Posts by Flocke Kroes

Re: how long for SpaceX to catch up with Boeing's pork barrel govt pricing

Elon wants to colonise Mars. That cannot be done with pork. Pork has to be spent in as many states as possible so politicians will vote for more pork. Pork has to be spent on specific contractors so politicians get campaign funds. The goal posts have to be moved every year to justify/cause delays and budget increases.

Elon wants to keep control so he can select the most cost effective parts, have them made by the most cost effective manufacturer and focus on a strategy to lower the cost of access to space and hence get to Mars. When NASA wants something he was going to build anyway he will bid for it. Commercial crew turned out more expensive financially then Elon expected but gave him access to NASA's experience with human spaceflight.

Falcon 9 has decreased the cost of access to space as far as it can because the payload is expensive. SpaceX is demonstrating the benefits of mass produced payloads (Starlink). If that catches on there will be a market for an even more cost effective launcher (Starship). Rocket Lab are following a similar business plan: the Electron rocket is cheap now, they are demonstrating the benefits standardised payload components and their rocket should drop in price when it becomes reusable.

Porkspace has a clearly limited lifespan (my guess: a decade). This is why they a racing to get every possible contract before it becomes obvious to voters that their politicians are buying antique boondoggles.

This Starship is staying near the moon

Congress has a gun pointed at NASA's budget so Astronauts will be launching in an Orion on an SLS and returning to Earth in that Orion. SLS is not powerful enough to get to low Luna orbit so NASA needs a ride from near-rectilinear halo orbit to the Moon and back.

A fully refuelled starship in low Earth orbit cannot land on the moon and get back to the surface of the Earth. If Starship refuels in a highly elliptical orbit it can almost go to the Moon and back - but the fuel tanker has to be refuelled before it can reach that orbit. Add the stops at NRHO to dock with Orion to pick up and return the crew then a normal Starship cannot meet NASA's requirements.

The plan is to use a modified Starship with no flaps or heat shield. This Moonship cannot return to Earth but it can go to NRHO, land on the Moon and return to NRHO. A normal tanker Starship could get refuelled in a highly elliptical orbit, go to NRHO, refuel the Moonship and return to Earth.

The Moonship mission sidesteps the big certification problems that will otherwise delay a normal passenger Starship: Launching a crew with no launch abort system, re-entry with a new thermal protection system, getting velocity down to subsonic while falling like a skydiver, a belly flip to get the engines pointing down and a retro-propulsive landing. It will be a long time before NASA is happy to put a crew on a mission with all those exciting activities but in the mean time Starship tankers can RUD without killing anyone until SpaceX get it all working reliably.

Can easily find the article

Searching for "George Defteros" shows lots of articles about this recent ruling. To get the the controversial article you need "George Defteros the age 2004". The link is not on the first page returned by Google but Bing does put it on the first page.

Was The Age legally required to rectify the old article?

Re: Well done Apple

From the article: "Apple [...] succeeded in getting VirnetX's patents that led to the award invalidated."

Patent examiners have a choice of granting invalid patents or spending ages going through the paperwork to delay granting an invalid patent then get shouted out for not keeping up with the work load. We know beyond all possible doubt that the patents are invalid (even without Apple jumping through all the expensive hoops required to get them invalidated). Mathematics is not patentable. Software is a branch of mathematics so it is not patentable (it is protected by copyright). Getting an obviously invalid patent invalidated takes time. This gives trolls like VirnetX plenty of time to get a judgement in East Texas because East Texas will not tolerate a moment of delay when finding for a patent troll.

In any normal area of law (ie not patents or bankruptcy) the documents at the base of the case being invalid would put an end to the matter before the defendant has to waste time and money listening to the plaintive's case. For patents, you have to defend perfectly at every stage to keep your right of appeal and even though the patents are invalid you still have to pay up and then somehow get the money back from the bankrupt shell company that started the litigation.

By all means hate Apple as much as you want but please try to remember why the patent system is despised by inventors. (My views on the matter are tolerant in the extreme. I would like patent lawyers and holders fined. By far the more popular remedies are burning or drowning.)

Re: unlike Boeing, Airbus, GM, Ford, 'big oil' ...

Boeing are making money: They are getting the bulk of the Artemis program budget and are working hard on excuses for not delivering by 2024. 'Big oil' have received substantial direct subsidies and have been working hard on tax cuts, interest free loans and eliminating royalties for oil taken from federal land. Unlike Boeing, 'big oil' are showing strong progress on all these activities and more. I am not familiar with Airbus, GM and Ford but I very much doubt they are slacking off spending tax payers' money on lobbying for more tax payers' money to anything like the extent of Apple.

Re: ... might be torching the 5G equipment

You forgot to account for the technical abilities of delusional arsonists. It is amazing that they can tell the difference between a cell tower and a doughnut shop. There is no way they could spot the difference between 5G and 4G - or something older. If they actually torch something 5G it will almost certainly be collateral damage.

Re: Forbes

The magazine for executive bathroom user wannabes.

