Posts by ted frater

Living in the sticks

Thats us, miles from anywhere, only link is the phone. Nearest other homestead 1 mile away.

We like it, and, realise the buck for everything stops with us, and our farm machinery included.

so we run our lives accordingly.

I cant recall the last time we had an incident here caused by our own lack of care.

I find it more stressful in our local town Poole some 17 miles away.

Anyway I dont really want to know what the us is up to. More useful to all if the article was about the UK.

What about historical fine art?

So I earn my living as a metal artist. I am currently making some plaques that have naked children on them, yes there with the permission of the ~Thorwaldsen museum in copenhagen. The originals were made in 1830. they feature night and day . they have winged cherubs ie children!! in the images.

Am I also prevented from looking at the cherubs on the Sistine chapel ceiling painted by Michaelangelo?

Also I have a print that my father who bought it in Prague in 1930 of a classical photo by a famous artist of a naked lady..

And what about the pictures my mother and father took of me when I was 9 months old in a cot with no clothers on?

What about Rhodin's kiss? and the Rokeby venus? and all the other classical naked images male and female. The 3 graces by Canova?

So where is the line drawn to say beyond this is porn and before it its not?

If the gvmt want people to accept this censorship they will have to define it first. Accurately.

I dont think it can be done.

I will be opting out of this regulation as I need to look up classical art on the net for my vocation.

being off grid

It was some 43 yrs ago i had the choice of sticking in an urban area ie with all main services OR going totally off grid, ie independent for everything a long way out in the UK sticks..

glad i did as theres no point in any meter wether smart or not if there aint any local grid supply to fit it to.

nice being independent.

As to generating power, no problem up to 25kva 240 V and 11kva 3 phase.

To put it simply,

if this article is good enough for the front page of the Register, then the comments should be as well.

Comments on the register are as important as the articles, because theres a lot of old fashioned British common sense out there without which the register in my opinion ,wouldnt be worth going to on a daily basis.

There, ive sorted it for you. Get it right next time. OK?

the last ting I had to do on shutting down my aircraft ,was to throw the ground /flight switch to ground ,and disconnect the ground acc trolley.

Then reverse the process the next time i was due to fly.

When everything was up and running, throw the g/f switch to flight and all was ready to go.

some time ago mind you,4 bigRolls Royce griffons with contra props were always a joy to start up , do the mag drop test to keep the pilot happy.

14 hr sorties over the water wernt funny. My job was to get us there and back.

Dont modern a/liners have g/f switches? seems a common sense thing to do.

Classic keyboard?

Im sorry, but Im going to disagree with your statement in para 4 A classic keyboard.

Its a childs keyboard for heavens sake! The last time a classic keyboard was offered was in the nokia 9210 range with properly spaced keys for proper typing for normal male hands.

also going back a bit further in time has everyone forgotten the Psion 5? again designed for functionality by engineers for professional people who are still out there waiting for a modern hand set with, I say again, a proper sized keyboard.

I know you didnt design the Q10, the problem lies with the execs at B/berry.

Depends what you drive

Classic cars and trucks are cheap to insure,

my 5.5ton circa 1959 truck plus 1 ton caravan@ 30 ft long costs £95.00 pa. albeit a special vehicles classification.(that used to be showman HGV) standard car tax rate

The Zetor 1971 classic tractor for road and farm use costs £35.00 pa. no tax!!

The Suzuki 5 door 1600 petrol fully comp is £250 pa, for daily use.

The PITA is the every 3 yrs full medical for the HGV licence.@ £150.00 my GP charges.

To make you laugh, Had an arrythmia show up only at night. I argued with the DVLA, medical dept.

" I dont drive my HGV at night when im asleep" They approved my HGV licence!!

Dowsing worked for me.

on a sunny spring day back in 1974 i had an appointment at 2.30pm at the poole registry office witha particularly fine maid.

It was a At 1pm I had a chance of a JCB for half an hour to find a well.

I took a coat hanger ,made 2 rods and walked with them out into the field in front of the house.

They crossed at a point some 10 yards from the fence. I walked the spot 2 times to confirm.

I put down a house brick and told the driver to look there.

Off I shot to poole.

On our return with my new missus, there was a well with a cap stone some 3ft below the field level.

we lifted it up and there was a lovely brick lined well of good water.

Use it still today.

