Don't you think it might make sense to try these new things out in the field before awarding an IDIQ contract? I haven't read the contract but it sounds suspiciously like some of the other government contracts in that the supplier gets paid no matter what. If something goes wrong then you have to sign another contract, and pay more money, to get it fixed.
A few points:
As part of the procurement and contract competition for AIT-2 (Advanced Imaging Technology - Second Generation) the bidders supplied machines which were used in live tests by the government, in real-life conditions. The performance of the machines in those tests was part of the evaluation and source selection process.
The contract is Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity. This is the exact opposite of "You must pay no matter what." The TSA may buy up to $245M off this contract. However, it is not committed to buy anything at all. That's what ID/IQ means, and that flexibility is exactly why the government designed this type of procurement vehicle. It is a promise from the contractor that, should the government choose to do so, it may buy any amount of the goods or services at a pre-arranged, competitively-bid price. They may buy 100 of these machines. They may buy one. Or even none. The vendor is bound by the pre-negotiated terms, however. (To answer the "First they hook you, then they raise the price" complaint, I should say that even the out-year price increase is part of most procurements of this type. It is common for there to be some built in year-to-year price adjustment (generally called "escalation") to account for increasing out-year labor costs. However, that too is pre-negotiated, and set at the time of contract award. The effect being that every part of a vendor's price is subject to competition from other vendors at the time of proposal submittal.)
Maintenance arrangements for any machines the TSA chooses to purchase are part of the procurement. Therefore, that is also pre-set. Further, it is part of the $245 contract value. It simply isn't possible for the vendor to surprise the TSA with new charges to fix broken devices.
There may be many reasons to dislike the TSA in general, and their scanning machines in particular. But being upset about theoretical contract issues that people make up out of whole cloth isn't one of them, and it isn't very useful.
I agree that the procurement system is cumbersome and slow. Very few people, either inside the government or out understand it. The people that do can earn quite a good living helping companies sell and government agencies buy. I know a few.
It may well be the entire industry that acts that way. A couple of years ago I was at a tasting event with the either Grandson or Great Grandson of Jim Beam, and he was the same way..
You're probably talking about Fred Noe III. Yep, he's a nice guy. As is Bill Samuels Jr. over at Maker's Mark. If you take a distillery tour here in Kentucky or attend a tasting at a Derby party or the Bourbon Festival, you might run into these guys. Or one of the many other storied distillers. To see Jack Daniels distillery, of course, you'll have to go to Tennessee. Even though the brand is now owned by a Kentucky company, (Brown-Forman) they are still most definitely a Tennessee whiskey.
...No, really. One way to measure the effectiveness of a voting system is the power of an individual voter to change the outcome of the election with his/her vote. Vote aggregation systems like the electoral college give an individual voter greater probability of affecting the outcome of a close election. There have been some very good analytical papers about this. Any system that lets a single vote move a block of aggregated votes has this characteristic.
I'm not ready to throw out the Electoral College system. In fact, I rather admire it. Just as I don't want New Yorkers deciding how I should talk or Californians deciding how I should think, I don't want mainstream group-think to decide all the politics of the day, either.
Why do you assume this problem will first arise when Iranians fly into space? Have you considered the possibility that it has already arisen, as it were, and been addressed? Because it has, and it was.
Here's an interesting and useful link for you:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/files/a_guideline_ibadah_at_iss.doc
The title of the document is "A Guideline of Performing Ibadah (worship) at the International Space Station (ISS)" It's for the Malaysian space program, and one of their astronauts has already been to the ISS.
Re:Nice review, but I don't understand something.
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Bash Cookbook
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· Score: 1
Here's the pun:
He "found" chapter 11, which apparently covers the intricacies of the "find" command to be useful.
Found. find. That's it. All of it. Really.
...is a valid, legal hobby in the US. And there are a lot of people who can help you. What you describe is quite achievable, and can be made quite safe. However, I do not believe you will be able to get it together in your extremely short timeframe, unless you have only a few fuses to light. And if you only have a few fuses to light, you don't need computer choreography.
I could (and do) write volumes on the subject of amateur pyrotechnics, but I'll try to keep this response short. Electrical firing systems for pytotechnics are designed to ignite a device known either as an electric match ("e-match," in the vernacular) or an igniter. Occasionally, someone will call it a "squib," but that is incorrect. E-matches are quite easy to fire, are typically wired in series when a lot of devices are fired at once, and are not legal for you to buy unless you hold an ATF license. You can legally make them, but there are requirements for storage and transport.
Hobby rocket igniters are legal for you to buy, store, and transport on the highways, and you should consider using them. But probably not for this New Year's eve. I suggest you work on your firing system for use later in 2007 (with resources I can point you to) and that you hand-light your current show.
You should get a trigger light propane torch. http://www.amazon.com/BernzoMatic-TS3000T-019028-T rigger-Propane/dp/B00008ZA0B It is also good to have a hat, eye protection, and (optionally, depending on your devices) ear protection. Wear long sleeve cotton shirt and cotton pants; jeans are great. On the issue of hats, a hard hat is best, but a cotton ballcap is okay. Synthetic cloth is bad; it offers very little protection. Tape or wire a penlight flashlight to the flame tube of the torch head so that when the light is on, it will show where the torch is pointing. This is so you can light the fuses in the dark without emcumbering both hands; it allows you to turn you body away from the pyro you're about to light.
Set up the devices you intend to use and secure them in place. For rockets, you'll need to build a simple rocket rack, for candles, you can affix lines of them to a board with wire or wire ties. Wire ties are safer, but candles rarely explode these days. Mortar tubes for festival balls should be mounted in a box or milk crate, affixed to a backing board that is attached to stake, or gang-taped and put into a bucket. Drive stakes in the ground and wrap tape around the stake and the outside of cakes (aerial repeaters); it can get a bit exciting if one of them falls over. And it happens frequently enough to make securing them worth the effort. Hang or drape crackerstrings from supported crossmembers; for a nice build up effect wrap them so that they lump up toward the one end of the board, then light a single string left hanging from the other end.
