Because it's hydrazine. Really nasty stuff no one wants to be shooting off on the ground. I read the link and I think whoever wrote the Air Force Magazine article either took liberties or talked to the only knucklehead around Space Command. For example, "We found things we hadn't seen before, such as a warm up period." Really? This is why every GPS satellite ever launched has pre-heaters for it's hydrazine thrusters? (They're called "cat bed heaters" if you're looking at Reaction Control System telemetry). He then quotes him to say, "The 50th SW sucked up the workload while doing normal operations," which was then contradicted by the finished statements, "Upon completion, it will be turned over to the 50th." (I'm paraphrasing.) LEO, or Launch and Early Orbit is normally not done by the same crews as on orbit ops. The 4 SOPS get's SCO, or Satellite Command Authority, after it's handed off by the group responsible for LEO has put it into operational orbit, and performed basic check-out to ensure it's mission capable. The 4 SOPS also has the unique situation of being augmented by a National Guard unit, the 148 SOPS, which also performs MILSTAR operations 24/7/365. So, the 50th has a "little" help:) when it comes to Milstar.
Yes and no. We were deeply into isolationism and trying desperately to ignore Germany. If you read "Beast in the Garden" you'll see our only interest was for them to pay back reparations. When our ambassador tried raising the flag on Hitler's "Final Solution," most thought the stories were made up, the Jews probably created the situation, etc. We "apologized" for any stories neg about Germany and then again, tried to get reassurances we'd get paid back.
I think any Russian General older than 60 would disagree that invading Germany was easy and low cost, compared to a nuke. Seeing as we had to completely strip a bomber to it's bare minimum, and fly it off a deck not meant for that platform, I would challenge the premise, "We were ready to invade." We would have had no air superiority, against a Kamikze ready force, which had to go huge distances via boat to arrive. This is just begging to things to go wrong.
With a wavelength of just under 10 miles for a 15kHz signal, the necessity of shielding is a matter of how long your speaker cable is.
Most people seem to have speaker wires that make great quarterwave dipole antennas annoyingly near the 15M / 10M / 6M ham radio bands or the 11M CB band. The problem is some classical, lets say, pre 00s audio output final power amps have something of a rectifying effect on the incoming RF. So you end up hearing clearly every trucker who drives by. Trivially fixed with a bit of shielded coaxial cable. Assuming your negative speaker lead either can be grounded, or already is grounded, a couple minutes with a swiss army knife and a length of old antenna / cable tv coaxial cable will either result in a trip to the ER if you have low DEX statistics, or a nice shielded speaker wire ready to install.
You can also spend some dough on RF ferrite chokes, but frankly its usually cheaper to use scrap cable, assuming you have some laying about.
If anyone reads this and decides to try it, be very careful. I'm somewhat certain grounding a speaker wire will do very bad things depending on the Class of Amp you're using for your home stereo. In other words, I would not try this under most circumstances and with 100% knowledge you might "let the ghost out" of your amps IC board.
To the casual reader, it looks like Timbo is replying to this post:
Yes, how dare you philistines mock the $1,095 HDMI cable? The zeros and ones are so much sharper and clearer than the zeros and ones transmitted over cheap cable.
This is why we quote excessively.
no, we don't
How do you quote?
I wonder as well, however I have an HDMI problem and I'm waiting on this new one to fix it so I can watch the "How To" video in 5 D with 13.1 surround!
If you are considering a Mac Mini (which I am likely to use soon), you might consider Twonky Media server with it. I'm not an expert, but with an iMac and a MBP, I run Twonky and stream video, audio and pictures to my iPhone, and XBOX 360. It's only $19.99 for the license and the server has a 30 day free trial. I also paid the $ for their iPhone app just for giggles, and I was able to hit a "media server" on my iPhone from my MBP. I have no idea why anyone would stream FROM their iPhone, but you can.
There are costs being here, but, first it's not that much compared to our GDP. We're also drawing down, as we were 130k at peak and we're now under 90k troops. Second, it's an NATO-ISAF mission, so the US isn't paying for all of it. We pay a majority, but not all of it. Let's look at it historically. We stayed in Iraq and although sectarian violence is a growing problem, they are governing themselves and no longer a threat to the region. We stayed in Japan, and they became, within 20 years, the leading country in terms of manufacturing and economics (as a result). In the 70s and early 80s, Japanese cars were derided in the US and quality was lacking. Today, a Japanese car (Honda, etc) holds a better resell than many domestics and the quality is top notch. Compare that to Hyundai. I had a Hyundai XG350 listed for $2,000 under value for a year and only got one call. We stayed in Germany, and within 20 years they became a powerhouse within Europe. Today, they keep the Euro afloat and have the largest, strongest economy. On the flip side, we ran from Vietnam and 4 decades later it's still stagnant. We ran from Mogadishu, and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands are slaughtered annually. So the answer to your first question is: It depends. There was a political will in Europe, and Japan, and we're still in those regions today with Air Force and Army bases that foster information sharing, Joint/Combined military exercises, etc. If we punch out due to a lack of will to see this through, then the historical answer is that someone, not us, will prevail. It could be the Taliban, China or Iran, or some other power sharing. On your second question, the Taliban does cost money. Their fighters expect to get paid, you have to buy the chemicals they use to make home-brewed IEDs, and logistics. They're hurting big time because not only are we killing their leadership (who know where the money is), we're disrupting their ability to move and use cash. Like I replied earlier, there are a lot of foreign figthers. You have to equip them, move them, etc. So just as they try to disrupt our "Freedom of Movement," we restrict theirs so it costs more to train (locations move), costs more to equip (we are raiding their caches in staggering numbers), and move the cash (there's corruption on their side too... $10 sent might result in $1 making it).
On your second paragraph/point, you might be right. We will see.
The third area it's harder for me to gauge where we are, versus where we were, and how effective things are in making things better. Under Gen McChrystal and Petraeus, the daily CUA (briefs to the senior leadership) had a lot of status slides on rebuilding, training, local governance, population outlook, etc. The new 4* General is a USMC guy, and he doesn't appear to be embracing the "hearts and minds," campaign they created, called COIN. It seems he's gone more into Special Ops, and just plain punching the bad guys straight in the face (to use a euphemism). He's also adopted a more "Obama style" approach of keeping the exit door in view, but that may just be a coincidence. I don't think it is, but it's possible. We're due to draw down in 2014, and Obama has shown that regardless of a power vacuum or other problems left behind, he just wants out. Two years ago the ANA was hardly ready to take the lead on any operations, however, I've noticed that lately they are taking the lead quite often and actually doing very well. They're effective at calling in Close Air Support (harder than it may seem), basic searching and security, etc. It's now quite common to see successful operations they performed alone, as well as Combined patrols where they took the lead. Maybe one day if I have time, I can look at this from a Macro view and see how spread out they are, but I just haven't had the time and it's not part of the briefs I see. My main takeaway on this point is that we're training more of them, they're getting quite effective, however they have large logistical and public perception issues in some
Most trained fighters, and nearly all TB leaders, here are foreigners. They are Pakistan, or from areas of the Middle East that come here to fulfill their Jihad obligations according to their Mullah (because Islam is a religion of peace, ya know). The local fighters are often untrained and have a very short lifespan (meaning they don't usually survive to be captured). Look at footage of Libia to see examples of what I'm saying: Guy runs to the middle of the street, fires off every round of his automatic assault rifle, and then....RUNS BACK TO COVER. Do that against a highly trained military force and your life expectency is measured in days, probably minutes. We have problems like this training Afghans to be their own Army. It used to be, if they found an IED, they'd shoot at it, and/or throw it in the back if their truck (I'm not exaggerating or making this up). Wonder why many didn't make it back to camp? I don't have Intel on the Gitmo detainees, although I haven't really looked to see if I do have access since I don't have a "need to know," but from what I recall a majority are also foreign. This is why extradition is a barrier. We capture them in Afghanistan or Iraq, but they're not from Afghan or Iraq. And their home nations don't want them and others won't give them amnesty because they've smartly realized: these are armed radicals. Why in the world would I let them come into my nation and create issues.
