Posts by MD Rackham

Re: I always feared the worst

Yes, Macrovision. The company that used to provide "copy protection" for VHS tapes.

Utterly unrelated to Macromedia, which is why they have different names.

Re: Picking a Future

Using the phrase "dependent on taxpayer dollars" is what is known as a "tell."

Re: Boom-bust

Back in the late 80s I hired a guy as a software development manager whose previous experience was as a rocket nozzle designer. Laid off in 1971 as part of the Apollo wind-down (Orange County/Long Beach designed and built a lot of the Saturn series rockets). But he recognized software was where it was at (back in those days, anyway) and moved on. Had some good stories relating to hypergolic fuel accidents. (Do not put ear to engine when you hear an unexpected hissing if the fuel is unsymmetric-dimethylhydrazine.)

Great guy, successful hire.

Re: Business is the only decent part of modern civilization

Wow. Somebody's been drinking the Kool-Aid.

Re: Good for competition?

There is no shortage of qualified IT personnel in the US. It's all a product of wanting to pay very low salaries and not even interview people over 40.

Hire some "olds" (i.e., experienced workers) and raise salaries to attract more people and the problem is solved with local talent.

I pay well over the market and am always amazed at the quality of applicants I get. The extra salary expense is easily recouped from having extremely low turnover, thus little downtime getting new hires up to speed. But then, as a private company, I'm allowed to think beyond the current quarter.

Re: Hmm...

"and to tell Apple to fuck off when they threaten to sue because ProRes is proprietary"

You first. Let me know how your legal battle goes, and how your lawyers like their Veyrons.

And ffmpeg doesn't allow for retrieving random frames from GOP encoded codecs, making it useless for most video apps. (And the fork that does (slowly) provide for that is GPL (not LGPL) which rules it out for commercial software.)

Re: It's better than you might think.

I can't think of a bigger growth market for Microsoft to enter than the design of radial aero-engines.

Good thinking MS marketing!

Re: The problem is the natural outgrowth of legislation, at least in the US.

"I believe it's the People's Job to take care of each other"

I agree. That's why the people (as in "we the people") banded together to, amongst other things, "promote the general welfare." Compare and contrast to libertarian paradises like Somalia.

[Obviously speaking American here, but most countries have something similar, in theory if not in practice.]

Hmmm...my recollection is that the original estimates of LOC (loss of orbiter and crew) were around 1 in 250. After Challenger a review put the odds at a little worse than 1 in 100. And after Columbia it was (quietly) put at around 1 in 30, hence the retirement of the Shuttle.

Re: Money for nothing ?

They didn't refurbish anything before test firing the returned booster.

For a paying customer, I'd expect that they'd at least run it through a car wash to get the soot off. Who wants their satellite launched on a dirty rocket?

Also, the fact that the engines don't need any refurbishment (unlike, say, the Shuttle engines) doesn't mean there aren't other parts of the booster that might need some refurb.

Re: Sounds like marketing speak BS to me

I suspect that the thief who tries to steal a large tank of Prussian blue will be fairly easy to identify.

(Old enough to remember handling real blueprints, not diazo bluelines.)

Re: Alternative headline

"Do you wear tinfoil-hats to protect yourself against their feminine man-controlling mind-rays too?"

Surely you know that their man-controlling rays don't come from their minds. Likewise we men need to wear the tinfoil lower down to be fully protected.

Alternatively, you could just treat co-workers as co-workers rather than as everyday (or weekend-only) man-hating feminazis.

Re: "reputation of being somewhat of a talented programmer."

Over many years and some painful experiences, I've learned that anyone who says "we'll create a special language" needs to be fired as quickly as possible. They've revealed that their priority is not solving the problem at hand. They are absolute poison.

Re: How high?

I can easily hit the power lines 2+ miles from my house using a 500mW green laser pointer held in my hand.

I've never tried hitting a plane because I've mastered the whole actions/consequences thing, plus they are already at about 15,000' by the time they're over my house.

As others have pointed out, the atmospheric backscatter makes the beam easily visible. Which is why it works so well as a star pointer, the reason I bought it in the first place. (Although I suppose some Jovian pilot may have complained when I pointed out the planet to my wife the other night.)

Re: A Solution

Good thing there are no tax returns involved in collecting excise, sales, and other consumption taxes.

Sheesh. Another overly simplistic solution hiding a massive tax break for the wealthy.

Hybrid!

Most of what I've seen talks about actual use of this is in a hybrid configuration. Use batteries to power the motors for takeoff, then switch to conventional turbofans for cruise at which time they can also recharge the batteries.

Or use both electric motors and turbofans for takeoff. That allows the turbofans to be optimized for cruise without the high-power requirements that takeoffs currently require. The idea being improved fuel burn and less noise.

And probably coming to commuter planes a long time before you see an electric A-380.

Re: Orbits, rings, anyone?

Really hard to insert a probe into orbit considering how fast the probe needs to go to get there in a reasonable length of time. At least Uranus has a deeper gravity well than, say, Pluto, but the probe would still need to slow down a lot for orbital capture, and that takes lots of fuel.

