I did some model ship tow tank testing at DTRC. The wave generators there were air bladders inflated/deflated by pneumatic pumps. I suspect the main reason they want to get away from steam for the catapults is the same reason air bladders for wave generators suck: The exact performance varies depending on the ambient air pressure and temperature. Over decades of trial and error and experience, they had built up tables allowing you to set the controls based on the air temperature and pressure so you sorta kinda got the same waves as you got yesterday. But it was never exact, and your test results were never fully reproducible.

I am not sure that being made to run so hard that their bones fracture is "a pampered life".

Out of curiosity, what's the rate at which racehorses fracture their limbs, vs the rate at which human professional athletes fracture their limbs?

If a substantial fraction of racehorses fractured their limbs, then I'd agree with you. But I suspect the cases where they break their legs are just outliers, as with any high-speed activity.

We may be running into a fundamental limitation of the scientific method. By Goedel's impossibility theorem, for a given set of logical rules and axioms, there will always exist logical constructs which are unprovable - i.e. cannot be determined to be true or false. "This sentence is false." Is it true or false? For a physical analogue, if everything we know about the speed of light is correct, there is no way to ever observe what is inside a black hole. Yet obviously there is something inside. The fact that we can't observe it within the limitations imposed by physics doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It falls into a class of physical phenomena which can't be tested by the scientific method.

I've been trying to explain this to people this for years. Logical truth isn't binary. Every hypothesis (theory, speculation, faith, whatever you want to call it) doesn't resolve into being true or false. They resolve into true, false, or cannot be determined. While by the standards of the scientific method something in the "cannot be determined" category cannot be shown to be true, it is equally erroneous to decide it is false. So contradictory to what many rationalists think, there are actually three categories of belief - scientific truth (belief in things provable by science), superstition (belief in things disproven by science), and what for lack of a better word I'll call supposition (belief in things that cannot be proven nor disproven by science). String theory probably falls into the third category, which is why it's wrong to lump string theorists with the second category simply because it can't be proven by the scientific method.

From a mathematical standpoint, even if string theory is wrong, if it can come up with accurate predictions, it can still be useful and worth pursuing. Early astronomers believed the planets were painted onto spheres, and attempted to define their motion across the sky as a circle within a circle, offset slightly from the observer While we now know that their method was wrong, the predictions these circles came up with were pretty accurate. Basically it's like using a nth order polynomial to fit a set of data points. The phenomenon that created those data points probably isn't a nth order polynomial, but if the polynomial can accurately predict in-between data points, then it doesn't really matter that it's wrong. You just need to be careful of extrapolating outside the data points, or expecting more accuracy from your prediction than the accuracy of your data points.

So consider a grid of wells, say 100 x 100, that is 10,000 wells. So obviously in the middle no problem, contaminating the crap out of the water but no one there to drink it. Only the wells on the perimeter are the problem so percentage games bullshit. See 100 x 100 grid, 9,604 perfectly fine (still creating a problem but no one drinking that water, hence it is not 'drinking' water) and only 396 are a problem, now that is only about 4%. See no widespread problem, bwa hah hah.

Ever heard of sparkling water? Certain natural springs run nearby underground volcanic vents. At the higher pressures underground, the CO2 from those vents gets concentrated in the water. When the spring reaches the surface, the lower pressure results in the CO2 being oversaturated. If you bottle the water and shake it, the CO2 effervesces out and you get the sparkling water you're familiar with.

In a 100x100 grid of an area known to have a high concentration of naturally-occurring hydrocarbons, is it really that hard to imagine that like volcaninc CO2, some of these hydrocarbons could migrate into the water table naturally to "contaminate" it? You can't assume the water is 100% clean and that any contamination must therefore be due to fracking. Otherwise, natural sparkling water wouldn't exist.

It's still in the early stages of research, but yes you can power a camera from light entering the lens.

Do note that that only works when you have an external light source. Most security cameras have infrared LEDs to light up whatever they're supposed to be recording at night, when there isn't enough ambient light to record an image, much less power the camera. On top of that, any security camera recording anything important is going to be wired. If it's wireless, any burglar can defeat it with an RF noise generator interfering with the wireless signal. And if you've got wires transmitting the signal, it's trivial to feed the camera power over the same wire.

