The Reg occasionally looks at strange units of measure, especially comparing countries to be multiple times the size of Wales. Well, I like the introduction of the banana. 3/4 banans in size looks good to me.
The other problem with desalination is that all of the water starts off at sea-level, not surprisingly. London is only about 5m above sea level on average, but it will still take a large amount of energy to pump the water, rather than rely on gravity.
There are huge desposits in Canada and Australia. But digging up toxic heavy metals with rock grinders is not kind to one's lungs. In the first world theres understandable health and safety concerns which makes them expensive to mine. China doesn't have the same worries about its staff with its unlimited supply of willing men with shovels, so is able to undercut the other countries. The claim about improving environment conditions isn't a wild statement.
So its not that China has the supply of rare earth minerals, just that they are prepared to dig them up at a cost people will buy.
Its reasonable to blame humans who showed up at the same time as the megafauna extinctions in the Americas. But the megafauna in Africa co-existed just fine. Humans don't ride giraffes. If its humans, why did they extinct the mammoths but not elephants?
Javascript really isn't scalable in the same way as RoR isn't. It has no concept of threading, and its inheritance model is a bodged job. It might allow interfaces, but only in a kinda, sorta way. Its fine for manipulating web pages, but not for heavy serious cloudy backend processing. Which is where RoR also fell down.
If Google stick with Dart, that'll do the same job better.
The Delphi _compiler_ throws a strop if you try to assign a float to an integer type. I've just spent hours tracking down a bug in javascript which turned out to be caused by an implicit rounding error. I worry that me complaining about the strictness of Delphi is that I'm just sloppier than I once was.
I did a bit of Delphi work recently for the first time in years. Christ, it was hard work. Modern languages have made me soft. Ultra-strict typing, all variables declared at the start of a procedure before they are needed. And Begin and End instead of {}. And only a TList vector array as a data structure. And strings are just simple, well, strings; they don't have their own methods. Old school. It made me the bitter programmer I am today.
Theres no doubt that BW is a great man. But hes not unappreciated. He has many statues and buildings around the UK named after him, not least the students union building at Manchester Uni. I'm told that theres even a golf swing named for him for bouncing your ball across water. Plus he rightly made it into the BBC's top 100 Britons. The notion of him being unappreciated is, happpily, a myth.
The debt of GDP for Greece is 161% of GDP, so thats like someone on 10K a year owing 16K. So its bad, but not that bad. The problem is that also, their deficit is -8.5%, so even though they take home 10K, they have to spend 10.85K to survive. and nothing to spend on the debt when they want their annual interest paying.
Whatever suit you are wearing will be very good at generating heat to keep you alive, so channel some of that through the skis as well.
With the low grav, you could bound up to the top of the highest hill without the need to a ski lift. You might only accelerate slowly downwards, but should be at a fair clip at the bottom.
(Or, you could run up a ski ramp, orbit the moon once, and land again nearby. Theres good possibilities in this).
Does Jupiter generate its own light? Its got a chemically active atmosphere. Once the probe gets out as far as the Jovian system, won't Jupiter be the brightest object in the sky?
The ability to magically create test users has been around for a while now. However the migration from the old API to the new graph API has not been handled well. And many of the bugs in the bug list go unaddressed. I'm eagerly waiting for Google+ to release its API. They can't treat us users any worse.
When you turn up at the borders of lonely Latvia with this unknown toxic concoction, they know its actually decent because the EU says so. They don't have to ban it first until they carry out their own tests.
Denmark are allowed to then implement their own laws. If they decided to ban it, then were overruled by the EU and had to allow it after all, THEN something would be very wrong.
There was another Angry Birds newsstory on The Reg yesterday. What is so special about it? Meanwhile Minecraft 1.5 and Portal 2.0 were released yesterday, surely far more important events if The Reg wants to report Game news.
I didn't understand the finale of the last series...
... with Big Bang 2.0 and all (Did we learn why the Tardis is exploding?). But the gist seemed to kill off all the previous story arcs and start over. So why is River and apparently James Corden still around?
I'm selecting the tombstone icon, cos it might simply be I'm too old at 36.
...then Poo Boy would first have been hit by a freight lorry. After that, the building that the lorry crashed into would have rained bricks down on poor Poo Boy. Everybody standing around Poo Boy at that moment would have died already.
That Poo Boy now only has an upset tummy from all of this is most impressive.
I appreciate that staying aloft on solar power alone is no small feat, but how much energy is left over for the devices onboard? I can see a situation where my pseudo-satellite phone becomes less effective the murkier the weather. Or, if I'm downloading an extra large file and using excess bandwidth, I don't want to suck the power out of the engines. It will bring a whole new meaning to 'The file i downloaded crashed the internet'.
'The Raptor has thrust vectoring for unbeatable manoeuvrability in a dogfight: the Eurofighter doesn't.'
