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* Posts by Dave 15

2136 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jun 2010

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The fast-growing energy source set to replace oil: Yes, it's coal

Dave 15
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Re: Renewable Energy

It doesn't matter if oil does run out. The Germans proved it was possible to make oil, rubber and petrol without having oil. Indeed recently petrol has been made in America without oil (the last one I saw was in the desert and used solar power to make the petrol - from air and water - leading to it being carbon neutral - the carbon produced during the burning being the carbon absorbed during the making).

We already know how to make gas from coal - thats what we used to use before 'natural gas' came around in the '70's.

Frankly it has been shown beyond any intelligent doubt that 'green' and 'global warming' along with 'climate change' and 'peak oil' is a fiction leaped on by various western governments so they can hike taxes to pay for the unaffordable welfare and pension costs. It is also the one reason why we are ALL falling behind China and set to become 5th world countries - companies can no longer afford to manufacture here in the UK (land prices, capital costs and energy being the reasons - not as politicians bullshit the cost of man power), Worse is that offices will follow manufacturing - it is inevitable. The more tax denudes the country of work the more tax is needed to cover the cost, the reduction in welfare though small at the moment is going to have to also play a part.

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Anons torn over naming 'n' shaming of 17yo's gang-rape suspects

Dave 15

Accountability

It appears that there needs to be more than yet another inquiry

We have the same in the UK, people avoiding any form of justice at all (just recently a man who had beaten his baby to death was back out on the streets having been locked up for just 3 years - 3 years for beating a baby to death? FFKS you get more than that for not paying your council tax!

Justice in ALL western countries needs seriously looking at BEFORE we go around the world pretending to sort everyone elses problems out.

In this case the justice minister, the justice department and the police involved should be looked at very closely for locking away for life. How difficult can it be to look into such a crime, decide what should be done and then to do it? 'No evidence' my backside. It may not be easy to prove that a drunk girl didn't consent to 4 boys but I suspect that something should be possible.

And as to the UK's terrible example the judge(s) that set the stupdily small sentence and the parole board that allowed a murderer out so early should all be locked up - their crime? Stupidity or perhaps look further into their backgrounds and decide that they are guilty of condoning child murder.

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Ban drones taking snaps of homes, rages Google boss... That's HIS job, right?

Dave 15

Media coverage

The media coverage of this is quite incredible. Few (any?) seem able to question it but just jump straight on the 'its something new and there is an excuse now to ban it, ban it, ban it, ban the new, burn the heretic' bandwagon.

Its not as if we can be doing something in our gardens these days without being spied on (unless we are a multi-millionaire anyway) - the housing estate (or is the battery cages) the uk people are forced now to endure are built so on top of each other that even if the garden has enough room to put a sun lounger in then it is overlooked by at least 5 houses.

Besides, you've been able to buy small cameras and remote control planes for a long time, easy to put them together, and don't forget the little rockets and parachute toys you can buy that are capable of carrying a camera (http://gyroscope.com/d.asp?product=ROCKVIDEO is just one of a number)

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IT salaries: Why you are a clapped-out Ferrari

Dave 15
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Re: Languages? Its not just that

Moving from software domain to software domain is entirely possible for a reasonable engineer. True there will be those who don't understand that ram can be somewhat more limited in an embedded field (but frankly nothing like it used to be anyway). Software is a specialist skill, but I would argue a good engineer can engineer a good bank application or an embedded application, and can certainly move between the two.

As to the last bit of your comment, maybe being a millionaire is a poor indication of 'making it' but I have yet to find a better one. Certainly it seems ridiculous that a singer who needs our software to tweak their voice so they are 'on pitch' can gain millions but the engineer that makes it possible for this is paid 30,000 a year and won't manage even one million in their life time. Are you really telling me that there are that many more people who can engineer such things than there are people who can sing flat and flash their legs/cleavage? I certainly don't believe so.

