Lying sac of merde

"It's necessary to close fiscal loopholes to restore fairness."

Yah. Right. You could "restore fairness" by dropping the other taxes, of course, but for that option to be mentioned would be only slightly less likely than naming Cheddar the French National Cheese.

For the obtuse: It isn't about fairness. It is about money.

...Paris because, erm, we're talking about France and all...

socks?

"...unlocked the secret to letting beer age without it tasting like old socks."

Old socks? No. As a few others have pointed out, old beer tastes like skunk, or at least what I imagine skunk tastes like based on its odor. Really old beer tastes like the asshole of a two-day-dead-in-the-hot-sun road-killed skunk, or at least what I imagine etc., etc., etc.

badge reel again

Thanks, Martin. I did think about using the zinger line as the main tether line but was unsure of its tensile strength and the total weight of the truss, electronics, and spacecraft.

On further thought, running the zinger line from the truss to the Y in the tether might work even better/faster and eliminate or at least greatly reduce any chance of tangled lines interfering with the backup function if needed.

...Paris, because she's the real zinger!

badge reel

OK, let's see if I understand the requirements. We need a backup firing trigger in case the balloon bursts prematurely. The backup must fire the rocket within a second or so after the burst, must be (relatively) immune to turbulence induced false positives, and must be a mechanical system, the simpler the better. OK?

My proposed solution will take a little trial and error testing but seems sound in concept - at least to me. Take an ordinary security/ID badge reel of the sort that clips to your belt and allows you to pull the badge out on a string for normal use and then reels the badge back in by means of a spring powered reel. At the reel end, place two electrical contacts which, when shorted, activate the firing mechanism. At the badge end of the string, place a metal washer or equivalent. Place the reel on the truss in such a position that when the string is extended it is parallel to the upper tether, the part above the Y, and attach the washer at or just below where the tether attaches to the balloon.

When the balloon bursts, the reduction in tension on the main tether must be sufficient for the reel-in spring to bring the washer down to hit the contacts on the reel, firing the rocket.

The trial/error part is finding such a badge reel with just the right strength spring. If you can locate one, the time it takes for the string to reel in should be, if not right on one second, a fairly short time. An advantage of the time it takes to reel the washer down to make contact is that temporary turbulent induced reduction in main tether tension ought not to be long enough for a false activation, and when the turbulence passes the badge reel mechanism will tend to reset itself.

LOHAN must suck HEAT while mounted on rigid rod

Let's take a step back and consider whether it is a good design to place the heat source in LOHAN herself. Yeah, yeah, you have that nice heating pad and it would be a shame for it to be cast aside. However, if the truss-mounted electronics enclosure also enclosed a small heat source and a very small fan, then simple plastic soda straw duct-work could deliver heated air to LOHAN's innards. For the connection itself, consider two straws of different diameter with one fitting inside the other, perhaps gently sealed with a little bit of that Molykote 33.

The resulting weight reduction of LOHAN would mean that the mighty rocket thrust at the exquisite climactic moment would push her to heretofore unimaginable heights of ecstasy.

transformer using titanium rod as core

Titanium is paramagnetic and if my ancient memory serves, then the rod could function as the core of an isolation transformer. This assumes that the heater would work acceptably using AC instead of DC and as it is a plain resistance load this is likely true. Batteries stay on the truss, DC run through small inverter to get AC, then wind some magnet wire around the titanium rod. From the spaceplane, make a few turns around the teflon plug and run the resulting AC to the heater pad.

Feel free to laugh at and ridicule me if this is an insane idea. If it works, just knowing I had a small part in helping this magnificent effort will be reward enough for me.

benignity

The most benign thing any govt can do to foster innovative entrepreneurs of any sort is to get out of their way and ignore them.

Maximum sensitivity

With thanks and apologies to Brian Wragg, might I suggest a substitution for the shrink-wrap, one that might also be useful for your quick power disconnection requirement? If the 57 mm Al tube is close to the size of your heater-and-space-blanket-wrapped rocket motor, then a condom could be unrolled over the assembly to hold it all together. Folding the bottom back over itself and then down again would give you a rubber insulated elasticized pocket to hold loosely twisted power supply wires for the heater. Especially with a lubricated condom, the wires should pull apart readily when the time, erm, comes. This admittedly possibly poppycock [1] idea would certainly be consistent with the spirit of this noble endeavor: clever, effective, cheap, and (when possible) lewd.

1. The word "poppycock" is all the justification I need for the Paris icon.

Oh, joy

Airports will become a modern version of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol but with enforced audience participation.

Surprising there's no Apple iPud on the market.

...mine's the one with the pocketful of AAs

Check your assumptions

How is it that so many people seem to think it is debatable at all that governments, quintessentially coercive organizations, have any legitimate basis for controlling the way individuals choose to communicate with each other? The UN is just a collection of such governments (plus a bunch of arrogant and condescending NGOs) having even less legitimacy for this and many other matters.

As for those poo-poohing those who call this a conspiracy for control, the UN's modus operandi has long been to delegate the control they crave to its member governments. Whether the regulation comes directly from the UN or form member states is irrelevant to the fact that such control is in effect.

A Haiku of Requiem

SPB shortcut:

trusting government data,

sad playmonaut loss.

Anonymous "Team Register" coward?

