Re: "In order to supply enough power, the aircraft depends on its battery packs"

Especially if the bit of red ribbon gets stuck underneath and so in mid-fligth you need to extract 100,000 AA batteries with the end of a pencil.

Re: cosy cosy cosy

There is no question of national interests interfering in a commercial Airline's business !

It just happens that no US airline, in receipt of lots of US government aid, chooses to fly Airbus.

And there was no link between BA choosing to buy some Airbusses and getting more landing slots in CDG.

The main reason for Airbus building the A380 is to stop airlines having to buy Boeing if they need a 400+ seat plane.

Re: battery cooling

" is it pressurized, "

Generally the whole of the inside of the fuselage is pressurised.

It's very difficult to make a tube where the bit the passengers are in is pressurised but a thin floor away is a cargo hold that isn't. The exception is some planes where you want to open the cargo bay doors in flight - for those special deliveries.

The airlines themselves don't seem to understand this and used to tell you not to put certain items in the checked baggage because they might be damaged by the lack of pressure.

The only difference is that the cargo hold isn't heated (except for the bits you put pets or sleeping crew in)

Re: Good news

"Who did the inspectors who qualified the 787 work for?"

It's standard in any safety critical industry - and it' the only way to do it.

If the inspectors from the FAA/CAA were directly inspecting the plane - they would have to know more about the design of aircraft in general and the 787 in detail than the Boeing engineers themselves.

Instead the inspectors are checking Boeing's procedures and methodology - just as our ISO auditors do to us.

They don't read through our code with a deep understanding of our business logic - they look at our history of tests, bugs, resolutions, plans etc - and assume we didn't make it all up.

Re: What a mess...

One of Boeing's unique innovations in the 78 was that often the supplier was also responsible for the design of the component.

It saves on a lot of expensive engineers in Seattle - but does make it rather tricky to change vendors.

Boeing have certainly gone very quite on all the statements they made about carbon fiber planes when an American Airlines pilot tried to do a handbrake turn in an Airbus A300 and broke the tail off.

Ironically this is also the only Airbus model that has direct Boeing-style controls that allowed the pilot to break it - rather than a computer that would have stopped him

Re: Good news

It's a very good sign of the FAA attitude.

The NTSB was created because the FAA used to be in charge of investigating air accidents AND promoting air travel - which led to all their accident reports concluding it was a one-in-a-million act of god that could never happen again.

More recently the FAA have got into trouble for giving US airlines an easy ride on safety violations because it would cost American jobs. Then there was the statement by some US politician that anyone criticising a company as vital to US defense as Boeing was at least a traitor and probably a terrorist.

re: Am I glad I live in the UK

Of course unless Britain wants to be thought of as an axis of evil/supporter of terrorism it will wish to get alongside the forces of Righteousness and implement these rules itself.

After all we bravely fought Europe for the right to have 1 year warranties rather than 2 - having locked phones is a fundamental sign of Freedom(tm)

Re: I know I am a bad person

>you'll always be a Catholic but with care you will avoid any ill effects.

If you joined the Taliban, you'd merely be regarded as a bad Catholic. (Dara O'Briain)

>Being responsible for aids being spread

Apart from banning condoms, and refusing to cooperate with health and medical aid programs that supply condoms in areas with high levels of AIDS.

The Vatican's Council for the Family made an official announcement that condoms do not prevent AIDS and that AIDS virus can pass through condoms.

Re: Common sense applies

It's not just a question of "people on a watchlist" worrying.

Lots of us have rules about what medium we can use for certain communications. Anyone who works for a public listed company, files patents, works with patient data or defense contracts has these rules.

If there is a secret NSA back door that probably only effects the bad guys - although if i were BAe or Airbus I wouldn't be using skype anymore.

But if the data is also "passed to our partners for marketing purposes" - then the lawyers will decide that a skype call is the equivalent of publishing it. So I can't use it for anything work related. The point is that I need an official statement to wave at the lawyers.

