With regard to damage,.223 - even HP - is considered to be a light hunting round, more suitable for varmints (like a coyote) but not recommended on larger game, like deer. And you'd need to be certified crazy to shoot a.223 at a feral hog (it will only annoy it, and make it run after you.)
Not necessarily. While lighter.223 bullets (55gr and below) are unsuitable for larger game, there are several bullets available in the 62-75gr range that are quite effective against whitetails out to 150 yards or so. Some of them are specifically designed for hunting deer, and I know several people that have used them to great success. I'm putting together a load using 65gr GameKings, myself..223 is also be effective against hogs with a heavier bullet; I know one guy that leads hog hunts as a second job, and he uses.223.
Given that cars cause more fatalities per mile travelled than planes, why don't we have more redundancy in drive-by-wire systems?
First, drive-by-wire is responsible for only a tiny portion (if any) of the fatalities on the road every year. The overwhelming majority of them are caused by human error/stupidity. Triple redundancy isn't going to protect you against drunks, sleepy drivers, idiot teenagers, poor weather, idiots without their headlights on in the rain, etc.
Second, I don't know of many cars where braking and steering are completely computerized. As long as those two systems retain a manual actuation ability, you can stop the car.
There really is a non-evil purpose behind the questions on the long form. My wife works at an accounting office that has conducted studies on the current and future economic and social conditions in our area. They use census data and building permit information, among other things, to help figure out stuff like water system planning, zoning, road and transit plans, fire station construction, public school construction, and other infrastructure stuff. So there is a reason behind some of it.
That's not to say that I necessarily like it all being collected, or that it should be collected in this manner; just pointing out what it's sometimes used for. And please don't go whacko on the census guy; he's likely doing it just to get some income cause he's unemployed and it pays well ($16/hr, I've heard).
I heard a great solution to the "how to pay for those without insurance" problem the other day.
If the person is a US citizen, bill the government. Government pays the bill, then applies the amount to the individual's taxes. The IRS will be quite happy to accept regular payments, with interest of course.
If the person is not a US citizen, but here legally, follow the above.
If the person is here illegally, or was legal but left the country, the US government pays (to ensure the providers are compensated), then the bill is sent to that individual's country. If the country doesn't pay up, the money is withheld, dollar for dollar, from any foreign aid or assistance that was going to be paid.
Of course, and before anyone flips out, this also implies massive changes in the insurance structure--eg,
Any plan offered in a state must be available to everyone in that state, at the same price, terms, and conditions. No pre-existing conditions, either you sign up or you don't. But like plans now, signups are once a year, making it harder to pull the "now I'm sick so I'll get insurance" routine.
Employers can only provide funds towards helping people pay premiums, they can't link to a certain plan ("provider agnostic", if you will)
Providers must set a price for a given procedure, charge everyone the same, and publish the price. No more charging Bill $X, Sue $Y, and Frank $Z, just because their insurance is different.
Providers can't charge for treatment of things they caused. If you get MRSA in the hospital, for example, they can't charge you for treating that.
Tort reform limits malpractice suits to gross negligence only (cutting off the wrong limb, for example). In return, a national review site where patients can rate their care and comment freely is set up; interfering with or attempting to hide/cover up/defraud the system is a Very Bad Crime.
You know, actual fixes to the entire system, rather than band-aids and shell games with the money.
What do I owe to someone who has, out of choice, never worked a productive day in his life? What do I owe to someone whose only contributions to the world around him are shit, piss, and carbon dioxide? What do I owe to someone who voluntarily throws away every chance he was given to improve his lot by, oh, going to school, and instead chooses to remain a parasite on society, living off the efforts of others and refusing to do anything for himself or those he should be responsible for?
Whatever I owe to society, I'm going to put my effort of paying back into something that works. I'll fund roads and powerplants that give people jobs and the satisfaction of having done something worthwhile, but also provide something everyone can make use of. I'll fund a space program with a corresponding effort in education, so that we can get people into engineering and science and work on a project that helps mankind as a whole. I will go help build a house for someone who is honestly making an effort to improve himself and be part of society, and give him a helping hand. I will go to the fire station two days a week and ride calls to help people in trouble.
But I will not pour money into programs that, day after day, just hand people checks so they can piss them away on booze and cigarettes and useless trinkets and electronics, and sit on their ass all day doing nothing for the betterment of themselves, their family, their neighbor, or society in general... then come back and do it again the next day. I hate freeloaders. You sit there and claim a "right" to all this stuff--healthcare, housing, a "minimum standard of living"--but where is the responsibility that comes with it? Pasrasitism is never good for the host--and too many parasites kill it.
I'm all for clean tech that works. Unfortunately, many of the self-proclaimed "environmentalists" have some kind of innate self-loathing they apply to all of humanity, which they see as inherently evil and wrong. To them, any technology is bad, and we (collectively) should give up and sacrifice as much as possible to atone for our "sins".
I think that mental complex is very closely related to the one that adores, protects, and submits to hardened criminals in faovor over the average person or a victim; or the one that adores tin-pot dictatorships and genocidal totalitarian states over liberal democracies where things like basic human rights are respected.
(note: I use "liberal democracy" in the classical sense of an elected, representative government adhering to the principle of rule of law)
GPS is more accurate, updates faster, and provides coverage in places radar doesn't, like open ocean, mountain ranges, Alaska, Siberia, etc. It also gives better data to other aircraft than current systems. Current transponder-based radar systems (which also require aircraft to actively respond) will be retained in parallel for a long time to support older aircraft and serve as a backup; traditional "skin-paint" radar that works on passive or hostile aircraft will always be present too, just for those situations you speak of.
