"When the literate German dives into a sentence, that is the last you will see of him until he emerges from the other side of the Atlantic with the verb in his teeth" - Oscar Wilde, I think.
[Dear me, who admitted this frightful southern oik?]
My dear chap, I can assure you that those unfortunate immigrant types we find swimming north across the Tees do indeed pronounce your phrase as "Car in t' middle of t' road". Now we would not wish to lead our American friends into bad habits, would we?
On the contrary - the main source of map data in the UK (also Ireland, and I believe India) is the Ordnance Survey, founded in the year dot to prepare for an expected Napoleonic invasion.
Not that this really matters, because who would use liquid hydrogen as a coolant, when liquid nitrogen is so much better?!
When I worked in the field, it was common to have nested dewars containing nitrogen, hydrogen and helium. LH2 liquifies at a temperature intermediate between N2 and He, and this arrangement reduced thermal losses.
Very little research funding in the UK or continental Europe is funded by the military. I've heard of the odd project related to defense against biological warfare, but never met anyone who took up such funding. In the UK, university funding comes state research councils (BBSRC, NERC, SERC etc.), national agencies (Carnegie, English Nature etc.), and a charitable trusts (Wellcome Trust, Beit Trust etc.). European funding is available from the European Commission under the Framework programmes - these are often linked to industry/academe partnerships.
I've not got any entertaining stories of my own, but this happened to a colleague when I was working in the paper and pulp industry, at a factory in the north of Portugal.
The factory consumed wood and produced pulp, which is like thick blotting paper and is used to make paper. Basically you chop up the wood, and digest it to form an aqueous suspension of cellulose and lignin, which is then sprayed over a moving metal mesh belt to filter out the cellulose, which is the bit you want. As this factory was in a region with a poor power supply, it produced its own electrial power by concentrating the waste lignin, burning it in a steam generator, and powering a turbine from the steam.
This is all very elegant, but there's an obvious bootstrap problem. My colleague had to do some maintenance on the control system for the turbine, and of course it couldn't be shut down without major problems rebooting the factory. Unfortunately this meant that when he got the byte sex of an integer the wrong way around, he found out the hard way when $2M of live turbine expired.
I met him some time after the event - fortunately still working for the same company.
unless there is a carrier I'm not aware of who provides unlimited service for one price.
It's rare. One company I know of is Vodafone Sweden, for corporate customers who want to be able to predict their comms bill for the next year. It's one of the few cases where it makes sense for both the provider and the customer.
WAP is doing very nicely in the European markets, as are HDML and CHTML in Japan. It's true the early use of it was disappointing, due in equal measure to slow circuit-switched data and most content suppliers aiming for compatibility with the Nokia 7110 (which had a truly dreadful browser). These problems were overcome by GPRS and the introduction of phones with better browsers and colour screens. The phone companies rebranded the services (e.g. Vodafone Live) to avoid the association with the early efforts but its still WAP.
I've little idea how WAP is doing in North America, but that's still not one of the major mobile phone markets.
Well the original PC had an 8048 8-bit processor to control the keyboard, and presumably there's something like that still in there. Does anyone know if we can get at it?
I'm in the UK. It's common to use DECT phones here - encrypted digital, with a range of about 100 yards. Ours run at 1900MHz, so I'm not sure if this standard is common on the US (I know that freq is used for GSM). You can have up to eight phones per base station, and it is possible to place intercom-style local calls as well. My handsets are a mix of Philips and BT - I gather you need to have GAP compliance to intermix them. I have four handsets and they work very well indeed - the only reason I can see for having physical cabling now would be for a fax line from my Mac (I use 802.11b for data).
We're talking about efficiency in its formal sense of conversion of energy into work done. The comment I replied to correctly said that a jet engine's efficiency might be higher at supersonic speeds. I agreed, referring to an efficiency of about 35%, approaching the Carnot limit, but remarked that the higher drag would require that more work be done, hence a higher consumption of fuel.
