Plimer and Silicon Chip

On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:35:02 -0400, Michael A. Terrell wrote:


The world bitched about the US involvement in WWI, which lead to a
short isolationist period. Then they bitched about that.
Click to expand...
Nope, we just point out they were part of the solution and not THE
solutions. Whereas USAians think we should be eternally kissing their
arse because they showed up.
 
Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Davo" <Dave@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4acec021$1_6@news.peopletelecom.com.au...
terryc wrote:
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:35:02 -0400, Michael A. Terrell wrote:


The world bitched about the US involvement in WWI, which lead to a
short isolationist period. Then they bitched about that.
Nope, we just point out they were part of the solution and not THE
solutions. Whereas USAians think we should be eternally kissing their
arse because they showed up.
It's only the deterrent effect of having America standing behind us that
Australia hasn't been invaded by other countries. Australia wouldn't stand
a chance on its own. It's cool to be anti-establishment but totally
unrealistic to think we don't depend on America for our security. China
would be here in a flash otherwise.

**Bollocks. Until recently, China lacked the firepower, though it does have
the personel. Indonesia doesn't have it. Like it or lump it, Australia has
the most firepower in the immediate region (China excepted). For now.


So could China beat us or not?
Click to expand...
 
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
keithr wrote:
On 8/10/2009 8:43 PM, Davo wrote:
terryc wrote:
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:48:33 +1100, David L. Jones wrote:


How can being able to almost completely wipe out the human race within a
matter of hours or days at the push of a button, NOT be the biggest
threat facing this planet?
Well, there are only two militaries involved with this theorectical
capacity. The Russians who have a decrepit and unreliable system and
The USA who so far have cocked up every war (including independence)
they entered unless someone else was wiping their arse and helping them.

You must read different history books to mine, if it wasn't for the
Americans entering WWII England would be speaking German and Australia
would be talking Japanese.
It was the Russians more than the Yanks that defeated the Germans.
Whether the Japanese could have invaded Australia is moot, they had
pretty well run out of steam before they got here. It was, of course the
Yanks who mainly defeated the Japanese, but they didn't do it on their own.


The Russians, using American built planes and supplies. Read up on
the 'Lend - Lease' program where America supplied ammunition, weapons,
fuel, food and medicine to the Allies during WWII. England couldn't
get their Merlins off the ground without the special high octane
gasoline available from a Texas refinery. Then read about the amount of
Penicillin, Magnetrons, and other items that no one else could build in
the needed quantities. America supplied over half of the ammunition
used by the Allies during WWII

Finally, read the MIT 'RadLabs' series of books to see how much of
modern electronics was developed by the US during WWII. it is over 750
MB of scanned material.

http://cer.ucsd.edu/~james/notes/MIT%20OpenCourseWare/MIT%20Radiation%20Lab/


Not to mention THE bomb.
Click to expand...
 
On 9/10/2009 10:03 AM, Mark Harriss wrote:
David L. Jones wrote:
Japan are sitting on a stock of something like 50tons of Plutonium,
enough to make thousands of weapons. And the capacity to make untold
more, like 80tons projected in the next year or two (that's more Pu
than the entire US arsenal). They are the new Pu global powerhouse.
Once they go nuclear (and their aversion to nuke weapons is shinking
to zero), the whole deck of playing cards starts to fall.

Dave.



They're only a threat to themselves so long as they pull stunts like
trying to overload their enrichment plants by pouring extra material in
with buckets and wondering why it suddenly goes critical.

The Japanese have even designed apartment block "Basement Reactors"
that the building supervisor will "maintain" and refuel by emptying
balls of fuel into the reactor vessel. A similar prototype sucked a ball
into the cooling water pipe and blocked the cooling.
Click to expand...
Pebble bed reactors are *supposed* to be immune to overheating. If they
get too hot the reaction shuts down. I'm not sure that you'd let one be
maintained by the janitor though, and I'm not sure that they scale down
to basement size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
 
On 9/10/2009 1:29 AM, KR wrote:
On Oct 8, 9:50 pm, keithr<kei...@nowhere.com.au> wrote:
On 8/10/2009 11:48 AM, David L. Jones wrote:

Sure, I agree.
But you have to look at my critisim in context to "Peter K"s post at which
my comments are directed.
He criticised the magazines content, of which he claims to be quite capable
of contributing to. He even mentioned he would be happy to contribute, but
then chucked a hissy when he found out SC won't pay his consulting like fees
(LOL!). Anyone who just criticises something but is in a position to help
change for the better, deserves a serve in my book.

