Posts by Tom 7 8318 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009
@AC "Getting hold of the ice is another matter"
I would imagine at the poles there is not a huge amount of solar so I would imagine they would go and get blocks and thaw it where it was needed. It will be a while before we have pipelines up there and I'd think people will be nearer the equator.
Mountaineers have problems because they have very limited carrying capacity. I've used a little hand pump jobbie to make water from sea water and its not that difficult - and assuming the astronauts will be recycling I can see them getting away with a relatively small solar collector for heating and melting the stuff and PV powered purifiers for most of their needs.
Getting hold of the ice is another matter - I've tried hacking at ice before and if it gets any harder as it gets colder a couple of hours work with a pickaxe might produce more sweat than the accumulated ice cubes.
Its a bit like colour or fonts - the computer doesnt really give a shit and yet I've had half my life wasted in meetings while tossers argue about what colour and font 'means'. Just follow the project/company guidelines - or in the case of things like font or colour move everything that depends on it to the design department (that's what CSS is for ffs) so the anally retentive can worry about it while you get on with the code.
Don't argue with wanky style guides - argue with the computer. At least there's some logic there to get your teeth into and you have a chance of winning.
And if you are so old you cant adopt your coding style you should at least be able to write the code that will convert your coding style into whatever is required.
Under no circumstances should you connect a 32' length of 6' plastic drain pipe vertically to the side of a building, light a candle at the bottom and then pour a cup of toner down it.
Or alternatively lie the pipe on a slope and pour the toner in the top and roll the pipe so the toner is evenly distributed down the length and throw in a lit banger and RLF. This is because you will be running backwards so you dont miss the fun and that could be dangerous!
Well for one thing you will have a lot less spare space - every image will contain its own libraries so there will be multiple copies of them rather than the single one that is really needed and that leads on to the problem of security - when a security problem is found normally the library would be updated and all will be well but every image will have to be updated and then tested and then downloaded.
I met someone recently who was working on commercial drones and it was fascinating to talk to him, He was working on drones that had valid commercial uses - I've got a bit of guttering that is only accessible by drone or several thousand pounds worth of scaffolding. But the military implications were quite scary in the sense that the technology was there to make cheap cruise missiles.
A friend of mine brought his drones up for a play on the local beech which is massive at the right tides and everything in it is off the shelf and open source and I dare say almost anyone whose been to half a dozen RaspberryPi jams would probably be capable of making something that will breach any and all regulations and the only way to stop this is to stop people being allowed any form of toys or education, We're half way there but I'd rather we could educate people not to do stupid things than just stop educating them.
Though one of my dads colleagues went to UCL with him and apparently he had perfect english then which meant I could never watch him on the telly with dad around or he would remind me of this every time.
He has to be congratulated for cultivating the mad German professor role which I think inspired thousands of others.
One bonfire night ny dad got some huge plastic bags (maybe 10 times the size of bin liners) and filled one with coal gas and lit a long fuse to it. The bag peeled back releasing a burning ball of gas that floated up until it got to about two foot across when it exploded with a loud pop.
The next one contained coal gas and the exact right amount of O2 (from a dentist) to combust the coal gas (a uni prof for a dad comes in handy some times) and a long fuse of string and paraffin lit, The flame reach the plastic bag and there was a flash and a bang so loud that you could hear it echo off buildings 15 seconds later - which was impressive as most people were now deaf. It was about 10 minutes before the fireworks in the area recommenced. I still swear to this day that the explosion wrote 'bang' in cartoon letters.
Rabbit is highly underrated. Yes its got lots of little bones and you need to use your fingers but - but - chips!! Some of the best meals I've had have been in country kitchens in far off lands that add rabbit to four or five other ingredients. Probably not a chrismas meal - cant hold the crackers with grease coated fingers but I'd do a Mr Creosote on it.
Cant stand turkey and theres no room in the aga for another bird . However I do keep my own pigs and there will be plenty of proper sausages (bacon wrapped ones are fine as a side) and enough room in the aga to put some toad in the hole. Which will be all mine - everyone will want some because turkey is for sheep and not really greedy bastards like me but they can fuck off with their traditional organic bronzed well basted gardening string.
Seems the Aztecs favourite food was turkey - I can see why they just gave up when the Spanish arrived.
I used to go in to work to spread the bug then take a couple of days off sick and then return to an empty office and get shitloads of work done while everyone else was off. They were going to get it anyway and a synchronised plague is advantageous to some - even the manager who gets so much work done for him by not being in the fucking way all the time.
Your taste goes when you have man flu so never waste good scotch on it. I use to suffer from regular bouts of bronchitis when younger and found the best 'cure' was cheap scotch (they didnt make the shit shop-branded stuff then) and hills bronchial balsam. HBB was the only medicine I've ever taken that works on your chest - possibly due the the addictive ingredient of morphine acetate which apparently caused a lot of addiction amongst the crumblies and got it banned. Sickness is a pain now,
I used to have a job I loved, I often spent long hours doing it. It being IT related I used IT to work out how efficient I was being. I found out I could work the odd week of more than 60 hours and productivity would improve a bit. After a couple of weeks of 60hours or more productivity would plummet below the 37.5 hr normal week and take a week or two of normal work to recover. This was largely due to the error rate increasing.
After some visits to the US where 7am-7pm and at least some hours over the weekend was 'compulsory' and I realised no work was being done because there was no urgency I stopped doing long hours unless absolutely necessary. Pissed a lot of people off but no-one could get the work done as fast as me.
I've since worked for several bosses who worked long hours and got fuck all done.
I've since found out some German states fine companies who make their employees work too long and they have higher productivity.
All the science points to working longer gets less done as the errors accumulate. It looks like 30-40 hrs is pretty much optimal.
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