Re: maybe traded e-i-e-i-o for plain old I/O?

sudo apt-get install glibc-doc-reference

info libc

/EIEIO

Re: Oh bore on

The layout in the article implies the face mask advice came from the UK government (it doesn't, but does come from the CDC). US government websites are not something I take at face value any more because they are rectified to match statements from Trump's son in law.

The value of masks is not straightforward. You can find evidence - at leat such as is available - here. When health experts selected by the UK government have talked about masks they said things like "only wear a mask if requested to do so by a medical professional" and "There is a shortage. Please do not make it worse by buying masks unless you really need them." If this advice changes I would like to hear about it - with a link to the source.

Re: So, Musk bought a thousand ventilators

Musk has built some ventilators for free distribution - mostly out of car parts. The next step is getting FDA approval. (Warning: when the sentence structure on the Teslarati site is a bit contrived, re-parse the sentence with the literalness of a programmer for the worst possible matching interpretation. On that site bad news packaged to look good with carefully selected parts of the truth.)

How to go only 150m

Option a) Cheating: Starship is 70m tall, Superheavy is 50m. Not sure how big the flame diverter under construction at Kerbal Kennedy Space Center is but as they are starting a few meters above sea level the top of Starship will probably reach 150m while being stacked on top.

Option b) Raptor engines can throttle down to less than the weight of a mostly empty Starship. Either only put a little fuel in before take off or hover around until the ship is light enough not to crush the landing legs.

Re: Am I surprised?

The boondoggle funding department is world class.

Some more for you consideration

A aunty

B bdellion

C cthonic

D djinn

E euphamism

G gnat

H hier

K knickers

M mnemonic

P pteranodon

S sequin

W wright

X xylophone

Y yggrasil

Re: R/O FS

I bought I Pi from RS and another from Farnell on the day of release. One is still running on its original SD card. The other died from a failing power supply and took its SD card with it. I have had one Pi get into trouble from defective USB flash. I switched it to SATA flash and it has lasted years. If your SD cards are dying you are buying defective flash.

Re: Mr downvoter

If you have evidence that my preferred strategy is not helpful then please link to it.

The average death rate for the infected is under 1% and for fit healthy people it is under 0.1%. Once infected, people can infect others for a limited amount of time (which probably starts before symptoms become noticeable). Once that time is up they become immune and cannot infect others. As a courtesy to people with chest infections, heart disease and other serious medical conditions who are at real risk from COVID 19 I am following the government's guidelines and restrictions. This has economic consequences which would end sooner if I get COVID 19 promptly.

Re: Pitch forks unnecessary, Karma is good enough

The bucket is actually a report from the COVID-19 Response Team at Imperial College London. Although I enjoy blaming the government for everything the only thing I can fault them for is the lack of the exceptional communication skills requires to get a clear message through click bait media. Massively oversimplifying the report: a draconian response last week causes severe problems late in the year whereas a more 'business friendly' approach means not as sever problems problems now but essentially over before the start of Winter.

Re: you do not go to the police...

Although credit card fraud is a criminal offence a disagreement about the price of software would be a civil matter which you could resolve via the courts directly without involving the police. Here is a fine example from 1725.

Re: Unique Moto G6 for sale.

If you want any customers you need to hire some booth babes and make an advert.

Re: Precautions...

Careful! If you leak those classified American secrets on the net you will get extradited to the US... when the travel ban is over.

Re: Every loser wins...

Time for a burning platform memo.

Re: MS at least try to be the good guys every now and then

Windows was a security disaster and Microsoft spent years not doing anything about it - in part because any improvements in security would have pissed off users by breaking lots of legacy software. By the time Microsoft started to make a serious effort criminals had all the resources they needed to keep up. Windows is still a major target despite massive improvements in security for many reasons: criminals have lots of experience, there is a large supply of machines that are badly defended and plenty have security features actively undermined by computer illiterate users.

There are millions of *nix servers but the big server farms have had a reasonable defensive budget and the resulting security patches have been quickly distributed thanks to free software's upgrade continuously for free history. Make an ssh server visible on the internet and someone will promptly try to brute force access to it. This has been true for decades so presumably there is a large supply of badly configured *nix machines worth exploiting. The tools to make a *nix machine more trouble than it is worth to all but the most experienced / funded criminals / NSA agents are freely available to anyone who makes the effort to understand them.

Please learn of Microsoft's early mistake and make an effort proportional to the value of the data you are defending no matter what OS you choose.

Re: People need to be more selective

At one time, any search of Bing with "Linux" in it led to pages of how to uninstall Linux. Duck Duck Go used to be heavily influenced by Bing. Bing might have improved and Duck Duck Go now takes input from a wider variety of sources. Duck Duck Go's results for software related queries has improved over the years to the point where I have not had to resort to Google for ages. Give them a try every year or so and see if you can cut another category out of the 'all else has failed' search engine.

Re: it's classified

The good news about anything being classified is the president will announce it at the next press conference. Just give him a big map of the US and a marker pen.

Re: White Eleph^WRocket

SLS can get cancelled but it will just come back with a new name.

