Posts by John Smith 19 16330 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
Christopher Morris could not make up someone like Jacquie Smith.
Don't forget the Brass Eye that *really* got lots of grief was his superb hatchet job on media hysteria over CP, "Stranger danger" and other assorted BS in the British Isles, or rather the "Paedo Isles" as he called them.
I think youtube search on brass eye paedogeddon will get what you need.
Well according to this
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/ic/sis/x37b_otv/x37b_otv.html
The experimental/cargo bay is 7 feet long and 4 feet in diameter. Probably a bit small for the typical Merkin pickup (although with much better steering).
However that doesn't help without knowing what power and cooling services the X37b supplies. The ruinously expensive triple junction solar cells could give c550W/m^2 but how much of that would be funneled into the payload is anyone's guess.
Still this should be more than big enough for the experimental spaceborne piscine mounted laser cannon test.
Obviously the next generation will be big enough to accommodate the shark tank as well.
ITAR is quite mad.
US companies in the aerospace business have estimated it has cost them $1Bn in sales. It's the reason Surrey Satellite built their own fuel tank for a satellite rather than have the tank (just the same as several 1000 others the same US company had made in the last several decades) stuck at the back of the queue for processing while they lost their launch opportunity.
There has been *talk* about a special "fast track" for ITAR countries like UK (and no doubt Israel) but AFAIK the UK gets about the same treatment as North Korea by the State Dept.
One of the changes in 1999 added *scientific* satellites being built in universities to ITAR.
Most of this BS came from the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act ( Strom Thurmond being the 100 yr old South Carolina "Senior" senator first elected when Hitler was taking his seat in the Reich stag. Probably the reason why when US film makers want to show a *really* crooked, sexist and racist senior politician they give him a Southern accent).
I'm still p***ed at the old dead fart because when at an American meeting I asked someone from the floor what the Isp of their rocket design was (*long* way from state of the art, not military) and they asked "Are there any foreigners in the room?"
I don't hold it against them but I surely hold it against this PoS bill backed by someone who would have looked good as the guest of honor at a funeral in 1980.
"The implications of BAE not being able to export tech is actually quite huge for the UK. "
Given that the "tech" in question can include *training* and service manuals most of the kit they sell (even if built *outside* the US) could be both unusable and unserviceable.
"This decision could actually cripple BAE's ability to be the UK MOD's prime contractor for a whole range of projects, "
You make that sound like it's a *bad* thing
I think breaking up this pair of co-dependent enablers of each other incompetence is *long* overdue.
However as long as the CEO of BAe enjoys unfettered access to the PM's office I suspect they will "explain" that it's all ""Just a big misunderstanding old boy. Nothing for you to worry about, business as usual, when can we have the down payment on the carriers etc etc."
But as Nicholas Cage in Lord of War observed You're not a proper arms dealer till you've sold guns for use against your *own* side.
"... is that they wont take Bachelor or Masters stuents to work on theses. "
I presume you mean "students".
Perhaps it's their view that for the missions they are planning *need* no new research to be done to meet their objectives.
While students *can* be a potential source of new employees to be *useful* to a company they need some kind of induction, basic training and management. If you think those are at *no* cost to any *properly* run company you've pretty much failed my management assessment.
If you want a job with them perhaps you should ask them what they *are* looking for? Just a thought.
BTW The definition of a *successful* company in an *open* market is "well funded". Out of interest what is the area you are studying?
"De-mail"
As .de for Germany.
That is a German *joke*.
You can bet they were rolling in the aisles at Deutsche Telekom at that one.
Personally I don't *want* some centralised system to know who I am. I *do* want me to be confirmed as the person who signed a document (or not as the case may be).
For years generators have been pushing the system pressures *up* so the efficiency rises as the steam temp rises (pressurized water reactors hitting c300c and several 100 atm while the latest kit is IIRC pushing 500c).
Supercritical CO2 goes critical at about 31c and 73 Atm.
http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/fluid.cgi?TLow=217&THigh=304&TInc=1&Applet=on&Digits=5&ID=C124389&Action=Load&Type=SatP&TUnit=K&PUnit=MPa&DUnit=mol%2Fl&HUnit=kJ%2Fmol&WUnit=m%2Fs&VisUnit=uPa*s&STUnit=N%2Fm&RefState=DEF
The key features of supercritical fluids is a "fluid" with liquid density but gas viscosity.
