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* Posts by HMB

638 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Oct 2010

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Microsoft sets date for Windows Phone 8 unveiling

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Re: Grumpy old codgers

Shirley you can't be serious?

Windows 8 hasn't even been unveiled and you're talking like it's all done and dusted! Maybe looking at it before judging it might be more prudent?

I see small amounts of ordinary people dipping their toes in the water with Windows Phone. When I ask them what they think of it I've had positive responses. Sure, it might not be your cup of tea, but you don't have to totally rubbish it.

I dismissed it for wifi tethering reasons and went with vanilla android instead, but I found the UI for WinPho 7 a slick experience. IE9 on Windows Phone 7 is compelling.

Windows CE was god awful. Microsoft have come a LONG way in a short time. Don't write them off before you've seen it.

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Apple: Blue-shirts can fix iOS Maps in their spare time

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Re: i scent mischief

I've let them know that Sodburry is a very rude and ridiculous name and that it's actually called Poopyshire. A few more people making the same update and I think we'll be in there :P

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Oz gov to test ‘all renewable’ options

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I upvoted you, but it's worth making it clear that hydroelectricity is very viable and is pretty much maxed out in some places because it's so cost effective.

Geothermal is viable in some places and more interesting work is being done and should be done in this area.

On the whole though, you are right.

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Re: Very Dodgy

@AC (10:15)

I'm Pro:

* Mandatory high grade insulation for new buildings (we don't have that in the UK but we're supposedly green).

* Higher quality road systems that cause existing traffic to stop/start less (saving huge amounts of energy)

* R&D into things like LED lighting technology.

I'm Heavily Against:

* Making energy more expensive for anyone.

* Telling people they can't use as much energy as they want.

Sensible ways to cut waste are one thing, trying to drag us back to a lower quality of life, or to deny people in developing nations the same privileges we enjoy is just dead wrong.

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Re: *potentialy* a huge asset in demonstrating *some* renewables are much more viable than others

I couldn't agree more re the assumptions. Assumptions in favour or out of favour can be very subtle, while still making the whole thing very credible and steering a result. A really neat thing to do would be to study the data on worst case and best case scenarios, making the assumptions for both clear.

For solar, Australia will be a fantastic place to make the assessment. It really should work there if it's going to be viable anywhere.

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Forget Apple's AirPlay - it's Windows 8 you want, says speaker maker

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Hello!? Standards!?

Or alternatively you could use the bluetooth standard and hook any phone into any speakers using a small bluetooth audio adapter.

I don't really get this "let's all make our own proprietary wireless audio systems" thing.

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Liquefied-air silos touted as enormo green 'leccy batteries

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Re: Oh Noes! :(

"Quick question: where are you going to dump those tens of GW of surplus nuclear energy?

In recent years the French have had unplanned shutdowns of nuclear generation during exceptionally warm weather, because the power station cooling couldn't cope. Now you want to add more heat into rivers and lakes? The sea might cope (according to Liewis anyway)."

That's not exactly true. Shutdowns weren't because the plants couldn't cope, it was because their coolant water was coming out into rivers was getting too high for environmental concerns due to very hot weather. Nothing to do with plant operation. Warm water has a lower oxygen solubility.

Where to dump the power? Anywhere you like, it's on an electrical grid. There are plenty of industries like aluminium production (done through electrolysis requiring massive power use) that can use predictable cheap power that this would produce.

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Oh Noes! :(

This comments section has made me sad :(

"A storage mechanism to store excess generation until its needed is equally useful for nuclear."

13 Upvotes / 3 Downvotes

Is critical thinking getting old fashioned? A couple of other people later on have got it right.

Nuclear can easily produce most electricity for a country (see France at around 85-90% Nuclear), Let's say we have to just dump 50% of it 50% of the time (which doesn't happen, it can be used in Industry when it's cheaper). That still gives us 75% efficiency WITHOUT energy storage. This energy is on a par with coal with carbon capture price wise.

