Posts by Alan Brown

Re: Libre liver bile

"tried to write fully functional programs into what was left of the 1KB on a ZX81"

All ROM BASIC systems had a major advantage that BASIC keywords were tokenised down to 1 byte, so as long as you were economical with everything else it was relatively easy.

Re: "did not want to assign *copyright* to the FSF for his contributions"

"Why does it want copyright on someone else work?"

"it" doesn't as such. But if it comes time to enforce GPL compliance, individual programmers have usually found they've been strung along for years (and in at least one case I know of in the 1990s, the commercial outfit which ripped off the code turned around and sued the original author in order to claim copyright on the code they'd stolen - but this happened more regularly with BSD-style releases).

Having the FSF park (well funded) tanks on the front lawn usually results in naughty outfits reassessing their position. The cases you hear about (that are approaching court) are fewer than 1% of the issues that they deal with.

"Personally I think we should have made the carriers nuclear"

No shit. EMALS pretty much requires it (as does a decent steam catapault) and the amount of bunker fuel you need to keep something this big fed is that much less Jet fuel for the important part of the ship.

Re: Downsize the UK, we are NOT an empire any more!

We've already had a "mouse that roared" scenario play out in Brexit. Do you want to compound it?

" Someone may have lost it?"

More like tossed it out for inaccuracy.

If 3000 F-35s are built I'd be surprised. The numbers are decreasing with every order update - and the F35B numbers may only be a couple hundred in total.

"As a country we literially make more money by buying these than not"

As a country we make nothing from them. BAE does - and despite the "british" in the name, it is not a british company, nor has it been for some time.

Re: "preparing perfectly for the last war and ignoring developments that have happened since"

"Secular would end all these conflicts where one religious sect has power and starts discriminating against the other (Which is the primary cause for the Arab Spring"

The differences are tribal, not sect-based. When you look at the demographics of the people in power you'll find they all come from the same families/groups and they'll as happily kill opponents of the same religious sect as an "opposing" one.

The middle east problem partially derives from french decisions to deliberately draw boundaries to split tribes between countries and at the same time put groups with a history of conflicts in charge of running the same new country. The British tended to merely draw straight lines on deserts and ignore T.E. Lawrence's advice on the matter (Yes, Lawrence of Arabia) - which included handing vast tracts of the ex-ottoman empire over to the french to administer despite them having been promised independence for siding with the Allies in WW1

Having wars by proxy (fascists vs others pre ww2 and USA vs USSR post WW2) simply kept making it worse. There's over 100 years of clusterfucks to unpick there and it's nowhere near as simple as Faux News would like to make it appear (Pre WW1 "Syria" comprised what is now Syria, part of Turkey, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and a big chunk of Iraq (which didn't exist pre-WW1), as one example)

The Ottomans also benefitted from keeping troublesome tribes fighting each other instead of the Ottommans - so going back further than that requires finding out who was encouraged to attack who and by whom. Arkansas hillbilly feuds have nothing on some of the emnities that have simmered for centuries....

"For example, the US air force still operates the F-15 which first flew in 1972 and is expected to remain in service until 2025."

It's ironic that you bring that one up, as the F15 and F14 were "smaller, cheaper" aircraft rapidly brought into service when the F-111B procurement turned into an expensive clusterfuck.

The primarly lesson learned from the F111 debacle was how to ensure the program couldn't be cancelled.

Re: Typical military-procurement thinking

"That sort of design is extremely low-yield."

Nonetheless, it's easy enough to do, which is why it's done. You don't need to have precise detonation timings on your implosion sphere.

Slightly more complex arrangements along the same lines include a cylindrical block with a an annulus blasted around it along a pipe pf the same OD as the core cylinder to make up the critical mass. The advantage of this one is that it's easier to stop the two parts flying apart before the reaction is initiated

Still low yield, but less low yield...

"I'd happily pay them the dole, so long as THEY are fixing roads,railways, bridges etc."

