Not any more. I've gotten to know some, and while we disagree, I understand their viewpoint.
For my money, what's been going on is the Republican party has been hijacked, just as surely as the Taliban hijacked Afghanistan. It's been taken over by business "interests" to the point that public policy is not created without it being directed in some way towards making someone money.
A good friend of mine is a policeman at the VA hospital where I work. He's clearly very conservative, and I'm quite the opposite, and we're both vets. We don't agree on much but we enjoy talking. One thing we do agree on: this is not the country we promised to defend. We don't know where it is, what happened to it or when, but we're both damn sure this ain't it.
And I doubt the Democrats are much different, except for the fact that the richer and therefore more powerful "interests" have collected within the Republican party, leaving the Dems weaker.
I've seen exactly this sort of political driving of science done at NIH. If it's not popular with the administration, you risk your career to pursue it, and it's a damn long way to fall if you fall from NIH.
The US is losing its edge in science in part because researchers are not moving to the US to work, and some US researchers are leaving.
"I wonder if at night they supply them with saws, arms and other cutting devices and let them at each other?"
From http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2002/302_bots.htm l
"Two robotic surgical systems have received FDA clearance to be marketed in the United States: The da Vinci Surgical System, made by Intuitive Surgical, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., is cleared to perform surgery under the direction of a surgeon. The ZEUS Robotic Surgical System, made by Computer Motion, Inc. of Goleta, Calif., has been cleared by the FDA to assist surgeons."
Grond sez: I don't know if you're misinformed or just didn't check your sources (I would certainly hesitate to claim that you're lying outright), but hydergine is most defninitely approved for use in the US."
For late stage dementias, where it does little good. In fact it may only serve to make the patient able to be aware of their cognitive decline. Consider the ending of "Flowers for Algernon" (the movie "Charlie"). Would you want to prolong your awareness of losing your mind?
As a general use nootropic, it is most certainly not approved in the US. Users here typically have to order it from Europe via the 1989 AIDS Drug Law rules, IF they can find someone here to prescribe it.
The greatest complaint against it? It can lower blood pressure. High blood pressure is far more common a problem that low, so it's safe for far more than not. People with normal blood pressure have nothing to fear. Besides, if something that lowered blood pressure were really a public health problem, you wouldn't find Rogaine for sale; it was originally to lower blood pressure, and the hair growtrh was a side effect. Just because it's used for that effect doesn't mean the other has disappeared.
A common problem with the open-top Apple IIs was the fact that the di9sk controller's contacts would oxidize and get flaky, and that it would happen faster with heat. I usually left my top loose to keep it from getting too hot, and so it would be easy to do the quick fix, yank the card and plug it back in, which cleaned the contacts enough to work.
For years I did this, all by habit, power off, lid up, pull card, push card (with a bit of wiggle) lid down, power up. Until one day when I forgot the first step and pulled the card with the power on. Nothing dramatic happened. In fact, after that, nothing at all happened. Well, I did some stuff, like yell and jump around, but the Apple never did anything again.
mike_mgo (589966) sez: "I get your point but there are a few differences."
Thanks for the coherent response.
Maybe you won't be backing your car into a bar. But if you step outside the front door of the largest research hospital in the world, the Clinical Center at NIH, you'll see signs saying "no smoking within 100 feet" and a dozen cars and busses with their engines running, belching fumes into the covered entrance. At the West Haven VA hospital, it's 50 feet and half a dozen vehicles. Each of those vehicles pump out far more than any smoker possibly can.
What are the results? Lots of cities across the US have smog and ozone warnings many times every summer. This is from vehicle exhaust, not from smoking. Tobacco is not contributing to global warming. Except of course the petrol powered vehicles for farming it.
Hey, I don't mind at all going that 50 or 100 feet. I've always gone out of my way not to force others to experience the smoke. Since some assholes can't manage to be as accomodating, we need those smoke-free laws (though smoking and non-smoking sections are more fair). I'd just like to know when I'm going to get equal consideration and not have to put up with tons of pollutants versus my ounces, or at least get recognition for the disparity and hypocrisy when I'm criticized personally or generically for my ounces versus your tons.
As for the beneficial effects of smoking to society as a whole, very little the way it's done. If it were done right, you'd see a very different picture. I've got relatives who've been trying to explain for over 500 years now that tobacco is a medicinal plant if used properly*. Of course that gets no more attention than the fact that for every edeath due to improperly used tobacco there's hundreds due to society's major addiction.