The only problem with the propaganda issue is this: Most Afghans are illiterate. They also don't have electricity or running water. Everything they learn is talking to their neighbor and MAYBE watch a little bit of TV at the open market (Bazaar). You can hardly call this a PsyOps (the guys who do military propaganda) rich environment, since our troops don't hang around talking to villiagers or at bazzars for obvious physical security reasons. SpecOps do but I won't talk about what they do. We broadcast propaganda on the radio, but again, a lot don't have radios and one of the first things TB does is search homes for anything "West related." If TB find a radio in someone's home, they're accused of being spies and often killed. We do drop leaflets, but it's usually just asking them to NOT allow people to plant IEDs because it's killing their own women, children, etc. I don't know if the # is classified, but I would generalize it to say they kill 4 Afghans for every 1 ISAF person involved. I say involved because we've gotten exceptionally better at finding them, and Afghans are tipping off ANA, ANP, and ISAF in record numbers as to the locations of IEDs. (see the "radio means you're a spy" above, they know huge numbers are tipping us off).
Which brings me to my last point, there's not really a "national identity" here. When I talk to Afghans, it's not, "Oh you invaded," because they don't think like that. As I mentioned, all they care about is: How can I live through today and provide for my family. There are regions of Afghanistan that have no idea the Americans are even here. Seriously. Tribal affiliations are their identity. So, unless you're attacking __their__ villiage, they really aren't tracking or care what you're doing. This is why in the South, Pres Karzai isn't really considered their leader. He's just some uppity guy, hundreds of KM away, that doesn't help make (in their eyes) their lives any easier or better. Now, you spend a few thousand dollars on a road, or drilling a well (so the villiage knows they will have fresh water to drink, farm,etc), or something and now they're extremely interested in you. Which, this is the path ISAF is trying but having on and off success. We go in, build a road or school for them, put in a well, and then the TB comes in and blows it up. It's, I think, partly the reason we have had what ever successes we do have. Go with us, and we build things for you. TB just takes and destroys. But I come full circle at this point, it still boils down to, "Which side will ultimately provide them security." And in some regions they
First, it's really hard to read what you're saying, when you have huge run-on sentences. I have no idea what your first sentence is trying to say, or not say. However, I'll take a stab at it. Yes, there are 0 (zero) Afghans who have watched a US Soldier burn a Koran with their own eyes. There are many who were told by TB that they were, after the TB guy burned something down and then threw a Koran into the ashes. Your second sentence seems to ramble a duplicate of the first, but I'll give a second example. The Afghan has never watched a US Soldier stop a public soccer game, bring out a 7-9 yr old boy, and then hang him from a goal post, yet quite a few watched this done by TB. So to answer your question: Yes, you should usually be able to discern conduct you watch, versus conduct described that does not follow what you've observed. Now the real issue here isn't them discerning truth versus non-truth. You seem to have skipped the entire, following discussion. The issue really is, "Who is the winning side." If they think the US is going to prevail, they'll believe whatever we tell them. If they think the TB will prevail, they'll go with whatever they tell them. This is why most are stuck between because, depending on their past, they may not like either choice. They just want to be left alone to be able to farm their land and provide for their family. Sorta like the US. You really don't care if a Democrat or Republican is the President because as long as you can provide for your family, it really doesn't impact your daily life.
I'm not sure if you're American or not from your post, but I'll go based on your comments that you're completely in the dark about US, US Law, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. US law does now allow imprisonment without a trial. Military Law allows enemy unlawful combatants to be held because there are severe jurisdiction and legal issues that arise when someone is unlawfully waging war. If a Saudi unlawfully fires an RPG provided in Pakistan, against a US and British patrol, who prosecutes? Whose jurisprudence prevails? Then, for Professionals in Arms there are two additional sets of laws. For Title 10 soldiers, airman, sailors and Coast Guardsmen (there are a few in Afghan), you have the UCMJ. This is why the soldiers at Abu Ghraib are no longer serving as they were tried and convicted under UCMJ for breaking those laws, as well as others of the last set of laws I mention, Law of Armed Conflict. There is no civilization alive that would survive a litmus test of condemning everyone for the mistakes of a few. Every military and civilian sent over is briefed on the LoAC laws and how they pertain to them. This is why if a Sniper sees an IED emplacer digging in the road, he can then watch for hostile intent. When the emplacer confirms hostile intent with an IED device being buried, he is then lawfully able (doesn't always happen) to take a shot. Let's say the shot misses its mark and the guy starts to limp away. There is no longer hostile intent, nor capability (he's left the IED behind) and the Sniper is bound by LoAC to NOT take a 2nd shot. This also happens often. A Quick Reaction Force (QRF) will respond (as usually the Sniper team will stay in place or egress as to not be found/seen) and find the blood trail, and no bad guy to be found.
What is Obomber? Is that a misspelled October reference to an event? A reference to Obama allowing bombing, which every President for a few decades on both sides have allowed? We've been bombing militants and terrorists since before Reagan. Libia and Gaddafi ring any bells?
I poorly articulated the original response relative to your original point: Their "logic" is in no way similar to ours other than the very bottom layer of Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs: Physical Security. If they think the Taliban will provide them and their family better security, they will continue to dig in the middle of the dirt road to emplace an IED (knowing they have a very good liklihood of being spotted by a UAV and being at the pointy end of a GBU). The "winning side" will still be taking care of their family is one strong riding priority.
If they think the US will win, they'll take our money to to go school. However, they have seen large power (Brits, Soviets, and now ISAF) come in, play around in the dirt, and then go home. So you tell me: If you've been abandoned for centuries by people who want you to learn to read and other things that don't directly (in your Afghani mind) put food on your table for you and your family, why would you switch sides from the guy who's been your neighbor for centures and occasionally burns your phone, kills a friend, etc? That's the choice they make, and the reality of their logic. The rest is usually, "Allah Willing." If you die or live, it's whatever Allah determined for you regardless of your decisions.
There are literacy programs, but it's usually one of the first targets of the insurgents. They also believe 50% of the population (women) are not allowed by their religion to be on equal footing, nor go to school. Attacks on little girls, here in Afghan as one example, are much more common than you will ever see on the news.
As a guy working CJ2 (Intel) in Afghanistan (I'm in Kabul), with intelligence collection systems, believe me. I have a really good grasp on who does what, how, to whom, and for how long they've been doing it. If you're going to be specific, it's not "Paks," as it's more the ISI that is supporting insurgents. There is a def rift between the Political, ISI and Military leadership that's gotten even wider in the last couple months. INS just suicide bombed the Paki military in today's news, and kidnapped a dozen troops who they said, "We will hack them into pieces and send them to their commanders." I do not doubt their resolve to do this in any way.
