Posts by John Smith 19

Rocket 'Grasshopper' leaps higher than tall building in single bound

Re: Fifteen years earlier

"The Grasshopper is not capable of getting to orbit either. "

True. It's a control systems and concept of operations demonstrator.

"The DC-X flew higher, for longer and further crossrange than the Grasshopper has."

So far.

" I suspect the goal of a orbit-capable rocket's first stage landing as the DC-X and Grasshopper do is physically impossible due to mass fraction constraints,"

Then by extension you would have considered the ultimate goal of the DC-X programme (sometimes called the DC-1), a single stage to orbit vehicle with no major maintenance between flights, to have been absurd

"The RS-68 Block 1 motors used at the start of the Shuttle program were supposed to be rated for ten flights before rebuilds were necessary; in the real world they were rebuilt after every flight. "

The RS-68 did not exist during most of the Shuttle programme.

It's the expendable engine on the Delta IV and as such has 1 use, although like all liquid rocket engines it's capable of multiple test firings.

The manufacturer ID # for the Space Shuttle Main Engine (which I think is what you're talking about) is RS-25.

You might like to review the rocket equation, the thrust to weight ratio of the Merlin 1d and approximate current payload fraction of the F9. It's all down to how much of the orbital velocity each stage has to supply.

I've often wondered why this wasn't tried before. It seems such an obvious thing to do.

Payload fraction of a typical 2 stage liquid fueled rocket c3%.

It's estimated that the recovery hardware costs 1/2 of that payload, but as no one has ever succeeded in doing it no one really knows (and frankly no one's had the balls to seriously try).

So rocket needs to be 2x bigger to deliver same payload.

However propellant wise it's a winner. F9 launch c$60m. Propellant c$200k.

Osborne stumps up £20m of your cash for wiggly wonder stuff graphene

Oh dear the UK governemnt has backed another "winner"

TBF at this stage no UK company would bankroll this as it's so far from a product that their banksters advisers would not allow them to.

The UK government's skills in picking winners and turning them into cash generating new industries is legendary.

Legendarily bad that is. BL sold to BAe with £63m "sweetner" INMOS flogged to the French ASAP. BAe itself a series of Frankenstein like mergers to create a "national champion," which turns out to be more a national champion of American aerospace.

Note the quick sale to "recoup" investment which turns out to be ridiculously under valued and note how often the new owner either a)Flogs it on ASAP or b)shuts down most of the UK operation and loads up its own divisions with the cream.

As for the "new" money it does look like that's about £500k. Sounds like an old New Labor trick policy is being given a fresh airing.

BTW Graphene is nearly pure Carbon. Its "stability" will quickly degrade on exposure to warm air as it reverts to "designer coal" as jet engine blade developers called it in the 1980's.

After Sandy Hook, Senator calls for violent video game probe

Re: Understanding the problem

"As with terroristism, until someone can identify every terrorist or whack-job bent on killing innocent people, these tragedies will continue"

As a former US police officer said "Police work is only easy in a police state"

"You can pass all the laws that you desire and it won't keep people from killing other people."

Perhaps not, but it will cut down the amount of damage the average whack job can do.

America really is a special case here. Its stats are completely out of scale to it's size. Perhaps it should be compared to Russia, China or India for death rates (and death rates by hand guns).

"Guns are not the problem any more than alcohol is the cause of auto accidents."

Just curious but you wouldn't happen to run a combined liquor store and gun shop by any chance?

"it's a Constitutional right to bear arms so guns are not going to disappear even if they actually passed a law banning them, which they won't. "

So if no one is talking about a ban and no one would support it why bother to mention it?

"As we see in Europe where there are fewer guns, mentally unstable people still slaughter children in schools."

You really need to do a bit more research on the number of such shootings around Europe and just as importantly the consequences in legislation afterward.

"The NRA made a valid recommendation that all schools have armed security. "

Funny I had heard Americans were big on personal responsibility. So when it's whose doing the shooting it's the "lone gunman," but when it's who has to deal with it that's the Federal government in just about the most expensive way possible. Relevant given the "fiscal cliff" is now 6 days away.

Re: Right...

" I would argue however that removing guns from the equation would rather reduce the death rate. I"

True.

But in the USA right now that is simply not going to happen. At best there is some consensus (including the NRA, which does matter) that could lead to action that will cut down some of the problems that cause gun deaths. Wheather any of what is politically possible would have changed things in this case is likely debatable but this is a country with 2-3 mass shootings a year at present, which IDK seems a tad high to me.

