User of both QNAP devices and one of the iX systems devices here.
ZFS is sexy, but it requires planning and understanding and (as stated by another poster) adding storage in pairs of drives if you want to increase storage incrementally and maintain drive redundancy.
One of the perks of something like a QNAP or a Synology is the support for simply adding a single new drive to an existing RAID5 or RAID6 array, and having the storage box add it transparently while data is migrated to the new, larger RAID array. You pop in another 10TB drive in your RAID6 array and you increase the size of the array 10TB as you'd expect.
Or, if you've finally outgrown your 6-bay device which is full of 3TB drives, you can replace the existing drives with 12TB drives, then once they've all been replaced increase the size of the array to match the new drive sizes. This is done while the device is running and serving data - no downtime, though things may slow down as you would expect during migration operations.
From an end-user perspective this is a very different experience. Yes, FreeNAS/TrueNAS is cool, but I put a Synology at my dad's house.
> Has the engine in the 172 been improved in that time period? The article says it has not, but I can't imagine using 60 year old tech like that.
It's not the exact same engine, but it's the same technology - an air cooled 360 cubic inch horizontally opposed 4 cylinder engine. Magnetos provide spark, and as far as I'm aware the fuel injection is mechanical.
"Modern" piston engines used in aviation are essentially 1950's technology. They're surprisingly reliable for what they are, but innovation isn't really happening in the piston world.
There was an interesting upgrade being worked on by a couple of guys in Florida. It turns out that the engines in these planes have an expected lifespan of 2,000 hours or so, and can't use gas with ethanol in it, and replacement engines can cost in excess of $20,000; these guys worked on a way to drop in a $5,000 Chevy Corvette engine and greatly increase fuel economy, reduce noise, reduce vibration, and supposedly increase reliability. When they asked the FAA to sign off on it as a replacement they were told that without redundant spark plugs/spark sources it wouldn't be approved. This makes sense when magnetos are expected to be rebuilt every 500 hours, but it killed the Corvette engine replacement idea.
Regulation slows innovation. General Aviation proves it IMO.
> Money is by definition a purely financial asset, a liability on somebody's balance sheet.
Maybe Econ 101 has changed, but I remember learning that "money" was:
- A medium of exchange
- A store of value
- A unit of account
When we were on the gold standard these were all true. Now that we're off the gold standard gold is no longer a medium of exchange or a unit of account, but one could argue pretty effectively that it's a better store of value than dollars have been, and it's done so for throughout history. (I'm talking time periods of decades, not the post 2008 crisis volatility here.)
The fact that the system we're using now is debt-based rather than based on precious metals should't change the definition of money, however.
> Apparently some/much of this has to do with our state choosing to opt out of dealing with increased medicaid funding, so... yay... I guess they get to show obama how bad ACA is by... digging in their heels while we all just pay insanely increasing pricing?
Let's be fair here. The ACA said that the feds would match the expanded medicaid enrollment for a few years, but after that the states would need to continue to sustain the larger enrollment on their own. Medicaid is a significant chunk of state budgets, and doing that meant raising taxes, or lowering expenses in other areas, or taking on debt.
It's not as simple as "screw obama, and screw poor people we ain't doing it." In the post-crash years, while money was scarce, there was some real concern over where the money would come from, how much it would need to cost, and how states would cope.
According to a CNBC interview last week the product is protected via trade secrets. People know what's in it, but not how to make it. And it's some weird stuff (I think pituitary glands from pigs or something equally weird are key components - not sure there's a lot of open-source knowledge on how to deal with that ingredient pipeline.)
The CEO's pitch was that they believe the drug is useful in more roles than it's currently used for, so they're taking the increased money to perform the studies required to allow the drug to be used to treat more diseases for which there is no alternative.
And right now this is a last-ditch drug - it's used once all other therapies have failed.
So they're trying to increase marketshare by doing expensive studies, which is why this drug is still produced and where the money is going.
I thought the purpose of ads was to generate revenue so that content could be created in infrastructure built. You know, like it's been done for a few centuries now...
SpacemanSpiff is correct. This happens all the time. Wishful thinking or not.
I've personally seen it with ducks (6,500' on my first cross-country solo), hawks, vultures (or buzzards - can't tell the difference), seagulls, and those swarms of birds that like to fly close to the ground around airports.
The birds that are a greater hazard to small piston-powered planes are those that curl up into a ball when they sense a predator as they can drop right into you.
If drones acted like birds and actively got the hell away from the big, loud, flying thing approaching them then I would agree with your assessment.
And it's not my position that this is anything other than a marginal increase in risk; my position is simply that the risks associated with drone strikes can be quite significant.
That's the view of an airliner captain. There are lots of us out there flying planes whose gross weight is well under 3,000 lbs, with a windshield that's made of plastic one eighth of an inch thick.
You're not necessarily wrong - I suppose it depends on how you define "overblown." Personally I have no desire to fly into a 12 lb drone at 130 miles per hour when the only thing protecting me is a thin piece of plastic. Or to have my prop destroy said drone while spinning at 2,400 RPM (which will require an engine tear-down, or possibly a 5-figure engine replacement). Or have one hit my horizontal stabilizer.
All of these may lead to a crash, which can lead to 1-4 deaths. Which may be inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it feels significant to me.
> the great sin in the student loan market is the online degree mills, which target relatively vulnerable segments of the population, all funded by loans. for example: did you know that online universities cost almost the same as physical ones? that makes absolutely no sense when you think about it, but i don't think many of their students do. online only should be a fraction of the rate.
I believe part of this is the convenience issue. I finished my MBA 4 years ago, and at the time the school was pushing online classes pretty hard. And the online classes cost more than regular classes.
(Faculty also commented that they were pressured to give higher grades than they believed were earned because of the profit component, and few argued they learned better online. But they sure can be convenient.)
> This guy had a knife and was 15 yards away from the officer when they were killed.
Google "Tueller drill." You'll be surprised by what you find. Now, 45' is a bit further than that 21' that is usually cited as the "this guy can run and stab you before you can stop him" distance, but I can see why a situation very similar to what you describe was assessed as a good shoot.
I think it's worth pointing out that the author recommends waiting to have kids, and she herself apparently had her first at 38.
This makes a ton of sense, but biology doesn't always care about rational choices like this. From painful personal experience: if you want kids, seriously consider having them by your early 30's, even if you're not completely ready. Otherwise you may find that no amount of money invested in IVF can help.
ZFS is sexy, but it requires planning and understanding and (as stated by another poster) adding storage in pairs of drives if you want to increase storage incrementally and maintain drive redundancy.
One of the perks of something like a QNAP or a Synology is the support for simply adding a single new drive to an existing RAID5 or RAID6 array, and having the storage box add it transparently while data is migrated to the new, larger RAID array. You pop in another 10TB drive in your RAID6 array and you increase the size of the array 10TB as you'd expect.
Or, if you've finally outgrown your 6-bay device which is full of 3TB drives, you can replace the existing drives with 12TB drives, then once they've all been replaced increase the size of the array to match the new drive sizes. This is done while the device is running and serving data - no downtime, though things may slow down as you would expect during migration operations.
From an end-user perspective this is a very different experience. Yes, FreeNAS/TrueNAS is cool, but I put a Synology at my dad's house.