Posts by DJO

Take the approach that crowdfunding is a form of investment and that the exit strategy is the item you're funding.

I'd say a gamble rather than an investment, if you win you get a shiny toy at ~40% off retail, if you lose, you lose - you might get a proportion of your money returned, or not as the case may be.

This is the first time I've been even remotely interested in a crowdfunding project, in fact more than remotely especially as the UD$/Sterling rate isn't as bad as expected given Trump & Brexit ($400 = £300) so I'll hopefully have a nice new shiny for Christmas, or be an even more miserable git than usual.

Normal right wing rhetoric, the Tories always say "We will not increase VAT".

Translation: "We will increase VAT at the first opportunity".

VAT is a regressive tax as it disproportionately affects people on lower incomes which is why the right wing like it.

Re: Alien SETI project

Really wouldn't worry about radio signals. There are a number of reasons, firstly there are hundreds of transmitters around the world all using the same frequencies, not a problem here we just get the closest one but in space they are all pretty much at the same distance so it's a mush that's almost impossible to sort out, secondly radio propagation follows the inverse square law so after a few dozen light years the signal is almost non-existent, thirdly apart from satellite uplinks most radio bounces around the atmosphere with little leakage into space.

We are on the cusp of being able to get the spectrograph of the atmospheres of exoplanets, if an alien got a spectrograph of our atmosphere the pollutants would be a dead giveaway.

Re: 400 Gb on your little fingernail....

5mb? Tha were lucky!

Luxury.

First computer I used was a Varian V70 which used paper tape. That had enough core (and I mean "core" as in ferrite ring memory) for each of the 8 users (each sat at an ASR33 teletype) nearly 4k of storage - happy days.

The next one was an IBM 360 which used punched cards, well it would if they weren't all nicked to use as roaches.

First real hard drive was a ST157a - 57M unformatted, about 44M formatted.

Now these however could be fun, 9 in RAID 5 to make a smaller than matchbox sized 3TB array with redundancies. about 100 of those could be crammed into a 1U rack, that's a lot of storage in a small space, probably glowing red-hot due to heat dissipation problems but that's part of the fun.

Re: What happened to the Lion?

He'd also need a prequel and a sequel to fully tell the story, then another set of films from Dogs perspective. Oh and the "Making Of" documentaries (to be sold separately) - In total about 10 films (excluding "Directors Cuts"), should keep him busy for the next decade or so

Re: Brilliant!

vapors and can ignite with a spark.

½ correct ½ wrong

Vapours can ignite with a spark in the presence of Oxygen

Now engage your remaining brain cell and consider if the manufacturers might have thought about purging the tanks with nitrogen (or some other gas, CO2 would do the job I suppose)?

Re: Who - "invisible" objects

I see bicycle riders and pedestrians crossing in all black clothes at night in the rain I'm asking myself if they are intentionally suicidal or simply do not care to live.

Imagine if you will a curving narrow road with huge trees and bushes on either side making the road effectively a green tunnel with mottled sunlight.

Now imagine you are employed to cut the hedge.

What to wear while standing in the road? Nice reflective high-visibility jacket? Well in that exact circumstances I came across a trendy moron who thought that a camouflage jacket and matching trousers were the ideal outfit, if his hedge trimmer hadn't been bright red I would never have seen him and I would definitely have squished him.

Re: Not surprised...

Well yes but in reality the movement is in the opposite direction, it's just a matter of time until SSDs are no longer a separate item but are an integral part of the motherboard, at least for lappies and tabbies where space is a premium.

Not endorsing this, much the opposite but I am making a firm prediction.

And double the maximum fine for every subsequent offence.

Re: Giant Space Ducks!

Oort to be careful then

Re: Definition of a troll

Just because they no longer sell consumer goods does not mean they don't sell or make anything. Nokia make lots of high-end network kit for ISPs and Telcos.

Re: It's one of those "I'm surprised this has not been tried sooner"

Obviously people have known that if the only way to make higher elements was fusion then we are all the remnants of supernovae explosions.

You only need supernovae for elements heavier than Iron and the elements heavier than Iron are only found in the human body in parts per trillion. The elements between Helium and Iron are from ordinary boring novae and other unremarkable stellar deaths, only really big mothers go supernova.

"Won't 8 million pounds of thrust also knock Earth out of it's current orbit and crash us into the moon?"

There will be a minuscule effect on the Earth, every force having an equal and opposite reaction and all that stuff but the Earth is very big and very very heavy when compared to a rocket so I really wouldn't worry about it.

Anyway the Moon is receding so any change to the Earth's orbit won't be enough to catch the Moon. also as the Moon orbits the Earth if the Earth's orbit was disturbed the Moon would just tag along for the ride staying in much the same orbit as now.

Re: It can go on

Constant Acceleration at 1G is impossible for more than a few months.

From stationary in 353 days 19 hours 45 minutes 23.004 seconds at a constant 1G you'd attain c which is not allowed.

