Posts by John Smith 19

Outsourced space trucks battle for US middleweight lifting title

Re: Brits complaining about space?

"Isn't that a bit rich considering you can barely put a lego figure on a balloon?"

Black Arrow achieved orbit with an LV not much bigger than the V2, which managed about 300Km.

But yes, the Orbital system is apparently a method for diverting COTS money to some DoD pork barrel buddies, since Boeing has totally failed in their attempt to grab some."

For cargo Orbital took up the slack after Kistler (heavy with ex NASA good ol boys) failed to get much done. OTOH Boeing are still viewed as #2 in the human carrying CCiCAP programme as they got the other full award and aren't competing in cargo. Only Spacex decided to go vor both and leverage their cargo experience in developing (well adding various bits to) Dragon to carry humans. I was truly amazed no one else went for this approach.

"You missed the fact that the Antares first stage is basically Ukrainian designed and made, even ignoring the engines."

All true.

But the first rule of Government con-tracting is "All that is not ruled out is permitted."

While you (or I) might have thought one of the goals of COTS was to avoid having any foreign companies act as sole suppliers of (major) chunks of the LV (there simply is no engine as good as the AJ26 anywhere in or out of production) that is not written into the contract.

Still no danger as long as Orbital have drawn up a reasonably tight contract with their major suppliers in the US and abroad, right?

Note that in this context "Not ground breaking" means "works" without trouble.

And even then Orbitals schedule has drifted to the left about 36 months.

The fairly serious ground breaking tech will be the the Sierra Nevada Corp Dream Chaser.

Hybrid pusher escape rocket.

Human rated lifting body.

Composite construction.

I'll also note the AJ26's are the highest Isp LOX/RP1 rocket engines ever flown and the Merli 1d (which F9 will switch over to shortly has the highest T/W ratio of any rocket engine ever flown (as well as being fairly cheap for its size).

And this ignores Spacex plans to move to using SuperDraco thrusters as combined maneuvering and launch escape thrusters and their goal to launch a non NASA human crew by 2015, less than 9 years after the start of COTS.

The good new is that COTS/CCiCAP has for about $5Bn got 2 launch systems NASA human rated (F9 and Atlas V) , 2 cargo transport systems and at least 1 and possibly 3 human carrying vehicles designed and built since January 2006. Which in space tech terms is a bargain

Meanwhile the CxP programme managed 1 partial launch and SLS may manage a launch in 2017, or perhaps not.

Bogus gov online test tells people on dole they're just SO employable

Re: so what?

" Try being out of work & signing on, they seem to use every trick in the book to try to make you feel shame if you don't manage to get a job within a couple of months."

Not surprisingly.

Some have very high quotas of claimants they have to "sanction"

Latest wheeze, making updating the online "notepad" for the Universal Orifice mandatory so they can monitor you automatically.

Bad news for job centre staff. I see a "reduction in force" coming real soon now.

Re: so what?

"we're bombarded by propaganda about how you should "feel no shame" for sitting on the dole while watching the big screen TV and getting season tickets to your favorite sports team. "

Really?

This would be on Sky New?

The Daily jailbait Mail?

The Jeremy Kyle Show perhaps?

Re: Gov't tests

"But disqualifies all those that know that rainfall doesn't follow a geometric series."

Or whose ideation is fixed to the point of having an Aspergers spectrum disorder or who has the literal mindedness necessary to hold down a job as (for example) a minor bureaucrat at the DWP.

I'm not trying to be cruel, merely pointing out the "back story" these questions use is typically laughable. That's not the point.

Don't challenge the question. Challenge the basis of the whole test.

Google says Loughton is down the road from Buckhurst Hill

Did Domic Oconnor, your resident ex Quant headhunter take it by any chance?

Enquiring minds want to know, and did he experience "joy joy feelings" at the outcome?

Re: Is this The Register...

"“So my idea is giving out a squeezable executive toy, containing a healthy testicle shape and an abnormal shape,” he grins. “It’s just another subtle way to educate people.”"

Now try that with prostrate cancer.

Not quite so easy.

Re: Gov't tests

The test is designed to find out if you can recognize a geometric series.

The real purpose of these test is to discover are your parents competitive or smart enough to convince you that being good at these tests is important.

Virgin Media: SO SORRY we fined your dead dad £10 for unpaid bill

Re: Outstanding

"I presume that as we speak, some poor Indian is having to trawl through all the declined messages every received and add filters to the system to make sure that any Account Holder is Dead messages are handled in a more sensitive manner,"

You make it sound like that's a bad thing for vermin Virgin to do.

