Posts by S4qFBxkFFg

I once heard a similar story from a retired policeman, involving a canal which was the boundary between his patch and the next one, and being called to a report of a body floating. One poke with a pole, and the problem was solved.

The FixMyStreet map which appears when reporting problems is surprisingly useful here, at certain zoom levels, it looks very much like an OS map (although I can't verify if the data are the same, or how up to date they are).

The traditional method of securing a small nuclear reactor is to place it in a metal tube with several dozen pale-faced sexually-frustrated weirdos and let it meander around under the sea.

Re: And that's why you should NEVER pay a ransom...

Not to mention you would literally be paying criminals that you know have done crime, and it's very likely they're operating in a heavily sanctioned country; it's not a risk-free choice, legally.

Re: Questions will doubtless be asked

I found some numbers, but it looks like hundreds of kW per aircraft (and that includes main engine generators, not just APUs).

Let's say 100KW to be safe.

30MW (using the value another commenter posted above)/100KW = 300

Are there 300 airliners parked at Heathrow? I don't know, but even if you can send all of that power back down the connector which is designed to deliver power TO the aircraft, it seems inadequate.

Re: Age verification mandates work like chocolate teapots.

"No sane person sends a scan of their passport or face to an online verification service."

Indeed, they borrow their mum's or dad's passport and use that.

Re: No one else can afford to maintain Chrome

"we have to wait until 2026 to even try it, it seems..."

Not exactly download -> install -> run, but it seems doable:

https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/Documentation/BuildInstructionsLadybird.md

Be aware the performance is adversely affected; specifically, maximum speed being significantly reduced. I'd want my model to be the M2+ variant.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-why-pepsi-blue-paint-limited-concorde-to-mach-1-7/

Re: Blowing up a Starlink does not significantly increase the deorbit time

"For Kuiper I will wait for evidence they can manufacture multiple satellites per year."

That burn could achieve a graveyard orbit.

Re: Hurting investors

"Especially as shareholders also have a fiduciary duty to the companies they own."

I don't claim to be an expert in investment law, especially in the USA, but this seems odd. What exactly are the shareholders' duties to the company?

Re: The only thing worse than bad security

Sometimes I wish all BIOSs/UEFIs/Bootloaders were replaced by a very small piece of code which simply does a breadth-first search on all attached storage and boots the first thing it can find.

Let the OS handle everything else.

Re: The negative leap second

There can be 2 leap seconds too:

...

23:59:61

Oh that's even worse; I know if you're already accepting 23:59:60, it's not much worse, but it feels like it.

"local law enforcement"

Multiple brands of this product are available: choose one that will never be interested in you (preferably one that is specifically uncooperative with those that are) and select an email provider in that location.

Re: They answer is Psyops

Although I think the ban is better, I do like this idea; no-one is going to believe the ransomware gangs after all, if they even do protest.

Re: Moon landing

> the problem of the fine particles of moon dust being sucked into those engines

That's not really an accurate way to think of the situation. These are rocket engines; they don't have external intakes, so nothing is getting "sucked" in. The high speed dust may very well cause damage to the hardware (some scientists have even expressed concern that the dust could achieve lunar escape velocity, and cause problems for orbiting spacecraft), but that's more of a sandblasting effect. ISTR a plan to have engines near the nose, pointing outwards/downwards for the last part of the descent (and subsequent initial ascent), which would cause cosine losses, but may be better overall for the health of the vehicle.

"But.. why would the plug move up? I haven't looked at the altitude/pressure details when the door fell out, but.. Presumably to move up, it'd have to overcome any outward presssure from the interior being higher than the exterior. So moving up would need something to overcome that force, so maybe turbulence, or the aircraft becoming inverted and gravity doing it's thing. If the bolts had been correctly installed, the uppity door would have been prevented from departing the aircraft, but it did. So how was there enough force to defeat the stop pads?"

The forces from the pressure difference are perpendicular to the force required to move the plug up; it doesn't seriously resist or assist any upwards movement (there will be friction on the stop pads, which increases as the pressure difference increases, but given they're smooth metal, it probably isn't much). The springs at the bottom however, will be (constantly) exerting an upward force on the door, which is intentionally less than the door's weight. I believe the springs are to assist workers removing and replacing the plug: it will require less effort to lift it, and when replacing it, it won't drop into place as fast (possibly avoiding damage). It probably doesn't take much turbulence to provide the necessary force to "help" the springs push it up enough.

Re: Hospitals

"That will just incentivise organisations to not report breaches and keep things hush hush."

Honest (although admittedly rhetorical) question: how many people need to know about a ransom payment for it to be processed successfully and covertly? Everyone involved would have to keep quiet, and more importantly, be certain everyone else who knows is keeping quiet as well. Throw in immunity for whistleblowers, and I think very few higher-ups would risk it.

This doesn't even address the fact that the data might not even be recoverable, no matter how much is paid.

Re: "Potholes"

The simplest solution would be to beef up the vehicles themselves. I don't know where the sweet spot is though, somewhere between a Land Rover and a Challenger?

Re: Cutting corners?

"Such basic errors as using flammable tape"

Not sure I'd describe it as such, iirc, the particular tape involved has been used across the industry, without any problems previously being identified. They discovered, while testing the fire extinguishing system, that the glue could ignite if it came into direct contact with an uninsulated (e.g. damaged) electric wire.

Re: At least three systems are required

"If one has two systems offering two different results, the simple and embarrassing question is which one should you believe."

neither

Re: Excuse my skepticism

They also booked nine (the very last?) Atlas launches, which is as mature/reliable as you can get in the world of rocketry, so that should be enough to get them started.

I'm sure that if they're stuck, SpaceX will happily step up, but Bezos would probably exhaust all viable (and several non-viable) options before that.

Re: Funding

"The question will be if Twitter can survive this. It won't be the first or last company to be sunk by the burden of interest payments as a result of a buy-out that massively increases a company's debt."

Presumably, if it goes bust, all the assets will then need to be sold.

In that case, what is stopping a Mr. E M from buying the brand and the data (at a much reduced price)?

Re: Why not shoot it down ?

Large balloons/airships are surprisingly difficult to shoot down. In WW1 it was discovered that exhausting a fighter aircraft's ammunition perforating the things simply doesn't cause enough leakage to deflate them before they complete their missions and return home. It was a different story once the fighters started carrying incendiary ammunition, but remember this was still when hydrogen was used to provide lift.

In summary, it would probably be necessary to use missiles, and that starts to become difficult to justify if the missiles cost multiples of the balloons.

(Unguided rockets might be a better option, but I don't think the fighters that go to those altitudes carry them as standard.)

Elsewhere on their site, they state they have working there: "1 full time salaried doctor and 8 contracted sessional doctors who worked at the practice for more than six months".

I don't know if this is "normal" or not.

Re: Burden of proof

There are cases where the (insurer's) government specifically stated "This is / is not a war." and the insurers were obliged to go along with that. AFAIR, this is why the Malayan Emergency was not called (by Britain) the Malayan War.

Re: USB-C connectors suck

Informative, thank you.

Is there ever an issue with the "wrong" device charging? I.e. someone plugs a phone into a laptop (cable male USB C both ends) and the laptop starts pulling power from the phone.

Also, I think the board seat deal included a prohibition on him owning more than a certain proportion of shares: he may have decided it's simpler to eventually buy 51%.