Posts by TitterYeNot

Re: Enter == submit

"I think what you are thinking about is the RETURN key"

The RETURN key on some early systems simply returned the cursor to the beginning of the current line (from CARRIAGE RETURN, where the carriage holds a print head.) It's LINE FEED key that used to move the cursor to the next line or field (named after the the action of feeding one line height's worth of paper through the print feed mechanism.).

The ENTER key on slightly less antiquated systems that aren't using a teletype console (a printer with a keyboard) produces CR and LF characters (Microsoft), a LF character (Unix) or a CR character (older Apple OS's.)

"It's interesting to see how the Russians do upgrades to the Soyuz spacecraft"

Yes, it's interesting looking at the differences between how the US and Russia develop their vehicles for their respective space programmes.

The Americans seem to have gone for complex, expensive, brand new designs from the ground up, which they then risk-assess the hell out of (in theory at least.)

The Russians, on the other hand, build something that they have some prior experience of, which is usually fairly simple, very effective, and only moderately dangerous. In testing it'll go bang, they'll work out why it went bang, fix it, and test it again. Then rinse and repeat. When the design stops going bang, you end up with a very effective, reliable piece of kit, which is why Russian rocket engines have been used in some US space vehicles since the end of the cold war - they're only starting to get unreliable now (see Orbital Sciences) due to age and poor maintenance.

It does look as if the US have learnt something from the Russian design process though - their latest heavy lifter, the SLS, will re-use slightly updated versions of the Shuttle main engines and SRBs - why design something totally new when you've already got thoroughly tested, improved and reliable kit (now that the SRB O-ring leaks have been fixed.)

Re: Glados this is over

Yes, appropriate article pic from Portal.

'Assume the party escort submission position or you will miss the party and prepare to be unresistingly reamed by the new management team.'

Re: Under Italian law, a settlement agreement does not imply an admission of guilt

"In other countries, it's called a bribe."

Yes, I always wondered how a civilised western European country managed to get a four term prime minister like Silvio Berlusconi. After reading this article, it makes sense now...

Re: "not highlighted in the thorough surveys"

"Here in NL there is actually a central register of all underground infrastructure, which you have to consult before undertaking any mechanical digging operations. Still doesn't always stop excavators ripping cables out"

Yes, here in the UK there are similar digital maps of water, gas , electricity and telecoms infrastructure kept by the utilities companies that dig up the countryside. However, if an engineer lays a new pipe or whatever and doesn't update the relevant map correctly, its no use to someone else who subsequently looks at the map, thinks the area is clear, and so drills a nice big hole through said pipe.

Another issue is that while upated maps like GasPlans are released on a regular basis (every few months) there's no guarantee that the guy digging that hole has the latest version, so could well be digging up cables that were laid a year ago but aren't on the version of the plans he's just looked at on his laptop.

Re: Metric and imperial

"I wonder if someone got their metres per second confused with their kilometres per hour again."

After ESA's rather scathing criticism of the management of the Beagle 2 project, I can almost hear Colin Pillinger's gentle chuckle at the thought that at least his lander made it to the surface of Mars in one piece without making a bloody great crater in a Martian hillside.

In all seriousness though, not having a go at ESA. This stuff has to be tried, failure can gain more knowledge for future missions than success if enough telemetry is recorded.

At the end of the day, rocket science isn't easy, rocket engineering is hard, and interplanetary rocket engineering is really, really ******* difficult...

Re: So...

"does deciding there's ten times as much baryonic 'stuff' out there as we previously thought imply for the need/ calculations in respect of dark matter/ energy?"

As far as I'm aware (and I'm no expert either) it probably doesn't.

One of the reasons that we think dark matter exists is that the outer regions of spiral galaxies rotate faster than they should given the number of stars we can see in them (i.e. visible mass.) Rather than rotating in a similar fashion to our solar system, where outer bodies have a much lower angular velocity than inner bodies (i.e. much longer solar year), spiral galaxies rotate more like a solid disc, with the outer stars rotating around the galactic centre with an angular velocity not that much slower than inner stars. This implies that there is much more mass 'holding the galaxy together' than can be accounted for just by adding up the total mass of all the galaxy's stars.

So basically, more galaxies probably means more dark matter, not less, so the proportion of the universe that's estimated to be made up of dark matter will stay the same.

Re: This is commentard bait...

"... and I am not biting."