I thought Id read what everyone else had to say.Then put my foot in it. Well? you ask a somewhat loaded question, Because its like comparing peas out of the same pod. there to similar to really differentiate much between them.

So my answer is neither, Because for all their clever tricks and fast processors and big screens they just dont do what I need. If Ive said it once ive written it at least a dozen times.I NEED A PROPER BUTTON KEYBOARD Not a glass one.

The clever dicks who design these handsets should be made to do their design work on them. Thy use proper keyboards with proper cad s/ware on proper pc's dont they? they would soon chuck the glass screens in the bin in frustration.

So for the texting i do on my handset I still use a nokia communicator 9210i. Untill the handset makers mend their ways and get their heads out of the sand , they aint getting any of my money.

Take the Blackberry a keyboard for 3yr olds. A bloody insult to anyone else. for that kind of stupidity they deserve to go to the wall.

Form MUST follow function NOT fashion.

And I dont want to hear it costs too much. When you can get a pocket calculator from Tesco for £1.50 with a screen and proper buttons.

I pick up the ringing phone, if its a live caller and a sales droid, i start to bark!!.

then in a high pitched voice tell my doggie to stop picking up the phone and answering it.

More barking! then in the high pitchedvoice I have a long conversation with my dog with him answering as tho he understands.

great fun.

Mr. Cox, the author of this piece should have called it querty for midget hands.

Along with many posters I am sick to death with the handset makers for ignoring a large sector of mobile users who have big hands.

Form should follow function NOT form following fashion.

Which as one can see, has been set by the Iphone.

Nothing wrong with that, except its become a handset makers dream.

Just a screen, a pcb and a body . And to hell with user convenience.

along with this the obsession with thinness at the expense of battery size and run time.

The last time I found a handset that suited ME was the Nokia communicator 9210i.

proper keys, well spaced, and responsive.

Id pay good money for a later handset with a bigger screen and a proper keyboadr,

till it happens the money stays in my pocket.

There are 10s of thousands of us in the UK, and millions world wide .

The handset makers are missing a trick here.

One possibility is a Samsung galaxy note in a fold case with a bluetooth keyboard along side.

Well have to see when they come on the s/h market at a reasonable price to give one a try.

till then Ill continue to use my Nokia.

Seti and intelligent life

Looking at the numbers , Carl Sagan thought that in our own galaxy , the chances of life as we understand it , ie self replicating organisms ,was most probable .

however, it seems to me that the reason we havnt had any tangible results from all the seti analysis thats been done is,

that the leap H sapiens made that other orgasnisms here havnt is our mastery of fire.

that opened up the mastery of metals , which ultimately led to the development/understanding of electricity, and the development of radio communications.

It is still the case we happened to be in the right place at the right time in the evolution time frame here on our lovely blueworld.

A step in the right direction,

OK, so ive big hands,

tired eyes

Hearing isnt so good

but like using a mobile , mainly for the odd call when im away from my land line.

when operating machinery the last thing I need is data on line or emails or anything else except a phone call if its urgent

.Despite trying very hard to talk to Nokia, Samsung and LG to offer to write a specification for a mobile to suit me and others like me they deliberately make it virtually impossible to get in touch with ther design section.

My needs are,

A fold phone ie a flip phone as it has to live in the pocket of my overalls along with tools etc.

Because the case has to be strong to protect the screem and keyboard.

Waterproof,

A loud ring as when im on a tractor I will hear it,

A battery of at least 3500mah, si I will only need to charge it once a week.

A proper keyboard like on the nokia 9210i communicator. decent keys properly spaced.

A decent speaker also like on the communicator.

size , weight bulkyness isnt an issue.

Useability, durability long life

strong construction.

the money is there, and there are millions of us similar folk out there world wide.

I wouldnt have a smart phone even if it was free as it doesnt meet my needs.

Perhaps I should talk to Huawei they seem to want to break the mould of the big operators.

Ted

In Dorset

UK.

Carl Sagan's contact

Any one that has read the book or seen the Film of Carl Sagan's story of "contact" will be ,like me saddened that such a measealy amount of funding has been stopped.

The excitement of finding some intelligent radio signals in the seti programme would put all other news to shame.

Mind you, the chances of finding such signals are really very small,as it would need an intelligent organism to know all about heat, light fire metals alloys vacumns and electromagnetic theory and know how to make a powerful enough radio /tv transmitter to reach across inter stellar space., also have a need to send messages this way to other intelligent organisms in the absence of an easier way.

