Re: Samsung King of The Castle

"...While the rest of the tech world tries to invent new things by combining two existing things or varying."

what, like a phone that is also an mp3 player and a pocketpc?

Re: Maybe

seeing as the president has bent over backwards to let the country know that she is (and the should be) accomodating his american ways, and seeing as the ones howling about being mortally offended by his lack of 'being exactly like us and respecting our culture' are probably the korean equivalent of the uk daily mail reader, I put to you that the uk and south korea has more in common than you would think :)

"hold jacket in one hand, put other hand in jacked pocket, shake bum at president" icon used for obvious reasons :)

Re: One question I have always asked myself

@Anon 10:57:

"You make me laugh. Stop thinking that these people have anyone but their own best interests at heart. They are just normal people with all the failings of normal people. With shareholders that ensure that their primary concerns (and legally constrained concerns I might add) are the short and not the long term."

Having shareholders means some short term outlook and some long term. You get both kinds of investors. However, having shareholders mean that they are responsible to grow those investments, which means they wont invest in technology or projects that are unprofitable. Wind would be profitable if we didn't have lots of other technologies which are far superior in terms of CO2 emissions, cost and reliability... once oil is gone, if biodiesel (either algae or bio-ethanol from sugar-cane leftovers) doesn't come through, or photo voltaics don't go anywhere.. and we find that nuclear with its somewhat complicated economy (mining ore/reactor tech etc) actually turns out more expensive, then wind will be viable. it doesn't look like it will though, unless the various governments continue to subsidise the industry surrounding it (which isn't a problem in itself.. just means we aren't using the most economical/efficient way of producing power.. cheaper forms of energy like gas in effect subsidises the more expensive ones like wind)

"As for bio diesel made from Algae .... that's decades old tech and wasn't invented by big oil. So you've kind of stabbed yourself in the back by showing that big oil (or as you want to call them energy companies) have buried viable technology so they can continue making money from what they know and love best ... OIL."

Most of the renewable tech we have is decades old... photovoltaic, solarthermal, geothermal, hydroelectirc, biomass, wind/water/tidal generators... Energy Companies (Or big oil as you want to call them ;)) are very good at looking for new sources of energy.. it's what they do: find source of energy>find way to transport energy to market>profit. Which is why they are also the most likely organisations to be still delivering our energy once oil becomes too expensive to recover.

The reason why the worlds motor cars don't already run on renewable energy is because a) oil is still cheaper, and b) renewables are still more expensive. Sooner or later there will be a shift (actually later, as my original post mentioned.. now we have shale gas and oil.. postponing the enevitable move to renewables). Exxon is investing in algae based biodiesel. Shell is investing heavily in brazil, turning waste from sugar cane production into fuel (I don't remember if its biodiesel or needs blending. I am not sure what BP is doing but last I heard they were still into Wind energy but were getting out of Solar.

This doesn't make them loving caring charitable organisations that just what is best for the world.. and no, they didn't invent these technologies.. they are just the ones that are spending the most on research to improve them.. Which makes them the organisations most likely to provide the worlds energy mix also in the future.

Unless 'Clean Coal' finally comes through obviously (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130206093547.htm) and we end up with the coal companies becoming the de factor energy providers for the next 100 years.

Re: One question I have always asked myself

There are no oil companies anymore.. just energy companies.. and they are all investing into research on renewable energy... do you really think those massive companies will just run themselves into the ground as oil runs out and then finally file for bankrupcy?

If you want to see what energy generating (converting) technologies are viable, then look to see what these companies are pooling their resources into. Governments (actually politicians, which is not the same thing) need to look good in front of their people, and can't afford not to put up wind turbines (seeing as this was what this article was about)... large vertically integrated energy companies are responsible to their shareholders and need to provide return on investments.. Look to them if you want to see what is viable and what is going to be our energy future. (Although renewables are now decade or two further away since we figured out how to extract gas and oil from shale... once those get too expensive to extract you'll suddenly find Shell or Exxon biodiesel made from algae hitting the market)

The green revolution is coming, its just not led by the people you wanted it to be led by.

