Posts by imanidiot 4422 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Mar 2012
It's not the argument against hate speech or talking about the downsides of capitalism (in any stage). It's about the way they espouse to solve those problems that make them facists/communists/nazis/"whatever other -ists you want to apply" (it's all part of the same ultra authoritarian coin).
There is no way that it's costing about 1% of global energy usage to produce and support the infrastructure for credit card (and other bank transfer) processing. Even with all those buildings and people involved, it's still a fraction of the energy used by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies.
Most crypto coins need to die, Bitcoin in particular needs to be hung, drawn and quartered post haste.
Incidents like this are unfortunately quite frequent in the US. A lot of these people simply go missing, not to be found for years, decades or ever. There's still a lot of the world not covered by traditional cell-phone towers and tech like Apples new system could definitely save lives. It's far more frequent than you seem to think.
"As we pointed out at the time, the issue of space debris is broader than what happens on the ground, because if a defunct satellite smashed into another one, or broke apart, the debris could tear into other satellites and potentially create a runaway chain reaction called the Kessler effect. ®"
There are some who would argue (and some incidents as evidence to support this idea) that we are already seeing the beginning blows of a Kessler cascade and if we don't tackle the problem soon-ish we'll have BIG problems in the future
That is why we need rules and regulations like this. If the US sets the precedent it's likely more countries will follow. If just the US and EU set these rules that's most of the market cornered (either through launch providers setting the rules or the owners of the infrastructure. In future we might want to convince India and China to follow suit but contrary to popular belief those people aren't stupid and will probably see the value in setting similar rules. They have the equipment to get the mass up there, so it wouldn't be too much of a hindrance in terms of just being able to gain the benefits of spaceflight.
Not just SpaceX. Terminator-tapes/deorbit tethers have been proposed for decades but for a long time nobody wanted to pay for having that extra mass on the vehicle. It's not until recently that serious research into their function has been happening
https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/year-in-review/space-tethers-demonstrate-deorbit-capability/
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-cubesat-deployed-de-orbiting-tether-altitude.html
shares on social media seem like a super tone deaf way of measuring engagement on a site like El Reg that seems to attract a rather "anti-social (media)" crowd. Looking at the comments in the Regs own comment system seems like a much more accurate metric and in that regard in terms of reader engagement I think SFTWS was one of the top columns after the BOFH.
El Reg seems to have lost it's irreverent, rebellious touch over the years and it feels like it's trying to walk the straight and narrow of being just another tech publication. Which imho makes it lose all added value as that makes it just yet another tech publication.
Hydrogen is tricky, but the biggest problem NASA is having is that they re-used the exact same tech they used for STS/Space Shuttle, which was known to be problematic but was somehow expecting it to work now? SLS is also a lot bigger and heavier, with a lot more propellant than rockets like Ariane V or Long March 5. Things get exponentially more difficult as you scale things up.
DDG is mostly relying on BING, not Google. And it's anonymising the searches so there is few ways for Bing to find out what you searched for and then track you across the web, unlike when you use it directly where they know what links you click on and sell that data to whomever wants it.
"In fact, it’s worse than that - at least Google is fairly good at localised results (or used to be). DDG doesn’t know what a localised result is"
Well yes, DDG is privacy focused and DOESN'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. That's the point!! It's hard to localise a search if you don't know where a person is. Learn to add a search term to define your area.
DDG is promoted because it's not nearly as crap as some people want you to believe, just takes some getting used to as it's closer to how search engines used to behave instead of trying to predict (and fail) what you actually want to search for. Nowadays I find Google to be FAR worse DDG when searching for more niche things because Google has the sheer smegging balls to think it knows what I want better than me and ignores half my search string to put irrelevant and useless links at the top of the result.
The problem with that is that the Chocolate Factories Chrome will still be the most used browser, the majority of badly written websites will continue to develop only for Google Chrome and within short order the Evil Overlords will implement something in Chrome that breaks something fundamental in other browsers. Websites don't work in your fancy new (actually old) browser and Chrome reinforces it's market share.
"We're disappointed with the outcome of the election in Staten Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees."
