Posts by Alan Firminger
504 posts • joined Sunday 24th August 2008 22:03 GMT
Yes, of course.
But the institutions of government are there to be recreated on the electoral calender to survive the plebeian monstrosity. We are talking about government and its elected support.
Here in the UK what can we look forward to ?
Wrong target
Surely the server farm total power will be about 5% of the the power down stream. That is in front of our eyes.
In the UK we kill just short of a thousand each year, in the USA it is ten times that. So let us try to get this down to zero and let us get terrorism down to zero as well, but accept that the fact of a free society is that cars and bleach bomb can and will kill.
Of course I will grieve if my loved one is taken by a car, or a terrorist strike, but this does not invalidate the argument.
Posted in Pakistan signs up for China's GPS rival
Can someone please explain
How can a few satellites of a global system be accurate in one region of the Earth ?
Is it really a good business model ?
It looks like a lot of work for each customer. As the versions proliferate then things can get extremely complicated.
Surely the issue with two lost shuttles is that they suffered not bad luck but bad management.
But of course, a few hundred grams of junk could destroy the ISS tonight.
But Sweden is a very civilised place to be.
Thanks Nigel.
And I thought Andrew Adonis was still Transport Secretary.
Re: Could someone please explain me this British anti-ID obsession?
Because we don't own the government, the monarch does. We are subjects and that is hard enough.
I agree.
A background microwave radiation does not prove the Big Bang, it complies with the hypothesis.
Continuous creation, or perhaps recreation from dead photons may produce what is observed.
Yes ! Why did no customer test a sample ?
The military live with explosives, it is their job.
So before order placement why were demolition experts not given a sample and told to try the device?
Re: How can you trust them
Frightening ! Could I live by selling some of my Optimised Pooled Granulocyte ?
How do we know that our refusal was correctly processed into the system and is effective now ?
Posted in Kepler continues exoplanet bonanza
Re: If we can detect these planets...
I think the only way to detect life on these distant planets is to wait for their life forms to evolve to super intelligent then watch out for the H Bomb explosions.
Re: Poor M$
I don't feel sorry for them.
Microsoft were unethical from MSDOS, then more so when the internet let them want to own their customers. All big corporations in sight are unethical, strangely MS seem to be growing out of it.
Re: Literally?
I gave you a thumbs up Tim. There is autopilot writing in this otherwise well observed and interesting article.
Literally refers to literature, which is the inverse the what happens.
It is no way the biggest experiment of all time, nor even so far. Sending neutrons to Rome was bigger, so was Marconi transmitting across the Atlantic, so was Römer's measurement of the speed of light by timing Jupiter's moons.
And yes, usage of 'literally' is to add emphasis, I blame politicians for corrupting language by their love of false drama.
Yes, it has been tried
But we call it tidal energy.
Good old Wikepedia
This is relevant for starters : Gyrobus
And this is a primer on magnetic bearings : magnetic bearings
What is new ?
We need to know.
Quite often military aircraft have to join civil traffic streams, so their systems have to be compatible.
Does the military fly with vulnerable systems ?
That question puts a civil servant on the spot. If the answer is no then it it another betrayal of aircrew and implies that nuclear weapons could be brought down on city centres to disintegrate; and if yes then how dare they knowingly deny civil aircraft the same security.
11 September 2001
I have already posted on The Register that no civil airliner as large as a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon.
The rest is speculation.
Shortly after the atrocity happened among the doubters people were asking whether an airliner could be controlled from the ground. I knew about the beacon which transmitted and received between the ground station and the a/c flight control computer, which also provided the autopilot flying through gps co-ordinates. I was shocked then, clearly a conspiracy could provide a vulnerable rom as an update. So I was wrong, every a/c is vulnerable.
Vulnerabilities are even easier to utilise when the attacker has the code of the target system.
In researching this well before 2003 I found several pages that proposed that to beat hijacking every airliner should be subject to an overriding control from the ground. A link from 2001 is below. I was troubled because hijacking is still a threat and ground control of the system through the existing radio channels was always possible if it was coded in.
http://everything2.com/title/How+to+build+a+hijack-proof+airplane
At the time a forum post reported that Lufthansa when they took a delivery of Boeing airliners refused the standard control code and wrote their own. Fly Lufthansa.
When did Boeing system managers know that they were equipping their a/c with an OS as vulnerable as Windows ?
Re: Speed of light fallacy
I am grateful to Eadon. I think I should have written that our event horizon is limited to expansion at the speed of light.
