Posts by Robin

Raygun jumbo: 'Long duration' ground blasts begin

just blew up did it ?

That North Korean missile just blew up 40 secs after launch, perhaps the yanks already have the damn thing working and have been keeping it under them rather warm cowboy hats

Wacky Jacqui Smith says whole country crusading against CCTV

More weasle words in Jacco's letter

"The DNA database has revolutionised police investigations. Each year, literally hundreds of homicides and rapes are resolved with the use of DNA matches"

Did those literal hundreds of DNA matches come from the DNA DB or is that a little bait and switch?

The alien because perhaps she is.

Mac supremacists annexe Maidstone

tiny 'avatar'

So the white power nutters have small 'avatars', that could explain there obvious anger issues.

US gun lobby blogs Thanksgiving gun 'facts'

Environmental lead

It is probably that hunters are more likely to live out in the wilds and have a low environmental lead exposure. Non hunters are more likely to be urban and have been exposed to lead pollution.

The icon is to remind you all you will need your guns to fend off the black helicopters

DARPA seeks 'perch and stare' spy-fly robot

Magnets ?

Perhaps it will hang on to the side of a ship/antena mast/tank/water tower/fridge with a magnet and use a reverse pulse from an electromagnet to pop itself of again.

If it freely swivelled round the magnet it could stall nose up into the side of a near vertical surface target, gravity would turn it nose down. This would make camera orientation and subsequent re-launch easier if you could find an elevated ferous target.

First I had the vulture cos it looks like it stalled out to soon. Then I went for Paris cos I bet she swivels freely.

MPs urge action as spooky caller ID-faking services hit UK

The perfect tool for Bunny Boilers

I love this one from their testimonials site ...

"I've used the Spoof caller id when my boyfriend (during that time) was just ignoring my phone calls (even when i blocked my number) he still didn't answer. Up until i had found this wonderful spook caller ID website, i was AND STILL AM VERY THANKFUL for such a WONDERFUL PRODUCT THAT SUITS MY CERTAIN NEEDS. once i've purchased the minimum amount of minutes for this, i had put it to a test! I called my exboyfriend with HIS house phone number and HE HAD ANSWERED the phone call without hesitating!! and he was just tripped out about it. he had thought that i was AT HIS HOUSE!! which i found quite exciting!! the whole idea of how i could use ANY NUMBER to show up on the caller ID, the whole idea of recording the call (which REALLY HELPS WHEN I COULD USE THE RECORDED CALLS AS PROOF THAT HE HAD LIED!PROVING THAT HE TOLD ME ONE THING OVER THE PHONE AND THEN TELLS ME A DIFFERENT STORY IN PERSON THANKS SPOOF!!! I WILL DEFINATELY BE YOUR LONG TERM CUSTOMER!!! THAT'S A FACT!! THANKS!"

If only they had a green ink option to go with THE EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPS. At least the poor boyfriend was only 'during that time' so it looks like he escaped (unless she did a Han Reiser on him)

Linux guru Hans Reiser convicted of first-degree murder

@Anonycow

"lets face it, many murders happen without any witnesses."

I think there are usually two witnesses, unfortunately one is not left in a state to testify and the other is not likely to give a very honest testimony.

Mine is the all in one NBS suit to keep the DNA in.

Endeavour space shuttle returns home

@ Jack Sprague / Greatest Living Spacecraft

While it has a certain sex appeal lifting wings and wheels into space, orbit for two weeks and then finally use them for a few minutes gliding and landing seems like a waste to me. It has also proved to be a very dangerous way to do it.

A return to simplicity will free more money for useful science and perhaps sending humans beyond LEO again.

Mine is the white pressure suit with the lunar boots option.

MoD goat-bothering boffinry to cease

There is still a lot to learn about decompression

Ignoring all the flippant comment there are a vast number of variables involved in decompression and research has a long way yet to go. For one there are limitless gas mixes to use, Air, Nitrox, Oxegen, TriMix, HeliOx, HeliAir, mixes of Hydrogen and Oxygen and any mix of the aforementioned. (As long as there is less than 8-10% O2 in the HydoOx is not explosive).

