You are the sole remaining super-power, armed to the teeth and going broke is not a good combination. Why do you think Europe and China want thier own GPS systems?
The irony of this statement pains me. I don't know, why do they want their own GPS systems? Is it because they've been using the United States' (this tyrannical, imperial, police state that everyone's been bashing on this thread) GPS systems for FREE, and for so long, that maybe they've decided it's not too good of an idea to depend so greatly on a country that may look after its own interests?
Think for a second about all of the commerce that now relies on GPS. Aviation, shipping, even recreation. Where were all of these complaints from foreign countries about this technology when the sats were rolled out in the 70's and 80's? Where was it even 10 years ago? As much as the US has screwed up recently, and we have, the fanatical, almost blinded, backlash by the rest of the world is beginning to frustrate me.
I won't say the USA is the greatest country in the world, even though I am very proud to be a US citizen...but a lot of this is getting blown out of proportion.
In Vietnam they were doing the same thing Hitler did in WWII. They were carpet bombing cities, and killing innocent people
It is interesting to hear the perspective of a high school aged student from another country, but studying in the US. I can hardly defend some of the United States' actions in Vietnam, but to be fair: carpet bombing is something every country did in WWII, not just Germany. The accuracy of the bombs were such that you were lucky to hit the exact target with any of 10,000 bombs.
I also found that when I was in high school (15 years ago), we hardly covered WWII, let alone Vietnam. In my US History class, we spent a lot of time on early American history, a fair amount of time on the civil war era and the early 1900's, but hit the Great Depression around the end of May, meaning the rest of the 20th century allocated about a week on the syllabus.
What strikes me about this, though, is that there is the assumption that we are indoctrinated at a young age to believe the US in infallable, and all of these things we've done are in the name of democracy, etc...yet most public education doesn't even touch upon the times in history when the US' reach was greatest.
A rapid depressurization at high altitude in any plane can mean a number of people pass out and die before they have a chance to put on their mask.
True, but losing one window will not cause a catosrophic decompression. All airliners have ram air inlets that bring air into the air conditioning packs, and outflow valves that let air out. Coincidentally, these outflow valves are about the same size as a cabin window. If a window blows out, the crew will don their oxygen masks and then (typically the first officer) switches the outflow valves to manual control and closes them. Problem solved.
If for some reason the crew cannot put on masks rapidly then their capacity to react can become impaired due to hypoxia, even if the depressurisation is not rapid.
Hypoxia is very dangerous, no doubt, which is why when flying above 30,000 feet or so, if one pilot leaves the flight deck the other is supposed to put his oxygen mask on regardless.
Speaking of which, the masks that flight crews use are vastly different from the ones you see demonstrated in the takeoff safety announcement. They're a "quick release/quick don" style. Essentially, there is a tab that gets pinched with the thumb and forefinger to pop the mask out of its holder. This also inflates the mask; the "straps" for the mask are actually small tubes that fill up with air. The pilot places this over his head, releases the tab, and the straps deflate over the pilots head, giving him an airtight fit. These masks can be donned with one hand in under 5 seconds.
Seriously, there's traffic between the cockpit and the cabin all the time - so there has to be a communications link
There is. It's called an interphone.
Right after 9/11, the prevailing policy for US airlines was to keep the cockpit door closed at all times. Shortly after, I noticed that pilots would come out of the flight deck (for necessities like using the lav), but when they did this:
A) Two flight attendants would be standing in front of the flight deck door B) A galley trolley or similar would be placed perpendicular to the aisle, and C) Another flight attendant would enter the flight deck until the pilot returned.
This was specifically on United, though Alaska was similar. Now, of course, it appears that flight deck security has become just as lax as it was pre-9/11.
Sure, it might be the best thing for the country to prevent the hijacking of a plane like that - but the country and any victims in question are far away and poorly defined in our minds. The little girl with a razor blade to her throat standing in a pool of her fathers blood is right outside the door
Except that's what's expected now. Pre-9/11, pilots were trained to do whatever the hijacker asks if hijacked . Now, just about every airline's policy is to keep the door closed, and land the plane ASAP.
