The programming isn't follow to location x turn 22 degree go to location Y.
On the contrary, that's exactly what the programming is. I would know because I test these systems (computerized flight controls, avionics, etc.) for a living. You don't just hit a "go button".
We're a long, long way (as in decades) from an airplane that can do what you envision safely enough to carry passengers.
A well-designed system doesn't function properly only when conditions are idea. Instead, it functions even under poor conditions.
In this case, designing the traffic-light system so that it only works properly when you have well-maintained, properly-loaded cars being driven by attentive, alert, sober, competent drivers is a bad idea. When you're dealing with something safety-critical like this, you don't dismiss potential problems like old grannies, tired/distracted people, overloaded cars with bad brakes, etc. by saying "well, you shouldn't do that". Instead, design the traffic light system so that it still works even when you do have distracted or poor drivers.
Of course, designing the system like this costs more money up front, and (done right) isn't nearly as noticeable as a red-light camera. It also doesn't pull in revenue from fines or give some (spit) politician the chance to grandstand about how they are "committed to your safety".
the problem is that most of the people caught by red light cameras aren't sitting there thinking "man, I'm gonna blow this red light!". Instead, most of the people being caught simply misjudged the light and thought they'd be clear of the intersection when they weren't--a very easy thing to do when yellow times vary significantly and you often have little or no advance warning about the light changing.
The solution in these kinds of cases is not to keep a system that works only under optimal conditions, and then punish violators, but to set the system up so that it works even under suboptimal conditions. Put countdown timers on the lights, lengthen yellow times, put in a delay between one direction getting the red and crossing traffic getting a green, etc.
I tried installing Ubuntu on a home server, and eventually gave up on it after spending 40+ hours dicking around on the command line to make what should have been simple changes in a GUI. And the process that couldn't be stopped because it wasn't running, but couldn't be started because it was running... yeah, that one bothered me too.
Yeah, I guess Ubuntu "just works" if all you ever do is browse the internet, send email, and write the occasional text document. But it utterly starts to fail if you need to do anything more. That's not to say Windows is great--it certainly isn't--but at least it works. That may change, though, if they continue with the apparently industry-wide trend of removing all but the grandma-level features from software.
No they can't. Computer-controlled airplanes can't apply judgment, they can't make decisions. All they do is blindly follow preprogrammed routines, and the ones without human backup still crash with a regularity that would frighten the average person.
Computers may be better at precisely following an invisible airway, or maintaining speed, heading, and altitude to high precision for hours on end, but they really tend to suck at dealing with the unexpected.
I also live in Georgia (though a different part of the state). Most of the employees in this company are on four-day weeks. Overtime is plentiful for hourly guys if they want it; for salaried types, if you have the work, you're usually welcome to it--but we also get paid (albeit at normal rate, not 1.5x/2x). If I choose to come in for that, I'll usually do a half-day and leave at lunch.
Also, my hours are 0600-1630--I come in earlier by preference, because then it still leaves me time to do things after work.
I've had an android with Verizon for a year and a half, and it hasn't been till the past month or two that I've broken 300MB/month. But then, I don't stream video, the sites I visit are pretty phone-friendly (mainly text, few images), and I often have access to either wifi or a "real" computer. And, I am grandfathered onto Verizon's unlimited plan.
The billionaires aren't investing because they'll be long dead by the time they see any return. We're just now starting to see private, non-.gov-subsidized-megacorp investment into launch vehicle technology because there are finally short-term profits to be made doing so. No modern investor wants to make investments that even his/her grandchildren might not be around to collect.
If you really want to cut down on injuries and accidents, you need to put a gap between one direction turning red and crossing traffic getting the green. You should also lengthen the yellow lights, and have a way of indicating how long it will be until the light changes (I like those crosswalk signs that count down; when they hit zero, you know the light will change to yellow). Don't design the system so that it works when people act perfectly correct; design it so it works even when they're tired, distracted, or dumb.
See, red light cameras don't deter people who blow through intersections well after the light changes and cause bad accidents. They nail the people who misjudged the light by a second or two, and taking the above steps (countdown timers and the delay before green) helps prevent the accidents they cause. Smarter and/or more responsive light programming would be nice, too; people will be less tempted to try and beat the known "bad lights" if they know they won't have to sit for an unusually long time.