A security camera powered by light is not going to have a very big market.

The rotational part of the orbit is chaotic; the worlds tumble, and hence sunrises and sunsets are no longer predictable.

"Rotating around more than one axis" doesn't automatically mean chaotic, does it?

That actually brings up another possible explanation. The rotational analogue for "mass" is "inertia". But unlike mass which is a scalar, inertial is a tensor - a 3x3 matrix. Rotation is only stable around the minimum and maximum inertial axes. If you try to spin an object around a different axis, its rotational axis will oscillate between the minimum and maximum axes, like a ball oscillating back and forth in a bowl between the minimum and maximum potential energy. In other words, it will tumble in a seemingly chaotic pattern, until you realize this oscillation is going on.

When designing spacecraft, extra care is taken to distribute mass so as to make sure the inertia tensor is symmetric along the axes where your thrusters will impart rotation. That way firing a thruster causes a predictable rotation, rather than tumbling.

I prefer free-markets where I can get them, but the last mile is anything but a free-market.

There are two ways to do this.

• Allow anyone to lay down infrastructure in the last mile. Do not regulate it - let it operate as a free market.
• Limit who is allowed to lay down infrastructure in the last mile. Regulate it as a public utility.

The first approach is usually what you want when the technology is first being developed. When Edison championed DC power distribution and Westinghouse/Tesla pushed for AC power distribution, the government did the right thing and got out of the way. Both were allowed to build out their networks, and everyone got to see (publicity stunts like electrocuting elephants notwithstanding) which technology actually worked better in real-world applications. So when cable TV was first being rolled out it made sense to allow different cable companies to try different things to figure out what sort of cabling, topology, etc. worked best in practice.

But by now, the "best" solution is pretty apparent and cable modems have even become standardized between different cable companies (DOCSIS). And I think everyone knows the endgame for the last mile is fiber to the home. Once the free market has established the best solution to the problem, it's best to implement that singular solution and turn it into a utility.

Unfortunately what cities and municipalities have been doing it is limiting who is allowed to lay down infrastructure in the last mile (usual in exchange for coverage guarantees in the contract, though I suspect kickback schemes are rampant - the city I used to live in halted FiOS rollout until Verizon paid them more per subscriber). Then not regulating it. You can't mix and match the two methods that way (at least not without inviting corruption). That's a recipe for disaster, which is exactly what we have when it comes to cable companies, and what we had with Ma Bell.

And this is exactly why I don't enjoy being around some atheists. Just the same old proselytism, and vitriolic attacks on religion started by some interesting nature fact. You are just on the opposite part of the fundamentalist scale, with both being bat-shit crazy. You must be the soul of the party wherever you go....

TFA is standard pro-Apple hit piece reasoning. First they trumpet that Apple has the biggest market share (for touchscreen smartphones, for tablets, etc). When Apple loses that, they trumpet that Apple has the biggest revenue in that market. When Apple loses that, they fall back on trumpeting that Apple has the biggest share of profit. All the time making it sound like Apple is the one which is winning when by most measures Apple is in fact losing (Google Play store revenue passed iOS App store revenue last year). Q42015 financials were also skewed in Apple's favor because their latest phones were released just before, while no major Android phones were relased

As for profits, Android smartphones had $2.4 billion in profits on 205.6 million phones shipped during 4Q2014 . That's $11.67 profit per device, which if you figure an average Android phone costs $300 is just under 4% margin. The PC industry operates on pretty much a 3%-5% margin (aside from Apple - theirs is usually close to 25%). HP's margin was 5%. Lenovo's margin was 1.8%. Dell was usually around 5% before it went private.

Basically, Android's profits are completely normal for a consumer electronic device made of commodity parts. The only thing that's noteworthy is Apple's weirdly distorted finances, where their marketing and cachet allows them to sell the same commodity parts at huge markups. Another way to look at this is that Apple made $18.8 billion profit on 74.5 million phones in 4Q2014. If you bought an iPhone last quarter, your Apple Tax was $252.

