Posts by John Robson
626 posts • joined Monday 19th May 2008 14:40 GMT
Re: Charge time of ten minutes?
And we have at least 20 years to beef up the supply lines to those stations. At the moment we only need to add one charging unit to most stations to provide sufficient infrastructure.
It's not physics in this case - it's chemistry.
Personally I can't tell the difference well enough to care when someone else is making the tea - but I can quite understand that the difference is there.
Posted in Any storm in a port
Not 100%
But I reckon I get it wrong about 75% of the time. That's why I leave the cables plugged in an disconnect the OTHER end...
Re: Charge time of ten minutes?
Not a problem - most current petrol stations have 3 phase supplies already.
So it's self correcting?
It drains the battery - which causes the phone to switch off.
When you charge it and switch it on it will stop behaving in this way
But if IE uses chromium/webkit as well then
it might actually render pages correctly...
Re: <probably mistaken pedant>
NM = torque, so presumably they mean you can use it as a really short lever?
Re: a thought occurs..
@AC 08:56
This isn't about the desktop (which is being abandoned in favour of slabs), it's about the severs (which do actually use motherboards) - and that is where *nix dominates (particularly in remote servers).
Linux has anything but failed.
Posted in El Reg contemplates the ultimate cuppa
Tea needs tea in it
It should be warm, and (if available) it should have a splash of milk.
Sugar is an abomination unto Nuggan.
I often find that my tea is darker in colour than many peoples coffee (also an abomination unto Nuggan)
Posted in Electric cars stall in USA, Australia
Re: EVs are so impractical
So how many days a year do you do more than 100 miles - very few people answer more than 1 or 2 (I used to answer 250, because my commute was insane) - and you don't have a few hours in the middle (where the vehicle can pick up some more juice (e.g. at the office or the house of family/friends).
The "limited" range is rather nullified by the convenience of recharging when you park up for the night (yes I know not everyone has off road parking)
For the rare occasions you need longer range you might also want a larger vehicle (e.g. to take the whole family to the other end of the country for a holiday) so you can easily hire an appropriate vehicle. I've very rarely drvien a vehicle which is appropriate for the journey I'm taking - they are a compromise between the "long heavily laden" journey and a "nip to the supermarket".
The EV serves the bottom 99+% of those journeys really well, so you buy one in a form factor that serves those journeys well (and those are now covered *much* better than they were before.
Then on the couple of occasions a year when you need something outside those parameters you hire something for the day.
Posted in Seagate squeezes out 4TB desktop monster
Re: best buy a couple
Problem is that recovery would likely take out the remaining disk - copying 4TB at a sustained rate of ~100MB/s will take how long?
40,000 seconds ~ 12 hours of SOLID activity
Assuming a more realistic continuous rate it's going to take a long time to recover that data. I'd go for at least Raidz2, if not more...
Cloud cover....
I'd imagine the comet to be travelling slowly enough that we might get more than a few hours to view it, so clouds should break eventually - and if it's at the full predicted brightness it'll probably show up even in daylight.
Having said that I'm now doomed.
Re: More to the point...
"And I also had the fold-up (Ordnance Survey style) map of Sodor... Does that make me a geek?"
Only if you still have it
Very nearly a very wet landing....
Pretty good shots of the thin blue line...
Re: Will someone think about the nozzles?
The nozzles are big enough to heat and then poke with a needle...
Re: Why not launch from altitude ?
The two miles aren't important in terms of final distance, but they are the most expensive both gravitationally and ,most importantly, aerodynamically.
It's not a daft idea, until you work out where mistakes land. The Russians just happen to have a whole pile of empty ground (and/or a disregard for anyone who lives there) over which they can fire stuff.
The Americans dismembered a spacecraft over a few thousand miles of the southern states 10 years ago...
Re: I woud rather
Isn't that what "-site:facebook.com" does?
They need to be available
for most existing frames.
That's the issue with them. I'd happily have a discreet clip on my glasses (which I wear anyway) to provide useful information in a convenient location.
Of course a couple of coloured LEDs would be sufficient to tell me about emails/sms/missed calls/incoming calls etc. Not sure I need much more most of the time. Either I'm using my hands (driving, cycling, whatever) or I can hold a phone/tablet for the detailed info.
Are the libroffice crew working on a port?
If not they should be...
I find Polaris/KingSoft OK for most things, and it should certainly suffice for bashing out some copy, but libre office (supporting a BT/USB mouse and keyboard) would be rather useful.
Re: There are these things called...
Well, you can - but only for a limited subset of strorage
But...
Yes, you can - but that isn't as nice as inserting an SD card.
Heck, I'd settle for having to open the case to insert it - yet I still want to get one later this month (hoping I can do a deal with my mobile comms provider)
BogoMIPS (or mBogoMIPS?)
We're interested.
Re: Or...
This - I have an e-ink device.
What would I like to improve on it?
Battery life - no - 3 months is fine
Screen size - no - dead tree publishers settled on a good size, this is the same
Colour - no - if I want colour I have other devices, this is for text (and e-boarding passes)
Maybe I'd like to fiddle the buttons a bit, they're too easy to hit accidentally on the side you're holding...
So - will I buy a new one?
NO
Will I buy a new tablet as better devices emerge, well - not for a while, but yes I will.
Re: Not impressed.
Well said - where has childhood gone?
Posted in WTF is... Weightless?
Re: Cyclists
Apart from the fact that we can't seem to hold to account motorists who drive like idiots....
