...but this is not about football, its about protecting people if anything.
I beg to differ. It's about fear -- specifically, it's about using fear as a tool to get the masses to accept whatever kind of authoritarian measures the government wants to put in place so that they have however much control they want over our lives. Personally, I'd rather spend the money on space exploration.
Most CCDs are sensitive to IR light, and nightvision equipment often includes an IR flashlight to provide additional lighting when there is too little ambient light to amplify. Consequently, while an IR laser would protect the location of a sniper from the naked eye, it would provide no protection at all from anyone using nightvision goggles or probably even from most CCD-based surveillance cameras (unless they were heavily filtered to block IR*)
*Yes, I know most digital cameras include an IR cut filter, but they are still relatively sensitive to IR -- just take a picture of a TV remote while adjusting the volume, if you don't believe me.
That's the theory, but practice is frequently something else entirely. Is there any haze, dust, smoke, humidity -- basically any particulates -- in the air? That will scatter the laser light.
A guy I knew recently was showing off with a high-powered laser he picked up somewhere. It was pretty awesome -- he was lighting up mountaintops roughly a mile away. However, I was very surprised to see that there was a very clear, very distinct line from his laser to whatever target he was pointing it at. There was no way he could have remained covert while painting a target. Yes, this was a higher-end, visible-light consumer laser as opposed to a military-issue IR laser. While I would expect a military-grade laser to have more coherency than a consumer-grade laser, they both will be affected this way by atmospheric scattering.
I used to work in a Cessna repair shop, and I attempted to build an experimental airplane once many, many years ago (I eventually gave up and bought an airplane instead -- I'm more pilot than mechanic). The most common thickness of aluminum in the aircraft I am familiar with (i.e., most piston-engine, general aviation airplanes) is 0.040 inches thick. According to Google, 0.040 inch is about 1.02mm. That's an order of magnitude off from your estimate of 0.1mm. This in no way, however, diminishes your point that it is science that allowed us to design the airliners that we use to travel in an inherently hostile environment.
Disclaimer: Yes, I understand that a single-engine, piston-powered Cessnas or the Sonerai II that I tried to build or the Falcon XP that I currently own is a far cry from a 747, MD-80 or Airbus A320. It stands to reason, however, that the skins on a monocoque fuselage would be even thicker on an airliner than a Cessna. Any ex Boeing/McDonald-Douglas/Lockheed/Airbus employees available to confirm or deny this?
With all due respect, and with every sincere attempt to be sensitive to the loss of your relatives, I have to disagree that the GPP is vile, lewd, disgusting or hate speech. It's someone pointing out (accurately, IMHO) that we are on the fast-track to fascism and a police state. We may not yet be engaging in the type of infamy that WWII Germany was known for, but the comparison serves as a warning about what could happen if we don't reverse the trend. The worst horrors of the Third Reich did not begin as soon as Hitler took office. Likewise, we have not yet reached a comparable level of evil in our government, but I have to admit, I no longer recognize the country in which I am living.
Incidentally, for whatever it's worth, my father-in-law was a PoW in Nazi Germany. IMHO, I would be dishonoring the sacrifices he made if I didn't warn others that what happened in the past can happen again if we allow it.
Be that as it may, a warrant still provides some kind of tracking. I strongly suspect that implies that a cop isn't going to request a warrant on a lark even if 99.5% of them are approved, because someday, someone could look at his requests and find out how many of them panned out to be legitimate investigations and how many were snooping/harassment/other abuse.
That's absurd. You can never know that your death before age 80 is one of those deaths, so the question is irrelevant.
On the other hand, if you are asking if I am willing to accept a 99.8% probability of living to 80 rather than dieing in a terrorist accident, my answer is "Yes, of course I am." That's a 0.2% chance of dieing sometime in the next 40 years. I probably have a better chance of dieing every time I get on my motorcycle, considering how people drive in my home town!
Texas already tried to pass a law banning the use of the machines, and the Feds told Texas that if they passed the law, no commercial airliner would fly to Texas again. Texas subsequently backed down (so much for "Don't mess with Texas?"). So, if a state conducts such a study, the study finds unacceptable levels of radiation, the state either loses airline travel or knowingly allows TSA to continue using harmful levels of radiation on travelers within its jurisdiction. Neither option works out well for the state.
No, I fully understand the deterrent angle. As in "TSA has permanently deterred me from flying in a commercial airliner in the United States ever again." What many of you might not understand is that, since I live in Alaska, that's a really big deal for me. I can't *get* anywhere else for a typical 10-day vacation without flying. I'd use all of my vacation time just traveling to or from my destination, with no time to enjoy once I'm there.