Let's go back to renewables. It's very rare that you're producing what you need, you're almost always generating too much or too little. If you're using energy storage 90% of the time and that storage is 50% efficient (very high), you're 55% efficient WITH energy storage and a complete joke without it. Renewables are way more expensive than nuclear without this energy storage, let alone with it, that's why your energy bills are going up.

So the above should make it perfectly clear. Energy storage is of negligible importance to Nuclear and absolutely critical for using renewables as a base load.

There's a horrifying lack of awareness as to the limitations of renewable power. The first 20% is the easy stuff, when you start going beyond that you start hitting real problems.

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Thank Freeview for UK 4G by mid-2013 - NOT the iPhone 5 nor EE

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Re: "35 / 12 = 2.196666... (6 recurring)."

Obviously none of us should be allowed to do sums :P

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Re: Wait!

You mean lets spend money putting masts up with older technology that isn't as good?

Really?

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Re: "You need a new calculator mate..."

Careful using that FAIL icon Jedit:

35 / 12 = 2.196666... (6 recurring).

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EE sets October date to power up UK 4G network

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Re: HTC One XL

The UK version is listed with LTE 800 too.

Interesting that no 3G radio is mentioned.

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Latency

Yes, I've had great experience on HSDPA with 3 too, but....

Let's not forget that Mbps is not the only metric of network performance.

Substantially reduced latency should make LTE a much more pleasurable experience for web browsing.

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Virgin Media's 'bye-bye to buffering' ad nuked by watchdog - AGAIN

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Re: no VM customer receives download speeds of less than 15Mbit/s

Kudos to your analysis, evidence and presentation :)

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Samsung adds iPhone 5 to patent battle v Apple

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Re: To wit

13 billion years of prior art doesn't necessarily mean anything. Do they sell these Sun's in the US?

Thought not. Get lawyered up :P

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"no, you can't patent the sun"

*followed by*

"yes I know the USPTO said you could, but...."

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"I want a phone like an orgasm!"

I believe there are some amazing models that last 5 minutes before you need to charge them up again.

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WTF is... VoLTE

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Re: Erm, like, who cares???

@TeeCee

BINGO :P

Oh, and when I'm on the phone with my friend from up north and I'm having to ask her to repeat what she just said because of the voice quality popping and smudging the sound, I bloody do care about voice quality. When I think about how good it could be, but isn't, I get even more annoyed. I had an HD Voice call once and it was fantastic, but completely took me by surprise.

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I just don't agree and with good reason.

Circuit switching is a lot less efficient than packet switching, that's why it's not the best for data and ultimately why it's not best for voice either. When some technical person hands their boss a piece of paper in the future indicating that they can support 10-20% more users by going entirely to packet switched VoLTE they'll see savings and do it.

New technology throws off mobile operators, happens all the time.

How companies bill is up to them, whether we buy it or not is up to us, the public. The only time authorities should ever step in is for price fixing and the like.

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Ofcom tries to chop months off EE's 4G exclusive

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Re: Ireland

That's an interesting alternative take on low frequencies you have there that I hadn't given all that much thought on. Usually only building penetration comes up with these things.

Should we not be saving large cells for rural LTE then?

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Japan enacts two-year jail terms for illegal downloading

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$8 Billion iPod

TED: $8 Billion iPod

Very good TED video that

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O2, Vodafone allowed to hop onto each other's towers

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Re: never really understood

Ok, perhaps I should have said Cable Vs Satellite :)

Though Cable Vs ADSL still became very true several years later on. It becomes an arms race to offer the best service.

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Re: never really understood

Survival of the fittest doesn't really work if there's only one player.

Cable Vs ADSL is a really great way of looking at this.

You could say, why bother supplying cable TV when people can already use satellite? People did ask that in the 80s! As it turned out, this decision made in the 80s paved the way for fastest widely available high speed internet in the UK. No one knew it at the time. Without the cable network now owned by Virgin, BT may never have bothered rolling out BT Infinity (VDSL 2, currently offering up to 80/20).

In addition to the innovation arguments, some networks are just better managed than others (O2 comes to mind). Some networks figured out how to offer truly unlimited data (3) while others did not (O2's network colapsed a few times from excessive iPhone data usage). IIRC Orange was the first to offer HD Voice services over it's network. With shared infrastructure not only would innovation be stifled, the lowest common demoninator indulged, but everyone would be at the whim of one organisation to get it right.