Re: Proven: Crims get all the guns when the people are suppressed!

"TOTC is regularly abused by any twat who wants to control your life in lots of little pointless ways."

My point exactly. When I said Dunblane was the first pre teen school shooting in the UK I actually meant the only one in the UK. I'm not sure how many the US has had, but this is not AFAIK the first.

"However, there comes a point when you have to take a step back from freedom at all costs "

I'd suggest anyone who thinks the British enjoy "freedom at all costs" has either never lived there or not lived there for some time. Otherwise they might like to try exercising that freedom by say applying for a gun license.

I'll repeat the UK situation is not (and never will be) the US situation. It's history is very different from the US.

Re: we've got murderous nutters in the UK too

"What do you propose we do about incidents like Hungerford,Dunblane, Sandyhook ? Nothing ? Are these the price we have to pay ? Or do we have gun control ?"

Keep in mind the US <> UK.

UK. No land borders. tight restrictions on gun ownership and storage (except shotguns, which is why they were so easy to steal as the armed robbers tool of choice back in the day) before Dunblane.

US. Land borders to 3rd world countries. Multiple gun ownership the statistical norm. Relatively easy to circumvent license checks (gun shows).

Re: Many missing the point

"What we need to do is arm every adult and then the odds are equal. You want to show up at a school, church or public event and start shooting, expect to die after your first shot because 50 people will be shooting back at you. Teachers in Texas are allowed to be armed and I expect many other schools and people will be armed to protect themselves and others from mentally disturbed people who go on rampages."

Time to put him on a diet.

If you can't put your name on the post don't post.

Re: Proven: Crims get all the guns when the people are suppressed!

" you may be a responsible well-balanced citizen who collects guns, only fires them at a properly run range, keeps them securely locked away when not in use etc etc. "

Somehow I rather doubt it. I think they are more from the SEL end of the spectrum.

"I've seen the whiny comments about the banning of handguns after Dunblane and the frothing panic by gun lovers after Sandy Hook - and frankly my response is "who cares?" Does your hobby matter more to you than the lives of little children?"

Do you really want to play the TOTC card?

Because that way leads to everyone being imprisoned "Just in case."

Re: Ban the Mentally ill from playing

"People have always gone off the rails and committed vile crimes, long before video games and tv and Hollywood were invented. Don't fall for this knee-jerk response and blame something like video games or rock music - anyone who even contemplates making a link between mass murder and pressing a few buttons on an xbox has clearly already made up their mind that the cause is proven. It's just a way of avoiding the real issue and shifting blame on to an easy target, rather than bite the bullet (pun intended)."

Going back to the 50's the moral panic was about comics

This led to the self censorship of the "Comics code."

The flip side being the legendarily violent and sexual (and sexually violent) Japanese comic box and the fact that murder rates are very low in the country, as is rape.

In the 80's it was videos, in the 90's it was rap music.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

Thumbs up to Mooseman for not falling for this line of BS.

AC@21:10

"Go away, you are not helping find any solutions with your rubbish!"

Perhaps you should take your own advice.

Re: "68 mass shottings since 1982" or "I don't like Mondays" revisited.

"Not sure why I was downvoted up there, all I did was point at some data. I"

Same here. The tone of my original post may have seemed callus to some, but the fact remains that whatever US public sentiment was after the previous 67 mass shooting it did not translate into action, which was one of my points. Maybe this time will be different as there seems to be some consensus on the matter.

I think we've got another one of those loons* neurodiverse types who can only engage by downvoting, rather than posting a coherent argument.

Let's hope their alternative means of communication is not by shooting people.

*US Congress has enacted a law to strike the word "lunatic" from the drafting of all future legislation. No I'm not joking. New laws cannot describe (for example) the insanely risky lending practices of big US banks as "lunatic." 11 days to fiscal cliff.

Re: "68 mass shottings since 1982" or "I don't like Mondays" revisited.

"The US has a population around 30 times higher and a gun homicide rate close to 120 times higher or the homicide rate per 100,000 is 4 times higher in the US than Switzerland, a country that *does* have high gun ownership."

I had thought Israel and Switzerland were similar in this regard. My bad.

It's not looking good for the "We have more murders (in the US) because we're just bigger than you" PoV.

Thanks for putting some numbers on the debate. I think a murder rate 4x bigger than the increase in population is what they call "statistically significant," but IANS.

