Re: Does it only have rudders?
....Oh, and I'd expect to find the craft VERY twitchy in yaw, as any sideways swing will present the side of the fin to the airflow and increase drag at the end of the wing again, tending to increase the swing...
Posts by Dodgy Geezer
1773 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jul 2007
Page:
Our Vulture 2 spaceplane sprouts sleek pointy beak
Tuesday 27th August 2013 21:22 GMT 
Re: Does it only have rudders?
I design and fly model slope-soarers, and I wonder about the use of wingtip rudders on a high aspect-ratio wing like that.
The rudders will have a secondary effect of drag, and that will be acting at quite a distance from the CG. It might not be an issue at low deflections, but you might find that at high deflections the model drops the inside wing and goes into a spin. Although the rudders should keep biting the air during such a spin, it's never a good idea to put a lot of weight in the wingtips of a plane prone to spinning - it makes it hard to recover.
Still, if somone's tested the design, maybe it's fine....
United Nations to grill US over alleged NSA bugging of its HQ – report
Botched court doc outs Google as respondent in national security flap
Tuesday 27th August 2013 11:47 GMT 
If the government wants to keep things secret....
It must pass a law saying that some things are to be kept secret...
...and then it must pass a law saying that people must not talk about the thing that is to be kept secret....
...and then it must pass a law saying that people must not talk about the fact that they have been told to keep something secret....
...............
This looks like a good job for life for the legal profession.
Interestingly, keeping very quiet about government secrets only made sense during a World War, when it was reasonable to suppose that the enemy was continually listening for every scrap of intelligence which could be gathered. And you really only needed to worry about operational military secrets in those circumstances.
I wonder what has changed in the last 70 years...?
Air mattress blast blows German man across room
EFF, Lessig battling copyright takedowns
Alien antique show: Egyptians wore JEWELRY FROM SPAAAACE
Space-walker nearly OPENED HELMET to avoid DROWNING
Wednesday 21st August 2013 09:27 GMT
Re: Drowned in space...
..There was something by, um, Heinlein? involving a spacer who discovers the space station cat..
A C CLARKE!
I don't know why Heinlein seems to have become the de facto science-fiction quote reference. A bit like Oscar Wilde. He wasn't a particularly good writer, but he appealed to the American psyche for some reason. Possibly the mindless violence...
Oz sawbones extract fork from old boy's todger: Gents, start your wincing
Bitcoin blitzkreig as Germans prepare to tax virtual currency
Tuesday 20th August 2013 12:22 GMT
Re: Since they are going to be trying to tax mostly drug income...
...But why is laundry detergent being employed as money, and why Tide in particular?...
Non English-speaking drug dealers misunderstanding idiomatic English?
" No, officer, you can't pin anything on me. I'm clean..."
I'll get my coat...
Tuesday 20th August 2013 08:12 GMT
I suspect....
...Germany has become the first country to recognise Bitcoin as a real form of currency, which will be subject to tax like any other dosh....
...that ALL countries already recognise Bitcoins in practice.
In the UK the tax authorities are perfectly capable of levying tax on remuneration paid 'in kind', and do so regularly. If I decided to run a company and get paid in Bitcoins I would be required to post company accounts in the usual fashion, and I am sure that the Revenue would simply treat Bitcoins as a payment in kind with a suitable exchange rate. Exactly the same as if I had asked to be paid in butter or some other commodity.
And since commodity trade has been going on for eons, I am sure that no country would have a difficulty taxing it. All that has happened here is that the German authorities have mentioned it in a publication.
Things don't have to be 'currency' to be taxed.....
British spooks seize tech from Snowden journo's boyfriend at airport
Monday 19th August 2013 21:58 GMT
Re: But
...We next day FedEx our encrypted stuff when we travel abroad. It's expensive but it gets hustled through customs and the packages have inspection measures that let us know if they've been opened/compromised....
I can't believe that you really think that the relevant countries' security services couldn't easily open and read any package without detection....
Monday 19th August 2013 21:55 GMT
Re: Care? Do something!
...I recently began planning and implementing encryption of all my Internet traffic and servers by default including using only HTTPS for the web sites I manage, deploying Apache 2.4 and Perfect Forward Secrecy, VPNs for all traffic moving over my ISP's connections, digitally signed and encrypted email using either or both of S/MIME and PGP....
Not going to worry the spooks one bit. They will use extensive computer databases (paid for by you) to seperate out items of interest.
And unless you operate a sophisticated key management system all your countermeasures are useless anyway...
Monday 19th August 2013 21:47 GMT
...In fact, however, it seems more likely that the spooks were primarily interested in any information they may be able to harvest from Miranda's gadgetry, which might give them a better picture of what yet-to-be-published information Snowden has passed to Greenwald and/or Poitras....
