Month: August 2008

Boeing Goes a la Carte on C-17B

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Boeing has proposed a whole series of upgrades to create a C-17B, in a desperate attempt to keep the line open, and they are going to offer them on an individual basis.

The upgrades are:

  • Upgraded engines.
  • Doubled slotted flaps.
  • Additional tires on the main landing gear.
  • A central tire inflation system.
  • Improved avionics.
  • An electronic warefare system.

They are offering them individually for two reasons, some of them could also be sold as simple upgrades to the existing fleet, and because all together, they might be considered a new development program, which means that the groundlings at the Pentagon would have to spend a few years writing up specifications.

At its core, of course, this effort is really about keeping the line open as quietly as possible.

A380 Separation Distance Reduced

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One of the concerns about the A380 is that it is a large plane, and wingtip vortices grow as an aircraft does, so separation standard was established to prevent trailing aircraft from being destabilized by the these phenomena.

Airbus thought the standard was was excessive, and following tests, the standards have been relaxed, from, “6nm separation for a heavy aircraft such as the 747, 8nm for medium or small aircraft in the A320 category and 10 nm for light category aircraft,” to 4nm, 5nm, and 6nm, the same as a Boeing 747.

Russia Accuses US of Illegal Arms Trading

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Interestingly, we are not talking about arms control treaties or UN resolutions here.

We are talking about violations of Russian licenses on their designs, which I find interesting because it dovetails into two of my geek areas of interest, defense procurement, and IP law.

It appears that licenses granted by the Soviets, and later the Russians on things like AK’s and RPG’s were for domestic production only, and did not include the right to sell internationally, so the US is breaking the law by selling the weapons to the security apparatus of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Somehow, I imaging that the US trade rep will not address this as strongly as they would bootleg albums from She Who Must Not Be Named being sold by Chinese street vendors.

UK Looking at Rolling Landing to Address JSF Performance Shortfalls

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Basically, the F-35B STOVL appears to be a bit light in bring back weight, so the Royal Navy is looking at landing at slow speed,shipboard rolling vertical landing (SRVL).

The aircraft would land at an air speed of somewhere around 60 kt airspeed (the ship would be doing 25 kts, so the deck speed would be 35 kts) to allow for an additional ton or so of fuel or ordinance brought back at landing.

Judge Rules that Companies Must Consider Fair Use Before Issuing DMCA Takedown Notice

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This is a very good thing.

In the case in question, a parent uploaded a video of their kid dancing to a song by Prince, and because there was 30 seconds of the song in the background, Universal Music issued a DMCA take down notice.

The Judge said that they can’t simply determine that it is their material, but whether it is legal or not:

“Fair use is a lawful use of a copyright,” the judge wrote. “Accordingly, in order for a copyright owner to proceed under the DMCA with ‘a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law,’ the owner must evaluate whether the material makes fair use of the copyright.”

The video of the kid is below…It’s 30 seconds long, and I can’t even recognize the song.

The judge says that, “The Court has considerable doubt that Lenz will be able to prove that Universal acted with the subjective bad faith,” but if I were on the jury I’d vote for the muthas to fry.

Fed Chairman Calls for More Financial Regulation

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He was vague on specifics, but described the need in a speech at the Fed’s economic symposium.

I agree that more regulation is needed, but I do not agree with what appear to be his suggestions.

Bailout should not be what is done when an institution is too big to fail, that creates perverse incentives. Nationalization, where investors and share holders are wiped out to the greatest degree possible should be.

Additionally, I would modify anti-trust law to add “too big to fail” to the reasons for a breakup.

Finally, I believe that the complex secularization mathematics should be severely restricted.

All that “innovation” in the financial markets has gotten us the mess that we are in now.

Bush Still Pushing to Have Your Daughter Carry Her Rapist’s Baby

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, see my earlier post, All Your Uterus Are Belong to Us, Bush and His Evil Minions&trade are determined to make sure that Abortion will be unavailable, even if it is legal.

So, they are pushing ahead with a modified plan now, and they have changed the definition, so that contraception is no longer abortion, but it still allow a doctor to refuse to give birth control information to a woman, for example.

These folks are more like the Mullahs in Iran than they admit.

Georgian Fallout on Israel-Russian Relations

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Well, it looks like Israel-Russia relations are a little bit cool now, because of Israel’s arms sales to Georgia, though, as I mentioned earlier, the Israelis shut that down when they thought war was likely.

On the bright side, it appears that they will be holding talks on the middle east, which implies a continued relationship.

On the not so bright side, we have rumors of increased Russian arms sales to Syria, including the advanced long range S-300 system, though Syria has denied this.

We also have a report (Ynetnews, not sure of the quality of the source) that the US is pressuring Turkey to shut down the Israel Syria talks that it is hosting, because Syria took Russia’s side in the Russo-Georgian war.

It’s petty and stupid if true, and considering that we still have Condi Rice running state, I am therefore inclined to believe it.

Federal Judge Rips the Texas Courts a New One on Capital Case

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It appears that Federal Judge Orlando Garcia is upset at the state of the death penalty in Texas, and said so in his ruling granting a stay for Jeffery Lee Wood.

The judge described the positively Kafkaesque system under which he was determined to be competent for execution, as, “an insane system,” because it required that he prove that he was insane before the state would grant him a lawyer and a psychologist to prove that he was insane.

In addition to his not pulling the trigger, he was driving the getaway car, the man has a long history of mental problems and retardation.

I understand why the Judge finds this insane, but he does not understand Texas. People there do not care if someone is innocent, or insane, they just want a needle put in as many arms as possible.

The entire state is nuts.*

*I lived in Texas from 1992-1994, and 1996-2001.

Americans Increasingly Sick of Religion in Politics

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I’m not surprised. As anyone who has followed Bush and His Evil Minions™ knows, religiously based government does not work.

The Iranian people know that too, which is why they are increasingly restive under the Mullahs.

Chart pr0n:

I would note that there appears that only the 2 data points show a real shift, so we could be dealing with sampling or question issues.

Of interest is that more people are now saying that politicians talking religion makes them uncomfortable too.

Iraq Looks to Head Back Down Toilet

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One of the reasons that violence and US troop deaths have dropped in Iraq is because of the “Sunni Awakening”, where people in Sunni dominant areas stopped supporting the insurgency, either because of US salaries, or because they were sick and tired of al Qaeda in Iraq, and started patrolling as part of the “Awakening Councils”.

Well, it now appears that Iraqi prime minister Nouri al Maliki has decided to send his own bully boys after the leaders of the Sunni citizen patrols, and refusing to integrate them into the state security forces.

It appears that Maliki is going after Sadr too, which is not surprising, as the Sadrists are more popular in many areas than either the Iranian backed ISCI and Maliki’s Dawa party.

Measles Cases Skyrocket Because of Bad, Ignorant Parents

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Yep, it’s those vaccination flat Earthers again, with measles cases to date this year being three times more than all of last year.

I will note that a significant number of the cases are infants who are too young to get the vaccine, so the loss of herd immunity because of these harms the helpless whose bear no blame.

There is no correlation between thimerosal in particular, or vaccines in general, and autism.

While correlation does not prove causation, lack of correlation does prove causation.

What’s more the (hopefully soon to be stripped of his license) doctor who came up with the theory has a history of making up his own facts, and has a financial interest in alternatives to vaccines.

My earlier posts on the subject here.

I will note that my son is on the autism spectrum, he has Aspergers, and my wife, a special education professional trained to look for such things, spotted the first indicators in his first weeks of life. No vaccine problems there.