Posts by Bleu 860 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2012
that they didn't have the chance to send NH past one of the larger bodies (than Pluto).
The one it will race past in a few years will probably look much like Kerberos, only less like two snowballs smashed together, and it will be even darker at that distance.
We humans really should get to work on getting outside LEO again, but with the radiation and zero-g problems, and problems on Earth, I doubt if I will live to see it, any more than, perhaps a base or bases on the Moon, a mission to an asteroid, Mars One may succeed in their suicidal plan, that would be interesting, too sad if they do not succeed, I do not think Mars One is going anywhere.
They may make a reality show of their recruitment process, that would turn a profit, although not as much as death on or on the way to Mars.
At least, Mir and the ISS have made a start on the zero-g problems, none of the cosmonauts have been blinded lately, but the one who was, when that problem was discovered, through his experience, probably does not like the result too much.
Baud rate is the rate of symbols. This is not equal to bit rate in most situations, at the simplest, consider baudot code itself.
Then consider framing schemes, parity bits, start and perhaps stop bits, error-correction codes, the baud-rate is not the bit rate.
Take it a bit further, include, say, quadrature amplitude-and-phase shift keying, one 'bit' period in the stream carries 16 bits on arrival, minus those taken up by any framing scheme.
I earlier found a very irritating thread boosting the Raspberry Pi, the original post was semi-realistic (I do not believe that eleven-y-os are capable of what was described without significant help, maybe they did get it all from people they found through the WWW, and a Pi in a box, with all of the connectors is just a mini-PC), but there was a pile-on of morons claiming ludicrous feats by their *toddlers*, usually grandchilden, two and three y-os, all giving each other massive votes. Pathetic.
Say, I know a one y-o who already writes great code. Srsly want to believe it?
Clarke produced little that could be termed 'hard SF', even in his early days.
He did, however, write a rather primal paper on geosynchronous satellites, for the British Interplanetary Society, almost 20 years before there were any. I recommend all here read it.
Which makes him a superboffin at the time.
As a writer, too often a fantacist, a very few short stories may be accurately described as 'hard SF', but the bulk was most certainly not. The later Baxter collaborations descend to barely readable at times.
One of those was almost directly copied from a short story from Damon Knight, can't be bothered to check the spelling now. Title was The Light of other Days or similar.
Disgraceful copying.
You have good logic.
Never any leaks from moi, military training, although I think Edward Snowden had good reason to, the things he released showed violations of anything admirable of the US, IMHO.
Likewise, Bradley Manning, although I was very surprised to see that a 'private first class' is an 'intelligence officer' in the US army of today, the video release was a real public service.
However, Manning was a serving soldier, I have mixed feelings about the ethicality.
Snowden was a contractor, but his contract must have included a strict non-disclosure clause.
I think both were right to do what they did, but it makes me uncomfortable to think about the ethics of the situations.
One makes a promise, one keeps it.
All very confusing to me, when thinking seriously.
If the UK is so incompetent, that they have to call on France for a design, and China to build it?
Why not call for Hitachi, proven experience with engineering with engineering for 'Nukular' reactors, piping etc.
In the end, I have to agree with commentors on other sites, the real reason is try to draw China into western orbit.
News flash: it will not work.
I said nothing of the kind.
However, I will not dignify your trolling on behalf of Graceland with any reply other than that fail-safes that should not have failed, even in the face of that wave, did fail, Stuxnet was extremely widespread, the target was numerical controllers from Siemens, and they happened to have a big role at Fukushima Number One.
All I am saying is that it is not a zero-probability factor.
You may well be right, I think
you are wrong.
Chinese company was engaged because it is cheaper than to *train* people at home.
Many political leaders in China are engineers, why not?
In Japan, we have too many lawyers in politics (although their social standing and economic situation are very different to the west, qualification is through examinations, many of the failed revolutionaries of 45 years ago, many others since, choose law or para-legal, unless you are wanting to be appointed to the Napoleonic-style tribunals that are called courts, or be a judge, all you have to do is study and pass an exam) and professional politicians, but most companies are still run by people with a background in what the company *does*. If they are making games, a former game designer, if they are making tech, a programmer or engineer.
In UK, from what I see, management is all from rubbish studies, no exam law, arts ('humanities' or 'liberal arts', depending on place, nothing to do with 'art'), or even 'management studies', anything but the industry concerned.
USA is similar, with the few major companies founded by techies, but how many of them are still under techie control?
When Fiorina was ruining Hewlett and Packard's legacy, did anybody stop to think that she was a cretin when it came to technology?
