Posts by Derk

Watch our leaders, and their kids.

If our illustrious leaders have been telling us all porky pies about the chances of a later hit, then they and their offspring will be living it up, like its the end of the world for the next 16 years. Which it could be.

£££££

Hey Alistair,

How much did the Reg pay you for that insightful article? I'm sure I too could write well researched, expletive articles too. Slow news day?

Crazy

Methinks it is crazy to have trademarks on common English words.

Shear Luxury

I got made redundant in 2009. Thought Oh well, nice little packet heading my for 12 years service. Err no... We are not going to pay you anything, not even this months salary. Eh? We are broke, bust, kaput. Off to the dole I go. Sorry mate you can't get anything here, as your employer has not being paying your NI contributions. My employers in their last year of business awarded themselves big fat pay rises. So company was sold off at £22K by the administrator (sold to the investment firm that put the nail in the coffin previously), Investment firm then sold it on for £128K. It is still running now, with a vastly reduced order book and staff. I got the government minimum after several months. So if these guys get something, as they should. Good for them. Its not the end of the world. I started my own business, never looked back.

The March of technology, the creep of the surveillance state.

I expect that within the next 50 years you will all be chipped anyway. Your location will be known every waking and sleeping moment. It will be done of course in the interests of your "safety" and "convenience" Traditional crimes such as robbery and murder will be harder to commit as you'll be placed at the crime scene, or not. No need to carry cash or credit cards, just wave your hand over the terminal, and your account will be automatically debited.

Break the law or upset your political masters, and it could be very difficult to survive, no food, no trade, no heat or shelter.

Slowly but surely you'll accept your whereabouts being known to private companies, government agencies. All those dystopian fantasies seen in the movies will become reality for you. Personally I'd rather go without. If you boycott them, they will fail. Your choice.

Want one

I have no need of a well. Where I live we have too much water. First I'd start with a well, then keep digging and digging, extra rooms, tunnels to other places, need to keep it secret. But where to put all that earth?

A bloke along the street from me has a huge underground "romper room" in his back garden. He is a musician, so he and his mates can go wild in there and the neighbours in our street of unassuming 1930's semi's hear and know nothing.

No life?

If they find no life there, ever. Then is Mars of use to Mankind? I did read that terraforming would not work, as it can't retain a thick enough atmosphere. Now Venus can and does retain a very thick atmosphere, or so I'm told. Could Venus ever be Terraformed? or is to close to the sun?

Flying in 2050?

I don't think its going to be a problem that concerns us really. With the ever increasing population, and it shows no sign of slowing down, you won't be able to get away from it. Everywhere will be the same. Overcrowded hell holes. So there goes the holiday. Perhaps only available for those that have pleased the authorities or met their work quota. Meetings will be conducted on wall size screens, the tech exists now. Until the world sorts out its population problem, every increasing demand for ever decreasing resources, flying will be a memory from the "golden days"

btw its Tales not Tails. FFS what happened to this world?

Myths

I work in the sub-contract electronics industry. If the board has been designed correctly for automatic component placement.insertion, then the machine costs are similar to that of the UK. If there is a fair bit of manual insertion/placement, China can be up to 40% cheaper. We design these days to eliminate as much human input as possible. In that way we can compete with China. The Philippines has an equally low labour as China, and many Japanese companies assembly there. Here is an example of labour costs taken as an assessment for the building of new plant to build mechanical items (High labour content)

US $12/Hr. UK $7.50Hr. Caribbean Area $1/day. China? Pay the factory owner a fixed monthly fee, regardless of the amount produced. These figures are for yr2000. I can't give todays figures, I'd get sacked. So in effect the China labour costs did not enter into the products P&L sheet. Just material, small overhead and logistics.

The comments on duties for components is rubbish. Customs and excise operate a system that assigns a code to an item that is to be imported, whether it is shoes, electronics components or paper, then there is a customs duty code assigned to it. Components such as resistors, capacitors, and IC's do not attract duty. Set top boxes for example, finished products do have an import duty of 4%, last time I looked. Each item is different. I have spent many a happy hour leafing through the codes, and later CD's issued by HMRC to try and justify a lower tariff in order to save money.

