* Posts by John Smith 19

16327 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Secret X-37B space plane lost by sat-spotters for 2 weeks

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@Henry Wertz 1

"I wonder if these X-37Bs are more modern"

Well the Space Transportation System design does date from roughly the mid 70s. There have been a few improvements since then.

"(cheaper and easier to prep for relaunch mainly) compared to the shuttle?"

Easier to prep almost certainly (A too stage liquid fueled rocket is essentially 4 *very* large empty tanks. Fragile, but *nowhere* near the hazard of the 2 SRBs)

Note what it *can't* do.

Not crew rated.

LV *not* crew rated (Load safety factors of 1.25, rather than 1.4 of crew rated)

Payload bay size of a pickup truck, not a Greyhound bus (c14'x65' with a capacity of c55Klbs)

Replaces *highly* toxic hypergolics of Shuttle as Peroxide/kerosene engines (dating form mid 50s) were not included.

Recover *any* of its launch vehicle.

A launch *should* be more straightforward but the price may not be as cheap as you think (and given the *massive* reduction in payload as little as people would *expect*)

It is an interesting vehicle.

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Anonymous John

"It wouldn't have possible to launch it unnoticed. And I very much doubt if it could land secretly either"

Regarding the launch probably not (Atlas V is pretty big with a lot infrastructure needed) however landing is a different matter. It's not *that* big and there are a number of long runways in the US which might be suitable.

Sticking it on another Atlas V afterward would be difficult.

CISx plans scrapped

John Smith 19 Gold badge
WTF?

"Tell us once..."

And we'll remember it *forever*

Or hopelessly distort it and remember *that* forever.

No need to ask.

No need to know.

Iran unveils 'robot bomber'

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Boffin

Wow a jet propelled drone with 1000km range for *how* much?

Amazing what you get when you don't use Bae.

Sorry but whatever they spent you know it's got to *peanuts* compared to what US and UK departments have spent (although Israel may be able to do it on the same bill)

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Coat

Note what happened to Saddam

Never wanted to go nuclear.

Kept himself to himself.

Only gassed his own Kurds (who seem to be disliked by *all* countries their homeland covers)

No desire to export *any* sort of revolution (although plenty of oil).

Always paid his bills (more or less) on time.

Overthrown by US.

Not really encouraging people to stay out of world affairs, is it?

Aus gov, ISPs book seats for firewall demolition

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WTF?

"Refused Contect" is enough to exclued?

Some nutter suggested this in the UK. It was then pointed out just how *much* content is out there and did he *realize* how *long* it would take to view it all?

IIRC YouTube respond to DCMA requests but "We don't like it" is not really enough for them to care. So block YouTube or view *every* single video?

Mind you the fact such a proposal is brain dead and once explained in simple terms *should* be recognizable as such is *no* guarantee that it will be killed.

US puts $30bn of IT projects up for review

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Wonder if US Govt IT Fail is like UK Gov IT fail

Hugely ambitious goals to effect *massive* change in business processes

Shifting goal posts.

Limited (non existent) *actual* high level buy in.

Blurred lines of responsibility and authority (who depends on *getting* something done is not who can *order* it done).

Little or no training or consultation to front line staff.

Multi-year procurement so that only the *biggest* con-tractors can last the distance.

Once rolling *lots* of con-tractor staff on site of wildly varying skill levels.

This combination usually works pretty well to guarantee*epic* levels of cost and schedule overrun.

Thumbs up for the review. Let's see if actually makes a *difference*.

DARPA orders VTOL robots for 'covert payload placement'

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It's the *combination* that's cutting edge.

VTOL UAV. So what. Basically helicopters.

But what you have here is the equivalent of the V22 Osprey.

*Without* the swiveling engine pods, bystander cooking turbine exhaust etc.

Tailsitters of various kind were tried in the 1950's.

Without computer controlled stability augmentation the control problem for a meatsack is quite *interesting* (Ejector seat required but I was never sure how well it would work. The rocket blows you 200 feet clear but you're still only about 15 feet in the air)

Simpler is *always* better. Fewer things to go wrong. Up the size of the ducted fan and up goes the payload (even more so if the duct is contoured like another DARPA project was testing).

