* Posts by Terry Barnes

670 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2008

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EU law bods: New eCall crash system WON'T TRACK YOU. Really

Terry Barnes

Re: Free?

"So who will pay for it"

I presume that much like other safety improvements that have been mandated, the manufacturer pays for it initially and the cost is recouped through sales. Manufacturers have an incentive to keep that cost low because they operate in a competitive market.

The alert service is not much more complicated than a GSM SIM - so the ongoing cost is lower than Amazon's cost for running a 3G Kindle, given that there's no data or calls being made on any kind of regular basis.

Solar sandwich cooks at 40 per cent efficiency

Terry Barnes

Re: 0% efficiency...

"Between sunset and sunrise. Need to factor in a few AA rechargeable batteries..."

Or just network power in from somewhere the sun is still shining. At any given moment in time there is enough solar energy striking the earth to make powering the entirety of humanity's needs, including travel, a trivial undertaking.

Reg mobile man: National roaming plan? Oh UK.gov, you've GOT to be joking

Terry Barnes

Re: Not on the side of the consumer then...

"Ever noticed how much better your phone coverage is when you travel in Europe with your UK mobile phone?"

Ever noticed how expensive it is?

Mighty Blighty broadbanders beg: Let us lay cable in BT's, er, ducts

Terry Barnes

Re: Back in the day...

"Ever the salesmen, the paid monkey in a suit even handed me an example foot-long length of this wondrous "fibre-optic cable" as an example of what would soon be carrying a plethora of TV channels and other services into the comfort of my own home."

I had an electricity guy knock at my house a couple of years ago who claimed that his company had been round replacing all the external wiring to allow it to be used for renewable energy. He turned up in a van with a clipboard and demanded to see our meter before starting his pitch. It was quite bizarre and could be summarised as "lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, sign here". Alas he didn't win our business.

FCC: Gonna need y'all to cough up $1.5bn to put broadband in schools

Terry Barnes

Re: It's a crisis?

"If they have the Internet, then why have a library?"

Because they're, you know, different things.

Broadband sellers in the UK are UP TO no good, says Which?

Terry Barnes

Re: Substantial majority

"How about only being able to advertise the speed which say 90% of customers will experience for 90% of the time "

Your line speed is your line speed. It doesn't vary.

Your 90% of the time issue is about throughput and that's down to how much contention you're paying for. Less contention = higher cost. How do you define 90% of the time? Actual usage time will vary from user to user and the throughput will be a function of how many other people are sharing your bandwidth and what they're doing.

ZZZAP! Climate change means getting hit by lightning is likelier

Terry Barnes

Re: evidence, evidence...

"My link was to evidence that it ain't been warming much or at all in the last 15 years."

Indeed but you missed off "if you only look at one data set - surface air temperature". If you were to look at - for instance - sea temperature, you'd see a very different picture. The Met Office themselves state that anyone who cherry picks that one piece of data and uses it out of context is being wilfully misleading, as in their published exchange with David Rose.

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/

I stand by it being idiotic to take the sum total of the research and efforts of thousands of people, look through it for one piece of data that when taken out of context appears to contradict global scientific concensus and then say "See! They're wrong!"

" I hope that isn't what you'd really like to do to anyone who disagrees with you :-)"

I don't mind at all people disagreeing with me. I am often wrong. Thankfully I am not a climate scientist and so your argument with this data is not with me at all.

Terry Barnes

Re: evidence, evidence...

If I stick a thermometer to your feet and then set fire to your head, how long would you continue to claim that there'd been no warming and that temperatures were remaining stable?

Cherry-picking one data set does not constitute science. From the same site;

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/indicators/11keyindicators.html

Terry Barnes

"Others would point out that actually there has been no warming for the last fifteen years and more,"

But those people would be science-ignoring idiots not fit to grace the pages of what is at least superficially a publication interested in data, science and evidence.

Hey, you, PHONE-FACE! Kickstarter in-car mobe mount will EMBED your phone into your MUG

Terry Barnes

Re: Product placement aside

I had a Citroen where the centre of the steering wheel always remained in the same position.

