* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

SPY-tunes scandal: Bloke sues Bose after headphones app squeals on his playlist

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Orwell's 1984

"many idiots think it is fine and even defend the practice"

Problem identified. now, how do we solve this?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

you missed the entire point

"What's that you say? He didn't read the UA?"

UA or EULA or whatever "agreement" quickly passed by his eyeballs when he just purchased a device and wanted to use it... regardless of THAT, you missed the entire point:

THEY! SHOULD! NEVER! HAVE! SLURPED! THE! DATA! IN! THE! FIRST! PLACE!!!

Needless to say, until Bose ADJUSTS! THEIR! ATTITUDE! they won't be getting MY business.

/me wonders if it's ALSO designed to forward information on "illegally downloaded" music for future retribution by RIAA...

Zuckerberg's absolutely mental: Brain sensors that read YOUR MIND at 100 words a minute

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: 100 WPM

it also assumes you think in "words". i write and speak in "words". thinking is more efficient without them.

PACK YOUR BAGS! Boffins spot Earth-size planet most likeliest yet to harbor alien life

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Gravity well problem

7 times earth's mass - what would that be in 'gravity' exactly?

maybe a nice place to 'work out' - Just 'Sayan'

Chap 'fixes' Microsoft's Windows 7 and 8 update block on new CPUs

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "Oh, Microsoft, WTF are you smoking?"

and the message to all new hires:

"Welcome to Microsoft! Here's your bong."

Will the MOAB (Mother Of all AdBlockers) finally kill advertising?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: TV Ads

double volume = 6db (i.e. double amplitude). double power = 3db. approximately, that is. I don't want to search for the unicode character for a wiggly equals sign

db = log10(ratio) * 20 [for amplitude], or * 10 [for power]

in the case of measured power, it's related to '0 dbm' which is 1mWatt

[you're welcome for the electronics lesson, heh]

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: "People don't hate adverts, just awful adverts"

" Acme Gambling Minimum Stake £5 First Game Free Darts Championships "

we get this on PBS stations across the pond... "Major funding for this program by umpty-squat corporation, {insert slogan here}" - a good 2 to 3 minutes' worth of that sometimes. At least they don't break in the middle of the show. Then again, commercial breaks are a good time to take a whizz or grab a sandwich. The problem is that with DIGITAL TV, a lot of the networks figured out that they can keep SHOW CONTENT volume 6db lower than ADVERTISING volume, so if you don't hit the mute button in time, it's blasting your neighbors with advertisement so you can hear it in the bathroom with the door shut and toilet flushing.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Terminator

Re: nice reference

Idiocracy, yeah.

don't forget that TV screen (it appears prominently in the DVD menu) that has about 1/4 of its area with actual content on it. The entire outer portion is polluted with (apparently interactive) advertisements. Do the 'area math' and that's about 3/4 of the surface area of the TV screen, covered in moving/interactive ads... (I would expect it's at LEAST 3/4 of the bandwidth, too, including the SCRIPTING needed to make sure you actually SEE the ads and block the content if you use an ad blocker)

Why Firefox? Because not everybody is a web designer, silly

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

he doesn't like 'cfg' files?

"At least IE, Edge and Chrome can be controlled via GPO"

no WONDER you posted as an 'Anonymous Coward'!

NEWS FLASH: Only Micro-shaft operating systems have 'Group Policy' nonsense and a polluted "registry" to hold it. Last I checked, they were outnumbered by LINUX. Every other significant OS, as I understand it, is either "unix-like" (Linu) or derived from an actual Unix distribution (Apple). So Micro-shaft STANDS ALONE with their ridiculous "policies" and the monolithic REGISTRY to store them in.

Thanks, I prefer well organized "cfg" files, especially if I can edit them myself. And because Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and others run on NON-WINDOWS systems at least as well as on Windows [from my observations, anyway], I would expect ALL of them to use a method that is CONSISTENT across all platforms to store things like personalized settings in.

So, WELL DONE to the open source world for STAYING with 'CFG' files. Thank you!

/me points out that Windows once did things like this with 'INI' files. putting all of that in "the registry" grew it into the monolithic pile of EXCREMENT that it is today

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: An alternative.

