capekwasright
capekwasright on Hacker News
Ward Maps in Cambridge, MA?
It's a little awkward, but it makes sense in the context of determining an energy budget or the daily operating cost on grid power.
The original design was meant to use 3x turbojets, not turboprops.
Which, as it turns out, was written by the same person as features in the OP, Randy Linden
Tangentially related: Boston Dynamics' BigDog, which utilizes hydraulic actuators, would constantly leak hydraulic fluid while operating, be it through normal weepage or catastrophic leaks (e.g. burst hoses). Initially, they used petroleum-based hydraulic fluid, but as they began to operate out in the woods etc, this proved to be untenable, so they eventually switched to using a vegetable-based hydraulic fluid that would biodegrade within a month.
Bonus: when catastrophic hydraulic leaks inevitably occurred and sprayed hot hydraulic fluid over the hot exhaust, you would be rewarded with the lovely smell of a deep fryer!
R.U.R is a fantastic work that unfortunately has been perpetually shrouded in obscurity, despite its outsized popular influence. I highly recommend reading it.
In terms of the NIF's broader goal, as opposed to the specific goals for their ICF work, the NIF is meant to keep nuclear physicists fresh on research relevant to nuclear weapons design in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War and Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#NIF...
+1, I've smoked my KitchenAid multiple times making this recipe but the results are well worth it
There was a comment thread on the John Carmack/JPEG post discussing the Internet Archive's use of JPEG 2000 to store archival images of scanned books, could be a tangent stemming from that?
The section discussing (inter/intra)agency turf battles reminded me of a recent article discussing how the pandemic has led to some significant reevaluation of what the role and purpose of traditional "commuter rail" is within public transit as a whole (particularly focusing on the MBTA/Boston, contrasting the quote from Frank DePaola):
https://www.governing.com/now/taking-the-commuter-out-of-ame...
Correct; optical, not SAR. Should have made that clear in my original post.
A similar controversy exists in the Arab world about what to call the Persian Gulf, where the names "Arabian Gulf" or simply "The Gulf" are preferred. [1]
Amusingly (but perhaps not surprisingly), British imperialism briefly waded into this dispute as well:
> Following British attempts to control the seaway in the late 1830s, the Times Journal, published in London in 1840, referred to the Persian Gulf as the "Britain Sea", but this name was never used in any other context.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_naming_dispute
Boston Dynamics tackled this problem with the SandFlea robot ca. 2010, albeit in a single axis while exploiting the intermediate axis theorem. You can see it in action @ 0:17 in their sole released video[1], where the robot snaps flat during the ascent phase.
This was done primarily to increase the likelihood that the vehicle would land on all four wheels, in order to maximize energy dissipation by the wheels on landing and thus minimize shock seen by the body. As a secondary benefit, footage from the onboard camera stood a chance to be usable during a hop, instead of being a blurry mess. Lots of great details in their patent filing for the robot[2].
Source: I helped design this robot
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo
[2]: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8849451B2/
Many don't realize that for the first ~decade of its existence, BD was not the robotics/hardware business, but rather developed and sold human simulation software. Their main product, DI-Guy[1], was a modest success, and eventually provided the underpinnings for BD's core biomechanics sim tools.
When they got back into the hardware business in the early 2000's, those projects were primarily funded by DARPA/DOD contracts, but the steady income stream provided by e.g. DI-Guy helped fill the gaps between contracts, allowing them to run a business that, though lean, stayed in the black. Eventually, as a part of the Google acquisition, DI-Guy was divested to VT MAK, another local company in the modeling/sim software business [2].
Source: former employee that worked at BD for the better part of a decade from the mid 00's to late 10's
[1]: https://www.mak.com/products/visualize/di-guy
[2]: https://www.mak.com/products/visualize/70-landing-pages-1/la...
Shoutout to
https://www.hfqpdb.com/ for collecting the myriad coupons Harbor Freight sends out in one centralized, easy to use database.
Posted by
capekwasright on Wednesday March 18, 2020 @08:21AM
from the ask-hn dept.
As someone who is fortunate enough to be in a line of work that allows me to (mostly) fulfill my normal responsibilities from the comfort of home with no immediate threat to my job security, along with robust enough savings to support my family in the event that were to change, the proposed $1000 stimulus check, while welcome, wouldn't make a substantial difference in my day-to-day finances....
The short answer is that higher speeds come at a steep price. The relationship between velocity and the power required to overcome drag at that velocity is cubic, so that large business jet requires on the order of 50x more power to fly at 450 kts than it would flying at 120 kts, like the little Cessna might.
