That's also why deadly force laws are so narrow. You don't want rampant vigilantism (sp?), but you also have to acknowledge that even the best police forces can't always get there in time. That's not meant to knock them; most LE departments do an admirable job with what they're given... but you only have so many officers, and they're still subject to the laws of physics.
There's no point in trying to build or earn _anything_ if some jerk can just come take it.
This applies very well to taxes and government, too...
He then fired upon them as they were running away.
If that is indeed the case, I've lost a fair bit of sympathy for him, because everything I've seen on it so far just says "he shot the guys trying to rob him" and comes off like "how dare he try to defend himself, especially with (ZOMGWTFBBQSAUCE) a GUN!"
Re:Space shuttle is a problem
on
NASA Turns 50
·
· Score: 1
I'd blame the space shuttle's design on the politicians and bean-counters... not the engineers that were hamstrung by them. I can't recall off the top of my head all of the things they screwed up, but one example is the wings.
The Air Force wanted use of the shuttle, and volunteered to pay for some of it given some conditions: a larger payload bay, and larger crossrange (so they could launch into a polar orbit and land at the same place one orbit later--crossrange is how far off your original orbital track you can land). The larger bay made the vehicle larger, and therefore heavier/more expensive. The crossrange requirement resulted in bigger, heavier delta wings, and higher thermal loads (which resulted in the composite thermal protection tiles and panels we see today).
Then you have the beancounters who basically deluded themselves into thinking it would be cheap. They tortured the data to get the answers they wanted.
The poor engineers did the best they could within the political boundaries they were given.
Well, to be fair (and assuming I remember the details correctly), the coffee in that cse was a lot hotter than it was supposed to be. So it's not quite as moronic as it sounds at first.
But seriously, the perp suing the homeowner because he hurt himself breaking in? Throwing a homeowner in jail for shooting perps that broke into his house, while said perps with long rap sheets get off? Guy fights back against someone who attacks him with a knife, and goes to jail for it? WTF, England?
This is meant on an entirely serious note... should we bring back public floggings for some offenses? I think that would be a lot more effective than the figurative slap on the wrist that is so often employed.
Thank you to your dad from here, too. My grandmother had a bad case of Alzheimer's before she died from a stroke; nobody should have to go through that.
And frankly, I'm worried on a personal level; with the family history of it, and the rather poor memory my dad and I have, I'm worried both of us may wind up with it.
Re:But what comes next?
on
NASA Turns 50
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Sure, they can use the technology that national space programs develop, but no way a corporation is going to sink $100 billion into getting a man on the Mars.
Even if a corporation was willing to spend that much money... there's no way it would happen. Almost everyone (politicians, executives, shareholders, and the general public) is pretty much incapable of long-term thinking. Hell, most companies don't even seem to think beyond this quarter, much less this year--just look at all the dumb decisions that boost quarterly profits at the expense of long-term ones. Something like the space program could have an enormous benefit twenty or thirty years down the road... but nobody's willing to invest the cash required if they have to wait that long for their return.
That's why, despite my general leanings toward less government involvement and private industry, I believe governments (ie, not just the US) need to commit to long-term heavy space funding. The potential benefits, like survival of the species, efficient technology that can help reduce environmental impact, space-based power transmission to remote areas, better satellite navigation, asteroid impact avoidance, etc. are benefits to everyone; and while private industry may have a role, only a government has the necessary funds and the longevity to run something like this.
Re:But what comes next?
on
NASA Turns 50
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I'm tired of this "but there are poor people!" argument. We could dump every spare cent in the budget into welfare programs, and you'll still have poor people.
If you want to look at it this way, a space program is a jobs program. It's not like all the money spent on it is thrown away in space, or burned in a giant pit... that money all goes into the economy. It pays all the small contractors that make electronics, valves, pumps, etc.; it pays all the mechanics and technicians that build and maintain the systems; it pays all the engineers that design the spacecraft... and all those people have to live and eat somewhere. Make the program interesting, and kids will think "hey, I want a part of that", and they'll stay in school, get science and engineering degrees, and have a better future. I think that's much more beneficial than just handing out welfare checks.
