* Posts by Bunbury

304 publicly visible posts • joined 3 May 2013

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By the Rivers of Babylon, where the Antikythera Mechanism laid down

Bunbury

Dating

There are some confusing aspects to this find. For example, the pottery from the wreck is from around 80BC. So if the mechanism is actually 120 years older then it would be antique when lost; and increasingly useless as the mechanism is only as accurate as the celestial theories of the day and they were limited.

Entirely possible that the principles were Babylonian in concept; The Hellenic empire of the Seluecid kings at that time controlled Babylon and had done since Alexander's conquest and Babylon was known thoughout the period for astronomy (three wise men, etc). There's also a precedent for 'borrowing' since the "archimedes screw" water device was used in Babylonia since before Archimedes' birth.

Suffering satellites! Goonhilly's ARTHUR REBORN for SPAAAACE

Bunbury

Re: I don't know.

It's a 50+ year old, end of life, telecomms dish that has been long overtaken. First by fixed dishes that didn't need all that heavy gearing that was needed to follow Telstar, then by submarine fibres. It's no use for telecomms any more an BT aren't involved in space telescopes so why would they want to keep the site?

Mighty Blighty broadbanders beg: Let us lay cable in BT's, er, ducts

Bunbury
Joke

Re: BT: Over-Spec'd and out of date

Sewers = Fibre Up The Khyber?

Bunbury

Re: Are Ofcom a complete waste of space?

If you were given an estimate of speed when you bought it and your speed is a lot slower then either there is a problem with the line causing the slow speed or the line is working correctly but the estimate was optimistic. So before going back to ADSL I'd suggest trying to work out which it is.

Giant bank IT cockup of 2012 'could have brought down ENTIRE financial system'

Bunbury

Re: Who benefits financially and materially*

Indeed. All the fines on banks for various naughty practices are presumably going to the government. In order to maintain profits for shareholders, banks will need to gouge a little more for their services. It seems to be a tax.

LIFE, JIM? Comet probot lander found 'ORGANICS' on far-off iceball

Bunbury

Omnispermia

I suspect it'll be a hundred years at least before we know where we come from. However, since life did develop somewhere I suppose it boils down to a balance of probabilities.

Is there anything special about earth to make us the one place to harbour life? Not that we know of; the more evidence we get the more ordinary our planet seems.

So the remaining science based options seem to be that life comes about through a process that is common in the universe but unknown to us. In which case on earth it's quite likely that is started within the solar system. Or it's a rare process but sufficiently survivable that it can survive interstellar travel - which probably means in a solid body that can protect it from radiation and the descent to a new planet. Perhaps a long period comet would be a good vector - a wandering planet wouldn't be good as they'll vapourise any other planets they hit.

Bunbury

Re: Just because they're organic doesn't mean they're biologic...

Yes I think the issue here is that the mission scientists might know that organics does not mean organisms but the BBC has not really reported accurately. The should put a footnote in to the effect that this just means a compound of carbon, which are very common in the universe.

Ofcom tackles complaint over Premier League footie TV rights

Bunbury

Re: Asparagus

I strongly suspect the teams in the prenmiership don't want to negotiate individually. They know the current arrangement allows a bidding war that brings in huge revenues. It would be nice though to see more games from lower leagues on free to air channels.

Bunbury

Re: How to bring competition

"ban exclusive deals, ie insist that every football match can be broadcast by at least 2 TV channels (or Internet stream)."

"The only losers will be the clubs & media."

To be honest I think the clubs and the media are mostly just links in the chain:

consumers pay for content to media

Media take their cut pay eye watering sums to football leagues

Leagues take their cut pass to clubs

Clubs add in gate receipts, take their cut

Clubs pay players (wages+transfer fees)

Players pay agents, spend vast sums on cars, houses, etc.

So, if you cut out the links (that all take a cut, they are businesses after all), the footy industry is a mechanism to take money from people who earn £10k a year and give it all to young men who earn 30 times that a week.

Bunbury

Re: Stadiums

On the other hand, if all games were showed when they were played perhaps the price of going to football matches in the UK would need to drop to be competitive. Unfortunately, what used to be a sport watched in person by people on modest pay is now so expensive that many cannot afford to go.

Bunbury

No option?

"To be honest, this is something I find odd about sports broadcasting in the UK.

The rights holders go on about competition. What they actually mean is that TV companies compete for the rights. However, the consumer has no option, if he wants to watch a particular tournament, than to subscribe to the one, exclusive channel."

