Posts by BristolBachelor

US watchdog sticks probe into 2.6M Teslas over so-called Smart Summon crash reports

Re: Darwin Award

The phrase "greater good" comes to mind. Since it's the other side of the pond, and the involved person will son be in a political position, you could also say "colateral damage".

Relocation is a complete success – right up until the last minute

Re: Single point of failure

Would that have happened to be Marconi? I remember an occasion when they cogent work out why the server room and network; which all had UPS lost power, when none of the rest of the building had any problem. Then someone found the red mushroom....

Is the first European on the Moon in ESA's astronaut corps?

Re: Much confidence and hope

PLD Space is on this list. ISTR they already receive some funding for technology development/demonstration, and are constructing launch facilities in French Guayana; but effectively are in total control of what they do.

IBM and Oracle to support 280,000 users after winning mega ERP govt tech contract

IBM and Oracle to support fuck over 280,000 users...

Fixed your headline.

Chinese spies spent months inside aerospace engineering firm's network via legacy IT

Re: Probably because this equipment pre-dated things like firewalls (or at least good modern ones.)

Ok I'll buy al that, but then their network was completelyflat with no division/vlans? They could just skip from there to windows land and mosey around?

250 million-plus unused IPv4 addresses should be left alone, argues network boffin

Further to that, I just paid a one-off pittance and got a single static IPv4 IP with my ISP. I also have a small range with a £10 a month dedicated server in a French datacenter, included for free.

Do tell. The best I can find here is a 30€/month fee to borrow a fixed IP, plus I have to use the provider for my Internet connection. If even be happy with the fixed IP address being someone else, and route from that over a VPN to get my in and out using that IP address. Needles to say I don't want an IP address that will always be on blacklists!!

To crew, or not to crew – that is the question facing Boeing's stricken Starliner

Is almost like nobody read the lessons learned.

It might be an idea to look into making an adaptor (cardboard and adhesive tape might not work this time!). Otherwise they'll send pressure suits that haven't been tried on, with the risk they'll have to be returned for another size. :-D

ICANN reserves .internal for private use at the DNS level

Worked in a few (related) places that all used .CORP a the internal TLD. But ICANN already sold that one.

Europe blasts back into the heavy launch biz with first Ariane 6 flight

Re: A relief

Having your own independent launch capacity is something worth having.

You have to remember that Europe started down the road of independent access to space because the USA put a "no compete" rule in allowing launches using US vehicles, so no non-US commercial payloads could be launched by them. That rule no longer exists, but the possibility to be added to a "no fly list" still exists if you anger the beast (e.g. start to match/exceed it in technology, commerce, influence,etc.)

Japan's Moon lander makes it through another lunar night

Have you heard of a bi-metalic strip? When you cool something down to -150°, you find that the thermal expansion differences really show.

Closure of Windows 10 upgrade path still catching users by surprise

Re: should throw a party.

I read "particularly considering that Windows patches will be choked off without activation" and realised the Holy grail; no need to mess with WUS and group policy; Microsoft themselves will still it installing that unwanted "upgrades" that break things :-)

Not even LinkedIn is that keen on Microsoft's cloud: Shift to Azure abandoned

How many times did they try to move Hotmail to Exchange before giving up?

Tiny bits of space junk reveal their wherabouts when they collide, boffins hope

Looking right now, one of the smaller dishes here in Madrid is doing a test, and the large one isn't doing anything...

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Right-to-repair fight going national as FTC asked to lay down the law

that key functions remain enabled after a manufacturer ends support for a product

I've got electronics still fully working after >35 years. I don't think companies should be allowed to sell things that rely on them keeping online services running, and then switching them off after 2 years.

Re: So whats the balance?

If all of these parts have their own serial number, it would be easy for the phone to report the serial numbers of each bit, to be able to detect a stolen part and identify the occasional dodgy repair; instead of banning all repairs regardless of theft or not.

The home Wi-Fi upgrade we never asked for is coming. The one we need is not

Re: Not the ISPs Router

> "...but really can't see the need for Wifi to go faster that the 1GB/s I've got wired to my desk."

