* Posts by Alfie Noakes

106 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Nov 2009

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Boom's XB-1 jet nails supersonic flight for first time

Alfie Noakes

Re: USA USA USA

...so by 2040 we can look forward to the first commercial flights, although not in the UK, as Millipede will have banned planes and Heathrow runway 3 will be a solar farm ;)

'Best job at JPL': What it's like to be an engineer on the Voyager project

Alfie Noakes

...and you try to tell the young people of today that!

"data rate is 1.4 kilobits per second" - WOW!

Twenty five years ago, Earth based computer modems were not much faster, and yet a machine twice as old, and a gazilion miles away is still successfully chattering.

That is impressive!

EU buyers still shunning pure electric vehicles, prefer hybrids

Alfie Noakes

Re: Plug in hybrids

This is seriously worrying, and explains why Toyota embed a SIM with cellular connection into all their new cars. Not just to provide the mandatory eCall system, but to monitor your driving style and movements via a spy that you cannot turn off!

Where is GDPR when you need it?

Alfie Noakes

Re: Plug in hybrids

Yup, i heard that as well.

How NCAP could think that continuous beeps, klaxons, chimes, bells and flashing lights won't distract you from the more important task of drivng safely, i just don't know!

And as for the speed limit alarms, much of the time they are completely wrong - i just hope that they never connect the system to the PNC ;)

Alfie Noakes

Re: Plug in hybrids

"current models they switch back on at next startup"

Yup, the speeding alarm, lane sway beeper (and nudger) and sat-nav voice guidance all revert to "irritating mode" every time you start the engine.

It should be a trivial software update to make your preferences "sticky", but they probably won't :(

p.s. Another frustration is that they don't give you all the hardcopy manuals, expecting you to read how to "navigate the customer experience" via an app on your phone (which plod won't muchly approve of!).

Smart homes may be a bright idea, just not for the dim bulbs who live in 'em

Alfie Noakes

Re: "Ask me how I know."

For years i have wondered why i couldn't find any "random light turn on and off" bulb adapters, but i guess that is all part of the cart leading the horse methodology :(

Lego's Concorde is the only supersonic jet you can build for the price of a fancy dinner

Alfie Noakes

...and with triple nectar points at argoooose, it is very tempting ;)

They even have it in stock in my local store!

UK's 'electricity superhighway' gets green light just in time for AI to gobble it all up

Alfie Noakes

Re: ...you will own nothing, be poor, cold, and probably not very happy :(

I'd rather they implemented a realistic solution that will actually fix the problem and won't cost many BILLION pounds (and only being one twenty-sixth part of the currently planned solution) of our money.

That solution could take many forms - not necessarily wiring windmills to a wood-burning subsidy-sucking factory!

Alfie Noakes

...you will own nothing, be poor, cold, and probably not very happy :(

This new cable will only provide 1kW to each of those "2 million homes", so let us hope that they don't want to use their heat pumps, or charge their EVs, or even have an electric shower (even individually, never mind at the same time!).

Oh, and that is assuming that the wind is blowing in the first place!

No, really, please ban Chinese DJI drones from America's skies, senators are urged

Alfie Noakes

Re: Here in the EU generally and specifically Spain

In the UK (and i presume the EU, 'cos laws are similar) you can fly a sub-250g drone pretty much anywhere (apart from the obvious, like airports, prisons etc.) including near buildings and over people, with just an operator ID from the CAA (which costs just over a tenner a year).

No flight plans required, and (in the case of DJI) the inbuilt geofencing will stop you from accidentally going somewhere that might start a nuclear war!

Oh, and i don't think that GDPR applies to individuals.

Undelete your Amazon purchase - you might enjoy it ;)

Light-weight solar-powered flying robots are coming

Alfie Noakes

Exposure!

Methinks that the electrostatic motor might have problems in light mist (or even smoke) - never mind a splash of rain?

Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union

Alfie Noakes

Re: Good

Ah, the good old 85th-percentile :)

We used to do this in the UK as well (when road planners actually had brains, and roads were a pleasure to drive on)!

Resource burden of electric vehicles set to triple by 2050

Alfie Noakes

Re: Lithium batteries in 2050?

"Connect the dots people."

You are Jim Dale (British Weather Services) and I claim my five pounds!

Alfie Noakes

...however, there are not many (ANY) domestic lunar landers or nuclear bomb kits available (even on Amazon ;) ).

Alfie Noakes

Re: 8 mins

Even if 8 minute charging was realistically possible (unicorns, pixies and fairy dust permitting), it is going to need a VERY fat wire connecting the chargng station to the grid (and ultimately the windmills) should there be more than a couple of cars involved.

Starlink geofence appears to have some gaping holes

Alfie Noakes

I just gotta say - what a Toto-lly brilliant sub-title!

HP print rental service seeks more users to become subscription addicts

Alfie Noakes

Re: A fool and his money

"I don't want to own a printer. So I really don't care. So long as I can print when required, I'd like to do so at the lowest combination of cost and time wasted."