AC@21:13

"When Israel had a problem with kids being murdered and bombed they armed all teachers with semi-auto hand guns. Guess what? Deadly criminal acts against children stopped! You western world wanks ban guns, guess what? Your crime exists and climbs statistically post implantation of laws banning them."

I'll take a wild guess and expect most of those to be Palestinians or jihadists (no the two are not the same, except to Americans) rather than a random loon.

Re: "68 mass shottings since 1982" or "I don't like Mondays" revisited.

"Once out of the army conscription (21 for males), they don't keep their rifle."

Ah, that explains my mis comprehension. I'd presumed they retained it for refresher training.

Many thanks.

On a side point I thought very devout Jews were exempted military services?

@EvilGav 1

"I used to own hand-guns, until Dunblane outlawed them (the shooter in that case legally had rifles, but illegally had hand-guns, so we banned hand-guns, that the shooter hadn't legally obtained anyway). Knee-jerk reaction right there."

Dunblane changed everything in the UK. I think it was the first primary school mass shooting. I consider the response was excessive. The man was thrown out of the Boy Scouts as a suspected child molester, which suggests the local police should have arrested him long before he got to the school.

Although IIRC one of the key recommendations (a nationwide database of gun licenses and where and when people had tried to apply for them) was not implemented.

Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet creator Gerry Anderson dies at 83

And so another part of many peoples childhoods disappers

RIP Gerry.

And for Captain Scarlet fan S.I.R.

I'm off to raise a pint, but I'm not happy.

Re: UFO sadness,

"One of the most entertaining characters from UFO is the sinister doctor played by Vladek Sheybal as the foreign accented Dr "Jackson""

You can kind of guess where he got his degree (although what its in is a bit hazy).

The last doctor you'd ever want to visit.

Not of course that you'd remember afterward....

Re: 2nd generation

"And no; this has nothing to do with Star Trek (this series was around way before that),"

It does, but no, the original Star Trek dates from the early 1960's, Star Fleet dates from roughly the mid 80's. I always thought it was inspired by the Transformers figures around then but anyone in that area would have found it hard to miss the impact of one (or other) of his series.

IIRC Star Fleets creator was also behind The Equalizer (not sure if before or after).

Re: Gerry Anderson is go(ne)

"does having fantasies about Lady Penelope break any of the extreme porn laws "

It does.

In fact even Marina breaks the cartoon porn law.

Re: Left out...

"And UFO

About as much like a childrens TV show as South Park-The Movie (released as a U in Spain, because it's a cartoon)

There was but you don't want to find out what it is.

Re: anything can happen

"in the next half hour"

And almost anything did.

Re: Yes it did

Colour was a pretty bold step in the UK (given the UK did not have a colour TV channel until BB2 launched in 1967 or 8)

Walt Disney did the same early on. It's kept the re-run fees rolling in ever since.

RIP Gerry. You made some terrific TV.

What Compsci textbooks don't tell you: Real world code sucks

Re: First steam engines were badly operated and maintained

and after enough of them had blown up people started setting minimum standards for hardware and design rules to stop them blowing up.

"I'm sure that it was a similar problem when the steam era boomed."

Except the supply of competent programmers shows little sign of improving.

It's not that there's a shortage of mistakes.

It's that there seems to be a shortage of people who learn from them.

Re: One just needs to judge code correctly

" They commit to a timescale which they know they can't achieve, and guess what they can't achieve it,"

In Code Complete Steve McConnell talked about "programs," "product programs" and "product systems."

"Products" in this context imply "used by someone other than the developers" so error handling on user input, help text and some kind of user training are needed.

His estimate was product programs are 3x the cost of programs and product systems 3x that of a product program.

So if you cost and schedule a "product program" like an in house (in dept?) program you're guaranteed to be 3x out from the off.

"The PM's just refuse to accept the adage that the later in the development cycle the problem is fixed the more it costs."

The parallels between software development and US mfg industry are just fascinating. Sadly it looks like there is no possibility of the Japanese giving the IT industry the sort of wake up call mfg got in the 80's to start looking at this "quality" idea.

Re: So true

"Once had to analyse a thing that used a database integer to control some behavior in the user interface. Turned out that the code was converting the integer to an 8-bit binary and every bit was controlling some random switch in the UI. I mean, just fucking why?"

Because he was being "clever."

When you have to pack 100s of functions in a 64k address space (I'm specifically thinking of the original Macintosh toolbox ROM here). When scraping a few milliseconds will let you protect another whole city (The Safeguard ABM system, all coded in assembler) or better compression will allow you to pack another whole level into a game (no idea where this has been done but I think it's safe to say it has).

