Posts by Yet Another Anonymous coward

>Predominently Chinese businesses have come out of nowhere, and buy up everything on a speculative whim.

Those damn Chinese capitalists. If only the socialist banks, hedge funds and investors in the west had the profit motive, organization experience and access to cheap capital to allow them to do this

Find the smart guy who came up with that and shoot him, he is obviously some sort of enemy agent

Re: Why not

The Harrier is more than 50 years old.

It would have no chance against a cloud of 21st century AI controlled hypersonic missiles all able to manoeuvre faster than any manned aircraft

Just don't upset the Great Old Ones

Or perhaps their toys could be tied on with bits of string like children's mittens ?

Re: F35 A, B & C models

>Time to put the Fairey Swordfish back in production?

Surely the Supermarine seaplane would be better?

Then when it falls off the aircraft carrier it will at least float.

In fact you wouldn't need an aircraft carrier - just some sort of yacht with a floating wardroom and some sort of tender with aviation fuel, stocks of bombs and the necessary grubby mechanics

Re: Serial to VGA? All you need is an adapter!

The color space for digital TV was called Rec709 when it was a recommendation before being accepted in the mid90s, we still call it Rec709 instead of Bt709

Not to mention does pressing the separate 'fn' key mean you get F1-F9 or the extra functions, or is that the unlabeled special modifier key

Re: Marked up

>could manufacture a single -- quantity one -- aircraft qualified toilet seat for some ridiculous price. ($3000?)

Even without military certification (was this made entirely in the USA by US owned companies, with a certain percentage being veteran owned and all following federal labor guidelines) and aviation certification (did 10 engineers sign off that this part is only a toilet seat and can't emit RF that could trigger the nuclear bomb in bay next to )

It's incredibly expensive to design and tool a single replacement part for some 50 year old bit of kit.

How much would it cost you to make a windscreen for a 1972 Vauxhall Viva from scratch? Probably more than $3000 !

Re: Marked up

>But the basic issue here is that DoD desk wallahs' desks aren't going to be suddenly deployed to the field

So if the whole DoD wasn't a socialist conspiracy to provide jobs for life, free college education, and free healthcare to the unemployable you could contract-out all the non running-shooting-killing part to civies ?

Re: Tax and Spend

Dell obviously aren't doing as much to incentives 'thought leaders' on the funding committee as NothropGrummanLockheedMartinMesserschmidtHeinkel

Had the opposite. Expenses were cost+15% to the customer, so if I took a 10e budget flight it cost the company money to process the expense compared to me booking 200e on big airline. Got told off for that one

Re: Concur improves matters beyond belief

My prof once did this.

Went to London for some gov dept meeting and got a burger at the station. Claim denied since there had been refreshments provided (tea and biccies).

So he refused to sign off on the official report.

Eventually 2 civil servants were dispatched to our swampy outpost to reason with him. They made the mistake of saying how they had traveled first class .....

I had one and a visit to a very remote site in a foreign country. Card readers were out at the local town so I persuaded the only bank branch to give me a cash advance.

Caught a huge amount of shit for it.

OK my new policy is either a manager comes with me and pays for everything or the next time I have a problem with the official process I abandon the $M of kit I have with me and come home.

Re: keep your conference swag!

Somebody posted about this on reddit.

You trust me to sign off on a maintenance check on an aircraft worth $100M with the lives of 400people on board - but want a doctor note if I'm off sick for a day

Re: Valar Morghulis

So when plod retire they have to walk the cursed earth (Middlesbrough) rather than joining the golf club

Re: Who else?

So we could just recruit only the unemployed?

Re: "One might assume that excludes the majority of the current Cabinet"

They don't do drug testing for magistrates do they ?

Re: SMRs are expected to produce 300MWe per unit.

Degeneracy pressure

Re: Is that all

To be fair it is only a Playmobile royal yacht for the prime ministerial bathtub.

It just costs £210 from Hamleys. You can't expect him to shop at John Lewis like some sort of peasant

So the plan is to put it in Wales so nobody can spell the place to protest ?

Two sheds ? What are you, the Queen or something ?

Re: SMRs are expected to produce 300MWe per unit.

I think the people of this country have had enough of the second law of thermodynamics......

Was once explaining to a visiting American how the NMR lab in the chemistry dept was being moved and renamed the MRI lab. To 'I quote' avoid the 'N' word.

He seemed very confused about why we were mentioning the 'N' word. I was even more confused about why he was confused.

This was many years ago before twitter......

Re: Money for old rope

>For example, we spend a lot more money per km of railway than other countries with comparable geographical constraints

Not quite the same.

France = monsieur farmer would you like more money to turn your land into a TGV line than you currently get from the Eu for not farming it ? Mais Oui !

Japan = there is an uninhabited mountain range between two major cities. Get tunnelling. Hai

China = there is nobody living in the flat farmland between these two cities. Excuse me I live here ! (sound of gunshot off screen) There is nobody living in the flat farmland between these two cities

UK = The land between these 2 cities goes through 1000s of privately owned Englishmen's suburban castles, each of which for some reason is worth £1M. And the farmland is all owned by somebody who lives in an actual castle and is in the House of Lords. And there is a rare toad somewhere outside Birmingham so the line will have to go via Lands End.

Re: Money for old rope

"Sorry, we can't join in the fight against Russia over the Ukraine, because they would turn our gas off"

And if they haven't been funding anti-nuclear campaigns in Europe for the last 60 years they are idiots

It is if you have a sufficient containment shed

Re: Pounds ( No Stones)

It's always weird when US gives the mass of something enormous in pounds - like a Saturn V weighing 6.5 million pounds.

What's that in Hundredweight ?

Re: Dave?!

So why do they call you Dave then ?