Posts by Raging Bool

Good folk of Forfar: Alan Hattel would like you all to know he's not dead despite what it says on his tombstone

Footie result...

"East Fife 4, Forfar - alive?"

UK Space Agency cracks open its wallet, fishes out a paltry £2m for Brit plans to return to orbit

XKCD and space

My favourite (apart from Up-Goer 5) is this one:

https://xkcd.com/1356/

Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019

Re: Wasn't this handled last time?

Yes, it was the rollover - that happened last time in 1999 as the poster said. They are not suggesting that this is the Y2K issue.

I clearly remember the GPS week rollover being well discussed (e.g. on SlashDot when that was popular) the last time that it happened, and can't believe that there are devices produced later than this that could be vulnerable. Poor effort by device manufacturers if actually the case.

Voyager 1 left the planet 41 years ago – and SpaceX hopes to land on Earth this Saturday

Re: Land where?

"switching to long, long, long range sensors" - Kryten.

Either my name, my password or my soul is invalid – but which?

Re: University

Someone has actually generated a website to provide such passwords:

http://correcthorsebatterystaple.net/

Brit reseller Aria PC's appeal against HMRC VAT fraud finding gets under way

Re: I bought a monitor off them in 2006...

I knew Aria before he even got those two rooms in Longsight, when he was still operating from a flat in Fallowfield. (I was on the same MSc course as him in 1992-1993.)

I helped out from time to time at the Longsight premises and at trade shows, very early on.

The company I work at now, still buys from Aria / Velo regularly.

SpaceX Falcon 9 reaches MONEY RING with successful launch

Not geostationary orbit - transfer orbit

Sorry to be pedantic, but to correct what's stated in the article:

This did not put its payload into geostationary orbit (circular, apogee == perigee etc.), but into a highly elliptical transfer orbit (perigee close to LEO, apogee close to or in this case well in excess of GEO). It would require another delta V at the appropriate time to go from transfer orbit to circular orbit.

I don't know if the payload has that capability or if it is a dummy payload just to test the GTO.

Perhaps "voyage to geostationary orbit" is designed to finesse that detail...

I'm reminded of the old physics joke about the rocket scientist being interviewed by the press on why their launch wasn't successful, saying: "It was successful - orbit achieved. The only issue was the details: apogee 240 miles, perigee 6 fathoms".

Beer - cos it's definitely time to leave the office...

Doctor Who Episode One: Through a glass. Darkly

Peter Cushing films

Not quite.

Peter Cushing starred as a human character called "Dr Who" in two films. One was based on the 2nd TV story (now known as "The Daleks"), and is not really linked to this first story at all.

The second film is based on the Dalek Invasion of Earth story - which was Susan's last appearance as a regular character.

Neither of these films stand up well to examination, and are not considered canon. The only thing you can say in their defence is that they were filmed in colour, and that the Dalek Invasion of Earth film marks the entrance into Dr Who lore for Bernard Cribbins - which doesn't seem to be remembered by anyone who talks to him on TV about his experience with Dr Who. Perhaps that tells you a lot about how the films are seen...