Posts by Jared Hunt

Yes, yes, Steve Jobs. Look what I'VE done for you lately – Tim Cook

Re: Wait!

Why yes, I did mean the Apple Watch. I guess the product is so forgettable I forgot its name.

Wait!

Are you saying the iWatch is not going to alter civilisation as we know it? Damn I was getting all excited too....

Elon Musk wants SpaceX to launch spy sats – and will sue US gov to do so

Am I mssing something?

How can you get a 90% success rate over 5 launches? Are you suggesting there's a payload somewhere that's only half-way to space?

Chinese company counters pollution by importing fresh air

Re: China = SpaceBalls?

That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!

New exploding whale vid once again shows true porpoise of internet

Re: Umm... @Fibbles

Turkey Hunting and dislike for stuffing duly added to the list :D

Hooters, shooters and looters: Eidos’s Tomb Raider

Re: TR is firmly engrained into my mind

I did the same thing! Poison by the Prodigy always reminds me of the exact same cistern level! Thanks for the nostalgia hit friend :D

Blood king of the tyrannosaurus, grandad of T-Rex

Re: dinosaurs are not lizards!

Stricty speaking, it's the other way round. All birds are dinosaurs by definition but not all dinosaurs became birds.

Ten top stories from Classic Doctor Who

Great list

My girlfriend has got me into old school Dr. Who. Nice to see a good number of the episodes in the article are already in her collection. I've just done a spot of splurging on Amazon to add the ones that aren't :D

Google chap reverse engineers Sinclair Scientific Calculator

Re: @Jared Hunt it's not quite complete

I'm sure it isn't. I got bored after reading a couple of hundred posts. I'd be keen to see the complete version ;)

Re: @Dave 126 (was: Been there, done that. In 1985.)

Dave, who needs details when you've lead such a rich and varied life as Jake here?

Jake Breeds & trains Cop dogs & horses and is Qualified to Judge Best In Show at American Kennel Club shows

Has friends in South Korea

Was a friend and neighbour of Steve Jobs and has his signature carved in his picnic table

Worked on spacecraft software/firmware

Mentored the founders of Google

Helped work out how to transfer the existing NCP ARPANet to the existing TCP/IP network

Has been Usenet & Mailinglist moderator for 30 years

Is a qualified pilot

Does track day driving

Has done arctic survival training and has eaten Lemming

Knows FORTRAN and COBOL

He ego-surfed the OSX source & found shit he re-wrote from AT&T source nearly 25 years ago

Has been making money from his knowledge of the PDP11 family since 1979

Has an extensive gun collection, was shooting gophers before he was in kindergarten and can fire his Great Grandfather's Kentucky over twice a minute

Watched a guy get killed by a claw hammer thrown from 35 feet up in Humboldt County

Watched a friend once won a bar bet by sticking 7 of 10 Craftsman brand screwdrivers into a straw archery butt at 15 yards in under 15 seconds

His kid/daughter (varies) is the Senior Member of the Technical Staff in a Fortune 150/250 (varies) corporation. She owns 6 horses, and is quite competitive in hunter/jumper, eventing & dressage

Can and has lived off the land, Makes road kill sausages several times a year, Owns a couple acres of Merlot grapes here that have Eucalyptus genes and grows Gravensteins (15 acres, originally planted by his great-grandfather)

Got kicked out of "Sunday School" when I was roughly 8 years old

Owns an outdoor 1875 stone bread oven

Owns a drilled-into-the-rock iron-ring tidal mooring on the Noyo River in Northern California. His Great Grandfather claimed it in 1872

Runs several "at risk yoof" camps every year.

Is a locksmith. Learned to pick locks before he was a teenager. Can open most house-hold doors with no more than a safety-pin & a bobby-pin.

Once could have shot the an intruder he had at chez jake, but when he got down to the kitchen, where he was, instead calmly put down his Kimber & picked up the phone & called the non-emergency police line. When they arrived, called off the dogs & he was transported to the hospital to stop the bleeding.

