Re: Chinese Anti Vilus ?
"permanent free, includes English language support"
Oh, the irony.
Posts by Psyx
2549 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jun 2010
Page:
Chinese search giant Baidu launches free AV
Inside Lord Sugar's 'you're fired' YouView bust-up with TV baron
US lawmaker blames bicycle breath for global warming gas
Tuesday 5th March 2013 10:33 GMT
Re: Facepalm...
"3. I would rather pay a few pounds extra for fuel than have to spend a thousand on a new bike and all that safety gear your nanny government would force me to wear."
Like the politician, you're now making shit up.
Cyclists are not 'required' to wear anything, except to have lights on their bike when it's dark (which about half of them do in my experience, hence the dozen bike-shaped kill markings on my car door).
Pirate Bay 'seeks asylum' in, er, 'North Korea'
SpaceX Dragon eventually snared by ISS
Monday 4th March 2013 10:38 GMT
Re: I wonder
"They've not even begun to establish any credibility in that line at all; quite the opposite."
Quite the opposite: They had a problem. It was fixed. That actually establishes more credibility to my mind.
Look into it and have a look at how many NASA/NRO missions have totally failed before being too keen to write this project off. After all: It *is* rocket science.
Tito's Mars mission to use HUMAN WASTE as radiation shield
Monday 4th March 2013 17:54 GMT
Re: One way trip
"Do not bring back some random virus or bacteria that our probes cannot detect. We are happy to send care packages!"
Congratulations on being the most stupid thing I've read today.
How will these bacteria (so far undiscovered by us on several missions there) fly several thousand miles into space, penetrate the vessel's hull and adapt to a totally alien host, who might have totally differing biology.
In your own time...
Keyboard, you're not my type
Monday 4th March 2013 13:06 GMT
Re: The best keyboard they ever used was one they had a long time ago
"That'd be the ZX Spectrum rubber keyboard then and sad to say it probably does beat some keyboards I've used lately."
I was never a fan of sweat-drenched keys myself. Or having to use fifteen types of shift-mode to write anything.
Spies in the sky: The leaps and bounds from balloons to spook sats
Monday 4th March 2013 11:11 GMT
Re: SR-71
"You can use anything you want except nuclear. Just make it go as fast as you can and as high as you can."
They were pretty practical, really. They looked at hydrogen powered engines, but decided it was impractical.
Although there were plans drawn up for a nuclear-powered drone nuclear bomber, and they even got as far as testing a nuclear jet engine. They would have kept a few in the air, ready for mission activation at any time. It would have flown low, spewing a cloud of nasty fall-out, before dropping a swathe of warheads and crashing, making even more of a mess.
In the end, the US decided that such a tool would be escalating the Cold War a bit too much.
Friday 1st March 2013 12:42 GMT
Re: For those interested:
Of course, photographing the thing on its transport truck would have been a bit of a giveaway, too. There's shots of a huge flat-bed with this big, latently SR-71 shaped box on the back!
There's also the pioneering work on stealth, carried out in the 50s, which is fascinating. And none of us realised it at the time, but the Oxcart/SR-71 were probably the first operational 'stealth' aircraft, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Rainbow
"Rather helpfully, it turned out that the USAF were a bit crap at excuses and tended to trot out the usual "weather balloon" type platitudes."
Plenty of which of course *were* spy-craft. There was also an early recon UAV project, which is pretty cool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21
Which I guess would effectively be the fore-runner of this rumoured prototype: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/06/airforce_sr72_070617/
Friday 1st March 2013 09:24 GMT
For those interested:
What, no love for the highly secret and very successful SR-71 predecessor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12
This experimental test-bed is also pretty interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_Blue
KH-9 has also now been on (semi-)public display, seen here: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.rss.spacewire.html?id=1568
"As an example of just how far the technology's come, compare a Corona image of the Sputnik launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome, obtained at vast effort and expense on good old-fashioned film back in the 1960s"
It's worth noting that 15cm resolution has been possible for a long time, however lower resolution was generally used, as it was far more useful and covered a much larger area. Likewise, colour wasn't deemed as detailed as black and white images. Inherently there is nothing 'low res' about using traditional film. It took a long while for CCDs to come close to what you could get with a conventional camera.