Difficult to tell if it's *really* DARPA hard but it might be a bit more subtle than it looks. Cautious thumbs up.

Trojan-ridden warning system implicated in Spanair crash

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DO178b

Is the standard aircraft avionics (IE the fire by wire stuff) is written to. It's a US standard so US mfg aircraft *must* adhere to it.

It's equivalent has been adopted world wide.

As others have pointed out it would be *very* strange that the actual *embedded* systems were infected. *Why* someone would write something which killed the warning from central maintenance logging the plane had 2 faults already would be a bigger question.

As would *why* the warning hooter was switched off (or disabled, which implies some kind of sabotage).

And of course lastly WTF the pilot and co-pilot didn't notice *anything* wrong with their aircraft handling.

ECJ ruling puts VAT on salary sacrifice schemes

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Joke

Vouchers for drugs

Never knew *any* pharmaceutical company offered that perk.

Met to improve information handling

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Boffin

Uniform badges with matching bar codes.

Sometimes the simplest tech (*properly* integrated into an existing system) gives the most benefits.

Just a thought.

Organ banks on horizon as boffins prep tissue-freeze tech

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Boffin

Note that stem cells to grow organs were barely heard of in the 60's

Both of these technologies have taken ridiculous amounts of time for people to start seriously investigating how to make them work for real

Some sort of viable whole body freezing and revival scheme would be an excellent way to cut the size of ships to Mars as well as reducing the number of transplant candidates who died because they literally ran out of time.

However stem cells should eliminate all rejection issues (and the lifetime supply of immunosuppressant drugs needed to support them).

It's time to presume the web is guilty

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It's an article from a *specific* POV

And *from* that POV this approach seems to be a pretty good and simple idea.

My old History teacher warned me to to beware of simple solutions to complex problems.

Who would want to run such Whitelists?

Who would *others* want to run it?

Who *might* run it if no one else committed the resources or effort in running it?

Google already offer a DNS service. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Your URL's reputation in the hands of that nice Mr Brin. What could go wrong?

Fear as motivator: why Intel acquired McAfee

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Joke

Hello again

Arkady here.

When I heard Intel blow wad of cash up against wall for Crapafee I had vision.

Hardware support for "standard" (IE Crapafee internals) AV architecture with Intel charging *big* bucks to AV suppliers for API .

This means that any flaw in architecture will be exploitable for *years*. As for cost of API and architecture manuals, well as head of largest botnet gang I'm sure someone will take credit card for data.

As for hardware architecture with *no* exploitable flaws for AV. Well Popes, bears, sky and rain come to mind.

I fell to knees in prayer to dark gods.

Just after I shorted Intel big time.

Got to go. People to see, software to get written, IP to steal.

Dosvidanya.

One in five workers still clinging to IE6

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@Reg Varney

"The problem isn't just the internal apps written to IE6 that don't work on anything else, there are really key business apps by 3rd party vendors which don't work on newer versions or other browsers, either because the vendors haven't finished testing on a newer version or they've abandoned development completely, or we're stuck on an old version and can't move for some other dependency."

Note 2 things.

This problem will *not* go away. Eventually even MS will pull the plug on IE6. You can't change you're stuff now but you can *absolutely* start mapping dependencies, ActiveX controls used (are replacement available?), specific W3 standards violations.

Why?

Because if the next generation of apps is procured (and I think you're in the kind of environment where people "procure" things) while ignoring *global* standards for interoperability (IE browsers and the apps they link to) and upgradability your company will be *repeating* this little exercise *every* time the MS releases some non standards compliant software.

And I *guarantee* that MS *will* continue to release software that does not play nice with *anyone* else's software.

Secondly whenever some company has a key app written by a 3rd party that it does not have rights to or a copy of the source code, or in some cases the CASE model used to generate the code automatically (or both) that 3rd party *owns* them.

But I guess your employers are learning that little lesson for themselves.

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AC@13:17

Ah ActiveX controls.

They're like java apps. You can run them on *any* machine.

That runs Windows.

That runs IE as your browser.

