Posts by John Smith 19

Re: Working out of London Office?

"Sorry Mr. Pitiful, that parenthetical statement just disqualified you from consideration for this post."

True.

He probably would have also fluffed the question "What would you do without your mobile, if you lost it say?"

The correct answer for this is "Kill myself, as my entire life is on it.*"

*No. Mine isn't either.

Re: Good man.

"Good, good, let the cynicism fill you with its power.

Welcome to the Snark side of the Force!"

Indeed. The sarcasm is strong in this one.

Re: diet

"There may well be people eating what we , today, do not consider a healthy diet. But damn even that shite of frozen pizzas and chicken nuggets beats the average diet of a century ago (OK, maybe 150 years ago)."

Another small data point.

Average life expectancy in London around 1870 35. Average life expectancy in villages about 45.

Which (I'm guessing) given where most El Reg readers live and their ages would mean the readership would be a lot smaller and the local cemetery a lot fuller.

Re: If you live in a lake, it takes longer to walk to the well

" There is no part of (say) fruit picking that I can see could not be automated, from recognising ripe fruit, manipulating it without damaging it through to packing it - we don't employ rocket scientists to pick the fruit, just minimum wage labourers who follow certain rules."

I'll offer a data point, see what you think.

A while back an engineering company one an award for a robot end effector (hand) that can pick up a ripe cherry and lower it onto the top of an individual cake.

Obviously this is in a factory environment but the future is sometimes closer than we think.

@Ledswinger

"Healthy, sustainable food is not more expensive than pre-prepared meals or fast food restaurants, except for those daft enough to define healthy and sustainable solely as premium cuts of locally sourced organic meat, and matching organic veg."

True.

Having seen what a "low income" is I cannot understand how anyone could live on "junk food" at the prices currently charged, when you can live for weeks at a time a much lower amount of cash.

Re: It's lucky we have infinite energy and natural resources to build and power all of these robots

"Sadly, while extracting power from the great fusion power plant in the sky by means of photovoltic cells is theoretically attractive, in practice it actually takes more power to build the average solar panel than it generates in it's working lifetime. ("

When I talked about a star and the whole solar system I'd expected that people would realize I was talking about all resources in the home solar system, which (since all production is automated) would become accessible at reasonable cost.

But obviously you read that as "My roof".

First off above the Earth's atmosphere or Air Mass 0 the raw energy is about 30% higher.

Second off above 800Km the sunlight is virtually continuous

Third off the energy extractable by any structure in Earth orbit, rather than solar orbit is probably less than 1/ 1000 000 000 of the whole output of the sun.

But you're probably right. The energy a PV panel sited on an English rooftop can't recover the energy used in its mfg.

Re: It's lucky we have infinite energy and natural resources to build and power all of these robots

We have a solar system and a star to power it.

They amount of energy and resources (potentially) available is far beyond what a finite population can consume, much of which will (in one way or another) be recycled.

@chris lively

"This type of forward thinking is exactly what the über rich companies ought to be doing."

Well that was what Bell Labs used to do. Anyone who saw the spec on the first electronic telephone exchange would realize they planned to be the only company to survive WWW III.

Which is about as "forward thinking" as it gets.

PARC also, but they did less well at getting their ideas through the corporate machine.

"humans are not ready for immortality."

what makes you think the Google board is human?

Re: Hoping

"I have to say that I hope that they ditch the Indian team"

Sure they will.

If they can find someone cheaper.

Re: US company + US servers + THE PATRIOT Act --> *complete* compromise.

"It is indeed sad Clare (web specialist), but it is necessary. You or your girlfiend or other friends or their friends or possibly one of their friends, friends might be harboring as yet unrealized terroristic tendencies and in order to make sure we cover all the bases after something happens you'll need to have all your information rifled through.

If we don't know how a basically random event came to be, we can't align national resources to identify the drop of water in the ocean for future random event post analysis. You understand."

Priceless.

You've absolutely got the self serving bureaucrat-speak nailed. Very Brian Thomas Reynolds

Re: US company + US servers + THE PATRIOT Act --> *complete* compromise.

"Just looked this up on Wikipedia and it is disgraceful. Appropriate tools to intercept and obstruct terrorism, but they can legally look at all my emails and what I done on the internet."

Surprise.

Well of course they will argue that as a US citizen they won't spy on the text just stuff like the titles, when and where you you sent it and of course if any of your friends are furriners, they're open season.

Short term look at making sure you're AV is up to date and look at installing PGP and getting all your friends to go encrypted as well, if you want what you talk about to stay private.

Long term start talking to the Legislature (that's your Congressman and Senator). This thing is 360+ paragraphs long and (apparently) written in 6 weeks after 9/11/01. Which shall we say is an impressive piece of work. It's a huge law and subverts a number of other pieces of law as well (kind of like a legal virus). Essentially it was sold as "This will protect America. If you don't vote for it, you're supporting terrorism."

