Posts by Alex Masters 7 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Dec 2008
How very timely - I've been notified that my Infinity BB is going to be upgraded to Ultrafast very soon, so I'll be getting circa 320Mbps up from 80Mbps. I knew it was the right thing to do for a broadband cabinet outside my neighbour's house. My house has gigabit Ethernet everywhere too.
Like most of the posters, I was hugely inspired by the Maplins catalogues of the early 80's and spent many an hour going through 74-series and 6502 datasheets and dreaming. Despite that residual fondness, Maplin have for years uncomfortably straddled the consumer and electronics hobbyist / DJ markets. I suspect that the hobbyist market is done for - people used to build partly to learn and for pleasure, but also that it was a route to obtaining a piece of kit for the same or less than it would have been available for commercially. I don't think there are many that would own a traditional class AB power amp for example, let alone choose to build one rather than buy Chinese modules from eBay. Not really a viable retail business sadly.
I did use my local Kingston Maplin from time to time as they still had a useful line of tools and sundries. I must go and clear out their stocks of antistatic foam cleaner as it's the best general purpose cleaning agent I've ever found!. While I'm there, I need to stock up on solder station tips, flux cleaner, shrink wrap....
Strangely, Kingston Maplin was moved to a shiny new store that opened about three weeks ago. A strange business decision given what has unfolded this week.
The issue is people who don't understand why certain rules exist using their own judgement as to whether they should apply to them or not, based on their own selfish needs and wants.
Mobile phones can interfere with communications and with aircraft navigation systems - it has been proven that mobiles can cause changes to the indicated heading. Needless to say this could be very hazardous.
The best reason for not using your mp3 player is to ensure that you maintain situational awareness and are ready to react to instructions in an emergency.
My 360 has scratched disks consistently, despite remaining perfectly immobile and horizontal in the bottom of my TV cabinet. It has done this despite being replaced twice - the jury is still out on the current replacement.. not sure if it still has the same Samsung drive in it.
Not all CDs/DVDs are perfectly balanced or have spindle holes that are completely concentric. You can usually identify these disks as they can be considerable noisier during access due to the increased vibration.
Saying that this only happens when the unit is moved or even jogged is bollox!
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