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Dave 15
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Re: Languages? Its not just that

The point is not that skilled professionals can't adapt - they can, indeed I have over the years learnt new languages (even swapping over to object oriented when the company I worked for decided to give it a try). YET try applying for a job writing C# if you've got C++ on your CV... you won't get an invitation to interview far less a job offer. The point is that at some level (and I don't know what defines this) it is considered that skills are transferable from one field to another... but that level is far far far higher than the average engineer, project manager or even engineering manager

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Dave 15
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Re: £718pw?

West Country by any chance? I'd love to move there, I look at the jobs, look at the wages offered and laugh. I don't know where the west country companies get their people, but the wages they offer are a joke. Normally below minimum wage, certainly way way way below what you could get on benefits, and guaranteed you couldn't live on the wage - even in a beech hut.

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Dave 15
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Re: And woe betide if you don't have *exactly* that specific version of the language they want.

If only it were just the recruitment industry, if it was then going direct to the company would be useful. Unfortunately it is not just the recruitment industry, it is the companies as well. They don't want people who can do the job, they want people that rick every single tick box exactly with nothing left out and nothing too much, and then of course they have to be the cheapest possible. Red-gate are recruiting in Cambridge, but have exactly a tick box culture.

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Dave 15

Languages? Its not just that

Try moving from embedded code to banking, or insurance, or UI, indeed any other branch of software. As a manager or a programmer. No, the boss of HBOS can f***** the bank and get a better paid job at a chemist shop, the guy in charge of the home office can move to education or whatever, but you can't move from one branch of software to another... not just a change of language but also a slight change of type of software and you will be blocked (just have been as a matter of fact... and the change wasn't even very big).

Then there is the money. Frankly what we are paid now is pathetic compared to when I started, in the last 10 years my pay has fallen, not just in 'real terms' but in actual cash terms. (Companies fold making you redundant, then try replacing the job with one at the same rate... no can do). Most of our work is shipped off to the cheapest possible place regardless of lost quality or copyright problems (just as our manufacturing was).

What would you advise your kids? As a girl I would suggest she puts on a short skirt, flashes her cleavage and pretends to be a singer, for a boy I have no idea - probably just grow half a beard and be an 'actor'. It is sad that the people who make money in the UK, europe and USA are pop singers, actors, the already rich (lucky choice of parents), and 'football stars'. Pretty much no one else can make it at all - regardless of hardwork or skill.

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The gloves are on: Nokia emits super-sensitive £99 Windows Phone

Dave 15
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Re: Better then an N8?

What is wrong with the 808/ It has the phone calls, text, browser (for facebook etc), games etc etc etc and a camera that is better than any that anyone else has ever put on a smartphone. Not only is the camera superb but the microphones are as well... you really can go to one of your gigs and record it, come home and be able to recognise the sound and the band from the video - something no other phone will offer you. (yup its better even than your n8).

Try one, they will last more than a few years (they're built like a proper Nokia). If you are feeling a bit risk averse then buy a couple of spare batteries - they are the only thing that eventually fails on all phones.

Revel in being different to the herd :)

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Dave 15
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Re: What were they waiting two years for...

Look back over the number of people they've got rid of in recent times.

The answer is, no, they don't have any designers. So you get a fondle slab like every other company, nothing exciting, new or intelligent. What about those of us that like to use a phone while we walk? Can't do that with a damned touch screen. - I want buttons, those old fashioned things with good tactile feedback that worked!

This isn't just a Nokia problem, all phone companies have got a single track mind with the single exception of Blackberry.

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Who wants a smart meter to track'n'tax your car? Hello, Israel

Dave 15
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Re: Not such a bad idea - aren't you lucky

Where I live I am as near to work as I can afford. The city I work in (Cambridge) is a nasty congested hateful little place which has long wanted an excuse to create a charge for those stupid enough to need to drive into it for the purpose of working. Yet, it doesn't have public transport from near where I live to near where I work (near - as in 30 minutes walk). There used to be but it was shut down (the initial cut being by Beeching closing the railway, but more recently by the council stopping the bus route - claiming the alternative which involved 3 changes and 2.5 hours for a 20 mile trip was a practical alternative). The misguided bus goes in totally the wrong direction to be useful.