The consumer has plenty of options if they want to watch football in general. For example, the World Cup and the Euro Championships are free to air (despite legal challenge from FIFA and EUFA, natch). The Scotland v England friendly is on ITV this evening.

It's if you want to watch a specific match, particularly in the premier league that things become restricted. You can of course watch the highlights on the BBC. Or, here's an idea, you could physically go and watch the match.

Broadband sellers in the UK are UP TO no good, says Which?

Bunbury

Re: Not this bloody chestnut again

HS2 does seem an awful lot of money and you just know it'll have cost overruns. But I would think you won't get the cost of universal FTTP through the treasury given that there are other alternatives for many.

Bunbury

Re: And the other way round

""The small company (Gigaclear) supplying it was recently made to change all it's advertising material to say "up to" as OFCOM can't understand the technology at all "

Isn't it more likely that it's because the line speed you're talking about doesn't equal throughput"

No, the regulations relate to line speed not throughput. It's not Ofcom though it's the advertising regulator. The regulations aren't a great fit with FTTP technology...

Bunbury

Re: What counts as the reference number for "customers"

But 15Meg is not half the quoted "up to" speed. The 'up to' will be something like 75+Mbps - it's the speed that 10% of the people in the whole country can actually get. You seem to be comparing with the speed estimate at point of sale, which is line specific. Of course, for people in your street, the "up to" figure is not much of a guide, but then the median speed wouldn't be either I suppose.

The properties up the road that get estimates of 13/0.8 will not be charged a premium over ADSL - BT will not sell it's Infinity product to them at that speed estimate; they'll be on the same price as ADSL/ADSL2+

DEATH fails to end mobile contract: Widow forced to take HUBBY's ASHES into shop

Bunbury

Banks can be worse

When we telephoned my dad's bank to let them know he had died the Indian helpdesk agent did not understand what we meant by "bereavement", so asked if we could get him to the phone to corroborate that he wished to close the account...

Though I should say that when the poor man realised his error he was very upset and passed us to the back office team who deals with that sort of thing.

Bunbury

Data protection causes this

This is the logical conclusion of a culture that insists on rigidly implemented data protection laws. Unless you've taken out a Power of Attorney (which is so convoluted that by the time you feel the need to do that for an elderly relative the process is too complicated for them to complete) then you're a bit stuffed with an elderly relative should you come across someone who plays to the letter of the law. Used to drive me mad when my dad was both vague and half deaf and sometimes they still suggested I leave the room when they discussed his condition.

But the T-mobile business model confuses me. They sureley send out bills centrally, so why isn't there a central office that deals with this sort of thing. At least then people could write in with the proof, should they need it.

UK digi exclusion: Poor families without internet access could 'miss out' on child tax credit

Bunbury

Poor policy approach

Rather than introducing 'online only' for a single benefit a government should set a general access policy for all interactions with government. Otherwise, when other departments decide "postal only", "libraries only", "benefit office only", "Magic word only", etc. citizens have to have access to ALL mechanisms.

Narrow thinking of this nature creates significant inefficiencies. For example, if you are unemployed in my area you have to physically attend an office in a town 10 miles away every two weeks on a specified time and day. There are no direct public transport links, so that's a lengthy journey there and back. When you get there, a jobsworth asks you if you've looked for work and you tell them two methods of doing so. They don't check. They get upset if you don't attend (for example if you've found some work that day) and seem to automatically stop your benefits for two weeks, prompting an hours call to sort it out, at your cost. There is, of course, absolutely no help given to actually find work.

The whole system seems to be a complete waste of time, as they don't check that you are looking for work. So why not either allow this to be done online (people can type as well as speak) or on the phone or even not at all. I'm tempted to say sack the jobsworths and sell the building though aI suspect stopping them being an ineffective policing function and starting them helping to marry people with appropriate jobs would be better.

Bouncy bouncy: Comet probot Philae landed twice

Bunbury

We need Georgie Fame

"Rosetta, are you better? Are you well, well, well?"

OK, it's not Philae but it's the best I could do.

Drama in space: But Philae keeps trying to harpoon comet

Bunbury
Pint

Re: Farage

Yes we make lots. Office of national statistics for 2013 Trade in Goods (i.e. not services): UK imports from EU £221Bn, exports £151Bn; both are bigger than the rest of the world combined. Biggest catagories of goods exported (though not necessarily to EU) are mechanical machinery, cars, electrical machinery, medicines and pharmaceuticals, crude oil, refined oil.

Glad to see also (relevant to main story) that we have a trade surplus in scientific and photgraphic good. And beverages, hence icon.