The reason is because that 1Gb/s (they are boys, not bytes) is that much up, and that much back. With WiFi they are shared, so you now need 2Gb/s for the same. Now consider that the other things that all have their own 1Gb/s cable would be sharing the same WiFi bandwidth too, including the thing your desk is talking to at 1Gb/s (local NAS maybe) so maybe now you need 4Gb/s or 8Gb/s...

Deloitte wins deal worth up to £100M for UK border platform

Re: New UK border platform

Just insist to pay in pounds and schillings.

For fun watch then cry when you explain how many pence to a schilling, and how many shillings to the pound.

Then watch their head explode when you show them a threepenny bit.

UK's dream of fusion power by 2040s will need GPUs

Re: When did we need a new word for "simulation"?

In my company, "digital twin" means a webpage that shows the state of each thing in manufacturing; basically "digital twin" means the rack of T-cards, that then became magnets on a whiteboard.

Europe's largest city council runs parallel systems to cover Oracle rollout mess

I work for a subsidiary whose corporate overlords have forced us to move from our internally developed systems to Winchill (PDM) and SAP. We've been forced to change our processes to those of Windchill and SAP, how've both of these systems are also heavily modified because they couldn't do some things we are required to do in our industry (worst of both options!)

We're now told we should migrate to SAP cloud, although we have sensitive data that can't go there, and you can't modify it a much, so it wouldn't meet or needs. Regardless, we continue the roll out of SAP, breaking all our processes, and pretty sure that we'll have to migrate away from it again (I'm hoping back to our original system).

Prime suspect: Amazon to loosen logistics and delivery from EU retail

Re: Probaly the only reason I use Amazon

To be honest they also have a good return policy; to the point where we'll shop with Amazon instead of others.

Also you know the Amazon delivery price when you select the object; with many suppliers on Amazon, its impossible to know until check-out. Even ebay does better!

Windows 11 still not winning the OS popularity contest

Re: Awwwww, poor Microsoft

"If you don't have the correct hardware you don't get automatic updates..."

Is that guaranteed? That would mean not having to set up a local WUS to control what it does!!

ESA declares the Sentinel-1B mission over after payload resuscitation ends

I would say the approximate cost of an assembled, tested PCB is off by about 4× (as in more like $200k), but i don't know this Leonardo unit.

The ceramic capacitors in question are probably type-II ceramic chip capacitors that previously could have the solder joints reflowed in case they weren't perfect. Now they have to be thrown in the bin and a new one fitted. On top of that, the qualification of the mounting and the soldering process of type-II capacitors is now done for all types of soldering (various automatic/manual) and per size and per manufacturer.

Speaking of perfect; there have been some comments about how everything should be perfect. I've seen solder joints that have been rejected, and until you see them under ×20 or ×40 magnification binocular microscope, it's impossible to see that it isn't perfect.

NASA's InSight doomed as Mars dust coats solar panels

Re: Could something anti-static work?

The UV/light sensors on the Curiosity weather station have magnets around them to minimise light blocking by ferrous dust - and it works to an extent; you see the accumulated dust around them like doughnuts! Of course not all the dust is affected by the magnets.

SpaceX launches first totally private mission to the International Space Station

Re: Probably time to build another space station...

What's the pool for? On Earth you need one to float and swim. In microgravity, you can just do that in the air without any worries about not breathing the water and having to dry off afterwards. Also how do you keep the water where you want it?

Now relax with a Pimms or mojito, that I understand.

Games Workshop has chucked another £500k at entrenched ERP project with no end to epic battle in sight

I've been asked to change my way of working to agile too. I'm responsible for the power systems on spacecraft. I asked how Agile helps with that? I deliver a few cards, and they launch the spacecraft. Then later I deliver a few more cards, and they launch then to orbit, and then maybe at the end the motherboard for them to plug into and the box?

NASA's Mars InSight trips into safe mode and ESA's Sentinel-1B gives scientists the silent treatment

Re: Anyone up for a private mission to Mars.

I've wondered about that. Do the houses have their heating and air conditioning turned off while they are stationary too?