What about the benefits of not duplicating infrastructure. People oversimplify this, thinking that one tower can handle an infinite amount of people and it can't. Companies that are well run will have spare capacity, but they wont spend loads on having a lot more than they need. I very much doubt that one company's infrastructure could support everyone in the UK. Particulalry if that company was one of the smaller ones. So this idea that we can save towers starts to go out the window.

Duplication of existing services in different ways leads to the best way of serving the public at the lowest cost.

Businesses will start sharing infrastructure when it is in the public good (selling good products and services means more profit to them) and they have and they are.

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Re: Different frequencies

No.

Especially in areas where you can get good O2 signal, but not a great Vodagone signal (I can think of one personally already). This will not improve coverage for those Vodafone customers, they'll just be able to use their phone places they weren't able to before, but in no way will that be improved coverage.

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Network boffins say Terabit Ethernet is TOO FAST

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Re: What, pray tell, is an RJ-45 cable?

@Zebulebu

I'm afraid I do imagine you as the comic book store owner from The Simplsons.

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Satellite broadband rollout for all in US: But Europe just doesn't get it

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WTF?

Re: UP TO 5 Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up

@Zmodem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY

No consumer or business product on this earth gives 250Mbps over satellite and even if you launched your own satellite for... I don't know.... let's just make up a huge number... £7Bn... and you did get 250 Mbps....

Why oh why oh why would you do such a stupid thing?

FTTH is NOT 150Mbps, being fibre the limits genuinely haven't been properly explored and at this time there are substantial caps imposed to maintain a good quality of service for everyone with the existing backhaul. FTTH could quite realisitcally support Gigabit internet. (BT in the UK does 330Mbps atm)

Talking about Gigabit... 4G 'LTE Advanced' supports 1Gbps down at max rates. It's epically more intelligent to subsidise a full blown LTE roll out for a country than attempt to get high bandwidth satellite-latency-that-makes-you-want-to-cry broadband for Joe Public.

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Virgin ramps 4G to a whopping 90Mbps - and switches it off

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Re: BT FTTC & LLU

Sorry Steve, but LLU doesn't just mean another company sells you the product.

In ADSL land, LLU is where your ISP has equipment in your BT exchange. This early hop over basically means that the only bit of BT's network an LLU ADSL line has to go through is just the copper to your house. No network shaping, no data fees from BT, just the copper.

Again, with ADSL, you can have completely different connection methods, Wholesale Broadband Connect, IPStream are a couple. This is where BT relays the connection from an exchange, over BT's network to the ISP's network. The ISP has much less control.

As far as I'm aware, FTTC is only available on a wholesale basis, no exchange hookups for it yet. I'm always interested to get new info on this though.

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Re: It's Virgin Media FFS

@Lee Dowling

You're not alone... well...

I had a great experience with Virgin Media too, but the R36 firmware screwed up my network until I set the Superhub into modem only mode. I'll let that slide as they gave me money back and I could sort it out myself.

The basic service was excellent and the fastest thing I've ever used.

Re: Pico Cells

I thought this too. I love it. The idea that new equipment could be issused to replace SuperHubs that has an in built cell. They could have a large network very quickly. It's this sort of heterogeneous network that LTE was designed to accomodate too!

Before the radiocancer brigade start up, if the pico cells were limited to say 4 watts power, it would be about the same as your own mobile phone, except you wouldn't hold up a pico cell transmitter to your head, like you do a mobile phone.

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I'd think so too. If EE had to do their own network to the premises via whatever means... well, maybe it would have something in a few years time.

I'm not sure if BT do LLU with FTTC, I'd be stunned if they allowed other companies to pop up even more roadside cabinets, but they could always interface at the exchange.

I think the more fibre the merrier.

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Fuming fanbois flood 'flimsy iPhone 5 Wi-Fi' forum

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Re: Let's try this again

@solidsoup

Yes, 802.11n was in draft for 4 years and that is kind of funny, but it got finalized in 2009.

