A good, decently detailed look at signal processing required. I also like https://ciechanow.ski/gps/, which has some fantastic visuals to go along with this explanation.
Wow that blog never ceases to amaze me. I was actually thinking about it when I read this post, that it’s exactly the type of post Bartosz could have made. And he had! Those interactive graphics are unbeatable.
I think the really neat piece of software behind this is maxima (https://maxima.sourceforge.io/), a rather influential computer algebra system of ancient lineage still in use today in more places than you might think.
> In order to show the steps, the calculator applies the same integration techniques that a human would apply. The program that does this has been developed over several years and is written in Maxima's own programming language. It consists of more than 17000 lines of code. When the integrand matches a known form, it applies fixed rules to solve the integral (e. g. partial fraction decomposition for rational functions, trigonometric substitution for integrands involving the square roots of a quadratic polynomial or integration by parts for products of certain functions). Otherwise, it tries different substitutions and transformations until either the integral is solved, time runs out or there is nothing left to try. The calculator lacks the mathematical intuition that is very useful for finding an antiderivative, but on the other hand it can try a large number of possibilities within a short amount of time. The step by step antiderivatives are often much shorter and more elegant than those found by Maxima.
Does one know if mathematica uses that too ? I rememebr an HN post where one could see that sympy, maxima and the likes where way behind for a lot of more peculiar integrals..
The syntax it's the same, I even made a plot and 'printed' into the host from an ARDS output from the plot command, by converting the file into PPM->PNG or PPM->PDF.
Maxima ist absolutely great. It can be somewhat confusing, but it is actually quite advanced.
Calculating integrals is extremely hard (unlike calculating derivatives, which is very easy to do) and maxima comes with some of the more advanced and comprehensive strategies to solve integrals.
It's integration functionalities are less advanced and comprehensive than those of Fricas. Interestingly, the latter is, like Maxima, implemented using Lisp and stems from an ancient software lineage. Both systems are free and open-source.
Ugly and cranky is quite subjective... As much as I like Mathematica the language, the user interfaces that they propose are so wonky and ugly (in my eyes) that Maxima feels like a breath of fresh air and elegance.
This is one of those things that the ever-amazing pandoc (https://pandoc.org/) does very well, on top of supporting virtually every other document format.
I second this. Pandoc is up there as one of the most useful tools that exist, that almost no one talks about. It's amazing, easy to use, and works. I regularly see new tools in the space pop-up, but someone would have to have a REALLY unique and compelling feature, or highly optimized use case to get me to use anything else (besides Pandoc).
Eventually, I found pandoc to be a little limiting:
* Awkward to use interpolated variables within prose.
* No real-time preview prior to rendering the final document.
* Limited options for TeX support (e.g., SVG vs. inline; ConTeXt vs. LaTeX).
* Inconsistent syntax for captions and cross-references.
* Requires glue to apply a single YAML metadata source file to multiple documents (e.g., book chapters).
* Does not (reliably) convert straight quotes to curly quotes.
For my purposes, I wanted to convert variable-laden Markdown and R Markdown to text, XHTML, and PDF formats. Eventually I replaced my tool chain of yamlp + pandoc + knitr by writing an integrated FOSS cross-platform desktop editor.
To my knowledge, the F-14 never carried any anti-ship missile, especially on the early-model Iranian Tomcats, as the F-14 only received an air-to-ground upgrade package in the 90’s.
Given the fact that Iran successfully jury-rigged MIM-23 Hawk SAMs onto their F-14s, it's not out of the realm of possibility that they could do something similar with Exocet.
During the Falklands war there were worries that the Argies were fitting Exocet to LearJets (turns out they were used for recce and communications), and Chile also had a project on the books to convert Falcon biz jets to carry Exocet. And, some say USS Stark was itself attacked by a Falcon carrying Exocets. Grafting missiles onto a warplane that already has hardpoints and the like seems like an easier task.
... which we can all discuss at leisure from our armchairs with zero of the stress associated with being in the command chair that day.
Just because commenters here may come up with some down-in-the-weeds detailed analysis that could have, if known then, changed the course of events, does not mean that it's reasonable to have come up with that in the heat of battle.
There is a reason that the practice is called "Monday Morning Quarterbacking".
If you are commander of an explicitly Anti-Air cruiser, and you are unaware that any F-14 tasked against you would not have an anti-ship missile and would be abusing some other weapon "off-label", then you should not be defending a carrier fleet from aircraft. You should be familiar with the airframes, weapons, and abilities of your adversary.
The F-14 is not an attack aircraft! It was designed to intercept incoming air threats and bombers!
"And it never made any search or track radar emissions"
"Yup"
"And it was climbing out of the area, and despite all your instruments showing it continuing to climb, you all asserted it was diving for an attack run"
"Right"
"And instead of trying to further deconflict, or ask any of the other local navy vessels their interpretation, or just take a risk and accept that as a member of the military sometimes your job is to stand up in the line of fire, you decided that this was definitely an F-14 interceptor, being used to attack an AEGIS vessel whose intended design is to protect an american aircraft carrier from 20 simultaneous incoming Soviet antiship missiles, and was definitely a threat to said vessel"
"Yup"
"And now 290 innocent people are dead"
The captain of the Vincennes also claims they were in "hot pursuit" of a small Iranian gunboat in "self defense" at the time, and was noted by superiors as regularly going beyond his Rules of Engagement in training activities. He had a chip on his shoulder and clearly made up his mind about what he was going to do to that plane well before he had any indication it was a threat. A nearby vessel that was datalinked (ie, was hooked into the same battlefield map and signals) very quickly and clearly concluded it was a civilian flight. Capt Rogers convinced himself otherwise.
Although not the F-22, modern fighters such as the F-35 can cost 100's of billions of dollars in R&D[0] (~150 billion iirc, with ~1.3 trillion total program cost).
