* Posts by Wzrd1

2260 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Dec 2012

Sensation: Chinese Jade Rabbit FOUND ON MOON

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Communist nations 2, Capitalist nations 1

"In that case do the Vikings win America?"

I doubt that they'd want it now.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Go China!

"China could find a ton of stuff left behind by the US and stuff sent there by USSR."

It *would* be funny if the PRC sends a mission in the future that uncovers the old reflectors that the US lost back in the 1970's and brings them back into operation.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Well done China.

"Landing stuff on other worlds/moons is not easy."

Landing stuff on other worlds is as easy as getting that stuff to those worlds. In short, not very hard.

Landing stuff and having it survive the landing, the radiation, thermal stresses, etc and work, now *that* is hard!

Great job, China!

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Most

"Still when China set up their permanent moon base next year, plant a flag and claim it as a new territory, Mr. Obama can sit back and satisfied remembering the day he cut NASA funding."

Apparently, the education crisis continues unabated.

First, the moon is open to *all* nations, do Google "Outer Space Treaty". Let me help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

Second, Obama didn't cut anything. The US Congress sets the budget. NASA's budget was cut by Bush the Lesser, along with the space shuttle program being shuttered by Bush the Lesser.

Damn, but our education system has turned out incredibly ignorant, selective memory, parroting their betters, idiots.

Perhaps ancient Athens had the right of it, the idiot may not vote. Only the educated professional could.

Jupiter moon Europa spotted spraying WATER into SPAAACCCEE

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: We send probes to other bodies all the time.

"Why can't we send one to Europa to basically melt its way through the ice, then fire a submarine probe down there?"

Research is still ongoing. One big problem is contaminating the samples.

Wouldn't do to introduce Earth bacteria into the environment there and skew any test results.

And let's not forget the Russian ice probe for an Antarctic lake, where the samples were heavily contaminated with kerosene from the probe.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Remember to pack the factor 1E6

"Water on a foreign planet, plus radiation, plus all the other general challenges of space mean finding water there is exponentially more valuable academically than practically."

Not really. Can you say, FUEL STOP? :)

Boffins: On my command, unleash REMOTE CONTROL BULL SPERM

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Just a second there

"Pretty sure it's nothing like IT!"

Actually, it is a lot like IT. Some jobs just have a shitty task or two.

Well, in this case, spunky.

More seriously though, champion bull sperm can run in the millions of dollars per ounce.

Who'd have thought that bull wanking would be a million dollar business?

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Not Harmless

"Additionally as foreign proteins they would be attacked and destroyed by the body's immune system."

Unless you are the donor bull, that sperm would still be a foreign protein to your body. Even if one's own sperm are used, they are foreign to the blood stream, subcutaneous, muscle tissues.

But then, a delivery system that is destroyed when done is a good delivery system.

China's 'Airpocalypse' forces pilots to learn BLIND landings in smog

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Obvious question

"Maybe, but that's because they didn't spend anything on it at all at a time when they were building all these factories in the first place."

Do you mean like the UK did, getting the Great Smog? Or the US did, getting nationwide smog?

Nations grow, economies grow, industrialization begins, mistakes are made.

It's just a shame that the PRC repeats the same mistakes we did so long ago.

I'm a bit too young to remember the London smog mess, but I am old enough to remember people dying in the US from smog.

Both of our nations learned, China will learn.

I do chuckle, with a bit of horror, over the PRC having to train pilots in instrument landing systems. Something every western commercial pilot is required to learn before considering carrying passengers!

That makes one ponder whether one should permit a PRC commercial aircraft into airports known to have fog, rain, snow or other poor visibility!

Which happens to be every airport...

Cassini spots MEGA-METHANE SEAS on the north pole of Titan

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: we'd use far more energy getting there and back

"IE: As long as it's cheaper to go to titan for your yummy hydrocarbon fix than it is to pump it out of the ground or squeeze it out of rocks, then it will happen :)"

Convenient outer solar system refueling station?

Through-wall tracking of humans using Wi-Fi: Now more accurate, low power

Wzrd1 Silver badge

In other words

MIT caught up to the UK by re-inventing radar.

IBM turns plastic bottles into life-saving 'ninja' MRSA, fungus fighters

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Hope it's more expensive than anti-biotics

"but if it is as cheap as anti-biotics are the ******* drug companies probably won't produce it."

Which is why antibiotics aren't made, even simple aspirin isn't available, because it's cheap and no drug company makes it, right?

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Great News!

"Allicin is tried and true but yet the FDA still requires all of the testing and money to be paid."

Whether you believe it or not, it isn't getting paid that matters to the FDA.

It's nonsensical laws that forbid the US FDA to accept the testing results of other nations drug approval authorities.