Climate-cooling effect 'stronger than volcanoes' is looking solid

"The Earth will survive" is a wonderful message unless you look a little deeper.

Because no particular species and no particular piece of geography is essential to that survival.

London/Paris/Amsterdam/New York/Miami 1 m below sea level?

Mother nature says "SFW?"

Human species on the verge of extinction.

Mother nature says "And I care because?"

The only species that wildly shifting climate change matters to is the human species. IMHO anything that put's the science on a more solid footing (one way or the other) is a good thing.

An excellent result

Thumbs up for going looking for things in the real world.

As a "top down" kind of guy it's always amazed me that people did not run analysis of all gases in the atmosphere (to the limits of detection) and then start assigning their effects on climate and the atmosphere.

Sadly I guess atmosphere & climate scientists are not as coordinated as their colleagues in biochemistry or astronomy.

This should help narrow the confidence bands still further (a good thing when you've got models predicting ranges from 1.5c to 8.9c. That worst case is very bad indeed).

Usual caveats that I hope this gets incorporated in GCM's sooner rather than later.

Nick Clegg: Snooper's Charter 'isn't going to happen'

Re: If it is there they will use it.

"To have this large pool of data and not to go through it every way possible is not something that the government will be able to resist"

You seem to think this will be some kind of accidental side effect.

That is its purpose.

The collection of data about everybody regardless of wheather any evidence exists they threaten anyone. It's not a rational policy.

It's a fetish, and one of the few truly nasty ones.

Vulns, exploits, hacks: Trusteer touts tech to terminate troubles

"Java exploits accounted for 98 per cent of the attacks"

So.

a) Disable Java if possible

b) Disable windows installer service so s**t can't be installed willy nilly by users who don't know any better.

c) Long term re-design your systems to not use Java on your desktop (browser or not).

Any company sysadmins should ask themselves 2 simple question of every process running on any machine.

1)What's it doing? 2)Why's it doing this?

If you cannot answer either question to your own satisfaction perhaps it should be shut down and (at the very least) not allowed to auto start on boot.

UK gov's troll-finder general says he's hanging up his axe

In the words of Chamillionaire

Trolling, the haters, now they got me posting dirty.

Historically only media outlets had the range to reach *very* large audiences.

So it was more difficult to troll people.

The internet lets anyone libel (IIRC slander is spoken libel) anywhere, anywhen.

It would seem that societies attitudes to unkind words will have to make some kind of adjustment in the way that that people gave up fighting duels for honour.

What that adjustment will be is another matter.

Perhaps with great attention comes great responsibility?

Boffins KALQ-u-late the ultimate 'board for two-thumb tablet tappers

Nealy double the texting rate with this layout over others.

Is that not somewhat impressive?

Get's my thumb up.

General Electric pours $105 MEEELION into Pivotal Initiative

Mfg Automation Protocol 2.0 anyone?

Might have been better.

Did not seem to take off.

GE have been round this block before.

But note that GE is (like IBM or NASA) not a monolith.

The key question is "Whose faction is in the ascendent?"

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO: NASA rovers scrawl giant willy on Mars

Probably needs some of these to better appreciate it.

Title says it all.

Your phone may not be spying on you now - but it soon will be

Next seasons must have fashion accessory.

Signal blocking wallet*

A joke now.

Privacy crusaders: ISPs in 'conspiracy of silence' over Snoop Charter

The only privacy ISP's will protect is their own (to negotiate with the govt).

Talk Talk. Call them Stalk Stalk after their little copy-everything-to-China "security" wheeze.

Virgin. Considered Phorn but not clear if they did trial runs. Never trust a hippie.

BT. Big chums with Phorn and still never bought to book, unsurprising given DS Plod of the City of London police's investigation. Roll up my left trouser leg in amazement at that result.

Plus net might do with being known as sus(spect) net given they are now a creature of BT as well.

UK's dead monster iPad gumble-maker COMES BACK TO LIFE

I smell phoenix liquidation

But anyone remember the banks promise to lend to more small business in 2008.

What a load of b***ocks that turned out to be.

No doubt the CEO bonus arrangements will not be interruped.

ICO probes Home Office refusal to reveal Snooper's Charter details

The CCDP has "accepted the substance of the full recommendations"

But we just don't give a s**t.

