Posts by John Smith 19

NASA-backed fusion engine could cut Mars trip down to 30 days

Re: So, for those of us who are a bit thick...

"This is it in summary, yes? "

Correct.

"The only real issue is going to be lifting a 150t spacecraft into orbit in the first place"

That's not exactly trivial but there are options.

" (and presumably telling a lot of people not to look at the sky when it starts up, since that would be like staring into a teeny weeny star)?"

People look at the Sun (for very short periods) fairly often and (as long as it is short) that does them no permanent harm.

"Please someone tell me the downsides."

Well the scale up is pretty substantial. The power array would be the 2nd biggest after the ISS (most PVs on sats are 1/10 the size at most). So far (IIRC) they've demonstrated single shots with Al rings without fusion and this mechanism has to deliver these rings at 1 a minute over 2 three day periods (which is a serious mechanical engineering problem in a space grade vacuum), coupled with dumping enough energy into the pellets (and actual pellet mfg on this scale is pretty substantial as well).

I guess the key question is how viable is sub-breakeven fusion. This is the critical bit that all those rings wrap round to give the thrust.

A comparison with the VASIMIR concept (to see what things it shares) might also be useful.

Re: Commercial power generation potential?

"If the fusion is effective enough, you've got a system pushing out more usable power than went into it."

That's the point.

It is not that efficient.

The goals of space transport and Earth power generation are sufficiently different that this concept is good enough to push things around in space but not good enough for Earth power generation.

The latter (it turns out ) is much harder

For those just knowledgable enough to be dangerous.

You're looking at pellets in the 100s of gram range accelerating a vehicle 150 000 bigger. Force = Mass x Acceleration so at 30Km/s and 0.1Kg you get a force of 3000N. By Newtons 3rd law on a body of 150 mt that's about 0.02 m/s, or about 0.002g.

So no people won't be tripping over each other. The fact it runs for 3 days might have been another clue that would not be happening.

The short impulse does make it a shock load but the same could be said of the explosions in the cylinders of a car (which this somewhat resembles).

NIAC is low budget, high risk investment into potentially game changing technology .and they've actually done phase 1 of this. All other fusion proposals have come from a fusion power background where breakeven and electricity generation are key goals. They dumped these and followed the analysis. From their PoV wrapping a fusing plasma in a series of magnetically driven foils (IE thin sheets <1mm thick) is actually a good thing as it gives them more reaction mass to push out the back.

Note they still have not generated fusion which I think is a pretty big point but if they do that will be a bargain. As for a 200KW PV array keep in mind the ISS array while big is several generations behind the SoA in PV cells, either mult junction or using solar concentrators.

"I look forward to this system working, but I do wonder what it will take to loft this 150-ton system into orbit – at least a Saturn V class chemical rocket."

Then they will have found an actual use for the SLS apart from keeping a bunch of people in Utah building large solid fuel boosters.

Of course if NASA wasn't so gun shy of orbital docking and rendezvous they could launch it in sections on rockets that already exist.

US Navy blasts drones with ship-mounted LASER CANNON

Re: Are they serious?

" No I think it's named after some famous military Merkin."

Well that was my rather obvious guess. US warship, some famous (to Americans) naval figure who no one else has ever heard of.

"(I've been there, it's very nice -- they have a very impressive art museum)."

I did not know this.

AFAIK most people went to PR (or the 51st state as I like to think of it) for booze-and-screw holidays. Like Cuba before Castro.

Yes the solid state part is important. Yes it will hurt some targets, but how narrow band is it?

Because if this is a single frequency device then fabricating interference mirrors which are 99.99% reflective at the target wave length is very possible.

It's efficiency is good (for a laser) in the high 20%s and it sound like it's power budget is actually quite reasonable.

Probably it's greatest benefit will be to move the tech of laser lightcraft a step closer to reality.

The dazzle issue against enemy pilots does sound like UN Convention on the Rules of War violation however.

Re: What about satellites?

"Hopefully this thing has enough to take out overhead satellites in space also."

It doesn't. It really does not have that level of power.

Re: Are they serious?

"They named a ship for a *pimp*?!"

No I think it's named after some famous military Merkin.

OTOH Calling it the USN "Pimpstick" would send a whole different message to foreign states.

Perhaps with some nice shiny chrome exhaust pipes on either side of the superstructure.

My coat is a floor length Astrakhan which goes with my Leopard skin pork pie hat.

Re: Pulse is Infrare, So Silver Paint Probable Won't Make A Difference

"I doubt very much that a $5 tin of silver paint would be an effective countermeasure to a $32m frickin laser."

