Posts by MachDiamond

Mars astronauts could live in houses made of yeast and jello, say scientists

Re: Easier, faster, much more inexpensive answer.

"there's just nothing we need a human presence on Mars to learn that can in any way defend the ridiculous costs and risks involved in a manned mission to Mars,"

There's some great info on that in the book "Roving Mars". A human geologist can accomplish more in a day than a rover can in a month. Cost and complexity makes rovers the better choice for now. Once there is nuclear propulsion so trips can be done much more quickly, that would be a good point to send people.

Re: I'm out

"What is a safe threshold? Only one way to find out. "

There's more than one, but extended stays on the moon might yield some good data.

Re: I'm out

"just not as much as a lack of Oxygen"

More like an overabundance of Oxygen. There's plenty of that on Mars, but if that all that's in the air, it tends to be quite corrosive.

Re: Situation

"Someone like this?"

It's telling when councils that will fine somebody for improper rubbish sorting will let this sort of thing go forever.

Why so mean, Kimball?. He IS your brother.

(it must be Kimball as there doesn't seem a good reason to post anonymously otherwise).

"Things like a decent atmosphere with Oxygen in it, oh and no food source."

Things like a decent atmosphere with Oxygen Nitrogen in it, oh and no food source.

There's Oxygen on Mars so it's theoretically possible to extract it. There doesn't seem to be Nitrogen or any other moderately inert gasses to use as a buffer.

Re: Porous"

"The reason for the word porous in this context is most likely because even a well-made, 3D printed habitation unit or structure is likely to be "gas porous" in that it is unlikely to achieve a perfectly gas-tight seal across the entire inner surface."

That's ok, there isn't the gases required on Mars to make a human useful (or plant for that matter) environment.

Ex-FTC boss Khan urges Uncle Sam to break out the handcuffs for AI CEOs, citing 1934 precedent

Re: “Law enforcers already have authority"

"I'm sure they do, but authority requires the political will to do something."

They also need to have a clear statement about what agency enforces those rules. If there isn't that clarity, every agency will point to another in circles.

Re: She is right

"so they can emerge later after A.I. has killed all the useless meatsacks before they killed it and rule over a compliant remanent of what was humanity"

Too expensive to build a few "B" arks?

The end may still be many of those bunker inhabitants dying from a virulent disease contracted from there being nobody left to haul the garbage out.

Revolut falls for fake government requests, hands over customer data

"Why wasn't this encryoted before it was sent? Why didn't they send the de-cryption key via a secure (verified) second channel?"

Why was it sent at all sans a court order?

Even if a court decree wasn't going to be necessary, there's usually a horribly complicated process for anything the government does. If it's just an email asking for the company to send over a load of PII in any old format, that should be highly suspicious. A real government wants it in an obsolete file format that hasn't been used commercially for at least a decade and will also want the company to fill out a load of forms and attest the data meets some sort of accuracy standard and if it doesn't, there could be a giant fine. All of this even though it's the government wanting the information, not paying for it.

If it were my company, I'd charge money to prepare the data and insist on that payment clearing before it was delivered.

Dell's 52-inch enormo-monitor is a tsunami of impractical fun

"it's over six times what I just paid for a 55" Panasonic TV, and probably ten times what I paid for the (pre-loved) laptop that's driving the 29" 4k monitor in front of me."

I paid a good chunk for my 27" Eizo monitors on my media computer. Having the space for photo and video editing is nice, but I also need highly accurate color calibration and even grayscale(luminance).

Cheap monitors don't compare so if color and brightness consistency are important, you pay the money. I also have the ability to replace just one monitor if one fails rather than a single big/expensive one.

I'm not that impressed with just big other than the Gundam warrior in Yokohama. That thing is epic!

UK military wants lasers to stop drone swarms without running out of ammo

"There shouldn't be any DU needed given that's really for armour piercing. "

I expect the ammo for the CIWS only comes in one flavor and armor piercing would be preferred.

Re: "without being overwhelmed or rapidly exhausting its ammunition."