In any case, you still haven't equated an IQ with an analogy. Since you're still stuck on square 1, let me help. Analogies are not meant to be literal. I once tried explaining a point of orbital mechanics (space maneuvers) to an AF Lt Col using a plane as an anology since she seemed to be having difficulty understanding it. Instead of looking big picture, she stops me in mid-sentence and said, "Oh, so you're a pilot?" I have flown a plane but that wasn't the point. Physics is physics. The "Big Picture" here are people who, when faced with an opposing logic, have a tendency to do everything to destroy what doesn't support their original beliefs. RIAA sues in mass, often snaring innocent grandmothers, and Taliban burns phones. It's a similar picture, only a differing level of action taken in response. It's also a similar response to when someone can't logically defend their position they tend to just say, "You're a moron." Get it? If you're interested in investigating this more, look into logical fallacies and then explore first, since it's very relevent to this discussion, "Straw Man." You take someone's example and present a grossly distorted, exaggerated example of their position, such as bringing in mass genocide (killing millions), and then discredit the original thought. It's not sincere, and mature conversations will never take place when its practice is commonplace.
Sounds like you're here in Afghan with me. Hope your day gets better and Happy Holidays. FWIW, as a military officer, I've read not only every book on the Commander's Read List regarding insurgency, Islam and most terrorist topics. I've also studied greatly US Foreign Policy, Overseas Diplomacy (Beasts in the Garden is a great book) and many other topics relevent to armed conflict.
I'm just begging to hear this logical fallacy play out. Humor me. How does the comparison PROVE BMO's IQ? What would be an IQ boosting analogy you agree with, and what's the threshold between a 120 IQ analogy and a, say, 40's IQ analogy? I'm just curious since I don't recall this lesson in any critical thinking-related classes.
That's the huge problem: They don't think for themselves and there are literally centuries of distrust you're working against. Iliteracy is in the high 90-percentile in Afghanistan, and no one trusts anyone outside their villiage. For example, when that whacked out minister from Florida said he was going to burn the Koran, not actually do it but said he would, there were huge protests here. NATO and UN cars trying to enter/leave base were attacked, windshields cracked from large rocks thrown at them, etc. Those were just WORDS at that point, as I don't think he ever actually did it. Then, the TB incited people by saying the US Government endorsed the guy and was part of the Koran burning. You and I know that's ludicrous, but when you're literally a goat herder in the middle of nowhere, can't read or write, what else would you believe? Religion is just the ends to justify the means. TB are murderers who use the veil of Islam to justify their evil. Think through the logic on this parent thread: It's ok to put out a video of a man having his head severed with an old rusty machette, or hang a 7 yr old child in the middle of a public soccer game, because you THINK he might be helping the US, but... it's NOT ok to take a picture of a naked lady.
How do you logic with that? The answer is you can't. I don't really expect you to understand because you're in a Westernized, modern, industrial world. You follow laws, understand technology and very likely had an education. None of these are done here, in Afghanistan where I write these words, nor have they been done in thousands of years. You know, you can drive a donkey down the middle of the road here, put a family of 4 (no eye, head or other protection) on a motorized scooter, or drive the wrong way down the road here in their capital (Kabul), right past a cop, and he won't do a thing? Mind blowing but that's how it is. After we leave, that's how it'll still be...
I've been in Afghanistan, now going on my second year. There are NO "periodic deaths on base," in any context a IT Contractor would ever experience. If he's a Blackwater security guy training ANP, maybe, but again, NOT on base. Monkey's flinging poo are more effective than the Talib with rockets and mortars. Furthermore, when they ARE stupid enough to approach a base: They get their azz handed to them 50 yards before they even make it to the wire/front gate. A.50 tripod mounted machine gun, manned by a guy with binoculars, lights them up before they ever even see the guard that's shooting at them. They're not dumb enough to do that more than 1-2 twice a year. Suicide bombers, "other nasties," are again, off base. I'm probably one of the more exposed because I travel to all the Regional Commands, and I take frequent MoveCons across Kabul.
What there isn't a shortage of, it appears, are people trying to scare you. I won't drop numbers but you can count on making easily in the mid 100,000s your first year. Your second year will be closer or over 200,000. You will need a security clearance. A few replies back someone commented it seemed more who you knew than what you know. Yes in some cases. I've seen people that should never have been there (from a knowledge point), and then, some who should and knew the right people but got caught in politics. It's really like anywhere else.
Since I threw the flag, I'll ante up what I know first hand. In the last 2 years, no one on KAIA has died on base. KAIA is the IJC 3-Star HQ. On Khandahar, once last year a worker in the laundry facility was wounded, not killed, and a second person was wounded (not killed) when they decided to continue a volleyball game (that I was walking towards to watch) after 4 rockets, and not follow procedure to proceed to a bunker (which is where I went). That's it. I would not classify that as periodic.
And agree on Camp Bastion, no one in their right mind would attack there. It's in the middle of nowhere and you'd get lit up a half mile before you even saw the base. And let's say for argument sake you didn't, there's a couple thousand armed Marines that are bored and would love to be your Huckleberry. It'd be sniper/shooting range nirvana for them. Actually, I'd prefer they do that to what they actually do: Kill hundreds of innocents with IEDs every month. If anything turns this war, it will be the local populations recent trend at being pissed off and tired of Talibs planting roadside bombs everywhere, barely getting us in comparison to the Local Afghans.
When my harddrive gave up the ghost for the 3rd or 4th time, I switched back around 2006. I've got an iMac and a MacBookPro now. iMac I paid full retail ($1600 if I remember), and the MBP I got for about $400 on Ebay (2 Core Duo, 2.16 Ghz, 4gigs RAM, etc, 2006 build). Very soon, I'll run a Mini for a second entertainment hub (first is.....sorry.... XBOX 360 which streams from the iMac via Twonky's MediaServer over WiFi). I'll run Twonky on the Mini, so I'll have 3 Macs all able to stream. I hate hearing my fans run on the MBP, so honestly it'll get little streaming work. I am running VMWare's Fusion 3 with a Windows 7 VM installed, but I haven't touched it in over a year. I think I started it up once when a website didn't open and I thought maybe it'd work in IE running on Win (it didn't). Yes, I tried Safari's "Develop" using "Agent" spoofing as IE first, but somehow this one website knew it wasn't really IE. So... that's it. Been Windows free for about 5 years now with no problems.
Hey, maybe someone here can cut and paste from Wikipedia and tell them how to fix it! I mean, it's not that hard and just doing a simple firmware software update should fix it!
Why Bad Writing Easily Gets Published
Why Logical Reasoning is so Hard to Find in Today's News
Read an Entire Article that Provides No Supporting Examples
Why I can't get a job writing articles for a decent newpaper and pay off my student loans (I got tired of capitalising).
Horrible article. I honestly feel sorry for whomever hired this guy to write for them.
Hahah...YES, now go away or I shall fart in your general direction a second time! (yes, I mangled the lines on purpose). I know Bush is the absolute devil, boogeyman, Christian crusader, etc, etc, etc, that every one loves to hate, but I'd just ask you to do one thing. Read his book. No, you don't have to read the whole thing. Skip to the chapter about the first few months of his presidency, and then the day of 9/11. OK, now pick up any one of the books written by intelligence, or CIA insiders during the period BEFORE 9/11.
As you read the writings of people who were actually there, made decisions, watched their colleagues (CIA) die, and dealt with Pakistan, a clear, common denominator will emerge. The funny thing is someone here on Slashdot used to argue this with me all the time (pre-9/11) and, turns out he was right (I was wrong): We had no idea what was brewing and zero interest in figuring it out. The group that tracked Bin Laden was the "black sheep". Here, we would mock them with Tin Foil hat comments and ask how the alien anal probe procedure went. The people who said, "Hey, I think the Pakistanis are just taking our money and helping our enemies," were ignored as it didn't jive with State Dept, White House staff, etc, opinions/priorities. I could continue but the point of all this is: There are very clear, commonalities amongst all the writings, even amongst those who disagree and come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but not one says Bush had pre-9/11 motive, nor a 'Biblical reasoning" to go in. Everything else we can nit-pick with 20/20 hindsight, but I just have to laugh when best sources are third hand references and French quotes. Although, having worked alongside many French military officers, I'll admit I have an anti-French bias. All that said, the CIA had no interest in Bin Laden, or figuring out what they should do about Afghanistan. Afterwards, it was a mad dash, at which point mistakes were made. The motivation being, not a bible or CIA motives, but to strike back at a group harboring the planners of the largest attack ever on American soil. It really is that simple. Hell, even Gaddafi took notice and started distancing him self from terrorism. I didn't hear Iran saying it was a CIA conspiracy at that time.