Anyone who believes that a mega-corporation like Amazon can have a "direct relationship" with it's employees is dillusional. Even if that's true on the lowest level (floor worker and his boss) as soon as the important decisions are made by spreadsheet by some far removed person in HR in an office 1000 miles away there can be no direct relationship. Employees will get shafted unless they organise. Typically I don't like unions because they seem to often be run by pointless busybodies on a power trip but they certainly have their place. And dealing with corporations like Amazon is exactly the time and place.
The difference is that SpaceX does the majority of their testing on non-flight hardware. Things like disconnect tests were performed on what basically was just a big dumb steel tank. No engines, no flight controllers, no hydraulics, bare minimum electronics for the required sensors and the few valves that were there.
They they start building from there and adding complexity as they go on top of proven hardware. This means SpaceX can afford to do multiple fuelling attempts, scrubs, RUDs etc, since it's not costing them tens of millions to billions every time they do it.
To be entirely factually correct the actual scrub was due to what they have now deduced to most likely be a sensor showing an incorrect engine temp. They hope. Fingers crossed. But they can't actually change the temp sensor or verify that it is indeed showing incorrect. So there is a change it IS showing correct, there is a problem with the H2 chill valve or line leading to low flow and insufficient cooling and the engine goes kaboom in a spectacular fashion when they actually fire it.
"The use of 3D printers to unlawfully manufacture firearms, and to make devices to convert semi-automatic firearms into machine guns, poses a real and current threat to our communities," ATF Special Agent in Charge Kurt Thielhorn said in a statement today.On August 24 this year, an ATF rule targeting these types of home-made weapons took effect. It's intended to tackle "ghost guns" — firearms that are assembled from kits or manufacturers using 3D printers, do not contain serial numbers and are sold without background checks, making it difficult for law enforcement to trace and easy for criminals to access.
US law enforcement recovered about 20,000 ghost guns last year alone, according to the White House."
I'm not in the US and don't intensely follow the news there but I'm unaware of any large (or even small) scale use of 3-d printed firearms or fire-arm parts for crime purposes. It seems to be bog standard weapons nearly all the time. And also keep in mind that the 20,000 "ghost gun" number from the White House apparently includes bog standards weapons that have had their serial number removed or improvised weapons like pipe-guns that have been around for decades before 3d printing was even a thing.
Don't forget the brass. There's a ton of it out there so regulating that will be a challenge, but brass cases aren't exactly something that's super easy to make at home (certainly not at quantity). Not saying it can't be done (you can do a lot with a relatively cheap CNCed lathe nowadays) but it would get expensive and time consuming rather fast.
900 rounds per minute is a bit on the high side for most rifles (AK/AR), and most people should be able to at least learn to fire controlled short bursts without too much practice. Keeping the trigger pressed for 2 seconds is basically a magdump which is simply "doing it wrong" in the first place.
As to "why would you want to".. to each their own. Doesn't really interest me either.
I am very curious what exactly he WAS making, because the classic drop-in auto-sear requires afaik a particular style of lower (certain areas of material cut away and differently shaped) and a different trigger group that are not widely available. The ATF seems to have a habit of labeling anything that could enable something resembling repeating fire as an "auto-sear". I doubt it's even mechanically possible to do so within any Glock sold as semi-auto for instance. You'd definitely need some external parts as far as I am aware.
"all your software and data is stored "in the cloud" - just like it was in the 1970s. You just have a browser to access it."
Yes, great, until it's a cloudless day (as in, the internet is down or the supplier goes TITSUP). Then you can't do anything. Call me a grumpy old git, but I like having my stuff local so that it runs when I want it to independent of anyone else. External storage (potentially even "the Cloud") is great for stuff like backups, but imho not a substitute for local.
"If there are such great engineering capabilities and bright minds on Earth - why has the speed at which we can move between 2 continents on our own planet decreased, why are we having such problems with renewable energy, etc etc etc?"
Because each of those problems you mention is very complex and not easy to solve? Because solving problems for spaceflight have a positive impact on our understanding of those issues on earth (like solar panels and solar panel lifetime for one example)? Because the people working on spaceflight don't necessarily have the knowledge or competence to work on those issues? Because supersonic flight is extremely fuel inefficient, and the gain in time isn't worth the expense? Because sonic booms are loud and it's still not a solved issue, restricting flights of supersonic jets to routes that don't pass over places where people live, limiting them basically to either Western Europe to US east coast or US west coast to eastern Asia?