Any imposition of a pay as you drive type system results in me stopping work - I would have no alternative, none - I couldn't afford the extra on top of the extortionate fuel. I am afraid politicians and civil servants are clearly too stupid to work out the plausible alternatives to the problems they them selves have created....

a) Working from home - as companies are reluctant to allow this then force them to allow it. It is cheaper in terms of office space, more productive, more environmentally friendly and defeats traffic jams at a stroke.

b) Spread companies out - by force as this will be needed. Why is it that Cambridge has ALL the technology companies for a radius of at least 40 miles? ALL of them. NO other town in the area has ANY. Most of them are on the northern outskirts. The dual carriageway that gives access is a car park from 8 am to 10 am and the area exiting from them stops totally at 5 pm and stays stopped until around 6:30. Compared to some places this is relatively trivial, but if those companies were spread out - so some were north, south, east and west of the city, so that some were in the towns 15 and 30 miles away then much of the congestion would dissipate. This is a planning (or rather lack of planning) issue.

c) Provide public transport. People DO work in the next door county to where they live so sort out transport across county boundaries (one problem for Cambridge), put the railways back (rip the hateful misguided bus up - one driver per bus, 40 passengers per bus, 20 minutes between them.... a train could have 1 train every 5 minutes with one driver and 400+ passengers. Put back the railways out to towns like Mildenhall, improve the service to Newmarket and Bury St Eds, put a train station near the work places at the Science Park (so people don't hurtle past it to land at Cambridge station 3 miles away).

Adding more tax and more complex tax systems is NOT the best way to make progress. I know that the civil servants want to make the tax system more complex so they can grow their departments and get a pay rise but frankly if I were the guy in charge one of my first acts would be to shoot 50% of civil servants and sack 75% of the remainder.

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iPads in education: Not actually evil, but pretty close

Dave 15

It teachers - pathetic standards

Much higher standards than for other subjects. My local school employs the former PE teacher as its science teacher - qualifications for the job? er, no, he didn't even do O level science, but he was a teacher which made him a better bet than employing someone with a science degree, a science directed teaching qualification and several years industrial experience.

Basically the schools won't employ people who have ever worked anywhere else because if they do these people cause trouble by asking awkward questions, motivating children and generally showing the rest of the no hope waste of space 'teachers' up.

Come the glorious day... politicians first, bankers second, CEO's third, teachers forth (by that time the wall will be a mess but never mind).

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The UK Energy Crisis in 3 simple awareness-raising pictures

Dave 15

back to coal

Sadly (cough) it is time to tell the EU where they can go with their large coal power station ban. As India will this year build more than our entire stock of coal power stations, and with them burn far more than we do the environmental situation won't get worse by us continuing to use coal. More over despite importing a lot of coal (because we are too stupid to dig it out from our own ground) the coal supplies are far more reliable.

Wind and solar are no alternative. Nuclear will take years to build. Didcot and other huge coal power stations are now standing idle. - get them back on as a matter of supreme national emergency. And keep them on.

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Stephen Fry explains… Alan Turing's amazing computer

Dave 15

Problem is not Fry

He is just the extraordinarily over paid mouth piece

The problems are much deeper.

First as a 'star' he clearly isn't worth even a fraction of the money he is paid - no one is if I am honest. There are plenty of other people at least as funny, in many cases far funnier. There are also plenty with far more brains and knowledge. What the BBC think they need to pay him the vast sums for I really can't tell.