It seems like neither Google nor MS is really innovating much on this; granted the scrolling ability is cool with Google, but web-based GIS systems have been around for a long time, such as ESRI's ArcIMS, Autodesk's MapGuide and myriad others that support Web Mapping Services (WMS)
If I wanted to, I can download ortho photos of the entire United States from the USGS or from the USDA's NAIP program.
I guess is seems that these days it's actually pretty easy to build and manipulate web based GIS systems, so I'm curious to see what the next Big Thing will be. Maybe better integration with mobile devices?
When landing a commercial airliner, the rader altimeter only gives the height of the wheels above the ground to the last 5 feet.
Perhaps this was true in the past, but modern airliners (and even not so modern airliners) give accurate radio altimeter readings down to the last foot. This is required for autolands.
Point of note: if you ever look on the flight deck of an airliner, you'll see that the radio altimeter actually will read in the negative on the ground. For instance, a 767 will read -6. This is so when the plane is in landing configuration with the nose a few degrees up, the radio altimeter will read 0 when the main gear touchdown.
I think Cheney is the No.1 poster child for corporate corruption. A few years of government "service", then he goes to Haliburton and rakes in the big bucks, then goes back to politics and starts an unnecessary war that "purely coincidentally" throws billions of dollars back to his old company--which is STILL paying him deferred compensation.
I hate to defend Dick Cheney, but saying he only has a few years of government service under his belt is flat-out false.
== His career in public service began in 1969 when he joined the Nixon Administration, serving in a number of positions at the Cost of Living Council, at the Office of Economic Opportunity, and within the White House.
When Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency in August 1974, Mr. Cheney served on the transition team and later as Deputy Assistant to the President. In November 1975, he was named Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff, a position he held throughout the remainder of the Ford Administration.
After he returned to his home state of Wyoming in 1977, Mr. Cheney was elected to serve as the state's sole Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was re-elected five times and elected by his colleagues to serve as Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee from 1981 to 1987. He was elected Chairman of the House Republican Conference in 1987 and elected House Minority Whip in 1988. ==
I thought the acting was completely unconvincing, particularly Anakin, the dialog was as cheesy as ever, and there were more than a few WTF? plot moments which completely severed the suspension of my disbelief.
Amen to that. The acting/direction was just as bad (though the first section with Anakin and Obi-Wan I thought was well done), but the fact that the acting was so bad in such critical scenes killed the movie for me. See my sig for more...
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) booth babes work for drawing attention.
I attend a +lot+ of geeky trade shows for the geospatial industry, and believe me, there's nothing geekier than a bunch of guys talking about photogrammetry and remote sensing while wearing their birkenstocks and socks. When one of the companies decides to bring in a booth babe or two, they are the talk of the show. We're kind of an ugly industry.
At any rate, they work. Booth babes draw people into the booth; I can't comment on how well they do with bringing in qualified leads, but they definitely generate traffic. I have to admit, it's a nice change of pace to see a woman who actually looks like a woman at some of these shows, but there is always that twinge of guilt.
It had been tested and came up green so in latter beta builds it wasn't tested anymore because it worked.
No offense, but what the hell sort of software engineering practice do you call that?
So with a codebase as large as Tiger, you're implying that they should regression test +every+ build? Surely they're doing automated validation testing, and perhaps these components were continuing to show green?
I can understand a heavy regression test on the release candidate, but if you tried to test every component with every build, you'd never release anything!
With this logic, Duke Nukem Forever should be the highest quality release ever!!!
And a good thing you did, too. A British Airways 747 flew through volcanic ash once. The results were nogt good, though kudos to the crew for getting the bird down safely.
Slashdot Mirror
You are the sole remaining super-power, armed to the teeth and going broke is not a good combination. Why do you think Europe and China want thier own GPS systems?
The irony of this statement pains me. I don't know, why do they want their own GPS systems? Is it because they've been using the United States' (this tyrannical, imperial, police state that everyone's been bashing on this thread) GPS systems for FREE, and for so long, that maybe they've decided it's not too good of an idea to depend so greatly on a country that may look after its own interests?
Think for a second about all of the commerce that now relies on GPS. Aviation, shipping, even recreation. Where were all of these complaints from foreign countries about this technology when the sats were rolled out in the 70's and 80's? Where was it even 10 years ago? As much as the US has screwed up recently, and we have, the fanatical, almost blinded, backlash by the rest of the world is beginning to frustrate me.