Although admittedly i probably thought of it here, where in summer the temperatures inside a car go above 45 within a minute of turning off the aircon, and similarly in winter when it's -15°C outside, you'd freeze not long after turning off the engine (which also turns off the suplemental heating.

When civilisation ends, a Xenix box will be running a long-forgotten job somewhere

In my first job, worked for Eliot Brothers/Marconi Avionics/GEC (depending on the day of the week). The entire business ran on a homebred system on ICL mainframes. I shipped ship before 2000, but going into that, they were replacing the system because ICL no longer existed, and as I understood it, even the OS would fall over once the magic year change occurred.

On the subject of stiff that just works, there was another temp program running on a digital VAX that just never needed anything done to it. Until they turned the machine off one day to move it, after working for good knows how many years. It didn't come back and no one even knew how to get the program/ data from that machine to put on another cluster. It's a problem with long projects when even the apprentices at the start of the project retire before it finishes!

ESA's Solar Orbiter will swing past Earth this week – sure hope nobody created a big cloud of space junk up there

Re: Size really does matter in this case

> Maybe they should consider a flyby of Donald Trump's ego then...

But imagine what would happen if it hit him at 12km/s.

Oh, was that the whole point? It went woosh over my head like a spacecraft on a flyby

NASA boffins seem to think we're worth saving from fiery asteroid death so they're shooting a spaceship at one

Re: But perhaps

You're all thinking it wrong. We need to send our best negotiators. Donald, Boris, Patel, Gove, Mogg....

Russia's orbital insanity is almost beyond redemption – but there's space for improvement

The use case isn't just to shoot down your opponents sats. When the US did it, it was to stop anyone being able to look at any bits that survive after deorbiting. (I think the excuse that hydrazine would've survived re-entry to pose a problem on the ground is a bit weak).

With the emergence of sats to perform on-orbit inspection, I see the possibility of someone deciding that they don't want someone else looking at something already in orbit. Let's hope that none decides that to avoid that they want to obliterate more sats. The correct solution is send something up to de-orbit them; which also reduced reduces what is up there.

Now that's a splash down: Astronauts spend 8-hour trip to Earth in diapers after SpaceX capsule toilet breaks

Re: I'm sure BOEING would have gotten the toilets to work

So the Boeing toilet wouldn't suffer from a sticky valve?

Junking orbital junk? The mind behind ASTRIAGraph database project hopes to 'make space transparent'

Sometimes, certain countries are very cagey about the orbits of certain objects (and deliberately don't list them on their publicly available databases), and have been known to even design systems capable of changing orbits while on "the other side of the planet" from certain observers.

No describing in detail what a bird does is just par for the course, except in the cases where you are trying to market and sell its services publicly.

China starts testing tech to harvest solar energy from orbiting panels

The plans I've seen have about 1kW/m² on the Earth's surface, similar to what you'd get from the sun anyway. Mispointing just means you lose the power.

The antenas to receive this are very efficient, and only need to be a few dipoles spaced apart. You could have a nice flower meadow growing around them.

Re: Hope

There's a simple solution. Borrow £5m. Invest £4m in starting up, marketing, brochures, website, etc. "Invest" £1m in donations to conservatives. Sit back and watch the investments/ contracts come rolling in

International Space Station actually spun one-and-a-half times by errant Russian module's thrusters

Re: Didn't notice?!

>they can't spend the morning looking out of the window.

... because then they'd have nothing to do in the afternoon.

China has a satellite with an arm – and America worries it could be used to snatch other spacecraft

Re: Quick idea of the back of my head

No, no, no. You miss understand. They are not making this statement to make you stop sending all your money to the US military complex. They are making this statement to make you send EVEN MORE.

In other news, the US is spraying champaign because one of their satellites successfully grappled an on orbit satellite, and started to control it.

Satellite collision anticipated by EU space agency fails to materialize... for now at least

Re: Looking forward to full reusability & refueling

Pretty much all 2nd/3rd/4th stages de-orbit after delivering their payload to orbit now. There's still some work to get all countries to agree to limits on time in orbit after missions end though.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson reluctant to reveal his involvement in the OneWeb deal

Re: £500million on a PR Exercise

"...use it for it's designed purpose and provide satellite-based Internet-connectivity..."

