Posts by Martin Gregorie

Re: Is it a good idea ...?

No it wasn't, but the bean counters would have pointed out that:

* redesigning a taller undercarriage to accommodate the new, bigger engines in their proper place would be awfully expensive as well as adding weight, which reduces payload capacity.

* the bigger undercarriage would have almost certainly occupied valuable cargo or fuel tank space, causing even more expensive redesigning

Both of which might impact sales.

Finally, a company test pilot may well have pointed out that a taller undercarriage alters the pilot's visual picture during both takeoff and landing and that this would certainly impact crew training costs and, for airlines with older 737s, reduce aircrew assignment flexibility.

Result: beancounters and board insist on using old, short undercarriage and on fitting that mis-designed, but cheap, MCAS. As a result their decisions produced a dangerously unstable aircraft.

Bottom line: in an engineering company the board-level management MUST think like engineers or something nasty is quite likely to happen. This is why such companies often fail once the board is entirely made of venture capitalists, money men and sales persons.

Re: Did he mix Fox up with the Sci-Fi network a few times?

Never mind the killdozers, where are the Space Marines Ladies Auxilliary Force wearing bikinis under their transparent space suits and carrying matching colour-coded blasters?

I've seen them on the covers of so many "Astounding Stories" issues that they must be true.

Dunstable a year or two back: a two-seat training glider on finals at the London Gliding Club had a near miss on a drone, which was so close that there was absolutely no question of it being anything else.

There was absolutely no excuse for the drone to be where it was because (a) gliders will have been using that same approach path all day and (b) where it was being flown from was very close to Luton airspace. I've flown at LGC, so have received the club's airspace briefing and know just how close the clubs' airfield is to Luton airspace.

Re: "Accurate [..] predictions are essential for understanding the hazard they pose to spacecraft"

He deservedly gets down-voted for "space is big" because:

(a) from a ground-based point of view everything in orbit is effectively a set of moving dots on a zero thickness screen so their actual dispersion through a 3D volume of space with a 58,000 km radius is quite irrelevant.

(b) it fails to recognise that satellites tend to use a set of shells depending on their function (LEO, NEO, GPS, geo-stationery, etc) so the density of satellites in each shell is much higher than a simple 'space is big' statement ever considers. Musk's ridiculously large swarm is intended to mostly be in one orbital shell at 550km, so good luck with autonomous dodging when there are 12,000 of them in that shell. Can they automatically de-orbit when fuel gets low, or is that something that's also been forgotten?

(c) Musk's 'autonomously maneuvering' swarm are probably not predictable enough to schedule telescope time - especially if Space-X 'forgets' to update orbital parameters in real time. Besides, its not clear if said autonomous satellites even tell Space-X what its new orbit is and when it switched to it.

Re: What's the new language half-life these days?

Or better still, "The Practice of Programming" by Kernighan & Pike - if a newbie programmer takes the advice in that to heart, their code will be much more readable and they'll know how to write easily debuggable code.

Re: That's some printer there

Its worth visiting the Komori website to see just how big that printer is.

I've seen smaller mainframes....

Re: It's not AI...

Well said.

Nobody should ever trust decisions made by a person if they can't explain how they arrived at their conclusion and exactly the same level of trust should be used if a machine makes the decision.

As for a gadget's makers and promoters: if its meant to recognize things or make decisions but can't explain how it arrived at the answer it gave then its NOT an Artificial Intelligence and anybody saying it is should be treated as an idiot, liar or fraudster depending on the circumstances and whether they stand to profit by calling it an AI.

I remember all the nonsense that was spouted the last time AI was a thing, back in the early '80s when 'AI' referred to systems of hand-crafted decision trees and the programs that displayed them. These were simple enough that even an IBM PC-AT 286 could run them. There is remarkably little difference between the overblown hype back then and what we're seeing now.

Re: Sanity check

I was only considering whether something like an insect could fly on Mars, not if an active multicellular beastie could live there, so you made a good point about respiration, but not an entirely relevant one, since the Martian atmosphere contains only trace amounts of oxygen: 99.82% of it is carbon dioxide, nitrogen and argon.