Cause the point of a car is to get you places, not to screw around with the internet. Perhaps a better question is:
Why are we bothering to build the same thing into our car that we're already carrying around in our pocket?
Spend the research and engineering dollars on giving the car better performance and reliability; leave off the fancy gadgetry that people shouldn't be playing with while driving anyway.
There's also been a change in attitude towards Social Security. It was originally intended as a last-ditch safety net to keep people who otherwise couldn't work due to old age or the sole breadwinner dying. It was never supposed to be some kind of guarantee that everyone could retire and live comfortably for a decade or more. But now, we (collectively) have latched on to this idea that we are entitled to this retirement, at someone else's expense if necessary.
But sales tax isn't just charged by state. It's often levied at the county or city level as well, and can vary depending on the type of item being purchased (e.g., raw food is sometimes exempt or taxed at a much lower rate, but prepared food isn't). So your lookup table isn't just fifty items, it's thousands if not tens of thousands. Where I grew up, there was a 4% state tax, plus 2% county tax, plus an additional 1% SPLOST (basically, a special-purpose, limited-time sales tax approved by general referendum) for city-level projects. Then add state-wide sales tax holidays on specific items, and you've created a real big mess.
You need a database by ZIP code (maybe even ZIP+4), product classification for every item, and date ranges to account for tax holidays. And you need to keep that constantly updated as every little town and county changes its tax rates.
That's not to say I think Amazon shouldn't pay sales taxes--they should. I just want to point out that it's a little more complicated than adding sales by state and sending 50 checks once a quarter.
Besides the feeling of a beard being annoying, and mine in particular being patchy and three different colors, I can't have a beard because it interferes with an SCBA mask. Therefore, I use a safety razor. It works better than disposables and is cheap.
If I could find a reliable way to have it done, I'd have the hair permanently removed so I never had to shave again. That would be an hour a week of my life I could spend doing better things.
Before someone chimes in with the "don't have to pay for hanger space" argument, if you can't afford hanger space then you'll never afford the annual inspection labor and parts, so its all kinda irrelevant.
Not always true. If you do the maintenance yourself (either you're an A&P, or you built the airplane yourself) then hangar costs are a bigger factor. Homebuilding is even cheaper in this regard because you have more flexibility with parts.
As a side note, this is exactly why I haven't yet worked out a deal to keep my dad's RV-6 on a part-time basis. I can afford to fuel it and buy the occasional part (he covers the insurance), but I can't pay the $400-500/month hangar cost for our local airport on top of that. So, I'm limited to flying it when we go to visit them every couple months.
But back on topic, I think the two major selling points are (1) novelty, and (2) being able to divert to a nearby airfield and drive the rest of the way if weather shuts down your primary destination.
We're not necessarily looking for net energy gain; the purpose of a fusion thruster isn't to generate excess energy above the input, but rather to turn as much of the input into propulsive energy as possible. It's entirely possible to run your fusion reactor at a loss (maybe even a substantial one) and still get higher propulsive efficiency that an ion engine.
Right now, we have ion thrusters that take an input of electrical energy (generated from solar or fission sources) and use it to accelerate a reactive mass (like xenon), thereby producing thrust. The hope is that we can use that same electrical input and use it to run a fusion plant, the products of which would be ejected out the back and provide thrust.
It's a very simplified way of looking at things, but imagine if, instead of a closed reactive chamber for your fusion reactor, you had a hole and nozze on that chamber, and accelerated the fusion products through that nozzle. It doesn't matter if your fusion reaction is producing a net energy gain; what matters is how much thrust you get, and for how long you get it (ie, impulse) from a given energy input.
In other words, we aren't talking about using a fusion reactor to produce usable energy in the same sense as a ground-based power plant. We just want delta-V. Yes, it might simplify things if the fusor ran at a net gain, but for this application, it doesn't have to.
The trick is to buy older exotic cars (late 80s, etc). They aren't daily driver cars, but you can get a Porsche or Ferrari for $18-30k. A friend of mine has a wall full of pictures of all the cars he's owned in the past 15 years (Porsche, Ferrari, Lambo, Maserati, etc.) from doing this. He's an aviation mechanic, not some super-rich guy.
Reducing crime levels should not be the goal. The goal should be to make communities feel safer.
Huh? What good does it do to make people feel safer if you don't actually reduce crime?