And you'd probably doubt that the watery atmosphere of Eastern Europe would destroy the Stealth coating which cost $Bn to develop.

Except that on at least 1 occasion that is exactly what happened.

Going back to Vietnam the US Army developed the "people sniffer." This was decoyed by a large well filled latrine bucket, wasting several B52 fulls of bombs. Total system nullified by the results of a couple of bags of rice.

US Air Force reclassifies 6 cyber tools as weapons

Re: Air force ... cyber-weapons ... huh?

" high technology pork,"

Yumm. The best kind.

Re: Yep nothing to see here

"Obviously though you need airpower but it didn't make a lot of sense giving them their own bureaucracy in 1947 "

I think it might have had something to do with them having (at the time) the only effective nuclear delivery capability.

They operate 2 legs of the US nuclear triad.

And I think it's safe to say you will pry that power out of the cold dead hands of the chief of the AF, but not before.

Re: Quick - use the second amendment....

"A nuke warhead is a weapon, too, but I have been denied the right to put one in my back yard."

I think it's the fact you asked that some people might find a little bit disturbing.

" Pay no attention to that surveillance drone circling your neighborhood."

But surely you know the biggest threat to orderly government is the people?

Boffins propose photon-swapping entanglement experiment on ISS

But will it measure the *speed* of entanglement?

Only if as the Chinese state its around 13000x c that's still not going to be very far. At around 3 ns/m the entanglement would take about 1-2ns to propagate (It's too early to be reaching for a calc for actual numbers).

This is a good use for the ISS. Unique environment and fairly simple hardware (could all the kit already be on board for other purposes?)

.

US spies' crazytech branch asks chip firm for 8-BIT-PER-CELL memory

Intriguing

It's just an impression but magnetic based systems seem to be more radiation resistant and higher density but historically have been a bit slower. Not an issue for things like smartcards or crypto storage keys.

Is IARPA the new name for DARPA or an expansion of them?

German boffins aim to burn natural gas - WITHOUT CO2 emissions

Like a lava lamp for people with X ray vision

But apart from that notion this is a very clever idea that totally side steps the classic problems of getting the H2 away from the C.

How many people (who don't investigate liquid metals) would have thought of this one?

Note that with modern high temperature insulation the column can be kept hot with relatively little heat input, obviously bigger diameter, more volume, less surface area to emit it over.

Version 0.1 tech but what potential.

News Corp prez threatens to pull Fox TV off the air

Will probably remain free to air in China.

After all Rupert is a man the Party can do business with.

"methinks redneck cant afford cable"

Nah. They'll just have to cook up more crystal meth to pay for it.

"Going pay cable only reduces their customer base."

We can but hope....

McDonalds-card-toting Softcat boss: I couldn't tell you how a computer works

Re: "It is pressure, real pressure - 80 cold calls a day,"

Those are the appointment makers. The sales types actually go out and visit the suckers prospects, have expensive lunches and organize the technical briefings at the local lap dancing club (at least the ones at Adobe did).

Quantum spring-cleans StorNext for file-hungry arty small biz

I wonder if tape data recovery is as hard as disk recovery.

I'd bet not.

When your media is unreadable it's access speed is zero.

Android FOUND ON TABLETS inscribed with WORD OF GOD

Re: Hacking Hymns

"I can easily imagine the fun that could be had by changing a few words :"

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Climate change set to bumpify transatlantic flights, say researchers

20 different turbulence metrics and no agreement.

Looks like there's a shed load of rubbish that needs to be cleared out here. Some of them don't seem worth the computer time spent used to calculate them.

Yes the graphs are alarmist (Nature now has a separate magazine devoted to "climate change." Business is looking good to my cynical business eye).

But keep going with at least trying to get some consensus.

Usual caveats. No new on site collected data. Obviously how realistic is this IPCC emissions scenario? Will climate modellers down grade some of the less accurate metrics or keep on using them?

Gov report: Actually, evil City traders DIDN'T cause the banking crash

Re: Just a citation is needed

""Inside Job"

I have seen this film.

I have no idea what film Mr Tucker saw.

Long story short. It calls for quite a few regulators to be locked up (especially the ones who entered the revolving door at the Fed from some of the major banksters they would begin regulating).

It also suggests that quite a few of these deals where driven by (for wont of a better term) a bunch of cokehead a**eholes. Not exactly my definition of "smart." Cunning, convincing, self serving and self deluding perhaps.

How many people here have a mortgage?

