* Posts by John Smith 19

16327 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Police DNA test plan to put off prostitutes' punters

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

@ShaggyDoggy

"too many coppers on the database"

Nonsense.

It will only apply to those who have to go *looking* for a prostitute and pay for sex.

Not those who've got most of the better looking local hookers on speed dial ready to work for free.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

@Mike Richards

Can't remember if it was ACPO or one of the things they were running (what was effectively the national riot squad during the UK miners strike in 1984) but they were described as have "As much legal standing as a stamp club."

Most stamp clubs however do not issue (or expect to have followed) guidelines on DNA retention following arrest.

ContactPoint may be cannibalised for parts

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

Now had they said

Contactpoint promoters and managers were to be canabalised for spare parts...

I'd have not problems with that idea in the least.

German docs develop remote-control stomach submarine

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Coat

Quite ingenious

But not exactly the first U boat built in Hamburg.

Ex-DWP tech boss calls out former colleagues

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

Well thanks for that statement of the mind numbingly obvious

Now please take the rather substantial index linked pension you've acquired and please p**s off.

Your Staff

Plastic Logic scores $700m from Russians

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

Russian "businesmen" mugged by foreigners

Not a headline you see every day.

Facebook equity offer closed to US investors

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Pirate

Zuckerberg. First sheeple farmer?

On those numbers it sure looks like it pays well*

Tough choice on this post. Pirate or BB.

*If they're real of course.

Israel and US fingered for Stuxnet attack on Iran

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Thumb Down

such a *clever* idea

So humane

So discrete

So unidentifiable.

So impossible to duplicate or or be turned against its developers.

What could go wrong with this plan?

Top CEOs agree: US is down the crapper

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Thumb Up

@LaeMing

"that is the theory anyway, though shareholders in public companies stand to loose a lot of money from bad/overpriced management, "

You might like to keep in mind that most share (or stock holders) are *pension* funds run by a rather similar group to the companies they invest in.

The idea of "stewardship" is pretty much meaningless. They will rarely *vote* despite probably between them owning 90% of any major publicly quoted company. CEO's and Boards have to have been *extremely* bad (profits down, *massive* losses, market share in the toilet) before they will take *any* action.

Sometime in the late 70's or early 80's managers and Directors or VP's started getting the idea they *owned* the company (they are normally its highest paid *employees* and *part* owners) and pension funds *let* them.

The share and stock holders are (in *theory* ) the checks and balance of Board excess.

They have not been doing their job.

Thumbs up for your post, not the results.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

t it looked *so* good in the quarterly profits figures.

We cut R&D (Risky, no short term return) Profits UP.

We cut pension contributions. Profits UP.

We cut low price meals. Profits UP.

We cut out all dining facilities (except that little one for senior management). Profits UP.

We out outsourced nearly everything to someone else. Profits UP.

My bonus. Way UP.

In the race to the bottom, we *are* the leaders.

What. You mean part of a businesses objectives is to remain *in* business?

Guess I'll just have to petition the government for some (corporate) welfare.

Why should I suffer for the mistakes of.

Oh...

Watson beats humans in Jeopardy! dry run

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Happy

@TheOtherHobbes

Avatar?

US air force has new scramjet hypersonic plane plans

John Smith 19 Gold badge

@Graham Bartlett

I would not be too surprised at this. With the production run complete aircraft companies will normally recycle the jigs and fixtures one way or another unless they had either a solid expectation of more orders or specific funding from the customer to "Keep the production line open". Note that Advanced Projects was geared to prototypes (1-3 off) and small productions runs. 32 was probably a pretty big order (possibly the biggest) for *any* of their vehicles.

I'd guess it would depend on how big a spares package they ordered with the original aircraft.

I'm surprised about the documentation. I'd expect all the operations and service manuals would exist (either on paper or microfilm) and I would have expected the drawings to go to a secure archive. NB It's a myth NASA lost the plans for the Saturn V. While the hardware to make the hardware might be long gone I'd be *very* surprised that any major organization would let that kind of IP go so easily.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

@annodomini2

"Pulsejet/Ramjet/Scramjet hybrid could be interesting"

Only 2 groups of people would think so.

