Posts by JeffyPoooh 4286 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Jun 2013
IHWAT "...so just tax people properly."
In the USA, corporations won the right to be considered people (in respect of unlimited bribery, I mean campaign contributions to their on-payroll politicians).
Next issue is that your proposed Tax The Shareholders algorithm funnels tax money into the wealthy nations.
Where the rich people live. Like Monaco and the Cayman Islands.
Flawed suggestion with multiple redundancy.
When corporations export their untaxed profits under the guise of "IP Royalty Payments", then slap a 33% Import Duty on the "Imported" IP rights.
It should be right there, on their Balance Sheet.
One bald-face accounting trick deserves another.
"...full HD live (FFS, LIVE!!!) coverage..."
Essentially live.
If you watch the same 'Live' video stream via two different sources, then you might find cases where there's huge differences in the latency.
We once watched some newsworthy rocket launch via 'Live' streams. Because it was interesting, I backed up the PC with an iPhone using mobile data. Two independent sources, networks, codecs and devices. Delta latency (just the delta!) was more than 45 seconds. The launch was up and away and arcing over, while the other 'Live' stream was still counting down.
It can be informative to watch 'Live' streams of New Year's countdowns, sitting beside a carefully calibrated clock.
As a student of 'The Axis of Time', it's ever so slightly annoying how much latency is built into some communications systems.
AC "They lose the comms link because a rocket exhaust chucks out masses of ionized gas which is opaque to radio frequencies."
SpaceX is very high tech, but they're not using 'Plasma Drives' for their boosters. Chemical rockets aren't hot enough to ionize their exhaust. If this did occur, then the SpaceX Falcon booster, descending through its own rocket exhaust, wouldn't be able to receive GPS signals; but it obviously does. Apollo era CM reentry is not similar to this.
The better theory is that they were naively trying to use Ka-band satcom with very narrow beamwidth antenna. The antenna tracking couldn't keep up with the barge movement, or the mount vibration, and the links was lost.
If you try to judge the timing, beware the latency of digital video. Apparent cause-and-effect can be inverted by several seconds due to latency. When such a link is dropped, you'll lose several seconds of digital video in the various buffers. On any digital video time scale, the cause might not appear in the successfully transmitted video.
What this means is you can't look at the live streaming video and say, 'See, as soon as the rocket enters the video frame...', because when the link is dropped, the latency consumes additional duration of buffered digital video. This detail can confuse the unwary.
John Deeb "...[any given rocket booster] need really 500 [successful launches] to establish any real market value."
If I understand your logic, leaving the Soyuz-U (with 763 successes and 21 failures) as about the only rocket booster with enough launches to earn any John Deeb-certified "market value".
Oh, but production has stopped. Too bad.
You actually intended the count of "500" in the context of rocket boosters? That doesn't really make much sense...
LOL.
Regretfully, I missed the 'live' stream this time, but the YouTube version seems to indicate that the live video stream from the barge remained connected even while the booster landed.
Exposure was rubbish, but that's not Comms and thus not my department.
So congratulations; the SpaceX Comms people managed to do Comms successfully this time, which is very nice. So yes, I'm happy.
So what changed this time? Did they use Floaty McFiberOptic Cablesface? A different perhaps L-band SatCom link? A UHF or L-band RF link to the Mothership? So many solutions. They found one. Apparently.
By the way, last month's landing was 'broadcast' with live streaming video from a helicopter. ...Which made me smile. An 'interim solution' while the new Booster-Landing-resistant Comms system was commissioned.
Lars "...no longer a Boeing/Airbus difference."
Boeing's software typically includes some NASA-like 'Paranoid Programming Practices'.
Airbus's clearly doesn't. Far too many Airbus have been in excellent structural and generally flightworthy condition in the millisecond just before impact. Often, it's just some stupid little thing made worse by the computer plus crew. If there was a big net to catch it, then the fallen Airbus aircraft could be fished out, dusted off, computer rebooted, pitot tubes vacuumed out, manuals revisited, pilots spoken to sternly, software fixed, and dispatched immediately. They crash because of some stupid little thing, as nearly happened here.
Boeing accidents more often have serious damage before impact. Less often stupid glitches.
There's an indisputable difference caused by the software design approach, user interface, number of naive assumptions embedded in the code.
This post will result in heavy downvoting, but it's still true. Denial doesn't address the issue (or 'opportunity for improvements').
