Posts by BadRobotics

Mars was once a desert with intermittent oases, Curiosity data suggests

Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

Does Elon really think he can reverse 3.5 billions years of planet evolution....in what a few hundred years??

'Elevated' moisture reading ignored before Heathrow-closing conflagration, says NESO

From reading the report it seems that NG really eff'ed up on this one. Numerous failures to address serious issues within that site.

What cracked me up was NG or SSEN had given North Hyde a 12.75/100 rating for the site innrecent times. Where zero is a brand new installation and 100 is a site which should be shut down immeadiately....

Ukrainians smuggle drones hidden in cabins on trucks to strike Russian airfields

Re: It's still terrorism when you do it to unpeople.

Why oh why would anyone be anywhere near this 'shed' after seeing expolosive drones leaving?

Re: Who built/supplied the drones?

Those hardened shelters generally don't have doors, an FPV drone can easliy sneak in and target the plance, no?

Best defence would be a monitored exclusion zone around bases and lasers.

Re: Who built/supplied the drones?

From reports I have read, the drones were 'taught' to recognise planes and this assisted in their mission. Given how even basic cameras can discern between cats and dogs, the technology is easy.

SpaceX resets 'Days Since Last Starship Explosion' counter to zero, again

Re: Oh Dear

I like the idea of more RUD's! If only to watch the SX nerds talk their collective way out of the latest failure.

Trump announces $175B for Golden Dome defense shield over America

I wonder if the USA et al could save a few bob if they all just sat down together and behaved like grown up human beings?

90-second Newark blackout exposes parlous state of US air traffic control

No doubt another job for SuperMusk and his cohorts of AI...

Elon Musk makes another cut – to his time at DOGE

the theory of big government

There is this story that government is like a circular brick building, where each brick has a slight radius. When you start tearing tearing down the bricks, you begin to realise that it really only goes back one way.

Datacenters near Heathrow seemingly stay up as substation fire closes airport

Re: Questions will doubtless be asked

There is an electrical engineer who made a comment to the Daily Fail, that this was an old substation and was driven close to it's limit. On one occasion 106%? I'm just a nerd at a keyboard, so this means nothing to me.

No big changes to UK broadband regs, despite no real competition for BT

Re: I recently moved off the OpenReach network over to YouFibre for both home and office

35 quid for 1GB both ways seems like a n awful good bargain. Here in Weymouth using Jurassic Fiber, we don't get symmetric and it's currently 34 quid for 450 down, 100 up. When they started out it was even less, but my guess is that was a loss leader to get folk onboard. Awhile back JF were bought out by Cuckoo, my guess is they were almost bankrupt...

UK's biggest mobile operator starts 3G switchoff, hopes it won't catch out April fools

I thought I read that older Smart meters used 3G, how does thsi affect them?

As Elon Musk makes thousands of federal workers jobless, tycoon pushes for $56B Tesla pay deal

Re: Women and fast cars

I wonder how the insurance works on those Starlinks that ended up as plasma, when the fault lies with SpaceX?

I so look forward to each new and original caption for THAT photo, the gift that keeps giving.

Apple's alleged UK encryption battle sparks political and privacy backlash

Can someone explain this...

If I am a non-UK citizen, not living in the UK and have the encryption set on my iCloud data, then go to the UK for holiday or a longer stay...could Apple then disable the encryption to comply with UK law?

DOGE helps Veterans Affairs end IT contract run by service-disabled entrepreneurs

Re: This just keeps getting worse

When I saw Musk in a suit and tie in the Oval office, the other day...something struck me, he's just another Governament wonk.

CISA pen-tester says 100-strong red team binned after DOGE canceled contract

Re: Yawn

I come here for the larfs, El Reg has quite a rep of delivering 'tongue in cheek' journalism, keep it coming I say.

SpaceX loses a Falcon 9 booster and scrubs a Starship

Aside from the scientific benefits (and I am somewhat sceptical about the 'value' of Mars exploratory endeavours) what is the point of trying to 'colonise' Mars?

FAA confirms it's testing Starlink, maybe for tasks Elon says Verizon is doing badly

Re: The circus is a meme

Since we are rapidly going off topic, I thought it DEEPLY ironic that DT stated that the EU was designed to screw the USA (as if the USA has never screwed over any country ever)

As Amazon takes over the Bond franchise, we submit our scripts for the next flick

Number Three

Is the Best.

Asteroid as wide as 886 cans of spam may hit Earth in 2032

Re: 886 cans of spam

Spam Attack?

Tesla sales crash in Europe, UK. We can only wonder why

Re: Heil Wankpanzer...?

Cybertrucks in the UK and EU are almost impossible to certify for general sales and very difficult for an individual buyer.

I believe one of the main obstacles is the rather pedestrian unfriendly front end....

'THAT' picture...captions

May I commend whomever it is at The Reg comes up with a fresh caption everytime is see 'THAT' image. Perhaps in a few months The Reg do a whimsical poll of which caption is favourite.

Words alone won't get the stars and stripes to Mars

This comedian sums up Musk & Mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru8WeRqB0ts

I hope links are allowed.

Is re-use an essential component?

OK, I get that re-use makes a whole lot of sense for the booster stage, I mean it does have 39! expensive Raptor engines, plus all the bits to power them.

But does Starship need to be re-use?

What if that part was eliminated, could Starship contain all the modules required to go there, land, take-off and come back safely?

Look at Apollo, it went to the Moon, landed and came back. You could probably get a few Apollos in the Starship....

Then the astronauts may get to Mars and realise it's so bloody inhospitable/dangerous etc that returning is not worth it.

Tesla, Musk double down on $56B payday appeal

I can send him a dollar, if that would help…

UK energy watchdog slaps down Capita's £130M smart meter splurge

Re: No mention of 2G....Why Not?

I was going to comment on the 2G/3G/4G etc problems ahead, you laid it out very succinctly. I have also read that 2G is way more vulnerable to cyberattacks.

In 1990 I lived in a flat in London that had an E7 meter alongside the regular meter. One day I noticed that the E7 meter had no security tag....so I made some 'adgustments'. Then the meter man came to read the meters and popped a security tag over the adjusted meter without a murmur.

Fujitsu does not trust Post Office in use of Horizon data in future third-party prosecutions

hmmm...

I thought turning things off and on was a well documented industry standard.....

Twitter must pay over half a million to unfairly dismissed Irish exec

what is Twitter/X?

Some people love to argue (for some unknown reason..) X is the perfect place for those people.

Musk wants to ban Apple at his companies for cosying up to OpenAI

Could someone put Mr Musk in a faraday cage?

London hospitals left in critical condition after ransomware attack

Is there no-one doing the same for CRINKS companies? I know NK doesn't have international internet access, but the rest?

Boeing paper trail goes cold over door plug blowout

Re: The title was too long.

Do we know if Airbus has flagged up manufacturing issues with Spirit? It's quite possible that Airbus has found issues, but their QC systems etc are robust enough to fix said issues.

Samsung’s Galaxy S24 pitch: The AI we baked in makes you more human

Makes me more 'human'

What a load of marketing BS.