viewing the transit be done using a camera obscura technique like one might use for viewing a partial solar eclipse?
from Xerox PARC and other places. Google was simply following in Apple's grand tradition of stealing any IP that wasn't nailed down too tightly.
Microsoft has deprecated sex. We're supposed to use the master bait now instead.
a geniuine outbreak of commonsense! Just because it's digital bits doesn't mean you can throw the Constitution in the trash. Bravo!
Get a warrant! Follow due process! No more excuses about it being somehow a "new" paradigm.