> Also I assume radar-proof is just because it's a ground effect vehicle that will never fly high enough to show up on radar it certainly doesn't look all angular like a stealth bomber. In which case my bicycle is also radar-proof?
From the way the article is worded, it does seem the author is only considering air search radar with this claim. Without low observability features, this will show up on surface search and surveillance radars. There might be an initial period where some radars fail to register it because they reject it as a possible target due to its kinematics. If craft like this become common, though, the signal processing algorithms will be updated to handle them. Most can already deal with very low-flying helicopters anyway.
That said, just because it isn't angular doesn't mean it doesn't have low observability features. Radar absorbing material would still make it harder to detect. So would more subtle elements of the physical design. I don't think "radar-proof" in that section header is justified, though.
Even on airborne radars like AWACS, they can detect ground movement. They typically have a filter to ignore things under certain speeds as they are not typically concerned about traffic near highway speeds. However, the proposed speeds for this thing would still show up with those filters enabled. It would be interesting to see what minimum speeds would be.
Yes, AWACS has limited moving target indicator (MTI) capability. A full-featured maritime MTI radar would easily pick this up, provided the signal processing algorithms don't reject the track for moving too fast.
The defense in that game was pretty bad. Five of the nine Brewers runs scored due to errors, and it was five separate errors. The game yesterday went much better, defensively.
> What? They're giving away cars just to cut in line? That seems a pointlessly costly deal. Maybe I'm not understanding the scam correctly.
You're not. As the article notes
> Under state law, the profits from sales of towed cars are supposed to belong to the vehicle owners. Towing companies have to hold onto the proceeds for a year and turn over any remaining money, after subtracting their fees, to the state.
This means D&L doesn't give a shit how much they sell the cars for as long as they get more than the towing and storage fees for them. Depending on how many cars they deal with, it might actually be more profitable to turn them over quickly for pennies on the dollar than let them sit in the yard and rack up higher fees.
Just one person taking a coffee break to go get coffee obviates any savings. The free coffee isn't there for the staff, it is there to save the org money.
The federal government is so worried about the appearance of spending excess taxpayer money that employees set up water clubs and coffee clubs where the employees all chip in for a water cooler and a coffee machine every month.
So, this particular contractor was big into efficiency and cost savings, to the point that we were all required to do a project where we made something more efficient and documented how much money we saved in doing so. The whole thing was mostly bullshit, but one of the interesting things I learned by doing it was that saving engineering time was essentially $0, because from the company's perspective we were all salaried, and as long as the time we were saving was charged to the same contract we would be charging our other work to, it didn't matter.
From that perspective, which I do not agree with, the cost of coffee breaks was also $0, while the cost of providing it was not, so no coffee. On one program I was on we at least managed to get facilities to install a commercial Bunn machine for us, but we were still responsible for buying all the supplies.
Under that simplistic model there is no space for higher quality, higher reliability, etc. Then "efficiency" is one dimensional and you have basically no agency. The cost model should be agreed upon collectively.
You're right, and there were definitely situations where we could have done things better, but didn't, because the impetus wasn't there. It was really frustrating, and I wish I'd been able to get out sooner.
> -2000 lines
Not sure what this is a reference to, but one of the fun things I tripped over while there was that code changes were valued on dollars per LOC. Changesets with net negative LOC were... problematic. I think I once had a change that was near -2000 LOC net.
The product line was effectively cancelled by the oil crisis of 1973 and severe economic issues in the mid 70s. It had nothing to do with a crash (of an airplane; there was a market crash involved).
The Czech Republic is still the Czech Republic; it is also now known as Czechia. "Czech Republic" is the full official name of the country, like "United States of America". "Czechia" is the official short or informal name for the country, like "United States".
The University of Pennsylvania is one of the nine colonial colleges founded before the United States existed. It predates land grant institutions by over a century. I think you are confusing it with Pennsylvania State University, which is a land grant institution.
If the position requires a security clearance, they are not breaking the law. Language like this is standard on defense contractor postings that require clearances (this from Lockeed):
> Security Clearance Statement: This position requires a government security clearance, you must be a US Citizen for consideration.
> SpaceX was prosecuted for doing that.
SpaceX was prosecuted for excluding refugees and asylees from export-controlled positions, not cleared positions.
Here in northern New Jersey there are many chargers that are inside municipal parking garages. Since you have to pay to enter (technically, to leave) you have to pay for parking time to use those chargers. That's obviously not an issue if you would be parking there anyway, but if you lived in the area and just wanted or needed to use the charger you'd have to pay an additional $1 - $2 per hour on top of the charges from the charger.
I'm not sure what the state of the chargers being installed at local businesses is. My local grocery store has four chargers now, but I don't recall seeing any signage about them being for customers only. They share the parking lot with the church across the street, though, so that may complicate things.
From the way the article is worded, it does seem the author is only considering air search radar with this claim. Without low observability features, this will show up on surface search and surveillance radars. There might be an initial period where some radars fail to register it because they reject it as a possible target due to its kinematics. If craft like this become common, though, the signal processing algorithms will be updated to handle them. Most can already deal with very low-flying helicopters anyway.
That said, just because it isn't angular doesn't mean it doesn't have low observability features. Radar absorbing material would still make it harder to detect. So would more subtle elements of the physical design. I don't think "radar-proof" in that section header is justified, though.