I agree that "reducing crime" =/= "making more arrests"; any DA or CLEO that says "look at how many arrests I made" is essentially saying "look at how many people I put in a cage". Yes, arresting the right people will help reduce crimes because you're getting the repeat offenders off the street, but just as important in reducing crime is effective community policing and intervention. Arresting hookers and teenage pot smokers makes your numbers look good, but doesn't actually do anything to make the community safer.
To do that, kids need intervention to break them out of the cycle of increasing crime and get them back in school. Police need to get out there and patrol, getting to know the neighborhood and making a positive presence in the community instead of hiding out and making revenue-enhancing traffic stops. People need to take more steps to help avoid and deter crime and protect themselves from it. Parents need to be more involved with their kids. And so on.
Point is, feeling safe and being safe are not necessarily the same thing.
They're using the water landings for development testing in case something goes wrong. Not many orphanages or schools or playgrounds to crash on in the middle of the ocean.
Painting a plane weighs a few hundred pounds. It does not need to be taken into consideration on a 300,000 lb plane.
Spoken by someone who doesn't work in aviation. A "few hundred pounds" is absolutely a big deal--that's another paying passenger or two you could carry on every flight. Manufacturers will spend tens of thousands of dollars on engineering or manufacturing changes to eliminate a single pound of weight, because every single pound of extra weight translates into less payload and/or more fuel burned.
But that didn't answer my question of where you went to school. See, I went to a well-known engineering school with an average GPA around 2.9, and which expects a full third of incoming freshmen to fail or transfer out. Within my major (aerospace engineering), I had one of the higher GPAs in my graduating class at 3.36.
The Soviets also had another motivating factor at work besides pride in a job; many times, the workers faced a choice of "get it done or spend the rest of your life in the gulag/be taken out back and shot".
Of course, they also had the advantage of not being subject to a fickle public that would denounce a program as a complete failure and call for its cancellation after the smallest hiccup.
Slashdot Mirror
And as far as this deep-south trolling guy is concerned, anything north of Virginia is "The Northeast".
So there.
The programming isn't follow to location x turn 22 degree go to location Y.
On the contrary, that's exactly what the programming is. I would know because I test these systems (computerized flight controls, avionics, etc.) for a living. You don't just hit a "go button".
We're a long, long way (as in decades) from an airplane that can do what you envision safely enough to carry passengers.
A well-designed system doesn't function properly only when conditions are idea. Instead, it functions even under poor conditions.
In this case, designing the traffic-light system so that it only works properly when you have well-maintained, properly-loaded cars being driven by attentive, alert, sober, competent drivers is a bad idea. When you're dealing with something safety-critical like this, you don't dismiss potential problems like old grannies, tired/distracted people, overloaded cars with bad brakes, etc. by saying "well, you shouldn't do that". Instead, design the traffic light system so that it still works even when you do have distracted or poor drivers.
Of course, designing the system like this costs more money up front, and (done right) isn't nearly as noticeable as a red-light camera. It also doesn't pull in revenue from fines or give some (spit) politician the chance to grandstand about how they are "committed to your safety".
the problem is that most of the people caught by red light cameras aren't sitting there thinking "man, I'm gonna blow this red light!". Instead, most of the people being caught simply misjudged the light and thought they'd be clear of the intersection when they weren't--a very easy thing to do when yellow times vary significantly and you often have little or no advance warning about the light changing.
The solution in these kinds of cases is not to keep a system that works only under optimal conditions, and then punish violators, but to set the system up so that it works even under suboptimal conditions. Put countdown timers on the lights, lengthen yellow times, put in a delay between one direction getting the red and crossing traffic getting a green, etc.
I tried installing Ubuntu on a home server, and eventually gave up on it after spending 40+ hours dicking around on the command line to make what should have been simple changes in a GUI. And the process that couldn't be stopped because it wasn't running, but couldn't be started because it was running... yeah, that one bothered me too.
Yeah, I guess Ubuntu "just works" if all you ever do is browse the internet, send email, and write the occasional text document. But it utterly starts to fail if you need to do anything more. That's not to say Windows is great--it certainly isn't--but at least it works. That may change, though, if they continue with the apparently industry-wide trend of removing all but the grandma-level features from software.
No they can't. Computer-controlled airplanes can't apply judgment, they can't make decisions. All they do is blindly follow preprogrammed routines, and the ones without human backup still crash with a regularity that would frighten the average person.