If you can get some encryption keys off this laptop, then a lot of previously intercepted messages suddenly become readable...
Monday 19th August 2013 20:31 GMT
Re: Keith Vaz?
...Vaz added that he was not aware that personal property could be confiscated under the laws...
They were almost certainly after Key material. They will have intercepted lots of encrypted emails from Snowden and associated journalists and contacts, and now they are going after the keys. I hope none of that crowd keep their keys on their laptops in clear...
Bureaucrats foil Nestlé's bid to TRADEMARK KitKat's chocolatey digits
Oz bank closes Bitcoin business' bank accounts
Your encrypted files are 'exponentially easier' to crack, warn MIT boffins
Wednesday 14th August 2013 20:21 GMT
Breaking messages 101
What the OP is probably talking about is the tendency of people to send things like WORD documents through an encryption stream.
WORD documents are FULL of predictable and repetitive bit strings and characters. They include large amounts of macro data and formatting information, all in standard positions. It's child's play to decrypt something if you have most of the plaintext immediately available.
If you are doing encryption properly, you have a code officer who knows these things, and who formats the messages accordingly before transmission. It helps if you use very short message strings and make extensive use of codewords. The military and FCO don't do this for fun, you know.
Sometimes when I am asked to implement a 'really strong' crypto system which I know will be used to send standard emails and documents I wonder if I should tell the client this. And then I think, 'Why bother his head over it? " I'm not being paid to do his risk analysis as well.....
Obama appoints intelligence boss to run 'independent' review of NSA
Wednesday 14th August 2013 08:17 GMT
...President Obama has appointed James Clapper, the US Director of National Intelligence who was recently caught misleading Congress about the extent of NSA surveillance, as the head of the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies that will investigate the agency....
Either Sir Humphrey out of 'Yes Minister' has an American disciple in the White House administration, or he's not really dead and has been seconded across the Atlantic...
NSA to world+dog: We're only watching 1.6% of internet, honest
Vulture 2 spaceplane flies to the 3D printing press
NSA gets burned by a sysadmin, decides to burn 90% of its sysadmins
Study finds online commentards easily duped, manipulated
Saturday 10th August 2013 10:38 GMT
Re: Sure, but uhm...
...This isn't about quality; it's mostly about opinions. And yeah, sometimes people don't agree with yours and sometimes they do. But to link ratings to quality is a bit far fetched to begin with; because wouldn't it take quality to judge quality? So what exactly are the requirements on "personal quality" before one can start voting?...
The Greeks experimented with Democracy over 2000 years ago.
They reported that it worked ok, but it had the great disadvantage that it was effectively mob rule, and a good orator could easily whip up a frenzy and cause a sensible, well thought -out policy determined by the experienced elite political leaders to be rejected in favour of a wild and dangerous adventure.
There were a lot of complaints about stupid wars caused this way...
There's no icon for 'learning from history', so I'll get my coat...
NASA boffins release Europa mission wish list
Brit Skylon spaceplane moves closer to lift-off
Wednesday 7th August 2013 17:27 GMT
I forsee a teensy problemette...
...The ultimate aim is to make the Skylon system truly 100 per cent reusable. Italy's Thales Alenia Space (TAS) is mulling the secondary propulsion unit, and the hope is that this will, after delivering its satellite, make its way back to the spaceplane for return to base. ...
The secondary propulsion unit, if it's a rocket, will need to impart a load of extra energy to the payload. That energy will ALL have to be bled off in some way if the rocket is to return to the Skylon. In other words, you will need twice the impulse power.
Of course, if the Skylon SHOT the payload into a higher orbit, the reaction force would slow the Skylon down, and assist it to re-enter. That seems to me to be a much better use of the energy budget...
Wednesday 7th August 2013 17:20 GMT
Re: I just want to see it fly
...the B-70 Valkyrie and Skylon's spiritual father, the SR-71...
I don't know where you get your history from, but I'm guessing that it's somewhere west of the Atlantic?
The Skylon (and its 'predecessor', HOTOL, are developments in air-breathing hybrid jet/rocket technology.
The B-70 and, to a lesser extent, the SR-71 are fast top-of-atmosphere jets using wave-rider technology. Quite a different thing. Wave-rider technology was invented by Terence Nonweiler, of Belfast University and later St Andrews. Another Brit.
Child porn hidden in legit hacked websites: 100s redirected to sick images
Monday 5th August 2013 21:45 GMT
Re: So strictly speaking...
...Things get more interesting when you start to look at where the charges would fall. Network Manager ? IT Director ? Company secretary ? Any one of which has the potential to throw UK business back to the dark ages, if people start getting jailed....
