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I wrote this column a year ago in which I suggested that a dual-mode WiFi/Cellular phone would be a good idea.

Thanks for listening Motorola! :-)

having a big name such as the BBC behind it, it should also mean that...

Maybe so... but the BBC's reputation seems to be sliding down a slippery slope when it comes to being a reputable, reliable publisher/broadcaster. A telling off for the BBC.

The guy who built the cruise missile and those pulsejets (me) also built a turbo-turbine back in 2001 and documented it here

Then I added the afterburner

And if you want to see a really cool turbine-powered gokart check out Nick's website.

More pulsejet/turbojet links and things here.

Now we're all really keen to enter the chinese version of full metal challenge!

The guy who built the cruise missile and those pulsejets (me) also built a turbo-turbine back in 2001 and documented it here

Then I added the afterburner

And if you want to see a really cool turbine-powered gokart check out Nick's website.

More pulsejet/turbojet links and things here.

Now we're all really keen to enter the chinese version of full metal challenge!

The guy who built the cruise missile and those pulsejets (me) also built a turbo-turbine back in 2001 and documented it here

Then I added the afterburner

And if you want to see a really cool turbine-powered gokart check out Nick's website.

More pulsejet/turbojet links and things here.

Now we're all really keen to enter the chinese version of full metal challenge!

What would be impressive is getting that golfcart from 0 to 100 in 6 seconds

Send a golfcart to me and I'll do it :-)

Do you have any links to back up your assertion? While the cruise missile guy exists (although he did not actually build the missile, just asserted it was theoretically possible), I have found nothing about the stealth bomber's necessity to be repainted.

You also forget that cruise missiles do not carry passengers. Similarly, if your stealth bomber does show up on enemy radar, there is no guarantee that you will die. If your poorly made Russian reality TV spaceship has problems, then you are just screwed.

but this one is real!
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/pjet/cruise.shtml

The EU Commission on Competition is about to rule on Microsoft's ongoing antitust issues. Part of the complaint is based inclusion and tying of it's Mediaplayer to the Windows OS platform. Essentially a replay of the Netscape affair.. Microsoft still faces some competition in streaming media from Apple's Quicktime and to a lesser extent Real Realplayer mediaplayers,but Microsoft, though it's position as dominant desktop platform, is gaining the lions market share. Other vendors hardware based audio/music players, either proprietary DRM based such as Apple's IPod or various MP3 players are for the moment holding their own in the marketplace.

Microsoft's negotiated settlement with the US DOJ and the settling US State Attorney Generals teminates after five to six years.If Microsoft remains unconstrained by either the EU or the US DOJ, it would be free to use the same tactics has it has done with the X-Box. Microsoft could use it's billions ripped from dominating the desktop market to subsidize streaming content providers bandwidth and flood the market with proprietary Microsoft-protocol-only mediaplayer hardware. Given the ongoing downward trend in chip prices, in five to six year time, Microsoft could easily afford to virually give away the hand held mediaplayers.

Attempting to regain a foothold back into such a Microsoft dominated market would be even more difficult than competing against Microsofts desktop monopoly is today.

Which gives me the segway to repost a "Lambaste from the past"

Microsoft and the recording industry are slealthfully
pushing Media Player 9 on the market, by requiring it to
view increasingly ever more "exclusive" content...

See 'Free' Costello CD seeds DRM, MS Media Player 9
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27232.html
And Peter Gabriel album preview deployed in MS audio push
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27272.htm

In the words of contemporary 80s artist of both Costello and
Gabriel, Dire Straits Mark Knofler - this is Money for
Nothing...