Second the BBC is stuffed full of researchers and other staff all paid a fortune. Unfortunately they are all - every single last one of them - arts graduates. Nothing, nothing at all on ANY BBC channel - radio or TV is remotely scientific, engineering or based on anything other than the arts. Even when there is a story to do with engineering they bring on some story author, sculptor, painter or other arty farty muppet to pronounce on the subject. They have no interest in or capability in anything outside of 'the arts'. This is a malaise from the top to the bottom of the organisation and leads to the terrible coverage of things and the boredom of the 99.5% of us who do real things for a real living.

Third and finally, the BBC has got its knickers in a twist assuming that we are all as thick and inattentive as the dumbest 4 year old you could ever not wish to meet. Everything is aimed at that segment of our society - everything.

If I had my way the BBC would be forced to rely on subscription for funding, it would then lose out.

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Microsoft issues manual on Brits to Cambridge exports

Dave 15

Wonder if it asks them not to talk about all the companies bought and closed

I worked for a UK company, bought by Microsoft, closed by Microsoft (despite shipping millions of products).

We weren't the only ones, in the year we were bought another half dozen or so Cambridge companies were snapped up. We were the last of our year to be closed - about 18 months later.

Indeed we were based in the research building, just behind the William Gates building on the west Cambridge university site. I bet they are even getting tax concessions to move these folk over.

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ITV catches up with TVCatchup

Dave 15

the answer

Surely the answer is for the current broadcasters to make their shows available. Youtube et al have tried but the broadcasters are making it damned difficult. Old programs are no longer available, and the stuff they broadcast today is crap.

If the broadcasters made ALL their old material available on a website somewhere then they could control it, put advertising etc etc. Its not really that difficult. I might even find the rip off tv licence a little less annoying if I could go and find the old programs that I have already paid to have made and watch them again.

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DWP denies major IT problems with One Dole To Rule Them All system

Dave 15
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Situation normal

The standard 'big names' have got a huge budget to complete something that any small British outfit could have delivered in a month or two. The small British outfit may of course be staffed with those who have delivered this stuff before, have a track record and good knowledge, but the company hasn't so the company can't bid.

The standard big names will punt the work out to their cheapest Indian, Chinese or Brazilian sweat shop where the staff arrive and leave by the week, who have never done anything like it before and just arrived wet behind the ear from school and will move on as soon as they've done a month and can improve their pay.

The British government will tell you it is efficient and cheaper this way, we all know it never ever succeeds and the British tax payer will have paid through the nose for a few cheap as chips foreigners to get 'on the job' training and a very limited number of stinking rich shareholders to get even richer.

Atos amongst others charge 1500+ a day and punt the work straight out to 100 a month Indians.

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No.10 guru: UK tech scene is AN EXPLODING CHEESE

Dave 15

clueless

The guy is clearly an idiot... but he advising cam MORON so it probably doesn't matter. As normal the UK tax payer is being fleeced of millions to pay idiots, spin yarns and help foreign corporations to do better.

Killing both the tax payer and UK companies in the process.

Typical

What I wonder is just how we have ANY business of any sort left in the UK - anything that can leave has.

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Dave 15
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Had to be involved in 'the arts'

No one in the UK gets anywhere without constant 'arts' and 'arts' and more 'arts'.

No room for engineers anymore, we only like 'artists'...

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Bank whips out palm-recognition kit - and a severed hand won't work

Dave 15

finger vein

worked on a project using a finger vein reader... supposedly all the same advantages. However a sausage was perfectly acceptable to the system so it doesn't always need to be attached :) Besides, the amount of hassle to get it to recognise the same finger more than 1 in 10 was ridiculous.

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Look out! Peak wind is coming, warns top Harvard physicist

Dave 15

surely

One thing that amazes me is the current turbines being used. They are basically huge windmills. They are complex - need to face the wind,, they are difficult to make when they end of the blades is so far from the centre the speed they are doing is massive and thus the stresses are high. The size of the blades also means the windmills can't be placed close together.