IOW, anything living there will necessarily have a metabolism that does not depend on oxygen. This means that anything living on Mars is probably similar to things that lived on earth before the Great Oxygenation Event, 2.4 billion years ago, i.e. single cell microorganisms. Microbial mats in caves may be a possibility but I wouldn't put money on finding them.

Read Greg Benford's "The Martian Race" for what seems like a fairly realistic account of living on Mars, microbial mats and all.

Even one 'showstopper' is too many to even think of going live when the application is so central to your business.

The real problem with testing large systems like retail banking packages is that they are far more complex to test than the typical bank management ever realise if they haven't been through it previously. Whether the system is running on a mainframe, server farm or in the cloud doesn't really affect the size of this task. Any such system has to handle transactions input via:

* ATMs, web browsers, phone apps, FastPay, SWIFT, CHAPS, Paypal and probably some others I've missed.

It needs to handle various account types:

* Current accounts, savings accounts, mortgages and loans working in multiple currencies

..and must handle complex staff activity using PCs and other terminals with big displays as well as printing fancy statements, etc.

Testing something like this is expensive and time consuming because testing MUST exhaustively cover everything from normal daily operation through account creation, deletion and migration in and out. On top of this there is special processing at month end and year end (both company and tax years). Additionally backups and restores MUST be tested and so must input overloads and auditing.

All this testing needs to be scripted and repeatable simply because its unreasonable, and expensive, to expect testers with phones/laptops/ etc. to do this sort of testing repeatedly without making mistakes.

Sabis already had Proteo, an apparently configurable retail banking package, and so you'd expect a set of development/configuration/testing/regression tools as part of the standard package. However, judging from the way things panned out it either lacked these tools or it wasn't configurable enough to meet UK standards without modification, and maybe some PHB thought tweaking the development etc tools to match UK requirements was unimportant.

Re: What for?

To be really useful the system needs to predict where Cu-Nims are likely to form during the next hour or so, but that probably needs rather more data from a wider area than a 'local weather station' can provide unless there's a linked network of them. In any case, such a prediction is probably beyond the capability of any current weather forecasting systems unless Matthew Scutter has cracked it.

Re: Doesn't inspire confidence....

If something the size, complexity and cost of Galileo can be brought down by a fat-fingered mistype in some console then the upper layer of managers should be sacked for not having a proper system of tested procedures.

That most likely explains it: they're a collection of PHBs and MBAs who don't understand what they're managing and so are incapable of organising either an effective backup system or timely recovery from a system crash. However, they will never admit this or permit the true story to be published because they know damn well they'll be blamed for allowing the situation to occur and will be sacked as a result.

In short, they seem very similar to the upper levels of the British Civil Service.

Re: Some surprising results (for the layman)

It may be very low density, but the particle soup inside the heliosphere is still a gas, as is the interstellar medium, and the makeup of both is quite similar. Hence the material in both places will obey the physical Gas Laws. The stuff inside the heliosphere is hotter, i.e. contains more energy, than the stuff outside because it has captured more energy from the sun, so it follows that the stuff in the heliosphere must be less dense than the stuff in the interstellar medium.

This hypothesis was proposed some time ago, so its really nice to have two independent measurements that confirm it.

Nice work if you can get it.

Unfortunately, there are all too many properties in the UK where home charging is ruled out by urban design. Where I live, in one of the older New Towns near London, its not possible for many people to plug a car into their house without trailing the lead across the pavement. There are council-provided hardstandings, but none are wired for charging, there are no plans for wiring them up, and the one I rent is 60m from my house and on the far side of the access road.

Re: Unintended(?) side effects

Surely that depends on what application issues DoH requests. I agree that it will have no effect on applications in general if DoH is only used by web browsers. However, that implies that either:

- NO other applications will use DoH unless they are modified to use DoH queries in place of the current plaintext DNS queries

or

- somebody or something, i.e. your ISP, your router, some translation process you installed, intercepts outgoing DNS queries, converts them to DoH queries before passing them on and does the reverse translation to DoH responses.

