Posts by David 49

Take THAT, Tesla: Another Oz energy utility will ship home batteries

They can't change their generation, but they can change their usage.

When the grid were paying me lots for solar power in Victoria, we put the dishwasher and washing machine on at night. In WA I am getting paid less for the excess solar in the day (7c / kWh) than I pay for grid power (24 c / kWh), so I put the dishwasher and washing machine on when it is sunny.

The former scheme was a great incentive for consumers (made me money) but I can see how it is crap for the operators or actually reducing any emissions or new power plants. Anyone know how many years till all those rates are phased out?

Over half of software developers think they'll be millionaires – study

I think I will be a millionaire

It does involve high inflation and waiting a while, but it will happen. And if not, I'll just take a holiday to Indonesia and visit an ATM.

Either way - easy!

Lara Croft, the Way in Derby

It's a ring road

It has no ends. Duh.

Microsoft launches patent suit at Salesforce cloud

Ratings

I have noticed that too - ratings seem to follow the emotions generated by the content, rather then the quality of the reporting / writing. I would have thought they were there for the latter too - or are we both wrong?

Perhaps El Reg has noticed this already and can shed light on the matter. Or perhaps just an opinion on the mental health of the average reader while brosing the internet.

Oh, and software patents do indeed seem to be completly broken at the moment, and I am not sure they would be a good idea even if implemented properly...

US Airforce secret spaceplane launched successfully

No need for guns - just preparation

If the <enemy> satellites don't have situational awareness, you could fly this thing near, open the cargo hold and park a bomb (EMP, or just conventional) next to them. You could set this up over a couple of years, and take out a whole fleet of satellites in a couple of seconds when needed, without the bother of needing to launch many ground based missiles at once.

Why the banks aren't scared of the Robin Hood Tax

Not a free market?

What are you talking about? Forex is about as free as you can get, with many companies offering trading accounts with tiny spreads on them.

That you are essentially betting on up/down movements, which very few people can predict accurately (including the well paid traders!) is another matter entirely. I wouldn't try but I know some people who do....

Putting tax on transactions is a bad idea. Increasing cost of sale decreases liquidity - why do 100 transactions a second when you can get away with 1 a minute? I guess this is why Tim thinks the spreads will widen, and I am inclined to agree but only to some extent. The main reason for spreads increasing was the lack of competition because many banks got scared and left the market, and the ones that were left saw a profit opportunity.

Liquidity is a good thing - it sets a fairer price for everything, making it harder for the "big boys" to price fix. Consider trying to sell your car - if there is only one person who is buying cars that month they can set whatever price they want, and you either have to take it or wait another month. With 1000 people buying cars (more liquidity) you are going to get a fairer price.

Anyway the main point that a tax on transactions will be stupidly bad for just about everyone, and not hurt the banks is completely valid.

Microsoft stealth launches 'historic' programming language

Maybe it is aimed at grown-ups...

... you know, the type of people who do serious things for a living, like work in finance and scientific HPC space. The type of people who actually evaluate on substance rather than a passing resemblance to an already boring (and hopefully receding) web meme.

Bill Gates goes (mini) nuclear

Because that would stop the chain reaction?

The Plutonium is produced from the Uranium, so no input, and then breaks apart into other elements shortly after creation. Taking a guess here but I think trying to get enough Plutonium out of the reactor before it decays would stop the chain reaction, which would stop producing fast mvoing neutrons, which would stop producing any more Plutonium.

Standing by to be corrected by someone who actually knows what they are talking about....

More questions over biometric ID cards and national security

Checks at the airport

Were these passports were ever checked at an airport?

1) One of the "British" holders has a huge grin in his photograph - this would never have been processed by the IPS. Surely a semi-competant border guard would have noticed this?

2) The Irish passports did not have the correct numbers on. Obviously not looked up / scanned into any computer system - that would have failed straight away.

Although I am not sure where they got the photocopies of the passpors from.....

NHS appraisal toolkit yanked offline

Quite happy with that

I know that this must be an annoyance for doctors, but the facts that:

a) The NHS actually bothered to do a security audit

b) The auditors found some (I am guessing real) problems

c) They proactivly actually took the site down to prevent loss

are all good points for once.

Ex-JBoss chief attacks Monty's 'dangerous' MySQL crusade

He's right

Once you sell your company, you don't have the right to criticize what happens (unless you have some funky clauses in the contracts!).

Same as the decedents of Cadbury protesting against Kraft - if you want to have control don't sell the thing off in the first place.

Boffin calculates pi to 2.7 trillion digits

Depends..

..if you are using ASCII or EBCDIC