Dave.

My main critisism of SC is that, now so many projects are microprocessor
based, mostly they do not include the source code. In the "Old days" you
could build a project from a magazine either straight as published, or
modify is as you saw fit. Now, the hardware in many cases is simply the
framework that lets the firmware do the job. Without the source code,
there is no option but to build exactly as specified, and it is all just
a soldering exercise.

A lot of their projects simply wouldn't be able to exist, or be too
expensive / complex/ time consuming to build / have fewer features /
draw more power without the use of a micro.
Projects now have to be more exciting and feature packed to get people
interested in building or even reading about them. People are too used
to that with consumer products and expect as much as possible in the
way of features etc.
Click to expand...
I'm not complaining about the use of micros, just that without the
source code, you only have a fraction of the design. The circuit diagram
shows very little of how the thing works and if you want to modify the
functionality, you are pretty well stuffed.

Probably a set of articles on programming some of the more popular
microprocessors would be an excellent thing for them to publish.

They did do a beginners series on PIC programming a while back, though
not in assembly language.
showed how to interface LEDs Temperature/light sensors, I think even a
RS232 link between 2 PICS - all laid out on a breadboard with plenty
of diagrams, drawings and instructions so that even an inexperienced
person couldn't really get it wrong.

On some of the more basic microprocessor projects source code is
available from their website.

It might possibly even have had an I2 sqared bus on that IIRC and
details on the protocol for talking to the serial Flash Rams etc. (I
cant remember if that was a PIC or something else, it was on a small
PCB board that included a lithium coin cell. They also did a
detailed article on how the I2 squared bus works in detail, including
the protocols involved in all the data transfer modes.

These days it seems to be mostly PIC and AVR in common use by SC.
There are many websites out there with a wealth of info on these.
Click to expand...
If it was within the last 5 years, I must have missed it, prior to that
I was out of the country for a bit over 5 years so I wouldn't have seen it.

It would probably be way too big an article to put in SC, remembering
also that 99% of people would probably not have a clue exactly what
goes on in a microprocessor, and this may be hard to explain to a lot
of the target audience, let alone following up on teaching them how to
code something useful out of it without enormous frustration at the
bugs that will inevitibly occur.

Some of the projects in that mag would be major tasks to code for even
reasonably experienced people - especially if the micro involved isn't
one they have experience in already.
Click to expand...
The thing about tinkering with the microcode is that in the ordinary way
of things you can't break anything and if you stuff it up you can always
flash the original code back in.
 
On 8/10/2009 11:17 PM, Phil Allison wrote:
"keithr"

My main critisism of SC is that, now so many projects are microprocessor
based, mostly they do not include the source code. In the "Old days" you
could build a project from a magazine either straight as published, or
modify is as you saw fit. Now, the hardware in many cases is simply the
framework that lets the firmware do the job. Without the source code,
there is no option but to build exactly as specified, and it is all just a
soldering exercise.


** Bob Parker's most famous " ESR Meter " article did not include the
source code.

Cos no-one alive could make head nor tale of it if he did include it.
Click to expand...
Speak for yourself Phil :)

But Bob WAS able exercise some control over kit suppliers because of
that.

Cept for that *appalling* Rod Irving character.

RIP.


Probably a set of articles on programming some of the more popular
microprocessors would be an excellent thing for them to publish.


** Pathway straight into to hell and bankruptcy is that idea.
Click to expand...
Why would that be?
 
On 9/10/2009 12:11 AM, terryc wrote:
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:50:48 +1100, keithr wrote:


Probably a set of articles on programming some of the more popular
microprocessors would be an excellent thing for them to publish.

