Posts by adam 40

India bans drone imports to help local manufacturers take off

About Time!

Drone stories have been moved from "EDGE + IoT" and into an appropriate category.

Real-time software? How about real-time patching?

Re: Site Acceptance Test

I was taken business class to Calgary by Nortel Networks, got a bit pissed on the plane (I didn't have to be in their office till the next day), did 10 seconds work to fix the critical problem (pushed a card into a rack), then they didn't have anything else for me to do so I went to learn snowboarding for 3 days at Lake Louise to fill in the time.

I got pissed on the way back, all taxis to/from airport, all expenses paid (apart from the snowboarding lessons which were £12 for a half day one-one tuition).

Chip shortages, sure, but it's a good time to be a silicon wafer maker

Re: Staggering scale

even less Wales now Newport Wafer Fab has closed :-)

Joint European Torus more than doubles fusion record with 59 megajoules

Re: More megajoules

So if it generated the gas all at zero Kelvin, then what?

UK pins hopes on 'latest technology' to whittle down massive National Health Service waiting lists

and Web 3.0

Lol - the "Non-fungible Health Service"

Re: AI says to jump the queue

to jump the queue - see my post above.

It's the "queue of death".

Re: Dido Harding ...

I'll see your Dildo Harding (sic!) and raise you a Dawn Primarolo!

Re: Oh FFS - Queuing theory to the rescue

The application of queuing theory gives the outcome that the backlog will be solved by the death of the patients on the queue.

So - do nothing extra, and wait for time to take its course.

EU directs €11bn toward European Chips Act to build homegrown semiconductor industry

Re: Economy

The question is, though, what will be the trigger that brings the house of cards down?

Italy?

Heitz by their own plus tard

I predict that this chip foundry will be too little, too late, just like the EU's vaccine procurement.

Arm's $66bn sale to Nvidia is off: Deal collapses after world's competition regulators raise concerns

Only if you have a nose for a good investment and go with your head, not your heart.

Go on - give me a thumbs up!

Geomagnetic storm takes out 40 of 49 brand new Starlink satellites

LoS

There - fixed that for you!

UK science stuck in 'holding pattern' on EU funding by Brexit, says minister

Re: "There are many problems with Ivermectin. That it's also given to horses is not one."

You don't have to though.

It comes in a syringe and it's not too difficult to meter out a small amount which is equivalent to the human dose for the usual Ivermectin uses in humans.

You aren't supposed to suck down the full 700kg-stallion equivalent in one go ffs!

Internet Society condemns UK's Online Safety Bill for demonising encryption using 'think of the children' tactic

Re: "little reason to assume the UK is much different from its sister democracies"

Only small parts of the dicktatorship are re-elected though, most of it (the 90% under the water) carries on regardless.

Sources: "Yes, Minister", and "Yes, Prime Minister", the British Broadcasting Corporation.

I bet that's pink noise - you prevert!!!

Re: So, 0.2% eh ?

But then the state will own it all, so you rob the state. This is already happening.

UK government opens consultation on medic-style register for Brit infosec pros

Re: Outraged!

Why, how many is it?

Oh sorry, gotta go, there's someone at the front dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Court papers indicate text messages from HMRC's 60886 number could snoop on Brit taxpayers' locations

Re: Location will NOT be available to HMRC via SMS

You can't "triangulate" either.

A UE will be registered to one basestation at a time. (Ignoring 3G soft handover but that is getting turned off soon anyway).

Computer rude speak

The BT SMS to a landline is great fun, especially at dinner parties.

You text you host's landline and a few minutes later it rings, and reads out the solicitous message. It's even better on speaker!

Crack team of boffins hash out how e-scooters should sound – but they need your help*

They are slightly less illegal if you paint yours in the colours of the local hire company....

Re: Plus… NOT

Funny you mentioned that but I read this the other week

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1037306/table-of-change-to-the-highway-code.pdf

and there is not ONE mention of e-scooters.

Looks like DafT have cocked up AGAIN.

Repeating:

(In Brian May's voice)

"COCK... COCK... COCK...."