Basically, lay out the stuff to be shot so that you can walk fairly freely between the items. Put some thought into the arrangement so that you won't need to step between the viewing crowd and a row of devices already lit. If you work from front to back, you won't be as noticeable while you're firing the stuff. Work through your shoot order, draw a very simple site plan, and think about the effect each item produces. If you're going to have accompanying music, figure out some very basic time cues and light a group of devices on the cues. We're not talking precision here; just trying to spread the show through the music. IF you're not going to use music, then you can decide to light a new group of devices when the old ones begin to go out. In order to achieve some amount of synchrony, make sure you don't have to walk more than two or three steps to get all the devices in a group lit at the same time. Also, once you've done it a few times, you can light the very end of the first couple of fuses, the middle of the next group and the base of the final
No offense intended, but you've been given the wrong information. You say:
The specs called for two "C" shaped beams to hug a metal rod as so - ]|[
They were assembled like this - [|]
But that's not the error. This is well covered in Henry Petroski's book "To Engineer is Human." All geeks should read this.
The welded box beam, even when pierced at the welds, (that's what you've ASCII illustrated with " [|] ") is sufficiently strong to support the walkways. The design was correct, even though it would have been difficult to implement. Long threaded rods, suspended from the ceiling superstructure, were to hold up two crossing walkways. The design called for threading a nut (covered, I believe, by a large washer) twenty feet onto the ceiling rods. Instead of that, the design was changed so that two rods pierced the box beams holding the upper (4th floor) walk way. But wait, there's more: It wasn't the double piercing of the beam that caused the collapse. The problem is that the change doubled the load on the upper walkway. Because with the change the lower walkway became a load (e.g. was suspended from) the upper walkway box beams. In the original design, the load of the lower walkway (and the upper walkway) was carried by the long rod. The single rod could carry both loads. But the box beam failed at the attachment point of its hanger nuts. Oh, here's a nice drawing at wikipedia. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b 2/HRWalkway-01.jpg/300px-HRWalkway-01.jpg That shows it.
Novapyro
Amateur chemists need to understand that there is some potential risk in what they do.
You betcha. We got that covered; we understand the individual legal risk. From the CPSC, that is exactly zero. From the BATFE, which has regulatory authority over explosives and pyrotechnics, it is usually zero. (State and local authorities can be a different issue, but many states and locales are fine with it.) However, we'd like to be able to buy the chemicals. TFA does not say that the CPSC is going after individuals who make their own fireworks; indeed, that's not in their brief. What they are doing, however, is trying to shut down chemical sales to the pyrotechnic hobbyists. That's what TFA is about.
Which is the real issue, and it has been getting worse and worse over the years. It's about the drug war effort - the terror war has just widened the net a bit.
No. I have direct experience with the CPSC on this issue; it really is about illegal explosives.
The lawyers at the CPSC tell us that by stopping sales of some chemicals, they believe they will stop the illicit "M-80" trade. We in the pyrotechnics hobby disagree.
For those that don't know: There is a "booming" business in making and selling illegal salutes. Sales of large (greater than 50 mg) salutes (the proper name for a noisemaking device which functions by the deflagration or detonation of flash powder) to the general public has been illegal since 1966. BATFE is the organization that sees to that enforcement. CPSC is not charged with that duty; they see mainly to products that are intended to be sold to consumers. However, the Federal Hazardous Substance Act grants them authority to regulate hazardous substances in certain limited situations. The CPSC is attempting to stretch their FHSA authority to cover the chemicals used in the manufacture of salutes. Currently, this is mostly finely divided metals (aluminum, magnesium, and "magnalium"; Al-Mg alloys) and potassium perchlorate, but there are other oxidizers that occur in some flash formulae.
CPSC has a persuasive powerpoint deck that shows lots of nasty injuries from illegal explosives. None of us, least of all the pyro hobbyists, want to have people lose fingers, hands, eyes, or lives over some pyro; we agree on that. However, we in the pyro community believe that hobbyist suppliers of pyro chemcicals aren't the source of the chems used in illicit trade; those come from traditional chemical supply houses, mostly.
Firefox Enterprises is currently in litigation with the CPSC over this. Go to their website http://www.firefox-fx.com/ and click on the CPSC link for details. Skylighter, my local supplier http://www.skylighter.com/ has been visited by the CPSC, but so far he (Harry Gilliam, proprietor) hasn't been enjoined to stop sales. He has very tightly restricted sales of salute-making chemicals however; so maybe that will hold the dogs at bay for the moment.
In the US, it is legal, at the federal level, to make your own fireworks without a license. State and local laws may indeed restrict you, but the feds (BATFE) allow it. We in the hobbyist pyro community would like to see that continue. Help us. Join the fireworks alliance, at no cost. http://www.fireworksalliance.org/ Read the information that Dave, Tom, and John put together there, and agitate your legislators. Buy something from one of the vendors above; there is a surcharge that goes to the CPSC defense fund. Donate directly to the fireworks foundation: http://www.fireworksfoundation.org/.
To help out and enjoy some great fireworks at club-sponsored events, Join the Pyrotechnics Guild International: http://www.pgi.org/membership.aspx. Join a local (or distant; some of our members are states away) pyro club: http://www.pgi.org/fireworks-clubs.aspx My club is The Crackerjacks http://www.crackerjacks.org/; but join any you like. We'd be happy to teach you how to safely construct individual fireworks, how to choreograph a disply, or just how to make your backyard fuse-lighting a better experience.
is there any american who is proud of the way their country treats its citizens anymore?
FUCK NO.
Well, I am. I'm not proud of the bloviating in the inept media, and I'm not proud of the fact that people don't work to understand the news. I'm not proud that many people, like you, are angry about things which are patently false. But I'm proud to live in a country that allows all those things.
