Posts by clanger9
77 posts • joined Wednesday 27th January 2010 18:16 GMT
Awesome - thumbs up to this guy!
Nice website too. Really nicely done :-)
Re: It will only work to move people around the UK if the tickets are cheap!
"The existing railway is at maximum capacity"
No it isn't. Just because the train companies keep saying that, it doesn't mean it's true.
I travel regularly on the West cost mainline to London - at £250 return, it's no surprise that the peak-time trains are barely 1/2 full.
Occasionally I'm lucky enough to get an Advance 1st ticket. The First Class carriages are deserted!
On the other hand, if I travel on an off-peak train, it's packed (a "bargain" at £72 return) . Go figure.
Fantastic article
Thank you for explaining my CEO's obsession with sodding Roambi. I guess I need to get with the programme...
More please! :-)
"the blue and brown bars are what you would pay without green intervention"
Umm, nearly but not quite.
You seem to have overlooked the fact that the 'green interventions' actually drive the p/kWh artificially low (and sometimes even negative when the wind is stronger than expected). So you can't just take off the subsidy and say: "this is what the electricity price would be without subsidy". The market doesn't work like that.
Without "green intervention", the brown bar would be bigger; exactly how much bigger depends on the fossil fuel price. Whatever, the analysis isn't as simple as you make out.
Re: Two Issues?
Correct.
It's a calendar sync bug. It continually connects to Exchange trying to process the same event.
To fix: go to the Exchange account settings & turn Calendar sync off & on again.
Annoying as hell, but easy to fix.
Re: Never
You have a very odd understanding of statistics.
Re: Nice article
4MB RAM, perhaps? Unfortunately, most desktops at the time shipped with 4MB and OS/2 ran like an absolute dog in that.
I was lucky enough to have 8MB, and OS/2 flew ahead of Windows on the same hardware - there was some weird thing at the time where Windows 3.1 didn't really know what to do with >4MB and merely used the spare as a disk cache (or something).
I forget, it's all too long ago!
Re: I loved OS/2
In fairness, they *did* fix the SIQ problem eventually (v.2.2 or 3.0, I don't remember...)
It was so frustrating knowing that your machine hadn't really crashed, but there was no way to kill the offending task. Anyway, once that was sorted, OS/2 was awesomely crash-free for me. I stuck with it for years; when I finally moved over to NT 3.51, Microsoft's primitive user interface and sluggish performance felt like a real backwards step...
Re: I'm impressed by the engineering (if not the weight!)
Not quite. The massive electrical infrastructure we have in the UK is relatively idle at night (when the bulk of charging is expected to take place). As long as you don't need to charge your car instantly at 5pm, the overall effect on the grid if people switch to electric transport isn't that significant (another few gigawatts, tops, on the 60-80GW we already have).
As others have pointed out, electric cars aren't notably greener out of the box than fossil-fuel powered cars (they're about the same, give or take whichever bias takes your fancy).
The main argument in their favour is that it's possible to de-carbon the production of electricity to some degree. That isn't currently possible with petrol, diesel or natural gas.
IMAP?
I'd switch from Gmail in a heartbeat if I could find a sensible IMAP-based alternative.
Posted in Amazon crimps free Kindle 3G surfing
Ah nuts
That's a shame, but then again with idiots hacking Kindles to get free, global, roaming internet I suppose this had to happen.
I'm actually surprised it wasn't limited anyway; 50MB is probably sufficient for what I use the clanky browser for. Still, the free global roaming feature is an absolute *godsend* when you're in a foreign country and trying to book/rearrange travel or find your hotel.
My Kindle had already paid for itself many times over on this feature alone and I think/hope that the new limit won't be an issue for me...
Re: Power LIne
You're right, the engineering challenges are enormous. Plenty of corona discharge in the wet!
Exposed UHV DC makes a really strange hissing/sizzling sound, quite unlike the heavy crackle/buzz you get on AC stuff.