The Eurofighter doesn't need it because it achieves the same using its canards. Speed wins. Any design that kills its speed on purpose in order to turn is inferior. The only advantage thrust vectoring has is that it works better at low speed (<100 knots) and so impresses the crowds at airshows. You do not want to be travelling at less than 100 knots with a mach 2 missile after you.
Excuse my ignorance, but I'm guessing that the problem is that the Taliban have a heavy machine and the average squaddie has a 5.56mm which can't return the range. But does a normal patrol not have at least one heavy weapon that can reply? I find it surprising that the soldiers out in the field can't at least deal with this situation without the need for a super weapon. (It might be the case, I'm just asking. Everything I know about infantry tactics came from Warhammer 40K).
They would seem to be outclassed already. Other than aircraft launching its a shame that there doesn't seem to be a civilian use for the tech. A communication device is excessive, unless you are phoning Jupiter.
If the ballon had kept its SE heading for a few more miles, it would have reached a point on the map called 'Transformador'. That would have made a fun ending.
A mirror would be little defence against 0.1 MW of energy; it would burn just the same. It would also defeat any idea of stealth.
The odd thing is, just as a shiny surface is great for radar beams and runining stealth, the propeller on the engine would also be a giveaway. The best bet for the aircraft would be as stand-off platforms to launch modern, cheap Russian anti-ship missiles. But those things travel at +mach2. Firing one of those would probably have the same effect as if I strapped one to the top of my Ford Ka and fired it. I'd cause my damage to myself than the target.
Has Apple had any complaints? The article doesn't mention any. Theres no reason to think that creationists would be woefully upset at this app; they just think that Darwinist evolution is wrong rather than being unspeakably horrible. Enough hyperbole for a Tuesday afternoon.
Samsung have a range of interactive TVs that contain other services built in and they have the selling point of allowing more applications to be added. Will a bada developer also be able to create for TVs too?
What nationality is Lewis? The Italian government might have slashed its buying 121 jets to 96, but thats more to do with economic conditions than faith in the aircraft. The US government has cut back the F22 too for exactly the same reasons.
I'm not going to mention the radar. Any modern fighter wandering around enemy airspace with its radar on isn't going to live very long, stealth or otherwise.
The Spitfire was late, complicated to make, and very nearly dropped because it was a merely a short range, single purpose aircraft. Lewis would be dissing that too.
Why does Lewis always do down UK war tech, but not have a problem with US tech? Yes the raptor is at the top of the tree, but it should be at the cost of it. Its about 3 eurofighters worth, and just as prone to the same stray bit of metal on the runway. When in combat, speed wins. Why then use the main thrust to change course? It might dodge the missile once, but you'll be a sitting target when the next one arrives cos you've just used your own thrust to kill your momentum. The eurofighter can make the same turn and come out running. The eurofighter is having problems adjusting to be a ground attack craft, but theres no hope of that with the F22. So give the eurofighter a break; its still the best currently out there after the F22.
Register
104 posts • joined Monday 30th April 2007 12:38 GMT
Page:
New unit of measure
The Reg occasionally looks at strange units of measure, especially comparing countries to be multiple times the size of Wales. Well, I like the introduction of the banana. 3/4 banans in size looks good to me.
Pushing water uphill
The other problem with desalination is that all of the water starts off at sea-level, not surprisingly. London is only about 5m above sea level on average, but it will still take a large amount of energy to pump the water, rather than rely on gravity.
30 RUN
Yep, you never owned a Spectrum.
Nothing rare about rare earth
There are huge desposits in Canada and Australia. But digging up toxic heavy metals with rock grinders is not kind to one's lungs. In the first world theres understandable health and safety concerns which makes them expensive to mine. China doesn't have the same worries about its staff with its unlimited supply of willing men with shovels, so is able to undercut the other countries. The claim about improving environment conditions isn't a wild statement.
So its not that China has the supply of rare earth minerals, just that they are prepared to dig them up at a cost people will buy.
Tax dodge
So I write inventory tracking software for a living. All very dull. But if I write tracking software - WITH GUNS! - do I get a tax rebate?
Re: The evidence of biomass burning
Its reasonable to blame humans who showed up at the same time as the megafauna extinctions in the Americas. But the megafauna in Africa co-existed just fine. Humans don't ride giraffes. If its humans, why did they extinct the mammoths but not elephants?
Holy mother of God. In all my 37 years, this, THIS, is the moment I've been waiting for.
Whats the story?
They've done something "thereby reducing errors in computations.". But theres still errors. What have they cracked exactly?
Ugh. Javascript.
Javascript really isn't scalable in the same way as RoR isn't. It has no concept of threading, and its inheritance model is a bodged job. It might allow interfaces, but only in a kinda, sorta way. Its fine for manipulating web pages, but not for heavy serious cloudy backend processing. Which is where RoR also fell down.
