cstross

47 ms·

421.
by cstross 10y ago
They almost had me until ... On the surface, vast quantities of hydrocarbons in solid and liquid form lie ready to be used for energy. Although the atmosphere lacks oxygen, water ice just below the surface could be used to provide oxygen f
422.
by cstross 10y ago
> Maybe autonomous containers could also be capable of transferring cargo to smaller autonomous delivery cars, then we'd have a full routing delivery network, that could deliver any package from a point of source to a point of dest
423.
by cstross 10y ago
What the OP missed: highways with traffic jams caused by breakdowns somewhere in miles-long platoons of self-driving shipping containers that block entry/exit lanes (because there's no such thing as a perfect drive train, and cost
424.
by cstross 10y ago
Something I really don't understand about the American system (I'm British) is why anyone could possibly think it's a good idea to make Prosecutors and Judges elected offices! The whole "tough on crime" narrativ
425.
by cstross 10y ago
Here are a few words/concepts for you that we in the west borrowed from the Islamic world: * Algebra * Alcohol * Alchemy (root origin of chemistry) * Algorithm * Azimuth ... You will note I haven't even gotten past the first lette
426.
by cstross 10y ago
The USMC Harriers were, however, built under license by a US aviation company. Ditto a bunch of other British-designed aircraft used by the USAF, such as the English Electric Canberra aka Martin B-57 Canberra: https://en.wikipedi
427.
by cstross 10y ago
If you miss the safety aspect of MagSafe, Griffin Technology sell a USB-C charge cable for the 12" Macbook with a magsafe-like magnetic breakaway connector: https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c
428.
by cstross 10y ago
Battery life was mentioned: "up to 10 hours" (all machines).
429.
by cstross 10y ago
US internal first class is not the same as full-fat intercontinental first class on a flag carrier. (It's barely up to regular business class.) I do know a guy who was booked JFK-LHR in business class in the 90s and whose flight was
430.
by cstross 10y ago
Another little-known fact: prior to 2000, the three organizations in the world racking up the highest number of supersonic flight hours each year were, in descending order: 1) British Airways 2) Air France 3) The United States Air Force Mil
431.
by cstross 10y ago
> BA's service had a greater number of passengers who booked a flight and then failed to appear than any other aircraft in their fleet. All Concorde tickets were first class; first class tickets on flag carriers are fully exchangabl
432.
by cstross 10y ago
Here's another one: Computer . Back before programmable general-purposes computing machinery existed, computer was a human job description -- a human being who was employed to perform basic calculation tasks rapidly and accurately.
433.
by cstross 10y ago
We're way ahead of you! See also: why Scottish people hate speech recognition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU
434.
by cstross 10y ago
Yup. Caldera started as a legit Linux distro circa 1994-5, but burned through their funds too quickly. As a pivot they bought out Digital Research including their anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft (for blocking Win95 from running atop DR
435.
by cstross 10y ago
I seem to recall there was a Linux binary loader for OpenServer, along with the Skunkworks project ...? Yeah. Management dropped the ball big-time in 1994. SCO could have been Red Hat really easily if they'd had even a tiny amount of
436.
by cstross 10y ago
That would be because Microsoft sold the rights to Xenix to SCO -- at that time about two hackers and their hot tub in downtown Santa Cruz -- in return for 30% of the shares in the (then private) company. That was in the mid-to-late 80s (be
437.
by cstross 10y ago
I worked as a tech author on the release notes for the last shipped release of Xenix, SCO Xenix 2.3.4, in late 1991. The Microsoft legacy lingered in SCO's codebase for a long time -- the MS C compiler was standard right through Open S
438.
by cstross 10y ago
a) it's kind of hard to hide a launch system where the fueled-up booster stack on the pad weighs two and a half times as much as a Saturn V and the launch is visible with the naked eye from a hundred miles away. b) There is a reason we
439.
What else can you do with an Interplanetary Transport System?(antipope.org)
67 points by cstross 10y ago|48 comments
440.
by cstross 10y ago
This isn't an isolated problem; it comes up in other contexts as well. Consider the default zero-zero GPS coordinates (and use an app for plane or shipping tracking to look at it). It's about 200 miles off the coast of Africa and
441.
by cstross 10y ago
Datum point: With Air France, the breakpoint is making Gold Status in Flying Blue (their frequent flyer scheme). Irregular traveller or Silver or below? If there's a problem with your journey, you own it. Gold and above? If you encount
442.
by cstross 10y ago
I'm British, a KLM/Air France frequent flyer, and visit the US a lot (so I end up on a lot of Delta code-shares -- flights booked via KLM/AF but operated by Delta). Delta are the best of the "big three" US carriers
443.
by cstross 10y ago
This is not actually true; I am aware of lots of non-technical users who know nothing about Sun, Oracle, or Apache and who haven't heard of LibreOffice but who continue to quietly use the free office package they were recommended at so
444.
by cstross 10y ago
Not all rockets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708 (China, CZ-3B, Intelsat 708 payload, the launcher flew off-course and crashed on a village in 1996: by some estimates 200-500 civilians were killed.)
445.
by cstross 10y ago
Unconfirmed via reddit live stream: payload not on booster, and it was a scheduled test firing so no human beings affected (everyone was well clear).
446.
by cstross 10y ago
Wild-ass speculation in the absence of more information than a tweet and a photo of a pad fire: SpaceX test-fire the first stage motors before each launch. If this was a test firing that went spectacularly wrong, it's embarrassing -- b
447.
Writer, Interrupted(antipope.org)
4 points by cstross 10y ago|0 comments
448.
by cstross 10y ago
Bingo. See also: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/07/institut...
449.
Sad Trombone Exoplanet Reality Check(antipope.org)
151 points by cstross 10y ago|195 comments
450.
by cstross 10y ago
I'll take his word for it. (If he remembers trivia like that a third of a century later ...)

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