Posts by John Smith 19

Always keep in mind the *first* objective of the media.

To stay in *business*.

You feeling you've been "informed" is a side effect.

And when it comes to staying in business and (in the words of mega-media-mogul-not-based-on-Rupert-Murdoch Elliot Carver) "Nothing sells like *bad* news"

The flood waters have subsided, the aftershocks have gone so no real chance of anyone *not* in Japan being affected. But a radioactive cloud *potentially* cover the *whole* globe...

That'll keep the viewers watching. That'll keep them tuned in for the *slightest* change in wind direction or radiation level. No one's actually *died* of radiation exposure (unlike the current death toll of about 20 000 due to drowning and being hit by bits of assorted buildings, but they're Japanese) but it could *always* get worse.

I note that the Channel 4 News in the UK has tried to be quite balanced by using people from the Dalton Institute of Manchester University (nuclear engineering) for opinions and when they stated a sensor in Edinburgh had measured 300 micro Bequrels of Iodine they put that in context by pointing out that Radon gas in houses exposes people to 20 000 000 micro Beqs (IE 20 Bequrels) which I think would give most people the idea this ain't much.

"demonstrate the necessity and the proportionality of a system"

Not necessary.

Not proportional.

Carrier jocks will *never* go for this.

*something* will happen that will demonstrate that they are not *quite* there yet.

So the gate is isolated by an air gap rather than a silicon oxide layer.

Rather like those microchip valves developed by GEC and IIRC Los Alamos in the 80s for nuclear use.

This looks a lot more reproducible.

but the 64Euro question

What will the people who get these warnings *do* with them?

We're looking at a notice period in *minutes*. If people don't have their plans ready to go (isolating sections of the electricity back bone, shutting down large furnaces to preserve the ability to make the steel for replacement transformers etc) this will be a total waste of time.

However I welcome international cooperation in this area so *cautious* thumbs up.

The US system big cash -> long term

And note this is *not* a "victimless" crime.

As anyone whose tried to get a loan or mortgage after their credit rating has been trashed will tell you.

Intriguing. Lets see how fast this gets incorporated into the next GCM

Note that another effect of this would be the *partial* disruption of any currents driven by salt concentration (as their concentration gradient is disrupted)

Cautious thumbs up but you have to wonder *why* it's taken this long to start collecting this sort of information.

A lump of impure (but clean) water several Kms in size gradually melts in the ocean and no one thought it *might* be a good idea to measure what effect it has before now?

One up vote, one down vote

That sort of sums up my view on this.

But the phrases "data sharing" and "Borders Agency" definitely red flag this as more creeping database state than improving use of scarce resources to me.

I think my view it's more BB stands.

IIRC air cushion undercarriages were *developed* in Canada

I've *dim* memories of a modified De Havilland Canada "Otter" (?) being equipped with a skirt for this. Late 60s, early 70s.

I'm guessing it's a STOL aircraft with a nice slow landing speed.

Intriguing.

It looks like this is one of those things that has come up over and *over* again. People are impressed but it never seems to *go* anywhere.

I hope this time *someone* runs with it.

Ah. Lionsgate

Never knowingly handicapped by PC concerns ( I recommend Crank 2 to give a flavor of their editorial policy Full body Tourettes anyone).

Robby Coltrane has had a go back in the day Franky Boyle might surprise (as would his sometime partner in crime Jim Muir AKA Obadiah Steppenwolf III)

James Cosmo (Renton's dad in Trainspotting) would have been a good choice but probably too old.

It's less about what Cowley says as what he doesn't say. The impression of being the goto guy for dirty work of all kinds, and the feeling he knows where a *lot* of bodies are buried because he put them there.

The nearest equivalent would be the head of the agency in the the Destroyer series with Fred Ward as Remo Williams.

Somehow Wilfred Brimbly didn't have quite the same presence.

I'd move the goalposts

GINGER anyone?

I'm guessing

No Argentinians allowed.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. What is the odd one out?

Afghanistan of course.

It has *no* oil.

Or does it?

But surely

No one can do the Chicken Dance.

The balded one has patented already.

"we asked about VoIP but didn't get a clear answer. "

The shape of things to come?+

We are Google

All your searches belong to us.

Lockheed_Martin

All your data belong to us now.

Good wishes for this event

Congratulations on Congresswomen Gifford's (hopefully) continuing improvement.

I hope the shuttle leaves on time and Ms Gifford is there to see it.

On a point of politics it is important that extremists are not *seen* to win.

With the UK govt 1 terra pound in the hole they need *lots* more case like this.

Note those figures.

5 people

£140m

*provided* they can get asset recovery this is *exactly* the sort of people HMRC should be going after

No mention of the £100m going into "Science"

£10m of it going into "Space," whatever that means.

Does that mean BAe profits have been looking down lately and the Chairman wants a bit of a sub?

As for "Reforming the Space Act 1986"

WTF knew the UK *had* a space act to reform? AFAIK the UN is *still* incapable of recognizing that entities *smaller* than a country (SpaceX being the first, but I hope *not* the last) can now launch orbital hardware and I think it's well overdue that fact was recognized.

I'd like to see a bit of analysis on this with ElReg being a tech site and stuff.

Some notes for air breathing fanbois

To learn some history

NASA web site

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?t=0&Ns=Loaded-Date|1&N=0 search for "Facing the heat barrier" to get a history of hypersonics in the US.

