Posts by Tamer Shafik
15 posts • joined Thursday 2nd April 2009 17:15 GMT
Why?
My heating needs are completely predictable, a 7 day timer is able to take care of them. I have never needed to remember to turn the heating on or off, it just does it automatically.
I can't think of a single situation where switching my heating over the Internet would be useful.
Re: so haven't they tried it with sellotape yet?
Sellotape does indeed produce tiny flashes of light (and x-rays under the right conditions), but I don't believe anyone has suggested that this is Cherenkov radiation - there isn't a plausible mechanism for generating this from adhesive tape.
Re: ALL comedy shows stop being funny after several series
Friends. Funny 'til the very last episode. Seinfeld, same.
Re: I so wanted to believe this...
I've seen plenty of hang gliders - when hang gliding, you are suspended in a harness, with the harness attached to the frame level with your waist. You aren't lifted by your shoulders.
I so wanted to believe this...
They said all the right things, Turnigy motors, a bunch of 5000mAh LiPos, Wii accelerometers, arduino, 2000W of motor output - all very plausible. But the video isn't right.
Compared to birds, we have very big, heavy legs. Your legs would inevitably dangle below you. Watch the video. This is what happens during takeoff (35 secs). However, at around 38 secs, the legs magically come up to be inline with the torso. That makes no sense. They then remain in this streamline position until he comes in to land.
Keep the PC!
Why does the good lady not want a PC in the lounge? Is it looks? Fan noise? Having a PC outputting to your TV is by far the most flexible option.
If looks are the problem, there are a plethora of non-PC looking cases around, ranging from cases that look like DVD players to ones that look like Daleks. As for noise, by using good quality large diameter fans you can get this so low as to be barely audible.
Posted in Renault Wind Gordini roadster
Coffee in a moving car
Regardless of who is drinking it, is it really a good idea to have a hot beverage in a cup in a moving car?
Posted in Renault Wind Gordini roadster
Cup of coffee?
"nowhere to put a mobile phone or wallet let alone a cup of coffee or bottle of water"
What is it with people wanting to drink coffee in their cars? How has this ridiculous activity managed to become mainstream and acceptable?
Posted in Sage Pay suffers 2nd day of downtime
Dual gateways
After the diabolical problems in Nov, we set up an account with IridiumCorp. We process some of our transactions through them, and some through SagePay. When we get more than 2 timeouts in a row, our system switches over automatically.
So far (since Nov) we haven't had any timeouts on Iridium. We're keeping both gateways permanently, but processing most of the transactions through Iridium.
Small minority!!!
The password issue did indeed affect only a small minority of users. However, there are dozens of other issues which affect most users. This update has been the biggest screw-up for some time, and whoever was in charge of the development has really messed up.
The first problem we encountered was Saturday night when I started getting SMSs from our server about failed payments. Contacted SP, who insisted that there were no problems at their end. After about half an hour of debugging, I found the problem - their SSL cert on the new server was broken.
After resolving this, we had several 10-20 minute down periods on Monday.
But this was just the beginning. The biggest issue is that the new user interface is a complete mess. It's the worst example of what you can do with grid controls, iframes and ajax. Usability is terrible, and it regularly throws up 'Oops, this operation did not complete' errors.
On top of that, you are limited to an 800px wide iframe, which means you have to horizontally and vertically scroll to do anything.
Common tasks take about twice as long with the new interface as they did with the old.
The old interface worked - it was dated, and could have done with a tidy, but it worked. What they have built to replace it is a fantastic demonstration of how not to build a UI.
Posted in What's so bad about Samsung's Bada?
Bada...
Please tell me that the default search on Bada will be provided by Bing.
Attracts radiation?
"the Pong iPhone Case attracts radiation emitted from the iPhone’s antenna"
No it doesn't. It may provide a shielding effect, it may even reshape the RF field around the device, but it doesn't achieve this by 'attracting' radiation.
Last year's was amazing
"... in the vain hope we might get the long-awaited "one to tell your grandkids" meteor shower. "
That was last year for me - the most spectacular shower I've ever seen, easily 2-3 a minute for hours on end. Helps being away from light pollution. The moon won't help this year though.
Posted in German lad hit by 30,000 mph meteorite
30,000 mph, eh?
Let's see now. A pea sized meteorite would be around 6mm in diameter, and assuming it's a typical chondrite, will have a density of around ~3.4g/cm^3. Its mass would be around 0.4 grams.
At 30,000 mph, it would have a kinetic energy of 36kJ. Compare this with the kinetic energy of a round fired from a P90, around 520J.
Just a gash on his hand?!?
I suspect its velocity was somewhat less than quoted.
@Useless
I can confirm that, numbers as follows:
Petrol contains 34.7 MJ per litre
1kWh = 3.6 MJ (1000J x 3600s)
34.7/3.6 = 9.6kWh per litre
1100/9.6 = 114.5 litres
Unfortunately the unwashed green masses are incapable of doing calculations, so the above is neither here nor there.