ADS-B (the GPS-based technology) significantly increases safety and provides a little workload reduction over the current system. It's being used to great effect already in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
Yes, the system uses a transmitter to broadcast the aircraft's position. That signal can be picked up by both ATC and other aircraft (for collision avoidance).
Radar will still be maintained for a long time to come, for exactly those reasons (backup, older aircraft, etc.). That's why VOR and ILS systems are still here too--I doubt they'll go away in our lifetime.
Umm, I think we're about 40 years past having to use all caps for "radar" and "laser"; I know they originally started out as acronyms, but they've now become common everyday words just like "computer" or "dog" or "monitor". Using all caps for these things is pointless now.
Separately:
Come on, people, use some fucking commmon sense. RTFA, look up what you're talking about. Yes, GPS itself is a passive system. Yes, the technology discussed uses an active transmitter on the aircraft. No, it is not talking about the navigation information displayed in the cockpit. Yes, backup systems will still be in place in case of failures. Yes, things like jammers and terrorists have been considered.
Yeah, because nobody ever keeps backup systems in place for those exact issues. That's why the US doesn't have any "primary" non-transponder-based radars operating right now, and airplanes regularly disappear completely when their electrical systems go out
1. GPS jamming tests are likely conducted as much for finding ways around them or strengthening resistance to them as anything else. I know the US has conducted a series of tests where GPS/INS munitions were used to kill jammers, and I think they have done that in combat, too. There are probably plenty of reasons why they do it.
2. Nope. A lot of older aircraft (even 757/767/A320 era) don't have GPS receivers. A lot of them are getting those retrofitted, but the airliners that don't have GPS generally use a combination of intertial and ground-based navigation (VOR/DME and such). In a few cases, you'll see a really old aircraft that's still using manually-tuned radio navigation, with no FMS or INS.
3. The advantage of ADS-B (the GPS-based system referred to in TFA) is that the information is more accurate, updates faster, is available to all other aircraft with the proper equipment (better TCAS functionality), has a simpler infrastructure than ground-based radar systems, and works just fine in areas without radar coverage (mountainous areas, open ocean, Alaska, etc). I'm sure the current system of radar/transponder will be retained for a long time, both for backup use and reverse compatability (light airplanes especially will probably retain old-style transponders for a long time). We also still have a network of radars that pick up "primary" targets (ie, raw radar returns) for detecting/tracking aircraft with failed transponders or non-cooperating targets.
I'm no longer in school, but I've noticed the "sleeping late makes me feel worse" thing too. Now, I've always been somewhat of an early riser when left to my own devices (my mom used to catch me watching TV at 0500 when I was still in preschool). Right now, I work a job where I have to be there at 0600. That means the alarm is set for 0515, smack the snooze button until 0530, out the door at 0545. And that's after going to bed somewhere between 2230 and 2330. On a weekend, unless I make myself get up around 0630, I'm a mess the rest of the day. If I oversleep till 8, I feel like I have a massive hangover even when I haven't been drinking.
The best thing I can suggest is to wear yourself out after school. Do physical labor or strenuous exercise as long as you physically can (enlist someone to be a "drill sargeant" if you have to). A couple days of that, and you'll be desperate to get in bed by 2100.
See above. This isn't a 2000 page novel with a clear beginning and end, coherent plot, and logical followthrough between events. It's an uncommented 2000 page differences document written against a 50000 page, poorly commented, unoptimized source code packed full of GOTO statements and spaghetti code, and lacking proper garbage collection. Have fun parsing that, let alone trying to step through it manually.
Exactly. Bills aren't like novels. They aren't entirely self-contained, they don't flow logically from beginning to end, you can't get everything you need to know out of them without lots and lots of supporting materials.
I'm going to approach this from an engineering standpoint. Let's imagine that the current law is like a gigantic drawing, or specification, or source code. It is thousands and thousands of pages long. Let us also assume that the current health bill is like an engineering change order, specifying the changes to be made and where to make them. Things like "change Paragraph 7 in section VI of page 27,512 to read 'quick brown fox' instead of 'slow spotted dog'" or "strike paragraph 8, section II of page 22,212 and replace with the following...". Isn't that meaningless on its own? I mean, if I went in to check and comment your code, and rather than mark up your existing code, I handed you a couple thousand pages of change notes, making you go back into the source to figure out what the hell I actually meant, don't you think it would be a little harder?
Without going back and comparing the original law and the current changes, the changes are likely to make little sense. A seemingly simple change of a sentence or two can change the entire implementation of something very large and complex. Oh, and lets compound the problem by adding in another change or two that has been approved and released, but not yet directly incorporated. You also have to go dig through those and figure them out, too, just to understand the law as it currently is before trying to apply the proposed changes.
Plus, you not only have to be able to read the bill and incorporate the changes into the text, but you also have to be able to understand all the ramifications of the bill. We're talking about making drastic changes to laws that affect everyone in the country and affect large portions of the economy. That's just not something you can evaluate properly in a weekend, even if you're an expert in the field. Yet, somehow our politicians can read through this document and compare every single one of its changes against the current annotated US code, analyze every change and think each one of them all the way through to their conclusions, and consider all of the legal, political, medical, and economic ramifications? Yeah, I didn't think so.
