Re: Dragon's Egg
Bob Forward died the week before we acquited our 101 Forward Control Landrover, in 2002. The Landy has been called Bob ever since.
RIP Robert Forward, your stories were the hardest science fiction.
Posts by SteveastroUk
38 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Dec 2012
Mountains on neutron stars are not even a millimetre tall due to extreme gravity
Try placing a pot plant directly above your CRT monitor – it really ties the desk together
It's about time! NASA's orbital atomic clock a boon for deep space navigation – if they can get it working for long enough
Scottish rocketeers Orbex commission Europe's largest industrial 3D printer to crank out 35 engines a year
Habitable-zone exoplanet potentially spotted just around the corner in Alpha Centauri using latest telescope technique
Voyager 2 receives and executes first command in 11 months as sole antenna that reaches it returns to work
EU aviation wonks give all-electric training aeroplane the green light – but noob pilots only have 50 mins before they have to land it
Will that old Vulcan's engines run? Bluebird jet boat team turn to Cold War bomber
It's 50 years to the day since Apollo 10 blasted off: America's lunar landing 'dress rehearsal'
Douglas Adams was right, ish... Super-Earth world clocked orbiting 'nearby' Barnard's Star
IP freely? What a wind-up! If only Trevor Baylis had patent protections inventors enjoy today
Grab your lamp, you've pulled: Brits punt life-saving gravity-powered light
Terry Pratchett's unfinished works flattened by steamroller
NASA flies plane through Earthly shadow of Kuiper Belt object
Wednesday 12th July 2017 22:17 GMT
There's a branch of amateur astronomy dedicated to watching these occulations with networks of cameras placed on the predicted track of the event. Then its possible to deduce the occulting objects shape, mass, spin etc. Bloody subtle. Some guys put out a 10 mile track, with cameras and integrated GPS clocks every 1/2 mile.
Dyson celebrates 'shock' EU Court win over flawed energy tests
Thursday 11th May 2017 23:02 GMT
Re: Did Dyson participate in the standards setting process?
Well, no, to participate in the European standard making process you have to be a member of a recognised body, or a stake-holder in the standard - and invited to participate. I know American companies who serve on EU standards bodies.
Contrast that with the ASTM in the USA, where anyone can turn up to their meetings and have their say. If its worth listening to, its acted on.
That's speaking as a member of European and US standard making bodies. The EU ones are a fix-up, as this and dieselgate should have demonstrated.
Try not to scream: Ads are coming to Amazon's Alexa – and VR goggles
Uncle Sam backs down on slurping passwords from US visa hopefuls
Sunday 7th May 2017 22:55 GMT
Of course no one in the EU or UK needs a "visa" to enter the USA, so its moot, you DO need to sign up for the visa waiver program though.
US visas are complicated things. My O-1 needed a comprehensive list of where I'd been and why, where I'd lived etc etc, 4 years ago, when, I believe, the sainted Mr Obama was in charge
Coming to the big screen: Sci-fi epic Dune – no wait, wait, wait, this one might be good
US Navy runs into snags with aircraft carrier's electric plane-slingshot
Samsung are amateurs – NASA shows how you really do a battery fire
Thirty Meter Telescope needs to revisit earthly fine print
Land Rover Defender dies: Production finally halted by EU rules
Dialog box shut: Now Microchip is set to gobble up Atmel
Monday 18th January 2016 00:12 GMT
Friend of mine hates Atmel. They got him fired.
He had a project with a serious bug in it, which he traced back to the actual Atmel silicon, duly notifying Atmel of his discovery. His boss reviews the project, hears the explanation that its the chips fault, calls Atmel to confim the story, for them to deny all possible knowledge that there could be a bug in their chip. Friend (consulting) is fired from the project.
A month later Atmel publish a datasheet errata with a potential workround, for the bug my friend reported.
PHONE me if you feel DIRTY: Yanks and 'Nadians wave bye-bye to magstripe
Goodbye Vulcan: Blighty's nuclear bomber retires for the last time
Attack of the IT monuments men: Museum wants your kit
Marvell: We don't want to pay this $1.5bn patent bill because, cripes, it's way too much
Building a better society from the Czechs' version of Meccano
Sir Terry remembered: Dickens' fire, Tolkien's imagination, and the wit of Wodehouse
Assemblers were once people: My aunt did it for NASA
Paul Allen buys lovingly restored vintage V-2 Nazi ballistic missile
Friday 24th May 2013 19:33 GMT
Re: British Intelligence
I had the great pleasure and privilege of inviting him to give a talk to the Manchester IEE younger members section, and for him to accept. It was the only time we ever filled a 500 seat auditorium to capacity, and with people standing. It was ALSO the only time a lecturer gave an encore. My dad and I took him to dinner afterwards, a meal I shall never forget.
Jones was also a brilliant and ingenious experimental physicist, and his other professional works are well worth reading
How I nearly sold rocket windows to the crazy North Koreans
Amazon boss salvages Apollo engines from watery grave
Is world's first space tourist Dennis Tito planning a trip to Mars?
Saturday 23rd February 2013 00:00 GMT
Re: Just what you need
IIRC NASAs budget is 0.5% of the current US budget. In a poll taken recently over 70% of Americans supported a manned, landing mission to Mars, even if that meant doubling Nasa's budget
http://www.exploremars.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Mars-Generation-survey-snapshot-report-February-11-2013.pdf
Biting the hand that feeds IT