Yes, Poe's law here methinks. The author must have had his tongue so firmly in his cheek I'm surprised he didn't choke on it before getting halfway through the article; as well as getting a massive hernia from the suppressed laughter...

Re: Alternatives

"Get some Vegemite up ya.

I presume it's available there?"

I have heard exotic tales of this Aussie Marmite wondrous elixir, from those who have journied far to where men walk upside down upon the earth and venomous spiders infest one's codpiece.

But unfortunately Sainsbury's stopped selling it. Probably an evil scheme to get our local Aussies mainlining on Marmite...

Re: I was not posting it in jest

I think you might be getting a little carried away there, lets not get a vote for Brexit [by neophobic uneducated northerners who don't like them foreigners */ by anti-elitist Europeans hacked off with overstretched schools, hospitals and housing *] confused with one of the 20th century's most horrific examples of what one human being can do to another.

Somehow I don't think non-UK nationals living here have Kristallnacht, Zyklon B showers or the ovens of Auschwitz-Birkenau to worry about...

* Delete as appropriate depending on viewpoint.

Re: Games

"Let's be honest, the only thing a home user is likely to want a PC for which actually tests modern hardware is intensive gaming"

I'd also add in the factor of the 'consolisation' of PC games.

For pretty much all PC games developed today a console version is also released, and the PC version is usually handicapped as a result because development costs don't allow the two versions to be developed separately. Lack of manual saves, poor anti-aliasing, slow panning response etc. are all signs of a game developed to cope with the hardware limitations of a games console, then made a little prettier for the PC with higher resolution textures. The last game I can remember that stretched a gaming PC and didn't also have a console version was Crysis, and thats nearly 10 years old, and even the latest consoles still aren't powerful enough to cope with that game (I'm not talking about the inferior sequels, I'm talking about the original with real world physics etc.)

My current PC is over 6 years old, and together with a graphics card that is nearly 3 year old, it'll play the latest and greatest games at full pelt with all the bells and whistles turned up to max, a situation which would have been impossible 10-15 years ago.

The only reason I can think of for upgrading in the next year or two is if I get a VR headset, as running what is effectively 2 HD monitors displaying fully anti-aliased, highly textured detail while coping with movement tracking will require a high spec PC (you may think 'meh', but they're supposedly astounding for realistic flight sims like DCS World, even if a little lacking in resolution in the current generation of headsets.)

Re: Too busy?

"Have they been too busy snooping on us, to eager to spunk millions over 'anti-terrorist' toys to look after their own house?"

Yes, it looks like they're too busy intercepting our mobile phone calls to deal with trivial things like 'data security'...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/10/police_widespread_ownership_of_imsi_catchers_revealed/

Re: Label you, label me, label us all together

"I wonder what BHS stands for?"

Looking at the size and cost of a certain previous BHS owner's boat, I think it stands for 'Bought His Super-yacht'...

Re: further details?

"But the "liquid cooling"? At what temperature?

The only reason I mention this is I build a dual Xeon-phi research box for the Uni, and it has a "vapor chamber" which implies a liquid at some point"

Yes, looking at the teardown video, I think this is a case of the usual technically illiterate VP (or his speech writer) using phrases he doesnt understand. The Lumia cooler does indeed look like it uses 'vapour cooling', rather than 'liquid cooling' which would imply a liquid coolant and pump. Vapour coolers only contain a very small amount of liquid, which you usually won't see if you cut one open as it will either evaporate (which is how it achieves its cooling / heat transfer effect) or will be held in a substrate that acts as a wick to draw condensed liquid back to the hot cpu.

Once again laws being written by anal-retentive tight-arsed idiots, so more like

(_!_)

'For some reason "Once upon a very long time ago" doesn't quite mesh with the above comment.'

Absolutely. Some people find it hard to believe there was a time when new fangled tech like CRT terminals and monitors didn't exist and all text output from a system came via a printer. Hint - there's a reason why you login to a Unix box via a TTY session, and it's called TeleTYpe...

Re: YPPWFTBW!

A shame Douglas Adams didn't live to see this. He'd have had a field day with it.

Oh I think it's safe to say he saw this coming a very long time ago (original radio series, Secondary Phase, 1980):-

.

Re: That's good to know.

"Next time I have to go through US Customs I'll have to have a fake facebook account set up that's full of memes about how great america is and about how much I love democracy and freedom."

I think I'd go with a "Team America: World Police" themed dummy account. I get the general impression that Americans don't do sarcasm or satire (possibly they do irony instead) so there'd be a lovely whoosh as it went straight over the security goon's head.

