* Posts by imanidiot

4405 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Mar 2012

NASA's InSight doomed as Mars dust coats solar panels

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: F1 technology

The problem with those kinds of tear-offs in my experience is that they are static as all hell. Might well make the problem worse, not better. Plus, with the limited mass budget, is the added mass of a system for those tear-offs actually worth the hassle. See the post above by lglethal, InSight lander has exceeded it's design life by nearly 2 years and has achieved the vast majority of it's science goals. What it hasn't achieved is because of unforeseen circumstances (like the mole not working) Every bit of data gathered now is really nice to have and helps to improve data accuracy since continuing operation is comparatively cheap. But there's only so much they can do with the current hardware.

This lander dying now is a little sad, but we got what we needed from it. It's time for it to rest.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Big Fan

That little helicopter is roughly 3450 km away. It's highly unlikely it could even GET to the InSight lander and IF it could make it it would be an epic trek across the planet that would likely take years to complete, by which time it would be pointless. The longest flight of Ingenuity to date iirc was about 700 meters during flight 25. At 3450 km distance that would take nearly 5000 flights to complete!

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Insight?

Unfortunately even at that angle, in the thin martian atmosphere the very fine dust would likely still cling to the panels through static and atomic forces. Likely you could turn the panels upside down regularly and still not get rid of the dust. (Similar to how on earth anything even remotely not vertical gets covered in very fine dust eventually which needs a wipe with a dust cloth to dislodge)

IBM's autonomous Mayflower ship breaks down in second transatlantic attempt

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Re: Size of vessel

Given a 4 watch rotation (morning/forenoon, afternoon/day, late/evening, night) only a portion of those people would be below decks most of the time. If the weather was even remotely permitting the active watch and at least part of the passengers was likely on deck.

September 16, 1992, was not a good day to be overly enthusiastic about your job

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: my early bird antics cost them over 40k

"as later Gordon Brown was worried that the same thing would happen before any entry to the Euro."

Can't really think of any reason why he would have been wrong on that. Seeing the (artificially low) exchange rate for the Dutch gulden/guilder and Deutschmark at the introduction (and the Euro forex rates since) I get the strong impression Britain would have gotten equally shafted if not even harder had they decided to join the Euro.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: "Everyone had to leave" knee-jerk reaction

"fortunately for them the contract was in guilders (remember those?)."

Yes, fondly. Euro's still feel like monopoly money.

Toshiba says it's talking to 10 suitors about possible sale

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Re: "discussions are under way with §0 parties"

Never a lack of vultures to squeeze the last blood out of a faltering company. Usually by splitting it into many many disparate blocks, selling off all assets (including all IP) and taking out massive loans in the name of the company to finance even more money making schemes. In the process leaving the victim company a pile of bare bones, picked dry and in massive debt, ready to finally be declared dead.

Ad-tech firms grab email addresses from forms before they're even submitted

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Paris Hilton

It's almost as if...

It's like porn is one of the few industries that actually cares about the privacy of it's customers. And the only one that seems to make AND KEEP promises in that regard.

--> I'm sure she's got thoughts on porn and privacy -->

How ICE became a $2.8b domestic surveillance agency

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Big Brother

Re: Land of the Free

Land of the eternally enslaved and home of the needlessly scared.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: "anti-American president"

Measurable as "fuck all" you mean? Like every single US president for the last 20 years at least?

Or maybe... you know.... uhh... anyway.... the thing? *wanders off stage right trying to shake the hand of an invisible person*

BOFH: You'll have to really trust me on this team-building exercise

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I've got a digestive intolerance to both tomato, cheese and pork. Just to add to the difficulties ;) ( I usually just bring something from home for myself if I know there's going to be that sort of stuff going down. Generally more tasty than the factory made pizzas from chain-stores anyway)

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Amateurs

But sometimes people in a company will actually listen if it's someone from outside telling them the bleedin' obvious. So you probe these consultants early on on why they are ACTUALLY there (pointless "exercises" or proper consulting with reports, feedback and follow up and such) and then see if you can guide them on what actually requires reporting.

imanidiot Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Ahh, Team building/break the ice exercises....

That would be pointless, they'd never solve the mystery.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Ahh, Team building/break the ice exercises....

exactly that.

Most enlightening "teambuilding" I've ever had was in a training course for "deep in the weeds" mechatronics stuff that had some "non-tech" elements. Basic concept was one of those 4-color personality types but unsurprisingly most of us there were deep in the "blue corner" of being engineers and nerds. It became interesting however when the focus wasn't on what that would mean for us but how that related to all the other personalities and why we can't stand certain other people and how they act. Plus how to deal with them without things escalating. That was more valuable to me than all the other "teambuilding" idiocy that I've ever had to attend that was focused on other personality types that left me feeling at best annoyed.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Takes me back

I have been forced once to attend such a course. I've flatly refused something similar on the grounds of "No, thanks. I'm 24 years old, not 4, and I think my contributions to my team do not depend on me dipping my hands in paint of dubious origin". Chief Twits "exercise" fell rather flat after that...

imanidiot Silver badge

I foresee a trust fall exercise in his future. From the top of the roof. Without anyone to catch him. Tragic really.

