* Posts by Lewis Page 1

26 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Sep 2009

Whoever recently showed us the secret documents: Do get in touch

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Re: Are you sure you want to do this?

We didn't say we had any documents. We said we had SEEN some.

Scality proudly unveils its RING to the world

Lewis Page 1
Thumb Up

Re: Oh Brunhilde, you're so lovely

Borne in mind

Plucky orangutan rescued from encroaching biofuel plantations

Lewis Page 1
Boffin

Of course you can use palm oil to make aviation fuel, do keep up

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/04/11/wilmar-develop-aviation-biofuel.html

Inside the real-world Double-O section of Her Majesty's Secret Service

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: "a major espionage centre like Vienna"

I gather what everyone is mainly spying on in Vienna these days is the IAEA, and of course the other spies as they spy on it

StorSimple, TwinStrata join in HP Cloud love-in

Lewis Page 1
Boffin

Steady on, gun blokes

In my opinion the front page teaser pic shows a .36 Navy Colt - tho admittedly pointed AT Clint not handled by him. He too in that film used a .36 Navy smokeblower (cartridge converted or cap&ball) however, very different from a modern .44-magnum nitro powder job.

But I'm thinking you storage guys mostly don't mind - this is just for the record. and to forestall our occasionally large community of gun experts.

100 EARTH-LIKE PLANETS orbit stars WITHIN 30 LIGHT-YEARS!

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Genocide

How can you commit genocide on a planet that hasn't got any life? RTFA

Cameron's attempt to cram a robot arm wearing a Rolex into his pristine bottom

Lewis Page 1

Re: Non-Warring, Friendly, Kind, Caring, Loving, Insightful Entities = 'Hippies'

I was thinking: people/beings who really dislike the military and resource exploitation companies (mining and oil), who consider that organised state violence (warmongering) is bad but that Che Guevara was cool, who possibly worship or grok some sort of planetary mother goddess, have a misty-eyed view of how much fun primitive lifestyles really are ... you know. Hippies. But this is really supposed to be a thread about gadgety watches, so why not go and start another thread about what hippies are?

Lewis Page 1

Re: Dunno

Helium release valves are for saturation divers. You spend weeks on end 'in the bin' under a mega pressure heliox atmosphere, the teeny helium molecules leak slowly in even to your super diver watch's case. After a while the inside of the watch ist at quite a high pressure, full of helium.

When you finally start decompressing, the helium can't get out quickly enough and your super watch blows open (it being designed to resist pressure from outside not inside). Hence you have a valve to let out the helium while the sat pot is decompressing.

I'm told it's a good plan to make sure all your fillings are in good nick when sat diving, as sometimes the space under a filling can act in the same way as the watch case, causing massive pain as you decompress or even causing the tooth to explode.

Lewis Page 1

Re: Cameron's attempt to cram a robot arm wearing a Rolex into his pristine bottom

Well sure - but I'm on about 500 or 1200 or god save us 12000m watches. 200m ones, fine - 300m ones if you're a pro, fine.

But we seem to be agreeing that anything beyond that is pretty silly.

I once had a pusser's watch supposedly rated for 200m flood up on me at only 40, so sure there are a lot of duff watches out there which don't live up to their spec. Fortunately in Navy diving it's mostly the supervisor on the surface who needs to know the time rather than the diver in the water.

Lewis Page 1

Re: "and vanquish an alliance between the US military and an oil company"

Of course I have. You remember, alien technology from the Abyss makes a US navy submarine go haywire. The military calls in help from Ed Harris' guys, who - if memory serves - are civvies in a megadeep sat platform operated by the oil biz ('Benthic Petroleum'). Later some Navy SEALs come down to the platform and start throwing their weight about like the evil military sorts they are. The boss goes off his rocker and tries to nuke the aliens using an ROV from the oil platform and a warhead from the sub, though one of the oil guys (Ed Harris) manages to stop this.