We all like what the Hubble does, but it uses a 2.4m mirror mainly because they were already being made for KH-11 birds [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11 ]
Nowadays, things have moved on a little, and America's NRO [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reconnaissance_Office ] are literally giving away their camera mirrors to NASA. Why? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_aperture_radar has a bit to do with it, and obviously stealthed-up, high-altitude UAVs do a good job and are essentially disposable (obviously, you don't use you *newest* toys where they might get shot down, though. And of course, if you have air superiority or are flying in neutral airspace, you can find out an awful lot just by flying one of these around: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSTARS
Storage glitch sends Curiosity into safe mode
Monday 4th March 2013 11:04 GMT
Re: only 2 computers?
"Personally I always wear 3 watches for true fault detection and recovery."
One on each limb, in case of severance, one hopes.
And one of them analogue in case a problem takes down all the digitalis at once. And that needs a back up, too.
The more I think about it, the more even eight watches doesn't seem a safe-enough number for you to wear.
Belgian boffins find colossal meteorite
Canadian cyborg says Google Glass design is cracked
Monday 4th March 2013 10:52 GMT
Re: Each eye to focus on a different plane?
"neither eye is able to focus as sharply as they can if completely corrected or uncorrected. "
...Which is kinda why we have binocular vision, ultimately.
Personally, I'm not really seeing a massive disadvantage in life of having to get one's phone out in order to look at the Internet, or even augmented reality. I'm all ears, but I've yet to hear a really good reason for recreational or casual use of these things.
Monday 4th March 2013 10:49 GMT
"Projecting a display is old hat, the original HUD in aircraft, smart helmets for fighter pilots, even some cars have displays on the windscreen."
That's a drastic over-simplification. A bit like saying "space travel is old hat, because we've been making biplanes for twenty years now".
There's a big difference between being able to parse an image two feet from your eye or a few lines overlaying normal vision and having full colour video less than an inch from your eyeball.
"However it would be long before legislation bans them for use in cars, working with machinery etc. they will become a distraction and could lead to accidents."
Erm... It's already be illegal to have images projected into the area of the windscreen where it is illegal to have anything blocking vision. It's also already illegal to have a TV screen for the driver to look at. And it's already illegal to drive without care and attention (by being distracted)). No new legislation required.
Wikileaker Bradley Manning pleads not guilty to 'aiding the enemy'
Strategic SIEGE ROBOTS defeated by 'heavily intoxicated' man, 62
Friday 1st March 2013 10:05 GMT
Re: heh
"My wager is, with police exaggeration what it is, that the guy had a .22 (small caliber) rimfire pistol, using pretty much the same cartridge that kids have been using to plink cans for over a hundred years. Hell, maybe he even had the uber-scary .22 magnum"
So? That's still a guy with a firearm who was clearly willing to shoot shit up. I don't know what you had for breakfast, but I'd still be unwilling to get shot in the face with a 'wimpy' .22. If you tell me to go into a house and arrest someone because they've 'only' got a .22, I'd still prefer a hunk of metal to get shot than myself.
I have no problem them sending in a robot rather than risk getting shot. Or with throwing the book at the guy afterwards.
Friday 1st March 2013 10:01 GMT
Re: Vandalising government property?
"That's a red herring. If an intruder is not identified as a cop, he's fair game. End of story."
No it's not. Think about it for a moment. Do you for a second genuinely think that the police quietly rolled up unannounced and slipped a disguised robot silently into this guys house without at any point before-hand telling him to get the hell out because the police were outside and they wanted him to come out.
For comparison, imagine a hostage situation where a SWAT team sneak in. The hostage-taker sees them before they start shouting and guns them down. Do you for a *second* thing that 'stand your ground' laws would be any kind of legal defence. Really?
Thursday 28th February 2013 13:44 GMT
Re: Vandalising government property?
"Hmm. It depends if the robot in question made itself known as controlled by law enforcement."
You don't think that maybe there was at least half a dozen police vehicles parked outside with lights going and people with megaphones saying "Put the gun down you maniac. We're the police and you're a crazy-a$$ SOB"?
