Posts by John Smith 19

Re: How exactly is this helping to fight "terrorism"?

what makes you think that is their point?

They want the data, all of it, all of the time.

Re: PLSV? What rocket is this?

"What's seriously impressive is that the Indian Space Agency originally intended MOM to fly on the GSLV rocket, but when that suffered a series of launch failures, they switched to the PLSV."

I thought this was a natural for the GSLV but then I looked at its launch record...

Shocking.

The GSLV is really shaping up as a work horse for the Indian programme, but they really need to get the bugs out of the Cryogenic upper stage.

Re: And for your next trick ...

"Can be handled, I'm told, by taking the line that only your immediate boss can give you orders, regardless of how senior they are, and that everyone else must go through them."

Excellent.

It's called a "Chain of command." It's a notion that seems out of place in the world of matrix and "flat" management.

I'd also suggest making it clear that if someone wants you to know something they explicitly tell you.

This avoids the old "I thought you knew" BS that some nappies managers indulge in.

Re: Pardon?

"Have you heard of the fascist Republic of USA? 46 MEELION people in poverty. Still spunking BEELIONS on NASA."

They might also like to reflect that Aircon on overseas military bases > home delivered pizza market > NASA budget.

NASA is <0.5% of the US Federal budget.

OTOH it is 18x bigger than the Indian Space Research Organization.

Wheather or not it delivers 18x more result is more debatable.

Re: marketing spin

"Give all citizens an automatic share of the ownership of Particle Energy Power, and hold free information sessions called PEP talks."

Superb.

"Citizens will be given tokens to prove ownership of their share, these tokens will be known as Fission Chips."

Not so superb.

Re: Coming of age

"The bad news was the loss of innocence. This was the moment when the mutual trust ethos died."

Trust.

But verify.

@Gary Bickford

" "nations do not have friends, they only have interests" - adapted from a remark by Lord Palmerston, 1864. "

I think you'll find the quote is "Nations do not have permanent friends, only permanent interests" and it's by Disraeli.

"But also, and more interestingly for me, this technology appears to be a very good basis for either single or dual stage to orbit reusable launch systems."

Is it happens DARPA will be holding an open day on the 11th for a M10 1st stage launch system.

A launch mission runs about 10 mins. A cruise mission runs hours. Design options for a 1st stage LV would be unthinkable in a cruise mission. If it works at all Spacex's RLV tech will be running long before this is flying.

Re: 'Nuff Said

"It's pretty amazing the things that can be done these days with the crypto primitives we have. It's totally possible to set up an identity (read: pseudonym) system that is totally (well, computationally, to any degree you want) anonymous. That's why I called you out on your initial comment."

So (IIUC) with this system in place we could prove that all messages supposedly coming from "Frumious Bandersnatch" do come from you, but not who you are?

Authentication with anonymity?

Ingenious, if it works.

Re: I used to write Tape Loaders and...

" If it did have access to the microphone and a universal driver could be written in assembler, then it *could* poll and listen for audible tones, which then would form the basis for data pulses. In tape systems a one or a zero is represented by an inflection in polarity with a pulse width judged by measuring the edges."

I'd also question the bandwidth of the usual PC microphone speaker combos.

IIRC the typical aution I/P channel is not that high a quality.

Re: Is this really an IT issue?

"Lets just hope you don't get seriously ill, and are unable to make the payments. every man for himself - It's the American way, after all!"

Provided of course it's on the list of conditions the policy covers.

If not he'd better have the cash handy.

Lots of cash.

Re: You need to be thinking *phototypesetter,* not Linotype if you want to go that way.

"You clearly have never seen some of the desks on Mahogany Row."

True.

Besides, a good bit of the bulk is the melting pot and casting operation. Not to mention the expanding spaces. I think we can do without full justification."

Also true, but how are you going to produce the multiple copies of a letter?

" I'm not sure how you propose to implement sceen-edit with a phototypsetter. Not to mention how you plan to develop each frame "

In my OP I limited it to last line editing.

"Not to mention how you plan to develop each frame "

While I'd like to have seen more use of a photographic approach the challenge is tough enough (I think) that no solution should be ruled out unless it's very cumbersome. The trouble was always going to be building an erasable photographic film. That said the USAFRL did work in the mid 90s with bacterial rhodopsin in PVA using 2 color write (1 in the IR) and the IR frequency to erase. Their achieved resolution was 1400 line pairs/mm so a quite small piece could have served.

"Well, a screen ful of AAAAAA would be a bit boring. and I suspect that the 48 characters typical of early (pre 1960 or so) Data Processing equipment would do for a character set."

True but worst case planning is that. I chose 24 x 80 because a lot of TTY programs seemed to go with that by default. Regarding a character code well Baudot, used for teletype/telex systems would be more authentic.

I think it's taken as obvious that it's not going to be US based.

Well I hope so, but we'll have to see.