Slack coders who can't write a proper standards compliant app manged by technically incompetent gutless managers

BT Tower to open for first time in 29 years

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You know it's iconic

When someone write a novel to launch into space as the first space station with built in artificial gravity.

Mine would have a copy of "T minus tower" in the side pocket.

Boffins turn to Wii tech for speech-loss therapy

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Joke

@Mr Bush

"Then, again, can you imagine a Microsoft patient care app?"

Of course.

"Windows for stiffs"

I'll skip remarks about "Blue screens of death."

Facebook Places - why, and why not

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"a generation to whom Facebook is an integral part of life"

And will be the first (or last) generation to find that the S"£t they did follows them around *forever*.

My guess is this will shape up 1 of about 3 ways.

Wholesale reaction. *Total* loss of *all* privacy. IE can find *anything* about *anyone*. This will be interesting when people discover *exactly* how much that guy they don't like but have been sitting next to for the last 10 years earns *more* than they do for exactly the same job. My personal view is those who want to *know* the most most about everybody are the ones with the *biggest* secrets to hide. What does "Creepy Eric" have in his closet?

A deep backlash which snuffs out such sites for a *very* long time, either by public disgust at how much of member data has been aggregated/mined/pimped by the site.

People become a *lot* more cautious about what they post and have *allowed* to be posted by others.

No need to ask. No need to know.

In others words f£$k off.

DARPA funds Mr Spock on a Chip

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Joke

Fifty patents issued. Effectively a whole *new* technology branch

That is illogical, Captain.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

Yes does sound like processing in the linear region.

Analogue computers using up to 500 op amp modules were used in the 1960s for things like flight control simulators (new aircraft ahndling characteristics *before* you've built your new aircraft) and modeling rocket engine start up transients. Their dynamic range IIRC was around a few mV to +/- 10V so *roughly* 14 bits of linearity.

Cynicism, grumpiness cause heart attacks, strokes

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Perhaps that should read *apparently* agreeable people

Mind you this is *bad* news for the BOFH.

His days are surely numbered.

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The elephant in the room

"Then the meek will inherit the earth"

IN 4' x6' plots.

Electric mass-driver catapults to beat Royal Navy cuts?

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What a *possible* weapon.

Granted you have to point the whole ship but what sort of "takeoff" speed would say a 10Kg projectile achieve.

Quite high I'm guessing.

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@smudge

"Wouldn't that affect the steerability of the ship? Mind you, I don't suppose carriers can turn on a sixpence anyway."

It would. The *classic* way to handle unwanted gyroscopic forces is to mount them in pairs *contra* rotating to cancel out their forces. As long as they both spin up/down together it works pretty well.

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@Steve May 1

I think you'll find the US designed the A10A to replace the Sky Raider.

It's seeing a *lot* of action in Afghanistan.

Plastic Logic sees the back of the Que

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PL's tech may well need some work to make this work

PL's core tech AFAIK is a printable transistor technology using organic materials and magazine printing resolution (that's a transistor with a minimum dimension of 84 microns). Given their raw materials have poorer properties than Silicon their clock frequency is going to be 10s of Mhz at *most*. These speeds mandate asynchronous logic (IE no clocks like the Manchester U. AMULET version of the ARM) to get decent performance (but should give *world* class battery life). This might need to be augmented by treating each pixel as a some kind of finite state automaton drive my multiple layers of logic (something which PL *also* excels at, in theory). An idea JPL looked at (sort of) to do signal processing inside a charge coupled imaging sensor in the 1970s and 80s (the "programming" consisted of setting various routing switches to the different elements and changing the complex clock pattern driving them)..

The challenge for PL was *always* to find the product niche where their core tech had a real edge. Dirt cheap (in principle) low performance but long battery.

I wish them well but I'm not sure they are going to deliver a *true* Plastic Logic based reader with adequate performance in anything like a conventional internal architecture.

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Plastic Logic has a product strategy?

Who knew.

Virgin Media to warn malware-infected customers

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It's been talked about for *years*

People have said the ISP's *know* whose generating stupid amounts of traffic.

So it looks like *finally* one of them in the UK has decided to stand out a bit from the crowd and *do* something about it.