Re: Speed of light fallacy
Since our event horizon is limited by expansion at the speed of light in all directions objects thereon that are diametrically opposite are departing from each other at twice the speed of light.
There is no frame to the universe so all speeds are relative to the observer.
Now consider objects departing from us at 0.6 c in opposite directions. They are separating from each other at above c but we could relay information between them.
.
Re: Matt Bryant and others
During the 39-45 war the RAF was an abattoir for combat aircrew,. and they knew it. The problem was to get the meat through while maintaining the intake of volunteers. Those men were heroes like no other.
Most combat crew had no more qualification than Matriculation, got at sixteen. None of the normal degree courses added a desirable skill. School maths and science was all that was required, and if a candidate did not possess the required details that could quickly be taught.
And for any bomber station ground crew was comparable in numbers to to aircrew. Sometimes they had more people in the air than on the ground. Fighters required a bit more work to keep them up.
Re: We need a relay
Good idea.
If two repeaters traveled round the sun in the earth's orbit keeping station with us at plus and minus pi / 2 then the whole solar system would be forever in communication. No one would ever miss an installment.
Price
Is it is for OEMs, who will receive 65 % discount ? Goodness knows what for, perhaps bespoke media centres will become fashionable as something to brag about in the pub.
Or is it simply to secure column inches ? That would explain the musical box.
Said so
http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Shapeways/index.html
Re: "dependent on local meteorological conditions"
Or violent.
More
There must be a team somewhere that provides all support. I imagine that would be in a twin turboprop aircraft able to operate a communication and control unit either on land or aloft and carrying the service team to wherever needed.
So what comprises support and mission control ? If anyone knows then perhaps you could post a reply.
Re: Brilliant critique of big business capitalism
I don't question work, work is terrific fun.
I don't question influence because of position.
But the second AC post I find false because AC has security now.
Re: Brilliant critique of big business capitalism
Thank you AC. But I cannot see why any of the options you describe are of benefit.
If I had 10M I could have a yacht moored in Greece and pop out there at weekends. We only get one life so why does anyone want to waste time giving the prime minister an earful ?
I suspect the reason is that it is a game and men get addicted to it. It could be played with a Monopoly board but these people do it with our money.
Brilliant critique of big business capitalism
My observation is Tesco. Customers get a good deal, shareholders can't complain, The Board of Directors get their millions and farmers commit suicide at the rate of one a week.
All the company problems we see is from a small group of people in control who maximize their take at the expense of whoever they can screw.
The question is often asked at shareholders meeting "Why are you paying shareholders a dividend when our company made a loss?" And the chairman's answer is "To secure future investment." In other words we are a Ponzi scheme.
When someone earns 100k and possesses 10M, why do they want any more ? I don't know Bernie Ecclestone so I can't ask him. I have a suspicion but if any reader is in that class I would appreciate an answer.
Re: I remember a company with lots of cash
But before the share price crashed ( Lord ) Weinstock was gone.
Re: Pretty nice machine
The shame.
I have deleted a post of mine correcting errors in the post above, because it contained an error. Full corrections are below.
In the out argument byte the span that referred to a 16K page from 512K of memory had to be 0 to 31 and addressable position was 0 to 3, So it was 5 bits for the source and 3 bits for the destination, the byte was fully used.
And I used a CPC 128 for about ten days. Pete the diver and his colleague wireman wanted to prototype a programmable industrial controller based on a Z80. I said make the controller plug compatible with a CPC 256, I will write an OS that provides a subset of CP/M . So connect the computer to the machine to be controlled and code away in any language. Write until the output runs correctly, then burn it to a ROM and plug it into the controller. A week later they showed up with a CPC 128. It was all working three days later. I hope that is entertaining.
How can the quoted chances be known
The NASA website tells us that comets have orbits that extend up to millions of years : http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/special/smbod.htm .
I am not surprised, all things are possible up to the extreme of the sun's gravity. It is a long way to our second nearest star.
Loose rocks in space can have the same extremely elliptical orbits. From the limited sample af recent observations nobody can have the faintest idea what is out there, and could arrive on this planet within a few months of discovery.
Re: Pretty nice machine
I switched pages on an Amstrad CPC256 .The address space was 64K , the page size was 16K . It was an an out command, the argument specifying which memory page, up to 16 as required by the CPC512, became which addressable page, up to 4 . Although swapping over the active page was possible there was never a need.
I am pleased US brought up the CPC128. I never used that but a mate had one, I thought it a good combination of Basic, CP/M and games. This surely was the Lynx killer, or did the Lynx die before Alan Sugar, as he then was, did this.