Every day there is news of how Dick Cheney is getting fatter on Halbituron dollars with no-bid contracts.
That's simply wrong. Most of the Haliburton contract monies are flowing through a contract that Haliburton competed for long ago, won when in the original procurement, lost to Dyncorp in the follow-on recompete, and then won back in the next contract period. All before Iraq. Before 9-11, even. But you are free to remain ignorant of this. ("LOGCAP" is the name of that contract, and it has been held up as a model for how to handle unforseen future need.)
That Halliburton's subsidiary is performing this work well and at a very low price is not in dispute; Indeed KBR (the subsidiary) is making so little money on this that Halliburton is looking to sell the division, because the shareholders dislike the very low profit.
The "no-bid" contract, with which the main contract is conflated (sometimes for political purposes) is "Restore Iraqi Oil." In order to plan for putting out the predicted oil-well fires, and to stop oil spills and restore oil production, the Defense department put in place a no-bid contract before going to war. (This was done partly in response to what the DoD learned in Kuwait; the government was criticized then for not having forseen the need to contract for such services before the war started.) Though many loudly criticize this to score political points, there are very good and valid reasons to let no-bid (actually, "sole-source") contracts. Haliburton was judged to be the only company with the expertise, experience, staffing, and required security clearances to do the job. And despite the public chestbeating on the matter, no credible disputes have ever been raised on that point. You simply cannot put out for bid a contract which will reveal war plans. There are mechanisms in place to get the best possible price even in that circumstance. Those mechanisms are pre-bid IDIQ contracts (Indefinite Delivery for an Indefinite Quantity) and sole-sourcing. That's what was done, and it was prudent and correct to do so.
People who both closely follow and understand US Government contracting know this. I talk to many of them, of all political stripes, and I have not found one, even one, who thinks anything untoward happened in the award of RIO. I am not saying that either contract is perfect or flawless. But nobody I know, even staunch democrats, has stated a belief that these were bad contracting decisions, or that Dick Cheney affected the contract award.
We are governed by laws that we AREN'T EVEN ALLOWED TO READ. How can you be governed by laws that the government won't even acknowledge exist??
Well, I suppose I'll need a bit more information before I will believe that such laws exist. What are your sources? I'm willing to research it and decide if I believe it, but I don't know what you mean.
I have become a person I never wanted to be. Conspiracy theory fills my head. But I'm not reading this stuff on some horrible "bushkills.com" site or something. Everything I read is on the front page of/. or the NY Times or Washington Post.
If/., NY Times, and Washinton Post represent the full spectrum of your news world, then you're seeing a world painted all the same color. (I was working the "spectrum" analogy there, in case it was too clumsy to be clear.) I would generally expect WP to be left, NY Times to be left of that, and/. to be very left of the Times.
(partly because you have to have a license to buy a gun)
No license is required to buy a gun. Where do you shop? Now, if you want to buy some explosives, (anything more than 1lb cans of black powder) you'll need a license.
Also, it is the "only country in which it is lawful to make your own black powder".
That's simply not true. It is quite legal to make your own black powder (or 'BP', in the vernacular) in the US. I'd be happy to explain the rules, and point you to the resources if you're interested. State and local laws may restrict you, but that is by no means the usual case. If you make it, you have to store it properly (and that is clearly explained in documentation from BATF) and you may not transport it on the highways unless you are licensed. But you can make it on your own property, store it in a magazine, and use it there to your heart's content. I have frequent contact with BATF (Bureau of Alchol, Tobacco, and Firearms) and other authorities. And, by the way, I mean that it is legal even without an explosives manufacturing license. But you may, for the cost of filing and submitting fingerprints and a passport photo, obtain a license. If you apply for a license to manufacture explosives, it must be granted if you do not fall into one of the "disabled" classes of individuals. So, if you become licensed to manufacture explosives, then you can transport it as well as make it.
My club has literally tons of fireworks in our magazines, along with a few hundred pounds of BP. Some of the BP is homemade, some of it is commercially purchased. All of it is great fun, or hellishly dangerous depending on how you treat it.
In addition to the forgoing, other countries have long-standing and richly developed traditions of fireworks manufacture. And the most fundamental composition in fireworks construction is black powder. I know several people who manufacture fireworks in other countries. I do not know what the legal status is in all those places, but I presume it is legal in at least some of them.
Why would one need batch-sized automatic image editing?
Why indeed. My company operates on millions to tens of millions of images in a typical job. In fact, while ImageMagick is a wonderful tool, it is far too slow for our level of production. We use if to proof very small runs, or to test ideas. It is wonderful software. Now, as the poster suggests, our "edits" are repetitive, even algorithmic. And the need for such a thing is very, very common.
Wrong weight to lift ratio; needs more powder
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Disney Goes Boom!
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· Score: 1
A typical 8" shell weighs about 3 pounds, of which about 1 ounce is the lift charge. Most of the weight comes from the shell casing (pressed glued paper) that holds the burst charge and the stars and keeps them together long enough for the stars to ignite when the timing fuse burns through to the burst charge.
You're a bit light on lift. Usually, you will want approximately a 16 to 1 ratio of shell weight to lift charge weight. For small shells, (below 3 inches) some people use a 5 to 1 or 6 to 1 ratio.
Once the shell weight gets over 10-15 pounds or so, you generally would use only 32 to 1 proportions. So, after the lift charge gets up to a pound, you only increase it by 1/2 ounce for each additional pound of shell weight. This holds okay until the shell weight gets into above 50 pounds or so. Basically, the curve is slightly non-linear, until the pressure exponent of black powder eventually shifts the reaction into a very non-linear region. This is what happened with Grucci's attempt to launch the worlds biggest shell; the weight of the shell and the fit in the mortar drove the gas generation and lift dynamics into the very non-linear region of the equation.
For reference, the largest shell ever fired (the 36" Fat Man) weighed 800 pounds and was lifted 1400 feet in the air by 1/2 pound of black powder.