So it's not as simple as "oh, it's just 2000 pages, I can read that!" If I were to take 2000 pages' worth of proposed engineering orders against one of the airplanes my employer makes and try to make sense of them all at once, and ensure that none of the changes they make will negatively affect the safety, operation, maintainability, or certification of said airplane, it would take me a lot longer than "a weekend". That's exactly why such things are broken down into simple, easy, small chunks. The order for one particular change stands on its own and is approved on its own, so its purpose is clear and it doesn't get lost or misinterpreted among all of the other changes.
So the bill has been in the works for a year or so, and the American people still don't know what's in the bill? Are you really suggesting that?
Yes, that's exactly what he's suggesting. To quote Nancy Pelosi, "you'll have to pass the bill to find out what's in it". The bill is 2000+ pages, which had undergone changes (often behind closed doors) right up until the time of the vote. There's nobody on earth who knows all of what's in the bill. And with something that big, there's sure to be a bunch of "gotchas" and loopholes, intentional or not, that are just waiting to be exploited.
There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for any congressional representative to be voting in favor of this bill without having a clear analysis of the entire bill in the form it was to be voted on, no matter how good the bill is or is not. Any of them that did so should be impeached and found guilty for dereliction of duty, then dismissed from office and imprisoned. I don't care what party you're from or what the bill is, you should not be voting on things without knowing what it is you're voting on. If you can't get your bill to pass as written after thorough examination, it shouldn't be passed at all.
All of us know better than to sign things like mortgage contracts, employment contracts, etc, without thoroughly reading the contract and getting competent legal advice to help. And that's just for things that affect you. So why is it ok for our congressional types to do that on things that affect all of us?
It's unpopular and controversial for several reasons.
First was the "how dare you question us, we know what's best for you, don't worry about what's in the bill, you'll find out after it passes, so just vote on it" attitude of the Democratic leadership (coughPelosicough). Any lawyer or realtor who advised their client to not worry about reading the contract or purchase agreement, but rather to just go ahead and sign it, wouldn't be worthy of their license and should be sued, fired, disbarred, etc. But apparently, when dealing with a large agreement that will affect everyone, that's ok. The Republicans didn't help matters at all, either. They did nothing when they held a Congressional majority for over a decade, and once they lost power, they did nothing but stamp their collective feet like petulant little two year olds whose vocabulary didn't go much past "no!". There was also the standard political demonization, logical fallacy, and reduction to absurdity; eg "this bill is reform, therefore if you don't like this bill, you don't want reform, and if you don't want reform, then obviously you want little kids to die!" or "some government panel will sentence you to death!".
Second, a lot of people here are quite fed up with seeing billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars being spent year after year after year after year after year on social programs and "entitlements" for no discernable result other than having to spend as much or more the next year. Whether that should be a function of government or not is an entirely separate issue; whether you support such things or not you would at least expect some kind of return on the investment, some kind of measurable effect. Feelings on this matter are not helped (and are often inflamed) when the recipients of this spending are seen to be wasting it or taking advantage of the services when they aren't needed. Most of us have probably seen someone at the grocery store use food stamps to pay for basic necessities like milk, bread, etc., only to then use their own money to pay for beer, cigarettes, or nicer food than we ourselves can afford to buy. Many have probably run into people in government-subsidized housing who have new personal electronics (smartphones, large flat-panel TVs, etc) or fancy cosmetic mods to their vehicles. It's one thing to give temporary assistance to those people who are genuinely trying and who just need a little help through tough times; it's quite another for someone to remain on "assistance" long-term and use it and essentially use it to subsidize luxury purchases. In essence, if you can afford to pay for that fancy TV and the cable service to feed it, you can afford to go to the grocery store and buy food on your own. You don't need that TV.
Third, this bill doesn't really fix much of anything. It doesn't fix the problem of ridiculously high costs and absurd waste, and it doesn't provide the means to pay for the things it mandates. It basically says "you, the states, must pay for all this stuff that we require. And it will save us all money because we say it will save us all money. We expect that everything will work out just because we say it will work out, as if the mere pronouncement itself is enough to make things happen".
Finally, lots of good proposals were entirely ignored, either because they would financially impact major campaign contributors or they didn't achieve the ideological goals of some politicians. For example:
Break the link between employers and insurance coverage. There's far too much acceptance of the idea that your medical coverage needs to be chosen and provided for you by some higher entity, whether that be government, a union, or an employer. Lots of noise was made about needing "competition" in the market, but requiring that people have their coverage provided for them is the antithesis of that. Breaking the link and opening the market to the national (rather than state) level actually provides competition, and eliminates problems of people s
The Speed limit for a road is pretty much set by the type of road it is, you really don't need to see a sign to have a good idea of the appropriate speed for a particular road
In theory.
In practice, the road could easily be capable of safely handling traffic at 55mph... only to have a speed limit of 30 because it's within a given distance of city limits. Or it could just have a random speed limit change for no reason other than to provide a "gotcha" for the local cops to nail out-of-town drivers. The town next to me when I was growing up had town-hall meetings to discuss speed limits and how best to set them to maximize revenue from tickets when they were facing a budget shortfall. There's one road nearby with wide, well-marked lanes and gradual curves, nothing for a mile or two in each direction... with a speed limit of 25. I've seen four-lane, divided, limited-access highways with lower speed limits than the non-divided, heavily-commercialized road passing under it.
