Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Loudoun Aviation: Weather and Navigation Radar Systems

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Weather Radar Dome
Weather Radar Dome

You probably take radar for granted. It’s just one of those commonplace, everyday technologies that you interact with—one way or another—all the time. When there is severe weather in your area, the television weathermen and online sources all put familiar Doppler radar images front and center. We know when and where it will be raining or snowing, can estimate how much precipitation we’ve received, and can even track wind patterns, determine if a tornado is forming, and issue critical warnings before they strike.

Weather radar is the kind that we ‘regular folks’ interact with all of the time, but it’s not the only kind. Police departments use car-based and handheld radar systems to find and catch speeders, which may or may not be a good use of their time (and our money). Scientists can use ground-penetrating radar systems to study the Earth’s crust. Boat- and ship-based marine radar systems are an essential part of navigation and collision avoidance, especially in poor weather, and in many harbors the ‘vessel traffic services’ use radar (and other) systems to manage traffic and improve safety.

Radar systems, small and large, also form an integral part of our aviation network. The air traffic control system relies on radar (combined with other technologies) to keep track of the aircraft overhead and help ensure that they reach their destinations safely. Controllers can guide aircraft away from ground obstacles and each other, and give instructions that lead pilots to their intended destinations even in the most adverse of conditions.

In addition to these ground-based systems, commercial aircraft have multiple radar systems operating on-board the aircraft itself. Since 1965, commercial aircraft operating in the United States have been required to have on-board weather radar systems (14 CFR 121.357). And in the aftermath of the 1974 crash of TWA Flight 514 (see a previous article in this series), they were also required to have a ground proximity warning system (39 FR 44439). These proximity warning systems have been implemented in the form of a radar altimeter . . . a device that, using radar, monitors and reports to the pilots the actual distance between the aircraft and the ground, and sounds warnings when the plane is too low.

There are two important radar sites located in Loudoun County, Virginia, and one more located about seven miles beyond our borders in Fauquier County, Virginia.

Read more . . .

Puerto Rico Defaults on PFC Bond Payments

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Flag of Puerto Rico
Flag of Puerto Rico

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a United States territory located in the Caribbean, has defaulted on bond repayments to the government-owned Puerto Rico Public Financing Corporation (PFC), paying only $628,000 of the required $58 million. Most of these bonds are held by ordinary Puerto Ricans through local credit unions. In addition, the Puerto Rican government has suspended its scheduled monthly deposits to its general obligation redemption fund.

Puerto Rico is more than $70 billion in debt, and its economy continues to contract. Faced with economic uncertainty, many Puerto Ricans—who are United States citizens—have been leaving the territory and migrating to the mainland, breaking records that have stood since the 1950s. Like Greece, which defaulted on its obligations last month, Puerto Rico created this crisis by providing levels of government service that far outstrip its tax revenues. The situation has been exacerbated by a shrinking population and an under-performing island economy.

At earlier stages in the crisis, White House officials categorically stated that there would be no federal bailout of Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898 following the end of the Spanish-American War, though—in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment—Puerto Ricans were not granted United States citizenship until 1917. It is a self-governing United States territory, subject to U.S. sovereignty and managed much like a state, but because it is not a state it does not have voting representation in Congress, nor does it participate in presidential elections. Puerto Ricans have repeatedly voted to continue as part of the United States, though in the most recent ballot they voted in favor of becoming a state. The U.S. Congress has not yet taken action on the request, and another referendum may yet be held.

Browser Support, Policy, and Other Changes

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Although I have been (again) neglecting to publish posts regularly, there are things going on here on Off on a Tangent. I promise.

Part of why the posts have slowed down is because I have several long, in-depth articles and essays that I am working on and I got sort of ‘backed up’ with those. I am hoping that at least one or two of them will be finished and ready for publication soon. Also, I have been working behind the scenes on a number of other projects . . . including supporting No-Nonsense Weather and moving forward with development there, and some ‘continuing learning’ efforts.

But I did want to take a moment and describe some of the things that have been happening here on the site, though you might not have noticed.

Read more . . .

