* Posts by Dodgy Geezer

1773 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jul 2007

Asteroid miners to strap 'scopes to new Virgin Galactic rocket

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The most useful thing you could do...

... would be to gather half a dozen decent sized ice asteroids (say, about 50 miles across) and then drop them on Mars.

That way you would get a whole new planet for your money...

LOHAN finally checks into REHAB

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Boffin

Re: Lessons from history

This is Vulture Central. They work in furlongs per fortnight, Olympic swimming pools, double-decker buses and the size of Wales...

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Thumb Down

Odd choice of test scenarios...

"...We shall see. Our plan is to test the motors first at low pressure, without dropping the temperature. If they won't play ball, we'll address that issue first and then get the dry ice in for the -60°C blast..."

I might have thought of testing both low pressure and dry ice together first.

You will have to do them together eventually, so why not do that first? Then, if all is ok, you don't need to waste a second motor.

The way you're doing it, you will HAVE to use at least two motors.....

Global warming: It's GOOD for the environment

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Boffin

Re: Soo

"..."In fact global temperatures have levelled off since 1998." No they haven't. If you have evidence to the contrary I would like to hear it."

This is what he's talking about:

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2012/trend/plot/rss/plot/rss/from:1975/to:1998/trend

There is no point citing GISS or HadCrut figures - these are now so 'corrected' (read fiddled) as to be of little use...

War On Standby: Do the figures actually stack up?

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Why are we panicking about saving energy?

In 1900 the most power an average man would handle would be riding a horse. 1hp. About 750 watts.

In 1950 an average man might drive a Morris 1000. About 30hp/ 22.5Kw. And his house might use another 5Kw.

Today we might use 75Kw for travelling, and maybe 20-30Kw tops for a house.

Can you see where we are going with this? Julian Simon's Cornucopia theory pointed out that EVERY generation has a bigger and better lifestyle than its predecessor - in every way. We have increased our energy usage about 100 times in a century, and I see no reason why we should not do this again over the next. There is no limit to human ingenuity and accomplishment.

In comparison, environmentalists believe that there IS a limit to these things, and that it was surpassed about 50 years ago. For all times, it was always about 50 years ago. Oddly, they have kept this belief throughout recorded history, even though it has ALWAYS been shown to be dead wrong. Each generation believes that the last generation maxed out the resources of the planet, even while they are increasing them 100-fold.

We have records of Greek city states 'green activists' complaining that the Earth would be unable to support the growing population of 400BC, when it was about 120 million, and most people existed on a diet of bread, beans, cheese and, if they could catch it, a bit of meat. We now have 6000 million, and we almost all have a better diet.

We may need to save energy if our distribution system is temporarily unable to cope. But otherwise, the answer is NOT to cut back on our lifestyles, but to generate as much as we need. This is, after all, what we are actually going to do. I am quite confident that, in another 100 years we will look back at an individual use of 100Kw as piddling. And I am also sure that there will be activists trying to return us to the 'good old days' in 2000 when 'everyone lived in harmony with the Earth'...

UK milk wastage = 20,000 cars = actually completely unimportant

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Boffin

Re: CO2 is a technological problem

"CO2 is a technological problem and requires a technological solution."

CO2 is NOT a problem and requires NO solution, technological or otherwise.

There, fixed that for you...

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Re: @Steve Crook Unfortunately, the facts are otherwise

@nuke

you say - " That needs framing as a fine example of a pious hope. Having lots of kids is, in some cultures, enshrined as something to be proud of.

Finding (if we can) more efficient ways of doing things does not necessarily even keep up with the population increase. For example, copper is running short. There is not enough to go round the population (esp as it is also dumped in landfill as time goes on), so as the population increases aluminium is increasingly used for electrical conductors. Aluminium has greater electrical resistance than copper - so less efficiency there...."

Um. The drop in childbirth rate is so well documented as to hardly need further comment. Implying that it just won't happen is hardly a debating point.