Thats much more than a quantum leap from finding other life forms on other suitable planets in our galaxy.

I think that we have here on earth a most probaby unique set of circumstances in this moment in time.

Id love to be proved wrong tho!!

A simpler idea

Take the SSD and drop it in the footings of your local building site. pour 2ft of concrete over. build house. we all know what adress it at. but youd need to knock the house down to get at it.

OR, takeit to you local brick works, incorporate in the center of brick. Add to 1000 0thers , fire in kiln .Find it? never!!!

bride of christ?

As a bride of christ, its rather unlikely that the marriage was properly consumated.,unless the mother superior did it with a dildong.So it would makeit easy for the convent to expell her without the need for a long and expensive divorce proceeding.

The marriage would just be anulled.?

Nokia never asked me!!

Ive a box here with 20 or so different phones in it.

None of which meet MY needs.

Recently before Nokia sold itself to the devil, I tried to make contact with Nokia to as if they would make a phone for my needs, the money is here, and in my view there are thousands of folk world wide who would buy what i want too.

What that is ill come to later,

they were virtually impossible to get through to , and didnt even reply to a simple email, when i eventually found an address to write to.

The only phone I can use for the simplest of tasks is their Communicator 9210i.

Because its has the key spacing to suit my hands for texting. No other phone has.

its a folder ie a side acting flip phone with a protected main screen, decent speaker when open on outdoor, so I can hear it when the tractor is running

Im old, with big hands, tired eyes, and partly deaf,

i work in a dirty industrial noisy and frequently wet enviroment.

the phone will live in a pocket with other harware, nuts and bolts etc.

So what would I want in aphone?

a folder, to protect it when not in use.

a kebboard like the 9210i

a screen big like the E61

a battery of 3000mah so it will last at least 2/4 weeks

a clear and loud speaker

solid METAL construction,

Reasonaby waterproof and repairable.

And screwed together , no plastc clips, proper o ring type seals on all joints etc.

Size/ about the same as a HP Jordana ie 3in wide abot 4in long and it can be up to 1in thick.

weight doesnt matter, a it must be on a strong lanyard .

The sonim is agood phone but I cant use it, keys too small.

they dont answer the phone on their uk no either.

Perhaps I should get someone in China to make it for me and ill sell it and make a fortune!!

Folk like us dont ponse around in offices with an iphone as a personal ego prop.

It wouldnt last 5 mins in my life, and I wouldnt have one if it were free.

If im concentrating on driving or plowing or whatever I dont need email on the go, or news feed or anything like that. For cthose needs i like to sit down infront of my nice IBM thinkpad with a decent screen and top quality keyboard to do emails ,letters etc.

Ted

in

Dorset UK.

Ted

Dorset UK.

my money versus their money

I think the banks should be allowed to do what they like, invest where they want, in anything they think they can make a killing.

So long as its their own money.

Not mine ,not yours or any other depositors unless they specifically give their permission to risk it without recourse for anyone to bail them out if they lose any or all of it.

so we need to have a 2 tier banking system with the customer deciding how and where his money is placed.

It must be now some 50 yrs ago I worked for a Canadian insurance investment co, There were not allowed by the canadian government to have any assets on their books that were worth less than their purchase price at the annual government audit .

Our lot could learn something there.

possible basisfor a petrol conversion

When they come on the s/h market as duds, then its the time to get one and put in say, a 50cc twist and go 2 stroke , add lights and wing mirrors. could then be a lot of fun.

too much learning and not enough practical experience

With the best will in the world to our computer friends theres enough practical experience in the aviation industry over the past 100 yrs to be able to evaluate wether a part is going to fail in use or not.

If the pilot flies his aircraft outside the designed flight envelope then he has to accept that something might just break when he doesnt want it to.,

With the airbus 380, they built a rsj test rig to test one to destruction, just to prove that the theorising was in fact about right.

At the end of the day it has to be a practical test of the component that gets its ticket of airworthyness.

A solution looking for a problem

Ive just looked at my licence to drive, which was issued on the 17/12/52.

That will make it some 58yrs old in dec 2010.

Now there isnt , nor ever will be a computer that can store this amount of driving experience and use it to take me from here to there, wether its local or to Denmark or wherever.

Quite apart from finding its way from the isolated rural spot im blessed with , let alone doing a 3 point turn to get out of the driveway without going into a deep ditch on each side.

