* Posts by graeme leggett

2467 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Oct 2007

Palantir boss says outfit's software the only reason the 'goose step' has not returned to Europe

graeme leggett Silver badge

The Free German Workers' Party (a neo nazi group) was banned in 1995, nothing bad seems to have come of it.

Billions lost to fraud and error during UK's pandemic spending spree

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Re: Oops, we stole it

NICE reckons value of medical interventions as "quality-adjusted life year" and allows £20,000 to £30,000 so any health issues prevented need also be included in the calculation

Government use “value of a prevented fatality" for reckoning an indivdual's 'worth'. At about £2 million (though some think that an undervalue) T&T would only have to save 18,500 lives by my reckoning

Ford pulls the plug on EV strategy as losses pile up

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Re: Once upon a time....

Lloyds seem to be getting their 56% from a survey run for them by BVA BRDC asking if people could charge at home.

graeme leggett Silver badge

In Europe the EU is making it the case that you can use any charge point without needing a specific app.

The benefits of wide-spread coordination. UK is doing similar with Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 so that public charge points 1) offer contactless 2) offer at least one roaming provide 3) 99% reliability

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Once upon a time....

Probably the Andersen report of 2020 on distribution of on-street chargers

While Lloyds Bank put out the word that 56% of homes can support a home charger.

Tesla power steering probe upgraded after thousands more incidents reported

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Well, when it's automatic driving aids were rated by EuroNCAP in 2020, the Tesla 3 got a 2 (Moderate rating). "Assistance Competence" at 35%. which is about half that of Ford Kuga the same year.

Tesla Cybertruck gets cyberstuck during off-roading expedition

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Re: Sports Futility Vehicle

For a contemporary off-road vehicle, wheeled though not electric and rear wheel drive only, this (I think) would be hard to beat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scammell_Pioneer

40 years since Elite became the most fun you could have with 22 kilobytes

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As covered in a book

Elite is one chapter in "Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin" by Francis Spufford. The idea of a universe that can be unpacked from a much shorter string of data is quite compelling

An entertaining, not overly technical read

The New ROM Antics – building the ZX Spectrum 128

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Re: "their substantial egos"

Tim Harford's analysis certainly makes you rethink the context. Ratner was successful at delivering what the customers wanted, even if what the customers wanted was nothing special.

Road to Removal: A blueprint for yanking billions of tons of CO2 out of our atmosphere

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Re: start preparing ourselves for an inevitable further rise in sea level

If Siberia defrosts, that brings a different issue - the release of methane, which is more of a greenhouse gas than CO2 than it has a shorter life.

Philips recalls 340 MRI machines because they may explode in an emergency

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Re: If you aren't full of shrapnel you will probably suffocate

Davros was hovering in 1985 (Revelation of the Daleks) but it wasn't that clear from the video effects

EU launches investigation into X under Digital Services Act

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Re: Ministry of Truth

"While contracting COVID-19 increased the risk of preterm birth between 2020 and 2022, researchers found that the risk largely disappeared by the end of 2022.

This was due in part to the widespread uptake of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, which helped to boost the population’s immunity."

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/impact-covid-19-infections-vaccines-preterm-birth

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Ministry of Truth

Off licence prescribing is permitted by healthcare professionals but they take more of the risk on themselves if they do so.

Off licence usage by non-healthcare professionals for self-treatment is dangerous. For a start, all the directions and warnings on the licensed product are for its use in the licensed indication and the particular usage directions; the safety profile outside those conditions is unlikely to be known.

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Ministry of Truth

It is suitable for human use for treating parasitic infections. It is not licenced for treating Covid.

It is trivial to locate a CDC advisory from late 2021 which says "Ivermectin is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved prescription medication used to treat certain infections caused by internal and external parasites. ...During the COVID-19 pandemic, ivermectin dispensing by retail pharmacies has increased, as has use of veterinary formulations available over the counter but not intended for human use...

Adverse effects associated with ivermectin misuse and overdose are increasing, as shown by a rise in calls to poison control centers reporting overdoses and more people experiencing adverse effects...."

So the US authorities were acknowledging its uses while warning against use of products intended for animal treatment.

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Ministry of Truth

You're offering up the possibility of some unspecified future effect against the fact that infection with Covid in pregnancy is definitely associated with premature birth

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Ministry of Truth

In the USA , Ivermectin is used to treat animals since the parasite that causes river blindness is in sub-Saharan Africa.