Bouncing cheques or a bouncy landing? All in a day's work for the expert pilot

Re: Serial to VGA? All you need is an adapter!

I wonder if they account for that in the type approval testing - 240V up the phone line to the exchange, and then across to other peoples phone lines.....

Dell!

On my latest Dell laptop you can't see which Fn key is which, the labelling is too small, and they (in their infinite wisdom) didn't make the Fn labels transparent for the LED backlight.

So I had to make a label to stick across the top in nice big letters. Takes me back to the days of the Fn key labelling we used to have on our PC AT keyboards for wordperfect etc....

Now that's wafer thin: Some manufacturers had less than five days of chip supplies, says Uncle Sam

Re: How much of that 17% demand increase

I've just bulked up my TP stockpile, which was initially got because I predicted a Brexit angle to this.

So I was s(h)itting pretty when the great bog roll "runs" of 2020 happened.

LAPD cops who preferred playing Pokémon Go to tackling robbery can be fired, appeals court rules

At least you can't be fired

for reading "The Register"....

European silicon output shrinking, metal smelters closing as electricity prices quadruple, trade body warns

Re: Payback-Period is longer than the panels' lifespan

So what - I'm quids in either way.

But also - the arguments above about solar panel lifespan issues seem to be tosh.

Re: @Binraider

I see 2 issues with this:

1. Gas power stations spool up quite quickly. So you can shut them down for no-wear during windy or sunny periods.

2. Demand doesn't need to be static. So you can mandate or price it such that manufacturing only happens during windy or sunny periods, and not when we are gas-only. Yes this requires a flexible approach to manufacturing.

On top of this we also need to develop more excess energy storage facilities, for example reversible hydro, or electrolysis at sea, and blend the H2 into the natural gas, to flatten out some of the peaks and troughs, or fill in during power station spool-up times.

Re: re: Windmills are rubbish.

I would say 99% of inverters for domestic installations do meter their output.

Also the consumer passes those numbers on to the supplier so their FIT repayment can be calculated. So - all those numbers can be aggregated and presented in a spreadsheet.

My secondhand inverter not only meters itself, but it has a web page, so you can look at historic graphs.

Re: Payback-Period is longer than the panels' lifespan

I bought some second-hand solar panels last year.

They are 8 years old.

Rated output is 230W, and they typically give 190-200W at 12 noon on a sunny day.

Secondly, I bought them for 23p/W

I also bought an inverter for £100 of eBay.

After cabling and putting them up myself, and even taking into account the inverter costs, I reckon my installation is just about cheaper than leccy prices BEFORE ANY INCREASES HAPPEN.

When leccy goes up by a factor of 2, I'm quids in.

This is how you do it. Cheap and cheerful.

Rolls-Royce consortium shopping for factory sites to build mini-nuclear reactors

Thanks!

Previously, the reasons were unclear.

Re: SMRs are expected to produce 300MWe per unit.

So if I lived in the plant, they would give me infinite money?

Sweet!

Joint European Torus celebrates 100,000 pulses: Neither Brexit nor middle age has stopped '80s era experiment

Joint European Tours but it's in Britain

Tours is in France, you must mean TORUS.

EC president promises European Chips Act to quadruple homegrown production by 2030

So the EU are going to make silicon chips...

... only to send them to China to be soldered onto PCB's???

Fuckwits.

Why should I pay for that security option? Hijacking only happens to planes

Spending more time on revising and less on drinking may have helped!

Yes the cause of many a Desmond! (May he Rest In Peace)

Luckily I went on to do an M.Sc. after my 2(ii), and I actually saved money from my big fat grant cheque, which was considerably more than the B.Sc. grant, so win-win.

Tesla driver charged with vehicular manslaughter after deadly Autopilot crash

Many of the people who buy them appear to be idiots

Well they certainly have more money than sense, so Q.E.D.

To get this back to computing, what's your Interrupt Vector, Victor?

Hire cars

Good point, I expect hire cars could have these features (already?)

And is something unexpected happens, good bye car - and driver.

