Posts by awavey

Largest local government body in Europe goes under amid Oracle disaster

Re: Easy win but challenging keep.

And Birmingham Council is somehow unique among all councils in the UK, Europe or the world in this ?

We have local government associations who provide guidance, advise and allow councils to knowledge share precisely so they aren't out there completely in uncharted territory buying technology they dont have a hope of understanding themselves.

I refuse to believe that Oracle somehow foisted a completely unknown system, with unknown limitations on them.

It is more likely instead that Birmingham council requested a system that they knew they'd have to modify (modernise ?) their processes to use, but then got stuck in the perennially expensive mode of trying to fit their existing work practises into it, probably because their workers didn't like the change, to a system that has had to be heavily modified to cope with it.

Unfortunately professional services and consultancy will always do what the customer asks, even if the customer is wrong and it costs them many millions more in the long run

You're not seeing double – yet another UK copshop is confessing to a data leak

Re: Isn't it seeing triple now?

technically yes they are separate forces, but they share alot of back office functions and some units are combined force units, so it absolutely makes sense that a FOI request data breach like this would impact both forces as a single entity, because the data spreadsheet was probably put together by the same group.

I just hope theyve remembered to redact the online copies that would have been released

UK voter data within reach of miscreants who hacked Electoral Commission

Re: How was this made possible?

Which is fine, don't expect him to be the techie guy to solve the details, but why accept the invite to be interviewed just to use standard politician style bluster tactics ?

And his ignorance of even the broad details and points compounds the breach, as its likely this failure to understand the issue or his responsibility ( see also senior execs at banks who gossip about account holders) for it that leads to systems not being secured properly and data breaches occurring, as he can surely be briefed to a level that even a child can understand by the techies to converse coherently on the topic

This ain't Boeing very well: Starliner's first crewed flight canceled yet again

Re: Confidence

The point is the flaws they're finding are obvious ones that should have been found years back in its development.

We were only a month away from a crew demo launch, you shouldn't be finding the wiring in the capsule is a major fire risk and the parachutes could fail at this stage. If it hadnt been for a sticky valve they could already have launched and then encountered these issues in a real mission, which would have been disastrous.

So what are the really obscure problems,like how the timing error caused it to burn all its fuel or the hidden problems, they havent found yet ?

That's the worry going forward with this design,we dont know theyve got all the bugs out of it.

Virgin Orbit doesn't

Re: Something else to add to the Brexit Britain Epic Fail Compilation.

Well not really because then you have to fund the launch costs yourself, this way the people willing to put their satellites on your rocket pay for most of the launch and hence your development/research costs, and the deal is they get a discount to try again on a a different flight if it all goes wrong as you can't insure them.

The reason NASA don't use 747s is because this really isn't the future of space launches, 30 years ago it might have been for a while when satellite launches were the preserve of governments only paying millions, but you'll always be able to haul more payload to orbit with a rocket launch, the key to cost per kilo to make space launches cheaper is the stuff SpaceX are doing.

That's not unusual with rocketry launch vehicles they'd probably consider the 747 stage 0 or a booster launch stage, with stage 1 being the 1st rocket propellants engine, I believe United Launch alliance have used similar confusing stage naming before.

Re: Seventh time lucky, maybe

So tiny they have strip most of the interior of the 747 to save weight just so it can take off with it,I'm not sure how sustainable or reusable this method is when there are metal fatigue considerations on air frames to worry about and your launch stage carries crew who absolutely don't want the wing to fall off.

Yes, I was watching the telemetry more closely than normal as the coverage they were providing was abysmal, but spotted it was clearly not working as it should be, that flight path tracker where it ended with a vertical line going straight up with negative speed was a big clue.

So I was expecting RUD to be called, but it felt like they waited till Cosmic Girl was back on the ground before calling it, hence the embarrassing yay it's in orbit tweets, oh wait no its not.

As one mission returns to Earth, three more make for the Moon

Artemis II is scheduled for May 2024, I dont think it will slip into 2025, even if it slips close to it, unless some major issue crops up in the data review of Artemis I or the transfer of components to the next Orion.

Their biggest problem is really fixing & hardening the mobile launch platform, all the other hardware is coming together well, with production of Artemis III already underway.