Plugging their service at the same time does seem pretty patronizing.

But then again the *fact* you've been infected does not really say much for your sense of internet security, does it?

Most of the UK's major ISP's seems to do a damm lot of traffic shaping/flow control etc already. It's about time uses got *some* benefit from all that unofficial snooping.

Cautious thumbs up *provided* they don't get a load of stupid *false* positives.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Big Brother

AC@13:26

What makes you think we *need* an excuse to install DPI?

Signed

The Government.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Joke

@pogles

"Yes, but also.a law to prevent them

driving. Voting. Having kids.

Wasting oxygen"

Dear Mr Pogles.

Have I got an ID Card scheme for you.

J. Smith

Former Home Secretary and MP (Ret).

Prototype semi-hovership delivered to Commandos

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@Fluffykins

"Thatlooks suspiciously like a Denny sidewall craft,"

And described in the 1982 thriller "Sidewall" by David Graham?

Schmidt: Erase your identity to escape Google shame

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what Ian Fleming would have done with Eric Schmidt for a model.

It's not an anorak, it's a dinner jacket of course.

Open source's ardent admirers take but don't give

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Much like the old "source" licensess for business apps

Back in the day when *everyone* either wrote their own system (normally to interface to their accounts package. Very few seemed to want to roll their own one of those) package suppliers would supply the source to allow company specific tweaks.

And individual companies would start modding it.

Sometimes *so* much they could could not take the updated version and run the mods against it (to gain their in house developed benefits).

However typically there was *no* mechanism for passing their changes/improvements back up the chain to the developers, which FOSS attempts to address.

While a company may not get *every* change it would like included back into the core the ones it does get shift the burden of support from one company to the whole community. Improving the way *every* one uses the package in the process.

It will not be a quick or easy process to change corporates into giving back something for nothing (as they will perceive it).

Only the resulting successes of those that do over those that don't will change minds.

the fact 71% are prepared to even *consider* sending changes up the tree is pretty encouraging.

Time will tell if they actually *do* it.

'Climategate' university to open up data

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AC@12:58

"but I strongly suspect that the code will have heavy use of the Met Office specific IDL routines. "

Possible but (again from my reading of harry-read-me) the comments indicate they were written by someone within the Centre. However weather they wrote them or cut n pasted out of a Met Centre archive is another matter.

That a publicly funded *civilian* research centre should be borrowing from MoD software would be another sign of *very* poor development practices. that would *definitely* be another layer of obscurity into the process of going from raw data to conclusions.

While it *might* be the case these data tools are the very best available I've long learned that just because it *might* be Secret doesn't mean it's actually any good.

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@No, I will not fix your computer

"All the numpties that think that the "data" is just a bunch of text files in csv should crawl back in their holes."

Quite true. Indications are the raw data is a hodge podge of large, undocumented, data files lacking even something as basic as a systematic set of naming conventions processed through a bunch of poorly structured undocumented software that *may* prove the case that AGW is real or then again that the human race died out 200 years ago.

"the problems at the UEA were not because data was hidden or misinterpreted it just couldn't be easily understood and therefore assumed to be a cover up"

No the problem was a *publicly* funded research institute whose *core* asset was a set of *very* large datasets and whose core *product* were the analysis (and the tools to conduct that analysis) have been shown to have data management skill inadequate for a 10 year old to keep track of their Pokemon card collection and software development practices which would have put any most (all) of the professional developers here on the street within their first month at most.

If it were a privately funded group studying arguments about who really wrote Shakespear's plays no one would care.

It is not. When you're discussing something that will cost *billions* to deal with this level of shoddy work is grossly unprofessional and unacceptable.

The physics and chemistry *are* complex. The failure to handle *basic* data management and software quality assurance (which is *critical* to what was done *with* the data) makes the rest fairly irrelevant. People might need a PhD to understand the science, but they don't need one to understand GIGO.

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@Trevor_Pott

"It is also a matter of making available the APIs required to properly use them. Here's a thought: who owns the intellectual property to that? "

From my admittedly cursory read of the harry-read-me file most of it seems to bespoke code written in (*really* badly documented) FORTRAN and c. I'm not sure there *is* much of an API as lots of this stuff seems to run with command line switches (undocumented unless you read the source) or fully interactively at a terminal.