Computers may be better at precisely following an invisible airway, or maintaining speed, heading, and altitude to high precision for hours on end, but they really tend to suck at dealing with the unexpected.
I also live in Georgia (though a different part of the state). Most of the employees in this company are on four-day weeks. Overtime is plentiful for hourly guys if they want it; for salaried types, if you have the work, you're usually welcome to it--but we also get paid (albeit at normal rate, not 1.5x/2x). If I choose to come in for that, I'll usually do a half-day and leave at lunch.
Also, my hours are 0600-1630--I come in earlier by preference, because then it still leaves me time to do things after work.
I've had an android with Verizon for a year and a half, and it hasn't been till the past month or two that I've broken 300MB/month. But then, I don't stream video, the sites I visit are pretty phone-friendly (mainly text, few images), and I often have access to either wifi or a "real" computer. And, I am grandfathered onto Verizon's unlimited plan.
The billionaires aren't investing because they'll be long dead by the time they see any return. We're just now starting to see private, non-.gov-subsidized-megacorp investment into launch vehicle technology because there are finally short-term profits to be made doing so. No modern investor wants to make investments that even his/her grandchildren might not be around to collect.
There's more than just suspicion. Six cities were caught shortening yellow times to make up for falling camera revenues. And there are undoubtably more out there. Not only are red-light cameras money printing machines, but the companies that install/maintain them usually get a cut, too.
If you really want to cut down on injuries and accidents, you need to put a gap between one direction turning red and crossing traffic getting the green. You should also lengthen the yellow lights, and have a way of indicating how long it will be until the light changes (I like those crosswalk signs that count down; when they hit zero, you know the light will change to yellow). Don't design the system so that it works when people act perfectly correct; design it so it works even when they're tired, distracted, or dumb.
See, red light cameras don't deter people who blow through intersections well after the light changes and cause bad accidents. They nail the people who misjudged the light by a second or two, and taking the above steps (countdown timers and the delay before green) helps prevent the accidents they cause. Smarter and/or more responsive light programming would be nice, too; people will be less tempted to try and beat the known "bad lights" if they know they won't have to sit for an unusually long time.
It depends on where you live, too. Pretty much anywhere in the southeast US, the generic term for soft drinks (cola or not) is "coke".
http://www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html
Guitar amp? At least, some of my friends have amps that still use tubes...
Cause the point of a car is to get you places, not to screw around with the internet. Perhaps a better question is:
Why are we bothering to build the same thing into our car that we're already carrying around in our pocket?
Spend the research and engineering dollars on giving the car better performance and reliability; leave off the fancy gadgetry that people shouldn't be playing with while driving anyway.
There's also been a change in attitude towards Social Security. It was originally intended as a last-ditch safety net to keep people who otherwise couldn't work due to old age or the sole breadwinner dying. It was never supposed to be some kind of guarantee that everyone could retire and live comfortably for a decade or more. But now, we (collectively) have latched on to this idea that we are entitled to this retirement, at someone else's expense if necessary.
But sales tax isn't just charged by state. It's often levied at the county or city level as well, and can vary depending on the type of item being purchased (e.g., raw food is sometimes exempt or taxed at a much lower rate, but prepared food isn't). So your lookup table isn't just fifty items, it's thousands if not tens of thousands. Where I grew up, there was a 4% state tax, plus 2% county tax, plus an additional 1% SPLOST (basically, a special-purpose, limited-time sales tax approved by general referendum) for city-level projects. Then add state-wide sales tax holidays on specific items, and you've created a real big mess.
You need a database by ZIP code (maybe even ZIP+4), product classification for every item, and date ranges to account for tax holidays. And you need to keep that constantly updated as every little town and county changes its tax rates.
That's not to say I think Amazon shouldn't pay sales taxes--they should. I just want to point out that it's a little more complicated than adding sales by state and sending 50 checks once a quarter.
Besides the feeling of a beard being annoying, and mine in particular being patchy and three different colors, I can't have a beard because it interferes with an SCBA mask. Therefore, I use a safety razor. It works better than disposables and is cheap.
If I could find a reliable way to have it done, I'd have the hair permanently removed so I never had to shave again. That would be an hour a week of my life I could spend doing better things.
Before someone chimes in with the "don't have to pay for hanger space" argument, if you can't afford hanger space then you'll never afford the annual inspection labor and parts, so its all kinda irrelevant.
