Oh I'm not under the belief that it is! It's always fun to read this stuff, IMO. My query was purely for entertainment purposes.

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billybob_jcv said:

I think this site is one of the bigger hangouts for the black helicopter crowd:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread60763/pg1

Here's another site that sometimes has decently accurate information:
http://www.fas.org/irp/mystery/aurora.htm

The FAS site is one of the few places you can see two of the more infamous cancelled programs I worked on - both of these were cancelled amid a storm of controversy over mismanagement. Both of these projects used some pretty cool tech - but they were outrageously over-budget and there were numerous test failures and problems.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/tssam.htm
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/agm-136.htm

Those were the days...

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Do you still work in Top secret projects?

veyrongatti said:

Do you still work in Top secret projects?

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Nope - After TSSAM was shutdown, the consulting company I was working for lost their support contract and I needed to find a new gig. I went to work for a company that did some military and some commercial stuff, and then for a company that had contracts with the FAA - and I no longer needed my clearance. My employer let my clearance expire, and when that company started to go down the tubes in ~2000, I left the aerospace industry entirely and jumped into IT for a high-tech company - and I've been doing the IT thing for various companies since then. Now I'm just another pointy-haired IT manager. I do miss the engineering work - those were some REALLY fun times. But, it's been too long now - I can't go back. I've thought about trying to get back to an aerospace company through an IT management position, but it wouldn't be the same as being a young aero engineer with the world by the tail, and it's hard to get a management job in aerospace unless you already have an active clearance. I also like the work I do now, and the company I work for - we're helping people live better lives, not figuring out how to blow them to smithereens. Ironically, my office is right at the end of an airport runway, and I'm buzzed every day by commuter & biz jets. Not quite the same as when I was working at a Navy base and the F/A-18s were doing touch & gos all day over my office, but it does bring back memories.

Ahh, the internet access here in the middle of nowhere is pretty good, I'm getting a solid 3Mb/s via the island wireless network. I'm not sure how it's setup beyond the house, but it's definitely fast enough for practically anything, and my VPN with home is running just fine. Sweet.

That's actually not bad for the middle of nowhere.

It's a little laggy, not as snappy as home, but it's good enough for normal use.

magick man said:

It's a little laggy, not as snappy as home, but it's good enough for normal use.

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Hmm, I wonder what sort of connection they have to the island. You are off the coast of NZ, correct? I'm guessing it's either satellite or a microwave link to the mainland. I can't imagine they would run an undersea cable to a private island. I just checked the latitude of Auckland - it's not as low as I thought: S 36:52. That's just about the mirror image of Nashville: N 36:10. Satellite would work fine - Either way, the latency is typical of satellite or microwave links - it's worse on satellite.

I just finished doing my taxes. It only took a few hours. And just like every year, I shake my head at the incredibly bizarre California tax credits that are available. For example, this year there is a California tax credit if you were persecuted during the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923. Or, if you hire prison labor, you get a credit equal to 10% of their wages. There is also a Federal tax credit if you build an electric vehicle charging station at your home. I don't quite get the charging station credit - doesn't an EV come with a way to charge them from a standard 110 or 220v outlet?

I guess the hot ticket is to be a 98 year old Turkish Christian that has prisoners build an EV charging station in his garage. You would be rolling in dough!

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magick man said:

I have to go with the SR71, that's classy. You hit Mach 4, then deposit your breakfast into the air mask.

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You know what I always thought was cool?  At cruising speed, the windows would be hot enough to heat their food packs... so they did.
 
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billybob_jcv said:

Quote:

veyrongatti said:

dosent the sr71 have a tendency to like umm crash?

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Them's fightin' words young buck!

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Veyron, just a heads-up, but anything negative about anything Lockheed related would constitute fighting words to billy. 
 
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magick man said:

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Um... someone put a bunch of black stuff all over the car.
 
Quote:

billybob_jcv said:

When you go over that, you start to need to think about more exotic materials to withstand the heat, special fuels, etc.

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And of course, the thing is gonna sit on the runway leaking fuel all over the place.
 
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obobskivich said:

What happens if you have a power outage in this scenario? Just saying...

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Pray.  Don't you atheists know anything?
 
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billybob_jcv said:

Quote:

fuzzyash said:

but do any of you know of some "head-fi" like magazine subscriptions (print)?

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Print is dead!

Well, there's Stereophile. But honestly, all the best stuff is online only. The 3-6 month lag time for gear to get into print is a deal-killer.

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There's Tone Audio, which is an online PDF magazine.
 
Quote:

billybob_jcv said:

persecuted during the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923

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Just out of curiosity, how would one prove that?

I have no idea - but I actually misspoke. It's not a tax credit, apparently, there was some sort of "settlement payout" - and California is saying that payout is CA tax exempt. So, apparently, some gov't has already decided you are eligible for a payout.

Don't get me wrong - the Armenian genocide was horrific - I just don't see why tax laws have to be written for stuff like this. It would not surprise me if the total cost of the beuaucracy to create the law, print the instructions and process the forms of the people who claim the deduction costs more than the $17M that was paid out by the French insurance company.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4337462.stm

Quote:

magick man said:

It's a little laggy, not as snappy as home, but it's good enough for normal use.

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I thought NZ had better internet that Aus? 

We're on an island off the coast, it's different here.

billybob_jcv said:

I just finished doing my taxes. It only took a few hours. And just like every year, I shake my head at the incredibly bizarre California tax credits that are available. For example, this year there is a California tax credit if you were persecuted during the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923. Or, if you hire prison labor, you get a credit equal to 10% of their wages. There is also a Federal tax credit if you build an electric vehicle charging station at your home. I don't quite get the charging station credit - doesn't an EV come with a way to charge them from a standard 110 or 220v outlet?

I guess the hot ticket is to be a 98 year old Turkish Christian that has prisoners build an EV charging station in his garage. You would be rolling in dough!

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That's okay, I still get a federal tax credit for being an Hispanic businessman. Big one too.

warrenpchi said:

Um... someone put a bunch of black stuff all over the car.

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Everybody's a critic. :rolleyes: I like it, looks much better in person.

BTW, found a place in Auckland that sells nothing but vintage Italians, mostly; Alfa, Lancia, and Maserati. Oooo... be still my heart.