Posts by john.w 145 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Mar 2008
A colleague once recounted the conversation at a dinner party in the noughties where he was showing them all his latest and greatest Symbian smart phone. A friend then put his Nokia dumb phone on the table and said, when the sh1t hits the fan that one will still work. He was head of the local authority.
You are able to get your brakes fixed because it is just you making that decision and you can afford it.
Now if you needed to get agreement from every large government to ignore their own needs and decide to fund you now very expense brake replacement, good luck with that.
A better option now is to drive carefully.
Putting a number on it is admirable but futile.
If we accept the accuracy of the measurements, the averaging and the base line and agree the planet is warming we only pass the first hurdle to justify Net Zero targets.
Next we have to agree that CO2 is the most significant driver, not just that it is a greenhouse gas. It maybe but many might argue differently.
Finally we have to decide if we can stop the climate changing or as this article might suggest it is too late.
What do we do, continue to spend Billion in the UK and Trillions around the world reducing carbon emissions or spend that money adapting to the now inevitable change?
The problem for the monopoly or any big business is that all those small companies snapping at their heels have a lot less to loose. Taking risks on new innovations is easier when you are small. If you have 50,000 employees going bust and starting again is not as easy as if you have 50.
Governments deciding what technology they want to succeed is even worse. It distorts the process of innovation and industries fail, just look at the European and US car industries as consumers' desire to buy EVs to meet ZEV targets has failed to materialise.
Fujistu were complicit in telling a court that their software was reliable but it was the Post Office that saw fit to prosecute innocent people when it knew the evidence was unreliable at best. Let's keep the focus on the establishment cronies that are being protected rather than the 'expert' witnesses who were told what to say.
Can anyone define what Net Zero actually means and what this will do to the global climate in a couple of decades time? Is there a cost/benefit analysis that does not simple make bold predictions about future costs if we do not adopt the policy? To be clear, I am not denying climate change or even that humans are responsible for it, just questioning the political decisions that are supposed to fix the problem.
Net Zero policies are doing a great job of destroying industries in the West whilst giving China a free pass to build coal powered generating capacity to replace them. A simple quick solution would be to drop Net Zero and focus on preparing for climate change rather than a futile attempt to stop it.
Some more analysis from The New York Times which is quite damning and includes this statement from Ms. Toner.
The board’s mission was to ensure that the company creates artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity,” and if the company was destroyed, she said, that could be consistent with its mission.
A very interesting position for a company board member to take.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/technology/openai-altman-board-fight.html
No, I am pointing out that when you have quotas they dictate appointments rather than ability or best fit for the company. Based on this article describing the board of six I would suggest that some of these individuals might not have been up to the task.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/18/heres-whos-on-openais-board-the-group-behind-sam-altmans-ouster.html
The cultures that have strong representation of women in STEM are the most repressive towards women and conversely those societies that support women to perform any role they choose have stereotypical gender divides. A Norwegian documentary from NRK 'Brainwash: The Gender Equality Paradox' (youtube) gives a very good analysis.
The only function of the EU bureaucracy is to make regulations that they do not understand. Large corporate lobby groups make sure their clients get the regulations to ensure new entrants have the largest barriers and then they cheat the system they designed. VW car emissions is just one of many examples. Another classic is the dual flush toilets that have lost more water than they ever saved.
Airwave is a point to point radio and a cellular radio and can use a vehicle based terminal as a repeater. The replacement only does one of these or rather will eventually, maybe. It also operates at a much lower frequency than 4G (hence poor data rates) but has much better coverage using fewer masts.
I remember two back to back keynotes at a GSM conference in Cannes, first by Douglas Adams followed by Richard Branson. You can guess which was good and which was bad.
The best line was when Douglas told the audience of phone manufacturers that he had invented the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a portable device with a tiny screen and terrible interface but he was a fiction writer, what was their excuse?
At least get the quote right its "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid i can t do that"
When developing an audio editing system in the 90's the head of the team was called Dave. For a bit of a laugh one of the software engineers programmed every key on a development system to play the clip.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