If Google stick with Dart, that'll do the same job better.
yes, this
I came on the forums to post this. Does Black Ops end with the main character throwing up down the loo, all in 48K? I think not.
Although...
The Delphi _compiler_ throws a strop if you try to assign a float to an integer type. I've just spent hours tracking down a bug in javascript which turned out to be caused by an implicit rounding error. I worry that me complaining about the strictness of Delphi is that I'm just sloppier than I once was.
Death to the Curly Bracket!
I did a bit of Delphi work recently for the first time in years. Christ, it was hard work. Modern languages have made me soft. Ultra-strict typing, all variables declared at the start of a procedure before they are needed. And Begin and End instead of {}. And only a TList vector array as a data structure. And strings are just simple, well, strings; they don't have their own methods. Old school. It made me the bitter programmer I am today.
Ethical?
So they dropped a weight of a couple of kilograms from the edge of space, and hoped there was no one stood underneath when it hit. A bit dodgy.
<blink>
<blink>Always knew it was evil</blink>
Mysterons
Oh great, when the body snatching Mysterons turn up, they won't just impersonate Obama, they'll know how to forge his signature as well.
You can tell it was the British research base. Look at the size of the potholes in the road.
Theres no doubt that BW is a great man. But hes not unappreciated. He has many statues and buildings around the UK named after him, not least the students union building at Manchester Uni. I'm told that theres even a golf swing named for him for bouncing your ball across water. Plus he rightly made it into the BBC's top 100 Britons. The notion of him being unappreciated is, happpily, a myth.
Er, not quite
The debt of GDP for Greece is 161% of GDP, so thats like someone on 10K a year owing 16K. So its bad, but not that bad. The problem is that also, their deficit is -8.5%, so even though they take home 10K, they have to spend 10.85K to survive. and nothing to spend on the debt when they want their annual interest paying.
Heated skis?
Whatever suit you are wearing will be very good at generating heat to keep you alive, so channel some of that through the skis as well.
With the low grav, you could bound up to the top of the highest hill without the need to a ski lift. You might only accelerate slowly downwards, but should be at a fair clip at the bottom.
(Or, you could run up a ski ramp, orbit the moon once, and land again nearby. Theres good possibilities in this).
www.royala.scot
Yeah, I can see this being useful. Not very scottish though.
How well does this tech scale?
I can appreciate a giant cauldron of plasma powering a city, but will these little pellets of matter scale up to the same level as magnetic fusion?
Hydrogen vs Helium
Just wondering, its much easier to make your own hydrogen than buy helium. Would this give extra lift, does anyone know?
I'm no astonomer, but..
Does Jupiter generate its own light? Its got a chemically active atmosphere. Once the probe gets out as far as the Jovian system, won't Jupiter be the brightest object in the sky?
Not loved
The ability to magically create test users has been around for a while now. However the migration from the old API to the new graph API has not been handled well. And many of the bugs in the bug list go unaddressed. I'm eagerly waiting for Google+ to release its API. They can't treat us users any worse.
Glass half full
The Canadian Lewis analogue will be publishing a story of 'Idiot armed forces spend $164m on nine useless helicopters - to be used only as scrap.'
Radio 4 rentagob
Michale Buerk and Kevin Warwick met a couple of years back on The Moral Maze. Mr Buerk wasn't very impressed with him then either.
Highlights the usefulness of the EU actually
When you turn up at the borders of lonely Latvia with this unknown toxic concoction, they know its actually decent because the EU says so. They don't have to ban it first until they carry out their own tests.
Denmark are allowed to then implement their own laws. If they decided to ban it, then were overruled by the EU and had to allow it after all, THEN something would be very wrong.
Agreed
There was another Angry Birds newsstory on The Reg yesterday. What is so special about it? Meanwhile Minecraft 1.5 and Portal 2.0 were released yesterday, surely far more important events if The Reg wants to report Game news.
I didn't understand the finale of the last series...
... with Big Bang 2.0 and all (Did we learn why the Tardis is exploding?). But the gist seemed to kill off all the previous story arcs and start over. So why is River and apparently James Corden still around?
I'm selecting the tombstone icon, cos it might simply be I'm too old at 36.
Bolivia will have the last laugh
When we move to electric cars, and need all the lithium we can get to build the batteries, guess which country will be the new Saudi Arabia?
If this was truly representational...
...then Poo Boy would first have been hit by a freight lorry. After that, the building that the lorry crashed into would have rained bricks down on poor Poo Boy. Everybody standing around Poo Boy at that moment would have died already.
That Poo Boy now only has an upset tummy from all of this is most impressive.
But whats the payload?