See the late George Plimpton's "Fireworks" for an entertaining read on the non-linearity of this attempt. Incidentally, larger shells have been put up since.
[ Reply to This ]
It does, but THAT'S not one of them.
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Disney Goes Boom!
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· Score: 1
The one thing I did like about black powder is the ability for controlled burns, allowing a much slower ascent for fireworks which light up on the way up. I don't think that's possible with this technique.
You misunderstand how the conventional method of shell launching works. They aren't rockets; they're just projectiles. The lift charge ignites, and the expanding gas projects the shell out of the mortar. (The mortars are frequently called "guns" in the trade.) The process is that of firing a large-bore black powder cannon.
If you observe a spiral trail (called a "tail") as the shell ascends, its because a large piece of pyrotechnic material (called a "star", or if it's really large a "comet") was affixed to the outside of the shell casing specifically to create that effect, and not because burning black powder is continuing to exert lift. For shells that don't have tails, you can sometimes see the time fuse burning as the shell ascends; it's much more faint and doesn't leave a "tail."
It is possible to use an internal (to the shell) embedded computer to fire the break charge. The common system is called "Magicfire" and works just as well with conventionally lifted shells as it does with pneumatically lifted shells. Rockets (as opposed to shells) are used very rarely in commercial displays. This is mostly due to the simplicity and low price of standard shells, but also because rockets create a greater hazard to audiences. Specifically, they must remain stable throughout the thrusting phase. Shells just follow a ballistic trajectory, subject to spin effects and wind, of course, but still more predictable than cheaply made rockets. Also, rockets are (usually) stabilized by external devices that are not destroyed in the break; sticks from large rockets sometimes stabilize (because some of the casing or heading remains attached) and become blunt arrows on the way down. This can be a bit nasty. I said "usually stabilized by external devices" because there are some rockets, commonly called "steenger missiles" or "stinger missiles" that are spin stabilized. These are a real hoot to make and use; they're the simplest aerial firework to construct once you have the tooling. You can make one in five minutes, and some of those babies can really get up there. Again, though, they aren't used in commercial displays. If you want to see a flight of them in a display sometime, you'll have to join a fireworks club and come out to a shoot. Details for the curious at http://www.crackerjacks.org/
My wife got the ES-7000 sales briefing last week..
on
Does Unisys Really Get It?
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· Score: 3, Informative
...and found out you have to run Windows on the box as the primary operating system. I imagine that's why M$ isn't too ruffled by this. Linux can run on it on 4 or more of the processors, in groups. (I suspect "4 or more" requirement is due to the internal communications/synchronization buses.)
Apparently the box management is run from within the custom windows apps, so it won't be pure native Linux, at least not soon.
They say their market is datacenter server consolidation, specifically seeking situations where people want to move UNIX apps off old Solaris or HP-UX boxes onto a Linux box. Why anyone would do that by buying a box that comes with a built-in annuity to Redmond is a bit of a mystery. What's not a mystery is why Redmond wouldn't stand in the way of this effort. If it's successful (can't imagine it, personally) it would have the effect of putting compulsary Windows licenses into server rooms that might otherwise have switched to some more "pure" Linux install.
My wife (a Unisys employee) was pleased they were trying, but not impressed with the effort.
Anyone providing or buying services ought to insist on a written contract that both parties sign. Then, there's no question of consequences if someone doesn't pay within 30 days, etc.
Most business is conducted with a verbal contract. We'd need the real facts to be sure, but there might not have been any contract formed in this case.
Here's one way to state the elements of a contract:
OFFER -- He has to offer to do the service according to some terms.
ACCEPTANCE -- Sheriff's Dept. has to agree and indicate their acceptance.
CONSIDERATION -- This is how you can tell it's a contract, and not a gift. The two sides have to have a bargained exchange of promises to do or pay something. The promiser must suffer a legal detriment (the giving over of moneys, the investment of work, etc) for it to be consideration. Now, you can have an enforcable promise, in the absence of two-sided consideration. The enforcement usually is done using the doctrine of Promissary Estoppel, though this is not a cause of action in all states.
MEETING OF THE MINDS -- There must be genuine assent. The parties can't be coerced or threatened.
CAPACITY -- Each side must be capable of forming a contract. Not crazy, mentally deficient, or a minor. When a person is speaking for an entity, like a sheriff's department, for instance, that person must have the apparent authority to commit a promise for the organization. You can't just call up whoever is working the desk and assume they can make a contract.
A LEGAL OBJECT -- Classically, you can't make a contract to kill someone. Ot to do anything else that is illegal. (OT: I don't know what MS does about this.)
So, sometimes it's not immediately apparent whether there was a contract. Was there one here? I don't know; depends on whether this (or some similar) list of elements was present.
Franky - unless he is sued personally over this matter, I don't think it will matter much.
Once anybody has a couple of million in the bank, they can simply sit back and coast on investments. They can afford insurance against anything imaginable, and work truly becomes fun since you can walk out any time you get bored or annoyed with your boss.
A couple of million isn't much, particularly to a CEO. But your overall point is true: he doesn't have to worry about employment. He can just start another company, or (even more likely) come in and take over at a small firm that doesn't have enough cash to pay salary for a CEO. He can make a deal where his salary is deferred, use his name recognition to get fringe investors.
Now, he may have to do this in another industry. Say, log home construction, or something. Or municipal sewer maintenance. Basically, an industry where the players don't know or care about SCO. But he can do it.
The only thing that will keep this man from being very rich someday is provably running afoul of SEC regulations, to a degree which will attract regulatory interest. Other than that, I think he'll do well.
Now, I'm not saying he should do well. Unless he is delusion (or very stupid while simultaneously being very brazen) he must be an untrustworthy liar. But he's got CEO experience, M&A experience, he's shown he's not afraid to litigate, and he can do financing deals. So, if he can stay out of jail, he'll excel. The bastard.