What is wrong with the vertical turbines - a bit like those signs outside the shops that rotate. I would think they are probably easier to construct as well if we were perfectly honest. Certainly they should allow more windmills per area and I suspect all jesting apart that they are efficient enough

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Dave 15
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Re: One question I have always asked myself

really? What about the energy that is emitted as light by the screens? How does that make it back to thermal in the atmosphere - we know from looking at the earth from outside that some at least escapes to space. Then perhaps the energy used to lift my lardy backside to the top of the hill is magically thermal instead of potential energy? Not all energy taken from the atmosphere will return as heat.

Still, I doubt any of this will stop the UK government continuing to spend billions of our pounds on foreign made windmills dotted all over the landscape, standing idle like so many white elephants for 80% of the time while their bearings are bust, the wind is too strong or there is no wind at all. Worse of course is that because they are so totally useless we still have to generate electricity the old fashioned way, so when these white elephants do eventually stir their stumps the energy is largely chucked away because we are already producing the electricity we need and have no way of switching the old fashioned plant off so quickly.

Bloody waste predicated on a 'scientific fact' which itself is balanced on forged and unreliable results manipulated by a bunch of beardies with a research grant to obtain. I think I'd rather go back to when politicians and scientists all believed in the wonder of eugenics.

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Outsourcing your own job much more common than first thought

Dave 15

I wonder....

I wonder if I can take on several jobs, charge full rate, outsource them to India/China/Brazil/Easter Europe and make a killing....

mmm, yes, of course I can, just call myself a consultancy. If I can do it on a big enough scale the UK government will even give me work.

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Quit the 2D internet, flee your cave, and GET LAID, barks rock star

Dave 15
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they didn't

Tesco has a limited range of only the popular dvd/cd's. Its a lack of imagination and interest in people to be seen to be so 'uncool' that they can't possibly listen to something different to all the twitterartery.

Not only have they lost the ability to interact with each other, they've sold their individuality and interest.

I feel sorry for my son, a bunch of largely over weight, very dull, very boring, cardboard cut out two dimensional girls to talk to without ever meeting them.... how the hell will he get the proverbial leg over?

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Dave 15
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Re: He's quite right

I have a fridge and a freezer. I do a weekly shop around the market and town on a Saturday. I buy what I need and a few other bits. Sure the shop is heavy to carry but without the masses of packaging the supermarket provides I find I can manage it all - especially if I take the very 'uncool' shopping trolley.

I do tend to buy some bulkier things separately - the potatoes are purchased from the local farm gate in a 56lb sack - that takes a lot of bulk out of the weekly shop and is damned cheap.

For clothes and other shopping that also happens on Saturday - I often go grab the food, dump that back in the car, go have lunch out (often on the market and dirt cheap - and no, not horse burger, something recognisable being carved from a hot grill), then do the 'other bits'

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Dave 15
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Re: He's quite right

Some things, but only some things, are cheaper on the net, try going to the shop and checking... just avoid using the over priced supermarkets and you might be surprised. Try the local market... thats even more likely to be cheaper (right up until the councils stupid greedy increases in charges put the market out of buisness

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Dave 15
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Re: He's quite right

It is not about stopping the planning permission for out of town centres it is about stopping the nuclear war against the motorist. There is NO need for councils to charge or restrict parking anywhere, they just think they can make money from the motorist and 'force' an environmental 'agenda'. All they actually do is kill town centres - then have to recoup the loss from killing sports centres. Eventually it will be out of town shops and then finally the councils greed and arrogant stupidity will leave millions unemployed, derelict town centres, boarded up and damaged shops and us all sat at home w***** with the keyboard instead of out getting to know each other.

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Dave 15
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Re: He's quite right

Why does it only make sense for that?

It makes sense to check on the internet and then check the shop. I am pretty good at DIY so don't need things 'installed' but many others aren't that good and often a local shop delivers and installs for free where the internet doesn't. Sometimes clothes are on offer in the local shop and are cheaper than the internet.

Besides which, I've never ever ever met a **hot** sales girl on the internet who has agreed to go out on a saturday night for dinner and a film... I have at the local shops :) :) :) and it was much better than just getting a 'we delivered while you were out so you'll have to come to the post office' sticker through the door...

