Posts by Chris Miller

Re: re: ICJ

Since 370 journos have spent 5 months searching the records and have failed to identify any illegal behaviour, I think it's unlikely it will be (that and the fact that the ICJ has no jurisdiction in civil matters). The most astounding revelation to date is that dodgy dictators like to hide funds offshore. Wow! Who knew?

@Voland

I fear your medication in in need of adjustment. Continual swearing just makes you sound very childish, as does RANDOM capitalisation - which is perhaps your intent.

Do you still think that submitting to the ECHR is just like signing an international treaty? You may want your laws decided by failed lawyers and third rate academics appointed on some Buggins' turn system from who knows where, but I prefer to have elected representatives, who I can vote to remove if I'm not satisfied with them. Is that too difficult to understand?

Re: wrong

There is nothing in the Koran requiring men to have beards, but it is in the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. Some Muslims argue that the sayings of the Prophet may be reinterpreted to reflect changes in society over the last 1,400 years. Other Muslims say that people who argue this way should be beheaded. You pays your money ...

It's undoubtedly true that in Britain, Muslims are over-represented amongst men with beards, but there is no 1-1 correlation between the two sets.

Re: Electric Cars are not a new invention...

Batteries have been pushing the limits imposed by electrochemistry for decades, which is why over that period we've seen only a few percent improvement in energy density (the key factor). There's no chance of a doubling in performance - that would require a completely new technology (probably not electrochemical). Even if this were discovered tomorrow, it would take another decade of development (at least) before we'd see cars using it.

Re: The elephant in the room...

The battery pack on my PHEV has a 10-year 120,000 mile (200,000 km) warranty. But the web sites are full of tales of EVs being 'bricked' at super-chargers - they need to be towed to the nearest dealer for a quick CTRL-ALT-DEL - though this is covered by warranty, it's still a huge inconvenience.

People who bought this also bought

Samsung LTD

Re: SNMP - Ha-Ha

SNMP = Simply Not My Problem

Re: Chrome's "Pinning" doesn't appear to work

More or less every organisation will do something similar, not because they want to read your billets doux to your significant other, but so they can check that attachments in encrypted emails are free from (obvious) malware. Most security devices come with such a global certificate, which the sysadmins can install on all machines under their control.

Re: Private Eye

If you consult Mr Orlowski's WikP entry, you will find he was (back in the 90s) the Eye's computing correspondent. Almost all Private Eye contributors use pseudonyms and his was Anna Rack.

I have the same experience. A commercial 'cuff' machine, similar to those in the surgery costs about £30. There's no reason why a less absolutely accurate device shouldn't be useful in spotting trends, which could lead you to getting a 'proper' check.

@Steve

Also, electric vehicles can be charged at home, which (for most of us, anyway) can't be said of petrol-powered ones.

I've recently bought an electric car* (plug-in hybrid). It has a 10kW battery giving a pure electric range of "up to" 30 miles (realistically, more like 20). It takes over 5 hours to recharge from empty using a 10A (2.4kW) socket at home - how long would it take to charge a car capable of a realistic 400 mile range (like most internal combustion vehicles)? It's true that I can pay (several hundred pounds, even with subsidies) to have a 16A charger installed, which would cut the time to 3½ hrs, but it hardly seems worth it for a relatively small gain.

Public 'fast' chargers can deliver up to 60kW, but they're designed to stop charging at 80-85% 'full' (my antique A-level physics suggests to me that this is because the battery 'resistance' rises to the point where the heat generated (and energy lost) during charging becomes insupportable - can anyone confirm this idea?) But making such chargers universal would require rewiring every home in the country (and corresponding improvements to electricity generation and distribution)

FWIW I really like the car and it's saving me a lot of money (measured 90 mpg - equivalent to 60 mpg once I include the cost of electricity) and that's for a substantial SUV. There's a Register review (of the old model) here.

* Full disclosure: the decision was almost entirely the result of government subsidies and little to do with any desire to save the planet.

Re: What was going through Clinton's head?

There's no problem with using a private email server for private messages. There's a big problem with using it to deliberately circumvent FoI or to handle classified material. If there's credible evidence for this having happened, it should be tested in court.

@Mattjimf - good guess! Yes, this 'hack' is much more of a problem for pure EVs (as are many other things - range anxiety, for example). Buying one of these vehicles requires careful consideration of your motoring use and how likely it is to change. 20 miles is enough for me to do 90% of my 'normal' motoring on battery alone, and the occasional long trip can still be relatively efficient in hybrid mode. But if you're pulling a 50 mile commute to a spot where there's no recharging facilities, this may not be the car for you (unfortunately, the government's financial incentives apply just the same).

@Teecee Mitsi claim 30 miles electric range, but 25 miles is actually a bit optimistic here in the Chilterns, perhaps if I lived in Holland I might get further!

Do you usually find it 'toxic' to have your preconceptions challenged? For Tim's own pieces there's certainly some NSFW language ("Flatulent Tosspottery" being one of his sections), but there's little in there that wasn't covered at some point in his Reg articles. The comments (largely unmoderated) are a whole 'nuther matter.

Re: Surely it wil average out

It's just the way 'averages' (arithmetic means) work. Consider a 60 mph journey by bike. If you can pedal at 30 mph in a flat calm, you can get there and back (120/30) in 4 hours. Now suppose there's a 10 mph head wind (to be exact, a head wind that slows you down by 10 mph) in one direction (tail wind in the other, of course). So getting there now takes 3 hours (60/20) and getting back takes 1.5 hours (60/40), and your whole journey takes 30 minutes longer.

However, in the real aviation world, as an earlier post suggested, airlines reroute westbound to avoid the jet stream so this simplistic approach is wrong - faster jet streams further reduce travel times eastbound and don't have much effect westbound.

Anecdotal illustration - a flight from Heathrow to New York will usually route out over Liverpool, Ireland and then you won't see any land until Long Island. But I've done the route on a very windy day and ended up going over Greenland (normally only seen on flights to the US west coast) and coming in over the St Lawrence (I could see Quebec City off the starboard side). The flight took an hour or so longer than normal.

@Mikel

If it were a tidal effect, then it would follow a third power law (and anything up to a few hundred light years would be disintegrated). But my gut feel is that it isn't.

Re: Are these apples or oranges?

Internet access isn't a substitute for food, but it may help very poor people reach a point where they can buy food for themselves.