Corporations will continue to make boatloads of money, artists will continue to sell their work for a song.

That's what I don't get. We already have the infrastructure in place for artists to "make it" on their own - no record label company needed. A friend of mine put a few of her self-produced educational videos on YouTube hoping for some publicity - maybe someone at a TV station would see them and pick up the series or offer her a job. Instead, the videos grew insanely popular among parents. The YouTube revenue was more than enough to fund production of the video series she'd been hoping a TV studio would bankroll. And now she's one of YouTube's biggest producers. Her YouTube revenue exceeds her (lawyer) husband's income, and he's taking more and more time off his law practice to help with her video and website production.

But so many aspiring musicians seem to think the only way to succeed is the "traditional" way - sell their soul to a record label who will take 90% of what they earn, and charge them another 8% as production expenses. Organic publicity on YouTube and social media is free (assuming people actually like what you produce). Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play take a 30% cut, which while I still think is excessive is a helluva lot better than the 95+% a record label will take. The only hold the record labels still have is on radio, which is declining in popularity. The record labels are this generation's buggy whip manufacturers - don't chain yourself to them. The Internet removed one of the biggest impediments to publicizing virtual media like music - production and distribution. Take advantage of it if you're an aspiring musician (or video producer).

I am for having a camera on the train engineer. But the engineers' union stance is a bit more nuanced than just privacy concerns. I don't think they give a damn whether the engineer picks his nose. Their concern is more to do with how people react under stressful situations when snap decisions are required. Knowing that your every move is being recorded and will be intensely scrutinized after the fact can alter those decisions.

The best recent example is probably the Fukushima nuclear plant. The manager had it within his power to dump seawater into the reactor early on, and avert what would eventually become only the second INES level 7 emergency in history. But dumping in seawater would've destroyed the billion dollar reactor - an act which was sure to invite intense scrutiny into his decision from company and regulatory officials. He was so afraid of making a bad decision, that he ended up making no decision. He instead chose to believe the signs that the reactor fuel rods were not melting down, thus requiring him not to make that fateful decision. Until it was obvious they had melted, and it was too late for the seawater option.

I often what would've happened if he had decided to dump in seawater in time. It's doubtful he would've been hailed as a hero as we know in hindslight. There would have been no melted fuel rods, no radiation released. Instead the spectre of a catastrophe would've only been a probability-based best guess. Contrast that with the certainty that he'd destroyed a billion dollar reactor. In all likelihood he would he have been disciplined or fired by TEPCO for making a "rash" decision which cost the company a billion dollars.

There is a saying that goes "share your wealth with us or we will share our poverty with you". The whole point of the EU is that the stronger members bring up the poorer members so that they don't dissolve into financial chaos which tends to have other inconvenient outputs.

That's actually the problem with the EU. Poverty doesn't go away just because you reduce trade barriers. If it did, NAFTA would've turned Mexico into a shining beacon of democracy. You need political and legal reform to disperse the conditions that are causing the poverty.

The EU does take some steps towards this - e.g. harmonizing product standards. But for the most part the EU countries are insisting on political independence. That's like trying to hitch up a bunch of horses of different athletic ability to a single wagon under the premise that the faster horses will bring the slower horses up to speed. What really ends up happening is the slower horses end up getting dragged along, and the faster horses end up having to work harder (e.g. Germany and Greece). You need to condition the horses until they're of similar fitness (i.e. political reform until they're of similar economic strength) before you think about hitching them all to the same wagon.

The U.S. tried what is basically the EU approach in the 1700s when it first won independence from Britain. Mostly because of the bad aftertaste of the overreaching British Monarchy, each state wanted to govern itself as if they were separate countries. That lasted about a decade before it became obvious it wasn't working, and a stronger central government was needed if there was to be a union.

I'm aware of the velocity of money and the perception that poor people pour money back into the economy rapidly while rich people don't (and it matches my personal biases, so I like the idea a lot) but -- I'm trying to figure out what the rich can do with money that actually takes it out of the economy. Unless they actually stick dollars in suitcases and store them in the wine cellar, almost anything else I can think of puts the money in someone else's pocket one way or another. Stuck in banks: used to back bank loans.

