Posts by james 68

United, Mesa airlines order 200 electric 19-seater planes for short-hop flights

Re: Do electric aircraft have regenerative braking?

For some reason your post made me imagine them using the props as wind turbines while parked, letting them spin in the wind as it were. Put a smile on my face.

Re: I wonder

It wouldn't add much to the range per flight, but it would add to the longevity of the batteries making total ownership costs potentially much less for the operator. The batteries wouldn't need to dump large amounts of current over the short periods required on each takeoff, my reasoning for this is drones, if flown in normal mode batteries have a much longer lifespan than if they're flown in sport mode.

Michigan Micro Mote works well escargot: Tiny computer makes it into the field strapped to backs of predatory snails

Re: Slow news day

Much like "too fast too furious" except the snails are better at conveying emotion, scriptwriting and acting in general.

We’ve found them! Govt reinstates records previously missing from the Police National Computer

Re: Well, the data was recovered

Assuming that there was a backup. The time delay might suggest that there wasn't and they had to rely upon forensic prodding of the drives that contained the data.

China all but bans cryptocurrencies

Replace "China" with any other government and the result is exactly the same.

Preliminary report on Texas Tesla crash finds Autosteer was 'not available' along road where both passengers died

Re: Best just make a full size scalextric

A quantum singularity, swiftly followed by a series of rapid fire Musk tweets and an unfathomable rise in the value of dogecoin?

GCHQ boss warns China can rewrite 'the global operating system' in its own authoritarian image

Re: About "...weaken and backdoor cryptography...."

But I'm not just talking about the cryptography of service providers, GCHQ want all crypto provided in the UK to be compromised, be it Joe public, universities or companies. When any of the above can and do work on projects which fall under the umbrella of "national security interests" it shows how daft the idea of compromised crypto is when they say that they need compromised crypto for national security but they also need strong crypto for national security. There's a logical fallacy in there about snakes eating their own tails.

Cryptography

"Cryptography is important and necessary so give us all the money" says the GCHQ guy who wants to weaken and backdoor cryptography.

A facepalm moment of epic proportions.

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

Re: dead tumbling uncontrolled objects leading to a chain reaction yadda yadda.

Would make for a pretty light show, the explosions and the resulting aurora.

Re: Why nuclear?

Nuclear would give off a hell of an EMP turning many other sats into dead tumbling uncontrolled objects leading to a chain reaction yadda yadda.

FSF doubles down on Richard Stallman's return: Sure, he is 'troubling for some' but we need him, says org

Re: Offensive

Downvoted for being against pedophillia? Wow, a new low for the register comments section.

To be perfectly clear the guy is a sex offence waiting to happen. He's even for necrophillia and sex with animals. Downvote all you like, he shouldn't be on the streets nevermind helming an organisation.

https://stallman.org/articles/extreme.html

Re: Offensive

Totally agree, the guy is scum.

While I cannot say without proof that he's an actual pedophile, he certainly has no problems voicing active support for pedophillia.

Sloppy data compliance sees Japanese government cut out its own use of LINE messaging app

If you're a Japanese national sure, if you're an import like me then you may never get it regardless of if your medical insurance is fully paid up, as in every official release to date the shot has only been promised to Japanese nationals.

WiMAX? 'Dead with no known users': Linux tips code in the recycle bin

Umm..

"Nobody uses wimax!"

Seems like they failed to check countries outside of the US/UK, Wimax is all over Japan, from trains to convenience stores. Admittedly bog standard WiFi can also be found at these locations, but the locals often prefer Wimax because they get a better connection.

Japanese bank botched data migration, which somehow turned its ATMs into card-eating monsters

Like a box of clowns being slowly immolated.

Having lived in Japan for the past 6 years, I can state with utter confidence that the entire Japanese banking "system" is a complete shitshow.

SpaceX Starship blows up on landing, Elon Musk says it's the data that matters and that landed just fine

Anyone else notice that the exhaust from one of the rocket motors changed to a bright green flame many seconds before the BOOM?