I've seen calculations of estimated total output of burned petroleum products worldwide per year. It'd be interesting to see the same figure for combusted tobacco products, both in content and in amounts.
* Prevention of Parkinson's and other auto-immune oxidative stress diseases, and amelioration of symptoms of many biopsychological diseases through its dopamine re-uptake and MAO inhibition properties. But just try to say something good about tobacco to a room full of hyper-politically-corrective researchers. So much for objectivity in science.
Fact is, he created the first nootropic (cognitive enhancing) drug, hydergine, and deserves far more recognition for that than for LSD, or any of the other drugs of far more utility that he created.
The fact that he's not recognized for this only indicates that most people would rather be stoned than smart. That's a damn shame for him, and shame on them.
Oh, and shame on the US for not approving hydergine for use. It's one of the safest drugs there is, and useful to most anyone. Unfortunately, like many good drugs, the patents are owned by non-US companies, so no US company stands to profit, and so the FDA doesn't approve it. If it were the case that nootropics weren't useful, then Nobel laureate Eric Kandel wouldn't have announced devoting the remainder of his career to creating them.
"So, how about instead of trying to push your smoke on the rest of us you just stop smoking?"
How about I go home and take a carton of cigarettes out to the garage and smoke all night? How about you go home, put the car in the garage, and lock yourself in there with the motor running all night? We'll meet back here tomorrow and discuss (1) whether I should stop smoking, (2) whether you should stop driving, and (3) hypocrisy via lack of perspective. We can vote on it, and I'll win because you'll be dead and we won't have to worry about you pushing your vehicle exhaust on the rest of us. Having you die this way is an OK sort of discrimination, because you've earned it.
Sure, it's sarcastic. Mod it flamebait if you want. Just as long as you think about it.
From the UPI article: "The giant rocket boasted up to 10 Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicles, or MIRVs, each of which would have a carried a hydrogen bomb thermonuclear warhead to incinerate a different North American or Western European city. Even more terrifying, some of them were believed to have been fitted with aerosol warheads to spray smallpox virus over their U.S. targets."
Is it even possible for the media to forego the use of FUD given the choice, rationality not withstanding? These birds haven't been pointed at us for over a decade. Why not just punctuate an article on gardening with a mention of how rich the soil was around Pompei after Vesuvius buried it?
Do they act the same in the brain? No. They're processed in different ways and by different parts of the brain.
Can they be treated the same? Damn right. The human brain is so designed to process stuff as language that it can use music as language. Neural plasticity, the ability of the brain to alter itself to do different things in different ways in different locations, is one of its miracle-like qualities.
Proving it can do something without training the brain to do so, and so confusing the results, is the hard part.
Of that, only $16,000,000 was for the Do Not Call Initiative. Add that to the previous year's $5,000,000 for the program, and the DNCI has netted a return on investment of 22,471%.
If they were allowed to keep the money, one year's worth of proceeds from the DNCI could keep them going for 20 years without requiring tax money.
Hell, give them all 50% raises. Between DNCI, anti-spam activities and online fraud prosecution, FTC is one of the most productive and useful US agencies ever. They deserve the money.
"I'm still trying to separate the fact fromt the FUD. At first I thought this was covering things like the little Estes model rockets my sons' Cub Scouts Pack built and fired, but these rockets are a whole different class."
The low power items you mention are presently very lightly regulated. The "law" that ATFE tried to pass all by themselves, without input or approval from anyone, wanted to change that. They're still trying, and using terroism as an excuse, despite the fact you can buy the same stuff (black powder) at Wally World, already in powder form and not mixed with stuff to SLOW the burning to a stable rate.
"While the vast majority of model rocketeers are not subject to regulation, high-powered rockets, which can be 30 feet long and weigh hundreds of pounds -- with some flying more than 60 miles or reaching speeds over 1,000 miles per hour -- do need to comply with the requirements of federal explosives law."
These aren't high power rockets, these are experimental rockets, like the CSXT GoFast. High power rocketry is defined as using engines approved by one or both of the two rocketry organizations (NAR and TRA). The go up to class M (your Estes rockets are usually A through C, possible up to E power).