It was bad enough when badly trained, unmotivated workers were building cars. Can you imagine what a British Leyland bridge would look like?

Then again the level of crap workmanship seen on UK roads is so bad that it probably wouldn't make much difference.

Re: sub-launched nuclear armed cruise missiles

"Except that the existing cruise missiles aren't designed to carry nuclear warheads"

That's funny, considering that cruise missles were originally intended for EXACTLY that operation.

Fitting conventional warheads was only done at the first Gulf War to give a shedload of ones about to hit "use by" date something to do.

Re: sub-launched nuclear armed cruise missiles

"When Russia are investing in next gen ballistic missiles"

The entire russian economy is smaller than a 5th rate western country. At the rate they're buying into new weapon systems they'll go bankrupt in less time than it took Ronnie Raygun to scare them into weapons-buying bankruptcy last time.

Re: Space to spare

"how many helicopters"

Hopefully they don't intend to keep using Sea Kings as AWACS craft. A converted V22 would (at face value) seem to be more sensible.

Re: Space to spare

"I have several boxes of paperbacks I'd like to store somewhere secure. If the MOD/Navy want, I could store them in a corner of all that unused hangar space."

This is about the only sensible use of the things.

Carriers need a "carrier group" escort. The UK doesn't have enough ships to make up ONE carrier support group, let alone two.

Without a carrier support group, these are HMS Sitting Duck and HMS White Elephant.

Even with them, given the huge amount of bunker fuel onboard and the existence of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM), the names are probably appropriate.

Re: AC @YetAnotherLocksmith ... It makes sense, but...

" Most such devices have two stages - an initiator, AKA a detonator, and a main charge"

And a serious bomber will have a dead-man switch. Even a nearby explosion won't be enough in most cases to disable the mechanism or prevent the bomber exploding when he lets it go.

Re: AC @YetAnotherLocksmith ... It makes sense, but...

"The biggest killer of black male youths in the US is another black male youth, has been for years."

The biggest killer of ANY male youth has always been someone from their own group. The same applies for white male youth, asian male youth or small purple furry alien youths.

That doesn't excuse that USA police shootings are out of control and that the victims in the are predominantly male youths and of those, black ones figure highly. The entire USA structure is rotten and systemic disenfranchisation of the poor is rampant.

What doesn't help is that a significant number of police recruits in the USA are sociopaths and another significant number are psychologically unsuited to operation under pressure. These are not being weeded out during training and they're not removed when they show themselves as unsuitable for the job. The police are failing to police themselves _and_ they mostly regard the "protection of their own" as more important than the "protection of the public" regardless of how egrariously evil the conduct of some of their own may be.

Just like the 1970s, when the London flying squad would struggle to secure a conviction of armed bank robbers even if they caught them in the act of robbing a bank(*), confidence in USA police is at an all-time low. Serious cleaning up is needed and there seems to be no will to get on with it. (The violence and disregard for legalities has been there a long time - see Rodney King. What's new is the ubiquitousness of cameras to record it) Jurisdictions could start with an assumption of malfeasance if bodycams or microphones are disabled or non-functional.

(*) Not just London. The Greater Manchester Serious Crimes division was found to be responsible for _committing_ most of the serious crimes in greater Manchester....

Re: Rolls-Royce are deluded

"Try coming up the Channel in autopilot."

I suspect that robotic ships would be less likely to run down errant sailboats due to the requirements to have better sensors on them.

Not that better senors aren't required NOW, but robotics is a good excuse for much more stringent safety regulation, etc.

Re: Is it worth it ?

"Would ever ratchet strap require a tension sensor in case one became loose or failed?"

They require them NOW. I've seen loose/flailing ones on multiple occasions with the driver cheerfully oblivious to the hazard he's causing.

Re: Units, you nit!

Not to mention that it doesn't "weigh" anything at all.

Its MASS on the other hand, is substantial....

Re: Stocks?

Stocks only held their feet.