As far as deterring terrorists...well, if you are worried about a roughly one in 30 million chance (Google it) of being killed in a domestic terrorist incident so much that you are willing to let government thugs x-ray and/or fondle you, then I'm glad I don't live in your world.
Okay, I'm an interested layman whereas you actually work in the field, so let me ask you a possibly ignorant question. As I understand, there have been no experiments conducted with backscatter x-rays that only penetrate a few millimeters into the skin. Most of the concerns about the backscatter x-ray machines I have heard deal with the fact that a backscatter x-ray concentrates all of the x-ray energy in this thin layer of tissue, whereas conventional x-rays essentially penetrate the entire body, thus diffusing the energy through a much larger area. As the argument goes, while we understand the dosage that becomes "dangerous" (yes, I understand the concept that there is no "safe" dosage of ionizing radiation) when the energy is diffused through a larger cross-section of tissue, we don't understand the effects of lower dosages concentrated into a smaller area. As I said, I don't understand the field so perhaps this argument is nonsensical, but it at least sounds plausible to me. Can you explain why this is not a valid concern?
Be that as it may, if your neighbor finally starts cleaning up after his dog, you have two options: say thank you, thus encouraging your neighbor to continue being a good neighbor, or smack him in the face, in which case he'll probably say "Eff you and your effing lawn." Which one is going to lead to a better outcome for you?
Quite honestly, if I were the neighbor and you gave me the smack down when I became aware of the problem and started correcting it, I'd probably encourage my dog to use your lawn after that, but then again, I tend to be a bit obnoxious when I get irritated.
Be very careful when complaining about the spelling or grammatical errors of others:
OTOH if I see "now" instead if [sic] "know"...
IME, whenever I attempt to correct someone else's spelling or grammatical errors, I invariably end up making one myself:) Incidentally, by putting a comma between "typo" and "anybody", you also created a run-on sentence.
As a friend of mine once said, "Be liberal in what you accept and strict in what you send." Granted, he was talking about adherence to RFC's in computer communications, but it applies equally to human language.
Aw, nuts. I forgot...I did put audio on that video. <sheepish> Maybe it was one of the other videos I uploaded then, because I distinctly remember playing the video that YouTube said was "infringing" and hearing nothing but the engine and wind noise. <confused>
Like I said, the microphone is crap. It's covered by a rubber plug to make the camera waterproof. It's also affixed to a steel crash bar so there may be some odd harmonics from vibrations conducting through the frame to the crashbars and into the camera.
I'm a bit confused as to what happened here. I recently posted a video of a portion of a motorcycle trip I took on YouTube (http://youtu.be/gQbwJjcO2N4 if anyone cares;). The audio consisted exclusively of the sound of my motorcycle engine and wind noise (through the really, really crappy microphone on my camera) -- no music mixed in after the fact, no voice over, just motorcycle engine and wind noise -- and the video was all shot by me, on the road. A couple of weeks later, while on YouTube, I saw a notice that one of my videos contained "potentially infringing material". I followed the links, and sure enough, this was the offending video. There was another link that allowed me to dispute the claim, so I clicked it, and offered the justification that all of the audio and video was recorded by myself and that to the best of my knowledge, it contained no infringing material. Just checked YouTube -- the video is still there, and the "infringing content" notification has been removed.
Why did I have no trouble with this, but the artists in TFA did? Perhaps none of the **AA's are even remotely interested in my video (likely), but the rap artists had the potential of $$$ with their video?
Yes, but you can't make a kiddie porn film without the actual activity itself occurring. That was the "damage" to which I was referring. If demand for kiddie porn goes away, then no one will be harming kids to make it*. Therefore, no more kids will be harmed by making kiddie porn.
That same statement does not hold true for instructions on how to build a bomb. If I were a chemist (I am not) that knew how to make a bomb (I don't) and I wrote instructions on-line that explained how others could make bombs too (I haven't), then the simple act of creating those instructions has harmed precisely no one. On the other hand, if I were a child pornographer (again, I am not), and I released child pornography on the Internet (and again, I have not) then by necessity, I would have sexually abused the child(ren) shown in the kiddie porn before even a single person downloaded and viewed the images. That's the crux of my argument.
*Yes, there is the possibility of someone creating kiddie porn for their own private collection where act of creating the video is secondary to the act of sexually abusing children in the first place. My argument does not address this case, and in fact, would not apply because clearly, it is not the demand for kiddie porn that would cause such a person to create the film in the first place.
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...you may not agree with the way it is handled
You're right. I don't.
...but this is not about football, its about protecting people if anything.
I beg to differ. It's about fear -- specifically, it's about using fear as a tool to get the masses to accept whatever kind of authoritarian measures the government wants to put in place so that they have however much control they want over our lives. Personally, I'd rather spend the money on space exploration.
