Posts by John Smith 19

Neil Armstrong slams 'devastating' Constellation cancellation

@Captain Tick Tock

"Now they'll have no excuse not to join the rest of the world in the metric system..."

You *so* underestimate the ability of the US Aerospace industry to avoid progress.

It's not just the base 10/12/60 units they chuck around at the drop of a hat.

It's the conversion factors. 144 to convert PSI to PSF (they will use both), not forgetting 1728 when you need to convert to cubic inches from cubic feet plus whatever takes their fancy when converting from fathoms to feet or whatever dubious conversion factors need to be inserted.

Actually the Soviets employed their share of ex jailbirds

Korolev was on parole for the programme. I don't think he ever finished his sentence. Handy if the "Chief Designer" can't hit target, just send him back inside and replace with new "Chief Designer."

@hamchessandonion

"but in truth, and much as it pains a lifelong stargazer and child of Heinlein/Clarke/Asimov/Niven, etc, we ain't going out there folks."

If you expect NASA to do it, you're right.

*None* of them ever did rely on NASA however.

"Not in my lifetime, not in yours, and your great-great-grandchildren will hopefully manage to survive on this small blue thing - I just hope they dream mighty dreams better than we did, and make them come true."

Things change. The game is only over when you're in the ground.

Good night and good luck.

With the greatest possible respect to all 3 commanders

This is BS.

America has *never* since the 1960s lacked launch capability (throw weight) to carry humans into space.

It will lack capability NASA *approves* of.

Which means funded by NASA and designed and built to its *exact* specifications.

With a huge ground staff funded by NASA payments.

The Augustine commission considered this uneconomic and proposed the cancellation. President Obama accepted.

The world has changed in the last 5 decades. In 1960 *no* one in the US knew a moon trip was possible or even survivable. By 1970 both were statements of *fact*.

Lockmart studied what was needed to make Atlas V passenger safe with their work for Bigalow and now Boeing as part of ULA are doing the same. Neither of them uses the astonishingly lethal propellant mix the Gemini (NASA) crews flew on. SpaceX was designed from day 1 to a human safety factor and estimate a 3 year timetable to make the capsule man rated *including* a 1 year schedule buffer. OSC give roughly the same timetable to build a new launcher as well. Interestingly despite *massive* solid fuel experience their vehicle will be liquid fueled.

If NASA give the go ahead to *let* them carry crew. If they accept that other people *might* be able to do the job they have had the *exclusive* right to do (in the US) for decades.

As for the ghost of Werner Von Braun He viewed solids as too unsafe for human flight. 1 shuttle mission suggests he was right.

DARPA, US Marines team on proper flying car project

I thought DARPA was getting a little staid in their requirements

But this is well up to their completely bonkers benchmark.

The pictures show a sort of V22 Osprey design which is no where near going to be road worthy.

Whatever comes out of this project (*if* anything comes out) will look radically different.

Obama to backtrack on NASA Orion cancellation - reports

Orion will have to go on a diet

*one* of the "reasons" neither Atlas V or Delta IV were "Suitable" for Orion was they were unable to lift the design (which seems to have gotten heavier as it gets into detailed design)

Of course it could be that it was *designed* to be too heavy for them to justify *needing* Aries 1 in the first place.

NB this is *despite* have a hugely more accurate idea of re-entry conditions (and what level of thermal protection is needed to survive them) and structural loads than Apollo *ever* had.

I guess the c$7bn in R&D funding the cancellation of Aries has released is *not* enough for the congress critters to be happy about.

French city in pedestrian-powered streetlight plan

@Dale 3

"Er, stick a solar panel + battery on each lamp. Sorted."

This is actually available in the UK. It even incorporates a small windmill to pick up power.

Common street lighting column c£150-800 (ornamental mock victorian type)

Free standing non connected "green" street light c£3000.

Real-time ad targeting violates privacy, say US pressure groups

How depressing

Coventry University CS and Engineering students used to be pretty good at IT and politics.

Tories put ID cards, Contactpoint on manifesto hit list

Now would be a good time

For El reg readers in the UK to write to the probable Conservative home and foreign secretaries to remind them of their commitments to scrap ID cards and raise serious questions about what they think the efficiency of the Interception Modernization Programme will be.

McKinnon's mum stands against Straw at general election

@Graham Marsden

"and locked up for years."

I think that should read "decades, if not given the death penalty."

