Posts by Mishak

If these are for real...

I despair* for the human race.

* Well, more really...

Though there are still a few free ways to submit in the UK.

I'm hoping to have my business closed before they vanish...

who wants to fly among volatiles?

Or, as I call it, First Class?

Protection is ideally done by hardware, but can also be done in software

Maybe, but it is non-trivial; simply storing multiple copies is not enough. For example:

bool f( int x )

{

static int c1;

static int c2;

c1 = x;

c2 = x;

return c1 == c2;

}

Many C compliers will optimise this code to always return 'true', as there is no way that the values of 'c1' and 'c2' can differ within the abstract machine that the language uses to execute the code; memory corruption is not considered by the machine.

Good luck

If you could get some electronics into the beam at CERN, it's not going to survive.

Don't quote me on these figures, but the energy in the beam (at full power) is equivalent to something the mass of a large aircraft carrier travelling at 40 knots. There are dump tanks round the ring that are filled with water, and you do not want to be near one when it's used.

The sort of even that could have caused the Airbus issue is likely to be a (single) energetic particle causing a single bit upset.

Much safer...

To use a plug-sized RCD tester!

Similar experience

The voltage to my house was regularly going over the statutory maximum of 253v, causing my UPS to go into "trim" mode.

After about 18 months of pestering the supply company, they came round to install a data logger to see if I was right.

Guy told me he would need to switch off the power to connect his kit and asked if I needed to shut anything down first. I did, but as I went back in to do so, the power went off.

"Not me", he said, showing the wire that had just fallen out of the meter when a brushed it with his hand.

Turns out the metering company didn't do a very good job when they replaced the old meter with a "smart" one.

Again, that could have caused a fire. Luckily, there were no long duration, high current appliance in that house.

Re: Not quite terminal

It was running at 500 amps, so a resistance of 10 mR creates 2.5 kW.

The specific heat capacity of steel is ~500 J/kg·K, and it takes another 275 kJ/kg to melt at ~1400 C.

Assuming the bolt was 50 g, then it would take ~14 s to get to the melting point, plus about 6 s to then melt (all of it, but it would fail before that happens).

Re: Not quite terminal

That's one of the reasons I use a thermal imaging camera - makes it really easy to spot where there are bad connections.

I used to work on high power motors, and once spotted a wire swing out of a test rig and leave a trail of molten metal behind it - a 10mm steel bolt had been carrying about 500 amps between two cables when it was supposed to have been keeping them in direct contact. Those rigs used to loose a few kW of power in the connections even when they were tight...

Re: Things that didn't happen

You really are trawling the depths.

Not training related, but...

I once had a manager who came up to me at my desk and, in an angry voice, said "You and I have a serious communication problem!".

This was news to me, so I replied with "You must be right, as I have no idea what you're on about".

He then stormed off and I stood up and started walking into the engineering lab - at which point I felt a hand on my shoulder and was physically dragged back into the office "to continue the conversation".

That incident was later cited as "a verbal warming" when he decided to formalise another similar incident.

My friend, who was a part time police officer, said they would be more than happy to support my assertion that this was assault!

Edited to fix a typo.

Re: Motor Insurance

Sorry, I should have made it clear that main driver and owner were the same in both cases (I understand what "fronting" is, and explained that to her as part of the process).

What I don't understand is that it was cheaper for her to own and insure the vehicle with only a provisional license than it was for me with a 30+ years clean license.

Motor Insurance

I recently got my daughter to look at how much it would cost her to insure her own car as a 17 year old learner.

£260 if I was added as a named driver, a bit more of I wasn't, and £1,200 if I was the main driver. Go figure...

First time user

I've reviewed documentation for a few systems as a "first time user" - I always see this as the best chance to find out where it doesn't get something across as I have no preconceived ideas about how the system works or is supposed to be used.

I really wish some companies would try something like this with their documentation (right now, I'm thinking of a compiler where the installation instructions don't match the GUI of the IDE into which it is supposed to be installed).

Yep

On a 2018 (Intel) MBP here. I will eventually replace it - it's not slow, but it no longer gets updates.

I'll give it a try with Opencore when (if?) they get the latest MacOS running on it. Failing that, I may "downgrade" to an M5 Air.

where is the extra propellant

Ship didn't have a 100% prop load for this flight, so there is capacity.

They also plan to run with 9 engines in the future (6 vacuum optimised engines available, which will give more efficiency).

Re: You'd think..

They did run some prop transfer tests on an earlier flight.

The block 3 ships, which are due to start flying early next year, include hardware to allow ships to dock back-to-back for more representative tests.

SpaceX announced plans for commercial Moon operations in 2028, and Mars operations in 2030. Will be interesting to see if they can keep to that!