Re: Pumped Storage Stations are bloody impressive
Oh great. Now you've identified the weak points for the terrorists. Or is that theorists? Conspiracy type.
Posts by cortland
1167 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Mar 2012
Boffins, Tunnel Tigers and Scotland's world-first power mountain
100-metre asteroid 2013 NE19 zipped past Earth today
Only 1 in 5 Americans believe in pure evolution – and that's an upswing
Village-swallowing MUDCANO was no accident, say boffins
Middle America pulls up sagging pants menace, belts repeat offenders
MYSTERY of 19th-century DEAD WALRUS found in London graveyard
For pity's sake: DON'T MOVE to the COUNTRY if you want to live
Pentagon: Mobe operators want our radio bands? Fine, but it'll cost $3.5bn
ITU readies gigabit G.fast standard for copper's last wild ride
Tuesday 23rd July 2013 03:33 GMT
-- And, of course, even if they're underground, the copper plant provides a long antenna. That means any emission from the cables is going to destroy FM radio transmissions. --
Interfering didn't seem to worry PLC floggers (BPL over here) -- but they're not making enough to stay in business. Something about an open door working both ways . . .
Aereo streaming TV now bargaining chip in Time Warner Cable, CBS tiff
Is your Apple gadget made of human misery and eco-ruin?
Planet-busting British space bullet ready to bomb ice moon Europa
IQ test: 'Artificial intelligence system as smart as a four year-old'
Wednesday 17th July 2013 02:11 GMT 
Artificial Intelligence
This gets lots of attention, theses, papers and grants. Not much talked about, though, is that no one can get money to study artificial stupidity, probably because we have too much of the natural kind already, organic -- and smelling of it.
But that's something that REALLY needs a cure.
Run for your (private) lives! Facebook's creepy Graph Search is upon us
Human error blamed for toxic Russian rocket explosion
Watch LIVE tomorrow: LOHAN team attempts second pop at SPEARS
Saturday 13th July 2013 12:57 GMT
Closer to home in the USA -- Grand Rapids (MI) Press
Race to space: Grandville High School robotic team attempts new altitude record
By Monica Scott | mscott2@mlive.com
on July 12, 2013 at 2:50 PM, updated July 12, 2013 at 4:09 PM
The Grandville High School RoboDawgs on Friday, July 12, conducted the next in their series of launches in their Race to Space to reach ever-increasing heights and gather data about winds, air quality, and atmospheric conditions. Grandville RoboDawgs
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The Grandville High School robotics teams, the RoboDawgs, which has developed remote controlled and fully autonomous land and water drones, pushed toward space Friday, July 12.
The RoboDawgs began their so-called Race to Space in
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/07/race_to_space_grandville_high.html#incart_river
US Navy robot stealth fighter in first unmanned carrier landings
Friday 12th July 2013 10:21 GMT
Re: automated tube trains
It seems that airport automatic trams have been around forever, but that isn't the case; one (I forget which) when first turned on for public use, kept stopping midway between terminals, because, as it turned out, its computer interpreted any uncommanded change, even burnt out pilot lamps, as safety-critical failures.
Giant human-powered quadricopter wins $250,000 Sikorsky Prize
'New' document shows how US forces carriers to allow snooping
'Clippy' coup felled by Microsoft twitterati
Decade to 2010 was hottest, wettest: WMO
Inventor lobs spherical, throwable camera
NASA to flip ion engine's 'OFF' switch after brilliant 5.5 year burn
Wednesday 10th July 2013 07:13 GMT
Re: Once you get to top speed
To gain credence, Goddard had to show that rockets did not require something to push against to work.
quote: The prestigious New York Times dismissed Goddard's ideas and said that he didn't even possess an elementary knowledge of physics. The Times' editor incorrectly thought that rockets could not work in space. He thought the exhaust from the vehicle would have nothing to push against; he did not realize that the rocket exhaust would be acting against the inner walls of the rocket itself, :quote
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Goddard.html
He also built ion rockets.
quote" From 1916 to 1917, Goddard built and tested experimental ion thrusters, which he thought might be used for propulsion in the near-vacuum conditions of outer space. The small glass engines he built were tested at atmospheric pressure, where they generated a stream of ionized air.[27] :quote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard
Tuesday 9th July 2013 10:45 GMT
And to think
I was talking with teachers and our school Science Club about ion thrusters as long ago as the mid 1950's -- and I can't have been the first to think of it.