If you had an engine capable of producing a constant 1G which would also provide the illusion of gravity which would be nice for the crew, the trick would be to keep turning the ship around so you oscillate between (say) 0.75c and 0.9c so you'd still be prety fast but the time dilation would not be excessive and you'd have gravity (except when turning the ship) for the entire journey so no bone or muscle wasting.

User input should be a unmaskable interrupt,

And before USB with dedicated mouse and keyboard ports it was but it's tricky for the USB controller to issue a maximum priority interrupt securely in a way that cannot be abused.

Re: Ahmed the Terrifying Terrorist

mangled to squelch any steganography you may have put into the image.

With a bit of imagination that is a surprisingly easy problem to circumvent especially if you know it's going to happen, it will lower the amount of data that can be encoded per picture but they only need to send a few code words not an annotated copy of War and Peace.

Re: graphite?

I can supply a precision made cylinder of pure natural graphite enrobed in a hexagonal wooden substrate with a sun-yellow gloss finish, a snip at £999.99 each (bulk discount negotiable).

Re: Autonomous exploration of Alpha Centauri

A chain of weedy transmitters does not make a viable repeater chain

Reading comprehension failure #1

I said the sensor craft would have weak transmitters, the repeaters by definition would only be carrying a receiver & transmitter without the science package so they would not be weedy in the slightest.

While a RTG is one way and would be needed if there was constant comms traffic, but there wont be, it'll be a few bursts so a simpler energy supply would suffice and a Gigabit connection is not required, make it slow but reliable.

The science craft can work on solar power from Alpha C & P as can the repeaters near that end of the chain.

Re: I think Uber might have a vacancy.

fix a toxic company without destroying it.

But if the company has toxicity built into it's business model, there's no chance. If Uber didn't just ignore inconvenient local legislation their business model of "Destroy & Monopolise" wouldn't stand a chance, and to be honest doesn't deserve to stand a chance.

Lobby to change rules but ignore them and expect to be prosecuted - Uber has no future with it's current operating model, it's amazing they haven't been sued to oblivion already.

Re: Nope, the truth is not relative

Whilst the "truth" is not relative it does rely on context.

An unrelated uncontentious example:

Water contains 66.6% hydrogen

Water contains 11.8% hydrogen

Both statements are completely true.

1st by number of atoms, 2nd by mass.

In the political arena the problem is the same, statistics without a baseline are worthless.

Re: I would suggest telco to save cutting ads, especially the expensive TV ones.

Virgin are the worst, I'm not a customer, I've never been a customer, I'm never likely to become a customer but every week I get at least 2 letters from them extolling their wonderful service, letters that must cost them about £50 a year for the materials, postage and handling, letters that go unopened straight into the bin.

I'm just one person but extrapolate that across the country and beardy must be wasting millions a year in futile mailings.

Gross negligence is the "lack of slight diligence or care"

Interesting, did you know it's a crime to let somebody die (such as by drowning) if you could have prevented their demise.

I'd think this is exactly the same, she knew he was suicidal and could have intervened to prevent that.

To use the drowning analogy this is as if she stood on the shore and stamped on his hand when he tried to get out. Not murder but death caused by malicious negligence.

Re: Its a different world

All I'd need would be time enough to grab a handfull of regolith

Have you watched any science fiction?

As soon as you touch the dust it'll creep through your skin and before you know it you're a vacuum tolerant homicidal maniac.

Re: Is this for real?

Mars, in Olympus Mons, still has an active volcano

Please cite references, I always understood OM was either dormant or dead with no eruptions for several million years (evidence from impact craters on the slopes).

Mars has no plate tectonics and a relatively cool core so significant seismic activity is considered very improbable.

When they count atoms the numbers are quite huge, for example 1 nanogram of Uranium has 2.5 x10^12 atoms so I wouldn't worry too much about small samples.

Re: The land of the ....?

recommend 1984, but also read Brave New World.

Animal Farm might be worth reading too - All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Re: The real worry is cascade collisions, where debris from one hits a bunch of others.

Debris collision cascade is known as Kessler Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome) and is well known to players of several space games.

Re: Brilliant

Next up: The solar powered submarine

That actually could work!

Have a football field sized neutrally buoyant sheet of solar cells that could be towed behind the sub when cruising close to the surface and rolled back in when going deeper.

But probably more hassle than a simple old fashioned nuclear generator.

Re: Nice idea

like a roller coaster,

ROTFLMAO

A roller coaster may max at 100mph and still they come off from time to time.

Your hypothetical lunar track would need speeds of about 13,000 mph.

The bearings would explode, the tracks would twist.

Given current materials technology there is no way it could possibly work.

Re: Who Else?

Could a tag be replaced with a ruggedised, non-removable Apple Watch?

It's supposed to be rehabilitation, not punishment.

Re: Read more

"Don't get me started on the click here to read more buttons"

Well they are hardly likely to label the button "click here to install sypware" are they now?