Posts by Bod

Automatic vs Manual

"As for US cars being automatics, most Americans consider someone driving a manual to be either childish in trying to act like they have a sports car when they don't, or too poor to afford an automatic. It's considered rather crude to have to constantly, manually shift gears and truth be told manuals today do not get much better fuel efficiency because the testing is using a far more conservative shift pattern than the typical driver uses, and with more recent efficiency mandates the auto manufacturers have tweaked automatics to shift nearer the most fuel efficient point possible"

Nah, it's just many Americans can't cope with shifting manually properly ;) (same as they can't cope with parallel parking). We're all used to it here and (with a few gear cruncher exceptions) we can generally shift smoothly and efficiently. Given the nature of the roads here I'd rather be manual changing than frustratingly be waiting for the automatic to change and end up having to floor the thing to do it (which is worse for efficiency).

Automatics here aren't something you pay much of a premium for either so manual isn't seen as the poor man choice. The attitude here is you must be incompetent if you need an automatic.

As for the last part, we are far more obsessed with fuel efficiency due to the high cost of fuel, and modern cars are very fuel efficiently "tweaked", but with power where you need it depending how much you spend on the car. Besides we have so much computer control even on manual cars that fuel efficiency can be assured whilst gear changing manually. Having hired many American cars (small and large), I'm always shocked by the gas guzzling nature of them, but I can see why you don't care because of the fuel prices. It's not like they were more poweful either. Foot down and lots of growl, but pulls away slow as a snail.

And anyway, automatic transmissions are more complex and costly to repair.

"For a sports car on the other hand a good manual transmission is useful to handle the higher torque, but since most people aren't driving sports cars they should be considered an aside."

Many European cars drive more like sports cars anyway and don't have the handling of a bus ;)

Further on Mac (and Linux) support

Check out the comments on the new Ovi 2.0 beta...

http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/2009/06/23/nokia-ovi-suite-20-the-one-and-only-nokia-desktop-application-in-the-future

Specifically,

Mac - working on it

Linux - possible (as it's all Qt now), but no immediate plans

Might be fun...

... if only to see how many more pies a certain Doctor No. 6 has managed to consume since last seen ;)

Well...

... this is after all the same muppet who threw his toys out of the pram over Blu-Ray because he thought it made his films look better when at the time those stubborn Paramount types were backing HD DVD (for what it's worth, the two turned out to be absolutely carbon copy identical in picture).

He's got influence though, regardless of his grammar. I'm certain his voice and (frankly irrational) love for Blu-Ray was a major factor in killing HD DVD. If it wasn't for the Paramount connection, he'd likely have been in bed and had babies with Sony and his offspring army would have single handedly annihilated the evil empire of Toshiba and Microsoft ;)

Still, formats aside, the first is a cracking film to watch. Mindless plot as always, but still fun.

Re: Re : Webservers & Re: RE-ADSL

Re: Re : Webservers

My ISP allows servers also (which is one of the main reasons I picked them). With some limits of course. However I'd say the majority of ISPs don't and/or block server ports.

Re: RE-ADSL

Yes Cable is Asymmetric also and the upstream is likewise limited (when I moved from NTL to BT, BT's upstream was actually larger at the time!). In fact people believe cable should be amazing because it's all fibre and all that, but it's only fibre to cabinet and then coax to the house with a downstream channel that's shared between neighbours and multiple smaller and heavily contended upstream channels. It was never designed to cope with a lot of upstream traffic, especially simultaneously, and the infrastructure was based on customers sharing the cable to provide TV pictures (and half the problems cable customers get with signal issues is down to shoddy connections elsewhere in the street. Often unterminated connectors in a neighbour's house!).

Copper phone wire for broadband has a benefit in being a dedicate cable from exchange to subscriber. On that part of the the journey there's essentially no contention, unlike cable. From the exchange onwards though, that's another matter.

Amazed it lasted so long

Maybe it was just all the adverts. I lamented the loss of most classic mags from the 8 bit days almost 2 decades ago!

PCW was that one you always had to buy and then were disappointed as it was generally crap. Usually you'd be looking for something relevant to "your" platform of choice (BBC, Spectrum, C64, etc) and you'd find a couple of pages of anything relevant, along with some articles on some concept PC or something you'll never see outside of a boffin's lab, and then hundreds of adverts.

For me it was Your Sinclair, though it got too "Speccy" and I never had a Speccy, only a ZX81, so I stuck with the much neglected and more geeky Sinclair Programs, busily hand typing in all those listings!, and then Acorn User of course when I got a BBC (which surprisingly lasted until just a few years ago!).

But truly classic 80s mag had to be Load Runner. A weird kind of comic / computer mag hybrid thing.

Green, or just convenience?

Maybe it's not a green solution. However it might be the answer to the "Universal Charger". i.e. phone manufacturers do away with a mains charger entirely, meaning no complications over different connectors etc, and a cost saving in manufacturing the charger plus the packaging required.

