There is probably an easy answer, but how do other editors know a persons sex, gender, or orientation? I've never been asked that when editing anything on Wikipedia.

What a wonderful little anecdote! That was Brian, all right.

Phil Karn, KA9Q

JeffOwl, I appreciated your post, no matter what Cmdln Daco says.*

*Disclaimer: Due to my age (and user ID,) to me 2012 feels like two weeks ago.

ABSOLUTELY! The first thing I do with any new OS is to map the caps lock key to the control key.

I can actually think of a practical use for this, if it could be made really lightweight.

I work with groups that fly small, long-duration stratospheric balloons with ham radio beacons. The payload weight budget is too small (15 grams) for batteries, and even with them the extremely low temperatures would be a problem. Supercaps work well at low temperatures, but energy densities are too poor to store enough energy for an entire night. So the payload only operates during the daytime from two thin-film solar cells.

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of another source of ambient energy (besides sunlight) that could be harvested. Even a few milliwatts could be useful, accumulated in a supercap until there's enough energy for one GPS fix and radio transmission cycle. Harvesting broadcast radio stations is one idea, but that only works near population centers. I'd thought of some sort of heat engine working between the warm earth below and the cold sky above, but did not know if it was at all practical. Maybe it still isn't, but it's an interesting idea.

Part of the introduction is missing:

After "Plenty of cat owners will happily tell you their felines are capable of responding to their own names"

it should read "...they just choose not to."

There, fixed that for ya.

The article does not explain why it would be difficult as a practical matter to ensure that payments do not get routed through other states. Can anyone clarify what they mean by this? What exactly would need to be done, and how difficult would it be?

Ah, so *THIS* is how the Talosians kept Captain Pike from bouncing off the walls of his cage. I always wondered about that.

I for one thank our beleaguered editors. I caught the article at 6:08 CST. The sky outside is clear, and the wind yesterday swept all the snow off my west-facing porch. I dunno if the other nine will be as lucky!

I don't think it would be as hard as you might think PROVIDED you really understood it yourself. Of course, this applies to anything you wish to teach to anyone.

The problem with relativity is that it is so counter intuitive to everyday experience and to the classical physics you've been taught that you have to unlearn much of it first. That may make it easier for younger people to understand -- they don't have as much to overcome as they would later.

Like most EEs, I was taught classical electromagnetism, first in high school, then in lower level undergraduate physics, and finally in much more detail in junior level EE school classes. We were also taught relativity, but as a separate topic within physics. Had I been taught relativity first, and then been taught electromagnetism in the relativistic way I think it would have actually have been easier and more satisfying. I would have learned that there really isn't such a thing as "magnetism"; what we see as magnetism is really just the electrostatic force as affected by special relativity (and some quantum mechanics). I would have readily understood why there are no magnetic monopoles, for example. And it would have shown me how every field in physics is related to every other, in fact that there really is only one "physics".

Actually no, it's not a straightforward calculation. That's why they want to conduct the test.

It's not a simple collision like we learned about in physics class, with the change in the asteroid's momentum coming entirely from the impactor. The impactor will hit at extremely high velocity (by earth standards), meaning that it will carry a lot of kinetic energy (one half mass times velocity squared) in a small volume. This kinetic energy will vaporize and blow off part of the asteroid, which because of the asteroid's small size, will completely escape.

The mass of the ejecta will greatly exceed the mass of the impactor, so even though it may move much more slowly than the impactor it will carry away considerably more momentum (mass times velocity). The momentum of this ejecta will have most of the effect on the asteroid's trajectory.

But it's unknown exactly how much momentum will be carried away by the ejecta as this depends on the makeup of the asteroid, its density, porosity, how quickly the impactor stops and releases its energy, etc. So that's why they want to try it.

A similar effect was at play in the JFK assassination that helped cause the counter-intuitive "back and to the right" motion of his head that had so many people incorrectly thinking there was a second shooter.

When I took the bar exam I had to use pen and paper, and we LIKED it that way!

Honestly though, I think there comes a point when if you want to test a person solely based on what they're able to keep in their head, you'll have to exclude most technology.

The largest estimate for the size of Psyche is 253 km across. Mars is about 6800 km in diameter, enormously larger.

Yes, I just picked up a SDRPlay 2 last weekend.

The main differences between it and the Funcube dongle are the same: the SDRPlay can sample at much higher rates, but only at 12 bits/sample, while the Funcube dongle samples at 192 kHz with 16 bits. The Funcube dongle therefore appears better suited to narrower modes, especially on HF and VHF where there may be strong interferers on nearby frequencies. The SDRPlay can do broadband modes too wide for the Funcube, such as HD Radio, ADS-B and digital TV, though many of those can also be done even more cheaply with 8-bit RTL-SDR dongles. The SDRPlay can also produce wideband waterfall displays.

Many hams today ARE using the Raspberry Pi and Arduino for their projects. Such as the local high school kids I help mentor. They build high altitude balloon payloads and fly them, and they all carried either an Arduino, a Pi, or both.