*Some* of it seems to have been done in "IDL". *Not* the thing used to define web services but a proprietary language hosted on DEC VAX boxes under VMS. The language also seems to use some proprietary data formats to hold intermediate results and it does not look like *anyone* is rushing to form a community to build an open source version of it.

Hope that helps.

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Might start with documenting the software used

Like what parameters the tools accept and their values.,

And in what circumstances they replace the input data with stuff hard coded into the software.

And what the file format structures actually *are*.

£600k split 6 ways. Evenly that's £100k a site. 1 PhD for 8 years? Or some software *professionals* (preferably with experience of *large* data set management) for 6 months?

If you can't measure it, or measure it but won't *explain* what you used (and how) to get your results it's an *opinion*.

Mine will be the one with the PMP loaded with the harry-read-me files.

Hackers spoof car warning system

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WTF?

Safety critical sensor with *no* authentication

Let me guess that the handling characteristics of your vehicle will change drastically when your vehicle thinks one (or for real "fun") more of your tires has blown.

Smart. Make that mandatory and require *no* security.

Good job.

Microsoft's dynamic languages on forced diet

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@DZ-Jay

"How about C++, still the language for *real* Windows applications and systems programming de rigueur."

Thanks for that. I suspected C/C++ would be the the #1 compiled to bare hardware exception. As to how much of that code is actually *using* those C++ specific features that would be another story.

I think it says a lot that MS espouse all sorts of weird and wonderful (and proprietary) languages for *everyone* else but when it comes do changing *their* core (or real performance issues) it's straight for the old faithful.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Boffin

Aren't *all* the languages MS push "interpreted"?

The Common Language Environment and Common Language Runtime.

Which Visual Studio supported languages produce *directly* executable code by default now?

Be clear. If you go with an MS version of *any* language *and* you want portability you're going to have to work *damm* hard for it. You'll fine tooth comb startup settings, library dependencies and naming conventions and you'd better RTFM. All of them.

If you're a Windows lifer then commit to their platform specific languages and tools and accept you're spending the rest of your career working on them, so get comfortable.

Or you could just use a version standard version from some other supplier.

Boffins pioneer electron spin data storage

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*potentially* interesting

But a hell of a long way from buying a device out the catalogue.

Still not quite sure from the article if this is a non volatile technology. Garnet films and actual particle (or virtual particle) motion put me in mind of magnetic bubble domain memories. Hopefully this will be more commercially successful.

Cautious thumbs up.

Unpatched kernel-level vuln affects all Windows versions

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AC@09:54

"Assumption is the mother of all fuckups".

Agreed. Especially the ones about the interfaces between different levels of code modules written by different programmers and the fact that no user or developer wants to do Bad Stuff (TM).

"That way you can, carefully, lift most of the sanity checking and speed up the code. It also shows very clearly where you must do a lot of sanity checking: Right where your code receives inputs it cannot afford to assume anything about. It also encourages to perform every check exactly once."

That would be *appropriate* optimization based on data collection of a *running* system and analysis of the results.

Note The function referred to is part of the Windows API. It's in the manual and publicly accessible. It is *definitely* a part of Windows that *will* receive input from *almost* anywhere. It is likely to be a wrapper for a bunch of device specific stuff but called rarely enough (AFAIK "Device Independent" bitmaps are not the *performance* option for anything) that checking its parameters should not hit performance (premature optimization again).

My gut feeling is that it should be feasible to code a lot of the sanity check code automatically from a spec of the functions definition. It would seem the sort of thing macro processors were written for. Note that working through an API manual and feeding them with pretty near anything *but* the valid ones as a way to break the OS (ideally to a state useful to bad guys) has been SOP since the late 1960s.

If it can be called from user space it's fair game.

HP boffin claims million-dollar maths prize

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Boffin

@LINCARD1000

I'll take a crack at that.

*Very* roughly it's the that all *know* ways of solving *some* problems are very "expensive" in some way (memory, time). The question is are their algorithms to solve one (or more) of these problems which are *radically* faster (but which we have not found yet) or is it impossible to solve the problems *any* faster.