The store tracking sensors that this guy is talking about aren't even rfid, and only have a fleeting resemblence, all they can tell is the presence of a tag moving through them.
That's called a 1 bit transponder in some of the RFID literature. So, yes, it is an RFID system. Here's a nice reference at amazon. You can search within the text for "1 bit transponder" if you like.
And here's a nice quote from page 1 of the book:
'... vast numbers of 1 bit transponders are used in Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) to protect goods in shops and businesses. If someone attempts to leave the shop with goods that have have not been paid for the reader installed in the exit recognises the state "transponder in the field" and initiates the appropriate reaction.'
Many of these systems operate by sensing the presence of multiple leaves of magnetic material, much like you would get from stack of the new 20s. So it's all that unlikely. One of the failings of the systems is that occasionally, non-nefarious objects resonate in the sensor field and false-trigger it. Coils of wire set off some of the systems; a close arrangement of magnetizable material sets off others.
are quite common in the proper circles. We shot a few dozen of them this past weekend, along with some 12 inchers and a 16 incher. We also shot a few thousand other shells and some concussion mortars, and strobe pots and mines and wheels... Come join us (or your local club) in a legal fireworks shoot.
www.crackerjacks.org (Server upgrade in progress)
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you think it might make sense to try these new things out in the field before awarding an IDIQ contract? I haven't read the contract but it sounds suspiciously like some of the other government contracts in that the supplier gets paid no matter what. If something goes wrong then you have to sign another contract, and pay more money, to get it fixed.
A few points:
As part of the procurement and contract competition for AIT-2 (Advanced Imaging Technology - Second Generation) the bidders supplied machines which were used in live tests by the government, in real-life conditions. The performance of the machines in those tests was part of the evaluation and source selection process.
The contract is Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity. This is the exact opposite of "You must pay no matter what." The TSA may buy up to $245M off this contract. However, it is not committed to buy anything at all. That's what ID/IQ means, and that flexibility is exactly why the government designed this type of procurement vehicle. It is a promise from the contractor that, should the government choose to do so, it may buy any amount of the goods or services at a pre-arranged, competitively-bid price. They may buy 100 of these machines. They may buy one. Or even none. The vendor is bound by the pre-negotiated terms, however. (To answer the "First they hook you, then they raise the price" complaint, I should say that even the out-year price increase is part of most procurements of this type. It is common for there to be some built in year-to-year price adjustment (generally called "escalation") to account for increasing out-year labor costs. However, that too is pre-negotiated, and set at the time of contract award. The effect being that every part of a vendor's price is subject to competition from other vendors at the time of proposal submittal.)
Maintenance arrangements for any machines the TSA chooses to purchase are part of the procurement. Therefore, that is also pre-set. Further, it is part of the $245 contract value. It simply isn't possible for the vendor to surprise the TSA with new charges to fix broken devices.
There may be many reasons to dislike the TSA in general, and their scanning machines in particular. But being upset about theoretical contract issues that people make up out of whole cloth isn't one of them, and it isn't very useful.
I agree that the procurement system is cumbersome and slow. Very few people, either inside the government or out understand it. The people that do can earn quite a good living helping companies sell and government agencies buy. I know a few.
Novaflyer
It may well be the entire industry that acts that way. A couple of years ago I was at a tasting event with the either Grandson or Great Grandson of Jim Beam, and he was the same way. .
You're probably talking about Fred Noe III. Yep, he's a nice guy. As is Bill Samuels Jr. over at Maker's Mark. If you take a distillery tour here in Kentucky or attend a tasting at a Derby party or the Bourbon Festival, you might run into these guys. Or one of the many other storied distillers. To see Jack Daniels distillery, of course, you'll have to go to Tennessee. Even though the brand is now owned by a Kentucky company, (Brown-Forman) they are still most definitely a Tennessee whiskey.
For a little bit more about the whiskey business, check out this photo book at the author's website:
http://www.leonhowlett.com/kentuckybourbonexperience/
or at amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Kentucky-Bourbon-Experience-Kentuckys-Distilleries/dp/1935001817
Or just go visit a distillery.
Disclaimer: I know the author, but don't receive any compensation for the book. I just think it's a beautiful book.
...No, really. One way to measure the effectiveness of a voting system is the power of an individual voter to change the outcome of the election with his/her vote. Vote aggregation systems like the electoral college give an individual voter greater probability of affecting the outcome of a close election. There have been some very good analytical papers about this. Any system that lets a single vote move a block of aggregated votes has this characteristic.
I'm not ready to throw out the Electoral College system. In fact, I rather admire it. Just as I don't want New Yorkers deciding how I should talk or Californians deciding how I should think, I don't want mainstream group-think to decide all the politics of the day, either.
NovaPyro
Why do you assume this problem will first arise when Iranians fly into space? Have you considered the possibility that it has already arisen, as it were, and been addressed? Because it has, and it was.
Here's an interesting and useful link for you: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/files/a_guideline_ibadah_at_iss.doc
The title of the document is "A Guideline of Performing Ibadah (worship) at the International Space Station (ISS)" It's for the Malaysian space program, and one of their astronauts has already been to the ISS.
Here's the pun:
He "found" chapter 11, which apparently covers the intricacies of the "find" command to be useful.
Found. find. That's it. All of it. Really.
...is a valid, legal hobby in the US. And there are a lot of people who can help you. What you describe is quite achievable, and can be made quite safe. However, I do not believe you will be able to get it together in your extremely short timeframe, unless you have only a few fuses to light. And if you only have a few fuses to light, you don't need computer choreography.
I could (and do) write volumes on the subject of amateur pyrotechnics, but I'll try to keep this response short. Electrical firing systems for pytotechnics are designed to ignite a device known either as an electric match ("e-match," in the vernacular) or an igniter. Occasionally, someone will call it a "squib," but that is incorrect. E-matches are quite easy to fire, are typically wired in series when a lot of devices are fired at once, and are not legal for you to buy unless you hold an ATF license. You can legally make them, but there are requirements for storage and transport.
