Posts by James Hughes 1 2645 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009
Stunned by some of the more moronic comments here. Clue to commentators - when you make a comment, it's worth doing a minimum of 5s with Google before writing about the obvious (to you) deficiencies in a design. Chances are, since the people making the design have worked in the industry for some time, they do ACTUALLY KNOW MORE ABOUT IT THAT YOU DO.
So, with my 5s with Google, I found this reference about the Bigelow inflatable modules, and their micro meteor shielding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BA_330.
You're welcome to that 5s.
That argument has been debunked above, but in addition - often manufacturing abroad means companies stay afloat when often they would have died a slow painful death at the hands of overseas competitors. And even if it wasn't necessary to stay afloat, the extra money can be ploughed back enabling the employment of higher paid higher level staff - as happened with Dyson. It won't have happened in every case of course, but Dyson does not deserve your ire on this one.
Agreed - all this bollocks bout Silicon Roundabout - when there are perfectly good Science Parks style places all around the country doing much the same thing. Or trying to, but having to complete with bloody London when it get all the fecking plaudits from the government.
Christ, its like Silicon Roundabout is the first high tech place in the UK. Hint to government, no it's bloody not.
Odd, my house is mostly CFL with some GU10 incandescent and some GU10 LED (cheap ones)
The only CFL that is iffy was in the house when we moved in 5 years ago - takes a while to get going. All the rest have been working fine since we arrived. The LED GU10's have never failed, but the incandescent ones are always popping.
We also have had (in the past) persistent power cuts and brownouts during that 5 years.
So my experience is that CFL and LED last longer than the incandescent equivalents.
@4ecks
Thanks for the references - need some decent LED GU10 replacements - got some cheap LED in the kitchen and they are not bright enough for some areas so still using incandescent. Also have couple of rooms with GU10 downlighters (PITA), on dimmers. Trouble is, I'd need 15 in total....
I'd be interested to know how many REAL unity haters there are out there. As with everything, haters have the loudest voices, and personally, I quite like Unity, and this concept (which I've been talking about for two years) is one I have been waiting for . Phone during the day, desktop at night. The faster multi core Arms are getting there, the mobile GPU's are pretty damn fast, and the power consumption is tiny compared to a desktop.
Of course, devs and others will still need more powerful machines, but for the vast majority, even the current gen smartphones are over spec'ed for their requirements.
Dragon capsule cramped? So what. It's just a taxi. Admittedly a 6 seater one though, so it does have a capacity to launch more people than the current options.
As to it's landing capability - the rockets being used for landing are also the ones that are required for the LES, so it's weight you have to carry anyway. Legs - yes, they add some mass. Let's hope SpaceX have done the sums eh! Since they are spending multi millions on it...one woudl assume they have worked it out using, you know, maths'n'shit.
As to the first stage reuse - plans are for high altitude supersonic tests of the grasshppper (or similar) in 2013. So looks like an exciting year.
Please either watch Musks' interviews on this stuff, or read up on it, they answer all the questions.
That there are so many rocket scientists on here who know this cannot work. They should really apply for a job at SpaceX and tell them where they are going wrong,. Or perhaps, just perhaps, they should read up on what Musk has said about mass fraction, weight of landing gear, possible payloads etc.
EVERY SINGLE QUESTION raised by the 'rocket scientists' posting above have been answered by Musk in either print or in video. I'd suggest doing some research, rather than simply posting your often incorrect analysis here.
All the effort the EU goes to to reduce waste by mandating uUSB as the charging standard, a standard which is being taken up worldwide, wrecked by a company who is seemingly desperate to maintain it's income.
If this product goes ahead (without the Apple connectors, although I'm sure a cheap as chips uUSB->Lightening adapter could get round the problem), then it should sit in coffee bars everywhere, with a sign on it saying "Apple refused us a licence to help save waste - Buy elsewhere"
Or something.
@AC 15:05
Well, 4M is a pretty good sales figure for a relatively 'unknown' platform. And tbh, a lot of people buying phones don't care if it's Android, iOS or Windows. They just want a phone. And Windows phones are comparable in feature set with most others out there, and, as you say, people like the look of them.
Just got a non-HD one for £99 on their £30 off deal. Seems pretty good, albeit a bit chunky. Angry Birds works, so recipient of said Xmas prezzie will be more than happy.
Prices will continue to fall, but how far? There is a limit which is cost of components and assembly, and its difficult to see where the cost will drop on these $65 devices.
I've got a garage full of Mk1/2 escorts bits and pieces (well, engines, gearboxes, radiators, steering racks, axles etc)- very popular in kit cars and Locosts, and in the Historic Rallying scene.
A decent 1600 Xflow is worth decent money nowadays!
You should have said Austin Maxi.
I doubt even 4 years would mean a machine is too slow to be of use. I've been going through the old PC collection at home - two Athlon XPs at 1800Mhz, 1.5GB RAM, and they run the latest Ubuntu (with Unity) absolutely fine. Flash games a bit slow, but hey, as office machines they are fine.