LIDAR in iPhones is not about better photos – it's about the future of low-cost augmented reality

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AMS has designed a few different dev kits and breakouts for these sensors (I think you'll want the TMF882X-DB)

Shareholders turn the screws on IBM and its gag orders

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It seems it's time to make either laws or get some legal precedent on NDA's not being able to limit certain things. Simply talking about a workplace experience, wages/rewards or the mere existence of an NDA are things that simply should never be forbidden. Talking about those can have very detrimental effects for exploitative employers and huge benefits for employees

Google's FLoC flopped, boffins claim, because it failed to provide promised privacy

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: "That counts for something"

Ever since browser fingerprinting became a thing, even FF+NoScript+Ublock won't protect you.

Go to https://www.amiunique.org/ and you'll likely find you're not as unidentifiable as you would like

Rocket Lab to attempt mid-air recovery of descending booster

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Delayed

Due to less than perfect weather conditions RocketLab has chosen to delay the launch to no earlier than May 1st

Source: Rocketlabs Twitter

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Sample returns

They're doing something in between. On the return he vehicle won't have enough delta-V remaining to fully bring it back into LEO (because that would mean schlepping a lot of fuel to Mars and back. But it will have some maneuvering fuel left. Basically when returning from Mars it'll aim to get as close as possible to the predicted trajectory, then as the spacecraft gets closer and closer to earth they use the DSN to get a more and more accurate fix on it's exact trajectory and execute a series of correction burns to get the trajectory spot on, such that when the spacecraft get's back to earth it aerobrakes sufficiently before it does it's final lithobraking maneuver. So they're not really shooting at Utah from Mars, but more shooting at earth from Mars, and then steering the projectile along the way to hit the Utah desert. Potentially they'll have some limited RCS or reaction wheel control to steer during re-entry too but I'm not sure on that

Autonomous Mayflower to attempt Atlantic crossing, again

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Not the ultimate goal ?

A ship is not earning money birthed in port. There is no way regular maintenance will ever be getting done in port if it can be done underway. And there is no way to do all regular maintenance during loading/unloading operations as that's just too little time. Container ships are often only alongside the berth for about 8 hours, in which time all other operations would also have to be completed. That's just not happening as large parts of the ship are simply unsafe to be in during (un)loading operations.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Not the ultimate goal ?

the only personnel you might be able to eliminate on a cargo vessel is the captain and maybe two or three people directly below him like the helmsman and first mate. The rest of a ships crew are (as the article already indicated) always busy with maintenance tasks to keep the vessel in good condition. Doing that while underway means far less time spent in port (which costs money) and far more time underway (which means less time between payouts). And even the captain isn't "useless".

out of the many classes of ship, the big cargo ships are the LEAST likely to get automated any time soon imho.

Windows 10 still growing, but Win 11 had another bad month, says AdDuplex

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: W11? Personally I wouldn't bother upgrading and I use W11 daily!

If it was an update to Win10 they wouldn't be able to charge $$$ for it.

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Step #1, define your terms

Until randomly it reads 80 as 8, sees phantom signs where none exist or doesn't see a speed limit changing to 60 or 80 and keeps you locked to 30 mph.

I don't need to be doing anything wrong for these systems to be an annoyance and not wanting to have a digital nanny exacting it's will over my driving does not mean I want to break the law.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Clippy behind the wheel

I really don't get why people have so much problems with roundabouts. The only reason I can see is the pisspoor english double lane design that seems to lead to so many conflicts with people expecting others to turn out or stay on the roundabout and then plowing into the side of the other car. The roundabout design featured so regularly on dashcam compilations.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Step #1, define your terms

And that you have to do it every single time you start the car as it's on by default and resets on turning off the ignition. So it's always an annoyance.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Clippy behind the wheel

"Self driving cars need to be safer than human drivers. That is not a high bar and will be easily achievable. Humans are appalling drivers."

You'd be surprised how high that bar actually is. Even though it doesn't seem like it, the AVERAGE human driver is pretty good and pretty safe. The assholes stick out like a sore thumb and you remember those. Not the millions of other vehicles you encounter a year that just pass by without notice. Humans are relatively good at dealing with edge cases and "new" scenarios. We can infer lots of possible scenarios and anticipate for the majority of them in near real-time. AI is currently failing at exactly those sorts of things. It doesn't anticipate, it doesn't imagine or think ahead.