I'm pointing this out because, if DoH takes off, it is unlikely to to remain a browser-only option and, as its going to need configuration files, security certs, etc, it would seem unlikely that it will get built into every program that currently does DNS lookups, hence my original worry that we'll end up with yet another system process to support the DoH query API and that this will impact applications using DNS queries that those pushing DoH have never thought about.

Last but not least, the DoH API had better operate asynchronously, i.e. must NOT wait for for a response before issuing the next query, oy it will simply be a bigger and better bottleneck on throughput.

Re: This Page Is Intentionally Blank

Agreed: ICL documentation was generally pretty good, even if for some programs it was a case of build-your-own-manual. The 1900 PLAN4 manual was a good example. It came in a large ring binder and the original text was never reissued. To make it usable meant updating a new copy from (IIRC) 12 hefty amendment packs, in total nearly half as thick as the original manual. These were applied sequentially and must have replaced over 25% of the original pages because some amendment packs fixed previous amendment packs. Or so it seemed as you did it, since a fully amended manual was little thicker than the original.

However, what I came here to say was that I did once find an IDMSX error: in an ordered set containing more than one record type the manual said the set order would be strict key sequence regardless of record type, which is what we wanted. But what IDMSX actually did was to order the set by key within record type. Naturally, we raised a bug and then waited... and waited. Eventually the updated software and manuals were released - the fix turned out to be updating the manual to specify what IDMSX had always done.

Re: It was something we used to do in the 60s & 70s

I remember needing some nitromethane for an experiment I was doing in my post-grad year, but the lab chemical store only had a winchester of spectroscopic grade nitromethane. I questioned using this stuff since I only needed about half a litre of cooking grade nitromethane, but was told to take it because that was the only nitro they had.

I ran the experiment and then found that the opened Winchester couldn't be returned.

What a shame. Pity to waste the nitro, though, so it went back to my flat where I and my model flying chums used it as the essential ingredient in 'hot' glo-fuel (20% oil, 30% nitro, 50% methanol). Our engines ran very nicely indeed for the next few months.

Re: Possibly OT: What the user really wanted...

Essy-Peasy solution: use any relational database. To do what you're asking only needs a single table with a prime key. The software is free too: anything from MariaDB, Derby or SQLite to PostgreSQL.

The latter would be my choice: dead easy to install, once set up needs next to no care & attention and, unlike the others I mentioned, would be easy to use as a shared resource for several projects.

Indeed. There's nothing in those requirements that looks impossible to do without AI, and do bear in mind that:

* All the Apollo computational heavy lifting was done in Houston because the onboard computational power in both LM and CM was severely limited by available technology, space and power requirements.

* In 1997 Michael Foale was able to figure out the moves needed to stop Mir tumbling, after it had been hit by a Progress supply vessel, by using only his thumb against a viewport as a stellar sighting aid and his (well-trained) brain.

* Neil Armstrong had done something similar in Gemini 8 when the OAMS attitude control system malfunctioned and he manually stopped an uncommanded roll using the RCS.

Re: Let's not forget...

Said loony may have been talking to Tokamak Energy in Oxfordshire, who do seem to be making steady progress with a rather different design of reactor to ITER. I hope they succeed.

Re: Why so much hate for Bud?

I've drunk a fair amount of US beer on its home territory. IMO Sierra Pale Ale and Sam Adams beers are far ahead of the rest. The very best I've had was brewed by the Outer Banks Brewing Station in Kitty Hawk, but the rest are but pale imitations of beer or lager. Some of the breweries are decidedly economical with the truth too. During a tour of the Coors brewery (I was in Golden, CO for an afternoon and ya gotta find something to do) we got a big spiel that Killians Red was invented by a past head brewer, a Mr. Kilian, but that was a flat out lie. Killian's Red was originated by the Pelforth brewery in France and licensed to Coors for sale in the USA.

Looking outside the USA, my local serves an excellent pint of Jeffery Harding Bitter from the Oakham brewery and Fullers' beers seem to have survived being bought by Asahi. When it comes to lager, Staropramen is pretty good, as is almost any German beer provided its drunk local to the brewery but, to my taste anyway, but Budevar (brewed at Ceske Budejovice in Czechia) is better and the best lager I've tasted is Pilsener Urquell, which is brewed at Plzen, also in Czechia.

