Posts by Wzrd1 2268 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Dec 2012
Green deserts created by additional CO2, water no longer required.
Especially considering how deserts are by nature extremely dry. Perhaps, the intrepid authors of that paper discovered a new phenomenon in botany, where plants no longer require water to grow, only increased CO2.
Next week: How global warming helps pigs fly.
"What troubles me is that for the first 17 seconds the rocket must have thought it was flying DOWN."
What fascinates me is that for the first 17 seconds, the rocket sensed it was flying down, but operated correctly.
That, in and of itself is amazing. It suggests a software solution to the issue.
Some only see a problem, others see the exception and find a solution based upon that exception to capitalize upon.
"...for whatever reason the Soviet, now Russian, industry never bothered to make the little things foolproof."
Their problem was that of budget. A serious budget, with little to no cost overrun tolerance. It wasn't unique to the space program, it was endemic to anything not military during the Cold War, later to everything due to economic depression.
Still, when the full failure analysis is completed, there will be the public response and the quiet response to idiot proof systems, for even the brightest person on the planet can have his or her village idiot moment, something that space programs won't tolerate due to the massive failures involved.
It's not prestige, it's finance. Failures cost, both financially and in client base.
And the Russians are no fools.
And as my father frequently said over the years, "My father may have raised a dummy, but he didn't raise a fool".
EVERY nation knows that as a truism, though the definition of dummy is variable based up speaker.
"Ideally complex systems meant for production should..."
The problem is, space flight isn't an ideal situation. Mass is of grave concern. Do the snap in approach, add in hundreds of pounds of additional mass at best, a ton or so (tonne for some out there) at a more realistic approach.
That said, whereinhell was QC who should inspect critical assemblies? Of which, nearly every assembly is critical in a rocket designed to go into orbit or near orbit.
For the price per unit mass, I'd not have one QC inspection, but three, considering the Russian labor rate.
Hmm, let's consider things a bit.
The US was notorious, to the great mirth of the nations of the world, for having rockets that went in reverse or simply fell over and exploded.
When we finally managed to get them to go up, they frequently disassembled themselves or decided to take a random, if toward the launch/recording bunker is random direction and be destructed (one film that I saw had the range safety officer thanking the officer that destructed the defective missile, said officer's response, I didn't, destruct failed).
Much, much, much later, the Apollo program began. The rockets had major pogo oscillation problems.
By your candle, the rocket would've been retired.
Nope, it was partially redesigned to remove the flex that caused the interruption in fuel/oxidant flow. From that fruit, a bunch of men managed to not walk on the moon, but hop, jump, shuffle and most often, fall on their asses or knees, largely asses.
NASA hit that one from the world for a long time. Pity, it's funny and educational. Low gravity equals grave risk of suit rupture.
Thankfully, the suits were overdesigned to compensate for the unknown.
Which resulted in a significant number of said spills.
"Design issue - if something is only meant to fit in one orientation, you design so it can only fit in one orientation. This was undergrad stuff 20+ years ago."
Management issue to ensure design is up to date with Captain Murphy's law.
It's only annoying that it took so long for undergrads to learn about Murphy's law when considering design.
Especially since Captain Murphy served back in the late 1940's and the actual term has been dated to 1877 at the current earliest found reference from one Alfred Holt.
That said, I'd not be surprised to learn that the reality of it is, such was first uttered in the early days of complex lever/pivot systems or complex pulley systems were first employed.
From what I saw, rockets are assembled on their sides in stages/levels of assembly. No up or down, unless one is pointing up then, which would be to the side.
Even so, what did the engineering plans show the technician on how to install that sensor? I remember many decades ago seeing power supply after power supply (OK, two before I halted smoke testing) produce a mushroom cloud of smoke.
Turns out that the installation diagrams for the installation techs shorted the output of the rectifiers, sending 100A into a dead short on one pole of the filter capacitors, rather than each lead going to each lead of the filter capacitor bank.
Then, change management wanted to hold a committee meeting about it. That screwed up three days of production.
Strange that this seems unknown. It's been extremely well explored in ballistics. In specific, with long range sniper shots, tank rounds and artillery rounds trajectory.
Then, there was those bomb thingies dropped all about during WWII and folks wanted them to actually hit the target, not some grandmother's home... ;)
Turns out, it's not all that complicated. If one isn't actually performing that math. :/
"This is not a "reminder" or "old news". Those who think so do not realize the scale at which this blanket surveillance is now being conducted. Back then (17 years ago), we didn't have the data storage and data mining technologies we have today, nor ubiquitous Internet/email/mobiles with GPS etc."
I cut my military career along those very lines. Much of that was either shooting unpleasant people or putting a knife into unfortunate places on such people.
That "new news" concept is ancient news to governments and those with clearances.
