Posts by Mike Richards
3344 posts • joined Wednesday 28th February 2007 21:13 GMT
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Terry Gilliam
Really should have sued New Labour for nicking all their policies from 'Brazil'.
Posted in Obama scraps Constellation moon mission
Meanwhile on Wall Street
The banks that got us into this mess will be paying out $118 billion in bonuses.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003351773983136.html
Posted in Obama scraps Constellation moon mission
Since you asked
'While it is true the Shuttle flies a more complex mission (0-M23_0 as opposed to airliners less than M1) with more engines (about 44 in total with 4 different propellants) and some unique systems (TPS, Fuel cells) is it *really* 12.5x more complex?'
Yes.
HTH.
Posted in Obama scraps Constellation moon mission
AAP
Yep they existed and got to quite an advanced stage, but Apollo was gutted when the Vietnam war and inflation began to eat the American economy for breakfast. By the end of the 1960s NASA could essentially have the Shuttle and that was it.
Seriously, it's not just you
But has anyone given any thought what sort of job Meg will be capable of after the election when she, her party and this ghastly project are finally put on the scrapheap.
Hillier (check - yup typed it right) comes across as not quite the sharpest tool in a knife drawer filled with rolling pins.
Children
How can children give informed consent for scanning? And what if they say 'no' (as any parent knows only too well) - does the child get taken off the flight? does the family not fly? or do they get dragged through the scanner come what may?
Lord Andrew Adonis
As the Guardian's Simon Hoggart once put it, 'he's much more an Andrew than an Adonis.'
According to the BBC
The regular metal detector arches will be randomly selecting people to surrender to the Pervatron, the human element (or indeed the element of the security staff) won't get a look in.
Wow!
I think you've just come up with the idea for ITV's next big Saturday night show. A new version of 'Blind Date' with a freshly botoxed Cilla and a Pervatron.
Everyone through the Pervatron
If you want everyone to go through you'd better get used to the five hour check-in. These devices aren't quick and I have a strange suspicion they're not going to be that reliable.
Posted in Obama to boost US nuclear power industry
Reprocessing
The British and French have far more experience of reprocessing than the US and neither has managed to turn their businesses into profitable entities. The last time anyone in Britain looked at reprocessing it was with the view of determining if it was worth continuing at all. I suspect if Sellafield wasn't such a major employer in an area with sod/all other employment it would have been closed down by now.
As for why America never went down the reprocessing route, it was in part because they had a separate plutonium production industry based at Hanford. Their power industry quickly standardised on BWR and PWR systems using enriched uranium and long burn times producing relatively little bomb-friendly Pu239.
The UK on the other hand went with Magnox and AGR stations consuming natural uranium with on-load refuelling after short burn times. Their reactors produced plenty of Pu239 and the Magnox fuel HAD to be reprocessed because it corrodes rapidly.
So yes, reprocessing kind of makes sense in getting the most out of the fuel, but it won't make for cheaper energy and it will make for a lot of high-level actinide waste which will have to be processed and stored. Good luck with finding a permanent solution for that.
Works in reverse
We might have just found the perfect silent notification for SMS messages.
THWUD - BOING! You have mail!
Posted in India eyes man in space by 2016
Re; Budget?
India had a growth rate of about 7% last year. I'm guessing they can afford it.
RAM
It's not the small screen, slow processor or tiny keyboard that means I've pretty much given up on netbooks - it's that they're still shipping with Windows and 1Gb RAM. It's just not enough to make them useful over a long period of time.
Posted in India eyes man in space by 2016
No, not really...
It's an incentive for Indian companies to develop high technologies which can be exported and lift even more people out of poverty. China has become the most successful country in history at uplift, not by rural aid, but by industrialisation.
Just as Victorian Britain had the slums of the East End which were every bit as unpleasant as those of Mumbai, it was also capable of scientific and engineering accomplishments such as the Beagle voyage and the Crystal Palace.
URLs
Good point, but (IIRC) some sites - like Tesco - bring up the VbV in a frame or iFrame so you can't even see the URL - only an unexpected shonky page which looks nothing like the retailer's own asking you for confidential information.
In Sweden 10 years ago
SwedBank rolled keyfobs out over a decade ago, but then their banking system seems to be somewhat better managed than the UK's.
Ah that explains it!
I'm also with HSBC and used my Visa card heavily in the run-up to Christmas buying travel tickets from all and sundry.
Christmas Eve arrives and my card is locked, meanwhile the World's Local Bank (tm) has buggered off down the pub for a bonus-fuelled piss-up.
When I eventually got through to someone called Charles (in Bangalore) they couldn't explain why the card was locked, only that certain security issues had been raised - but nothing so serious that a few minutes listening to the godawful three bar HSBC anthem (all of their long-suffering customers will know it well) couldn't put right with a short spot of [tappity] and the requisite 'have you thought about buying home insurance from HSBC?' question.