Not always true. If you do the maintenance yourself (either you're an A&P, or you built the airplane yourself) then hangar costs are a bigger factor. Homebuilding is even cheaper in this regard because you have more flexibility with parts.
As a side note, this is exactly why I haven't yet worked out a deal to keep my dad's RV-6 on a part-time basis. I can afford to fuel it and buy the occasional part (he covers the insurance), but I can't pay the $400-500/month hangar cost for our local airport on top of that. So, I'm limited to flying it when we go to visit them every couple months.
But back on topic, I think the two major selling points are (1) novelty, and (2) being able to divert to a nearby airfield and drive the rest of the way if weather shuts down your primary destination.
We're not necessarily looking for net energy gain; the purpose of a fusion thruster isn't to generate excess energy above the input, but rather to turn as much of the input into propulsive energy as possible. It's entirely possible to run your fusion reactor at a loss (maybe even a substantial one) and still get higher propulsive efficiency that an ion engine.
Right now, we have ion thrusters that take an input of electrical energy (generated from solar or fission sources) and use it to accelerate a reactive mass (like xenon), thereby producing thrust. The hope is that we can use that same electrical input and use it to run a fusion plant, the products of which would be ejected out the back and provide thrust.
It's a very simplified way of looking at things, but imagine if, instead of a closed reactive chamber for your fusion reactor, you had a hole and nozze on that chamber, and accelerated the fusion products through that nozzle. It doesn't matter if your fusion reaction is producing a net energy gain; what matters is how much thrust you get, and for how long you get it (ie, impulse) from a given energy input.
In other words, we aren't talking about using a fusion reactor to produce usable energy in the same sense as a ground-based power plant. We just want delta-V. Yes, it might simplify things if the fusor ran at a net gain, but for this application, it doesn't have to.
The trick is to buy older exotic cars (late 80s, etc). They aren't daily driver cars, but you can get a Porsche or Ferrari for $18-30k. A friend of mine has a wall full of pictures of all the cars he's owned in the past 15 years (Porsche, Ferrari, Lambo, Maserati, etc.) from doing this. He's an aviation mechanic, not some super-rich guy.
Reducing crime levels should not be the goal. The goal should be to make communities feel safer.
Huh? What good does it do to make people feel safer if you don't actually reduce crime?
I agree that "reducing crime" =/= "making more arrests"; any DA or CLEO that says "look at how many arrests I made" is essentially saying "look at how many people I put in a cage". Yes, arresting the right people will help reduce crimes because you're getting the repeat offenders off the street, but just as important in reducing crime is effective community policing and intervention. Arresting hookers and teenage pot smokers makes your numbers look good, but doesn't actually do anything to make the community safer.
To do that, kids need intervention to break them out of the cycle of increasing crime and get them back in school. Police need to get out there and patrol, getting to know the neighborhood and making a positive presence in the community instead of hiding out and making revenue-enhancing traffic stops. People need to take more steps to help avoid and deter crime and protect themselves from it. Parents need to be more involved with their kids. And so on.
Point is, feeling safe and being safe are not necessarily the same thing.
They're using the water landings for development testing in case something goes wrong. Not many orphanages or schools or playgrounds to crash on in the middle of the ocean.
Painting a plane weighs a few hundred pounds. It does not need to be taken into consideration on a 300,000 lb plane.
Spoken by someone who doesn't work in aviation. A "few hundred pounds" is absolutely a big deal--that's another paying passenger or two you could carry on every flight. Manufacturers will spend tens of thousands of dollars on engineering or manufacturing changes to eliminate a single pound of weight, because every single pound of extra weight translates into less payload and/or more fuel burned.
But that didn't answer my question of where you went to school. See, I went to a well-known engineering school with an average GPA around 2.9, and which expects a full third of incoming freshmen to fail or transfer out. Within my major (aerospace engineering), I had one of the higher GPAs in my graduating class at 3.36.
In college, I endured a crappy GPA of approximately 3.7 many semesters, despite ample study.
Where the hell did you go to school that a 3.7 is a "crappy" GPA to be "endured"?
The Soviets also had another motivating factor at work besides pride in a job; many times, the workers faced a choice of "get it done or spend the rest of your life in the gulag/be taken out back and shot".
Of course, they also had the advantage of not being subject to a fickle public that would denounce a program as a complete failure and call for its cancellation after the smallest hiccup.