"site developers think it's just an outdated version of firefox and demand that I update it."

yeah, this is a problem. It's making it hard for me to use an older version of Firefox (or Epiphany) with github. I happen to like *STABILITY* on development systems, and don't believe that I _MUST_ have "bleeding edge" all the time (I would rather spend time earning money and NOT 'updating' my computer all the freaking time). Since it's FreeBSD, it's quite stable. not like windows or anything. Constant "updates" are *OVERRATED* (and sometimes breaks things).

And BESIDES, I *HATE* the 'hamburger menu' fat-finger-friendliness of CHROME and 'default Firefox'.

I have an idea: tell those web "developers" to STOP IT with ALL THAT SCRIPTING (especially if NOT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE). If it can NOT be done server-side, consider *NOT* *DOING* *IT* *AT* *ALL*! And that goes for YOU TOO, GITHUB!!!

(The problem with Palemoon is that I could not easily get a copy of it, last time I tried. So I gave up on it. That was a while ago. So maybe someone (finally) put it in FreeBSD ports when I wasn't looking...)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I recently ditched Firefox.

I think he ditched FIREFOX because of pulse...

I'll stick with firefox but I want to get rid of the HAMBURGER MENU and "fat finger friendly" *GARBAGE* . I like the _OLDER_ look a _LOT_ better.

So here's what I'm thinking: As MATE was to GNOME, it's time for a FIREFOX FORK!

Debian had Iceweasel. Maybe it's time to resurrect it, but include those "problem areas" like DROPPING ALSA, and FAT-FINGER-FRIENDLY [desktop irritant] features *like* the hamburger menu.

In fact, JUST having a SETTING to TURN THAT OFF would make me happy...

Stop asking people for their passwords, rights warriors yell at US Homeland Security

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: So I asked Corporate Security

"I was advised to remove all corporate and personal information from my smartphone and obey the Border Guards."

and don't use social media, either. problem solved.

(I'd probably need to do the same kind of thing going outside of the USA, so there ya go)

A simple slab costs less than $50. change the PW to "TSA sucks" and have a nice laugh. One for travel, and something else for REAL work. No history on the travel device. A throwaway google e-mail address would do nicely.

"Hidden in plain sight"

No, Microsoft is not 'killing Windows 10 Mobile'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Terminator

Re: 'No, Microsoft is not 'killing Windows 10 Mobile'

"It died years ago."

how about a revised title: Micro-shaft has chosen NOT to resuscitate Windows 10 Mobile

(in the future) renting your phone/slab's OS is too much of a "gone too far" step, even for the fanbois.

H-1B applications down after Trump's 'American techies first' rhetoric

bombastic bob Silver badge
Childcatcher

pain in the 'higher education' sector

"This is causing pain in the higher education sector"

SERIOUSLY, they're a big part of the problem!

I think that in MANY places overseas, the colleges are still EDUCATING people instead of POLITICALLY INDOCTRINATING them for 4 years.

maybe the REAL solution is to hire more "mustang" engineers (i.e. those with 'equivalent experience' in lieu of indoctrination a degree - a degree is proof of POTENTIAL, not CAPABILITY, whereas experience is proof of CAPABILITY _and_ POTENTIAL). But yeah, they might not "fit" into the culture of "Silly Valley".

(think of the children - actually TEACH TECH in high schools and colleges instead of "what they actually do")

Debian bins keys assigned to arrested Russian contributor

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Yeah, well there's a risk involved in operating a Tor exit node, when you're in places like Russia.

Just sayin'.

Prisoners built two PCs from parts, hid them in ceiling, connected to the state's network and did cybershenanigans

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Odd that there were network ports available inside the secure area

don't need to schedule for guard shift changes. just have something to blackmail the guard with.