"Lots of people were employees making these - so there is a uncounted benefit there (direct cost - how much money would be spend on their dole) "
One of *the* classic excuses to save some defense white elephant.
"Defense" industry jobs are some of the *most* expensive jobs created in *any* industry (merchant gamblers in the City of London cost *more* in pay but funnily enough the UK govt has *never* had to pay people to take those jobs).
You could shut down the *whole* programme and pay *each* person there their *lifetime* salary and it would *still* be cheaper.
"and is also having problems with parts (f-22 designed so that the manufacturing of parts was distributed amongst practically all US states = supply and severe reliability problems)."
SOP since at *least* the days of the B1 (The USAF's *first* stab at fully replacing the B52).
Handy for the "But Senator,jobs in your state *depend* on this programme. The xxx (some mom and pop outfit who will be able to knock out the mil spec version of something you can get at Home Depot for $2 at just 400x the cost *once* the lead con has upgraded their facilities) are a *vital* part of our supply chain and this contract is *key* to their staying in business (becasue the grew 3x to do this contract).
This is how military con-tractors work and the con is *definitely* on.
This should have been the *last* system they should have had a problem with.
However separation and engine failures are the *most* common causes of launch failure
In some ways the shroud failure is *worse*. Most satellites have maneuvering propellant and an error in the thrust duration/level can be compensated for (IIRC Orbital have some experience of this with other satellites they have operated) with a resulting shorter mission but a shroud failure adds quite a lot of weight to the final stage (much lower orbit) while trapping the satellite so it cannot deploy solar panels if it has them or get light to any body mounted ones. Battery run down followed by satellite failure then becomes inevitable.
2 attempted launches, 2 fails.
Note this is the *old* Taurus launcher they know *how* to build and operate (but haven't very often).
Not the new hotness with the Russian built (and probably designed) liquid fueled first stage with the engines they picked up off ATK when RPKistler went down the pan along with the cash left from the NASA contract with RPKistler.
OTOH
OSC have been smoozing NASA for about another $300m for a "Risk reduction" flight.
This would suggest they need it.
Wow, it's so hard to tell *which* group of fanbois I've offended with this one.
TBH I'd thought the Jobs succession (and the Angel reference) would have caused more offense.
In my defense.
Stephen Fry is quite keen on Apple kit.
He has been known to engage hands and mouth before brain, leading to more than a few LOLs from the audience. Even when they *know* they shouldn't.
Only it's kinda of amazing that this lot *delivered* this system in the sort of timescale that one of the "Usual suspects" would probably still be writing their *first* draft requirements review.
That said I'm *very* surprised that there aren't half a dozen packages to do this for various assorted apps.
Ah but wait.
This is MP's expenses we are talking about and of course they (like *every* government department and non departmental body) are "special"
They *need* a special solution.
Just like *every* other piece of the UK government.
Thumbs up as hopefully it will make them a *bit* more honest and perhaps they should stop the slide to a millionaires club of MP's (that's Labor as well Libs and Cons) by considering (given what the *actual* scale of their responsibilities is) what MP's (and Ministers) *should* be paid.
Flow forming is a popular way to turn mostly cylindrical things with complex profiles (especially stuff that has walls that thicken in bands or taper from one end to another) often as parts of various bits of military hardware.
The smooth force applied suggests it would give a smooth internal finish as opposed to something made by many separate hammer blows.
AFAIK the technique works very well at well above room temperature, so the metal would be softer to begin with.
Gun barrels (certainly of the .50cal variety) are *well* within the range of objects made currently with this method.
The obvious joker is if is worked hot (or even warm) unless the mandrel is withdrawn *very* quickly the barrel cools and shrink fits onto the mandrel.
In principle a clever way to make a lot of something very difficult at a reasonable price.
"remember discussing the whole drones idea six years back with a guy from Lockheed Martin and he said the UK should have released a spec around a desired payload weight and volume, and then thought up different pallets of sensors to fit inside those measures after the basic drone was built. "
More or less what was done with the SR71 (multi-decades of use) and the U2 (still flying in some versions).
<hyperbole mode>
Bloody hell what a concept. Develop a core platform that supplies certain services to a range of sensor packages.
Someday *all* UK defense systems might be developed like this*
Like that multi-purpose Scandinavian ship whose functions vary with what modules are loaded onto its mission deck in IIRC less than 2 hours.
</hyperbole mode>
* Yeah right.
