JamesSavik

Future lawyer.

Isn't this how every bad sci-fi movie you've ever seen starts? I think that I read somewhere that 7 out of 8 species that have ever existed are extinct now. The reasons for this are many like the great extinction events (whatever they were- comets are popular suspects but I'm leaning toward team Super-volcano) or an organism simply isn't hardy enough to adapt to changes in its environment. Like a super-volcano erupting and triggering a new ice age. The science on this is fascinating- the extinction theories, not the woolly mammoth which by all accounts had the horrible judgement to hang out in Siberia, Who didn't see extinction by deep freeze coming?

It's a sine cos you can't just talk about triangles without a tangential trig pun.

Our textbook covers it as both.

Holy crap. I survived the most brutal midterms I've ever seen. I've seen a few that were only for the true masochist. I was there for Doctor Gaddis's Great Calculus Massacre of 1983. Oh the humanity! Sadly essay questions have not gone out of style- as much as they should. Those of us with the gift of blarney have an unfair advantage that lets us leverage a little knowledge and make ourselves sound like we know what we're talking about. Describe the equations Maxwell's Equations are based on. Describe how Maxwell changed the original equations to make radio possible. Describe how you could easily crash and burn in this class. Describe how you worked your ass off and made sure that wouldn't happen. Describe how now that its over all you want to do is laugh maniacally and eat ice cream. Admittedly, I've always wanted to know what those equations meant. I did sign up for the class. I just wish it could be done without the associated psychic trauma. There's a reason that spring break comes right after mid-terms. I think it is because there would be more shootings if it wasn't.

Yes- I have written great many. In my experience, grant proposals mean absolutely nothing. I have never actually seen any evidence that grant proposals are ever actually read or their merits considered. Grants get funded based on a complex formula that includes family relations, in-laws, political cronies, old fraternity brothers and whether or not the granting authority, be it university, state or congressional, thinks the research or project is cool. Then the lucky project is funded for 25% of the requested funds so that it will fail completely. Good luck.

It sounds really scary but it really isn't. Actually- it is a natural evolution in the technology. Once upon a time there was RADAR and it was good. It was very, very good and gave the ALlies a major advantage in the second world war. The technology was proven and all the world powers wanted to use it for civilian and military purposes. It works like this: Every RADAR dish is a dual mode device: it sends out a signal and it listens for its return. Ignore the math- it's really that simple. Old Radar dishes look a lot like this: A single transmitter and a receiver, or if you are into tech-speak- a transceiver. Most RADAR acts in half-duplex as it sends a pulse and then "listens" for a return. The transitions in send-receive cycle are quite fast as we're talking about light speed wave. Big changes in RADAR technology took place over the course of the Cold War. One of the biggest one were breakthroughs in signal processing. Ironically this came from the Navy and their quest to make their Sonar hear better. A Signal Processor is usually a chip with firmware that can read and process a raw signal feed. This is great when you've got complex analog data and want to quickly change it into a form that is much more useful. These devices are smart so their software can be changed. They can do really neat stuff like filter out noise and process the return signal. You see it every time you watch the weather- that is how (among other things) Doppler radar works. SO... if we have this antenna with one transmit and receive element, wouldn't it provide better, sharper radar performance if we used MORE than one transceiver element? It is idea that phased array radar is based on. In the 70s the US Navy needed a new, powerful radar system to protect their carriers. The whole ship was designed around the Ticonderoga class missile cruisers were built around a huge phased array radar. The AEGIS system is built around the SPY phased array radar. Note the bulky conning tower- the whole this is a phased array.receiver. A different part of the system- this gives you a better look at a phased array- each square is an individual transceiver. This makes the area of the radar "receiver/transmitter" exponentially more powerful and sensitive. Look for this technology to be coming to your weather Radar soon. In the next decade the weather radar systems will be gradually replaced by a phased array pulse doppler system currently under development by a consortium of Universities and Industry. The new weather images will be so detailed that meteorologists can watch a tornado form and watch it develop in increments of fractions of a second until it dissipates. It's like an MRI machine for weather- they'll be able to see it from the inside. The phased array concept also works for simple receivers. In fact when NASA designed the New Horizons probe to fly by Pluto they needed an antenna that was powerful and sensitive enough to send and receive data over one of the longest communications loop in history. New Horizons flew with a phased array communications antenna and it performed flawlessly.