And implying that we are running out of raw materials was completely disproven way back in the 1960s, with the famous Simon-Ehrlich wager. You know why aluminium is used for pylon cables - lower in weight for equivalent performance to copper, and much lower in cost.

All in all, you sound like a 1970s environmental activist trying to restart the 'Population Bomb' meme and make money out of the resultant panic. The world has moved on....

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Mushroom

Re: Noxious Gases

"...For the next week ensure you eat 6 slices of bread/servings of pasta per day (replacing your normal carb not supplementing it). Note how gassy and bloated you are and how much you stink..."

That's nothing! I happen to like figs and prunes. Every so often I have a binge on them, and you wouldn't want to live downwind of me for the next few days...

But I'm not going to change my eating habits because of this. More importantly, I'm not going to change my eating (or any other) habit because of global warming scares (which are complete lies) or health scares (which are mainly complete lies)....

Icon for obvious reasons...

How politicians could end droughts forever But they don't want to

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FAIL

Re: Thames Water

"...tables 10, 10a and 10b for meaningful stats relating to demand and deployable output, total storage volume is a meaningless metric..."

Well, up to a point. Total storage volume IS meaningless on its own - it needs to be related to average/peak input to the system and average/peak demand. If the input or demand vary considerably, then increased storage is needed to buffer the variation. If the figures do not vary much, then you can get away with little storage.

This data can be obtained from the Thames Water data and other sources, but only after a great deal of work. When you do this, you find that average input varies quite widely. Year-on-year variation of 33% rainfall either side of the nominal average is quite usual. And demand is constantly rising.

It is easy to see from this that, unless storage is increased in line with demand, we will first start to hit problems when there are exceptional years, and then this issue will increase so that problems will occur during the 'dry' parts of otherwise fairly normal years. Eventually, supply problems will become endemic, and occur at all times, even when there is quite good input. This is beginning to happen.

In 2004 the SE water companies proposed 5 new reservoirs and three extensions to existing reservoirs to cover their predictions, and avoid hitting supply problems. ALL of these plans have been rejected at the planning stage by government inspectors, who appear to be applying a 'demand management' strategy rather than a 'supply management' one. There has been no discussion of any need or justification for this, and it appears to be based on a mistaken concept of water as a 'scarce resource'. It is not, of course. It is an infinite resource which passes through us in a cycle. We can store as much as we want to, and our storage will not affect the sum total of water available to the world one bit.

The typical argument you will see in the rejection of these plans is that:

"...this reservoir will not be needed if demand can be cut by 20% in accordance with government policy..."

This is true. If we cut our demand by 20% (which is the figure specified in the government's water strategy document "Water Futures"(2008), then we will not have this problem again until the SE population rises by another 20%. What is rarely mentioned is that the cost of 'cutting demand' (beyond a few small token projects) is high. Providing rainfall storage on all commercial buildings, for instance, is nearly 100 times more expensive than providing a reservoir and supplying the same amount of water to the buildings via the mains.

The other thing that is not mentioned is WHY we should be doing this. 'Saving water' does not actually 'save water', because water is never destroyed. What it does is 'save centralised infrastructure expenditure'. At the cost of greatly increased local infrastructure expenditure. And, if you are worried about environmental issues, using localised infrastructure is vastly less efficient, uses much more energy, generates much more CO2, and is much worse for the planet in every sense.

So why do we do it? I have not got any answer for that. It makes no sense from the figures. I believe that it is happening because the magic words 'save' and 'environment' can be wielded by a 'green' policy maker, and because NOBODY in a policy position is able, or wants to, understand a mathematical argument....

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

I can't understand why people are talking about unusual and costly methods of adding storage to our water system, or, even worse, methods of 'saving water'.

Low rainfall is NOT the primary cause of 'the drought', and this is accepted by the water regulators and DEFRA, who have told me as much. Rainfall has been low these last few years, but well within accepted variation.