Your second definition is efficiency (to within a scaling factor) - your former definition is not.
Re:fun fun, but it's still not teleportation
on
Son of Concorde
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· Score: 1
As a counterexample: these used to run across the English Channel for 32 years until they were killed off by the Channel Tunnel. They loaded much faster than either the trains or conventional ferries, and they were both fast and vast - 60mph, with a load of 48 cars (or the equivalent in lorries or coaches) and 424 passengers.
They had their faults of course - high fuel consumption, and a limit on the weather they could handle, but they were impressive beasties in their day and great fun to ride in.
And sometimes faster engines are actually more efficient
This is true - Concorde's Olympus 593 engines are among the most efficient non-nuclear engines, approaching 35%. However the plane's drag will rise with speed, and this is the dominant effect on fuel consumption.
Could your cellular provider "turn on the mic" for the FBI?
No, I don't think so. I work in the mobile phone industry. For GSM, you can browse the standards at www.3gpp.org. Document 07.07 specifies inter alia a way of setting up a network-initiated GPRS connection (i.e. a data connection), but I've never come across a way of setting up a network-initiated voice connection and I'm virtually certain it doesn't exist.
If you'll forgive the digression: a friend of mine was at an airshow with an entertaining demo. A Lightning came on stage, did the usual lumbering low-speed manoeuvres, and left. Then there was a massed demo by a large group of Army helicopters popping up over the hedgerows. This diverted attention until the commentator said "And if you look to your left..." before being drowned out. The Lightning had circled around and approached at barely subsonic speeds, with the engines throttled right back. As it came up to the sight line, the pilot gave it welly and pulled back into a vertical climb - levelling off at 15000' since apparently that was the earliest he could get the nose down.
The engines were based upon the hybrid engines that the SR-71 Blackbird used.
Were they eckerslike! The Bristol Olympus engine was the first twin-spool turbojet - design started back in 1947, I think, though they first ran in 1950. The Olympus core is used in various ways - gas turbine power stations, Royal Navy destroyers - but the Olympus 593 used on Concorde gets most of its power at cruise from the SNECMA-designed intakes and exhausts (there's no bypass, though). There's an interesting article here about testing the 593 on a Vulcan bomber (itself powered by four earlier Olympus engines).
BTW, I can't think of any US jet engines being adopted over here other than as supplied with the planes - OTOH there are at least two examples of the reverse.
the only supersonic jet in the world that doesn't need an afterburner to go supersonic is the F-22
Nope - the original and best: the English Eclectic Frightning. Not that they had a great range - they were built for a re-run of the Battle of Britain to intercept supersonic bombers. There are records of one landing after an eight minute demo flight down to normal reserves. Latterly they were used for patrolling the Iceland Gap - refuel twice on the way up, and twice on the way back: sounds a bit of a lonely place to earn a living.
Slashdot Mirror
"When the literate German dives into a sentence, that is the last you will see of him until he emerges from the other side of the Atlantic with the verb in his teeth" - Oscar Wilde, I think.
My dear chap, I can assure you that those unfortunate immigrant types we find swimming north across the Tees do indeed pronounce your phrase as "Car in t' middle of t' road". Now we would not wish to lead our American friends into bad habits, would we?
Aye, but all he's got for t' access point is cardboard box in t'middle of M1.
On the contrary - the main source of map data in the UK (also Ireland, and I believe India) is the Ordnance Survey, founded in the year dot to prepare for an expected Napoleonic invasion.
When I worked in the field, it was common to have nested dewars containing nitrogen, hydrogen and helium. LH2 liquifies at a temperature intermediate between N2 and He, and this arrangement reduced thermal losses.
Umm, no it isn't.
Very little research funding in the UK or continental Europe is funded by the military. I've heard of the odd project related to defense against biological warfare, but never met anyone who took up such funding. In the UK, university funding comes state research councils (BBSRC, NERC, SERC etc.), national agencies (Carnegie, English Nature etc.), and a charitable trusts (Wellcome Trust, Beit Trust etc.). European funding is available from the European Commission under the Framework programmes - these are often linked to industry/academe partnerships.