Absolutely it was part of the engineering testing to see how the systems, cooling, coped for an extended period left in the water, in case the capsule were to land off course, or rendezvous was delayed, or escaping hypergolics,basically for whatever reason it took recovery vessels longer to safe the capsule to extract the crew.

Better to do it now when it's just Snoopy, Shaun the sheep and a couple of dummies on board

Plus they were collecting as much data on the capsule as possible since it's the first landing with this heat shield from a non earth orbit, you dont want to drag it on board the ship and then go I wish we'd measured the temperature of the outer skin around this important part of the capsule which might critically impact future missions.

Not from 24,500mph we dont, theres a big difference, that starship will have to cope with, from reentry from moon orbital velocities and the kind of just above the karman line booster reentry at about a quarter of the speed Falcon 9 does.

NASA's Artemis mission finally launches after faulty Ethernet switch delayed countdown

Re: Flawed

During prop load, NASA announced theyd awarded Artemis 4 landing contract to SpaceX, so they've got 2 missions now, I'd say that's every sign they have confidence in what's happening at SpaceX

No surprise El Reg takes its usual negative nelly the SLS is bad take, and clearly don't understand the concept of launch windows, or the t minus 10 hold position.

This was a near flawless countdown, launch and Orion is now on its way to the moon, there are always issues in any launch attempt and these were worked through and solved.

Celebrate that after nearly 50years(49 years 11 months) a human rated spaceflight vehicle, launched on the most powerful rocket humankind has ever developed & successfully launched is returning space exploration to our nearest celestial neighbour.

SLS does work

UK comms regulator rings death knell for fax machines

That's because faxes have a status as a legal document, that not all (in case I've forgotten one that does) electronic communication equivalents do not...yet

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launches after three-year hiatus with secret US sats

Rocketdyne were awarded a contract of 1.79billion dollars to make 18 RS-25 engines.

Each SLS launch will use 4 of those engines just the once, so that's minimum of $400 million sunk,literally in the ocean,cost per launch and we havent accounted for costs of fabricating the core stage, the solid rockets,upper stages, propellant loads for a launch campaign.

And that's minus all the development cost of SLS, so a totally fair comparison to a Falcon heavy launch cost of $300million vs $400 million on just expendable engines.

Rocketdyne were given 1billion just to restart production of RS25 engines not long after theyd been given several hundred million to close down production.

Elon Musk shows what being Chief Twit is all about across weird weekend

Re: But what was the sink for?

It was part of the let it sink in...he owns twitter meme he was playing with. Look Elons jokes aren't always that funny when you have to explain them, but they always seem to annoy the right, or left, people, as does his purchase of this company that's apparently now "hell" according to the media, strange they never thought to bring it to light till this week.

And disappointed El Reg didn't cover the Ligma twosome, who successfully trolled the media and got them reporting unfact checked fake news about the twitter firings.

SpaceX reportedly fed up with providing free Starlink to Ukraine

Re: missed the point

If it's that easy...why arent you making millions that way instead ?

NASA's Artemis rocket makers explain that it's a marathon and a sprint

The sensor issue was the item that finally forced them to scrub the first launch attempt there had been hydrogen leaks earlier during that countdown, and as there had been during wet dress rehearsals at various stages, because yes the connecter/quick disconnect fuelling link is brand new equipment even if its an old technology concept and getting everything to synch and seat properly takes time to tweak

NASA scrubs Artemis mission yet again because SLS just can't handle the pressure

Re: hard choices

because Starship wont be rated for crew launch by then, its got no in flight abort system, would you sit in that thing ? that so far has managed just the 1 successful landing from 10km without blowing up. theres a world of difference between playing around with explodable steel cans in Texas, and putting people on top of it to launch into space.

Re: Third time's a .... ?

has anyone told Space X that ? they do multiple fuelling attempts/scrubs/RUDs as part of their test programme, SLS is in a test program, its not flight proven hardware yet

theyve test fired the SRBS loads of times, there was one only a couple of months back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XULWDL6oaY4

NASA's Space Launch System rocket is on track for August 29 liftoff

I dont agree Shuttle signalled the end of giant throwaway rockets, because it never achieved its reusability design aims and NASA, ESA,Roscosmos have been merrily launching expendable heavy lift rockets without a care for decades since.

