Broadband speed-test results for T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network
I’m at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport waiting for my (delayed) file to Orange County. I was having trouble connecting to Sky Harbor’s free Wi-Fi and so I decided to tether to my G2. The phone was showing all four bars on the HSPA+ network and so I decided to run a speed test. This is what I got:
The average speed for T-Mobile as reported by speedtest.net is around 2Mbps, so I’m surprised that mine is so high. I ran a few more tests and I got results between 2.5Mbps and 3.5Mbps. What bothers me the most is that T-Mobile’s mobile network provides a better upload speed than the measly 896Kbps that Qwest gives me.
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Navy Railgun and Shuttle Ascent video
I came across a cool video of the Navy’s Mach 8 Railgun. That’s right. Mach 8. The railgun uses 33Mj; the aim is to get it to 64Mj. The previous record (by the same lab) was 2 years ago at 10.64Mj. There are still a few issues to work out, namely power consumption and heat dissipation. A railgun has no moving parts and simply uses electromagnetic energy to shoot a projectile. They can also be powered by the ship’s batteries. The Navy is expecting to deploy these to ships by 2020 or 2025.
The other video I came across is one explaining all aspects of the launch of a space shuttle (what the engineers look for, etc.). The video is 45 minutes long, but it is extremely informative and well worth it to watch.
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