The final Straw

James 139 has the key reason he *should* be opposed.

"The US can request UK subjects be extradited on different terms that we can request their citizens, they just need suspicion, we need proof. Nice to see its fair and balanced then."

it is fundamentally unjust. It is *unlikely* that she will defeat him (but remember the Glasgow Labour seat with the 26000+ majority that went to the SNP with a 4000+ majority) his taking a substantial hit (bringing his majority to say "marginal") might give him a gentle tap with the clue stick.

I believe a conviction under the Computer Misuse act would be virtually certain but I'm not sure what the penalties are under UK law (substantially less draconian than their US counterparts).

I also believe his *real* crime is making DoD computer security "experts" look stupid. DoD people, you got owned by a stoner whose differently conscious. Get *over* it. Get your staff to learn *basic* password security and practice it.

Mine's the one with "The Hacker Crackdown" in the pocket. Back then it was AT&T and DEC that were screaming about "Documents costing 100s of 1000s of $ going missing. SOS/SOB.

Parliamentary wash-up washes away liberties

Mr Brown "promises" electoral reform

It's been on his to-do list for the last 13 years but it's something he feels passionately about and *now* is the time for action.*

*The above statement is 50% true.

@Mike Smith

"but by and large this government has been an object lesson in what can be expected when you vote for numpties just because they didn't come from Eton and Oxford and were therefore down wid da kidz."

A delightfully class bound view of the UK political situation.

Tony Blair might not have gone to Eaton but he (and Jacqui smith) are both Oxbridge graduates. It could be argued that Blairs Jurisprudence is more directly useful than Smith's PPE (A popular choice with senior civil servants, wanabee senior politicians and various assorted financial chancers) Gordon Brown's degree was at Edinburgh History (not sure what his PhD is in. Yes that does make him Dr Brown)

All of the above went to *good* universities. I'd suspect most of the rest of the Cabinet did as well.

Forget the "Man of the people" Vs "Tory boy" PR BS. Most of them did well (in fact Brown did better than Blair on grades) academically.

But then some academics cannot find their a"£se with both hands.

Mine will be the one with the Wiki donation form in the pocket.

King of the geeks leaves Oracle

@jlocke

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

Ahhhhhhhhhh. So cute. And the near ideal pet for busy IT staff with smallish apartments.

gosling returns to Canada

A snow goose then.

iPod implicated in US attack sub prang

Not the smartest thing to do

You are about to dock one of the world's largest and most heavily armed undersea vehicles with a surface vessel. Do you

a)Monitor all sensors to make sure you're exactly where you plan to be remaining ready to slow your approach even further.

b)Kick back and listen to some toons on your iPod.

Obvious really.

Cocaine-hunting robot chopper in 60kg bust seizure

The downside to legalisation

Use will rise, although possibly not amongst the majority of existing users. How many teens would feel smoking weed is rebellious when they find out half their teachers skin up at lunch time?*

Health services would have to cope with the increase in people who cannot control their (now legalised) use. This might be offset by some of the patients already being treated for addiction to legal drugs.

Companies which test for drugs would have fewer grounds to fire staff (it's not illegal) meaning they would have to confront the real reason they want to fire someone because they are incompetent and would now have to *prove* them so.

Education services would have to spend more time explaining what these drugs are, dosage and effects rather than the 5 minutes of "Just say no".

The FDA (or the better business bureau) would have to expand to crack down on sub standard suppliers. 5% by weight now *means* 5% by weight (and no rat poison)

Substantial numbers of law enforcement staff would have to be re-assigned or made redundant. Severance packages for the whole of the DEA would probably be *billions*.

The IRS would have to expand inspect the many newly legitimised suppliers. Note with supply legal overheads and sale price should drop *substantially* ,meaning expected tax revenue would be lower than based on the current street prices.

Suppliers would have to stop being gangsters and start paying taxes and salaries as a proper business.

Commodities markets would have to expand to support and report these new raw and finished materials.

New groups of farmers could apply for federal aid following droughts or flood damage.

Governments would have to admit they had p*££ed away *trillions* of dollars of taxpayers money over *decades* rather than show leadership and confront the public's schizophrenic attitude to the problem that the human brain responds to a *huge* range of mood altering compounds, in some cases (like *legal* drugs) very badly.

All told a nightmare scenario for any right (and extremely right) thinking politicians.