What HAS had a major impact is the lack of reservoirs in the SE. In 2000 the increased population obviously required increased infrastructure, and this was covered in the water companies 25-year plans in 2004. 5 new reservoirs and three extensions were proposed.

ALL of these plans have been rejected at the planning stage by government inspectors, who claim that, if people could only use less water, the reservoirs would not be needed. The DEFRA 'Water Futures' plan (2008) states that per capita water usage will be cut from 150 Litres/day (this is a nominal figure, as it includes industrial and agricultural use) to 120 Litres/day. This is a 20% reduction.

So it is government policy that we use 20% less water. There is no justification for this, and there has been no debate about it. What makes it all the more amazing is that water passes by us in a cycle, and even when we drink it it none of it is destroyed. So it is not a 'scarce commodity' in any way - we could store vast quantities of it if we wanted and the total amount of water on the planet would not change one bit. When we talk about a 'shortage of water' what we really mean is a 'shortage of infrastructure'. And when we talk about 'saving water' what we really mean is 'making do with an infrastructure which is not providing enough..."

I have recently completed an economic analysis on the policy we currently have of requiring rainwater collection to be installed into commercial buildings. Gathering water, storing it as 'grey water' and providing a pumped dual pipe system to use it for flushing WCs is about 80 times more expensive than just letting the rain drop onto the ground, flow into a river and thence a reservoir, and then receiving it back again through the water mains.

80 times! This is as stupid as selling off all our gold reserves at the bottom of the market. Why are people accepting this?

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FAIL

Infinity or not?

"...Supplies of water on this planet are not actually without end - even the oceans aren't truly limitless - but they are infinite in a practical sense..."

This betrays some odd thinking by Lewis. It is true that the oceans are certainly not 'limitless', but we do not drink the oceans until they are dry.

Water moves in a cycle through us. The water we have drunk is not destroyed - it just passes through us back into the hydrological cycle. We can, and do, continue to drink the same water, and can keep doing so until the end of time. It will not, and can not, run out.

I would say that this means that supplies ARE infinite. Unless Lewis can tell me where the end of the line is on a circle...?

Hanging's too good for 'em - so what do you suggest?

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Joke

Just reverse the Prison Service and Social Services...

The standard suggestion is that the prisoners should be put in Old People's Homes.

There they would watch their assets drift away while they were confined to a little room and fed weak cabbage water twice a day by an uncaring attendant. If they complained about anything they would be fed drugs to keep them comatose.

Meanwhile, the old people could be put in jail. Here, they would have a little room for visitors, a TV, paid for by the government, heating paid for, free healthcare and prescriptions, laundry done on a regular basis and wardens checking on them every hour or so, to make sure they was not at risk of suicide, ill or in need of medication. They would get their own personal space, three square meals a day – as in a good, healthy breakfast, a tasty two-course lunch and a hearty evening meal, not to mention exercise several times a day.

If they were to fall over anywhere in the jail, there would be someone on tap to help them back on to their feet and make sure they weren't hurt.

All for no cost – and no need to change any part of the system....

NASA brainstorms with John Q Public for 2018 Mars mission

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Go

Mars met station

There should really be a set of meteorological stations on Mars.

Needed for really understanding the environment, and will give a constant source of research data here on earth...

30-year-old global temperature predictions close to spot-on

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Good grief!

Where are the scientists?

Why has nobody pointed out that the 'close match' found was with the GISS figures?

For information, the GISS figures are Hansen's, and suffer from a 'divergence' problem. They have been going up all the time, matching Hansen's predictions, while ALL the other figures for global temperature are much lower. I'm not surprised that a prediction of global warming matches GISS figures - you want to see how well they match REAL WORLD figures, ideally satellites...

Here's a Woodfortrees plot from 1979, showing how GISS (red) is much higher than the others...

