LN400

My handwriting suggests I am a dead drunk doctor.

Just a few thoughts. For system designs, from 0 to and army of engineers (if by engineer we mean someone trained as an engineer). IIRC, this gaming gadget, a joystick with inbuilt games was conceived and designed by a single engineer. A large company bought the design and put their own engineers to work on the mass production/market side of things. The Apollo program saw thousands of engineers working in teams for each detail. Individuals had a general idea, then the teams got down to work out the how to-s. I read about the new launch vehiecle, more than a dozen teams just to work on getting to the next milestone in the design. For production design, one can expect a huge army of engineers working for all those contractors. As been said, how many comes down to several things: Budget/time line, complexity, how much needs to be either invented or reinvented, safety concerns (how critical is it to get everything right the first time?), traditions (it can vary between countries or businesses in a given country) and a host of other things I haven't thought of right now.

Some pretty cool (and plenty of dorky lookin) coaxial full sizers. Kamov have them as their speciality and their helis are being used for everything from crop spraying (Ka-26) to carrier based operations like asw (Ka-25) to all out attack, like the Ka-52 and the older Ka-50. While they are more complex, they also have flight characteristics that are wanted in certain scenarios (exellent hovering abilities, good in asw and SAR), an overall stability single rotors lack while still being nimble, and the lack of a tail rotor makes for safer operations in crowded areas like a carrier deck. Still, they see very limited use outside Russia and some eastern European countries and the mentioned costs/complexity could very well be the reason for that. Interesting then that the teams behind new generation helis are lookng into coaxial design.

I learned that writing trivial papers on filter characteristics is tedious when all 17 pages are repetitions of the previous pages...

Got FSX, and bought an X-52 Pro + pedals for some heli flying but my favourite is still the Cessna. The crawling speed suits me fine. I prefer home base at Friday Harbor (KFHR) as it offers some terrific flights over a great variety of terrain from sea to the mountains up north in Canada. Started a flight from FH into Canada, planning to do a cross Canada trek to the east coast but real life burst into the room when I got to Moosejaw. Oh and FH is also an excellent base for heli flying as well with enough airfields/airports close by for short hops. Helis are nowhere near as relaxing as that Cessna Other than that, I have had various flight sims from my C64 days (Solo Flight/Spitfire 40 etc) to current date but not much time now for it.

Somewhere in there it's written that someone will create a site that uses every page in every book in this library as a one time pad only that each symbol or group of symbols represents a word. Now that would take some time reading through. Incidentally, that is found in hex 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 Wall 2, shelf 5, volume 8, page 184

For neatness points: Heart Of Gold. For practicality and vacant parking space: the AT-AT.

It's my understanding (right or wrong) that to see what the payload is, you need to define the mission first, or the end result you want, if you like. Let's say I want to know what the surface of Minmus is like and I want to know the temperature at Minmus' surface. For this I would need either a probe that can survey the surface or a crew, and a thermometer. For the crew, I would need all the things needed to keep them alive and get them back. Count up all the things I need to put together there, and that's the payload. Then it's a question of how to get all of that to Minmus. None of the parts needed for that is payload. An analogy: Let's say I want to watch a youtube video and let's say we're now at the stage where YT starts sending data my way. The data is what I want, the data is the reason I went to youtube in the first place. The data is the payload. To send it to me, the data is wrapped in a packet with all sorts of labels and instructions just to get it to my computer and to the right application on that computer. None of that is payload. Only the data, the reason I went to YT, is.

Meet a tsunami in the middle of the ocean and it would have to wear a sign to let you know it's coming or you wouldn't notice. Let that wave meet the shallow coastline and that's when it becomes terrifying pretty quick.

One thing to keep in mind is, exploration and colonisation are 2 completely different games with different set of drives. Exploration, curiosity, search for resources. Colonisation, mainly necessity. I'd think we'd settle on Antartica and the North Pole ice cap before Mars and there is little enthusiasm for that so far as far as I'm aware. So, exploration of Mars, we're underway there. Colonisation, perhaps. Perhaps not.

There is still one heavy arguement for colonisation of Mars. The need to. If we manage to destroy this planet as a habitable planet, or if nature itself destroys Earth as an habitable planet, then Mars is perhaps the only alternative if we want to keep going. This is not a Doomsday Is Nigh speech, but it's still a heavy arguement for colonisation. Then again.... When some of the world's brightest minds got together some years ago to discuss what to do if a massive object was heading for a collision with Earth, numerous solutions were sketched up. Still, the conclusion was that it was either technically impossible or if it was possible it would be too expensive. Too expensive... and that came from a group of brighties... Perhaps they were right, perhaps we will opt for extinction rather than depleting our bank accounts.

Reading here what would be needed to heat up Mars (if that's needed in the first place) but one major issue here is, we as humans are utterly incapable of imagining what is completely unknown to us, such as future discoveries. Suggesting mirrors or nuclear bombs reminds me of Carl Sagan (I believe it was) who reminded us of just that. Paraphrasing here: Tell some tribesmen on a remote location somewhere who use drums to communicate across valleys, about people who communicate half a world apart and they would imagine enormous drums. Those tribesmen are us, here and now. We are imagining "giant drums", figuratively speaking, when we discuss future tech and knowledge. Fun sidenote: It's the same utter lack of ability to imagine the unknown that gives us images of aliens with 2 arms, 2 legs, a head over and between 2 shoulders, with a face with 2 eyes, a nose, a mouth and so on. Or they have squid tentacles, or lobster claws, totally familiar to us. I don't see how the question of "how?" can be answered with anything other than "no idea, who knows, it might even never happen, ask me again if it happens".