Looks like phishing
Every time I hit the dreaded VbV page I do a double-take - it looks utterly shonky as if it was knocked together by some script kiddie. Wonky fonts and justification, the company logos haphazardly placed on the page. If it at least looked like the public face of a faceless private corporation it would be mildly reassuring.
Posted in Compulsory perv scanners upset everyone
ECHR
Is nothing to do with the European Union, it's run by the Council of Europe and was created largely by British lawyers.
Having said which, the EU is also doing a lot more to protect us than our own government.
Measurements
Are these perpendicular gothic cathedrals or just the regular Roman basilica type?
And as for the nuclear weapons - roughly how many cardinals would they weigh?
'Junior business minister David Lammy'
He's just as clueless when professing to be the universities minister.
In a heap of really shit government officials, Lammy stands out as especially bad - forget 'Blears bad' - he makes her look competent; travel far past 'Hoon bad', take the second exit at 'Blunkett bad' and you'll still need to fill up the tank to reach the particularly pointless realm inhabited by David Lammy.
That's not how it works
I'm not sure this is going to form a new Copyright Act or whether it will simply be incorporated into a new copyright treaty (which is the prerogative of the government and does not need any debate).
There have to be three readings of the Bill in both the Commons and the Lords to enact an Act of Parliament. If Parliament is prorogued before the Royal Assent the bill automatically falls and has to start from scratch. There's almost no chance any new copyright bill could pass through these stages, even if both sides were in agreement, before the end of this Parliament.
The first reading is a formality. The government minister (or occasionally a back bencher) announces that a bill on such-and-such is going to be introduced. There's rarely a vote at this point. The real chance to change things is at Second Reading. Here's where all the debate occurs. MPs can post amendments (which must be voted on) or the whole bill can be thrown out.
The bill then goes off to committee for scrutiny (make your own jokes here). The government decides whether to accept the amendments from committee and the bill is then introduced for Third Reading. Usually this is a formality, but the amendments from committee can be voted on. However it's very restrictive and usually guillotined.
If the bill gets to this point it then goes to the Lords for three further readings and a committee stage. The Lords can also suggest amendments or reject the bill. After which it's back to the Commons. Assuming the Lords have no objections the bill goes for Royal Assent. If the Lords have suggested amendments, the government can either choose to accept them or to reject the amendments - at which point, back to the Lords again.
But I suspect, Mandelson's Law, which is fully supported by the Tories will be worded in such a way that any changes to copyright will become law without any public debate.
A nuclear powered exoskeleton
Oh my - this is the sort of things dreams are made of!
Posted in Airport scanner staff object to vetting
Yes, but look on the upside...
...a clever government will soon realise each of these images is indecent and probably breaks the law. In which case each passenger can be fined for indecent exposure with the money going to the State - let's just call it a Security Levy.
Posted in Airport scanner staff object to vetting
Surrender to the Pervatron!
I think I've worked this one out.
I'm a threat to mankind because I want to fly. Meanwhile the bloke operating the man-sized microwave isn't - because he's got a peaked cap.
'We are working on a new model that has flashing lights'
'Hello? Is that Keyboards Direct? Hi, I seem to have sprayed coffee over my old keyboard and I need a new one - now. What? You'll be right round you say? That's fantastic! Thank-you Keyboards Direct.'
Saint of the day and 'Daily Pope'???
Oh if only Father Ted were with us now.
Posted in Avatards rush to name sprogs Pandora
Makes a good case for the Swedish taxman
Our Nordic neighbours wouldn't put up with this nonsense; the kid would be called Annifred or Agnetha or possibly Lars.
Posted in Avatards rush to name sprogs Pandora
1bn box office
Does that mean a whole lot of kids got named 'Titanic' or 'White Star Line'?
Posted in Selfridges punts £1,800 Spanish ham
Thank goodness for the banking bailout
Otherwise there wouldn't be a supply of gullible morons with huge bonuses to buy a bit of dried up pork.
Approaching the Daily Mail event horizon
AIRPORT PAEDOPHILES SAW MY CHILD'S NAKED BODY
Kerry Katona's shock revelations pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and special commemorative pullout
Also inside. Do immigrants cause cancer? Melanie Phillips investigates.
Posted in Is Mandy right to cut science funding?
Real problem is
Mandelson is concentrating on immediate gains in relatively well understood fields where Britain will be competing against other countries - most of which will still have large manufacturing bases ready to commodotise discoveries. So even if we do find something cool, we won't be able to make it.
He should be doing a DARPA and funding seriously blue-sky research in the full knowledge that things might not work out - but if they do, we will have a field more or less to ourselves.
In short, John Naughton is bang on the money.
Oh and the majority of money will still go to the Russell Group of universities whether they deserve it or not.
Football missing in on 'cashing-in' opportunity shock horror
I'm no Prince of Darkness, Simon Cowell, but did no one in the FA realise that there was an opportunity to run a prime-time, phone-in, six-month-long, Saturday night TV 'talent' contest to find the 'best' team song?
