Posts by Alan Edwards

Re: RSS Poke It With A Stick

> If it was a support ship, then then "RSS RTFM"...

And it's sister ship RRS Did You Turn It Off And On Again :)

Re: Bad for the Consumer

It does, but you can't download it, you have to stream it.

So you still have to rip the CD to MP3 to avoid chewing through mobile data to play it on your phone.

> so does this mean if you have a computer and the internet you may have to pay it

That is already the case. If you use a PC to access iPlayer to watch live TV you have to have a TV licence. The new proposal extends that to catch-up.

Remember all the law changes that were rushed through to enable internet use spying? Expect those laws to now be used to track down people who access iPlayer without a licence.

Beat me to it :)

If you've got 50 terabytes to shift, it's almost certainly quicker to put the disks in a van than try to do it over the interwebs. Especially when someone turns something vital off at 95% done :)

You do run the risk of losing the lot when the van gets t-boned by a bus, though.

Re: Knowing what a lever or button do is just the beginning...

FS-X is still going, it's on Steam for a few pounds. I think I paid about £30 for it with a few extra bits.

X-Plane is still around too, but the realistic simulation side seems to have moved on to Lockheed Prepar3D. You have to basically know how to fly to get anywhere with P3D, like go through the correct startup procedure to start the engines. With the right aircraft it also models the flight computer properly to set the auto-pilot up. Very good, but it's $300 plus extra for decent aircraft and scenery.

Have a look at Squirrel, StevenKiberton or dirkadurka on Twitch to see P3D in use.

Re: Adblock's next step?

Prepare a web site with links to ad-blocking browsers and software for all platforms.

Park a van outside the entrance their venue with a wifi AP and a banner on the side with the SSID. Connecting to it auto-redirects to the above web site, and links to the most ad-infested sites run by IAB members

Buy the biggest billboard nearest to their venue with a before-and-after screen-shot of an IAB-run ad-infested site, and the URL of the link page mentioned above.

Fork a version of AdBlock Plus that aggressively blocks adverts from IAB members, aggressively circumvents anti-AdBlock measures, and doesn't have the white list. Effectively it's uBlock Origin, but it gets their brand on it and they can explain explain why they created it.

Re: TCO?

A 6w LED may not match a 60w incandescent (a bit less than 40w IME) but a 15w LED does. If the fancy new incandescent matches a 15w LED at 20w, it's still got a way to go to match LED in terms of light output efficiency.

What does the coating do to the colour temperature of the light? I'm not too bothered, but some people are sensitive to that.

Re: Lenovo's latest ThinkPad design did him in. :-)

> I think I'm one of a dying breed that likes the boring, functional ThinkPad design

You're not the only one left, my T410 is brilliant. I don't like the track nipple though, first thing I did with mine was remove the red rubber bit. It weighs a ton with the big 9-cell battery, but it's built like a tank.

I still remember many years ago using one as a tea tray, the rubber coating stopped the plastic vending machine cups sliding around.

Re: Wait a second...

The Syma X5 is about 100g, including the battery. I would think all of the kind of quadcopters given as presents to kids will be less than 250g.

Re: Stabilty

I was reading about this new ship earlier, and they were comparing it to the Arleigh Burke class. Apparently the Arleigh Burke can roll over to 110 degrees and still naturally right itself, the Zumwalt is deliberately unstable and needs computer help in rough water.

The Arleigh Burke is nicer looking too, IMO. The Zumwalt is not exactly pretty, is it?

Re: The Cloud

> "The cloud is Sky, nothing to do with JDW"

>

> Then why have JDW got the email addresses for The Cloud then?

You have to have signed in to The Cloud *and* signed up to get marketing emails from Wetherspoons when you registered,

This might explain why I'm suddenly getting spam from Joseph Holt pubs...

Re: @Steve K: Parvenu.

If it's worth less than the agreed value at the end of a PCP contract, just hand it back.

Isn't there something in the contract about an agreed 'trade in' value if you get another car from the same place though? If you can combine that with a good discount on one of the unwanted models caught up in this you may end up quids-in.

It's all reverse-charges in the US isn't it? The charges are paid by the people the prisoners are calling?

I remember from a US program I was watching (possibly Orange Is The New Black) - there is an automated call to the person the prisoner is calling telling them it's from a prison and asking if they accept the charges.

Re: I bought a Sebo

> Now I've wised up and I go to my local electrical retailer and buy the cheapest looking piece

> of crap available.

I fell into that trap. My Vax died (spectacularly, sparks out of the back and everything) so I bought a cheap thing from Argos - lasted about 3 months, and didn't suck much up when it did work.

I got another Vax, still going strong about 3 years later.

Re: Nothing new

> Wasn't it named after the guitarist Rick Derringer

Nope, pre-dates him by about a hundred years.

It was actually a mis-spelling of 'deringer', as in Henry Deringer. According to the Wiki page, John Wilkes Booth used a Philadelphia Deringer to assassinate Lincoln - never knew that.

Re: Hmmm...

> do I want to use my 64-bit, 8-core i7, with a 17 inch screen (internal), 32GB RAM and 2TB storage

The other way to look at it is "Do I want to fire up my 95w i7 (in my case, it's an i7-860) to do email and web browsing that a Snapdragon 810 is more than capable of?" I'm not sure what the power consumption of a SD 810 is, but it can't be more than a watt or so.

Re: I did like the medical software, but that was about it.

> You can't get 10 hours of run time in a sleek format running OSX.