- I see you have a device. What's your password?

- It's 'America!FuckYeah!'

- Welcome to America Sir! Enjoy your stay!

Re: I'm confused

"If B and C are the quantangled pair, how can it be A that has its state 'teleported' onto C?"

I think it works like this (though obviously as this is quantum mechanics I don't actually understand it, and my brain now hurts.)

Photon A is not entangled. B and C are an entangled photon pair. A and C are sent down several kilometres of telecom grade fibre optic cable and interact (but are not observed prior to the interaction.) After the interaction, the state of C is shown to be teleported to its entangled photon B, which is still in its original location (i.e. it has has not been sent down the optic cable.)

It sounds like what's different here compared to a classic Bell state teleportation experiment is that the two interacting photons A and C were sent over 6 km down an optic cable, rather than remaining local, and the teleported state 'recipient' B remained local rather than being sent a short distance away.

So it looks like it's a demonstration of "spooky action at a distance" using commercial telecoms equipment. I think. Ow...

Re: I've got a cunning plan my lord

"If I can get root access, I can overwrite a root-owned config file and upload an evil shared library, and with that I can get root access."

<Sighs> This root wouldn't happen to be a turnip would it, Baldrick?

Re: Comical

"The politicians can be moved to Slough, Milton Keynes or Swindon."

I know your tongue was probably firmly in cheek when you said that, but there is a serious case for moving Parliament permanently to Birmingham, Leeds or Manchester etc. to stop some of the London-centric idiocy that goes on. Oh I know most MPs wouldn't like it, but some encouragement with a pointy stick would sort that.

Of course prospective cities would have to draw lots for the new location, the unfortunate loser with the shortest stick getting all those lovely MPs......

Re: Pedantry ahoy

"What's the point in providing them with an SD card when the Pi 3 uses MicroSD?"

It'll be the same as previous RPi 3 kits - a MicroSD card in a SD adapter.

Re: EM Drive is an impossible idea

"Which means the hypothesis that the EmDrive is somehow causing a subtle distortion in spacetime (by the application of microwave energy) is not unreasonable. And if that distortion were to shift the centre of gravity of the containing structure ever so slightly, then the structure would be forced to move to accommodate the shift. Thrustless motion."

I think the problem with that idea is that with the amount of energy it uses, the EM drive is highly unlikely to be able to warp spacetime enough to cause thrustless motion.

There are at least a couple of hypotheses (exotic but obeying the laws of physics as we currently understand them) that propose space travel by warping space time around a spacecraft, so that the spacetime containing it is accelerated, not the craft itself.

Of course these hypotheses do not tell us exactly how you would warp spacetime to such a degree, just that it is theoretically possible. They also predict the amount of energy that would be required to do so; the most energy efficient proposal would require a mass roughly equivalent to one of the Voyager spacecraft (just under 1 metric tonne) to be completely converted to energy, in other words the energy required would be orders of magnitude greater than that released in the most powerful thermo-nuclear reactions we have so far created (the H-bomb.)

So this stuff isn't impossible, but we might have to wait a while.

Re: "a million-degree gaseous fog permeating our galaxy"

"If a relatively cool, dilute plasma only noticeably interacts with photons we haven't looked for, then Dark matter isn't dark, we're just blind."

The description 'dark' as used with 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' doesn't refer to any properties such as colour or luminosity. It's used in the same way that historians refer to the period between the Roman evacuation of Britain and the Norman conquest as the 'dark ages' because of the lack of written historical records i.e. we know very little about them.

Re: "This helps to ensure that ... data is kept safe and secure"

"So what they're saying is: if it's stored in a cloud hosting provider in the UK, it's safe; if it's stored in a cloud hosting provider outside the UK, it isn't.

Except there is this thing called "The Internet" which connects all the clouds together."

Having briefly scanned the audit report, I don't think that's quite what the auditors are saying. I can't see any reference to data being stored in a non-UK datacentre, but I do see a reference to aggregated data in the London data centre being available 'online' i.e. presumably internet facing, and so available to users in other countries (that's probably why the London data centre is no longer used.)

This is most likely what the main point of the story is - servers storing NHS data should never be accessible via the internet, only via internal LAN / WAN (with WAN connections encrypted over point-to-point VPN.)

The only other failings I can see in the report are the usual suspects - logins shared between 2 admins, unlocked unattended laptops, poor audit trail for information governance training etc. etc.