Re: Flying Wing
If I'm not going to get airsick, I really need to be able to see the horizon.
2107 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Aug 2007
Flying wings have some serious practical problems for passenger craft -- mainly the lack of space for windows. You can see a bit of that in this design -- there are only a handful of window seats, and the people toward the center rear are pretty much out of luck if they want to see out. With a full-on flying wing the only place you can put windows is in the leading edge, and that's usually avoided for bird strike reasons.
The recycled paper thing is not unique to LA. It's a requirement for all public-sector entities in California. Is it dumb? Kinda, yeah, but LA didn't make it up, it was passed by the state legislature.
Not going to bother talking about your DEI fantasies. I've been involved with public sector hiring in the state and nothing requires hiring candidates of any particular race or gender, only that the process fairly consider them.
My theory: 2003 is the default, and they were using a window system where two-digit dates are interpreted based on an arbitrary cutoff. e.g., if it's >24, it's a 19xx date, otherwise it's a 20xx date. So "25" would be interpreted as "1925", which is probably outside the system's date range, and cause a reversion to default.
Cutoff windows like this were a pretty common way to handle Y2K problems in databases, because they didn't require touching all that much code. But everyone involved in implementing them knew they were just kicking the can down the road and the system would need to be fixed "properly" later.
A large reason for games mostly being written in machine language on the C64 was the BASIC interpreter was slow, and when you're using a chip clocked at 1 MHz you really want to save those cycles.
That said, both the C64 and the Apple II (another machine with Microsoft BASIC) both had some commercial software written in BASIC. Just not usually anything speed-critical.
Some versions of the Apple IIe also had a mini-assembler in ROM, which was handy for putting together short machine language routines. Traditionally the dumping ground for those was the tape buffer starting at 0x300, since no one really used tape on an Apple II system.
Considering Defense, Social Security, and Medicare have all been declared off-limits it's hard to see how they get to $2 trillion. That would require cutting pretty much everything else government does, and a lot of those agencies have substantial constituencies relying on them in red states. Try telling farmers that there won't be any more subsidies and see how it goes.
There's also Transit 5B-5; it can't claim the title of oldest working satellite, because it stopped functioning shortly after launch. But it was launched in 1965 and still transmits garbled telemetry occasionally, making it the oldest satellite to still emit a signal.
The Transit system itself is fairly interesting -- it was an early, pre-GPS satellite navigation system, intended to allow Navy ships and (surfaced) submarines to re-calibrate their inertial navigation systems. It was accurate to around 20 meters if the receiver was stationary.
Before section 230 sites had a choice -- they could do no moderation at all, or they could be held responsible for user-supplied content. Most sites chose just to not have user supplied content; things like message boards and comment sections didn't really become common on a large scale until after section 230 made them less legally risky.
At Starlink's orbit that's not that big a problem; debris would naturally de-orbit pretty quickly. (Small debris particles de-orbit faster than whole satellites due to their greater surface area to mass ratio.)
It's a lot more of a concern at higher orbits, where the debris might not re-enter for decades or longer.
I would not necessarily expect the filibuster to stand -- it's just a Senate rule and can be changed with a majority vote.
However, each of the departments Musk would like to target has a constituency who is sure THEIR favorite department isn't the wasteful one, it's all the other ones that should be cut. Representatives who are not in safe districts, and Senators who are in purple states, can be expected to resist cuts. It's not likely to be a straight party-line vote for most of these proposals. (This is why NASA's SLS keeps staggering forward -- contractors for it are spread across a bunch of congressional districts, making it essentially cancel-proof, because no one wants to be the Representative who voted to take jobs away from their voters.)
If this ever became a commercial proposal, the FAA could probably be coaxed into issuing a waiver, assuming you could demonstrate it was safe. It's actually not that uncommon for aircraft designs to get requirements waived.
For now though it doesn't matter -- as a federal agency, NASA is outside the FAA's jurisdiction.
Never ridden in a B-17, but I rode in a 1929 Ford Trimotor once. It seemed primitive until I remembered that it was built only 26 years after the Wright Brothers; then it seemed pretty impressive to be in this all-metal aircraft that could lift a ton of cargo or 11 passengers. Loud, though. I'm told there's a saying that the decibel level inside a Trimotor is roughly equal to the cruising speed in knots. I'm also told that this is a myth, that the cruising speed never gets anywhere near that high.
"Who's gonna stop me" might collide head on with "why should we listen to you?", in that case. His brain will be pudding by the time his term ends; the infighting you saw in the Republican Party this time may look mild compared to what would happen if he tried to run again for a term he can't legally serve.
How the tank safety problem "ends" is hydrogen vehicles are given an expiration date after which the tank is no longer assumed to be safe and they have to be scrapped:
https://insideevs.com/news/326312/2016-toyota-mirai-do-not-refuel-after-2029/
Anyone who complains about EVs having a limited battery lifespan should REALLY hate hydrogen vehicles.
I've had two cars now that blended regen and friction braking almost imperceptibly -- a Chevrolet Volt and a Honda Clarity.
It's pretty much a solved problem at this point. Both those cars blend the two depending on how hard you step on the brake pedal. Friends who borrowed the Clarity didn't know there was anything unusual about the brakes until I told them.