Right. We elect stupid aggressive leaders unlike Syria, Germany, Japan, Iraq, Iran, India, Pakistan, Britain (already in 4 wars in just the 21st Century: Libyia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sierra Leone), Russia,...
I don't have anything to prove. I was trying to explain something in as best of a way possible to someone who has no frame of reference. My "useless ellipses" was exactly how I turned SA off in 1994.
There are a few ways to turn AS on and off. Someone in an earlier post was saying we'd turn it on and turn it off, so I was going down that avenue. Actually turning it on and off. There is a second way, and I kept this out of the discussion to keep things simple. The second way isn't recognized as "turning it off," although in all practicality it is off. This is why you'll hear differing dates of when we turned it completely off. I really don't want to go into more detail on this. To answer your underlying question, any physical switch in outer space will eventually cold arc. It will either freeze on, or off. It happens here as well, but you don't think, "Oh it's arc'd closed." You just think, "Oh it's broke," because it may have actually just "broke". Given the engineering that goes into a satellite, it would be a very unlikley scenario where it just literally "breaks." It does happen on rare occasions. Some times explosive pins don't "explode" properly to allow solar arrays, antennas, etc to open up, etc. These are man-made devices so they do occasionally fail just like stuff you use everyday.
No, Bush did not convince Blair to go to war with Biblical stories. Given this is now going exceptionally into unproductive bouts of fiction, I'm done. Cheers.
Waste billions of Euros and/or Pounds and enjoy the duplicate system.
I don't know digital high speed data at the physical layer levels, but keep in mind when we talk about these circuits, you're talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of circuits that are moving meg's of data per second, up to terabytes per sec (OC-192 for example). They're using Timing for modulation (timeslots). So although there may be some in or out of band signaling (I don't know), it's far easier to just hook everything up to a GPS Stratum. Everything is sync'd within a nanosecond. If you're a backbone (like Sprint), your ATM syncs up to your trunks going out to telcos. For the wireless data, it's sync'd to the ATMs going out, or the T1/DS3/OCxx (12...192), along with your base site controllers, echo cancellers (I'm stretching on that...since echo cans don't really care about sync)... etc Hopefully you get the idea. I do know I always see a GPS sync in every wireless switch I've been in (Nextel, Sprint PCS) and everywhere high speed data passes. If you have time, which it seems you do since you're still pursuing this, look up Tellabs 532L and 5500 installations. See if they have GPS. These are the devices that mux and demux DS0s (little 56k slots) all the way up to DS3, etc.
So you're saying this clock will pay me retirement, take care of my illnesses, repave roads, build bridges, put food on my table, educate my kids and make me coffee every morning? SWEET!!
Were you a Payload Officer at 2 SOPS? And, are you referring to the Space or Ground segment? If you mean the backup clocks in the Mod, then that's slightly outside my knowledge. As far as the Space Segment, they've been reliably using Cesium and Rubium (atomic) clocks for over 3 decades. They don't want to change because it's known, reliable, etc. I was curious to note the newest generation of satellites dropped the 4th clock, and now launch with only 3. Since each clock is only usable a number of years (varies too much for me to generalize), I'd have thought they kept all four just in case the electrical system outlives normal design life, and you end up needing to go with a 4th clock when the 3rd one becomes too "deviant".
I think the GPS relevence is buried at the bottom of the article. Cesium and Rubidium clocks are both accurate to the nanosecond. That's just about as accurate as can be practical. The new atomic clock, however, they're saying is accurate LONGER. On GPS Satellites, the original satellites (Block I, II, IIA, IIR) launched with Cesium and Rubidium, 2 each. Usually you have one operational, sometimes one on "ready standby", and the other two off. As each atomic clock reaches the end of its mission-usable life, it's turned off. It become's "mission-unusable" (not a real term, I just made that up) when it's signal varies outside a normal window of acceptable predictability in terms of its output signal. There are design differences, such as Rubidium clocks have to stay within a tenth of a degree (F) in temperature stability (if memory serves correct). So, if they can create a clock that's more stable, for a longer period of time, this has huge potential for future GPS satellites. However, since we just awarded contract to Boeing the contract for IIF birds, with only 2 of 12 launched, it's going to be a very long time (decade at best) before you'd see this in a GPS satellite. Design life has also expanded from 7 to 12 years for each satellite (for point of reference Block I only had a design life of 3 years since they were R&D), so this pushes any usage even farther out since we're going to go longer before replacements need to be launched.
It's not a feature. It's physics. It happens when you switch your lights on and off in your house everyday. You just: never do it in the vacuum of space, in direct blistering heat from the sun, or deathly cold darkness of outer space. When you physically move an object which has an electrical charge, at an instant just before they touch, it will jump to the "path of least resistance," which is either ground (usually bad), or the other wire which completes the circuit (ground for the battery, which is almost always good). In your house, when the switch eventually physically fails, you go to Home Depot. On a satellite, you "fail" over to the other switch. If it fails on, there's usually a way to re-route around it to the secondary switch.
To the Perry fairytale, then you need to start building your bunker and folding the tin foil for your hat, which will make this whole GPS discussion moot. Because the same scenario/logic you use holds for the Nukes as well, at which point nearly all communications will cease to work for quite some time due to the EMP and the subsequent electrical charge in the atmosphere.
It's been so long, I forgot a key fact about your point: During the Gulf War (1991) we didn't have the full GPS constellation up. There were only 14 or so of the necessary 24 satellites up in orbit. The coverage was poor in the Gulf Region and so two Captains got sweet write-ups for coming up with a novel idea to give the region better coverage. There was a satellite that was no longer able to stay 3-axis stabilized, and so it had been spun up. When a satellite is spun, most of it's orbit is spent with the bottom (the side with the antennaes that normally transmit to the Earth) pointed out to outer space. At this point, normally a GPS satellite is set to "unhealthy" and considered non-operational. So what the two Captains proposed was turning the satellite's payload (the Atomic clocks, L-band transmitters, etc) back on, and rotating the satellite Z-axis so that the small portion of the orbit where it DID point at the Earth, was when it passed over the Middle East. It was approved and we were able to extend coverage by a few hours for 3-D (lat, long, alt) and 2-d (lat, long).
GPS wasn't considered FOC, or Full Operational Capable until after the Gulf war (1991) ended. Heck, it wasn't even IOC yet. So, you're right, it wasn't an accident. Feel free to read: NAVSTAR GPS However, keep in mind the accuracy numbers are wrong in the link I include, since this article was written BEFORE we turned SA off for worldwide use. Another reference point since no one seems to think I know what the hell I'm talking about: Launch Dates. Most Block 1's only lived a few years beyond their 3 year design life. They were R&D birds with several design flaws. The exception and case in point, was SVN3. It was up 13 years (I was the SSO who set it unhealthy) and the only reason we turned it non-operational is because one of the batteries wasn't engineered to the same spec as the other 2. It was externally mounted (outside the main bus) and so it went through more severe thermal cycles as it went into sunlight and darkness. When the 3rd battery failed, the other two were still ok, but it wasn't enough to make it through eclipse season (point in an orbit where the sun passes often behind the Earth leaving it in periods of darkness, which is bad because the solar arrays don't make power). My point? Just because it launched prior to 1991, doesn't mean it was operational in 1991. I spent about 15 minutes Googling for a site that listed the total but can't find one. I just know as a GPS SSO in 1991, I was really really bored because we didn't have many satellites at the time to maintain, and for that year alone, we had 3 SSOs per crew. So there were hours between satellite supports.