You're starting to get it. It isn't whether poor people or rich people get more money - that's a fantasy concocted by people to justify their biases (whether it be dislike of rich people or dislike of poor people). What matters is the usefulness of the things they spend it on. For the money to improve the economy, it has to increase overall productivity. A rich guy spending money on gold-plated toilet seats doesn't increase productivity. A poor guy spending it on meth doesn't increase productivity. A rich guy spending it on a new computer which helps him organize his work and thus get more work done increases productivity. A poor guy spending it on food so his teenage daughter can stay home studying for high school instead of working so the family can eat increases productivity.

Kicking it up an abstraction level, the true currency is productivity. Money is just a (loosely tied) representation of productivity, distorted by inflation, inequality in negotiating leverage, corruption, etc. Things which increase people's productivity are good for the economy. Things which don't increase productivity or decrease it are bad for the economy. Whether raising the minimum wage helps or hurts the economy depends entirely on how it affects productivity.

Rich people are richer because they on average tend to spend their money more on things which increase their or others' productivity. Poor people are poorer because on average they tend to spend money more on things which don't improve their or other people's productivity as much. Are you angry and ready to hit reply because you think I'm saying poor people make stupid spending decisions and deserve to be poor? Then you need to re-read the previous paragraph. What I'm saying is if you guide and teach poor people how to spend their money more productively, they will become rich people. This isn't a zero-sum game - everyone can become rich if everyone makes good decisions. That is much more important than raising the minimum wage.

As long as the medallion and similar limiting systems continue to exist, all gloves are off as far as I'm concerned.

The medallion system exists because the number of cars owned by the population far exceeds the capacity of the roads. If that weren't the case (e.g. in small towns in rural U.S.A.) I'd completely agree with you. But as long as road space is limited, something needs to keep the number of "I think I'll make a few extra bucks today by taxiing random strangers" people in check.

Can it / has it been abused to protect establish taxicab companies? Probably yes. But that doesn't mean the system is completely without merit.

Social liquidity is very low in the U.S. so if you are born poor, hard work will not be enough to bring you out of it, you also need luck.
[...]
what we need is a system that isn't stacked against people based on what family they were born into.

My family immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s with only $1000 and the clothes in our suitcases (our (Asian) home country feared mass emigration, and limited how much money you could take with you to the equivalent of about $500 per adult). For years we lived in low-income housing, bought staples from the local Salvation Army, and rummaged other people's garage sales trying to find bargains. We were basically lower class, except we had no preconceptions about what we were "supposed" to do. Nobody telling us like you are that "the system" was stacked against us so it wasn't worth trying to fight it. We fought tooth and nail to better our lives.

Today we're in the lower fringes of the upper class. Most of my extended family immigrated shortly after, and most of them have "made it" into comfortable middle-class lives. A few are upper-class (including one who owns a multimillion dollar cell phone store chain), and one is still stuck in low-income housing. So we are not an outlier. This is what you can really do in this country if you don't have any preconceptions about breaking out of the lower class, and really try to succeed.

If you have the willpower and the ability, you can succeed in this country regardless of what circumstances you were born into. Hard work can in fact bring you out of poverty. If you believe it when others tell you otherwise, you've already given up on the game of life. You cannot succeed if you don't try, and telling people it's not worth trying is consigning them to their current state for the rest of their lives.

In general society would benefit a lot from funding all or part of everyones education with taxes. Even if you don't intend to study more yourself you benefit from people around you getter more educated.

The U.S. already spends more on education per student than any other country. The problem isn't funding for education.

IMHO the problem is a lack of desire to take advantage of that education to better yourself and your circumstances. My parents were flabbergasted at the quality of education that was being provided "for free" by the government here, and made sure my sister and I always kept up with our schoolwork. It was an opportunity they never had when they were kids (unless you count forced indoctrination into Imperial Japanese philosophy that all other Asians were put on Earth serve them). And they made damn sure we took full advantage of it. That's the main difference I saw between myself and the other students. I never took public education for granted because my parents emphasized how fortunate I was to even have it.