1981- Rolling Stones in New Orleans for the Tattoo You tour 1982- Rush in Jackson for the Signals tour 1983- Yes in Houston for the 90210 tour

I seem to remember some stuff by Samuel R. Delany that might have had trans characters. Any help here, I've read so much my memory search algorithms need to ne indexed. _________________________________________________ update; here's a link to Sam Delany's wiki page with a list of his published works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany

As I travel the wilds of the Internets, I am often astonished by the number of assholes that make such a point of being ass holy. There are a few in particular that I want to warn you about. Beware of these ragin bastards. They make a point of being rude and obnoxious to bait you into typing something that will get you banned. Many of them are master baiters. Without further ado, I shall warn you about some of the worst of the Flaming Assholes of the Internets The triggered activist Whether its save the whales or fat acceptance, you've gone and done it with your microaggressions, racisms and patriarchal attitudes. How dare you disagree! the Conspiracy Nut This asshole can't prove anything, has no evidence or even a clue. He is impervious to facts and can twist logic into pretzels. He has figured out every conspiracy from the Lincoln Assassination to Putin's secret agreement with the gray aliens to mind control humanity. I for one welcome our new masters if I don't have to listen the conspiracy theorists idiocy. the Expert Without Portfolio He is the only guy in the chat room that doesn't know that he's full of it. High Priests of Environmentalism People for whom environmentalism has become a religion. Emphasis on the mental part. Religious Nuts Whether they are yapping about Jesus, Allah or Vishnu, these guys are doing more for atheism than their own faith. The Fascists of Tolerance Their strategy is to call you names until you agree with them on everything. I don't think this has ever worked once. Enfant Provocateur The original troll, this kid is online for one purpose: to create chaos. You’ll know him when you see him. Just follow the riot. How can you know who is an asshole online you ask? It takes one to know one. I make no pretenses of NOT being an asshole. What annoys me about these people is that they won't admit it.

That wolf does have a way with words.

Cops have an impossible job. I give them as much slack as possible.

I bought it to have a look. It is a professionally done package that is has regular updates for cleanup of bugs and the installation of new features. I spent some time working with it. You will need to find some sort of guide to using it. It's a huge, complex program with many features. It doesn't work by ESP. It was different enough from how I work for me to lose interest in it. There's just too much to learn to make it really work effectively unless you go for the third party documentation route. If you fight your way through the learning curve and get used to working with it, a great many people swear by it. I found myself swearing at it.

Prompt #552 With A Whimper

Free agency has wrecked the old order in the NFL. Coaches used to spend years building a playoff caliber team. Now every year he has to build a new team from last years leftovers. Belichick has built a system that works under free agency. It is a better system than anyone else has managed so far. Every year he'll lose a few players but, he fills the holes with the draft and adds few strategic free agent. Another thing that Belichick is brilliant at: half time adjustments. Most people didn't see this but when they came out in the 2nd half, the Patriot defense had a makeover. It wasn't done yet. They kept working on it until mid way through the third quarter when they shut down the team that had led the league in scoring. Now Belicheck said he didn't make any half time adjustments. OK, sure. His defensive coordinator did. Will I say that Brady or the Pats are the best ever? By the stats and the trophies, they earned it. I won't say EVER because that's a long time. Somewhere there's a kid playing in a sand lot that no one has ever seen that's really going to light it up. We have to see him before we hand out the best ever trophy. How about the best so far trophy?

See my all original memes at Tin Hats on Imgur

Atlanta is going to be a farce to be reckoned with if they can keep their roster from falling apart in free agency. We (New Orleans) play them twice a year in a grudge match so we know them well. That rep for choking in big games goes back a long way.

Brady just put himself in the top 5. Montana was a joy to watch in his prime but he never had the teams around him that Belichick has built.

Bow-chick-a-wow-wow

You seventies kids will understand.

Answer to prompt 552 With A Whimper Coming soon to codeysworld.com Cleaned up for publication.