Shuddit, Obama! Here in Blighty, we ISPs have net neutrality nailed

Terry Barnes

Isn't that the whole point of the article though? If you don't like your current ISP, sign up with another one. There are enough ISPs and packages in the UK that everyone can find a package that suits.

Whether the package you want is affordable or not is a different question though

Terry Barnes

Re: You (should) get what you pay for

"If the bandwidth rates were properly enforced, there would be no issues, you pay for 2Mbs you get that, and if you have it switched on all of the time who cares, its not like water."

No. You can buy an uncontended 2Mbps service, but it will be expensive - maybe 10 or 20 times more expensive than a broadband service.

Broadband is cheap because you share backhaul bandwidth with other users. If you don't want to share, you don't have to, but the cost will reflect that.

SCREW YOU, net neutrality hippies – AT&T halts gigabit fiber

Terry Barnes

Re: We manage it in Europe

" you'll soon be finding out about the other unaccounted for costs of your system: we're producing the medical breakthroughs. You just parasitically feed off of them"

So, by that logic - the latest Apple toys are far more expensive in the US because that's where all the new product development happens?

It's a global market. R&D happens wherever it happens, the costs are included in the prices of things that are then sold globally. It's crazy to suggest that huge swathes of US citizens have to go without healthcare (which is what the market approach delivers) so that you can do R&D. Just think about the logic of that for a second - "You poor guys have to have no healthcare so we can do research on making the healthcare you can't have, better".

"That's why people from Europe come to the US to pay our "outrageous prices""

Don't confuse the costs of specific treatments with the costs of coverage. In some cases a specific treatment is cheaper in the US because of simple scale issues. My son might need a type of surgery known as SDR at some point and currently that's done in Boston, because there's not enough need for it in the UK to set up such a specialism here. If that happens though - it will be paid for by the UK state heatlhcare scheme, the NHS. I'll point out that there are kids in the US who need this surgery who can't get it because their parents are refused cover for a child with a serious disability. So no, your argument is wrong.

A supposedly Christian country that believes access to healthcare should be dependant on how wealthy you are must have lost its way somewhere along the line. By all means discriminate on how fancy your car is, how flash your house is, the clothes you wear and the holidays you take - but healthcare? That's batshit crazy.

Terry Barnes

"The sooner ISPs understand that the ONLY business they are in is that of shuffling packets from A to B as fast and securely as possible, the better off we all will be"

That's fine, that model can work, but it's not what investors understood to be the case and it's not the model that banks lent capital against for network rollout.

If the value add stuff is removed from what ISPs can do then one of two things will happen;

-The price of that 'shuffling packets' service will rise - banks and investors still want paying back

-Businesses collapse, mergers, takeovers - leading to fewer players. Again, prices will rise.

You might end up achieving your neutrality goal but at a higher price than if there had been no intervention.

I'm sure I'll be downvoted straight to hell, but you can't pretend Internet access exists in a vacuum untouched by economics, especially if the provision of those services is by private enterprise.

Terry Barnes

Re: Obama Plan for Internet?? - Nooooo!

"The answer to your question boils down to three choices:

You can cover everyone

You can cover every health problem

You can keep costs low

Now, pick any two of the above. You are not allowed by the laws of economics to pick all three, sorry."

Well - actually, you can have all three - or you can reach a point that encompasses all three things. We manage it in Europe - it requires the risk to be socialised. It doesn't need to be entirely state-run, private provision works, but you can't do all three if every interaction requires that a profit be made.

Let's look at the UK. Cradle to grave care including emergency cover, pregnancy, childbirth - a seriously comprehensive package. It's entirely funded by taxation and costs £110Bn a year to run. There are 64 million people in the UK, so it costs £1700 a year, per citizen. £143 a month.

Not everyone can afford to pay that though, so the wealthy pay more and the poor pay less and some people (children, pensioners) don't have to pay at all.

In terms of your original three points - it covers everything, it covers everyone, and it does it for half the cost of the US system that achieves neither points one or two.