One of ATFE's excuses was that a high powered rocket could be used to shoot down an airplane. Anyone who's ever built more than a couple understands quite well that these things are ballistic -- they have fins to keep them straight, but they are unguided. Imagine taking pot shots at something moving over 100 miles an hour with something a 1.5 to 3 inches in diameter (there's larger rockets, but the bigger they are the slower and even less accurate). Trying to prove this is what was going on when ATFE burned down the rented van.
They've since quit claiming this, and instead are saying they could be used to deliver a payload, such as biological or chemical, with "reasonable" accuracy. Sure they can. Far more accurate and easier would be dumping it out a car window as you drive by.
"We're talking real rockets here! And even if you ignore potential terrorist use, it does seem reasonable to have limitations on how much rocket fuel can be stored by a hobbiest (or anyone) in a residential neighborhood. So it does seem like the regulations are over the top (story hype doesn't help), but I'm still trying to figure out it they are really all that unreasonable."
People who sell big engines must have a government license. People who store them at home must also. People who fly them must get certified to do so by one of the groups. When we fly things over 1.5 pounds, we get FAA clearance. This is all perfectly good and reasonable regulation, and we approve of it (or at minumum accept and comply). People who fly the really heavy aluminum (like "heavy iron", but for rockets) like CSXT comply with even stricter regulations.
The points here are (1) ATFE is trying to regulate the hell out of the hobby, including little Estes engines if they can, despite the fact there is already adequate regulation in place for even their "anti-terror" needs, and (2) they're doing it in a rogue fashion, without following the proper legal procedures themselves. This last is not supposition. Part of the judge's latest statement was a request to the presidents of TRA and NAR to report to the judge any instance of an ATFE agent trying to tell a user, retailer or manufacturer that things were other than the judge decreed. Obviously the judge thought such actions by ATFE were possible. Rocketry will survive, but we're faced with the fact that ATFE, like much of the Bushland Security Forces, are running out of control and hoping we'll let them, based on vague mention of terrorism.
Some decent informational content, but some traditional WIRED/media FUD.
The latest explanation about the case progress from Mr. Bundick is at: http://nar.org/NARfrompres.html
Full archive of all NAR articles regarding this and related issues: http://nar.org/legislative.html
As for "losing" members, last I heard both NAR and Tripoli were maintaining even membership numbers.
Using CP Technologies as a measure is misleading. Their products are for building your own engines. Very few people are interested in that to begin with. Most use either single use motors, or more commonly reloadable motors.
Aerotech, manufacturer of mid-power rocket kits as well as reloadable motors and the reloads for them, is doing fine despite having suffered a fire. They filed bankruptcy, were purchsed by another company to keep them going, and are back in business full tilt, supplying thousands of rocketeers with motors and fuel.
We're supposed to take the word of ATFE that rockets are dangerous? Well, I guess they are in the wrong hands. ATFE burned down a rented van by being stupid while trying to test rockets to prove they were dangerous. See: http://www.maxthrust.net/displayarticle749.html
NAR #28965, 40 years without a rocket related accident or damage.
forii (49445) sez: "Pi is a natural constant, defined as the ratio between a circle's circumference and its diameter. A "meter" is an artificial definition."
As reductions in abstraction, all definitions are artificial. You mean 'arbitrary'. Regardless, the distinction is irrelevant here.
"Nobody was trying to legislate reality, just clarify definitions."
From snopes.com, the urban legends people, after debunking the article (written by April Holiday, nudge, nudge) about Alabama voting to redefine pi as 3.0, they add: "In 1897 the Indiana House of Representatives unanimously passed a measure redefining the area of a circle and the value of pi. (House Bill no. 246, introduced by Rep. Taylor I. Record.) The bill died in the state Senate."
Of course it's just trying to clarify definitions. Just ask a politician.
thedillybar (677116) sez: "The US Metric Law of 1866 said that one meter was equal to 39.37 inches, exactly."
How spectacularly American. Pass a "law" and redefine reality. We tried it with pi, too. And still we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're arrogant.
So, if I go ahead and use the real relationship between English and metric/CGS in order to properly place electrodes in epileptics' brains, rather than using the "legally defined" relationship and placing them improperly, do I need to worry about the USGS Cops arresting me for felony unit conversion?
Microsoft is being sued by God, holder of patent #0 ("Universe, including all living and non-living things, culminating in independently operating human beings") for infringement. God claims that "at minimum, humans already conduct electrical signals via their skin, as can be evidenced by measures of electrodermal activity". God's reference to the use of scientific data represents a departure from His traditional stance. His justification for this was given as "Hey, I created everything, so I created science, right? Besides, this Gates guy is really starting to piss Me off."