Google Docs' AI-powered inclusive writing auto-correct now under fire

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Orwellian nightmare

And that is why you stay off social media and connect as little as possible of your online persona to your real world identity. Because no matter what your opinion is, someone will find it offensive. And what is offensive in the future might be completely acceptable at the time.

Brave, DuckDuckGo to unplug Google's AMP where possible

imanidiot Silver badge

Does it though?

"Its goal, Google claims, is a better user experience because AMP pages load faster than web pages built with standard web technology."

But does it actually achieve that? It seems to me the only reason AMP pages load faster is because on poorly designed pages the bloat is pre-loaded. Websites with a modicum of thought and design put in load just fine without AMP. Then again bloat seems to be the name of the game nowadays with 30 to 50 scripts on a page being "normal" if you allow such a thing (go-go-gadget no-script).

"Engineers at Google designed AMP in partnership with publishers and other tech companies to help web pages load faster and improve the user experience on mobile devices – not to harm header bidding,"

No doubt header bidding was an afterthought or a happy co-incidence so not a word of untruth there. But Google clearly had a goal with AMP and it being PURELY helping publishers load pages faster does not seem to align with any possible goal of Google. Until you factor in the control it gives Google.

When dealing with ordinary people doing ordinary things, usually the rule of: ‘Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.’ applies. When dealing with corporations or groups of people however the game changes. One can no longer assume or expect incompetence. Odds are someone in the group knows what he's doing at any one time. So the rules change and one has to become more Machiavellian in expectations: "Sometimes when I try to understand a person's motives, I play a little game. I assume the worst. What's the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do? Then I ask myself, 'How well does that reason explain what they say and what they do?'”

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Thumb Up

Re: Firefox

Thank you. Have an upvote!

Twitter faces existential threat from world's richest techbro

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Re: Does it really matter?

I disagree. Most of what is worth saying can be condensed down to 280 characters or less. If one truly needs more words there is Twitter threads joining 280 character tweets together. Human nature being what it is though, if you want full attention threads will probably need to be limited to no more than 3 or so tweets.

Twitter is perhaps not the right platform for long form discourse (I still prefer "old fashioned" forums/BBS for that, such as for instance these El Reg forums) but there is always the option of linking your long form discourse on Twitter to get the message out.

The writing style one uses is different for each platform. Writing on a forum like this with a much more generous character limit one can be much more verbose and prosaic in ones choice of words and verbiage. Twitter is limiting in that regard and certainly it will have an effect, but I think in general there can be a place and a time for Twitter. It should never be the only source of information or discourse, but it can play it's role in guiding people to finding new places to find more in-depth information or keeping at least partially up to date on current affairs. It is saddening however that not many people seem capable of recognizing the limits and advantages of each of the available options and while I would support something like this being taught in schools, I've yet to encounter a teacher actually fully capable of grasping the nuances themselves and convincing me they can actually teach such skills to youngsters.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Antifa and the Proud Boys

The anti-fascists are only anti in name. By way of how they operate and how they enforce their particular brand of "anti-fascist" they are imho indistinguishable from the other group of people who like to wear all black and enforce their opinion on "the wrong people" with violence.

Antifa, imho in practice, is not far left but extreme left. And indistinguishable from fascists.

Nokia quits Russia over Ukraine invasion

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Unhappy

Re: Western governments have expressed concerns...

It seems the majority of the Russian populace is either brainwashed into/stupid enough to believing Putin or are completely indifferent to the matter. So I say, let them suffer with the rest of their oligarchs

US Army to build largest 3D-printed structures in the Americas

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Not yet a home

Too bad they're all so feggin' ugly. (Just not my taste in architectural style)

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: I wonder if it would be simpler

Those exist/are in development:

https://youtu.be/2-VR4IcDhX0

https://youtu.be/EGBRA24qlEg

Currently human brickies are about equally expensive but way more flexible. The big advantage of robots is that while they are slower per working hour, they're faster over longer time scales (since they can work non-stop, without break for days on end as long as supplies are replenished which is not a fulltime job).

Elon Musk won't join Twitter's board after all

imanidiot Silver badge

Reading between the lines

"Elon has decided not to join our board." --> I suspect this should be read as: After extensive talking I've managed to persuade Elon not to join the board.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: "Musk [..] found nearly $3 billion with which to buy a slab of Twitter"

There's been weeks were I don't add 500 million dollars to my net worth.. Quite a lot of them actually. Hardly a waste of money.