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1979/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3sh/from:1979/to:2012/plot/uah/from:1979/to:2012

Climate-change scepticism must be 'treated', says enviro-sociologist

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FAIL

Re: I'll consider myself cured, then

P.P.S Yes, it has. Even the global warming scientists admit this.

In one UEA e-mail, Trenberth admits it’s a "travesty" that "we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment." But Trenberth’s "lack of warming at the moment" has been going on at least a decade...

LOHAN demonstrates impressive sucking skills

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Flame

I hope that....

...the old compressor used Freon, and you just vented it to the atmosphere.

Current science suggests that the Montreal Protocol ban on Freon was a complete waste of time, as the chemical is not now thought to cause any 'hole in the ozone layer'.

The ban worked out very nicely for Du Pont, however, as it was just about to lose it's patent protection on this chemical, and now people have to use other, less effective chemicals which Du Pont DOES have a patent on...

Cameron's attempt to cram a robot arm wearing a Rolex into his pristine bottom

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WTF?

Can anyone tell me....

...why the news items on Cameron's dive all say that this has only been done once before, but in that instance they 'stirred up the bottom sediment, and found it impossible to see'?

Because I can remember the Nat. Geog. report of Picards's dive. As I recall, they obtained pictures of a flat muddy bottom, and a flatfish of some description, before dumping their ballast (which disturbed the sediment) and heading for the surface. So they could actually see quite well...

Is this an attempt to belittle the engineers from 50 years ago to make Cameron sound a little better?

Atmospheric CO2 set to soar - OECD

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FAIL

Re: Preconceived agendas, etc.

I think that to accurately mirror the proposed increase in CO2, you should be estimating what a doubling of the ammonia levels would do.

As Paracelcus indicated, the 'poison is in the dose'. If there is a material which is dangerous to you, and yet you are surviving, it must only be present in very small quantities. In which case doubling, or , indeed, increasing by an order of magnitude, is likely to make little difference...

LOHAN's fantastical flying truss menaces kiddies

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Meh

What's your favourite car?

"Yes, but if you did like cars, what would be your favourite?"

"The Humber Monoglot..."

... and the conversation proceeded along well-worn lines...

EU runs to WTO again over China's mineral hoarding

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WTF?

China vs Environmentalists...

There's actually lots of 'rare earth' minerals around - pretty much everywhere.

However, they are not in high concentrations, and need a lot of processing on the mining site. This is 'bad for the environment'(TM). Greenpeace would never let it happen in any western-controlled country.

So the Chinese have an effective monopoly - because our environmentalists are hamstringing our industrialists...

Tech titans say sayonara to Japan in quake wake

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Coat

Eastern Canada beckons....

Come to Western New York State...

Australia and Russia both are much more suitable...

Has anyone considered the possibility of Slough? Nestling between Hounslow and West Drayton, panoramic views of Runway Three, and access to a huge number of immigrant workers.....

SOPA poked an angry bear and set it loose on the net

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Flame

There really is a simple single answer...

It's not complicated. You just need to do one thing.

Make copyright a right that can ONLY be owned by the original creator.

ALL the things that are wrong at the moment are wrong because copyright is able to be bought by a company and then applied for as many years as the company can manage to make a big fat profit. The actual original creator gets very little out of this.

If the original artist, musician or writer was the only person who could benefit, there would be no pressure to maintain these vast profits by tying down use, and companies would have to compete on value-added services.

Copyright was originally a 'bargain' between creative types and society. Society would give the creative types a limited monopoly on the results of their ideas, in return for being able to use the ideas freely after a set period of time. The fundamental concept here is that ideas should be widely and freely available, and that to gain this creative types should be looked after, so they don't have to hide their ideas.

What we have now are corporations who build lots of wealth on one idea, and don't want to relinquish it. That must stop, one way or another. There should be good provision made for the people who create the ideas, so that they are better off creating than hiding, but there should be NO ability for corporations to 'own' ideas. Let them compete on production efficiency, quality, service, and all the other things a corporation is good at. But don't let them own and suppress ideas...