I'd like to see pillories and whipping posts.

Re: Wee 'P' values

"Someone got hold of the data and showed that a bug in the researchers Excel spreadsheets "

I think you mean a bug in the researchers. Using Excel for detailed analysis should be a sacking offence.

Re: "“lamentable archiving and data-sharing practices”"

"The trouble with that sort of test-driven development is that you can easily end up in the situation where you're developing a product to pass those tests and do essentially nothing else;"

I've seen this too. Products getting fudge factors inserted by the programmers so that they passed the tests (what's happening in the real world) vs notifying the project initiator so they can go back to find what the root cause of the discrepency was and incorporating this into the original hypothesis.

People can and have been sacked for this kind of shenanigan and it's the kind of attitude from staff that results in things like accusations of deliberate climate model fudging for political ends, etc.

The fundamental problem is that the slacker attitude that you see in many movies is alive and well even in well-funded science environments (and thriving in badly funded ones). Noone wants to admit that they can't trust _all_ their staff to produce the right results (worse still you don't know which staff are unreliable until long after the horse has left the barn), in the same way that noone really wants to admit the biggest threat to any business is from within.

Re: If you use something in your work that is a "black box" to you, you take a risk

"However, it is a bit worrying that the software was faulty..."

Software is ALWAYS faulty.

One shining example being the way that floating point calculations are handled. With the best will in the world there are always rounding errors introduced and the way you write your software can actively seek to minimise them, or possibly ignore them and compound the errors.

We ran into real-world examples of this with IDL programs giving different answers in 32 and 64 bit environments. The assumption was that as the 32-bit software had been around for years, the 64bit environment was wrong.

It turned out that BOTH were wrong, just in differing degrees. The resulting insights meant that more accurate (and consistent) results were achieved in both environments(*) AND the old raw data got reprocessed to give "better" answers.

(*) Hint: Don't take the answer from a single calculation and use that as input for the next calculation, ad nauseum. This compounds the rounding errors.(**) Always recalculate from your basepoint.

(**) It's akin to using pi=22/7 or 3.142 and then iterating over several million subsidiary results. Whilst both are a useful approximation, over a few million cycles you won't get circles anymore. ALWAYS do all the integer stuff _first_ when calculating on a computer. Real numbers need to go into the calculation mix last.

Re: Cargo Cult Science

"Except you don't. You assume that the scales and thermometers are accurate. "

I don't. I was brought up with the notion that you CHECK their calibration against known standards, which are in turn crosschecked against other standards and you periodically RECHECK the devices to ensure they have not gone wonky. You also need to know their limitations - thermometers being one example where they may be accurate in liquids but not in air.

I was also taught the difference between RESOLUTION and ACCURACY.

What that means is that an uncalibrated device can often tell you that there is a difference between two measurements to a high degree of resolution, but you can't tell what the absolute values really are. both are useful traits. A calibrated device which has low resolution might give an accurate reading for measurements, but the higher resolution uncalibrated device allows you to tell the differences between the readings (for this reason, a digital multimeter might give 3-4 digit resolution but the reading should never be considered accurate to more than 1 significant place even after calibration - nonetheless, it's still useful to have those extra digits when tuning for peaks or minimums.)

Re: Good science

"Is the underlying data bad, or just the interpretation done by the software?"

This question cannot be answered, as the underlying data (the raw input) has been dumped.

Re: Good science

"The problem is not the scanner"

The problem is that the raw data was not preserved. This is a fundamental violation of repeatability principles in scientific work. If this kind of "scientist" was around in the 1970s, the Ozone hole would have taken another 20 years to confirm(*)

(*) The software processing NOAA data dumped ozone readings that were "too high or too low", which is why the ozone hole took too long to be confirmed, but because the instrument raw data was kept, once the software error was realised, the entire dataset was rerun and the ozone hole's evolution became blindingly obvious. Without that data it would have taken at least another decade to get enough data to verify that it was growing and that it was man-caused.

