Latest radar goes into F16 vintage jet fighter.

 Nice color photo in Aviation Week shows them mounting the Raytheon APF-79(V) 4 phased radar in the nose of the F16.  The array elements are gallium nitride which yields more power than the older gallium arsenide technology.  A phased array can generate a good tight radar beam.  If all the array elements are excited simultaneously, the beam goes out straight ahead.  If array elements on one side are excited a little bit earlier than elements on the other side, the beam goes out angled toward the early side.  Some trigonometry will show that the beam can be steered thru 90 degrees, which is about as good as the older technology could mechanically scan a parabolic antenna.  Major benny of the phased array is speed of scan.  The beam can be deflected from hard over left to hard over right in a millisecond.  It is fast enough to track multiple targets.

 The accompanied write up skipped a few things that I would have liked to know.  How much power can the new gallium nitride elements deliver?  The airborne radar I used to work on used a cavity magnetron to generate 50 kilowatts of X-band (10,000 MHz) power.  That radar could reach out 200 miles.  I don’t expect a single gallium nitride element to generate that kind of power, but I sure would like to know how much power all the elements in the phased array can generate.

Biden badmouths China for hacking Microsoft email servers

 This is is front page news on the Wall St Journal for Tuesday.  The US has indicted four Chinese nationals, three of them identified as Ministry of State Security (MSS) officials, for hacking Microsoft Exchange service going back ten years.   The fourth individual worked at a Chinese front company that aided in the hacking.  Apparently the hack allowed China to read all the email on Microsoft Exchange servers going back ten years.  

  I would suggest anyone running Microsoft Exchange look for some other email server.  We must suspect the Microsoft had the Windows software people, creators of the most insecure operating system in the world, do the code for Microsoft Exchange Server.  

My other suggestion to all is to consider email to be compromised.  Never put anything in email that you would not want to post on the bulletin board down at the local supermarket.  Use a phone call, or go out to the customers site rather than expose damaging data by email. 

An Olympics with no spectators in the stands????

 They are gonna do it in Tokyo.  The very recent discoveries of athletes coming down with Corona virus after traveling to Tokyo and settling into Olympic athlete quarters was unnerving.  Not disclosed by the ever clueful  MSM, did these poor athletes actually get sick?  Or did they merely test positive even though they did not show any symptoms.  Some (perhaps all?) of the tests are very trigger happy, and have called a lot of perfectly well people to be infected with Corona virus.  False positives the medics call it. 

Nissan is running teaser ads

 They are coming thru on my facebook page.  The photo shows an incredibly racy and cool low slung car.  Click on the  ad and you get taken to a plain jane SUV ad.  Nice enough I suppose but a far cry from the really jazzy looking car  I clicked on.  I wonder why Nissan is bothering.

How the Constitution came to be

 

The most unlikely thing happened right after the revolutionary war.  Each of the thirteen colonies, only we can call them states now, had all the things they needed to be independent countries.  They had armies, navies, courts, governors, legislatures, universities, newspapers, churches, and establishments who ran the place.  The armies and navies all had combat experience gained from winning the revolution.  Each state could have stayed independent.  The establishment of each state liked that idea; it meant their position in society would be retained. 

   The only fly in that ointment was Great Britain.  It was obvious to everyone that the British would like to reverse the revolution and return the American states back to being colonies, with the crown running each one of them.  And it was clear that no one American state could hold off the redcoats, we only won the revolution when every one banded together.  “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” said Franklin.  Most Americans thought Franklin had that right. 

   And so, the thirteen states agreed to the Constitution.  In doing so each of the thirteen states gave up a lot of sovereignty to the new federal government.  States could no longer have their own armies and navies.  They could no longer establish diplomatic relations with European countries. They gave up the right to levy tariffs against each other.  They gave up control of the vast western lands to the feds.  And the establishment in each state feared that the federal government would replace them. 

   But a small miracle occurred.  They created an amazing new government, the first democracy in the world, and the Constitution they created is still in use today 230 years later. 

Why should I care who gets vaccinated??

 Me, I got my two shots, Moderna.  Published figures on the internet show that out of 100+ million vaccinations, only a few thousand vaccinated people came down with Corona virus.  That gives the vaccine a 99.99% effectiveness.  You can't get better than that.  So I am protected.  If other citizens choose not to get vaccinated, I don't really care.  I won't catch it from them.

  Speaking as an idealist, I think everyone should get vaccinated.  The vaccine works and won't hurt them.  It can save their lives. But it is a free country, people can do what they want to do.  Other people going unvaccinated does not hurt me.  

So I am luke warm to the idea of government people going door to door advocating the vaccine.  Surely there has been enough coverage on TV to get the word out.  I am against "vaccine passports" which you would have to show to get into baseball games or even restaurants. 

Wild life moves in

The wild life is all around up here.  This nice yearling bear strolled by my front lawn yesterday.  He looks hungry and not well fed.  The bears don't usually wander thru Mittersill unless they can't find food back in the woods.  Or for this young bear maybe he doesn't know how to forage for his lunch.  Anyhow I am glad I never stack my trash out on my deck.