"You need a big battery and a large generator. Your batteries need to be carefully designed to not cook off with the draw"

One would be charging capacitors that can handle pulsed applications. Using batteries wouldn't be a good choice other than an intermediate storage stage between a generator and the capacitor bank.

Next bus to Altrincham delayed by Windows Defender

Re: A useful route would be good

"Some is better than none tho :)"

Maybe, maybe not.

If public transportation is very limited, it doesn't take long for people to just stop trying to use it and just drive instead.

In the US there are long distance trains that only run 3x each week or often wind up cancelled. Some years ago I was wanting to go from Los Angeles to the Fully Charged show in Austin, TX. Taking the train would have been great, but to enjoy the show the entire Fri-Sun, I'd also need to spend another day on both sides of that. Two more nights of hotels and meals out and it turning the trip into a whole week. The best I could manage was something like one of the days and a partial another day depending the the time it took to get back to the station. If there were two trains daily, I could optimize my trip to a great extent. I didn't wind up going as I couldn't find anybody that wanted to go with me and it's an extremely long drive (over 1,400 miles each way). I also talk with other people that have looked at taking a train and it's so complicated (for them) that they give up and never consider it again and just fly.

Rocket Lab calls foul on Blue Origin's $700M Mars comms contract

Blue Origin had a very good argument about the sole award of a lunar lander to SpaceX. The award was supposed to go to two of the three finalists. There wasn't the money in the budget for even one mission and SpaceX's proposal was deficient in ways that the bidding package stated were non-negotiable. There were also private communications with SpaceX to suggest ways they could modify their bid, also not allowed, to make it more palatable. In the end, the award was made in the absence of a government confirmed permanent NASA administrator and the seat warmer in that job made a unilateral choice to award the contract and then left government employment to take a senior level job with SpaceX overseeing a major portion of the project she approved.

The devil is in the details. Perhaps Rocket Lab has a good argument, but it will be against the government rather than anything to do with Blue Origin. Government contracting can be highly complex which is one of the reasons the contracts wind up so bloated. It takes a good sized staff to wallow through all of the paperwork and make sure all aspects are being complied with. Those aren't intern-level jobs. It also means that if Rocket Lab didn't dot a T or cross an I, they may have been rejected (yes, that's backwards, but I'm talking about government here).

Maybe Common Sense Skeptic or somebody will dig out the contracts and spend the time to see what the real issues are. Rocket Lab has been doing really well, but until they get their Neutron rocket sorted and doing missions, they don't have a rocket suitable for a Mars mission. NASA may be more cautious about awarding contracts to companies that are "fixin'" to come up with a rocket to carry out a mission after being burned by SpaceX so badly.

Smartphone makers don't bother to comply with EU repairability requirements

Re: Choice

"I figure that was because they finally realized that apple quality wouldn't be tolerated by vehicle regulators"

I expect they finally figured out that the margins really suck if they have to start from scratch. Just providing software that runs in/on the cars is far more lucrative.

When Marc and Martin started Tesla with the idea of a production EV that's high performance and reliable, starting a new company was a minimum. They weren't going to convince any of the dinosaurs to go along with their ideas. They were smart enough to understand that the chassis wasn't a cornerstone of what they wanted to show so it was better to just buy something from Lotus that was already mostly engineered. I've got a project right now to build a niche electronic product. I'll be buying the transistors rather than constructing a fab and making them myself.

Re: all smartphones had open bootloader

"I'm visualising Asahi linux on iPhone now."

I'm visualizing a world where I'm retired completely and will only have a VOIP phone that I can ignore.

Re: Choice

"I have a feeling some people were made with reused condoms."

After that fire at the prophylactic recycling plant......

(War Games easter egg)

Re: Choice

"My three year old phone at 84% battery health always lasts me through the day."

Now you've jinxed yourself and next week you'll be lucky if its as much as 40% midday.

I've had plenty of batteries fall off a cliff over a short period of time. If I've paid $1,000+ for the device (which I don't), paying $100 to get a battery replaced would sound like a bargain. In my case, the government isn't giving me money to buy phones with.