Actually, the way the law is written and interpreted, anyone associated in ANY way with the computer system or network on which a forbidden image resides is guilty. That would probably include the entire company from Chairman of the Board down to delivery boy, and doubtless all the shareholders too.
Looking on the bright side, there are probably a lot of politicians on the boards of companies...
US Republican enviro-vets: 'Climate change is real. Deal with it'
Sunday 4th August 2013 23:20 GMT
@ Rik Myslewski,
...In these days of human-caused climate disruption, let me bring that sentiment up to date. There are only two kinds of people in the world: those who acknowledge the reality of anthropogenic global warming, and those who will....
What a shame the data shows you to be an activist liar. But keep drinking the Kool-aid if you have acquired a taste for the stuff. Until the next scare comes around...
NASA's cloud strategy panned by NASA auditors
Siemens to throw CEO overboard after profits slashed a FIFTH time
Tuesday 30th July 2013 14:01 GMT
Very much a Green casualty...
He announced that he was going to 'green' the company and provide thousands of new jobs in that 'hugely successful' sector.
Amongst other green moves, he announced that Siemens would quit the nuclear industry in 2011...
Just goes to show that hard-headed businessmen can be taken in by a scam, same as the rest of us...
New Kiwi spook law allows domestic prying
PHWOAR! Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, Prime Minister
Tuesday 23rd July 2013 12:15 GMT
Let's be clear: most UK ISPs already censor the internet using the Internet Watch Foundation's list of sites hosting child porn, and mobile operators have been blocking adult content for years with few complaints, so it's far from obvious what everyone is making such a fuss about....
Umm... is this for real?
These arguments are so poor and condescending, that either:
a) El Reg wants a controversial piece to up the comments, and commissioned this one from Bill Ray (who obviously doesn't believe the argument he's making himself), or
b) El Reg (in common with all the political parties) thinks that we're all as thick as two short planks, behave like sheep, and have no comprehension of individual freedom....
Burger-rage horse dumps on McDonald's: Rider saddled with fat fine
Tuesday 23rd July 2013 08:16 GMT
Re: Does anyone know
...It's called a drive through and is designed for cars. It's intended for you to collect your food and drive off. It's not safe to hand over a collection of burgers in bags and drinks to a cyclist or motorcyclist. ...
It's not that difficult to look up their policies on this issue. They have gathered a number of criticisms, as several of their restaurants partly close at certain times and ONLY serve through the drive-in window at that point. If you try to obtain a burger while on foot at these restaurants you will be refused - you have to have a motor vehicle in order to obtain a burger!
The reasoning given by McDonalds is that the 'drive-in' section is designed for road-users and has no pavement. Therefore any non-road-user is at risk when using it. They interpret this to mean 'motor vehicles' - motor-cyclists and moped users will be served, but cyclists and, we have now found, horse-riders will not.
These rules are not completely logical. A cyclist is (if behaving properly) a safe road user, and should be as safe on a roadway as a moped rider. But cyclists are not served, while mopeds are. I think that it may be reasonable to refuse horses - the drive-in road could be restricted, and if a horse is spooked while in this constrained area it might cause damage or injury to itself or others.
Confirmed: Bezos' salvaged Saturn rocket belonged to Apollo 11
Tuesday 23rd July 2013 07:46 GMT
Re: Don't be fooled
...You have to hand it to the people who faked the moon landings for their forward thinking; who would have thought they would dump Apollo parts in the sea where they could be found forty years later to back up the myth.
They were so clever! if they had really tried I bet they could have made it to the moon!...
Hand in your Conspiracy badge immediately!
It must be quite obvious to all right-thinking American conspiracy nutters that these parts have NOT been on the ocean bed for 40 years. Instead, the Black Helicopter men have been so alarmed by our revelations that they have decided to plant a fake set of pre-corroded rocket parts down there to be 'found' by a paid-off team only a few weeks later. This is an attempt to divert suspicion from the Illuminatii, who ordered the Moon Landing story to be distributed to hide other nefarious operations which are still secret.
Similarly, the Apollo sites on the moon were not really proof of a moon landing - they were put there in the late 60s and early 70s by the same teams as part of a ritual to maintain Masonic influence over the Vatican during the Cold War... blether, blether, blether...
WAR ON PORN: UK flicks switch on 'I am a pervert' web filters
Monday 22nd July 2013 21:19 GMT
I don't think anyone really understands what this is for....
It's NOT to stop paedophiles or rapes - it's obvious even to Cameron that it won't do that.
In fact, it's not to STOP anyone. It's rather more for STARTING things.