The big players in the UK assembly business such as Race have gone, not through being inefficient, but in a lack of vision regarding the supply chain. The remaining surviving UK Electronic Manufacturers, have plants in both the UK and China, best of both worlds. To make a go of it in todays market you need to be big and have direct accounts with your suppliers, which means >$1M dollar accounts usually. I'm surprised that these people are using Farnell for component supply, as Farnell are a distributor, and there is a mark up involved. There are plenty of UK subcontractors around who can push out 30Ku a month no bother, and who would be happy to manage the supply chain too. They will learn.....eventually.

They could vastly reduce piracy very quickly

Gabe hit the nail on the head. The entertainments industry business model simply has not caught up.

Do I want

A). To wait years to see Family Guy episodes, or Game of Thrones on BBC whatever channel?

B). Buy multiple subscriptions to cable and satellite providers to get the shows I want? Stuffed full of bloody adverts, TV logos and previews of other shows whilst I'm trying to watch a different show?

C). Pay too much to ITunes for out of date content?

D). Pay the Producer of the content a small fee, on demand for that episode when it is ready?

E). Pay for a good broadband connection, pay for a good VPN, and undertake illegal activity?

I'd rather have option D thank you, I'd rather pay the producers of the content, no adverts needed, instant global launch. It is entirely feasible with todays technology. In my humble opinion, the producers of the content would make MORE money, but like the music industry there is a huge raft of parasitic entities trying to justify their existence's at every bodies expense.

EOL EOR

Bad long term move really

Apple should not have seen Samsung as a real threat, followers never are, they come late to market with something similar, and cheaper. Often tapping a market segment that Apple never used to be interested in. At one time Apple Macintosh made good reliable product aimed at the quality end of the market. But shear greed has taken over, they now want it all. This will mean that the followers will now have to do something, something radical, something really innovative, or die. They just might come up with something much better, who knows? They will have to find ways around their patents too. Samsung will now also be looking at this billion dollar award and wondering if it should supply parts to Apple. I'm sure if I was Samsung's CEO I'd be asking some very pertinent questions on cost/benefits of having a relationship with Apple.

I switched to OSX in 2005, and have in the last couple of years, not really liked the style and direction that Apple have taken. They have become "Microsoft".

I'm reminded of the start of Ben and Jerries ice cream, were they whinged about being "excluded" from the market, as the big competitors wouldn't allow shops to put their product in the competitors freezers, only years later to do the exact same to quite a few start ups. The Merkins just love a monopoly!

Although I use and Love my IPhone 4, MacMini, & MacPro. I think I'll be looking around at the alternatives for my next phone, and computer....Linux? Linux with Steam would be a winner for me.

New operating systems and updates

I'm surprised about all the negative opinion on the net about Windows 8. Normally people are enthusiastic abut new goodies, new features, but with Win8, its not so. I wonder what the bods at Redmond are thinking? or perhaps they aren't....................thinking

And When I'm in Charge

If MS was my company, I'd be finding out why the customers want to stay with it, perhaps it has features that the later Vista and Win7 don't? I'd be asking "Why the hell are we forcing people to take something they don't want!?" Make the upgrade path less painful, especially in terms of cost.

If MS see no money in Win XP, then charge for updates, charge for sevice packs.

I still use XP in Parallels for my CAD system on my Mac. Upgrade to Win7? spend £100+ for what? Don't think so. XP works just fine. Mind you I downloaded the preview of Win8, what a crock that is! Got so pee'd off it with it so fast.

Microsoft: Giving people what they either don't want or need and charging the earth for it.

Bye bye

I said goodbye in January, don't miss it, just a distraction from doing real things.