I won't say the USA is the greatest country in the world, even though I am very proud to be a US citizen...but a lot of this is getting blown out of proportion.
In Vietnam they were doing the same thing Hitler did in WWII. They were carpet bombing cities, and killing innocent people
It is interesting to hear the perspective of a high school aged student from another country, but studying in the US. I can hardly defend some of the United States' actions in Vietnam, but to be fair: carpet bombing is something every country did in WWII, not just Germany. The accuracy of the bombs were such that you were lucky to hit the exact target with any of 10,000 bombs.
I also found that when I was in high school (15 years ago), we hardly covered WWII, let alone Vietnam. In my US History class, we spent a lot of time on early American history, a fair amount of time on the civil war era and the early 1900's, but hit the Great Depression around the end of May, meaning the rest of the 20th century allocated about a week on the syllabus.
What strikes me about this, though, is that there is the assumption that we are indoctrinated at a young age to believe the US in infallable, and all of these things we've done are in the name of democracy, etc...yet most public education doesn't even touch upon the times in history when the US' reach was greatest.
Just Google it.
I always knew that Redmond was on another planet...
If you've ever tried to commute there from Seattle, it certainly feels that way.
I hate replying to my own posts, but a picture is worth a thousand words:
Flight crew oxygen mask
A rapid depressurization at high altitude in any plane can mean a number of people pass out and die before they have a chance to put on their mask.
True, but losing one window will not cause a catosrophic decompression. All airliners have ram air inlets that bring air into the air conditioning packs, and outflow valves that let air out. Coincidentally, these outflow valves are about the same size as a cabin window. If a window blows out, the crew will don their oxygen masks and then (typically the first officer) switches the outflow valves to manual control and closes them. Problem solved.
If for some reason the crew cannot put on masks rapidly then their capacity to react can become impaired due to hypoxia, even if the depressurisation is not rapid.
Hypoxia is very dangerous, no doubt, which is why when flying above 30,000 feet or so, if one pilot leaves the flight deck the other is supposed to put his oxygen mask on regardless.
Speaking of which, the masks that flight crews use are vastly different from the ones you see demonstrated in the takeoff safety announcement. They're a "quick release/quick don" style. Essentially, there is a tab that gets pinched with the thumb and forefinger to pop the mask out of its holder. This also inflates the mask; the "straps" for the mask are actually small tubes that fill up with air. The pilot places this over his head, releases the tab, and the straps deflate over the pilots head, giving him an airtight fit. These masks can be donned with one hand in under 5 seconds.
Seriously, there's traffic between the cockpit and the cabin all the time - so there has to be a communications link
There is. It's called an interphone.
Right after 9/11, the prevailing policy for US airlines was to keep the cockpit door closed at all times. Shortly after, I noticed that pilots would come out of the flight deck (for necessities like using the lav), but when they did this:
A) Two flight attendants would be standing in front of the flight deck door
B) A galley trolley or similar would be placed perpendicular to the aisle, and
C) Another flight attendant would enter the flight deck until the pilot returned.
This was specifically on United, though Alaska was similar. Now, of course, it appears that flight deck security has become just as lax as it was pre-9/11.
Sure, it might be the best thing for the country to prevent the hijacking of a plane like that - but the country and any victims in question are far away and poorly defined in our minds. The little girl with a razor blade to her throat standing in a pool of her fathers blood is right outside the door
Except that's what's expected now. Pre-9/11, pilots were trained to do whatever the hijacker asks if hijacked . Now, just about every airline's policy is to keep the door closed, and land the plane ASAP.
It seems like neither Google nor MS is really innovating much on this; granted the scrolling ability is cool with Google, but web-based GIS systems have been around for a long time, such as ESRI's ArcIMS, Autodesk's MapGuide and myriad others that support Web Mapping Services (WMS)
If I wanted to, I can download ortho photos of the entire United States from the USGS or from the USDA's NAIP program.
I guess is seems that these days it's actually pretty easy to build and manipulate web based GIS systems, so I'm curious to see what the next Big Thing will be. Maybe better integration with mobile devices?