There's a reason more and more new production aircraft are coming out with HUD and EVS systems. Better visibility and having data in the field of view beats not having it every day of the week. The same can be applied to cars; having an infrared camera projecting an overlay (not a replacement image, but a transparent overlay) would increase visibility at night or in fog/rain.
Look up "gulfstream evs" on youtube for an idea. The tracing and outlining stuff in TFA is something entirely different.
Just as I don't want to find some intruder walking around in my house without permission, neither do I want an intruder entering my country without permission. Pack them up, hand them a VISA application form, and send them home.
Exactly. We currently require that people wishing to enter the country by air or sea do so at a designated port of entry, fill out reasonable paperwork, and establish their identities with official documents (aka a passport). This applies to everybody, whether they're from the UK, Russia, India, or Chile. We spend a lot of effort to intercept boats and airplanes that try to enter without going through that process. We spend a lot of money securing the customs and immigration parts of our airports (as well as the other parts, too). That's a practice accepted by pretty much everyone.
So why does everyone shit an elephant when it's suggested that we do the same thing for our land borders? Securing ports and airfields is a legitimate security concern, but trying to do the same for a land border apparently turns you into some kind of xenophobic racist scum? I don't get it. You don't lock up the windows in your house and wire them for a security system, but then leave the front door wide open, do you? Everyone else coming into the country has to go through the proper channels, so why should someone coming in by land be different?
I have nothing against immigrants from any country. I'm descended from fairly recent immigrants myself. All I ask is that immigrants learn the language in a reasonable time, obey the laws of the land like everyone else has to, and pay taxes just like everyone else who lives here. The same would be expected of me if I went anywhere else.
Our immigration laws need updating, yes. So let's update them. But let's also secure our land borders to the same standards that we do our air and sea "borders". Pheysically ensuring that everyone entering is doing so legally does several things:
-makes smuggling harder and helps reduce crime -cuts back on freeloading and helps ensure everyone is paying taxes -ensures non-citizen workers are protected by wage and safety laws because they won't fear deportation for reporting violations -allows faster identification and notification of authorities/families/etc. in case of accidents, emergencies, disasters, etc.
I had a little over $1 million to spend and didn't want it to go back to Congress, so instead I spent it.
You realize that this general problem isn't just limited to government, right? I'm not a big-government fan by any means, but poor management and budgetary practice is just as widespread in the private sector. When there's no reward for saving money, and budgets are planned based on "what did you get last year" instead of "what do you need to do your job this year", that's what happens. You need to spend all the money you have this year, even if that means buying everyone catered lunch for a month or going to expensive conferences, so that you'll get that much the next year (when you might actually need it all to do your job). Don't spend it, and your budget gets cut... then when you have a big project and ask for more, management says "you got along fine with less last year, so STFU".
I propose an amendment: Section I. Except during a state of declared war, Congress may not budget or spend more money than was received in tax revenue the previous year.
Section II. Congress shall start anew when writing the budget, rather than just making modifications to the previous one (aka zero-based budgeting).
Section III. Tax money collected for a specific purpose may not be borrowed or spent on other projects. (no borrowing from social security for other things)
I know there's a lot of work ahead of us. And I realize that "canned monkeys" aren't enough. But the big point is, real colonization has to start somewhere--ie, with lots of canned monkeys and solar-power satellites. Too many people want to sit around saying that all of this is too hard, that it isn't practical without advanced technologies that we don't currently have, and then decide "well, we can't do it right now, so why bother trying?" They conveniently forget that all of this Buck Rogers takes effort, not just bucks. Someone has to work on them; they don't just fall out of the sky ready to go. We're fooled by seeing all of these different advances in different fields (like computing), forgetting that the progress is happening because, well, somebody is doing the work. It just happens that most of that work can be applied to other fields. But things like nuclear space propulsion and vacuum-rated hardware don't have lots of other applications, and unless someone in the aerospace field works on them, unless somebody puts money towards them, they'll stagnate. We'll sit there forever wondering why we don't have all these fancy things, and yet never actually get them.
I mean, we didn't sit there after the Wright brothers flew and decide that pursuing airplanes was a worthless endeavor, that we should just wait until we could build the 787, did we? Well, that's what we're doing with space. We've taken our first baby step, then given up on trying to walk because we can't yet run a marathon. Maybe we won't make it out into space before we manage to kill ourselves off... but I, for one, would rather go down fighting. And if that does happen, if we do die off and exist no more, then everything we've ever done in the name of progress and benefiting humanity, everything every person ever did, will be for naught.
But yes, we are currently in a race to see if we can establish sustainable populations off-planet before we or something else manages to wipe out all life here on earth.
Don't kid yourself. Only a very few of us are in the race. The vast majority gave up about three steps into the marathon, plopped down on the couch, and tuned into American Idol.
Frankly, I think space colonization needs to be a national priority, right up there with energy independence. I'm talking a national effort for those two issues that would make the WWII industrial and military effort seem like an elementary school field day in comparison, because I think humanity will face an extinction threat by the end of the century (biological warfare). It's only a matter of time before some terrorist or crazy religious group (or a nation comprised of such) gets hold of some bioweapon like ebola or Spanish flu, genetically tweaks it, and lets it loose; I can only hope we have somewhere to go when that happens. It just pisses me off that we were moving towards that and had made some measurable progress, only to give up and sit on our fat asses.
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With regard to damage, .223 - even HP - is considered to be a light hunting round, more suitable for varmints (like a coyote) but not recommended on larger game, like deer. And you'd need to be certified crazy to shoot a .223 at a feral hog (it will only annoy it, and make it run after you.)
