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Comment Re:And, for those of you who like government... (Score 1) 214

Straw man bullshit, Junior. Nobody said there should be no regulation. But, what many municipalities have done is grant monopolies to companies with the expected result that service is poor, prices are high and there is no alternative. Where there are multiple broadband vendors, service is better, prices are lower and consumers have choices. It is not rocket science, except to you.

Here
Here
and Here

Comment And, for those of you who like government... (Score 0) 214

Who was it that created the environment allowing these monopolies market strangleholds? Government, at all levels, federal, state and local. Particularly guilty are the small-minded scum inhabiting most city governments. They abused their positions by selling sweetheart monopolies to [fill in blank], ostensibly for municipal revenue, but really to buy votes and influence. I am definitely not saying that Verizon, or any other company, has clean hands. But there is lots of blame to go around. A would also not bet on "Net Neutrality" being the path to a utopian broadband future.

Comment Vastly overrated capability (Score 1) 138

TtrackingPoint's system can provide an accurate distance to target, as can many LASER range finders. It can provide ambient data, as can several other systems. It can provide an approximate superelevation aiming point based on cartridge ballistic characteristics and the other two data sets. Finally, it can provide approximate windage hold based upon manual input. What it cannot do is tell you what the wind is doing between you and the target. I have seen this system fail miserably in strong, gusting conditions where a skilled human shooter would have ~60% probable. So, marketing bullshit aside, this is no universal panacea. Even if it could discern and provide a summation of all wind effects, derive a solution and project an appropriate aiming point, wind can change faster than the shooter can pull the trigger. The greater distance, the more likely that is to happen. Even with a high B.C. bullet, a change or misestimation of ~3 mph can result in more than 18" displacement at 1000 meters. That is what we like to call a miss.

There are systems in development, using three LASER frequencies, that aim (pun intended) to achieve wind effect characterization between the shooter and target. While results have been reasonably encouraging, they are neither fully developed nor compact enough for small arms use and would still suffer the time lag problem in difficult conditions.

Comment Too much time on campus and in the big city (Score 1) 840

If the good professor were to venture out to the sticks and (gasp) converse with the provincials, he would find many capable young people that understand mechanisms and basic electrical/electronics. My younger daughter replaced a water pump on her Mazda and only needed to ask me for the Permatex. (wipes away tear) It made Dad proud.

Comment Same old story (Score 3, Insightful) 187

Every time a new discovery is made, legions of naysayers appear to tell us how it will not make a difference or is impossible to implement or too expensive or, well, you fill in the blank. Never underestimate the ingenuity of people wanting fame, wealth, professional success, better mate selection or whatever. Graphene will be whatever it will be. It was only a relatively few years ago that these same people, or their ilk, thought they knew everything there was to know about the well-explored element, carbon. The future will reveal itself in due course and those who predict utopia or disaster are both likely to be wrong.

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