The Athlon's at that speed came out in 2002....
Most of house is CFL, with some LED GU10, rest incandescent.
CFL have lasted forever - can't remember the last time I changed one. One at least was in the house when I moved in 5 years ago, and is still going - sometimes takes a few goes to start up. Not really troubled by different light spectrum's or slow startup times on the older ones.. The incandescent GU10's pop about 1-2 a year, and I replace with LED's - LED's GU10 are a bit crap - not really bright enough for the kitchen, so really should buy more expensive ones with higher light output - open to recommendations. Preferably dimmable - two rooms with ceilings full of GU10 are on dimmers so normal LED's don't work.
Haven't quantified the savings, but certainly using less leccy that a house full of incandescents, and replacements have been few and far between. Do have a both of 100W etc in the garage, won;t use them unless an emergency comes along!
However, replacing them with shell scripts means the company spends less money, and makes more profit, and pays more to shareholders, perhaps outside the UK. So the overall benefit to the UK economy is reduced by the income tax of one less recruiting agent...On the other hand, there might be some corporation tax to pay, or a benefit in the share price to pension funds...
Complicated stuff economics..
But, I'd agree there should be less lawyers, and hang the economy.
Seems to me this is less a transgender story than a "lied to me for X years" story. That and the apparent infidelity seem to outweigh any transgender part - that's the bit that makes it newsworthy though - and to hide anything from your partner for that length of time shows rather a lack of confidence in the relationship. Although as with all these things, the longer it went on the more difficult it would be to bring up. And that would apply whatever the lie had been.
Some of the comments here are a bit harsh....I occasionally work with a transgender person, I regard her as female, whatever her origins. Her decision, and I am more than happy to accept it.
PLC's are not going to teach programming, just not suitable. Also, WAY too expensive and require another PC to program then (like an Arduino does). A PLC is not something a student has at home. Although for industrial automation classes at colleges they are obviously a useful addition.
Although I'm not sure what you mean by 'dry' coding, but 99% of programming is text based...is it all 'dry'?
OK, that forecast is based on the orders now - there is still a large backlog of unfulfilled orders, which takes us a long way to 1M. Then there are orders still coming in (and the order rate has not decreased significantly over time, which is unexpected). But, as with all FORECASTS, there will be some error. But, the forecast is 1M by end of March. I'll report back then for the exact figure. If you have a better way of forecasting, please let me know. This is not hyperbole, it's production forecasting given the current information available. Up to this stage btw, all forecasts have been less than what actually happened...read that how you will.
The first 10k were manufactured by the Foundation, then the distributors took over production. So sorry, you are wrong there. Not sure where you got that information from. And I'm not convinced there has ever been a claim it would run of *2* AA batteries...since they do not produce the required 5v. Still, if they are the best two you can come up with...one wrong, and one an off the cuff (presumably) comment on R4....
Well, the forecast is that there will be approx 1 million sold by the end of the first year of production (next March). Sales to date are in the region of 600k-700k (that figures a bit out of date), and production running at 4000 a week at one of the three factories making them, and is ramping up. The actual limitation is the speed with which the SoC can be produced. They have a long leadtime.
What tenuous claims are you referring to - I'll see if I can confirm or not if you post them.
The monitor is the expensive bit - use an HDMI switch (<£10)? Or monitors with TWO hdmi inputs (or HDMI/DVI) you can switch between. Needs a bit more up front investment of course. Or use the Raspi's composite out.
Keyboards and mice are two a penny, but again, a KV switch would work. Or, two sets, and run the Pi headless over X. Complicated, but worth teaching...
There are always solutions if you look a little past the obvious.
Well, a few that come to mind are:
Easy transferral of student efforts from school to home using the SD card.
Cheaper cost for low income students so they can indeed have one at home.
Access to simple GPIO (yes, you do have it)
Easier maintenance, though that might be debatable.
More fun factor - It's a PCB, with wires and stuff! Some children love that sort of thing.
Big support base.
As to your comment on slow text mode stuff...it runs Scratch fairly well (will get better as optimisations are completed), which is a great intro to logical sequencing and gets children interested. Even my 7 year old finds it fun.
Well, every post I've read from you over the past few months, related to the Raspi, has said pretty much the same thing - extreme negativity because of initial teething troubles. Now some points you make are still valid, but most are not. The latest boards have improved power handling, the latest kernel software (which I presume you haven't tried since you board is in the loft - I'd suggest selling it whilst there is still a backlog) is much improved and fixes the majority of USB issues. Supply issues are almost sorted - going from expected 30k sales per year to 1 million takes a bit of sorting out. It has been surprisingly popular...
As to the usefulness in school - I think the article was extremely good and shows up where it's useful and where it isn't. It's never claimed to be a panacea, but a catalyst to improve the teaching of computers - and it's certainly kicked something off!
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