Posts by David Pollard

Portable Apps

It may be worth getting a bunch of programs from portableapps.com and putting collections of different types onto usb sticks, just in case they are needed.

Henry Doubleday heritage seed swaps

Here's a link to the Henry Doubleday seed bank:

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/hsl/

A few years ago, numerous heritage plants and vegetables were threatened by EU legislation which introduced mandatory registration for each and every variety of seed that is sold. Because this is an expensive overhead, seed merchants had been going to drop a slew of the less popular varieties. The Henry Doubleday Association came to the rescue with a creative solution, by setting up a seed swap club which has preserved this valuable asset.

Nil carborundum chaps. Bureaucrats and gauleiters can be beaten.

"transferring information faster than the speed of light"?

The correlation that occurs with entanglement is instantaneous and does not depend on temporal or spatial separation, but that isn't quite the same as information transfer. Any data transmission is still limited by the velocity of light.

At least that was the case the last time I could understand it.

They need a man-cold de-dupe program

If the urban myth is correct, then perhaps they should de-rate accounts that come from men. And those that are written on Mondays and Fridays.

The groundwater flooding database

"Beginning in April 2014, targets should be set for the release of totally new government datasets "

Presently the Environment Agency's data on groundwater flooding isn't readily available. River and coastal flooding risk is mapped on their internet site, but they don't release any data for groundwater. National flood advice sites recommend that householders should purchase a survey, costing £24 and up. The groundwater database was compiled by local authorities and the EA at taxpayers expense and seems to have been turned into a nice little earner for one or two companies who have access to it.

Given that insurance companies are refusing to pay out on some of the claims for recent flooding, free and open publication of the EA's information might well be a good start for the open data proposals.

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/money/Consumer/article1384264.ece

Let's hope ...

... that Apple don't try to block this with patents.

Syngas, biodiesel and phosphorus co-products?

The process of making biochar from organic material is exothermic, so this invention looks good from an energy standpoint. What isn't mentioned is what they do with the syngas and oils that are produced. Depending on the temperature at which the process runs these comprise half or more of the mass. It would also be useful to have some means of recycling phosphorus to use as fertiliser.

The separation and transformation of co-products needs a fair amount of basic industrial chemistry and it's not clear how, where or even if this part of the process is carried out.

Dumb or deceitful?

Much as there was to admire about his querulous side, for it did tend to make people think, his stated incomprehension about nuclear power is difficult to square. He maintained that during his time as Minister of Technology he never knew that British nuclear reactors were producing plutonium for the weapons programme.

There doesn't seems to be any alternative other than that he was either culpably ignorant or lying. Neither of these fits well with the principles he claimed to uphold.

Where's the inverter?

Isn't the usual way to get significant energy storage with ultracapacitors to use an inverter and to charge and discharge them through a fairly large voltage range? They may be good for smoothing when simply connected in parallel with a battery but won't the small change in voltage in such situations mean that only a small part of their storage capacity is used?

"A staging post for some upcoming alien invasion"?

I for one welcome etc...

A worrisome trend

Given that the GWPF started out, as their logo testifies, with a proclamation that global warming isn't happening at all, this marks a notable upward trend in their estimates. Extrapolating on the basis of this latest claim it rather looks as though by 2025 their estimate for warming will be around 3.4 ºC, slightly higher than the IPCC's present mean value.

Meanwhile, there is what looks to be a sensible review by Graham Readfearn over at the Grauniad:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/mar/06/lord-lawson-climate-sceptic-thinktank

A national escrow service is needed

Recently I've been involved with a survey for changes in NHS care practices for patients approaching the end of their life, the so-called Liverpool Care Pathway.

The suggestion seems to have been implicit that the NHS might hold Advanced Directives on their system. These have details of a person's wishes on care such as whether or not they are to be resuscitated should they suffer a serious stroke or similar. For a number of reasons I very much doubt that it would be appropriate for the NHS itself to hold such records, but some simple and preferably inexpensive way to keep such directives is needed.

What's needed is the equivalent of a locked box which can be opened if necessary by appropriately qualified medical authorities and which guards the data and reliably records whether it has been opened, and if it has also holds details of who opened the box and why. Besides an Advanced Directive it could also hold details of passwords and similar tokens. It shouldn't be too difficult to provide a one-way data path so that updates to passwords lists could be posted in as necessary as well as a means to allow appropriate access for executors and/or relatives in the event of accident or death.

It's hardly reassuring

Given that the average temperature in the UK varies between about 5 and 15 ºC, the possibility of a 0.3 ºC shift is not negligible.

And looking at the satellite images of atmospheric water vapour content, the possibility of a "slight northward deflection of westerly winds in Western Europe" is not entirely encouraging, especially in view of the recent weather conditions.

http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mimic-tpw/global/main.html

Here's how a bacterium propels itself inside a cell

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001766

Gains may be offset by the "Wal-Mart effect"

Recent research in the USA seems to suggest that crime reduction initiatives don't work terribly well in areas where Wal-Mart stores have recently been opened. Presumably similar trends can be seen in the UK.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-02/uosc-ssd020714.php

The conclusion seems to be that it can be hard to reduce crime in regions that are economically depressed.

Programmable touch screen anyone?

If someone were to write software that puts graphic buttons onto a cheapish touch screen and provide it with a range of get-you-started templates to suit different programs this might go down rather well. But don't Wacom tablets do something similar already?

Field testing

When the time comes to test these devices, some of the journalists at the Guardian appear to be well qualified for such a task.

UKUSA

Aren't the Australian spooks working with the American spooks together with the others who are part of the UKUSA agreement that Duncan Campbell explained to us yonks ago?

Lessons of history

An elegant solution to American protection rackets running in the 1930s was to charge those responsible with the tax evasion in which they were also engaged.

Is Trusteer Rapport any good?

In the section on online banking, Cyber Street's first recommendation is to "Sign up to security software provided by your bank, such as Trusteer Rapport". Just a few months ago Reg readers seemed to suggest this may not be all that good.

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/08/06/trusteer_pushes_updates_after_cybercrook_brew_up_browser_lockdown_exploit/

My only experience of it is from sorting out a pc which was seriously snarled. Can other readers comment?

... claimed to have "overwhelming support"

Quite a few people engage in activities which do little or no harm to others and for which it could similarly be claimed there is "overwhelming support". The courts generally take rather a dim view of this argument if used for defence or mitigation when such activities break the law.

It's a plea for help

Working at GCHQ and NSA may be pretty awful for anyone with imagination, and also jolly boring most of the time. These coded messages are actually a plea for help for someone to write something a bit more challenging than the usual run-of-the-mill stuff they have to decode from trrrrsts, drug dealers, pr0n addicts and politicians.