The small drone was not powerful enough to lift the heavy fibre cable so instead it was used to string a 100m (328ft) length of high-strength fishing line between two points above the trees. The fishing line was attached to a "draw rope" secured to the fibre-optic cable, which was then pulled along the route the drone had forged.
"It's a bit different to connecting an apartment block in London, that's for sure," said Openreach chief engineer Andy Whale. "If we tried running the cable through woods it was also very likely we'd get it caught up in branches and other natural obstructions, so we figured the best option was to fly it in over the top of the tree canopy and then lift it up to make sure it was clear of the tree line."
The cabling job had been all but done in an hour, said Mr Whale. Retired teacher Chris Devismes said: "It has made a world of difference to us. I live here with my two teenage sons and they're often online - watching films, streaming music or Skyping their friends. When all three of us were online at the same time, it could often be a struggle and things would start to buffer and freeze."
Am I the only one who thinks that dropping fibre-optic cables across trees and over fields is going to be a wonderful solution that lasts for all of twenty minutes ?
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42180499
Thursday, 30 November 2017
Trump can't even insult the right person
Donald Drumpf has told Prime Minister Theresa May to focus on "terrorism" in the UK after she criticised his sharing of far-right videos. "Don't focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom," Mr Drumpf tweeted. The US president had earlier retweeted three inflammatory videos posted online by a British far-right group. Mrs May's spokesman said it was "wrong for the president to have done this".
The best bit about this farcical affair :
In hitting out at Mrs May, Mr Drumpf first tagged the wrong Twitter account, sending his statement to a different user with just six followers. He then deleted the tweet and posted it again, this time directing the message to the UK PM's official account.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42176507
The best bit about this farcical affair :
In hitting out at Mrs May, Mr Drumpf first tagged the wrong Twitter account, sending his statement to a different user with just six followers. He then deleted the tweet and posted it again, this time directing the message to the UK PM's official account.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42176507
Monday, 27 November 2017
Theresa May is not gansta enough to ban her from pubs
I like it a lot, but, contrary to recent depictions aboe, I don't believe Theresa really likes pubs all that much. You'd have to ban her from weekly coven meetings or something to have any effect.
Theresa May could be banned from every pub in her constituency following anger from bar owners over police cuts. Landlords have reportedly banded together to keep the Prime Minister away from all licensed venues in Maidenhead after she slashed police budgets by £413m in the last 12 months. The group said it could now take up to one hour for police to respond to incidents at their pubs, which endangered their staff and customers.
David Kimber, manager of the Off the Tap pub, told The Mirror: “This seems to be the only way she’ll get the message.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/theresa-may-banned-pubs-protest-maidenhead-mp-police-funding-a8076506.html
"My photograph is the best ever", says annoyingly good photographer
It is a damn good photograph. It's so good, even the photographer likes it.
"The photograph with which I obtained second place in the Pano Awards was taken during the violent eruption of the Volcán Calbuco, located in the south of Chile," he told Engadget via email. "The technique was simple: long exposure, tripod and a 80-200mm lens. Approximately 10 minutes to achieve that incredible image that, without a doubt, is my best photograph of an eruption and I think the best taken in the world."
Big yourself up, why don't you ?
http://engt.co/2naev9q
"The photograph with which I obtained second place in the Pano Awards was taken during the violent eruption of the Volcán Calbuco, located in the south of Chile," he told Engadget via email. "The technique was simple: long exposure, tripod and a 80-200mm lens. Approximately 10 minutes to achieve that incredible image that, without a doubt, is my best photograph of an eruption and I think the best taken in the world."
Big yourself up, why don't you ?
http://engt.co/2naev9q
Sunday, 26 November 2017
Should we be nicer to Flat Earthers ? Nah
Yet another one about the Flat Earth. Sorry about that. Ironically it also suggests not to reshare articles about the Flat Earth, so sorry about that too.
In the famous Bedford Level experiment of 1870 instigated by Parallax and conducted by zealot and serial harasser John Hampden in a wager against Wallace, a series of fixed poles representing water level were viewed through a telescope to determine if the water surface was curved. In a nutshell, scientists would view the data as conclusive as showing curvature while the flat-earthers would look through the same telescope and conclude evidence for flatness. The hubris with which flat earthers conclude their knowledge trumps the preponderance of evidence continues to the present day.
