The shuttle also used to have really short launch windows to ISS (~5 minutes?). That just meant they started the countdown early and added longer holds to allow time to fix any problems that showed up; if the problem took longer than the allowed hold time, it was complex enough that they would probably have to scrub anyway.

You'd presumably need to add new CPU functionality to allow fast context switches. If I remember correctly, a 20MHz Transputer took about one microsecond to switch threads, because that was one of the primary design goals. Of course, that lead to them building a stack-based CPU where almost nothing had to be saved on a context switch...

Are you sure you're not confusing them with 'Ban GMO!' liberals?

Why would you want to give more money to a system that's almost totally failed, and unfit for purpose?

Modern schools were designed in 19th century Prussia to churn out compliant factory workers and soldiers, and most Western nations adopted similar systems after the 1% of the time saw how successful they were at making them money and keeping them in power. They're anachronistic nonsense in the 21st century.

MH370 was perfectly capable of sending ADS messages by satellite... but didn't. That system was either disabled, or turned off.

It's just the free antenna that came with the USB receiver. A proper, tuned antenna should do much better, if you want to spend the time making one.

Maybe.

I watched a Delta launch from a bar in Orlando once, but that had SRBs. In day launches, the shuttle would disappear pretty quickly after SRB separation--at night you could often see it until it was pretty close to the horizon--but I'm not sure how much smoke, if any, the Falcon engines may produce to give you a trail to follow.

I set one of these up a while ago with an old Atom server I had lying around. A couple of hours' work, about $15 for the USB receiver, and the antenna is just taped to my bedroom windowsill. Works OK out to around 100 miles, though reception gets patchy beyond 50.

I'd often wondered where all the vapour trails over our heads were going, and now I know. Of course, I could have saved time and just looked it up on the Internet :).

You can't suddenly make mediocre people good at what they do, so the only way for the left to enforce equality is to make the good people mediocre.

I read an autobiography some years ago by a woman who was in the Chinese Army in the 70s or 80s, and one thing that particularly stood out was the part where she wrote about how she had to deliberately shoot badly on the shooting range, because anyone who could shoot well would be punished for making the others look bad.

That's 'equality' red in tooth and claw.

...was last week.

Here's an idea. Governments could cut corporate taxes to 0%. Then it would be a level playing field.

But the left will never allow that, because EVIL CORPORATIONS.

The BBC had a news article a while back about an African country that officially had a 30% (I think) tax rate, but no-one paid it, so they offered people the option of registering for a 3% tax rate, which increased their income because the average they actually managed to collect with their 30% rate was only 2%.

But, hey, it's all the fault of the EVIL BASTARDS who won't pay their FAIR SHARE!

Then these companies will soon be in court on fraud charges, won't they?

Yeah, let's put all those mom-and-pop Internet businesses out of business because they don't want the hassle of complying with the tax laws of three hundred pissant little countries. Right on! That'll stick it to the Man!

No, the fact that it's legal makes it OK. If governments don't like that, they can change the law.

Though why anyone thinks the world will be a better place if governments have yet more billions of dollars to waste is beyond me.

Oh, you think that if big corporations pay their 'fair share', the government will cut your taxes, right? Ha-ha-ha-ha.

What's the point of being a cop if you can't break the law?