jws

39 ms·

331.
by jws 7y ago
A sun angle sensor is great for pointing at the sun. Heliostats need to bisect a ray to the sun and one to the target. Installation requires somehow setting the angle to the target. Then you immediately become aware of how much the ground h
332.
by jws 7y ago
How to reward inventors who do not have the means or desire to commercialize their work is precisely the problem addressed by the licensing of patents. In practice, especially in computer related fields, the system isn’t working out so well
333.
by jws 7y ago
One of my discarded project ideas was exactly this, but on a smaller scale. A steerable mirror on a mount with a camera for targeting. The idea was to place one on the ground outside a north facing window. The device would then busy itself
334.
by jws 7y ago
modern materials: lots of fiber reinforced resin and lots of aluminum. Not a lot of hammering caulk into seams these days. That said, salt water is really corrosive and it gets aerosolized and all over everything. Fresh water boats are a lo
335.
by jws 7y ago
For those in regions without reverse angle parking (like me)… It's used in areas where you might have roadside parking along a road, either parallel or angled. It has higher linear density than parallel and is easier/faster. Compa
336.
by jws 7y ago
Long hours: for 15 years I have frequented the same tiny strip center Chinese restaurant. No matter the time of day, lunch to just before 10pm, any day of the week, the same lady has been there working. That’s hundreds of samples with a 100
337.
by jws 7y ago
No inside knowledge here, but in tracking moving objects it would be easy to build in an O(n^2) algorithm when predicting interactions or intersections between ships. Combine this with the sort of logic used in real time displays (or video
338.
by jws 7y ago
Traditional satellite internet providers used satellites in geosynchronous orbit (that whole “aiming your dish” thing). That’s a 270ms hop up and another back. Starlink is the other “not here yet” services are going to use low earth orbits
339.
by jws 7y ago
Just tie it back and let it go. It’s been about 10 years since I’ve had a haircut.
340.
by jws 7y ago
The Transcontinental Airway System – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_Airway_System There were large concrete arrows painted yellow every 15-20 miles and towers with flashing lights for night time. This w
341.
by jws 7y ago
Fermi estimation says… The internet says the energy of a cloud to earth lightning strike is 10^9 joules. A gallon of jet fuel contains about 10^8 joules of energy. A strike would provide the equivalent of 10 gallons of fuel. A 737 would nee
342.
by jws 7y ago
I'm not sure about MIPS, but over the years there were times when Alpha, Sparc, and PowerPC were each ahead of x86 in performance. Intel outpaced them by using their huge volume sales to invest in fabrication improvement at a scale non
343.
by jws 7y ago
Synopsis: Secret keys are embedded in the device's e-fuses and are not readable by normal means because of a protection e-fuse. By measuring current draw during power up an interval is determined to be the time when the CPU is reading
344.
by jws 7y ago
Sounds like a routine thing, for certain values of "routine". Endoscopic fetoscopy is a minimally invasive surgical procedure performed during pregnancy that allows physicians to view the fetus in-utero. Physicians use endoscopic
345.
by jws 7y ago
It does not appear so. The article says the hospital called him whenever there was a fetus available and that he had to complete his photography within a few hours. He had an aquarium-like tank at the hospital to suspend the deceased fetus
346.
by jws 7y ago
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/spa... There is an annoying interstitial ad, but the URL really says it all. From March 21, 2019. They say the first 75 have iron thruster parts and st
347.
by jws 7y ago
Just about everyone (not just Luddites) will tend to resist technology changes that reduce their job security. The Luddites specifically opposed the textile technology because it threatened their jobs. Characterizing someone as a Luddite
348.
by jws 7y ago
If you are driving across Kansas on I-70 you can take a stop in Junction City at Freedom Park. It is right at the exit on the south side. A short climb up the hill past some other artillery gets you to the M65. It’s more or less targeting S
349.
by jws 7y ago
There is a narrative developing about the anti-littering marketing campaigns which I think tries to paint it as a cynical ploy by businesses. Just to frame things as someone alive at the time in one part of America… single serving glass bot
350.
by jws 7y ago
The Brooklyn Bridge started construction in 1869. The Bessemer Process for producing steel was the hot, new disruptive technology making large steel bridges feasible. Early mills attempting to use the Bessemer process routinely failed to ma
351.
by jws 7y ago
It comes from a time of machines executing instructions thousands of times slower than they do now. Literally – thousands. Memory access was about as fast as an instruction execution, so the amount of compute you can justify per unit of dat
352.
by jws 7y ago
Anecdotally, and not necessarily protocol but current implementation on my Debian boxes… When copying a large number of small files rsync over ssh is much faster.
353.
by jws 7y ago
Years ago, in possibly Thailand, I went for an elephant ride through the jungle with my early teenaged daughter. She was very much into “how things work”. The guide sat up on the elephant’s neck and drove by touching her behind the ears wit
354.
by jws 7y ago
Fuel taxes cover less than a third of road costs in the US. Gas taxes are really unpopular and generally have been allowed to dwindle away by inflation.
355.
by jws 7y ago
You sir, have a very narrow cat. I grew up with one of these. Not a death trap. Any time it gets hot inside the thermostat turns off the elements. The only thing that lets it stay on is the cool, moist bread absorbing energy in front of the
356.
by jws 7y ago
You can see the great stacked blocks of it in Canada where it is removed from the tar sands oil… https://www.google.com/mymaps/viewer?mid=1Wi4KuLBYcXHH0dq4j4... The oil is more valuable without the sulfur, but the mark
357.
by jws 7y ago
Well that's news to me! I'm jealous. I'll bet you can preheat an electric oven in less than 20 minutes. I see the successor to the 16A Perilex connectors you are referencing is IEC 60309 which has an "extra low voltage&q
358.
by jws 7y ago
Maybe we should instead invent a domestic 3 phase distribution system. No more zero crossings requiring energy storage, just flat constant power. It would require a new, small four conductor plug to be designed. Total volume of copper would
359.
by jws 7y ago
He article mentions that the hemoglobin variant which is blue doesn’t release oxygen well. This would be bad.
360.
by jws 7y ago
No one has ever said anything to me about carrying my phone in my shirt pocket. The lens is exposed and facing outward. My primary recording device is 100% socially acceptable to have deployed at all times. Recording would be unacceptable,

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