It's 2012 this year FYI.

And I know, I know, Netgear still can't manage to do 802.11n without it dropping or something. I think that's why some mischievous little bastard recommended them to Virgin to make SuperHubs.

(I bought some high end Netgear equipment in late 2011 and that had great throughput, but mysteriously once every 15 mins or so the signal would drop, no issues on other kit it was Netgear's fault.)

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It's got to be that because Apple products "just work".

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Re: Silly iSheep...

I hear they're going to sue other devices makers with bad WiFi but so far no one has done as bad.

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Re: Woah, hold on there...

"At least the phone can't be cropped over to factory reset remotely unlike some other major manufactuer of the robotic type."

If you're going to Android bash, do it properly. The latest phones were all patched up before the exploit was publicised. This is all available on XDA.

However, a lefitimate put down on Android would focus on some operators not bothering to roll out this update to their phones because they couldn't be arsed.

Let me redo what you've said:

"At least the phone can't be cropped over to factory reset remotely unlike some other major manufactuer of the robotic type if their phone was resold through a carrier that couldn't be arsed to push updates to the phones in a timely manner."

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Google charms Greenpeace with wind powered data center deal

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Re: Greenpeace

"It might be viable, but would you want to live next to an operation that is linked to a substantial increase in seismic activity? I wouldn't."

It really, really needs to be emphasised that the moment magnitude scale and the richter scale are both logarithmic, exponential. The largest I've heard from fracking (which is very rare) was a 2.3. We're talking about piss tiny stuff for the masses of wealth this trapped gas emits.

When I put it like that I wouldn't be surprised if my trapped gas has caused greater seismic tremmors.

Fracturing rock deep underground... it doesn't surprise me it can occasionally cause a tiny tremor above, but that's all there's ever been at the worst of it and I really don't see that as a good reason not to.

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Re: Greenpeace

Shale gas is a viable compromise to shift coal burning power generation to gas, therefore substantially reducing carbon emissions, but Greenpeace doesn't want it.

Nuclear power offers a more expensive but affordable source of energy, way more viable than solar and wind, that could supply us all with carbon free energy, but Greenpeace doesn't want it.

Cheap energy is needed to drive the economy and to bring people out of poverty, to make a real difference to people's lives all over the world, but Greenpeace doesn't want it.

I care about sustainability, I care about this planet's environment and I care about the people on this planet.

I'll happily join you solidsoup. "F*** GREENPEACE!"

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AI game bot HUNTS DOWN ENEMIES, passes Turing Test

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KHAN!!!!....

"When humans have a grudge, they'll chase after an enemy even when it's not in their interests."

Khan, I'm laughing at the superior intellect.

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Ultrabooks to finally out-ship notebooks after 20% price slash

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Re: Told you so

Yes Ralph B, you're right, but the same thing occurred to me at the time too.

I'm not an Apple fan, but why would I want to buy something like a MacBook, but not actually a MacBook? Why, why oh why?

These companies see Apple making huge profits and think they can too so long as they make something similar at a similar price. Idiots I call them, just plain idiots.

Twice as good or half the price, that's how you compete with an entrenched player.

Personally I'm super happy with the Dell Studio 15 I got from ebay for £300 being less than 12 months old at the time of purchase. It's had a hybrid Flash/Disk dive upgrade and a bit more memory, but it does me proud and looks good too, with the one exception of the ATI HDMI out.

ATI are so technically inept that they manage to screw up 1:1 pixel mapping on connections to 1080p TVs with the pixels being blurred by being resized again and again, while connecting to an HDMI monitor produces perfect alignment. God damn you ATI!!!

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Now LG Display smacks Samsung with patent lawsuit over OLED

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Re: And yet people say Sony, Microsoft, Apple & co are evil...

"Yet here we have Samsung using stolen code on stolen technology"

When you put it like that it makes me realise that they are copying Apple after all. Damn...

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Litigation's Good

It's an LG joke people, don't get too angry. :P

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Euro watchdog to charge Microsoft on web browser choice boob

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Re: EU should look into others

Apple are doing worse than MS. At least MS let you set a default browser as a competitors alternative. Apple don't let you go that far. Apple don't let you run their OS on compatible hardware either, MS do. Surely that has to be even more anti competitive?