[ With deepest apologies to Mark Knofler and Dire Straits ]

"Money for Microsoft" by Dire Warnings
Sung by Steve Ballmer, backing by Bill Gates

You must buy ...
You must buy Win-XP,You must buy ...
You must buy Win-XP,You must buy ...
You must buy Win-XP,You must buy ...
You must buy Win-XP

Now look at them bozo's that's the way you do it
You lock them always on the Win-XP
That ain't workin' thats the way we do it
Money for Microsoft from Dot Net usage fees
Now that ain't workin' thats the way we do it
Lemme tell ya them guys are dumb
Maybe get a licence on your little desktop
Maybe get a licence on everyone

They gotta install Media Player
Passport Dot-Net deliveries
They gotta take these applications
They gotta take these subscription fees

Look at that, look at that

See the little Win-Troll spreading spin we makeup
Yeah buddy thats our own fear
That little Win-Troll got them always complain'
That little Win-Troll makes us billionares

They gotta install Media Player
Passport Dot-Net deliveries
They gotta take these applications
They gotta take these subscription fees

They shoulda learned to use the Linux
They shoulda learned to use them Macs
Look at that user, we got it stickin' to the customer
Man we could have some fun
And their down there, whats that? Protesting noises?
Plannin' on me dancing like a c

[0008] According to yet another aspect of the invention, hints are provided within the XML associated files providing applications that understand XML a shortcut to understanding some of the features provided by the word-processor. By using the hints, the applications do not have to know all of the specific details of the internal processing of the word-processor in order to recreate a feature.

[0009] According to yet another aspect of the invention, the word-processing document is stored in a single XML file. An application will be able to fully recreate the document from this single XML file. This includes all the images and other binary data that may be present in the document. The invention provides for a way to represent all document data in a single XML file.

There is a good article about just that here. http://www.aardvark.co.nz/daily/2003/1209.shtml

Viruses can infect cell phones.

And an onboard car computer can crash and lock the passengers inside. (Windows CE, no less).

Short on memory, short on imagination.

Now we know where New Zealand's Bruce Simpson has hidden his cruise missle!

First off, his hobby is working on pulsejet engines

oops. sorry :) I will take this lesson.

he's not doing research

are you sure? he has written that the design of 3rd-generation X-Jet prototype engine is safely locked in his head.

if it also took him many years of [his] life and so many hours of hard work. I think he has invented this engine. So he is doing research.

am I wrong?

--

The presence of this judgement actually screwed the deal in two ways: firstly it would mean I would be unable to complete the work required to meet the commitments I'd given in the document just signed, and secondly because the agreement I signed contains a bail-out clause which says that in the event either party is judged to be insolvent then the document becomes null and void.

The gov't had ample opportunity to make his problems go away and chose not to

So what is the motivation for stringing Mr. Simpson up? Taxes or 'terrorism' (aka being a squeaky wheel)? Maybe it was taxes, but I notice that the BBC uses the phrase:

New Zealand officials have said they cannot comment for reasons of "secrecy".

An interesting turn of phrase for an agency which has a reputation for accuracy. Normally tax details are protected for reasons of confidentiality, and 'national security' (aka lots of things) is protected for reasons of secrecy. So is the BBC saying 'national security' (aka war on terror) is behind things? Either way, surrounding "secrecy" with quotes seems to be a form of 'nudge-nudge-wink-wink'.

</tinfoil hat>

So what are the implications for other geeks?

Apart from his taxes, Mr. Simpson appears to have done no wrong. Indeed, reading his discussion forum, he appears to have bent over backwards to do nothing underhanded, break no laws and keep everyone (including government) informed of what he is doing. Given the media coverage of the project, it would be difficult to claim Mr. Simpson was hiding his actions.

I would compare Mr. Simpson to crypto researchers, P2P software authors and security researchers. Why? Because his work has both 'black hat'and 'white hat' uses, lends itself admirably to beng a political football and demonstrates glaring weaknesses in existing systems. If Mr. Simpson goes down without a fight, will it encourage governments to move against the other areas mentioned above?

*If* Mr. Simpson is going down due to his missile work, and not for taxes, shouldn't the geek community chip in and help him? (He has a paypal account, under the name 'paypal@aardvark.co.nz', to offset the costs of a news site he runs. There is also a 'make a donation' link to PayPal from the news site.) I would think he would be at least as deserving as the college students who have attracted public funding for their court cases over downloading copyrighted music.