The cyber-weapons paradox: 'They're not that dangerous'

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Ditching the spooks?

"...In short, Rid suggests ditching the spooks: "If we put GCHQ in charge of cyber security, by their clearly secretive nature, they won't be able to put public pressure on businesses...."

Up to 1994 we had a Government commercial security team. In 1994, the spooks ditched them, and took over their budget. At the time, people in the know said that this was a mistake....

Whitehall hopes to shave 'conservative' £100m off PC bill

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WTF?

@John Smith

"...Which neatly proves the old adage "In govt you must just be useful, but *seen* to be useful (by the right people)".

Actually, the problem was that it was seen as very useful, but by the WRONG people.

The IT industry knew there were rich pickings in government contracts, and saw CCTA as standing in the way.

The Security Service (and GCHQ) saw that IT Security would be an expanding job function that they could take over if CCTA were out of the way.

It's NOT a good idea to be successful and useful in government. Too many people want a slice of the cake. One of the arguments used against CCTA was that, if British Industry took over, it could make profits from providing departmental computing, and those profits were being denied it by government insistence on using taxpayer's money to provide this service instead!

What you need to be is important, but not in a field that anyone would want to take over. Tax inspectors and sewage workers come to mind...

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

Actually, it's worse.

The government used to have a very effective 'central consultancy' which provided all kinds of help, direction and support to government computing.

It was called 'The Central Computer and Telecommunication Agency' - CCTA for short.

It was closed down by a concerted lobbying effort by the computer industry in 2000. Ever since then, government computing has been fragmented, expensive and in collapse, as the industry vultures get rich on the corpse.

Interestingly, CCTA also ran the first IT Security service for the UK government, predating Carnegie Mellon's CERT. That was closed down and taken over by the UK Security Service, who had run out of work when the Russian thread diminished after 1990.....

Ocean currents emerge as climate change hot-spots

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FAIL

It's really quite simple...

We were told that the Earth was going to warm up dangerously due to increased CO2 levels, and given a scary set of predictions over the last 20 years.

The Earth stopped its rapid warming in 1998, and ever since the temperature has been essentially flat. Don't bother to claim that there still is a rising trend if you measure from the LIA - even the warmists have been forced to agree that the heat is missing.

Increased CO2 and flat temperatures happening together (indeed, they are now starting to fall) completely negates the CO2 warming hypothesis.

There still might be any number of dangerous environmental issues to address. There might be some kind of complex issue involving CO2. But the basic CO2 warming hypothesis is completely disproven. 15 years of flat temperatures simply breaks ALL the models.

So I am willing to listen to a new proposal for a mechanism whereby CO2 could be dangerous. But there is no point claiming that the original 'CO2 drives water vapour creates dangerously rising heat' mechanism is threatening us - because it obviously isn't.

Megaupload kingpin found in panic room when arrested, say cops

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Linux

@Gradewa

"However, as I read it, the question is given that we are operating off an assumption that ownership of a gun (and therefore the sale and advertising of said firearm) is neutral and its only bad people who kill with guns, doesnt the same reasoning apply to fileshareing.

.......

If a bad person goes to a gun shop, buys a gun and shoots someone you punish the bad person, not the gun shop or manufacturers. (Ideally, I know this isnt always the case).

However, if a bad person goes to a filesharing site and uses filesharing tools to breach a copyright, the only reason the site is punished is because its a bit difficult to catch the bad person.

It is, to me, a bit of a double standard."

An interesting argument. However, you could also view it like this:

If there is a general rise in some kind of wrongdoing, it is probably a good idea to address it. Take the example of rioting. You can address it directly - eg, by arresting rioters if riots are a problem, or indirectly, such as enforcing a curfew. The second of these punishes innocent and guilty alike, but it is easier for the police to enforce a general clearing of people than to identify individual troublemakers in a crowd.