Re: Paper ballots, sealed voting containers and many scrutineers

CGP Gray has a good video explaining why that kind of voting system inevitably results in a two party system.

Never heard of him until now. Even though he lives in London, he's still a US citizen, and it would seem that he doesn't take any notice of voting systems & politics outside the USA or he would know that:

- The UK hasn't had a two party system since the Labour Party became a significant political player in the early 1920s and now has five significant parties (Conservative, Labour, Liberal, Plaid Cymry and Scottish National, none of which are showing signs of fading away) plus an assortment of single issue, right wing populist and Irish regional parties.

- there are four major Canadian parties

- as for Europe: there are three major parties in France, four in Austria, six in Spain and seven in Germany.

Re: NASA proposes; reality disposes

The Shuttle did prove the possibility of building a re-usable spacecraft with the capability of carting several astros and a fair chunk of cargo into space. That makes it a worthwhile machine to have built and flown, even if the cost, time and manpower needed to prepare it for the next launch all blew past project estimates as if they weren't there.

The fact that the ejection system was taken out after its first launch and that it wasn't as safe as advertised are more a criticism of the prevailing attitudes in NASA and time constraints imposed on the STS project than of the Shuttle itself. Don't forget that NASA had prior form here: think Apollo 1 and the wisdom of running launch practises with 15psi of pure oxygen in a vehicle containing materials that were not certified fire safe in 100% oxygen, had no fire extinguishers installed and was fitted with an escape hatch that needed 3 minutes to open.

Re: Its on the list of planes I want to fly in

I know about DC-3s - I used to travel in them regularly when they were the standard plane used by NAC, the NZ internal airline, but have never visited the cockpit of one. I still have vivid memories of going through French Pass below cloudbase, which was on the hilltops, in a DC-3 during a flight from Nelson to Wellington. Very turbulent - in each big drop the massed retch from pax almost drowned out the engines. Me? I wasn't ill.

I'm also familiar with seeing AN-2s when visiting former Eastern Block countries, and so would enjoy a ride in one. I'm a glider pilot, so not particularly interested in actually flying something with an engine on it, though I did enjoy having hands-on in a Tiger Moth at Duxford a few years back.

Re: Why do I feel I've sat through...

Maybe, but 3D NAND really is a major breakthrough.

Really? Given that we already have multi-layer flash, this article makes it sound just like more of the same. Think Manhattan and the Empire State as compared to the Woolworth building: similar technology but more tiers.

Re: IF Year > 50

A lot of us kept a a COBOL skeleton program in our briefcases back in the day. This was a pack of 20-30 cards containing all the essential declarations. With that and a 12-key card punch you could whip up a quick fix program surprisingly quickly.

In case you're wondering I've written COBOL on ICL 1900, 2903, 2900, VAXen, Tandem NonStop, NCR UNIX (MicroFocus COBOL) and a 6809 microcomputer running FLEX-09.

Re: "The Cabinet Office should write to us within three months"

Indeed.

The reply will say something along the lines of: "The previous incumbents all resigned after emptying the office bank account and shredding all their paperwork, so we can't tell you anything."

Sorreee.

Re: What's in a name?

Wrong. The ADVICE of the people was to leave.

The referendum was ADVISORY, not binding. It said that quite clearly in the Government booklet that was sent to all voters before the referendum took place. There is no excuse whatever for treating it as binding. Any voter or MP who did so is just plain wrong.

Yet another pointless waste of energy keeping the CPU at high clock

Not all BOINC projects are a waste of energy.

That said, I used to be a supporter back when a PC's clockspeed was fixed, but once my house server, which runs 24/7, had its old hardware replaced with a variable clock speed dual Athlon box and I'd had to listen to the poor thing howling continuously at maxed-out clock speed and full-throttle fans, BOINC got the chop and has never been reinstalled.

Bottom line: I'm happy to donate unused cycles to worthwhile projects, but these were not unused cycles: they would not have existed if BOINC hadn't stomped the PC's pedal to the metal and held it there.