No, I'm not affiliated with Mr. Simpson. I also don't pretent that Mr Simpson is some sort of an angel. It's just that the facts seem so damned hard to find in this case. Here are a few possible scenarios:

• Mr. Simpson is being screwed in the name of the 'war on terror' for pointing out how vunerable we are to unmanned vehicles.
• Mr. Simpson didn't pay his taxes and that is all there is to it.
• Mr. Simpson could see a tax bill coming and started a the cruise missile project in an attempt to make himself untouchable

No, I was not making it easy(er) for terrorists to build a cruise missile. In fact people should read the project's FAQ for more information on why this project was started.

For those who haven't read it, the original article I wrote which produced a number of "put your money where your mouth is" responses can be found here

As for the suggestion that I'm just a scummy tax-dodger, the links to the relevant editions of my daily internet column will help put that matter into perspective. Suffice to say that I have repaid the tax I owed and have been left with a "penalty" bill that I have continued to repay (having paid another $20K towards this just weeks before the government made its move).

Perhaps the most dissapointing aspect from my own personal perspective is that I went out of my way to:

• Decline a grant of $36K in taxpayer's money that was offered to assist with my jet-engine development work -- I figured that those waiting for medical treatment or expecting a decent education could use the money more than me.
• Notify the Secret Service that I'd been contacted by an Iranian Aerospace/Missile company seeking to gain access to my jet engine designs in return for an "investment" (the figure quoted was US$100K).
• Query the advice I was given by the export-licensing part of the NZ government which told me that if I wanted to export my technology to Iran there would be no problem and there was no restriction on such sales -- even though the technology had clear military applications.

No, I did not export anything to Iran and I never had any intention of doing so -- despite the governments insistance that it would be all right.

Once I became aware that the government were very serious about shutting this project down, I made sure that the missile was removed from my possession and is now elsewhere. I can also say in total honesty that I do not know where it is.

My tongue may be firmly in my cheek when I say this but -- would you turn over a missile to a government that endorses the export of military technology to Iran? If they were going to sell it in an attempt to service my tax penalties I shudder to think who they might flog it to :-)

Quite honestly, I suspect that the government thought I would not be able to build this missile and that when I made an official application to the Defense department for some space in which to perform the tests -- they suddenly realized that the whole situation could get even more embarrassing if it were proven that the damned thing worked.

Since they had openly admitted through the media that what I was doing was not illegal, their options for shutting the project down were very limited. I suspect they were all overjoyed when they found that I had not yet fully repaid my tax-penalties (although I was still regularly sending off cheques to service the debt). This, combined with the taxman's own agenda, gave them the perfect mechanism for solving what was rapidly becoming an embarrassing situation.

As you'll see in my daily column, the tax departments actions are clearly a breach of the tax laws which require the department to recover the maximum amount of any debt owed.

By bankrupting me they effectively chose to forego their right to collect the outstanding penalties and, since I had already sold most of my realizable assets (house, hobby-items, many tools, etc) to ensure my tax-repayments were kept up to date, there was no way they'd get a single penny from that bankruptcy action.

What's even worse is that in July I went to the USA and signed a heads-of-agreement with a US company who were going to commence manufacture of my X-Jet engine for use in UAVs and RPVs. This deal alone was worth a huge amount of money to the NZ taxman and wo

How could one stop research in so important area of science called rocket engines?

How a government could to that?

There seems to be some kind of plot in it
(from Bruce Simpson's page):

The strange thing is that just a matter of months ago, they told me I could export the very same technology to Iran -- despite the fact that it is widely considered to be a terrorist sponsor and similar exports are prohibited in the USA.

And then the government decided shut it down.

Note also that israeli x prize team recruits serious brainpower.

If things are not about money (or sex) then politics must be involved.

I hope that such a genius person as Bruce will either join Xprize or find another way to continue his very important for science work on rocket engines.

Donations

On a side note, I was really hoping this guy would have built this thing.