CNN also repeatedly said Mike Melvill was the first civilian astronaut. I'm sure this came as a surprise to Neil Armstrong, who apparently spent his entire military career unaware he was in the military.
Ignorant Aardvark (632408) sez: "May I remind you that escape velocity is defined as the initial velocity necessary to leave the Earth's gravity well provided that there is no additional acceleration. As long as your acceleration away from Earth is greater than than the Earth's gravitational acceleration at your distance from it, you will eventually escape Earth's gravity well, and at a speed of much less than Mach 25 to boot."
Your numbers are correct, but there's a difference between factual and practical. In order to lift a craft at constant thrust at say, Mach 3, out of Earth's gravity well would require so much fuel that it would weigh too much to get off the ground. And the well stretches out quite far. The Apollo shots were 200,000 miles out before the moon's gravity well became stronger than Earth's for them, which means Earth's hadn't really disappeared yet. The 25 kmph escape velocity represents the minimum energy escape.
The same thing applies to the "trivally easy" comment with respect to getting from Mach 3 to mach 25/orbit. There may be no air and so no max Q to overcome, but the fuel needed has to be carried up there in order to be used there, and that increases the takeoff weight, and that requires more takeoff fuel, and that means a bigger craft with more drag and so even more takeoff fuel and weight....
Besides, SS1 had little concern with aerodynamic drag. It launched from 50,000 feet. That's how it could be so small.
A French paper in 1913, reprinted in a 1958 book by Andrew Halley, the then president of the International Aeronautic Federation, calculated the minimum energy needed for a constant thrust trip to the moon (and Mars and Venus). The moon is 48 hours and 59 minutes away, the last 28 minutes of that being retro-thrust. Unfortunately the then greatest conceivable energy source, hydrogen/oxygen burning, such as the Saturn or the shuttle, has less than one percent of the energy needed to do the job (actually, 116 times too weak).
Until we get a light weight zero point energy source or some other exotic widget for energy without weight, punching holes in the sky is the only reasonable way to get past it.
A.C. sez: "Whether "the USA" is the government, or all of us"
No it isn't. The answer is Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites using Paul Allen's $20M. Nothing from the government, nothing from "the people". The question is, why do people think they deserve to share in the accomplishments of others when they have contributed nothing to that success?
Honor the successful. Emulate them if you can, aspire to it if you can't, and if nothing else let them inspire you. When you, in the individual or collective sense, accomplish something significant, then you deserve credit.
moberry (756963) sez: "If I am not mistaken this will be the first vehicle launched in the USA since the Columbia accident. That alone is something to celebrate. The USA is back in busness.:p"
The USA is NOT back in business. Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites is in business. The distinction is far more important than a simple correction, and is the whole point of the X-Prize. The USA deserves and gets no points for this one. In fact it should shame the USA that a few people and $20M can do what the USA can't.
So far we're doing a bad job of terraforming Earth -- terra-unforming more correctly. Until we can do a good job of it here, we have no right or reason to try elsewhere.
Originally the quark names were up, down, strange charm, truth and beauty. Then they changed truth and beauty to top and bottom. This is confusing. Why is up and top both used? Is top more up than up, ie. the most up?
Part of the fun of physics is the cool names. Top and bottom are boring. Perhaps they're exciting to certain persons of a particular sort of alternative lifestyle, and more power to 'em, but physics should be flashy and cool, with its WINOs and WIMPs, not boring with top and bottom.
"The SunnComm and BMG execs quoted in the article say that they're pleased with the apparent consumer acceptance of the anti-piracy technology."
Tin foil time:
The anti-piracy feature is not copy protection. It's failed, half-hearted copy protection, and they already know that. The real anti-piracy feature is in ripping these CDs despite the supposed protection, meaning you've circumvented it (despite the fact it works as well as a square car tire), and now you're in deep kimchee with the DMCA for both having copied copyrighted stuff AND breaking the protection scheme.
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Not any more. I've gotten to know some, and while we disagree, I understand their viewpoint.
For my money, what's been going on is the Republican party has been hijacked, just as surely as the Taliban hijacked Afghanistan. It's been taken over by business "interests" to the point that public policy is not created without it being directed in some way towards making someone money.
