Posts by Across-the-pond Scum

Fuel vs payload - is this a real issue?

OK, we as drivers have a particular lazy reaction at the pumps for our cars and unless you're truly strapped for cash, we tank up to the top. Less trips to fill up mean more time for something else. However, airplanes are really a different beast for this. Be it the Terrafugia, another sport, or just your plain old Cessna Skylane, pilots have to worry about fuel loads, and frequently will balance out the amount of fuel for the length of the trip and amount of weight. I'm an avid sim pilot and have taken a lesson or two and I can tell you the worst thing you can do it top off the tank of an airplane. You plan the range out and make multiple hops depending on what you're carrying. My last flight in a Cessna, we used up 4 gallons in the hour flight and I put in 4 gallons back in after we landed. Payload capacity may be less overall versus another sport plane, but you're trading that capacity for convenience. Fatties can fly, just not as far. :P

From a Nexus One owner, I'm disappointed but understand the logic to a degree.

The US market is so messed up and in reality it's a combined screwing from both the manufacturers and the carriers. I am utterly overjoyed with my Nexus. From my standpoint, it blows the iPhone 3GS out of the water and is already dangerously close in comparable specs to the iPhone 4--with no antenna issues. The problem is that the Android market is fragmented from manufacturers putting their glossy finish on the software and the carriers trying to tailor and lock down the "open" OS something they can control and support. I wasn't planning on doling out the cash for an unsubsidized N1 until I sampled what AT&T did to the OS with pathetic Backflip. And from there it was just insult upon injury as the level of draconian control put upon the phones turned them from possible Windows Mobile successors to a pale and dismal shadow of the iPhone. And from what I learned across the board, that this wasn't limited to the 1+ year old hardware found in the Backflip, but to all AT&T Androids. Other carriers were better and worse in other departments. More freedom, but a poor network to less choices and average billing and quality. Frankly, I'm with a good chunk of AT&T geeks, we love the network, because for the majority of markets they're better than the competition. But I despise AT&T for their lack of customer care and the contractual need to attempt to nickle and dime us to death for apps and what they're obligated to provide.

Google had the right idea, and because of that, it pissed off the manufacturers and the carries in trying to do it. HTC was the only real winner in this as they got to make the N1, and subsequently patterned the Desire after it. The rumored thought behind the next OS update is to get all the manufacturers to make phones with the base minimums and be able to get updates directly without having to go through the Google ver to the MFG ver to the carrier approved version. The interaction between the last two is what created the vast fragmentation between v1.5, 1.6, 2.1 and now 2.2. If Google is able to keep everything on the same level field than Android will prosper and outpace Apple.

Sadly if Google decided to push out a Nexus Two or something, then they'll just succeed in pushing Android out of the market as the carriers and manufacturers will just stop using it and go back to what they used to do--which is bad, very very bad.

Lack of understanding, but not lack of paranoia.

Good ol' Joe there will be screaming I told you so when something actually chinks the armor of the internet and causes large scale disruption--for the 1hr to a day it takes to recover. He has the right idea because it's the one point of failure that would cause more damage than any bomb can possibly do, but it's also a completely impossible task to protect. No one company, or government has even a large fraction of control and as said, if he succeeds in getting this passed it'll just do the one thing he's trying to prevent which is major disruption of the internet and the economy--for 1hr to a day tops.

Sorry, Joe, the country already has one big, shiny, candy-like button for the Pres to push, we don't need him to have one for the internet as well.

Sure, unprofessional... no, professional ex-KGB more like it.

Wasn't there already a failed test flight of one of these? They successfully launched and got like <5 seconds of telemetry before it fell apart.

More than likely it was a case of Russian captain saying, "Da, Chinese contact told to park here and collect pieces."