I could continue, but will add, for the sake of human rights, that the career choice, other than legal or paralegal, of those who disagreed with Japan's imperialistic adventures, was teaching. They are good teachers.
The campaign to force them to do things they do not want to do has been running hotly for years, it is a great shame that the deprivation of rights for many Japanese schoolteachers is not recognised internationally.
They might start with the Trident missiles and firing systems.
I appear to have been mistaken in an earlier post, the mega-death dealing bombs (nuclear warheads) are supposedly still UK-made, I find it hard to believe that. I suspect they are really made in the USA, with token UK supervision and knowledge for a fig-leaf.
I think that on the Reg., only Lewis Page is fit to answer that, but whether it is allowed or not by the law, I do not know.
My own spell of military service, I resigned because of our closeness to nuclear war plans. Never made it to Kapitan, would be much better off if I had, my mother hates me for it, but I think it was the right choice.
Not so good in cash terms. Just did not want to participate in plans for mass-murder.
is just miffed that they didn't have a hand in Stuxnet, only a USA-Isael (and possibly German) collaboration.
So they are desperate to be in on the action next time.
Observed in the wild far beyond the target, centrifuges in Iran.
There is a theory that the Fukushima Number 1 disaster was partly due to a Stuxnet infection.
I will only say that they were running numerical controllers from the same source (Siemens).
Have no idea, but it would not surprise me.
Idiotic security breaches in the run-up to that included senior sailors and officers on submarines sharing files, including blueprints, on Winny, National Police Agency police doing the same kind of thing, many more.
Failsafe mechanisms that should have still been working, even after the wave, at Fukushima Number One failed.
I am not saying it is so, but there is still a non-zero probability of some idiot plugging an infected USB card or similar into a PC connected with the control systems.
After all, that is how it worked in Iran (although in that case, there is a strong possibility of treachery in introducing Stuxnet).
The scientologists have many books, their founder was, for a time, a talented writer of some very *good* pulp SF short stories.
The app to trust blindly is not computerised, but a simple electronic device called the 'e-meter'.
I found one of their brainwashing manuals second-hand, a friend, whom I still consider a friend, acolyte of a later brainwashing cult was fascinated, so I just gave it to him. I found it boring.
If you are truly interested, the biography 'Bare-faced Messiah' is available for free on the WWW. I bought my copy, but legal action by the 'church' of Scientology means the writer cannot sell it now.
It is a very good biography of the founder, Hubbard, does not go much into the 'church' after his death.
Great book.
Strongly recommended.
I like that idea. We only imagine we are alive, people are already gone.
However, going out into the streets tomorrow, some will be newly tarred, the railways (much better than the UK) will still be running, it is difficult to imagine that the world has ended.
All that keeps the illusiom going is a collective delusion.
Zork,
If you haven't, you may enjoy reading the Illiminatus! trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson, apparently a former Playboy editor.
It is old-fashioned, but where it is mixing the (very good) parody of Ayn Rand with many conspiracy theories, hippy craziness, Jules Verne (Anna Rosenbaum a.k.a. Ayn Rand copied her submarine captain from Verne, but was too busy with other things to write a line on life on the submarine, Wilson has it at the centre), it is wonderful.
Would commend the Illuminatus! trilogy to all reading and free-thinking Regtards. It is an old series of novels, I do not like everything in them, but they do make one think.
The take on the JFK assassination scene, in particular, is a masterpiece, conflates all of the conspiracy theories, masterful comedy.
Made me laugh out loud on first reading.
Post-collapse and descendants of invading people, if there are any, won't be able to make sense of the palaeontological record, fossil record, or anything much.
What do you think, say, extreme-nutter types would do with Lascaux? They showed their spirit at Palmyra.
Archaeologists and palaeontologists have excavated and moved so much around, not to mention pilfering by private collectors, post-collapse people trying to return to a decent level of learning and behaviour will have a very hard time working any of the connections out.
Please explain why and how.
The replies in the interview were a little interesting, pray tell me what he has done that matters in physics.
I am sure that he would have been a great teacher, but please tell me how he made any other contribution to theory or fact other than the ridiculous idea of the Dyson sphere.
Climate-science chops?
Relevance in general.
I struggle to think of anything of value that he came up with, except for SF ideas like the Dyson sphere, absolutely nonsensical, but a prop in so many short stories and novels, so he did a great service to certain kinds of SF, the parts that pretend to have a base in science, but are mainly just fantasy.
At work, we have a Dyson and a Hitachi vacuum cleaner, the Dyson is noisier. Still, it is the triumph for designs made-in-China.
I know that is not the same Dyson, so can somebody tell me, consisely, what contributions
'Freeman' has made to physics or to the comprehension thereof,other than his 'sphere'?