Bruce Simpson runs a daily on-line column called the "Daily Aardvark", which gave lots of details on the bankrupting in installments last week. (Normally it is commentry on New Zealand internet related stuff - see this week for a taste of what it is normally like.)

Dec 1
Dec 2
Dec 3
Dec 4
Dec 5

I believe that Bruce appears on Slashdot as "NewtonsLaw" - I expect he'll put in an appearance.

From my understanding, it is an IRD vendetta that has bankrupted him, unrelated to the "cruise missile" project.

Bruce Simpson runs a daily on-line column called the "Daily Aardvark", which gave lots of details on the bankrupting in installments last week. (Normally it is commentry on New Zealand internet related stuff - see this week for a taste of what it is normally like.)

Dec 1
Dec 2
Dec 3
Dec 4
Dec 5

I believe that Bruce appears on Slashdot as "NewtonsLaw" - I expect he'll put in an appearance.

From my understanding, it is an IRD vendetta that has bankrupted him, unrelated to the "cruise missile" project.

Bruce Simpson runs a daily on-line column called the "Daily Aardvark", which gave lots of details on the bankrupting in installments last week. (Normally it is commentry on New Zealand internet related stuff - see this week for a taste of what it is normally like.)

Dec 1
Dec 2
Dec 3
Dec 4
Dec 5

I believe that Bruce appears on Slashdot as "NewtonsLaw" - I expect he'll put in an appearance.

From my understanding, it is an IRD vendetta that has bankrupted him, unrelated to the "cruise missile" project.

Bruce Simpson runs a daily on-line column called the "Daily Aardvark", which gave lots of details on the bankrupting in installments last week. (Normally it is commentry on New Zealand internet related stuff - see this week for a taste of what it is normally like.)

Dec 1
Dec 2
Dec 3
Dec 4
Dec 5

I believe that Bruce appears on Slashdot as "NewtonsLaw" - I expect he'll put in an appearance.

From my understanding, it is an IRD vendetta that has bankrupted him, unrelated to the "cruise missile" project.

Bruce Simpson runs a daily on-line column called the "Daily Aardvark", which gave lots of details on the bankrupting in installments last week. (Normally it is commentry on New Zealand internet related stuff - see this week for a taste of what it is normally like.)

Dec 1
Dec 2
Dec 3
Dec 4
Dec 5

I believe that Bruce appears on Slashdot as "NewtonsLaw" - I expect he'll put in an appearance.

From my understanding, it is an IRD vendetta that has bankrupted him, unrelated to the "cruise missile" project.

Still happens, albeit in a somewhat different fashion. Check out http://aardvark.co.nz/email.htm.

videophones have been around for a while in the UK and in other countries(seems to be broken?). The quality still isn't brilliant but Orange(I think) have started to offer Soccer highlights over the latest phones.

moon colonies, ok, we chose to put a space station up there first, and then realised it costs a lot of money for little (commercial or military) value. Moon colonies are sadly not as sexy as say a Mars colony, or even a Mars mission, which ESA has planned in 25 years, NASA tried and continues to test methods of producing enough food,air and water, other countries,notably India and China have planned Moon landings so we are going back. Space is unfortunately used as a pissing contest between nuclear neighbours, when this stops then some more science can get done(e.g. Hubble, Galileo, Beagle 2)

food in pills. You can get food in pills, just not the calories, vitamins will give you nearly all of the trace elements you need to live. Calories are a lot harder, to get 500 Calories into a pill means eating something with 40 times the energy concentration of sugar or twenty times the concentration of fats, I doubt the human body would have much success digesting such complicated food. You can however get protein and creatine supplements which are in tablet/powder form, and sugar sweets( those silly energy sweets which taste of really sour orange) have more calories than their equivalent weight in sugar. (The protein supplements also tend to taste bad and are fed to animals instead. )

cars that drive themselves; power steering has been around for a while, as has ABS and cruise control, that is about as much as the current laws will allow on the public roads. intelligent cars have been developed, which, when combined with other intelligent cars, are actually safe. It's the human drivers who freak out at the sight of a driverless car that's the problem :-)

jet packs; Jet packs appeared in Thunderball (James Bond). You can buy them if you have enough money, or you can build them if you want. They're not used much because, much like the Segway, there are easier and cheaper way of getting around.

moving sidewalk's are in most airports now, as well as some metro stations. There have also been "moving stairs" around for just as long.