I worked with a guy who was an X prison guard once. He told me about the kinds of stuff prisoners will do to the guards. One example, a prisoner begs a guard to mail something to his nephew, like a birthday card, "I want to get it to my nephew before his birthday and the prison mail system is too slow." The guard is suckered in, does a one-time favor, and mails it outside the prison. Just a simple birthday card, right? Well, it got a cancellation mark from OUTSIDE the prison on it during the mailing, and it was quietly sent BACK to the same prisoner, who now has PROOF that the guard did something that could get him fired... and the next request is "get me some booze" or "get me some drugs" or "look the other way while we XXX" because it's the guard's F'ing JOB on the line, now...

so yeah, how do prisoners get away with this stuff? Well, it's like *THAT*

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

"They would have got away with it if they hadn't indulged in the twin pillars of getting caught: they got cocky and they were greedy.."

and those meddling kids

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Hats off to them...

"Setting something like that up is fairly trivial, I did it in a weekend using FreeBSD, nagios, and radiusd on an old Pentium-3 system that was rusting away in a closet."

exactly. Yet, THE PRISON WAS USING A MICROSOFT "SOLUTION". While THAT was in place, the cybercrooks "got away with it".

And the offenders were THEN DETECTED AND CAUGHT when that Micro-shaft "solution" was swapped out for a (apparent) REAL one.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Hats off to them...

well, bored hackers with nothing but "down time" and access to spare computer parts...

Hasta la Windows Vista, baby! It's now officially dead – good riddance

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Vista did it right

yeah, I _MUCH_ prefer the OS fail called "Vista" than Win-10-nic.

Vista ANY day over THAT chimera-monstrosity-excretion-from-hell!!!

(that's assuming I don't have 7 available and can't run BSD nor Linux for some reason)

Consumers go off PCs as global shipments continue their decline

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Consumers

mobile is NOT "pushing PCs out". it's a different market. There's nothing to indicate that people generally purchase fondleslabs and smartphones to REPLACE (or instead of) a PC.

Micro-shaft failed to realize this, and now we have Win-10-nic killing new PC sales even *MORE*. I mean, who wants to replace a perfectly good PC running Windows 7 with something that has barely higher specs and Win-10-nic?

Canonical sharpens post-Unity axe for 80-plus Ubuntu spinners

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: so this was the real reason

I"ve been working with Ubu and derivatives off and on, and also for a client. Ubu has good things and bad things, and mostly good. Offering a Mate distribution is a good thing. And I'm happy they dumped Unity.

So here we are, doing some (apparently) VC-prompted re-organization. This is what venture capitalists do, and in many ways it's a VERY good thing, because these people generally know how to turn a company profitable. It's also good that a VC (or two, or ?) is interested in Canonical.

Can we expect a Linux distro that UNSEATS MICRO-SHAFT out of this? I certainly *HOPE* so!

Aside from "it sucks" when you're laid off, the economy should be doing well enough to 'absorb' the small number of people who got pink slipped.

And since the layoffs appear to be related to Unity, it should have been expected when that sub-project was killed.

Troll it your way: Burger King ad tries to hijack Google Home gadgets

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: I think the point is

"current medical opinion is that there is no link between dietary cholesterol and arterial disease."

EXACT-A-MUNDO! And not only that, Atkins-style diets often cause people to LOSE weight.

And high-fat food tastes good. And doesn't addict you to buying low-portion high-carb "low fat" foods at inflated prices, with oxymoronic brand names like "Smart choice" or similar. And _also_ does not coincide with gummint intervention into the *kinds* of food you eat. (ok I'll stop now, grab my coat on the way out)

[double whopper with cheese is actually a balanced meal!]

Big Internet warns FCC's Pai: We will fight you all the way on net neutrality

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Ideology vs. Technology

"It's sad to see such spittle-flecked hatred awarded so many upvotes."

100% agree!

And, don't forget "filled with outrageous claims and gross exaggerations"

( that's being kind --^^^ )

(mega-thumbs-up for saying so - and the poo-flinging howler monkeys will downvote this, too, I'm sure)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

fox, meet henhouse

I do get a bit squeamish when Facebook and Google are the ones who so fervently defend the rules.

yeah, was there something not-so-obvious in that previous regulation, something that they want SO badly to remain, that they're willing to advocate it?

[maybe it was the part that exempted THEM but put lots of regs on ISPs]

Back to the future: Honda's new electric car can go an incredible 80 miles!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Natural Gas Vehicles

"Tax dollars should be pushing NGVs, not battery powered electrics."