Must be a decade ago(?) that they did an intro to something (smaller than
PC micro).

Aha, that why I didn't see it, I was living in the US at that time.
Click to expand...
 
On 9/10/2009 4:32 PM, Davo wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
keithr wrote:
On 8/10/2009 8:43 PM, Davo wrote:
terryc wrote:
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:48:33 +1100, David L. Jones wrote:


How can being able to almost completely wipe out the human race
within a
matter of hours or days at the push of a button, NOT be the biggest
threat facing this planet?
Well, there are only two militaries involved with this theorectical
capacity. The Russians who have a decrepit and unreliable system and
The USA who so far have cocked up every war (including independence)
they entered unless someone else was wiping their arse and helping
them.

You must read different history books to mine, if it wasn't for the
Americans entering WWII England would be speaking German and Australia
would be talking Japanese.
It was the Russians more than the Yanks that defeated the Germans.
Whether the Japanese could have invaded Australia is moot, they had
pretty well run out of steam before they got here. It was, of course the
Yanks who mainly defeated the Japanese, but they didn't do it on
their own.


The Russians, using American built planes and supplies. Read up on
the 'Lend - Lease' program where America supplied ammunition, weapons,
fuel, food and medicine to the Allies during WWII. England couldn't
get their Merlins off the ground without the special high octane
gasoline available from a Texas refinery. Then read about the amount of
Penicillin, Magnetrons, and other items that no one else could build in
the needed quantities. America supplied over half of the ammunition
used by the Allies during WWII

Finally, read the MIT 'RadLabs' series of books to see how much of
modern electronics was developed by the US during WWII. it is over 750
MB of scanned material.

http://cer.ucsd.edu/~james/notes/MIT%20OpenCourseWare/MIT%20Radiation%20Lab/



Not to mention THE bomb.
Click to expand...
Largely developed by dissident german scientists.
 
On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:46:27 +0800, Davo wrote:


It's only the deterrent effect of having America standing behind us that
Australia hasn't been invaded by other countries.
Click to expand...
What deterent? The treaty is worth less as paper than toilet paper.

Australia wouldn't stand a chance on its own.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, probably true. Our population is unarmed, our military
handicapped by crap USAian military goods and the general population is a
dependent bunch of idiots.

totally unrealistic to think we don't depend on America for our
security.
Click to expand...
We don't.

China would be here in a flash otherwise.
Click to expand...
Economically, China is already here and has been since gold was
discovered (majority chinese population then). Now, they are slowly
becoming the dominant overseas shareholder and slowly replacin the USA.

Militarily, China hasn't demonstrated the capacity to translocate a
significant force a few thousand miles across the sea. Big difference
from pretty boys goose stepping in the square to fighting OS.
 
On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:30:33 +0800, Davo wrote:


So could China beat us or not?
Click to expand...
At home, probably not.
The big question is how well can city bred people take to guerilla
warfare?
 
On Oct 9, 4:49 pm, keithr <kei...@nowhere.com.au> wrote:
On 9/10/2009 10:03 AM, Mark Harriss wrote:



David L. Jones wrote:
Japan are sitting on a stock of something like 50tons of Plutonium,
enough to make thousands of weapons. And the capacity to make untold
more, like 80tons projected in the next year or two (that's more Pu
than the entire US arsenal). They are the new Pu global powerhouse.
Once they go nuclear (and their aversion to nuke weapons is shinking
to zero), the whole deck of playing cards starts to fall.

Dave.

They're only a threat to themselves so long as they pull stunts like
trying to overload their enrichment plants by pouring extra material in
with buckets and wondering why it suddenly goes critical.

The Japanese have even designed apartment block "Basement Reactors"
that the building supervisor will "maintain" and refuel by emptying
balls of fuel into the reactor vessel. A similar prototype sucked a ball
into the cooling water pipe and blocked the cooling.

Pebble bed reactors are *supposed* to be immune to overheating. If they
get too hot the reaction shuts down. I'm not sure that you'd let one be
maintained by the janitor though, and I'm not sure that they scale down
to basement size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
Click to expand...