Because renewable energy is shit, was always shit and will always be shit and we shouldn't be working to becoming reliant on them anyway?
I can keep going but your basic premise is, quite frankly, a bit stupid imho.
Current plan is as described in the PDF linked in the article (though the timelines been amended. As far as I know currently de-orbit of the station isn't planned until no earlier than Januari 2031 so I don't know where the article gets the 5 to 8 years timeline from (minimum is 8).
Be careful about fiddling with the heat setting too much. If you have an HR boiler (that pre-heats intake air using the hot exhaust) it's usually set to an optimal temperature for that heat exchange, changing it too much could be detrimental to the life of your heater or it's efficiëncy
The problem is that Schiphol HAD approach and departure routes that kept mostly clear of built up areas, but they kept (and keep) building more and more and more houses within the noise abatement areas of Schiphol and then complaining that Schiphol is causing more and more people to lie awake at night. My opinion is that if you live in a house built after 1990 you simply have no right to complain. You knew Schiphol was there, deal with it. Not to mention the fact that because of all the complaining instead of a small number of people having a lot of noise it's now a massive number of people sharing not all that much less noise at irregular and unpredictable times depending on wind conditions and noise regulations
Chernobyl is a really bad example for nuclear accidents. It's design was very unique to the soviet union and uniquely shit both for risk of exploding and for the amount of radioactive contamination it would spread out over a large area. The accident released very large amounts of longer lived isotopes (Strontium-90 with a 29 year half-life and Cesium-137 with a 30 year half-life), kept releasing them for a very long time and released them into a very hot column of heated air carrying them far and wide into the wide surrounding area. Authorities were slow to react, even slower to evacuate people and then even more slow in preventing consumption of contaminated foodstock like milk and vegetables contaminated by the fallout. The explosion was the result of (very) bad design with absolutely no containment and human error and in no way relevant to modern reactors. Nobodies been stupid enough to build RBMK reactors since long before the USSR stopped existing.
There is simply no way a more modern BWR or PWR reactor with proper containment can spread that amount of long lived contamination that far and wide. Fukushima is a prime example of this. This is without doubt just about the worst possible thing that could happen to a modern nuke plant, a full station blackout with all local generating capacity destroyed, all backup generators destroyed AND all outside power hookups destroyed. On 3 reactors simultaneously. Fukushima released slightly more Cesium-137 than Chernobyl but far less of the other gamma emitters (like irradiated carbon, plutonium, uranium, etc) and spread those materials over far smaller area and basically released nothing else worth worrying about too much outside the plant. Lots of it has already been cleaned up, and of the zones left even some of the areas initially deemed "difficult to return" are already being cleaned up and opened up.
Similarly much of the area contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster COULD be (safely, without exposing people to unneeded radiation) cleaned up if the will and need was there, but so far the will and need hasn't existed. It's easier to just keep the area off limits and let the radiation levels naturally fall as radioactive isotope half-lives tick by.
I don't forget to mention the bits of Ukraine no longer (currently)safely habitable because of the Chernobyl reactor accident. I would however politely like to point out it's not a good (or relevant) example of why nuclear power utilizing more modern reactor designs is dangerous.
People seem to get upset when I explain to them that if we replace all fossil fuels with nuclear, we can literally kill nearly 10 million people per year from radiation accidents and STILL do better than current fossil fuel output (from PM2.5 particulate output alone! That's ignoring all the other shit put out by anything burning dino-juice).
That seems to be how it's going with all airports and airfields everywhere. Schiphol (Amsterdam) has the same issue and I know several small GA airfields (grass strips) that have problems with locals that moved in when the airfield had already existed for at least 50 years, but suddenly now aircraft noise on the weekends is a problem.
Seems like one of those "someone should do something" rules that don't actually DO anything in the grand scheme of things (except annoy people).
Maybe they should, you know, not close all those nuke plants?? They'd have plenty of power (even without polluting their own and every neighboring country by burning lignite). But no, something, something, Fukushima something something Chernobyl (ie, rampant radiophobia).
