Posts by The lone lurker

Re: Is this evolution continuing?

Victory Unintentional

Re: paywall

Show me a 10ft paywall, I’ll show you a 12ft ladder.

https://12ft.io/

This is a very nice resource to bypass such things.

Re: This is so cool (no pun)

The problem for aquatic aliens (as identified by Arthur C. Clarke in 2061: odyssey three) is how do you leave the Stone Age without fire?

Re: While I do not agree with 99% of...

Have another for caring about downvotes on an anonymous forum of a tech news site.

I see lots of posts like this from you regarding downvotes, but it still puzzles me why anyone cares. It’s not like the up to down ratio actually does anything.

Are you OK?

Re: Luftwaffe or Lufthanse?

Possibly because they’re more able to absorb losses on the common business routes that were being run on shoestring margins and drove the local operators out.

RIP the BMI Munich to Southampton route.

On the other hand, Lufthansa have consistently been improving on the long haul side whereas others like SIA have fallen far.

Re: First prove...

@ David Nash

I'm sure all those thalidomide survivors have something relevent to say about clinical trial methodologies.

Kiasu culture

Singapore is tiny but it is uniquely kiasu as well as being severely dense in population. If golfing (or anything) slots are auctioned it will become inflated to a status symbol.

My girlfriend here is a member of a major gym, we are forced to set an alarm to book classes and immediately try on three phones to get a slot as otherwise they'll be gone in seconds due to the overselling of service which is just normal here.

Re: Ranger etc. missions

Not sure about shoulders of giants, Titans maybe...

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4203/toc.htm

The link is a book called "On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini"

However, if you mangle the URL, you'll find a huge number of free resources from that time documenting the work from Redstone to Shuttle.

@Destroy All Monsters

This idea is also described in some detail by Stephen Baxter in a number of his Xeelee sequence novels (most notably Exultant). With the various phase changes of the early universe influenced by these early civilizations.

Well worth a read IMO.

Re: Super Mario 3 Characters

Alex Kidd in Miracle world?

He had a flying bike and the rock paper scissors boss fights had a guy that looked like he had a cock for a head.

The orbital resonances between Mars and Jupiter pretty much preclude a planet of any significant size having in the region of the asteroid belt.

It becomes even more unlikely when you consider the energies required coupled with the low combined mass of the Asteroid belt - somewhat less than 5% of the Moon's.

The radically different compositions of the various Asteroid Families are also difficult (though not impossible) to explain if they were to have originated from the same planet.

@ Dalek Dave

If you do not already believe that men landed on the moon then I sincerely doubt that some Chinese pictures will convince you otherwise.

The evidence is already visible from The LRO images from orbit.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/revisited/#.UtUeD_RdXIc

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-11.html#.UtUfrfRdXIc

http://www.space.com/12835-nasa-apollo-moon-landing-sites-photos-lro.html

Re: Yes Absolutely true.

I agree with your sentiment but I recently found out my 12 year old niece has no idea who Charles Dickens was and had no interest in finding out.

Anything that might get new people reading the classics is a good thing, simply making them aware of their existence is a start.

Re: tides

"Tides on Titan raised by Saturn's gravity can be as high as 30 feet (10 meters)."

The mind boggles when you consider the distances involved just within the Saturn moon system.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/video/videodetails/?videoID=246

Re: Ditch the aluminium

Sapphire is already transparent Aluminium (oxide)!

Re: Don't really understand why this is surprising

I believe the current theory is that it is a Brown Dwarf if it is below 13 Jupiter masses and does not orbit a star or stellar remnant.

Some also argue that it must not have experienced fusion in it's existence to be a true Brown dwarf - Most known brown Dwarf candidates are Lithium rich which cannot be the case if fusion has occurred.

Surprisingly they tend not to become much bigger than Jupiter as this is the limit of the Coulomb pressure and they are purple.

Re: pretty obvious really

Enterprise was built between 1974 and 1976. The Approach and landing test program finished in 1977 and the decision not to convert Enterprise to an orbiter was made in 1978 so it was still assumed during the naming of Enterprise that it would fly in space.

Re: Presumably...

So you cut people off as soon as part of your body comes into contact with the touch sensitive part of a phone - like when you press it to the side of your face? Presumably this device can turn off the screen when it detects that it is close to your head, just like most phones already have done for a long time already. Alternatively the software could ignore all inputs except in certain areas of the screen as soon as the device goes into call mode.

It's more likely that this is simply a promotional picture and you're nitpicking to jump on this particular bandwagon.

Re: Stasis guaranteed

The Saturn 5 blueprints still exist, as do the plans for the Ford model T. The primary issue is that the huge Saturn 5 assembly lines and in some cases the manufacturers themselves simply do not exist anymore.

The cost to start fabricating Saturn 5's again would never be funded... Unless there's another country threatening to beat them to it again!

If funding wasn't diverted from the Saturn 5 program in the 1970's in favor of the Shuttle it would have been possible to assemble the ISS in only five launches!

Re: This seems rather half-arsed @ roland6

Certainly they can, if it was provided in a similar way to the third party offerings. They could provide it as a download from a support website or possibly as an optional update. Perhaps a 'start menu' choice screen to preempt the EU bureaucrats?

re:screen res

Go into regedit and search for "Display1_DownScalingSupported"

Change all instances to "1" and reboot, you can now select higher resolutions on your netbook... Some things will look slightly strange as you cannot magically create pixels but for browsing etc. at arms length the higher vertical resolution is a godsend!

Re: And the pertinent question is,....

I was much more annoyed by the animated bear on the Russian probe that handily gave instructions to non Russian speakers.

Re: Musing...

Cydonia was pareidolia at it's finest, they've had high resolution scans of that region for some time now, nothing but rocks after all! There is however a smiley face in Galle Crater!

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/craters/PIA01676.html

The NASA or Wikipedia page has some good comparison images of the Cydonia Mesa:

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mgs_cydonia.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_%28region_of_Mars%29

Unfortunately searching for "Cydonia" on Google very quickly leads you into the weirder parts of the internet where Richard Hoagland is king.

Re: I aim for the stars @ Graeme

The Blue streak missile was developed to completion. The Black knight sounding rocket and subsequent Black Arrow rocket were derivatives of this system.

The Black Arrow was the satellite launcher and was also completed but the program was cancelled just before they were about to test launch. However as the parts had been produced and were actually in transit to Woomera the go-ahead to launch the three completed rockets was given.

Only one launch succeeded and lifted the Prospero satellite to orbit in 1971.

Interestingly, prior to Black Arrow cancellation NASA had offered to launch British payloads for free but this offer was withdrawn after the successful launch of Prospero.

If you can find a copy there is a fascinating book called "Black Arrow. A Vertical Empire" that details the internal politics that led to the cancellation.