The ZAR Exchange Rate Thread

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Now note that if Japan were to invest that 75% (4.4Bn USD in 2002) in arms development, they could maybe produce some impressive kit which they could compete with against the US on the global arms market.
 
Knyro said:
Actually no you can't. :p

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

The US military gives it a financial edge no doubt but it also saves SK and Japan money. They can focus more on development instead of worrying about defending themselves from North Korea and China.
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It's actually not so simple. Your GPS device doesn't have accurate time keeping and it certainly doesn't have an atomic clock. The time on the satellites are irrelevant in calculating coordinates. What is used is the time differential between signals arriving from satellites. So clocks going too fast would not make any difference as long as they were all going too fast by exactly the same amount. That's certainly the case as they are all at nearly the same distance and traveling at the same speed.

Correcting the time also doesn't result in accuracy. Satellites whether they are geostationary or not do not stay in exact positions and have to correct for drift about once a week. Without these corrections rather than time corrections the system would be useless within a few weeks.
 
Space_Chief said:
Yes but most Turks are not well integrated. Germany is very homogenous compared to the US.
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And very heterogeneous compared to Japan.

Hmmm are you sure? Yes I know they had the knowledge of relativity when building these but they would probably have compensated for these effects without knowing the fundamental reasons why they are so. Don't you think? It would have been far more difficult for sure but not impossible. The differences in clocks would have been noted, correlated with position and compensated for, with greater and greater accuracy.
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I'm pretty sure yes, noticing some kind of pattern from raw data is horrendously difficult. This isn't some "oh it's off by 2 seconds" type situation.



Strangely enough, Japan pays about 75% of the cost of the stationing costs of the US bases in Japan. Takafumi Ohtomo argues that the cost of at least some of these bases is quite low for several reasons, one of those being host nation payments as well as hand me downs from former allies and foes.
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How much is that compared to Japan keeping a standing army large enough to keep China at bay? Keep in mind these guys would be out of the workforce, lowering productivity. Japan benefits from this too.
 
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Swa said:
It's actually not so simple. Your GPS device doesn't have accurate time keeping and it certainly doesn't have an atomic clock. The time on the satellites are irrelevant in calculating coordinates. What is used is the time differential between signals arriving from satellites. So clocks going too fast would not make any difference as long as they were all going too fast by exactly the same amount. That's certainly the case as they are all at nearly the same distance and traveling at the same speed.

Correcting the time also doesn't result in accuracy. Satellites whether they are geostationary or not do not stay in exact positions and have to correct for drift about once a week. Without these corrections rather than time corrections the system would be useless within a few weeks.
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I think you meant to quote Space_Chief?
 
Knyro said:
And very heterogeneous compared to Japan.
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Early 20th century Germany was quite homogenous. And later after what Hitler did it became even more so never mind post Yalta movements of people.



How much is that compared to Japan keeping a standing army large enough to keep China at bay? Keep in mind these guys would be out of the workforce, lowering productivity. Japan benefits from this too.
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They don't need to keep a huge standing army. In fact it's not possible because of the huge number of males China can provide. On the other hand they need to get these people to Japan somehow and that's where a smaller force of ships and planes could keep the Chinese at bay. They have a very sophisticated and well developed navy as things are. But you're right the deterrent factor is massive, both against China and Russia. Still it's not the US footing the entire bill and Japan freeloading. The local Japanese population also benefits from the presence of these soldiers. And these soldiers send money home and so stimulate the economy at home too.
 
Space_Chief said:
Early 20th century Germany was quite homogenous. And later after what Hitler did it became even more so never mind post Yalta movements of people.
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And it cost them. They lost brilliant minds to the US. Implemented that nonsense "Deutsche Physik". Just the loss of Einstein and wasting Werner von Braun's time alone cost them dearly. All in the name of nationalism.
 
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Swa said:
Nope. I quoted you before Space_Chief's comments appeared to me.
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Nowhere in the article does it say gps recievers have internal time keeping/atomic clocks. It says that relativistic effects have to be taken into account. It also says, as you did that the comparison of time signals recieved from different satellites is used to calculate position.
 
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Knyro said:
Nowhere in the article does it say gps recievers have internal time keeping/atomic clocks. It says that relativistic effects have to be taken into account. It also says, as you did that the comparison of time signals recieved from different satellites is used to calculate position.
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It doesn't explain why though. As GPS devices don't have clocks to compare it with and look at the time differential what matters most is that they are in sync with each other and not with our time. There's a lot of intricacies involved no doubt but the opinions seem to be divided on this and I can't find a proper explanation. Unless the time is used for something else as well.
 
I thought this thread was going off topic a couple of days ago. Now it is totally off the reservation.
 
Ho3n3r said:
Somehow prices don't come down when the rand comes down.

When it goes up, however, we know that prices will go up.
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Imported goods actually do fluctuate with the rand and it's very apparent in the technology sector.
 
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