* Posts by werdsmith

7096 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Feb 2011

The results are in: Science says the Solar System's magnetic heliosphere looks like a deflated croissant

werdsmith Silver badge

The data from Cassini is handled by Goddard and if you want to play with it:

https://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/

That's how we roll: OWC savagely undercuts Apple's $699 Mac Pro wheels with bargain $199 alternative

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Re: Still Overpriced

There are loads of examples of seemingly simple things that are purchased by companies and cost stpid amounts of money. The companies just pay the prices.

For ordinary folk buying stuff for home, I got a "Roughneck Dolly" from Wickes. Which is not a sex toy, but a four wheeled load skate for moving large bits of furniture. Cost £10, 200kg capacity.

Google to pull plug on Play Music, its streaming service that couldn't beat Spotify, in favour of YouTube Music

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Re: I've just uploaded my music collection to...

Even dynamic ips stay for months or years on end in my experience, and changing once in a blue moon is trivial.

My current phone has 256 GB storage and everything I’m like to want to listen to is on it in lossless. No chance I’m going to hand over money to have music I already own delivered to me over the air.

University of Cambridge to decommission its homegrown email service Hermes in favour of Microsoft Exchange Online

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Re: Isn't Microsoft a security risk?

I don't think that any IP that needs to be protected, or indeed any sensitive information should be sent in unencrypted form by any email system, internal or not.

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Re: Call it blunt...

their time is so cramed with lectures, supervisions, essays, reading, course work,

Don't forget those long boats. They don't row themselves you know.

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Re: £35 / user?

Downvotes really don’t matter.

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Re: £35 / user?

That will explain why my Uni and all the other ones I deal with are already O365/Exchange.

Cambridge aren't breaking any new ground here.

We Kana believe it! Raspberry Pi Foundation launches Japanese keyboard

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Re: Why make keyboards

My assumption, given the usual way these things happen, they’ve had some direct feedback and have created this keyboard in response to market demand. It is a neat little keyboard that includes a built in USB hub, which then enables more USB devices to be plugged in.

If the market for the Pi itself is large in Japan then it is a compliment to their community there to support their culture directly.

Pi documentation is published in some nice books that you can buy or have for free as pdf and numerous magazine publications some of them also free in electronic form, and my Japanese car has a wonderful printed manual that I’ve never needed to open.

Austria astroboffins shed a little light on how we might track orbital junk hurtling at spacecraft during daytime

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If anyone is interested for data science projects or for postgrad work, some product datasets from SLR stations are available from good ol' NASA thanks to those lovely American taxpayers

ftp://cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov/slr/products/orbits

You think the UK coronavirus outbreak was bad? Just wait till winter: Study shows test-and-trace system is failing

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Re: Because the modelling has been so accurate thus far.......

Those beaches were terrible examples of camera tricks to make the places appear more crowded than they are. One paper was caught out using a 2019 photo with a building site that isn't there now.

And anyway, beaches are likely safer places to be.

Same with the pubs, people going to lengths to find the outlier situations and then cropping the photo to make it look more crowded.

Predicted increases in rates of infection connected to beaches and London protest marches didn't happen either.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Because the modelling has been so accurate thus far.......

Walton on the Naze and Miami don't really compare.

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Re: Really?

I don't think some twat in the government breaking the lockdown is a reason for breaking the lockdown.

Not for grown ups anyway.

And the advice in England was plain enough. The problem is all the passive aggression against the government because people just don't want to play along.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: But... but...

I don't see how these phone apps can work reliably with all the variable conditions they have to deal with.

The Hong Kong wristband seems to be the better approach, would get better user adoption than an app, though 7 million devices is a lot, 65 million would be a bit too many.

I don't think the apps are much use though.

Aviation regulator outlines fixes that will get the 737 MAX flying again

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Re: Hmm.