The classic *real* world problem for this is Public Key Cryptography. One of the keys is derived by multiplying 2 *large* primes together. Factoring the result to identify *which* two is known to be *hard* IE very slow. It is *believed* there is *no* faster conventional way to factor it which can run on anything like what most people would call a computer (quantum "computers" are a different story).

If you can prove there is *no* faster way the system remains secure until quantum computers become readily available. Proving there *is* a faster way (which no one has found but does exist) would change the security landscape overnight.

Since PK crypto is used for cash transfers, credit authentication over the net and secure document transfer this would have *very* profound effects in the real world.

I think the safety of people's personal cash and privacy is a subject most people should take an interest in if they want to retain either or both.

UK scraps Fibre Tax review

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A more level playing field might encourage more competition

Which is something I thought the coalition quite likes.

BTW Cynicism is the *easiest* political posture.

No effort required.

Oracle unrolls tape roadmap

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People have a tendency to disregard tape.

In an era of cheap disk drives, "Who needs it"

Consider the number of parts in a tape cartridge Vs a hard drive.

Part failure on tape cartridge. Mostly passive (but high precision parts). Ultimately disassemble cartridge and put tape in temporary new one. Recover data.

Part failure on hard drive. Spare hard drive board? Component level fault finding skills? Access to proprietary ASICs if necessary?

Not forgetting the rare (but not unknown) hard drive head crash.

Tape drives *are* expensive, but they can be replaced while leaving the data intact.

Try that outside of specially built hardware delivering a class 10 clean room environment around an open drive.

Thumbs up.for this.

ICO warns coalition on benefits snooping plan

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Benefit fraud or tax fraud?

Yes the odd bunch of Hungarian gypsies can take millions.

£3m is a *small* VAT fraud. A decent *tax* fraud team with *real* teeth could net 100s of millions.

Badly thought out 1/2 cock policy.

Elon Musk plans new Mars rockets bigger than Saturn Vs

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@Willy Messerschmitt

Let's consider the Ariane development process.

The European Space Agency decides it needs a new launcher.

It gets cash from each of its member *governments*.

They hand it to CNES (the French *national* space agency) to run the development programme, who hand most of it to EADS Astrium, who divide up the work according to who contributed it (whose contribution to the budget got them first dibs on the exhaust pipes to the gas generator on the Vulcaine 2 engine)

They can the completed design back to ESA.

Who hand it over to Arianspace.

I too could *probably* run a successful business if I could the next generation of my product (costing several *billions* of dollars/euros/roubles handed to me) handed to me *virtually* for

free.

The *real* equivalent to Ariane (or the Vega solid it it's still on the cards) are the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (AKA Atlas V and Delta IV). Only despite their improved launch costs (by US standards) they are *still* too expensive for *anyone* else to use (ITAR does a pretty good job of hobbling them even further. Strom Thormold's legislation could not have done a better job if Arianspace had paid him off themselves).

There is *no* equivalent to SpaceX's work in Europe. Most of the *proposals* for a privately *developed* (as opposed to launching a taxpayer funded) design come from the UK. The rest are along the lines of "We'd *love* to do this but we'd need x Billion Euros from ESA first."

Price elasticity (the level you have to drop prices before the demands increase a *lot*) requires a 10x drop to get decent growth. The *classic* solution is build a *bigger* launcher* rather than look at building a *better* IE better launch mode.

While launchers cost the same as a low end wide body and get thrown away after 1 use that's not likely to change.

Police told terror ads too terrifying offensive

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@Z 1

"Be a government informer. Report your family and friends. Fabulous prizes to be won!"

One of Red Dwarf's finest episodes.

Not nearly so funny when you still seem to be living through it.*

Mine will be the one with the DVD's to "1990". One of Edward Woodward's least know jobs. another one you felt ACPO and NuLabor felt would make a good training manual.

Accenture denies British Gas 'millions of errors' billing system claim

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AC@14:41

I think you'll find they mean getting *cash* out of HMG for their efforts, in *spite* of said efforts being rubbish, *not* delivering a first rate system in the first place.