Re: Make it simple

"The "problem" with swappable batteries is that it makes the power bank product segment completely obsolete"

Not likely. This does illustrate that battery life isn't good for many phone if people would need a swap-in replacement or power bank on hand.

Since playing with oneself analog style isn't acceptable in public, a phone mediated digital substitute has replaced that activity. I try to exercise a bit more self control.

Re: Make it simple

"Turn it “off” and put it in a flat steel box."

That's just another thing you need to carry around with you all of the time.

Re: Make it simple

"Why should end users be able to fix stuff when 99% of them have no knowledge of electronics or disassembly?""

They make a good market to sell into when you have some repaired units on the shelf that you bought cheap and repaired when it was slow. People that aren't skilled often don't have much finesse and tend to mangle things while trying to get them open. Sometimes there's no other way which is something Big Clive demonstrates often enough.

Re: Make it simple

"Usually they write, "Reassembly is the reverse of removal". "

The problem is many times the double-sided tape they use to assemble the beasties isn't reusable. Or, it's kinda reusable until it comes apart the first time it gets warm.

The modern fetish of hiding fasteners is annoying. The clips become brittle and break off about the time that a battery needs to be replaced and there isn't room to wrap duct tape around the thing to keep it together.

Re: all smartphones had open bootloader

"I'm visualising Asahi linux on iPhone now."

The new $2,500 iPhone?

Re: Well, duh

"Yes, Trump actually enforcing border laws that haven't been for decades and people lose their minds."

Things like that get to be status quo for so long that people forget there was a law in the first place. In the US, freight trains are supposed to give way to passenger trains, but that's only been enforced once and I see travelogs that state the opposite. Of course, the freight companies have increased the length of consists so fewer people are needed to drive per ton and they won't fit on sidings so they can't give way.

The vast majority of people don't have the time and money to fight these things so those that can afford blood-sucking lawyers get it their way by default.

Google engineer unplugged every fiber they could see and – surprise! – took down a chunk of the G-Cloud

"Make something foolproof and the universe will build a better fool"

The universe already has a large supply that are kept hidden by the ranks of fools that have yet to be knocked out of the way. Under every deep, another deep unfolds.

Re: RLY?

"What sort of issue do you attempt to fix by unplugging everything you can see?"

Remaining employed?

I expect the open position notices went out before EOD.

Re: Procedural Error?

"sadly that process is not always followed in aerospace"

Yes.

With spacecraft, the stakes can be higher since you likely can't fix it later and you'd not only lose the cost of the craft, but all of the money it would have earned while you build another one (if you can) and by that time, your competition has launched theirs and hoovered up the best part of the market share.

Amazon-branded plane in fatal accident at Miami Airport

Re: Amazon, after the 2019 incident that saw a plane unexpectedly nose-dive.

"That's why it's odd to paint Amazon on the side."

Advertising!

Granted, not good advertising when the plane goes off the end of the runway and kills a bunch of Teslas.

Big companies have a policy of putting their name on everything they can that might be seen. Coca-Cola has been doing this for years. The more the name and logo are seen, the more burned in to people's brains it becomes.

21 Air isn't worth stenciling on the side of the aircraft since they aren't a consumer goods company. Better that they can be paid by Amazon to carry that paint around.

Re: Vehicle storage lot

"Florida has laws?"

I expect they do. It's the favorite pastime of politicians aside from spending other people's money.

I have a tiny crock pot (slow cooker) that I never use.

US watchdog opens probe into Tesla's Cybercab self-certification

Re: Luckily the department was gutted...

"Um, that's a county border, not a state border."

I'm old and senile. I claim dementia for my poor research.

Re: Is Musk currently in Trump's good books ?

"The answer to that question will determine how rapidly the NHTSA takes to find in Tesla's favour."

They'll have to figure out if that puts them in a bad spot the next time some company comes along with a control-less vehicle and wants the same expediting. Just rubber stamping and there being major issues later is also going to cause the agency to lose face.