A good friend of mine is a policeman at the VA hospital where I work. He's clearly very conservative, and I'm quite the opposite, and we're both vets. We don't agree on much but we enjoy talking. One thing we do agree on: this is not the country we promised to defend. We don't know where it is, what happened to it or when, but we're both damn sure this ain't it.
And I doubt the Democrats are much different, except for the fact that the richer and therefore more powerful "interests" have collected within the Republican party, leaving the Dems weaker.
I've seen exactly this sort of political driving of science done at NIH. If it's not popular with the administration, you risk your career to pursue it, and it's a damn long way to fall if you fall from NIH.
The US is losing its edge in science in part because researchers are not moving to the US to work, and some US researchers are leaving.
"I wonder if at night they supply them with saws, arms and other cutting devices and let them at each other?"
m l
From http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2002/302_bots.ht
"Two robotic surgical systems have received FDA clearance to be marketed in the United States: The da Vinci Surgical System, made by Intuitive Surgical, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., is cleared to perform surgery under the direction of a surgeon. The ZEUS Robotic Surgical System, made by Computer Motion, Inc. of Goleta, Calif., has been cleared by the FDA to assist surgeons."
I grew up in the 60's.
I'd have taken both pills.
Grond sez: I don't know if you're misinformed or just didn't check your sources (I would certainly hesitate to claim that you're lying outright), but hydergine is most defninitely approved for use in the US."
For late stage dementias, where it does little good. In fact it may only serve to make the patient able to be aware of their cognitive decline. Consider the ending of "Flowers for Algernon" (the movie "Charlie"). Would you want to prolong your awareness of losing your mind?
As a general use nootropic, it is most certainly not approved in the US. Users here typically have to order it from Europe via the 1989 AIDS Drug Law rules, IF they can find someone here to prescribe it.
The greatest complaint against it? It can lower blood pressure. High blood pressure is far more common a problem that low, so it's safe for far more than not. People with normal blood pressure have nothing to fear. Besides, if something that lowered blood pressure were really a public health problem, you wouldn't find Rogaine for sale; it was originally to lower blood pressure, and the hair growtrh was a side effect. Just because it's used for that effect doesn't mean the other has disappeared.
A common problem with the open-top Apple IIs was the fact that the di9sk controller's contacts would oxidize and get flaky, and that it would happen faster with heat. I usually left my top loose to keep it from getting too hot, and so it would be easy to do the quick fix, yank the card and plug it back in, which cleaned the contacts enough to work.
For years I did this, all by habit, power off, lid up, pull card, push card (with a bit of wiggle) lid down, power up. Until one day when I forgot the first step and pulled the card with the power on. Nothing dramatic happened. In fact, after that, nothing at all happened. Well, I did some stuff, like yell and jump around, but the Apple never did anything again.
mike_mgo (589966) sez: "I get your point but there are a few differences."
Thanks for the coherent response.
Maybe you won't be backing your car into a bar. But if you step outside the front door of the largest research hospital in the world, the Clinical Center at NIH, you'll see signs saying "no smoking within 100 feet" and a dozen cars and busses with their engines running, belching fumes into the covered entrance. At the West Haven VA hospital, it's 50 feet and half a dozen vehicles. Each of those vehicles pump out far more than any smoker possibly can.
What are the results? Lots of cities across the US have smog and ozone warnings many times every summer. This is from vehicle exhaust, not from smoking. Tobacco is not contributing to global warming. Except of course the petrol powered vehicles for farming it.
Hey, I don't mind at all going that 50 or 100 feet. I've always gone out of my way not to force others to experience the smoke. Since some assholes can't manage to be as accomodating, we need those smoke-free laws (though smoking and non-smoking sections are more fair). I'd just like to know when I'm going to get equal consideration and not have to put up with tons of pollutants versus my ounces, or at least get recognition for the disparity and hypocrisy when I'm criticized personally or generically for my ounces versus your tons.
As for the beneficial effects of smoking to society as a whole, very little the way it's done. If it were done right, you'd see a very different picture. I've got relatives who've been trying to explain for over 500 years now that tobacco is a medicinal plant if used properly*. Of course that gets no more attention than the fact that for every edeath due to improperly used tobacco there's hundreds due to society's major addiction.
I've seen calculations of estimated total output of burned petroleum products worldwide per year. It'd be interesting to see the same figure for combusted tobacco products, both in content and in amounts.