I appreciate that staying aloft on solar power alone is no small feat, but how much energy is left over for the devices onboard? I can see a situation where my pseudo-satellite phone becomes less effective the murkier the weather. Or, if I'm downloading an extra large file and using excess bandwidth, I don't want to suck the power out of the engines. It will bring a whole new meaning to 'The file i downloaded crashed the internet'.
Its a trap!
To be fair to the empire, the death star in RotJ was built as bait to bring the rebels into a battle. That part of the plan worked.
.
.
.
I don't even like Star Wars. What have I just done?
Fuck thrust vectoring
'The Raptor has thrust vectoring for unbeatable manoeuvrability in a dogfight: the Eurofighter doesn't.'
The Eurofighter doesn't need it because it achieves the same using its canards. Speed wins. Any design that kills its speed on purpose in order to turn is inferior. The only advantage thrust vectoring has is that it works better at low speed (<100 knots) and so impresses the crowds at airshows. You do not want to be travelling at less than 100 knots with a mach 2 missile after you.
7.62mm vs 5.56mm
Excuse my ignorance, but I'm guessing that the problem is that the Taliban have a heavy machine and the average squaddie has a 5.56mm which can't return the range. But does a normal patrol not have at least one heavy weapon that can reply? I find it surprising that the soldiers out in the field can't at least deal with this situation without the need for a super weapon. (It might be the case, I'm just asking. Everything I know about infantry tactics came from Warhammer 40K).
Bows and arrows against the lightning
Its not long since Lewis was singing the praises of projectile weapons and railguns.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/15/blitzer_trials/page2.html
They would seem to be outclassed already. Other than aircraft launching its a shame that there doesn't seem to be a civilian use for the tech. A communication device is excessive, unless you are phoning Jupiter.
Worse than that
One side of the tag read :
'If found please return to Tel Aviv University'
But the other read :
'My name is Mohammed'
Virgin?
When the ZX81 came out, I bloody would hope that I was a virgin.
Just missed Transformador
If the ballon had kept its SE heading for a few more miles, it would have reached a point on the map called 'Transformador'. That would have made a fun ending.
Well done all concerned.
Its all true
There are about six of us left on the planet. But Delphi developers are the nicest.
Mirrors burn just the same
A mirror would be little defence against 0.1 MW of energy; it would burn just the same. It would also defeat any idea of stealth.
The odd thing is, just as a shiny surface is great for radar beams and runining stealth, the propeller on the engine would also be a giveaway. The best bet for the aircraft would be as stand-off platforms to launch modern, cheap Russian anti-ship missiles. But those things travel at +mach2. Firing one of those would probably have the same effect as if I strapped one to the top of my Ford Ka and fired it. I'd cause my damage to myself than the target.
But on the bright side
The segway started up first time.
Not a bitchslap at all
Has Apple had any complaints? The article doesn't mention any. Theres no reason to think that creationists would be woefully upset at this app; they just think that Darwinist evolution is wrong rather than being unspeakably horrible. Enough hyperbole for a Tuesday afternoon.
Humans?
"Though President Obama has lately said that humans will not return to the Moon as had been intended"
Is El Reg suggesting that Chinese people aren't human?
Lembit Opik
Now that the former pseudo-welsh MP is being forced to sell his London pad, I hear he could use a new home. This should do nicely.
Lewis?
And Lewis suggests Britain should dump the Typhoon entirely and purchase a load of F18s?!?
Is Bada for phones only?
Samsung have a range of interactive TVs that contain other services built in and they have the selling point of allowing more applications to be added. Will a bada developer also be able to create for TVs too?
More fail
What nationality is Lewis? The Italian government might have slashed its buying 121 jets to 96, but thats more to do with economic conditions than faith in the aircraft. The US government has cut back the F22 too for exactly the same reasons.
I'm not going to mention the radar. Any modern fighter wandering around enemy airspace with its radar on isn't going to live very long, stealth or otherwise.
The Spitfire was late, complicated to make, and very nearly dropped because it was a merely a short range, single purpose aircraft. Lewis would be dissing that too.
Pooh to the F22
Why does Lewis always do down UK war tech, but not have a problem with US tech? Yes the raptor is at the top of the tree, but it should be at the cost of it. Its about 3 eurofighters worth, and just as prone to the same stray bit of metal on the runway. When in combat, speed wins. Why then use the main thrust to change course? It might dodge the missile once, but you'll be a sitting target when the next one arrives cos you've just used your own thrust to kill your momentum. The eurofighter can make the same turn and come out running. The eurofighter is having problems adjusting to be a ground attack craft, but theres no hope of that with the F22. So give the eurofighter a break; its still the best currently out there after the F22.
Thatcha!
Rejoice!
Rejoice!
My career is saved
by the argie battleship
sent below the waves
Gotcha!
Gotcha!
I have no regrets
about my brave boys
killed by french exocets
Victory!
Victory!
I have no time for whiners
i'll march on at home
and go thrash the miners
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