The output from this will be long sets of lists of forbidden words (which will be generated by some organisation using taxpayers money), and long lists of people's names who have typed those words into search engines. These lists will be put on databases and filtered to produce statistics that show how all sorts of naughty things are increasing. And that's more work for the civil servants.
These stats will then be used as evidence to provide even closer scrutiny of everyone's activity. Which means even more work for the civil servants running the system. Perhaps they will bring in a penalty system like the 'driving points' one, and have a sliding scale of fines, so that they can become self-funding.
The technology will be readily swappable with the GCHQ spy system software - indeed, maybe Cameron is proposing this because the spooks see a chance to expand into this area and have been bending his ear. They have been really short of work since the Berlin Wall came down, and have been milking terrorism for all it was worth, but I'm sure they would prefer a regular reliable stream of work like the Cold War provided, and sex looks as if it's here to stay longer that the Russians were...
In short, this is NOT a proposal to diminish a real threat. It's a proposal to generate a new civil servant work/revenue stream, and one which can't be argued against.
"Give us the money".
"No"
"What, do you mean you're in favour of rape?!!"
US town mulls bounty on spy drones, English-speaking gunman only
UK parliament presses for pardon for Alan Turing
Sunday 21st July 2013 21:31 GMT
I love the way that people seem to think that we have things 'right' today.
Society moves in fads and fashions. Homosexuality was seen as wrong and unacceptable in the 1950s.
Now it's seen as normal, and there is a push to remove all the earlier convictions.
When it becomes wrong and unacceptable again in 2250, are we going to put all the convictions back?
Personal Ground Effect Vehicals
Friday 19th July 2013 22:08 GMT
Re: Personal Ground Effect Vehicals
Using modern materials (ultra lightweight composites, small high efficiency engines) would it be possible to build a personal transport akin to a hoverboard?
If you thinking of using just ground effect, it would have to be either:
a) considerably bigger than a car, or
b) considerably faster than a car
...and in both cases it would be pretty unsteerable. Your call...
How our shaken Reg Playmonaut survived a 113,000ft stratodangle
Friday 19th July 2013 21:47 GMT
Are you saying...
...The parachute is a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) requirement, ...
...that the CAA won't allow an aircraft to make a descent under autonomous control or radio control? and that all descents have to be ballistic, retarded by a parachute?
Other countries don't seem to have made that ruling... :(
Curiosity team: Massive collision may have killed Red Planet
Friday 19th July 2013 08:29 GMT
Re: The core solidifying removed the magnetic field
An interesting theory, right up to the point where he proposes that Mars does not have a molten core....
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11962-lab-study-indicates-mars-has-a-molten-core.html refers...
(However, it does not have a magnetic field, so that bit's true enough... The Universe is a more complex place than we think...)
Sysadmins: Keep YOUR data away from NSA spooks
UK investigators finger emergency beacon for 787 Heathrow fire
The facts on Trident 'cuts': What the Lib Dems want is disarmament
ARTICLES without comment boxes - Climate, CO2, Anything authored by L. Page...
Articles with no comments
Planet-busting British space bullet ready to bomb ice moon Europa
Tuesday 16th July 2013 10:35 GMT
Re: So ...
...They've already got working devices with slightly more substantial penetration that have been demonstrated to work. Naturally, such things are sensitive military technology and as such much of the useful research will be classified and inaccessible to mere academics, who will have to repeat the research on a significantly smaller budget and without the same amount of prior expertise....
The basic technology is already set down in Barnes Wallis's paper: "A NOTE ON A METHOD OF ATTACKING THE AXIS POWERS" (1940).
It is of interest to observe the US attempts to understand the principles involved. A key part of the Barnes Wallis concept was that, to deliver the maximum energy from an exploding projectile to the target, you needed to pass this energy through a substantial medium. Air was very poor for this purpose - it allowed the force of the explosion to vent along paths of least resistance. So his Tallboys and Grand Slams were designed to be dropped into solid ground (preferably rock) BESIDE the target, whereupon the explosion would emulate a major earthquake throughout the target's foundations, resulting in major damage.
I note that the US, having recently re-invented the Grand Slam as their 'Massive Ordnance Penetrator' (MOP) GBU-57A/B, are trying to fit a void-sensing fuse to the weapon, enabling it to go off when it arrives in an air gap. Face-palm time...
UK.gov fines itself harshly for hurling NHS records to the winds
Boeing batteries back under spotlight as 787 burns at Heathrow
Saturday 13th July 2013 11:32 GMT
Repair will be the issue...
Who cares what the original cause of the fire was? All we know at the moment is that these fires CAN happen, and that the body of a Dreamliner is made of carbon composite...
People will be watching the cost, duration and techniques involved in repairing this with considerable interest. Assuming that it can be repaired...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
