Posts by John Brown (no body)

Yes. The correct solution if you are concerned about monkeys on your car bonnet is the UK is to either NOT visit a safari park or to park up and take the bus trip guided tour option instead. :-)

Re: Probably a dumb question, but...

"Don't 3D printers make stuff by dribbling hot plastic on top of other plastic layer by layer to build something?"

There are different type of 3D printers that use different methods and source materiels, including metals and even concrete. They are less likely to be in the hands of consumers, but not out of reach even now and, as with most technology, prices come down and capabilities go up. Wikipedia has a good summary of the various type and methods. Also, if you've been keeping up with El Regs space launch articles, surely you've come across mention of 3D printed rocket engines, although admittedly they are not the type of 3D printers found in Joe Blogs back room hobby shop :-) Yet!

Re: they've moved on

"Oh, look - a red herring. If you've got debt issues, that's your problem, not mine."

I do have a little sympathy for those who've grown up and only every experienced low interest rates and cheap, easy borrowing. Not much, but some. I have less sympathy for those allowing themselves to be led down the garden path by their noses to a "own nothing, rent/subscribe for life" lifestyles though and now finding they can no longer afford some of the nice stuff.

Re: except

"My last company put in its grand climate change plan that it will reduce its carbon footprint by getting the staff to drive EVs. That was basically the whole strategy."

Same here, and in common with many other companies, used the fig-leaf of "salary sacrifice" as a carrot to push people towards buying EVs. The problem is, the before-tax salary sacrifice scheme could only be used via certain suppliers who seemed to have prices just that bit higher than everyone else's such that not only was it not cheaper, but it was non-transferable if you decided to change jobs, leaving you with a more expensive EV that you are now paying for with your after-tax wages instead of your before-tax wages. It was notable that no one took up the offer in our company.

Re: more BS university studies

ANd just to add, anything based on processing "waste" is not a long term sustainable solution because we are all being told to waste less. Over time, the amount of waste should, in theory, reduce, so do you really want to base the continuation of major infrastructure or transport on yet another dwindling resource? And the agricultural waste is already recycled in one form or another as animal feed, compost etc. Using it for jet fuel will, as many have said, increase the value of the waste and divert it from the current uses.

And this is why military kit cost so much. It has to survive the grunts handling it, enemy fire and still have spares available at least 10 years down the line even when it's outdated and near as damn it obsolete :-)

Some of the shitty old printers we still have to maintain for a military customer partly because they come with special flight cases for that specific printer model but mainly because the software used to maintain the multi-million dollar weapons systems will only work with a very limited subset of no longer manufactured printer models from a specific manufacturer.

Re: Fork lift trucks

From the title on the page, it's exactly the video I was expecting you to link to, but for some weird reason I get "Sign in to confirm your age". Well, that ain't gonna happen! It certainly didn't happen the last time I saw it. I wonder what's changed at YouTube?

Re: Not what they want but what is good for them

I use X-Forwarding on a daily basis here with FreeBSD with no issues. That's not to say others in other circumstances may not have issue, but it works fine for me.

Re: Not what they want but what is good for them

"Choice is not an option..."

Or, as those great philosophers Rush once sang, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"

I suspect what will really happen is that a very few die-hards will switch to an X.org or a Wayland based desktop and everyone else with stick with their desktop of choice and deal with whatever issues arise from having the display manger changed out from under them.

Personally, I'll be sticking with X.org because I like the client/server model so I can run remote GUI programs[*] on my local display without the remote box having to run an entire desktop that I have to remote into. AFAIK, Wayland has no intention whatsoever in building that option.

* I like to have access to all the programs on my desk top up in the attic/office while still being able to sit down in the lounge with small laptop with my wife. She won't let my have the big desktop and three screens in the lounge.

"I've heard that, when they used phone numbers that weren't theirs and were valid, that the people who had those phone numbers received unnecessary calls."

I'd imagine it's the same in many countries. It might fail if the fake number shown on screen happens to be valid when it's shown on TV in a different country that uses similarly structured numbering systems. The UK has a number of phone numbers allocated for fictional TV use too. Sometimes they use an invalid number, sometimes they use a reserved and unallocated number as shown by those two Doctor Who examples.

Re: The thing people forget is...

Better yet, start about 3.500 years ago and then work forward :-)

Re: The thing people forget is...

"Notice these same countries did nothing when Uncle Saddam was killing Muslims by the millions, or when the Ayatollahs kill thousands more in Iran."

You clearly have no understanding of either of those situations or the opposing/different factions in Islam and how some people/groups use that as both reasons and excuses for power grabs and/or consolidation.

Re: This will end well

Passing a requirement for mandatory security checks on public utilities is a Congressional job."

Remind me, which party has a slim majority in Congress again?

It should not require rules from the EPA or laws from Congress. Security of nationally important infrastructure should be a priority as a matter of course. I'm sure that will be the line trotted out when any of the water companies are hacked. And yes, I'm fully aware that the situation isn't actually that different in the EU, the UK and most other countries where national infrastructure is in the hands of commercial businesses. Profits before safety. Why bother with security when you believe that not only will it not happen to you, but you have insurance against cyber attacks anyway. Your customers might die or just be inconvenienced by a lack of water, but your profits and bonuses are safe, and that's what really matters. /s

You still use the home page?

It's easier to use the "Latest News" page. Just scroll down to wherever the last "read" link is then start scrolling back up up looking for and middle-clicking anything of interest till you reach the top. That way you get all sections, properly marked, in chronological order :-)

Re: Inevitably

"Though generally nowadays, 'Tarmac' should actually be 'Bitmac', since I believe it is made from bitumen, rather than tar."

Tarmac, the company, would probably beg to differ. Tarmac is the word used for that type of road surface in the same way that Hoover is commonly used for any vacuum cleaner :-)

Re: And Meanwhile

Amazon may be planning on moving their tax jurisdiction to outer space. Once Bezos gets some working engines into production.

Re: Only $29.8B?

Upvoted! But for future reference, the phrase is "faux pas" from the French, translated literally as "false step"

Re: Problem of evil?

"Would a post-human society capable of creating a simulated universe be as unethical as to allow all this suffering?"

You never played Sim City? Introducing "natural disaster" or conjuring up Godzilla to help clear some old buildings for redevelopment was a useful and "fun" part of it.

Re: All Hail

Maybe our simulation overlords are running Seti@home on the spare processing cycles.

Re: Launch, test, destroy

"I hope all their future sats will also be deorbitable"

That is a license requirement these days. De-orbit or move to a "graveyard" orbit if it's a high flyer. This applies to most sat launches, Russia and China possibly excepted since they tend to ignore "inconvenient" rules. Certainly anyone requiring FCC licenses due to launching from the USA or having a presence in the USA and I'd be surprised if most other launches didn't abide by the same rules or be required to by the host country they launch from.