Politicians. They think somehow they are in charge.

(Signed ) The Communications Capabilities Development programme Unit

Re: enough chat, what do I do about it?

First stop is your MP with a well thought out letter (no ranting) explaining it will cost a fortune for little obvious gain. Google they work for you for their address and email. I suggest a hard copy.

MI5 said they had about 2000 suspects At the claimed £5Bn over 10 yrs That's £2.5m per suspect (or about the cost of a prisoner for 71 years). Or perhaps they think it will save another 7/7. That's £175k per life saved (including the bombers and the Argentinan electrician who discovered wearing a heavy jacket on a hot day on the tube carries the death penalty).

And 70 odd people die as a result of a)Farming accidents and b)Home DIY accidents (many get injured, few actually end up in the morgue).

You might also look up the what review stage this bill is at and contact the chairman of any relevant committees.

Re: Suppose two terrorists wanted to talk to each other...

"This is about being able to spy on everyone except the politicians, civil service, and mates of these 24/7/365 forever."

Wrong.

In a police state only the police are above the law.

Besides that would deprive the more corruptible staff of a ready source of income from News International.

"I've talked off-the-record to several of the nice persons in the responsible departments for all of this snoop stuff (the Home Office, the Security Service, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), major UK-based network Communications Service Providers (CSPs) BAE Systems Detica, and a few other UK agencies that I'll forget about)"

Translation. Someone (who won't name themselves) has talked to a bunch of people involved in this and most of them can be trusted.

Hello Mr BAE Systems Detica PR person. I think you're trying to reassure us.

You're not.

Re: Why doesn't someone call Ms May out on her untruths?

Or how about the big one.

The 100s of £m of pounds of savings this systems is meant to produce every year.

There appears to be no definition of this yet it's the reason this has a +ve cost/benefit

Saving 1 7/7 event every year? Big time tax dodgers bought to book?

I don't know and it's not clear if that's just a number someone has pulled out their back passage.

Re: Suppose two terrorists wanted to talk to each other...

" Precisely why is is being enacted? "

Exactly.

Like Tony Blair calling for ID cards when the IRA (the only serious long term indigenous terrorist group the UK has every faced) had just about shut up shop.

This is about being able to spy on everyone 24/7/365 forever.

In a real democracy you cannot be sure someone will not turn into a terrorist, but you do trust that the police force (because terrorism is a crime) will catch them first.

That is the price of real freedom.

Police work is only ever easy in a police state.

"This despicable, vindictive cow called Theresa May really shouldn't have any place in protecting either the state or it's people."

You appear to think she had the brains to think this one up herself.

A quick count showed eight Home Secs in 4 governments have parroted the same BS.

She's just the latest sock puppet for the group of current and former senior spookocrats that want this.

CA piles into API management with Layer 7 acquisition

"company continues to reinvent itself "

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

SOP for CA has not changed much.

Identify niche area with multiple players.

Buy up as many as possible

"Release value" by firing staff and increasing license fees.

Fold customer bases into 1 preferred (probably the one with the biggest customer base, not the best)

Award their senior management huge bonuses.

This has made CA the biggest software company nobody's ever heard of and like their corporate mascot has meant they have not had to evolve for 70 million years either.

Google shakes up US utility with green power tariff

Re: Saving the world? My arse.

"We sell local hydro electricity to California as super expensive premium green-power and make up the local demand from oil plants in Alberta"

And this is apart from the interesting weeds growing in the BC woods.

Geothermal all the way.

On site, single bore (with down hole heat exchanger) high density (0.5-1.0 MW per bore) and life expectancy of several million years.

Obviously that last one might be a bit of concern to Google.

Re: Farm it out

"Rather than built their own the way Apple did, Google is holding true to their progressive left centralized socialistic origins by demanding The Government do it for them."

Duke Energy is owned by the US Govt?

I did not know this.

Oddly I was under the impression that the US govt did not own any energy providers.

Something about it not being within the remit of govt to do this IIRC.

Always amused to hear an American talk about socialism as if you knew what the word meant.

The software industry: So efficient, we invented shelfware

Information Governence in the "cloud" will be a b**ch.

I wonder if call-me-Dave and his pals have spotted that little fly in the ointment.

Dark matter researchers think they've got a signal

"Google can't convert very lower Farenheit temperatures to Kelvin."

Google not always to be entirely trusted.

I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you.

But before we get too excited.

