Posts by Yet Another Anonymous coward 21387 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Dec 2009
>If they just grabbed the data anyway, then what would be the consequences?
It only works once and screws the chance of future 'cooperation'
It works for police/immigration but not for well paying commercial customers.
If I'm an insurance company in the future looking for prime customers - having partial data from a grab 10 years ago with no updates isn't that much use to me.
I thought the last lot of #10 incumbents had made it all free ? On the basis that the main customer of HM Ordnance survey was HMG and it was costing more to handle the billing paperwork than it cost to make the maps - so they may as well make it free.
Sadly now living in an off-world colony who think that printing 1:100,000 maps entirely from WWII-era areal photos with no footpaths and roads only marked if somebody officially maintains them - is somehow adequte.
>Surely light doesn't lose it's strength like electro-magnetic stuff?
Erm light is the original electro-magnetic stuff.
It does get absorbed along the fibre, only a bit because fibre is seriously good transparency.
The bigger problem is dispersion = light of slightly different wavelengths travels at slightly different speed in fibre (it only goes the same speed in vacuum). This means that a signal with even slight variation in wavelength will smear out from a sharp pulse into a low bump.
This is what the clever boffins have improved to get these speeds.
Hubble doesn't have any fuel, rocket fuel was too dangerous for a payload that has to be approached by a crew.
Pointing is done by reaction wheels and magnetic bars that 'push' against the Earth's field. Its orbit had to be boosted by space shuttle missions.
But you don't have to worry about it staying up for more than another few years, it is too big and too low to remain for long. Although there is no specific plan for a de-orbit other than "thoughts and prayers"
Isn't all Nationalism tinted with xenophobia ?
It isn't like Yorkshire would split from the UK due to wanting fraternal bonds of love and understanding between all peoples. It's because we are a natural master race that are superior to southerners and Lancastrians - we are just too reserved to ever mention it.
>Now, where are the UK phones?
First we renationalise BT and roll it back into the GPO
Then we convince the GPO that this telephony business is worth looking at and won't affect the telegram business. Then we get an agreement from the Union of sub-PostMistresses and Allied Trades.
Then we get the boffins at Dollis hill to start looking at making a mobile phone with valves, rather than brass gears
So far they have been great.
I don't need a flagship phone that costs 4x as much as a laptop
I need >2Gb RAM, an SD card, the same Qualcom chippery everyone else has, a couple of day battery life and a regularly updated unlocked Android.
If I can pay $100 for that because it's aimed at the Asian market rather than instagram influencers that's fine by me
And how much damage to their life, job, housing etc when the other lawyer has access to any previous police records (thanks to some friends on the force) and the ice rink hires a PR comp to make sure this all gets out on Fox news and social medo
>Maintenance may be an improvement. Electric motors will have fewer moving parts and lower operating temperatures.
That's why electric probably has a future in GA (small private plane hobby)
The big running cost is maintenance because engines have so many complicated parts and every last part must be manufactured, tested, installed, serviced by lots of paperwork.
If you make an electric motor that the FAA certify the equivalent of ETOPS, ie these motors typically run for 100K hours with a failure so we can relax service intervals.
And for GA a 1 hour flight time with 100mi range and 1 hour recharge would be perfectly fine
>Inter island travel in the Caribbean for instance would be a perfect use case for this type of aircraft.
Small nations are generally exempt from/don't care about headline grabbing climate accords
It might be worthwhile if you are trying to run some elite rich eco tourist resort
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