Obvious (and cheap) solution - stick 4G/5G antennae on top of the windmills. Many of these are 50m tall, so give even better coverage[*] as well as minimising the number of spikes on the skyline.

* assuming GRP blades are used, not CFRP, which is true for smaller land-based turbines.

... then again one might reasonably expect that, in a well-managed company, the conditions that led to a feminist uproar, or any similar reaction, wouldn't arise.

Re: Alternatively,

Bring back horse transport.

Won't work - there's not enough pasturage in the UK to feed the herd of horses that would be needed to replace fossil-fueled road transport.

Same goes for the USA. Replacing their fleet of fossil-fueled road vehicles with horses hasn't been possible since 1956 because even then they didn't have sufficient grassland to feed all those horses - even if they turned all their cereal cropland over to growing horse fodder. There was an article in "Scientific American" about that back in the late 1960s.

Re: So...

Upvoted: I came here to say just that. It must have at least three flight control computers AND at least three AOA sensors because with only two of any critical part there's no way to know which one failed, only that one of them is broken.

Re: A Brexit opportunity? Disaster, surely..

Possible downside is many of the UK's trading ports ended up becoming luxury waterfront living & marinas rather than working ports.

That depends where the fencing goes and which bit of land the paperwork applies to, so put the fence round an existing trading port and tweak that port's paperwork. Result: still a working port, not luxury living or a marina. Unless, of course, you extend the wire to make space for a marina and a few casinos within the freeport.

Not saying this is a good idea, mind, but it would preserve existing jobs.

Re: Just caught the reporting on CTF

Looks like you don't get out much and/or are young and rather gullible.

It was obvious from back when Uncle Joe took over in Russia that Marxism was a convenient smokescreen for yet another military dictatorship and its secret police. The same dictatorship is still in control both there and in what was Mao's China: all that's changed in both places is that the smokescreen now has a passing resemblance to democracy.

If you didn't already know this, then a visit to Czechoslovakia in the late '80s when Solidarity was in the process of booting the Polish Communist Party out of power would have spelt that out in block capitals.

The increasing spread of Solidarity in Poland meant that the poor bloody East Germans, who used to be able to visit Poland or Czechoslovakia on their summer hols, could now only visit Czechoslovakia. I was there at the time, camping with some mates, so we met a lot of young East Germans who were also camping. They were all well educated, friendly and spoke good English and, of course, we compared notes with them. There was one theme we kept hearing, which summarises as:

"Of course we understand Marxism because we had to study it at school. It sounds wonderful: we just wish we had it".

In other words, the 'socialist' bit of USSR was always a lie: its just ironic that many of their citizens were well-enough educated to understand this.

Re: The most expensive conspiracy theory in history

Rubbish. Are you really too blind to see that the shadow on the left foreground isn't in-line with the flagpole and clearly ends to the left of its foot, and so is nothing to do with the flag or its flagpole.

All the Apollo photos are here: go to http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html and click on "Apollo 11" in the group below the "Apollo Image Gallery" boxed header.

The photo heading the El Reg article is AS11-40-5875 on that web page - go and look at it at a decent resolution. If you look carefully enough you can see that the very narrow shadow of the flagpole goes past Aldrin's right side and extends off the right edge of the photo - its quite hard to see but its there.

The obvious shadow on the left of the picture is cast by the solar wind experiment that Aldrin had just set up. Photo AS11-40-5872 shows him setting it up.

The photo that makes all this clear is a frame from a 16mm movie camera that was left running in the LM - photo AP11FR11, which shows:

• Aldrin saluting the flag
• the flag and its shadow alongside him
• the shadow of the solar wind experiment to the right of Aldrin and the flag, half obscured by a thruster that also appears black because its in the LM shadow
• Armstrong a few metres away taking photo AS11-40-5875

Re: Not that difficult...

This is the obvious one to buy a license for - provided that it scales well (Estonia's population is only 1.3 million) - because its up and running. The NZ one is worth a look too, for the same reason and with the same caveat (4.8M population).

The problem, though, is how to get either system installed and running in the UK without letting the Home Office, GDS, Crapita etc. terminally fuck it up.