These are the times to be "clever" But before you feel the urge read Steve McConnell's account of how he got real time encryption using the DES (2400bps output) running on an original PC.

Then ask yourself how much fun it will be reading your code again in 6 months time when someone asks for a change.

"Cleverness" (in most instances) is vastly overrated IMHO, both by the clever (who do it) and the their admirers (who funnily enough never get close enough to have to fix it afterward).

@Steen Hive

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures"

Perhaps you should study that list a little more carefully.

Software development has more in common with bridge building that you might think. One of the points made in Structured Programming (Mills, Linger & Witt) was that to do top down development your first release had to be a "proper top," a system that could be tested and bootstrap the testing of the rest of the functions. IOW functions to add records to a database (1st release, you can inspect the file contents with existing tools to check it works) get the ball rolling. Read and update functions can be deferred till the 2nd increment. Once you move away from database systems those decisions become more difficult to make.

typical software development works bottom up. It's like throwing bricks up in the air and hoping they will align well enough so that the structure will become self supporting before they all fall down.

Put that way is it any surprise large systems tend to have development issues?

The point about bridges is that there has been a steadily expanding body of theory to support their design. Study why bridges fall down. The main reason has shifted from "We don't know how to build them well enough not to" to bad (sometimes illegal) construction and/or materials and gross overloading. 160tonne vehicle on a bridge rated at 40 tonnes. WTF did they think was going to happen?.

In contrast there has been limited work in improving the odds of delivering large projects on time and budget. Perhaps more usefully has been the study of government IT project failures. Here shifting objectives, lack of senior management commitment and a desire for big bang rollout (no pilots and limited live testing) usually turn up in the top 5 ways to f**k up a project. I doubt private industry is that much different in any of these respects.

Re: Quality depends on the consequences of failure

"I believe that the proliferation of garbage software can be traced back to one thing: Lack of consequences."

That seems likely.

Because the software industry is dominated by US companies it has never had the experience (as mfg like cars and domestic electronics had) of being hammered by the Japanese and suddenly discovering that quality actually mattered and that the Japanese had acquired most of their ideas from the US management adviser W. Edwards Demming.

Re: How I do it

"So I begin by writing comments of what I want each of my main sections to be. That's right: the first thing I save is just a bunch of comments! Then I fill in the actual code to do what the comments said, right between the comments, moving bits that deserve to be made into functions out of the way."

It's called "stepwise refinement" if done right and "detailing" if done wrong.

It's the approach used by what was IBM Federal Systems to write the space Shuttle software so it never failed in flight. From what I've hear of perl it's essential to avoiding producing an unmaintainable mess.

Thumbs up for applying good SE to a language not known for it. Your copy of "Structured Programming" (Linger Mills and Witt) is in the post.

Code writing skills good. Code *reading* skills better.

Those "Real Programmer" types can write impressive code (see "The Story of Mell")

Now let's see them process a change request.

Seriously it's an amazing skill to recall all the opcodes in a processor's instruction set.

As is being able to get the best performance out of a steam locomotive.

But if the instruction set is already obsolete so what?

There is a reason no one uses the whitespace language for commercial applications. Just as there is a reason most people who have to program in "M" want to move to something else.

A lot of software could probably be 2/3s smaller *if* you could rely on 2 things

1)The users always know what they are doing.

2)They never make a mistake when they enter their decisions into the system.

Anyone who writes textbooks which ignores this is definitely going to be in for a real surprise.

Do they call it computer art or computer science?

There is only one way it's your code.

You develop it.

No one else ever maintains or updates it.

When you die all copies of the software will be erased and the source code destroyed (perhaps in viking funeral along with yourself).

Otherwise get over yourself and expect to have your code reviewed and you to review others.

And remember "Premature optimization is the root of all evil."

Me p**sed off. You bet.

"The real skill is knowing that in a lot of cases, you can fix a lot of things by deleting more code than you will write."

Absolutely correct.

I had a data load program to update which read a lot of different record types from a file. The record type was a field of each record in a standard location within the record.

A near perfect use of a CASE statement.

The original programmer did it with a near impenetrable (and unmodifiable) IF/THEN/ELSE/IF/THEN/ELSE chain instead.

He did not seem aware the language supported a CASE statement.

Re: Obviousness of bad code - some Friday thoughts

"Are there tools that can represent code into a schematic form to make it easier to see how much of a lash-up they are?"

Yes.

Will management buy them. No.

