Light-O-Rama is as off-the-shelf as this gets, apart from tiny trinkets only suitable for lighting a single tree.

LOR has decent-enough software for basic synchronizing. Last time I used it, it really wasn't suitable for controlling huge pixel fields, but anything simple was easy, like it's easy to go buy a tube of paint and a brush. The hard part is the art of good sequencing, and you're absolutely right about the time commitment. Every show is a custom layout, and should have a custom sequence. There are a few folks who publish their sequences for others to use, though, and with some fudging you can make them fit similarly-sized displays.

Yep.

Light-O-Rama is the go-to choice for pre-built kits for newbies (or professionals who need UL certification). The well-beaten path is to begin with LOR, learn about what's possible by joining communities like Planet Christmas, and hone your sequencing skill - not too flashy, not too dull, and just below the threshold where your neighbors formally complain. After that, once you're comfortable with the idea of running a few hundred channels and a few tens of thousands of lights (or in short, once you're addicted), you'll find it's cheaper to switch to DIY kits bought in co-ops, running DMX or newer protocols.

You'll spend time soldering the boards together and building your own cases, but by that point it's a full-time hobby. Then you sell off your old LOR kits to the next round of newbies.

On the other hand, being misunderstood does nothing to contribute to improving the education and awareness of those who misunderstand.

With a succinct message, Tyson started a discussion that spread to thousands of people. Some people misunderstood, and despite the elegance and artistic quality of his written words, that misunderstanding tarnishes his reputation in their minds, and that extends to everything he supports - most notably science and an appreciation of the beauty of the observable world without religious connection. By explaining his meaning clearly, and expressing no wish to offend, some of those people will see the mistake for themselves, and open their minds again to science.

It's not about winning or losing, or of being the stalwart champion of misdirection. It's a matter of graceful interaction with other humans.

I didn't say it wasn't a big deal. I said it isn't enough to cause noticeable disruption or bankruptcy of a government, because that's what plopez seemed so concerned about.

For what it's worth, getting the price up to 1% is also unrealistic, but it was an easy calculation to make to show that it's not a threat. Really, the $400 billion price tag is an estimate for the entire program, extending slightly past final delivery in 2037. That works out to only about $10 billion per year (not accounting for inflation), which is roughly 0.3% of a year's federal budget. That's less than the amount the government loses due to the home sale capital gains tax credit, but nobody whines about those stability-threatening home sellers, do they?

So it seems the branches have different needs, and really need three different variants of the same aircraft, so their necessary differences aren't all trying to compete. Perhaps we could have one with room for an internal cannon, one with STOVL capability, and one with folding wings and an arresting hook. I wonder where we could find such a craft?

I'm going to have to defer to the Pentagon, who clearly believe the A-10 is not what's needed for the future, rather than an armchair commander who thinks that the 1970s were good enough.

I'm not privy to the discussion behind changing deadlines, but in two decades as a software developer, I've never seen a project that was at deliverable quality prior to the main testing cycle.

As planned, though, the first software version to deliver basic air-to-air and air-to-ground capability will be Block 2B in mid-2015. Full capability won't be supported until Block 3F in mid-2017. In short, software development is a difficult problem for a plane that is significantly computer-controlled. Go figure.

The total program cost is estimated at $400 billion. Spread that out over the 18 years it's been running, and you end up with less than 1% of the federal government's annual budget. That's hardly enough to cause noticeable disruption, let alone bankruptcy.

I have a sneaking suspicion you don't actually want answers to your questions, but I'll provide them anyway.

Not really. A-10 development took 10 years, F-18 took 8, and the F-15 took 13, all measured from program start to initial production. The F-35 began its production run in 2008, 12 years after its program started. I haven't found timelines for the earlier planes' IOC milestones, but I'm under the impression that they followed similar schedules, with production running for a few years before pushing the planes out into use. Yes, the F-35's timeline is drawn out because they're trying to design three planes at once, but that was also expected from the start.