Not necessarily. While lighter .223 bullets (55gr and below) are unsuitable for larger game, there are several bullets available in the 62-75gr range that are quite effective against whitetails out to 150 yards or so. Some of them are specifically designed for hunting deer, and I know several people that have used them to great success. I'm putting together a load using 65gr GameKings, myself. .223 is also be effective against hogs with a heavier bullet; I know one guy that leads hog hunts as a second job, and he uses .223.
Given that cars cause more fatalities per mile travelled than planes, why don't we have more redundancy in drive-by-wire systems?
First, drive-by-wire is responsible for only a tiny portion (if any) of the fatalities on the road every year. The overwhelming majority of them are caused by human error/stupidity. Triple redundancy isn't going to protect you against drunks, sleepy drivers, idiot teenagers, poor weather, idiots without their headlights on in the rain, etc.
Second, I don't know of many cars where braking and steering are completely computerized. As long as those two systems retain a manual actuation ability, you can stop the car.
There really is a non-evil purpose behind the questions on the long form. My wife works at an accounting office that has conducted studies on the current and future economic and social conditions in our area. They use census data and building permit information, among other things, to help figure out stuff like water system planning, zoning, road and transit plans, fire station construction, public school construction, and other infrastructure stuff. So there is a reason behind some of it.
That's not to say that I necessarily like it all being collected, or that it should be collected in this manner; just pointing out what it's sometimes used for. And please don't go whacko on the census guy; he's likely doing it just to get some income cause he's unemployed and it pays well ($16/hr, I've heard).
I heard a great solution to the "how to pay for those without insurance" problem the other day.
If the person is a US citizen, bill the government. Government pays the bill, then applies the amount to the individual's taxes. The IRS will be quite happy to accept regular payments, with interest of course.
If the person is not a US citizen, but here legally, follow the above.
If the person is here illegally, or was legal but left the country, the US government pays (to ensure the providers are compensated), then the bill is sent to that individual's country. If the country doesn't pay up, the money is withheld, dollar for dollar, from any foreign aid or assistance that was going to be paid.
Of course, and before anyone flips out, this also implies massive changes in the insurance structure--eg,
Any plan offered in a state must be available to everyone in that state, at the same price, terms, and conditions. No pre-existing conditions, either you sign up or you don't. But like plans now, signups are once a year, making it harder to pull the "now I'm sick so I'll get insurance" routine.
Employers can only provide funds towards helping people pay premiums, they can't link to a certain plan ("provider agnostic", if you will)
Providers must set a price for a given procedure, charge everyone the same, and publish the price. No more charging Bill $X, Sue $Y, and Frank $Z, just because their insurance is different.
Providers can't charge for treatment of things they caused. If you get MRSA in the hospital, for example, they can't charge you for treating that.
Tort reform limits malpractice suits to gross negligence only (cutting off the wrong limb, for example). In return, a national review site where patients can rate their care and comment freely is set up; interfering with or attempting to hide/cover up/defraud the system is a Very Bad Crime.
You know, actual fixes to the entire system, rather than band-aids and shell games with the money.
What do I owe to someone who has, out of choice, never worked a productive day in his life? What do I owe to someone whose only contributions to the world around him are shit, piss, and carbon dioxide? What do I owe to someone who voluntarily throws away every chance he was given to improve his lot by, oh, going to school, and instead chooses to remain a parasite on society, living off the efforts of others and refusing to do anything for himself or those he should be responsible for?
Whatever I owe to society, I'm going to put my effort of paying back into something that works. I'll fund roads and powerplants that give people jobs and the satisfaction of having done something worthwhile, but also provide something everyone can make use of. I'll fund a space program with a corresponding effort in education, so that we can get people into engineering and science and work on a project that helps mankind as a whole. I will go help build a house for someone who is honestly making an effort to improve himself and be part of society, and give him a helping hand. I will go to the fire station two days a week and ride calls to help people in trouble.
But I will not pour money into programs that, day after day, just hand people checks so they can piss them away on booze and cigarettes and useless trinkets and electronics, and sit on their ass all day doing nothing for the betterment of themselves, their family, their neighbor, or society in general... then come back and do it again the next day. I hate freeloaders. You sit there and claim a "right" to all this stuff--healthcare, housing, a "minimum standard of living"--but where is the responsibility that comes with it? Pasrasitism is never good for the host--and too many parasites kill it.
I'm all for clean tech that works. Unfortunately, many of the self-proclaimed "environmentalists" have some kind of innate self-loathing they apply to all of humanity, which they see as inherently evil and wrong. To them, any technology is bad, and we (collectively) should give up and sacrifice as much as possible to atone for our "sins".
I think that mental complex is very closely related to the one that adores, protects, and submits to hardened criminals in faovor over the average person or a victim; or the one that adores tin-pot dictatorships and genocidal totalitarian states over liberal democracies where things like basic human rights are respected.
(note: I use "liberal democracy" in the classical sense of an elected, representative government adhering to the principle of rule of law)
GPS is more accurate, updates faster, and provides coverage in places radar doesn't, like open ocean, mountain ranges, Alaska, Siberia, etc. It also gives better data to other aircraft than current systems. Current transponder-based radar systems (which also require aircraft to actively respond) will be retained in parallel for a long time to support older aircraft and serve as a backup; traditional "skin-paint" radar that works on passive or hostile aircraft will always be present too, just for those situations you speak of.
