Posts by TRT

Re: UK specific model?er

Not quite sure why the thumbs down. I was responding to the assertion that sealing (a phone/device) makes it harder to repair rather than waterproof, which is marketing hype for why it must be sealed.

It's not purely that it makes it harder to repair - with all other things being equal i.e. it has an equivalent IP rating, by sealing the case rather than compartmentalising the device so it has a removable battery pack (each compartment also having an IP rating), it saves on the thickness of the compartment walls, thereby making the device thinner. Though it's been many years since I was out on boats regularly and going snorkelling (never done SCUBA diving), I am fairly certain that whilst there is a whole host of waterproof devices with interchangeable batteries, the only IP68 device that's going to be just 8mm thick is one of those Pro-slate things that doesn't have batteries!

Not that you'd take an iPhone 14 snorkelling let alone SCUBA diving... just saying. That kind of kit achieves swappability of batteries etc at the expense of being a bit bulkier than your market would stand for. Thinness sold at one point. Still does really, with the roll up phone being apparently an industry goal.

Re: UK specific model?

If 90% of the back was battery in its own compartment... yes, that could work. The screen and electronics etc effectively become a shim that goes over the front of the battery!

Re: Mining landfill?

Where there's a bipolar condition there's lithium.

Re: UK specific model?er

And potentially thinner - if you can eliminate the compartment walls

Re: As luck would have it....

Do the aforementioned ALSO have removable batteries?

Re: Interesting design

If you gave the job to Derek Meddings, the wings would be at one end of the airfield being refuelled and so on, the engines would be at the side of the airfield being sent out from the service and test hangar, the luggage would be loaded into a module that comes up from an underground railway at the end of the runway and the passengers would board into two bus-like hemi-structures at the side of the airport terminal, which fold together to form the aircraft body. The various components would then be assembled out at the end of the runway where there's plenty of room a few seconds prior to take off!

Re: Pointless

The only bit of this that I'll agree with is that "Net Zero" and "Carbon Reduction" have become politicised and that it's mankind/society as we know it that's screwed. The planet is indeed likely to 'auto-correct' and it's only microbes, simple plant-like life and cockroaches likely to survive.

Climate Change is the new moniker for Global Warming because a lot of people misunderstood what Global Warming referred to - it was a bit too physics... Warmth having been used as a semantic equivalent to Thermal Energy. Thermal Energy that translates in part to Kinetic Energy within the atmospheric shell, which results in increased atmospheric churn and thus change in the climate. CO2 has been fingered as ONE of the greenhouse gasses responsible for holding that thermal energy caught by the ground, but there are others, such as water vapour and gaseous hydrocarbons.

Let's be fair... if a rise in CO2 in the order of a fraction of a part per million can produce such dramatic effects as have been observed, then it's very worrying indeed! As for the targets being pointless... they do seem rather arbitrary, having been set by what's realistically achievable with effort rather than on the basis of what's realistically going to be effective.

Re: Going Boeing Gone

It’s not like that up there! It’s all to do with the harsh realities of physics up in the sky; it’s power-to-weight ratios, it’s wing cross-sections, wing surface-areas, it’s practical aerodynamics! It’s also cold and extremely windy! You're better off on the ground.

Re: Interesting design

I was thinking that myself. The "eye of Horus"-like wing shape looks rather Romulan to me.

Re: Did it talk?

And PTerry of course. And ACC.

Re: Sausage casings?

Brings a whole new meaning to "nose to the grindstone, what?"

Re: "1 spandrel - unit of exactly what? Codswallop?"

It's a unit of Time Lord inertia.

Re: gigaspandrels

Zen Buddhism may disagree,

Re: gigaspandrels

I'm thinking that Corbel, Spandrel and Squinch may be a company of lawyers that the BOFH will employ at some point.

Re: The _real_ AI

Just don't look up a Ritchey Nipper aka a Burdizzo. And as for the Lane Ram Ejaculator...

Animal husbandry is an area best left to those with a strong stomach.

Re: Yes and no

I think the simple answer really is that it should receive the default protection for only 20 years UNLESS it is registered on a some public register rather like the patents office.

If you're bothered by the copyright expiring then register to extend the protection for another 20 years; if you aren't bothered then fine, it's an orphan / abandon-ware.

Of course there would have to be some transitional arrangement... and protection against abuse by copyright-trolls... maybe a right to re-assert held by the originator or the originator's estate which expires after a certain period to match the existing law, until it passes beyond the date where a work could have been protected under the old rules, and no extension beyond the existing legislation.

The same could actually apply for EVERYTHING copyright, actually. There's lots of stuff around which is effectively abandonware because no-one enforces it. This gives a bit more of a legal status to such things.

Re: Its always the simple things

Windows for Toasters. It includes seedy burner software.

Re: The Dog ate my homework

Better than that time the class was set work over the vacation; "I want you to design a robot."

That was nasty... the invoice from the vet was a shocker, not to mention the cleaning bill.

Re: we again note that we're still here

Although my wife is.

Re: "and have yet to return to a sense of normalcy"

The chances of things ever returning to normal must be a million to one.

Re: Automation needed

Basically there's two ways to look at this... every machine is going to need some kind of period of time for recovery (excepting maybe a Commodore 64, which you can measure in microseconds), and the question is WHEN do you put in the time... do you have an overly elaborate shut down procedure which puts everything into the right state and the right position ready for powering on, OR do you have an overly elaborate start up procedure?

I needed to power off our S3 storage due to extended electrical works which were going to take out both of the supplies (there's ALWAYS a single point of failure, somewhere).

I looked through the manual and there was a section for starting the system, which was about 8 pages long, but nothing about powering it off again.

I put in a support call to the vendor and they went "um... ah... hang on... we'll write a procedure for you." They came back with a 14 step process that covered 4 sides of A4. "And the restart procedure?" I asked... "Is that the same as the one in the manual?"

"No! You just push the power buttons in the sequence you generated in step 3 of the shutdown procedure, leaving 5 minutes between each node. See? It's that one line there, right at the end of the page 4."

Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

One of our researchers has just come back from a field trip to the jungle. Now I'm confused.

Re: The current terminology is 'Geek' or 'Nerd', I believe.

I have a t-shirt with Ancient Geek on it.

Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

Farmer is a term reserved for people who are not just studying but are indeed outstanding in their field.