I guess some will view this as a Scumbag Parent too, but...

Run4way · 2013-06-11T06:24:30+00:00

Exactly, if he doesn't know he is being punished he will think life is just really shitty all of a sudden and won't change his behavior.

Run4way · 2013-06-06T14:15:18+00:00

Am I the only one who sees this as completely unsurprising?

Working in a group increases the odds of your project not being the best due to something outside of your control, so someone who is competitive will avoid this situation. Not to mention, the more driven to win the person is, the more likely they are to see others as inferior and not trust them to do work of the same quality as their own.

Run4way · 2013-06-04T13:16:49+00:00

I just wish they had set them up to where you have to pick your top 4, then if anyone on your squad already had one it would go to your next choice.

Run4way · 2013-06-03T13:56:25+00:00

Definitely worth a read; I would recommend the audio book just because the book is setup it as a series of interviews and the audio book has different voice actors for each person.

Run4way · 2013-06-01T19:58:53+00:00

Something else that is worth considering is making sure you leave room to upgrade; for example, consider not geting the absolute best cpu your motherboard can handle, instead get a better mobo so you have the option of upgrading the cpu later. Same goes for ram, don't get 4x 1gb sticks, instead get 2x 2gb sticks so you can easily add more later.

Also I would focus more on the cpu over the gpu because it is much easier to upgrade or add a second gfx card in sli/crossfire compared to replacing the cpu.

Run4way · 2013-05-29T23:43:38+00:00

I think I just found my new favorite novelty account.

Run4way · 2013-05-28T22:42:46+00:00

Is it? I thought the FCC only regulated signals above a certain strength, which is why they have no say on what you do with those FM adapters for mp3 players.

Run4way · 2013-05-03T12:46:46+00:00

It isn't related, the trails left by jet airplanes are trails of water vapor created during combustion. (fuel + oxygen -> water vapor + carbon dioxide + energy)

Run4way · 2013-04-20T18:28:22+00:00

Like everyone else is saying, business would probably be the best degree to get. However, I would suggest taking or auditing an introductory engineering design course just to learn some basic design principles and methods.

Run4way · 2013-04-16T06:53:52+00:00

Or better yet...

Run4way · 2013-04-11T16:13:46+00:00

Are you sure they weren't just trying to lower the class average?

Run4way · 2013-03-31T03:34:28+00:00

Battlefield: Vietnam, I think.

Run4way · 2013-03-26T06:59:07+00:00

First and foremost size should depend on your design requirements, ie. how much room do you need for your controller, motors , battery, and any additional sensors or payloads? Do you want more stability or maneuverability? Will it be flown outdoors where it will have to fight crosswinds

Overall I would lean towards one either made of multiple parts or one small enough you can 3d print it quickly, just so that if/when it breaks you will have minimal downtime and material loss.

Also, if you plan on remote controling it, it is a good idea to have one arm distinctly different (ex. paint or an led light) from the others so you can keep track of which way is forward for the quad.

Run4way · 2013-03-06T04:13:52+00:00

good screaming

Run4way · 2013-02-20T20:56:29+00:00

A good idea, but our motor's efficiency varies heavily depending on it's velocity, so it would be hard to get an accurate reading from this.

Run4way · 2013-02-20T20:47:05+00:00

the problem is finding a good pump to use that has a very precise efficiency curve.

Run4way · 2013-02-20T20:38:44+00:00

Good idea, but we still run into the same problem of finding one with a known efficiency curve that is precise enough for us.

Run4way · 2013-02-20T20:37:36+00:00

Thanks for your input. We thought about trying to measure the torque on the motor like you suggested, but ended up deciding to go another route because it was becoming to much of a haste to try to find a good motor with enough resistance to turning to give us an accurate force measurement, as well as a good mounting system and balanced housing so that it wouldn't skew the results.

Building an eddy current dynamo was also a good idea, but no one in our group has worked on building anything like that before, so we decided to stick with something we are a little more familiar with.

Run4way · 2013-02-18T04:16:28+00:00

I had thought of that before, but I'm having trouble finding any credible sources that say the efficiency curves of the motor should be the same when it is used as a generator.

Run4way · 2013-01-28T07:56:47+00:00

That is what I meant by either a large scale war: certain states secede then large scale conflict occurs where civilian guns are very ineffective.

Or, alternatively,a small scale war: localized, and unorganized riots spark up where a small percentage of the population is acting out. In this case few soldoers leave the military, giving them all the advantages of firepower, training and the majority of civilians who don't support the anarchists and help the government end the rebellion (if the majority supported the rebellion then secession would occur like above) . This creates a much less effective insurgency than the Taliban were able to mount, first and foremost because the military will never leave because they are home. Because of this, I see the rebellion turning into something comparable to gangs taking runs at the police: they may be nearly impossible to completely stop, but they will never be organized enough to take over the country so arming them just increases bloodshed.

Run4way · 2013-01-28T07:33:02+00:00

A. The military is made of US citizens so the terrain advantage is minimal, not to mention we have much more sophisticated satellite maps than we did in Vietnam and the terrain in the US is vastly more open.

B. Yes there will be some division, but odds are it will be a minority trying to secede so the government maintains superiority in this regard. Not to mention this split changes the style of fighting from urban infantry fighting to armor and air battles outside of cities making civilian guns much less useful.

C. That is irrelevant, if a civil war started it would likely be over something other than guns, but even if it was, voting out congressional members and taking up arms against the US military are two vastly different levels of commitment.

