Posts by Stuart Moore 178 publicly visible posts • joined 8 May 2008
Realise you may already have settled on propulsion, but this post made me think of you guys...
http://hackaday.com/2011/09/05/engine-hacks-a-pulse-jet-uav-by-any-other-name-would-still-be-a-cruise-missile/
A pulse jet might be a good option, possibly? Does it still count as a rocket? Does it matter if you get the end goal?
"So why do they ban mobiles for the entire flight?"
Because they won't work while you're in the air?
"So why do I get told that it is because electronics can interfere with landing systems?"
Because that generates a lot less panic than telling people "It's in case we crash horribly and you have seconds to save yourselves"
"Yeh. Isn't it remakable that a device that is not designed to work in an RF field gets interfered by a device producing one."
Sorry, of course the airline safety people shouldn't care about the things that are well known to happen and only go for the obtuse. Why do they bother worrying about this gravity nonsense anyway, it's hardly remarkable that 100-tonne objects will attempt to fall out of the sky given the opportunity.
This is potentially a very interesting topic - but the article has so many inaccuracies and holes you could drive a bus through that it's a bit of a waste. Others have highlighted many - the one that jumped out at me was the AC/DC switch improving electric car ranges.
Don't just copy the press release, go a bit beyond to find out details (or point out the holes). That's why I keep coming back here...
The real reason they don't want you listening with headphones during take off/landing is that it's the time things are most likely to go wrong, and if they need to evacuate they want to make sure everyone can hear them clearly and not get tangled up in headphones etc. on the way out.
But for obvious reasons this isn't what they say.
The solution is not to do anything *in public* that you wouldn't want photoed. Because that way it won't happen. Google don't have a monopoly on cameras...
I have sympathy for those who don't want e.g. intrusive photos of their home taken over their fence - but as others have said you can remove those. Streetview can be useful on occasions (often to try to work out whether google maps' addresses are anything like reality)
I'm glad Palm are being snapped up, as I quite like my Pre. It's got a few problems - battery life being the most frustrating one - but it's a nice user interface, and I'd like to see it in more devices.
The most frustrating lack-of-app at the moment is Turn by Turn GPS - it's available in the US from Sprint (I believe), but there isn't a UK equivalent for any price...
Well, I would, if it would cost me more than £8 to get to one of the other offices...
Hopefully this madness will end before they're mandatory for all.
I notice they brought forward the date - presumably because they think the more that are on it before they get kicked out, the more chance of it being their legacy...
I guess they need something like the Bluetooth Unpluggedfest - bring together lots of engineers from all manufacturers to try all their devices with each other, and debug issues on the fly. Probably one of the reasons why bluetooth generally works pretty well (although there are exceptions).
Blue man with bluetooth...
Those politicians are from the house of Lords - meaning they're there for life (well, unless the government manages to change it again). The MP probably didn't turn up because it would have ruined his career with all kinds of negative advertising.
I like the Lords. They do what's right, not what's going to get the most votes.
I thought that it all got a little silly when I saw Michael Craig-Martin's 'Oak Tree' (actually just a glass of water on a shelf, together with text showing how blatantly he's taking the piss - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Craig-Martin for an image and http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~ig206/oak_tree.html for the text.
Compared to that, this is quite good...
Just got one of these, I like it.
Snooze time defaults to 15min, and can be anything between 1 min and 60 min. Hopefully that'll keep you happy.
Got it from mobiles.co.uk on O2, seems to be Nokia firmware and unlocked, from what I can tell.
(As a previous SE fan,it frustrates me that SE can't have a phone as good as this. Several come close but are missing the odd feature)
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