Posts by IT Poser

Feeling old? Well, we're older than that: Newly found Homo sapiens jaw dates back 350k years

Re: 350K years

Nah, the USA was created in 1776. By this point it was evident that the previous nations that man had created were inferior. Therefore divine intervention was necessary and the greatest nation in the 6500 years of history was born.

Going to Mars may give you cancer, warns doc

Re: drugs usable for voluntary euthenasia

Or we just stop removing CO2 from the air. My understanding, I have no first-hand experience mind you, is this is a relatively painless way to go.

Re: I suspect that ...

Don't worry too much about the perchlorates. We have to add a removal system to our airlocks. This is an engineering problem that is currently under development.

One question I am currently working is investigating whether the perchlorate concentrations are high enough for industrial processes or if we'll have to spend payload mass on concentration equipment. So far it appears that we will need concentration equipment. Ideally we will locate places where areological processes gives us far higher concentrations than the 1-2% we've found so far.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. When Mars hands us perchlorates we just need to make water, CO2, chloride salts, and thermal energy. Hopefully we find an extractable methane source for our metaphorical sugar.

Two hot Jupiters around two similar stars orbiting at similar distances look similar, right? WRONG

Re: over 1,000°F

If it's really that difficult to grasp the temperature scale just remember the conversion is really simple. Just subtract 32 then multiply by 5/9.

....Wait, maybe it's multiply by 5/9 then subtract.

Screw it, it doesn't matter that much. Since it's not near water's freezing point and the original temperature is vague just divide by two and you're close enough. 500°C is close enough to get and idea how hot the planet is.

Just don't try to send a probe using this conversion and you'll be fine.

Cuffed: Govt contractor 'used work PC to leak' evidence of Russia's US election hacking

Re: "There has never been any evidence of that."

While I don't claim to fully grok this event yet I thought that an unnamed news organization was sent the evidence that Russia had tried.

ESA astronaut decelerates from 28,800kph to zero in first bumpy landing

Re: You are missing the point

If you remove the solar panels from a Soyuz before it leave ISS where does the Soyuz get power for the journey back to Earth?

Adding batteries adds mass and a requires a redesign. Most likely the batteries would be jettisoned instead of the panels so it isn't like we are reducing what gets thrown away. What we've done is made Russia rockets more complex to only deliver one panel set per launch. Soyuz panels aren't even a drop in replacement for anything on ISS. We'd need to launch hardware so the panels could be connected. If having replacement solar panels on station was a priority it would make far more sense to send up appropriate panels as cargo.

Always keep in mind it costs money to get material into space. The parts still attached while Soyuz is docked with ISS are still necessary to return to Earth. Unnecessary parts would have been discarded earlier in the mission.

Microsoft founder Paul Allen reveals world's biggest-ever plane

Re: Elon Musk has five sons...

A volcanic island in the South Pacific is too twentieth century for Musk. His volcanic lair will be on Mars. Honestly, what self-respecting super-villian wouldn't put their lair in the largest volcano in the Solar System.

India sets June 5 as the day it will join the heavy-lift rocket club

Re: Not really heavy is it?

There isn't a standard definition for what is heavy. The rule of thumb has been that anything over 20 tonnes to LEO was labelled heavy.

Recent developments are pushing the lower bound of what we call heavy though. F9 has been upgraded so much that it's payload capacity is less than 10% smaller than the original FH design. I expect by 2025 heavy lift will be changed to refer only to rockets above your 50 tonne number.

You're not wrong, just ahead of your time. More importantly, your point point that 8 tonnes to LEO isn't heavy lift, is correct. Not that it really matters. The key is cost per kg.

Scientists are counting atoms to figure out when Mars last had volcanoes

Re: Soon now...

John Brown,

If I had used Deep Purple's Space Truckin' as a cover to disguise my posting lyrics from the song that shall not be named I would have to grab my coat as well.

DARPA orders spaceplane capable of 10 launches in 10 days

Re: "It's about shovelling another boatload of money to Boeing."

Actually this one is about shoveling money to AR. With BO in the driver's seat for the Vulcan engine contract it was only a matter of time before we saw a program designed to support AR. Boeing getting in on the action is just icing on the cake.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people like pork flavored cake.

NASA nixes Trump's moonshot plan

Re: Well Played NASA

The odds of the current president being impeached have changed because more people are betting that he will. Bookies don't really care who wins or loses as long as people are betting both sides in equal amounts.

