I can't think of any but what a reputation this country has: Hackers, Russian dash cam car crashes, a leader with Tsar ambitions. And yet they have best competition ballroom dancers (and many moved here to US).

My impression is Chinese are thinking big plans for future. Way back in late 1800s early 1900s US was thinking same thing: Panama Canal was a huge project with lots of opportunity for failure. But reaped benefits for decades after. Also Chinese have lots of cash and putting it into big projects (ok some will fail but whatever they will secure strategic advantage). Meanwhile US put lots of resources into backwards countries with not much to show for it.

I first used Justin but then later all I would get is a freeze frame with a cartoon of a dinosaur on top of image, "our monkeys are working as hard as they can to get it fixed" or something like that. So I then went to Ustream which seems to work fine except I never could get audio along with video, though I'm using the free version (maybe they don't send sound?). Livestream looks pretty good but for people to see it you have to get paid version. ParadigmDVD has nice Livestream streaming videos from dance competitions, nothing special on their end (I forget if they use PC or Mac) simply connect and use software from Livestream. They feed SDI from the cameras.

Not sure how to get into this conversation (and I haven't RTFA), it reminds me of Smart Grids presentation. Speaker showed a diagram of how things were back in the days. One big power plant sending only power out, goes through transmission lines and distribution systems (only one way), and then to the users (only "feedback" is the electric meter with its disk going round and round, ticking the little numbers for the meter reader to note how much to bill you). Then he showed a diagram where the distribution system has all kinds of switches, loads measurement, and fault detection. And now you have users squirting power back into the system. On top of that there is digital information of system status in those lines. Actually quite fascinating, most of us don't even think about those light green boxes here and there occupying a small space along the highway. I've not studied it much but it's interesting. http://www.sandc.com/blogs/ind...

I do remember back in the days when PG&E did everything (north Calif). Generate the power, owned and serviced the transmission lines and distribution system, did the billing, etc. It also seemed there were more service trucks back then (I used to ask the PG&E guys if they had anything to spare, I got few hardware items that fun to have). PG&E does the billing and servicing of local lines but someone else owns the power plants and the big transmission lines.

good reminder of difficulties scheduling launch from FL. The old joke goes what's the different between 20% chance of showers and 80% chance of showers in Florida? Answer is none. I always wondered when claims of several launches per week we've heard through out the years of various launch vehicles (beginning with Shuttle planning in early 1970s of hundreds of flights per year). Then there is limited windows, i.e. if you don't get your Delta launched by such-and-such a date, it will have to be scrubbed until next month because USAF needs to launch an Atlas because Range Safety can only deal with limited number of launches.

Then there is Baikonur Cosmodrome. They can set a launch date for a Soyuz about two years in advance and will be able to launch on that date with exception of technical problems because there is no "weather" (either really hot or really cold but no rain, no clouds, nothing). But there is issues of high inclination and dealing with a certain leader with Tsar ambitions.

I remember that broadcast, I missed the "joke" and was thinking it didn't make sense because about same time in other media one mentioned a different set of names, another mentioned names of crew withheld pending investigation. At the time I was looking into how will it effect my flight into SJC (about 40 miles south) and also what caused such a simple landing to go wrong (maybe it is not that simple). But later I cringed thinking about the KTVU falling for bad information. Supposably, they called FAA to confirm but got someone who was taking messages for a FAA official who asked another person, etc. I guess pressure to be the first to get the news before someone else (I think it is better to be second or third place and be right instead of first place and be wrong).

Yes and no. There is the "Dilbert Principle" which the ineffective engineer is promoted so they don't screw things up in engineering (at least what I've heard, it seems to me managers come in all types of skills and effectiveness). Supposably the successful technical person at least knows subject matter even if they are poor managers as compared to the PHB of Dilbert fame.

yep, imagine that. building your own analog computer (need some good machine shop tools), a MAC decades before Steve Jobs. Really, Mechanical Analogue Computer https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I had a S-100 bus machine, everyone craved that was the way to go. Not tied to proprietary platforms like Apple, IBM-PC, OSI, Franklin, etc. And then when I got my system all ready (and with two 8" floppy drives, wow!), S-100 died. And it vanished from existence. No ads, no discussion, no articles.

I see some with military experience reply to this, "hard to realistically rate one crew as being notably better than another."

Years ago talking with USAF officers and they said officer evaluation reports have these boxes for each particular line item from 1 to 10 (1 as lowest score, 10 highest), and a enough space to write one sentence. But all officers had all "10" boxes checked, if any other box even a 9 on any line were checked, then that officer will promptly lose his commission. (I never understood this, maybe I should ask some officers). So what it really came down to is what is written for each item. For non-pilot officer would have, "supervised mod to air refueling system" and pilot officers would have "logged 200 hrs on F15D." Since evaluation board of generals (all are pilots, i.e. if you don't have wings on chest, you're not getting stars on shoulders) they will then place the one who logged flying hours over the other. This was back in 1980s when to be a USAF general, you had to be pilot. Since air force has much less aircraft in inventory, how does this pan out? Just wondering.

this subject was discussed before, and there was this comment (I saved it as example of poor K-12 education, and those kids that get stuck with it):
"Black people tend to be poor. Poor people tend not to have good schools in their neighborhoods. Having a bad education makes you less qualified to do certain jobs. Rather than trying to get people to hire more black people, we should be trying to fix the massive gap in the quality of schools in rich and poor neighborhoods."

by golly that's a really good idea! Really, it takes time, it takes skill, it encourages using your brain, etc.

ok, now back to whining on the forums.

"we Americans are becoming an ever-more-exhausted and accident-prone society due to sleep debt"
http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Th...

and this from a blog by Chuck Divine, "Some people argue that humans have not evolved to do intellectual work for more than a portion of a week that might be as low as 40 hours. Yes, you can go over that limit, but other things will suffer if you do."

if that were to happen all guvmint agencies will collapse as all are coffee drinkers.

the movie "The Aviator" was fascinating to watch when they portrayed the hearing. Howard Hughes then turned the tide against Brewster with bringing up certain "contributions" the senator received including reference to the painting of llamas (first scene earlier in the movie where Howard was being sociable asking about where Owen got the painting. But he was really gathering information to be used for his benefit later). I believe movie script used was direct from the transcripts of that hearing. And there were other aircraft contracts of other companies that never delivered anything to the Army Air Corps.