ADS-B (the GPS-based technology) significantly increases safety and provides a little workload reduction over the current system. It's being used to great effect already in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
Yes, the system uses a transmitter to broadcast the aircraft's position. That signal can be picked up by both ATC and other aircraft (for collision avoidance).
Radar will still be maintained for a long time to come, for exactly those reasons (backup, older aircraft, etc.). That's why VOR and ILS systems are still here too--I doubt they'll go away in our lifetime.
Umm, I think we're about 40 years past having to use all caps for "radar" and "laser"; I know they originally started out as acronyms, but they've now become common everyday words just like "computer" or "dog" or "monitor". Using all caps for these things is pointless now.
Separately:
Come on, people, use some fucking commmon sense. RTFA, look up what you're talking about. Yes, GPS itself is a passive system. Yes, the technology discussed uses an active transmitter on the aircraft. No, it is not talking about the navigation information displayed in the cockpit. Yes, backup systems will still be in place in case of failures. Yes, things like jammers and terrorists have been considered.
Yeah, because nobody ever keeps backup systems in place for those exact issues. That's why the US doesn't have any "primary" non-transponder-based radars operating right now, and airplanes regularly disappear completely when their electrical systems go out
1. GPS jamming tests are likely conducted as much for finding ways around them or strengthening resistance to them as anything else. I know the US has conducted a series of tests where GPS/INS munitions were used to kill jammers, and I think they have done that in combat, too. There are probably plenty of reasons why they do it.
2. Nope. A lot of older aircraft (even 757/767/A320 era) don't have GPS receivers. A lot of them are getting those retrofitted, but the airliners that don't have GPS generally use a combination of intertial and ground-based navigation (VOR/DME and such). In a few cases, you'll see a really old aircraft that's still using manually-tuned radio navigation, with no FMS or INS.
3. The advantage of ADS-B (the GPS-based system referred to in TFA) is that the information is more accurate, updates faster, is available to all other aircraft with the proper equipment (better TCAS functionality), has a simpler infrastructure than ground-based radar systems, and works just fine in areas without radar coverage (mountainous areas, open ocean, Alaska, etc). I'm sure the current system of radar/transponder will be retained for a long time, both for backup use and reverse compatability (light airplanes especially will probably retain old-style transponders for a long time). We also still have a network of radars that pick up "primary" targets (ie, raw radar returns) for detecting/tracking aircraft with failed transponders or non-cooperating targets.
I'm no longer in school, but I've noticed the "sleeping late makes me feel worse" thing too. Now, I've always been somewhat of an early riser when left to my own devices (my mom used to catch me watching TV at 0500 when I was still in preschool). Right now, I work a job where I have to be there at 0600. That means the alarm is set for 0515, smack the snooze button until 0530, out the door at 0545. And that's after going to bed somewhere between 2230 and 2330. On a weekend, unless I make myself get up around 0630, I'm a mess the rest of the day. If I oversleep till 8, I feel like I have a massive hangover even when I haven't been drinking.
The best thing I can suggest is to wear yourself out after school. Do physical labor or strenuous exercise as long as you physically can (enlist someone to be a "drill sargeant" if you have to). A couple days of that, and you'll be desperate to get in bed by 2100.
Power corrupts. That was noticed a couple millenia ago. What's sad is that so many people willingly and eagerly let themselves be lied to.
See above. This isn't a 2000 page novel with a clear beginning and end, coherent plot, and logical followthrough between events. It's an uncommented 2000 page differences document written against a 50000 page, poorly commented, unoptimized source code packed full of GOTO statements and spaghetti code, and lacking proper garbage collection. Have fun parsing that, let alone trying to step through it manually.
Exactly. Bills aren't like novels. They aren't entirely self-contained, they don't flow logically from beginning to end, you can't get everything you need to know out of them without lots and lots of supporting materials.
I'm going to approach this from an engineering standpoint. Let's imagine that the current law is like a gigantic drawing, or specification, or source code. It is thousands and thousands of pages long. Let us also assume that the current health bill is like an engineering change order, specifying the changes to be made and where to make them. Things like "change Paragraph 7 in section VI of page 27,512 to read 'quick brown fox' instead of 'slow spotted dog'" or "strike paragraph 8, section II of page 22,212 and replace with the following...". Isn't that meaningless on its own? I mean, if I went in to check and comment your code, and rather than mark up your existing code, I handed you a couple thousand pages of change notes, making you go back into the source to figure out what the hell I actually meant, don't you think it would be a little harder?
Without going back and comparing the original law and the current changes, the changes are likely to make little sense. A seemingly simple change of a sentence or two can change the entire implementation of something very large and complex. Oh, and lets compound the problem by adding in another change or two that has been approved and released, but not yet directly incorporated. You also have to go dig through those and figure them out, too, just to understand the law as it currently is before trying to apply the proposed changes.
Plus, you not only have to be able to read the bill and incorporate the changes into the text, but you also have to be able to understand all the ramifications of the bill. We're talking about making drastic changes to laws that affect everyone in the country and affect large portions of the economy. That's just not something you can evaluate properly in a weekend, even if you're an expert in the field. Yet, somehow our politicians can read through this document and compare every single one of its changes against the current annotated US code, analyze every change and think each one of them all the way through to their conclusions, and consider all of the legal, political, medical, and economic ramifications? Yeah, I didn't think so.