That application doesn't need range - it needs good directionality and low range (order of 10's to 100's of yards).
And then it needs 100% take up, because otherwise it will just be another beep that it ignored in the cab, or a beep that is totally relied up - precluding the use of protoplasmic scanners.
I'd quite like to have a cycle computer using this - small battery on board, take 6V AC from the dynamo and have my trip data available at home/online wherever I am...
Of course the base stations would need to relay, sometimes across most of the country, but I assume that's the point.
Re: The Department for Work and Pensions
So it probably doesn't need to be in public IP space...
It's not a security hole
until it costs us money
Re: @ Graeme
Back in 1937 - you remember that?
Churchill actually started that to "stop motor vehicle drivers claiming ownership of the public roads"
It helped for a few decades at least...
Re: Beats me
@ lurker
A meter used to measure something (like an ammeter, or a spectrometer) - a metre is a unit of distance.
Bloody USians
Re: Dangerous?
They don't accelerate all the way from space - they accelerate a bit, then slow* with a parachute, then slow further as the air gets thicker.
* Yes I know slowing is acceleration, but clearly not in the way that "K" meant.
Landing on stuff is one of the things you look at when you release a balloon - you look at the weather patterns all the way up if you can (and with the internet you can get some idea). Sometimes it will be wrong, but that's why you do it in the middle of nowhere, not from a London rooftop.
Undo the damage?
Restore a backup...
Time for an SSL record in DNS and DNSSEC throughout...
Then at least it is loaded side-band, controlled by your own organisation and easily revoked (if it ain't on the DNS tree it ain't valid)
Re: Tripe...
Or even a nexus 10...
Re: Google's Evil ?
Changed their behaviour?
Don't make me laugh. All they need to do is tell OEMs to include a grub boot key in the "new bios" and maybe I'll listen to them again.
Re: Whitelist...
Hence my comment about vendor provision of md5 via something like dnssec.
Most people would trust MS not to be virus (jokes aside), so they would simply sign/hash their patches/versions and provide the requisite authentication via dnssec-alike...
Smaller organisations need to sign fewer releases, that's OK.
Then you start explicitly trusting organisations, not testing all software you run. Revocation would be important.
Thought would be needed for offline devices (although they are typically easier to secure via "normal" means...)
Whitelist.
Really it's not that hard...
Re: @Peter Hoare
See easy - how much easier can you get than "someone else has already done it"?
Whitelist...
Why do we still try to blacklist?
Surely we can use some ditributed system (DNSSEC maybe) to allow for companies (large and small) to distribute md5 checksums for "approved" releases.
Re: @westlake - A good question
> The fundamental problem here --- the elephant in the room that no one ever talks about ---
> is the lack of compelling programs which are Linux only.
Agreed - but NX comes close for my money...
I run a Linux box which is always online with good connectivity - costs about £5/mo.
I have NoMachine installed on it, and on my work laptop (which is MS).
Fire up an NX connection and I have all my *nix utilities (including the one game I play, which is running under wine because Win7 doesn't support it) available. That's nothing special - but various other family members can do the same thing, at the same time (so that £5/month is getting cheaper) and if my connection drops I can just pick up where I left off later.
I can run either a remote desktop or just run an xterm and fire up other programs on demand.
It's also a secure connection, so work doesn't get antsy about my network usage, 'cos I'm using my own connection.
Had to set up a Windows box recently and I somewhat floundered with various tasks I used to consider "easy and obvious" - I could do them under *nix, not windows any more. Inertia is the main reason most people continue to pay M$
Re: Test Cycle
That's four days consuming as much sand/dust as a device could reasonably inhale in several years I'd reckon.
But yes - the sticky stuff does require other testing.
perpetual motion machines do not exist
All you need to do is moderate the speed of the fall and/or the length of the cable pull.
I do suddenly wonder what the efficiency of a block and tackle is....
Citroen...
Practically perfect suspension, particularly when loaded - no need to adjust the headlights (yes, that's what he adjustment is for - not blinding everyone else)
It's overly complex, yes - but it does the job, makes fording streams trivial, and provides amusement at a drive through.
Posted in Linux kernel dumps 386 chip support
No issue
so long as the previous versions remain available from git for those who need them
Yes
They are a tiny fraction of your national budget, and provide good science for improvement in various areas of your life.
Just fire a handful fewer missiles at places where you think someone might once have hid who said that the US wasn't a land of milk and honey and you'd save alot more for spending on actually providing healthcare...
Dimmable?
Preferably with existing dimmer switches...
"
"How about the possibility of some less than scrupulous open-source developer, fed up with the apparent obstruction from Microsoft, discovering the loophole in the system?"
Then they would be highly unethical because they would be reducing the security of millions of people.
"
No - publicly releasing it without first having spoken to the vendor and given them time to get their house in order would reduce user security. In fact looking for such flaws is going to be done - I'd rather they were looked for by white hats than black.
Things didn't start falling just because gravity had been discovered.
Why do we hear so little about the other issues caused by the tsunami?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cACVl7gHsPQ
And why aren't we seeing calls for tsunami based wave power generation...
Not really...
We'll just get one hell of a light show at the poles.
Posted in Nokia HERE iOS maps app review
Satellite imagery is useful
to those of us with good spatial awareness, we can rotate it ourselves - and that is alot quicker than waiting for the next set of pictures on streetview, not to mention a whole pile cheaper if you are on limited data.