Suggestion
The immediate users will be game aficionados, think chess and all the games that require figures. Figures with character or aesthetic quality are especially valued. There will be twenty versions of Napoleon, perhaps 50 beautiful princesses.
These will be produced by artists and sold by post. Then the artists will put files up for sale over the web. Enthusiasts and games clubs will have printers, Salute is coming soon ( http://www.salute.co.uk/salute/salute-2013/ ) , we should see if 3D printing is there.
That is not earth shattering, but it is a commercial start.
No one knows where this will lead. Come back in twenty years, perhaps tourists will buy their souvenir of Pisa emailed to home to save having to carry it
And across the pond
Prime Minister T Blair told us that the rules were to change.
So don't imagine that the UK is not a totalitarian state.
Re: Microdrive technology
I have searched to find references to continuous loop technology. My best result is the first couple of lines from the reference below. Interesting, but the esses have disappeared.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=680&q=%22tape+loop%22+OR+%22film+loop%22&oq=%22tape+loop%22+OR+%22film+loop%22&gs_l=img.3...2718.21177.0.22448.26.15.0.11.0.0.73.940.15.15.0...0.0...1ac.1.5.img.5jA7-ze3DcI#hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=%22continuous+loop%22+AND+%28+tape+OR+film+%29&oq=%22continuous+loop%22+AND+%28+tape+OR+film+%29&gs_l=img.3...133197.168022.0.173752.65.64.1.0.0.0.84.4066.64.64.0...0.0...1c.1.5.img.pn8hipGiZuQ&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43287494,d.d2k&fp=6cb2b1d09bc8520a&biw=1366&bih=680&imgrc=8Dl6k1DZ8F0rLM%3A%3BeZImlvMe4JxNhM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fkajafax.files.wordpress.com%252F2011%252F07%252Fcart-photo-2.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fkajafax.co.uk%252F2011%252F07%252F20%252Fkajagoogoo-white-feathers-album-on-8-track-cartridge%252F%3B800%3B600
Microdrive technology
The article has a photograph of a spooled infinite loop and later describes this. My Microdrive was different. I describe my experience of the two methods of running a continuous loop to provide a bit of history.
The spool :
In 1947 I met continuous display from 16 mm film. A unit was provided that mounted on the projector. This pulled the film from the inside of a coil and fed the film back to the outside of the coil. The axis of the coil was vertical, the film edge rested on rollers so it circulated without much friction. The theory was that pulling the film out from the inside caused little or no friction as the movement was always away from the neighbouring surface. It worked almost perfectly. At an exhibition a film would run for a total of say 50 hours, and be pretty horrible at the end.
The esses :
In 1970 I met more continuous loop of film in microfilm duplication. This threw film into a chamber that contained it and drew film out from the bottom of the chamber. Within the chamber the film forms itself into a stack of esses. We would run a loop of several hundred feet at 120 feet per minute. Of course there was degradation, but not much. Silver emulsion survived several hundred passes, tougher materials were available for intermediates. At computer fairs there were big versions of this on display handling wide mag tape to drive the demos.
In 1984 I found Microdrives would fail after ten accesses, reported way above.
I broke open a carttridge and discovered that the method of recycling the loop was the esses but horizontal. The tape rested on its edge. I conjecture that this was the original design and the spool described in the article was a later version to provide a useable product. Several contributors above speak well of the Microdrive, perhaps their cartridges were version 2 .
Re: These were great
I got a microdrive with half a dozen cartridges and the necessary interface. After ten reads or writes each and every cartridge failed. I threw the lot away.
And on that basis I never touched a QL .
I am getting the picture ...
... that American women lawyers are less complacent, or crooked, than men.
Posted in Samsung, Visa in pay-by-bonk tie up
If you had it on American Express it made a lasting impression.
Re: What's that in square fettuccine? And who owns the patent on the file format?
320 GB - No, like google skyview it just gives you what you need.
I don't comprehend why it drags in the wrong direction.
Fantastic.
NASA's preference is "land on the foreign object and deflect it in situ"
Why would humans on the rock be necessary ? We don't have to negotiate with or even civilize the natives.
Mechanics can be automatic. Setting a sail, that is as on a yacht adjusting it for the required effect, can be done from a wonderful control room containing 300 engineers all looking to party, and probably an equal number of tv feeds.
Perhaps we're all doomed, again
Was the meteor that crashed into the Urals traveling in formation with tonight's space rock ?
If they are related then how much else is there to come ?