Idiots view

I'm not keen on all these high speed manoeuvres. I'd prefer much more that retro rockets, parachutes, and air brakes were used in the upper atmosphere, and then they can deploy a large balloon, for a gentle descent to the surface. I really hope that it all works. For me space exploration is the only thing that excites me about technology these days. Here on earth the "bad monkey's" are still killing one another over trivial things, monkey hives (cities) are overcrowded, resources are running out, or so the greedy monkeys tell us. It is just a shame that all the greedy control freaky monkeys ensure that trillions are spent on means to kill other monkeys rather than really solve the problems of the day.

Perhaps this scenario is our only hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spr5YFfrnA0

Painful

I found your review painful to read. "this TV is capable of quite deliciously clarity" really? Do you even read what you've written?

Moths stalk their prey? yes quite. Flowers can be very evasive.

Really?

The survey says:

85% of men like to wank and enjoy it

15% of men deny it.

As the saying goes, there are wanders, and liars.

Paris.....because she has helped so many.

Beans

I'm trying this on a local scale. A diet of beans for a few weeks in an enclosed room to see if I can raise the temperature of the room or even house.

Old Folks homes

Starve the criminals, until they are frail and fragile. Then put them in old folks homes to be abused, beaten, denied medical treatment, fed slop, put to bed at 1730, denied the toilet, made to sleep in their own shit. The plus side is, that it is completely legal, and the organisation is already in place. The pensioners can move to the prisons, have big screen TVs, no fees to worry about, instant medical treatment, better food.

Who would have thought it?

Well America, you fed and raised a big red dragon, you've moved your manufacturing overseas, some of you have become very wealthy from it too. Now the dragon looks like it will get even bigger and more dangerous than you. Face it, its going to make you its bitch, and it will bite!

Electric cars....pah

I'm going to buy a horse and cart. The horse can keep the grass cut, provide lots of fertiliser, off road capability if the cart is not used is pretty good. I get to wear riding boots, jodhpurs and a whip. And when dobbin is worn out? well lots of meat for the freezer. Whats not to like?

re: obvious solution

Or you could build huge "collectors" in space for all that energy. Every ship would know the co-ordinates to these "collectors" or we could call them gates, or jump gates. The energy collected could be saved and used to return the craft. Some energy could be bleed of to power space stations, we could call the first one B1, etc. Stay clear of any called B5, as strange stuff could go on there.

Get off this world first

I think it would be a good idea to get off this rock first. A manned moon base, with mining and manufacturing capability. Once established, and self sufficient, then the moon is the best place to launch missions to other planets, and further. Considering that most of the wars, and justification for huge militaries is due to "resources" then the sooner we get metals and other compounds off world the better.

How inspirational would it be to have a global effort, all countries involved in setting up a "Human" outpost where all countries benefited equally. But no, the "corporation" will be involved, and we all know how that turns out. In Space, No one cares how you vote.

Not worth it

The vast majority of warranties are utterly useless. Goods have to be fit for purpose and of merchandisable quality. I bought a Sony TV from Amazon, the screen failed 26 months later. Repair shop said it needed a new screen and was not caused by damage or misuse. Amazon offered me an £80 bugger off credit note. Took it up with Trading standards, who sent of letters to Amazon on my behalf (free of charge), Amazon still would not budge. So I told them I was starting a small claims court proceeding against them, with the aid of trading standards. Result? I received a brand new replacement model from Amazon. Trading standards stated that some goods such as expensive TV's, washing machines, must last 5-8 years. All it cost me was £47 for the repair shop to diagnose the fault, and 3 months of letters.

Know your rights! and research your purchase, buy cheap, buy twice!

Alternative fan

Instead of the Vent Axia fan, try using an Envirovent "RetroVent" Good ventilation and nearly 90% heat recovery.

http://www.homeventilation.co.uk/retroVent.php

I wonder

if there is a senior intelligence guy in the US of A who has his head in hands in an utter state of disbelief of what the TSA have done. Somehow I doubt it.

Thanks for the laugh Reg. Beer o'clock, time to go...