*I have no personal knowledge of any currently employed teacher smoking dope at any school.

Glenn Fry. Smugglers Blues

Saw this item from the Miami Vice days a little while ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIXNPccG0oM

Made IIRC 1983.

Has anything about the drug trade *really* changed beyond not smoking in government buildings?

Big money. Big risk. Big Federal budgets. Crooked cops. Drug money funding oppressive (but US friendly) regimes.

DVLA deals £300m card-style licence contract

addicted to ID card rollout

Like a crackhead is addicted to crack.

Of course with so many in circulation that will give the forgers and crackers a *lot* more examples to work on.

With almost no actual infrastructure that can *read* the card J. Foreigner can "prove" they are a citizen and with the (slightly more expensive) fully cloned card even if some does check it matches to a legitimate entry for (another) J. Foreigner.

2 for the price of one.

Immigration Theater ("We know exactly how many foreign nationals are in this country") + Security Theater ("And we know who they are")

Funny how the civil service can stop answering *questions* but not *issuing* contracts is it not?

Fear 2012? Bunker hustler has you covered

Bit cramped for the average merkin

Well the average merkin who can afford this sort of cash.

BTW most of the hazards listed would be side stepped by proper siting. Locating your underground bunker in the desert is likely to avoid many problems with 10 snow drifts and flooding.

He seems to have avoided Wacko Texas (yes, the locals refer to their incoming new inhabitants as wac-o) steering clear of all those other survivalist nutters in their armed compounds.

Mine will be the one with the MP3 playing "Take the money and run"

Info-scrubbing algorithm unveiled to protect patient privacy

Wonder what happens in the NHS

Wonder if they even care about anonymity.

Labour manifesto: More ID cards, less NHS IT

AC@21:33

Funny how most of these "Artists" don't actually file copyright infringement cases.

It's *always* the media producer.

How many record company execs could actually *play* an instrument? Read music? Sing in key?

My gut feeling for media companies is the only "Creativity" they're interested in is the accounting field. "Sorry Mr Artist, yes your last album did shift a 100 000, but that *just* doesn't cover our advance. You can check the accounts if you like."

Electronic media copying and distribution costs are down to almost nothing and the customer s *know* this. The companies that made their money this way *need* to think about what ways they add value to an artist. They have brands and investments which individuals don't have. They need to learn to justify why having a record deal in the 21st century is worthwhile.

A long time ago I suggested that it would be possible to build a machine (placed in record shops) which would produce a CD album on demand. All the content (including the album artwork) is held locally and encrypted. On payment the system calls an authorizing authority (record company or someone like the PRS) who issue a 1 time token to print/burn the album *once*.

The MoD has such a system to store OS maps for emergency use. They pay the OS *only* when 1 or more of them needed reading or printing.

The idea was it would allow small labels to have a presence without the huge distribution network needed to service the high street shops.

The world has changed but media corps have not. I'd call them dodos but I think King Caunte is more accurate.

@Cucumber C Face

Most instructive. Taken out of context her comments sounded remarkably like the views of Marquis De Sade.

This government seems to feel that indeed "Government" *is* a person. It has rights, to listen to everything you say, know where you are and what your communicating with fellow subjects.

For the greater good, of course. The rights of government are specific (except where they are suitably wooly) but the benefits are more nebulous.

Thumbs up for the quote.

quic precis. Please, plesase, *please*

Vote for us.

They will seek your vote with the vigour of a convicted paedophile seeking access to their children.

Labour shock pledge: 16.8-meg broadband for ALL by 2012!

Spell checking *no* substitute for proof reading

Ideally by someone who knows WTF they are reading.

The Conservative one should be interesting.

I think the bulk of it could just be "We will cancel what's left of Labour's XXX IT/database project"

and people would still cheer.

Labour have come out with some good proposals in the last 6 months. Most of them *could* have surfaced *any* time within the last 13 years.

They did not.

Not the first person to confuse bits with bytes

But if any actually *held* them to this (objective? proposal?aspiration?bribe?) possibly the *most* expensive.

It's a manifesto issued 24 days before a general election.

Like a drunk driver whose moan down his *latest* set of pedestrians they will swear blind that *this* time they *really* will change their ways.

Labor have been elected 3 times, which in the UK is a historic achievement for them.

In politics I quite favor 3 strikes and you're out.

