Posts by rhydian
81 posts • joined Wednesday 6th August 2008 11:08 GMT
Re: Hopelessly biased.
"No mention of the swathe of destruction she and her ministers wrought to our coal, steel and car industries."
I have no experience of the first two, but the third is a subject very close to my heart, and I think you need to read up on it more.
BL was a clusterfuck of the highest order. The result of a shotgun marriage of Leyland Motors (who made money making lorries) and BMC (who lost money making cars). The whole lot fell on it's arse in 1974, so the Government of the day nationalised it.
Of course, being the 70s, the workforce didn't take kindly to actually having to do work, so for a lot of the time you couldn't actually buy a BL car, as there weren't any coming out of the factories. So of course, the labour government decided the best thing to do was to give the unions a direct say in the running of the firm...
Fast forward to the 80s and the management have finally got around to sorting out the worst excesses of the overmanning and overcapacity. The problem was that it had taken too long, and BL launched in to the 80s with a range of cars that were uncompetitive, but the tie-up with honda soon sorted that. In the meantime Thatcher had privatised Jaguar and Leyland Trucks and buses. BL (now Austin Rover Group) was finally sold off to BAe in 1988.
Britain now makes more cars than ever. We have profitable, successful factories all over the country building cars that people want to buy (a strange idea to many I know). MINI, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Toyota, Honda and Vauxhall to name but a few.
Re: Don't do house calls
This is a lot easier now that people have laptops, as they tend to bring the offending machine with them.
Some even bring the charger...
Re: Re:try finding one anywhere else at 3pm on a sunday
The pound shop don't do hard drives, power supplies and other complex stuff to my knowledge. When I needed a physical copy of Win 7 *that day* it was easier to drive to PCW than try and find an ISO/Download online.
@dave 126
£15 is a lot for a cable, but try finding one anywhere else at 3pm on a sunday. It's the same way Halfords make their money.
Re: Web fads and video games@Captain Underpants
We had a first gen DC02 which was woefully unreliable when you take its cost in to account. Cable return, power switch and many other parts failed on it, while my old man struggled to keep it going, not to mention the noise which was akin to a jet aircraft at takeoff.
When that finished we got a Numatic, which simply worked, even after my mother managed to set fire to it (cleaning around a wood burner and a hot ember lodged in the filter, lots of smoke but was fine after). In the end the motor bearings got noisy and my mum bought a "Hoover"...
Only it was a PRC made "fake cyclone" POS which had less power than an asthmatic snail. In the end a new autosave Henry (with switchable 600/1200W modes) replaced it and it's great. And you can buy every part (down to motor brushes) online.
Re: @Zmodem
By your arguments of shot weight/calibre being better than magazine capacity we should give all our soldiers sawn-off 12 bores firing deer shot...
IP Telephony? Internal: Yes, external: No.
I've used some IP Telephony systems in the past (mainly in wireless mesh environments for events) and I find that for the private side IP works great, meaning less bothering about running dedicated circuits for phones, but for the public side IP links are much more unreliable than your standard phone line links.
At one of my permanent sites (not an event, but a rural sitee) we lost two separate ADSL connections (from two separate ISPs) due to an exchange issue while our ISDN30 was fine, meaning that while email and web were down, the phones worked.
And if the spuds start sizzling...
They know the power's too high....
Slight correction: Early metros had the front units individualised and the rear units connected accross the car. Later metros and 100s had the proper setup (connected front to back) with extra dampers only fitted to GTis.
That bloody licence...
My problem with the BBC/TV licence is that even if I'm watching international broadcasts via satellite I have to, by. law, pay £145 for the privilige. The BBC does make good programmes on occasion, but so do sky/ITV/C4,, who I can choose to support or not.
Hands up who's actually bought anything from comet?
I was looking for a washing machine for my new place. Neither comet or currys could beat the price I paid at my local indie electrical shop, and that included free saturday morning delivery!
Re: Is it surprising?
"But they all work for Samsung, work for a company that supplies Samsumg or have a family member that works for Samsung."
And that's the thing. Most non-UK countries will doggedly support their domestic firms, especially when they produce competitive products.
Is it surprising?
Samsung = HUGE south Korean company, everything from cars to fridges
Apple = US company suing Korean company
South Korean consumer not happy about the latter...
Posted in Unprofessional job adverts
Best I saw was a job advert for a marketing manager and system manager. The job spec was written as if to do the job you either had to be two people (one with marketing quals, one with sysadmin experience) or that the firm had their perfect candidate internally but still had to advertise.
