Posts by John Robson

User refused to change her password because everyone already knew it

Re: "Rejected Advice?"

"Oh I'm sorry, the OS won't let me reduce the complexity requirements for at least 6 months"

Re: mandated password changes

Because I haven't looked at my email this week, and I glaze over the obvious phishing attempts.

Also because I filtered emails with a KnowBe4 (other such organisations exist) header straight into a "Nice Try <name of IT guy>" tag.

Rocket Lab pushes back first Neutron launch to 2027

They have a useful payload which is paying for their test flights... No value in mucking about with a hungry hippo or some HAL style bay doors until they have a payload that warrants them.

Flatpack satellites might even get an early discount rate for stacking with the starlink birds.

Whilst they have had engines out they have also demonstrated that engine out isn't actually a critical issue, at least on ascent.

One advantage of having 33 engines is that losing one of them is only a 3% loss of thrust.

Why on earth would they be focussed on testing another payload deployment mechanism when they have so many other things to test first. A larger fairing door isn't going to be the biggest challenge on their process, the first generation of it will likely mass more than later generations, but it's barely rocket science.

Pigeon-powered internet packet goes under the hammer at Christie's

Re: Sold for $20,480

Cheaper than RAM then...

Re: Streaming...

Back in the day (20 years ago) I did EMC testing of servers, so occasionally put a 15 bay 3u server in the back of the car (and very occasionally a 24 bay 4u server).

At 2TB each that was alot of data transfer along the A14...

NASA gives SpaceX a billion reasons to keep flying Crew Dragon

Re: I dont get SpaceX and Musk on this...

And given the costs... it might even be worth adding a Hall effect orbital manoeuvring stage so you can choose a "close enough" orbit.

Close enough still has to be pretty close, orbital plane changes are much more expensive than people expect, but altitude and phase can be modified relatively cheaply.

Re: I dont get SpaceX and Musk on this...

Falcon loses a second stage every launch, the idea is that SS/SH won't... and that alone could actually make SS a cheaper vehicle to launch than F9, irrespective of payload.

Re: raptor engines being written off

One large salt boulder acquired...

Given the production rate though, I wouldn't be surprised if the *marginal* cost of each engine veers substantially below that relatively soon.

There's a huge sunk cost in both R&D and tooling, hence looking at the marginal cost.

Re: What's the price per seat again?

"The $946 million contract modification covers Crew-15, Crew-16, and Crew-17, along with ground operations, launch, in-orbit services, return and recovery, cargo transportation, and lifeboat capability while the spacecraft is docked to the ISS."

Re: Human spaceflight

There are a few ways to get some g on the way, but absolutely having some extended time on the moon would be a good simulation... just sit in a high earth orbit for 9 months before landing, both ways.

I would fully expect the first set of trips to be one way, and unmanned. Those trips will establish the fuel depot (not just manufacture, but an actual depot in case the manned flight needs to leave in a hurry).

Starship isn't taking 100 people any time soon - this page reckons on maybe 1000 kg of supplies for a 6 month stay on the ISS.

Assume a 9 month (Hohmann) trip there, and back, and a 15 month stay waiting for the transfer window back - just shy of three years.

That's about 6 tons of supplies per astronaut... Which is going to take a few starships to get more than a small visiting party across... Fortunately most of that can be sent in advance along with the fuel depot setup.

There won't be anything fresh in there though :(

Re: Human spaceflight

That's because it includes bits of rocket which get thrown away, oh and all the rest of the bits of contract which you seen to have ignored.

Re: What's the price per seat again?

That's assuming that the cost of the cargo services etc is zero.

Re: I dont get SpaceX and Musk on this...

Invalid comparison...

Cars are designed for repeated reuse, how many of those which are used by Euro NCAP are then sold on for use on the road?

Re: raptor engines being written off

Where does that $1m figure come from?

Erase social media tomorrow? Brits say yes

Re: best thing these people could do is to disable or delete their accounts

Sorry, are you really doubting that Farage is a serial liar?

I don't know what to tell you... but I don't think I've heard him being honest... ever. At least not deliberately.