Re: Two Tesla KyberCrap coveyances in East Wing Ballroom faux Gold livery…

"The design looks crap"

That's fine. They want them to stand out and it's not a beauty contest for something such as a taxi. If it's beneath you to be seen getting into or out of a gold colored car, walk or hail a Yellow Cab. Blending in would not be the best tactic.

Re: Luckily the department was gutted...

"The question is can they follow up if it's ignored ?"

If the vehicle is not compliant with regulations at the time of manufacture, it can't be licensed for interstate use. States might individually license/register the vehicles, but they usually fall back on vehicles meeting basic Federal standards. A state could get caught out if they licensed the cars without having their own standards in place.

It could cause some backtracking on registrations that Tesla has now and/or prevent other states outside of Texas from licensing the cars for use on public roadways. If they did, the cars could be seized and impounded. Crossing state borders would be an issue for somewhere such as Minneapolis/St Paul and Kansas City (KS and MO).

SpaceX claims it will put a Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale system into orbit next year

Re: Estimates of SpaceX's launch cost

"A sun synchronous orbit perpendicular to the orbital plane is never occluded by the EArth."

A small battery is still a good idea. If the satellite gets a bit of a nudge, it will need some internal power to allow it to get reoriented if it can.

Terminated employee cost company hundreds of thousands of dollars because nobody revoked access

"The alarms should sound because they didn't badge out, that's what should happen, but the exit door should open regardless."

Not badging out can be dealt with in other ways. Some companies might track hourly employees that way so if they don't badge in or out, they'll need to go visit HR <shudder> and have a chat about company policy which will be noted in their file to be brought up at the next review. That might also screw up their pay for that period which may take another couple of periods to straighten out.

Re: Better still...

"Arguably, "hey, why does it say my username no longer exists?" should be how they find out about being fired"

In one of the rounds of redundancies at Tesla, employees found out when the showed up for work and their access card had been de-authorized. Not a good place to work, or be fired from. Many commuter trains and other public transportation can be heavily slanted in one direction in the morning and the other in the evening so returning home might take hours to return home.

Re: Still Have Access

"It's "Swordfish", the password is always "Swordfish""

Never ask an Igor to tell you what the password is unless you have a towel handy.

Re: I'll you could have kept

"I would certainly have talked to a lawyer before returning that money."

Wow, you must be making a mint! to make talking to a lawyer worthwhile.

If you could send paper checks back, somebody might notice. Trying to reverse a direct deposit is too much work and less likely for anybody to notice.

If something like this were to happen, it would be good to keep a time card on every minute spent dealing with it and any costs. If you have to get a title loan on your car to be able to talk to a lawyer, you'd want to be compensated.

"Illegal in the UK. "

You'd think somebody at a company would take notice of that, but that's why the word "hope" was invented.

"How the heck does that get squared with the tax man ??"

Good luck with that.

AI uprising postponed after Copilot falls off the web

Re: Keep taking your

"I received for a parcel arriving from another country, which told me my parcel had been "created" at Heathrow. "

I see that all the time. Cheap translation software that is trying to parse non-standard terms from one company to the next. I often can't see what's going on until the tracking advances one more stop and then I have some reference. Of course, the tracking can take a short holiday in the Bahamas. I've had packages appear to be on a wild Cook's tour until the show up at the post office and the travels get deleted from the tracking information to show what really happened.

US troops can still be tracked by purchased location data, and Congress wants to know why

Re: TANSTAAFL

"I'm not against advertising. I'm against tracking. "

That's the same thing with Flock in the US. CCTV isn't the problem, it's how much data is being collected, how long it's stored and how it's being joined up. If there are ANPR's around that can be used to track a car rather than chase it, that's a good use. Collecting the travel of millions of people and letting the filth have access for months at a time is not a good use. Cory Doctorow did a good job in "Little Brother" showing how the same data can be used to arrive at a few different conclusions depending on what you want to show. If CCTV captures somebody breaking into a shop and does a bit of FR on command, fine. Making lists of everybody on that street a month at a time is not. There also needs to be humans in the loop to make damn sure the computer ain't lyin'.