Hobby rocket igniters are legal for you to buy, store, and transport on the highways, and you should consider using them. But probably not for this New Year's eve. I suggest you work on your firing system for use later in 2007 (with resources I can point you to) and that you hand-light your current show.
You should get a trigger light propane torch. http://www.amazon.com/BernzoMatic-TS3000T-019028-T rigger-Propane/dp/B00008ZA0B It is also good to have a hat, eye protection, and (optionally, depending on your devices) ear protection. Wear long sleeve cotton shirt and cotton pants; jeans are great. On the issue of hats, a hard hat is best, but a cotton ballcap is okay. Synthetic cloth is bad; it offers very little protection. Tape or wire a penlight flashlight to the flame tube of the torch head so that when the light is on, it will show where the torch is pointing. This is so you can light the fuses in the dark without emcumbering both hands; it allows you to turn you body away from the pyro you're about to light.
Set up the devices you intend to use and secure them in place. For rockets, you'll need to build a simple rocket rack, for candles, you can affix lines of them to a board with wire or wire ties. Wire ties are safer, but candles rarely explode these days. Mortar tubes for festival balls should be mounted in a box or milk crate, affixed to a backing board that is attached to stake, or gang-taped and put into a bucket. Drive stakes in the ground and wrap tape around the stake and the outside of cakes (aerial repeaters); it can get a bit exciting if one of them falls over. And it happens frequently enough to make securing them worth the effort. Hang or drape crackerstrings from supported crossmembers; for a nice build up effect wrap them so that they lump up toward the one end of the board, then light a single string left hanging from the other end.
Basically, lay out the stuff to be shot so that you can walk fairly freely between the items. Put some thought into the arrangement so that you won't need to step between the viewing crowd and a row of devices already lit. If you work from front to back, you won't be as noticeable while you're firing the stuff. Work through your shoot order, draw a very simple site plan, and think about the effect each item produces. If you're going to have accompanying music, figure out some very basic time cues and light a group of devices on the cues. We're not talking precision here; just trying to spread the show through the music. IF you're not going to use music, then you can decide to light a new group of devices when the old ones begin to go out. In order to achieve some amount of synchrony, make sure you don't have to walk more than two or three steps to get all the devices in a group lit at the same time. Also, once you've done it a few times, you can light the very end of the first couple of fuses, the middle of the next group and the base of the final
The welded box beam, even when pierced at the welds, (that's what you've ASCII illustrated with " [|] ") is sufficiently strong to support the walkways. The design was correct, even though it would have been difficult to implement. Long threaded rods, suspended from the ceiling superstructure, were to hold up two crossing walkways. The design called for threading a nut (covered, I believe, by a large washer) twenty feet onto the ceiling rods. Instead of that, the design was changed so that two rods pierced the box beams holding the upper (4th floor) walk way. But wait, there's more: It wasn't the double piercing of the beam that caused the collapse. The problem is that the change doubled the load on the upper walkway. Because with the change the lower walkway became a load (e.g. was suspended from) the upper walkway box beams. In the original design, the load of the lower walkway (and the upper walkway) was carried by the long rod. The single rod could carry both loads. But the box beam failed at the attachment point of its hanger nuts. Oh, here's a nice drawing at wikipedia. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/
Novapyro
The lawyers at the CPSC tell us that by stopping sales of some chemicals, they believe they will stop the illicit "M-80" trade. We in the pyrotechnics hobby disagree.
For those that don't know: There is a "booming" business in making and selling illegal salutes. Sales of large (greater than 50 mg) salutes (the proper name for a noisemaking device which functions by the deflagration or detonation of flash powder) to the general public has been illegal since 1966. BATFE is the organization that sees to that enforcement. CPSC is not charged with that duty; they see mainly to products that are intended to be sold to consumers. However, the Federal Hazardous Substance Act grants them authority to regulate hazardous substances in certain limited situations. The CPSC is attempting to stretch their FHSA authority to cover the chemicals used in the manufacture of salutes. Currently, this is mostly finely divided metals (aluminum, magnesium, and "magnalium"; Al-Mg alloys) and potassium perchlorate, but there are other oxidizers that occur in some flash formulae.
CPSC has a persuasive powerpoint deck that shows lots of nasty injuries from illegal explosives. None of us, least of all the pyro hobbyists, want to have people lose fingers, hands, eyes, or lives over some pyro; we agree on that. However, we in the pyro community believe that hobbyist suppliers of pyro chemcicals aren't the source of the chems used in illicit trade; those come from traditional chemical supply houses, mostly.
Firefox Enterprises is currently in litigation with the CPSC over this. Go to their website http://www.firefox-fx.com/ and click on the CPSC link for details. Skylighter, my local supplier http://www.skylighter.com/ has been visited by the CPSC, but so far he (Harry Gilliam, proprietor) hasn't been enjoined to stop sales. He has very tightly restricted sales of salute-making chemicals however; so maybe that will hold the dogs at bay for the moment.
In the US, it is legal, at the federal level, to make your own fireworks without a license. State and local laws may indeed restrict you, but the feds (BATFE) allow it. We in the hobbyist pyro community would like to see that continue. Help us. Join the fireworks alliance, at no cost. http://www.fireworksalliance.org/ Read the information that Dave, Tom, and John put together there, and agitate your legislators. Buy something from one of the vendors above; there is a surcharge that goes to the CPSC defense fund. Donate directly to the fireworks foundation: http://www.fireworksfoundation.org/.
To help out and enjoy some great fireworks at club-sponsored events, Join the Pyrotechnics Guild International: http://www.pgi.org/membership.aspx. Join a local (or distant; some of our members are states away) pyro club: http://www.pgi.org/fireworks-clubs.aspx My club is The Crackerjacks http://www.crackerjacks.org/; but join any you like. We'd be happy to teach you how to safely construct individual fireworks, how to choreograph a disply, or just how to make your backyard fuse-lighting a better experience.