It was only when SpaceX perfected Falcon 9 booster landings, which many in the space industry thought was not achievable, that was a game changer, unfortunately SLS was already being constructed by then, and impossible to redesign to deliver that kind of reuse, without it costing twice as much as just allowing SLS to proceed plus it enables them to certify human spaceflight to the moon with HLS much sooner than would be possible on Starship, that's why you use old tech, its proven capabilities.

But it's the last rocket NASA will ever design & build via its contractors, the future is very much hitching rides instead with the new private space companies.

Re: FFS!!!

I thought El Regs SI unit of choice was London Buses, or olympic swimming pools, or were those the old days :(

Re: Conflicted.

To overcome the technical challenges of what's involved to accomplish it,we learn more about science & technology that could lead to solving many of the challenges we face on Earth, and inspire the next generation, as Apollo did, to become scientists, doctors, engineers and even IT professionals.

A $50bn launch tag sounds horrendous, but in America alone they spend that much on pet food each year, it's half of what they spend on coffee.

The US budget is measured in the trillions of dollars, NASA gets about half a penny of every tax dollar the government gets. It costs an average US household $33 per year to fund NASA, that's equivalent to about 4 and a bit months of Disney +.

Its totally worth it.

Tesla Full Self-Driving 'fails' to notice child-sized objects in testing

Re: Looks like exactly the sort of failure you'd expect from beta firmware

Something of the sort happens multiple times per day every day just on UK roads, and no one cares because we tolerate humans making these life/death mistakes

But put a computer in control and suddenly every demands perfection from it.

If their autopilot system kills or injures only 1 % less people on the roads than now, its actually an improvement

If you want to launch Starship from Texas, here's some homework, FAA tells SpaceX

Re: Federal Aviation Authority ?

Its complicated because there are tons of rules about US registered companies, space tech & launching effectively gigantic V2 rockets, that makes the federal government unhappy if you tried to launch from another country. And SpaceX want a happy federal government so that arms like NASA & the DoD work with them to give them contracts to fly astronauts or satellites on the stuff that's proven from KSC.

None of this report is deal breaking for Boca Chica as a launch development site, most of it is simply be a good neighbor, clean up your trash, dont make a mess stuff, take care of the wildlife. The write a report on the history of the civil war is probably the weirdest requirement theyve got to fulfil.

The rest of it seemed fairly reasonable if just to codify the expectations on SpaceX on how they operate down there.

By the time theyve proven reliable flight capability for the system, the KSC launch facility will be ready and they can swap to that for multiple launch cadence operations.

Rocket Lab successfully catches falling rocket booster with a helicopter

Re: "a supersonic ballet"

It seems a risky way of perfecting booster return, like this launch encountered a hold of about 10mins, which presumably they add to the helicopters fuel budget, but if the launch window is over several hours,would you want your helicopter recovery service to be the determining point of failing to launch because its low on fuel stuck in the sea? And recycle of fuel is expensive plus adds to your overall launch reuse as theyll only be rated for so many fuelling cycles before you've got to replace it anyway.

Plus as a company with shares trading on the markets, failures become share price affecting which is no doubt why they cut the feed even though we kind of knew the attempt had failed

It's not, its rocket engineering, the science is just the math bit, the engineering is how you practically do it

ZX Spectrum, the 8-bit home computer that turned Europe on to PCs, is 40

I cant remember, well it was 40 years ago :) if the chips were soldered or fitted in existing sockets on our one, but the result was we actually put the resultant upgraded Speccy in a bigger case, so benefitted from a decent keyboard years before Sinclair caught up.

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

Re: Clippy behind the wheel

but that probably puts you in the top 1% of drivers who even noticed that and could react to it, after all it was a "human" who was making the dumbass 3 point turn, and a "human" who pulled out of the junction despite not being able to see it was clear.

and what you are demanding from AI is perfection, whilst actually accepting far from perfection from your superior to AI humans you share the roads with currently

there were 1460 people killed in road collisions during 2020, during a Covid imposed national lockdown. thats 4 people per day killed on the UKs roads, whilst most people actually stayed at home. 23,529 killed/seriously injured, 115,584 of all injury severities, all involving superior human driving skills.

if AI reduces those numbers even by a fraction, it will be far superior than humans at driving, even if it never achieves perfection.