We need to change the focus of the space program, too. No more of this focus solely on science; it's good and all, but it doesn't directly solve practical problems. The focus should instead be on preserving the human race--ie, developing defenses against planet-killer asteroids and spreading out over many worlds (redundant off-site backups). And you know that, if something happens (like a large asteroid coming at us), the public will be screaming "do something, save us!" And I'll just be sitting there saying "well, I told you so, but nobody listened."
Indeed I do... a couple of my engineering textbooks were $160 or so. I had several paperbacks in the $120 region. There was one in particular (a flight dynamics text) being sold in the campus bookstore for $150 new, $95 used... I bought it online for $42 including shipping.
The thing with textbooks is that you have a captive audience. Students generally can't just ignore your product, and you can essentially force them to keep buying books new by releasing new editions.
Yes, it was an honest question, though I guess in retrospect the phrasing sounds bad--I'm in a silly (and cranky) mood today.
Your answer makes sense; I am familiar with Greek characters (I'm an engineer by trade) but never used this program, so I didn't know they were used for the name. Word's equation editor was enough to get me by for my fluids lab reports and senior design proposals. And for really complicated stuff, we were allowed to just print off our matlab code and turn it in.
Textbooks might be the exception. You can order them from overseas cheaper than in the average campus bookstore. There was even a serious attempt at passing legislation (spurred by the publishers, of course) to make it illegal to buy textbooks from overseas, or to resell used ones.
So why is it that all of these math-typing programs insist on alternating caps and lowercase in their names? I mean, that was cool and all when I was in sixth grade and we wanted to look "leet", but it just looks odd now.
I'm sorry, perhaps I'm being dense. How will having a viable offworld colony have any impact whatsoever on the environment here? Are you planning on shipping all of the polluters offworld?
-Space-based power: No particulate/CO2 emissions, and can provide power to almost anywhere on earth. Possible negative effects on things entering microwave beam, or beam being misdirected, however.
-Space mining: Resources can be gathered from asteroids, moon, etc. Can even feed factories up there.
-Space habitats could become largely self-sustaining, as well. No nasty fertilizer runoff or slash-n-burn of rainforests to feed people.
-(this is the big one) Technology transfer: In space, efficiency rules. You either have to bring everything you need with you, or go a long way to get it. The efficient technologies you need to develop in order to support a massive space infrastructure are directly transferable to making more efficient, environmentally-friendly things on earth. Self-contained hydroponic farms, wastewater recycling, more efficient power use, lighter structures, etc. are all usable down here, too.
All of these are technically possible, though they may cost an assload of money. I still truly believe it necessary to do them, however.
The idea that cheap or even free transportation into space will lead to an easing of population pressures here is based on an over-simplified view of human behaviour or maybe just wishful thinking.
It ain't gonna happen -- and I mean never.
The earth is just to well suited for us - much better than anywhere else we're likely to find or build out there.
I think it's better to look at cheap spacelift more as a solution to the survival problem than the population one--ie, spreading humanity into the solar system (and eventually the galaxy) in order to survive things like planet-killing asteroids, worldwide plagues, etc. I'd think it better to live in a dome on Mars than not live at all.
It's more like the government wants its slice of the pie (ie, tax revenue). Online/overseas gambling is harder to collect taxes on... so they ban it instead.
Why do you think making your own liquor (moonshine) is generally illegal? It's certainly not morality concerns...
Give a touchscreen some positive tactile feedback, and it might work. But overlaying a keyboard on an otherwise flat, featureless screen will be very hard to type on with any sort of speed.
It didn't help that NATO aircraft were flying the same tracks night after night. The Serbian air defense guys picked up on it, and (it is suspected) laid a trap, of sorts. Remember, too, that when the aircraft opens the weapons bay doors, those doors aren't stealthy. The radar signature will bloom significantly while they're open, and they might have gotten one or two good returns during that period. Even something like a screw sticking up, or a door not closing quite all the way, can harm the radar signature.
There are also some reports of spying, like guys with cellphones watching aircraft take off on missions and reporting it, or even someone "inside" with access to the air tasking order.
I'd suspect that the changes from game-optimizing would be good overall, and would get rid of so much of the crap that bloats the average windows install.
My personal stake is from the flight simulation vantage point; you just simply can't run a decent simulator on an xbox. The modding and controller support just isn't there.
3 of 24 air data sensors... which measure (among other things) pressure and temperature. You can't have a regular airspeed sensor (which is really just a glorified pressure sensor) because the hardware sticking out would ruin the stealth characteristics. Therefore, you put several pressure sensors flush with the skin in different areas, and use the various readings to figure out airspeed indirectly. You can see some of the ports for the air data system as little circles in front of the cockpit on the B-2.