It used to be called the Constellation Program. The Altair Lunar Lander + Ascent vehicle was properly cancelled but is now back. The Orion capsule survived the renaming and has actually been launched and landed. The Ares I (human rated launch vehicle) and Ares V (big cargo launcher) got merged into SLS preserving the contracts with the important contractors but it requires launching crew and cargo together so you have the expense of human rating a big cargo launcher with solid rocket boosters and the benefit of being too wimpy for a complete Moon mission so it requires the Luna tollbooth gateway.

When SLS gets cancelled the replacement will need the word "Re-usable" somewhere in its acronym. The obvious technical solution would be to genetically engineer a drove of flying entelodonts but that does not fit the requirement of funding the preferred contractors. Congress would probably go for something more expensive like a Hillercopter.

Re: Pickpockets paradise

I read a review of this tech. Your specific example of filching stuff from another shopper's trolley was not tested but from other tests I would expect the system to charge the correct person unless it is done by the toilets. The reviewer tried picking things up, putting them back, putting stuff away and trying to hide from the cameras. The system handled all of that fine.

There were two classes of failure. The first shoppers are warned about: If you pick something up and leave it on the shelf next to the entrance to the toilets you will be charged for it. The trick that worked was to sign in, pick stuff up, go to the toilets, get changed, come out, pick up more stuff and leave. Eventually you will be charged for the first set of purchases but not for the second. Amazon have been made aware of this cheat and perhaps they are dealing with it.

Something else that was not tested in the review is a family shopping trip: What happens when a parent signs in and a child picks stuff up?

The Amazon shops require customers to log in with their smart phones and pay by a credit card linked to an account. This is a problem under US and UK law: shops are required to accept cash. The lack of a cash option is a deal breaker for me. I also require a paper receipt. Hiding stuff up your jumper is not a crime but leaving the shop without paying is. I want the receipt as evidence that I have paid for the correct collection of purchases before I leave.

At least this system is honest about recording you with hundreds of cameras. I have not seen any warnings about the existing system of tracking how your phone moves around the shop using the free WIFI.

Re: Other interpretations

Pretend NASA says "Repeat the uncrewed test mission" right now. Boeing goes to their pet senators and says "NASA is picking on us" and the senators do something stupid with NASA funding. I can understand waiting until there are no possible excuses for Boeing before making an announcement.

There is one thing NASA can actually do: not certify Boeing's capsule for NASA astronauts. In theory that would leave Boeing with cargo runs and (if they get FAA approval) fearless tourists.

Re: Officially

Or because aberrance, avoidance and dalliance would never get there, pittance did not have enough budget, someone had called dips on vengence and resistance was useless.

For all we know...

... all 7,292 walked along Oxford Circus but the system only recognised one of them.

Re: Eh?

By themselves, referenda and elections are fine. Combinations of other factors are a problem such as the absence of teaching critical thinking in schools and targeted advertising. The £350M/week→NHS Brexit bus got shown to people without the skills to spot it was an obvious lie. 'Better a Russian than a Democrat' goes to the utterly delusional. The 'taking back control' goes to people who think they will get any of this control. A few percent makes a huge difference on a yes/no question with a similar number of people on each side.

Re: pharmaceuticals

I agree that pharmaceutical research deserves funding but funding them patents patents is an abomination. The idea of patents is to reward inventors for their effort (and sharing the research results with others) by granting a monopoly so that they can use a shortage to drive up the price. Patents directly cause a shortage of pharmaceuticals so replacing them with an alterlative system of funding will benefit everyone but lawyers.

Re: Unsurprise.

I will bow to your superior experience of buttplugs.

Judging by price and progress, Boeing is far better at getting a bunch of dudes to just mill about randomly while 'stuff' is supposedly happening. I missed their SLS launch scheduled for September 2018. Perhaps it was not convincing enough to appear even on kid's TV show.

Re: In other news...

I read the notice to airmen and was confused because SN01 was obviously not ready to fly. It needed cryo-hardening and a pressure test. Clearly they tried to do both at once with liquid nitrogen and the notice to airmen was in case the pressure test got ahead of the cryo-hardening and a boiling nitrogen propelled rocket took off.

There is plenty to smile about. The rings were in good shape while they were being welded together but the welds shrank as they cooled so SN01 was nothing like as strong as planned. At best it would have done an up and down like star hopper. It looks like they fixed the weld shrinking problem with pieces of SN02 - most of which is on site, including the wings. SN02 might well go up, come down sideways and do a belly flip before landing - or do a spectacular RUD. 301 stainless is cheap to buy, quick to weld and scrap has recycle value so Starship development can race along with entertaining explosions without costing 0.01% of an SLS.

This pre-dates Trump

Civil forfeiture really took off in the '80s. Plenty of states only require "probable cause" to find some property or pile of money guilty and seize it. Getting stuff back requires proving beyond reasonable doubt that the seized items were not involved in a crime. The different standards of proof and 'guilty unless proven innocent' may sound a bit unfair and provoking abuse but remember the legal action is against things without any rights rather than against people who might still have some rights promised by the constitution.

Re: HMRC : Singlehanded incompetent.

Apparently no-one can show you one single shred of evidence that Amazon haven't paid every penny they owe.