Two words for you: "IR goggles."
Most CCDs are sensitive to IR light, and nightvision equipment often includes an IR flashlight to provide additional lighting when there is too little ambient light to amplify. Consequently, while an IR laser would protect the location of a sniper from the naked eye, it would provide no protection at all from anyone using nightvision goggles or probably even from most CCD-based surveillance cameras (unless they were heavily filtered to block IR*)
*Yes, I know most digital cameras include an IR cut filter, but they are still relatively sensitive to IR -- just take a picture of a TV remote while adjusting the volume, if you don't believe me.
Pedant :)
But you are correct, and I stand corrected (and I am standing at the moment, just to be clear).
Sure, but as I mentioned above it may not help.
That's the theory, but practice is frequently something else entirely. Is there any haze, dust, smoke, humidity -- basically any particulates -- in the air? That will scatter the laser light.
A guy I knew recently was showing off with a high-powered laser he picked up somewhere. It was pretty awesome -- he was lighting up mountaintops roughly a mile away. However, I was very surprised to see that there was a very clear, very distinct line from his laser to whatever target he was pointing it at. There was no way he could have remained covert while painting a target. Yes, this was a higher-end, visible-light consumer laser as opposed to a military-issue IR laser. While I would expect a military-grade laser to have more coherency than a consumer-grade laser, they both will be affected this way by atmospheric scattering.
Please excuse me for being pedantic...
I used to work in a Cessna repair shop, and I attempted to build an experimental airplane once many, many years ago (I eventually gave up and bought an airplane instead -- I'm more pilot than mechanic). The most common thickness of aluminum in the aircraft I am familiar with (i.e., most piston-engine, general aviation airplanes) is 0.040 inches thick. According to Google, 0.040 inch is about 1.02mm. That's an order of magnitude off from your estimate of 0.1mm. This in no way, however, diminishes your point that it is science that allowed us to design the airliners that we use to travel in an inherently hostile environment.
Disclaimer: Yes, I understand that a single-engine, piston-powered Cessnas or the Sonerai II that I tried to build or the Falcon XP that I currently own is a far cry from a 747, MD-80 or Airbus A320. It stands to reason, however, that the skins on a monocoque fuselage would be even thicker on an airliner than a Cessna. Any ex Boeing/McDonald-Douglas/Lockheed/Airbus employees available to confirm or deny this?
This should be it.
With all due respect, and with every sincere attempt to be sensitive to the loss of your relatives, I have to disagree that the GPP is vile, lewd, disgusting or hate speech. It's someone pointing out (accurately, IMHO) that we are on the fast-track to fascism and a police state. We may not yet be engaging in the type of infamy that WWII Germany was known for, but the comparison serves as a warning about what could happen if we don't reverse the trend. The worst horrors of the Third Reich did not begin as soon as Hitler took office. Likewise, we have not yet reached a comparable level of evil in our government, but I have to admit, I no longer recognize the country in which I am living.
Incidentally, for whatever it's worth, my father-in-law was a PoW in Nazi Germany. IMHO, I would be dishonoring the sacrifices he made if I didn't warn others that what happened in the past can happen again if we allow it.
Be that as it may, a warrant still provides some kind of tracking. I strongly suspect that implies that a cop isn't going to request a warrant on a lark even if 99.5% of them are approved, because someday, someone could look at his requests and find out how many of them panned out to be legitimate investigations and how many were snooping/harassment/other abuse.
I told you that I always break at least one rule when correcting others ;)
That's absurd. You can never know that your death before age 80 is one of those deaths, so the question is irrelevant.
On the other hand, if you are asking if I am willing to accept a 99.8% probability of living to 80 rather than dieing in a terrorist accident, my answer is "Yes, of course I am." That's a 0.2% chance of dieing sometime in the next 40 years. I probably have a better chance of dieing every time I get on my motorcycle, considering how people drive in my home town!
They probably can, but why would they?
Texas already tried to pass a law banning the use of the machines, and the Feds told Texas that if they passed the law, no commercial airliner would fly to Texas again. Texas subsequently backed down (so much for "Don't mess with Texas?"). So, if a state conducts such a study, the study finds unacceptable levels of radiation, the state either loses airline travel or knowingly allows TSA to continue using harmful levels of radiation on travelers within its jurisdiction. Neither option works out well for the state.
No, I fully understand the deterrent angle. As in "TSA has permanently deterred me from flying in a commercial airliner in the United States ever again." What many of you might not understand is that, since I live in Alaska, that's a really big deal for me. I can't *get* anywhere else for a typical 10-day vacation without flying. I'd use all of my vacation time just traveling to or from my destination, with no time to enjoy once I'm there.