So long live the eyeball mk 1 coupled to a pair of hands and a couple of feet, with a box of tools to fix it when it gets stroppy.

DVLA medical dept, are good, they have just renewed my HGV entitlemnt without any restrictions. There was an issue with an arrythmia logged on a 24hr heart monitor recorder only at night about 2am. I pointed out to the heart consultant that I didnt drive my HGV at night when I was asleep. She wrote that to theDVLA They accepted that!!

Ted

Dorset

.

No one bothered to ask me.

I know exactly what phone I want.Its not made otherwise id have bought it.

1.I want a flip phone, to protect its screen when its shut in my pocket . along with keys, coins etc.

2. it has to have a keyboard from the Nokia commmunicator 9210i, because im a farmer, engineer with BIG hands so i can text without having to use a stylus.

3. it needs to be the size of the HP jordana thats 3inwide by 5.25in long with a big bright screen on one sideof the flip so I can see it in bright sunlight on the tractor.

it must have a battery thats the size of the body and 1/4in thick so it will last at least 14 days on standby and run all week .Weight not a problem

4.A decent speaker so I can hear it over machinery noise.

5.well engineered, no thin flimsy plastic preferably all metal construction. anexternal aerial for areas of poor reception.

6. a back prop so when texting with it on a flat surface it doesnt fall over.

so thats the minimum need. The money is there , so wheres the phone?

7. it should recognise the callers no and then speak to me to say, Ted, Alison is calling you, or whoever, instead of me having to open it up , to listen to who is calling me.

I dont spend lots of time chatting to folk. too much to do but these requirements are essential for isolated workers like me.

There are 1000's of folk like me who need this spec. Why on earth havnt the phone makers bothered with this market?

ted

dorset

UK.

.

Rural areas?

There are folk that dont live in towns. The fact you actually HAVE a bin collection , you should count your self lucky.

I know you pay for it, so do we but weve never had a collection in 37 yrs.

When out local Purbeck district council went all green, they mailed all rate payers to say what a wonderful new system there going to give us, when i asked them why I hadnt had a collection in 37 yrs thay asked me where was the property despite telling them the rates payment code.

When i suggested that for folk like us, who dispose of all our own refuse, no we dont fly tip either, that as a jesture of good will they reduce our rates by what it costs to collect, they refused.

So I told them to keep their schemes and i didnt want them coming to our remote home ever.

What do we do? well any food waste is composted, any thing with a thermal value is turned into heat and hot water( from our own supply I must add) in our MK. 6 cellulose oxidiser, a high efficiency refractory lined incinerator, a Mk I Rayburn in fact.

A trip out to do shopping is combined at the same time with a trip to the local recycling center, where tins and bottles are disposed of.

At the same time the wood skip is checked for all oak posts structural size timber and work top thick chip board. All processed into sized wood for the afforsaid stove.

As for other services we have none , (We had to make our own road in) We generate our own power with diesel but will move to bio fuel next year. so we plan to be completly independent from every service by this time next year. Thats another story.

When every household had proper fires, the bin men only had to collect ashes, The bins were galvanised steel, and they used to put a pink powder in the bins to sanitize them. that was in the 1940's and the milkman came with a horse and dray.

Those were the days.

dealing with a crook

Well, this is bad news, but thats what one can expect from Microshaft.

when is a Co that uses Linux, thats big enough to stand up to this bully?

Mike Shuttleworth of Ubuntu was approaced by the evil empire and effectively told them to get stuffed.

They havnt been back.

Now if I was dealing with them, id ask what patents were infringed then blow the gaff on them by telling the rest of the world which ones they listed.

When dealing with a crook and thief there are no holds barred.

Big hands texting

Ive tried the E61, the Nokia communicator 9300 and looked at all the smart phone keyboadrs and im back again to the 9210I communicator.

The ONLY querty key board with enough spacing between the keys for texting without using a stylus for large farmers hands.

Its also got a good screen which is protected by its clam shell design for old tired eyes.

Plus its got good battery life and a decent speaker phone when on a tractor..

Nothing else meets my needs.

Pity its no longer in production tho one can still get a new one for around £80.00.

Take note Nokia if youve a good design format, dont change it , just improve the innards.

You might just reach a market you dont at the moment.

Its 6 by 2.1/8th in in plan. A better size would be 4,1/2 by 3in to fit the pocket better.

6in long is a bit too long.

a lone voice out in the sticks

ted