One big problem is the long-term stability of DC insulators - they tend to degrade over time as the ions all move in one direction. AC is much easier to do in this respect.
No x-rays, though: AFAIK you need a vacuum to generate those...
Re: Russians tried a 1MV delivery system nearly 20 years ago
This is a DC line - it's capable of transporting massive amounts of power with low losses and on relatively compact lines.
The Russian 1MV test line was AC. It had massive losses and the towers were absolutely frickin' enormous. I don't think it's still in service.
This is news; no-one has deployed 800kV DC commercially before. This is a fairly epic bit of electrical and mechanical engineering. IIRC, the valve stacks alone are about 60m high...
Posted in BYOD sync 'n share
Anybody tried TeamDrive?
We're looking at it now as a DropBox replacement for corporate use.
http://www.teamdrive.com/
Initial thought are that it's very rough around the edges, but seems to have a nice approach to security (encrypted storage, you get the encryption key not them).
Not sure if it's ready for prime time yet, though.
Posted in LOHAN ideas..
Good point. If it flaps about it might bend the titanium rod as well. Is there anything to stabilise the plane along the roll-axis while on the launcher?
Perhaps you could have the trailing edge of the wings rest inside a couple of forward-facing (teflon-coated?) U-shaped brackets while in the launch position. No need for them to touch, but it might help to stabilise the plane in case of turbulence.
Not as elegant as Tempest8008's idea, only U-brackets would distribute the restraining force over both wings instead of just one.
Re: So...
Erm, that was about neutrinos. Which are particles that Einstein said couldn't go faster than light (and it appears that, after all the 'hoo-ha', they can't).
This is about quantum entanglement, which provides "spooky action at a distance" (as I think Einstein described it). Which will possibly enable FTL communication.
No need for anyone to "make up their mind". Just people doing awesome science.
Let me get this straight
The founder of "Fatwa-Online" is complaining in court about people hosting "harbouring socially, religiously and politically offensive material"???
Riiiight...
ISP filtering?
The principle of "talk to your kids" seems like the best approach, but (dammit) they will still click on links that are best left unclicked.
TalkTalk's HomeSafe (the horror!) seems to provide a useful safety net for a house with younger kids in. The blocking is crude and not 100% effective, but friends and family seem to like it when I set it to block the worst stuff (in conjunction with OpenDNS).
I presume BT have a similar service but I've not played with it.
I'm not convinced this is the complete answer, but then again I don't have kids.
Still can't read iBooks on MacOS?
iTunes will happily let you buy eBooks, but there's no way to read them without an iOS device.
Same with this software - it'll let you create iBooks, but not actually read the damn things (AFAICT).
Posted in Ten... mini hi-fi systems
Some you missed...
Marantz M-CR603: has built-in AirPlay, which is nice (£400)
Naim UnitiQute: Sounds awesome. To be expected, as it costs over £1,400.
Posted in 2011's Best... E-book Readers
Kindle Keyboard 3G
You missed the killer feature: it doesn't just connect to Amazon from anywhere. It connects to the WWW from anywhere. For free.
OK, the built-in browser is a bit clunky, but being able to access Gmail, Google Reader, news sites, etc anywhere in the world for nowt is the reason I never travel without it...
What happens when you change the SIM?
It was claimed elsewhere that CarrierIQ continues to send info back to the carrier even if you unlock the handset and change the SIM to another provider. Is this true?
It would be nice if you could ask this question directly to CarrierIQ.
Train & bus times!
Yay, finally!!
OK, so it's not going to turn around the economy, but one small problem solved...
I think they were still checking the passports. Just not checking the biometric chip.
With all the hysterical reporting of "[terrorists|criminals|paedophiles|sex traffickers|bloody foreigners]* flood unchecked into Britain!!", it's hard to tell, really.
* Select according to personal paranoia preference.
Is this a big deal?
Surely all they did was stop checking the new biometric chips?
