Posts by Tim_the_Unenchanter

Parachutists told to check software after jumper dangled from a plane

software?

I'm missing how weight and balance contributed to the early deployment of a parachute. Weight and balance affects how the aircraft flys - too much aft weight and it will want to pitch up, leading to potential stall situations. Too much fore weight and it will want to pitch down, making flaring for landing difficult.

once the skydivers leave the plane, these issues go away.

Unless there was a cypress or similar device on the reserve chute that thought they were at a low altitude and it deployed the chute. I am curious as to what the exact cause of the deployment was.

‘IT manager’ needed tech support because they had never heard of a command line

Interestingly, the best CEOs I’ve worked under rose through the ranks and at least understood the functions below them with more than a cursory glance.

You have a fake North Korean IT worker problem – here's how to stop it

Re: There's no need for in person interviews

Used the notary services at our bank last week….

UK to buy nuclear-capable F-35As that can't be refueled from RAF tankers

Re: "In an era of radical uncertainty"

The fueling system is built into the airframe.

Drop tanks are an option, but they negate all stealthy aspects of the aircraft

No clue on the WE 177, but one assumes (with all associated gaffs) they were retired for a reason.

The B-model has a smaller bomb-bay because of the huge lift fan in the fuselage. The B-61 is physically too big to fit in the B-model

Trump signs TAKE IT DOWN law meant to stop revenge porn

I wonder which states, and if it really is most, or is it some, or possibly one?

I hate generalizations, but when being used (by either side of an issue), they tend to be wrong or misleading.

Also what are the remedies provided in all these laws?

Especially since a young woman was trotted out that was a victim of deepfakes that apparently had no recourse in getting them removed from the net.

Ignoring Trump, clearly there were/are victims of this. I believe they should be protected. This bill may be the wrong remedy, but it’s a step. Maybe future administrations can fix the problems with it.

Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine

Re: Panic

Using a Decwriter as the console for early VAX computers had the unfortunate side effect of halting the system when it ran out of paper….

Brit soldiers tune radio waves to fry drone swarms for pennies

Re: Countermeasures?

or you could attenuate the signal. have some specialized drones dispense a cloud of chaff in front of the swarm. The chaff could be aluminum coated mylar. That would scatter some of the signal.

This is just off the top of my head. I have no idea how much chaff would be required, but it would be a fairly cheap and light weight solution.

Re: Some of you (drones) may die

Not all drones are directed by an operator autonomous drones are a thing.

Apple has locked me in the same monopolistic cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users

Re: Horses for courses

You are, number 6

Trump nukes 60 years of anti-discrimination rules for federal contractors

People also seem to forget he forced the golf courses he bought to allow minorities to join them - not something a racist would do. He hosted Rosa Parks, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and others multiple times. Not something a racist would do.

His racism is a media / left invention.

Re: Too many white men

Businesses like to make money. Hiring based on ability lets them make more money. Are there going to be abuses? Sure. They existed under the old rules. Being forced to choose candidates on any criteria other than ability is discrimination.

Universities being forced to favor applicants based on physical characteristics is discrimination.

The unspoken bigotry is the notion that some people are incapable of success without government intervention is evil.

I want to see how this plays out.

How a good business deal made us underestimate BASIC

Re: A novice does not know the difference between RAM and disk, and they should not have to

Until you need to share data, or a subset of the data with another person or application.

Perhaps you need to provide data that will be consumed later or asynchronously. Maybe you need to have it processed remotely at a later time.

Or maybe the data needs to be put into a hierarchy that requires several steps and other processes to achieve.

Files are containers that can persist beyond the life of our application or running process.

Having the ability to persist them at point we deem critical is better than having the OS guess…

Re: You had me...

Or was it a tab…or two spaces?

ULA nears second launch of Vulcan Centaur in pursuit of US Space Force approval

The correct term would be payload simulator, or perhaps inert payload - since it is dead weight taking the place of a useful payload….

BOFH: Come on down to the dunge– erm … basement

Re: VAX Macro Manuals

Or get a hobbyist license and run OpenVMS on an X86-64 box…

No emulator required

DARPA's air-steered X-65 jet heads into production with goal of flying by 2025

Re: Wing-Warping

Some aircraft do, indeed have linked yaw and roll control - Mooney aircraft feature a link between rudder and ailerons.