Indeed, after retiring, I contracted as first, an NA, then a SA, then IA. I literally got to review my morale phone calls home transcripts to my wife.
We'll suffice it to say, it would well and truly prove that I am "a dirty old man" to the reader.
Direct, personal experience with me would only confirm that.
But then, that same experience 32 years ago would still prove the same, save for the old part. ;)
It only takes me all night to do what I used to do all night now.
Ancient news, as such ancient news is well known news to global governments, it's no news today and worse yet, insanely well documented ancient news from decades ago.
What is next? The USSR is placing missiles in Cuba?
And yes, I'm old enough to have lived through that mess.
"You may want to start with the first revelations then. "
I'll continue to content myself with transmitting messages between my wife and trusted associates with encrypted e-mails.
My metadata isn't highly meaningful, the scope defies the usual analysis, due to the scope of my interests.
I only do that to keep the NSA having fun reviewing my rather ancient file. One that isn't a "bad" file, only annoying as a sort of peer in the overall organization.
"Snowden is a media seeker."
Kiddo, this aged US veteran that happens to have had an interesting clearance finds your comment noteworthy for one reason.
It called to my mind the Smurfs melody, but with the words, "Doy, doy the doy doy doy, doy the doy doy doy."
Yes, I am calling you a first seater on the short bus.
"Oh yawn, here we go again. All that El Reg very accurately noted was that the information that is so sensationally talked up in the media is actually, well, not news (or "olds", as Phil O'Sophical called them - loved that). As a consequence, the whole charade surrounding these "revelations" is just that: a charade."
Next week, the global press will present New News on some Adam guy and his wife, Eve or some other ancient shit.
The true reality of it is, every government throughout the world knew of this already. If not by their own espionage sources, via networking with better funded governments espionage sources.
The only real griping is done out of the incompetency of the US in keeping well known secrets secret from average citizens.
Want a hint, people? When embassies recall their ambassador, they're really angry. If they CLOSE their embassy, they're pissed. Anything other, move on, there is a kid with a strained ankle that is really more interesting a block away.
"Is this really a serious issue? Aren't almost all of Edward Snowden's leaks just old news?"
Actually, for anyone, in any nation that has a security clearance, it is ancient news.
Bleeding North Korea found it ancient news!
Grow a brain for a change, people.
Governments are only bitching because we did what is our usual and regrettable habit, permitted an annoying secret get out to the public throughout the globe.
Even funnier news, governments throughout the world proclaim their hatred of spies, but employ tons of their owns and loves turned agents and double agents.
The crux is, spies tend to keep everyone honest.
Not a biggie for the average citizen, but remember, governments aren't run by average citizens, they're run by politicians. Creatures of lies by, if not genetics, significant habituation bordering upon sociopathy.
"This reflects on the article the other day that popular opinion has turned against Snowden: This is how it is done. Little articles all over the place pointing out negative or neutral things and written in the passive-aggressive voice. I'm disappointed that El Reg is participating in this."
In other words, if an article points out that the new news has gray hair, it is a hatchet job. If it praises his bravery in violating his NDA and telling all, high and low, what every intelligence agency throughout the world already long knew, it is fair and balanced reporting.
News flash: EVERY INTELLIGENCE AGENCY IN THE WORLD ALREADY KNEW AND REPORTED TO THEIR NATION'S LEADERSHIP WHEN YOU WERE IN DIAPERS.
Update: Snowden had a sworn NDA that he signed and swore to. Just as any other person with a security clearance has done. He violated that trust. In the stupidest way imaginable, without every permitting the existing system to address any things that may be considered deficiencies.
Rather than sent an e-mail to a sympathetic senator or representative (I personally call the lot of them spenditmore and reprehensible, but that is me, your mileage may very by very little, but there are one or two decent ones. Something amazing for them being political bastards from hell.) with the links to the files, even files themselves, all sent via JWICS, which is were most TS and SCI is stored and where he did copy these documents from. A call to the official's office alerting them to some juicy information that isn't available to them normally, as they're not on that august committee and watch all the fur fly.
Nope, he bypassed every part of his nation's checks and balances to blather on to the press.
Again, everybody knew everything he's blathered on about except those who couldn't be trusted to tie their own shoelaces, let alone something important and protected, such as my listed telephone number.
He's worse than Manning, who blathered on about nothing much, save helicopter footage of reporters running up to men with AK-47's and an RPG after said men were shooting at soldiers. At least Manning couldn't cope, was a sad sack and had some personal problems that he let control him. This joker has no excuse other than he was a sack of shit when I met him a few years back, he's composted since, but is unfit for use as fertilizer. Too much stupidium present in the remnants.
Yes, I met him. He was a contractor sent by the NSA to clean up part of the 2008 cyber attack against the US DoD, I had recently retired from the military and was also contracting as an installation IA. My installation had a zero infection rate. His installation he cleaned up was back to square one within a month.