In the same way, law-abiding gun owners and gun shops are subject to quite severe restrictions - you could call these punishments - because it is easier to do this than trace every individual who 'misuses' a gun. Sometimes, I am sure, gun shops are closed down if they have a record of providing guns in an illegal way and seem unwilling to change their ways. That is bad for the innocent customers of those shops - but it happens.

Similarly, people using filesharing techniques may be faced with severe restrictions amounting to punishment, and sites with a record of 'illegal' operation may be closed down, even if many people who use them do not break the law.

Of course, this assumes that laws upholding copyright are good, moral and necessary laws, like those prohibiting murder. I do not believe this - but if copyright law was an acceptable and valid law, then these actions would not be unreasonable ones for law enforcement agencies.

What should be being attacked is the very concept of copyright law - the concept that you can own and steal ideas...

Foreign sabotage suspected in Phobos-Grunt meltdown

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Black Helicopters

It is nice...

...to hear of people 'thinking again'. that is probably the only hope for humanity.....

With regard to the item, it should be noted that:

1 - the West (and particularly America) tend to view adventure films and science fiction as coherent proposals to base foreign policy and technical procurement on.

2 - I have had some professional contact with spooks. The sort of things they believe, and the proposals they make for addressing issues in the make-believe world they inhabit, would make the above suggestion sound sane...

3 - the Yanks already have a strong track record of this sort of thing, and would live to make use of this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/x37b_secret_launch_options/

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Black Helicopters

What would be gained...?

@Aimee

"What would be gained by a nation attacking a spacecraft going to Mars?"

Well, just as an exercise, let us construct a reasonably plausible conspiracy theory...

1 - The Americans have just recently built a small aerodynamic orbital craft. This has the capability of being launched in one orbit, then changing its orbit to another to match a target, then returning back again - all in a portion of an orbit while the target is out of view of its owners. So they have the means to undetectably deliver a short-range damaging high energy pulse to an orbiting target should they want to...

2 - NASA funds are being wound down, and the US are going to rely on Russian rocketry for launches for a while. A lot of people won't like this. In particular, there were a lot of 'spook' funds hidden in NASA budgets - these will be at risk. So there would be an interest in making Russian space technology (which, up to now, has looked superb) look unreliable. And, surprise, surprise, Russian space technology HAS suddenly started to look unreliable.

3 - No one wants to interfere with manned missions. The fallout and inquiries resulting from a failed manned mission would be uncontrollable. But the odd scientific or commercial package - there would be far less investigation of those. And a Mars mission, which presumably has the best Russian reliability built in - well, if that went wrong it would be a very good reason to keep NASA skills operational....

Virgin Media to push out nimble new broadband speeds

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FAIL

The problem with Virgin is Throttling...

I have the 10mb service. That rate (if we ever got it) would be fine for my needs. Usually, I'm lucky to get 5mb. But even that is fine for general browsing.

The big problem, though, is the throttling. Occasionally, I need to download a couple of Linux distros or my son wants to download a Steam game - these can be 20Gb or more. If we download this, throttling sets in, and it can take a day to get the download.

There would be little point my going to a faster and more expensive connection just to up the throttling limit on the rare occasions when I need to download a lot. Mostly, I am a low user, but occasionally I would like the 10mb.

The trouble with throttling is that, for the small users, Virgin says you can have a fast speed and then takes it away from you when you try to use it. This has always seemed particularly unfair to me...

Profs call for harsh taxes on sweet carbonated beverages

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FAIL

Being kicked out of the NHS...

@William14

"..I think your CHOICEs should also preclude you from obtaining health insurance or government subsidized health or retirement programs.."

No problem at all. Of course, being precluded from the NHS or Social Security means that we won't have to pay the taxes which pay for these, and we will make our own provision.

I hope you like trying to fund that vast Ponzi scheme on your own...