You could get such a green coloured flame by burning copper (an unlikely material in a high temp rocket motor) or by burning boron (a very likely material given its much higher melting point and other features) either way it suggests that the motor was in effect "eating itself" prior to the fateful landing.

Rock and roll: China's probe orbits the Moon while Japan brings home bits of asteroid

Re: Cool

So below?

;-)

UK, Canada could rethink the whole 'ban Huawei' thing post-Trump, whispers Huawei

Re: Nice try to spin

Yes, we are done. You have proven that you cannot argue based upon facts and instead must use fabrication and deliberately misconstrued quotes taken out of context.

You're simply not worth it.

Re: Nice try to spin

That's rather disingenuous, I never said that the Chinese government is not sponsoring industrial espionage, they quite blatantly are. Just like every other country to varying degrees of hypocrisy.

I am pointing out how the previous commenters arguments against Huawei fall flat on their face when not seen through a haze of partizan and I dare to say it, racist anti-chinese sentiment.

The Chinese government does not equate to the Chinese people, nor Chinese companies.

Re: Nice try to spin

If ignorance is bliss then you must be one very happy camper.

Lets go through your list of perceived grips one by one.

"Huawei is the private enterprise of the PLA, even more willing to follow Chinese laws forcing every private company to share everything with the tyrannical CCP regime" - You see that part where you wrote Chinese laws? You get what a law is right? It's non-negotiable, You don't want to go to jail, you follow the law of the land. There is no choice. Also pretty much every major company that wants to operate or trade in China must accept some percentage of government ownership. This does not make them a "private enterprise of the PLA, Foxconn ring any bells? how come you aren't griping about Apple?

Espionage - Huawei opened their source code to the British government for inspection, sure their source was shitty, but can you guess what wasn't found? I'll give you a hint.... nefarious espionage code. Call me back when Cisco is willing to do the same.

IP theft - Hmm you haven't actually checked on this have you? Guess who owns a metric shit-ton of 5G patents, if you guessed Huawei then have a cookie they're so far advanced in 5G they can make better chips cheaper than their competition, hell they helped write the 5G standard. Now guess who stands to benefit if Western countries can use those patents without the need to pay royalties to Huawei.

loss of competitive power and knowledge - Ahh, now we see the crux of the matter "They're making more money than us and they're smarter than us!!" Jealousy and a feeling of inferiority, those great drivers of global politics and many other bad decisions.

Behold, the Ultimately Large Telescope: A revived proposal for a 100-metre liquid-mirror star scanner on the Moon

Re: liquid?

Inconsistent viscosity might cause imperfections in a frozen surface which may not be as big an issue when it's a liquid in motion. Presuming that the "thicker" parts of the liquid would be held against the outside edge by the spin.

(I'm not an expert by any means, that is just my guess and could very well be wrong)

Years after we detected two neutron stars crashing into each other, we're still picking up X-rays. We don't know why

Re: So here's a thought:

With or without racing stripes? Everyone knows adding racing stripes will make anything faster.

NASA's hefty Martian rover will use an AI brain on a robot arm to map out signs of ancient life on Red Planet

I expect they're probably using a variety of 7075 Aluminium alloy (Aluminum for the FREEDOM!!!!! folk) which has a slightly higher thermal expansion then a lot of steels. But even so, I've seen it used as components in jet turbine housings and mounts and it sure didn't get anywhere near 13mm of expansion while in use, nevermind on a hot summer day.

I suppose they could be talking about total expansion by volume as opposed to directional. Would be a daft way to phrase it though.

"During the day, the temperature on the Red Planet can fluctuate by up to 38°C. The added heat can cause the metal on Perseverance's robotic arm to expand and contract by up to 13 millimetres"

Expansion of 13 millimeters over a temperature differential of just 38°C? doesn't that seem a little extreme? I would expect a deviation of around 1.3 mm not 1.3 cm.

TikTok seeks injunction to halt Trump ban, claims it would break America's own First and Fifth Amendments

Re: Oh the irony

Nope, not the pacific. Neither the Japanese nor I want him washing up here on the shores of Japan. Amusing as the thought of him being chewed up and shat out by Godzilla might be, would anyone really be able to tell the difference? A huge pile of steaming shite is a huge pile of steaming shite however you choose to look at it.