You don't need new generation or transmission capacity when most charging will be at night. A decent chunk of it will probably be locally generated during the day via rooftop solar panels.
Yes, that is exactly the problem. The electricity is generated during the day (with many many vehicles NOT parked at home but likely on some far corner of a large parking lot without a charging connector, nor much local generating capacity) and then at night when they ARE parked at home there's no solar power available to charge them again.
There is plenty of evidence that windmills can produce low frequency noise that can be heard (and can cause adverse health effects in humans) for miles/kilometers downwind. 500m is definitely not enough. The problem is that there is very little understood about the effects of infrasound (<20Hz) and low frequency sounds (20-200Hz) and what noise levels are acceptable or not. From personal experience, modern 2MW wind turbines can definitely be heard (and be deemed annoying) from nearly 2 km away on a relatively quiet night with steady winds.
Many of the areas that were evacuated did not objectively need to be evacuated nor did they need to STAY evacuated for weeks months or years afterwards simply based on direct measurements. Statistically speaking it can simply be calculated that the number of deaths that MIGHT result from the absolute worse case exposure models (that are already overblown) from the isotopes released in the incident shows that there have been more people killed by the stress of having to be evacuated and finding a new place to live than could ever result from the radiation.
It was governmental bureaucracy and slow responses after the tsunami on requests of the plant to be allowed to vent pressure (and potentially release radioactive isotopes) that contributed to the meltdowns and hydrogen explosions.
Their subsequent handling of the aftermath is also a showcase of absolutely overblown caution and rampant radiophobia. Their limits on radioactivity limits in soil, foodstuffs, surface and drinking water are already amongst the lowest in the world and oftentimes they're mitigating to levels FAR below those, to the point of labeling soil "radioactive waste" that is lower in background activity than the natural background levels of topsoil found randomly in most of the world.
Japans reaction to the incident can safely be described as overblown and definitely was (in a lot of cases, not every time ofcourse) generally not sensible.
There was an extensive monitoring and screening program in the area after the 3-mile island incident precisely because everyone wanted to be sure there wouldn't be any long term effects (including the US government and nuclear industry). Guess what happens if you start looking for cancer in the general population? You'll find cancer. Humans tend to be riddled with it, and only a part of it is ever detected or ever becomes a problem. Same goes for after the Fukushima incident and the thyroid monitoring program they set up for local children and adolescents. They found lots of (pre-)cancerous nodules on thyroids. Nothing statistically significant over the occurrence of such in the general population though, which means that there was NOT an increase of thyroid cancers (which are specifically linked to Iodine and Cesium releases as happened in Fukushima)
There's also been research into people living in areas with generally high natural background radiation (higher than encountered anywhere outside the plants after 3-mile island or Fukushima). Conclusions were that they tended to have lower incidence of cancers than populations in low radiation areas. Whether this is due to other (external) factors or the radiation no-one can currently prove, but it's interesting.
Take Netflix documentaries and documentaries on nuclear power accidents in particular with more than a few grains of salt. Netflix certainly did their best to find the most sensational take on the incidents and not necessarily the whole truth. There's little evidence to truly conclude cancer rates dramatically worsened and even less evidence that this was due to the nuclear isotopes released in the incident. What HAS changes is our ability to FIND cancers, prevention of deaths from other causes (so that people no longer pass away from other causes with diagnosed cancers) and the amount of other crap we put in everything we come into contact with as humans that could cause cancers.
Keep in mind the fossil fuel air pollution (just the particulate alone) kills in the order of 10 million people every single damn year https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121000487.
The NASA Helios crash comes to mind, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be a similar problem. Windshear or turbulence can do funky things to an airplane
It was absolutely mad and the reason the FAA then stopped recognizing duration records. Those crazy guys had shown what could be done and everyone could see what that could lead to. Similar to glider duration records (set by Geza Vass and Guy Davis in 1961 with a flight time of 71 hours and 5 minutes. The single seat flight-endurance was set by Charles Atger in 1952 with a flight time of 56 hours and 15 minutes), with the right conditions those could theoretically go for months, but resupply is a problem and pilot fatigue a very real risk.
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