At the end we find that the aliens were fixing to wipe out humanity for being so evil and warlike (that'll teach us, it's the only language we understand). Meanwhile a huge naval fleet has gathered up top. The aliens decide to let most of us off being killed because of Ed's love for his estranged wife. However they still bring their huge ship/city thing up to the surface, knackering the assembled military/oil biz shipping there. Vanquishing them in fact.

Lewis Page 1

Re: agreed

We used to dive to 54m on the old DSSCCD using 32.5/67.5 nitrox, so you were talking max ppO2 of 2.08 bar. This dated from the olden days when people were a bit less panicky about O2, of course! Diving the same set rigged for pure O2 (for attack swimming) we had a depth limit of 8, then 7 m in my time, though to be honest the depth gauges we had were so hard to read at night we would violate that fairly often.

Lewis Page 1

Re: agreed

It's semi irrelevant, but before I got the Seamaster I used to wear a Tag rated for 200m. The bracelet pins broke during an ordinary 50m nitrox dive though and I lost it, which put me off rather. The one 'diver' feature I found useful on the Seamaster was the extendey bracelet for wearing over your suit, though.

Lewis Page 1
Boffin

Cameron's attempt to cram a robot arm wearing a Rolex into his pristine bottom

Realistically, is there any point in a diving watch rated for more than 300m? Even for a saturation diver that ought to be OK, and for any other kind of diver more than OK. Surely if you wear a Rolex Sea-Dweller, Doxa 1200 etc you are almost certainly a poseur. I never dived deeper than 80m in an 8-year spell as a Royal Navy clearance diver. I wear an ordinary Omega Seamaster 300m model - not wind-up, either. Even that's a bit of a pose for me to wear - especially the helium release valve, which I never needed. And most divers have even less need for a smega diving watch than me.

Sure, sat divers exist but there aren't that many of them: and not that many of them go beyond 200m very often. The existence of production watches rated for more than 300m is just silly, and nearly everyone that wears one has to be, basically, a bullshitter - right?

MP allegedly cuffed after scrap in Commons bar

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Use of the term Freetard in this article

For the record: Andrew didn't intend to call Joyce a freetard, he used the term 'Copyfighter'. As the editor around here, I changed it. We have previously called Joyce "the freetard's friend" and similar things, but in this instance, if you are cross with Andrew about the use of the term "freetard", don't be. Be cross with me instead by all means.

IT guy answers daughter's Facebook rant by shooting her laptop

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Having shot up many a dead computer

It's hard to argue against one who has plainly notched up so many kills against troublesome computers: I bow to your experience, sir, and salute you on the classy choice of the Lee-Enfield - surely the thinking man's choice when up against IT big game. It's good to see that there are some of us left who don't need automatic fire to get the job done.

Even so, I'm worried that you might be falling into the classic expert's trap of focusing too tightly on your own experience and failing to remain adaptable against new, unknown threats. Suppose you have nothing to hand but hollowpoints, or .22s, and then a troublesome kid packing a G4 or a Toughbook or something comes at you? You could wind up having to reload a lot of times and failing to get your point across, that's all I'm saying.

It's just a thought. And for the thermite fans, that's all well and good but for true spectacle calculated to make an impact on a young and impressionable audience I feel a blast-incendiary (small plastic-explosive charge combined with a bottle of petrol, Hollywood style) is hard to beat.

I would continue this, but someone has just told me the pub's open.

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Hollow points are better

Just on the matter of what kind of bullet is best to use for shooting a laptop - I'll stay out of the parenting debate - I'd stand by my assertion that hollowpoints aren't the choice. Even the softest plastic laptop is not a bag of jelly like the unarmoured human body, which is what hollowpoints are optimised for. I'd argue that jacketed rounds would offer better all-round balance between damage and penetration against computers or indeed IT hardware in general. You might well need armour-piercing hardcores to be sure of a quick kill against some tough computers, say a titanium G4: especially using a .45.

As a former EOD type, of course, my personal preference would be for explosives over any type of firearm. It's the only way to be sure.

I'm certain some of our readers have more experience in the field of shooting and/or blowing up computers than me, though. Think of these lads:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/18/shot_server/

RAF Eurofighter Typhoons 'beaten by Pakistani F-16s'

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Retraction?