Hopefully that was helpful. I've spent a couple hours replying to replies from my original...so I'm done at this point. I try to provide insight, be helpful, but a few of the other replies just border on silly.
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Because it's hydrazine. Really nasty stuff no one wants to be shooting off on the ground. I read the link and I think whoever wrote the Air Force Magazine article either took liberties or talked to the only knucklehead around Space Command. For example, "We found things we hadn't seen before, such as a warm up period." Really? This is why every GPS satellite ever launched has pre-heaters for it's hydrazine thrusters? (They're called "cat bed heaters" if you're looking at Reaction Control System telemetry). He then quotes him to say, "The 50th SW sucked up the workload while doing normal operations," which was then contradicted by the finished statements, "Upon completion, it will be turned over to the 50th." (I'm paraphrasing.) LEO, or Launch and Early Orbit is normally not done by the same crews as on orbit ops. The 4 SOPS get's SCO, or Satellite Command Authority, after it's handed off by the group responsible for LEO has put it into operational orbit, and performed basic check-out to ensure it's mission capable. The 4 SOPS also has the unique situation of being augmented by a National Guard unit, the 148 SOPS, which also performs MILSTAR operations 24/7/365. So, the 50th has a "little" help :) when it comes to Milstar.
Yes and no. We were deeply into isolationism and trying desperately to ignore Germany. If you read "Beast in the Garden" you'll see our only interest was for them to pay back reparations. When our ambassador tried raising the flag on Hitler's "Final Solution," most thought the stories were made up, the Jews probably created the situation, etc. We "apologized" for any stories neg about Germany and then again, tried to get reassurances we'd get paid back.
I think any Russian General older than 60 would disagree that invading Germany was easy and low cost, compared to a nuke. Seeing as we had to completely strip a bomber to it's bare minimum, and fly it off a deck not meant for that platform, I would challenge the premise, "We were ready to invade." We would have had no air superiority, against a Kamikze ready force, which had to go huge distances via boat to arrive. This is just begging to things to go wrong.
With a wavelength of just under 10 miles for a 15kHz signal, the necessity of shielding is a matter of how long your speaker cable is.
Most people seem to have speaker wires that make great quarterwave dipole antennas annoyingly near the 15M / 10M / 6M ham radio bands or the 11M CB band. The problem is some classical, lets say, pre 00s audio output final power amps have something of a rectifying effect on the incoming RF. So you end up hearing clearly every trucker who drives by. Trivially fixed with a bit of shielded coaxial cable. Assuming your negative speaker lead either can be grounded, or already is grounded, a couple minutes with a swiss army knife and a length of old antenna / cable tv coaxial cable will either result in a trip to the ER if you have low DEX statistics, or a nice shielded speaker wire ready to install.
You can also spend some dough on RF ferrite chokes, but frankly its usually cheaper to use scrap cable, assuming you have some laying about.
If anyone reads this and decides to try it, be very careful. I'm somewhat certain grounding a speaker wire will do very bad things depending on the Class of Amp you're using for your home stereo. In other words, I would not try this under most circumstances and with 100% knowledge you might "let the ghost out" of your amps IC board.
To the casual reader, it looks like Timbo is replying to this post:
Yes, how dare you philistines mock the $1,095 HDMI cable? The zeros and ones are so much sharper and clearer than the zeros and ones transmitted over cheap cable.
This is why we quote excessively.
no, we don't
How do you quote?
I wonder as well, however I have an HDMI problem and I'm waiting on this new one to fix it so I can watch the "How To" video in 5 D with 13.1 surround!
If you are considering a Mac Mini (which I am likely to use soon), you might consider Twonky Media server with it. I'm not an expert, but with an iMac and a MBP, I run Twonky and stream video, audio and pictures to my iPhone, and XBOX 360. It's only $19.99 for the license and the server has a 30 day free trial. I also paid the $ for their iPhone app just for giggles, and I was able to hit a "media server" on my iPhone from my MBP. I have no idea why anyone would stream FROM their iPhone, but you can.
There are costs being here, but, first it's not that much compared to our GDP. We're also drawing down, as we were 130k at peak and we're now under 90k troops. Second, it's an NATO-ISAF mission, so the US isn't paying for all of it. We pay a majority, but not all of it. Let's look at it historically. We stayed in Iraq and although sectarian violence is a growing problem, they are governing themselves and no longer a threat to the region. We stayed in Japan, and they became, within 20 years, the leading country in terms of manufacturing and economics (as a result). In the 70s and early 80s, Japanese cars were derided in the US and quality was lacking. Today, a Japanese car (Honda, etc) holds a better resell than many domestics and the quality is top notch. Compare that to Hyundai. I had a Hyundai XG350 listed for $2,000 under value for a year and only got one call. We stayed in Germany, and within 20 years they became a powerhouse within Europe. Today, they keep the Euro afloat and have the largest, strongest economy. On the flip side, we ran from Vietnam and 4 decades later it's still stagnant. We ran from Mogadishu, and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands are slaughtered annually. So the answer to your first question is: It depends. There was a political will in Europe, and Japan, and we're still in those regions today with Air Force and Army bases that foster information sharing, Joint/Combined military exercises, etc. If we punch out due to a lack of will to see this through, then the historical answer is that someone, not us, will prevail. It could be the Taliban, China or Iran, or some other power sharing. On your second question, the Taliban does cost money. Their fighters expect to get paid, you have to buy the chemicals they use to make home-brewed IEDs, and logistics. They're hurting big time because not only are we killing their leadership (who know where the money is), we're disrupting their ability to move and use cash. Like I replied earlier, there are a lot of foreign figthers. You have to equip them, move them, etc. So just as they try to disrupt our "Freedom of Movement," we restrict theirs so it costs more to train (locations move), costs more to equip (we are raiding their caches in staggering numbers), and move the cash (there's corruption on their side too... $10 sent might result in $1 making it).
On your second paragraph/point, you might be right. We will see.
