Since I've been "building" out my own version of the Mevhe using the X-Plane software suite, I can offer some more insight on the challenges of building this kind of flying wing:
On such an aircraft, the pilot makes up ~80% of the drag and ~70% of the weight: this means that you get to choose between keeping the pilot very close to the aerodynamic center, and modifying the wing's trimmed angle for pitch control while retaining decent stability, or you keep the pilot away from it and try to purposefully use this for creating dynamic stability.
OpenSky uses elevons, controlled by the pilot's harness. Basically, the pilot turns hips one way or the other to roll, and slides forward and back on the fuselage to pitch up or down.
By keeping the pilot and engines vertically near the CG they limit any dynamic change in pitching moment, and can keep the wing inside a known flight envelope, and tune its performance easily. They are apparently using a positive-pitch moment airfoil that looks a lot like the MH78 I'm using, plus a swept back section with washout for giving an additional boost to the pitching moment, as well as for (my guess) improving stall behaviour. The latter is especially important to avoid falling in a flat spin at low speeds.
My own version uses pure weight-shifting. The presence of the pilot over the wing induces some positive pitching moment so in this case, the further from the Cg the better (but higher tendency to spin). Once the wing is powered, the engine(s) provide(s) some more positive moment (the nacelle is below the CG). The more forward offset of the Cg over the Cp, the more longitudinal stability: on take-off the wing is very stable, but with power off a significant part of the stability is gone, making for dangerous landings unless the wing has a soft stall behaviour.
And with a pilot making most of the drag, leaning left and right to roll, the pilot's body acts as a big roll-coordinated drag rudder that maintains flight symmetry (you can also extend a leg or arm to the side if needed;) )
The half-scale model OpenSky built earlier used a zero-moment airfoil on a swept wing with washout for generating the positive pitching moment. Their move to a positive-pitch airfoil with a limited swept section is probably due to a concern over the necessary span of the wing: I think the swept wing would have needed to be too wide, which would have caused too many roll-induced yaw troubles.
Only two options here - it's fake an in their heads or it's real and it's a problem.
So if it's in their heads it's NOT a problem ? Congratulations, you've just demonstrated what those people are really complaining about: the attitude of the rest of the world to their problem.
The older one makes up new sentences out of words he knows. For example he has adapted the "want a preen" into "want a $X" where X is whatever he wants at the time. He adds the other parrot's name at the beginning, when addressing her. Same with "Can you give me a $X". They also have perfectly understood things like "NO!", "Don't!", "Stop it", and distinguish between "Come here" and "Come there". And as most pets, they're very receptive to body language as well.
The funny thing is they use only one of my parakeets' name to address all the parakeets generally, whereas each parakeet recognize its name. Given the obvious visual difference between the little birds, I don't really understand why they call them all with the same name.
They sometimes have heated arguments with each other, in which they use all this vocabulary with the proper tone...... and they're not 2 years old yet.
Your eclectus parrots were rised by their bird parents, apparently, were they imported (have a CITES id, or in worse cases, an open ring with no useful info on it) ?
This form of identification in language was previously only known to exist in the human world... except for the hundreds of thousands of parrot owners througout the world. My african greys call each other by name when asking for anything.
Just trading one mundane dog-eat-dog existance for another, without even the perk of entertainment.
Ah, yes, riding a gryphon to meet elven friends, making space cruisers appear out of thin air, hunting dinosaurs with meteorite rain spells and flying a Pelican Dropship over high tech physically-impossible buildings is just so mundane.
Where and when did you "last check" ? I know from the public comments of various LindeLab employees that SecondLife is returning a profit for them. I agree that the company, in its entirety, is losing money, but their main product is beneficial.
As should have been pointed out multiple times already: Second Life's main grid (adults only) is already turning a profit, but LindenLab isn't profitable as a whole (yet ?).
