Posts by Adrian Coward
34 posts • joined Friday 27th October 2006 12:37 GMT
Cost of fuel
I had the same thought at first but 100kg of fuel is hell of a lot cheaper than 100kg of rocket engines. Or 100kg of avionics.
Posted in BT to China: let me in!
Re: Wild optimism
"...unlike every other..."
Someone is going to be first - it might be BT, it might not, but hit a wall often enough and eventually it will fall.
"...lardy-bottomed monopolist BT..."
Ignoring the fact that even in the UK they aren't a monopoly, on the Global scale they are "just another player" in the world market.
"...they saw everybody piling into BPO and infrastructure support, so they had to do that too as BT Global Services, and that all ended in tears..."
Largely due to the bottom falling out of the world economy, a lot of other players got burned too.
Re: Expensive
I'm sure that a significant chunk of that $91M is supporting the legacy system until all users are migrated and providing helpdesk and training functions. What we don't know is how much the FAA was currently paying per user - I'd be surprised if it was under $150/month.
Erm, actually....
"Did Japan license the design from the US or Russia, or perhaps ESA? Because those are the only ones I know of that have serviced the ISS."
Japan developed the HII-A used in this launch into the HII-B that has successfully launched 2 HTV service vehicles to the Space Station. The HTV is actually more capable than either Progress or ATV since it allows full-sized racks to be delivered to the station.
Will nobody think about....
...the poor innocent TV's?
Alternatively....
....don't worry about it and "Just say No" when they try to sell you something.
"...Flash is executed by Excel..."
Why, why, why does Excel need to execute Flash?
@Commend
"I cant change my broadband to another provider who will give me better connection because BT is not willing to upgrade my exchange"
More likely that no other provider wants to pay to move in - BT Wholesale would be happy to take the rent.
It's not what you do....
...it's what you are SEEN to do. If they had been caught watching it, then they probably would've just got a warning. Emailing to to *hundreds* of other people though was asking to be made an example of.
Posted in Fukushima explained in crap cartoon
See what they did there?
Shame to have to explain a joke.... the cartoon has a scatological theme, hence "crap" is a reference to the content (cartoon about crap) rather than the quality (cartoon that is crap).
Sprint or Spring?
Suppose it doesn't make a difference - it'll be a long time before it's available in Blighty.
Not stupid
Not a stupid question at all: there are several designs of reactors that have passive cooling and/or fail-safe designs.
For example in a CANDU reactor a loss of power will result in control rods automatically dropping into the reactor, stopping the reaction. A liquid salt reactor (not yet commercially available) has a 'thermal plug' at the bottom of the reactor. If power is lost, the plug will 'melt' and the reactants will flow into storage chambers below the reactor.
@Stu
"...Does it work only with Jailbroken phones, comes with some custom software to provide a phone/sms facility, if at all?..."
As the article said, 'with a little help from Skype'.
Posted in Nokia No.2 is so sorry for N97 debacle
About time
I was looking to replace a lost (and much missed) N95. Considered the N97 but ended up going with the HTC Hero in the end. The Hero has its issues, but it is light-years ahead of the latest Nokia offerings.
Water Cooled
Why not build your data centre near (or over) a large body of water? All the cool H2O you could possibly want with nothing more elaborate than a pump required.
Posted in iPhones get sun, leg power
@magnetik
"Surely it could be done with magnets?"
The Law of Conservation of Energy tells me that even if you use magnets, you would still have to pedal harder.
BT is a Plc
There are a lot of "He's a Luddite!" type comments, but most of them seem to miss the point. Mr Livingston is paid to make money for BT's shareholders. If he can't make the business case for the *massive* investment that would be Fibre-to-the-Home then he can't make it - largely because, unlike Virgin, he can't tie the customer into paying BT for the use of that fibre.
That's where his 'monopoly' comment was aimed - squarely at VirginMedia.
Posted in BT OpenZone: Is it or isn't it?
It is *supposed* to be Opt In
Any router that upgrades should have Openzone disabled. It will be enabled if they choose to opt in, or if they factory-reset their router.
At least that is how it's supposed to work.
Posted in BT reprograms biz customers as hotspots
Haven't read all the comments....
But if it hasn't been mentioned yet, the service will be OPT IN for customers whose routers are upgraded and OPT OUT for new customers.
Posted in Apple rethinks battery bondage
Replaceable Battery Chemicals
One word: lithium. (Hence the flame icon.)
Online storage...
Anyone who uses a service provided (a) over the Internet; and (b) by a third party as their primary storage *deserves* to lose their data.
Posted in NASA working on boomless supersonic jets
Not quite.
"...and meant that the London-New York route was the only one it could routinely serve..."
Actually there was daily service by Air France between Paris and New York, and a weekly (sometimes twice weekly) scheduled service between London and Barbados for many years.
@Brett Brennan
The problem with hybrid motors like the one SpaceDev provided for Space Ship One is that while their ISP compares favourably with conventional solids (250s v 270s for the Shuttle SRB), they don't really scale well for thrust. If you want to increase the thrust of a solid, you just make it longer (most solids burn along their entire length from inside out), while with liquid (or gel) propellants you increase the flow rate by using bigger pumps.
A hybrid requires you to increase the flow of oxidizer (which requires larger pumps) *and* increase the area of fuel (make it longer) - not to mention the difficulty of ensuring proper combustion along the entire length of the rocket.
@Torben Mogensen
Actually, it's not a runway limitation it's mainly a gate/taxiway limitation - the A380 is certified to operate on any runway that a 747 can. Since AF1 rarely (never?) taxis up to the gate, this is less of a problem than you make it out to be.
@Dodgy Geezer
If you re-read the report (especially Fig 2.1-27) you will see that the G-forces were likely not so severe as to prevent closing the visors for 20 seconds or so. It only takes 4 or 5 seconds to close and lock the visors.
@Boris the Cockroach
>... ALL commecial aircraft are fitted with a wind powered electrical generator...
No, not all. For example the 747 (100-400) doesn't have one, neither does the 737 - and these are two of the most numerous aircraft of all time.
Re: The real reasons
And who is going to *PAY* for replacing the hundreds of thousands of miles of wiring? Are you offering to foot the bill?
Posted in Two Shuttles hit by fuel tank problems
@Anonymous John
"No. The ISS and Hubble are in different orbits. THe Shuttle can't travel from one to another."
Further to that, a back of the envelope calculation made in another forum gave the result that getting between the orbits of ISS and Hubble would take nearly as much propellant (~80%) as it takes to get into orbit in the first place!
Re: How much for an Antiguian passport
It can be yours for the low, low sum of $100,000 USD - at least that's how much you used to have to invest to be granted 'economic citizenship'.
Posted in Beavis and Butthead in London jihad
Why is this here?
I understand the occasional funny/weird/"glad it's him and not me" deviations from what is, after all, a technology/IT site, but what is this story doing here? Slow day at Vulture Central?
Posted in Royal Society calls for UK space agency
Familar words....
'We've got enough problems this side of the valley/mountain/river/ocean thank you very much, deal with those first...'
Lies, Dammed Lies and El Reg articles
"You don't need any numbers, however, to know that data centers use up energy..."
So, if you don't need any numbers, why write an article based entirely around numbers that are 'dodgy' at best?
RE: Copper? *cough*
Broadband speeds are (almost) entirely dependant on the local access network, so I suspect your 512K would not improve. Though, having said that, ADSL2 does make more efficient use of the spectrum - it may lead to a speed boost.
What I've been told...
....is that an empty bowel is less likely to lead to infection than a full one in the case of injury.
