Posts by Yesnomaybe
123 posts • joined Thursday 6th May 2010 10:14 GMT
Re: Situation normal
"Brace for core-dump!"
Re: Watches
My Omega has a saphire for glass, and I can tell you that when I accidentally hit it with the edge of a spinning grinding disc on an angle-grinder, it saved my wrist from unsightly abarasion, and although metal was smeared accross the glass, this came off, and there was no scratch in the saphire. Incredible stuff, I'll be wanting a phone with that stuff as a screen.
Isn't the gathering and potentially the hunting of extra resources a bit outside the brief? One would assume the challenge would be to carry out ones normal day-to-day activities in spite of only spending a quid a day. I could spend £0,- per day if I dedicated my working day to gathering food in the wild. Good article though, I applaud the effort and so on....
Re: Gawdelpus
Well you aren't really in a position to comment then, are you?
Posted in Ants have careers; you don't want them
Re: Could it be because foraging is more dangerous?
Spot on: Use the units nearest their end-of-life for the activity that carries the highest risk. You beat me to it.
Re: Supercomputer Ipad
Super-Dooper Computer
Re: If they were going to target the UK
Shipments of bananas and Brazil nuts don't set off alarms for no reason at all. Container-ports have detectors.
Re: Fingers crossed...
I'm not so worried about what North Korea might or might not do. What scares me is what the US might do. And then what China might do, in response. FFS, if you see a rabid dog, why go and poke it with a stick? Why fly bombers over North Korea? Seems a bit foolhardy. Hope this won't lead to some humanitarian catastrophe. But you could argue North Korea already is one.
I suffer...
...from Gilberts disease. I assume the cause of this is tied up to these islands in some way?
Gilberts disease is pretty handy, as it is symptomless (for me anyway) and can be used as an excuse for all sorts of things: "Sorry dear, I can't come shopping, my Gilberts is giving me terrible gypp"
or
"I have to keep horizontal here on the sofa for a couple of hours, my Gilberts is acting up something fierce again"
Posted in Boffins shine new light on dark matter
Re: Confused
I tried "The Dark Stuff" once, and it DID cause severe fluctuations, and even some disturbances to the space-time, insomuch I can't account for around 6 hours.
Re: Questions
"Basically, you can store the hot oil and use it at night when the sun isn't shining."
I misread that. Thought you said WHERE the sun isn't shining.
Re: Life in Mars
This just proves YOU are one of THEM!
Re: SR-71 some planes are so cool
I went to Duxford a while back, to do a little job with putting together the equipment for digitizing film taken from the forward mounted cameras on Spitfires (Operated by the trigger-button for the machine guns, so a lot of the film depicts disintegrating German planes), and on the last day, I finished early and had time to wander around on the airfield-side of the road for a bit. I literally could not believe my eyes when I happened across the Blackbird. So rare, and such a beautiful, single-minded machine. Didn't know there was only 20 left in the world.
Re: 24 litres per second?
Could be right. A 2 liter engine, spinning at 3000 rpm, tries to suck in ..mumble... (4 stroke engine probably) mumble.... 3000L of air per minute. Divide by 60 gives 50L per second, assume 50/50 air/hydrogen mix. Yeah, that kinda works.
Wow!
Silly glasses, but the picture made me jump. My hair is a bit lighter, but that guy could be mistaken for me! Hope he keeps his glasses on.
Re: I'll
"I dont want to listen to what you watched last weekend , or the latest ****ing football scores, I'm not ****ing interested in how many woman you shagged or ****ing fast your stupid iPhone is.. I'm here to solve problems and I dont ****ing well need your useless ****ing prattle putting me off, now **** off and bother someone who ****ing cares"
Let's not confuse "cold and unfeeling" with "insulting and rude"
"Insulting and rude" would indicate an awareness on other peoples emotional capacity, evidenced by the attempt to influence their mood in a negative fashion. So your engineer friend is actually less dysfunctional than the rest of us. He is also an arsehole, but that is a separate matter...
I am an engineer (Electronics), and my partner works in the healthcare industry. She would certainly agree with the article, and basically claims I am not just unfeeling, but borderline autistic. She says this a lot, and it would obviously hurt my feelings, if I had any.
She, on the other hand, has to look after her staff and "customers", their emotional welfare and so on. By all accounts she does this reasonably well. She also runs her car absolutely into the ground, does not pick up on noises/vibration/smoke/warning-lights and other danger-signs. She'll happily drive off on a flat tire, without really noticing. No mechanical empathy whatsoever. That DOES hurt my feelings.
Re: Ever see a Fresnel Lens?
Have an up-vote from me. However, I think the main thing about a Fresnel lens is that it works by reflection, rather than refraction. That's how you can have those plastic stick-on lenses in the rear window of a people carrier or other such vehicles.
From the scars the tooth-lined suction-cups leave on whales. That's how we know they can get considerably bigger than the ones we have seen in the flesh.
Not hedgehogs
Looks more like sea-urchins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_urchin
Re: I can believe it too
Stop slagging the BBC off. I am really confused about the attitude to the BBC by the people in the UK. If you come from another country, like I do, you know that the BBC is one of the best national broadcasters in the world, and doing their best to be as impartial and even-handed as possible. And when you are trying to be impartial, I guess it is natural for extremists of any colour to be upset by a broadcaster that doesn't take their side. But that the population as a group to be so down on the BBC is a mystery. You have been brainwashed into believing the BBC is crap by Rupert Murdoch and the Daily Mail.
Shame on you.
Careful now!
Careful now! Make sure you don't set off an ice age. That would suck.
Nuclear winter icon, for obvious reasons.
Go ahead
I think the metric system makes a lot of sense. Just don't take my pint away, that's all. Every time I go home to visit, I get beer in measly 0.5l portions, and it is quite frankly an inferior way of serving beer.