Re: TANSTAAFL

"* at much the same time as Niven has his characters saying tanj."

With Elon usurping "Grok", I've had to stop using that. He should be charged with a crime.

Re: Societal Complacency

"I haven't bought checks in years but when I last did in 2010 or so I didn't know it at the time but I bought enough to last me the rest of my life lol"

I shredded my last stack of checks since I moved banks. The places where I would commonly use a check can be paid online now other than the electric which has some very strange lash up of leaving their site, going to a Chase Bank site, paying and then being transferred back. I'm not seeing why they find it so hard to build the back end stuff so it's entirely transparent to me. I also don't want to agree to Chase's "privacy policy" which just enumerates the ways they will be selling my data. Perhaps they give the electric company a deal to be able to do that.

We're at the point now where there's very few places that don't take debit/credit or cash. The plumber, curse his soul, is very happy to take cash and give a discount for it. I'd not be surprised if he has 2 receipt books just for that sort of thing. He just left an hour ago with a pound of my flesh.

Re: Societal Complacency

"Wow your county really screws you if cash is the only way to avoid a 3.5% fee!"

Checks? What are those?

I haven't had checks for ages now. So few places will accept them that they aren't worth buying. With the county, I want an 'ing receipt as I don't trust them. Last year when I went to pay my second installment, they told me it had already been paid. I didn't pay it so my first guess is they screwed something up so I had them cancel that payment and I paid it. I then got a call that what the clerk did was not proper and I needed to call a supervisor. I did, left a message and never heard a peep back. They wouldn't say who had made the payment which might have given a clue. If it was a neighbor and the parcel number was fat fingered off by a digit, I'd know who it was and could talk to them so it was all straitened out before the late penalties set in.

The county seat isn't close, but not that far away and I use the trip to visit a couple of shops that I wouldn't make a special trip to go to. There's a giant fabric warehouse in that city and I'll take the opportunity to get a few things when I'm there. It's a bigger city so the thrift shops are always worth popping into.

Dental contractor set up secret account with access to 4,000 patient records then left the company

So what if there's regs

It matters not that there are laws surrounding the security of health data. People stealing and selling this data aren't known for their civic contributions.

Re: All jokes. . .

"violators will be given an appointment."

Novocaine charged at 10x the normal rate.

Nightwing CEO has a Labor Day message for staff – and apparently The Register

Re: Labour

"Or Jammy bastards."

Are those the people that wear their pajamas as standard wardrobe?

Peers ask why UK cyber bill leaves execs off the personal liability hook

Re: why stop at cybersecurity fails?

"asbestos exposure"

You'd have to take into account when that product with asbestos in was sold. It was the high temperature insulator of choice before studies linked it to serious health issues.

Dodgy PPE? hmmmmmm. There are still people out there keeping their chins well protected. If you really wanted to be protected from others, a surgical style mask wasn't going to do it. Those only helped a bit in protecting others against you.

Untreated waste/sewage being discharged into waterways and even left to soak in via ponds is a problem and it should be rather obvious to the company what they are doing.

sub-minimum wage contracts (in the US) are often handed out to people in the country on an informal basis. Who would they complain to? Uber/Lyft drivers have only themselves to blame by believing math is too hard. It's not just an hourly wage that's below legal limits. I still get headhunters wanting me to take jobs in Atlanta, San Fransisco and the Silicon Valley (in the last week). While the wages are substantially above state minimums, I'd keep more staying where I am and working as a sweeper at the local hardware store. I don't entertain those jobs because I can do math, it's the great equalizer.

Security fails are an easy one. An egregious cyber-security fail should have the possibility of a company ending fine. Yes, yes, that would put people out of work, but it would leave a hole that other firms would seek to fill so there would be good chance of getting a job for those displaced with a firm that isn't as reckless. I've left jobs where I felt they were complete shits and I didn't want to get splattered when the audit/swat crew arrived. Staying in a job where the company could get shut down at any time doesn't confer security. I'd rather leave as soon as I know and have taken the time to find something more stable.