SAVE ME, NASA system builder, from my DEAD WORKSTATION

Terry Barnes

"I had to get a new system, pronto."

Repairing the power connector didn't occur?

Let me know when a bulb goes in your car. I may be able to do you a great deal on a Range Rover.

Bullish Vodafone barges back into UK consumer broadband market

Terry Barnes

Re: First/Final Mile

"And thanks to the virtual monopoly that Openreach has on the leg between the consumer and the point of presence"

Virgin's last mile network covers around half the UK.

Russians hear Tim Cook is gay, pull dead Steve Jobs' enormous erection

Terry Barnes

Re: Cheap dig

"How about trying to make an adult comment about what is wrong with the Russian attitude towards gays rather than just being bitchy?"

It's as repellent to disapprove of someone because of their sexuality as it is because of the colour of their skin. Being gay is not a lifestyle choice or perversion.

Adult enough for you?

'National roaming' law: Stubborn UK operators to be forced to share

Terry Barnes

Re: Excellent if it happens...

The operators make far less money for a wholesale call than they do for a retail call. It messes with the economics and will tend to provide an incentive to not build out network.

If you look at fixed line telecoms, the requirement on BT to provide wholesale access to its network and regulation then setting the charges for that access at a low rate has resulted in very few telcos building their own. It has worked in that there is lots of competition and cheap prices in the UK, but not much infrastructure competition. That's different to the mobile market today and this new rule, if introduced, would tend to make the economics of buy/build more like the fixed market.

Lumia 830: Microsoft hopes to seduce with slim 'affordable' model

Terry Barnes

Re: Impressive

My 820 has all three.

Landline deregulation: Big EU telcos have Skype to thank

Terry Barnes

Re: Please....

Hmm, interesting. It's possible to buy a German toll free number that gets delivered to the UK though, the restriction is only on geographic numbers.

Terry Barnes

Re: Please....

That's not regulation, that's your supplier refusing to sell you a product.

I can buy EU numbers to be delivered to the UK from a whole selection of suppliers. I can do it in most places around the world. Even Skype will sell you a number. You don't need to be resident or have an office in any of the countries.

http://www.skype.com/en/features/online-number/

Was Nokia's Elop history's worst CEO?

Terry Barnes

Re: Um, no...

"Of course Nokia's smartphone market share had fallen, the smartphone market itself had grown."

Erm, in a healthy business with products that people want, they'd have ridden that growth and maintained market share. They didn't.

Siri ... why is this semi headed RIGHT AT ME? Phone apps distracting as ever – new study

Terry Barnes

It's a cognitive thing. Interacting with the voice of a person you can't see - whether they're real or not, places a big load on the same system in the brain that deals with holding a spatial model of where you are and what's around you. It's quite important when driving.

Moving faster than we can run and talking to people we can't see are both recent developments in evolutionary terms - attempting to do both simultaneously with the same brain system is asking for trouble. Even walking and doing it is hard - witness people on the pavement stopping suddenly, swerving or walking into people when using mobiles.

You can try it yourself at home. Play a game like Tetris and try and do other things at the same time - talk to someone sitting next to you, have some shouty kids next to you and then try talking to someone on a mobile. I'll bet upwards of 40p that your lowest score will be on the latter 'trial'.

Interestingly it's not so apparent where the communications mode isn't full-duplex. Those car radios the police use with a CB style 'push to talk' button don't cause the same impairment. It's hard to make a like-for-like comparison as the systemic driving training the emergency services drivers receive means they use their brains differently to most people when driving.

Official: Turing's Bombe better than a Concorde plane

Terry Barnes

Re: I can't think of Alan Turing without thinking of the radio series Hut 33!

"Indeed. Values lasted much longer without being power cycled."

I don't think the original Bombes had valves, they were electro-mechanical. You might be thinking of Colossus.

The later 'high-speed' bombes had valves, but they were built by the US.

EU operators PLEAD for MERCY, may get roaming rates cut ‘reprieve’

Terry Barnes

"Networks that cost billions to install, maintain and upgrade. That investment did not come from nowhere, it was profit driven. Profits that ate supporting your pension and driving the economy, thus giving you a job."