1) Those with a grant application to test one.

2) Those who have no idea of how much research has been done on these systems since the late 1950s. Something like " History of Ramjet and Scramjet Propulsion Development

for U.S. Navy Missile" might be a good start.

Hint. After better than 6 decades on system development *none* has been deployed.

And this time it would be different because.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

@Mayhem

I'd quite forgotten about Ignition.

It should be the first port of call for any armchair propellant chemist who thinks they've thought up a new super duper propellant combo.

Some of the most insanely dangerous chemicals ever conceived (and then manufactured in bulk) by human kind.

I'd never really thought that concrete, sand, or an Asbestos safety blanket could be used as a fuel till I read it.

It's been a while but I think the only well known one it misses out was the development of "Astrolite" because it was developed elsewhere. That would be an epic saga, if anyone is still alive from that time.

Required reading for any Dr Evil wannabes who want their missiles to have a little more zip in them.

Merkin CMA litigation disclaimer. This stuff is *really* dangerous and should only be handled by properly trained and authorized personnel, probably on a government contract with lots of free medical. Freedom from hideous burns, scars and limb loss is neither guaranteed nor implied .

This is your first, last and only warning.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

SR 71 Hydrogen fuelled?

I think Lewis is suffering a "senior moment."

One of the *stated* reasons the SR71 programme was finally shut down was the *logistics* of it to support the plane itself.

People forget that JP7 needed a bunch of tank farms around the world to gas up the plane on the ground but also some *tanker* aircraft to load it up once it had done its run and the tank leaks had stopped.

The Pentagon *really* does not like non standard fuels, hence standardizing everything it can on one fuel (JP8 ?) for tanks, aircraft, stoves and heaters (if you could use it as toothpaste they probably would mandate it for that as well).

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

AC@16:01

"By the way, that music is from Command & Conquer: Generals. Yay for copyright infringement - it's ok when the big boys do it."

Wondered about that. Thought it has a certain Pirates of the Caribbean vibe to it.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

@alannorthhants

"by a considerable margin, the highest specific impulse of any chemical motor."

Not strictly true but most people don't want an exhaust of Hydrofluoric Acid.

Boiling point (and keeping it *below* BP) is a big issue but equally up there is the *very* poor density. LH2 is about 70Kg/m^3 while jet fuel is around 700-720 Kg. Even given H2's higher energy level per Kg you still need a monster tank.

BTW Martin were the winners of the original competition for the high altitude high speed aircraft that Lockheed built. They pitched H2. It proved totally unworkable although the fuel pump flies to this day as the core of the P&W RL10 rocket engine.

Special Ops satellite-bitchslapping hydrogen strato cruiser flies

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Welcome

Aeroenvironment have *lots* of experience of this stuff

Mostly with earlier generations of drone partly derived from their Kremer prize winning man powered aircraft.

As for the first flight altitude these things are both big and *floppy* IIRC it took *days* to reach cruising height so you want to prove most features out at an altitude where (if you have to do something) the launch/test/land/fix/re-test cycle per item is not measured in weeks.

Long duration drones already exist. AFAIK they were developed in Australia or NZ for long term (but fairly cheap) weather observation but at relatively low altitude they'd be way too vulnerable to ground fire.

Welcome to U2 2.0, with meatsack removed.

Palin's email snooper sent to prison

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Thumb Down

*why* a year and a day?

This seems to have some special importance in US law.

I 'm betting something to do with disclosure of a prison record.

He made a politician *look* an idiot which (to politicians) is *much* more important than being one.

Bad day for US justice.

Sarko to use G8 presidency to promote net regulation

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Flame

When a politician starts talking "morality" you know what end he's talking out of.

That is all.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Stop

JaitcH

"The only good news is that the EU has such a mass that it takes almost the length of a presidency to gather momentum."