ESA-Russia Mars rover launch on ice after Ukraine invasion

Re: OneWeb

well given Roscosmos have issued among some new launch criteria that by itself could have scuppered a launch, that the UK government needs to drop out of Oneweb as a shareholder...I think we can put that in the definitely not happening launch bucket and all commercial Soyuz launches are pretty much over for the forseeable.

Geomagnetic storm takes out 40 of 49 brand new Starlink satellites

Re: "any satellite that dies in its final orbit will last much longer"

Except they naturally deorbit within 5 years if propulsion fails.

Re: Insured?

Why is it cavalier? Theres no risk to launching their own Starlink satellites and having them "fail" to maintain orbit in this manner, and it absolutely expands SpaceXs knowledge about LEO, geostorms and their Starlink satellite capabilities. That's how we learn stuff you do practical testing and gain real data.

Starlink is as much a testing proving ground for SpaceX rocket engineering, reliability and reusability as it is creating space internet.

And its hilarious really, SpaceX launched Falcon 9 3 times in 3 days, a launch rate record I believe in space history launch terms, successfully landed all the boosters, which have achieved now over 100 successful landings, largely due to Starlink missions And it's so mundane it doesnt even get mentioned anymore,even though less than a decade ago the experts claimed it was impossible.

And yet this is the same tech, the same boosters that launch human crews missions, so would you prefer SpaceX launched Falcon 9s repeatedly and in so doing learn about using their rockets that happen to put some expendable space internet stuff in orbit,or sat around waiting till conditions were absolutely perfect and let the humans take all the risks?

SpaceX Starlink sat streaks now present in nearly a fifth of all astronomical images snapped by Caltech telescope

Re: Great potential for new science!

Jonathan McDowell an astrophysicist at Harvard, has been writing papers,giving talks and simulating the effects of Starlink on astronomy from Earth for some time https://planet4589.org/astro/starsim/index.html and his conclusions match those of these Caltech papers. SpaceX have mitigated the risks of Starlink, changed the designs and engaged with the astronomical community and it wont ultimately be that big an issue at the end of the day.

The problem comes from the other mega constellations being proposed the OneWeb, the Kuiper the SatNet the Sphere.Lots of those have higher or different orbits so will catch more reflection of sunlight for longer in astronomical observations and will be entirely managed by countries who arent that bothered about international cooperation.

But the public have only heard of Starlink, so the press frame the story that Starlink creates a problem.

Leaked footage shows British F-35B falling off HMS Queen Elizabeth and pilot's death-defying ejection

Re: Would suspect the

I remember on the documentary series when the RAF pilots were training to fly it, the planes onboard computer locked them out for some reason, and they spent most of one mornings planned sortie just trying to turn it off and on again, it wasnt a simple bit of kit to operate that's for sure and I can well imagine it automates alot of things, to prevent pilot error.

Russia blows up old satellite, NASA boss 'outraged' as ISS crew shelters from debris

Re: Capabilities

It was also a satellite filled with hypergolic fuel which posed a significant risk to people & the environment left in an uncontrolled state, so whilst the development of such technology was condemned at the time it was seen as necessary and was done in a way so it minimised the risk to operations in space.

It is on a completely different scale to what the Russians just did, who have not only created more than 1500 potentially lethal to human space flight operations projectiles travelling at orbital speeds , and ruinous to any satellites in its path. But they did it to a satellite whose orbital mechanics intersects with the International Space Station not just putting all existing and future ISS crew at risk, some of whom are Russian, but which could destroy it completely.

NASA delays crewed Moon landing until 2025, citing technical infeasibility

Re: So NASA will *never* make it to the Moon

For lots and lots of reasons, SpaceX will never attempt a lunar landing, unless it's part of the NASA lunar landing mission program.

They may well send a Starship to orbit the moon and test out refuelling and things that could be used in a lunar mission ahead of NASA involvement, they certainly want to send a Dragon there, but they wont land ahead of the NASA mission, precisely because it would make congress ask those types of questions of NASA, and it's still vital for SpaceX to maintain a good customer/supplier working relationship with NASA.

It's all largely irrelevant anyway imo as I doubt SpaceX are nearer than 3 years away from attempting such a thing. We've landed a Starship once from 10km, it needs to land 100s if not 1000s of times from orbital velocities before you put people anywhere near riding on top of it. And theres super heavy booster to prove & the on orbit refuelling. Theres alot of work left to do.