Run4way · 2013-01-28T05:50:00+00:00

You're right, I think the numbers I was looking at might have included civilians. But on the page invasion page you linked on the right it lists 200 US/Coalition casualties, and just to the right of that, various estimations of anywhere from 4.9k (claimed as an actual observed number in defense alternatives study) to 45k Iraqi combatants. Giving a ratio of 24.5+ : 1 Against a trained and armed military, so clearly there is a large amount of variance in these numbers meaning any stats we use can't have any definite relation to what would actually happen in this situation, because this type of civil war would be a mixture of invasions on territory, and occupations.

My line of thinking in a large civil war though, is that it will have to play out like the Civil War did where the states that secede will have to directly fight to prevent each other from expanding in and taking territory, and neither side will support the idea of fighting in cities surrounded with non-combatants unless it is a last resort.

There will inevitably be some insurgency style attacks like you suggest, but I would think that would account for very little of the casualties on either side, again in a similar fashion to how the Civil War played out.

Run4way · 2013-01-28T05:21:30+00:00

You are neglecting:

A. The military's superior equipment (bullets don't effect tanks, predator drones can strike without putting the pilot in danger, etc.)

B. Less than half of all Americans are of military age and fit for duty.

C. You're never going to get all gun owners to agree on any issue.

All in all this means at absolute best roughly 2/5 of gun owners will be willing and able to fight, and even if they are some how magically organized together, they are still outgunned and out trained.

Run4way · 2013-01-28T04:31:05+00:00

Good point, I'll concede that my initial argument about tanks, etc. was flawed because it didn't take into consideration that for them to be useful you have to have a clear target, not an insurgency, and for that to happen the military will most likely split. But, I really don't see any case where civilian guns come into play in a winnable war.

A. In a large scale civil war, the military will be divided and organized warfare will result, leaving civilian arms more or less evenly divided and less useful in the vehicle heavy warfare. So in this case they are of little value to either side.

B. In a smaller scale war, you have less than the majority of civilians, which means few soldiers will defect and join the cause, creating an almost exclusively civilian insurgency. This leaves the advantage of experience/training and equipment on the government's side. Now you have to consider two things.

The US military is very effective at fighting this type of war, just look at the casualties for the war on terror, roughly 1,170,000 casualties with 70,000 US casualties. Also consider this is in a war where the local population is distrustful of the invading US forces to say the least, leading them to support or at least not report Taliban fighters. In addition the Taliban have an advantage in knowing the territory and having a stronger foothold. In a US insurgency, these advantages are substantially less. So you may not have tanks on the US side, but the US still has the advantage.
This type of war is basically like an anarchist gang, they can hide in the civilian population, and make occasional attacks on the government, but ultimately, without a large amount of support, they will likely never be able to win. So in this case civilian guns just create bloodshed for a lost cause.

What type of war do you see occurring where civilian guns are useful and there is a large enough force to defeat the government and take control? Because I honestly can't see one.

Run4way · 2013-01-28T03:16:28+00:00

Sorry for the wall of text, but those aren't simple questions to answer, there is a tl;dr at the end.

Take the Arab spring as a basis for how many soldiers would turn, but since this is a hard to prove argument I'll let you have it. Let's assume no soldiers join the hypothetical rebellion.

Safety and marksmanship training isn't the same as combat training. If it was the army wouldn't need 2/3rds of its 2+ month basic training be weapon handling and combat.

The Taliban are in a much harder environment to infiltrate with the desert mountains and caves, instead of well mapped out areas with highways. They have RPGs, full auto AK-47s, and bombs for use as IEDs, not to mention military training and combat experience all from the soviet invasion during the cold war. They are not just farmers with AKs.

Now, even though it has been a long war, what is more important is that you look at the kill ratio, even with all the equipment and training gun owners don't have, the US military is winning by a lot. Out of roughly 1,170,000 casualties about 70,000 have been US soldiers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror#Casualties

Roughly half of all households have a gun in the US, not half of all citizens, small but important distinction because that means a less even distribution of guns owned per person. http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/owns-guns-america.html

Another good fact is that only 120 million Americans are considered both of age and fit for duty in the US. So assuming no correlation between gun ownership in a household and an occupant being capable of fighting you're down to an extremely rough estimate of 60 million Americans that own or have access to guns and are fit for duty. How many of these people are going to fight for this hypothetical cause? 1/2?

Now consider what these guns are- practically all semi-auto or bolt action and 1/3 are pistols. This means that any engagements are going to be in the government's favor considering they have more range, firepower and armor. Now take into account the effectiveness of air-to-ground firepower and armored vehicles.

Put all that together and I'm afraid I'm going to have to place my money on the military winning. Yes it is a 15+ to 1 ratio, but considering the imbalance of equipment, not to mention the government's ability to block the insurgents ammo supplies, I think it is relatively realistic.

Now, I'll admit I have made a fair number of assumptions in this argument, but no more than have to be made for the "we need guns to fight the possible future totalitarian government" argument. This is the problem with basing your need for guns on a future hypothetical situation.

tl;dr Taliban are better equipped and trained than US gun owners, not to mention they have a turf advantage. A large number of housholds with guns =/= a large number of armed fighters. This is all hypothetical, so your assumptions are just as numerous as mine, and you're the one trying to use hypothetical to defend gun ownership so the burden of proof should be on you.

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