Official: File-sharing is a religion... in Sweden

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Thumb Up

His noodly appendage...

...smiles on this upstart religion. Anything which increases the number of pirates is in accordance with our teachings.

How else will we maintain the much-needed dip in temperatures?

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Happy

The EU recognises this...

I didn't farm my fields for the last month, and the EU gave me £30,000 for the privilege....

I'm a non-farmer....

Japanese boffins crack arse-based ID recognizer

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Coat

Arse...?

FECK!!!!!

ALIEN ARTIFACTS can best be FOUND ON MOON

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Boffin

"That would be "The Sentinel" one of his earlier works..."

But the name of the film escapes me....

Obviously NASA can't remember either. Otherwise they would be looking for MAGNETIC anomalies. And doing it from a ground-based survey robot in Tycho......

Anyway, we'll soon know. Just as soon as they shut up JET and claim there's an infectious disease going round, and Russians looking like Rigsby who have just spent three months calibrating the new antennae at Tchalinko start asking suspicious questions...

NASA finds first Earth-sized planets outside the solar system

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Boffin

One of the (generally unappreciated) findings from the Kepler data is that planets move extensively around a system and do not stay in their orbits all their lives.

SO it seems to be very common for Gas Giants (thank you, James Blish) to form a long way away a sun, and then migrate closer, shedding the gas as they go, and ending up as a rocky core close to the star.

Which is probably what the Earth is. A burnt out core of a gas giant. Nothing more, nothing less...

Nissan Leaf battery powered electric car

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IT Angle

Hmm...

Does your 'battery+electric' figure count in inefficiencies in electricity generation at the power station?

Tas Uni helps align ice observations

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Coat

Why are they doing this?

We already know that the world is doomed from computer models.

Actually getting real data tells us nothing more, and might <del>reveal</del> confuse the real situation.

Which is providing us with a lot of research money at the moment....

Ofcom maps out what 'psychics' are allowed to do on TV

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FAIL

The trouble is....

...I have difficulty telling the difference between fraudulent mediums and your average politician....

Ofcom grills pirates, loses report under fridge for two years

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Flame

I can't see...

...anyone making the obvious point.

That we are happy to pay the creators of music, films and the like. But we are NOT happy to pay middlemen who buy up the rights and then try to soak us for as much as possible.

When will Micky Mouse be out of copyright? All the creators of those early films are long dead. Why should someone be able to keep earing money from them?

Humans, insects set to OBLITERATE frankincense supply

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Alert

Shurely Shome Mishtake...?

No one has mentioned climate change yet.

Could this be the first natural disaster NOT to be attributed to increased plant food?

BT, Scotland Yard form copper theft crackdown supersquad

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Boffin

Good Idea!

The great advantage neutrinos have is that they are literally point-to-point. They go in a straight line through everything. I suspect this will give them a considerable speed advantage over particles which have to travel round corners...

Durban failed: Relax, everyone

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Boffin

I hate to be the one to break the news, but ....

"..looking at a clear blue sky many people can see that it's no longer as blue as it used to be but seems to be a bit more milky than years ago...."

That's not the sky changing.

It's you getting cataracts....

Glasses, because you need to see an optician...

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Facepalm

I remember...

...hearing this rant in the 1960s. It was completely false then, and it's false now.

What is it with these loons who keep on claiming we have finite resources? Have they never heard of Julian Simon, who made the eco-loons of the 1970s look so stupid?

The next stage is collapse? It's always the NEXT stage - conveniently just beyond the horizon. It never comes - we have been waiting for it for over half a century now. And you know what? We now have far more people on the Earth than the doom mongers in the 1960s ever imagined, and we have food and materials enough for them - and many times their number. We will soon be hauling the masses of China and Africa into the consumption equivalent of middle-class Europe during the 1960s - that is the future of humanity.