When landing a commercial airliner, the rader altimeter only gives the height of the wheels above the ground to the last 5 feet.
Perhaps this was true in the past, but modern airliners (and even not so modern airliners) give accurate radio altimeter readings down to the last foot. This is required for autolands.
Point of note: if you ever look on the flight deck of an airliner, you'll see that the radio altimeter actually will read in the negative on the ground. For instance, a 767 will read -6. This is so when the plane is in landing configuration with the nose a few degrees up, the radio altimeter will read 0 when the main gear touchdown.
A burning aircraft on the deck / superstructure is generally thought to be a Bad Thing(tm)
Ain't that the truth? Just try asking John McCain.
Again, I'm not even trying to say what he did in Congress and the rest of his government career...only that he server more than a "few" years.
I think Cheney is the No.1 poster child for corporate corruption. A few years of government "service", then he goes to Haliburton and rakes in the big bucks, then goes back to politics and starts an unnecessary war that "purely coincidentally" throws billions of dollars back to his old company--which is STILL paying him deferred compensation.
I hate to defend Dick Cheney, but saying he only has a few years of government service under his belt is flat-out false.
==
His career in public service began in 1969 when he joined the Nixon Administration, serving in a number of positions at the Cost of Living Council, at the Office of Economic Opportunity, and within the White House.
When Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency in August 1974, Mr. Cheney served on the transition team and later as Deputy Assistant to the President. In November 1975, he was named Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff, a position he held throughout the remainder of the Ford Administration.
After he returned to his home state of Wyoming in 1977, Mr. Cheney was elected to serve as the state's sole Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was re-elected five times and elected by his colleagues to serve as Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee from 1981 to 1987. He was elected Chairman of the House Republican Conference in 1987 and elected House Minority Whip in 1988.
==
From Whitehouse.gov
I thought the acting was completely unconvincing, particularly Anakin, the dialog was as cheesy as ever, and there were more than a few WTF? plot moments which completely severed the suspension of my disbelief.
Amen to that. The acting/direction was just as bad (though the first section with Anakin and Obi-Wan I thought was well done), but the fact that the acting was so bad in such critical scenes killed the movie for me. See my sig for more...
Indeed he is. He was also the trainmaster in Matrix Revolutions, if you were unfortunate enough to see that dreck.
Bruce Spence
As Mr. Siracusa over at Ars is so fond of saying:
FTFF: Fix The F**king Finder!
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) booth babes work for drawing attention.
I attend a +lot+ of geeky trade shows for the geospatial industry, and believe me, there's nothing geekier than a bunch of guys talking about photogrammetry and remote sensing while wearing their birkenstocks and socks. When one of the companies decides to bring in a booth babe or two, they are the talk of the show. We're kind of an ugly industry.
At any rate, they work. Booth babes draw people into the booth; I can't comment on how well they do with bringing in qualified leads, but they definitely generate traffic. I have to admit, it's a nice change of pace to see a woman who actually looks like a woman at some of these shows, but there is always that twinge of guilt.
I thought it was Arthur C. Clark who had the idea for geo-stationary satellites...hence the "Clark Belt."
It had been tested and came up green so in latter beta builds it wasn't tested anymore because it worked.
No offense, but what the hell sort of software engineering practice do you call that?
So with a codebase as large as Tiger, you're implying that they should regression test +every+ build? Surely they're doing automated validation testing, and perhaps these components were continuing to show green?
I can understand a heavy regression test on the release candidate, but if you tried to test every component with every build, you'd never release anything!
With this logic, Duke Nukem Forever should be the highest quality release ever!!!
ObMacGamesJoke
C'mon, there are lots of games for the Mac
Zork...Breakout...Super Breakout...Photoshop...
Coffee through the nose, and me with no mod points...
We should be at Warp 7 by now
Engage!
Really? I would have thought in Vegas that while the HVAC bill was high, the electrical bill would have to be huge!
Netcraft confirms it: The system is called hybrid solar lighting.
Needless to say, we flew well clear of the plume.
And a good thing you did, too. A British Airways 747 flew through volcanic ash once. The results were nogt good, though kudos to the crew for getting the bird down safely.
Shouldn't that be 600613?