This post brought to you by Google.com, paid for by Google For America, Inc.

It is possible that the donut in the sky is a Pulse-Jet Engine, which is completely different from the Detonation Engine. Then again, this site supports your theory.

Actually, the spark plug is only used to start the engine. Once it has begun running there is no need for any external ignition system.

Check out this page for more information about the operating cycle of a pulsejet engine.

No, we're not talking about the simple tube jets, we're talking about the XJet engine which is a somewhat more sophisticated design.

Not strictly true. Although simple, the X-Jet design is not really "very low-tech" -- a lot of time and money has been invested in analysing a phenomenon called "high magnitude combustion" which, while not "detonation" still provides combustion efficiencies almost three times higher than the deflagration that occurs in a conventional pulsejet.

Are we still talking about the simple tube jets that Bruce Simpson has been building down in New Zealand?

Yes, he is the guy of DIY cruise missile fame.

Yes, he is the guy of DIY cruise missile fame.

NASA should call on (and pay lots of money to) the inimitable Bruce Simpson.

You'd think something else would do a better job like a bunch of explosions in a row or something

You mean something like this?.

Why bother with honeypots when a Payback Page is far more satisfying :-)

Anyone have some GPS coordinates for that? No reason, really.

The recording industry claims that CD sales have plummeted in recent times...

Of course they have -- but it's not because people are pirating CDs.

It's because the recording industry no longer makes CDs -- only these "enhanced" disks which no longer qualify for the name CD nor the Compact Disk logo.

So you see -- they're not lying, just being very deceptive!

--
News: Computer crash traps politician in BMW.

Unfortunately, this means not listening to some of my favorite bands anymore, but I believe they can be replaced.

Why can't you listen to your favourite bands?

Remember this story from Aardvark last year?

How can the RIAA claim theft if they're giving their product away like that?

It's where I get *all* of my music these days.

An interesting debate arose from a story I wrote earlier this week in which I published screenshots from a spammer's mailboxes.

One reader complained that this was "hacking" and that it was an unjustifiable action.

In response to that complaint I asked my readers (part-way down the page) whether there was any difference between a spammer trespassing on someone's mailbox with their crap and someone trespassing on the spammer's mailbox to expose their mis-deeds.

Gathering by the responses it appears that the rule of "do unto others" can reasonably applied to spammers and their mailboxes.

An interesting debate arose from a story I wrote earlier this week in which I published screenshots from a spammer's mailboxes.

One reader complained that this was "hacking" and that it was an unjustifiable action.

In response to that complaint I asked my readers (part-way down the page) whether there was any difference between a spammer trespassing on someone's mailbox with their crap and someone trespassing on the spammer's mailbox to expose their mis-deeds.

Gathering by the responses it appears that the rule of "do unto others" can reasonably applied to spammers and their mailboxes.

An interesting debate arose from a story I wrote earlier this week in which I published screenshots from a spammer's mailboxes.

One reader complained that this was "hacking" and that it was an unjustifiable action.

In response to that complaint I asked my readers (part-way down the page) whether there was any difference between a spammer trespassing on someone's mailbox with their crap and someone trespassing on the spammer's mailbox to expose their mis-deeds.

Gathering by the responses it appears that the rule of "do unto others" can reasonably applied to spammers and their mailboxes.

An interesting debate arose from a story I wrote earlier this week in which I published screenshots from a spammer's mailboxes.

One reader complained that this was "hacking" and that it was an unjustifiable action.

In response to that complaint I asked my readers (part-way down the page) whether there was any difference between a spammer trespassing on someone's mailbox with their crap and someone trespassing on the spammer's mailbox to expose their mis-deeds.