The first incident cost one billion dollars, the second cost was classified. My installation was notable for remaining uninfected.
The only real difference in our approaches is, I started with Apple, Boy, Cat, only eventually ending with Zebra.
His approach was remediate the malware, ignore the problems that permitted it to spread in spite of the fact that it would take only one day to guarantee that and he moved on, like a virus. He also had a problem with thinking he was superior to everyone around him.
Until I started naming off various entry points that aren't well documented and explained how to kill certain nasty malware infections by surgery on the Windows registry.
Then, rather than learn and share knowledge, he simply clammed up and wanted to go away.
Let's see now. Put on contacts, then put on glasses to read.
As opposed to putting on glasses to read.
Or using a magnifying lens unit to magnify distances, as we don't have devices called telescopes yet, nor the ability to make compact, low powered ones.
Otherwise, we'd have things called cameras and zoom lenses for them.
I've been suffering from the dreaded short arm syndrome for a handful of years now.
Rather than get arm extensions or use my feet, I simply wear my reading glasses.
Though, I did learn to not wear the glasses hanging from my shirt when I'm not using them, burned one of my shirts one fine summer day, as well as a small part of my chest.
Wow, just wow.
SO ignorant is the populace.
Small hint, *every* nation on the planet that can afford to have a spy has at least one.
One spies on enemies, obviously. One also spies on friends. I've countered multiple EU agents over the decades.
TO be really blunt, spies keep everyone honest.
As reminder, when Reagan pushed all of the USSR "buttons", all learned how horribly a certain war game was nearing.
"Setting arbitrary limits to a solar system, and trying to determine whether a small man made object has breached those limits, is a fool's errand."
Erm, no. It's not arbitrary limits, it's current knowledge and theory.
Theory and knowledge that is being stretched daily.
Rather unlike your perspective.
"Whilst I admire the feat of engineering that is Voyager, I've never seen it have to avoid a controller hurled at it before due to Street Fighter rage.... though, to be fair to it... it is almost older than the controller concept."
Erm, even the mythical Incredible Hulk couldn't manage an arm sufficient to reach either Voyager.
Though, I, the Incredible Bulk may well be able to, due to gravitational boosting... ;)
A decade ago, I retired my father's kitchen television from a year before the probe was launched.
Our very first color television.
It was a GE television, hybrid transistor and kludged solid state circuitry that had a mysterious arc that I never figured out until I scrapped the damned thing and found the carbon trail that would otherwise have never been found.
It finally failed and was replaced.
Interestingly enough, our 1964 B&W console stereo-television still operates. With vacuum tubes in the television and germanium transistors in the stereo. The CRT is gassy in the extreme, the high voltage "flyback" transformer is dodgy at best, due to melting of the insulation, but the thing still works.
Lost out on a bid for a first run RCA television, pure vacuum tube unit. Didn't share the information on how to adjust the ion trap with the bastard that won it by crook. May the neck arc through on him... :/
Old tech isn't bad tech, only dated. Though, dated technology ideas aren't necessarily obsolete. :D
" I wonder how long the plutonium powerpacks are good for on them?"
They're rated to 2025. Even money, there'll be a few more years out of them due to over-engineering.
I can kludge together some really robust designs for circuits, but... Damn! That is REALLY good designs, considering the resources available back then.
"We're not exactly getting anywhere yet with clever tricks to beat the physics involved, are we?"
Make it a question of, do it or you are extinct, we'd solve the problem in a New York minute, which is well documented to be sub-quantum time.
The time unit is why I'll stick with the threat of being shot in Philadelphia over either having a stroke or throttling half of NYC...
Damn! But, I really should have retired to New Zealand...
"The problem will be the power supply or system failure, i.e. when the power gets so low that the transceiver stops working (or fails)."
More likely a system failure or power supply regulator problem. The probe is powered by three RTG's.
To steal documentation, "The power output of the RTGs does decline over time (halving every 87.7 yrs), but the RTGs of Voyager 1 will continue to support some of its operations until around 2025."
Now, *that* is reliable circuitry! The RTG isn't amazing as is the ability of those ancient circuits of yesteryear to survive such an incredibly harsh environment and continue functioning.
I do, but I keep my contacts where some script can't find them, they're encrypted and I rarely use Facebook, save to see my grandchildren's latest pictures.
That said, shall we discuss LinkedIn's sucking of contact lists?
For that matter, who doesn't suck in contact lists these days? :/
Erm, I'm only surprised that Symantec took this long to notice it. I noticed it nearly two years ago when I was checking something with my phone and caught the traffic.
Fortunately, the numbers changed quite rapidly in the phonebook, the contacts were mostly mailing lists and erroneous entries from a buggy version of software that I was too lazy to remove.
