Posts by Sorry that handle is already taken.

The System exists to be messed with!

Re: @OrsonX "too fast for missile"

The U-2 was subsonic. They may have thought it was too high to shoot down, perhaps, but I'm sure they never believed it would outrun any AA missiles that made it to altitude.

Re: we don't test for smell

Thumbs up for In The Pipeline.

Re: The 'endoskeleton'..

"It'll either fail or succeed."

Correct.

You're not necessarily the advertising target.

I know I'm certainly not the target of ads for armoured fighting vehicles, naval fire control systems and fighter jets at the local airport (or in the local newspaper), but the decision makers who live in the same city as me definitely are.

Re: Playing nice...

Right, cheers. I was thinking of "control" in the wrong context.

Re: Batteries!

"I see a lot of people commenting about how the battery should be replaceable, but nobody saying how you can do it without making the machine larger, heavier and with less battery life."

I can only speak for myself but I can handle 5% extra volume and weight if it means the battery's removable.

Re: "An artist's rendition of..."

I should clarify that the above applies to conventional refracting optical systems with variable iris type apertures that aren't perfectly circular. Each blade produces two opposed diffraction points, so the number of points in the "starburst" is a function of the number of iris blades.

Hubble Space Telescope, a reflecting telescope with a fixed circular aperture, produces images with a curious four pointed "starburst," and sometimes a circular halo, around strong light sources (example). I suspect this is partly related to the mounting arrangement of the secondary mirror. The pattern can just about be seen in the brighter stars in the background of the image.

"the service does not include voice"

Sounds like Telstra's strange version of naked is in use here, so presumably no line rental.

Chavs can afford Lexuses now?

Disclaimer: No kind of physicist here either.

That said, the emission of gravitational waves is a theoretically predicted mechanism for orbital decay between two black holes (or other massive objects) in mutual orbit, which is a process that will eventually result in their collision. Being able to detect those waves to compare their strength to prediction will allow the physicists to narrow down their theories. The other outcome is the existence of gravitational waves being conclusively ruled out, which I understand will have big consequences...

Due to the weakness of the gravitational force, detection of gravitational waves is very difficult, so extreme objects or events such as supermassive black holes orbiting or colliding are considered to be good targets for observation.

"Electrical fire"?

Does a burning battery without a ground loop pose the same hazard to firefighters using water as a fire involving grid electricity? I'd have expected the behaviour of the car's electrical systems to be very different.

Lewis's experience on ships, presumably metal ones, may not be completely relevant to this particular scenario either, but then he's got the experience and training and I don't...

Re: Software is not magic!!

"The reason that XP has lasted so long is that the successor OSes have sucked."

I think it's more that XP is still good enough. Win7 certainly doesn't suck, but it's not often a necessary upgrade either, especially on an older machine that hasn't had, or needed, any hardware upgrades since it was first turned on. I held off on the switch to 7 until decently sized SSDs and more than 4GB of RAM were reasonably priced and it became necessary to support those upgrades, and I wouldn't go back.

Re: Sorry...

It was a pretty long time ago though...

Too late

It's just agreed to a buy-out by a Canadian investment firm for ~$5bn.

Re: Let me get this straight...

You might think Bioshock Infinite was great if you didn't pay any attention to the writing.

Fun yes, great no.

Re: Pants?

I got one on a wiki that described the article I had just edited. If only I could remember what it was.

I guess they felt they had to wait until Microsoft had abandoned Aero Glass.

Re: ::Crnl Potter::

That should be "Col". Also there's no r in Colonel.

I prefer mule muffins anyway.

Re: Frankly I don't see the problem

Forgetting your ID card doesn't seem to me to be anybody else's problem.

Re: What a pile of immature excrement.

Lucky this isn't an article then?

Re: Saying nay

"The cost benefits of scale would come from mass-producing the modules."

The market for such an idea won't be anywhere near as large.

Re: More than 100W

Domestic microwave ovens use ~2.4GHz for regulatory and cost reasons. Other frequency bands are available and are used depending on the industry, still for food preparation purposes.

Re: Huh...

Is baffon French for buffoon?

Hmm

Just take in a rattle can and a stencil for all your crude penis art needs.

Re: One really has to ask

Ever tried to buy a tablet with 500GB of storage?