Re: EM-1, EM-2? Pah!

That naming convention is bound to get the project moving. I expect you Brits will be on board if we add ELO.

Feel guilty for scoffing Easter chocolate? Good news: Scientists have made NEGATIVE mass

Re: Help me out here

Why not do both? That way when one system is on the fritz you still have half-gravity.

While you're at it can you put some generators in the bulkheads? I see no reason why we couldn't use this technique to make inertial dampers. Want to do a 10G burn? The only thing shaken is your martini.

Boeing details 'Deep Space Gateway' for Mars mission staging

Re: More USS Gravy Train than USS Enterprise

If we use Apollo 17, the most advanced manned mission, and Curiosity, the most advance rover, as our comparables we get a number of robots over 1000. Apollo 17 covered 35.74km in 22:03:57. Curiosity has covered 15.30km over 1662 sols(1708 days) as of April 10th. Apollo 17 went 4353 times faster. Factor in that there were two people and those people will want weekends and 1000 times faster is a better real world estimate.

You are right about our spending priorities.

Re: More USS Gravy Train than USS Enterprise

What you have done is to take the Apollo 11 EVA (roughly 1km covered in 2.5 hours) and say that about as fast as a person in a pressure suit will ever go. Given that much of the 2.5 hours was spent stopping to do tasks your estimate is far too low using only 1969 suit technology.

Please understand we are comparing the speed a robot on Mars could do a task and how fast human with the appropriate tools can do the same task. Apollo 17 covered 35.74km in 22:03:57 or EVA time. Curiosity is averaging roughly 5km per year. If we want to get the same amount of work done by robots we need to send hundreds of $2.5 billion rovers. The only reason we send robots is because we don't have a budget in the trillions.

Re: More USS Gravy Train than USS Enterprise

"Any operations on (in) the moon are going to be very automated. There aren't going to be any minimum wage jobs or intern/grad student openings. The people are going to have to be very capable engineers with excellent fabricobbling skills that can work under massive pressure (or vacuum)."

Starting out. Some of those engineers will want a pub with a hot bartender. Others will want their own comforts. Given enough time an off-world colony will develop minimum wage jobs. The bartender on Earth will think the Lunar bartender's wage is insane but, once we account for purchasing power the Lunatic barkeep will have similar financial concerns as one on Earth.

Re: More USS Gravy Train than USS Enterprise

"Why is covering ground a useful measure of success?"

A human can walk 10km in 2 hours. Add some time to poke around and stick the samples in the automated chemistry lab and everything that Curiosity has done in 5+ years. This tells us how many Curiosities we need to build to get the same amount of work done that a manned mission can. Multiple the cost of Curiosity by the number of rovers needed and we get a sense on the cost for working with robots versus humans. I also divided the price of Curiosities by three to allow for mass production(It would be more but each Curiosity will need extensive testing to make sure it doesn't break. Using more cheaper robots might work, but for high launch costs.

What our geologists are looking for on a manned mission is not completely the same as what we are looking for on a robotic mission. Both are collecting similar science data but the manned mission is also looking for resources, that can be converted to reserves. This means the geologist will start near the colony on day one. When an extractable resource is found other engineers show up to build a processing center. This doesn't necessarily have to be ore, a hillside that is ideal for solar panels could be the primary target for one expansion while a cell tower is the reason for another. If a target area, picked via satellite imaging, is outside of the range of colonial ground transportation a series of staging camps will be used.

You are right that for the price of a manned mission we could build 50 Curiosities. The problem is that to get the same amount of work done, as the manned mission, we need 1600+. At the end of the day we end up spending $4+ trillion on humans or robots. We are only sending robots because the budget isn't $4+ trillion. If NASA's budget was $200 billion we'd be sending people with dumber, repairable robots whenever possible.

Re: More USS Gravy Train than USS Enterprise

"I think that's exactly the point though - the economics for manned missions just don't add up, you can launch a hundred complex rover missions for the same price. Plus, at the moment all you're going to get out of a human landing are some nice photos and some geology reports. All of your cost goes on keeping the human alive, not on science ..."

You actually just made a very good argument for expanding manned space flight. The costs are similar, and are either going into keeping the robots or the humans alive. I prefer to focus on keeping humans alive.