Because it's not required to work until next year, at the earliest. What's in use now would be good enough to fly and work out other problems, but it's not suitable for combat use.

Rain isn't the problem. It's actually lightning that the F-35 isn't currently allowed to fly near, because the initial production run did not have the lightning protection applied, as it would interfere with testing. That'd be another thing to be added for IOC.

Because the A-10 is an expensive one-trick pony. You call it a "Swiss Army knife", but that's really just because its one trick is very useful. The A-10 only does close air support in an area-denial situation where the most recent anti-aircraft threat was built by the Soviet Union. It takes far more training and maintenance support to operate, and that training and logistics expense is only applicable to that one aircraft.

In comparison, the bulk of the support for an F-35 is shared across the three variants, so the total cost to run the fleet is greatly reduced. A maintainer can switch variants with minimal additional training, and a single base can support any F-35 that stops by. We're also not going to be dealing with Soviet-era defenses for much longer, with China and Russia making gestures that they're willing to sell modern SAMs to anyone who opposes Western interests.

...After only 36 years, for the US. The F-4 is still in service in other countries, primarily those that don't need to worry about modern SAMs. The F-4 was originally not a multi-role fighter. It was designed as a fighter-bomber, reworked to be an interceptor, and finally upgraded to do close-air support almost a decade later.

Just well enough to get the job done. What we've learned since the Gulf War is that fighting is expensive and complicated. To support the dozens of different single-role planes, we have to mobilize thousands of support crew to ensure that we can support any kind of mission we need. A multi-role fighter, designed to meet the potential needs, will still be able to handle lesser threats. The F-35 is being built to handle anything China or Russia might produce, but it will be perfectly capable of supporting campaigns in Africa, the Middle East, or North Korea.

Sounds perfect for Slashdot!

You should try reading more, rather than aborting the first time something doesn't match your armchair-commander factoids.

There is always a risk of civilian air traffic in war zones, usually on a flight path to "get the hell out". Such flights are closely monitored, but they're still a concern for patrols. There's also noncombatant humanitarian aid, neutral observers, and allied flights that don't always communicate properly. Even though outside traffic is routed around combat areas, pilots still need to be aware of every friend and foe in the area.

...and until humans are entirely out of the war, automatic detection will not work as flawlessly as you seem to think. Humans are responsible for maintaining and turning on the identification transponders, humans are responsible for programming the computers, and humans are responsible for all of the nuance of political situations. Even if we assume the computer's programmed correctly, that's not much help if the threat's identifier is malfunctioning. Would a computer of current technology recognize that a plane making a 120-degree turn could be trying to signal for help? It's not a common signal, but as a last-hope effort to identify yourself, it's an option. A human pilot could observe that the threat is making no aggressive motions, know the relative comparison between the two aircraft, any other threats or targets in the area, and choose to cautiously stay distant while watching to see if the pilot makes more 120-degree turns. That kind of decision requires a situational awareness that computers do not currently offer, nor have I seen any indication that upcoming technology will support it.

Those shot down in friendly-fire accidents would likely disagree. Even in a war zone, there's other friendly and civilian aircraft in the skies.

Modern air combat is very different from the dancing dogfights of the World Wars. Nowadays pilots first rely on electronic identification (radar and radio signatures), visual identification, and tactical analysis. That last point is something computers are terrible at, and not particularly promising for the near future. A human pilot can be told in a briefing what new tactics an enemy is using, while a computer will require a more time-costly reconfiguration, at best. While identifying a potential enemy, pilots rely heavily on the as-yet-unsurpassed signal processing capacity of a device known as a "human brain", to determine whether a particular observation is just sensor noise or actually something meaningful. When a mistake costs lives, knowing what's a useful identifier is crucial, and computers just aren't flexible enough for that yet.

Once an identification is made, the fighter can deploy weapons, adjust speed, and maneuver around, while still outside the range of enemy fighters. By the time the enemy even knows he's been spotted, missiles are locked and inbound. Countermeasures have a chance of confusing the missile, but counter-countermeasures reduce that chance, especially when paired with the fighter's sensor suite, now observing from a different angle. If a modern air fight requires extreme maneuverability or multiple attack runs, something has gone horribly wrong.