Seeing as the vast majority of passports don't actually have biometric chips, I can't see what the problem is. If they stopped checking against the database, all that means is that the funky new biometric database wasn't working as planned (no surprise there).
Did I miss something?
To add to the list...
- Can we get the locations and collection times of UK post boxes, please? (Royal Mail says no)
- Live UK train times would be nice as well (Network Rail, ditto)
Any more?
Posted in NZ ISP piracy law kicks in
Umm, no. That only tells you whose connection was used to do the downloading. It tell you nothing about which person actually did did the downloading.
Think shared connections/multi-user households/insecure base stations/IP spoofing/etc.
IP address logs are an indicator of who may be at fault, but are certainly not proof.
Re: Did I miss something?
Shame they didn't give the essential info...
This version of the malware installs here:
/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/UnHackMeBuild
If it's there, you will need to delete the reference to it in
/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info.plist
otherwise Safari won't run.
Posted in Google+ opened to world+dog
Don't do it!!
Be warned: as soon as you create your profile, [whatever you enter as] your real name is plastered publicly all over any other Google services you may use (YouTube, Picasa, Maps, Like this, Reader, Blogger, Docs, Groups, etc, etc.). Which means your real name starts popping up all over the Google search results.
The may (or may not) be what you want to happen. Regardless, you have no choice.
Only solution is to delete you public profile and wait a few days for Google to purge your name from the search results...
Why is there a "desktop" in ARM?
If only Metro apps are allowed on ARM (and the app store is the only way to install something), what is the "traditional" Windows desktop for? Why is it even present in the ARM version?
I'm confused.
PeopleRank!!
I can see it now. Schmittchen has this big idea of being able to index and rank people, not just webpages.
Pseudonyms break this idea, in the same way that PageRank would break if Google couldn't be entirely sure which server the content came from.
Web server == you
Content == what you say, do and think
Hence, pseudonyms are bad. I guess he's been living the Google dream for so long it has become real.
Absolutely terrifying.
Posted in LinkedIn U-turns to appease peeved users
Permission: we've heard of it.
Amazing. When I heard their claim to have properly notified users of the change, I was surprised that I somehow missed this.
Then I find out that this "notification" consisted of a single blog post - and a banner ad, FFS!!
Just unbelievable. On what planet could that possibly be considered "seeking informed consent"?
Posted in LinkedIn pulls Facebook-style stunt
Re: More links
Ooh, another one...
Patner InMail:
https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?modal=nsettings-partner-inmail&tab=email
Any more?
It's just like the old Facebook "find the privacy settings" game.
Posted in LinkedIn pulls Facebook-style stunt
More links
I think these should all work:
Manage social advertising: https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?modal=nsettings-social-advertising&tab=account
Manage enhanced advertising: https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?modal=nsettings-enhanced-advertising&tab=account
Data sharing with third party applications: https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?modal=nsettings-data-sharing&tab=groups
Any other "hidden" settings we should know about?
Love it!
I have a 500GB one in an old Macbook here. Very fast and quiet - only notable downside is that it uses a bit more power than the original 80GB job, so battery life takes a hit. Boot time on OS X Lion is a few seconds...
Seagate support is a bit haphazard, mind. When I first got the drive (with SD24 firmware), it was hopeless (never spins down, buggy sleep/resume, pauses, etc). It wasn't clear from Seagate what to do about this.
I upgraded to SD25 firmware and it's been perfect since.
Netalyzr is your friend
They never learn, do they?
Go here: http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu
Netalyzr will tell you if your ISP is interfering with your traffic. If so, complain LOUD and HARD.
Posted in Use found for Twitter and Liz Jones
Excellent stuff!
Very funny. Poking fun at the Daily Fail *and* all for a good cause!
Donation sent.
Re: It's for more than 2 channels
Agreed.
If you want 8/16/24 digital channels back from a multi-channel mixer then USB 1.1 isn't anywhere near enough. It's JUST fine for a stereo mixer with phantom power.