Problems result whenever politicians legislate, rather than having science regulate. Hence, heroin is illegal in the US, proclaimed as only an abuse drug, whereas in civilized nations, it is prescribed for severe pain.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: On the contrary. @Buzzword

" If I ever come up with something that has this potential for good, I will be honoured to make it open to anyone to use..."

Honour does not pay the bills, nor does it replace supplies or pay employees.

Personally, I'd patent it, recover the money spent in research, then donate the patent to the populace of this planet.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: I love science!

"I get regularly depressed reading about the latest ways that big corporations and governments spend billions to kill and maim people in more inventive ways..."

Well, in fair balance, during my decades of military service in the US Army, I fired machineguns made by IBM and the Singer sewing machine company.

Technology can be used to help or harm. At least now, it's helping.

Malware+pr0n surge follows police op to kill illicit streaming sites

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: What it boils down to...

"Initiative Operation Creative helps to protect advertisers by ensuring that their ads don’t appear on illegal, IP infringing websites..."

It says it all right there. Not porn, but protecting US economic interests, well, the US studios anyway.

Hey, we get a free play after having to deal for so many years of yielding to your request for Operation Ajax.

Teary-eyed snappers recall the golden age of film

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Digital vs Film

True enough, a tool in the wrong hands renders disasters.

A tool in the hands of a master yields a masterpiece.

That through the window shot at the end appears to not be one using a polarized filter. More would have been gotten with the polarizer, with less reflection.

Then again, it could be that it *was* through the filter and the modest reflection is the remaining artifact that today would be digitally dodged away.

China, Brazil mourn loss of their $250m CBERS-3 satellite after fiery death

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Timely reminder that...

"This shit ain't easy and every successful launch and payload placement is a triumph of human endeavour!"

True enough. American rockets still fail on occasion. Russian rockets still fail on occasion. Chinese rockets can be expected to fail on occasion.

Anybody else making and launching rockets can also expect them to fail on occasion.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Mugs

"or one NASA toilet seat"

Except that we now know that Area 51 really just has Top Secret airplane development going on and the *real* budget is going to the NSA.

Astroboffins spot HOT, YOUNG GIANT where she doesn't belong

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: To put that in perspective.

Big enough for one to wonder if it was a trinary system that lost a companion, but shifted the gas giant to where it currently is.

It *is* just shy of being a brown dwarf.

Mexican Cobalt-60 robbers are DEAD MEN, say authorities

Wzrd1 Silver badge

"You mean to the Schadenfreuder. Which is a remarkably pathetic thing to be."

Thanks! I learned a new word today. :)

I know know the proper term for the disgusting, pathetic excuse of a human who enjoys harm being visited upon others.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Darwin award

"I hope they die a slow and very painful death."

I find it fascinating how *anyone* would desire anyone to suffer a tortuous death.

However, it's quite likely that the one who handled the source is already dead. Any within two meters ill, further away would depend on how long the source and they were in any proximity.

But, I for one am civilized and would not desire anyone to suffer for any crime, regardless of severity.

Apple bests Dell for first time as preferred US consumer PC choice

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Bleh.

The numbers were surveys of people who have yet to go out to buy the things.

Now, let's see what happens when they see the price sticker.

Frustrated fanbois rejoice as Facebook releases MIDAS Mac security tool

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: apple is getting way to political

Corporations have free speech. The SCOTUS said so.

There were and are no saints there or anywhere else in the world, but there sure are shitloads of sinners.

As for Windows, I only like it for its job security in keeping it secured.

Personally, I'm typing this out on a MacBook Pro, while the television is playing a show from my MythTV box that runs Linux and heavy storage is on a FreeBSD box.

My wife is the only one using Microsoft Windows. Her primary usage is web e-mail, secondary e-mail I insist she use with me via Thunderbird and she spends way too much time on Facebook, either on the main Facebook site or playing Facebook games.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: MORE Mac malware???

"Yeah, I'd trust an unsecured Mac. As long as the power cord was ripped out and there was no battery."

I'd trust *any* unsecured computer under the same conditions and further add that all mass storage capability also be removed.

Submerged Navy submarine successfully launches drone from missile tubes

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Recovery?

"My guess is that the drone has a small explosive charge on board"

Why bother? Have it head out to sea, drop into deep water.

Pressure and corrosion would complete the job of destroying any sensitive technology present.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Not without risk and cost

"The navy is feeling distinctly left out in the choice of landlocked deserts as the theatre-du-jour for spreading democracy"

Except that a six hour endurance leaves those landlocked deserts still out of reach at the speed a fuel cell driven drone would fly at.