RTFA gents. Pakistani PILOTS on exchange to the Turkish air force flying Turkish F-16s. There are always Turkish planes at Anatolian Eagle and - according to the pilot interviewed - in some cases these jets are flown by Pakistani exchange pilots.

Do try and get beyond the headline before commenting.

Gadget makes bombs, mines go off 'on average' 20m away

Lewis Page 1
Grenade

Nitpickers

AndrewH: 'Average' could mean mean, median or mode - however many people do baselessly assume mean as you have - so I have amended the article.

Rest of you: Most mechanically initiated mines/devices are of course victim-operated or timed, not command. However failed impact or time fused munitions - especially cluster submunitions - can also in effect function as VO/boobytrap landmines. That's mainly what I was driving at, and these several kinds of non-electronic munitions or devices constitute the majority of the 'landmine' problem worldwide, so this gizmo really isn't going to be much use for minefield clearance.

However there are plenty of ways to have a non-electronic command device, too. You could easily use a long length of detcord, for instance. So have a think before hitting post, smartarses.

And David, since this gadget will not set off many devices you are likely to encounter, they will still go off right next to you.

Official: PhD in 'Essential Oils' or 'Natural Toiletries' = 'a Scientist'

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Fact check please

Here you go. You can get BSc Acupuncture too

http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/shsc/_courses/undergraduate_list.asp

http://www.uel.ac.uk/programmes/hab/undergraduate/summary/herbalmedicine-bsc.htm

Google usually works better than demanding fact checks in comments, though

Has CERN made the VATICAN ANTIMATTER BOMB for real?*

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Minor...

Chaps -

The fact that normal matter would also be involved was included in the calc. Click on the Wolfram alpha link in the article if you don't believe me.

Plucky Finn attempts to drive length of Finland in small digger

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: This is usually the point

Dammit Richards! This is getting to be a regular thing now

"Scandinavia is a region in Northern Europe that includes Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Finland is often considered a Scandinavian country in common English usage"

From "Export To Scandinavia" http://www.exporttoscandinavia.com - presumably they know what they're on about

Common English is what we do here at the Reg, as we don't live in Norway. And I never SAID Finns were vikings, did I? The caption makes sense if Finland is part of Scandinavia.

Away with you

LHC boffins crank beams to 3.5 TeV redline

Lewis Page 1

Just like Lewis to pull a fast one

FFS - click on the link in the article before hitting comment. I didn't come up with the aircraft carrier numbers, it was CERN.

Or just pop off and shout at the bins again, whatever

Game developer's lost electric buggy FOUND ON MOON

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

God dammit Richards!

I quote NASA:

The Soviets later revealed that during a conference on planetary exploration in Moscow, 29 January to 2 February 1973 (that is, after the landing of Luna 21), an American scientist had given photos of the lunar surface around the Luna 21 landing site to a Soviet engineer in charge of the Lunokhod 2 mission. These photos, taken prior to the Apollo 17 landing, were later used by the "driver team" to navigate the new rover on its mission on the Moon.

'Negatively strange' antihypermatter made out of gold

Lewis Page 1

Here you go fella

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/17/mosquito_laser/

NASA Titan moon-balloons to run on cloud fuel

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Bottled gas

Attention Richards

I quote NASA:

"Titan's atmosphere is extremely rich in an assortment of hydrocarbon chemicals, including propane, which we use to fill our barbecue tanks," said Cassini scientist Conor Nixon.

Yes patio gas does vapourise in Titanian conditions.

And further. There is such a thing as Compressed Natural Gas (methane in a bottle) here on Earth. Admittedly it is mainly used for cars in South America not barbecues in Blighty.

So there. Don't rain on my parade with your not-propane rain, mister.

Ammo rationing at Wal-Mart as panic buying sweeps US

Lewis Page 1 (Written by Reg staff)
Black Helicopters

Blimey

I should have remembered how Americans feel about their fave handgun ammo! Criticizing .45 ACP seems to be the equivalent of doing a cartoon about the Prophet Mohammed in some quarters.