Shatner breaks the age barrier, goes where no nonagenarian has gone before with Blue Origin rocket trip

Re: A 10 minutes 17 second ride ...

Unfortunately the Bezos pr machine is more focused on out SpaceXing SpaceX, than explaining the benefits of this kind of stuff, so that even the royals trying to out environment cred each other can take pot shots at it.

Reusable rocket technology, and every successful launch & landing improves its reliability & capabilities, will lead to a massive reduction in the costs to access space, cheaper access to space unlocks science & technology knowledge & opportunities for making the Earth a better place,and solve some of the insolvable problems we face.

These New Shepherd launches are a step on the way to discovery,and bigger things, just like the first forays in aviation history, the Wright brothers or Montgolfiers experiments in flight have led to a global industry of flight that literally saves thousands of peoples lives daily, through better quicker access to emergency healthcare ,medicines,transportation of food and water, fire suppression.

Shatner in his own words has described the fragility of this planet and its environment that is only something you experience in space, you can call it a joyride on a bouncy castle if you like but this IS inspiring a generation to take up STEM topics and make the world a better place.

Booting up: Footballers kick off GDPR case for 'misuse' of their performance data

Re: Strange argument?

True, but I dont think most fans are worried about League One player wages, most players only have careers that span 10-15years, and wont end up on the gravy train of the managers merry go round, tv punditry or making documentaries on their addictions, basically end up in their mid 30s on the dole. It's the ones complaining about not earning the extra 250k per week most feel have lost touch with reality.

So you can see why monetising such data is attractive for lower league players, and theres probably a case to be made that specific health metrics gathered by your club in training with all those sports performance tools & tracking is covered by GDPR and shouldn't at all be traded between clubs without the individuals consent, whether it intrinsically has value to be paid for is another matter and I doubt it has any beyond the impact transfer value of the player.

But just standard in game metrics captured like goals scored, passes completed, bookings I dont think that's at all something that would be covered by this, the player literally provides informed consent by stepping onto the field of play in front of a potentially global audience. I dont think you can claim a right to privacy of that kind of stuff.

Fake 'BT' caller fleeces elderly victim of £30k in APP app scam

You get more than few warnings you can just click ignore on though, I do my mums food shopping and just to transfer less than £100 between our accounts at regular intervals, you have to present access codes and then have more codes texted to you.everytime, plus follow all the warnings clicking you agree, and if you login via a different computer/ip address, it resets your security to basically you must hacking the account level and go through even more painful authentication.

So how the flip they transferred 30k with no red flags, or questions asked, hell even 20 years ago I couldnt shift that much money between bank accounts without a solicitors legal letter that was checked for authenticity, authorising that kind of payment.

So I feel there might be important information missing in this case, probably so as not to assist anyone along with similar scams

SpaceX successfully sends four amateurs into orbit for three-day tour

Not amateurs...

...but just civilians, not in the employ of the government or the military, they still trained for months for this mission, had to learn the procedures, the emergency drills, do the simulator training and will be carrying out experiments that contribute to human knowledge of space, just go watch the Netflix series on it.

To label them as "amateurs" simply for not being paid to do this as a job, is as bad as the sniping between Blue Origin & Virgin imo.

Call them commercial astronauts, call them private astronauts even call them citizen astronauts if you must, just dont call them amateurs.

The day has a 'y' in it, so Virgin Galactic has announced another delay

You are aware of this thing called Starlink? another batch launched this morning where Falcon 9 is really learning the reliability & reusability stuff with a 90th successful booster landing.

That alone cuts the costs of launching stuff into space and where you make big profits by not having to rebuild your launch vehicle every time,and that's before you start to capture the commercial benefits of providing broadband from space.

And on TV and in the newspapers, no less organisations such as the Guardian and Channel 4 news, were merrily printing and promoting the myth that billionaire Bezos had dumped 300tons of Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from his karmen line expedition

Tesla promises to build robot you could beat up – or beat in a race

Re: Humanoid bots

Boston Dynamics robot spot dog,has been used by SpaceX for months,who nick named it Zeus.

It's not a great leap of tech from dog shape to human shape.