Re: High speed okay - if the ISP doesn't rip you off!

What a rip-off, the ISP not providing an individual transpac cable for each subscriber for your 12quid.

It's the same here with road tax, you pay it for your car and are expected to share the road with others!

Re: Apple did not invent mobile computing, nor even make it real.

The German army had mobile devices rather before the 90s.

The security was better than Apple, at least assuming you didn't always use "hitler" as the passwd

Re: What has this got to do with a Supernova?

Nothing - they are completely unconnected 'facts' about the star.

The density of the gas bar is so small the star won't notice

Re: Analysis

They could just upload the movies to "mega", I'm sure the$48m would pay for a premium account

Re: Quite correct

It's easy to safely dispose of mercury, especially as you said, the sulphide

We could then dig a series of tunnels deep underground and put the cinnabar into holes in the rock.

We could call it an "enim"

Re: And tradesman (VAT = Turnover tax!!)

Remember the VAT limit is on turnover not fees.

If you are the sort of business with lots of stock but low fees you pay VAT, if you are the sort of business with no stock to buy but all the money goes into fees then no VAT (if you are happy earning 77K)

I wonder how many lawyers and accountants were involved in the drafting of the law - and how many builders ?

Re: So...

But if the government increased tax then Starbucks would move it's operations out of the UK and employ cheap chinese labour to drink it's burnt coffee

Re: Well lets put this way...

- choosing a car for its snow handling when it only matters one week a year is asinine.

To be fair you only expect a Jeep to be in working order one week a year.

If you are really lucky then that coincides with the snow

(smug owner of Subaru with snow tyres ;-)

Re: Small car please

> the point of 300+HP .... 155mph

Because only a few of us have the massively impressive man-parts to be allowed to drive a Smart, or a 1.2L Citroen AX diesel. Those of you with more inadequate bits are forced to buy these mechanical supplements

Of course real super-men ride a bike - I've got 21gears and wear lycra in public ;-)

Re: meh

>Remember this is a tech site not a group of 12 year-olds discussing what they will do when they 'are grown up'.

Specifically it's a tech site for 30/40years olds to discuss what they would do if they were grown up

Re: Masters of backfire

>Where will it end?

Zimbabwe if we are doing them alphabetically

re: women continually asking you for "business".

IR35 has really made the contracting business tough

Re: "a building that will "range in height" from 7 to 11 storeys tall."

>Will a big cover retract from the top floors when it reaches its full erect height?

Depends what sites they are Googling !

Re: The going rate

>Can you tell us more about why they'd be paying less in business rates?

Because they will get a huge community catalyst innovation injection to bring the wonder of online icloudy goodness to the poor depressed capital

You can bet they are getting a bigger back hander than any Japanese car plant in a marginal constituency

re: @VIglooDude

To be fair, top gear only has 2 1/2 tits

Re: Ahh, but...

But remember these are the elite republican guards so we must attack first

... certain sense of deja vu ?

Re: Try comparing like with like

Then add in support.

For an extra $300 Dell will add next day support where they will send a 3rd party technician out to replace some random part of your laptop (often even the correct part). If anything else doesn't work they will just blame MSFT.

Included in the price of the Mac is walk into a Mac store anywhere in the world and people who, even if they aren't actually geniuses, do at least know about Macs - will fix it or swap it.

Re: Why does everyone assume there are only two smartphone price points?

>. Fashion accessories are only worth buying when everyone else can see that they're expensive

But these are only going to be sold in India and China. Do you want to sell a couple of $1000 phones to a few expats and millionaires kids, or do you want to sell 100million $250 phones to the new middle class?

The nice thing about cell phones is that you can ensure that they aren't imported back to the home market to devalue the brand

There is such a thing as being too high-end, people buy BMW and Armani because they can't afford Bentley and Saville row

Re: Not for flight

>battery pack might burst into flames while the plane is flying

Unused, sealed, disconnected, in their shipping boxes Li batteries have caught fire and destroyed aircraft

it's not unreasonable that one connected to a complex set of aircraft systems, even if nominally not in use , could catch fire

>Anything of an electronic nature must be certified if it's to go on an aircraft

Certified yes, - tested, well err .......

