Posts by Geoff Campbell 1878 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jun 2008
I wonder if we will ever find out what the reasons were for Altman being sacked back at the start of this? I'm mostly positive about the future for AI, but it has to be recognised that there are paths it could take which could be rather bad, and so it would be interesting to know what was behind this organisation falling apart.
GJC
Mars gravity is approximately one third that of Earth, so take-off requires one-third the thrust like for like. However, the rocket is likely to be mostly empty at that point, and carrying little weight of fuel, so it's even less than that.
The very thin atmosphere makes no difference to powered landings, as I understand it, only parachute or winged landings.
GJC
We are getting on from as far away in time from the Apollo programme as modern cars are away from the Ford Model T. Perhaps more pertinently, we are further away in time from Apollo than Apollo was from the Wright Brothers. Engineering refines and improves stuff over time.
Why are you so dogmatically certain of yourself, I wonder? What are your qualifications in this field?
GJC
The big leaps in technological progress are mostly made by people considered not entirely sane at the time.
In this case, there's a very good reason for using methalox as propellant, which is to make it sustainable. CO2 and water can be turned into methane and oxygen relatively easily, using only electricity as an input, which means that launches can be made an essentially zero-carbon closed-loop process. This also means that, longer term, propellant can be manufactured off-Earth, which is critical to serious spaceflight.
Will the project succeed? I have no idea, but I'm bloody glad that someone is trying, and if anyone can make it work, it's SpaceX.
GJC
I absolutely agree, where the RAM and SSD are on separate chips.
However, pretty much the one and only thing Apple have done of which I approve in the last couple of decades is to move the RAM onto the CPU package itself. Conceptually, even more problematic than soldering it to the motherboard, but that really is where the memory belongs, now that we have the transistor count to do it. Me, I'd love a system with both RAM and SSD on the CPU package - I wonder if Qualcomm will oblige?
GJC
Not that much of a U-turn. Keyboard shortcuts, including the Windows key, have pretty much always been the secret to an easy, smooth working day in Windows. This is why I liked Windows 8 & 8.1 when everyone else hated it, because the keyboard shortcuts continued to work perfectly and it was a much better operating system under the covers than Windows 7.
GJC
Attitude does not trump physics. That nice Mx. 42656e4d203239 stated that the difference in velocity between the asteroid belt and the moon is huge, and they were quite correct.
Mining the asteroids is feasible, but it's *way* easier to transport the machinery out to the asteroid, mine and refine the materials, then transport back only the stuff you want, which will be the very rare materials that are worth the investment in propulsion to overcome that difference in velocity in either direction. Moving the entire asteroid into Earth orbit is a massive waste of energy.
GJC
Not all of the UK tax take comes from individuals. There's Corporation Tax, various import tariffs, some VAT (there's a bunch of companies who cannot register for VAT, and therefore cannot claim it back), duties on optional purchases, and so on.
Also, I think you might be underestimating the cost of health insurance in the US, but it's not something I have much experience of. Do you have figures available?
GJC
RM380Z/480Z were both Z80. The 380Z ran CP/M, I'm not sure about the 480Z.
Where you *should* have picked Liam up was on his comprehension. In the late '80s, most well-spec'ed PCs did indeed have two floppy disk drives, one 5.25" the other 3.5", as we were in the change-over period to 3.5". That they also had hard disks was not covered in the original comment.
GJC
"Trust" does not mean what you apparently think it means.
If a small percentage of police officers are crooked, or incompetent, or insane, or possibly some combination of all three, then it becomes foolish to trust any police officer (and that counts double if you are female, or from an ethnic minority, or disabled, or...). Which places a responsibility on any individual police officer to demonstrate *very* early on in any interaction with the public that they are both trustworthy and competent. And I'm afraid to say, over the course of my life, I have not yet met one single police officer in an official capacity who understands this.
GJC
It has long been the case that early generations of challengers in any market are less capable than the incumbents. It has also long been the case that challengers sometimes win, by rapid iteration, understanding the market better than the incumbents, and very simply undercutting on price.
Still, that's never a guaranteed outcome, more often than not the challengers fail after a promising start. So, as I'm saying increasingly often these days, we will just have to wait and see what happens. I like saying this, because it seems to *really* wind up almost everyone, whether they are pro or anti. It seems not taking sides is the most radical stance one can have, in the modern era.
GJC
I have long held the view that organisations need to stop assuming that everyone knows how to use Word Processors and Spreadsheets, and get all new joiners onto a minimum of a day of training to show the basics like style sheets, outlining, and the use of formulae.
For some weird reason, this is very rarely well received, because every knows how to use WP and Spreadsheets, right?
GJC
Yeah, it's not a popular opinion, but I rather like it. Far too big for UK roads, of course, so I will never own one, but I think it looks good, and it's very durable.
I find it sad how many knee-jerk reactions are posted whenever it is mentioned. You don't like it? Cool, don't buy one. You don't have to pretend that your engineering chops are better than the whole of Tesla to justify that stance, as so many people do.
Down-vote away. I don't care, it's your own time you're wasting.
GJC
You can get joysticks and other controls that are exactly the same as the ones fitted to arcade cabinets. For example:
https://shop.xgaming.com/products/x-arcade-tankstick-trackball-usb-included
I have one here, and it makes MAME so close to the original experience. Well worth the money.
I've not yet found a good rotary controller, but to be honest I've not tried that hard.
GJC
My Model S is a very early one (2014) with none of the driver assist features. No autopilot, no park assist, nothing to interfere with the steering. No, it's definitely something fundamental about the driving ergonomics going on here, but I'm buggered if I can work out what.
GJC
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