Inventions - "Dime a dozen, cheapers in bales of twelve..." 28 Feb 2014 *
Given the ongoing problems with blocked pitot tubes, I hereby place these novel (?) inventions into the public domain.
First: Using valves, high pressure air, and appropriate pressure senders, periodically blast some high pressure air out the pitot tubes. Monitor the resulting pressure signal for irregularities. Integrate this novel Pitot Tube (itself!) Built In Test (BIT) feature with the Air Data system so that it can be done periodically during flight. The blast of high pressure air will simultaneously clean and test the actual tubes themselves. Any blockages would be fired out.
Next: Use photosensors to monitor ambient light entering the pitot tube itself. Compare it against other references. Use LEDs to add light if required. Darker than expected means blocked.
These concepts would provide the ability to actually test the Air Data system, including the Pitot Tubes themselves. They'll require very clever implementation to avoid increasing the overall failure rate. The photosensor concept is probably more harmless in this regard. But I like the blast cleaning concept.
Cheers.
*http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/2/2014/02/28/internet_of_things_new_enemy_hordes_of_angry_wasps/#c_2121343
If the temperature in your dwelling can be yanked up and down like a Yo-Yo, thus enabling "Smart" Thermostats to add significant value, then your dwelling isn't particularly energy efficient.
Conversely, if your dwelling is reasonably energy efficient, then the interior temperature should be fairly stable and consistent throughout (due to good insulation, minimal uncontrolled air leakage, and thermal mass). In such happy circumstances, any $30 programmable thermostat can manage, for example, the evening turn-down and morning turn-up of heat, resulting in slow temperature cycles lasting about 12 hours.
If a "Smart" Thermostat saves you a significant amount of money, then obviously your dwelling isn't 'Energy Smart'.
It can still be a very good idea to have a "Smart" Thermostat.
But it's nothing to be particularly proud of.
GM hiring Dr. Paul Moller (of flying car fame) would be about the same thing...
Because when I think of Xerox photocopiers, I can't help but be frightened of just how menacingly-intelligent they are. "Paper Jam in Tray 3" is just coded language meaning 'Take me to your leader, you pathetic meat machine'.
Maybe this AI boffin will help Amazon scan through their book database looking for duplicate ISBNs; for example one ISBN listed for both Hardcover and Paperback versions of the same book (indicating a mistake). Because identifying duplicate data is so difficult that it needs an AI boffin to figure it out...
Sigh...
"...an hour on a bouncing hydrofoil..."
In 2013, we ended up on a diesel-powered Catamaran from 'Kowloon Side', instead of the more exciting turbine-powered Hydrofoil from 'Hong Kong Side'. I was a bit disappointed, but I cheered up a bit when we slowly overtook one of the Hydrofoils. A solid 80 kmh. Smooth rides.
Our Tour Guide (/van driver) for the half-day ('Tony', excellent!) in Macau recommended that next time we drop by Macau, we should make it several days, not just a day-trip. I agree. More time for gobbling Portuguese Egg Tarts.
Almost EVERYWHERE ON EARTH is "...an altogether different place compared to the 80's, 90's and even the 00's."
Everywhere changes. HK is a city, not a museum.
That said, the HK Star Ferry seems to be absolutely and perfectly immutable.
In 2013, we wandered into one of those vast upstairs restaurants that seems to cater to the Mainlander tourists. It was fantastic!! We had what can only be described as a banquet for five, and it was about $50 total.
The old airport is certainly a 'lifetime memory'. Especially on a seemingly-overloaded creaking old 747 with wings that are bending more than looks reasonable.
On the other hand, the new airport has a fantastic Cable Car to the amazing Buddha. It's a reasonable consolation prize. Don't miss it.
@KB. Interesting story.
"...not much else to do." ...in HK?
I've been to HK about a dozen times starting in the 80s (the classic 747-with-laundry landing, perfect window seat). First time, stayed for two weeks, in a cheap room at the (in)famous Chungking Mansions; an adventure in itself.
When passing through, we always book at least a couple of full days in HK. We've NEVER been bored, and we've barely scratched the surface. A daytrip to Macau via hydrofoil or fastcat is a nice distraction if you're bored.
I'm looking forward to retirement (knock on wood) so we can enjoy much longer, multi-month, blocks of time in Asia, with plenty of lengthy stopovers in HK. Other than Lantau (new airport, Cable Car & Buddha), we've not even touched the outlying areas of HK yet. There's months of HK left on our To Do list.