Can still read text/code on cards and tape, and sometimes "think" in octal and hex. A partially sighted friend can read punched paper with her fingers, similar to braille.

Accepted 7 contracts in the last 18 months pulling corporations out of the clouds. It's actually quite lucrative (apparently)

Has never has used google/youtube. Ever.

I for one think we have a great deal to learn from this man.

Happy 23rd birthday, Windows 3.0

Re: Thanks for the memory

"It's possible it had 2 x 2MB and 1 x1MB SIMM chips in it."

Not with SIMMs my friend. They had to go in matched pairs. More likely two pairs of 1mb sticks and a pair of 512k ones.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Re: Super Sonic

If you knew where to find all the hidden restart / save poles and knew how to get round all the special stages first time every time, it was entirely possible to have super sonic before the end of the first zone on Sonic 2. Then you could fly trough every level as super sonic without having the use any cheat codes.

SpaceX Dragon eventually snared by ISS

Re: Launch date

Why's that? Was St David with St George when he slayed the Dragon or am I missing something?

'Doomsday' asteroid Apophis more massive than first thought

Re: Friday 13th @ Matt Bryant

Using that analogy, imagine what would happen to that same billiard ball if it were hit by a grain of sand. It amounts to the same thing.

2020AD: Space tourists will be FOUND ON MOON

Don't hold your breath

My first impression after looking at their proposal and reading subsequent discussion in various space forums is that this will be the latest in a long line of here today gone tomorrow space ventures that makes a lot of big, appealing claims, drums up a load of media hype and then is scarcely heard from again.

I'm as annoyed as any space nerd that we haven't been back to the moon in 40 years but the idea that these guys are going to start from scratch and get a fully developed lunar transport architecture along the lines of what they're proposing is something that only people who know bugger all about space will swallow. There isn't even a current working US based system to get humans into orbit at the moment and they're going to develop a lunar transfer vehicle and a lunar lander as well? By 2020? Pull the other one!

People will get back to the moon one day but it won't be Golden Spike that gets them there and it certainly won't be happening before 2020!

European Space Agency clears SABRE orbital engines

Re: Sounds risky

You don't say? ;) The engineering problems are substantial but these tests have shown that they may not be insurmountable. If it was going to be straightforward they'd already be flying by now.

Astronauts (or other 'nauts) could find life on Mars quite healthy

@ Loyal Commenter

"Pure oxygen is, ironically, toxic."

Only at higher concentrations. Humans can breathe pure O2 just fine at lower pressure. US astronauts used pure O2 right up until the space shuttle was introduced and space suits for EVAs still use pure O2 .

BIONIC MAN makes it to top of Chicago skyscraper

Re: The leg weighs about 10lbs.

Assuming the info isn't readily available on Google (I can't be arsed to look either) you could simply dunk your leg in a small tank of water and weigh the water that it displaces. The human body has about the same density as water give or take.

Slideshow: A History of First-person Shooters in 20 Games

re:Probably for its deformable terrain

I was thinking that. That game had fuck all else going for it....

'Leaked' doc shock: BT denies inflating prices for rural broadband rollout

Re: Break up BT

Um, do please correct me if I'm wrong but I belive it's already been done. Openreach was created in 2006 for precisely that reason.

Elon Musk's new re-usable, hovering rocket ship in first test liftoff

Re: Not exactly

I'll be damned. You're quite right. They don't half look similar... My apologies sir!

Not exactly

The rocket in the linked vid is one by John Carmack's (the dude behind Doom and Quake) firm Armadillo Aerospace. It recently picked up NASA support as part of their Flight Opportunities Program but they're a low budget outfit not even remotely in the same league as Spacex.

NASA working on faster-than-light drive capable of WARP TEN

Interesting article

I'm a big fan of Star Trek and sci-fi in general but it never ceases to amaze me the lengths some people are prepared to go to explain away discrepancies between episodes / series / films rather than just accept that it's ultimately all made up and subject to human error.