"and would thus feel free to consider it fair game for demolition if I had the idea it was about to endanger me."
Ignorance of the law is not a legitimate justification for breaking it. "I didn't know that shooting something is illegal" makes it no less illegal.
"It's actually an interesting question: what is the status of remote controlled kit? Does it have powers of arrest? Can it Mirandise you by loudhailer?"
It wouldn't need to. Miranda is read *after* someone is taken into custody, but *before* interrogation. There's also a public safety waiver, where a subject might be asked a question prior to reading if public safety is endangered.
Thursday 28th February 2013 10:43 GMT
Re: Vandalising government property?
"Vandalising government property?
I'm a bit mystified that you can get booked for vandalising a trespasser: the man has obviously not let the robot in his house, I doubt he has had a warrant put in his hand --- so it's an illegal intruder."
That's not how the law works.
The guy was drunk and waving a firearm around. That's more than enough legal cause to kick in the door and taser the guy.
Texan contends iPod EXPLODED IN HER FACE
Moscow's speed cameras 'knackered' by MYSTERY malware
Friday 1st March 2013 09:54 GMT
Re: In the UK
"Line tire with burlap feed bags. Soak burlap with diesel. Light burlap wick. Works for starting burn piles in a driving rainstorm, or so I'm told."
Burlap feed sacks? We're not that rural, y'know!
Over here people just line the tyre with old rags and petrol. Although the habit is in decline and I haven't seen anyone bothering to burn one out for quite some time now.
Thursday 28th February 2013 16:41 GMT
Re: In the UK
"whilst diesel isn't as flammable as petrol it most certainly burns once you get it a little warm, if diesel didn't burn it would make the diesel engine much harder to achieve."
Diesel engines work on compression ignition, not by sparking it.
Likewise, holding a lighter to it to sabotage a speed camera as per the original post simply doesn't work.
Of course diesel is ultimately burnable (as is pretty much anything in the right conditions), but for the purposes stated it's effectively not.
Basically, I'm trying to discourage anyone using Diesel to set light to speed cameras.
Use petrol, like normal people.
Chinese Army: US hacks us so much, I'm amazed you can read this
Pro-Assad hackers break into AFP Photo wire Twitter feed
US insurer punts 'bestiality' to wide-eyed kiddies, gasp 'mums'
Thursday 28th February 2013 10:55 GMT
Re: Entirely Typical
"I doubt that, but I'll admit it's a possibility. Maybe when I get the time I'll look at some of the other anomalies in that particular set of statistics (like Sweden) and see if they have that in common with you. However I still think that the largest contributing factors to your low murder rate are going to be social, or possibly economic (I think, but I'm not sure, that you also have an extremely low poverty rate over there), and have absolutely nothing to do with guns or the lack thereof."
Define 'poverty rate'. We have plenty of 'poor' people, but ultimately there are safety nets there to stop most people being so poor that violent crime is the only alternative. We have a healthcare system that doesn't let mentally ill people go uncared for, or charges them more than they can afford for medication. We have a higher education system and social aid for youths that doesn't simply turn them out on the streets at 18. And we have a criminal justice system that is sufficiently 'soft' on non-violent crime to ensure that no burglar or petty criminal in their right mind would consider trying to get hold of a firearm or resort to lethal force in order to avoid arrest.
Say what you like about left-leaning social policies, but they do at least stop most of the people at the bottom of the pile from turning to lethal force. Take away those last-chances for the poor and deranged and you're left with desperate people with nothing to lose.
I'm pretty sure that the lack of easily accessible point-and-click corpse-making devices has a fair bit to do with it too though. A lot of causes are socio-economic and cultural, but the UK is probably socially closer to the US than 90% of nations on this planet.
Wednesday 27th February 2013 10:30 GMT
"but never criticize France, that bastion of European enlightenment, where they had weeks of huge, enraged protests from their own religious right over the same thing?"
The difference is that we already hate France anyway.
Whereas we're at least on speaking terms with America.
Also: We can get our smug sense of superiority over the French by knowing that they'd surrender if someone fired a pop-gun over the Channel, whereas we have to feel socially superior to the US, lacking the manpower to kick their asses in civilised warfare.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