Anyone want to try aerobraking in an atmosphere we know so little about, all the while dodging "dark" rings?

Re: Ludicrous lawsuit. No tangible injury.

Germans can do no wrong, eh? Or if they do wrong, they should be left off the hook because, I don't know, they're German? No, VW has been exposed as lying cheats and need to be penalized.

You import cars, you agree to obey the rules, which have penalties attached to them. Don't want to obey the rules, don't import cars. Try to cheat instead? You pay the penalties.

The rules are very carefully specified and clear to anyone who cares to read, not "holy EPA scriptures," whatever that implies.

As for test results not matching road results: of course there is a difference. But go back and look at the phrase you chose to ignore: "significantly higher."

If you drive the car on the road and run the same basic profile as the tests, the results should be similar. Not "significantly higher."

And you might want to brush up on US legal forms if you want to understand why there are such odd-sounding things as a "prayer for relief" and an injunction against VW cheating and lying again.

(Rant back at ya)

Re: Composable infrastructure?

I don't get the point of Compostable Infrastructure when all these make-some-consultant-rich buzzwords are bullshit to begin with.

Re: But

The one where the email content is being monetized for someone else's benefit?

Re: 400 times harder than diamond???

It may be 400x harder than diamond, but it could also be extremely brittle.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

And he wasn't physically in the Tardis, just mentally as with a "puzzle room."

Good episode, except for the "just like a 3D printer" line. That was kind of jarring for some reason.

Re: Obsolete tech

Heck, I programmed in the original IAL, before Jule's Own Version of IAL came around.

I prominently feature that on my resume (along with ALGOL, SAIL, SNOBOL, and Bliss) yet I get no responses. Why is that?

Re: Too fast?

So I guess your world is all WiFi, USB, and laptops? You probably don't need a 10GbE connection.

But there are plenty of 10GbE PCI cards at reasonable cost. and you can even connect them up via Thunderbolt. WiFi isn't up to the task, but they make these things called cables that will work just fine at that speed.

OK, switches are still overpriced, but if more ISPs would offer 10GbE connections prices would not only drop for switches, but you'd start seeing more motherboard and laptop connections. Very much chicken and egg, but the ISPs are the ones really dragging their heels.

As for the home use case, have you looked at 4K UHD HDR streaming bandwidth requirements?

(Not that anyone truly "needs" any broadband. But it does make life more pleasant.)

Re: lithium in the avionics bay, in the passenger areas and the cockpit but not in the hold then...

If there's a fire in the cockpit or passenger compartment, someone will notice far sooner than a fire in the cargo hold. Plus there's a huge difference between the individual batteries used/stored there and a pallet of batteries in cargo.

A flaming iPhone may badly burn an individual passenger, but doesn't threaten the aircraft. In the hold an ignited pallet of batteries is likely to compromise the airframe. A bad day indeed. The "fireproof" cargo containers and fire suppression systems cannot deal with a large lithium fire as they were designed for more conventional fires.

The avionics bay is a bit of a special case as they have more monitoring/alarms and are designed to contain/vent a fire.

Re: Dont tell me...

Depends on the EULA you accepted the first time you turned the key and activated the starter.

Re: You wanna talk about fair?

But you had IP rights in whatever it is you create, and apparently bargained them away by agreeing that said creation is a "work for hire."

That's your choice, and presumably you're being compensated appropriately for having given up that right. Most people are more comfortable with the security of a salary or hourly rate than they are gambling that hanging on to the IP rights will pay adequately in the future. Most creative work returns nothing in future IP revenues. Ask any musician or artist. (Of course, a lucky few make a fortune, but it is only a few.)

Re: philip@lembobrothers.com

I probably dump millions of tons of curry into the atmosphere each year, at least after it's been metabolized to methane.

Too bad methane is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

Re: Stance on tech?

He seems a bit more teco to me.

One can build wind and solar farms dedicated to H2 production, rather than use existing farms connected to the grid. It's a lot easier to store enough H2 to get you through calm/cloudy days than it is to store electrical power.

Anything that reduces hydrocarbon consumption from driving little Billy the half mile to school is a Good Thing as it leaves more hydrocarbons for feedstock use. If we burn it all up for personal transport then prices for feedstock are going to get very high indeed. Plus there are the CO2/NOX et al reduction benefits.

Re: alternatives?

Steam launchers.

Spray water vapor into an expansion chamber at the back of the rocket, pulse a laser up it and the expansion of the steam provides thrust.

Power storage on the ground to run the laser is a challenge, but recent progress in military lasers (US Navy) is quite promising.

Oh yeah, you also have to have a really good aiming system, although you need that for zapping incoming hypersonic missiles too.

Re: Paranoid

Just because they're out to get you doesn't meant they aren't right.

Re: Prints are left everywhere

Write someone a check.

You've just given them your bank account number, signature, and fingerprints. And usually address and phone number.

Re: Sounds like a good idea

Or you could just download the .iso and share it across your local network or put it on a USB stick.