Posts by Charlie Clark

Liability could be one of the easier problems to solve: at the end of the day it's just about the money.

Re: Surely unidirectional wireless is an incredibly inefficient approach to transmitting energy?

I really fail to see why there is all this Hype over wireless charging is going on.

For mobile phones you can argue about the problems of mechanical connections but it is really about convenience in the home or office. Shared facilities such as those provided at airports offer actual efficiencies: single transformer, fewer cables, etc.

However, wireless charging is also appealing for industry. There is already a pilot service for electric powered-buses: no faffing around with plugging in a heavy duty cable, just park correctly and you're done. In this respect wireless charging has the same advantage of other contactless systems. None of these are really earth-shattering but they can still make sense.

Re: Surely unidirectional wireless is an incredibly inefficient approach to transmitting energy?

I believe that it only starts really pumping out the energy when it resonates with a receiving device.

Maybe, but how's it going to do this? Without some kind of focussed beam you've got the usual dispersion problems.

Re: Efficiency?

It's possible that magnetic resonance is reasonably efficient as it's less likely to be attenuated by the air but then you have to worry about the strength of the field so you're talking about going from being on a mat to being just next to it. In practice I think bigger losses are incurred going between the various form of EMF.

Re: I would recommend reading this...

Great tip, thanks.

"Intelligent Design" was debunked years ago and is now little more than a thought experiment in introductory philosophy. Not that it stops the god-botherers from wheeling it out again and again.

Notwithstanding that none of the claims about the universe made by any of the various religious texts stands up to scientific scrutiny, there is also the problem of trying to reconcile what one group holds for divine truth with what all the others do.

But it is all by the by. Even if there is a supreme being then why would that stop us investigating the rules that they have laid down? There might be the small matter of reconciling a self-contained universe with some kind of external control, but why not?

OTOH continuing to peddle myth of humanity's exceptionalism not only gets harder to do convicingly (not that true believers care) but more worringly leads to faith-based policy including indoctrination, discriminaton and war.

Re: Just shows how special we all are...

What we do know is that it appears to of happened once during the time life has been on Earth, which seems to indicate that it is very rare.

More reductivism. We suspect there is no complex life in the solar system but are still prepared to send a probe to look in the oceans.

It is, however, reasonable to assume that energy is key to the development of life for things like food chains which might explain why the older anaerobic life forms round the vents on the ocean floor have remained as simple as they have.

Re: Just shows how special we all are...

The argument cherry picks items to lead to an almost inevitable conclusion. While there is no doubt that life on earth is pretty spectacular and unlikely, we also have a terribly poor understanding for just how big our galaxy is. I thought that some of the results from the probes to Jupiter and Saturn indicated that many of the factors that we think are so unique also exist there and that Venus and Mars are both "near misses" when it comes to being viable for life, ie. life itself is less spectacular than we used to think.

The chances might be small but on a galactic scale that still leaves an awful lot of possibilities. What hasn't changed is that complex life really struggles outside of protective bubble because space is hazardous.

Re: Behold! Pluto hath returned from Hades!

But if Pluto is a planet then Ceres is as well… so maybe it's Jupiter that's been disqualified instead? ;-)

But we can reasonably say that it looks like our system is unusual.

Why? How many systems are there out there? And how many have we studied in detail? And how many of them have sun-sized stars at the centre?

Re: 8000 Devices?

200,000,000 of their fellow citizens

The US passed 300 million several years ago: https://www.census.gov/popclock/

Or do you think that over a third of the population doesn't deserver constitutional rights?

Re: Alexa, write me a Brexit compatible Customs system

The good news is that the PM gets Amazon Prime TV and free delivery on their Amazon.com purchases

Except all the tat is held up at customs…

I'm here all week, try the veal.

Re: There are no specs because the UK's trade agreement hasn't been negotiated with the EU yet

So hopefully there'll also be a transitional period of at least two years with no deviation from EU law or the UK will be screwed.

As things stand at the moment the transitional period can only run until midnight of 31st December 2020 because otherwise the UK has to sign up for the next budget…

Of course, the current fudge allows for a maintenance of the status quo sans voting rights because of the Irish question.

Of course, Britain can take it! Cue stirring black and white footage of the new volunteer army of border and customs officers skillfully and knowledgeably handing everything. Thank goodness, Mr Chalmondely-Warner!

Re: parenting

Rinse and repeat for child distractions over the last 50 years: television, video games, etc. Parental controls aren't the solution: more engagement with the offspring and eductation of them by the parents is what's required. I'm going to get on with this myself just as soon as I put my I-Pad down.

Re: Adobe Creative Suite on Linux...

So, QT as the GUI framework then?

Re: So, 2018 will be the year of the Linux desktop because of Gnome?

With you until you got to Android. Android? Seriously?

Well, only in the sense that we'll probably seem more desktop systems with Android than Linux ones. We all know it isn't ready for prime time yet but it has the advantage of the apps: want MS Word on a non-MS machine? Well, with Android you can have it. I also think we'll see Samsung developing and pushing DeX for enterprise. This won't suit everyone but I think the market is big enough for Samsung to want to continue it.

Google is also, of course, trying to merge the castrated Chrome OS with Android for the kidz but it probably won't be until Fuchsia is around that we'll see what's really possible. 'Course Fuchsia might remove much of the remaining ties to Linux…

Re: I'm not so sure about that

Broadcast licensing is a complete mess because the publishers wanted to have their cake and eat it: promote shit by getting it played a lot. As a result, for years now most radio stations play more or less what the publishers tell them to. Hardly surprising that some listeners got fed up and started looking for alternatives.

Personally, I don't like the streaming model but I think you're numbers are inflated. There will be some people listening to that much but I suspect the majority will be close to 10 - 20 hours a month. This is the same calculation for all streaming services: get people hooked by the promise of unlimited and then just enjoy the cashflow as people fail to cancel their subscriptions.

It isn't that simple: just try licensing the stuff and you'll soon find out.

Re: Music Licensing

Says who?Says the law. You must apply for an exemption from the licence companies. Even for your own stuff. There is logic to some of the conditions but it's also true that the licence-holders act as if they've invented a golden goose.

Re: Interesting display. But not a word on the elephant in the room.....

Comparison with a Psion isn't really realistic because full-colour screen as opposed to passive LCD and radios. But the spec suggests that the device should be good for at least a day's real work: ie. at least several hours with the keyboard. Should outclass a lot of other devices with similar size but the productivity boost is the real winner.