I would not rely on EU sluggishness. Remember the history of the passing of the EU Data Retention Directive (M. Blair's little passing gift to the rest of Europe).

I wonder do politicians who talk about morals sound equally dumb in *all* parts of Europe? I could sort of imagine one in say Germany *possibly* pulling it off but really, France, Italy or Great Britain?

Thunderstorms found to squirt antimatter into space

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

Staggering

A natural earth bound event which isn't a nuclear explosion generates an antimatter pulse.

It *might* be worthwhile re-opening any unexplained satellite failures below 1000Km (roughly the inner Van Allen radiation belt) to see if any of their electronics could have been cooked by this.

Note however that satellites in orbit get a fair radiation battering as they pass through the South Atlantic Anomaly due to the weakening of the Earth's magnetic field.

Government joins European fingerprint database

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

Found a use for that Gordon Brown thumb print?

Could be.

China's 'stealth fighter' flies – brown trouser time, or not?

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

Nice little earner

I'm sure there are plenty of squalid little nations with hugely self obsessed leaders who'd spunk a wodge of the national treasury over this thing. A few dozen here, a few dozen there.

Of course like the merkins the *very* best stuff only goes to people they *really* trust.

ISPs battle EU child pornography filter laws

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Stop

So we can look forward to more "virgin killer" cockups then.

Right?

What "standard" would these filters be set to?

Clenched up public school English? Relaxed French? Laid back Scandinavians?

Data without frontiers.

Discovery (finally) good to go on 24 Feb

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

@Chris Harden

"have it withstand the massive force it undergoes,"

The standard is 3g. If you want to know if you could take a Shuttle flight, take a modern roller coaster.

" pull off a 100% sucess rate"

That would exclude the 14 astronauts killed on 2 flights due to the STS failure modes being somewhat unforgiving.

It wasn't easy. It could have been better and could have been improved over time. But it kept all of the stakeholders in the aerospace business and Congress mostly happy (BTW that does not include the American public. No one expected them to *want* to go into space).

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

@Pete 2

"In fact it's hard to find a single shuttle mission that has gone off according to the ideal of the project for a fast-turnaround, reusable, reliable and versatile vehicle."

In fact studies *do* exist of (AIAA-1995-3527) Shuttle launches. It's not *quite* as bad as you think (but it's not outstanding). During 1981-2000 of 204 launch attempts, 50 went off on schedule , 111 were "scrubbed", 17 were < 1 week late, 13 < 1 month late and 13 > 1 month late.

At a price of roughly $1m a day. Each scrub was costed at $616k.

Lowlights of this was the "Summer of Hydrogen" (5/30/90-10/6/90) roughly a 100 days due to a Hydrogen leak in the airtight engine compartment (so instead of a little flame you'd get a confined explosion, like the difference between a firecracker on your palm and wrapping your hand around it). It seems LN2 (BP roughly 4x that of LH2 and 10x LH2's viscosity) which is what the engine makers used to leak test it, makes a poor substitute for LH2.

That said it *could* have been a lot better either in design or during upgrades (especially given the money NASA spent on designing but not *installing* various upgrades). Even so it did manage on time take off c25% of the time and gave the US a new very high efficiency LH2 rocket engine of *known* performance. That's a *very* useful bit of hardware to have *provided* you want to build another LH2 fueled RLV, as they're just too dam expensive to expend.

Airbus secures whopping 180 plane deal

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

Celebrations in North Wales?

I wonder how......

Ombudsman slams DWP, HMRC data dumbnesses

John Smith 19 Gold badge
WTF?

*no* audit trail.

Are they f***king joking?

No way to identify maliciously (for cash, spite or giggles) updated/added/deleted records

No way to identify incompetently (half trained PFY) updated/added/deleted records

On *any* of these systems.

Now I'm *fairly* certain that any of the usual suspects who bid for what is in effect CSA 2.0 would have put this in as an option-at-extra-cost.