Tech ambitions said to lie at heart of Britain’s bonkers crash-and-burn Brexit plan

Re: State Aid????

Well it's not. It's a republic. A (supposedly) democratic republic I grant you, but a republic all the same.

Rocket Lab deploys Photon, er, in-house built satellite on Flight 14

Hey, they gotta keep those porcine containment vessels topped up somehow.

Sounds like the black helicopters have come for us. Oh, just another swarm of FAA-approved Amazon delivery drones

Too soon?

"what society will make of the first autonomous plane crash."

I thought Boeing already had dibs on planes that crash autonomously...

USA decides to cleanse local networks of anything Chinese under new five-point national data security plan

The majority of Foxconn factories are in mainland China, bankrolled, part controlled and protected against human rights investigation by the PRC. You can bet your ass that all data and designs that flow from the headquarters in Taiwan to the factories in china do so via the PRC.

Wrong China? Show me how I'm wrong. IF you can.

I seem to recall that Apple's devices are made by foxconn, a known human rights abuser and part state owned/controlled, in China. Curious as to when they'll be banned and wether or not the republican party and Trump could even survive trying to ban them (I envision Washington taking on a striking resemblance to a Romero movie, with the government barricaded in the white house surrounded by black turtleneck wearing zombies).

Is that croaky voicemail of your CEO just a Fakey McFake Fake – or does he normally ask you to wire him $1m?

Re: a "software-generated voicemail message"

None, that I'm aware of. Though I did install an optical network link in a certain Irish golf club, I'm pretty sure that was prior to the mandarin man of tiny hands fame buying a controlling share.

Re: a "software-generated voicemail message"

@trevorde some might suggest that this is the current status of ai.

Cognitive abilities ⩽ a 3 year old, can't make a correct decision on its own regardless of the size of its training set, shows extreme bias, gets confused when asked to distinguish between a picture of a dog and a duck. Certainly sounds like most of my prior bosses.

Judge green-lights Facebook, WhatsApp hacking lawsuit against spyware biz NSO, unleashing Zuck's lawyers

Re: My head hurts

Don't worry, the world hasn't gone topsy turvy. Like most who are obscenely rich or hold power over the peons he couldn't give a flying zuck about the privacy concerns of the masses, what worries him is that his own personal communications could be compromised. That's why he wants this nipped in the bud, any fallout that benefits us normal folk is purely accidental.

Bad news: Your Cisco switch is a fake and an update borked it. Good news: It wasn't designed to spy on you

Where can I get Some of these I wonder? They work just like the real thing but without backdoors? Sign me up.

Chinese mobile giant OPPO claims new 125W fast-charging spec will fully fuel your phone in 20 minutes

Re: "you might not notice the fact that it isn't holding as much charge as it used to"

Ideally this would be accomplished by moving away from batteries entirely and instead using capacitors. Fast charging and long life.

White elephants in the mist: Google's upcoming Pixel 4A may ship without Soli motion recognition, per FCC filing

Re: Telekinesis

Capacitive is pretty old hat nowadays, a lot of screens are actually resistive based now unless you've got a bargain basement blower.

No longer a planet and left out in the cold, Pluto, it turns out, may have had hot beginnings

Re: It'll be a planet again

Earth also has several "moonlets", asteroids locked in Lagrangian orbits. So not so much with the orbital clearance as a category for planethood. Also how does clearing an orbit work for planethood when you consider planetary rings? Is Saturn not a planet then? Demoting Pluto was arbitrary and capricious, which is why they waited until most of those present went to lunch before forwarding the motion.

Couple wrongly arrested over Gatwick Airport drone debacle score £200k payout from cops

Re: Facial recognition

It gets shared around the station for them to masturbate over. Whereas common folk cannot fly near houses or over crowded parks and beaches, plod can and do. In the process their drones seem to spend a lot of time loitering in areas with the prettiest/most skimpily dressed females for some reason...

