Posts by POSitality

Double standards

Massive bleating about the "wrong think" of Christian conservatives but stay silent when Islamic conservatives actively attack the LGBTQ community :(

Kangaroos... bunch of pussies! It's everything else in Oz that's dangerous:

http://www.cracked.com/funny-5997-the-animals-that-make-australia-deathtrap-it-is/

I can see a problem here...

"This time the deadline was imposed by Indiegogo, which told RCL to deliver a production-ready Vega+ console to its US HQ by yesterday. The crowdfunding website handed RCL that deadline at the start of June, as we reported."

Did Indiegogo pay their £100 pledge like everyone else or are they expecting to get free stuff?!

Limits?

I'm thinking the limit for "classical physics" would be one atom per bit. How close are we?

This doesn't look like the Vatican! Oh Apple Maps, why hast thou forsaken me?

These are your options...

Hydrogen - annoying to make, store or use

Natural Gas - already has distribution system, can be stored compressed, liquefied or adsorbed

LPG - slightly easier to store than natural gas but not widely distributed

Petrol/Diesel - very easy to store, existing distribution

All these can go into a conventional engine with some modification. Not a particular "clean" way of utilising the energy though and losing half your boot space for another/different tank would be a shame.

However, there has been some research into fuel cells that run on Natural Gas. Apparently they can be up to 60% efficient with the "waste" being heat (which could be piped into the cab for dear old Blighty summers!)

They do need some "warm up time" so you'd have a similar set up as this: small bank of Lithium Ion batteries for rolling away until the fuel cell is running. Basically replacing the conventional engine of existing hybrids.

Sounds like the way to go: still hooked on fossil fuels but killing the planet at a much slower pace, win win!

To all those bitching about auto updates...

...why not use LTSB?

From wikipedia (so it must be true!)

"Windows 10 Enterprise 2015 LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch) is the same edition as Windows 10 Enterprise but will not receive any feature updates and gives companies more control over the update process."

It has recently become my belief...

...that there are two people in this world.

When I was a child, it was Good vs Evil.

When I was an adolescent - and cognisant of politics - it was Left vs Right,

When I was a young man (and heavily into AD&D!) I thought maybe it was about Order vs Chaos...

Now as a man, a father and a grandfather I realise what it's about, what it's always been about:

* Regressives vs Progressives *

You know that line "it was always better back in the old days" one?

It's a lie: it was better then because ignorance and superstition meant *They* were in charge but now we have knowledge "We" have taken power. The frustration of power slipping through the fingers of the so-called "righteous" will see a lot more of this sort of thing.

We, the people, seek knowledge. With that knowledge we might attain freedom. This must be stopped at all costs, say the righteous who fight freedom at every turn.

And so it is with a telescope... not a shopping mall, not an industrial park but a scientific development made by people so "right on" as to relocate 35 rare frogs from the building site if they have to!

There are fights to pick but this one? Way to look like regressive chumps :(

As an occasional embedded developer...

...I welcome this: more choice = good.

Besides, it makes my life easier. ATM I have to swap between .NET (main line systems) C (small scale Arduino prototypes) and Linux/Python (complex Raspberry Pi prototypes.)

Just using one toolset and jettisoning Arduino (£10 vs £30? forgetaboutit) happy days!

A matter of principle

The E-cig charger moniker on this story is new but otherwise this is just the already known "subverted USB device" attack vector.

"Oh, you went to charge this £30 landfill Android tablet and you found an Autorun virus on the flash storage? Shocking!"

En principe, PC USB ports are not for charging! Get a mains-to-USB adapter pls :)

Such fun... all gone

In one 45min phone call I kept saying I couldn't get onto the logmein site due to my employers' hardware firewall. "Oh, what sort of work do you do?" "If I told you that... I'd have to kill you." and the guy just laughed and carried on with the spiel! The ignorance is staggering. I wonder if these are all just English students and their lecturer has set this as some final exam...

All gone now. I have a phone that directs all withheld, unknown, international or VOIP numbers to voice mail. It's so quiet I'm almost tempted to switch it off :)

Pah! The cumulative misery they have created... also first against the wall are those f*ckers who think click-fraud browser extensions are a decent living :(

Jeez, what's wrong with getting up in the morning (or afternoon if you're lucky) and doing some honest work?! "How was your day, honey?" "Great! Scammed a dozen old dears out of their pensions!"

Weird! Never had a problem with YouTube...

...as others have commented. And I don't put that down to having fibre as we all know ISP Routers > All.

Top tip though: OpenDNS (or anything but Virgin TBH) from Day One and you're shiny :)

Comparing my Note 3 to Yester-year computing

Hi guys,

Was at a job the other day and the client commented on my watch: it has a slight cyberpunk-vibe about it but the thing is...

"See this? Note 3, one of the most powerful pieces of personal technology in all human history. And this? No quartz crystal, no battery, self winding... I like the irony of the contrasting designs."

Setting aside the fact that there are phones out now that are a touch more powerful with slightly better screens and cameras (but no pen, sometimes no IR blaster even) the Note 3 is, for this argument, some tasty tech.

Driving back to the office I thought "yeah, probably more powerful than all the world computing power combined at some point..."

So here's the question: if one were to add up all the mega-flops, RAM and what have you from say 1957 would the Note 3 be more powerful? What year would the Note 3 *equal* total world computing power?

Could be a nice branding exercise for Intel, AMD or ARM:

"Yes, sir, this is the new Intel World '67 processor. That's right, sir, this baby is as powerful as *all* the computers from 1967! Does sir have a 1150 socket 'board?"

Regards,

Andy

Drugs are good, m'kay!

Actually I think you'll find that civilisation has been built on drugs:

You don't actually think that growing grain for food had much impact on early, post-nomadic societies do you?! No, someone was storing grain in large ceramic jars and had a roof leak. Later, when they went to clear up the store room, they discovered something had happened... something wonderful!

BEER!

And from then on there was a real *enthusiasm* for agriculture :) E-cigs are just the same: nicotine isn't synthetic it's extracted from the same sort of tobacco leaves grown for analogue cigarettes.

This is about the transition of a device from direct burning vs use of electricity. Take a look at the history of gas light vs the electric light bulb for instance.