* Prevention of Parkinson's and other auto-immune oxidative stress diseases, and amelioration of symptoms of many biopsychological diseases through its dopamine re-uptake and MAO inhibition properties. But just try to say something good about tobacco to a room full of hyper-politically-corrective researchers. So much for objectivity in science.
that Albert Hoffman is remembered only for LSD.
Fact is, he created the first nootropic (cognitive enhancing) drug, hydergine, and deserves far more recognition for that than for LSD, or any of the other drugs of far more utility that he created.
The fact that he's not recognized for this only indicates that most people would rather be stoned than smart. That's a damn shame for him, and shame on them.
Oh, and shame on the US for not approving hydergine for use. It's one of the safest drugs there is, and useful to most anyone. Unfortunately, like many good drugs, the patents are owned by non-US companies, so no US company stands to profit, and so the FDA doesn't approve it. If it were the case that nootropics weren't useful, then Nobel laureate Eric Kandel wouldn't have announced devoting the remainder of his career to creating them.
...who advised everyone to use Microsoft products, despite the fact that one of their own organizations made a secure Linux available for free?
Dear Homeland Security,
Compare and contrast:
(1) Your ass
(2) A hole in the ground.
"So, how about instead of trying to push your smoke on the rest of us you just stop smoking?"
How about I go home and take a carton of cigarettes out to the garage and smoke all night? How about you go home, put the car in the garage, and lock yourself in there with the motor running all night? We'll meet back here tomorrow and discuss (1) whether I should stop smoking, (2) whether you should stop driving, and (3) hypocrisy via lack of perspective. We can vote on it, and I'll win because you'll be dead and we won't have to worry about you pushing your vehicle exhaust on the rest of us. Having you die this way is an OK sort of discrimination, because you've earned it.
Sure, it's sarcastic. Mod it flamebait if you want. Just as long as you think about it.
From the UPI article: "The giant rocket boasted up to 10 Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicles, or MIRVs, each of which would have a carried a hydrogen bomb thermonuclear warhead to incinerate a different North American or Western European city. Even more terrifying, some of them were believed to have been fitted with aerosol warheads to spray smallpox virus over their U.S. targets."
Is it even possible for the media to forego the use of FUD given the choice, rationality not withstanding? These birds haven't been pointed at us for over a decade. Why not just punctuate an article on gardening with a mention of how rich the soil was around Pompei after Vesuvius buried it?
Do they act the same in the brain? No. They're processed in different ways and by different parts of the brain.
Can they be treated the same? Damn right. The human brain is so designed to process stuff as language that it can use music as language. Neural plasticity, the ability of the brain to alter itself to do different things in different ways in different locations, is one of its miracle-like qualities.
Proving it can do something without training the brain to do so, and so confusing the results, is the hard part.
429,000 * $11,000 = $4.719 BILLION
The FTC's 2004 budget was only $191,133.000.
Of that, only $16,000,000 was for the Do Not Call Initiative. Add that to the previous year's $5,000,000 for the program, and the DNCI has netted a return on investment of 22,471%.
If they were allowed to keep the money, one year's worth of proceeds from the DNCI could keep them going for 20 years without requiring tax money.
Hell, give them all 50% raises. Between DNCI, anti-spam activities and online fraud prosecution, FTC is one of the most productive and useful US agencies ever. They deserve the money.
You kick ass, Swindell.
"I'm still trying to separate the fact fromt the FUD. At first I thought this was covering things like the little Estes model rockets my sons' Cub Scouts Pack built and fired, but these rockets are a whole different class."
The low power items you mention are presently very lightly regulated. The "law" that ATFE tried to pass all by themselves, without input or approval from anyone, wanted to change that. They're still trying, and using terroism as an excuse, despite the fact you can buy the same stuff (black powder) at Wally World, already in powder form and not mixed with stuff to SLOW the burning to a stable rate.
"While the vast majority of model rocketeers are not subject to regulation, high-powered rockets, which can be 30 feet long and weigh hundreds of pounds -- with some flying more than 60 miles or reaching speeds over 1,000 miles per hour -- do need to comply with the requirements of federal explosives law."
These aren't high power rockets, these are experimental rockets, like the CSXT GoFast. High power rocketry is defined as using engines approved by one or both of the two rocketry organizations (NAR and TRA). The go up to class M (your Estes rockets are usually A through C, possible up to E power).