Many flat-earthers see the issue as a dichotomy of good vs evil. The Bible and human common sense are good, while big government, elite scientists, and money-hungry corporations are bad. When beliefs are not based on objective factual conclusions but are based on ideology or worldview, no amount of facts or reasoning is likely to change that belief. And, in order to accept a flat earth, you must also accept that the earth does not spin or orbit the sun and that gravity isn’t real.
Calling them stupid, making fun of, or arguing with them is not going to work to pry them away from this view but will only entrench them deeper. They relish being different and controversial. They feel privileged and “in the know” by rejecting the path that the rest of the world follows. There’s no use in lamenting about society’s low science literacy. You can throw all the facts and figures around you wish. Believers won’t budge and will likely have a rebuttal that will sound pretty good to bystanders listening to the debate. If you give them attention, they relish the opportunity to expound on their passionate views – more people will listen to THEM, not you.
I think when the stupidity level reaches that point, there's probably nothing you can do. They'd only end up with some other uber-wacky belief anyway.
[I'd also add that the vast majority of them are fundamentally irrational anyway, so even the best evidence isn't going to work. Being nice to them won't make them any more rational so it won't solve the underlying problem.]
http://spookygeology.com/anti-globular-convictions-flat-earth-belief-explodes-in-popularity/
In the famous Bedford Level experiment of 1870 instigated by Parallax and conducted by zealot and serial harasser John Hampden in a wager against Wallace, a series of fixed poles representing water level were viewed through a telescope to determine if the water surface was curved. In a nutshell, scientists would view the data as conclusive as showing curvature while the flat-earthers would look through the same telescope and conclude evidence for flatness. The hubris with which flat earthers conclude their knowledge trumps the preponderance of evidence continues to the present day.
Many flat-earthers see the issue as a dichotomy of good vs evil. The Bible and human common sense are good, while big government, elite scientists, and money-hungry corporations are bad. When beliefs are not based on objective factual conclusions but are based on ideology or worldview, no amount of facts or reasoning is likely to change that belief. And, in order to accept a flat earth, you must also accept that the earth does not spin or orbit the sun and that gravity isn’t real.
Calling them stupid, making fun of, or arguing with them is not going to work to pry them away from this view but will only entrench them deeper. They relish being different and controversial. They feel privileged and “in the know” by rejecting the path that the rest of the world follows. There’s no use in lamenting about society’s low science literacy. You can throw all the facts and figures around you wish. Believers won’t budge and will likely have a rebuttal that will sound pretty good to bystanders listening to the debate. If you give them attention, they relish the opportunity to expound on their passionate views – more people will listen to THEM, not you.
I think when the stupidity level reaches that point, there's probably nothing you can do. They'd only end up with some other uber-wacky belief anyway.
[I'd also add that the vast majority of them are fundamentally irrational anyway, so even the best evidence isn't going to work. Being nice to them won't make them any more rational so it won't solve the underlying problem.]
http://spookygeology.com/anti-globular-convictions-flat-earth-belief-explodes-in-popularity/
Wibbly-wobbly liney-winey
There are no zig-zag lines in the image. But I had to manually add the red curves to convince myself this was true.
Original paper : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2041669517742178
Optical illusions are a nice reminder that knowledge is not the same as perception.
Original paper : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2041669517742178
Optical illusions are a nice reminder that knowledge is not the same as perception.
Saturday, 25 November 2017
Mexico helps save the sea
The Mexican government has created a large marine reserve around a group of islands home to hundreds of species including rays, whales and sea turtles. The Revillagigedo Archipelago is a group of volcanic islands off the country's south-west coast. With a protection zone of 57,000 square miles (150,000km), it has become the largest ocean reserve in North America.
The move will mean all fishing activity will be banned, and the area will be patrolled by the navy. It is hoped the move will help populations hit by commercial fishing operations in the area recover. The park was designated by a decree signed by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. It will also forbid natural resources being extracted from the land or the building of new hotel infrastructure.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42120610
The move will mean all fishing activity will be banned, and the area will be patrolled by the navy. It is hoped the move will help populations hit by commercial fishing operations in the area recover. The park was designated by a decree signed by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. It will also forbid natural resources being extracted from the land or the building of new hotel infrastructure.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42120610
Tonight we research in hell !
Awesome stuff.