Bunbury

Re: Farage

One of the primary differences is import duty, which is an added percentage levied on the cost of goods from outside the EU. It varies depending on governnment policy. Then there is the harmonisation of regulations, which is often held up in the media as a bad thing but makes it easier for manufacturers because you don't have to make product varients for each seperate country, but can just do one.

Say you leave a trading block that you do a lot of business with and say average import duty is 3%. Everything you buy from the old block goes up 3% because of your import duty, and everything you sell to them has 3% slapped on top, so your exports are less competitive. You can , of course, decide not to have any import duty from your old chums to keep prices down but your manufacturers have lots of cheap EU goods as competition but can't sell their stuff in EU countries as it's expensive and doesn't meet their regulations any more.

ESA sends back PRE-LANDING COMET CLOSE-UPS

Bunbury
Happy

then touch down seven hours later at about 4pm

Splendid. Just in time for tea. Well done chaps

HOT YOUNG STAR about to GIVE BIRTH, long range images show

Bunbury

Re: I remember when ....

"Pope, writing in the 18th century, did not even think it controversial", "It took 19th century Biblical inerrancy to make astronomy controversial"

Probably more accurate to say that this has gone in cyles. e.g. Copernicus in the 16th century seems to have had little grief with his heliocentric model (perhaps a special case as his main work was effectively posthumous). Galileo though was seen as a heretic by the papal authorities. Pope, as a Catholic living in Protestant England, may have escaped similar censure if it was seen to wind up Rome more than Canterbury perhaps?

Given that Pope was sufficiently well versed in ancient greek to translate both the Iliad and the Odyssey into English, he was probably wll aware that in addition to the geocentric view, the ancient Greeks also considered a heliocentric view, and a view that both sun and earth orbited a separate central fire.

UK superfast broadband? Not in my backyard – MP

Bunbury

Re: You'd hope for more from your MP

"It seems El Reg has reduced the information content..."

Cheers for that, shame the hack didn't add it really. It seems I've cast the MP in a poor light; he actually knows what he is talking about. Looks like a mapping problem at heart, which has led to a funding shortfall by the council. The people who always seem to avoid blame here are the developers of the estates.

Bunbury

You'd hope for more from your MP

So, this MP is taking up HoC time to wig the minister over an unspecified constituent, in an unspecified area, with an unmentioned connection speed an unknown computer program from an unknown server to an unknown device. And, assuming this is a bleat about the government's programme re subsidising broadband rollout, he would perhpas be better off asking the Gloucestershire county council. They've banded together with Herefordshire as "www.fastershire.com". That website though shows Cheltenham as enabled so it's not really clear what his constituent's issue is.

Bunbury

Re: He cited a computer programmer who had reported that it took three days to download a program

"Why 'again'? There's no tearing down in FTTC, it's additional kit that exists alongside the already in-place copper delivery network."

In FTTC the cabling between cabinet and exchange is replaced with glass fibre. If you changed out a FTTC area to FTTP you might want to change the routing of that - after all the cabinets are where they are because of the needs of the copper telephone network back in the day. But I imagine it would be rare that the cost of doing so would be warranted.

Why Comrade Cameron went all Russell Brand on the UK’s mobile networks

Bunbury

Disappointing

Rule #1 of international carriage should have kicked in and blamed the connection at the other end. As per this real life drains up dialogue I had with a US carrier years back:

US: "At this stage, the European earth station stopped receiving our signal"

UK: "Yes, correct. Because there was a storm in the area of the US earth station and your US station manager put his dish into the high wind survival position but forgot to put in the locking pins. Hence the dish became a 30m frisbee."

Rich techbro CEOs told to sleep rough before slamming the poor

Bunbury

Holier than thou?

I looked through the link to see whether the congresswoman had actually done the sleeping rough for a night or lived for a week on food stamps. She may have done but I couldn't find that in the article. Not sure why a CEO would "do as I say not as I do". Though a number of American CEOs do seem to act to help needy people through philanthropy.

It seems to be a common feature of capitalism that it increases average wealth but also results in wide disparities of wealth.

RBS faces biggest ever fine for THAT huge IT meltdown – leak

Bunbury

Re: Corporate fines == useless

having had a property purchase caught up in this mess I remember it well. But as others have said I don't think fines are a good mechanism. I imagine the fine is there as primarily a crime and punishment approach, the fine being both a punishment and an example to others of the risk of poor systems practice. There might be a bit of motivation in there to fill treasury coffers but I suspect that's not a particular motivator here.