One of ATFE's excuses was that a high powered rocket could be used to shoot down an airplane. Anyone who's ever built more than a couple understands quite well that these things are ballistic -- they have fins to keep them straight, but they are unguided. Imagine taking pot shots at something moving over 100 miles an hour with something a 1.5 to 3 inches in diameter (there's larger rockets, but the bigger they are the slower and even less accurate). Trying to prove this is what was going on when ATFE burned down the rented van.
They've since quit claiming this, and instead are saying they could be used to deliver a payload, such as biological or chemical, with "reasonable" accuracy. Sure they can. Far more accurate and easier would be dumping it out a car window as you drive by.
"We're talking real rockets here! And even if you ignore potential terrorist use, it does seem reasonable to have limitations on how much rocket fuel can be stored by a hobbiest (or anyone) in a residential neighborhood. So it does seem like the regulations are over the top (story hype doesn't help), but I'm still trying to figure out it they are really all that unreasonable."
People who sell big engines must have a government license. People who store them at home must also. People who fly them must get certified to do so by one of the groups. When we fly things over 1.5 pounds, we get FAA clearance. This is all perfectly good and reasonable regulation, and we approve of it (or at minumum accept and comply). People who fly the really heavy aluminum (like "heavy iron", but for rockets) like CSXT comply with even stricter regulations.
The points here are (1) ATFE is trying to regulate the hell out of the hobby, including little Estes engines if they can, despite the fact there is already adequate regulation in place for even their "anti-terror" needs, and (2) they're doing it in a rogue fashion, without following the proper legal procedures themselves. This last is not supposition. Part of the judge's latest statement was a request to the presidents of TRA and NAR to report to the judge any instance of an ATFE agent trying to tell a user, retailer or manufacturer that things were other than the judge decreed. Obviously the judge thought such actions by ATFE were possible. Rocketry will survive, but we're faced with the fact that ATFE, like much of the Bushland Security Forces, are running out of control and hoping we'll let them, based on vague mention of terrorism.
Some decent informational content, but some traditional WIRED/media FUD.
The latest explanation about the case progress from Mr. Bundick is at: http://nar.org/NARfrompres.html
Full archive of all NAR articles regarding this and related issues:
http://nar.org/legislative.html
As for "losing" members, last I heard both NAR and Tripoli were maintaining even membership numbers.
Using CP Technologies as a measure is misleading. Their products are for building your own engines. Very few people are interested in that to begin with. Most use either single use motors, or more commonly reloadable motors.
Aerotech, manufacturer of mid-power rocket kits as well as reloadable motors and the reloads for them, is doing fine despite having suffered a fire. They filed bankruptcy, were purchsed by another company to keep them going, and are back in business full tilt, supplying thousands of rocketeers with motors and fuel.
We're supposed to take the word of ATFE that rockets are dangerous? Well, I guess they are in the wrong hands. ATFE burned down a rented van by being stupid while trying to test rockets to prove they were dangerous. See: http://www.maxthrust.net/displayarticle749.html
NAR #28965, 40 years without a rocket related accident or damage.
forii (49445) sez: "Pi is a natural constant, defined as the ratio between a circle's circumference and its diameter.
A "meter" is an artificial definition."
As reductions in abstraction, all definitions are artificial. You mean 'arbitrary'. Regardless, the distinction is irrelevant here.
"Nobody was trying to legislate reality, just clarify definitions."
From snopes.com, the urban legends people, after debunking the article (written by April Holiday, nudge, nudge) about Alabama voting to redefine pi as 3.0, they add: "In 1897 the Indiana House of Representatives unanimously passed a measure redefining the area of a circle and the value of pi. (House Bill no. 246, introduced by Rep. Taylor I. Record.) The bill died in the state Senate."
Of course it's just trying to clarify definitions. Just ask a politician.
thedillybar (677116) sez: "The US Metric Law of 1866 said that one meter was equal to 39.37 inches, exactly."
How spectacularly American. Pass a "law" and redefine reality. We tried it with pi, too. And still we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're arrogant.
So, if I go ahead and use the real relationship between English and metric/CGS in order to properly place electrodes in epileptics' brains, rather than using the "legally defined" relationship and placing them improperly, do I need to worry about the USGS Cops arresting me for felony unit conversion?
... is like going on a date alone.