Behind sealed doors stood a 14-ton stainless steel tank, its massive ports sealed to hold pressures so high that the screws to secure its nuts have their own nuts. For 33 days, the Glenn Extreme Environments Rig (GEER) had run nonstop, simulating an atmosphere at 460°C and flooded with carbon dioxide at pressures that render it supercritical, both liquid and gas. Inside sat two microchips, pulsing with metronomic accuracy. Neudeck was running a clock on Venus, and it was keeping perfect time.
Rather than barricading electronics within pressure vessels, by early next decade NASA may be able to land simple unprotected robots on Venus that can measure wind, temperature, chemistry, pressure, and seismic waves. And instead of running for a few hours, the landers could last for months. "We don't have the world's fastest chips," Neudeck says. "We don't have the world's most complex chips. But in terms of Venus environment durability—that's what we got."
Silicon carbide has a bigger bandgap than silicon, which means its electrons can absorb much more energy before it becomes a conductor. As a result, it functions as a semiconductor at much higher temperatures. But it is difficult to work with. Because silicon carbide doesn't melt, the techniques used to produce large silicon wafers break down.
The allure of high-temperature electronics was too great to ignore, however. Slowly, with the support of NASA and the Office of Naval Research, researchers, led especially by Cree, an upstart electronics company, devised ways to grow usable silicon carbide crystals more than 150 millimeters in diameter. The power industry is now harnessing the material to build smaller transformers and more efficient power plants, Neudeck says.
Pentiums these are not. A modern silicon chip can contain 7 billion transistors; each of the chips running in the Venus chamber has 175. Neudeck also uses an old-school transistor design, long since abandoned in conventional microelectronics. It's basically a hyperexpensive, obtuse pocket calculator. But a pocket calculator running on Venus could be valuable indeed. "This is already the complexity of many of the early scientific missions flown back in the '60s and '70s," Neudeck says, and more powerful than the chips on Apollo flight computers. "You really can do science."
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer-chips-scientists-are-ready-return-hell-venus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuR5ect-B34
Behind sealed doors stood a 14-ton stainless steel tank, its massive ports sealed to hold pressures so high that the screws to secure its nuts have their own nuts. For 33 days, the Glenn Extreme Environments Rig (GEER) had run nonstop, simulating an atmosphere at 460°C and flooded with carbon dioxide at pressures that render it supercritical, both liquid and gas. Inside sat two microchips, pulsing with metronomic accuracy. Neudeck was running a clock on Venus, and it was keeping perfect time.
Rather than barricading electronics within pressure vessels, by early next decade NASA may be able to land simple unprotected robots on Venus that can measure wind, temperature, chemistry, pressure, and seismic waves. And instead of running for a few hours, the landers could last for months. "We don't have the world's fastest chips," Neudeck says. "We don't have the world's most complex chips. But in terms of Venus environment durability—that's what we got."
Silicon carbide has a bigger bandgap than silicon, which means its electrons can absorb much more energy before it becomes a conductor. As a result, it functions as a semiconductor at much higher temperatures. But it is difficult to work with. Because silicon carbide doesn't melt, the techniques used to produce large silicon wafers break down.
The allure of high-temperature electronics was too great to ignore, however. Slowly, with the support of NASA and the Office of Naval Research, researchers, led especially by Cree, an upstart electronics company, devised ways to grow usable silicon carbide crystals more than 150 millimeters in diameter. The power industry is now harnessing the material to build smaller transformers and more efficient power plants, Neudeck says.
Pentiums these are not. A modern silicon chip can contain 7 billion transistors; each of the chips running in the Venus chamber has 175. Neudeck also uses an old-school transistor design, long since abandoned in conventional microelectronics. It's basically a hyperexpensive, obtuse pocket calculator. But a pocket calculator running on Venus could be valuable indeed. "This is already the complexity of many of the early scientific missions flown back in the '60s and '70s," Neudeck says, and more powerful than the chips on Apollo flight computers. "You really can do science."
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/armed-tough-computer-chips-scientists-are-ready-return-hell-venus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuR5ect-B34
This is not a hat
Snuggly overload.
Yes, I have a cat on my head. Do not wake him, if you want to live...
https://www.boredpanda.com/dog-cat-travelling-cynthia-bennett-baloo-henry/
Yes, I have a cat on my head. Do not wake him, if you want to live...
https://www.boredpanda.com/dog-cat-travelling-cynthia-bennett-baloo-henry/
An unseasonal elephant
This elephant has confused Thanksgiving with Halloween.
https://laughingsquid.com/little-elephant-bobs-for-apples/
https://laughingsquid.com/little-elephant-bobs-for-apples/
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