But what about the *other* systems, some of which *probably* predate the orgy of outsourcing and CCT that started in 1979

What's their excuse? Frankly this should be a boiler plate clause in *any* government IT contract (of *any* government, not just the UK) handling personal data.

I sense an FoI request. Something along the lines of

1) How many systems in your department hold "sensitive" data (as defined inthe DPA).

2) How many of them have audit trail capability?

3) How many of those with audit trail capability are switched on?

4) If not, why not?

5)How many of your staff could read the audit trail output and use it to correct errors?

That accidents happen is a reality. No audit trail is *no* accident. It's not like not having a burglar alarm. It's like having a house with *no* locks on any doors and posting a list of your valuables on the notice board in the unemployment office with your address and when you're out.

Microsoft bigs up future edition of its ERP software

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

Wot. 4 thumbs down.

Fanbois out in force. Seems there have been a sense of humor bypasses.

A little bit of background.

"Dynamics" is the shotgun wedding of 2 *grossly* disparate products. 1 written in Fargo in the US, the other in Denmark. One effective but fairly closed, the other multilingual (when you're a small software house in a small country you had better make it *very* easy to change countries) and highly customizable.

Both were bought *primarily * for their customer base (1 in the US, 1 in Europe), rather like MS's purchase of Foxpro (anyone tried getting hold of it lately)? The Danish company supplied 3 ERP type systems. The other 2 appeared to have been euthanised.

AFAIK the main thing they had in common was their European HO's were both in Scandinavia. Those of you who've seen the movie Fargo might guess why.

Full disclosure. I worked for both of the predecessor companies (but I never met anyone from Great Plains as they did it all by telecon from Norway) and later worked for a reseller who'd taken up the MS product. Potential customer reaction to the latter was *underwhelming*.

Funny how MS does not do quite so well when customers have a choice.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

Bet your companies future on the company that bought you IE, Excel, SQL Server etc

What could possibly go wrong with that strategy?

Mum arrested for seducing teen on Xbox Live

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Flame

End the double standard or else

Either

Adults (of either gender) having a relationship with a minor (as defined in their jurisdiction), of *either* gender, which leads to sex is a *crime* usually called statutory rape, and the children *are* being molested.

or

it's not.

Gender of both parties is *irrelevant*.

BTW the pictures will likely count as mfg, storage and distribution of CP.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

@Keith 21

"If this took place in Spain."

I'd be *very* careful on that assumption.

I remember reading something similar about the Netherlands (the European country which has the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe IIRC, unlike the UK, which has one of the highest).

It applied to 12 year olds having sex with *other* 12 year olds, *not* adults. 11 won't get you 99 (as some wag quipped) but you'll likely see the inside of a Dutch prison for quite a while. The Netherlands inmate population might be more forgiving than there UK counterpart, but I wouldn't like to test that theory.

This (2 children going beyond the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" stage) seems to me a *much* more plausible situation that arises farily often IRL. There is "consent" and (in *principle*) both participants have equal levels of maturity. While certainly of concern (well it should be of *some* concern to parents who give a dam about their children s development) they don't seem to think it should be treated as a criminal offense.

A very adult attitude toward managing emerging sexuality.*

*IANAL and I happened to recall the information on the Netherlands. It's not a subject I make a study of.

Police reject Labour MP's call for Bristol-wide DNA test

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Unhappy

shock news. Police *decline* offer to get people to cough up their DNA.

Sadly I'm not sure people would not turn up for this. the gullibility of the UK public remains pretty near bottomless.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

AC@16:07

"...but I'm not sure they'd be asking for DNA if they didn't have something to compare it to,"

From my reading of this report it is *not* the Police who are asking for this.

CES wrap: let the battle of the tablets commence

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

Android honeycomb sounds yummy

But can you get with your Nectar card?

Seriously this certainly looks like De ja vue all over again.

The probable next move would be that with Microsoft finally having a market leader it can copy and use it's financial muscle against it will start to "innovate" (as in copy/acquire the better features of its competitors and incorporate them into itself).

