Guard Dog

Great link. I sent that to everyone at work... it killed!

If their claim is true then radio mechanics as I understand it would not work. Case in point. Suppose I were to place two narrow band microwave radios on a hill and shoot them to two radios on a distant hill. Assume both are on the same frequency, and modulation, and their paths are parallel, and both are transmitting from a single source. If I set one to 30 dBm (one Watt) and the other to 33 dBm (two Watts) I know they will be in phase with each other at the z end of the shot (signals will arrive at the same time irrespective of power). That is why I strongly suspect there is a observational flaw here rather than a new discovery.

Actually Gorgon and Brdavs my biggest fear is that an Iranian nuke will be given to a terroist group. Iran as a nation state would never initiate such an attack. But by using terrorists as a delivery vehicle they may think to hurt an enemy and give them deniability. Of course we know that is not the case, but that is a rational thought. And as Alexander Haig once said "I am not afraid or rational men. It's the irrational ones you need to watch out for". Ahmadinejad at his best is a demagogue. Let us hope he is not a fool. Or let us at least hope the mullahs who hold his strings are not fools. A nuclear attack on a US city will almost certainly elicit a nuclear response on the nation that gave the terrorsts the weapon to begin with. Besides, I doubt even the most hard core America haters on this board want to see 100,000 to 200,000 innocent American people vaporised. And no one wants to see what comes after.

It would not be the first time in history that a team of educated people witness an event that current physics cannot readily explain, and they assume that physiscs is wrong rather than some flaw in the observation.

Currently reading All Creatures Great and Small. I don't know how I have managed to not read it already but I'm really enjoying it.

Not quite. The iPhone is the only handheld on the market right now that is fully interent capable. It is the only one that accepts full HTML, Java, Flash, etc. And it accepts cookies. I've used one to visit this very forum.

A little "inside info" on the iPhone, here are four true sentences. They are selling a little better than the projected rate. The are not the utter POS I thought they would be. They do make effective use of EDGE (and they have been given a TON of bandwidth to use). They only real design flaw to come to light so far are cracked touch screens but so far they only account for 3% of returns. But it is a little dumb that you cannot dload direct from iTunes.

Ummm its already happened. Pakistan has them. But seriously, can you imagine what the repercussions would be if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons, then give one to a terrorist group and they detonated it in a western country? I'm staying out of the rhetoric of this discussion, but I'd like you to follow that thought to it's logical conclusion. Uranium 235 and 238 and Plutonium can be tracked to the reactor that created them by measuring isotope decay rate. If such a thing were to happen it would be a simple matter of time to determine where the material came from. Iran (or any country) would be unable to deny it's complicity in such an event. What do you think the response would be?

Aren't there sub-kiloton nukes? With yields in the 10-20 ton range. Or do you consider those "ultra small?" I don't think so. It has been a long time since I has a physics class but I believe any fission bomb requires a certain amount of mass to even sustain the explosion, but the more mass the more power. I remeber reading about the "suitcase" bombs the Soviets developed. They had only 10kg of fissable material (Plutonium 239 I would guess) and had a 20kt yield. US artillery delivered tactical nukes are in to 40-50kt range than they are considered small.

Buccaneers, Dolphins, and Jaguars all lost. And lost ugly at that. And the Gators had 4 big injuries on a throw away game against Troy. And Tennessee is looming large next week. What an all around rotten weekend.

Azarkon that was the most thoughtful and intelligent post I've read on this board in a long time. And I agree 100%. The smart thing to have done (and I've said this before) would have been to break Iraq into three separate countries such that would each encapsulate the three distinct ethnic/religious groups. Iraq was itself a construct of a post WWI mandate granting lands from the defeated Ottoman Empire to Britain. Only strong military force has kept it whole, first the British, then the Hashemites, then Saddam. As a rule, nation states with divided ethnic/language/religious/ loyalties and no real (or contrived) national identity do not survive on their own accord. Look at what happened after the USSR fell.

Actually, a fun thing to do would be to have a keg party with a keg of NA beer, but don't tell anyone its NA. Then see who acts drunk.

Wait a sec... The Brits eat Cucumber Sanwiches? EEWWW. I could almost forgive the warm beer but that? But seriously, they are only pulling out of Basra. Not out of Iraq all together. But I expect that is beginning to happen too. Next month the US Commander Gen Patreus is supposed to reccomend force reductions as the US and British forces begins to assume an advisory role. It is almost over.

