gowlerk

We will send you all the energy your politicians are willing to buy. You have to supply the infrastructure. Mexico won't pay and neither will we.

I'm glad you found happy batteries. But those aren't the ones I'm talking about. LiPo (lithium polymer) used in R/Cs are very lightweight high energy bundles of potential instability. They require very careful care, feeding, and handling. https://www.thedronegirl.com/2015/02/07/lipo-battery/

LiPo batteries are scary dangerous though.

Cell phones and social media. This format works best when you are in front of a desktop. That is not how most people operate these days. It is just not the same as you have noticed.

He was just re-elected and is not planning on running again in 6 years. He is now 78 years old and has had health problems. But there could be a move to unseat him as the R leader in the senate. That is where the real battle could come, and he may or may not survive it. That fight would probably happen after the mid-terms especially if Trump backed candidates do well.

Batteries have come a long way, yet still seem so limited. Is a fundamental breakthrough needed to get to where we need to be to make large scale storage truly feasible? I don't know if it is even physically possible, it is one of the biggest problems we have no solution to yet. We have no shortage of energy to replace fossil fuels but we have no real answer to the storage problem. Even though some of the greatests minds have been working on it.

And today Moscow Mitch is getting what he deserves for his cowardice. https://us.cnn.com/2021/02/16/politics/trump-mcconnell/index.html

This story about the NHL season with canadian teams playing in a separate division this year illustrates the difference in covid control. https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/nhl-covid-19-north-canada-us-1.5913621

Not the main parachute necessarily. At least not in this vintage. There is a commonly accepted label format and placement today, but not when this was made. There are not any real regulations or standards on who can make main parachutes even today. Reserves are a different matter altogether. They have long been required to be certificated.

No one really knows yet what longer term influence him and his followers will have. The 2022 mid-terms will tell a lot of that story.

It is possible to put a person on Mars right now. But only as a one way trip. Energy storage on Earth is an engineering challenge that will be met long before any extra-terrestrial settlement.

Judging by school funding fights I think that is already with us.

Correct. For once. Congratulations. (you are not that good at sarcasm, you should stick to your usual fake earnestness)

Banana republics are controlled by people from the outside, typically the US. But other western nations have run them from afar as well. They have a strong man figurehead who is beholden to a foreign actor. The US is not a banana republic, however it is showing signs of being some sort of over ripe fruit rotting from within. So Joe gets upset because he doesn't feel like his nation deserves that name. Maybe we could call it a soft decaying watermelon republic instead? The R party senators and the party in general let Trump off because they understand that the stain of being the party of the only ever convicted POTUS would mark and scar them even deeper than they already have been.

What we need is for the genius tech world to turn away from pie in the sky endeavors like working toward manned Mars expeditions and focus on finding effective energy storage. In the end storage is the only real answer that will satisfy all of the competing interests you list here.

I'm not sure about the long term effects of the poorly targeted stimulus money either. And it does seem the the lack of options for travel and entertainment spending did drive tandem business. Fools and their money and all that. I'm not making any prediction about the economic fallout of all this. That's way beyond my knowledge and also even the experts I would guess. Most likely one part of the hang over will be a further stratification of our society into haves and have nots.

Yes it does. There was a possibility that the reserve may be usable as a pilot parachute. But seeing as it is more than 60 years old, not any more. It's hard for me to get my head around someone even in the eighties using a reserve that old! Actually, my guess about the 80s is off, the container was last packed in 79. It appears to have only been packed 3 times and probably has very little use. I think I know what the container is, but I'm not sure, so I'll leave that to someone who knows for sure.

This gear is from the 80s. It is not something that anyone other than possibly a collector would be interested in. However, there is far more of this stuff available than there are people who collect it. It does appear to be in very good condition, but it is completely and utterly obsolete. There are people on this forum who will probably recognize the container and be able to tell you them make. I would advise you not to open the reserve. I would look first in the yoke area at the top of the back pad for a pocket that will most likely contain a data card for the reserve canopy.

It has played out pretty much as I expected this far. With the exception that I did not anticipate we would manage to get our shit together enough to limit the damage as much as we have. Best pandemic and response ever!

The situation is evolving and will soon substantially change. We have known all along that an effective vaccine would be a game changer and we have an exceptionally effective one. The only thing keeping this angst going is simply the impatience we are all feeling as we wait for production to ramp up. In a fairly short time there will no longer be a shortage of vaccine but rather a shortage of people willing to take it. As far as a national strategy goes, the way your nation is set up there can never really be a comprehensive one. However there can be a national strategy for production and distribution into the hands of state players who will then make individual decisions about priorities. It is hard for them to look good when they are dealing with shortages. Officials are taking heat for factors completely beyond their control. Bars will be reopening in the US at full capacity before the end of summer. In some states earlier than others. And that is what really matters to most of the people whining about their children not being in school.

That is the whole point. It is how the goal will be reached. It is not supposed to be fair, it is supposed to encourage people to make the change. And yes, I know it can not go on forever and still provide funding for the stable grid that we all need. I was just reading today about rolling blackouts in TX going on right now due to the combination of the near record cold snap and frozen inoperative wind generators. There are no easy answers.

It does seem likely that we will have a variation of it with us for a long time. Vaccine production is going to ramp up faster that most people realize. In four months or so the US will have a surplus and will not be able to find enough willing people to take it.

Every other pandemic in history has gone away eventually. And so will this one. The only real question is how much damage it will do.

I don't think there are any victors in this saga. Except a small victory for Trump and his followers. They will now be able to fight on.

Even the BBC gets things wrong. I have heard many stories from them and they evolve as more information becomes available to them. The BBC story makes it sound like Canada "invested in EU production". It did no such thing. It invested in the companies that make the vaccines. Where those companies ship the Canadian supply from is something that those companies have to navigate. We do seem to be getting some high level of priority, but not an exclusive one. We seem to be on a fairly even level with the EU nations. Considering the reality that our supply must come from plants located there it is hard to see how we could have done better. Except perhaps if we were able to get a plant located here. But I'm suspecting the lead time to do that would make it unfeasible.