Re: Pedantry...

and how do you think that the nuclear fusion reactor that is the sun got started in the first place (and contributes to keep it running)?

gravity ;)

Re: Kind of ironic

To roughly quote Tim Minchin...

What do you call alternative medicine that has been found to work?

-Medicine.

nah

...people in the uk would be more likely to believe that David Cameron had suddenly decided to re-nationalise the railroads than ugandans believing that their president had a change of heart over manlove...

Re: Four hundred and fifty quid?

well, if they are gullible enough to pay that much for a laptop without a keyboard in the first place....

Re: Sexist joke alert

Sexist jokes (that aren't even funny) aside, the problem is that there are people with axes to grind... like picking on a show that is made up entirely out of stereotypes, where everyone is ridiculous and inept in some way or another, and managing to take from that that its all about discouraging girls from doing computer sciences in school.

(Because as a male of the species after watching the IT crowd I became convinced that the only way forward was a career in IT and completely destroying any notion of a social life/emotional intelligence that I may have had up until that point... either that or become psycotic and join management.)

Torchwood, Bones, Firefly (ok, engineer more than computers), 24, Jurrasic Park, Hackers, The Net: Series and movies from the top of my head that have strong female characters who also happen to be the techy ones / computer experts.. although quite a few of them still include the old stereotype that computers steal your social life...

Maybe they should look at why so few girls pick the subject rather than making uneducated guesses.. or maybe they should ask the ones that do why they chose it.

Failing that we need to take off and nuke ourselves from orbit, it's the only way to make sure :(

(in case anyone missed my point above it was that portraying Jen as a blubbering idiot (but with the social skills so sorely lacked by the male members of the show) is unlikely to have a massive impact on the education choices of young girls (or boys).

Re: Ultrasonics and dogs

depends on the wall... I have still lots of random electronics in my house that I haven't placed properly yet.. (still putting together my 'media solution'... my receiver for instance is facing away from me when I sit on the couch, but a smooth door seems to be enough to reflect the IR signal to hit the sensor :)

tbf it is a bit annoying when someone has left the door open.. the plasterboard wall itself isn't smooth enough to reflect it :(

Re: Reader Question

I'm afraid I just call it 'the remote', but my friend and her family lovingly refer to it as the 'tweaker' :)

Re: I too would like to know.

editing of articles after they have been published? what nonsense is this?

don't you know that we have always been at war with eurasia?

Re: dum dum dum

"What makes you think that there won't be trials of autonomous security systems?"

If you think making my whole plan sound like an episode of doctor who (specifically the one where amelia pond get trapped inside that timestream/purpose built fully automated city thing with automated security system (this is a kindness?)) is going to deter me then you are very very wrong my friend :D

Can we please have a doctor who icon before the next series start?

Re: I suppose ocean ecology isn't important

I reckon before any desalination plant would be built there would be a proper study of the enviromental factors carried out beforehand, but doing some off the top of my head logic:

5X amounts of water is taken from a river/ocean, whatever.

3X amounts of water with a increased salt content is pumped back into the source

2X of water without salt is used, abused and then put back into the source (londonians flushing their toilets/washingmachines/showers/baths back into the thames.

there would be some evaporation, and some absorbtion by lawns and such, but the majority of the water would get back into the thames and I can't see how it would increase the salinity notably.

(taking water out and adding it back in either through pumping the brine back or from household wastewater getting back into the thames would obviously not occour at the very same spots, so there would be localised increases in salinity)

Re: So ?

co2 IS life, along with water and the lovely radiation from the sun it's all thats keeping us from looking like mars.

Oxygen is obviously pretty good as well for the stupid animal things, but they're just parasites living off of other lifeforms and have been around a lot shorter timevise.

do you know just how many people die each year from dihydrogen monooxide related causes?

