Posts by Francis Boyle

Well that's winter for you

On the other hand I've heard there's some great skiing opportunities at the poles.

Re: GPU, video and audio on car or embedded hypervisor?

Yep, absolutely bonkers but hopefully just some Intel marketdroid's fantasy. By all means put your climate control, entertainment or seat adjustment stuff in one of these things but keep the safety critical software on it's own hardware with only the leanest of real-time operating systems. The idea of cars controlled by consumer grade software gives me the willies.

Re: The notch is just a temporary workaround

The Catholic Church* disagrees with you.

*Not a fan personally, but like a lot of authoritarian organisations it does have style.

"the only computer you will have access to"

I'm not sure I understand this concept.

Why wouldn't you just get one of your Raspberry Pis out of the drawer.

LOL

(Well, at least a low chortle)

Or if you want to wait

just nick one from Starman. I don't think he's really using them.

We just need to work out

how to implant our consciousnesses into tardigrades.

My Chevy's low on fuel

I'd better use what's left to drive it back to Detroit.

- Dwayne Dibley

Don't leave your Pi in a drawer

Install Boinc and donate some cycles.

Re: There's more to blockchain than dodgy cryptocurrencies

Thems some ugly kitties.

Re: That headline: Fewer... (please?)

"Less" is for non-count nouns.

Less has always been used with both type of nouns. The idea that it's restricted to non count terms is a "zombie rule".

Look at it this way. Mathematically integers are a special class of numbers so it's not surprising they get their own version of the inequality operator (in common speech, at least). But quantities are numbers, not numbers other than integers, so any operator that applies to them applies to integers as well.

BTW, I'm with mdubash here. "Less than half" qualifies "targets", which is a count noun, so "fewer" is appropriate here.

According to the linked article

they're 0.25U. So four of them stacked together are the same size and shape as a cubesat. But if you happen to be looking at one side on it'll appear significantly smaller. Which is what matters.

Not with that

I wouldn't

I assume

the trick is that it can only be applied to suitably structured data. So you have an array in which the content of each element is encrypted but its meaning is known. The content is one secret and is still protected. Protection against modification is protection of a different secret and will therefore require its own encryption.

Re: The old "my satnav is crap therefore autonomous cares will be unsafe" argument

Of course you don't rely on a updates from a database to avoid collision. An autonomous vehicle is by definition autonomous. But you do need it for navigation. What I'm criticising is the idea that with AI vehicles you'll get people going to the shop for a loaf of bread and ending up in a farmer's field somewhere in the back of beyond (to exaggerate just a little).

Making safety critical systems network dependent is, of course, insane. (Not that I am aware of anyone advocating it, vendors of network equipment aside). But if you have a problem with routing information coming from a network you probably should advocate banning radio traffic reports.

"asceptic controlled areas"

Churches?

wow

I've just looked this guy up on Wikipedia and to describe him as colourful is the understatement of the month.

And as is his wont

there's a small portrait of him engraved on every die.

I heard that

the scientists involved with the project to produce the requisite giant intelligent sharks resigned en masse after the intern made a particularly inappropriate choice of movie for their monthly video night.

Focke

not Fokker.

(Which incidentally is the name of my new band.)

Yeah, it was probably

a good idea not to tell the truth there.

Re: You'll never get me up in one of those things

Well, I'm not an engineer* either but I don't see why having two fuselage is especially problematic. In a conventional design each wing root has to bear half the full loaded weight of the fuselage. In this design the weight of the load plus that of the fuselages is distributed across a section of the wing, which should lead to lower stresses. Sure it looks wrong, but then a 747 would probably have looked terribly wrong to the Wright brothers.

See also: the P38 and the twin Mustang. (I'll happily go up in either if anyone's offering.)

*I was however almost a physicist in another long-lost life.

Re: Hmmm

"Have a look for EEVBlog's maths on the subject."

You mean the bloke who once made a 10 minute video demonstrating that an Arduino makes a very poor multistable vibrator. I think I'll pass.

Re: "restrict it to a musket"

"the longbow gave the populace weaponry effective against the ruling class whose armour previously allowed them to impose whatever rule they wanted with impunity."

Oddly enough, the version of this that I'm familiar with has it that the crucial change was from the bow which requires skill to use effectively to the musket which requires only a few hours training.

Probably the truth is that each new technology changes the balance of power between different social groups in ways that can only be appreciated with hindsight.

Just

make sure you don't use your 'usual' safeword.

Are you dead

yet?

Charles' law

Most of it is lost as heat at the point of compression.

Yes, 1200

100 to 500 kg satelites according to the Wikipedia link (a good article - thanks Elon) all designed to deobit at EOL. And you thought the BFR was just for Mars.

Re: TITSUP

Don't you mean: Total Inablity To Supply Unpalatable Poulty. Yeah, I'm not a fan.

Probably for the same reason that

the outfit which created it is known as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Re: Stupid generic names

But a great way to attract the photoshopping-celeb-faces-on-pornstar-bodies set.

Re: That's not bad going...

Never did manage to convince my mother they weren't real apes in 2001.

The carbon-based unit

designated Bob Wheeler has been added to the list.

Re: Great!

For some time now Google has been asking me to review places I've visited despite the fact that I keep 'locaion' switched off (for power reasons). I assume they're using tower information but it's uncannily accurate.

Get back to me

when Belarus establishes a presence on the other side of the heliopause.