ITV are gagging for content and cash right now and here was the perfect chance to fill more of our gutter-scraping tabloids with slebs.
What do Stockholm and Milton Keynes have in common?
The answer is Segways!
One is a glorious Baltic port with stunning architecture, beautiful people and an enthusiastic embrace of the herring. The other has a large shopping centre.
But both of them are natural homes for the Segway. American visitors can zip around the Swedish capital on guided Segway tours if they find the city's frighteningly efficient public transport, or generously proportioned pavements all too European for comfort.
As for the little utopia that is Milton Keynes - the security guards at 'The Centre: MK' as it likes to be called, stand on them so they can see over the heads of shoppers.
Bottled gas
Is butane and/or propane, neither of which vaporises in Titanian conditions.
As for exploring the place, can't we just drop the tedious Bear Grylls on the moon and see if he can survive using nothing more than a block of frozen hexane and his underpants?
OLPC XO-1?
Cheaper and it was designed to be suitable for bankrupt countries with lousy education and appalling infrastructure.
Not holding the World to ransom
It's just common sense economic policy. China needs to keep its economy growing and is aware that the next lot of cheap manufacturing countries are following along behind. Moving up the manufacturing ecosystem to produce finished objects is good practice.
As for China being left behind when the next technological leap occurs. I doubt it; their R&D (especially in rare earths) is second to none.
Oh and because it's China, I wouldn't be surprised if their mining groups end up being the ones who eventually get the contracts to extract rare earths elsewhere in the World. They'd only be following the example of Sinopec which has been tying up exclusive development contracts for oil and gas in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Why do these patent cases come along so late?
The iPhone's been on sale for three years, the Blackberry for even longer - and yet Kodak have only just got round to noticing an infringement?
Posted in Avatar expands 3D TV interest
What would have been nice
Is if Avatar had expanded interest in well-told, dramatically engaging, complex storytelling. But 'Dances with Wolves' for the ritalin generation didn't have any.
Headline 'Nuremberg Laws'
The Nuremberg Laws are nothing to do with the defence plea at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. Instead they were a series of edicts first announced at the Nazi Party Conference in 1935 which stripped Jews of German citizenship and their rights.
I think you're thinking of the 'Nuremberg Defence'.
So while the new British law is bad, it isn't comparable to the Nuremberg Laws.
Posted in 3D TV gets cold shower from Avatar man
The next standards war
Oh goodie - after finally killing off HD-DVD, the media industry can get down to doing what it does best - producing any number of rival formats to sting early adopters. Bonus marks will be awarded to the company that manages to include DRM in their 3D technology.
Count me out of this one.
Posted in Home Office picks new prof for Nutt job
Not to mention...
'I imagine that other leading causes of sudden unexpected death in Spain include vehicle accidents, cot deaths and big men with moustaches, knives and an adverse disposition.'
not forgetting people being crushed by donkeys falling off church towers.
Posted in Mini-asteroid sneaks up on Earth
Meteorite sizes
Very small particles decelerate rapidly when hitting the atmosphere and are structurally robust enough that they just filter down through the air as meteoritic dust. Really big objects - think house size and above, are so massive in comparison to their surface area that they hardly decelerate at all and hit with their original velocity.
For objects between these sizes all sorts of things can happen. generally, the smaller and denser the object the more likely it is to reach the surface; however, relatively large (several metres across) stony meteorites (or the bizarre carbonaceous chondrites) tend to disintegrate through deceleration in the upper atmosphere and very little survives to hit the ground, or what lands is a shower of fragments.T =he vast majority of meteorites are made from stone, however, almost all the largest meteorites are made from structurally resilient iron/nickel.
There's been quite a lot of excitement recently caused by the release of classified data showing that relatively large objects are ploughing into the upper atmosphere and exploding on a quite regular basis. And when I say exploding - I mean think multi kiloton explosions:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/25/science/meteoroids-hit-atmosphere-in-atomic-size-blasts.html
Not the big story
The fact that the changes will cement the powers of the disastrous Digital Economy Bill is what we should really be worried about. That too is going to be shoved through Parliament with the full support of the Conservatives.
Posted in 'Plutonium pinch' nips NASA
We really need a new Cold War
Not just because it guarantees a ready supply of lovely Pu238, but because it means we'll get more cool-looking hardware.
Can't they just...
...watch that advert for Samsung televisions with the hummingbird? It looks just as pretty as 'Avatar' and has a better plot.
That's awesome!
'Heathrow was reduced to giggling chaos this afternoon when a passenger was found to have written 'Fuck You Alan Johnson' across his buttocks in magnetic poetry'.
And getting hold of the image would be the best DPA request ever made.
Lewis and Sun readers
This is a brilliant plan but falls down with Lewis' unprovoked use of wit, sarcasm, punnery, semicolons and three-syllable words.
Knicker Bomber Glory
Either that or Fruit of the Boom.