The problem is, it won't work. If there was only one bad apple and the fine was big enough perhaps. But the UK retail banking sector is being effectively fined for all sorts of issues - payment Protection Insurance etc. so they'll all effectively increase revenues to compensate for these costs - customers are more likely to pay than taxpayers.

Rather than the blunt instrument of fines, it might be better if there was a well policed and operated code of practice in the industry that encouraged good practice and allowed for the right level of quality.

Manufacturers slam UK.gov: 'High speed broadband' rollout is too slow

Bunbury

second most important infrastructure investment priority

But nevertheless cheap as chips. Thus the need for government subsidy in some areas. If all food outlets could only sell chips perhaps you'd only get food outlets in big towns.

Virgin 'spaceship' pilot 'unlocked tailbooms' going through sound barrier

Bunbury

Re: Why...

While it may be that the craft did something against expectation (and upvoted for pointing that out to the AC) it's just one person saying what seems to have appeared on some of the available data, and of course if accurate the investigation will need to find out why that occured. Better not to speculate on what happened until a full assessment is made.

Very sad for the pilots and their friend and family.

Spooky ghost light reveals dead galaxies torn apart over 6bn years

Bunbury

Now what we need here

Is an artists impression of the night sky from a planet circling one of those stars. Would they be individual stars or be ejected in clumps. If your night sky were just galaxies in the cluster and the odd wandering star that would be a bit dark.

BT: Consumers and cost cutting save the day

Bunbury

Re: Small increase in punters

It might just be me but I don't see that much actual improvement in water, electrity and rail but I do see significant real term price rises from those sectors. And the product delivered is largely the same. For example train rolling stock has improved but journey times have not; electricity hasn't really changed at all at the retail level. The cost of telecomms has generally come down in real terms quite a bit (500kbps service in 2000 was £39.99 a month), though of course it should do being electronics mostly.

BT have a real problem with network investment in that there is always a risk that the unsuccessful technologies lose them money but the successful ones they have to share with other operators. Sharing at what price is the key concern. So yes, there was a lot of pressure to introduce fibre, but it's a profit driven company, not a government department. I seem to recall that the FTTC rollout plan was announced as £2.5Bn, funded by the company. The government £530m is to fill in the cracks really.

Bunbury

Re: Poor Customer Service - Lousy Performance

I'm sorry if I came across as ladling out corporate twaddle, I was only trying to help.

It's difficult to know through this medium that you know what you are doing (i.e. you know, but I don't) and even knowledgeable engineers get caught out by hidden issues.

Bunbury

Re: Small increase in punters

I'm not sure what version of "done properly" would have achieved that in 1994. Firstly, Openreach was only established in 2006, so the dates don't work. But of course there were predecessors. OK, let's say the government did this in 1994:

- it somehow foces BT to spend ten billion pounds to do this, and gets through the legal challenge by passing primary legislation.

- BT cannot sustain the cost, goes into receivership and the government has to rescue to keep the country going.

- every other infrastructure provider sees this coming and takes their investment away. Firesales in the power, water, etc industries. Major economic damage.

- meanwhile, an engineering solution is put in. Fibre to the home, 1994 style. it provides telephony, and a 2Mbps line system. Sorry, did you want it upgradeable? Can't do that because the standards don't exist.

- every front garden in the country is dug up - via the compulsory order introduced by the primary legislation. Holes drilled in every front wall. Don't want it? You have no option.

- all the roads are dug up. The councils have no say due to primary legislation. Lots of traffic jams.

I think it's a little easier to ask for these things than to do them.

-

Bunbury

Re: Poor Customer Service - Lousy Performance

80 up do down is the maximum speed the technology will handle on any line. For yours you'll have had an estimate of what your line can support when you bought it. Sounds from what you say that that is 70plus Mbps. When you do your speed tests, make sure you're followed the guidance on their site as to how to do it properly.

Typically, you should find that the line will give you your 70+ in quiet times but will slow down to your 40--45 in the evenings due to network congestion. Unclear why your performance feels less than that - might be a number of factors. Not sure email is the best mechanism for reporting this sort of thing as it really needs a bit of interaction to sort out.

Bunbury

Re: Small increase in punters

I fear you may have confused the two numbers. Start with x lines on which there are y broadband services. End with x-85000 lines on which there are y+88000 broadband services. 88000 is the NET growth in broadband lines i.e. addtitions less losses.