Re: Shame the Gov doesnt still own BT...
The reason BT was sold off in the early 80s was mainly because the government didn't want to cough up the money to upgrade all BT's old mechanical exchanges to the then new system X and system Y units. Do you really think that the government would spend any more money on telecoms if they owned the company? They'd probably just milk the profits out to cover holes in other budgets before putting a "content filter" on the system...
Posted in TalkTalk's YouView: Why no Wi-Fi?
Re: My main bugbear about set top boxes.
Raydon's software update for the Humax foxsat HDR lets you load up the mediatomb DLNA media seriver and you can then stream recorded videos over your network (apart from HD, as it seems to be copy protected).
Re: If a HAM radio enthusiast
Considering I have to get my TV sat fed I don't think it's an issue...
Re: If a HAM radio enthusiast
Yes plaster can be re-done (and the paint/wallpaper) but how likely is it your going to gouge out your wall to run a Cat5 when you can buy PLT adaptors that work fine (as far as your concerned) for less than the cost of the cable? Add to that the fact that your average person has no interest in learning to terminate cat5 and buying the kit and PLT makes sense. Tearing in to my walls to run cat5 from a router to a TV/PVR that may not be in the same places in six months is simply impractical.
When I talked my folks in to putting cat5 in to their re-wired living room I let the "competent" electrical contractor do the job. Queue one two-point faceplace at one end and two single points at the PC desk and TV. Thing was the electrician had used one cable from the twin-plate to the first socket, then wired from the first socket to the second, telephone style. Good job I checked the cables before they put the plasterboards up!
Re: If a HAM radio enthusiast
The difference is of course the mains wiring is allready there (and in most places plastered over) so it's invisible.
And I was under the impression that running phone/data cable and 240v cable next to each other was a big no-no for safety reasons?
Re: Erm... exactly why do we need PLT anyway?
"How did people cope before wifi or pwerline network devices?"
Its only in the last 5 years that VOD directly to your TV/STB took off, not to mention the explosion in smartphones/fodleslabs and the like.
And in my case running a cat5 would have involved either going through newly painted walls or around a fireplace (and AFAIK they don't make cat5 that matches the colour of victorian brick) back to a router who's position is not yet fixed.
And before you say run cables under the carpet, i have hardwood floors.
Re: "untill recently wifi bandwidth and reliability wern't a patch on PLT"
Its also part of physics that a cable/wire connection will be more reliable than wireless.
Re: "i bet most house wiring is inspected ressonably regularly"
Thing is, for fixed wiring "reaonsably regularly" can be every 10 years. On average I bet the average house has some electrical work done that often so any really bad problems will be spotted.
Re: Does it even work ?
I've run PLT to a barn 100m away from the router on a really rubbish cable with little packet loss. The only thing that really kills it is surge protectors and emf from fridges etc.
Also i bet most house wiring is inspected ressonably regularly, especially since part P came in.
Re: Erm... exactly why do we need PLT anyway?
Too lazy to install cat5? More likely running cat5 would involve drilling though and running cable inside walls. A messy, expensivee business. Add to that the fact that a lot of electrical contractors aren't very good at network wiring and you have your answer. Pick up two PLT units and your away in minutes, and any sheds/garages on the same supply can be hooked up too.
Regarding Wifi:it is fine when you have a new build house with plasterboard walls. Try getting a wifi signal through one or two chunky stone internal walls and get back to me. Also untill recently wifi bandwidth and reliability wern't a patch on PLT
Re: Stop this nonsense
Facts like this also skip the fact that the UK has a telephone infrastructure that stretches back 100+ years. I bet South Korea's main networks are 40 years old at worst.
Re: Switching it off and on again...
The fault was apparently down to phones not being able to register on to the network. Asking a user to turn the phone off and on again is probably easier than explaining that to them and asking them to force their phone to re-register...
Re: RM
RM weren't even that cheap for kit when i was a school tech.
Re: Content is one thing, coverage is quite another....
Much easier than getting a full set of DTT muliplexes pre-switchover I'm sure!
Content is one thing, coverage is quite another....
OnDigital's main failing was it didn't provide the universal coverage that satellite could. OK, most urban areas with a service direct from a main transmitter site could get everything but for the rest of the country DTT was patchy at best. A dish nailed to the side of your house gave you a full service from Lerwick to Lewes.
@ChrisC
The problem is that not all width/height restrictions are dual signed in imperial and metric measurements. Your average Eastern European wagon driver hasn't a clue what 6' 6" on a sign means, but will understand 2.0 m.
