Posts by Clive Smith

Superfast-charging batteries? Whoa there, MIT

Charging basics

People seem to think that batteries charge direcltly on 240 vac mains here! All charging is done via a suitable low DC voltage. The mains can supply 240vac @ 13A. If we convert that to 12V DC (not difficult) - we get around 260A.

Prolific worm infects 3.5m Windows PCs

OSX 'sploits

OSX is affected by exploits. Most users are ignorant to this so theres little to protect them.

First Windows 7 beta puts fresh face on Vista

Windows not realtime?

Pre-emptive multi-tasking

By Andy Watt Posted Thursday 8th January 2009 14:33 GMT

Does anybody know if Windows 7 can finally work out how to time-slice properly? Or is realtime performance still a bloody joke for audio processing?

That's it. I'm OSXing from now on. I've had enough of this piecemeal windows bollocks

Not sure what planet youve been on but audio has woked fine in realtime since XP. I have an RME soundcard and can get latency down to 1.5ms - perhaps you have a cheap soundcard card and rubbish drivers

NASA: The Moon is not enough

@Gary Owen

I could never look at any website that contains ufos or aliens in its title and take it seriously. They never reference the source so you cant trace it to see (prove its not) if its authentic. Sun newspaper style.

@Cristhian Mejia

This is a common Myth. The Russians respond to it by saying that if the Americans never went, they (the Russians) would have told the world.

Painting by numbers: NASA's peculiar thermometer

Who sets the clock?

Its inevitable that the seasons will shift from where we expected them to be. Just because we have come to expect Winter or Summer at a particular time, dosnt mean it will stay that way. Just as the position of heavenly bodies, so does everything. Being "Green" is a multi billion dollar industry. Global Warming is a money spinner too. Arnt you just a little bit suspicious? Sure, nature is telling us that things have changed, there is no dark reason - its natural :-)

BBC should not pay for fibre, Ofcom tells MPs

Just the beggining

This is just the start of an avalanche. Wait til they try on demand and live tv on the net in the uk. People will want hi quality video and sound but wont get it. The probelm with ISP limited bandwidth will only get worse.

UK's most popular Wi-Fi router defaults to insecurity

Not quite that easy

If anyone has actually tried to do a WEP or other crack, they would know that you need the right wifi hardware. You cant just use the cracking software on any old card, they only support certain chipsets. I tried various cards and gave up. Manufactureres stopped making cards with the chipsets and promiscuous drivers ages ago. Simon is right - most people have no idea whats involved.