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Microsoft: Office 2013 license is for just one PC, FOREVER

Dave 15
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Re: The insanity that is Microsoft

Office365 is not a viable product for many people.

I use my laptop on the train, the plane, in hotels. I need to use it when I move house and the broadband isn't yet in place... I can't if I don't have the damned applications and the damned data actually on the damned machine can I? And no, using a mobile phone as a model is (a) prohibitively expensive, (b) damned slow, (c) totally impractical on planes, trains and about 80% of the UK where there is no decent connection available.

Cloud is also not secure, come now - its bad enough if someone launches a cyber attack on your company, but putting your data on a server run by the main target themselves is just a guaranteed data loss. Not to mention that a UK company with its data on a US server will find its data looked into by US authorities - potentially distributed to competitors, potentially being used in 'criminal trials' etc etc etc.

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Dave 15
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Re: Replace CPU, replace HDD, replace GFX, keep mouse.

You've been watching only fools and horses....

Trigger claims that he's had his road sweeper's broom for 20 years, adding that the broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles

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Dave 15

Open office anyone

ex-msft, just sold my last msft shares (clearly if the company is going to try this sort of tactic it is going to fuck off whatever its users it has left

I won't be getting another copy of MS office if the licence agreement doesn't allow me to transfer it from a broken machine to a replacement - more common for me than 'upgrading'.

Frankly its fucking rude.

Worse than that of course Microsoft has gone into complete la la la la land and sticks its collective fingers in its ears and won't even let you send a comment on its website.

Pity I can't give them thunbs down, wtf and fail at the same time.

Idiots, greedy stupid blind and ignorant idiots. God I hope the whole damned company disappears up its collective backside and goes bankrupt.

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Bill Gates: Windows Phone strategy was 'a mistake'

Dave 15
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Re: So...

First HTML browser on a phone... the first I know about was Microsoft mobile explorer - the v1 was contracted by MS from one company, vsn 2 on (as on the Sony Z5) came from a company (STNC) which was purchased for Microsoft for the very purpose of providing the browser. This was NOT on a 'smart phone' but a 'feature phone'. The browser coped with the then WAP wmlc browsing but ALSO html and even provided email functionality (it was also the software running on the amstrad emailer). Even by that time Microsoft had a smart phone - basically a version of the pocket PC software - eventually the two were merged into windows mobile. Whether the pocket PC should be considered a smartphone is possibly made more likely now given that its bulk was considerably less than the bulk of many supposed smartphones from the likes of Samsung. If it is then the early pocket PC's (which did provide phone call capability) certainly did have html browsers.

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Dave 15
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DOS

Loved that (esp DR-DOS) much better than windows, but yes, I was a kid when ICL still made massive computers and there was nothing more than a nascom-1 for the home

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Dave 15
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Nokia

Surely by now some shareholders in Nokia must have got the message?

The idiot Elop they bought in to run the company ditched Symbian when it had a 50% market share as a 'burning platform', and replaced it with the burnt out and sunk wreck called Microsoft.... He has made the biggest blunder in the tech world to date... why the fuck are the shareholders leaving the idiot in place?

He must be fired - with no compensation, pension or even the worthless shares he has caused - along with the board that recommended him. Then the company can start with something that works and has a good track record - either restart Symbian (which would take a lot now that the engineers that made it work have all been fired) or swap to an Android device - although Nokia have also fired almost all their linux experts they are still developing a linux device over in Berlin (behind a facade to cover them for the folk they fired elsewhere in Germany who were also working on linux).

I guess they'll do neither and end up a foot note in history or perhaps revert to making boots.

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You can help fix patent laws … now!

Dave 15

First steps

The first step must be to ensure that patents are original at the time they are granted, too many patents are taken on things that are clearly not original.

The second step is that any patent is ONLY valid when the company holding the patent is actually producing a product that makes use of the patent.