20070035924_2007036871.pdf

Page 118 in the PDF is the most recent history along with the background to how it got started.

For the math (and why people call it the "Airbreathers burden")

http://www.islandone.org/Propulsion/SCRAM-Spencer1.html

BTW If you think the author is wrong, check *your* reasoning first.

For more math around LACE, Ramjets and Scramjets

http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/space/lace.txt

Rocket engineering *is* his day job.

Reaction engines have worked on the problems of making air breathing to orbit for the last 30 years. Rocket engineering is their day job too. Their download page is.

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/pdf_documents.html

The pdf listed as "A Comparison of Propulsion Concepts for SSTO Reuseable Launchers"

explains the alternatives in non mathematical language. "The SKYLON Spaceplane - Progress to Realisation" describes their progress as of 2008. They are currently commencing their "D1" design update which should reflect lessons learned and issues closed since their design freeze in the early 90's.

Note that when Skylon was first designed (c1989) a *lot* of it's tech (or the equipment to build it) had simply *never* been built. Since then they worked with various partners to design (the fairly easy part), *build* and *test* key elements of the hardware. A useful lesson *any* developers looking to get into the space business with a limited budget should keep in mind.

I'll take a wild stab at the thinking here.

1) It's a control system. *Assume* Information about it is difficult to get hold of as it's proprietary and frankly *no* one cares about them.

2) There is no need to connect it to the Internet (IRL the likelihood is that the PC used to configure it *will* be). *Assume* it will not be.

3) Penetration testing is *expensive* in time and money. *Assume* we don't *really* need to do it.

Do sense a *bad* case of security-by-obscurity at work?

BTW The register ran a story some time ago about an Australian con-tractor who messed about with some counties water or sewerage system.

FAIL because Stuxnet should have had *every* SCADA supplier reviewing their code (and how it's *accessed* for update and configuration). By now they *should* have been making initial announcements that they were all clear or issuing patches.

What have they done?

But what about the *real* question

So how does this affect whose to blame for failing to clear the snow *next* time?

I sniff some definite CYA going on .

Note the "corporate" effect

If this thing is pitched mostly for companies then a *minimal* OS makes perfect sense.

This sounds likes a buy in bulk, set up a standard disk image and copy to all of them deal.

*if* they were going for the home market then convenience becomes key and a *properly* configured Linux or Windows whatever (which should be offered as a higher priced option) would be the way to go.

I suspect the limited installed OS and the ease it can be replaced *may* make it a bit of an undiscovered bargain for the techie willing to dig a bit.

"others have header information that is longer than specifications allow"

IOW

Buffer overflow.

Note that re-boot *might* be the best approach for an *industrial* system but a *consumer* product?

Not *even* an error message or some note who to call?

"Swedish Green Party and the Left Party believe the directive restricts basic rights and freedoms"

Damm right.

Tony Blair and NuLabor's little gift to the whole EU. Thank you *so* much M. Blair.

AFAIK this was drafted by the UK Home Office, but it could have come straight from ACPO's a-citizen-is-just-someone-we-have-not-got-round-to-arresting-yet.

BTW. Has anyone noticed how many governments went *straight* to the 2 year *maximum* period rather than the minimum 6 months.

Flames because this should *never* have got to law (Spain, whose Madrid rail bombing was the *supposed* reason for having it did not *want* it) and *should* have been challenged in the ECHR by now (as it has in the German courts).

Once you look at the numbers like that

The industry claims look like *total* BS

Of course most of the decision makers are probably not smart enough to use a VPN from home.

Thumbs up for a short, smart explanation and refutation, *not* for the situation.

It's a chip scale heat pipe

When you scale down the heat pipes you have to scale down it's components. Note that normal scale heat pipes have been described as having a thermal conductivity 600x that of an equivalent thickness Copper bar, so only 2x is not very good (but one of the issues with this sort of micro/nano engineering is the unexpected *highly* non-linear scaling effects. The point at which "drops" of water are more accurately clusters of water molecules, for example).

"Phase change." Would it seem less high tech if we called it "boiling" and "condensing" instead?

Because that *is* what is happening,

I'm guessing (because lets be frank this is not a very tech article) a *lot* of the clever stuff is the *manufacturing* of the thing, rather than the idea itself.

The *implication* would be the pipe (or pipes) mfg process could be *integrated* into the chip fab process itself. Chilling out those monster power transistors on RF or power devices, as well as keeping the SiGe Copper interconnected processor cores of your next gen processors from meltdown

*if* correct, that would make it as big a step forward as the introduction of Copper (by IBM) as an on chip interconnect and SiGe for very fast chips.

*potentially* a gold mine if GE can get the IP licensing deal right.

Mine has the PDF's of "The MEMS handbook 2nd Ed" on a reader.

Don't mistake Vaizey for someone who know's WTF he's talking about.

He likes this because he thinks it will help him with both the "Age rate all internet sites" *and* the "3 warnings and we cut you off " b****cks of the Digital Economy bill.

His interest in this is *solely* that a less "neutral" net (or rather the big ISP's that hold c96% of the UK market) have demonstrate they have the spyware (or "traffic shaping" equipment as they no doubt prefer to call it) in place to do *his* bidding.