"NZ has a small fleet of surplus, obsolete Skyhawks. They could have been sold years ago to one of many nations or collectors who want obsolete miljets, but the US holds a power of veto and has refused all sales."
Staggering. Those planes are *old*.
I thought Peter Jackson had put in a bid for them?
With proper new car designs going into the 100s of millions of $ (Crash worthy and meeting emissions standards *anywhere* on Earth)
It makes a *lot* of sense to build an EV or hybrid on the same line, despite the *theoretical* loss of performance when you rule out options like dumping the gear box/drive shaft and having hub mounted motors. This is grossly impractical for anything other than electric drive (although *demonstrated* in the 1930s by IIRC Buckminster Fuller).
This is honest of Ford, but didn't they get a big bag of Federal cash to do *new* EV design?
Thumbs up for at least the *attempt* to shifting this from a lifestyle/point-of-principles choice to a fuel/engine choice.
Who is this women?
Either they have a *very* low interest in these flavors or she's *literally* a human milk cow.
IIRC a cow produces in the 10s of litres of milk a day.
And on the the science side *what* infections are expressed in human milk? AFAIK *some* ingested toxins can be passed to the baby through breast milk (metals, some prescription drugs) but viruses and bacteria?
Incidentally while the *source* of the milk is a bit unusual (not cow, goat, yak, camel) this does not it was not *fully* prepared by pasteurization as any other type.
Unusual. yes. Would I try it. Yes Inherently dangerous. No.
"Not that I have tried it "straight" from the cow. "
I have.
Staying on a farm as a kid. Small farm, waiting for lorry to collect..
It's *really* strange (as a kid) when you're handed something that not been on a stove and you expect to cold but is actually warm.
"if you asked anybody to suck on a cows teat they would probably become nauseous at the idea,"
Put that way it does sound pretty weird.
If in encourages the market *enough* to encourage the construction of a widespread charging network.
If the batteries were made (or even re-cycled. AFAIK UK batteries are sent to France at present) in UK factories.
It depends what the *long* term goal of this policy is.
Otherwise they might as well re-introduce the car scrappage scheme.
But' something tells me that won't happen either.
Govt con-tractors are *very* adept at re-phrasing their stuff to make it *look* like the mark^h^h^h^h customer is getting what they asked for while it's BAU in the back room.
Making *any*new apps operate on *internet* standards and not Microsoft (or Google or Apple) standards would be a start.
In reality *how* many people wake up and think "Yes, I think I can do a better Social Security system just for the hell of it"?
However *breaking* those monolithic monster apps into *smaller* functions, *some* of which will be available as open source (NASA's Martian landers support software were built on an open source framework, including some quite specialised stuff you might not think was available *in* an open source version) is feasible.
*cautious* thumbs up. Doubt it will go anywhere.
Or will they go with the ever weaselily "T&C apply" where conditions include "Transfer everything we know to someone else."
It's *very* sad that it seems that only a country that has *experienced* what a massive betrayal of personal data entrusted to their government has *any* recognition of what can happen.
For those who don't do this as their day job.
There's a big world outside of computers where 5v supplies don't cut it.
As the voltage to be shut off rises the the number of device types and suppliers which can handle them falls.
Same with current.
Devices can be strung in series and parallel to meet voltage/current needs but the PSU is likely to be bulkier/heavier.
Lowering the on resistance and raising the off resistance are *very* good things. A *big* part of high power device design is the *packaging* of them to that heat out, typically without fans or liquid cooling.
Not all EV motors are DC. IIRC the GM Impact was AC. Historically AC motors have had simpler* construction but are tied to the AC frequency and changing that frequency has been *hard*.
The way to do "AC" from DC is to chop the DC into little chunks and then feed them into what is basically a high power low frequency (relatively) filter. The *ideal* circuit for this uses "switches" that switch in a nanosecond (look up the spec on a power device and see how realistic that is) with no power reflected back to the DC source, 0 on resistance and feed a cheap circuit whose output is a smooth sinusoid. It has 0 loss and no more RFI than a regular power circuit.
It's a total fantasy. The amazing thing is how *bad* the simulation of AC can be to con an AC motor into working.
*IDN if that is still the case as there has been a *lot* of DC motor development.
Clever materials have improved things before by introducing new board and packaging materials. It's not clear what Transphorms Special Sauce (C Lewis Page) is.
AFAIK Intel copyrighted the microcode in their processors and since the licensees used *very* similar architecture they could play the "Well the architecture's the same so some of the microcode instructions *must* be the same so that's copyright."