Re: Does this make sense?
I guess it is a bit like homeopathy, the rock contains "the memory" of teeth, and so.... ah, never mind.
Bah
It has moving parts!!!! Why not use a Raman ring amplifier? We have been using those for ages now, our fibre-multiplexers can operate purely in the photon world without the use of "nano relays"
Re: Universe = depressingly vast
You wouldn't want to see it up-close. The flaking paint, and rubbish would detract from the experience. Better to see it from afar.
(Oh, and the radiation would be inconvenient too)
Re: Interesting
I think there is a pretty good chance for Earth bacteria to have "contaminated" Mars, and of-course visa-versa. Material carried to Earth from Mars is rare, but not unheard of. Materials carried from Earth to Mars must be rarer still, but theoretically possible. I wish for an independent strain on Mars, but consider it unlikely.
Re: Yes, feeling very small!
"the distances are too large for us to travel (or them for that matter). "
Only when meassured against human lifespans. For an entity that lives for, say 10 000 years, 10% of lightspeed would allow a considerable sphere of exploration.
Re: Not surprised
Ha. LTO tapes are £35 to £40. I could do with the price dropping a bit, still way too expensive for what it is! I only buy JUST what is needed, and have no stock of tapes whatsoever.
Re: Oh for goodness sake Lewis.....
What's so bad about getting a bit of publicity for the rover and what NASA has achieved? I know it sounds incredible to readers of The Register, but some people will only have heard about the latest Mars rover due to little publicity stunts like these. And it is NASA's toy, as far as I understand they can do whatever they feel like with it. It is not up to you or me to approve every little thing that they use it for. I don't think the science aspect of the mission suffered.
Re: Bootnote
Right up behind a lorry would do it, and so would driving between two lanes. Or even changing lanes I believe, but you need to know exactly where to change lanes.
ENDANGERED wood ants????
FFS, if you stand still for a few seconds up near my cabin, they crawl right up your legs. The bity, stingy little bastards. They are everywhere, and are pretty impossible to eradicate, even if you dig out the mounds and light fires inside, the area gets re-colonised next year. And yet, in the UK they are "endangered"???
Nom nom nom
Spam. Lovely.
Posted in Qubits turn into time travellers
We will know when this has been perfected..
..when some boffin somewhere just keeps on winning the lottery.
Re: 6,000 rounds is not the question
When I used to do a bit of clay pigeon shooting with my mates, I used to regularly buy 12 gague ammo in quantities of up to 10 000. You get a much better price when you buy in bulk. Then we would head off to my friends farm, and blast away. This was in the days before bismuth shot, we must have pumped hundreds of kilos of lead into the country-side. Probably not brilliant for the environment...
But this is a bit beside the point: What I was thinking was: I have made parts of relative complexity, and very high strengt from resin and metal-filings. Most often brass-filings, but on occasion steel-filings. How about loading up a 3D printer with iron-filings as the matrix dust, instead of the usual stuff? Would that work? Still probably wouldn't be able to print a good barrel, but possibly something that would fire.
Re: David Webb
Careful now nsld, that kind of talk can get you hauled off by our very own anti-terrorist police force, and possibly even extradiction to the US. But don't worry, if you are truly innocent, then you will come through in one piece. Probably.
Nice phone
A little way off yet, but that is my next phone! It has everything I want or need
Just for the record...
...I am seriously considering moving from Android to Win8 phone next time I buy.
Re: Erm?
Sustained.
Re: Erm?
....."Granted, I'll admit that Andre Rossi is a convicted criminal and has done fraud before... ;-)"
Don't worry Richard, I think it was funny. Bit too subtle for others.
Re: honestly
I was thinking the same:"Why is the Reg continuing to cover this story?"
And I guess the answer is: Because we all wish it wasn't a hoax.
Re: Bah!
I like it. Reduce energy spent on heating and cooling, by moving fat people towards colder areas, and skinny people towards warmer areas. Having said that: Africa isn't famous for having an obesity problem...
Re: To an observer
If space is curved, how much further (away/back in time) do we have to look to see our own galaxy in it's infancy?
Re: Tried and tested autonomous grass trimmer
http://www.husqvarna.com/uk/products/robotic-mowers/husqvarna-robotic-mowers-for-homeowners/
Re: Win-win
For an even more reasonable fee, I will lend you my cat. Never showed much of an aptitude for computers, until I caught him one click away from deleting all my files. I was very disappointed at the breakdown of our relationship (I had always provided a reasonable quantity of food and access to various facilities) and so was he, after I threw him in the pond. I now close the screen over my laptop, and am on the look-out for the signs of him developing opposable thumbs.
Posted in 'Biocoal' fuels steam train comeback
Re: volatile gasses
I would use a turbine instead of pistons. For spead: direct mechanical connection to drive wheels, through a gearbox, but for every-day practicality: Let the turbine run a generator.
Secondly, I would use a steam-generator rather than a boiler, much lighter and cheaper to maintain. Reacts quicker too. Fuel in the form of coal-dust, fed into a blower.
Waste steam fed into condensers.
No reason why this couldn't be made to be both reliable and cheap-ish to run.
Everybody!
Du Du-du-du, du-du, du-du, Grapple-time!
Let me see...
In order to preserve the information, he has to hide the information, so it can't readily be read.
This quantum stuff is giving me a headache
Re: LOHAN !> PARIS?
Agree. And a fire-upon-burst system would also help ensure the mission isn't a complete failure even if the balloon burst earlier than expected.
Re: 10mW/mm^2?
The article states clearly: "the system pulses the implant with infrared light from goggles"
"Pulses"
So the average energy delivered will be less than peak energy.