Tory £12bn public sector cuts proposal would claim IT scalps

@andy gibson

"and - get this - iphones for every pupil so they're "fully connected 24-7", not to mention scrapping the entire fully working IT infrastructure - wiring and servers."

Reconstruct this well known sentence.

having you're laugh a.

The *most* important skill a CEO posesses

Is the ability to justify at *great* lengths why they have a remuneration package 128x that of their average employee.

The most important skill of a senior civil servant (or Director of an "Executive agency" of a department) is to "explain" why despite no one wanting their database/service/advice/etc in fact it is *essential* to meeting the Ministers objectives and any plan to dismantle the system (and indirectly make them redundant) would be short sighted and counter productive.

According to the Joseph Roundtree Trust there are quite a few projects that are not ECHR compliant to begin with and may fall foul of several other criteria (probably including value for money).

Scalp at will. You have 24 days to go.

AC@14:02

"or Lib Dems (friends say I'm wasting my time voting for them)."

Depends. Some UK citizens *do* have a Lib Dem MP.

The UK voting system really only gives 2 options. vote the incumbent back in or tactically vote them out by voting for the runner up from last time. If that was the Lib Dem then it might well be the best option. Without *some* kind of proportional representation (a system the German government has used with some success)*every* other vote *is* wasted.

NHS blames computer error for transplant fouls

DVLA IT f£$kup or NHS IT f£$kup ?

Decisions, decisions.

I'll plump for one but admit it could be a double fail.

Which end do other people think it is?

Government wastes millions on redundant cycle route planner

Check those numbers

Just viewed http://www.rtaylor.co.uk/transportdirect-cyclestreets.html#comment-32966

Feasibility study £91k

Software licenses £81k/year

Data management £292k (this year and rising)

Data collection £548k (this year and rising)

Project management £115k (this year and falling)

Love to find out how those numbers compare with CycleStreets. In particular I would expect the bulk of the "data" is from the OS database.

It's clear that a crowd sourced planner *should* be able to substantially reduce those costs, using a different updating approach. But this system only covers *certain* areas, not the whole UK.

£400k for the *upgrade*

This is from the government that already has access to *all* the OS map data in the UK to begin with.

Brit science vessel probes hot cleft for weird lifeforms

@Secretgeek

You may be interested to know that one of theories of pre-monocellular life on Earth is that the patterns of silicates found on certain rocks acted as catalytic templates to encourage copies of certain proteins. On earth it's theorised this evolved into the RNA/DNA/Ribosome process of cellular reproduction.

It *might* be possible to construct an ecosystem where that step did not happen and the ingredients went down a path based on silicates and silcones.

Note that oxygen is present in this environment but IIRC the key ingredient is Sulphur. The whole environment is at roughly 480 atmospheres, with a *big* temperature gradient once you leave a close area around the smoker.

BTW I dimly recall some species of bacteria that live in metal mines (Welsh Iron mines?) which secrete sulphuric acid to leach out the metal for use in various chemical cycles.

While these environments demonstrate life can evolve in some *very* hostile environments most test for life will remain geared to environments we believe it can evolve in. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn are plausible candidate, while Mercury and Venus are (currently) viewed as not feasible.

Mine will be the one with "Vitals" in the pocket.

MPs criticise 'impossible' e-Borders schedule

Being able to count the number of people coming and going to a country is useful

But does it *take* an upteen billion pound computer system to do it?

@John 186

The governments will know *exactly* as much as their service providers *allow* them to know.

Any government thinking they will be in *control* of this system is delusional.

What’s new and improving about IT today?

Note it;s the *balence* that matters

"it is the more forward-thinking businesses that get the balance right between what should stay in-house and what should be sourced externally,"

IE They only outsource items that are *not* core to their business. Note however that weather the businesses IT skills are *core* to doing what it does so well may be a grey area (News International IT systems did not seem to be critical in managements view. Perhaps they were wrong).

A classic example of this was a disk drive company. PCB's , cases, motors *all* bought in.

Platter mfg, platter coating and IIRC head mfg *all* in house. These are the bits that make a disk drive different from other products and their ones from their competitors.

The other point I noted was the emphasis on interoperability. One justification for the use of ERP has been the elimination of these issues. I suggest not all ERP is equal on this point. Try before you buy and do they have *reference* sites of good implementations (in your industry) you can visit?

Mine will have "A fwe good men from Univac" in the pocket.