Re: Australia!

there's always more to learn :)

Re: Workable form of mass electricity storage

actually, the hard bit is making it cheap enough to be affordable enough for most (as in not having to chose between a car or a house to live in), and to manufacture it without needing to pollute more than you supposedly 'save'.

Once it makes sense economically and enviromentally you will find it will be easier to get people to buy into it.

Re: Oily stuff available now!

The UK government has no say at all in the wholesale price of crude oil or distillates. Yes, they can tax it as high as they want and easily achieve the 500 USD per barrel equivalent of price at the pump, but oil is traded on an international market and guess what, if the UK (refineries/chemical plants/forecourts) stopped buying any oil at all tomorrow and kept it that way for a year we would hardly affect the international price of crude at all. We are not the navel of the world and the 60 mill or so living in the UK are a drop in the proverbial 7 billion of us that walk around on this planet today).

likewise, cutting all the oil that ultimately gets spent needlessly building wind turbines will have limited impact on the price of crude, but it will nevertheless mean we pullute less (what, you thought all that infrastructure, metals, construction, maintenance, landscaping and facilities for storing off-peak energy was made out of pixie dust and rainbows?)

Socialist governments are usually nothing of the sort, and don't have to pander to public opinion, so they can plan properly, and therefore don't have to build wind turbines. they tend to go all out nuclear if they can (or coal if they really really don't give a shit).

reverse nimby...

so we can only have nuclear powerplants if we agree to have them built in our own back yard?

I dont know who you are who can dictate where and when nuclear power plants are built at will, but I wouldn't mind living next to one as it happens... small sacrifices to be made in order to keep my house warm and my lights on and so on... I wouldn't mind a little bit cheaper leccy since I would live close by but I guess that is hoping for too much ;)

where do I send in the form?

Re: Really?

The sarbaines oxley act (and im guessing with emphasis on sox 404 here) came into effect after the collapse of enron/worldcom and the fall of andersen, yes.

as someone who knows how expensive sox compliance can be im carefully optimistic about this... large multinationals trading on the nyse might not even notice the cost of introducing sox controls/audits, but for startups it can be a significant economic hurdle.

if you need an (inaccurate, as they always are) automobile based metaphor: its the difference of a large carcompany having to do all kinds of crash tests and trials before a car can be declared roadlegal/legally sold in a market, while a private person only needs to have a yearly MOT.

The startups wont be excempt from any and all auditing, they simply will not have to comply with the entire sox framework (which was in any case designed to stop giant screwups like enron/worldcom from happening again, not to make sure that new startup companies never took off).

IANAL

Re: When contemplating the latest generation of high-end smart phones I feel myself..........

I had a blackberry die on me about a year and a half ago.. stone dead; black screen, no reaction when turned on, took it apart and checked all the connections to the mainboard etc. tried a replacement battery. dead as a doorknob (tbf, this was probably my fault more than RIM's, the phone had traveled with me half way across the world at this point, from muddy swamps to the indian ocean and back. Id replaced the trackball and dried saltwater out of it once as well).

Lost all my numbers that I had stored on it as well as some notes that had been saved to internal storage.

What I didn't lose was all my photos and videos that I had saved on the microSD card. Birthdays, nights out, holiday photos with the gf, stuff that would at least be annoying to lose.

I have an HTC now, but I would never consider getting a single point of failure phone like this.

Evernote for saving notes and an external card for storage FTW.

Re: STOP WASTING MONEY

I AM 12 AND WHAT IS THIS!?

actually...

both the way we vaccinate as well as the theory of evolution have changed over the years.. neither was born 'perfect' with no need to ever question or try to improve on. Creationists might take things a bit too far, but there still is not a complete concencus on evolution by science (not if the general theory holds, but some of the details).. there's still quite a few things we're trying to figure out :)

Homeopathy is different as it is based on an outright lie, that a lack of something in water can cure things which are unrelated (but, by all means, let is disprove it with science rather than just scoffing at it repeatedly :)