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Apple design bloke Ive finally honoured properly - with Blue Peter badge

Dave 15
FAIL

Really bugs me

BBC are managing now to advertise Apple to the kids, not content to just have Rory CJ drooling and shouting how wonderful they are they are now targeting kids programs with the same propaganda.

Apple did NOT invent the touch screen phone, nor the smartphone, nor even the concept of a phone... they did produce a decent device, but frankly it lacked in some areas (like being able to make calls reliably and battery life). Yet the BBC carry on as if the iPhone was some sort of magnificent achievement.

Perhaps rather than giving a badge to a guy who ran off from his own country and setup abroad they could perhaps have given the badge to the guy who managed to create Symbian from Psion software and the major mobile phone companies, who stayed in the UK, who used British engineers to develop the worlds first smartphone, the company that pioneered touch screens, created the concept of a smartphone, created an OS which allowed for decent battery life (didn't just take some linux and hack it). But oh no, the BBC has joined in with successions of British politicians and other 'stars' to rubbish absolutely everything that British people ever do while praising and worshiping anything foreign. No wonder the country is in such a bloody mess.

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Tesla vs Media again as Model S craps out on journo - on the highway

Dave 15
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FAIL

Re: What about the bloody CAR?

Further to my last post thats 52k AFTER the mug tax payer has forked out 7500 in subsidies. Worse its for the cheapest model which only has a 160 mile estimated range at 55mph (and try doing that speed on a UK motorway and you'll have the lorries driving over you)/

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Dave 15
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Re: What about the bloody CAR?

Is it?

It has limited range, limited use (waiting an hour every few miles), limited capability (speed, load carrying etc) limited availability and a huge price tag (yes 52k is 4 of my decently equipped petrol cars)

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Dave 15
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Re: how come no one ever mentions the $ to charge these cars

So you can take 7 people 90 miles in your diesel for a tenner, or perhaps one midget for probably about 90 miles if its not too cold in a car that costs probably 10 times the cost of your diesel for about the same price... ah, now I understand why I am rushing to buy one.

Actually I can - if I drive nicely - achieve about the same distance in my 7 seat petrol ... but only if I drive nicely - pretty much the same as I could drive nicely in the tesla, my car costs what 10k brand new.

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Dave 15
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Re: Writer was intent on high risk of failure

It has an automatic shut off - flat battery

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Dave 15
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Re: in much of the world, electric cars would be powered by fossil fuels

Feed me beer, beans and pickled eggs and I can provide enough methane for some very fast driving :)

On a more intelligent note weren't London taxis at one time looking to use the methane off the sewers. There is a lot of it, its 'free' and if the global warming brigade are to be believed (which I doubt) then methane is more dangerous than co2, so getting rid of it in such a useful way is a very good idea.

Indeed, why aren't more power stations methane fired? Is it we don't fart reliably enough?

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Dave 15
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Re: Maybe...

Given the amount of effort I hear is spent keeping batteries and the electronics from melting down I don't see why there should be a real problem with using that heat to keep the passenger warm (its a bit like using the waste heat from combustion to keep us warm as we do now).

However I don't believe electric cars are or ever will be useful. I don't have the time or patience to wait an hour or more every 100 miles or so. Its stupid. Means the average speed is less than I can achieve on my pushbike. Certainly less than a horse achieved.

Steam is my friends the way to go. Easy and quick to fill, no need to have a fire or smoke (use a fireless design with a steam container rather than a boiler - we did it with locomotives years ago), you can even have them plug in at home to keep the steam lovely and ready.

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About to outsource your IT? Read this first

Dave 15
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unfortunately not true

As part of the governments screw the Brits agenda it is outsourcing through almost exclusively foreign companies. Mainly owned by the US. The US department of 'defence' spends more than we do on aggressive arms - in fact it spends more than the next 20 countries added together. Those that aren't owned by the US are owned by the French - who still have aircraft carriers.