The third area it's harder for me to gauge where we are, versus where we were, and how effective things are in making things better. Under Gen McChrystal and Petraeus, the daily CUA (briefs to the senior leadership) had a lot of status slides on rebuilding, training, local governance, population outlook, etc. The new 4* General is a USMC guy, and he doesn't appear to be embracing the "hearts and minds," campaign they created, called COIN. It seems he's gone more into Special Ops, and just plain punching the bad guys straight in the face (to use a euphemism). He's also adopted a more "Obama style" approach of keeping the exit door in view, but that may just be a coincidence. I don't think it is, but it's possible. We're due to draw down in 2014, and Obama has shown that regardless of a power vacuum or other problems left behind, he just wants out. Two years ago the ANA was hardly ready to take the lead on any operations, however, I've noticed that lately they are taking the lead quite often and actually doing very well. They're effective at calling in Close Air Support (harder than it may seem), basic searching and security, etc. It's now quite common to see successful operations they performed alone, as well as Combined patrols where they took the lead. Maybe one day if I have time, I can look at this from a Macro view and see how spread out they are, but I just haven't had the time and it's not part of the briefs I see. My main takeaway on this point is that we're training more of them, they're getting quite effective, however they have large logistical and public perception issues in some
Most trained fighters, and nearly all TB leaders, here are foreigners. They are Pakistan, or from areas of the Middle East that come here to fulfill their Jihad obligations according to their Mullah (because Islam is a religion of peace, ya know). The local fighters are often untrained and have a very short lifespan (meaning they don't usually survive to be captured). Look at footage of Libia to see examples of what I'm saying: Guy runs to the middle of the street, fires off every round of his automatic assault rifle, and then....RUNS BACK TO COVER. Do that against a highly trained military force and your life expectency is measured in days, probably minutes. We have problems like this training Afghans to be their own Army. It used to be, if they found an IED, they'd shoot at it, and/or throw it in the back if their truck (I'm not exaggerating or making this up). Wonder why many didn't make it back to camp? I don't have Intel on the Gitmo detainees, although I haven't really looked to see if I do have access since I don't have a "need to know," but from what I recall a majority are also foreign. This is why extradition is a barrier. We capture them in Afghanistan or Iraq, but they're not from Afghan or Iraq. And their home nations don't want them and others won't give them amnesty because they've smartly realized: these are armed radicals. Why in the world would I let them come into my nation and create issues.
The only problem with the propaganda issue is this: Most Afghans are illiterate. They also don't have electricity or running water. Everything they learn is talking to their neighbor and MAYBE watch a little bit of TV at the open market (Bazaar). You can hardly call this a PsyOps (the guys who do military propaganda) rich environment, since our troops don't hang around talking to villiagers or at bazzars for obvious physical security reasons. SpecOps do but I won't talk about what they do. We broadcast propaganda on the radio, but again, a lot don't have radios and one of the first things TB does is search homes for anything "West related." If TB find a radio in someone's home, they're accused of being spies and often killed. We do drop leaflets, but it's usually just asking them to NOT allow people to plant IEDs because it's killing their own women, children, etc. I don't know if the # is classified, but I would generalize it to say they kill 4 Afghans for every 1 ISAF person involved. I say involved because we've gotten exceptionally better at finding them, and Afghans are tipping off ANA, ANP, and ISAF in record numbers as to the locations of IEDs. (see the "radio means you're a spy" above, they know huge numbers are tipping us off).
Which brings me to my last point, there's not really a "national identity" here. When I talk to Afghans, it's not, "Oh you invaded," because they don't think like that. As I mentioned, all they care about is: How can I live through today and provide for my family. There are regions of Afghanistan that have no idea the Americans are even here. Seriously. Tribal affiliations are their identity. So, unless you're attacking __their__ villiage, they really aren't tracking or care what you're doing. This is why in the South, Pres Karzai isn't really considered their leader. He's just some uppity guy, hundreds of KM away, that doesn't help make (in their eyes) their lives any easier or better. Now, you spend a few thousand dollars on a road, or drilling a well (so the villiage knows they will have fresh water to drink, farm,etc), or something and now they're extremely interested in you. Which, this is the path ISAF is trying but having on and off success. We go in, build a road or school for them, put in a well, and then the TB comes in and blows it up. It's, I think, partly the reason we have had what ever successes we do have. Go with us, and we build things for you. TB just takes and destroys. But I come full circle at this point, it still boils down to, "Which side will ultimately provide them security." And in some regions they
First, it's really hard to read what you're saying, when you have huge run-on sentences. I have no idea what your first sentence is trying to say, or not say. However, I'll take a stab at it. Yes, there are 0 (zero) Afghans who have watched a US Soldier burn a Koran with their own eyes. There are many who were told by TB that they were, after the TB guy burned something down and then threw a Koran into the ashes. Your second sentence seems to ramble a duplicate of the first, but I'll give a second example. The Afghan has never watched a US Soldier stop a public soccer game, bring out a 7-9 yr old boy, and then hang him from a goal post, yet quite a few watched this done by TB. So to answer your question: Yes, you should usually be able to discern conduct you watch, versus conduct described that does not follow what you've observed. Now the real issue here isn't them discerning truth versus non-truth. You seem to have skipped the entire, following discussion. The issue really is, "Who is the winning side." If they think the US is going to prevail, they'll believe whatever we tell them. If they think the TB will prevail, they'll go with whatever they tell them. This is why most are stuck between because, depending on their past, they may not like either choice. They just want to be left alone to be able to farm their land and provide for their family. Sorta like the US. You really don't care if a Democrat or Republican is the President because as long as you can provide for your family, it really doesn't impact your daily life.
I'm not sure if you're American or not from your post, but I'll go based on your comments that you're completely in the dark about US, US Law, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. US law does now allow imprisonment without a trial. Military Law allows enemy unlawful combatants to be held because there are severe jurisdiction and legal issues that arise when someone is unlawfully waging war. If a Saudi unlawfully fires an RPG provided in Pakistan, against a US and British patrol, who prosecutes? Whose jurisprudence prevails? Then, for Professionals in Arms there are two additional sets of laws. For Title 10 soldiers, airman, sailors and Coast Guardsmen (there are a few in Afghan), you have the UCMJ. This is why the soldiers at Abu Ghraib are no longer serving as they were tried and convicted under UCMJ for breaking those laws, as well as others of the last set of laws I mention, Law of Armed Conflict. There is no civilization alive that would survive a litmus test of condemning everyone for the mistakes of a few. Every military and civilian sent over is briefed on the LoAC laws and how they pertain to them. This is why if a Sniper sees an IED emplacer digging in the road, he can then watch for hostile intent. When the emplacer confirms hostile intent with an IED device being buried, he is then lawfully able (doesn't always happen) to take a shot. Let's say the shot misses its mark and the guy starts to limp away. There is no longer hostile intent, nor capability (he's left the IED behind) and the Sniper is bound by LoAC to NOT take a 2nd shot. This also happens often. A Quick Reaction Force (QRF) will respond (as usually the Sniper team will stay in place or egress as to not be found/seen) and find the blood trail, and no bad guy to be found.
What is Obomber? Is that a misspelled October reference to an event? A reference to Obama allowing bombing, which every President for a few decades on both sides have allowed? We've been bombing militants and terrorists since before Reagan. Libia and Gaddafi ring any bells?
If they think the US will win, they'll take our money to to go school. However, they have seen large power (Brits, Soviets, and now ISAF) come in, play around in the dirt, and then go home. So you tell me: If you've been abandoned for centuries by people who want you to learn to read and other things that don't directly (in your Afghani mind) put food on your table for you and your family, why would you switch sides from the guy who's been your neighbor for centures and occasionally burns your phone, kills a friend, etc? That's the choice they make, and the reality of their logic. The rest is usually, "Allah Willing." If you die or live, it's whatever Allah determined for you regardless of your decisions.
There are literacy programs, but it's usually one of the first targets of the insurgents. They also believe 50% of the population (women) are not allowed by their religion to be on equal footing, nor go to school. Attacks on little girls, here in Afghan as one example, are much more common than you will ever see on the news.
As a guy working CJ2 (Intel) in Afghanistan (I'm in Kabul), with intelligence collection systems, believe me. I have a really good grasp on who does what, how, to whom, and for how long they've been doing it. If you're going to be specific, it's not "Paks," as it's more the ISI that is supporting insurgents. There is a def rift between the Political, ISI and Military leadership that's gotten even wider in the last couple months. INS just suicide bombed the Paki military in today's news, and kidnapped a dozen troops who they said, "We will hack them into pieces and send them to their commanders." I do not doubt their resolve to do this in any way.