Brown promises no change to basic tax rate

@chr0m4t1c

"they either always vote for one party because they *think* they are socially aligned with it or would never vote for a certain party because of some perceived difference in opinion (e.g. "I always vote Labour because I'm working class" or "I always vote Tory because Labour want to take away all of our money and possessions")."

This is why some parliamentary seats are called "Safe." Note however that the sense of voter disgust in Glasgow turned a 26000 vote Labor majority into a 4000 SNP.

What I actually meant was that in the UK electoral system the *bulk* of people have to choose the *same* party to gain a majority. Failure to do so splits the opposing vote of a constituency by constituency basis, leaving the incumbent in place. Only a concerted effort with most people agreeing on *who* to vote for will unseat an incumbent and only the same choide across the country will give an overall government change.

The old "*No* rise in basic rate income tax"

The last Conservative administration played this one regularly, using *all* the methods commentards have suggested (fuel duty, NI, employer NI, VAT on fuel etc).

it would seem the apprentice (or Darth Broon as he might be called) has exceeded the master (John Major, Nigel Lawson, Norman Lamont).

There's an old Panorama documentary with Peter Jay made before 1 of the Labor win elections.

(No idea if it's on BBC website or youtube). It makes relevant viewing. Basically *all* political parties know that running a government that give UK citizens what they want is *expensive*. Everybody wants *something* and when you add all the "somethings" up its a pretty big bill.

"We want it *all* and we want it *now* "would be what the mob would cry, if it had a voice.

So the problem is how to get the same people who want it all (but don't want to pay for *anything*) to pay for it?

There is a POV which says people get the politicians they deserve. Opinion polls which have suggested that "Yes we would be OK with a tax increase" turn out to be vote losers when people actually *vote*.

There is *no* such thing as an "accidental" election win in the UK voting system.

A hell of a lot of people have to want that outcome. Think *very* carefully about the outcome you want.

Murdoch hacks grumble over outsourced IT failures

@johnny_cto

Checked photo.

Nice.

These Con-tractors

sound like the pitch like con-sultants.

The answer is "Yes of *course* we use Jave/VB/C++/Eiffel/Erlang/WTFlanguage you use so give us the contract."

ERP con-sultants comments apply.

CEOP renews attack on Facebook

"does not matter what the collective child protection community think?"

That is of course the !collective child protection community" of CEOP in the UK and er, well, who else exactly?

From Dunblaine onward there have been repeated failures of *multiple* organisations to *really* protect children.

OTOH each occasion has resulted in more laws, more IT systems and more expensive Quangos to administer them. A great victory for the PR departments of these organisations.

However the number of children who are on council's at risk registers and die remains around 7-10 a week

Real children. Real dead. Lowering that average would be a *real* improvement in the UK record on looking after children.

I did not know they had been complaining about Facebook, but not News Corp's subsidiary. as neither is based in the UK and subject to this area of UK law it's curious one gets covered, the other does not.

Regarding numbers I'd say less than 300 on a global population of what, 10s of millions is virtually background noise.

There are real threats to having an internet presence, as there are to living in the real world. It was designed to be used by adults. Growing up is the *process* of learning to live in those worlds.

Bribery Act passed by Parliament

Only took 13 years

Question is will this be for publicity purposes or will people *really* be investigated.

I hear the sounds of shredders working 3 shifts at Bae Systems.

DWP admits multiple fraud system failures

Keep on running

Apparently not.

World's biggest app store starts stocking shelves

Co develloped with and approved by China telecom

Incorporating special surveillance modes?

Adobe Reader security updater to be unveiled next week

Adobe security team

Adobe *has* a security team.

Who knew?

Tories drop opposition to UK.gov DNA plans

AC@14:08

"We should send Osama a list of all arranged political meetings together with invitations for his disciples to attend..."

Careful now, this is close to inciting terrorist activity.

How good do you look in an orange jumpsuit?

Darling claims £40m to cancel ID cards.

Bargain.

UKIP suspends Scouse candidate over sado smut movies

Where is a moderatrix when you need her

to supply some discipline to this discussion.

HP's Memristor tech - better than flash?

Might even work better when it gets smaller.

Just a superficial reading of the posts.

But it's got a lot of ground to catch up behind the other technologies.

Giant solar-powered aircraft takes to the skies

Roughly 22 days 18hrs continuos flight

Challenging to say the least.