Let's hope they checked all their cables, shall we?

More and more likely that double CO2 means <2°C: New study

Re: Well done in anchoring models to actual observations.

"GCMs attempt to do something called hindcasting. They set up the inputs the way they were at a point in time in the past and then run the model forward attempting to simulate past climate. When doing this they don't take the temperature from, say, Geenwhich and another from Heathrow as inputs. Instead they will use a gridded dataset such as GISS or HADCRUT. These datasets take the data from individual weather stations and apply multiple adjustments before using them to calculate the temperature of a gridcell."

I suspected it was something like this but reading the article certainly did not give that impression. A lucid explanation Mr (or Ms) AC.

It's still odd to me that model grids are not aligned to weather station locations. Obviously some of them have moved over time (possibly by quite a lot) but some of them should have stayed more or less in the same place. Yes I am aware of the "heat island" effect.

Well done in anchoring models to actual observations.

I'm very surprised however that GCM's don't use actual data from actual weather stations historical records as seeds for the start of a run.

As in all things climate related it's not just the worst case but the probability of that case (and them most likely value) that matter, and probability density functions in this case do not seem to be the nice bell curve beloved of mathmaticians.

Antares aborted after launchpad mishap

Went off without a hitch and all nanosats operating normally.

Now onward to their first ISS delivery.

No sorry. Did'nt work. Going to have a shot today.

Might work, might not

5pm EDT which (I think) is about 7pm UK time.

Better luck for Saturday at 10pm UK time.

Title says it all.

Re: And the cost...?@Kharkov

"So give or take, $150m per shot. That might seem high compared to SpaceX, but remember that SpaceX are new kids on the block. Orbital Sciences have built and launched over 600 launch vehicles, SpaceX have around 50 under their belt."

That sounds more like what Spacex have on their launch manifest, not what they have launched.

" I very much doubt that SpaceX could loft a given payload materially cheaper than Orbital Sciences, as technology and fuel costs are going to be broadly similar."

You might like to re think that assumption.

F9 is essentially 1 tank design in 2 sizes and 1 engine design in 2 variants. All tankage is mfg in house and most of the engine hardware is as well (as is most of the GNC) at one site. Moving their stages needs a wide load permit and a big truck. Their propellants are about the cheapest commonly used for rocket propulsion (LOX c$0.1/lb, RP1 4x), available from multiple suppliers and are not carried on the stages when they are being moved around the country. They use a 10 person pad crew according to Gwen Shotwell, Spacex VP, which is very low (Ariane V uses about 110).

Orbital source S1 from Russia, Engines from Aerojet and S2 from Hercules (who IIRC partly own them and whose stage costs doubled the development cost of the Pegasus LV). All mfgs are critical to Antares flying and are free to raise prices at will. Transporting S2 (10s of tonnes of high explosive) can be done on a regular trailer, provided you've got a hazmat plan (and some very big fire extinguishers) in place along the whole route and a bunch of armed guards to make sure no trailer trash terrorists get their hands on it. I don't have priceing on solids but IIRC Shutlle SRB's were around $5/lb of propellant loading IE 10x the total unit cost for LOX/RP1 for substantially less Isp). I'd suggest they are not "broadly similar" on propellant cost. I don't know how big a pad crew they use.

" SpaceX are also privately held, so there's no transparency on their claim, whereas Orbital Sciences are at least a listed company."

There is a NASA cost study based on cost data Spacex handed to them Vs the industry standard cost model. They came in about 4x cheaper but the figures are available online.

What NASA are paying to both companies is a matter of record.

As for what Orbitals accounts show all corporate accounts need to taken with a big pinch of salt.

Who's a Siri boy, then? Apple hoards your voices for TWO years

Re: Now i hate apple....

"After that the number is deleted from the voice data leaving it completely anonymised and not delete-able)."

Timestamp anyone?

But really WTF 2 years.

Still better than the 5 yrs the UK police hold car license plate data

It's official! Register hack is an alcohol-flushed cave dweller

So what do they do with *their* copy of the data?

Given we've seen Apple retain voice samples for 2 years and DNA studies work better with a big sample group of suckers volunteers. Do you trust a corporation more than a government?

Do you really need to ask why the icon?

The fast-growing energy source set to replace oil: Yes, it's coal

"If this is the case, why is the Government consistently shoving renewables down out throats and charging us for the privilege under the guise that it will make for a cleaner world."