You could if you put a BFO battery in the keyboard. Put a Lightning connector on the keyboard to charge it's battery and charge the iPad Pro through the three-rings interface. Also, make the keyboard Bluetooth so you can mount the iPad Pro higher (more ergonomic). You'd only need to connect the two when the internal battery needs a boost from the keyboard.

Swap the A9X for a Core-M (or Atom X7) and you've got a MacBook with detachable screen.

Re: Why....just why?

> Now if you connect it up to anything is another totally different story indeed.

It'll get to the point where it will refuse to turn on if it hasn't got an internet connection.

It's for your own good. It has to check it's got the latest version of the gazillion built in recipes for stuff you'll never make, otherwise you could leave the scones in for 20 seconds too long.

Re: Networked stereo - Hmm interesting

Maplin have the Alto Stealth Wireless system that could do this. It has a single transmitter and two receivers.

It's not cheap (£200), intended for PA use so the connectors are all XLR, and you'd need an amplifier downstream of the receiver on each speaker, but it would work.

You could also frig it with a stereo-to-2-mono splitter and two Bluetooth audio transmitters and receivers. Again you need an amp for each speaker, but the Bluetooth boxes are cheap and most have batteries. You could build a box to use as a speaker stand that contains one of those cheap tiny stereo amps, the Bluetooth box and a USB mains charger to power it with, or even hide it all in the enclosure of a floorstander.

Re: 5 minutes

Agreed, having to give a credit card for access to free stuff is not going to happen with me.

Maybe the credit card companies can give you a zero-value credit card, as an adjunct to a real card? It's a valid card with a validation code and everything, but any attempted transaction will be declined.

The one-time-use card numbers (that totally failed to take off here for some reason) would be ideal for this.

Re: Apple car?

"Has to be taken to see a genius to get the light bulbs changed"

That's not much different from the current stuff. I couldn't get the clip off that holds the headlight bulb in on my 307, annoying as that car ate through bulbs, and you have to get at the bulb on a Megane through the front wheel arch.

The Fiesta I have now makes you take the entire light assembly out to change a bulb.

I still don't get why Apple would make a car, it gets them into a whole new regulatory field they know nothing about. The regulations are all different around the world too, Apple can't even be bothered to fit a UK layout keyboard.

Re: British Summer Time

"spot the UFO bottom left "

It's way too far out to be the ISS, that orbits at 250 miles. Looks more like a dodgy pixel on the camera's CCD.

Re: fibre

"so their latest & greatest FTTP is 300Mbps DL + 30Mbps UL (less contention). Not sure what "long twisted-pair runs" have to do with measured speed across a fibre link"

The article has combined two different products.

g.fast, the 330/30 Mb/s one, is a souped-up VDSL FTTC service, hence the bit about long cable runs. It's fibre to the local cabinet, then copper wire to you.

It then starts talking about fibre-on-demand, which is FTTP with the high install costs because you have to run a fibre cable to your house. If I've read Google right, fibre-on-demand extends the fibre cable from the nearest FTTC cabinet to your house.

Re: 90kWh

"Double the size of the battery and you double the power of the car"

Double the power *capacity*. There's a limit to how much current the motor and cabling can pull before the magic smoke escapes.

"So the quickest 0-60 time will always be the from the car with the biggest battery"

Not necessarily. That's true if the power delivery capacity of the battery is the limiting factor. The lower capacity but lighter car may accelerate faster if the motor or tyre traction is the limit.

"Same is true for charging - the bigger the battery, the higher the power you can pump into it to charge"

Probably not. You can't push current into a battery faster than the charger or cabling can cope with, so the bigger battery at the max current of the charger will take longer to charge from empty than a smaller one.

"electric car once you're up to 60mph you can use regenerative braking to recover about 50% of the energy back into the battery"

Only if you're slowing down, regen braking uses the car's momentum to use the motor as a generator. A petrol engine's management system will turn the fuel off when coasting, effectively the same thing. Once stopped (unless you have auto-start-stop on the engine) it will use some fuel idling the engine where the electric uses none.

Re: Specs, schmecs....

Currently working in a Windows 8.1 VM, running 2Gb RAM on one core of a Pentium G2120, no problems at all. Firefox and Thunderbird are running, 57% memory used, CPU not being touched.

My sister has one of those Linx Windows 8.1 tablets with only 1Gb RAM. I set it up for her, that gets down to half a gig of RAM in use on boot.

My 1Gb RAM Dell Android tablet - about 150Mb free on boot, constantly freezing as it runs out of RAM. A known problem with the Android port to the Atom CPU apparently, I wish I'd researched it better before I bought it.

Re: Now more people will get to feel the pain

I'd have a Logitech mouse over anyone else's. The MX Revolution is the best I've used, I have a VX470, M705 and MX Anywhere I use regularly too.

The software is the best part. SetPoint knows about all the mice, so one install lets you set up whichever device you happen to be using.

I will admit I've never had to contact them for support, all the kit I've had "just works", to borrow from Apple.

Re: Auckland to Heathrow

"Pretty well any US airport for incoming International travellers is shit"

Las Vegas isn't bad, IMO, just don't try it at the weekend. A Saturday flight I was on was held on the aircraft for about 45 mins as they were queueing out of the doors of the arrival hall. The next time was a Thursday, I think I was on the way to the hire car in about an hour.

The only other one I've been to in the US is Boston, that was a bit dingy to be fair.

Dublin does immigration for the New York flights in the transfer lounge, so you skip the immigration queues at the far end. Unfortunately, I was going to Boston...