Tax dollars shouldn't be subsidizing ANYTHING, because YOU should not be paying for your neighbor's vehicle choice. Therein lies the ENTIRE problem! If it's not economically viable, let it die. I bet Tesla would do just fine without subsidies. And hybrid cars, same thing. Gummint shouldn't be trying to determine who the winners and losers are by shuffling public money into a currently-favored (read: corrupt politicians getting paid off) technology.

And don't EVEN get me started on CAFE standards in the USA...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why not offer different battery pack options.

how how about a regular internal combustion dino-burning engine under the hood? 'hybrid' config optional.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: One of the factors I'd be interested in

"Electric cars are more environmentally friendly."

but only if you think that CO2 is "a pollutant". which it's not. [CO2 absorbs almost no infrared energy corresponding to normal earth temperatures, i.e. above about -50F, and so it cannot be causing any kind of warming greenhouse effects except maybe in Antarctica or during an ice age. Water, on the other hand...].

gasoline is liquid energy, available for at least 50 to 100 years into the future, and it gives us MOBILITY. Inventing new ways of getting around is still good, of course, but don't delude yourself into thinking you're "saving the planet" by driving an electric car. If nothing else, they tend to emit "smug". heh.

(a hybrid, on the other hand, makes more economic sense because of the mileage improvement and range of a normal dino-powered vehicle)

My preference would be gas-turbine powered electric generators driving the motors and charging the batteries intermittently while you drive. THAT could be the best hybrid solution of them all. Gas turbines can run on diesel fuel, propane, alcohol, whatever (except maybe gasoline since it's probably too volatile).

not sure why nobody's doing that... (maybe it makes too much sense?)

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Seems foolish

"the short-range electric is for the daily commute."

not likely - typical commute involves a lot of "sitting in traffic" and on a nice hot day, your A/C is blasting [or on a cold one, the heater]. So after an hour of burning up the battery with 'accessory loads', you'll end up getting towed more often than not.

This goes TRIPLE for Cali-Fornicate-You, where hour-long commutes are common, commute traffic is ALWAYS bad, and weather extremes at certain times of the year are guaranteed.

Foolish indeed.

(yeah they probably FELT that Cali-Fornicate-You residents are all a bunch of clueless greenies with 5 minute commutes and spare time to charge up the batteries on each end of every trip - ok SOME are, but not ME - I'll keep my dino-burner - It's an older mustang convertible, a LOT more fun!)

Back to the Future 2: Gasp! America's trade watchdog discovers the risks of 'free' movies

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Oh no...

Are we going to get some sort of ad campaign in the spirit of "you wouldnt steal a hand bag".

(etc.)

I want my 'brain on drugs' fried eggs, too, with bacon, sausage, and spam.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Of course, will they go after other bad guys?

To borrow a Harry Potter quote: They need to sort out their priorities.

US military makes first drop of Mother-of-All-Bombs on Daesh-bags

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Stupid bastards

The problems in Vietnam aren't what you're mentioning here. The problems in Vietnam began with LBJ's limitations on what the military could do. At one point in the war they were short on bombs, so they sent out planes without payloads as a 'show of force' putting pilots at risk for no good reason. Things like that. More than once it's "you cannot cross this line" so all of the SAM missiles were stored where higher-ups in LBJ's command had no stones enough to go after, causing even MORE losses. Then of course the tunnels, which could have been dealt with if the war hadn't been so badly politicized.

It should have been like Korea. Instead it was a cluster-blank. [and I was alive during the war, missed the draft by only 3 or 4 years].

needless to say, what OBAKA was doing with ISIS (calling them 'ISIL' like he was trying to show them respect, and drawing lines and doing nothing when they were crossed) is a completely different policy, not unlike LBJ's policies during the Vietnam war.

if you want to win a war, let the generals figure out how to do it. I think Trump is doing that.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: "where's the Kaboom?"

as I have seen in photos and movies of MOAB under test, it _CAN_ generate a nice mushroom cloud

So yeah, as far as ISIS goes, near-NUKE 'em till they glow, then SHOOT THEM IN THE DARK!

I'm sure many ISIS members will have nightmares guessing when the next one's coming. The rest will scatter like roaches when you flip the light switch on. Those will be the ones NOT willing to strap bombs to their OWN bodies to kill innocent civilians...