I've read the self reliant, save and don't borrow Norman Rockwell BS and in reality it does not happen that often. In hindsight increasing your lending in a market where defaults are rising is pretty stupid (if you actually care about having a long term business, which HBOS senior management did not).

Most people in the UK could not buy a house outright and don't know anyone who would let them buy it directly from them (IE a sort of HP agreement)

BTW half of the German banking system is built on small local banks, more like credit unions.

When a proposal was made to relax the rules on the locality of UK credit unions the UK banks mouthpiece spokesperson protested this would increase default risk and competition.

Let me suggest a PoV. The UK housing market is dominated by big house builders who control huge land banks and big banks who control mortgage lending.

It is in their interest that housing remain scarce, prices high and quality low. What to do about it is the problem.

Re: Not sure about the conclusion

"The conclusion suggest that, as many suspected, the right thing to have done would have been to let RBS, Northern Rock etc. go to the wall. That would certainly be the right thing in any ordinary market."

Correct. In terms of the real world what would have happened that would be so bad?

"But banks aren't part of an ordinary market. The deposits they safeguard, or fail to safeguard, aren't safeguarded by them at all. "

Then perhaps it's time they stopped pretending they were and people accepted that putting money in a bank is no more or less safe than taking shares in say a book maker.

"They're underwritten, at least to an extent that matters, by the taxpayer. So we had to bail them out."

Assertion <> to conclusion. The underwriting is up to a fixed limit. So no the UK Govt did not have to bail them out. They were convinced that they had to do so. That's not the same thing.

I like to think of it as "Secondary banking crisis, 2.0"

Institution picks up short term money market borrowing to cover short fall between assets and loans, relying on house price inflation and sufficient good payers to keep the cash rolling over.

Something rather like this happened in the early 1970s.

It will happen again because all bankers know that "liquidity" requirement (of X% of all funds staying in the bank and being available) is set by regulators who a) Lack banking experience b)Have an exaggerated sense of risk about investments c)Are Guardian reading pinko Liberals.

So whatever limit the regulators set it will just seem far to high (CDOs were exactly a way to fame the system but that's another story).

The notion that their pursuit of ever bigger bonuses might be skewing their judgement (or they might have their heads buried firmly up their own arse) of course never enters their thinking.

Spooky action at a distance is faster than light

But still 13000x faster than light.

I mean you there must be something that can be done with this information.

Panasonic develops DNA-scanning 'lab-on-a-chip'

Note what's impressive.

It's hours, not days or weeks.

It (can) make detailed DNA analysis routine

Which can include identifying what pharmaceuticals cannot be metabolized by someone (making their prescription completely pointless, of which there are at least 200 known) as well as what chemo drugs could work for cancer treatment.

In fact it could cover any condition for which a large number of drugs exist but but whose performance varies widely on an individual basis.

Thumbs up for (potentially) bringing it out of a rare lab technique and into a routine diagnostic.

How I nearly sold rocket windows to the crazy North Koreans

"deposes the fat kid from South Park"

"You will respect my authority"

Best line all week.

Re: The loser wins

"One chilling idea is that poor young 'un, realising he has no control over his army generals decides the only way out for him and his country is to have a brief but devastating war in which NK loses spectacularly, This not only rids him of a horrendous war machine that has been gripping the nation for many years but with a bit of luck will allow him to slip away into exile somewhere (China maybe) to live out the rest of his life in relative western luxury. Another bonus for him is that the massive death and destruction would reduce the starving millions and re-inject some investment into the country in the form of aid packages. Plus SK businesses would be in there like a shot to make use of the cheap labour. So losing a war would be a win both for him and his country. Give it 10 years or so and they will be welcoming him back with open arms as the new freely elected president of a completely revitalised NK!"

Exactly the kind of thing some self obsessed a**ewipe like him would do. Fat cats don't like to miss their cream.

"I will go down, but I will go down as the man who nuked Honolulu!"

Not cool dude.

Time to chill some of this Whoops Apocalypse rhetoric.

Re: Mixed lessons from history?

"Although to be fair MacArthur was relieved of his command for suggesting it."

I dimly recall something about "50 atomic bombs should be enough to get the job done" was his assessment.

Fat boy would do well to remember the US is unlikely to be on a leash this time round.

Ahoy! Google asks US gov't to help sink patent 'privateers'

So what's in it for Google?

They're in this for the bucks and they don't take prisoners.

It'll be more than just letting them do business more easily. It'll be an actual way to generate revenue.

Yes I am that cynical.

GPs blow whistle to watchdog on patient record privacy threat

A note on the history NHS number

When it was founded a way was needed to issue everyone with a number.