Re: More USS Gravy Train than USS Enterprise

"A human could probably do more in a few days,"

Given the right tools a human geologist could easily do everything Curiosity in a day. Curiosity has been on Mars for 1600+ sols. Assuming we get 66% savings from mass producing Curiosity, it would cost roughly $4.5 trillion to cover the same amount of ground a human can. With no cars all a rover's autopilot has to do is not run into a rock. The drill is far faster and cheaper because changing a broken bit is far simpler. A flat tire can be fixed and a drive motor can be swapped out.

Please don't think I am complaining about what our rovers have accomplished. NASA's budget is less than $20 billion. The choice is one Curiosity each decade or not going at all.

This isn't staging of materials

The current plan is to build a small core. What we want to do is to test our radiation shielding. We want a, at least partially, manned station so we can test multiple concepts using the same platform. We can do that anywhere outside of the Van Allen belts. It makes sense to put the test station in Lunar orbit because if someone decides to bother landing on the Moon for commercial purposes they now have a potential customer.

If we want to consider exporting anything from the Moon we have to build a colony. We might be able to build a Lunar factory that can fix itself but it will be insanely expensive at this point. It will be far cheaper to just hit something with a spanner, when needed, than to try to make all of the equipment fail-proof. We can build spanner wielding robots that reduce the need for meatsack spanner wielders, just not economically eliminate them completely.

UK.gov confirms it won't be buying V-22 Ospreys for new aircraft carriers

Re: submarine reactors in space

"would the type(s) of reactor(s) currently used in nuclear submarines be able to work in microgravity (or could they be converted to do so)?"

We need better heat sinks in space. Submarines use the ocean to dissipate heat. There are other problems, but until we solve this it is hard to conduct high energy research.

NASA swerves serious cash cuts – but Earth climate probes, asteroid snatcher face axe

Re: It's not a cut, its streamlining

The President's budget proposal calls for cuts to almost everything. The exceptions are increases to the Department of Defense(52% increase), Veterans Administration, and nuclear materials handling at the Department o Energy. I wouldn't be shocked if, once I'm done digging through the proposal, that DoE funding is for extracting weapons grade materials. The only scientists that would not lose are those with pyromania.

Luckily the President doesn't write the budget. The President doesn't have line item veto power on the budget. This is just his wish list. A President's only real power is to sign or veto the final budget.

The House of Representatives has already passed an authorization bill for $19.5 billion in FY2017. This amount still has to be appropriated in the budget so the amounts will most likely change. Typically more items are added as politicians drive pork to their districts. Here is a link to what has already been passed, by a large margin:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/442/text

Munich may dump Linux for Windows

Re: Every fecking time someone comes up with these fictional anecdotes.

A few years ago my mother was getting a new laptop every 3 weeks because she managed to screw up windoze that badly. As a solution I switched her to Linux. Within a week she had received a job at the State Department setting up a private email server for a nice old lady. I never did hear how that job worked out but her laptop is still doing just fine.

Dedicated currency keys

My only problem configuring my keyboard to allow me to easily get symbols like ¢, £ and €(I am in the US so the only currency symbol on my standard keyboard is $) was finding the steps in the first place. Of the 75 minutes I spent setting it up only about 10 of those were on actual configuration. The rest of the time was spent searching the web for the appropriate steps. Fix the forums so information is easier to find and the problem goes away.

Of course I am only a poser. I expect someone who actually works in IT knows how to find the info a lot faster without earning the disdain of Linux forum posters.

Coming to the big screen: Sci-fi epic Dune – no wait, wait, wait, this one might be good

Re: Can't be a single movie

The technology of the AI was laid out fairly well in the prequels. While it's been years since I've read them I believe "Dune: The Bultarian Jihad" is the most relevant. The entire series is worth reading, and remembering, if one is to jump into a discussion involving the feared AI technology.

Sadly I don't remember to books well enough to tell you why lasguns(I think that was the term) were not typically used in space combat before Holtzmann shields were invented. I know the history of melange was also explored in depth but, once again, I am uncertain of the details.

'Mafia' of ageing scientists, academics and politicos suck at picking tech 'winners'

Re: Emphasis on "could":

The problem is that the small reactors referenced were one off prototypes. To really understand the economics we'd need a production run numbing in the hundreds.

I also have to quibble with the definition of small based on using power generation and not physical size. IMHO, to be defined as small, it doesn't matter if the reactor produces 200MW or 1.21 jigawatts, what matters is if it can be transported on the boot of an early 80's sports car. Barges and rail cars sized models are not appropriate to examine. Instead the economics of modified Delorean cargo capacity sized models are what we care about when examining small reactors.