Linux remote root bug menace: Make sure your servers, PCs, gizmos, Android kit are patched

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: DD-WRT?

with older wifi routers using 2.4 and 2.6 kernels, I have to wonder if they're affected...

(well i suppose open source could be fixed and re-flashed...)

Leaked NSA point-and-pwn hack tools menace Win2k to Windows 8

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Too slow...

they'll just say "get windows 10" - you KNEW, that, right?

(then they won't have to fix ANYTHING)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Pays to be running Windows 10

pays to be running FreeBSD or Linux, you mean.

Microsoft raises pistol, pulls the trigger on Windows 7, 8 updates for new Intel, AMD chips

bombastic bob Silver badge
Joke

Re: Well after that...

"Microsoft hate is becoming a very strange fetish for you guys..."

whip me, beat me, make me run Windows 10!

as I do the masochism tango!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Most of the people who use PCs think they run "Google"

well, then THAT is a MARKET OPPORTUNITY for Inexpensive (yet powerful) Linux machines!

Mint with Mate or Cinnamon for a shorter learning curve.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: This should help Apple and Linux

"maybe we need a sarcasm icon?"

how about this one?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Terminator

Re: Optional

"There will always be a resistance to aggressive sales tactics like this."

Those aren't sales tactics. It's the way you MIGHT treat customers who have no alternative but YOU. If you're an asshat that is. Or Micro-shaft.

Finally a reason not to bother with IPv6: Uh, security concerns...?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: I always use SSH tunnels....

if you use a proxy between endpoints of an SSH connection, like a firewall appliance or 'man in the middle' attack, the side that connects would need to accept the new cert. The server cert mismatch warning would be there, and the person connecting would have to make a decision about it. So it's not perfect, but should be ok if not connecting for the first time through a proxy or 'MITM' .

(and if connecting for the first time you get a different warning)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: If IP6v hadn't been made so goddamn complicated...

"The register though is not one of those sites using IPV6 but of course google and their ad companies are"

Microsoft doesn't, last I checked [except on a few specific servers, last time I sniffed a win-10-nic VM that had IPv6 enabled, which might not actually be theirs, and was probably over a year ago].

Which brings me to the REAL source of the problem: Imagine EVERY! WINDOWS! CLIENT! in the world having a PUBLICALLY! VIEWABLE! IP! ADDRESS!!! [yes, the "no NAT" FUD rears its ugly head].

Truth is that IPv6 CAN be NAT'ted, but nobody will bother doing it. It's truly better if it's FIREWALLED to block ALL of the listening ports that Micro-shaft suddenly FEELS it needs to listen on, but EVERY! STINKING! VERSION! of Windows since XP has been listening on open ports bound to "::" or 0.0.0.0 and the list of ports GROWS (and occasionally MORPHS) with each release. And those ports are (more or less) "well known" especially to those who might want to use them for nefarious purposes (and when new ones show up, they'll be known, too).

So what is the _CAUSE_ of the IT "my computer got hacked while I was on the corporate network" problem? That's right, it's MICROSOFT that CAUSES the problem, with their far-less-than-adequate approach to security. 'Microsoft Firewall' - what a joke. Anyone ELSE remember 'code red'? 'Win Nuke'? Look forward to more of the same when every Windows box is exposed unfiltered to the intarwebs.

Of course this COULD be fixed. By Micro-shaft. But they don't even bother implementing their OWN IPv6, and last time they TRIED, they completely cluster-blanked it...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/19/windows_10_bug_undercuts_ipv6_rollout/

(I just checked, and microsoft.com _STILL_ has no AAAA records)

Windows 10 Creators Update general rollout begins with a privacy dialogue

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

"When do we get a non USA operating system bumping off windows ? "

Micro-shaft could be anywhere in the world, and would still do the same things. They're too big for their britches, treat customers like "minions", and ASSUME we're completely addicted to their "services".

One OS to rule them all. One OS to find them. One Interface to BRING THEM ALL and with 2D FLATSO METRO, *BIND* them!

They re-re-re-invented the wheel to DRIVE the market into a place where Micro-shaft has COMPLETE control. Too many customers got suckered in, and just blindly went along with their evil plans...