And after all, they've (all?) signed up to make a universal charger for all phone brands (except I assume Apple will refuse on the basis they can't flog a sexy Apple branded charger that's unique to them).

One more thing on the BNP

Okay, the same is true of any other MEP, but if you're not a racist/fascist but voted BNP just as a protest vote over expenses, consider this...

Nick Griffin will now earn aprox £80k and get expenses on top that likely eclipse the expenses farce we've had in the UK parliament.

Now really, was it a sensible thing to vote BNP? !!!

Further Underground

The assumption that cooling underground means you're still dependent on outside air is still just an assumption. Here's some facts...

http://www.techworld.com/green-it/news/index.cfm?newsID=10667

"The coolant will be ground water and the site's temperature is a constant 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) all year, meaning no air-conditioning will be needed outside the containers. This reduces the energy required for the water chillers, used with surface-level Blackbox containers."

Note in particular, not just the water cooling but the relevant fact that a static temperature of 15 degrees in a very large open space reduces the need for cooling anyway.

Above ground buildings are not only struggling with cooling because of the outside air, but because the buildings act like greenhouses. By locating underground, even if your cooling plant was above ground, your building is not being heated like a greenhouse. Of course there's a downside in that the temperature will not drop off in the night, but at least it's consistent.

It's a fact that places like disused mines (especially salt mines which have vast caverns), and disused bunkers, are being used by datacenter companies. Maybe they're stupid, but I suspect they've worked out the sense of it.

Though in part they're doing it to sell on security as well. Being underground is supposedly more "secure", but of course that wire sticking out of the ground is an open invitation to Mr Hacker ;)

nude assistant

It's only a proper nude assistant photo if she's draped around a Dalek! ;-)

Point?

Still don't get it. Why would anyone want to sit there watching with those stupid glasses? It's always been the problem with 3D right back to the 50s.

An okay gimmick for IMAX, but nothing more than a novelty. I'd rather Sky concentrate on HD content, generate enough demand for that so they can get rid of their stupid £10 a month extra so we can turn HD into the normal kind of TV.

Re: Bring back Blake's 7

Sky are supposed to be doing this, but it's gone quiet. Also it's produced with B7 Productions who aren't well regarded in some circles as far as the audio series they did.

I think they want to make it a British Battlestar Galactica, reimagining thing, but I predict spectacular fail.

But if they can pull it off, whilst we're at it, let's have Sapphire & Steel back. They're still stuck in that garage/cafe place after all! (and Lumley at least could still pull off the roll!).

Re: Er, what applications?

Was pleased to find my N80 on the list of supported phones... but likewise no applications!

Also there appears to be no native app for the phone. The link on Download! just redirects to the really awful mobi site. Not only poorly designed but slow to use as well.

Ovi Store is critical to the release of the N97 and it's looking like a disaster at this stage.

iPhone still missing one decent killer app

A *quality* equivalent to Nokia Sports Tracker. It's worth owning a Nokia for that alone!, especially as it can sit in that thing called "the background", shock! ;) (and run in parallel to other GPS apps running at the same time).

Re: @ Hmmm (AC)

More than that, VAT is also due on my company's earnings. Employees don't have to deal with that.

I make it more around 10% gain contracting rather than 25%, once accounting for all the taxes, holiday, sick, pension, expenses, administrative time, etc. Though depends on the individual circumstances.

For me the problem with IR35 is not about the tax but the restriction of freedom. What IR35 says effectively is you cannot work in a freelance manner. You are therefore required to be shackled to an employer, bow to employers demands, be bound by corporate bullshit, and treated like shit, but at the same time not get paid holidays, pension, sick, etc.

Yes we get an advantage financially, but that is reward for the extra risk we take (easy to hire, easy to fire - as it clearly being demonstrated in the current climate), the administrative costs of operating this way. Remember we don't get redundancy and in the current climate we can be on the bench for months. Normal freelance operation is to build up a fund for such periods. IR35 says we can't do that and must go bust if we can't get contracts.

And to all those who are think we are just abusing the system (i.e. Jealous), do remember that anyone can go contracting. Give it a try! ;-)

Oh, and really on the tax side, IR35's "employee status" crap is just a smokescreen for "we don't want YOU to pay only 10% tax on dividends, but it's okay for US and other prominent high earners to pay 10% tax on dividends used as majority income".

I'd be a little happier with paying 20% tax on the dividends which makes it like regular income tax and be rid of the IR35 burden. The gov would not as they'd impact a huge amount of high earners and many MPs likely. They're not about to do that after having being whacked on expenses*

* - p.s. most contractors are far less frivolous with expenses as we know only to well the taxman will come down on us like a tonne of bricks if we claimed just 1p on something that's frowned upon.

Exchange

How about we let him in, so long as they take Jacqui and never let her return (and take J.Ross with her, so long as exports of his inevitable US brand of drivel is not allowed to reach our shores).

Analogies

"It would be the same as me refusing to pay a chunk of my council tax, because I don't have children and therefore don't need to pay the chunk that correlates to LEA contributions."