Re: Good science

" you get a big shiny beige box with knobs on it and you think it must be outputting the truth."

_THIS_ in spades. The current crop of researchers just blindly accept whatever "computer says" without crosschecking results or understanding _how_ those results were obtained.

Or even if they're actually using an appropriate tool. These are the same people who in woodwork class would be attempting to bang in nails using a carpenters' plane because it was on the workbench, or trying to add water to concentrated sulphuric acid in chemistry class after not reading the safety warnings.

"exports are proportionally more competitive."

Only if your raw materials are locally sourced or you have a very high labour/added-value content.

Re: Only $1.34 to the point?

"I was under the impression that US Companies only ever used $1 == £1."

Some used $1 = £2, many still use $1 = £1.50

Re: Terry (won't have voted for the next PM)

"for reasons which completely escape me"

Simple: even those in favour of PR wouldn't accept it (it's much harder to change a second time, than reject the offer and go for something better later).

The New Zealand model would have been much better:

1: Stay with FPP or move to PR

2: If moving to PR, which version do you want?

Re: Terry (won't have voted for the next PM)

"Having this country being 'run' by a PM that hasn't won their spot by a majority vote at a general election."

No party has won an actual, _real_ majority vote at a general election in a very long time.

The Conservatives and Labour have been trading places based on receiving 33-35% of the vote. Hardly a majority. Gerrymandering is what makes most of the difference.

Anyway, voters elect the party. The party selects its leader and he selects his cabinet. Any idea that you're voting for _anyone_ as prime minister is misguided at best.

Re: Autopilot...

"The collision occurs even though each plane had TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) collision-avoidance equipment onboard."

That's hardly fair. The air traffic controllers and TCAS were barking conflicting warnings and the CREWS countermanded the TCAS control inputs.

Re: Wouldn't have happened in the UK.

"I avoid the area as much as possible "

Which is exactly what an area with pavers or bricks is intended to make you do. It's a very effective way of keeping trafffic speed down and traffic volume low.

Re: @Phil O'Sophical

'get back to the speed you previously set'

One of my cow-orkers has a late model VW Golf (not a diesel) and the degree of acceleration when you press the button is based on the "mode" the car is in.

Under normal circumstances it accelerates slowly. If left in sport mode then it'll ram you back into your seat.

The same thing happens when it's come up behind a slow car (adaptive cruise control) and you pull out to pass. As he always "drives it like he stole it", it stays in sport mode permanently.

Re: No bars?

"hump sticks happen more often than trailer guillotines"

Hump sticks happen when rig drivers aren't paying attention. If they were, they wouldn't go over the hump in the first place - most humps large enough to snag a rig tend to be signposted for precisely this kind of reason.

A classic example of rig operator stupidity got reported a couple of months back where a rig operator took an (IIRC) 89,000 pound rig onto a historic bridge rated for 10 tons maximum - with utterly predictable results. Her excuse was that she thought 89,000 pounds was less than 10 tons, but that didn't prevent her being stuck with the bill for not only being rescued, but for replacing the bridge (insurance policies tend not to cover acts of gross negligence)

When you start digging into the real reasons for resistance to safety features on US rigs it comes down to 2 main ones:

1: Extra weight == less payload

2: Tractors and trailers tend to be changed around a lot, so side impact rails suitable for one combination may not be effective on another or may snag the rear of the tractor in extreme cases.

It's interesting to note the IHRC crash videos linked elsewhere in this thread which show USA trailer rear bars simply snapping off at 50% and 35% impact overlap. That wouldn't be tolerated in the UK and liability would fall back on the fabricators.

With regard to the Tesla: This guy drove around with dashcam on most of the time and was a regular youtube poster. Presumably the camera was running that day and this will help the NHTSA determine actual faults. I'm picking that the "other cars which saw and slowed down" were further away than the Tesla was - at some point it a T-boning just happens "in your lap" and there's not much which can be done.