Boffins turn timid mice into psycho killers – by firing lasers into brains

What effect does mouse taking have on the brain, do you see pretty colours?

Sorry, I don't deal in mice. I do have a wide assortment of frogs if that is your bag.

NASA plans seven-year trip to Jupiter – can we come with you, please?

One has been discovered according to Wikipedia.

"2010 TK7 has a diameter of about 300 meters (1,000 ft).[4] Its path oscillates about the Sun–Earth L4 Lagrangian point (60 degrees ahead of Earth), shuttling between its closest approach to Earth and its closest approach to the L3 point (180 degrees from Earth) about every 400 years.

The asteroid was discovered in October 2010 by the NEOWISE team of astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)."

I'm guessing there are probably more, most likely smaller, rocks we haven't found yet.

How Google.org stole the Christmas Spirit

Re: deductable "charity" and the very wealthy

Make that deduction refundable and we can replace most of the dole and no longer need minimum wage. It'll never happen thanks to the thousands of bureaucrats who would suddenly be out of work though.

Meet the Internet of big, lethal Things

Re: Do you own it, or not?

Ian,

John Deere is trying to lock people into only using their authorized mechanics, the fear of hacking is just a cover story.

If those authorized mechanics were there when the farmers needed them, at a reasonable price, we wouldn't even know this is an issue. Instead costs are trying to be controlled by limiting the number of mechanics. Crops ripen when they ripen and a 36 hour delay while waiting for said mechanic can, and has, lead to lost harvests.

Deere's fear is lost revenue. Farmers have the same fear but their product is time sensitive.. Given that a stable food supply, no one wants rotten barley, is most important, Deere needs to loss this battle.

Note: I am not a farmer. I do have a couple cousins who are though.

Chinese boffins: We're testing an 'impossible' EM Drive IN SPAAAACE

Re: Anybody able to do the math for me?

It's in the NASA paper. Assuming, and we all know the meaning of this word, no measurement errors the EMdrive is a couple of orders of magnitude better that a flashlight.

I'd bother to look up the exact numbers from the paper but I'm fairly certain the measurements are inaccurate. I hope my belief is wrong so we start putting some serious power stations in space. We should be doing this anyway but it seems we need more motivation to get the funding in place.

Take that, creationists: Boffins witness birth of new species in the lab

Re: dogs cannot become cats

http://www.carealotpets.com/dog-breeds-ukc-catahoulaleoparddog.aspx

A few hundred more generations with the right selection criteria and this breed could easily become much more cat-like. The pictured example already has more cat-like chest musculature and a shorter snout than my dog. Granted the dog will still be a dog and not a cat but the traits will be fairly similar.

A good example is the ancestors or modern monkeys, the same ones that lead to humans like you, that followed an evolutionary path to become bird-like. Despite being able to fly and have very light-weight bone structures bats are not birds.

Re: Why try to 'convince' creationists?

>> Who was the geezer who waited 850 years before having kids?

It doesn't matter. No one waited 850 years before having kids. It was 850 moons mistranslated. I know because god spoke* to me from a burning bush.

* Assuming you allow some poetic license in the use of spoke. From my seat at the bonfire the moon rise was easily visible. We used clippings from the hedge that the city hadn't picked up for over a month, despite three collection dates having passed, to get the fire going. Why to conversation turned to the begots, I'll never know, but the timing was good.

Re: Get with the program!

Do not attempt to google Paris Hilton's handbag ornament at work.

Three certainties in life: Death, taxes and the speed of light – wait no, maybe not that last one

Re: Yep

If we were as smart as we think we are we would have just defined it as 300000000 m/s. Almost no one would have noticed the difference and those who do notice are smart enough to deal with the slight variation.

LAKE OF frozen WATER THE SIZE OF NEW MEXICO FOUND ON MARS – NASA

At least we know what to avoid while digging

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/babylon5/images/4/4c/Mars_Dig_05.png/revision/latest?cb=20100117081507

NASA trying to rein in next-generation super-heavy lifter costs

Re: NASA generates 18 elsewhere in the economy.

In 2009 the fiscal multiplier for NASA overall was 2.42. I'd love to see how that jumped to 18 in the last few years.