I'm just waiting to see how the EU deals with Windows RT not even allowing other browsers at all. Ha, should be funny.

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Re: Hmm...

Maybe the $7Bn will come out of the wages of the person responsible? Could be done easily enough at $7k a year for a million years.

I woudn't want to be that guy (where the buck stops).

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Japanese boffins unfurl banner above newly-discovered Element 113

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Alert

Re: Element 119 and beyond?

This element may well not have lasted for a fraction of a second..

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Isotopes_and_half-life.svg&page=1

From what we have seen so far, the heavier you go past a certain point, the less and less time it takes before the element decays.

Let's imagine that for some weird reason aliens had made a UFO out of element 120.

Ok, the time I just said to say OK and for you to think about it, the elements already gone. Even better, it irradiated the area as it did so. If we had a large mass of this and you were standing right next to it, well, I think it would be fatal. I think that's a fairly safe thing to say. It's going to be hotter than freshly extracted used nuclear fuel.

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Rumour: Asus rejects $99 Nexus 7... rumour

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I don't know about you, but I heard that Apple was going to arrange a press event and issue a formal apology for hypnocritically stealing other peoples ideas even from it's inception as a company and then passing them off as their own while simultaneously bitching about people copying the simplest of things from them. (Xerox UI, Multitouch, stuff like that)

That's what I heard anyway. :P You know these, rumours, aren't always true.

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Google in new Maps patent row - but not with Apple

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I'll tell you Anonymous Coward, why I haven't patented it.

1) I've had no requirement to think about it.

2) Patents are NOT supposed to protect the obvious

3) I have lots of thoughts which are obvious and if I wanted to patent them all I'd need to raise a MASSIVE amount of cash to do so. The only way I can see how to do this is by stealing some ideas, passing them off as my own in order to start a company in IT. Wait a minute, not original, that's what both Microsoft & Apple did in the 80s. Hello Irony!!

I love this video link so much I'm going to paste it again (it's perfectly relevant, promise):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU

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WiFi geolocation is just bloody obvious to me. It's just landmarks but in radio space.

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Carbon fiber MacBooks to appear soon?

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Carbon Fibre - 1958

Very high strength Carbon Fibre - 1963

Apple Makes Simple Shape in Carbon Fibre and puts forward a patent - 2010

What do you say?

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Tesla drops veil on top secret solar Superchargers

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Re: If the solar panels capture more energy than they need

You know, Not-Red-Communist-Anonymous-Coward, I can't help feeling that at least in argument, your long message wasn't all that bad, with the critical exception of a whiff of conspiracy about global warming and repeated "Red Communist" rubbish.

Presumably you think the homeless should die on the streets so long as you don't have to see them? I mean helping them would be a little bit communist. Perhaps you feel America's highway system should be privatised and turned into a long toll road network? A balance of philosphies can be a good thing.

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Vandals break into congressman's office, install Linux on PCs

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Re: Interesting

I doubt it, it will probably be so he gets attention without sounding like he's whining about his own problems. When you fart in his direction, you fart in America's direction... blah blah...

He's America you see.

It's just crass political maneuvering. He has some nerve IMHO.

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Samsung slaps swift patch over phone-wiping Galaxy S III vuln

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Re: Stop skinning Android

I agree 100%, this is exactly why I do the same and just go for Nexus Devices.

I've never looked at a skin and found it more attractive than Android in the post ICS world.

@ukgnome - I don't think the average user wants to root their phone and as a technical user, I don't fancy running unsigned software not tested by the manufacturer. I have tried Cyanogenmod, but after running into problems with an issue patched in the Galaxy Nexus' official firmware, I switched back to the official stuff.

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UN agency didn't break North Korea tech embargo

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Well, just to run away with your logic a bit there, if NASA sent a man to the moon with a tiny computer. I guess that means that they can either send a lot more people to the moon or a few people a lot further a way with a server.

Perhaps the server will allow them to invade Urans.

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