Let's start a few years ago:

- 52/48 would be unfinished business: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36306681

- Declared that the EU is unelected

- Declared that the majority of our laws are "made by the EU"

- Declared that the EU "costs" the UK £55m/day (even if you ignored any benefits the number would be half that)

- Deliberately conflates immigrants and asylum seekers

Repeatedly claims to have "intelligence" (at most he could have rumours, intelligence isn't shared to any MP) that criminal acts carried out by his supporters were the result of Iranian small boat migrants.

- Claimed police were transporting thugs to riots, when they were taking them away.

Many of his flagship policies are also illegal or otherwise impossible (no we can't "just take asylum seekers back to France")

And then there's a $5m bung... let's see it was undeclared because:

- He lied about receiving it

- It was a personal gift

- It was payment for Brexit

- It was provision for security arrangements

Or maybe it was it for standing as an MP? Since he'd said that he'd lose £1m/year and a parliamentary session is 5 years it's a mighty fine coincidence that he gets exactly that between making the statement and changing his mind about standing.

Re: best thing these people could do is to disable or delete their accounts

Sorry - are you suggesting that reforms commitment to anything other than grifting should be listened to at all?

Re: best thing these people could do is to disable or delete their accounts

Frankly I'd trust a potato more than I would the serial liar who owns Reform UK Ltd (previously trading as various other companies).

But Labour are currently talking about misinformation as a danger, which is the best start I've heard from any of the parties.

Free speech shouldn't be unlimited... The obvious example is always "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" but it's equally dangerous to stoke hatred of asylum seekers etc.

Stanford prof is beating the drum for a new protocol to replace TCP

Re: Senders do not always know ...

This feels like it's mostly an "in a DC when you control everything" protocol..

There may be times when it fits really well, and AI workloads might match that. It might sit alongside TCP and UDP with certain workloads preferring it... I don't think TCP will disappear.

Starship finally makes orbit but engine trouble cuts the victory lap short

So a 19 second burn from one sea level engine

Was the difference between suborbital and orbital - an absolute pittance

Good data, and some extra bandwidth, as well of course as the ability to potentially learn and tweak the sat design.

OpenAI agents ‘infiltrated Australian government website’

Re: Oh yes they are

Obligatory YouTube Link

SpaceX aims Starship for orbit on September 22

Re: Several = 2?

Three is a few, not several.

Re: Several = 2?

Whilst you might be happy... and I'm getting to the point of reasonable confidence, I'm not sure we're at the stage where the regulators would be ok yet.

Of course the thing does still have an armed FTS, but that just makes the debris field even longer...

Re: Several = 2?

Similar to the shuttle return path.

This is exactly why I've always been surprised that they dropped the oil platform idea (though it seems it might be back on the cards). Even coming in across Central America and hitting a platform in the Gulf of Mexico has some population overflight.

How many more flights do you think would be needed for that degree of risk to be acceptable (to the relevant authorities in the US and in those countries being overflown, not the "enthusiastic" musk).

Booster return looked pretty good to me, both times, but the consequences of a failure would be pretty serious for the entire programme, so it's probably not the most important step in the current testing programme.

Musk fumbles the timetable for first Starship catch

Re: Landing perils

Or - they beat gravity into submission

Most of those requirements aren't really unique though, they boil down to mass to LEO and delta V once there.

The actual mission specific stuff doesn't depend on the vehicle used to get it to position (except that it has to fit in the cargo space).

Same as every delivery from <shop> is different, but they're all delivered basically the same way, with the caveat that the delivery has to fit in the van...

The White House can call it whatever the hell it wants.

It's the Gulf of Mexico, has been for a long long time.

Similarly Lake Ontario, and the straight of Hormuz.

Those of us fortunate enough to not live in that third world country don't need to follow the edicts of the toddler in chief.

That's called the Gulf of Mexico.

Ok, there are still a handful of seconds where that's not a viable target, but there always will be.

US watchdog opens probe into Tesla's Cybercab self-certification

Re: A Bit late

It can be profitable, but still require capital investment which isn't available.

So much of the nominal wealth here isn't liquid that there might well be sense in fundraising by selling the hardware and taking a cut of all rides on that hardware.

Sell 50% of production to fund the other 50% - you make some cut on the sold fleet, and more on the direct fleet.

Re: How?