BT to win Norfolk broadband contract - if Europe gives the nod

Re: Cables @tim#3

Really old copper cable would have been patched up a lot over the years so could have a load of ropey joints all along it's length. That said, with the speed difference you're talking about, it probably wasn't copper. There's still a lot of aluminium cable in the network and it's really crap for data. They always replace old ali with copper these days which leads to big speed increases for customers on the end of it.

Elon Musk says he's planning a 'supersonic, electric hover jetplane'

Re: Its just you @ itzman

To you and other doubters here, I would wager that the man who founded and runs Spacex, a company that that has made multiple successful spacecraft launches to low earth orbit *might* be better placed than yourselves to decide whether it will or will not work.

Call me crazy but I think he'd have considered the enginnering challenges before going to the press.

Let's wait for more details shall we, hmm?

New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

Re: tosh, again @Mystic Megabyte

Please GOD won't somebody think of the CHILDREN?!!!?!!!one!

Now Curiosity rover beams back 3D snaps of Mars

Re: No anaglyph please

The raw images from the left and right cameras are on the NASA website. Download those and do the image processing yourself if it bothers you so much.

Curiosity needs OS upgrade before getting down to science

Re: next to an unshielded nuclear reactor

Not forgetting of course that it had the shit shaken out of it by rocket vibration and suffered massive g-forces during launch and landing. Spaceflight eletronics are very tough cookies.

3D: 10% of LCD TVs in 2011, 25% in 2012

Joe Schmoe didn't understand the benefits

It might also be that Joe Schmoe can't tell the difference between a normal (100 -200hz) and a high refresh (200hz +) panel even when they're sat next to each other in the showroom.

I'd defy anyone else to either.

Crapita ITS stomps pay rise hope, flushes 2012 bonuses

Re: "We can't boil an ocean?"

Because then it would be obvious to all us scrubbers that they have no bloody idea what they're doing.

Indiana Jones flicks out on Blu-ray this Fall

Re: RE: And no arguing. I'm right

Fair enough. I was being a grumpy bugger anyway. End of a long week.

RE: And no arguing. I'm right

Downvoted for pig headed arrogance. Your opinion is one voice among many. Unless you were joking, in which case, downvoted for not being funny. ;)

I agree that Skull was the worst though.

UK-French drone aircraft blueprints nicked at Paris station

Scale doesn't always matter

The Colonel's secret recipe is a few lines of hand written text of a scrap of paper. Imagine how much it would be worth to the right buyer?

Google+ funny numbers mask falling growth

@kevin2011

Blimey! Pathetic you say? Look who's talking! I didn't realise there were Google+ fanbois now.

Mars rover seeks perfect suntan spot to survive winter

Am I missing some thing?

Uhh, yeah. The first six comments on this article.

NASA finds first Earth-sized planets outside the solar system

Nukes don't need oxygen to work

So you'll be alright on that front. As to the rest, 100 nukes landing at the same time, within 20 miles of each other will result in quite a nice light show, a really big (but not especially deep) hole in the ground and pretty much feck all else.

Even 1000 nukes all hitting the same spot would only realease the engery equivalent of a moderate sized meteor strike. That sort of thing has happened quite a lot to both planets in the past with very little to show for it.

IMO you're quite right in thinking it'd be easier to alter mars or venus to suit our needs than to travel to planets around other stars but the amount of energy required to make any tangible long term difference will make your head spin.

There are lots of other proposed methods apart from chucking nukes at planets. Look up Terraforming if you're interested in finding out more :o)

BT, Scotland Yard form copper theft crackdown supersquad

Oh aye?

How would you design it then? 200 pair copper cable is the small fry, last mile stuff used to link directly to premises. Do you seriously expect telcos to run backup cables over seperate routes with seperate ducts, poles, cabs etc. Who do you think would end up paying for that eh?

Elon Musk's private Dragon ship to dock with ISS in Feb

AFAIK Spacex manufacture most of their own hardware. Engines, rocket bodies, tanks, spacecraft bodies and loads of other custom parts are assembed in SPACEXs own factories. There's plently of photos of them doing it on their website.