More and more civilian divers are now exploring extreme profiles and need all the data they can get for safe dives (although admittedly anything Haslar found out recently will not be in the civy world for a while). They are also contributing to better chamber treatments for those who do get bent.

Deco research has also moved beyond pushing it till the goats are bent (fnarr fnarr) then backing off a little. Now ultrasound doplar detectors are used to detect gas phase (bubbles) loading at sub clinical levels.

I for one shall mourn the loss of our caprine colleagues.

I chose the Vulture that forgot to breath out when he ascended

Mum defends suspected Kiwi botmaster

He's not the messia ...

... He's a very naughty boy!

No-humping 20mph limit for London

boosting cyclists

I guess the boost to cycling is that it will now be clearly faster than dragging oneself around in the the old ton of tin. This will produce a massive increase in cyclists, unstoppable demand for a fantastic cycling infrastructure, a utopian future where children can play hopscotch in the street and polar bears will once again frolic on their treating ice flows (that is the opposite of retreating ?)

Spammers target hamsters after Ig Nobel winning research

The rats

I found the cannonical source for the rats distinguishing japanese from dutch but not backwards.

http://www.apa.org/releases/speech_article.pdf

Interestingly (for some values of interesting) rats trained on Dutch (fwd) could differntiate it from Japanese (fwd) but rats trained on Jap could not spot Dutch. Backwards confused them all. As far as a quick scan of the paper showed they did not train rats on Dutch or Japanese backwards. Perhaps I can get funding for that one.

But still no ducks or German found, where did that meme come from, wishful thinking at the reg ?

dutch ducks duck fast talking reversed rodent

According to the Beeb earlier:

"Linguistics - A University of Barcelona team for showing that rats are unable to tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and somebody speaking Dutch backwards"

Nary a Duck or a german were reported. Off course the BBC could be wrong and the cannonical site is not responding now.

Crypto boffins break car cypher

@Brent

"poultry processors" do they make turkey twizlers ?

NASA examining Shuttle's dings, extending mission

hypersonic foam

re: Foam > Ceramic:

When that foam breaks off it is rapidly decelerated in the slipstream and hits those tiles as some rate of knots (insert SI unit as desired ;) The ceramic tiles themselves are a sort of ceramic foam, something a lot weaker than your dinner service.

"[the tiles] consist of fine glass fibers organized in an open cellular pattern, so that tiny spaces account for 95% of their volume".

http://helios.augustana.edu/astronomy/space-shuttle-tiles.html

Re: Great close up:

That pic was taken from the ISS, that's why they do the backflip before docking.

Sealand seeks to cash in on online casino bonanza

and of course there is a petition

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Sealand-Free

Petrol latte for Kiwis in dairy biofuel push

you'd be a fool to ship in dinofuel to ship out biofuel ?

"the more so as the whey distilleries use quite a lot of hot steam, presumably generated by burning fossil fuel as in other biofuel plants worldwide"

I would hope if you are producing a surplus of ethanol the first thing you would do is burn some of it to drive your own plant. Makes no sense to ship in dinofuel and then ship out biofuel unless there is some seriously screwed up tax advantage to doing so.

Astronauts chuck fridge off space station

So 39.5lb is way out then ?

"but pieces of the EAS as large as 39lb"

The genius to calculate bits as large as 39lb may make it down, how many rocket scientists did that take ?

BTW, is a lb a measure of size ? Surely as heavy as 39lb, and after that little incident with mars have they still not embraced the SI unit ?

US wants trucks mounted with frikkin' laser beams

disco balls !

First fire something at the laser to make a nice big bang with some smoke then fire some disco balls at them.

Everyone is looking up at the first shell bursts basking in the glory of their laser defence and suddenly they are looking at a little more reflected glory than they real wanted, ouch.

Quick-charging electric cars could be round the corner

Headlights a power hog ?

Do you notice your car slowing down much when you put the headlights on ? The power drain of headlights is negligible compared to that needed to move a ton of car+battery around.

Having said that I think you have a point about the heater unless battery discharging produces enough waste heat to keep things toasty.