In any case, you still haven't equated an IQ with an analogy. Since you're still stuck on square 1, let me help. Analogies are not meant to be literal. I once tried explaining a point of orbital mechanics (space maneuvers) to an AF Lt Col using a plane as an anology since she seemed to be having difficulty understanding it. Instead of looking big picture, she stops me in mid-sentence and said, "Oh, so you're a pilot?" I have flown a plane but that wasn't the point. Physics is physics. The "Big Picture" here are people who, when faced with an opposing logic, have a tendency to do everything to destroy what doesn't support their original beliefs. RIAA sues in mass, often snaring innocent grandmothers, and Taliban burns phones. It's a similar picture, only a differing level of action taken in response. It's also a similar response to when someone can't logically defend their position they tend to just say, "You're a moron." Get it? If you're interested in investigating this more, look into logical fallacies and then explore first, since it's very relevent to this discussion, "Straw Man." You take someone's example and present a grossly distorted, exaggerated example of their position, such as bringing in mass genocide (killing millions), and then discredit the original thought. It's not sincere, and mature conversations will never take place when its practice is commonplace.
Sounds like you're here in Afghan with me. Hope your day gets better and Happy Holidays. FWIW, as a military officer, I've read not only every book on the Commander's Read List regarding insurgency, Islam and most terrorist topics. I've also studied greatly US Foreign Policy, Overseas Diplomacy (Beasts in the Garden is a great book) and many other topics relevent to armed conflict.
I'm just begging to hear this logical fallacy play out. Humor me. How does the comparison PROVE BMO's IQ? What would be an IQ boosting analogy you agree with, and what's the threshold between a 120 IQ analogy and a, say, 40's IQ analogy? I'm just curious since I don't recall this lesson in any critical thinking-related classes.
How do you logic with that? The answer is you can't. I don't really expect you to understand because you're in a Westernized, modern, industrial world. You follow laws, understand technology and very likely had an education. None of these are done here, in Afghanistan where I write these words, nor have they been done in thousands of years. You know, you can drive a donkey down the middle of the road here, put a family of 4 (no eye, head or other protection) on a motorized scooter, or drive the wrong way down the road here in their capital (Kabul), right past a cop, and he won't do a thing? Mind blowing but that's how it is. After we leave, that's how it'll still be...
I've been in Afghanistan, now going on my second year. There are NO "periodic deaths on base," in any context a IT Contractor would ever experience. If he's a Blackwater security guy training ANP, maybe, but again, NOT on base. Monkey's flinging poo are more effective than the Talib with rockets and mortars. Furthermore, when they ARE stupid enough to approach a base: They get their azz handed to them 50 yards before they even make it to the wire/front gate. A .50 tripod mounted machine gun, manned by a guy with binoculars, lights them up before they ever even see the guard that's shooting at them. They're not dumb enough to do that more than 1-2 twice a year. Suicide bombers, "other nasties," are again, off base. I'm probably one of the more exposed because I travel to all the Regional Commands, and I take frequent MoveCons across Kabul.
What there isn't a shortage of, it appears, are people trying to scare you. I won't drop numbers but you can count on making easily in the mid 100,000s your first year. Your second year will be closer or over 200,000. You will need a security clearance. A few replies back someone commented it seemed more who you knew than what you know. Yes in some cases. I've seen people that should never have been there (from a knowledge point), and then, some who should and knew the right people but got caught in politics. It's really like anywhere else.
Since I threw the flag, I'll ante up what I know first hand. In the last 2 years, no one on KAIA has died on base. KAIA is the IJC 3-Star HQ. On Khandahar, once last year a worker in the laundry facility was wounded, not killed, and a second person was wounded (not killed) when they decided to continue a volleyball game (that I was walking towards to watch) after 4 rockets, and not follow procedure to proceed to a bunker (which is where I went). That's it. I would not classify that as periodic.
And agree on Camp Bastion, no one in their right mind would attack there. It's in the middle of nowhere and you'd get lit up a half mile before you even saw the base. And let's say for argument sake you didn't, there's a couple thousand armed Marines that are bored and would love to be your Huckleberry. It'd be sniper/shooting range nirvana for them. Actually, I'd prefer they do that to what they actually do: Kill hundreds of innocents with IEDs every month. If anything turns this war, it will be the local populations recent trend at being pissed off and tired of Talibs planting roadside bombs everywhere, barely getting us in comparison to the Local Afghans.
When my harddrive gave up the ghost for the 3rd or 4th time, I switched back around 2006. I've got an iMac and a MacBookPro now. iMac I paid full retail ($1600 if I remember), and the MBP I got for about $400 on Ebay (2 Core Duo, 2.16 Ghz, 4gigs RAM, etc, 2006 build). Very soon, I'll run a Mini for a second entertainment hub (first is.....sorry.... XBOX 360 which streams from the iMac via Twonky's MediaServer over WiFi). I'll run Twonky on the Mini, so I'll have 3 Macs all able to stream. I hate hearing my fans run on the MBP, so honestly it'll get little streaming work. I am running VMWare's Fusion 3 with a Windows 7 VM installed, but I haven't touched it in over a year. I think I started it up once when a website didn't open and I thought maybe it'd work in IE running on Win (it didn't). Yes, I tried Safari's "Develop" using "Agent" spoofing as IE first, but somehow this one website knew it wasn't really IE. So... that's it. Been Windows free for about 5 years now with no problems.
Hey, maybe someone here can cut and paste from Wikipedia and tell them how to fix it! I mean, it's not that hard and just doing a simple firmware software update should fix it!
Why Bad Writing Easily Gets Published
Why Logical Reasoning is so Hard to Find in Today's News
Read an Entire Article that Provides No Supporting Examples
Why I can't get a job writing articles for a decent newpaper and pay off my student loans (I got tired of capitalising).
Horrible article. I honestly feel sorry for whomever hired this guy to write for them.
Hahah...YES, now go away or I shall fart in your general direction a second time! (yes, I mangled the lines on purpose). I know Bush is the absolute devil, boogeyman, Christian crusader, etc, etc, etc, that every one loves to hate, but I'd just ask you to do one thing. Read his book. No, you don't have to read the whole thing. Skip to the chapter about the first few months of his presidency, and then the day of 9/11. OK, now pick up any one of the books written by intelligence, or CIA insiders during the period BEFORE 9/11.
As you read the writings of people who were actually there, made decisions, watched their colleagues (CIA) die, and dealt with Pakistan, a clear, common denominator will emerge. The funny thing is someone here on Slashdot used to argue this with me all the time (pre-9/11) and, turns out he was right (I was wrong): We had no idea what was brewing and zero interest in figuring it out. The group that tracked Bin Laden was the "black sheep". Here, we would mock them with Tin Foil hat comments and ask how the alien anal probe procedure went. The people who said, "Hey, I think the Pakistanis are just taking our money and helping our enemies," were ignored as it didn't jive with State Dept, White House staff, etc, opinions/priorities. I could continue but the point of all this is: There are very clear, commonalities amongst all the writings, even amongst those who disagree and come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but not one says Bush had pre-9/11 motive, nor a 'Biblical reasoning" to go in. Everything else we can nit-pick with 20/20 hindsight, but I just have to laugh when best sources are third hand references and French quotes. Although, having worked alongside many French military officers, I'll admit I have an anti-French bias. All that said, the CIA had no interest in Bin Laden, or figuring out what they should do about Afghanistan. Afterwards, it was a mad dash, at which point mistakes were made. The motivation being, not a bible or CIA motives, but to strike back at a group harboring the planners of the largest attack ever on American soil. It really is that simple. Hell, even Gaddafi took notice and started distancing him self from terrorism. I didn't hear Iran saying it was a CIA conspiracy at that time.