Hence reference to animal de-wormers

To infinity and ... just over the Atlantic

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Re: Focus of the report

My impression also. The government's position on space launches revolves around the regulatory framework for people to try to launch spacecraft

Failure for the rocket to do it what the owner wanted is Virgin's issue. That it didn't fall on any part of the UK is a success for the UK

Tesla to remote patch 2M vehicles after damning Autopilot safety probe

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Re: Autopilot may undermine the effectiveness of the driver's supervision

I'd hope it knew when the wheel was upside down so that the indicator button now on the left side still indicated left but I would still prefer stalks for indicators, main beam, wipers....

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: "recall"

Or ordered to turn off the 'feature' until fixed. (Obviously after the vehicle has come to rest)

Though owners might get a bit narked at realising functionality could be removed at whim of manufacturer.

Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

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Re: Not difficult

there have already been cases where High Court in UK has determined that plumbers were not self-employed contractors but actually "workers" with certain rights eg Pimlico Plumbers Ltd and Mullins v Smith

Tesla says California's Autopilot action violates its free speech rights

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Re: Musk Response

Debate? He's a master at it.

Swedish Tesla strike goes international as Norwegian and Danish unions join in

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Re: Exactly what destroyed the UK car industry

FWIW

After the war, UK was the second biggest car manufacturing nation and the majority of output was destined for export to earn foreign currency. Cars were also subject to around 45% purchase tax. until 1960s (from 1947 expensive cars had 66% purchase tax)

I also just found that British production capacity in 1962 was one million cars more than was actually built

World's largest nuclear fusion reactor comes online in Japan

graeme leggett Silver badge

You skipped part of the original news story in your eagerness to selectively quote.

"The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and December brought only moderate snowfall in the South-east. It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years: in the south of England, for instance, from 1970 to 1995 snow and sleet fell for an average of 3.7 days, while from 1988 to 1995 the average was 0.7 days. London's last substantial snowfall was in February 1991"

and

"Fen skating, once a popular sport on the fields of East Anglia, now takes place on indoor artificial rinks. Malcolm Robinson, of the Fenland Indoor Speed Skating Club in Peterborough, says they have not skated outside since 1997. "As a boy, I can remember being on ice most winters. Now it's few and far between," he said."

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: ITER and JT

try this from Up and Atom channel (it's not just physics)

"World's Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor!"

https://youtu.be/A5RxUW7VC-A?si=8k7S5emwOMIDtfrU

Honda cooks up an electric motorbike menu, with sides of connectivity

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Re: NC range

You could say pre-unit (ie separate gearbox) motorcycles had that.

And then there were the composite machines - Norton frame plus Triumph engine being one

Surface Duo crashes the party as Doctor Who celebrates 60th birthday

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Re: Disney will kill The Doctor more surely than The Daleks ever could

Deus ex machina is RTD's usual way of resolving episodes.

What we are getting is more of RTD's previous Doctor Who style with better budgets.

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Re: Jodie Whittaker...

A big issue with Whitaker's stories was her having to explain through speech rather than showing the audience, and that often she lacked agency.

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Tom Baker

Where to start - impossible to say because everyone is different and the show changed over the years. Even with a comprehensive psychological profile and a breakdown of the contents of your bookshelf and your DVD collection, it could be difficult to predict what you would enjoy.

You could do worse than pick a few to dip into from one of the ranking lists of Doctor Who episodes. At the very least, the ones near the top will be 'better' than the ones near the middle and you should avoid the ones at the bottom of the list until you've found if you even like the higher ranked ones.

Europe's Ariane 6 rocket rated 'ready to rumble' after passing hot fire test

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tres bon

SpaceX celebrates Starship launch as a success – even with the explosion

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Re: The other guys.

On the other hand, Ariane have had over 250 launches since late 1970s with about ten losses. Which suggests they know what they are doing

SpaceX's Starship on the roster for Texas takeoff

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Is it just me

Or does 63 corrective actions sound like a lot?

Google dragged to UK watchdog over Chrome's upcoming IP address cloaking

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Re: Now we need open first stage proxies

How about leaving Google off the first hop proxy list entirely....

UK signals legal changes to self-driving vehicle liabilities

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Re: Why?

the self-driving cars wont' stop in the yellow boxes, will signal to each other their turning intentions, not stop obscuring side roads, leave adequate braking distance and so on.

