Posts by Richard Ball

Re: Clippy dead

Yep.

Metal fatigue.

Re: It's a hoax, people.

Yes. Two microphones won't give enough location information to do what this appears to do.

Nice film though, good model and good marketing.

Re: @KJ re downvoting

So you float around, trying to say things that people will all agree with, never anything that could offend or provoke a click on the red button.

Lib Dem by any chance??

It's fine when people agree, but that's not really the point of these fora.

Re: Lies....

If you're the boss, yes it is.

Re: Expensive?

I realise the competitors are similar in price.

It's expensive relative to a phone I can use to talk to people on, or a month's disposable salary, or an alternative device that does some of the stuff I'd quite like an iphone for.

Re: Yikes!

It's not unbalanced mains supplies that make that happen - it's because there is a small capacitive coupling between the output DC and the mean voltage of the input pins at any given time. So with the neutral pin at or near ground-potential and live going between plus and minus 230V (RMS), the mean will alternate between plus and minus 115V with respect to ground. The output DC is lightly coupled to this mean through the very small capacitance of the transformer in the SMPSU, so it normally doesn't take much to hold the output near ground potential. i.e. a small current to ground easily defeats its ability to exhibit a high voltage.

With no earthing in a PSU, I believe this effect is expected to some degree whether the PSU is good or cheap.

If alternatively you ran the SMPSU on AC that had both pins alternating about zero, like the RLV supplies that building site tools run on, then the average voltage would always be close to zero and the whole effect would be history.

I always wonder whether the visible sparks that jump around when I plug HDMI cables between the boxes by my telly are really a sign of good engineering ...

Re: I'll believe in climate change

That's a nice point, but don't let your own conviction depend upon an Nth order result of the actions of some politicians. There are better ways for us to learn about the climate.

Re: Shamoon

It's Proper Bo.

Re: Still using my £120 AAO first series

They would probably fit in and work, especially if you spend £2 on a longer ribbon from ebay.

A year or so ago I considered exactly what you're considering, and I then chose the path described because:

I preferred to spend my pennies on something that was generic and would fit in other machines if desired...

Wanted to buy something that was itself in a competitive market and therefore - hopefully - would be good value for money and good performance (ahem Corsair I'm looking at you)....

Wanted to get something that was twice the capacity for the same £60 or £70.....

Didn't want to risk getting a small and wierd bespoke device that maybe worked poorly and was useless for other applications.

I had decided that the machine as it was had zero monetary value (It was sitting gathering dust with dead SSD and I needed Windows) and I was confident that the SATA port was going to work for me and my soldering.

BTW I had to use a SATA power connector too - that came from a PSU. And some hot glue to hold the wires in place. And some tape. And I had to chisel away some internal plastic lumps and bumps.

If doing it again I'd consider soldering wires direct to the SSD rather than struggling to adapt and fit in the SATA plugs and shielded cables. Obviously contributes to the whole warranty issue.

Re: Wot, no 3G?

Given the trouble I see trying to find a working 3G signal in a British town, what are the chances that he'll find he has LOS to a 3G base station within the requisite 20m, there in the countryside of the developing world?

(giffgaff: it's crap, but feel the cheapness.)

Re: Thread?

If you're a person who spends all his time creating facetious crap about Apple, then you probably think that's as good a shape as any for a screw thread. Never mind that 200+ years of industrial technology has other ideas - this is Apple and they redefine everything.

Plus, this thread has rounded corners :o)

Re: Want.

Come on now - do it properly.

Duvet.

Re: It's great to see this project taking shape

This is the free world, not America!

Re: The Weetabix ad

IIRC that's the Munch Bunch.

Re: Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Yes. Despite the apparent high production values of their videos, I am not inspired to rate them above the status of "bunch of dicks".

If I were trying to run a web-based business they'd be dicks I'd try and keep away from. However I'm not and their home movies just don't convince me that they're ooooh-scary Bond-villains.

Re: Arresting is over the top but...

What he meant was:

"It's all very easy to..."

(all very well does not mean it's good, it's approved of.)

Or perhaps a sports car without a roof.

Re: Cool

If you jumped from a platform that is in a circlar (i.e. elliptical) orbit, you'd just go into an adjacent orbit whose shape is a slightly different ellipse.

You wouldn't just keep descending or ascending. To do that takes a load of work.

So after 27 hours your new orbit will have diverged from the original somewhat in its position, but it will not have accumulated a gross difference in height or speed.

If you find you're going faster / lower when over the UK, chances are you'll be going slower and/or higher 45 minutes later when you're over Oz.

re: cool>30

Yes, we're well wicked.

Re: Tests?

Add to that list the effect of trying to run multiple networks of similar / other powerline gear on the same / nearby wiring.

Re: YAY!

Picked mine up from the post office this morning.

Farnell included a wicked t-shirt too.

Will be trying out Raspbmc this evening.

Yes, they reckoned he sounded a bit foreign or girly or something.

I wish someone would release a decent DVD of it - mine only have mono sound and apparently there were 20 minutes of the original cut that were thrown away.

I was going to write some software to try and combine the compressed-but-stereo sound track from the laserdisc with the faithful-but-mono sound from the DVD, but then decided that time is a precious commodity and not to be pissed away quite as pointlessly.

Re: Moon vs really big asteroid

If it's orbiting a planet then might be moon.

If it's orbiting some random lump of rock in a highly elliptical orbit...

that was named after a fictitious dog...

Epson

Keep the nozzles, the others replace them.

This may well not be the whole story, but it's near enough for a first approximation.

Re: What about Chocky?

Triffids.

It tastes of crocodile, which itself tastes of chicken, so that's a yes.

Re: Picture - bottom of Page 3

Yellow Pages

Re: Faster then light is overrated

When you say Gravity Assist...

I don't think you can use slingshot off the Earth if you're sharing its orbit round the sun. It could be used to 'convert' your trajectory to some other direction, but probably only with the energy that you've put in with your own engines.

Unlike say Voyager, that approached one planet from the position of another, thus encountering a massive object travelling at huge orbital speed though space and made use of that by stealing a little bit of its momentum. Whereas if you're already sharing that orbital trajectory, cos you've just popped across from the moon, then it probably doesn't give you anything.

Re: Well said Lewis

If you walk around it they'll make you wear a hat with a little wind turbine on it.

Re: Why bother?

Or a decent product from a decent company.