For similar reasons, this is why new prototypes always have a big boom out in front. Any sensor close to the aircraft will get interference from other airflow, so you put one way out front (to get undisturbed air) and use that to calibrate your data.
No, I don't fly airliners. But my father does, and I've learned quite a bit about it from him and several of his friends. I've gone to the training simulators and helped him practice procedures when he was transitioning to a new airplane, I've worked with test pilots and flown the simulator many times at work, and one thing that was very clear to me is that the autopilot is just a tool, no more. It's not a magic "fly the airplane" button.
Autopilots cannot think. They do have some advantages over humans (namely, that they can follow a given path more precisely), but they are by no means "better". And there is much more of a potential for error, because the autopilot only flies where it is programmed. If the pilot messes up inputting a course, the autopilot won't know--it'll just fly what it's programmed to fly. If there's bad weather ahead, the autopilot doesn't care. It'll quite happily fly right into the heart of a thunderstorm and tear itself to pieces. It will quite happily try to land with the gear up, or keep flying on a collision course with another plane. It's also quite possible that the autopilot is broken, in which case the pilots would be flying the whole time by hand; this happens more than you would think.
Landings are automated in some aircraft, but that capability is only used when absolutely necessary (ie, because of poor visibility). The vast majority of airliners are hand-flown for approach and landing; when an autolanding (or a coupled approach, where the autopilot flies the approach but the humans take over for the last couple hundred feet) is flown, the systems are monitored very, very carefully.
Again, the autopilot is just a tool to reduce the workload. It handles the "keep the wings level" and "hold this airspeed" stuff so that the pilots can navigate, handle ATC, deal with other systems, and avoid hitting other airplanes. It's like cruise control on your car--it's smoother on the gas than you would normally be, and is maybe a little more efficient, but that doesn't mean you can just set it and lean back to relax.
Slashdot Mirror
That's also why deadly force laws are so narrow. You don't want rampant vigilantism (sp?), but you also have to acknowledge that even the best police forces can't always get there in time. That's not meant to knock them; most LE departments do an admirable job with what they're given... but you only have so many officers, and they're still subject to the laws of physics.
There's no point in trying to build or earn _anything_ if some jerk can just come take it.
This applies very well to taxes and government, too...
He then fired upon them as they were running away.
If that is indeed the case, I've lost a fair bit of sympathy for him, because everything I've seen on it so far just says "he shot the guys trying to rob him" and comes off like "how dare he try to defend himself, especially with (ZOMGWTFBBQSAUCE) a GUN!"
I'd blame the space shuttle's design on the politicians and bean-counters... not the engineers that were hamstrung by them. I can't recall off the top of my head all of the things they screwed up, but one example is the wings.
The Air Force wanted use of the shuttle, and volunteered to pay for some of it given some conditions: a larger payload bay, and larger crossrange (so they could launch into a polar orbit and land at the same place one orbit later--crossrange is how far off your original orbital track you can land). The larger bay made the vehicle larger, and therefore heavier/more expensive. The crossrange requirement resulted in bigger, heavier delta wings, and higher thermal loads (which resulted in the composite thermal protection tiles and panels we see today).
Then you have the beancounters who basically deluded themselves into thinking it would be cheap. They tortured the data to get the answers they wanted.
The poor engineers did the best they could within the political boundaries they were given.
Well, to be fair (and assuming I remember the details correctly), the coffee in that cse was a lot hotter than it was supposed to be. So it's not quite as moronic as it sounds at first.
But seriously, the perp suing the homeowner because he hurt himself breaking in? Throwing a homeowner in jail for shooting perps that broke into his house, while said perps with long rap sheets get off? Guy fights back against someone who attacks him with a knife, and goes to jail for it? WTF, England?
This is meant on an entirely serious note... should we bring back public floggings for some offenses? I think that would be a lot more effective than the figurative slap on the wrist that is so often employed.
Thank you to your dad from here, too. My grandmother had a bad case of Alzheimer's before she died from a stroke; nobody should have to go through that.
And frankly, I'm worried on a personal level; with the family history of it, and the rather poor memory my dad and I have, I'm worried both of us may wind up with it.