...and if you don't own the printer, and you don't own the ink, and you don't own the paper - they can jack up the price at any time and there is nothing that you can do. Think "smart" meters, pay-per-mile driving etc.!

Wyze admits 13,000 users could have viewed strangers' camera feeds

Alfie Noakes

Scarey - how can you EVER trust such medical equipment?

New cars bought in the UK must be zero emission by 2035 – it's the law

Alfie Noakes

Re: Think of the Grid!

"and trucks will do battery swaps at service depots"

Ha, ha, ha - you make me laugh!

Now tell me another joke!

Alfie Noakes

Re: Think of the Grid!

Sounds like the curse of the "smart" meter is starting to rear it's ugly head!

Alfie Noakes

Re: Think of the Grid!

I thought that Drax still can burn coal (when asked) amongst it's subsidised wood burners?

England's village green hydrogen dream in tatters

Alfie Noakes

"That's weird... LG make an air source heat pump that has a flow temp of 75°C (at an outside air temp of -15°C whilst still maintaing a COP of 5; ok so it falls to 2 at -30°C but you can't have everything)"

Can you provide a link to this particular LG ASHP, as it does seem rather "impossible" with current commercially available technologies?

It is 20 years since the last commercial flight of Concorde

Alfie Noakes

Re: Gorgeous aircraft

"I flew on one of the Bay of Biscay jolly flights and will never forget it."

Me too ("Flights of Fantasy"?). I believe that those "charter" flights were actually commercially viable - IF ONLY SOMEONE WOULD MAKE THE SPARE PARTS!

Memories that spring to mind include...

- Leaving Heathrow and following the M4 to the Bristol Channel, then once clear of land, accelerating like you were taking off all over again.

- Looking down out of the window at the tops of clouds that seemed as far away the the land normally does.

- Looking up out of the window and the sky was BLACK (because it was proper space!).

Oh, and yes, the (triple glazed) windows were warm ;)

Power grids tremble as electric vehicle growth set to accelerate 19% next year

Alfie Noakes

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

...and i bet that this separate (EV) meter (made compulsary for new installations over a year ago) will allow you to be charged (taxed) even on electricity that you have generated from solar panels that you installed at your own expense!

Bastards!

Bosch goes all-in on hydrogen with €2.5B investment by 2026

Alfie Noakes

Re: I was expecting

Indeed - you have gotta watch out for the weakest link!

You mentioned copper piping - is this not "hydrogen safe"? If not then it will be a MASSIVE job to replace it all (as well as being quite expensive)!

My house also has some lead piping for gas - dunno how good that will be for hydrogen?

All of the norths are about to align over Britain

Alfie Noakes
Black Helicopters

for the "first time in history,"

...must be due to climate change ;)

Alfie Noakes

Re: Or you could...

Isn't there also something about the entrance to ant hills (or is that just in America)?

Wind, solar fulfill 10% of global electricity demand for first time

Alfie Noakes

Re: Just the headline - now fixed

Thanks for the fix :)

Sadly too many press articles confuse power/energy with electricity (and kWh with kW etc.) - at least El Reg try to keep things on track ;)

Alfie Noakes

:(

Title says "energy", article says "electricity".

Add gas boilers, most cars, diesel HGVs, blast furnaces, oil-powered ships, aircraft, barbeques and birthday cakes etc. - wind and solar still contribute a pathetic amount to the "global energy demand"

AI to help study first images from James Webb Space Telescope

Alfie Noakes

James Webb Space Telescope hit by tiny meteoroid

Sad news according to the BEEB...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61744257

Europe's largest nuclear plant on fire after Russian attack

Alfie Noakes

Well done El Reg

Can i just thank El Reg for reporting this incident in a calm and researched manner - unlike most of the hysterical MSM!

Even the comments seems to be well balanced ;)

Titanium carbide nanotech approach hints at hydrogen storage breakthrough

Alfie Noakes

Oh, i did do a search, but there is not much recent activity - the referenced article is over two years old. Also, although it mentions that they "are able to power themselves with a wind turbine", there is no mention of such a facility for the Johnson Matthey station (at least via https://www.itm-power.com/h2-stations/swindon-hydrogen-station).

What is interesting however, is the fact that it can only generate enough fuel for around 15 cars a day - is this commercially viable (especially with a windmill that needs to generate at least 3.3MWh per day)?

Alfie Noakes

Over six years on and i haven't much more about Honda's "'self-sufficient' hydrogen refuelling station" - please, do tell us how it is going?

Oh, no one knows what goes on behind locked doors... so don't leave your UPS in there

Alfie Noakes

PAFEC memories

I remember PAFEC - lovely old building(s) out in the sticks.

IIRC, their "computer room" was in the attic (with oak beams) where they had one of the first VAXstations.

The stables had been converted into an office, but keeping the original stalls for desk units.

Beside every door was an umbrella stand full of umbrellas, so you could keep dry when walking between buildings.