That's why we use nukes all the time now, right?

The entire plane is modular, upgradeable, and works mostly the same across all three variants. The biggest benefit to the F-35 is that large portions of the training, documentation, and maintenance materials can be shared by all users of the plane, significantly reducing operating the expense to run a fleet.

TFA is really just whining about the fact that this plane took 15 years to develop, and the Pentagon's purchasing process doesn't allow revisions until after delivery. Highlighting a component that's now obsolete just makes a good headline.

TFA answers your question:

I've worked for defense projects, and this is accurate. Once the Pentagon approves a design, the "delivery" phase has to happen before the "revise" phase. The only exception is if the government wants to change requirements, but that puts the bad PR on politicians, rather than on the contractor.

The F-35 doesn't hit initial operating capacity (IOC) until mid-2015, at which point the military will actually start flying the plane, and report back with deficiencies (like outdated avionics) to be fixed. Yes, it comes at a price, as several hundred planes have been built to the original specs, but Congress accepts that cost to keep up the charade that their IOC requirements were reasonable.

Not really. The F-35 airframe is mostly just a shell around the modular components, which already come from many different companies. The reason switching vendors doesn't often happen is the same as in any other manufacturing project. There's a significant retooling expense while a new supplier familiarizes themselves with the platform and interfaces, even though they are usually standardized and government-specified.

None of that really matters. A computer isn't trusted to make judgement calls like a human, and the military still likes having pilots making tactical decisions while they're out in the battlefield, with a full awareness of the reality that they're raining death on other people. That's why the Air Force still wants humans in the cockpit, preferring drones only for recon and very limited air strikes.

Any concerns about an EMP are moot. All electronics are shielded, regardless of the nature of the pilot.

Do you have some evidence of this claim?

This study indicates otherwise. Rather than showing an increase in vehicle damage, there was an observed decrease in reports of inappropriate behavior.

You say that like the groups are separate.

Obama's aligned with the typically-liberal Democrat party. Liberals tend to believe that one of the government's jobs is to make things better for the jobless, the disenfranchised, the dispossessed, the poor, the hungry, and the downtrodden, so he's pushed programs that aim to help such folks.

Of course, that's countered by the Republican conservatives, who tend to believe that everyone can make their own fate, so those programs are forced to be either opt-in or neutered. If you want to rebel against the government's control, you have that freedom to forge your own way in life.

The end result is a system where assistance is tied to one's embrace of government. Sure, one can stay independent, but that's likely how he got to be jobless, disenfranchised, dispossessed, poor, hungry, and/or downtrodden in the first place.

I know a man who did about 25k his first year. That's only 250 strings of lights, or two 32-string 4-color megatrees. By year three, he was at 75k and ran out of time to put them all up. I think he's over 100k now, mostly in quickly-assembled modules. That's where the logistics from TFS comes in - rigging a complicated display takes time, more than anything else. There are cheap ways to get lights and easy ways to build common elements (and welcoming communities to help newbies get started), but it's mostly a time-bound process. You only get about a month to get the show up, and a month to tear down (depending on location). The rest of the year is spent planning, building, and repairing.

I'd like to see a reference for that, actually.

My understanding is that if the police have a legal reason to be looking where they're looking, they can respond officially to whatever they find. To use your example, if they pulled you over for speeding because their radar gun was malfunctioning, they would have had a legal reason to stop you, and a legal reason to do a basic search (like looking in the car windows for weapons). If they see a bag of weed openly, incidental to the search for weapons, they can legally arrest you for it in a completely separate case from the speeding incident. The speeding ticket would easily be thrown out, but the fact that they found you with drugs is unrelated, because it was found during a legal search (unless the officers knew their radar gun was malfunctioning, and use it as a pretense for searching cars, but "bad cops" wasn't stated in your example).

The whole flow of logic is presented nicely at The Illustrated Guide to Law, as is often the case.