Sure, they can use the technology that national space programs develop, but no way a corporation is going to sink $100 billion into getting a man on the Mars.
Even if a corporation was willing to spend that much money... there's no way it would happen. Almost everyone (politicians, executives, shareholders, and the general public) is pretty much incapable of long-term thinking. Hell, most companies don't even seem to think beyond this quarter, much less this year--just look at all the dumb decisions that boost quarterly profits at the expense of long-term ones. Something like the space program could have an enormous benefit twenty or thirty years down the road... but nobody's willing to invest the cash required if they have to wait that long for their return.
That's why, despite my general leanings toward less government involvement and private industry, I believe governments (ie, not just the US) need to commit to long-term heavy space funding. The potential benefits, like survival of the species, efficient technology that can help reduce environmental impact, space-based power transmission to remote areas, better satellite navigation, asteroid impact avoidance, etc. are benefits to everyone; and while private industry may have a role, only a government has the necessary funds and the longevity to run something like this.
I'm tired of this "but there are poor people!" argument. We could dump every spare cent in the budget into welfare programs, and you'll still have poor people.
If you want to look at it this way, a space program is a jobs program. It's not like all the money spent on it is thrown away in space, or burned in a giant pit... that money all goes into the economy. It pays all the small contractors that make electronics, valves, pumps, etc.; it pays all the mechanics and technicians that build and maintain the systems; it pays all the engineers that design the spacecraft... and all those people have to live and eat somewhere. Make the program interesting, and kids will think "hey, I want a part of that", and they'll stay in school, get science and engineering degrees, and have a better future. I think that's much more beneficial than just handing out welfare checks.
We need to change the focus of the space program, too. No more of this focus solely on science; it's good and all, but it doesn't directly solve practical problems. The focus should instead be on preserving the human race--ie, developing defenses against planet-killer asteroids and spreading out over many worlds (redundant off-site backups). And you know that, if something happens (like a large asteroid coming at us), the public will be screaming "do something, save us!" And I'll just be sitting there saying "well, I told you so, but nobody listened."
Indeed I do... a couple of my engineering textbooks were $160 or so. I had several paperbacks in the $120 region. There was one in particular (a flight dynamics text) being sold in the campus bookstore for $150 new, $95 used... I bought it online for $42 including shipping.
The thing with textbooks is that you have a captive audience. Students generally can't just ignore your product, and you can essentially force them to keep buying books new by releasing new editions.
Yes, it was an honest question, though I guess in retrospect the phrasing sounds bad--I'm in a silly (and cranky) mood today.
Your answer makes sense; I am familiar with Greek characters (I'm an engineer by trade) but never used this program, so I didn't know they were used for the name. Word's equation editor was enough to get me by for my fluids lab reports and senior design proposals. And for really complicated stuff, we were allowed to just print off our matlab code and turn it in.
Textbooks might be the exception. You can order them from overseas cheaper than in the average campus bookstore. There was even a serious attempt at passing legislation (spurred by the publishers, of course) to make it illegal to buy textbooks from overseas, or to resell used ones.
Didn't pass, of course... but still.
So why is it that all of these math-typing programs insist on alternating caps and lowercase in their names? I mean, that was cool and all when I was in sixth grade and we wanted to look "leet", but it just looks odd now.
I'm sorry, perhaps I'm being dense. How will having a viable offworld colony have any impact whatsoever on the environment here? Are you planning on shipping all of the polluters offworld?
-Space-based power: No particulate/CO2 emissions, and can provide power to almost anywhere on earth. Possible negative effects on things entering microwave beam, or beam being misdirected, however.
-Space mining: Resources can be gathered from asteroids, moon, etc. Can even feed factories up there.
-Space habitats could become largely self-sustaining, as well. No nasty fertilizer runoff or slash-n-burn of rainforests to feed people.
-(this is the big one) Technology transfer: In space, efficiency rules. You either have to bring everything you need with you, or go a long way to get it. The efficient technologies you need to develop in order to support a massive space infrastructure are directly transferable to making more efficient, environmentally-friendly things on earth. Self-contained hydroponic farms, wastewater recycling, more efficient power use, lighter structures, etc. are all usable down here, too.
All of these are technically possible, though they may cost an assload of money. I still truly believe it necessary to do them, however.