Ah, the eighties - the good old days of computing!

Wind and quite a bit of fog shroud Boris Johnson's energy vision for the UK

Alfie Noakes
Joke

Re: Or

But, but, but - after Fukushima, didn't Germany decide to phase out their atom-burners? Thus there must be tens of fah-sans of "nu-cu-ler" designers, engineers, constructions workers etc. all desperately in need of a job!

Where are we now? Microsoft 363? 362? We've lost count because Exchange Online isn't playing nicely this morning

Alfie Noakes

Yet again we hear the word "mitigated"

...which simply means "less shitty"!

Firefox 78: Protections dashboard, new developer features... and the end of the line for older macOS versions

Alfie Noakes
Thumb Down

Recommended by Pocket!!

They seem to have snuck in a "Recommended by Pocket" option, which is turned ON by default!

I haven't ready all the "privacy" propaganda yet, but would rather have be given an "opt-in" option with an explanation beforehand :(

Vodafone issues a stay of execution for Demon domain hold-outs

Alfie Noakes

Clueless

From the sound of things at https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Other-broadband-queries/Anyone-else-affected-by-Vodafone-disabling-demon-co-uk-emails/m-p/2655220 it looks like Vodafone thought that there were only a couple of Demon e-mail users left!!!

Well, it looks like they might now be losing quite a few thousand "customers" (and their friends and colleagues and much future business) as a result of their lack of basic common sense (and arrogance)!

Oh Hell. Remember the glory days of Demon Internet? Well, now would be a good time to pick a new email address

Alfie Noakes

Vodafone forums

In case anyone is still reading these comments, there is an interesting discussion going on in the Vodafone forum at https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Other-broadband-queries/Anyone-else-affected-by-Vodafone-disabling-demon-co-uk-emails/m-p/2655220

Alfie Noakes

Re: Aliases

AC,

Have you seen https://www.names.co.uk/support/2850.html ?

Alfie Noakes
Unhappy

I will NEVER buy anything from Vodafone EVER again!

Vodafone (after taking over Demon)!

First they took away my web-space (without telling me).

Then they took away my web-site (without reducing the price).

Then they forced me to pay for an e-mail service that was supposed to be part of my HomeOffice 8000 package.

Now, in the middle of a Coronavirus pandemic they give me just over a month to re-allocate around 200 e-mail addresses (many over 20 years old).

Twats!

Mozilla plugs two Firefox browser holes exploited in the wild by hackers to hijack victims' computers

Alfie Noakes

Re: Clarification

I think that the former is found on macOS!

Watch Waymo's totally driverless self-driving car cruise around, how the US military wants to use AI ethically, etc

Alfie Noakes

Re: Prety neat driving

It also seemed to be doing a lot of un-necessary braking (including mid-turn). Not the cleverest self-driving (if that is indeed what it is using)!

Things that make you go .hm... Has a piece of the internet just sunk into the ocean? It appears so

Alfie Noakes

Re: "just north of Antarctica"

I thought that the question was "What colour is the bear?"?

<pedant-disclaimer>

The original riddle had an answer of "white", but i believe that a polar bear has black skin, but transparent (hollow?) fur that appears white due reflected light!

</pedant-disclaimer>

Trying to log into Office 365 right now? It's a coin flip, says Microsoft: Service goes TITSUP as Azure portal wobbles

Alfie Noakes
WTF?

Marketingspeak?

Why do Microsoft pepper their status updates with the work "mitigated", which literally means "less shit"???

Office 365 enjoys good old-fashioned Thursday wobble as email teeters over in Europe

Alfie Noakes
Unhappy

It is not even the end of January yet!

Down yet again, but seems to be coming back :(

Begone, Demon Internet: Vodafone to shutter old-school pioneer ISP

Alfie Noakes

Re: Bye bye.....

"I still have my demon mail domain hosted on O36x now "

Me too, so i hope that Vodafone give the demon domain to NamesCo (rather than just closing it down, which seems to have been their MO so far!).

The icing on the cake would be for NamesCo to drop O35n, as it seems to add several K of "diagnostics" bloat to even the smallest e-mail :(

Bloodhound SSC reaches the end of the road for want of £25m

Alfie Noakes

I am surprised that (James) Dyson hasn't chipped in there? Very British, high-speed air, etc.!

Gotta be worth a punt (anyone got his phone number?)

Punkt: A minimalist Android for the paranoid

Alfie Noakes

Re: Calls and Email

@Doctor Syntax

...and another advantage of plain text in e-mails is that it is in YOUR e-mail, in YOUR mailbox/on YOUR computer.

(Linked) Images have an irritating habit of expiring, or worse still, changing, so you lose any hope of an audit trail!

WannaCry is back! (Psych. It's just phisher folk doing what they do)

Alfie Noakes

Is nothing safe?

Ironically, mine was sent to an e-mail address that was _only_ (and anonymously) used to access the Avast support forum!

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