Re: Leyton C
Try an IO|2! :-) They're great for recording.
I haven't noticed any latency on Mac OS and I think it comes with special low-latency drivers for Windows.
Re: Expecting USB 3 or FireWire 800 or Thunderbolt
I'm not sure what advantage a high-speed interface would bring.
Consumer audio is only typically 16 bit PCM at 44kHz. Even a bonkers-spec 24 bit, 96KHz stereo stream (i.e. way beyond what this little Mackie can do) is under 600kB/sec - that's well within the capability of USB 1.1...
Re: Alesis IO|2
Yes, I thought the same thing.
The IO|2 has quite useful audio quality (and the Midi interface is handy as well).
Only issue I've had is the USB interface very occasionally freaks out, which makes it a less-than-ideal choice for live effects and the like. It's fine as a recording device.
It's hard to tell from the review how this unit compares to the Alesis. Being Mackie, I guess it's pretty solid.
Re: It's still possible to lease dedicated lines
...and the new stuff is usually IP-enabled (see the IEC61850 communication standard).
Combine that with the lack of availability of private lines and guess what's the cheapest way to get the control traffic back to headquarters? Yup, the good ol' public internet.
Granted, there are ways to do this securely. Hint: trying to maintain an air gap isn't one of them.
Re: so negative
Please don't assume that an "air gap" is a panacea for securing these systems.
By nature, utility infrastructure is often distributed over thousands of square km; the hardware is not all boxed up in some neat little secure control room. Plus, everything needs to talk to everything else (within reason), so maintaining effective air gaps in such a network is always going to be a challenge that borders on the impossible.
Secondly, new "smart grid"/intelligent infrastructure makes significant use of real-time external data streams - things like weather, local demand, supply availability, fuel prices, etc. You can't (efficiently) do real-time operations behind an air gap, so data connections tend to pop up all over the place.
Air gaps are a neat idea (and security in the control room is certainly important), but don't think for one second that "supergluing the USB ports and firing people for breach of policy" is going to have the slightest effect in securing the system. The real vulnerabilities lie elsewhere.
Posted in Historypin
Re: Doesn't show up in Android Market for me
Didn't show up for me either with a Market search, but the Q-code took me straight there.
Weird. Of all companies, you would have thought that Google could implement a useful, working search function on the Market {sigh}...
Posted in Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Part Two
Re: Make sure AirDrop is selected on both computers
AirDrop is unsupported on a number of modern Macs. Go here, look under AirDrop http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
If there's no icon, it's not supported. Doesn't matter whether or not there is another machine in range.
Fast here
Pulled down in about an hour (at teatime, on TalkTalk, no less!). Took about 30 mins to install, back up and running like a charm.
Feels snappier, too.
Pretty impressive that the download servers can manage this with a simultaneous global release. Any idea what infrastructure they used?
Seems pricey
I recently picked up an LG HR-600 for only £200.
It seems to do everything this one does (twin tuner Freeview HD recording, Blu-ray, 802-11n WiFi, iPlayer, Youtube, DLNA) though the hard drive is a bit on the small side (250GB).
Pretty happy with it - it isn't quite as slick as a Humax, but everything works as it's supposed to (which seems to be a rarity with these things).
What happens when it's deleted?
I have a lot of mail in Gmail, but no interest in having a "public profile" (whatever that is).
According to Google "Google profiles must have a public name. Your full name is not being displayed on your profile page. This option is no longer supported in Google profiles."
So what happens on July 31st? Will I lose my mail?
Posted in So, how does your economy grow?
Top stuff
Excellent. Nice to see the economists using hard(ish) data for once instead of just wildly speculating.
Some of the reaction above seems a bit odd. The paper isn't saying "Your politics suck, loser!", it's simply looking back at historic data to see if there's any measurable correlation between policies and economic growth.
Is this really such a bad thing?