The idea that cheap or even free transportation into space will lead to an easing of population pressures here is based on an over-simplified view of human behaviour or maybe just wishful thinking.
It ain't gonna happen -- and I mean never.
The earth is just to well suited for us - much better than anywhere else we're likely to find or build out there.
I think it's better to look at cheap spacelift more as a solution to the survival problem than the population one--ie, spreading humanity into the solar system (and eventually the galaxy) in order to survive things like planet-killing asteroids, worldwide plagues, etc. I'd think it better to live in a dome on Mars than not live at all.
It's more like the government wants its slice of the pie (ie, tax revenue). Online/overseas gambling is harder to collect taxes on... so they ban it instead.
Why do you think making your own liquor (moonshine) is generally illegal? It's certainly not morality concerns...
It's so some politician can brag
That's it right there.
Give a touchscreen some positive tactile feedback, and it might work. But overlaying a keyboard on an otherwise flat, featureless screen will be very hard to type on with any sort of speed.
Shotgun? Bah! Give me a rifle any day. Close enough to use a shotgun is too close.
I'll go, if you're providing the transportation...
We did that drunk, in the middle of a city, using the lids from those big rubbermaid containers. It was lots of fun till the police showed up...
It didn't help that NATO aircraft were flying the same tracks night after night. The Serbian air defense guys picked up on it, and (it is suspected) laid a trap, of sorts. Remember, too, that when the aircraft opens the weapons bay doors, those doors aren't stealthy. The radar signature will bloom significantly while they're open, and they might have gotten one or two good returns during that period. Even something like a screw sticking up, or a door not closing quite all the way, can harm the radar signature.
There are also some reports of spying, like guys with cellphones watching aircraft take off on missions and reporting it, or even someone "inside" with access to the air tasking order.
Nitpick: USN has never operated the F-15.
I'd suspect that the changes from game-optimizing would be good overall, and would get rid of so much of the crap that bloats the average windows install.
My personal stake is from the flight simulation vantage point; you just simply can't run a decent simulator on an xbox. The modding and controller support just isn't there.
3 of 24 air data sensors... which measure (among other things) pressure and temperature. You can't have a regular airspeed sensor (which is really just a glorified pressure sensor) because the hardware sticking out would ruin the stealth characteristics. Therefore, you put several pressure sensors flush with the skin in different areas, and use the various readings to figure out airspeed indirectly. You can see some of the ports for the air data system as little circles in front of the cockpit on the B-2.
For similar reasons, this is why new prototypes always have a big boom out in front. Any sensor close to the aircraft will get interference from other airflow, so you put one way out front (to get undisturbed air) and use that to calibrate your data.
Agreed. The best beer leaves sediment at the bottom of the glass.
The beer should be opaque as well.
No, I don't fly airliners. But my father does, and I've learned quite a bit about it from him and several of his friends. I've gone to the training simulators and helped him practice procedures when he was transitioning to a new airplane, I've worked with test pilots and flown the simulator many times at work, and one thing that was very clear to me is that the autopilot is just a tool, no more. It's not a magic "fly the airplane" button.
Autopilots cannot think. They do have some advantages over humans (namely, that they can follow a given path more precisely), but they are by no means "better". And there is much more of a potential for error, because the autopilot only flies where it is programmed. If the pilot messes up inputting a course, the autopilot won't know--it'll just fly what it's programmed to fly. If there's bad weather ahead, the autopilot doesn't care. It'll quite happily fly right into the heart of a thunderstorm and tear itself to pieces. It will quite happily try to land with the gear up, or keep flying on a collision course with another plane. It's also quite possible that the autopilot is broken, in which case the pilots would be flying the whole time by hand; this happens more than you would think.
Landings are automated in some aircraft, but that capability is only used when absolutely necessary (ie, because of poor visibility). The vast majority of airliners are hand-flown for approach and landing; when an autolanding (or a coupled approach, where the autopilot flies the approach but the humans take over for the last couple hundred feet) is flown, the systems are monitored very, very carefully.
Again, the autopilot is just a tool to reduce the workload. It handles the "keep the wings level" and "hold this airspeed" stuff so that the pilots can navigate, handle ATC, deal with other systems, and avoid hitting other airplanes. It's like cruise control on your car--it's smoother on the gas than you would normally be, and is maybe a little more efficient, but that doesn't mean you can just set it and lean back to relax.