Novapyro
Well, I am. I'm not proud of the bloviating in the inept media, and I'm not proud of the fact that people don't work to understand the news. I'm not proud that many people, like you, are angry about things which are patently false. But I'm proud to live in a country that allows all those things.
That's simply wrong. Most of the Haliburton contract monies are flowing through a contract that Haliburton competed for long ago, won when in the original procurement, lost to Dyncorp in the follow-on recompete, and then won back in the next contract period. All before Iraq. Before 9-11, even. But you are free to remain ignorant of this. ("LOGCAP" is the name of that contract, and it has been held up as a model for how to handle unforseen future need.)
That Halliburton's subsidiary is performing this work well and at a very low price is not in dispute; Indeed KBR (the subsidiary) is making so little money on this that Halliburton is looking to sell the division, because the shareholders dislike the very low profit.
The "no-bid" contract, with which the main contract is conflated (sometimes for political purposes) is "Restore Iraqi Oil." In order to plan for putting out the predicted oil-well fires, and to stop oil spills and restore oil production, the Defense department put in place a no-bid contract before going to war. (This was done partly in response to what the DoD learned in Kuwait; the government was criticized then for not having forseen the need to contract for such services before the war started.) Though many loudly criticize this to score political points, there are very good and valid reasons to let no-bid (actually, "sole-source") contracts. Haliburton was judged to be the only company with the expertise, experience, staffing, and required security clearances to do the job. And despite the public chestbeating on the matter, no credible disputes have ever been raised on that point. You simply cannot put out for bid a contract which will reveal war plans. There are mechanisms in place to get the best possible price even in that circumstance. Those mechanisms are pre-bid IDIQ contracts (Indefinite Delivery for an Indefinite Quantity) and sole-sourcing. That's what was done, and it was prudent and correct to do so.
People who both closely follow and understand US Government contracting know this. I talk to many of them, of all political stripes, and I have not found one, even one, who thinks anything untoward happened in the award of RIO. I am not saying that either contract is perfect or flawless. But nobody I know, even staunch democrats, has stated a belief that these were bad contracting decisions, or that Dick Cheney affected the contract award.
Well, I suppose I'll need a bit more information before I will believe that such laws exist. What are your sources? I'm willing to research it and decide if I believe it, but I don't know what you mean.
If /., NY Times, and Washinton Post represent the full spectrum of your news world, then you're seeing a world painted all the same color. (I was working the "spectrum" analogy there, in case it was too clumsy to be clear.) I would generally expect WP to be left, NY Times to be left of that, and /. to be very left of the Times.
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No license is required to buy a gun. Where do you shop? Now, if you want to buy some explosives, (anything more than 1lb cans of black powder) you'll need a license.
That's simply not true. It is quite legal to make your own black powder (or 'BP', in the vernacular) in the US. I'd be happy to explain the rules, and point you to the resources if you're interested. State and local laws may restrict you, but that is by no means the usual case. If you make it, you have to store it properly (and that is clearly explained in documentation from BATF) and you may not transport it on the highways unless you are licensed. But you can make it on your own property, store it in a magazine, and use it there to your heart's content. I have frequent contact with BATF (Bureau of Alchol, Tobacco, and Firearms) and other authorities. And, by the way, I mean that it is legal even without an explosives manufacturing license. But you may, for the cost of filing and submitting fingerprints and a passport photo, obtain a license. If you apply for a license to manufacture explosives, it must be granted if you do not fall into one of the "disabled" classes of individuals. So, if you become licensed to manufacture explosives, then you can transport it as well as make it.
My club has literally tons of fireworks in our magazines, along with a few hundred pounds of BP. Some of the BP is homemade, some of it is commercially purchased. All of it is great fun, or hellishly dangerous depending on how you treat it.
In addition to the forgoing, other countries have long-standing and richly developed traditions of fireworks manufacture. And the most fundamental composition in fireworks construction is black powder. I know several people who manufacture fireworks in other countries. I do not know what the legal status is in all those places, but I presume it is legal in at least some of them.
See http://www.crackerjacks.org/ for details of the Crackerjacks. Also see http://www.pgi.org/fireworks-clubs.aspx for other clubs.
Why indeed. My company operates on millions to tens of millions of images in a typical job. In fact, while ImageMagick is a wonderful tool, it is far too slow for our level of production. We use if to proof very small runs, or to test ideas. It is wonderful software. Now, as the poster suggests, our "edits" are repetitive, even algorithmic. And the need for such a thing is very, very common.
I get all my glow supplies from http://www.glowinc.com/ ; here's a nice page of their wares: http://glowinc.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=2
Once the shell weight gets over 10-15 pounds or so, you generally would use only 32 to 1 proportions. So, after the lift charge gets up to a pound, you only increase it by 1/2 ounce for each additional pound of shell weight. This holds okay until the shell weight gets into above 50 pounds or so. Basically, the curve is slightly non-linear, until the pressure exponent of black powder eventually shifts the reaction into a very non-linear region. This is what happened with Grucci's attempt to launch the worlds biggest shell; the weight of the shell and the fit in the mortar drove the gas generation and lift dynamics into the very non-linear region of the equation.
See the late George Plimpton's "Fireworks" for an entertaining read on the non-linearity of this attempt. Incidentally, larger shells have been put up since. [ Reply to This ]
You misunderstand how the conventional method of shell launching works. They aren't rockets; they're just projectiles. The lift charge ignites, and the expanding gas projects the shell out of the mortar. (The mortars are frequently called "guns" in the trade.) The process is that of firing a large-bore black powder cannon.