As far as deterring terrorists...well, if you are worried about a roughly one in 30 million chance (Google it) of being killed in a domestic terrorist incident so much that you are willing to let government thugs x-ray and/or fondle you, then I'm glad I don't live in your world.
Okay, I'm an interested layman whereas you actually work in the field, so let me ask you a possibly ignorant question. As I understand, there have been no experiments conducted with backscatter x-rays that only penetrate a few millimeters into the skin. Most of the concerns about the backscatter x-ray machines I have heard deal with the fact that a backscatter x-ray concentrates all of the x-ray energy in this thin layer of tissue, whereas conventional x-rays essentially penetrate the entire body, thus diffusing the energy through a much larger area. As the argument goes, while we understand the dosage that becomes "dangerous" (yes, I understand the concept that there is no "safe" dosage of ionizing radiation) when the energy is diffused through a larger cross-section of tissue, we don't understand the effects of lower dosages concentrated into a smaller area. As I said, I don't understand the field so perhaps this argument is nonsensical, but it at least sounds plausible to me. Can you explain why this is not a valid concern?
Be that as it may, if your neighbor finally starts cleaning up after his dog, you have two options: say thank you, thus encouraging your neighbor to continue being a good neighbor, or smack him in the face, in which case he'll probably say "Eff you and your effing lawn." Which one is going to lead to a better outcome for you?
Quite honestly, if I were the neighbor and you gave me the smack down when I became aware of the problem and started correcting it, I'd probably encourage my dog to use your lawn after that, but then again, I tend to be a bit obnoxious when I get irritated.
As a wiser man than I once said, "Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge. But he who hates correction is stupid."
OTOH if I see "now" instead if [sic] "know"...
IME, whenever I attempt to correct someone else's spelling or grammatical errors, I invariably end up making one myself :) Incidentally, by putting a comma between "typo" and "anybody", you also created a run-on sentence.
As a friend of mine once said, "Be liberal in what you accept and strict in what you send." Granted, he was talking about adherence to RFC's in computer communications, but it applies equally to human language.
Aw, nuts. I forgot...I did put audio on that video. <sheepish> Maybe it was one of the other videos I uploaded then, because I distinctly remember playing the video that YouTube said was "infringing" and hearing nothing but the engine and wind noise. <confused>
Like I said, the microphone is crap. It's covered by a rubber plug to make the camera waterproof. It's also affixed to a steel crash bar so there may be some odd harmonics from vibrations conducting through the frame to the crashbars and into the camera.
Yeah, that makes sense.
LOL.
:)
No, a Suzuki V-Strom. It *is* a V-Twin though, so maybe you're on to something
Raspberry Spi?
I'm a bit confused as to what happened here. I recently posted a video of a portion of a motorcycle trip I took on YouTube (http://youtu.be/gQbwJjcO2N4 if anyone cares ;). The audio consisted exclusively of the sound of my motorcycle engine and wind noise (through the really, really crappy microphone on my camera) -- no music mixed in after the fact, no voice over, just motorcycle engine and wind noise -- and the video was all shot by me, on the road. A couple of weeks later, while on YouTube, I saw a notice that one of my videos contained "potentially infringing material". I followed the links, and sure enough, this was the offending video. There was another link that allowed me to dispute the claim, so I clicked it, and offered the justification that all of the audio and video was recorded by myself and that to the best of my knowledge, it contained no infringing material. Just checked YouTube -- the video is still there, and the "infringing content" notification has been removed.
Why did I have no trouble with this, but the artists in TFA did? Perhaps none of the **AA's are even remotely interested in my video (likely), but the rap artists had the potential of $$$ with their video?
Sure you can. But you'd better be wearing your asbestos Underoos when you try ;)
Yes, but you can't make a kiddie porn film without the actual activity itself occurring. That was the "damage" to which I was referring. If demand for kiddie porn goes away, then no one will be harming kids to make it*. Therefore, no more kids will be harmed by making kiddie porn.
That same statement does not hold true for instructions on how to build a bomb. If I were a chemist (I am not) that knew how to make a bomb (I don't) and I wrote instructions on-line that explained how others could make bombs too (I haven't), then the simple act of creating those instructions has harmed precisely no one. On the other hand, if I were a child pornographer (again, I am not), and I released child pornography on the Internet (and again, I have not) then by necessity, I would have sexually abused the child(ren) shown in the kiddie porn before even a single person downloaded and viewed the images. That's the crux of my argument.
*Yes, there is the possibility of someone creating kiddie porn for their own private collection where act of creating the video is secondary to the act of sexually abusing children in the first place. My argument does not address this case, and in fact, would not apply because clearly, it is not the demand for kiddie porn that would cause such a person to create the film in the first place.