Buying a USB adapter: Pennies. Knowing where to stick it: Priceless

imanidiot Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Same concept, different field

Usually they do that for me too. Still stupidly managed to lock my car keys in my car once. Came out of the shops, opened the car with the key in hand and still carrying stuff. Leaned into the car to put stuff down on passenger seat but did not notice the key came out of my hand and pressed the lock button. The unexpected noise made me turn around and look up, then go "huh, whatever" and closed the passenger door to walk around the car and get in. Only to get that "well *expletives deleted*" feeling half a second later.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Cool Running

On the drives of "back in those days" that trick probably worked. Modern drives (Post 2000-ish) it's hit or miss. The trick worked on drives in the past because back then the bearings did wear out and increased tolerances together with less than stellar head positioning would lead to read/write failures. Cooling things down very slightly improved bearing tolerances and head positioning allowing to get some data off the drives.

Modern drives are 99.99% more likely to have crashed on a headcrash or an electronics problem. Neither of those cases is helped by cooling the drive down. In the very rare case it IS an early death bearing the bearing is very probably so shot it's not going to be helped by cooling it down and even if it IS then the head tracking now has to be so precise a less than perfect bearing will make it throw a wobbly anyway.

imanidiot Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Locked the car

The post by Dave.C, three posts up?

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Re: Lost dog pictures

You're just as likely to destroy the drive through condensation as you are to make it work. More likely to destroy it on modern drives.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Seems ok

The reason for the spreadsheet retrieval was entirely business. And especially when a (fixed) fee is agreed on before the work even starts, haggling afterwards is just not a good move.

First Light says it's hit nuclear fusion breakthrough with no fancy lasers, magnets

imanidiot Silver badge

Never going to scale

Production of the quantities of Tungsten projectiles constantly needed alone makes this a bit of a non-starter. Then there's the problem of dealing with the tungsten debris you'll now have flying around your combustion chamber/reactor at high temperature and high velocity. Tungsten is not exactly an easy material to deal with at the best of times.

Russian media watchdog bans Google from advertising its services

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Violent Tank Tourism

Not really. What we are seeing specifically is how vulnerable cold-war era soviet tanks are when used in isolation against scattered but entrenched enemy forced with modern man-portable anti-armour weapons. That tanks are vulnerable (even to weapons as simple as the soviet RPG-7) when maneuvering/operating in isolation is a lesson already learned by the US forces long ago in Afghanistan and Irak. Tanks need to be part of a combined force with infantry and other armour to provide support and cover against anti-tank weapons. Especially in (semi)urban environments.

Beijing bails out bankrupt Chinese chipmaker Tsinghua Unigroup

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Beware the Middle Kingdom

I can say with certainty they won't be able to do EUV for a LONG time to come. I know very up close and personal what is involved in those systems and how close (or far) China is from being able to replicate that (The only part of the ASML NXE system I haven't seen at least part of the insides of is the optics system). I very strongly doubt China will have the technology to make for instance the multi-layer mirrors at the required accuracy need for the EUV optics within the next 20 years.

As for DUV litho, they're still about 10 years behind there too, amongst the challenges they still need to solve is laser control (dosimetry and beam shaping) and optics (They lack domestic manufacture of lenses and optics to the level of for example Zeiss). They might be able to make steps if they really start pushing and putting serious amounts of research into it (China currently isn't really pushing) but I doubt they'd be able to get to the levels of throughput and reliability at smaller nodes achieved by the likes of ASML.

imanidiot Silver badge

Sadly for China they lack good homegrown lithography equipment and are still very dependent on suppliers outside of China (ASML, Nikon, Canon mainly afaik), which will be very careful about supplying equipment to Tsinghua Unigroup now and require lots of safeguards to make sure they get paid. Their native equipment is about 10 to 15 years behind the curve. Good enough for some things like memory chips or MCUs but can't keep up with the state of the art.

ESA's Sentinel-1A satellite narrowly dodges debris

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Re: Units

I have not had much reason to use kilometres per second for much outside of spacecraft velocities. I don't know about your car but mine would struggle to reach anything even approaching those speeds.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Clutter must go

Only if those pieces stay in orbit indefinitely in a perfect vacuum. The reality isn't that and for LEO orbits it's not that bad. It mostly becomes a problem in MEO and GEO orbits.

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Clutter must go

In KSP terms, an impact like that only raises the orbit on the other side of the planet (could be Apoapsis or periapsis if the impact is near one of the two), but leaves the altitude at the point of impact pretty much alone. If it's an angled impact (not entirely along the trajectory vector) then you'll get a shift in orbit around the impact point as if you did a (anti)normal or (anti)radial burn. This may or may not affect the periapsis or apoapsis slightly, but is unlikely to change it very much. Basically the analogy would be like having a MASSIVE engine on a very small rocket, and then doing a very short burn somewhere vaguely pro-grade-ish. You have to burn a lot in normal or radial directions to change the orbit very much (since your orbital vector is already 2 km/s long in the prograde direction) but a change in orbit apoapsis requires far less change.

Ofcourse if the collision is head-on then things could end up in a lower orbit too but head-on prangs have so far not happened afaik. Even the ASAT tests were oblique shots coming from the side.