There are others. I believe Airbus has a mode where a link can be activated, but I may be mistaken.

Re: What could go wrong...

Actually they require increased lift for takeoff, and the combination of lift and increased drag for the landing. On landing, this allows a steeper descent profile with control.

You are confusing how it is accomplished with what is required. (The same mistake users make when describing software requirements. They tend to present the solution instead of describing the actual problem)

If this system handles the requirements via a different mechanism, then you don’t need the flaps. We have no way of knowing this from the article.

Flaps increase lift, with the penalty of increased drag - especially at large flap deployments. The drag is useful in landing, not so much for takeoffs.

Police ignored the laws of datacenter climate control

Re: Restaurant computers...

Pina pizza is awesome! We would stay in Downey when visiting a customer in Lynwood

BOFH: WELCOME TO COLOSSAL SERVER ROOM ADVENTURE!!

A sea of cubicles all alike…

Space junk targeted for cleanup mission was hit by different space junk, making more space junk

Overtake the debris from behind, so the relative speeds are quite low. The nets would detach when sufficiently full, and have retro boosters to form a de-orbit burn.

Just a thought…

Weird radio pulses could be coming from new type of stellar object

Maybe it’s a lighthouse preventing the deaths of countless screaming (cosmic) Argonauts?

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

Re: Communication

One ping only, Vassily.

Just what the universe needs right now: A black hole with wind

Whatever the outcome is, if we figure out the universe, it will be replaced by something even more bizarre. There is much speculation that this has happened more than once.

UNIX co-creator Ken Thompson is a… what user now?

Re: Not shocked

I'd give Tabby a go - I was a hard core iTerm user before I discovered Tabby <- not affiliated in any way shape or form, just a happy user.

NASA: Yup, thousand-pound meteorite exploded over Texas

While we aren't 100% sure what the effects would be of an asteroid striking the earth, simulations with a hamster and a sledge hammer indicate it would be very bad....

What did Unix fans learn from the end of Unix workstations?

Re: Pinch points

which side of the pond are you on? I'd be happy to give a home to a PDP-11

Hey, GitHub, can you create an array compare function without breaking the GPL?

Re: Some functions are very simple

Best attribution I came across in some code in a large project: this routine is very loosely adapted from “the sound of music”

I left that comment block in place as I re-factored the code to run on a different platform.

Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home

Re: Tonight's Headline

you might want to look at a map, and see where Belarus is located...

US Space Development Agency invests $1.3b in missile tracking satellites

the mix of missiles has changed since the cold war

I suspect the types of missiles and the means of tracking them is far more complex than the old cold war era systems of ICBMS. Cruise missiles, medium range missiles, hypersonic missiles, stealth technologies, are all (relatively) new threats to deal with. I would guess the older sensors aren't up to the task, plus the need to integrate the information into the "battle net" in real time is a factor as well.

The modern battlefield is basically a giant mesh network of sensors and and weapons. The pace at which technology evolves will result in more and more frequent updates to satellites and ground based monitoring platforms.

Jeffrey Snover claims Microsoft demoted him for inventing PowerShell

if the right libraries existed, Python would be a really good choice for a scripting language (and they may very well exist, I haven't looked into using it as a shell / script replacement.)

Re: At the risk of being downvoted to hell

DCL is still alive and kicking, though it is showing its age. There isn't much you can't do with DCL...

What do you mean you gave the boss THAT version of the report? Oh, ****ing ****balls

best error message I ever encountered

"I don't know how you got here, but if you can recreate the steps I will buy you a beer"

this at a very large US corporation that may or may not have to do with truck logistics...

US Air Force shows off latest all-electric flying car, says it 'might seem straight out of a Hollywood movie'

Re: Paint it orange and yellow . . .

Actually there are a number of uses:

including inspecting fence lines, runways, towers, tank farms (the kind that hold fluids, not the kind that run around on tracks), security - one or two soldiers could patrol a larger area than on foot, and probably quieter than in a Humvee. From an elevated position, you can see a far greater area.

There are locations with antennas on mountain tops - quick and cheaper way to get to them in a timely fashion. I can see the operating cost per hour being a lot cheaper than using a helicopter.

and that's just off the top of my head, limited in capacity though it may be.