Rise of the machines: Silicon Valley hardware store to deploy ROBOTS for customer service

Bunbury

Re: I foresee trouble

I'm thinking the beancounters in charge of this store couldn't give a monkey's about all aspects of these changes. It's the financial benefit to their company that will be the thing they concern themselves with.

Bunbury

I..........Said

COULD

YOU

DIRECT

ME

TO

YOUR

BASEBALL

BATS

PLEASE

YOU

HEAP

OF

JUNK

Cray-cray Met Office spaffs £97m on very average HPC box

Bunbury

@ Ivan 4 Re: The best weather forecasting...

Downvote I think. This link shows that they were able to start to spot the windy conditions 5 days out and then consistently warned of high winds. So a more powerful computer would allow them to see it coming further aheadand predict wind speed more accurately. Hence tallbloke's site is an argument in favour of a new box of tricks.

Bunbury

Re: The best weather forecasting...

>RUN TEST

(looks out of window)

>RESULT=SUNNY

>CONCLUSION = PERPETUAL SUNLIGHT FOREVER

I'll let you know whether it's accurate, perhaps around sundown.

Long armof of the saur: Brachially gifted dino bone conundrum solved

Bunbury

A long time ago, but in this galaxy

Me-sah Jar Jar Binks.

Broadcom pitches chips at G.fast OEMs

Bunbury

Unions?

I would think that unions would be in favour of both technologies. G.Fast would nee lots of boxes installed and maintained, plus lots of migration tasks to move lines from other types of BB to the new box (so one task at the old exchange/cabinet, one at the G.Fast box. GPON requires massive amounts of manpower to get it out to every home and they all have to be trained on fibre working. Perhaps not quite so much in terms of maintenance jobs over the long term (though plenty of examples of delicate little cable vs reality makes for maintenance jobs).

Unions are as prone to short term thinking as any other organisation - they might prefer the GPON.

Comet Siding Spring revealed as flying molehill

Bunbury

Re: It is is still an E.L.E. - No it is not

Yes assuming land impact at 45 degrees the Impact Earth website calculates a 7 km crater. If you were 1000 km away they reckon magnitude 7 earthquake, fine dusting of ejecta and quite a bit of noise but no planet wide issues.

Mars needs women, claims NASA pseudo 'naut: They eat less

Bunbury

Calories = work

While a bulkier male will presumably use up more calories at rest, it's generally the case that calories are used to do things. It might be that the more macho males are doing all the physical tasks in the trial environment, and an all female crew would use up more calories.

Besides, men will take in most calories as curry, and that has a low mass to calorie ratio.

Want to see the back of fossil fuels? Calm down, hippies. CAPITALISM has an answer

Bunbury

Re: Clean energy NOW

Hmm. Nuclear = good. Hydrogen = bad. No wonder the sun is unstable..

Cable guy, Games of Thrones chap team up to make Reg 'best sci-fi film never made' reject

Bunbury

Re: The trouble with "older" sci-fi...

I suspect the older writers thought the science was what the book was all about so the rest was just pencil sketches.

The problem with science fiction "film of the book" projects is often a commercial one. The audience is usually under 35 years of age. So it's often the case that they haven't read the book. So do you make a film that's reasonably true to a book and accept it won't be as successful as a film based on themes that <35yo are familiar with, or do you plunder the book for eye catching ideas and make a block buster?

Still, this has prompted me to by copies of the John Carter and Ender's Game films.

DOLPHINS SMELL MAGNETS – did we hear that right, boffins?

Bunbury

Of course they're attracted

They know that magnetic fields = frickin lasers

Ice, ice maybe: Evidence of 'Grand Canyon' glacier FOUND ON MARS

Bunbury

claimed they had found a deposit of a "new type" of jarosite

The press release seems to imply it's the same type of jarosite as occurs on earth, but that it is a new type of deposit.

There's me writing that as if i were intimately familiar with jarosite and had so much of the stuff that I could make a sofa out of it. Whereas actually I've never heard of the stuff before. Still, I think I've carried that bluff off rather well.

TEEN RAMPAGE: Kids in iPhone 6 'Will it bend' YouTube 'prank'

Bunbury

A bit dim to allow your face on the video

Whether or not they get done for it, it's made it a great deal easier for Apple (or the store chain) to try. Which they might well do if only to stop others doing the same.

BT claims almost-gigabit connections over COPPER WIRE

Bunbury

Re: no idea why anyone needs gigabit internet connectivity at home...

As soon as you get your ubiquitous gigabit internet you'll have the next generation of games that'll be 40TB then you'll need terabit connectivity.

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