So it's not as simple as "oh, it's just 2000 pages, I can read that!" If I were to take 2000 pages' worth of proposed engineering orders against one of the airplanes my employer makes and try to make sense of them all at once, and ensure that none of the changes they make will negatively affect the safety, operation, maintainability, or certification of said airplane, it would take me a lot longer than "a weekend". That's exactly why such things are broken down into simple, easy, small chunks. The order for one particular change stands on its own and is approved on its own, so its purpose is clear and it doesn't get lost or misinterpreted among all of the other changes.
So the bill has been in the works for a year or so, and the American people still don't know what's in the bill? Are you really suggesting that?
Yes, that's exactly what he's suggesting. To quote Nancy Pelosi, "you'll have to pass the bill to find out what's in it". The bill is 2000+ pages, which had undergone changes (often behind closed doors) right up until the time of the vote. There's nobody on earth who knows all of what's in the bill. And with something that big, there's sure to be a bunch of "gotchas" and loopholes, intentional or not, that are just waiting to be exploited.
There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for any congressional representative to be voting in favor of this bill without having a clear analysis of the entire bill in the form it was to be voted on, no matter how good the bill is or is not. Any of them that did so should be impeached and found guilty for dereliction of duty, then dismissed from office and imprisoned. I don't care what party you're from or what the bill is, you should not be voting on things without knowing what it is you're voting on. If you can't get your bill to pass as written after thorough examination, it shouldn't be passed at all.
All of us know better than to sign things like mortgage contracts, employment contracts, etc, without thoroughly reading the contract and getting competent legal advice to help. And that's just for things that affect you. So why is it ok for our congressional types to do that on things that affect all of us?
It's unpopular and controversial for several reasons.
First was the "how dare you question us, we know what's best for you, don't worry about what's in the bill, you'll find out after it passes, so just vote on it" attitude of the Democratic leadership (coughPelosicough). Any lawyer or realtor who advised their client to not worry about reading the contract or purchase agreement, but rather to just go ahead and sign it, wouldn't be worthy of their license and should be sued, fired, disbarred, etc. But apparently, when dealing with a large agreement that will affect everyone, that's ok. The Republicans didn't help matters at all, either. They did nothing when they held a Congressional majority for over a decade, and once they lost power, they did nothing but stamp their collective feet like petulant little two year olds whose vocabulary didn't go much past "no!". There was also the standard political demonization, logical fallacy, and reduction to absurdity; eg "this bill is reform, therefore if you don't like this bill, you don't want reform, and if you don't want reform, then obviously you want little kids to die!" or "some government panel will sentence you to death!".
Second, a lot of people here are quite fed up with seeing billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars being spent year after year after year after year after year on social programs and "entitlements" for no discernable result other than having to spend as much or more the next year. Whether that should be a function of government or not is an entirely separate issue; whether you support such things or not you would at least expect some kind of return on the investment, some kind of measurable effect. Feelings on this matter are not helped (and are often inflamed) when the recipients of this spending are seen to be wasting it or taking advantage of the services when they aren't needed. Most of us have probably seen someone at the grocery store use food stamps to pay for basic necessities like milk, bread, etc., only to then use their own money to pay for beer, cigarettes, or nicer food than we ourselves can afford to buy. Many have probably run into people in government-subsidized housing who have new personal electronics (smartphones, large flat-panel TVs, etc) or fancy cosmetic mods to their vehicles. It's one thing to give temporary assistance to those people who are genuinely trying and who just need a little help through tough times; it's quite another for someone to remain on "assistance" long-term and use it and essentially use it to subsidize luxury purchases. In essence, if you can afford to pay for that fancy TV and the cable service to feed it, you can afford to go to the grocery store and buy food on your own. You don't need that TV.
Third, this bill doesn't really fix much of anything. It doesn't fix the problem of ridiculously high costs and absurd waste, and it doesn't provide the means to pay for the things it mandates. It basically says "you, the states, must pay for all this stuff that we require. And it will save us all money because we say it will save us all money. We expect that everything will work out just because we say it will work out, as if the mere pronouncement itself is enough to make things happen".
Finally, lots of good proposals were entirely ignored, either because they would financially impact major campaign contributors or they didn't achieve the ideological goals of some politicians. For example:
Break the link between employers and insurance coverage. There's far too much acceptance of the idea that your medical coverage needs to be chosen and provided for you by some higher entity, whether that be government, a union, or an employer. Lots of noise was made about needing "competition" in the market, but requiring that people have their coverage provided for them is the antithesis of that. Breaking the link and opening the market to the national (rather than state) level actually provides competition, and eliminates problems of people s
The Speed limit for a road is pretty much set by the type of road it is, you really don't need to see a sign to have a good idea of the appropriate speed for a particular road
In theory.
In practice, the road could easily be capable of safely handling traffic at 55mph... only to have a speed limit of 30 because it's within a given distance of city limits. Or it could just have a random speed limit change for no reason other than to provide a "gotcha" for the local cops to nail out-of-town drivers. The town next to me when I was growing up had town-hall meetings to discuss speed limits and how best to set them to maximize revenue from tickets when they were facing a budget shortfall. There's one road nearby with wide, well-marked lanes and gradual curves, nothing for a mile or two in each direction... with a speed limit of 25. I've seen four-lane, divided, limited-access highways with lower speed limits than the non-divided, heavily-commercialized road passing under it.