The traffic will flow much better than with us egotistical and fallable humans at the wheel

YouTube cares less for your privacy than its revenues

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Re: Their Own Worst Enemy

And that's how we got the Daily Mail

X looks back at year of so-called 'engineering excellence' under Musk

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Re: He's hopeful

Lots of crypto fans on Twitter who think Musk is some sort of anointed one - they'll trust him, though they shouldn't.

CEO Satya Nadella thinks Microsoft hung up on Windows Phone too soon

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Re: He's right, and it is his fault...

The commute element of Here was a good idea. It knew your regular routes so it didn't try to give you turn guidance, it showed the traffic on the routes and gave you a predicted arrival time.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is now available ... if you pre-ordered

graeme leggett Silver badge

In the interview with Kevin McAleer he did say that a lot of output went into industry rather than hobbyists

But the Pi Zero is still <£20, the Pi Pico is <£5, and the Pi3 is <£25.

Boris Johnson's mad hydrogen for homes bubble bursts

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Re: Hydrogen in pipes

polyethylene

The replacement of iron gas pipes with plastic has reduced methane leakage and its contribution to global warming

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Hydrogen in pipes

Town gas mostly ran gas lighting and a bit of cooking rather than heating? Including public lighting

In 1969 domestic town gas use peaked at around 88,000 GWh

By 1979 domestic methane use was about 240,000 GWH (town gas was about 600 GWh)

(from "Historical gas data: gas production and consumption and fuel input" gov.uk)

Gas usage expanded with availability of North Sea supply. We need to get a lot more gas moving now compared to then.

graeme leggett Silver badge

Re: Capacity

That's the Nirvana Fallacy in action - you seem to be saying heat pumps aren't perfect so we have to have to replace gas with H2.

Also Strawman because no on asks you to knock down the chimney because you aren't using it

The conservation rules are created by law and can be modified by law. to permit heatpumps etc

Want a clean energy transition? Better start putting cash into electrical grid

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Re: It's not even 2024 and 1.5C is already slipping away...

Thr 1970s ice age predictions were what some were saying. Others at time were saying warming was the trend. And the latter were right.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-climate-science-really-call-for-a-coming-ice-age/

Nvidia boss tells Israeli staff Mellanox founder's daughter was killed in festival massacre

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The reasons are complex but 8 was a peak, it has fallen to 4 since then.

AI girlfriend encouraged man to attempt crossbow assassination of Queen

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" Queen of England "

C'mon. This is too much West Atlanticism.

I'm not saying we have to go full "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith" but at least no 'Queen/King of England' malarkey

UK and Japan space agencies team for orbital telemetry network

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Re: JAXA provide transmitter, antenna development, integrating service into ground infrastructure

The UKSA has the money in the form of the International Bilateral Fund which in this case seems to be linked to the Viasat side of things.

Japan confirms ¥192 billion will flow to help Micron build Hiroshima plant

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Comparing chips to crisps?

"The $1.3 billion Japan will send Micron's way is tiny compared to the $52.7 billion the US government's CHIPS Act will dole out, or the €43 billion($47 billion) fund created by the European Union's efforts"

But this is just for a single plant while EU and USA are spreading their money over many locations?

Big Brother is coming to a workplace near you, and the privacy regulator wants a word

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Re: "or offsite [...]outside work hours.

ICO on "should"

"Should does not refer to a legislative requirement, but what we expect you to do to comply effectively with the law. You should do this unless there is a good reason not to. If you choose to take a different approach, you must be able to demonstrate that this approach also complies with the law."

UK splashes £4B to dive into next-gen nuclear submarines

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Nomenclature

Don't we Brits still call these "fleet submarines"?

Musk's first year as Twitter's Dear Leader is nigh

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Re: "Twitter had what no company could buy, with Forbes estimating the brand name's worth at $4bn."

Let me see, if I have this right...

He paid 44 billion to save 1 billion a year?

graeme leggett Silver badge

IF the brand alone WAS worth $4bn

graeme leggett Silver badge

Going downhill fast, and so is Twitter

Elon's recent tweets appear to be

1) posting a straightout antivax meme

2) Anti-Ukraine

3) promotion of anti-immigrant narrative

4) promotion of the right-wing AfD party in Germany