Yes Musks timelines are always optimistic, but he is the epitome of shoot for the moon and even if you miss you'll land among the stars, he pushes people to think nothing is impossible, and sometimes they do achieve impossible things.

Which is alot better than the if we cant do it litigious style blocking approach his competitors favour.

Boots on Moon in 2024? NASA OIG says you better moonwalk away from that date, because suits ain't ready

Re: Nasa priority

In fairness it was remarks made by a NASA communications rep, who no doubt does think the sole purpose of spending 86billion dollars on the program is just to put the first woman or first person of color bootprints on the surface of the moon as the main priority.

The people working on the program who will be a mix of people of color, women and yes white men, might well think differently about its aims being more scientific and long term space exploration is the main priority and that the best people for the role to land on the moon will be selected regardless of gender or race backgrounds.

And if it does happen to be a woman or person of color then theyll be selected because they demonstrated they were the best candidate.

As we can see as the latest Cygnus resupply to the ISS mission craft named in honour of Ellison Onizuka because 35 years ago NASA picked people of colour and women to send into space, because they were the best of us all.

Hubble, Hubble, toil and trouble: NASA pores over moth-eaten manuals ahead of switch to backup hardware

Re: Sounds Like...

Incredibly risky mission for the astronauts even with Shuttle, its multiple times riskier now, it's something Starship is probably more capable of than Dragon eventually,but I think youd struggle to even get through the hatch of Dragon in a shuttle style space suit to begin with. Let alone "capture" the telescope in a safe manner that astronauts on EVAs could work on it.

Look it's done 30+ years of service, it was only designed to do 15, if you compare it to ground based telescopes the costs/science actually Hubble is a poor choice now, but it's pretty pictures capture the public imagination so it gets cited way more often as delivering that special science dividend,when we are learning more about the universe from stuff sitting on tops of mountains.

Let them try to fix it if they cant just accept it's done its job and move on, the James Webb telescope though not a direct replacement by any means launches in October assuming ESA can resolve the cargo fairings issue.

EE and Three mobe mast surveyors might 'upload some virus' to London Tube control centre, TfL told judge

Why is it surprising if TfL have a deal with O2 & Vodafone, that Three & EE are being forced to go to court to get access to a roof ?

'Biggest data grab' in NHS history stuffs GP records in a central store for 'research' – and the time to opt out is now

Re: Get your tin foil hat on!

Yes I remember filling in what they called workplace pulse surveys that were badged as completely anonymous so you should feel safe to answer open & honestly your thoughts & feelings on your work environment,even though TPHB had lists of those that didnt fill them in.

But you had to fill in your gender and age for some kind of diversity in the workplace profiling.

Well when you were the only 30 year old woman filling in a survey in the workplace and your gender/age range made up about 1% of the company's workforce, you didnt need to wear a tinfoil hat to recognise you were instantly very identifiable if people chose to look at the data in certain subsets.

Whilst I doubt US companies will get upto any nefariousness with this medical data as I'm sure the NHS partners with plenty of UK ones who are more than competent of doing that themselves, whilst also accidentally leaving backups of it on trains, or with back doors on databases held on the internet, it's not going to be anonymous data and that alone should raise red flags to people concerned about their rights to privacy

The Starship has landed. Latest SpaceX test comes back to Earth without igniting fireballs

Yep that was a huge fire, those fins for scale are as tall if not taller than most peoples houses, so that's a whole building on fire sized fire they had. But they got it under control,probably just a propellant leak from a pipe somewhere that they can fix easily enough.

Re: Coming in high

The whole flight seemed to be shorter in length,but the cloud layer and the glitchy onboard video made it difficult to see when the flip happened to compare with previous flights.

And it was fairly windy at ground level 18-22knots, I'm not surprised the targeting was a bit off but how insane is this stuff that the general publics/media reaction to something roughly the height of Nelson's column,or 4 london double decker buses stacked on top of each other to use El Regs standard sizes, launches as a rocket 10km up in the air and then successfully lands relocated to a landing pad is led by well it didnt blow up.

Are we so used to something like this tech now which for decades was pure science fiction,that it doesnt even excite people when it works.

What on earth are they going to make of it when NASA launches their SLS and the thing just falls in the Indian Ocean taking 4 hugely expensive and historic rocket motors with it.