Great final paragraph:

Last week, it lobbied against meetings organised by the International Telecommunications Union. The Choc Factory claimed that some of the proposals to overhaul the 1988 communications treaty could be bad news for free speech. In reality, it could be more of an issue for Google's bottom line seeing as it might be forced to pay for more stuff.

Google's bottom line notwithstanding, the UN's intended authoritarian-friendly takeover of the 'net would be catastrophic for reasons well laid out by many non-Googlers, including this Wall Street Journal article, which memorably observes

Having the Internet rewired by bureaucrats would be like handing a Stradivarius to a gorilla.

I think I understand (but hardly approve of) no one at The Register wanting to claim authorship of that last para.

p.s. Sure would be nice if <blockquote> worked here.

1978 Lufthansa job not the biggest

There have been many larger robberies in U.S. history than the Lufthansa job, and they've all been perpetrated by the U.S. federal govt. OK, that's arguable, but there's one very straightforward case that is easy to explain, quantify, and understand.

In 1933, President F.D.Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates within the continental United States". There were some exceptions allowed but as a percentage that amounted to very little. There are various estimates of the amount of gold turned in for the $20;67 offered by the govt for each Troy ounce of gold. The Treasury won't say, of course, as it seems we Merkins can't be trusted with that sort of information. I'll use the lowest estimate of 1.8 million Troy ounces (56 tonnes) although some sources say it could have been several hundred tonnes.

The robbery was two-part. First was the confiscation of the gold itself, albeit gold holders were paid $20.67 per oz. The second and most egregious part was that immediately after the govt got its greed paws on the gold they raised the gold exchange rate to $35 per oz. If it were allowed, which it wasn't, purchasing gold with dollars would cost $14.33 more per ounce than a few months earlier.

Do the multiplication and you'll find that gold holders had been robbed of $25.8 million - but that's in 1933 dollars. Using the extremely conservative (and highly suspect) Consumer Price Index price inflation figures from that same larcenous govt, applying the 1933 to 2012 rate of 1,680% to that $25.8 million means that the robbery of gold holders by their own govt would be over $430 million today.

So, that Lufthansa job was small change. It takes a govt to pull the really big robberies.

Talk about failure to comprehend!

"A few counter-secession petitions have been started as well, including one that calls for deportation of signers of secessionist petitions, and another that suggests they should be stripped of their citizenship and exiled."

Let's see now. The signers of the secession petitions want not to be physically or politically in the U.S.A. So the counter-proposal is to make them physically and politically no longer in the U.S.A.

Epic reading comprehension FAIL.

Amazing! Thank you very much.

I was delighted to find in this article the sentence "Past histories of Dragon have often mentioned an unnamed portable that was intended to be pitched to business buyers."

My estimation is that out of every 100 occurrences of the expression "past history" at least 99 are cringe-worthy usage errors. I just finished posting a critical comment in another El Reg article after noting one of those incorrect usages.

This correct example brought tears to this old pedant's eyes.

Usage FAIL

"Still, that is past history."

*cringe*

Did you mean "history?"

toehold

Yes, the stated list includes only kiddie pr0n now, but the bureaucracy and technical structure will be in place, ready for quick additions to keep everyone safe from future bêtes noire du jour.

ORGASMIC

Online

Real-time

GPS-based

Altitude

Sensor

Module and

Ignition

Controller

cultural preferences

I had a nice laugh over the posts from those who find these two foods nauseating. I suspect that a blindfold might make a lot of difference as both can be quite delicious. Non gustibus and all that, though.

I was very fortunate as a boy and young man to live on more than one continent and experience several cultures, especially their cuisines. It's not that I find all foods to my liking, but I'm never put off by the idea of any food. This makes it possible, among other things, to enjoy a delightful substitution for croutons. Earthworms or grubs seasoned with a bit of garlic fry up very nicely and are good and crunchy on my salad.

My father grew up near Philadelphia and we had Reading Terminal Market scrapple in the house as early as I can remember. I've always loved it. Souse just doesn't have a good texture for my tastes, though.

Video games developers are salivating

Just wait until this is incorporated into video display technology.

I can see it now..."Mortal Kombat LXXVII - It will SUCK YOU RIGHT INTO THE ACTION!"

...Paris because she would've been perfect for my first idea about a practical application of this new tech.

There's an opportunity here

Don't want to convert pints to half-litres? Then convert to .6 litres.

We'd get a little more and we could call them "points" instead of "pints."

sliding how fast?

Aircraft altitudes, meanwhile, are commonly given in feet, as any pilot will tell you. Sure, there's a slow slide towards metres...

That slide is only half-slow (or half-fast if you will). My estimate is about two score furlongs per fortnight.

Meh

I grew up with English units and learned Metric as well at an early age. I work with both and can think in either. If I were uncharitable I'd say that caring deeply about this question is a symptom of mental deficiency. But I am charitable so I'll say that caring deeply about this question simply a likely error in prioritisation.

I hope the decision's upheld, heh, heh, heh.

Govts all over the world, and the U.S. govt especially, are increasingly seen as organized crime writ large. If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees with the 2nd Circuit and says Americans are not free to sell used copyrighted goods, this will simply increase the level of contempt (well deserved) in which that institution is held, and increase the flouting of the law. I'd welcome that.