I read that story on the BBC site this morning and I really couldn't stop laughing at the massive absurdity of it. It was like something straight out of the Onion except satire is no match for reality some times. We need more clockmaking teens and fewer scared out of their minds adults.

A bit of a lot. Soul as in Sam Cooke, blues as in Robert Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt, rock'n'roll as in AC/DC and Motorhead, punk as in NoMeansNo, Dropkick Murphys and .... SParrer, string swing as in Django Reinhardt and Jimmy Rosenberg, garage as in King Khan & BBQ Show, Sonics and Cramps, classical as in Grieg, jazz as in Nina Simone, goofy stuff as in Tom Lehrer, weird stuff as in Frank Zappa and the Monks, pop as in Ronettes and Crystals and Tom Waits here and there.

ESB, hands down. I always thought IV was a bit too lollipop sweet and simple even though it got me hooked. ESB, on the other hand, is sinister, you really start to dislike the Empire there. Worst of the lot: SW Holiday Special. I watched it once and I can not force myself through a second sitting.

Oooh yes, now we're talking!

Pretty much any vid by King Khan & BBQ Show. Those guys know music. Other than that, not many vids if any at all by bands and artists I listen to the most or the videos are just bad. Been listening to the Ramones for something like 3 decades but they never made a single video I would say is good, or even ok. Ok, I know: AC/DC's 'Let There Be Rock' has me in stitches every time, or their 'Baby Please Don't Go' vid.

Another classic and back to fixed wings: The DeHavilland Mosquito, the Wooden Wonder, the Finest Piece Of Furniture ever to come out of the UK.

No matter how I can't really like the outer appearance of the squirrel, it is one of the most reliable designs out there. Incidentally it is also the heli that holds the new altitude record!

Your granddad was a lucky guy who got to fly them. Unfortunately, it's getting old but what's worse, the spares production ended long ago and the lack of trained technicians and even worse, the lack of documentation on Alous and lack of documentation on the few spares that are available, in certain parts of the world made Eurocopter, now Airbus to call it quits for all Alous and Lamas worldwide. Last flights will be some time around 2020.

That would be the venerable veteran Bell-47 but if you ask me, the Alou is everything the 47 wanted to be Sleek, ...., meaning business. Ok so I can't really take anything away from the 47, it has earned its place in history but the Alou... I'm drooling here haha EDIT: On the rotary theme, an engineering feat of magnitude, the Mi-26, the world's largest production line helicopter, here side by side a Jet Ranger for comparison. (From Wikipedia/Jane's All the World's Aircraft 2003–2004) General characteristics Crew: Five: 2 pilots, 1 navigator, 1 flight engineer, 1 flight technician Capacity: 90 troops or 60 stretchers 20,000 kg cargo (44,090 lb) [*]Length: 40.025 m (131 ft 3¾ in) (rotors turning) [*]Rotor diameter: 32.00 m (105 ft 0 in) [*]Height: 8.145 m (26 ft 8¾ in) [*]Disc area: 804.25 m2 (8,656.8 ft²) [*]Empty weight: 28,200 kg (62,170 lb) [*]Loaded weight: 49,600 kg (109,350 lb) [*]Max. takeoff weight: 56,000 kg (123,450 lb) [*]Powerplant: 2 × Lotarev D-136 turboshafts, 8,500 kW (11,399 shp) each Performance Maximum speed: 295 km/h (159 kt, 183 mph) Cruise speed: 255 km/h (137 kt, 158 mph) Range: 1,920 km (1,036 nmi, 1,190 mi) (with auxiliary tanks) Service ceiling: 4,600 m (15,100 ft)

Seeing this is about aircrafts and not airplanes exclusive, I'll have to point to the grand old lady, the Aérospatiale Alouette II, first production line gas turbine helicopter, former holder of the world speed record, the modified version, the SA-315B until recently held the absolute altitude record for helicopters (as well as the world record in autorotation which it still holds). It's been a workhorse throughout the world, seeing numerous versions/variants/upgrades and it's a crime against the history of aviation all Alous are going to be grounded in a few years.

It's a known bug but I'm not sure if the cause is known. I haven't found any solutions other than making the stabilizers as short as possible. They will still appear somewhat randomly but at least they won't crash into the ship. Do you hear any sound glitches as well at the same altitude?

I wouldn't know if they did but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they did wait. The reason for the wait is the real interesting question and to that I can only say I haven't got the slightest idea.

People working in intelligence services don't talk about their work either. Obligations. People beta testing KSP don't talk about things they're not supposed to talk about. Obligations. I don't see any reason to think people working at Area-51 would have had it any differently. It took the British several decades after the world knew about public cryptography and RSA, before they acknowledged the work done by them on public cryptography. Even today, the details are secret. Doesn't bother me. It's the way it works in that business and we still have RSA being widely used by everyone, every day. Nah, I don't buy into the Area-51 workers being scared. Just loyal to what they agreed on when they went into the business of Top Secret stuff: Keep their mouths shut.