Posted in Nissan Leaf battery powered electric car
What's the range like if its not flat?
Did you see a big drop in range going over the pennines or other non-flat bits of the world? I'm interested how much of an effect gradients have on the range of electric cars, as they all seem to be just about usable for my 25 mile each way commute, but I do live in mid wales, a part of the world where flat bits aren't that common.
Posted in Renault Scenic Bose Edition 1.6 130dCi
£800 resistor
The resistor pack itself was probably £50 (rover ones that fail like clockwork are about that). The other £750 was probably the 6 months it took to remove the dash to get at it...
Posted in Renault Scenic Bose Edition 1.6 130dCi
Renault + complexity = oh heck...
While this car does seem to be a better bet than some rivals I simply can't see myself spending real money on a renault for one reason: build quality.
Many family members and friends have bought renaults and the difference between reliability on what should be near identical models is amazing. Some have no probs while others suffered major fuel system and mechanical maladies on cars of a similar age and condition. Add to that the 1.9 DCi's tendency to lidderally blow itself up and you get a range of cars id never consider.
interesting that tregaron's there
While most of the other sites can be blamed on contention Tregaron is a tiny rural town in the middle of west wales. I'd be willing to bet their slow speeds are down to long, poor quality copper rather than traffic, especially since BT Wholesale seem able to deal with contention better than the LLU crew.
@"Do you have mountains in England?"
I don't live in England (I live in Wales). There are mountains, but this test is being done in Cambridge, which is geographically similar to Northern France or the low countries i.e. flatter than a flat thing.
BT, The seventh circle of hell
BT tried a similar trick up near Wrexham. They'd said that a certain village outside the town that broadband would cost a few grand for each house, so the villagers got together and started to look in to their own wireless install with guaranteed decent speed (5mbit or more). Once BT got wind of this they offered to connect all the houses to another exchange for £200 with 1mbit and a new phone number...
BT know full well they've got a monopoly outside urban areas for everything (voice and data). Even if you go for another supplier your still going to be passing some of that cash through to BT wholesale. They don't even have to try and win custom.
very interesting...
This will be a very handy technology for rural (or indeed suburban) data comms. It'll be interesting to see how it handles more rugged terrain than pool table flat fenland
Au contraire...
Considering that 80%+ of tea drunk in the UK is in teabag form, the process for creating the >20% of loose tea must be seriously wasteful to provide enough "scrapings" for all those teabags. That, or you are talking rubbish.
Give me a properly brewed MUG of good, solid breakfast tea, with a dash of milk. No more, no less.
Posted in Go SMS Pro
Tried it, but....
... It still suffers from the most annoying of android features.That feature is that you can't see a message's SENT time, only the time the phone received it. If, like me, you turn your phone off overnight or spent a lot of time out of coverage you end up with a slew of messages with no clue as to their relevancy.
Posted in UK's oldest working telly up for sale
@ "Does it get digital"...
Well, all you'd need is a Freeview/Freesat/whatever STB, a 625/405 line standards converter (can be run from a laptop IIRC) and then a VHF modulator tuned up to whatever frequency the set is designed to recieve on. Simple*
*The above statement may not be true.
A title is needed, so here be one...
BL's Press department would apparently not lend out cars for extended periods, so continuity was a real pain with BL sending a yellow TR for one week's shooting and a blue one for another...
There are plenty of british made cars that are suitable. Jaguar, Land Rover, Lotus...
It's not the physical value of the data that's the problem....
...it's the value of that data to the company. For example a copy of a text file containing an innocuous list of part numbers isn't worth as much as a copy of a text file containing customer details and their order details.
"expensive and lean German engines"
I think that part of the reason that the australians like their big sixes and bent eights is that when you want to cover long distances in empty outbacks you don't really want to be stuck with some expensive and lean German engine that throws a pollution management fault in the middle of nowhere and that can't be fixed without the full gamut of dealer electronic diagnosis kit.
Facebook just gives a "blocked IP" Message
Sounds like FB's spotted a load of traffic coming from the orange network and has tagged it as spam. Relaxing to know it's not my new android handset at fault.
Hammer: Meet nail-head...
That is the one advantage of flash in the real world. 90%+ of consumer systems can use it with no issues. Until HTML5 is an agreed standard flash will remain on top.
Bitch all you want about "old tech"...
But you can still buy Epson LX-300s new. OK, a £30 inkjet printer would knock the socks off it for quality and speed but an LX-300 will noisily bang away until the end of time itself. Perfect for logging jobs.