You really think there can't be an "MOT" mode on screen where it drives onto the rollers for a brake test?

And "lack of mirrors" isn't an MOT test which would apply here.. in the same way that you don't try to measure the tail pipe emissions of an EV...

Re: How?

So what MOT tests are impossible?

New processes no doubt, but that’s hardly a change from the current setup where there are already a decent number of different procedures each year

Green Party wants to slam the brakes on UK datacenter construction until water and energy use are sorted

Re: Water usage

Water is infinitely recyclable... the problem is the desire to use highly treated water....

Re: Disingenuous

What utter twaddle.

I assume you think that a £5m bung doesn’t need to be declared because it was a bribe…

Turns out Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

Re: Colour me impressed

You’re not voting for perfect, and failure to vote for someone because of this policy doesn’t mean that someone else with the same policy (or worse) won’t get elected.

Smart glasses are only smart if we train them to be good. Then they'll be fantastic

Re: "Essential"?

Nice to be completely able bodied isn't it...

GitHub blames 8-hour outage on autoscaling fail and VS Code retry storm

Re: autoscaling fail

Not sure why it even needs to run https...

Re: autoscaling fail

https://www.dayswithoutgithubincident.com

Claude Code returns blank thinking blocks, but reasoning still costs you

Re: You keep using that word...

Correct.

What they should call it is additional processing, but that's much less snappy, and doesn't bring in nearly as much investment.

Support newbie figured out how to avoid all-nighters, and his colleagues hated him for it

Re: Bad data coming in

So D is ok, and changes the meaning... that's exactly what's happening between A and B as well

In A Jane and Harry are arriving at the park as part of a pairing, in B they are not.

Re: Bad data coming in

And you don't want to "blame" anyone... It's occasionally necessary for the avoidance of ambiguity, and I don't think it causes confusion anywhere else.

Tesla burns through a billion as Musk bets the farm on chips and bots

Given the quality of driving I see most days - really not very.

But there's no reason to have a humanoid shaped robot for that job, just have a car shaped robot.

SpaceX Starship Flight Test 13 takes issue with the 'flight' bit

Re: Artemis schedule is political nonsense

Post splashdown they're no longer unscheduled...

So this is the same way that Sainsburys is "welfare" recipient from all of it's customers?

Re: Destack

"Starship was scheduled to do orbital testing 4 years ago and a landing on the lunar surface two years ago."

Only if you listen to Elon Time.

What that "schedule" has done is enable some pretty rapid testing and development, it was never realistically acheivable.

Re: Artemis schedule is political nonsense

The whole point is to test hardware, see what the failure modes are.

They'll still have explosions, but since they're actually getting quite good at launches now, that'll be on occasions when they're pushing the limit.

UK.gov's tech department gets the chop after two years

Re: Just entertainers

As opposed to Sports, Cyber, Arts, Media

Photovoltaics are still running after a year under Swiss trains

Interesting data point... I have a fair area of flat roof which could be quite interesting to cover... but it is three storeys up, so there are some installation and maintenance challenges

Re: No, the real challenges are technological and economical

There is - but we're also perfectly capable of resolving that "problem" using flexible demand. The power is locally generated, and if my neighbour has excess solar then I should be encouraged to run the washing machine whilst they export, or indeed heat up my hot water cylinder, or charge the car, or whatever flexible electrical load there is.

Car parks tend to be adjacent to workplaces, where power is being used... Not hard to find local use for quite alot of power 5 days a week.

"A big part of that issue is everybody thinking they'll shove that solar production on the grid and then, profit. It may be better to find ways to use the energy locally. "

And when it's really a problem, that's what will happen.

Octopus already do this in the UK with things like their intelligent Go tariff. When there is plenty of renewable energy flooding the grid they can turn on in excess of a GW of car charging. At some point they'll realise that there are other controllable devices as well (immersion heaters are the really obvious ones).

In winter they have a storage heater specific tariff that will do the same for storage heaters, giving a boost during the part of the day with the best wind conditions.

In countries where there really is a glut the sale price of export drops, and people shift to using the power locally instead. When my solar was installed the export rate was awful, so I didn't export at all if I could avoid it. Now however I'm encouraged to export, so I do.