Actually it was based on the college experience of one of the creators of MAD. I don't know, I wouldn't say it was too unrealistic. Hmm, our house was always a mess, there was a lot of parties, there was a Belushi type guy who never seemed to actually go to class, we had a dean who was always trying to shut us down...yep, Animal House. "Over!? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" "Germans...?" "Forget it he's rolling" Classic!

I agree with Monte. It sounds like what you need is a nice long war. If you are friendly with Portugal get them to help you attack Spain. Or vice versa. The only thing I disliked about playing England was when you sent a crusade it had a hell of a long way to go to get to palestine and tropps would desert every turn. The army that leave England is not the same one that arrives in Jerusalem. Do you take an overland or sea route? Going around the Iberian Peninsula and past the pillars of Heracles or taking Barbarossa's route through Byzantium are considered to be the non-direct path to the Holy Land and will make your crusaders impatient. What you want to do (after you cross the Channel) is cut across mainland Europe and head straight for Italy towards Naples. Then you want to hop on a boat (preferably fleet of boats to protect against Pirates) and make your way across the sea to the soon-to-be Outremer. Good idea. Usually I go via the Straits of Gibralter then direct across the Med. I like your idea better. Plus most of the actual crusaders left via Marsellies, so it is historically accurate as well. In my last game the Danes had control of Jerusalem. Talk about standing history on it's head.

I agree with Monte. It sounds like what you need is a nice long war. If you are friendly with Portugal get them to help you attack Spain. Or vice versa. The only thing I disliked about playing England was when you sent a crusade it had a hell of a long way to go to get to palestine and tropps would desert every turn. The army that leave England is not the same one that arrives in Jerusalem.

I run 2-3 times a week. Usually I go 1-2 miles if I have a dog with me. If I don't I ususally go 2. Plus I am going to enter the Miami Dade Run For The Animals 10k later next month. The money goes to benefit the Miami Dade Rescue Railroad and te Dade Humane Society. But I never time myself. Since I left the military I really have not cared how fast I could run. I think usually I run 10 min miles. But I know I could do it faster. But it's not a race.

I was a little surprised to see the Jags cut Byron Leftwich. I guess they think Garrard can handle the job. I'm not so sure. Here are the final roster cuts made today. Not too many surpises. Final Cut Down Day

It's only your fourth day there Pixies... a little early to get discouraged.

Slightly OT here. But did anyone catch the Michigan Appalachian State game? I listened to the second half on my Sirius. Wow, talk about an upset.

I read on the TW forums that one of the goals for Empires was to create a much more useful and complex diplomacy segment to the game. I hope they pull that off. Given the near parity of military power between the great continental powers of the time period, the need a good diplomacy engine to give the game even a little historical credibility. The fight first ask questions later of RTW would not make sense in 1800's Europe. Monte/Leferd have you tried the Crusades campaign yet? That was the one I was most interested in.

Maybe it's the size of the opening. Cats are a little funny about some things. They are fearless at things they should be afraid of and intimidated by the most innocuous things. One of my dogs still has not figured out the front door and back door lead to the same house. He will only go in the door he went out of even if both are open.

i'm done with classwork, yay! only the dissertation to work on. however, i do work 50 hours/week on my job, so finding time to really concentrate on my studies, which are nearly identical to what i do at work, is difficult. spending all day working through equations, then coming home to derive even more leaves me mentally exhausted. way cool. not so for mine, though i was paid for my MS thesis. i was only 1/4 time, however, but that was still $3k/semester. in spite of the fact i think graduate studies are inherently easier, i still think my undergraduate days were much more fun. hopefully you're going away to school, pixies. your only real responsibilities will be to yourself, i.e. learning, which is the closest you'll get to perpetual vacation the rest of your life. taks $3k per semester is about one class. But I guess it's better than nothing. What EE discipline did you pick for your MS?

There seems to be a few too many unknowns to be so excited at this point. For them to judge the speed of the first flare to be faster the second assumes: 1) That there were emitted simultaneously 2) That they were emitted from the exact same point. I'm not an astronomer but it seems to me that it is impossible to eliminate doubt on those two points. Even the article's update confirmed they can not rule out an event at the source of emission to explain the difference. But if it turns out to be true I guess we will all have to go back to school.