But I've just read that they're contacting that to Musk!

Space station dumps 2.9-ton battery pack to burn up in Earth's atmosphere after hardware upgrade

Re: It’s ok we’ve done it before.

If you can fling it at 27500 kph, then it should "decompose" nicely as you say.

UK Space Agency will pay a new CEO £125,000 to run non-existent space programme

Re: Lester

To be honest, he would've been over qualified, and probably much more qualified than whoever they do choose.

ESA mulls sending waves of robot explorers into dark depths of lunar lava tubes

Re: U-drone

The atmosphere on the moon is very thin; not enough to clay, nor enough for "air" cooling. Plus the dust is so abrasive it will eat anything worth movement.

SLAM and auto navigation and obstacle avoidance are not the problem; we were doing that 15 years ago. The moon is the problem, and nothing that isn't designed specifically for it won't survive.

Faster optic fibers and superior laser sensors set to descend from space

Re: The beginnings of space industry, then ?

That doesn't really help, since the problem that requires the space elevator is getting the factory into space in the first place. It's a bit like inventing the chicken by getting a chicken to lay an egg and then hatch it.

Infor pays UK construction retailer Travis Perkins £4.2m settlement following cancelled upgrade of 'Sellotape and elastic bands' ERP system

My company has just replaced an ERP system. That system replaced the original one that ran on ICL Mainframes until someone realised that the ICL's wouldn't survive Y2k. The original ran on greenscreens.

The original system would still run runs around either of its two replacements if it was still with us :-(

Android 11 will let users stop device-makers from killing background apps, says Google

Re: So...

Developer options --> Apps --> Background check.

UK government shakes magic money tree, finds $500m to buy a stake in struggling satellite firm OneWeb

Re: It Could Be Made to Work ???

GEC Marconi

Oh those were the days.There were circuit diagrams done by hand on drafting film, and the smell of the blueprint duplicators....

Not everything there was a failure. I have boxes still flying and still good. BOMIS (Bill Of Materials Incoice System) that ran in the ICL mainframes that were turned off for y2k still far out performs what I work with now, as did the paperless production history dossiers even running on Apricots!).

It's true that there were a few duds along the way. The done that put on so much weight it couldn't carry its own wheels, the Lidar that didn't, etc.

Out on a tangent: Almost two decades into its 5-year mission, INTEGRAL still delivers the gamma ray goods

TMs on the way down

We did have live telemetry from Goce as it came down. The temperatures inside our unit went through the roof, but it carried on working just fine to the end.

As for Soho, I know the failure case too well. It still gives nightmares to anyone doing anything new, hoping to not suffer the same fate.

Forget the Oscars, the Solar Orbiter is off to take a close look at our nearest (and super-hot) star

Re: "other missions [..] have endured long past their expected expiry date"

I can't remember the specifics for Solo; it was a long time ago, but I think the radiation total dose was similar to about 20 years in geostationary orbit. Then it had to work perfectly at 20°C higher than the expected highest temperature. And all of this with a reliability of something like 99.999. I had to meet the whole specification for that, but the mission could probably work with worse performance

It doesn't surprise me when it lasts longer than the initial mission life.

Oh chute. Two out of three ain't bad, right? asks Boeing after soft-ish crew module landing

Re: Martian satellite?

NASA has asked for an orbiting telecom relay sat to relay to/from rovers/stations on the Martian surface. If you had one there, there wouldn't be much competition.

I seem to remember reading something about it. A failure Review Board notice or something. Made for interesting reading.

I don't remember the word "success" ever being used to describe the event though.

Redundancy

A redundancy of 2 working out of 3 sub-sytems is very common in space flight. It's good that everything was ok with only 2 parachutes, to cover the possible FAILURE of one. However If they are doing that this WASN'T a failure, does that mean that the system has to cope with one less in a real failure case?

Now the boffin icon, or the troll one?