The number is derived from the wartime identity card number.

This smells like a late day data grab.

Rocket boffinry in pictures: Gulp the Devil's venom and light a match

Re: Shuttles

"The SRBs kept going until the Range Safety Officer sent the destruct command a few seconds later. "

That inability to shut down large solids without huge thrust loads is what makes them so damm dangerous for crewed space flight.

Rackspace sues 'the most notorious patent troll in America'

"Unfair to NPE"

So trolls would have to pay a kind of "hunting tax" before they can start threatening end users and companies that actually use their patents don't.

Well boo f**king hoo for NPE's.

Still at least this lot were prepared to name their client without pleading the 5th.

Thumbs up to Rackspace. Trolls are not like "real" companies. Being sensible and trying to settle grievances does not work with them. They need to be smacked and smacked hard.

Leaked memo: Apple's iMessage crypto has DEA outfoxed

Apple. Guarding your privacy

Are you f**king kidding me?

Copyright troll Prenda refuses to explain legal strategy

"It is in England and Wales[1], if performed in a commercial setting."

I think these guys scam contention was you'd downloaded their clients pron for you personal consumption. TBH playing it in a commercial setting might actually make their case just a bit more creditable.

"Section 107 is an evil piece of legislation..."

Indeed.

I sense the hand of the Dark Lord.

Re: Rights

Perhaps it would help if we just called it "The right to silence."

In police interrogation it would be answering "No comment" to questions by the police.

But I'd love to find any other cases where the lawyers have plead the 5th.

<profanity filter off>

Die you bastards die

</profanity filter off>

"The law, correctly applied, is the law, and we should follow it. That it has flaws is no excuse for criminal activity."

Just to be clear I down voted you because copyright infringement despite what Big Media companies like to claim is a civil not criminal matter.

Either you don't know this or are ignoring it. One makes you look ignorant (it's been mentioned numerous times in El Reg articles and comments) the other makes you look stupid.

Your choice.

"Most of the people from Prenda Law had already testified, by submitting sworn statements as evidence. One of the lawyers was deposed for a whole day

The substance of most of those statements have proven to be deliberate misleading or outright false."

IANL but that sounds like the definition of perjury.

Can anyone confirm?

Universal Credit IT system could lead to MORE FRAUD, MPs warn

Man i/c of enormo-pervassive new dole system says "no problems here"

Strangely I find myself deeply unreassured.

Small factoid. Despite recent coverage in the Daily jailbait Heil the proportion of families with more than 2 children claiming benefits is <<1% of all claims.

Boffins shine new light on dark matter

Exciting times

AMS is a very large lump of hardware and getting it to ISS was quite a feat. This should just be the start of results in this area.

BTW I think the magnet (a key part of how it can resolve what particles and what energy they have) was made in the UK.

Kiwi boffins bid up Earth-like planet prediction

I wonder what this will do to the Drake equation.

In the 1960s no one even knew if any other star had planes, let alone Earth mass and temperature.

Now we seem to be closing in on an actual number

That's pretty exciting. It also moves the debate from "Why leave the solar system, there's nowhere to go?" to "If we did leave the solar system, where should we go?"

Memory vendors pile on '3D' stacking standard

Had to be coming sooner or later.

At present the thinnest "wire" in a chip is about 140 atoms across. Sometime within the next 10-20 years that wire will become 1 atom across, at which point all efforts to increase density by "shrinking the layout" end.

Current wafers are about 30-50x thicker than the actual active layer of the chip so there is still a lot of room to pack more data.

Handling the heat, data connections and alignment are other matters.

Obama seeks $100m to unlock your BRAIN's secrets

*Actual* use for this project will be

The ability to study exactly how that Coke ad you're watching (or the cola you're drinking) is perceived will be very valuable for the next generation of advertising.

No. I'm not joking. Some of that work has already taken place.

The goals may be noble but let's see who really benefits.

US funds Europa mission

It's an exciting mission but very tough

However one of the interesting little factoids from the NIAM's presentations was that using a solar sail could have cut the 35 transit time from Earth to helipause of Voyager to about 10 yrs (with the same science payload mass).

This was a design mfg on Earth and unfurled in space. Later presentation described on orbit construction machines which could (in principal) make a very light weight framework as it would not have had to survive launch loads.

Perhaps they should start backwards with the question "How big a rocket can we get our hands on and what does that give us in terms of payload to Europa?"

Thumbs up for this. Let's just repeat Europa has liquid water on it in large amounts. While Mars seems the most Earthlike (size, gravity) there is a lot of real estate in the solar system.