Some of those clauses can be shut down. You need to tell your representatives (well they represent you) that you want them shut down.

Bottom line. There's a thing called "presumption of innocence."

THE PATRIOT act treats everyone as guilty, with no exceptions.

Re: More proof

"Yep but he got largely cut off and ended up hanging with his buddies the Taliban who if not goat farmers definitely go for the look. He certainly wasn't living all that phat for a %1er at the end there. For one thing he was stuck in 3rd world Pakistan."

Are you kidding me?

Check out Bin Ladens crib

38 000 Sq Ft, foot thick walls and satellite TV is not exactly roughing it in a mud hut.

Obviously the security system (and air defenses) need a little work...

BTW The best way to describe the Lin Laden family cash bag was in the film Syriana when Matt Damon comments they got the contract to do the air con for Mecca.

That's the air con for a whole city

Re: Where can they get some Neutronium?

""Need some pretty tough stuff for an 6G+ deceleration!

Hardly.

A working hard drive dropped from 1m onto a concrete floor will receive a pulse of - 1000g (that's minus implying negative and little g as it's the equivalent force of gravity, not the gravitational constant).

Re: Changing a countries name, is one of those things democracies like to have referendums for

"but we could use a different white if it helps"

With a hint of beige, perhaps?

Re: Doomsday

":-) Smiley"

That is not helpful.

Amusing. Definitely.

But not helpful.

"Having said that,." "..probably more sensible.." "..who they're going with, NI included..."

Oh that's easy.

Ulster says No.

Always.

Re: Independant Scotland outside the EU... ha ha ha

"If Scotland chooses to leave the UK, it will be a decision for all the EU members whether they chose to let Scotland in on a fast-path (the treaties do not make provision), "

Good point. The whole EU system is not designed for countries breaking up and bits doing a 3 pt turn out of the EU (or back in).

"and Spain has already said it will object (mainly because of Catalonia, but also for economic reasons).."

I'd heard this. The Spanish are not messing about either. There is also the ongoing issue of the Basque country. You can bet a few Spanish diplomats will be having words with their English counterparts to ensure the "right outcome" on this and express their displeasure if it does not happen.

"I don't really care whether Scotland gets independence or not. My concern is that if they go 'independent', independence should mean total independence - no money from England at all except for things we actually buy from them. No bailouts, no handouts, nothing."

A fine and noble sentiment.

So you're OK with the next generation British Nuclear Deterrent sitting a whole lot closer to your front door then?

Of course there may also be a few "Re-location expenses" involved as well. But what price good defense and a seat on the UN Security Council, eh?

Excellent

Re: Basic questions for DARPA projects

"1) Can we use it to kill people, preferably enemies (i.e. any foreigner)?"

True.

2) Will it cost at least $1 billion for each person we kill with it?

False.

The "Tactical Technology Office," of which this is part, may be a $Bn operation but individual DARPA projects are much smaller, 10s-100s of $m. The goal is High risk/High return. In fact very high risk.

3) Will the cost be at least 100 times the amount of campaign contributions needed to get it approved?

Wrong. This is more like an old Hollywood B picture operation. Fast turnaround, long shots, minimal costs.

4) Could the money be better spent on more socially useful projects?"

It's the DoD. They employ millions of staff and spend Trillions of $.

What's not "socially useful" about that?

Please stop hugging the tree and return to your lentils and brown rice.

"I really hope the UK gov decides to fund it soon"

Already in the works, as described here

And of course by El Reg.

Re: Basic questions for DARPA projects

"And I thought those skills where developed on the streets of our big cities, I understand that the US military train a lot of there surgeons by getting them to work in some the Big West cost hospitals (I suppose that is one advantage of america's policies on guns - well trained trauma surgeons)."

Actually quite a few of those techniques were developed on the streets of Belfast during "The Troubles," as the UK liked to call the low key civil war it fought for 38 years.

Re: Basic questions for DARPA projects

"How much in the world of medicine has its roots in military R&D do you think?"

Off the top of my head.

Antibiotics WWII. Historically infection has killed many more wounded that the original injuries. They only started to become available to civilians after WWII.

Surgical methods to operate on beating hearts (shrapnel wounds in WWII)

Reconstructive surgery (Look up "The Guinea Pig Club," or watch parts of the film "Battle of Britain.")

Improved amputation, antisepsis and prosthesis development. Every war.

Use of cyanoacrylates to glue wounds together without stitches and reduce trauma. Vietnam.

Direct injection to the heart through the breastbone. Vietnam.

"Smart stretcher" technology to give better monitoring of patient conditions with fewer qualified staff..

And IIRC developing ways to wash out living cells from things organs leaving a scaffold to act as a template for a patients own "precursor" cells to populate, eliminating rejection issues.

That's just my 30secs of thought.

You might be surprised. It's focused but significant