Considering all the various physical constraints and obstacles to sustained fusion reactions (like: current density must be over 2.6 A / squared cm, surface status must be as crack-free as possible, hydrogen-metal ratio inside electrode must be over 0.84, there must be some but not too much "light" water in the heavy water, etc...) I prefer calling it "Difficult Fusion":D
FTFA: Critical to Louis's theory is the length of time the red rain fell on Kerala. Two months is too long for it to have been wind-borne dust, he says.
It can't possibly have been raining blood from birds or bats for two months either.
Well, let me detail my own situation then: I'm an IT engineer in a country where unemployment is in the double digits. In my specific age and education class it's over 25%. I only ever get few-month-long missions for ever-varying employers. I can be laid off in a single day with no compensation, and I know a pay rise won't be happening in years. Social care ensures I get a revenue in between, but only for a few months.
And aside from that, I make about half as much as my salary in Second Life using my programmation and innovation skills. I really consider this additional revenue to be my insurance against misery, should I not manage to get a new job after the current one, mainly because I can work at it from most places in the world, anytime, for almost as long as I want or can afford. That's some significant security in my opinion.
My GF's parrots love to tear things apart, and that includes our iBook G3, PowerBook G4 867, and the assorted powercords that come with them. They chewed through a number of keys (which could fortunately be glued back together), and broke the LCD display on the Powerbook by biting the top... which came about right since I was contemplating buying a new one, and the insurance paid for most of its price. And the older one serves happily as Airport router and fileserver.
Long live Wireless networking, less things that protrude from the laptop or hamper movement around the room nor give attractive targets for parrot attacks:)
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Since I've been "building" out my own version of the Mevhe using the X-Plane software suite, I can offer some more insight on the challenges of building this kind of flying wing:
;) )
On such an aircraft, the pilot makes up ~80% of the drag and ~70% of the weight: this means that you get to choose between keeping the pilot very close to the aerodynamic center, and modifying the wing's trimmed angle for pitch control while retaining decent stability, or you keep the pilot away from it and try to purposefully use this for creating dynamic stability.
OpenSky uses elevons, controlled by the pilot's harness. Basically, the pilot turns hips one way or the other to roll, and slides forward and back on the fuselage to pitch up or down.
By keeping the pilot and engines vertically near the CG they limit any dynamic change in pitching moment, and can keep the wing inside a known flight envelope, and tune its performance easily. They are apparently using a positive-pitch moment airfoil that looks a lot like the MH78 I'm using, plus a swept back section with washout for giving an additional boost to the pitching moment, as well as for (my guess) improving stall behaviour. The latter is especially important to avoid falling in a flat spin at low speeds.
My own version uses pure weight-shifting. The presence of the pilot over the wing induces some positive pitching moment so in this case, the further from the Cg the better (but higher tendency to spin). Once the wing is powered, the engine(s) provide(s) some more positive moment (the nacelle is below the CG). The more forward offset of the Cg over the Cp, the more longitudinal stability: on take-off the wing is very stable, but with power off a significant part of the stability is gone, making for dangerous landings unless the wing has a soft stall behaviour.
And with a pilot making most of the drag, leaning left and right to roll, the pilot's body acts as a big roll-coordinated drag rudder that maintains flight symmetry (you can also extend a leg or arm to the side if needed
The half-scale model OpenSky built earlier used a zero-moment airfoil on a swept wing with washout for generating the positive pitching moment. Their move to a positive-pitch airfoil with a limited swept section is probably due to a concern over the necessary span of the wing: I think the swept wing would have needed to be too wide, which would have caused too many roll-induced yaw troubles.
Why bother with complex, heavy and very very expensive micro-turbojet engines ? Just strap a solid fuel rocket or two and be done with it.
Powered wingsuits have been tried already, with some success :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9DWAuqP-CQ (I cannot check this, I hope it's the correct link)
Google "opensky" and aim for the japanese pages. They have built the full scale model, and test-flown it. Videos available !
As for TFA, Patrick de Gayardon would be proud.
So if it's in their heads it's NOT a problem ? Congratulations, you've just demonstrated what those people are really complaining about: the attitude of the rest of the world to their problem.