Gathering by the responses it appears that the rule of "do unto others" can reasonably applied to spammers and their mailboxes.

Today's Aardvark Daily shows exactly why spam is the problem it is -- there are too many stupid people out there who believe they can get something for nothing.

Check out just how lame the spammer in question is and how, in his world, the word "free" has a whole different meaning to the one most people have.

Despite his blatant misrepresentations and the fact that he's promoting his scam via spam, this guy has got people queuing up to hand over their "stupidity tax".

What's worse though is that the spammer is so lame he's effectively exposing the credit card details of *all* those who sign up. You even get to look inside his two email accounts because he doesn't have a clue about choosing sensible passwords.

We're quick to blame spammers for the problem but maybe the truth is that the tide of spam is driven more by the stupid and greedy people who respond to these "too good to be true" emails.

One of the big factors affecting the success of a home-made Tivo-like device is your choice of video capture/tuner card.

I've done the research and produced a project website for a digital PVR project which tested both dumb and smart capture cards.

Unfortunately there's no clear winner and such a comparison goes to show that life is always full of compromises.

However, after many months, I have to say that I've grown accustomed to the power and convenience of a smart tuner/capture card with onboard MPEG encoding.

The Hauppauge PVR250/350 are just brilliant if you want to use your PC like a VCR. There's a review and comparison with the Pinnacle PCTVpro card on my site.

I was going to (and still will a little later) explore all the Linux and open source options for a PVR but the reality was (last time I looked), many of these projects are very much in their infancy and are hardly a "turnkey" solution to matching a Tivo.

I am so pleased to hear that most spammers get their target addresses from the web because I've been running my PAYBACK PAGE for some time now and it's nice to know it must be working.

Let those who live by the spam, die by the spam I say!

A note for neophytes: Never assume that the "from" address in a spam is valid or actually belongs to the spammer. Always go to the website being promoted and find some form of contact address there (often hidden in an HTML reference to a formmail script).

Then add em to your payback page and enjoy!

Check your server logs and if you're site's anything like mine, you'll find that the spammers' addresses are being harvested several times a day.

Whoopee!

Looking... Looking... nope, no Nova.

It's probably worth pointing out that Aardvark Daily, the "news and commentary site" being linked to by slashdot, is sponsored by Ihug -- a rival ISP here in New Zealand. It's hardly an independant media source.

to /. is fine. But why do you never admit to it? Are you afraid the editors might reject your articles as too much self promotion. Or is this just a lame attempt to up your profile. Do tell...

One example worked well, even if it lacked much original thought.

Anonymous - oh the irony...

Today's Aardvark Daily has plenty to say on this ISP's new Service Terms too and raises some other very interesting (coincidental) issues.

Wait... what am I saying? Why not just buy a PC with an ATI All-in-wonder card?

Or the Hauppauge PVR-250/350 cards.

The only downside is that the software is still somewhat immature.

Having spent a *lot* of time on PC-based PVR project, and having tried a number of hardware/software options, I think the PC solution is only about 90% there.

However, it's absolutely brilliant for creating archival copies of programs broadcast on TV.

The PVR-250 in particular does an excellent job of capturing to MPEG-2 format (SVCD or DVD) in realtime and once you've edited out the ads you can fit a 1 hour program (or two half-hour ones) onto a single 700MB CDR in SVCD format.

Movies are easily fitted onto two CDRs or a single DVD +-R/RW and the quality is excellent.

Tapes suck for long-term storage -- some of the recordings I made on top-quality VHS tape just five or six years ago are alread showing signs of degrading. In theory, CDRs should last ten times that (normal storage caveats).

Tapes are also a hugely inefficient use of space. By switching to CDR I can now fit more than four times the amount of material on the same shelf.

Whether you intend to use your PC as a PVR or not, a decent capture card is a worthwhile investment these days.

Hell, with the right capture card you can even get all the music and movies you want for free without downloading from the Net.