Disappearing filth leads to dropped charges in extreme smut case

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Headmaster

If you're voting down because I thought the UK Police can repeal UK laws..

I'm well aware that only parliament can repeal laws.

However senior UK Police officers have a *very* close relationship with the senior civil servants of the Ministry of Justice and can certainly *influence* their advice to the relevant Minister and hence the parties in office.

Weather or not they *will* do so is another matter.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Flame

Hey plod. Stop loosing the evidence.

Start loosing the stupid laws instead.

'Methanotroph' bacteria feasted on blown BP rig's methane belch

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

Sounds like some climate models may need some revision.

Now what can those bacteria be *used* for?

Investors fight to buy secret special-offer Facebook equity

John Smith 19 Gold badge
WTF?

So what are Facebooks *actual* assets?

It's got a server farm (*nothing* like the one Google's got and probably not even up to Amazon's operation)

It's got a load of bandwidth connected to those servers (but see Google and Amazon comparison above)

But the "smart" money reckons it's worth $50Bn. I'd guess that's in Walmart and GM or Ford territory.

The 90's are back.

And big "smart" investors are throwing stupid money into companies with massive capitalization-to-earnings ratios.

Anyone know how many of those 90's companies are still in business?

Oz net filter jams up with smut, may be pulled out altogether

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

Australian Liberal Pary

Oxymoron?

Runaway hydroponic fungus attacks real-world Starship Voyager

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

@Suburban Inmate

You do know you did not post that anonymously?

EU law not tough enough for online piracy, says Brussels

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Flame

It's copyright enforcement *not* theft.

It's basically an issue because Big Film and Big Music spend big money to lobby to keep it so.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

AC@16:53

"Yes, if you want to go a bit police-state you can record who was talking to who and when. "

You're behind the ball in the EU. Look up the EU Data Retention Directive, supposedly drafted in reply to the Barcelona train bombings. A little gift from Tony Blair's government (drafted when the UK had the chair) to the EU forever.

Smile because I'm agreeing with you but possibly informing you as well, not because I like the way this situation is going.

NASA taps Unisys for flight sim mission

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

65-90% code re-use

Am I alone in considering that to be a *very* impressive level of code re-use?

Or is that *normal* if you factor OO code properly?

FCC dubbed 'Ministry of Truth' over net neut rules

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Flame

Let's end the discussion and RTFP

That is all.

Motorola uncloaks 10.1-inch Xoom fondleslab

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Thumb Up

@BongoJoe

"If this can display an A4 document whch can be read with ease without scrolling around the page then I am interested.

Having all my technical books in PDF format and easier to hold and read than a 1600+ page book is my first requirement."

This is pretty much my core requirement as well. I don't like to be tethered to a wire to do so, hence my query about battery life (with the screen switched on of course).

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

Some interesting answers

So 10 hrs playing (presumably normal def) movies to 6.5-7 Hrs in HD to (essentially) who-cares-you'll-never-be-far-enough-away-from-a-charger-for-it-to-matter.

Actually this does not sound too bad although I'd hoped for a bit more with the adaptive back lighting. Depends how many gadgets they disabled to get that figure.

By fusing the output data from the various sensors (ecompass, accelerometer, barometer) and a map you could in *principle* implement a poor man's inertial navigation system. While the GPS satellite network does not have holes as such reception is not perfect. I think that's why something like this suite is used in the US armies land warrior programme. GPS fades badly when you're running through a cave.

BTW I don't think *anyone* is up themselves enough to release the "Fondleslab," although you might get "The Slab (TM)."

Someone did release a pen computer called the Dynabook (late 80s, early 90s).

It was pants.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Happy

Oh err missus, It's a big one.

So (just out of curiosity) what sort of battery life does it get?

ACPO exec wants 'ugly mugs' database to protect sex workers

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

Human Resources Managers == Pimps. Nonsense

OTOH Recruitment consultants at contracting agencies....