You spent all that money without doing a proper risk analysis and offset on potential regulatory changes? That sounds like a failure of due diligence to me.

It's not in any way communist to regulate markets, especially ones with a small number of large players and gigantic barriers to entry. The market hasn't delivered effective competition in roaming and so regulation is required to correct the error.

Terry Barnes

Re: @Coward

"At the end of the day most phone calls are back hauled over the "Internet" (private or public) between cell towers so it makes NO difference what country that second tower is in. "

Actually it does. Most cellular operators don't have much in the way of international capacity. If a call leaves their network, someone has to be paid. Similarly a UK call plan will have costs based on the termination fees charged by BT Wholesale - give or take - if the regime in another country has a different termination model, those plans don't add up.

I'm sure this is all detail that can be worked out, but pretending that this is in some way 'free' to the operators because of the existence of Skype is a nonsense.

Apple: SO sorry for the iOS 8.0.1 UPDATE BUNGLE HORROR

Terry Barnes

Re: Kinda' sad, Apple used to wear the "it just /works/" crown ...

In British English as well, "it just works" has a second meaning - to get the same meaning in American English, insert the word "only" after "it".

Boffins say they've got Lithium batteries the wrong way around

Terry Barnes

Re: Green Prince of Darkness

"On the other hand, clouds, generally speaking, are not so reliable."

Agreed. But you'd be surprised how little of the earth's surface, near the equator, would need to be covered in solar panels to provide 100% of global energy requirements 24/7 - even with clouds. There's "a bit of work" required to make that happen, but it's feasible - meaning we'd use batteries for portable devices (like cars) rather than to smooth sporadic grid input.

Terry Barnes

Re: Green Prince of Darkness

"Since DC generation from wind and photovoltaics is sporadic"

I believe the sun's output is pretty reliable. Life on our planet rather depends on it.

Evil mining firms? Please. Obeying profit motive is KINDER to the environment

Terry Barnes

Erm

"If the environmentalists are right, in that new mines will inevitably be more expensive to develop than the old mines with the easy stuff in it, then when mines close because of falling prices it must be the new mines that close, right? "

That's quite a straw man. Older mines will have less un-mined material left and ageing capital kit. A newer mine will have the latest tech and, presumably, a worthwhile amount of material to be mined.

Development cost is not operational cost.

Microsoft's SELFIE-TASTIC Nokia 830, 730: Complete with DOG SMILE WHITENER

Terry Barnes

Re: But Will They Have Any Useful Attributes?

I'm not sure I understand. My 820 does handsfree, and does it pretty well. I think it's a standard feature.

CNN 'tech analyst' on NAKED CELEBS: WHO IS this mystery '4chan' PERSON?

Terry Barnes

Re: Journalistic Integruhty

"So, people that break into safes are safehackers?"

I don't believe such a term is in general usage amongst the population, so no.

The use of "hacker" to mean a person who gains unauthorised access and use of a computer system *is* in general usage.

Terry Barnes

Re: Journalistic Integruhty

"they still call people that break into systems for nefarious purposes 'hackers'"

Usage defines meaning. Much as it may pain you, hacker is the right term.

Nokia: Read these Maps, Samsung – we're HERE for the Gear

Terry Barnes

You need to buy a 2 Amp charging lead and try to have at least 50% battery when you start navigating. I've just driven to the south of France with my Lumia 820 as a sat nav, the battery was fine. Before I bought a better charging lead it would run out of puff after a couple of hours.

One step closer to robot butlers: Dyson flashes vid of vacuum sucker bot

Terry Barnes

James Dyson said in an interview that they've never made a vacuum with an motor that powerful - they rely on efficiency rather than grunt to work.

Bright lights, affordable motor: Ford puts LED headlights onto Mondeo

Terry Barnes

Re: Great, maybe...

"Either visibility is such that you don't need your fog lights turned on, or you shouldn't be doing anything like 70 mph."

I was taught to only use rear fog lights in fog (obviously) and only for as long as no headlights were visible behind. Once I could see lights behind, turn them off - on the basis that they had served their purpose at that point and leaving them on was likely to just mask braking.