But, it sure would be handy in anti-piracy patrols, SEAL team operations, general surveillance needs in a limited area that a submarine based force would require.

Observability is lower than a global hawk and few would expect a drone coming out of apparently nowhere in our current areas of operations, which is counter-terrorism.

US Supreme Court to preside over software patents case

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Another 5-4 decision

The origination of corporate personhood originated as a corporation conducting contracts and business as an individual, rather than as dozens of employees and management.

That was accepted as true for as long as the US has existed and tried initially in 1819, with later SCOTUS decisions refining the terms of corporate personhood. Per Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania - 125 U.S. 181 (1888), the Court clearly affirmed the doctrine, holding, "Under the designation of 'person' there is no doubt that a private corporation is included [in the Fourteenth Amendment]. Such corporations are merely associations of individuals united for a special purpose and permitted to do business under a particular name and have a succession of members without dissolution."

Regarding codified law, 1 U.S.C. §1 (United States Code), tates:

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise--

the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;

Of concern now is Citizens United, where the SCOTUS decided that corporate free speech extended to campaign contributions, thereby selling elections to the highest bidding corporations.

Brit inventors' GRAVITY POWERED LIGHT ships out after just 1 year

Wzrd1 Silver badge

My Cuckoo clock has been doing this very thing for decades.

Well, save for generating electricity, but adding that function in would be trivial.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Clockwork reinvented!

NSA sez NO to prez: Spooks ban Obama from using iPhones

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: I think the more obvious answer is...

"That's actually correct - you will find that every government deployment of BBs has localised crypto keys, not the keys you and I are forced to accept."

Local is a relative term.

In the case of the POTUS, his keys are generated by DISA. As are the NSA's keys.

They're generated at an enterprise level.

I knew people who got chopped off at the knees for using locally generated keys in the DoD, ending up replacing them with DISA issued keys.

That said, the keys *are* recoverable from DISA, upon request of the commander who is responsible for the systems that the keys were issued to.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: I think the more obvious answer is...

Bleh. The NSA secured it, added some really good crypto as well.

Can they read his traffic?

Let's analyze the systems of authority.

The NSA is part of the US DoD. DISA is part of the US DoD, they operate all information and communication systems and issue crypto keys.

DISA is independent of the NSA.

So, no. Not unless DISA plays ball with the NSA, out of general chumminess, as they do compete for federal funding. They have no parallel interests and endeavors.

So, no. The NSA isn't able to listen into its Commander in Chief. Indeed, doing so would be bad, as his staff would eventually find an NSA report on his message traffic and really unpleasant things would happen to many, many careers.

Quantum crypto pitches for data centre links

Wzrd1 Silver badge

"How have they implemented the back door that the NSA required them to include?"

As their very first customer was the NSA, I doubt it.

One-minute Koch-blocking earns attacker two years, massive fine

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Fascism for the win!

"Two years and $183,000k fine for causing at most a few hundred dollars in "damage"? Terror and control indeed."

OK, a similar, mechanical example is in order.

I put epoxy into the locks of IBM corporate. I epoxy the locks of Congress.

OK, the latter is a bad example, as they do so little of late anyway.

Seriously, the reality is, a service was being paid for, a few assholes insisted on denying that service.

Rather like me epoxying the locks to your car before you go to work.

A few hundred dollars of damage, significant loss of income, yes?

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Here come da' Judge;

"Great example of judicial misconduct:"

So, you won't call the authorities if I screw all of the doors and windows of your house shut in the middle of the night?

Denial of service is a crime, as one is denying someone of that which they are paying for to enjoy.

Damn, but that made me want to puke! But, as much as I despise the Kochsuckers, the reality is that we have laws for a reason. Disregarding those laws out of simple dislike is simple anarchy.

We in the US had quite enough of that in the old west, we're still trying to put a stop to it... :/

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Equal Time

"How come all the outrage is directed at the Koch brothers? George Soros is at least as interfering a rich busybody, and funds just as many lunatics."

Please! Never, ever, *ever* give assholes an asshole idea.

They just get themselves into trouble and the taxpayer ends up footing the bill.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Not that I condone such a thing.

Nope.

The software is actually a load testing tool.

Misapplied in this case, with malicious intent by Anomalous and used by their stooges.

I've used it and similar tools to hammer production servers before they are released into production.

"All we need to do to shut down a business is ignore them and if enough people are motived and driven by what is right rather than what is easy, what polishes the ego or fills the coffers, it should be possible."

Look up "Hell freezes over". People are inherently lazy anyway, that is simply an excuse to permit king making.

The US got rid of one king some years back, it's periodically experimented in various alternative ways of creating the same.