The factory consumed wood and produced pulp, which is like thick blotting paper and is used to make paper. Basically you chop up the wood, and digest it to form an aqueous suspension of cellulose and lignin, which is then sprayed over a moving metal mesh belt to filter out the cellulose, which is the bit you want. As this factory was in a region with a poor power supply, it produced its own electrial power by concentrating the waste lignin, burning it in a steam generator, and powering a turbine from the steam.
This is all very elegant, but there's an obvious bootstrap problem. My colleague had to do some maintenance on the control system for the turbine, and of course it couldn't be shut down without major problems rebooting the factory. Unfortunately this meant that when he got the byte sex of an integer the wrong way around, he found out the hard way when $2M of live turbine expired.
I met him some time after the event - fortunately still working for the same company.
Of course they did make several unmanned landings. What I hadn't realised was that in 1976 they also had a probe return samples to Earth.
Either that, or we look for a convicted Scout on the loose.
It's rare. One company I know of is Vodafone Sweden, for corporate customers who want to be able to predict their comms bill for the next year. It's one of the few cases where it makes sense for both the provider and the customer.
I disagree. See here, for example.
I've little idea how WAP is doing in North America, but that's still not one of the major mobile phone markets.
The Glorious Revolution was nothing to do with the shortening of Charles I - it was the replacement of James II by William III and Mary II.
Well the original PC had an 8048 8-bit processor to control the keyboard, and presumably there's something like that still in there. Does anyone know if we can get at it?
I'm in the UK. It's common to use DECT phones here - encrypted digital, with a range of about 100 yards. Ours run at 1900MHz, so I'm not sure if this standard is common on the US (I know that freq is used for GSM). You can have up to eight phones per base station, and it is possible to place intercom-style local calls as well. My handsets are a mix of Philips and BT - I gather you need to have GAP compliance to intermix them. I have four handsets and they work very well indeed - the only reason I can see for having physical cabling now would be for a fax line from my Mac (I use 802.11b for data).
Your second definition is efficiency (to within a scaling factor) - your former definition is not.
They had their faults of course - high fuel consumption, and a limit on the weather they could handle, but they were impressive beasties in their day and great fun to ride in.
This is true - Concorde's Olympus 593 engines are among the most efficient non-nuclear engines, approaching 35%. However the plane's drag will rise with speed, and this is the dominant effect on fuel consumption.
No, I don't think so. I work in the mobile phone industry. For GSM, you can browse the standards at www.3gpp.org. Document 07.07 specifies inter alia a way of setting up a network-initiated GPRS connection (i.e. a data connection), but I've never come across a way of setting up a network-initiated voice connection and I'm virtually certain it doesn't exist.
Never mind this waste of time - show us what a White Star will do on full burn.
Subtlety? We've heard of it.
It's a language difference: US "afterburner" and "supercruise" are UK "reheat" and "dry power". Try here for instance.
Were they eckerslike! The Bristol Olympus engine was the first twin-spool turbojet - design started back in 1947, I think, though they first ran in 1950. The Olympus core is used in various ways - gas turbine power stations, Royal Navy destroyers - but the Olympus 593 used on Concorde gets most of its power at cruise from the SNECMA-designed intakes and exhausts (there's no bypass, though). There's an interesting article here about testing the 593 on a Vulcan bomber (itself powered by four earlier Olympus engines).
BTW, I can't think of any US jet engines being adopted over here other than as supplied with the planes - OTOH there are at least two examples of the reverse.
Nope - the original and best: the English Eclectic Frightning. Not that they had a great range - they were built for a re-run of the Battle of Britain to intercept supersonic bombers. There are records of one landing after an eight minute demo flight down to normal reserves. Latterly they were used for patrolling the Iceland Gap - refuel twice on the way up, and twice on the way back: sounds a bit of a lonely place to earn a living.