Please note, gents, I didn't say .45 is rubbish, I just said that cops, soldiers and crims are mostly - note that, mostly - using other calibres these days. That's just a fact, not an aspersion or an opinion.

On the matter of .45's virtues or lack of them, one of the main criticisms against it is poor armour penetration, which I tried to cover in the bootnote - evidently inadequately. Fairly low muzzle energy and a big bullet naturally mean bad penetration, as the number of joules per square mm is comparatively low. That's all. Even higher-energy, smaller diameter pistol slugs like hot 9mm, .357 mag etc have troubles against modern armour - that's why people have brought out things like Russian 9x21mm or the new Euro steel-needle type rounds, 4.6x30mm HK and 5.7x28mm FN.

Of course, as some home-defence enthusiasts have noted, the average crackhead burglar won't be wearing a vest - if he had a vest he'd have swapped it for crack - so .45 is a valid choice against him. Personally, though, it seems to me that inside one's own home there would seem little reason to restrict oneself to pistols if one is having a gun at all. As the old gag has it, handguns are carried by people who don't expect to fight - if they did, they'd arm themselves properly. Don't bring a knife to a gunfight, sure - but frankly if you have a choice don't bring a pistol either. If I were an American, buying a gun for fighting inside my house, I'd probably go for a shotgun if I could get one that held a decent number of rounds and short enough to use in confined spaces. (I think there's a US law about minimum barrel length?)

Those much more advanced in CQB than me tell me that a submachinegun or a carbine is better, but they *are* worried about body armour and -crucially - they are very good shots and much better at maintaining situational awareness than I am. Like most people here I suspect, I've never been in a gun fight and while I'm a reasonable shot on the range (or was, haven't fired a weapon since I left the service in 2004) I expect my performance would drop off pretty sharply with the brown adrenaline flowing. With a shotgun I'd be confident of seriously messing up anyone I could manage to hit, and also of not sending bullets through them (or through walls, ceilings, floors etc) to hit my family and neighbours.

Of course I'm not an American so I' m effectively not allowed to keep a gun in my house. That doesn't bother me that much - I'd probably have one if I lived in the States, just for fun, but the lack of one doesn't bother me. I'll back myself against a crackhead burglar with whatever I can pick up around the house (if the burglars down my way had guns, they would swap them for crack, so I don't worry about armed intruders. Guns and vests both are apparently quite common among the criminal fraternity in my neighbourhood, but only among management and sales, not the drug users).

As for defending myself against the guvmint, well. As someone here has already pointed out, the government's got you outgunned. When the feds come to take your guns away, gentlemen, .45ACP is going to be a poor choice indeed - the SWAT team *will* have armour on, and even if you're Wyatt Earp himself you'll struggle to get them all in the head. And if you choose something a bit more modern and manage to piss them off, they'll still win - ultimately they'll blow up your house with you in it, as they already tend to do when pressed for time overseas.

If you actually want to get into that sort of fight, reach for your roadside bomb rather than any kind of gun. And give up on "home defence", too - permanent homes aren't safe for freedom fighters/terrorists.

But come on, FFS, everyone. The US government isn't that bad. Gun-loving Yanks aren't that bad. Gun-hating limey weenies aren't that bad. Let's all just be friends and look forward to pub time (unless we're down on alcohol of course, FFS don't all get cross again).

PS - gun guys - for the record I have shot .22 pistol at uni back when it was legal. I had to stay qual'd on the SA80 5.56mm rifle and 9mm Browning pistol for most of my 11-year service career, and latterly as 2ic or boss I tended to shoot more than strictly required because I liked it and nobody could stop me. I have also fired other weapons now and again, including a .303 Lee Enfield as a boy, Sig Sauer and HK MP5 9mm on the SBS ranges at Poole, 7.62mm GPMG on the Commando course, shotguns once or twice, airguns when a lad etc. I even fired an acquaintance's .45 once when I was working in the States during student vacations.

I'm sure I don't shoot as much as many of you, but I'm not totally ignorant.