Not that the interview was devoid of interest
I am pessimistic.
He may be remembered as the designer of a new type of vacuum cleaner.
The whole laser-driven light-sails idea is interesting, but a general idea, not his, and begs the question of what slows one down before reaching a destination.
... and where to go.
My opinion is that, while people will likely walk on Mars in this century, it will be pointless, a completely non-sustainable presence for now.
is a funny thing.
It is wildly popular here, many performers and events use nothing else.
A hippy techno event I like at times has a site, but they never update it.
All on twatter. They seem to have forgotten that they have a web site.
Fascist friends have replaced their lovely archaic Japanese gig guide with a twatter 'feed'.
Twitter has ad space in train carriages, the posters claim 'we deliver the most rapid news'.
I think that it is good at delivering bullshit, really irritated that so many drink this variety of Jonestown cordial.
I checked that site and stand corrected.
Thank you.
Didn't realise that the pound was so high, even when the yen was soaring. Still, 200 yen wasn't *much* less than a pound.
The retro-game centre I mentioned also has a working Hang on (with the tilt-bike, not just the handlebars and screen), an Outrun cabinet, much more.
All just 100 yen a go now.
Thanks again, must go and do serious things now.
Why do you post as AC on such a topic? As I said in my other post on this thread, the mechanical cabinets, at first, cost 200 yen a time.
At the time this was much more than a pound, but extremely good value if one was able to get through all or most of the stages.
Fun!
but was never much good at it. It is good but not great without the mechanical cabinet.
My fave retro-game centre had the mechanical cabinet Afterburner, they now have the Space Harrier one, I used to have people watching as I clocked Space Harrier on one coin, now forgotten the patterns for the later stages, still get to the seventh or eigth level.
By one coin, I mean no refilling, IIRC, Space Harrier and Afterburner were usually 200 yen at first, with the exchange rates at the time, well over a UK pound.
That is in reply to a different commenter.
Maybe should clock it again. Enough fun just to play in the real thing.
It is so nice to play the real mechanical cabinet.
So, I prefer Space Harrier to Afterburner, but they are both great examples of mechanical cabinets enhancing the experience. Namco had quite a few, too, but like Afterburner, I wasn't much good at them, or maybe just not too interested in them. ... but, still sometimes fun to throw the coin in and play! They have quite a few in working order.
Suzuki's Hang on and Space Harrier will always be my favourites from that time, they were the ones I concentrated on enough to get high scores and audiences.
Must go to the retro-arcade sometime from Sunday.
There was a USA automobile booth at CEATEC this year (last week). It was a little bizarre, a rack of Harley-Davidsons (boring), a Tesla, and a bare Tesla chassis. I was a little surprised by how much the Tesla looked like a normal Japanese car.
Oddly, there was nobody (as in people to answer questions, or any kind of staff) there.
Probably not (the target demographic). Neither am I. I can use my phone for payment, from years ago, never do.
I finally bought one of the Japan Rail system cards, to save a few yen on a stamp rally (you collect stamps at different stations, but they are always outside the wickets).
I always keep its 'charge' as low as possible, because one can be sure that they do something with the accumulated capital.
Actually, I should look more closely into that.
Otherwise, I always use, I don't know the english, multi-trip tickets (not commuter pass, workplaces too irregular, 11 for the price of 10) or cash.
Other places, sometimes the card is cheaper than a paper ticket, sometimes more expensive. Always only a few yen. The railways are scrupulous about the rounding.
When I occasionaly use the NFC card, I never charge into the wicket without checking that I have enough to enter, it is so irritating when using a physical ticket, when someone who only uses a card, barges in to one of the few wickets that take physical tickets (they all take NFC in and around here), doesn't have enough 'charge' and blocks the gate.
but I think you will find that a lot of the chips, particularly for NFC, are from a Japanese company.
They didn't used to be intrusive, but I suppose the ones linked to a credit card, multiple accounts, etc., probably are.
Used to do related work, but restructs, not for some time, so forgot.
NDA, can't say more, think the above is alright.
You are talking out of your arse.
Major sales of the Maxim gun and its design are from the later part of the 19th century, not from just before WWI.
Sure, you are probably correct that both sides had weapons based on it (Vickers, for one), but there would have been no massive profits for Maxim at the time, modern-style patent lunacy was about 70 years away at the *end* of that war, although I would argue convincingly that it did not end, and there is a contintuum from what westerners like to call WWI to WWII, i.e., they were just different phases of the same war, with some massive political shifts in some places, but no period of peace.
However, I will not go into more detail on that, because I think it unsuitable for the Reg.
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