How many good ideas are lost because those who have them are only children? (Or stolen; as happened to the young Philo Farnsworth.)
US public hate Snowden - but sexpot spy Anna Chapman LOVES him
Tuesday 9th July 2013 11:45 GMT 
She still works for the same folks...
She could "pump him dry?". Heh!
But (warning: substantive comment) :
Snowden confirms that as soon as a thing becomes both possible, feasible and affodrable, it is inevitable. Many of us are not foresighted enough or don't read enough science fiction) to see that, so are shockd and surprised, but a reasonably intelligent person coukd have predicted PRISM and other nation's equalilvants would arise. Echelon? Primitive, really.
What's worse? Well... http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/god_humans_machines.php
I see el Reg is reporting on Facebook's (TM) "Graph" search engine.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/08/facebook_graph_search/
Possible, feasible, and eminently affordable. And we do it to ourselves.
We now return to the not-for-children (or is it?) fantasies...
It's a pity there's no Big Momma icon. PARIS is watching you. Or "Anna Chapman." Hmm.
Put up your ... err ... hand for free vasectomy streamed online
Microsoft to switch off MSN TV
The irresistible rise of the corporate app
EMC gobbles access-control biz Aveksa? Computer says... yes
Tickle my balls, stroke my button and blow the fluff from my crack
Tuesday 9th July 2013 10:53 GMT
Some years ago
I worked for a company that made and sold their own computers (not enough to keep doing it after they became cheaper to buy than make, though) and we had a discussion with a still extant VERY large firm over a mouse they were selling.
It went for upwards of $75 in stores; we couldn't get them down to less than (IIRC) $8. Profit, eh?
Project Loon won't blind radio telescopes
Cosmic blast mystery solved in neutron star's intense death throes
Vulcan? Not on our tiny balls. Pluto moons named Kerberos, Styx
Germans brew up a right Sh*tstorm
Sunday 7th July 2013 11:39 GMT
Re: Not scientific words!
-- There is a reason that science uses Latin and Greek words, and names units after the names of people. It is so that they are the same in all languages, and do not need have to be translated. --
Jetzt lehrt es richtig.
(Entschuldigung. Ohne Übung sprecht man schwer; wer rastet, rostet.)
PRISM leaks: WTF, you don't spy on your friends, splutters EU
Tuesday 2nd July 2013 05:55 GMT
And Gentlemen
-- "Partners do not spy on each other," said EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding. --
"Gentlemen do not read each others' mail." -- Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson (source below)
The Cipher Bureau otherwise known as The Black Chamber was the United States' first peacetime cryptanalytic organization, and a forerunner of the National Security Agency. ... "
"... Its most notable known success was during the Washington Naval Conference during which it aided American negotiators considerably by providing them with the decrypted traffic of many of the Conference delegations, most notably the Japanese. ..." (emphasis added)
-- Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Chamber
It can be argued that Secretary Stimson's distaste for "reading each others' mail " was one contributor to the US being surprised by the Japanese in 1941.
What's the difference between GEEKS and NERDS?
Tuesday 2nd July 2013 05:19 GMT
Re: The difference...
"Say the magic word and the duck will come down..." *
-- Marx
Here in Michigan we have a self-styled nerd for a governor -- and a computer repair business calling itself The Geek Squad. Possibly better than the other way around.
Imagine a bunch of earnest young men fixing computers, biting the heads off live chickens for lunch. Or a governor who does. Sets bounds on things, doesn't it?
Beer -- because there's no tea. *And no Hundred Dollars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Bet_Your_Life
Biting the hand that feeds IT