That or something very similar was shown on a TV science program
(probably that one on the ABC on Thursday nights) in the last year or
so as a "Chinese" safe nuclear technology breakthrough.

The only problem was the cost involved in building/maintaining it when
compared to traditional nuclear power stations.
 
On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:58:57 +1100, keithr wrote:

On 9/10/2009 12:11 AM, terryc wrote:
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:50:48 +1100, keithr wrote:


Probably a set of articles on programming some of the more popular
microprocessors would be an excellent thing for them to publish.

Must be a decade ago(?) that they did an intro to something (smaller
than PC micro).

Aha, that why I didn't see it, I was living in the US at that time.
Click to expand...
Someone has twigged my memory. I think it was a PIC controller project
for opening a chook shed door on sunrise and closing it at sunset.
Probably other stuff since as I stopped buying it soon after.

The problem with microprocessor stuff is that there are too many flavours
of the small stuff and build your own gets very complicated, messy and
expensive very fast. At some point, it shifts into "programming" rather
than electronics. Then it becomes a question of how deep your pockets are
unless you are a skilled machinist to make actuators, etc.
 
"Davo" <Dave@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4aceca78_6@news.peopletelecom.com.au...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Davo" <Dave@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4acec021$1_6@news.peopletelecom.com.au...
terryc wrote:
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:35:02 -0400, Michael A. Terrell wrote:


The world bitched about the US involvement in WWI, which lead to a
short isolationist period. Then they bitched about that.
Nope, we just point out they were part of the solution and not THE
solutions. Whereas USAians think we should be eternally kissing their
arse because they showed up.
It's only the deterrent effect of having America standing behind us that
Australia hasn't been invaded by other countries. Australia wouldn't
stand a chance on its own. It's cool to be anti-establishment but
totally unrealistic to think we don't depend on America for our
security. China would be here in a flash otherwise.

**Bollocks. Until recently, China lacked the firepower, though it does
have the personel. Indonesia doesn't have it. Like it or lump it,
Australia has the most firepower in the immediate region (China
excepted). For now.


So could China beat us or not?
Click to expand...
**Depends on their aims. Three or four well placed nukes and we're pretty
much screwed. A full on invasion, occupation and subjugation would be very
difficult for any military force. But, to answer your question: Yes, China
could pretty much beat us now. 10 years ago would have been a very different
situation. It's all academic. When they're wealthy enough (10 years),
they'll just buy the infrastructure they want. Successive Australian
governments are too stupid to notice that dictatorships cannot be dealt with
like regular companies (witness: Optus). The present government is no
different. They'll allow precious, irreplacable infrastructure to be sold
off to anyone.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au
 
keithr wrote:
On 9/10/2009 4:32 PM, Davo wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
keithr wrote:
On 8/10/2009 8:43 PM, Davo wrote:
terryc wrote:
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:48:33 +1100, David L. Jones wrote:


How can being able to almost completely wipe out the human race
within a
matter of hours or days at the push of a button, NOT be the biggest
threat facing this planet?
Well, there are only two militaries involved with this theorectical
capacity. The Russians who have a decrepit and unreliable system and
The USA who so far have cocked up every war (including independence)
they entered unless someone else was wiping their arse and helping
them.

You must read different history books to mine, if it wasn't for the
Americans entering WWII England would be speaking German and Australia
would be talking Japanese.
It was the Russians more than the Yanks that defeated the Germans.
Whether the Japanese could have invaded Australia is moot, they had
pretty well run out of steam before they got here. It was, of course
the
Yanks who mainly defeated the Japanese, but they didn't do it on
their own.


The Russians, using American built planes and supplies. Read up on
the 'Lend - Lease' program where America supplied ammunition, weapons,
fuel, food and medicine to the Allies during WWII. England couldn't
get their Merlins off the ground without the special high octane
gasoline available from a Texas refinery. Then read about the amount of
Penicillin, Magnetrons, and other items that no one else could build in
the needed quantities. America supplied over half of the ammunition
used by the Allies during WWII

Finally, read the MIT 'RadLabs' series of books to see how much of
modern electronics was developed by the US during WWII. it is over 750
MB of scanned material.

http://cer.ucsd.edu/~james/notes/MIT%20OpenCourseWare/MIT%20Radiation%20Lab/




Not to mention THE bomb.