Smart meter benefits even crappier than originally thought

Re: No shocks here

I think we have a difference in terminology. In Pennsylvania suppliers were* further broken down into generation, transmission and distribution. The PA electric choice program gives me the option of selecting different generators but I am stuck with PJM(no complaints worth mentioning) for transmission and Duquesne Light Co(long story involving lawyers and shut-offs for DLC being not being over-paid) for distribution. The problem is that if I sign up with a non-default generator there are hidden costs that greatly increase the generator's charges. Some people have seen 400%+ increases for picking the wrong offer in the 'market'. While I can almost successfully navigate the mess grandma has no chance and can easily fall victim to Scammer Electric Supplies sales tactics.

I am not saying there isn't a reason for smart devices in the electrical grid. What I am saying is that a smart meter on my home just makes it easier for SES to make more ill-gotten profits. If I were to install solar panels(not financially logical at the current price points of panels and local storage for my house) I would need a smart meter to account for my generation. For most customers there is absolutely no point in using the more expensive metering system.

* After looking at my recent bill(I normally only look at the total owed for actual usage every month) it appears that breakdown was changed to customer charge, supply, transmission, and distribution. The lion's share of the bill(72% on this bill), the customer charge and distribution go to the local grid operator.

No shocks here

The only point I can see for having smart meters is so that the electric company can charge me the spot price instead of the average for a month. While they could be useful tools in theory, in the real world it is just another way to get more of our money. The 'smart' should be used for generation and distribution to maximize the benefits in the supply chain. The old system worked perfectly well for covering the consumer end.

User needed 40-minute lesson in turning it off and turning it on again

Re: Can you hold down the power button

As an American I feel confident in saying that no one I've ever met locally would know what the jets are either. I've always used (windshield)washer fluid but screenwash is close enough I know what you mean.

Antivirus tools are a useless box-ticking exercise says Google security chap

Re: where does all of this stupid binary thinking come from?

Isn't it obvious?

For anyone that actually works with a computer the logic is always in 1's and 0's. What more should be expected when security experts are trained from an early age to only think in black and white?

Note: This is the primary reason why I am just a poser. Give me a proper analog system any day and I am happy.

(The one with vacuum tubes in the pockets)

Angry user demands three site visits to fix email address typos

shouldn't it be kiddie porn

You've worked at the FBI for far too long.

A cardboard desk? I won’t stand for it (actually I will)

Re: Cardboard furniture?

I could see it being useful when working in remote, as in outdoors and far from civilization, locations. If for some reason the next people to visit Rockall happen to need a desk something similar, preferably waterproof, would be ideal.

Trump's plan: Tariffs on electronics, ban on skilled tech migrants, turn off the internet

Re: Just what do they do there, literally sell the blood of the poor?

Yes. In many poor communities it is easy to find the plasma centers. Just look for the line of people willing to do anything to get paid a couple dollars that isn't selling drugs. Business really picks up at the end of the month when the welfare money has run out.

http://local.survivalinsight.com/Selling_Plasma_and_Finding_a_Paid_Plasma_Donation_Center_Mckeesport_PA-r1299612-Mckeesport_PA.html

DRAMA ON MARS: Curiosity bot fires laser at alien metal object

Re: Metallica

Even those in the Styx can understand that pun.

Adblock overlord to Zuckerberg: Lay down your weapons and surrender

Re: How ads work

Up until now my ad blocker had completely prevented me from knowing a Bose Wave even existed. Curse you marketing scum.

Boffin's anti-worm bot could silence epic Mirai DDoS attack army

Brick away

Until consumers face the consequences of their poor purchase decisions nothing will change. I'd do it myself but I'd end up at Club Fed.

Clinton, Trump actually agree on something – blocking AT&T's Time Warner mega-buy

Re: Not true about the Justice Department

AT&T is running ads promoting how DirecTV services are not counted towards data caps. This makes me sad.

Can we break them up instead?

With the severe shortage of competition any merger involving a major teleco should be off the table. US consumers need more choices, not less. Even though I am one of the lucky ones with two options I am still not extremely happy with either.

I see no hope for Comcast however. Nuking them from orbit is the only way to be sure they aren't a threat.

Dyn dinged by DDoS: US DNS firm gives web a bad hair day

Re: It's back

Wzrd1,

See my handle. I come here so that I know just enough to not buy stupid kit like anything labelled smart. If only I could get my even less informed friends and family to do the same this particular attack might not have been possible.

The good news is that if I get corrected enough I might be able to raise my rank from poser to novice.