Fujitsu unveils new laptops 'optimized for remote work' – erm, isn't that what laptops have always been for?

Re: Nope missing an obligatory element

Funny you should mention a fridge magnet as an authentication device.

I used To work for an ISP and the pencil botherers decided that every internal door should have magswipe security which doubled as timecards and basic workplace snooping. My domain in the server room and "control suite" already had good old fashioned pin number locks.

Cue much frustration and general gnashing of teeth as people forgot their ID cards at home or on their desks.

Until some scruffy intern in the web design department discovered that using any magnet from any of the memo boards liberally distributed around the company would open any door with a quick swipe down the card slot.

Bloody expensive but about as secure as a politicians moral compass.

SpaceX Crew Dragon docks at International Space Station

Re: this is only half the trip

Landing, "coming down again", isn't as easy as you'd expect. To increase your orbit you add velocity, to decrease you slow your velocity. What happens when gravity effects the rate of descent? The capsule gains velocity. "Coming down again" might actually be more difficult (relatively speaking) than going up.

Surprise! That £339 world's first 'anti-5G' protection device is just a £5 USB drive with a nice sticker on it

They beat you to it. There is a huge supply chain out there selling "magic rocks" from £30 and upwards each, while claiming they'll cure everything from full blown aids to poltergeist. They are unsurprisingly indistinguishable from the contents of bags of large quartz gravel you'd normally find in any garden center or DIY store at around £15 for a 20lb bag.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to save data from a computer that should have died aeons ago

Re: Hybrid children watch the sea

@FuzzyWuzzys

Ah lawnmower deth, I remember them well and fondly. Still get satan's trampoline stuck in my head sometimes. Have an upvote.

Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia accused of hacking Jeff Bezos' phone with malware-laden WhatsApp message

Re: "it... may see the kingdom cut out of deals altogether"

Don't forget, they also got away with the largest and most heinous terrorist attack in history. (Allegedly).

World-record-breaking boffins reveal the fastest spinning thing on Earth – and it's not George Orwell in his grave

As fastest thing, sure. But this is about the fastest "spinning" thing, everyone knows that the fastest spinning things are Porsche 911's (of the early 930 variety) on just about any road with even a hint of a curve.

BOFH: 'Twas the night before Christmas, and the ransomware struck

Ahh, the memories

Reminds me of a place I once worked in Belfast. All the staff were looking forward to the usual Christmas bonus only to be told that there wasn't enough to go round that year (which came as a surprise to everyone considering the company had done rather better than normal). When everyone returned from the Christmas period what did we all discover? Both bosses had acquired brand new and fully optioned VW Passats. Purely by coincidence of course.... bloody cockwombles.

Amazon: Trump photon-torpedoed our $10bn JEDI dream because he hates CEO Jeff Bezos

Re: No one is crying for Amazon

Nitro hypervisor.

Move over Ceres! There's a new, smaller dwarf planet in town called Hygiea

Eh?

Looks more sort of 'potatoish' rather than spherical. Either way, solar systems largest potato or solar systems smallest dwarf planet, still one for the books.

Just a friendly reminder there were no at-the-time classified secrets on Clinton's email server. Yes, the one everyone lost their minds over

Cue:

Rabid screaming of "But Benghazi...!!" In 3...2...

Boris Brexit bluff binds .eu domains to time-bending itinerary

To me the obvious solution is that the UK is (like it or not) Part of the European continent even if it leaves the union and is therefore entitled to .eu domains (for an understanding of EUrope as opposed to European Union), of course that could change if all the vote leave folks get their oars out and start furiously paddling the UK towards open ocean whilst yelling "Brexit means Brexit!!"

Personally I couldn't give a toss outside of the bemusement and amusement factors, I saw this shit show coming several years ago and buggered of to live in Japan with both a UK and an Irish passport in hand.

Valorous Vikram lunar lander – or Star Wreck: Enterprise? India's Moon craft goes all silent running during descent

Re: Moonmen?

Surely you mean Clangers? Perhaps the soup dragon was feeling testy.