Posts by Vulch

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.

Re: Back in business

They have no plans to not try for a landing every time from now on, with the possible exception of Heavy centre cores. Barge landings for Iridium and Echostar, probable RTLS for CRS-10, and a barge for SES-10 which should also be the first reflight.

Re: Showing off?

If this being the first Pegasus launch in 3.5 years and only the sixth in the past decade makes it routine...

The low flight rate makes it a very expensive launcher.

I've seen it reported elsewhere that disabling "Fast Boot" makes things work again, speculation that something in the network stack doesn't get reset properly and the DHCP request is sent too soon.

Re: "plasma noise"?

"The ground" in this case would be the surface of Mars. Shuttles remained in touch during re-entry by relaying via the TDRS in geostaionary orbit above them. Mars Express and TGO were (hopefully) recording information from the lander for that reason.

Nah, W12 8QT. Let them hunt round the flats they've built there...

Re: VM junk mail

Indeed. I shred them first and add some ripped up Amazon cardboard on top. Nice cheerful fire in seconds.

"New Armstrong" was mentioned in the presentation.

Re: A small crumb of comfort

Well, it wasn't the one they were intending to use next. They intend to re-use all of them if they stay in one bit though.

It's up to the customer. Having the payload already integrated means launch can be a day or two (was scheduled for the 3rd) later, static fire without payload means the rocket has to be lowered and taken back into the hanger for it to be fitted and is more like a 4 or 5 day turn around.

Re: Them is...

Indeed. You don't need 2000 year old trees, you can work out the progression with an over-lapping sequence of 200 year old trees from the same region and comparing the growth rings in the overlap.

Re: Can El Reg militarise the LOHAN project

E Employing

Re: @joed

All nine engines on the first stage can gimbal, the centre engine is mounted slightly lower than the outer ones and has a larger range of movement. Steering by differential throttling has been tried by various organisations in the past but is generally too slow for the level of control needed.

At the moment only the three engines intended for landing are capable of being restarted in the air, the other six need ground support to light. Adding restart capability to all of them would be possible but heavy.

Re: Musk's goal closer and closer

Turns out there's not much gained by adding extra boosters. The second stage becomes the limiting factor even if you start going disposable on the first stage cores, and if you do that the cost goes up rapidly. And if you're going to redesign the second stage you might as well also build a bigger first stage to match it that doesn't need boosters.

Re: Alien Space Bat at 54:19

It's quite often done by just turning on the engine but not lighting the blue touchpaper. Rotate the stage through 180 degrees so the engine points along the orbit, open the valves and you get a bit of thrust slowing it but without the risk of toasting the expensive payload that has just been dropped off.

Don't know about the rail gauge, but basically yes. The Soyuz units are shipped in and assembled horizontally as at Baikonour, Peseltsk and (soon) Vostochny, then wheeled out and the payload added when vertical.

The Big Five countries (UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy) are the largest contributers to the EBU overall, not the Song Contest. Most of the money goes towards things like the news exchange which would cost the BBC far more to try and replace directly.

(Ex-BBC engineer 228622A)