Largely developed by dissident german scientists.
Click to expand...
So was it used by the Germans or the Americans?
 
terryc wrote:
On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:46:27 +0800, Davo wrote:


It's only the deterrent effect of having America standing behind us that
Australia hasn't been invaded by other countries.

What deterent? The treaty is worth less as paper than toilet paper.

Australia wouldn't stand a chance on its own.

Unfortunately, probably true. Our population is unarmed, our military
handicapped by crap USAian military goods and the general population is a
dependent bunch of idiots.

totally unrealistic to think we don't depend on America for our
security.

We don't.

China would be here in a flash otherwise.

Economically, China is already here and has been since gold was
discovered (majority chinese population then). Now, they are slowly
becoming the dominant overseas shareholder and slowly replacin the USA.

Militarily, China hasn't demonstrated the capacity to translocate a
significant force a few thousand miles across the sea. Big difference
from pretty boys goose stepping in the square to fighting OS.
Click to expand...
So could China beat Australia or not?
 
terryc wrote:
On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:30:33 +0800, Davo wrote:


So could China beat us or not?

At home, probably not.
The big question is how well can city bred people take to guerilla
warfare?
Click to expand...
So I take it that's a no.
 
terryc wrote:
On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:58:57 +1100, keithr wrote:

On 9/10/2009 12:11 AM, terryc wrote:
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:50:48 +1100, keithr wrote:


Probably a set of articles on programming some of the more popular
microprocessors would be an excellent thing for them to publish.
Must be a decade ago(?) that they did an intro to something (smaller
than PC micro).

Aha, that why I didn't see it, I was living in the US at that time.

Someone has twigged my memory. I think it was a PIC controller project
for opening a chook shed door on sunrise and closing it at sunset.
Probably other stuff since as I stopped buying it soon after.

The problem with microprocessor stuff is that there are too many flavours
of the small stuff and build your own gets very complicated, messy and
expensive very fast. At some point, it shifts into "programming" rather
than electronics. Then it becomes a question of how deep your pockets are
unless you are a skilled machinist to make actuators, etc.
Click to expand...
In industry PLC or computer control is pretty much the norm these days.
 
Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Davo" <Dave@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4aceca78_6@news.peopletelecom.com.au...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Davo" <Dave@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4acec021$1_6@news.peopletelecom.com.au...
terryc wrote:
On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:35:02 -0400, Michael A. Terrell wrote:


The world bitched about the US involvement in WWI, which lead to a
short isolationist period. Then they bitched about that.
Nope, we just point out they were part of the solution and not THE
solutions. Whereas USAians think we should be eternally kissing their
arse because they showed up.
It's only the deterrent effect of having America standing behind us that
Australia hasn't been invaded by other countries. Australia wouldn't
stand a chance on its own. It's cool to be anti-establishment but
totally unrealistic to think we don't depend on America for our
security. China would be here in a flash otherwise.
**Bollocks. Until recently, China lacked the firepower, though it does
have the personel. Indonesia doesn't have it. Like it or lump it,
Australia has the most firepower in the immediate region (China
excepted). For now.


So could China beat us or not?

**Depends on their aims. Three or four well placed nukes and we're pretty
much screwed. A full on invasion, occupation and subjugation would be very
difficult for any military force. But, to answer your question: Yes, China
could pretty much beat us now. 10 years ago would have been a very different
situation. It's all academic. When they're wealthy enough (10 years),
they'll just buy the infrastructure they want. Successive Australian
governments are too stupid to notice that dictatorships cannot be dealt with
like regular companies (witness: Optus). The present government is no
different. They'll allow precious, irreplacable infrastructure to be sold
off to anyone.
Click to expand...
So was that a yes or a no?
 
terryc wrote:
On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:23:38 +0800, Davo wrote:


So could China beat Australia or not?

Too many variables.
Define "beat".
Click to expand...
Ah, don't worry about it.
 
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