The MIPS architecture is externally *totally* different. It's *highly* unlikely the internal architecture bears any resemblance to that of an x86.
So if the whole *visible* instruction set is public domain they *can* argue it will be a complex re-engineering job. Essentially a white room clone.
Personally I thought 40W. What's a Pentium *chip* dumping now? 150W? 200W?
As others have noted though it would need support chips to handle the interfaces for the usual peripherals of a desktop box and at least *one* reference motherboard design. Something tells me Taiwan might be a bit reluctant to help out on this. That would also bring in the issues around what bus (and how compatible) to use.
Now the $x64 is this.
Is it compatible enough to boot Windows 7 server *without* Microsoft involvement?
But how many people are using these older versions?
And are they *critical* servers?
The Internet Systems Consortium lists the latest version as 9.8.0rc1 but describes it's status as "experimental" and on release from Feb 2010.
Previous version is listed as 9.7.3 and described as "stable" and presumably without this bug, also from Feb 2010. So in *theory* a fix has existed for 1 year already.
http://www.isc.org/software/bind/versions
Till the day she could legally go topless.?*
*Naturally this was before their purchase by the Express Group. Such behavior now would release *torrents* of moral indignation from the Daily & Sunday Express, who would probably have to show *some* photos to show just *how* appalling this behavior is.
Disclaimer. Just noticed the story, never bothered buying the rag. No interest in that sort of thing, as obviously I'm not a picture editor at a mass circulation tabloid daily.
*one* of the reasons the CPS was set up in the UK was that a study was done that showed the police (who used to prosecute criminal cases in the UK *directly*) were bringing too many cases that were either being thrown out or being found not guilty.
It was not *cost* efficient and hence the CPS was formed to *improve* the chances of success and not bring stupid expensive, cat-in-hell's-chance of winning cases to court.
Note from the CPS POV this is a *good* case. CP is *highly* emotive and it's an *appeal*.They'd already won (so WTF aren't they going after the publisher and the author?)
Note also that they *still* wanted to bring another re-trial. This has only been allowed in the UK since the almighty f***up that was the grossly botched Stephen Lawrence prosecution resulting in the passing of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 scrapping double jeopardy, due to that winning mixture of at least one cop being paid by one of the killers fathers and the "Institutionally racist" Metropolitan Police.
Thank you Tony Blair for that one.
Fail because this should *never* have gotten through being a book readily available in a mainstream *chain* of bookshops.
"Atmosphere" goes up a *lot* further than you might think. The relevant NASA item are the "space vehicle design criteria" otherwise called the SP8000 series. SP8028 (radiation torques) states that solar radiation is the biggest force above an orbit of 1000km, which is roughly the bottom of the inner Van Allan radiation belt so about the highest you'd want to put a long term crewed station.
Disturbance forces at 100 statue miles (c160Km) in E Ring (Rocket Propellants & Pressurization Systems) scaled on a scale where the aerodynamic forces (drag) is 1 give a gravitational potential force (aligning heaviest part closest to Earth) as 0.061, solar light pressure forces at 0.000443 and geomagentic at 0.0000013
1 unit on this scale is 1x10^-6g of acceleration.
Bottom line. ISS is *big*. The atmosphere extends a *lot* further out than you might think (but not in any way breathable) and if you *did* put it far enough out that *air* drag forces became even smaller you'd start to see the rise of solar wind forces while being cooked by the high energy particles trapped in the radiation belts.
There is also the little matter that Shuttle is at the *limit* of its altitude to deliver modules to the ISS orbit. Tripling it's altitude would be a *major* task and would *massively* complicate re-supply.
NASA has looked at alternate boost methods for *decades*. Obvious ones are Ion rockets (it's not like you don't have a big enough array to power them) or the "resistojet," which was designed to use waste (water, human etc) and expand the result through a nozzle. Low thrust but near continuous operation.
BTW NASA does not *have* a rocket to deorbit the ISS. An uncontrolled deorbit would be quite dangerous. of course they *could* declare it a national laboratory or donate to the UN (like CERN) *if* they were told to.
Hope that helps.
In the UK online gambling involves sites checking your name and a bank account against a list of *all* UK residents on the electoral roll.
I'd always wondered *how* big a group this *might* be dealing with.
Now we have a figure to extrapolate from.
Stupid idea. Yet *another* country that thinks a firewall is the way to go.
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