If you observe a spiral trail (called a "tail") as the shell ascends, its because a large piece of pyrotechnic material (called a "star", or if it's really large a "comet") was affixed to the outside of the shell casing specifically to create that effect, and not because burning black powder is continuing to exert lift. For shells that don't have tails, you can sometimes see the time fuse burning as the shell ascends; it's much more faint and doesn't leave a "tail."
It is possible to use an internal (to the shell) embedded computer to fire the break charge. The common system is called "Magicfire" and works just as well with conventionally lifted shells as it does with pneumatically lifted shells.
Rockets (as opposed to shells) are used very rarely in commercial displays. This is mostly due to the simplicity and low price of standard shells, but also because rockets create a greater hazard to audiences. Specifically, they must remain stable throughout the thrusting phase. Shells just follow a ballistic trajectory, subject to spin effects and wind, of course, but still more predictable than cheaply made rockets. Also, rockets are (usually) stabilized by external devices that are not destroyed in the break; sticks from large rockets sometimes stabilize (because some of the casing or heading remains attached) and become blunt arrows on the way down. This can be a bit nasty.
I said "usually stabilized by external devices" because there are some rockets, commonly called "steenger missiles" or "stinger missiles" that are spin stabilized. These are a real hoot to make and use; they're the simplest aerial firework to construct once you have the tooling. You can make one in five minutes, and some of those babies can really get up there. Again, though, they aren't used in commercial displays. If you want to see a flight of them in a display sometime, you'll have to join a fireworks club and come out to a shoot. Details for the curious at http://www.crackerjacks.org/
...and found out you have to run Windows on the box as the primary operating system. I imagine that's why M$ isn't too ruffled by this. Linux can run on it on 4 or more of the processors, in groups. (I suspect "4 or more" requirement is due to the internal communications/synchronization buses.)
Apparently the box management is run from within the custom windows apps, so it won't be pure native Linux, at least not soon.
They say their market is datacenter server consolidation, specifically seeking situations where people want to move UNIX apps off old Solaris or HP-UX boxes onto a Linux box. Why anyone would do that by buying a box that comes with a built-in annuity to Redmond is a bit of a mystery. What's not a mystery is why Redmond wouldn't stand in the way of this effort. If it's successful (can't imagine it, personally) it would have the effect of putting compulsary Windows licenses into server rooms that might otherwise have switched to some more "pure" Linux install.
My wife (a Unisys employee) was pleased they were trying, but not impressed with the effort.
Most business is conducted with a verbal contract. We'd need the real facts to be sure, but there might not have been any contract formed in this case.
Here's one way to state the elements of a contract:
OFFER -- He has to offer to do the service according to some terms.
ACCEPTANCE -- Sheriff's Dept. has to agree and indicate their acceptance.
CONSIDERATION -- This is how you can tell it's a contract, and not a gift. The two sides have to have a bargained exchange of promises to do or pay something. The promiser must suffer a legal detriment (the giving over of moneys, the investment of work, etc) for it to be consideration. Now, you can have an enforcable promise, in the absence of two-sided consideration. The enforcement usually is done using the doctrine of Promissary Estoppel, though this is not a cause of action in all states.
MEETING OF THE MINDS -- There must be genuine assent. The parties can't be coerced or threatened.
CAPACITY -- Each side must be capable of forming a contract. Not crazy, mentally deficient, or a minor. When a person is speaking for an entity, like a sheriff's department, for instance, that person must have the apparent authority to commit a promise for the organization. You can't just call up whoever is working the desk and assume they can make a contract.
A LEGAL OBJECT -- Classically, you can't make a contract to kill someone. Ot to do anything else that is illegal. (OT: I don't know what MS does about this.)
So, sometimes it's not immediately apparent whether there was a contract. Was there one here? I don't know; depends on whether this (or some similar) list of elements was present.
- Franky - unless he is sued personally over this matter, I don't think it will matter much.
Once anybody has a couple of million in the bank, they can simply sit back and coast on investments. They can afford insurance against anything imaginable, and work truly becomes fun since you can walk out any time you get bored or annoyed with your boss.
A couple of million isn't much, particularly to a CEO. But your overall point is true: he doesn't have to worry about employment. He can just start another company, or (even more likely) come in and take over at a small firm that doesn't have enough cash to pay salary for a CEO. He can make a deal where his salary is deferred, use his name recognition to get fringe investors.Now, he may have to do this in another industry. Say, log home construction, or something. Or municipal sewer maintenance. Basically, an industry where the players don't know or care about SCO. But he can do it.
The only thing that will keep this man from being very rich someday is provably running afoul of SEC regulations, to a degree which will attract regulatory interest. Other than that, I think he'll do well.
Now, I'm not saying he should do well. Unless he is delusion (or very stupid while simultaneously being very brazen) he must be an untrustworthy liar. But he's got CEO experience, M&A experience, he's shown he's not afraid to litigate, and he can do financing deals. So, if he can stay out of jail, he'll excel. The bastard.
That's called a 1 bit transponder in some of the RFID literature. So, yes, it is an RFID system. Here's a nice reference at amazon. You can search within the text for "1 bit transponder" if you like.
RFID Book
And here's a nice quote from page 1 of the book: '... vast numbers of 1 bit transponders are used in Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) to protect goods in shops and businesses. If someone attempts to leave the shop with goods that have have not been paid for the reader installed in the exit recognises the state "transponder in the field" and initiates the appropriate reaction.'
Many of these systems operate by sensing the presence of multiple leaves of magnetic material, much like you would get from stack of the new 20s. So it's all that unlikely. One of the failings of the systems is that occasionally, non-nefarious objects resonate in the sensor field and false-trigger it. Coils of wire set off some of the systems; a close arrangement of magnetizable material sets off others.
are quite common in the proper circles. We shot a few dozen of them this past weekend, along with some 12 inchers and a 16 incher. We also shot a few thousand other shells and some concussion mortars, and strobe pots and mines and wheels... Come join us (or your local club) in a legal fireworks shoot. www.crackerjacks.org (Server upgrade in progress)