A lot of avition safety comes from the methodology of; we have always done it like this and it worked. That is coupled with a lot of certification to show that you are doing it exactly like you have always done it, and that nobody in the supply chain has changed anything without telling you. That's why an aircraft coffee machine costs $5000.

The 787, like a lot of modern planes and most modern military kit, uses a lot of COTS systems with the assumption that if they have been used for years in an office they are well known. This hasn't always proved the case when they are put in more challenging applications

The problem here is that the system design was outsourced by Boeing (who know lots about planes) to Thales (who know about electronics) to Yusa (who know about batteries) to god-knows-who subcontractor

And as long as everybody filled in the paperwork it was assumed this was as good as Boeing designing it themselves.

Re: Aircraft + fire

>Boeing ... kicked off the triple 7 program & I was highly impressed at what I saw.

With their plan to outsource not only manufacture but design of each part to the lowest bidder, and then have each of those suppliers contract it out to their lowest bidder and so on with no oversight?

I have to buy fscking USB cables for $$$ from an ISO certified supplier and have a formal process of validating and inspecting that supplier and yet the design of bits of 787 get outsourced so far down the tree that Boeing have to formally admit they have no idea who DESIGNED some parts.

Re: Where's the market?

>So the RPi is a base model Android phone? Hmm, let's see.

No the RPi is a very cheap Linux PC

This is just an Android phone without the screen/phone

If I want a cheap Linux PC to play with I get an RPi

If I want the identical hardware that a million other people have and are hacking on - I get an RPi

If I want a cheap Android to play with I get a $50 tablet or a $50 Android-on-a-stick

I can't see why I would buy this

Re: Mis-read

Couldn't we just make it official, like the DVLC?

If you want to pay the government for some private information on somebody - shouldn't there be an ecommerce site where you can just pay (+VAT) and the taxpayer benefits?

Re: Just a consumer.

>I really can't understand why anyone who wants to read books would use a tablet.

If they are already carrying a tablet why would they also carry an ereader?

I swapped reading on the tablet for an ereader but now I just read on my phone - it's always with me, why would I carry another brick onto the train?

Might change my mind again if we ever see the sun - ereaders are great in the summer.

Re: > Using the NUMBER of Patents as a guide to anything ... anything whatsoever ... is DUMB.

But where you file is an interesting measure.

You file where you want to stop somebody else SELLING a copy of your idea

So you don't bother filing in the Isle of Man or Luxembourg. If somebody wants to set up a factory to clone your idea so they can sell 3 a year, go ahead.

You file in Germany because there are 80Million rich potential customers

Re: Make it easier

Your wish is granted http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/12/new_european_patent_system/

Re: @Turtle - @austerusz

There was a conviction for computer hacking in the UK

The person made a charity donation on a website, he didn't get a confirmation page so manually added "/.." to the address just to check that it wasn't a dodgy link.

He was found guilty and got a minor fine. Except he can't get a job now with a criminal record, can't travel to the US, gets his DNA in lots of police databases .....

Re: @Chris 'We were big softies all the way' - Yeah, right

The prosecutor effectively decides the sentence.

Almost all crimes in the US (and certainly all white-collar crimes) are decided by plea bargain.

The prosecutor offers 6months if you plead guilty, or threatens 30years if you don't

It saves court time and money and leads to the prosecutor getting a very politically advantages 100% conviction rate

Re: Plan B? Plan C?

>"Produce explosive device that goes off at the right time" (the last bit's really important).

There's an app for that

I'm sure Walmart could sell ready-bang (tm) ready to use explosive devices for the domestic terrorist in a hurry

Re: Guns don't kill people

And kids who grew up in the 70s would be playing squash, very slowly, in black and white