Will developers use them. Maybe.

Re: It starts out well...

"Ian Sanderson Jr a"

The Chuck Findlay of software development.

Boffins build substrate for 'peel and stick' solar cells

Re: I wish to place a bet...

"suppose that Radiospares is still running."

You may have heard of a company called RS Components.

That's them.

El Reg man: Too bad, China - I was RIGHT about hoarding rare earths

"bopping around the dance floor as only a middle aged white man can"

<shudder> That's an image that's going to be branded on my frontal lobes for a while.

UK.gov stalks jobless online to axe work refuseniks' benefits

Re: Spot the deliberate mistake here..

""The site was set up by recruitment firm Monster, which is being paid $16.7m for its services.""

First rule of con-sultancy.

"I'll advise you on everything you pay me to advise you on (perhaps not very well), not everything you need advice on."

"There have already been cases where people have been scammed for personal details (give us your details and bank account details so we can do a CRB check ...)."

Hadn't thought of that one.

Obvious really.

"Are you *ing joking?"

This is a British Civil Service department you're talking about.

What do you think?

Re: Not bad in theory

"How long before the daily mail has a story about how a single mom starved to death because she didn't apply to be the ceo of some quango (whilst her immigrant neighbour is on 20k a week benefits, because you need the mail angle in there)."

Have you considered a career move into journalism.

Sounds like you've got the touch already.

BT ordered to pay £95m to rivals it overcharged for FIVE years

Re: BT overcharging

"The phone lines should be public property like the national grid."

And like the national grid (and it's equivalent gas distribution network) they are not.

It was called privateisation.

Boffins spot planet that could support life... just 12 light years away

Re: Terrestrial broadcast signal propagation...?

"Um...it's 12 year lag. We're currently sending them the beginning of the reality TV failwagon."

So prepare for the retaliatory strike arriving in around 2024

Re: "We can't send things to other places Really Really Fast."

The best part is, we don't even have to work all that hard. We need to build something with A) A bitching power supply and that can B) survive crazy acceleration."

The first part is much easier than the first. The classic example being the Sprint ABM for terminal defense with its 100g acceleration (Breaking M1 less than 1 sec after launch). Given the huge strides in integration putting significant capability into a small package is quite feasible (although they probably can't operate during launch). But to get to light speed you'd need to keep that up for 3.5 days.

Trouble is Voyager at 13Km/s is 0.0043% of light speed. I mentioned Robert Forwards Starwisp idea and I think that's the closest to being feasible. It could be done if we wanted to do it right now. The engineering is tough but the physics is known. Orion is a longer term option partly due to feasibility (you don't get this in a mini size) and of course the politics.

There is also the "Icarus" follow up study to the British Interplanetary Societies "Daedalus" plan to explore Bernards Star. That however looked at mining Jupiter for reaction mass to get something like 10% of c.

In IT a factor of 10 000 improvement does not seem unrealistic (clock speeds, network speeds, memory density have all gone up by these amounts). But outside this area most improvements are measured in %. It's a very different game.

Re: Considering the distances from Earth for the *other* candidates this is pretty close.

"Isn't one of many restrictions to the orion project that the craft would be incredibly heavy. Meaning construction in space."

True IIRC the original version was to support Earth launch. The vehicle weighs thousands of tonnes (compare that to the ISS).

"Meaning putting a lot of nuclear weapons in orbit... "

That's sort of debatable. The "pulse units" as they called were (It's difficult to know given how much is still classified) known were stripped down low yield (140kt, down to 0.1kt) H bombs designed to generate 95% of their energy by fusion rather than fission. I think the plan was to keep the precision triggering hardware (necessary to fire the the conventional explosives) on the vehicle.

It's possible that that in the 4 decades since it's original conception a "fission free" way to build fusion bombs has been found, eliminating the Uranium or Plutonium fall out entirely.

New York takes 2,100 pervs offline, gets gaming support

"The lunatics really are running the asylum now it seems"

Except under new a Congressional law the term "lunatic" may not be used for in Federal legislation.

Mad but true?

"2,100 pervs offline"

I'm sure the TSA is much bigger in NYC.

Dotcom titan funds 'Mark Cuban Chair To Eliminate Stupid Patents'

I think 1 chair is enough to improve the US software patent system

It just needs a really good connection to the mains.

MIT boffins demonstrate NEW form of magnetism

As someone said of another observed effect

"We are in a state of such confusion that we are bound to learn something."

No, I'm not sure what either.

But it sounds exciting.