Terry Barnes

Re: Dazzle and indicators

"For example you will not find me stopped at traffic lights, in a lane where I can only turn right, sitting there with my indicator on."

Even though such indication would be of use to young people who've yet to learn to drive, or to people with less than perfect vision? Don't presume that just because you know it's a turn-only lane that other people do too.

Terry Barnes

Re: pushbike headlamps

"Most night cyclists I see have poor or no lighting at all"

Your statement contains a logical conundrum. It seems to suggest that cyclists with no lights are easier to see.

Terry Barnes

Re: Dazzle.

" a smaller headlight will appear brighter when looked at head on"

isn't that why in the UK headlamps have to aim down and to the left? It shouldn't be possible to look at an oncoming car's headlights head on because they should never be pointing that way.

Terry Barnes

Re: Daytime running lights

" Now with daytime lamps, the dash lights are always on, making people sometimes think their headlamps are on."

That's not the case with our VW. Only turning side or headlights on illuminates the dash lighting. with the lights set to 'off' and the DRLs on (conventional bulbs, not LEDs on our car) only the needles are illuminated.

Huawei: 'Tizen has no chance', Windows Phone is 'difficult'... it's Android all the way

Terry Barnes

Re: This is terrible news!

There are seven in our house right now. My work phone and personal phone. My wife's personal phone and work phone. My father-in-law and mother-in-law both have one, as does my son's carer.

Maybe I fit an odd demographic, but I don't know anyone who has bought a smartphone in the last six months who hasn't bought a windows phone.

Stalwart hatchback gets a plug-in: Volkswagen e-Golf

Terry Barnes

Re: No spare wheel?

I'd imagine exactly the same as with the many modern cars that come without a spare - a can of squirty puncture fix stuff to get you to the nearest tyre repair place.

Who will kill power companies? TESLA, says Morgan Stanley

Terry Barnes

Re: Why Li-ion?

"It matters very little whether a house-scale solar storage battery weighs 10kg, 100kg, 1 tonne or possibly even 10 tonnes."

It kind of does unless you want to undertake significant building work to strengthen your floors.

Terry Barnes

Re: Lets price up a car battery

"I went into all this is some detail years ago."

Clearly not all that deeply. Lead acid batteries are ruined quickly by deep discharge cycles, so to avoid replacing your cells every few months you would need to buy multiples of your actual intended usage. That takes up a ton of space and requires a reasonable amount of maintenance.

You also seem to have ignored the requirement for a means of charging this huge shed full of batteries - which is becoming cheaper on seemingly a monthly basis.

Terry Barnes

Re: Net energy gaiin?

"The same probably goes for solar cells, and wind turbines. If you're using solar cells or wind turbines to make energy you're probably better burning the fossil fuel directly."

Er what?

Bring back error correction, say Danish 'net boffins

Terry Barnes

No. MPLS is a method of managing traffic priority across a managed network. It works well where you can make a reasonable prediction about the expected volumes of different traffic types in a private or virtually private network and dimension network elements accordingly. It couldn't work in a public network because users have a strong incentive to game the system by marking all packets as being of the highest priority. You end up back at square one.

Terry Barnes

My bold prediction is that we will see some return to circuit switching to run alongside packet switching in our public networks. That would most likely take the form of an overlay network and traffic would be split out at edge routers. For some types of traffic, for some usage and routing scenarios, packet switching is awfully inefficient and difficult. At some point it becomes easier to just circuit switch that traffic than it does to try and engineer an illusion of circuit switching over a packet switched network.

Termination charges drop smacks Vodafone and EE in the WALLET

Terry Barnes

Re: EE / Orange lost me as a customer after 12 + years

"They've left me no choice."

Haven't you just described your choice? Better service at a higher price or poorer service at a lower price.

Major problems beset UK ISP filth filters: But it's OK, nobody uses them

Terry Barnes

"but as long as it's all or nothing who'd sign up for it?"

It's not - or it's not with BT. You get to tick "yes" or "no" to each of the listed categories.

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