Posts by Vulch

Re: Silent Running...

Morgan Freeman has been trying to get Rendezvous With Rama made for 20+ years.

Re: Something to look forward to

I ought to bookmark the article, currently trying to sort out the models from 5 years ago looking for a replacement for the one from 10 years ago.

Re: Phone design

That layout twists the wrist uncomfortably, better off with speaker on the thumb and mic on the little finger.

Re: What about collisions with spacecraft on the way to Mars

The Tesla orbit is inclined to the ecliptic by a degree or two so will be above or below traffic travelling between the planets.

Mostly because it is designed for direct entry from interplanetary cruise. It never enters Mars orbit.

Re: Mickey Mouse?

They've bought the feature film side and some of the TV production, not the news part.

Frankie and Benjy Mouse should be able to help with that.

Re: Well the smoking gang...

2 side walls would class it as outdoors

Actually two complete walls class it as *indoors*. The wording is "50% or more", not "more than 50%". Generally smoking shelters have a missing panel in one of their remaining sides to make sure they're under the 50% limit.

Re: Jabba the Hutt in 1983’s Return of the Jedi

No, Jabba was always in RotJ along with slave bikini Leia. He was pasted into an extra scene in the original Star Wars though.

Known as the Sieve of Eratosthenes.

Re: What's the record?

The current hyperloop test tracks are short. Show me a steam train that can do 0 to 200km/h and back to 0 within 500m.

Re: Obligatory...

Weight, extra moving parts (you really don't want a wiper or brush to get stuck halfway across a panel) and I think the amount of dust collecting on the panels was one of the things that was quantified by Spirit and Opportunity. Previously the amount of dust expected was "some".

The plan is to run sub-orbital stuff like the Virgin Galactic Spaceship 2s out of wherever is chosen rather than orbital things.

CRS-13 has been pushed back to the 8th now, Iridium is on course for the 22nd/23rd from Vandenberg so the fairings problem looks like it is being managed. Zuma is likely to take precedence as a paying customer over the Heavy though so we'll probably not see the Heavy launch this year. https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

Has the feeling of something that wasn't there in one image, was for the next two and had gone again by the time the fourth image was taken. All they know is the event started after the first and before the second, and finished after the third but before the fourth.

Re: An eccentricity of 1.2 ...

Voyager 1 - 3.72, Voyager 2 - 6.28

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/science/hyperbolic-orbital-elements/

Elliptical orbits to their Jupiter encounter, then a boost from each subsequent encounter.

A MAMIL got convicted of furious cycling in Cambridge a while ago without fatalities, for some reason he'd decided the best time for "training" was middle of the night as night clubs kicked out.

Similar tale told about a Cattle Market back home. Customs and Excise turn up near the end of the day to dip Land Rover tanks looking for red diesel. First farmer comes out and starts a long argument with the C&E officers about how they don't need to test his tank. In the mean time everyone else hops into their Landie and depart, the parking area being a triangle of open space between a couple of roads with no fences or hedges there's no hope of delaying them. Finally exasperated C&E get an answer to their repeated question of why they don't need to dip the tank, "This one runs on petrol".

[In the UK fuel for agricultural machinery isn't taxed but mustn't be used in road vehicles, there's a red dye added to trace it]

Re: Oh noes

I'm ambidextrous with mice and tend to use them right handed at home and left handed at work. For a while in a previous job the other two developers were both left handed but one used a right hand mouse with standard buttons, the other used a left hand mouse with reversed buttons and I used left handed mouse with standard buttons. The mouse on servers was hardly ever in the right place when you needed to fiddle, but it was easy to tell who had been fiddling last.

Re: First post!

Mostly recycling old strips these days, I think the author had an attack of real life. There do seem to be the occasional new ones, or maybe it's just coincidental what goes around comes around.

Re: I would like to be the first to point out...

Or at the very least a Playmobil re-enactment, been a while since we've had one of those.

Re: There's an opportunity here

Quite common for RC aircraft/drone battery recharging. They're often rapidly recharged so even more danger of overheating and bursting in to flame.

The 1970s version of Ark Royal had similar clearance on its way out of Devonport dockyard. They always had to set out with just enough fuel and supplies to get clear of the breakwater, then load the rest of the fuel, food and so forth with the aircraft arriving as they headed out into the Atlantic.

Re: FCC?

The FCC approves usage over US territory, Ofcom will decide on use above the UK, similar agencies will decide for their own countries. ITU is, as you said, responsible for managing frequencies and not if operation is permitted over particular areas of the planet.

Re: Brexit

Switzerland aren't included in this. The new regulations cover the EEA, which is the EU, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, but not the EFTA. There's still no regulation of charges calling to other EU/EEA countries when you're at home.

When I were an engineer working at a regional ITV station (back in the days when they actually existed) adverts did get vetted but the regulators only got to see the shooting script, not the finished product. This got us such items as the two apparently identical shower gel ads featuring the rear view of a young lady taking a shower outside a tent on the African Veldt. Turned out the difference was that in the first version run she twisted sideways enough to reveal a nipple, in the second version which got its first airing after the complaint was upheld she didn't. Both versions had been delivered to us at the same time...

Nah, Zaphod.

The Soyuz has done its re-entry burn and is on the way down before it dumps the orbital and service modules so nothing gets to stay in orbit.

You're conflating two incidents in your last paragraph, the Chinese tested an anti-satellite weapon which resulted in a bunch of debris, and the Americans launched a load of copper needles in the 60s to see if they could create a reflective layer for long distance radio comms.

Re: Hang on...

Thunderbirds was my first thought too

Elon Musk has five sons...

Re: State protected entertainment

Show me anywhere else that produces anything remotely like "The Sky At Night".

Re: When you think about it, isn't there a lot of obvious work to be done here?

In the mean time, the enemy deploys their drones which drop a grenade on every source of bluetooth signal...

Re: He has a point

Must dig out the soil moisture sensors I bought back in the autumn. Planning to use them with Wemos D1 Minis to deal with greenhouse watering and pumping water between rain butts. Cut down Arduino type things with onboard wifi so they can talk to each other.

Re: Someone's been in Silicon Valley too long

If only someone was planning on putting up a 4000+ high speed internet satellite fleet to provide global connectivity...

Very well.