Do hire car companies always set cars to "default safe" settings on every hire?

Software guy smashes through the Somebody Else's Problem field to save the day

Re: Rodent teeth?

I just had Openrech round to find and fix a break in my phone line.

They used a TDR but were over 50 feet out, they went up the pole outside, into the manhole (needed a 2-man team with breathing apparatus), to the exchange, and back again several times, on multiple visits, before they eventually found it half way up the pole.

Re: Why cant you

When I rent a holiday cottage I take all my washing dirty, and use their machines to clean it while I'm out seeing the sights or down the pub. Doesn't everyone???

Re: I recognise the story

Indeed I was contracting at Motorola nd they had an on-site course on programming security techniques.

At the beginning the instructor went around the room asking each employee why they are there, they were saying good stuff like "to improve my knowledge of how to program with less vulnerabilities" and the like.

Then he got to me and I simply replied "I'm a contractor, I'm paid to be here". At which all the other permie engineers burst out laughing :-)

Planning for power cuts? That's strictly for the birds

Re: The joys of generator tests and failover

The company next to ours (Netcracker I think) had a genny in an outbuilding that they tested every week.

This thing was noxious on startup and filled the car park with fumes. If you arrived at the wrong time you'd have a mad dash to get inside without inhaling, or else you'd retch up. It was worse for me arriving with the top down on the car - and nothing at all to do with having had a skinful the previous night of course!

Sometimes if the wind was in the wrong direction we could even smell it INSIDE our building, so after a few months of this we persuaded them to shift their test to 0700 before we all turned up.

The irony is - when we actually DID have a local power grid failure - they didn't even use it - or couldn't start it anyway.

Re: I say it's plausible

This sort of problem shows you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket!

Instead you must keep an eagle eye on it, or the server will go "down", and no one will give a hoot.

I could suggest an awk script to help.

Secure boot for UK electric car chargers isn't mandatory until 2023 – but why the delay?

Re: Secure Boot

Or the laces being properly done up on my Sparco's.

Feeling virtuous with a good old paperback? Well, don't. Switching to traditional media does not improve mood

Kobo themselves would tend to disagree

ComfortLight PRO is only available for:

Kobo Sage

Kobo Libra 2

From Kobo's own website:

Kobo Libra H2O

Kobo Forma

Kobo Clara HD

Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2

Kobo Aura ONE

ComfortLight PRO gradually changes the colour of the screen over the course of the day to make reading more comfortable.

During the day, the screen displays a small amount of blue light. As the day progresses, the light gradually changes to an orange candlelight, and contains less blue. Blue light helps keep you alert during the day, but can also keep you awake at night.

ComfortLight PRO limits the amount of blue light exposure at night and can help you fall asleep more easily.

-----------------

So - it depends what model you have, and the time of day setting, and even then, the blue light output is only _limited_..

The James Webb Space Telescope has only gone and deployed its primary mirror

Re: Halo not HALO

I am hoping they will pick this exact same patch of sky (and, the other one too) so we can see what else is lurking there even further redshifted beyond Hubble's low-end IR capabilities.

James Webb Telescope launch delayed again, this time by weather

Yes but on the 25th.... nothing to see yet.

Who you gonna call? Premium numbers, but a not-so-premium service

Ahh the old audiotex days

It was one of those industries I worked in back in the 90's.

My company was taken over by a shady outfit called CommsCo or something like that.

A colleague called Dave was the tech looking after the shady phone lines. Apparently the receptionist at CommsCo got quite flustered when he had to record some new material with a couple of models. Some "girl on girl" we might say...

Anyhow, some time later, as "business was dropping off", the directors decided to have a BBQ in the machine room, and then claimed on the insurance for all the expensive kit.

Newly discovered millipede earns its name by being the first to walk on one thousand legs

Re: Megapede

No need to dig - there's on on a rock (a third of the way from the right)

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/ZR0_0170_0682013832_178EBY_N0060410ZCAM08183_1100LMJ

Re: further confusion

Norfolk county is south of Suffolk county, in Massachusetts.