There's a reason more and more new production aircraft are coming out with HUD and EVS systems. Better visibility and having data in the field of view beats not having it every day of the week. The same can be applied to cars; having an infrared camera projecting an overlay (not a replacement image, but a transparent overlay) would increase visibility at night or in fog/rain.
Look up "gulfstream evs" on youtube for an idea. The tracing and outlining stuff in TFA is something entirely different.
I want something like this:
Just as I don't want to find some intruder walking around in my house without permission, neither do I want an intruder entering my country without permission. Pack them up, hand them a VISA application form, and send them home.
Exactly. We currently require that people wishing to enter the country by air or sea do so at a designated port of entry, fill out reasonable paperwork, and establish their identities with official documents (aka a passport). This applies to everybody, whether they're from the UK, Russia, India, or Chile. We spend a lot of effort to intercept boats and airplanes that try to enter without going through that process. We spend a lot of money securing the customs and immigration parts of our airports (as well as the other parts, too). That's a practice accepted by pretty much everyone.
So why does everyone shit an elephant when it's suggested that we do the same thing for our land borders? Securing ports and airfields is a legitimate security concern, but trying to do the same for a land border apparently turns you into some kind of xenophobic racist scum? I don't get it. You don't lock up the windows in your house and wire them for a security system, but then leave the front door wide open, do you? Everyone else coming into the country has to go through the proper channels, so why should someone coming in by land be different?
I have nothing against immigrants from any country. I'm descended from fairly recent immigrants myself. All I ask is that immigrants learn the language in a reasonable time, obey the laws of the land like everyone else has to, and pay taxes just like everyone else who lives here. The same would be expected of me if I went anywhere else.
Our immigration laws need updating, yes. So let's update them. But let's also secure our land borders to the same standards that we do our air and sea "borders". Pheysically ensuring that everyone entering is doing so legally does several things:
-makes smuggling harder and helps reduce crime
-cuts back on freeloading and helps ensure everyone is paying taxes
-ensures non-citizen workers are protected by wage and safety laws because they won't fear deportation for reporting violations
-allows faster identification and notification of authorities/families/etc. in case of accidents, emergencies, disasters, etc.
Streamlight survivor. I have one on my turnout gear. Plus, it has a low-power mode and a flasher mode (good for getting attention).
I had a little over $1 million to spend and didn't want it to go back to Congress, so instead I spent it.
You realize that this general problem isn't just limited to government, right? I'm not a big-government fan by any means, but poor management and budgetary practice is just as widespread in the private sector. When there's no reward for saving money, and budgets are planned based on "what did you get last year" instead of "what do you need to do your job this year", that's what happens. You need to spend all the money you have this year, even if that means buying everyone catered lunch for a month or going to expensive conferences, so that you'll get that much the next year (when you might actually need it all to do your job). Don't spend it, and your budget gets cut... then when you have a big project and ask for more, management says "you got along fine with less last year, so STFU".
I propose an amendment:
Section I. Except during a state of declared war, Congress may not budget or spend more money than was received in tax revenue the previous year.
Section II. Congress shall start anew when writing the budget, rather than just making modifications to the previous one (aka zero-based budgeting).
Section III. Tax money collected for a specific purpose may not be borrowed or spent on other projects. (no borrowing from social security for other things)
I know there's a lot of work ahead of us. And I realize that "canned monkeys" aren't enough. But the big point is, real colonization has to start somewhere--ie, with lots of canned monkeys and solar-power satellites. Too many people want to sit around saying that all of this is too hard, that it isn't practical without advanced technologies that we don't currently have, and then decide "well, we can't do it right now, so why bother trying?" They conveniently forget that all of this Buck Rogers takes effort, not just bucks. Someone has to work on them; they don't just fall out of the sky ready to go. We're fooled by seeing all of these different advances in different fields (like computing), forgetting that the progress is happening because, well, somebody is doing the work. It just happens that most of that work can be applied to other fields. But things like nuclear space propulsion and vacuum-rated hardware don't have lots of other applications, and unless someone in the aerospace field works on them, unless somebody puts money towards them, they'll stagnate. We'll sit there forever wondering why we don't have all these fancy things, and yet never actually get them.
I mean, we didn't sit there after the Wright brothers flew and decide that pursuing airplanes was a worthless endeavor, that we should just wait until we could build the 787, did we? Well, that's what we're doing with space. We've taken our first baby step, then given up on trying to walk because we can't yet run a marathon. Maybe we won't make it out into space before we manage to kill ourselves off... but I, for one, would rather go down fighting. And if that does happen, if we do die off and exist no more, then everything we've ever done in the name of progress and benefiting humanity, everything every person ever did, will be for naught.
But yes, we are currently in a race to see if we can establish sustainable populations off-planet before we or something else manages to wipe out all life here on earth.
Don't kid yourself. Only a very few of us are in the race. The vast majority gave up about three steps into the marathon, plopped down on the couch, and tuned into American Idol.
Frankly, I think space colonization needs to be a national priority, right up there with energy independence. I'm talking a national effort for those two issues that would make the WWII industrial and military effort seem like an elementary school field day in comparison, because I think humanity will face an extinction threat by the end of the century (biological warfare). It's only a matter of time before some terrorist or crazy religious group (or a nation comprised of such) gets hold of some bioweapon like ebola or Spanish flu, genetically tweaks it, and lets it loose; I can only hope we have somewhere to go when that happens. It just pisses me off that we were moving towards that and had made some measurable progress, only to give up and sit on our fat asses.