I'm all for that! There's far too much bias toward parents with kids when it comes to taxes and benefits. It just encourages over population! ;-)

Screw them I say. They wanted kids, they can pay for them, not me (insert raspberry)

"If you want to drive on the road, you must pay road tax."

However I can use the road to walk or cycle without paying road tax. I can't use a TV to not watch broadcast telly or only watch TV that isn't in some way funded by the licence, without having to pay the licence fee.

But I still say, kick Wossy out and the savings will pay for iPlayer ;). Seriously though, for a public funded service there should be an independent evaluation on what the money is spent on. Big stars should go to commercial channels if they want big salaries and the BBC should concentrate on quality content at a reasonable price.

I mean really. In terms of wastes of public money, after MPs expenses, the BBC's expenditure should be next on the target.

@Peter Bond

Problem is one battery charge will barely get you to Watford Gap let alone Manchester. You'd need half a dozen swaps to get to Glasgow.

And how often can we all plan ahead and book in for these swaps?

How much CO2 is going to be used in producing the materials for the swap stations and storage depots for such a vast amount of batteries, not to mention the transportation costs to replace and dispose of end-of-life batteries, and the production of the batteries themselves? How much are these swaps going to cost us and how will the government ensure they get 80% tax on it?

Still yet to see their practical solution for home charging also. A cable out the door to the street is not a solution for those who don't have a drive or garage (or have garages in blocks far away), not to mention a H&S hazzard and an invite to youth scum who will inevitably vandalise them (same with a charge point on the pavement), and how are they going to stop your neighbour nicking your leccy?

We've said it time and time again and they're not listening.

FUEL CELLS FFS!

Twitter in Space

"Bugger, I just broke the screw. Anyone got a spare for a Hubble access panel?"

and

"Really need a pee right now"

How long...

... before the first malware app that takes "advantage" of this then? ;-)

Re: That receipt...

Crazy thing is in proper Walmart over the pond you can walk in and buy baseball bats, chainsaws, guns, etc. Okay you need ID for it, but imagine Americans being asked ID for a teaspoon !

Do they have a "right to stir tea" amendment?

Re: Keep your battery cool...?

My experience of the effect of cold on batteries (though mostly NiMH) from using phones and cameras up a mountain whilst skiing, is that the apparent charge does indeed drop dramatically in the cold.

However that doesn't mean it's lost charge. Take it back down the mountain and into the warm and it's back up to a decent charge.

i.e. the cold effects the performance of a battery, but not the charge.

Lithiums I'm not so sure. I've used Lithium based DSLRs up a mountain and never had a problem, but then DSLRs generally have very low drain on their batteries anyway.

Spectrum is Green

Would love to see the map for my house.

Aside from the dozen or so wireless transmitters I personally have, the place is swamped by at least a dozen neighbouring wifi signals, plus all their other wireless gadgets, the mobile signals passing through the place along with I suspect some transmissions from the nearby electricity substation (which appears to have a data connection judging by the massive sat dish on top). Not to mention the EM emissions from the substation and pylons.

If I haven't already got brain cancer, leukaemia and what-not, I probably will. Time to build a Faraday cage I think. Tinfoil hat might help too.

@Chris C

"Android Data" : Computer e-commerce software to allow users to perform electronic business transactions via a global computer network

"Android" (Google's use of it): Computer operating system for mobile phones

Different things entirely (not to mention Google's use is only of the word Android, not Android Data which implies something different.

Regarding point 4: "Two people/companies cannot register the same trademark in the same goods & service category.", I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK it's not necessarily use in the same category, but simply "passing off" someone else's trademark to represent the same business. You can have two companies using similar trademarks in the computer business, so long as they don't represent the same business and products.

However the bigger the company and lawyers, the easier it is to protect your trademark even if the other company doesn't represent your business at all (e.g. McDonalds vs a number of businesses using the 'Mc' prefix even though most of them don't sell burgers). Part of that is because it's easier to confuse an unknown company with a similar name to a very famous company, than it is with two relatively unknown companies.

In this case it's more likely that Android Data is too easily confused with Google's Android rather than the way round they reckon, which is why their claim is pointless. The infringement on the "passing off" rule doesn't apply as they are two very different products that don't attempt to represent each other.

3G on the move

It's a well known flaw of 3G that it slows down a lot when moving, even at walking pace. I don't think it's even related to switching cells, though that will happen a lot more with a speeding train.

My experience of 3G on a train has been pretty poor, though it can be marginally better than GPRS.

However a simple solution is to put picocells in the trains to provide everyone with a relatively static 3G signal rather than a moving target.

WiFi is okay but easily overloaded with a few users and most of the big operators provide really crap deals for occasional PAYG (e.g. pay £8 for an hour whether you use it for an hour or not!). PAYG 3G mobile broadband is now cheaper if you only want occasional use, and can be charged on data used, not time. WiFi was supposed to free us from terrible data charges on mobiles, but it seems the situation has reversed.