Sure, you can do it, but what's the point?
Microsoft is being sued by God, holder of patent #0 ("Universe, including all living and non-living things, culminating in independently operating human beings") for infringement. God claims that "at minimum, humans already conduct electrical signals via their skin, as can be evidenced by measures of electrodermal activity". God's reference to the use of scientific data represents a departure from His traditional stance. His justification for this was given as "Hey, I created everything, so I created science, right? Besides, this Gates guy is really starting to piss Me off."
CNN also repeatedly said Mike Melvill was the first civilian astronaut. I'm sure this came as a surprise to Neil Armstrong, who apparently spent his entire military career unaware he was in the military.
Ignorant Aardvark (632408) sez: "May I remind you that escape velocity is defined as the initial velocity necessary to leave the Earth's gravity well provided that there is no additional acceleration. As long as your acceleration away from Earth is greater than than the Earth's gravitational acceleration at your distance from it, you will eventually escape Earth's gravity well, and at a speed of much less than Mach 25 to boot."
Your numbers are correct, but there's a difference between factual and practical. In order to lift a craft at constant thrust at say, Mach 3, out of Earth's gravity well would require so much fuel that it would weigh too much to get off the ground. And the well stretches out quite far. The Apollo shots were 200,000 miles out before the moon's gravity well became stronger than Earth's for them, which means Earth's hadn't really disappeared yet. The 25 kmph escape velocity represents the minimum energy escape.
The same thing applies to the "trivally easy" comment with respect to getting from Mach 3 to mach 25/orbit. There may be no air and so no max Q to overcome, but the fuel needed has to be carried up there in order to be used there, and that increases the takeoff weight, and that requires more takeoff fuel, and that means a bigger craft with more drag and so even more takeoff fuel and weight....
Besides, SS1 had little concern with aerodynamic drag. It launched from 50,000 feet. That's how it could be so small.
A French paper in 1913, reprinted in a 1958 book by Andrew Halley, the then president of the International Aeronautic Federation, calculated the minimum energy needed for a constant thrust trip to the moon (and Mars and Venus). The moon is 48 hours and 59 minutes away, the last 28 minutes of that being retro-thrust. Unfortunately the then greatest conceivable energy source, hydrogen/oxygen burning, such as the Saturn or the shuttle, has less than one percent of the energy needed to do the job (actually, 116 times too weak).
Until we get a light weight zero point energy source or some other exotic widget for energy without weight, punching holes in the sky is the only reasonable way to get past it.
A.C. sez: "Whether "the USA" is the government, or all of us"
No it isn't. The answer is Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites using Paul Allen's $20M. Nothing from the government, nothing from "the people". The question is, why do people think they deserve to share in the accomplishments of others when they have contributed nothing to that success?
Honor the successful. Emulate them if you can, aspire to it if you can't, and if nothing else let them inspire you. When you, in the individual or collective sense, accomplish something significant, then you deserve credit.
moberry (756963) sez: "If I am not mistaken this will be the first vehicle launched in the USA since the Columbia accident. That alone is something to celebrate. The USA is back in busness. :p"
The USA is NOT back in business. Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites is in business. The distinction is far more important than a simple correction, and is the whole point of the X-Prize. The USA deserves and gets no points for this one. In fact it should shame the USA that a few people and $20M can do what the USA can't.
So far we're doing a bad job of terraforming Earth -- terra-unforming more correctly. Until we can do a good job of it here, we have no right or reason to try elsewhere.
Originally the quark names were up, down, strange charm, truth and beauty. Then they changed truth and beauty to top and bottom. This is confusing. Why is up and top both used? Is top more up than up, ie. the most up?
Part of the fun of physics is the cool names. Top and bottom are boring. Perhaps they're exciting to certain persons of a particular sort of alternative lifestyle, and more power to 'em, but physics should be flashy and cool, with its WINOs and WIMPs, not boring with top and bottom.
"The SunnComm and BMG execs quoted in the article say that they're pleased with the apparent consumer acceptance of the anti-piracy technology."
Tin foil time:
The anti-piracy feature is not copy protection. It's failed, half-hearted copy protection, and they already know that. The real anti-piracy feature is in ripping these CDs despite the supposed protection, meaning you've circumvented it (despite the fact it works as well as a square car tire), and now you're in deep kimchee with the DMCA for both having copied copyrighted stuff AND breaking the protection scheme.