They need a competitor. Linux makes the most sense. The problem is legacy application compatibility. WINE won't do it. And it takes _MONEY_ to develop things. And so, we're STILL HERE...

Facebook's 'delightful' AI Clippy the Paperclip creeps into Messenger

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Salmon Days

exactly what I was thinking...

"It looks like you're writing a letter"

"F. Off"

"It looks like you're writing a letter"

"F... Off!"

"It looks like you're writing a letter"

"F! Off!"

"It looks like you're writing a letter"

"I'm NOT WRITING A F***ING LETTER YOU STUPID F***ING PAPERCLP!"

Classic. I just wish their other stuff had been as funny as that sequence...

Ex-IBMer sues Google for $10bn – after his web ad for 'divine honey cancer cure' was pulled

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: They walk amongst us

"they tend to use homeopathy as complementary treatment, not as an alternative."

etc.

placebo effects are well documented. homeopathy in general is another snake oil. I cite the process of "dilution" that allegedly increases the potency as my number one proof of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_dilutions

But, like the honey "treatment" there will be a placebo effect from homeopathy, and occasional SOMETHING from an herb or chemical that was included in the mix in sufficient quantity to have an effect. For all we know, putting the patient in a good mood with lots of confidence is all that it takes for some people to be cured instead of dying. The brain is very powerful, and not that well understood. There are psychosomatic diseases with real symptoms. "Good mood" therapy may be a part of any balanced treatment. The doc could prescribe a good book, video games, or 'get off your ass and do something' and be just as effective as any 'snake oil' (probably more effective because those are real things, not fake like snake oil).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: But seriously though folks....

"The market was also skewed to promoting expensive therapies over research into the causes."

Well, when a cancer patient would have 6 months to live without the expensive therapies, _AND_ the research has been taking YEARS too long to save that patient's life, I think the expensive therapies make more sense. [and so would medical marijuana if it gives patients 'the munchies' so they don't starve to death when the expensive chemotherapy makes them so nauseous that they can't eat - yeah a somewhat practical and inexpensive add-on to the expensive therapy].

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I can hear sirens

"The FDA can make you recall every product at fault and fine the bejesus out of you."

And I'm sure that would make their product "illegal enough" (for having made illegal claims) to support Google's decision, _AND_ there's no doubt in my mind that some kind of liability is involved in allowing "illegal" products to be advertised through Google's ad network.

And so, Google was right to deny the 'ad words' for a product that makes claims that violate FDA regulations, and even though it's only *slightly* illegal it's most likely Google's final decision anyway.

Google is a ginormous "deep pocket" target for lawsuits. I just hope they don't pay anything to settle.

Boeing-backed US upstart reckons it'll be building electric airliners

bombastic bob Silver badge
Flame

Re: Big Problem

actually LiPo batteries are MORE DANGEROUS when they're discharged... (they tend to gas, expand, maybe blow up, etc. )

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Reality check time?

solar power density is around 1.4kw per square meter. That's less than 2HP per square meter if I did the math properly. I looked that up and found it on a single web site. Perhaps you might corroborate that with other sites. I'm too lazy to do that, heh. And that isn't taking into consideration the "less than 100%" efficiency of a solar panel. Aren't they around 30% these days?

I think if you did the math, solar energy at ANY altitude [vs the weight of the panels to collect it] would be a net LOSS if you tried to implement it on an aircraft. I cite an earlier post regarding solar cars in Australia...

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Reality check time?

"Simple reality is that "renewable" aviation is going to have to run on synthetic paraffin. And that is going to be VERY expensive."

why paraffin? why "renewable?"

last I heard, fracking will give us up to 100 years of oil supply at current consumption levels. BP had a more conservative estimate back in 2014 of about 53 years...

so why paraffin? makes no sense.

if nothing else, use SEWAGE and ORGANIC GARBAGE to make oil. As I understand it, a process for doing so was invented in the 1950's involving high pressure/temperature and a layer of CO gas and maybe some catalysts, and from what I've read, it's an EXOTHERMIC process once you get it going. Yeah, EXOTHERMIC. think about THAT for a moment...