Or the operator will specify the equipment as a 737-700 or something else on its fleet but reserve the right to use different equipment for operational reasons. Makes seat reservations a pain though,

Virgin Galactic pals up with Rolls-Royce to work on Mach 3 Concorde-style private jet that can carry up to 19 people

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Re: A fifth of a concorde

There are loads of business jets where cabin space is restricted. This thing would be a business jet where cabin space is restricted for much less time.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Short and sweet.

How are they fools?

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Re: Short and sweet.

Viruses are carried by people not aircraft.

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Re: Afterburners

Concorde engines were necessarily pure turbojets, which are loud. They were loud on all the early passenger jets that were powered by turbojets or low bypass engines.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Afterburners

The Concorde wing requires rotation to a bigger angle for take off so the passengers are already feeling their weight pushed into the seat back, then its reheat thrust which doesn't relent after it has left the ground gives a feeling of going up much more steeply that you are. My flight was a joyride round the Bay of Biscay, so we we had no hold luggage and a light fuel load, which meant it went even better.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: A fifth of a concorde

Carrying 1/10 as many passengers it needs to be 1000% better

Not really, as Concorde was a commercial service aircraft. These intended to be private jets.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: As long as the range....

Projects don't become DODB because of your personal requirements.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: uncomfortable

I did ride the Concorde one time on an unforgettable day in 1991 and it was small but not uncomfortable. The leather seats were a bit wider with more legroom than a slow plane economy. Noisy in the cabin, yes but people really don't care about that.

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Re: Afterburners

It might be using reheat partly for fun and to make it a more exciting ride, the acceleration for take off and climb out push on Concorde was an experience on its own.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Short and sweet.

Of course not, we don't REALLY need any aircraft.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Afterburners

Concorde would use them to take off, switch them off for the climb. Then it would light them again for the push through transonic and then switch them off for supercruise.

werdsmith Silver badge

This article says nothing about range, but the point is to move well-heeled people around the planet in less time than it would normally take, whilst extracting a tiny tiny drop of their personal fortune which would amount to a very large amount of money. Being a business jet, the normal air terminal wait doesn't apply, the thing can load from a limousine very shortly before its slot and off it goes.

So a sector time from London to New York could be around 3 hours, instead of 10 or more. If I had so much money that it accumulates faster than I could spend it then I would do it.

Brit local authority appoints a systems integrator in leap to Oracle cloud, but support time-bomb is already ticking

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Re: "the cost of moving to a different system would be prohibitively high"

I'm pleased I don't pay council tax in Solihull. Hope this doesn't trigger a chain reaction.

Think of all those contractors finishing the project with experience and skillsets. Other councils might take the already trodden path.

Microsoft confirms pursuit of TikTok after Satya Nadella chats to Donald Trump

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Re: I Just Don't Get It

Chinese companies getting too big and threatening to resist American hegemony.

First Huawei, now TikTok, Alibaba next in the crosshairs.

AI assistants work perfectly in the UK – unless you're from Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, Belfast...

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Ive had that experience in USA when the response I got was:

“wud?”

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Re: Cockerney

I can’t believe it works in London where the new generation speak MLE instead of cockney innit.

Amazon gets green-light to blow $10bn on 3,000+ internet satellites. All so Americans can shop more on Amazon

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Re: Kessler effect

“ These birds are all in LEO, so should fall from orbit in around 5-10 years.”

I believe these constellations are constantly replenished with new launches replacing the decayed ones.

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Re: Educate me

It’s a space grab land grab all over again. First mover advantage,

I hate it

Boeing confirms it will finish building 747s in 2022, when last freighter flies off the production line

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Re: Sad to see the queen of the sky’s go but won’t be flying in a 737 Max

I don’t know why people are trying to argue against points I didn’t make. Of course these aircraft are long in the tooth now, and don’t compare well to more modern designs. But their longevity is unquestionable.

To emphasise what I was actually trying to say, I will ask: how many L1011 and how many DC-10 do you see in airports these days.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Sad to see the queen of the sky’s go but won’t be flying in a 737 Max

I'm not talking about pure turbojets and hydraulic actuators. When I said that I was talking about those aircraft as a platform for continued development, which is what they became over the decades. Of course only a stretched version of the airframe confguration survives and the latest versions off the line have totally different specs in everything from avionics to engines, but it remains that nothing from their contemporary rivals survives.