I'll tell you what would kill all life on Earth. One of the streams at Durban was pushing for the total removal of all the atmospheric gases it deemed 'evil'. They wanted to drop CO2 levels down to 210 ppm. That would kill enough plants to eradicate all animal life on earth and leave only lichen....

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Flame

"..But Orlowski's report assumes that CO2 emissions have no downside.."

That's true. CO2 emissions CANNOT warm the Earth since the Earth is cooling at the same time as the emissions are rising.

What they do is provide food for plants. Human emissions are so small that they don't really have much of an effect, but if they were big enough, helping plants grow is the major effect they would have.

All the science now shows that the 'CO2-driven warming hypothesis' is utterly false.

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

"Don't suggest teleconfrencing, it just doesn't work that well..."

Since Durban was an exercise in futility, I can't believe that teleconferencing would have done any worse...

New account of Flight 447 disaster published

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
FAIL

Once the pitot tubes were frozen their chances of survival were minimal..

...so once the tubes were un-frozen their chances of survival were assured?

The tubes were frozen for a very short while - a minute or so. This confused the pilots, particularly Bonin, who was anticipating major problems flying heavily laden through a tropical storm.

When he flew the aircraft into a stall and held it there, he confused Richard, who started to believe that the controls were faulty..

When they got the captain up to the office, he saw what the problem was in a minute or two, particularly once Bonin explained what he had done. Too bad there was only 1.5 seconds left....

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Holmes

Umm...

It was descending almost vertically at 10,000 ft/min. That's over 100 mph.

The deceleration from the impact alone would probably kill many of the people inside immediately by causing disruption of their internal organs and multiple fracturing of bones. Many necks would be broken.

Those passengers who were flat on reclined seats may have survived that initial impact. But the impact would have fragmented the entire underside of the fuselage and probably broken it into several pieces depending on the precise wave pattern that it hit. The top half of the fuselage would then disintegrate downwards in several large pieces, while the floor would similarly break upwards. Large pieces of debris and high speed jets of water would enter the gaps, striking people and tearing bodies apart. Violent accelerations would continue to cause injury.

Finally, the pieces of the aircraft would be plunged many feet below the surface, and most would then continue on to the bottom. A few bodies may have survived the break-up if they were strapped in their chairs, and died of drowning on the way down. But I doubt that anyone was conscious of this.

Is this what you were asking?

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Meh

Umm...

I am not a qualified pilot, but I can't help thinking that most of the comments above don't really address the major issue.

A lot of them say that Bonin should not have held the stick back and so Air France training must be faulty. I really can't believe that you can get onto the flight deck of any commercial passenger airline without a pretty clear idea of what to do in a stall. So I'm pretty sure that Bonin knew.

Though not a pilot, I am a well-qualified human being, with many years of living experience, and I think I recognise the major problem that affected Bonin. It's called 'digging a hole for yourself'. All humans experience it on occasions. What happens is that all your higher brain functions get put on hold, and you keep pursuing the one course that you are following. Usually with disastrous results, particularly if it happens during an interview (which is a very common place for me to experience it).

I think Bonin, spooked by his first experience of running into a tropical storm, reverted to a well-understood method of avoiding ground impact, pulling back on the stick. That was quite safe to do in 'normal law'. And there is no point talking about better UI or cleverer displays or better training at this point, because he was locked into this action. I suspect you could have slapped him and shouted in his face to let go of the stick, and he still wouldn't have. I know that when I'm ballsing up an interview like this I often know I'm going wrong, but it doesn't stop me carrying on regardless.

The only chance at that point was for someone to recognise what Bonin was doing. There was a possibility the Captain might have done - he was just starting to realise what was going on when they hit. So it is probably worth stopping having independent control movements with no signal between the control positions. But if you want to get to the root of the control problem here you will have to redesign the human brain....

Geek seeks cash for Top Trumps-style CPU game

Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
Boffin

All he needs to do...

... is advertise it on slashdot, and his fortune is made...