Right. We elect stupid aggressive leaders unlike Syria, Germany, Japan, Iraq, Iran, India, Pakistan, Britain (already in 4 wars in just the 21st Century: Libyia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sierra Leone), Russia,...
Ha! You believe the French!? That's rich.
There are a few ways to turn AS on and off. Someone in an earlier post was saying we'd turn it on and turn it off, so I was going down that avenue. Actually turning it on and off. There is a second way, and I kept this out of the discussion to keep things simple. The second way isn't recognized as "turning it off," although in all practicality it is off. This is why you'll hear differing dates of when we turned it completely off. I really don't want to go into more detail on this. To answer your underlying question, any physical switch in outer space will eventually cold arc. It will either freeze on, or off. It happens here as well, but you don't think, "Oh it's arc'd closed." You just think, "Oh it's broke," because it may have actually just "broke". Given the engineering that goes into a satellite, it would be a very unlikley scenario where it just literally "breaks." It does happen on rare occasions. Some times explosive pins don't "explode" properly to allow solar arrays, antennas, etc to open up, etc. These are man-made devices so they do occasionally fail just like stuff you use everyday.
No, Bush did not convince Blair to go to war with Biblical stories. Given this is now going exceptionally into unproductive bouts of fiction, I'm done. Cheers.
Waste billions of Euros and/or Pounds and enjoy the duplicate system.
I don't know digital high speed data at the physical layer levels, but keep in mind when we talk about these circuits, you're talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of circuits that are moving meg's of data per second, up to terabytes per sec (OC-192 for example). They're using Timing for modulation (timeslots). So although there may be some in or out of band signaling (I don't know), it's far easier to just hook everything up to a GPS Stratum. Everything is sync'd within a nanosecond. If you're a backbone (like Sprint), your ATM syncs up to your trunks going out to telcos. For the wireless data, it's sync'd to the ATMs going out, or the T1/DS3/OCxx (12...192), along with your base site controllers, echo cancellers (I'm stretching on that...since echo cans don't really care about sync)... etc Hopefully you get the idea. I do know I always see a GPS sync in every wireless switch I've been in (Nextel, Sprint PCS) and everywhere high speed data passes. If you have time, which it seems you do since you're still pursuing this, look up Tellabs 532L and 5500 installations. See if they have GPS. These are the devices that mux and demux DS0s (little 56k slots) all the way up to DS3, etc.
So you're saying this clock will pay me retirement, take care of my illnesses, repave roads, build bridges, put food on my table, educate my kids and make me coffee every morning? SWEET!!
Were you a Payload Officer at 2 SOPS? And, are you referring to the Space or Ground segment? If you mean the backup clocks in the Mod, then that's slightly outside my knowledge. As far as the Space Segment, they've been reliably using Cesium and Rubium (atomic) clocks for over 3 decades. They don't want to change because it's known, reliable, etc. I was curious to note the newest generation of satellites dropped the 4th clock, and now launch with only 3. Since each clock is only usable a number of years (varies too much for me to generalize), I'd have thought they kept all four just in case the electrical system outlives normal design life, and you end up needing to go with a 4th clock when the 3rd one becomes too "deviant".
I think the GPS relevence is buried at the bottom of the article. Cesium and Rubidium clocks are both accurate to the nanosecond. That's just about as accurate as can be practical. The new atomic clock, however, they're saying is accurate LONGER. On GPS Satellites, the original satellites (Block I, II, IIA, IIR) launched with Cesium and Rubidium, 2 each. Usually you have one operational, sometimes one on "ready standby", and the other two off. As each atomic clock reaches the end of its mission-usable life, it's turned off. It become's "mission-unusable" (not a real term, I just made that up) when it's signal varies outside a normal window of acceptable predictability in terms of its output signal. There are design differences, such as Rubidium clocks have to stay within a tenth of a degree (F) in temperature stability (if memory serves correct). So, if they can create a clock that's more stable, for a longer period of time, this has huge potential for future GPS satellites. However, since we just awarded contract to Boeing the contract for IIF birds, with only 2 of 12 launched, it's going to be a very long time (decade at best) before you'd see this in a GPS satellite. Design life has also expanded from 7 to 12 years for each satellite (for point of reference Block I only had a design life of 3 years since they were R&D), so this pushes any usage even farther out since we're going to go longer before replacements need to be launched.
It's not a feature. It's physics. It happens when you switch your lights on and off in your house everyday. You just: never do it in the vacuum of space, in direct blistering heat from the sun, or deathly cold darkness of outer space. When you physically move an object which has an electrical charge, at an instant just before they touch, it will jump to the "path of least resistance," which is either ground (usually bad), or the other wire which completes the circuit (ground for the battery, which is almost always good). In your house, when the switch eventually physically fails, you go to Home Depot. On a satellite, you "fail" over to the other switch. If it fails on, there's usually a way to re-route around it to the secondary switch.
To the Perry fairytale, then you need to start building your bunker and folding the tin foil for your hat, which will make this whole GPS discussion moot. Because the same scenario/logic you use holds for the Nukes as well, at which point nearly all communications will cease to work for quite some time due to the EMP and the subsequent electrical charge in the atmosphere.
It's been so long, I forgot a key fact about your point: During the Gulf War (1991) we didn't have the full GPS constellation up. There were only 14 or so of the necessary 24 satellites up in orbit. The coverage was poor in the Gulf Region and so two Captains got sweet write-ups for coming up with a novel idea to give the region better coverage. There was a satellite that was no longer able to stay 3-axis stabilized, and so it had been spun up. When a satellite is spun, most of it's orbit is spent with the bottom (the side with the antennaes that normally transmit to the Earth) pointed out to outer space. At this point, normally a GPS satellite is set to "unhealthy" and considered non-operational. So what the two Captains proposed was turning the satellite's payload (the Atomic clocks, L-band transmitters, etc) back on, and rotating the satellite Z-axis so that the small portion of the orbit where it DID point at the Earth, was when it passed over the Middle East. It was approved and we were able to extend coverage by a few hours for 3-D (lat, long, alt) and 2-d (lat, long).
GPS wasn't considered FOC, or Full Operational Capable until after the Gulf war (1991) ended. Heck, it wasn't even IOC yet. So, you're right, it wasn't an accident. Feel free to read: NAVSTAR GPS However, keep in mind the accuracy numbers are wrong in the link I include, since this article was written BEFORE we turned SA off for worldwide use. Another reference point since no one seems to think I know what the hell I'm talking about: Launch Dates. Most Block 1's only lived a few years beyond their 3 year design life. They were R&D birds with several design flaws. The exception and case in point, was SVN3. It was up 13 years (I was the SSO who set it unhealthy) and the only reason we turned it non-operational is because one of the batteries wasn't engineered to the same spec as the other 2. It was externally mounted (outside the main bus) and so it went through more severe thermal cycles as it went into sunlight and darkness. When the 3rd battery failed, the other two were still ok, but it wasn't enough to make it through eclipse season (point in an orbit where the sun passes often behind the Earth leaving it in periods of darkness, which is bad because the solar arrays don't make power). My point? Just because it launched prior to 1991, doesn't mean it was operational in 1991. I spent about 15 minutes Googling for a site that listed the total but can't find one. I just know as a GPS SSO in 1991, I was really really bored because we didn't have many satellites at the time to maintain, and for that year alone, we had 3 SSOs per crew. So there were hours between satellite supports .
Hopefully that was helpful. I've spent a couple hours replying to replies from my original...so I'm done at this point. I try to provide insight, be helpful, but a few of the other replies just border on silly.