Greece Defaults on IMF Loan

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Updated

Greece has defaulted on a €1.5 billion (about $1.7 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is the largest national default in history, and the first time a country with a ‘developed economy’ has ever defaulted on an IMF loan.

The Greek government, following decades of economic mismanagement and corruption, was hard-hit by the worldwide banking and economic collapse in 2008. It fell into a serious debt crisis in 2009, and subsequently received several bailouts and loans from the IMF and the European Union (E.U.). The Greek people, however, balked at stringent ‘austerity’ cuts in government spending imposed upon the nation by its creditors.

Greece’s refusal to accept any terms that would improve its long-term economic viability in return for additional bailout funding has made it unable to make its scheduled debt payments.

As its deadline loomed, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (Syriza) suddenly announced that he would put the most recent European bailout offer to a national referendum, and has encouraged his countrymen to vote against it. A ‘no’ vote is likely to result in Greece being expelled from the Eurozone currency union. As the Greek economy continues to destabilize, its government has closed all banks and limited cash withdrawals to €60 (about $67) per person per day.

When the World Will End

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Four Horsemen of Apocalypse (Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887)
Four Horsemen of Apocalypse (Vasnetsov, 1887)

Every few years, there is a big hubbub about the end of the world. Many predicted the world would end in the year 2000, and others predicted it would happen with the beginning of the new millennium in 2001. The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, which carried out a deadly terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995, predicted that we would all die in a nuclear holocaust in 2003. Pat Robertson, an influential leader in Baptist Christianity, once predicted that the Earth’s destruction would occur in 2007.

More recently, Harold Camping, the evangelical Christian founder of the Family Radio network, memorably predicted that the Rapture would occur in May 2011 . . . and when it didn’t, he revised his prediction to October of the same year . . . and then he stopped trying to pick dates. The ancient Mayan calendar ran out on December 21, 2012, and many claimed that would be the day the world would end, because when you want to know about the future you should always ask the ancient Mayans.

Every time this comes up, I say the same thing: No, the world will end on April 15, 2033. Well, I’m not entirely certain . . . it could also be on April 17, April 22, or April 24 of the same year.

Of course this is all a bit tongue-in-cheek. I don’t have any inside knowledge, and I am cognizant of Jesus’s statement that, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36, RSV-CE), and the Holy Spirit’s admonition recorded by Saint John, warning that, “ . . . you will not know at what hour I will come upon you” (Revelation 3:3, RSV-CE). So, in reality, your guess is as good as mine. But I have an idle curiosity about it none-the-less.

Much of the apocalyptic thought in the late 1990s and early 2000s revolved around the two-thousandth anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, which would have been some time around the year 2000. We suspect that our calendar system is not exactly correct, and that Jesus was probably born some time between 6 B.C. and 1 B.C., so this would have put the two-thousandth anniversary between 1995 and 2000. But I think a more likely date would be two thousand years after Christ’s crucifixion, or perhaps his resurrection, as these were the most important moments in his earthly ministry.

Based on the available historical and scriptural evidence, it is most likely that Jesus was crucified by the Roman government on the Friday nearest to the Jewish Passover in A.D. 33, and then was resurrected on the Sunday following. So the two-thousandth anniversary of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection would be in the year 2033, and should be celebrated according to the Christian liturgical calendar. In 2033, Good Friday will be celebrated on April 15 and Easter will be celebrated on April 17. Of course, there is a well-known discrepancy between how the date of Easter is calculated in the western (i.e., Catholic) and eastern (i.e., Orthodox) churches, so if our Orthodox brethren have it ‘right,’ the dates may be April 22 and 24 instead. I personally incline toward the Catholic celebration of Good Friday as the most logical and likely possibility among these four dates.

But there’s no reason to assume that two-thousand is some magic number of years after which there should be a major religious event. It’s a nice, round number, which is probably why it appeals to people, but when God uses numbers symbolically in scripture they’re almost always in multiples of seven or twelve. And apocalyptic predictions, thus far, have all been wrong . . . including a widespread belief throughout Christendom that the world would end in A.D. 1033, the one-thousandth anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection, which might have had more punch than the two-thousandth anniversary.

In other words, we should probably keep contributing to our 401k’s.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.