The legally binding commitment Tony Blair signed up to make 30% of all UK energy come from renewable energy resources by something like 2030 despite knowing that while that might be possible for electricity it would be bloody near impossible quite challenging for all energy usage.

Or as I like to think of it

"here's-a-little-going-away-present-to-you-Mad-Eye-now-get-out-of-that-you-c**t"

(signed) Tony.

Re: False Prophet

"If we had a government with any balls, they'd admit that we need more power stations that actually produce the energy required not more windmills producing 0.000001% of it. We need more nuclear power stations and given we now have a design that is safer, relatively cheap to build and runs on the waste we have already produced and buried, what the hell are we waiting for?"

Admirable.

Now, given that the UK govt owns no power stations how do plan to get the operators to do this?

Re: False Prophet

"Yes, modern, efficient off-shore windfarms like Greater Gabbard (40% capacity factor) are cost competitive with nuclear power. "

And the other 60% of the time?

Do you just do without?

"That's the hard reality."

With wind indeed it is.

Re: REminds me of a report...@Graham Dawson

"Now take Datteln Unit 4, in Germany, which is an absolute state of the art hard coal plant (not yet commissioned even) and will be about 45% thermally efficient. That's hardly a breathtaking improvement for forty years, you'd agree?"

An increase by 1/8 I'd suggest is pretty good. It might not be on a par with the potential MPG of modern cars but that's because the CEGB had some incentive to build efficient power stations in the first place. Were Drax built today that 5% rise would have it put out an extra 496 MW of power. That's the size of a couple of gas stations on its own.

"Moreover, I doubt that India has the money or inclination to build coal plant to the latest EU & German standards, in which case there probably has been next to no improvement in the efficiency of Indian coal fired power plant.to begin with."

Latest in terms of pollution control, perhaps not. But why not build for maximum efficiency? The technology baseline moves over time. How many people would still insulate the boilers with Asbestos anywhere in the world?

"If you want to improve the thermal efficiency of coal plant, then things like fluidised bed grates and higher pressure steam circuits only help so far, the real easy, easy win is to recover the heat for district heating"

True. It's surprising at least a few UK gas stations have not even looked at supplying district heating. IIRC they have tended to be much closer to their customers than the huge old CEGB stations.

For India and other countries where this makes no sense I could see that process heat would be an option. I think restrictions on citing a chemical works or an oil refinery nearby are not that great (although they'd probably run the station on oil to begin with).

"and at higher latitudes we should use coal with heat recovery for winter power, and gas for summer,"

That's not really a choice. Note gas is popular in the UK because the market more or less forces it to go that way. This is not an intrinsic> feature it is a feature of the UK market.

"and forget about window dressing like solar PV and wind."

They are exceptionally bad for the UK, but there are much better renewable and carbon neutral sources, some nearly unique to the UK (such as down hole heat exchangers providing a minimum of 500Kw from every borehole, productive or dry, in the North Sea, of which there are around 4100 at last count).

REminds me of a report in the 1970's "Coal Bridge to the Future."

Guess what.

It is.

While I don't know if an Indian or Chinese coal fired power station built in 2010 incorporates all that Flue Gas Desulpherisation tech developed to combat acid rain I do expect it to burn a lot less coal for the same leccy that such a station built in say the 1970's would have.

Bottom line without cooperation from the US, China and India on CO2 emissions it will remain at that level or rise.

How to save UK's open data: Meet the 'Fair Value Licence'

"Of course, it is true that many who will benefit don't pay taxes here; but that it a completely different issue. I"

This solution is not about taxes.

It is a commercial contract like a lot of software.

Where the user pays their taxes is irrelevant. It's the fact they plan to profit from it that matters.

The current govt plan seems the worst of all possible worlds. The Reg proposal sounds much more reasonable.

'Leccy-stealing, grid-crippling hackers could take down EV-juicing systems

Re: @AC 07:33 (was: Oh FFS)

"Local idiom for so-called "Natural Gas". Meaning is that it's supplied by the town. In use in Nevada, California, and Yorkshire that I'm aware of, and probably many other places."

It sounds like you've got a fair bit of LNG storage on site fed by a gas line.

Now I can understand putting the tanks on quake proof mountings but are you not a tad concerned in case any quake would rupture the line?

For those looking at complete independence from the grid I would think you you would be looking at "biogas" AKA anerobic digestion, using any kind of feces (and a few other waste streams IIRC) to generate Methane and/or electricity.