It is the foresight of those 60s engineers to design such a platform that might be learned from.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Sad to see the queen of the sky’s go but won’t be flying in a 737 Max

Only pushing the certification rules to its limits brought about the 737 problem, the Max is virtually a new aircraft.

Both 737 and 747 were 1960s engineering that formed the platform for continued update and improvement for decades and outlasted their Lockheed and McDonnell-Douglas rivals. In the 1960s engineers at Boeing were able to come up with such robust designs that were solidly businesslike and pragmatic and out and out market leaders.

You might say that 787 is of the same ilk, but it is so dependent on tech that it somehow feels like a more delicate bird. I do think that modern engineers could learn from that 1960s approach.

In the market for a second-hand phone? Check it's still supported by the vendor – almost a third sold are not

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: for manufacturers to open-source old code

iPhone 5, a 2012 phone. I know there are some of them still in use as I've done a battery and a phone in them recently.

werdsmith Silver badge

You mean phone networks abandoning 2G? That's car fuel makers abandoning leaded petrol.

Gone in 15 minutes: Qualcomm claims new chargers will fill your smartmobe in a flash

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Re: Why are we talking about cars ?

Nobody driving an EV is planning a road trip - the infrastructure is not there.

This is not completely true, there is infrastructure for a road trip and you have to plan EV road trips to make sure you can use it.

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Re: How

5 minutes is about how long it takes me to replace an iPhone battery at home.

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Not sure about you, but I can't fill my car with petrol while I sleep.

Somebody else could fill it up while you sleep.

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I would expect 85% to last well into the next day.

IDE like an update, please: JetBrains freshens IntelliJ, adds improved GitHub integration, Java support

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Re: The UX is terrible

Every now and the MS does come up with something half decent and VS Code is on of them.

I've used it exclusively since I discovered it and I don't miss any of those other IDEs. I have access to many through Uni.

Class move, Java. Coding language slips to third place behind Python in latest popularity contest

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Re: I Wonder...

People playing about with Raspberry Pis are not doing that many GitHub pull requests. They tend to have their own forums too and not so much stackoverflow contributors as much as lookups users.

Microsoft wants to show enterprises that Edge means business, rather than the thing you use to download Chrome

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Re: Don't shoot - I quite like Edge !

When it comes to MS products, actual objectivity is a big NO on Register forums. You must engage 100% sanctimony mode before commenting, regardless of veracity.

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Re: I maybe stuck in my ways but...

"I maybe stuck in my ways but I've got to the point of downloading the offline installer of Firefox to a USB using another machine, so that I don't ever open new edge or old edge"

---

If you are that paranoid then you can ftp.mozzila.org or use WSL to curl one out.

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Re: New Edge, now with even more spyware

iOS has loads of calculator apps available, just not an Apple one.

iOS on iPhone has a built in calculator that is accessed through the shortcuts. Ordinary one in portrait scientific in landscape.

But iOS on iPad doesn't seem to have it.

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Re: New Edge, now with even more spyware

Justifying something because Google (or if any competitor does it), doesn't make acceptable, either. That's just a slippery slope to the bottom.

True, but singling something out for criticism when it's is not alone in its transgression is also a bit rubbish.

UK govt finds £200,000 under sofa to kick off research into improving mobile connectivity on nation's crap railways

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Re: Do it themselves?

Can't have cables alongside the track because big cables are needed.

Yet we can have SEA-ME-WE 3 submarine cable running for 39,000km under the world's oceans.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: Lots of countries have eletric railway.....

I don’t know about this window coating. When you local service train without WiFi stops in a station next to an LNER train with WiFi, I can connect and use it for the short time we are standing.

werdsmith Silver badge

Re: You mean you don't?

Yeah we do. Virgin Media WiFi on the London Underground.