The older one makes up new sentences out of words he knows. For example he has adapted the "want a preen" into "want a $X" where X is whatever he wants at the time. He adds the other parrot's name at the beginning, when addressing her. Same with "Can you give me a $X". They also have perfectly understood things like "NO!", "Don't!", "Stop it", and distinguish between "Come here" and "Come there". And as most pets, they're very receptive to body language as well.
... and they're not 2 years old yet.
The funny thing is they use only one of my parakeets' name to address all the parakeets generally, whereas each parakeet recognize its name. Given the obvious visual difference between the little birds, I don't really understand why they call them all with the same name.
They sometimes have heated arguments with each other, in which they use all this vocabulary with the proper tone...
Your eclectus parrots were rised by their bird parents, apparently, were they imported (have a CITES id, or in worse cases, an open ring with no useful info on it) ?
This form of identification in language was previously only known to exist in the human world ... except for the hundreds of thousands of parrot owners througout the world. My african greys call each other by name when asking for anything.
Just trading one mundane dog-eat-dog existance for another, without even the perk of entertainment.
Ah, yes, riding a gryphon to meet elven friends, making space cruisers appear out of thin air, hunting dinosaurs with meteorite rain spells and flying a Pelican Dropship over high tech physically-impossible buildings is just so mundane.
Where and when did you "last check" ? I know from the public comments of various LindeLab employees that SecondLife is returning a profit for them. I agree that the company, in its entirety, is losing money, but their main product is beneficial.
As should have been pointed out multiple times already:
Second Life's main grid (adults only) is already turning a profit, but LindenLab isn't profitable as a whole (yet ?).
The link is about TSO, by Maxis. TFA is about Second Life, by LindenLab.
Damn, and I just started reading Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age...
It's either Cold Fusion or Zero-Point Energy !
*goes back to watching sci-fi tv*
So, "race" is just a kind of superset of family line ?
Considering all the various physical constraints and obstacles to sustained fusion reactions (like: current density must be over 2.6 A / squared cm, surface status must be as crack-free as possible, hydrogen-metal ratio inside electrode must be over 0.84, there must be some but not too much "light" water in the heavy water, etc...) I prefer calling it "Difficult Fusion" :D
FTFA:
Critical to Louis's theory is the length of time the red rain fell on Kerala. Two months is too long for it to have been wind-borne dust, he says.
It can't possibly have been raining blood from birds or bats for two months either.
Sony BMG was just trying to profit privately from non copyable media while externalizing the costs to thousands of PC owners.
Doesn't that make it theft ?
Kinda reminds me of the saying "Throw half of the resumes in the bin - that way you avoid employing unlucky people."
... for sarcastic coment is priceless !
I shall go turn my blog into a defacement parody now.
Well, let me detail my own situation then: I'm an IT engineer in a country where unemployment is in the double digits. In my specific age and education class it's over 25%. I only ever get few-month-long missions for ever-varying employers. I can be laid off in a single day with no compensation, and I know a pay rise won't be happening in years. Social care ensures I get a revenue in between, but only for a few months.
And aside from that, I make about half as much as my salary in Second Life using my programmation and innovation skills. I really consider this additional revenue to be my insurance against misery, should I not manage to get a new job after the current one, mainly because I can work at it from most places in the world, anytime, for almost as long as I want or can afford. That's some significant security in my opinion.
I think you've pretty much summed up her whole defense strategy !
... why I've gotten those emails intended for Jessica Radaelli (jes.rad) in my GMail account (jesrad).
My GF's parrots love to tear things apart, and that includes our iBook G3, PowerBook G4 867, and the assorted powercords that come with them. They chewed through a number of keys (which could fortunately be glued back together), and broke the LCD display on the Powerbook by biting the top... which came about right since I was contemplating buying a new one, and the insurance paid for most of its price. And the older one serves happily as Airport router and fileserver.
:)
Long live Wireless networking, less things that protrude from the laptop or hamper movement around the room nor give attractive targets for parrot attacks
I'd just like to point out that France is not a democracy, but a republic. Thank you for your inattention.