Since then, I've only allowed certain traffic to depart from my phone, using a tether and networking tricks to ensure that.
One only ponders why it took this long to notice or, erm, suddenly realize it should be reported to the public...
Perhaps, after clearing it with the NSA?
"Either the observational data is incomplete or the models are becoming more inaccurate. Either way, it completely throws the accuracy of this article into touch."
Not really. If the model were previously highly accurate over decades and suddenly it is becoming inaccurate, something changed in the climate itself that changed the local climate to diverge from the fixed data model.
We lack the computing capability to measure vast numbers of data points, then incorporate them into models, so fixed data is used to approximate the general climate model.
"Because that is what always happens in IT. Which is the problem."
Strange, such conversations never were uttered in the various IT shops where I saw quite a few women working in.
But then, many of those IT shops were US DoD IT shops and most of those women were veterans who were perfectly capable of loosening the teeth of anyone making such speech.
Never caught wind of such in civilian, non-DoD IT shops either.
Perhaps this is a UK issue?
From the land that brought the world civilization and blood pudding... :P
"We are talking Americans, have you seen the size of the tables needed to house some of those fat arses??"
Here in the civilized world of the US (OK, occasionally civilized, when not arguing about gun control, religion or politics), we don't sit on our tables. We sit with the table in front of us.
Hence, the table fails to house anyone.
It is used to hold food though, such as a full sized 23 pound turkey sandwich... ;)
And a few three liter bottles of Coke. :/
<Caveat, I personally don't drink soft drinks, well, not unless there is an ample amount of distilled alcoholic beverage available to decontaminate it.>
"It is possible to make relatively lightweight and quite powerful antimatter-catalysed nuclear pulse engine ..."
I seem to recall some theory on meson catalyzed fusion devices as well.
As for "the US could build such a spacecraft", erm, not quite. Our rockets still occasionally go awry. It would be rather unpleasant if we have a few hundred kilograms of antimatter depart containment inside of the Earth's magnetosphere, let alone atmosphere. Add in the fact that even gram quantities would cost more than the entire US DoD budget, counting black budgets, I don't see that happening (not to mention building so many particle accelerators) not only anytime soon, but ever.
"Where's the kaboom? There should've been an Earth shattering kaboom!"
<SRB failure, uncontrolled descent of the spacecraft>
"Oh, there it is."
"I knew Teflon was good, but preventing matter-antimatter annihilation ? "
Not at all. A bunch of electrons were annihilated and a couple of photons of gamma radiation were released 180 degrees from one another.
Low enough radiation to be harmless.
Except with that guy who was next to it and started growing and turning green...
"all we have to do is build an interstellar starship"
Why bother? Just stop off at Jupiter and capture what is stuck in its magnetic fields. One could do it in Earth orbit too, but Jupiter has a much stronger and larger field, hence captures more.
True enough, indeed, that Teflon seems to have fared quite well. :)
Still, it'd be really handy to physicists if they could generate a gram of positrons and store them safely.
Safely, as unsafely would rather render their building unusable.
"I think they mean "no deleting his Internet history at GCHQ" (it's like a cloud backup service that you don't want but pay for through taxes)."
Pity that one cannot restore from said pre-paid backup. Or even get them to admit to the true extent of said backup.
You know, "Hello, GCHQ? Listen, I had a drive crash and need to restore session data from Friday, the 24th. The NSA has it? OK, can you connect me?
NSA? Listen, I had a drive crash and need to restore session data from Friday, the 24th. What do you mean I don't have a high enough clearance to access my own data?!"
One thing that the NSA has to watch for is not monitoring US citizens.
The reason isn't a question of niceness or nastiness, it's a question of law.
Most germane is the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the military from operating in any police activity inside of the US.
Of course, one also has to recall how often such laws were thoroughly ignored in the US, such as CIA operations inside of the US through the 1970's, before Congress put that shenanigans to a stop.
"I honestly don't buy all this "spooks with acres of datacentre" junk."
Sorry to break it to you, but they do have such datacenters. Note the plural. I've looked upon one with my own eyes.
The NSA hires more mathematicians than any other entity in the world. They also hire more programmers than any other entity in the world.
They also own more supercomputers than any other entity in the world.
Their budget is part of the DoD budget, much of it a black budget.
That said, they're part of the DoD, so one data processing term is operable: GIGO.
Or most commonly, garbage in, nothing out.
"When un-free countries become free, we are usually told that one of the first things that the liberated mob does is to rampage into the secret police headquarters and destroy the secret files.
Americans should do the same - now."
What a great idea! Revolt, then destroy the evidence of crimes committed by the previous regime.
As for the rest, that is a nice synopsis of American history, especially during the McCarty era, with the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, a more aptly named committee there never was.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