I'll grant you that, for example, London UK is higher up on The List. But HK is jostling position with NYC, arguably Top 5 and indisputably Top 10.
Cheers.
One downvote (so far).
Any explicit rebuttal on why it wouldn't work?
Other examples to think about (same concept):
E.g. 1 kb of replacement bit-wise noise (encrypted, new block of One Time Pad), but encrypted using the same-old same-old 1 kb of One Time Pad used to send all the new blocks of One Time Pad. The new noise is bit-wise noise; so you can endless reuse the One Time Pad when sending more good bit-wise noise.
E.g. One secret bit = 'X' (0 or 1). Used to XOR-encrypt an endless bit stream of noise. The noise is either inverted or it's not inverted. Can you ever guess 'X'? I don't think so. One bit OTP. Same thing.
Rebuttals very welcome.
AC: "...getting the pad, securely, to [Bob]..."
With multi-TB OTPs, that's a 'One Time' problem.
This is in the context of spying, not online banking.
Bob can pick it up from Alice.
I've contemplated an algorithm to refill OTPs (below), but it's been downvoted so it must be infeasible. I guess that the Downvote button is too small to contain the details of the flaw.
MW "If you have that secure channel, then just use it to send your messages."
There's a concept called 'The Axis of Time'.
Those that ignore it can fail to think clearly.
Alice and Bob can meet (at some point in time), probably in Vienna, have amazing sex, and organize their pair of multi-TB One Time Pads. They they can bid a tearful farewell, and Bob heads off on his mission. Then (at all following points in time) they use the One Time Pads. Seeing as how the OTPs are huge, they'll last for years.
I shouldn't have to explain this.
AC "Relativity is used by GPS satellites... ...militaries have loved GPS..."
There's a story that the earliest GPS satellites had a remote controlled 'Relativity Switch', because the military decision makers didn't quite trust the Einsteinian Physics.
If it's true, then it makes the point opposite of what you made. Which is funny.
My instinct tells me that it should be possible to securely communicate replacement One Time Pad noise, so Alice can refill Bob's slowly depleting One Time Pad, within a message.
E.g. 2 kb transmission, carrying 1 kb of message text (encrypted) AND another 1 kb of replacement noise (encrypted), both encrypted using the same 1 kb of One Time Pad. The new nose is noise; so you can reuse the One Time Pad in this case.
But I'm not sure. It might be a house of cards. It might violate conservation of entropy. It might prove to consume as many bits as are transmitted.
But I suspect it's feasible.
AC "But if you keep re-using the same data off the card it's not a one-time pad?"
The solution is in the name. It's a "One Time Pad".
After using a block of randomness, securely erase it at each end.
Your objection is ridiculous. One shouldn't have to explicitly rebut such trivialities.
It's an obvious idea. I posted the same basic concept before (about six months ago, and likely previous to that...). I have no idea why anyone should downvote it. It's common sense that it could be made to work. Cheers.
Zener diodes, transistors, ring oscillators and such ...as sources of noise It seems obvious that such noise should be packaged up into 1kB blocks, and then written to pairs of multi-TB SSDs for physical distribution. The hardware would look like a HDD duplicating machine. 'Several TB of One-Time Pad should be enough for anyone.'
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/2/2015/11/12/big_bang_left_us_with_a_perfect_random_number_generator/
The Internet proves, and simultaneously disproves, that:
1) You can prove anything you like via the Internet, and
2) You can't prove anything via the Internet.
I trust that this clears things up.
Now excuse me, I've got a conference call with Russell and Gödel in five minutes...
The author of this article on El Reg just assumes it's still in copyright.
Clearly (based on reviewing the related news) that assumption is at least arguable.
The root cause of such controversy is the sharp bifurcation between In and Out of copyright. If there was some method (I have no idea either) to have a smooth transition (a middle ground) then there would be less arguing.
Sharp arbitrary bifurcation is the root cause of much human suffering.
"...destroyed what was once a truly great **IT** company."
You must have spelled **Test Equipment** incorrectly.
I've lost track of their spun-off name, Agisight or Keylent or something. I have no idea...
HP is an IT company, but was never a "great" IT company. Arguably Compaq once was, but HP just made them worse. Now they're just caught up in scandal and waste in the Big Iron market, and 'friends don't let friends buy HP laptops'. Their desktops aren't bad.
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