There are probably a million off the shelf components that they buy in, but the ULA does that too and I'm pretty sure they don't list the entire staff of a parts manufacuturer any more than SPACEX do.

Chancellor to raid pensions, Whitehall to revamp UK broadband

It must really suck only being able to see the world in black and white.

ISS 'nauts need not fear head-on space junk smashup

Only if the bit of junk is in the same orbit as the station otherwise the relative velocity could even be a lot higher than 17k +

BT Engage IT's big cheese shown the door

GIYF

From their website:

"BT Engage IT is a part of BT Group. We provide consultancy, Unified Communications, managed ICT services and complete computing services for medium and large organisations. Helpdesks, hardware maintenance, staging and configuration, application delivery, high availability data, data back-up and managed print services are available. We can also supply an infrastructure audit report with recommendations for optimisation."

Superhero oil-burping algae will save the world

Ok I'll bite...

I agree there are some tree huggy medieval village types out there and they probably won't like it. They can fuck off back to the woods and go live in a Yurt for all I care.

The thing is, the momentum behind the current environmental movent has pretty much fuck all to do with them and a lot more to do with ever increasing mountains of evidence leading more rational people to the inescapable conclusion that we really do have a collective impact on the world around us and we are responsible for the consequences.

Anybody who dismisses that fact is as much on the fringe as the tree huggers IMHO.

Neutrinos still FASTER THAN LIGHT in second test

I reckon the ones that chose to do that....

...are still busy researching. As soon as I started looking at the subject I reaslised just how much there is to learn. I may feel qualified to comment in say three of four years.

Maybe.

NASA working on nuclear rocket for manned Mars trips

Fruitcakes indeed!

The same fruitcakes that said when the Galileo probe was deliberately directed to collide with Jupiter the material in its RTG would kick start nuclear fusion in the core of the planet and give us a second sun!

We are never going to get anywhere in space unless we start collectively telling these numptys to get a clue or STFU!

Tour de France winner sentenced for hack of doping lab

Sanctimonious fuckwits eh?

Pot? Kettle? Just sayin'

Another new Russian nuclear powerplant comes online

If they have any sense at all....

They'll reprocess the spent fuel rods. I'm a bit spotty on the details but IIRC around 99% by mass of the spent fuel rod can be reused. The other 1% are (admittedly rather nasty) fission products that need to go into storage in a nuclear waste facility where they can decay naturally into heavy metals like lead.

It's not ideal, but not as bad as the popular myth that there are vast qauntities of the stuff produced every year.

Mars, Moon, solar system could be littered with alien artifacts

I always liked the idea...

...that SETI is barking up the wrong tree. Radio is obviously no use over interstellar distances so presumably all the aliens out there would have to have figured out some other kind of faster than light comms (subspace transmission, quantum resonance, take your pick) and as soon as we figured out how to do it ourselves we'd suddently be bombarded with a vast array of interstellar chatter.

Compact Disc death foretold for 2012

Overkill

In my experience only the most hardened audiophiles or people who work with audio on a professional basis listening on very expensive equipment can truly tell the difference between 16 bit 44khz CD quality and anything higher. I'm pretty sure the original developers of CDs could have set a higher standard if they'd wanted but it wasn't deemed necessary.

@Dave 15

You might want to replace your car stereo then. My CD collection works fine in the car, every single one. I've had some of those discs for 15 years and they've picked up their share of smudges and scratches in that time. CDs have got pretty sophisticated error correction built in. I've never come across a vinyl record that had that ;)

re: sigh

a) Searching for and buying music using the Amazon 1 click buy button is just as convenient as any download store I've ever used IMHO.

b) People still like to have physical media when they've paid money for it. You can't put a downoad on display on a shelf and a hard copy is always more secure / robust than a download. Ok, it might not be the mainstream for much longer but CDs aren't going anywhere for a long time. FACT*

* the kind of fact I just made up to try and add emphasis