Posts by cphi 69 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007
sorry - after three Windows Mobile devices over the last 6 years I now feel physically sick when I see that windows logo. all that time I felt like an abused spouse - 'No it's going to change, it just needs more time...'
now my (brand new) iPhone - that's a thing of beauty
am deeply reassured that even the experts can't agree about how a bloody wing works. pretty hard to argue with Mark_T's power/weight ratio but as far as why the air seems to behave like a solid support - guess I'll just have to embrace my ignorance
happy I'm a water engineer where the fluid is nice and unsquishy and provided it stays in its pipes, reasonably well behaved.
I wouldn't feel too bad about old Blighty's organising. At the 2008 JSOH at Andrews AFB we queued for two hours at a metro station (one of only two 'entrance' points) for security checks. Had a beautiful view of the B-2 flying from about 3 miles away. Would have been better off parking by the beltway. Never had any probs remotely like that Farnborough.
Actually, some bits of T1 that were left on the cutting room floor show that the final battle scene was actually in a Cyberdyne factory and two employees are shown picking up *that* arm. John Connor (and Kyle Reese for that matter being born after the war) and his nemesis are all neatly folded up in a paradox.
this xenophobia towards skilled foreign workers seems to be a peculiarly american phenomenon. as an australian engineer on an E-3 visa (essentially the same as H1B), the LCA filed for my position was a time-consuming formality - searching for american engineers who simply don't exist, at any price.... It doesn't surprise me that a company (perhaps foolishly) decided it could cut through the bureaucracy. in my industry at least, there is a major skills shortage and america really is cutting its own throat by attempting to exclude foreigners. skilled americans might profiteer from this at the expense of their compatriots but it certainly harms the country as a whole.
with almost every other conceivable complaint about contemporary english already covered, am surprised nobody's yet bitched about 'comprise'
even the Economist has sold its soul and begun inverting it (parts comprising whole instead of whole comprising parts).
keeps me awake at night...
as Pat implied - most people would be surprised by just how limited known economical reserves of most metals and energy sources are. At current consumption, typically only a few centuries and sometimes significantly less. Recycling can only take you so far. We've got a very limited window to get to the stuff up there or there's a good chance we're stuck here for good.
This article is just wrong on so many levels that it's disappointing to find it in the Reg.
You seem to start from the belief that we shouldn't control carbon emmissions then work back from that to find any argument no matter how tenuous that could conceivably fit this.
To address just a few
- given the tectonic activity of Turkey I'd be surprised if the movement of the coastline near Ephesus (orTroy for that matter) isn't due to local geological uplift - in much the same way as Alexandria has sunk and south-east england is slowly dipping. This is utterly different to a general sea level change.
- I really struggle to think of an engineering profession other than CFD remotely similar to climate modelling - certainly control systems engineering is nothing like it (I'm not a CFD engineer but interestingly those I've worked with are quite 'comfortable' with the climate change predictions).
- there have been many mass extinctions, of which the K-T event was only the most recent (and not the worst).
- the idea of a global conspiracy of climate changes scientists to defraud us by manipulating their models is frankly stupid. There will always be those who're willing to be unethical but by and large scientists work for the satisfaction of extending human (and their own) knowledge. To put it bluntly, they don't do it for the money...
You're right that climate change is a new field and that given the importance of its results it needs to be subject to extreme close review. But this isn't achieved by deluding ourselves that the whole field is fabricated simply because we don't like the alternative.
I should have said
'It's true the ratio of resource input to economic output is declining (eg chips vs sandpaper), but it's still certainly positive (making chips doesn't stop you making sandpaper) and it's decreasing at a far smaller rate than the economy is growing.'
-sorry
Unless there's some subtle semantics going on here that I'm unaware of there most certainly is a relationship between 'economic activity' and resource consumption. It's true the ratio of output to resource input is declining (eg chips vs sandpaper) but it's still certainly positive (making chips doesn't stop you making sandpaper). One only has to witness the stumble in global economic growth after the oil shocks of 1973 or Australia's current resources boom as a result of China's economic growht.
given the (accelerating) rate GPS usage is increasing, a backup system, even if it provided no clear increase in performance (which just by virtue of having more satellites up there it certainly will) is IMHO absolutely vital - most especially one under a different government(s). course I won't be one of those paying for it...
I can't remember what the figures were back then but there was some equally huge overestimate recorded by a survey about 10 years back. Wonder whether it's got anything to do with NASA's hubris - if they stopped pretending they're anything more than a minor government organization, they might get more respect for their achievements.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
