Paul

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• Commented on The impotence of the long-distance trillionaire
  Ahh, found some more. https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/AtariST\_MiSTer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLU9d1WQOWE So not quite the ready-to-go Atari ST in a nice box, but if you are happy with some-assembly-required then you can probably get going with only a few weekends of dedicated hacking....
• Commented on The impotence of the long-distance trillionaire
  I would love to see a kickstarter project to develop an Atari ST equivalent of the ZX Spectrum Next Issue 2, and I suspect current-generation FPGAs might be up to the task! Its already a thing in some FPGA hobby...
• Commented on The impotence of the long-distance trillionaire
  Richard H @ 1150: Yes, each element radiates power in all directions, but so do all its neighbours. The result is that the antenna as a whole does not radiate in all directions. See this article, which is linked from...
• Commented on The impotence of the long-distance trillionaire
  The technology is called phased-array and it has been shown to work. We've been over this before. Phased array works for information (including radar), but not for beaming power. Each antenna element radiates power in every direction. The phased array...
• Commented on The impotence of the long-distance trillionaire
  (I think this is the first time I've stuck my oar in this discussion: I haven't been able to get enough free time to catch up and then write something coherent on a complicated topic). I think I understand what...
• Commented on Roe v Wade v Sanity
  Ahh, yes, it was Scott Sandford in the previous thread. My apologies to both....
• Commented on Roe v Wade v Sanity
  David @ 462: What happens is family ties tug HARD on those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Which is not necessarily an irrational thing. Family, and especially extended family, provides a lot of services. There is obvious stuff...
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  JBS, possibly a dumb question, and sorry if its answered up-thread, but why not just get a collapsible dog cage and leave your dog in it outside the jeep under a sufficiently robust sun shade? Lots fewer failure modes to...
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  Just when you thought it couldn't get any more bizarre: Russia's Foreign Minister claims Hitler was part Jewish. It seems he was being asked to explain how Ukraine can be "nazi" when its Prime Minister is Jewish. So he explains...
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  On low-power airconditioning vs "just open a window": Take a look at the windcatchers of Persia (now Iran). The basic idea is to have a tower with a vent facing into the prevailing wind. This funnels cool air downwards through...
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  Charlie @ 712: They're actually building an undersea Morocco-UK HVDC line? That's bonkers. It'd almost certainly be cheaper to just go underwater for the Straits of Gibraltar and the English Channel, and to pay for existing grid interconnects in Morocco/Algeria/Spain/France/UK....
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  Robert Prior @ 425: Unless you're talking about steampunk as a fashion, Steampunk is what happens when goths discover brown. Jess Nevins....
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  On a more optimistic topic, there have been discussions here on the possibility of generating solar power in sunny countries south of the Mediterranean and then transporting it north using HVDC transmission. This is a project to do exactly that,...
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  Ahh, here is a more modern link that is up to date: GNSS-SDRLIB. Doesn't run on a R-Pi, but close enough....
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  On speed limits for GPS modules: some years ago I read a piece by someone who programmed a Raspberry Pi to act as a GPS receiver with a bit of RF circuitry to drive an input pin. I don't know...
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  On "being average": Here is the story on that. TL;DR The US Air Force used to build cockpits sized for "average" pilots, assuming that the vast majority of pilots fit comfortably within the averages for stuff like arm length, leg...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  On the Moskva: the Ukrainian defence mininster has been trolling the Russians on the subject by saying that once the war is over he is going to go diving on the Moskva wreck (apparently he goes scuba diving in his...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  Charlie @ 1325: I suspect carriers have a role going forward, but largely as drone platforms I gather this a a matter of some debate. Some people think the carrier era is over. The job of a carrier is to...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  Whitroth @ 1109: So why is inflation only just going up now instead of, say, 20 years ago? Did the Omniscient Council of Vagueness only just realise it could increase prices, or was there something preventing them until now?...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  dpb @ 905: When I was a child this was one of my favourite books: [Victorian Inventions by Leonard de Vries] Oh god, Leonard de Vries. I had his Book of Experiments when I was a kid. Literally 101 fun...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  Moz @ 1015: According to wikipedia Finland uses the "technically not actually illegal" approach... The UK is the same; the actual act of handing over some bank notes in exchange for sex is not a crime on either side, but...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  Or even better, use some of that 3.3kW waste heat to run a Stirling engine. That way you get hundreds of watts of extra electricity. The exact amount would depend on how hot you could run the thing. The original...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  Heteromoles @ 752: So here's the pitch: this pub is powered by a bizarre, but effective, radioactive thingamajig tucked away in a sub basement where the building inspectors won't find it. The design questions are: --it's powering a pub (and...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  paws4thot: 661 - It's not clear whether the measured distance is a great circle, a rumbline or a straight line? (The question is: what algorithm does Google Earth use to compute distances?) By comparing the results with this page of...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  Heteromeles: It's not news to me that California pays more per prisoner than per student, I suspect that this may also be because, from an individual point of view, education is a positional good. Obviously that isn't true at a...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  My favourite weird number system is balanced ternary. It's like base 3, except that the digits are 0, 1, and -1. You write the minus one as "-" (pronounced "bar"). So: 1 = 1 2 = 1- (i.e. 3 -...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  Me: Do you mean like the climax of Termination Shock by Neal Stepenson (not a spoiler because its foreshadowed A Lot)? Sorry, that was meant to be a reply to Heteromeles @ 527: And I want AI-enabled golden eagles flying...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  Do you mean like the climax of Termination Shock by Neal Stepenson (not a spoiler because its foreshadowed A Lot)?...
• Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
  On the F35: Augustine's Law is like Moore's law for fighter aircraft. Its number 16 on this list: In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the...
• Commented on Bad news day
  Getting back to the topic (no, I am not going to comment on aircraft on conveyors. No. I can resist. I will not succumb. Must not ... geeksplain... ) This article in the Grauniad is about the small group of...