It's the asshole who pays attention, resists in less unlawful ways and gathers the support of his/her peers that causes such things to temporarily halt.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Mwahahahah!

"It's like walking up to a professional rugby player and kicking them in the sack. "

That all depends on where the second kick, rapidly following the first is directed.

All fights end when the knees bend the wrong way. ;)

"No good can come from angering people like this."

Well, it all depends on *how* one angers them. It's then a case of mutually assured destruction.

This was a case of stooges being stooges.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: On the one hand...

I warned a lot of those idiots at the time.

*Any* DDOS can be traced back. It's all a function of logging and traffic analysis.

Oh well, one less idiot with a computer.

As the usual court orders in such matters is that the convict not possess, access or even be near a computer or other internet connected device.

OHM MY GOD! Move over graphene, here comes '100% PERFECT' stanene

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Note 2 things. a) It's a *theoretical* material. b) It's only perfect till it gets to a *connector*

"The trouble with these calculated materials is the calcs are complex and approximations used."

One ponders the old f00f bug... Approximation to the point of magic smoke elimination?

"Thing is if this is a perfect conductor then (by definition) all else is imperfect..."

On paper, *everything* is perfect. In practice, nothing ever is.

Well, save myself. I'm perfect.

A perfect disaster.

"Thing is if this is a perfect conductor then (by definition) all else is imperfect, so there's a discontinuity interface."

See the above magic smoke release. Rather than the more common light emitting diodes, one ends up with smoke emitting diodes.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: Resistance is futile

"The heat in chippery is not due really caused by resistive losses but is more a result of capacitive losses."

True enough. If anything, this would *increase* the losses, as the description of the substance shows surface conduction, interior insulation. Break that surface, it's a capacitor. At certain frequencies, it'd be a capacitor even if the surface weren't broken, but that would be true only with large conductors or at the highest of frequencies.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

"They would probably give up looking, close their eyes (yes... the whole country) and stick a pin in a map - and say "that's where it is""

Wow! You got the majority of US citizens pegged true!

How depressing.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

"As soon as they worked out where it was on the map....."

Well, as a born and raised US citizen, I can attest to the fact that not a single soul in the US could find their own ass on a map, not even with both hands, a illustrated map and three navigators.

That said, people in the US would most certainly buy anything named iStan. It has that magical "i" in front that turns shit into gold.

Aussie boffins can detect orbiting SPACE JUNK using rock gods' radiation

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: This is how the USAF "Space Fence" worked for 50 years

"NASA has had to upgrade ISS to dodge space junk because the useless wankers in Congress shut the thing down."

That made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

So, the idiots in the US Congress shut down the ISS and that made space junk threaten it?

No, accumulated debris from five decades of launches, dead satellites, collision debris from satellites smashing into one another and a few idiotic military satellite interception tests from several idiotic nations all added to the debris that threatens LEO satellites.

'This BLACK HOLE just isn't BLACK AT ALL' snarl boffins

Wzrd1 Silver badge

"they've broken causality by viewing it"

Causality is routinely broken in domestic disputes. Effect precedes cause...

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: I'm confused!

"micro blackholes"

Nope, none observed so far. Still a bit of argument if they really do exist.

"intermediate blackholes"

Theorized, not observed yet. Hence, some bit of excitement.

"supermassive blackholes"

Well established science, well observed in every political office on the planet. ;)

OK, seriously though, decent observations, more every day and astronomers are eagerly awaiting Sag A* to take a bit of gas soon for more local observations on a supermassive black hole "eating".

Wzrd1 Silver badge

"Don't we owe them more respect than to call them boffins and nerds?"

Personally, I really ignore it. I'm quite certain that *they* ignore it.

So, what would *you* propose to call these rather bright people? Folks?

Wzrd1 Silver badge

"Oops. We try not to go overboard :-)"

It's an overly bright black hole. How can one *not* go overboard?

Wzrd1 Silver badge

Re: The hole is still black

True enough.

The region could be that bright because it's draining off a nearby neutron star, which would be difficult to otherwise detect.

Sceptic-bait E-Cat COLD FUSION generator goes on sale for $US1.5m

Wzrd1 Silver badge

"I make $500 a week working from home, I didn't believe how easy it was."

I'll happily contact you for the specifics when I get back from my free, all expense paid vacation, spending my millions of dollars from my Nigerian investment windfall and using my discount generic Viagra.

One mailing list I was on had a thread where we concocted stories based upon what was caught in our spam filters. It made for quite a few amusing stories.

Wzrd1 Silver badge

"Hell, the first we'd hear of a REAL cold-fusion home-brew kit would be the electricity companies ..."

Would be buying up every one that they could get their hands on.

Energy companies would jump at the chance to lower their production costs.