The UK is so buggered it is no longer in a position to do anything at all about anything. This is not a Labour caused problem or a Conservative caused problem - they are both a crowd of incompetent idiots. The problem is caused by the continued idle culpability of a nation of people who are never going to get off their collective backsides to vote for someone new far less do something about the people we have now. For fucks sake we have a buffoon who doesn't know how a piggy bank works running the economy backed up by a guy who has never had to do a proper job, buy a house or anything in his entire gold plated life

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Dave 15
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Re: Which is GOOD !

er no.

The jobs retained are poorly paid and overseas. Always. NEVER based in the UK.

What we have is UK tax payers paying millions to a small number of companies who then keep 80+% for a rich few individuals while spending the other 20% on some under paid paupers in India, China and Mexico

This means that UK tax payers are paying millions to train foreign people in skills we are rapidly losing in the UK (no work means no interest, means no future - who now trains to be a coal miner or steam engine mechanic). The end game is probably less than 10 years distant when there is no UK IT expertise left.

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Dave 15

Lots wrong

Many things are wrong with the situation.

a) No new companies are allowed into the cozy arrangement - the bidding rules for work totally preclude that. It doesn't matter if your new company is stuffed to the gills with people who have delivered exactly comparable government contracts before the company hasn't so it can't (makes damned sure no new blood). If somehow you did manage to get around that (which is impossible - I've tried) - there is a backup, if you want to bid you must have been in business at least 5 years with accounts and all the rest to prove you aren't ever going to fail...

b) The few large corporations that are supplying the UK government contracts are mainly foreign and use foreign labour (look to the NHS computer system written by Indians for an overseas company). Thus not only does the knowledge move away but more importantly so does the money. Spend a pound in the UK and someone has to provide some goods or services in the UK, so has a job in the UK, so pays tax and doesn't claim benefit. Spend it abroad and someone else benefits. Worse, you have to tax (borrow is just tax in the future) the UK and thus reduce the amount of demand, and therefore the number of jobs in the UK economy.

Add this IT mess to the fact the Army buys its uniforms from China, its lorries from France or Germany, its guns from Austria and its bullets from South Africa, a navy that buys its equipment from Sweden and the USA, an airforce equipped with foreign planes (mainly American), a police service that will buy any car as long as it is not British, councils who have a long term Mercedes Benz culture, and even the ministerial cars are German or Japanese(with the exception of the PM - and only the PM) and even a royal family that bought the royal wedding china from China and not the potteries and you can quite easily see why we have 30+% unemployment, and only about 20% (of the working age population) who have a full time job in a private company.

The fact that the government wouldn't be able to function anymore wiithout foreign help because it has stupidly killed every industry the UK ever had (including IT) is a minor irritant compared to the fact the economy is now properly in total and utter melt down and beyond any form of recovery - ever.

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Report: Over 1.5 million UK drivers will have hydrogen cars by 2030

Dave 15
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Re: doomed

Thats an interesting one, haven't seen it before. I could certainly see something like that being interesting if the chemicals involved don't leave nasty substances after the reaction.

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Dave 15

doomed

Price dooms these things to failure - and I am sure that is a deliberate policy by the motor manufacturers.

Steam would of course provide a simple enough alternative - fireless steam, topped up at your local fuel station, we used to use steam in cars and lorries, we used to use fireless steam in railway engines. Its simple and cheap technology, and a small electric heater could be used to keep the steam hot over night at home ready for the morning.

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'Online sex abuse of children is growing trend', warn Brit net cops

Dave 15
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Re: The whole point

You are probably correct. Most kids don't turn a hair at the current monitoring - and even when they do they are slapped down ... just look at that girl in America (the land of the free, so free they are tracked around a school for heavens sake).

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Dave 15
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Re: Frankly don't believe a word of it

Guess someone believes it or they wouldn't have thumbed down the post... what evidence do you have?

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Dave 15
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Isn't it :)

You need to find the right partner :) :)

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