Posts by Hairy Spod

UK Royal Mint mining PCBs for precious metals in e-waste recovery effort

Re: 50 Million Tonnes?

I came here to say the same thing, I know gold is heavy, but...

Raspberry Pi prepares to boot up a London listing

Re: "We will keep doing the same stuff. Certainly while I'm in charge."

....which might not be a bad thing, the money he runs off with would undoubtedly be much larger than what the company was originally founded with.

I'm sure the small print of the deal would prevent him from starting a competitor.

He could use it to reset, or maybe even change tact and reinvent the netbook to help kids who were not allowed to connect their pi to the household tv and challenge the chromebook in the education market

Elon Musk's latest brainfart is to turn Tesla cars into AWS on wheels

Re: Theft

they have already thought of that and charge you £10 a month for the privilege of the car downloading and uploading whatever it wants.

Tesla misses the mark on all fronts in quarter of chaos

Re: Because he gave them more lies^H^H^H^Hpromises

for about as long as loyal Toyota customers keep holding on for solid state EVs that have been 2 yeas away for the last 12 years

Samsung shows off battery tech it says will see you gone in nine minutes

Re: Great news

Pretty much any car that's in a collision where the airbags deploy these days is a write off, its not just EVs.

Google all at sea over rising tide of robo-spam

time to buy shares in Yahoo!??

Does anyone remember using Yahoo back in the days when its search function was secondary and it was mostly used for its manually created and curated directory structure of sites organised by topic?

Maybe its time to go back to the future, either by Yahoo going back to its roots or a freshly funded more ethical player to enter the market place

Toyota, Samsung accelerate toward better EV batteries

Isn't the failure of said rubber plantation and the very expensive ghost town that it created in the jungle held up as a case study for why vertical integration isn't usually the way forward though....

Users now keep cellphones for 40+ months and it's hurting the secondhand market

Re: No real surprise

little they can do to improve except hold a decent quality voice call...

There's a resson i dont speak to anyone, its not because I prefer text/whatsapp is cos I hate the sound dropping out every 2nd or 3rd word

Need to plug in an EV? BT Group kicks off cabinet update pilot

Re: From what I can recall ....

"Additionally CO2 isn't the only noxious gas in the exhaust of ICE vehicles..."

and let's not forget the particulates either.

Climate change is killing us less quickly than other atmospheric pollutants

I'm starting to suspect that the pollution debate was deliberately switched to CO2 by the fossil fuel and car industries because other than cost its the one measure by which EVs are only slightly better than ICE ones.

Re: From what I can recall ....

"I call BS on the RAC 30% figure, every town/city in the UK has a large amount of housing without off street parking"

Why? Don't forget that a good proportion of people who chose to buy a property without off-street parking did so because they either do not drive or do not own a car!

While you say every town/city has a large amount of housing without off street parking you seem to be forgetting that they also have a larger amount of with on-street parking and garages!!

Draw a circle in the centre of a piece of paper to represent a town centre to represent the areas with no or little parking, then draw a wider circle around it to represent the area more likely to have off street parking and a wider circle around that where the proportion is even higher. 80% of the UKs population lives in the suburbs.

Re: Slow charging at any public charging point is so stupid

"There is more than one way to unplug something. Not all are pretty."

If you are that hell bent on doing damage then you'll do damage, its no different to smashing a window on a petrol car to get a radio or crowbarring off the filler cap to siphon off the fuel

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

Re: Think of the Grid!

"> but they ARE generally charged at night, we already know this from those that own them

Are you sure there's no selection bias there? Those with EVs now are still relatively early-adopters (even if things have matured past what we'd usually mean by that) and people tend not to spend thousands on a car that won't meet their needs."

Yeah I'm fairly sure, don't get me wrong there will be some, but not as much as you seem to think. Put it another way, at night when you are home from work and when electricity is cheaper, why would you opt not to charge it then and instead say no, sod this for a game of soldiers I'm going to wait until the middle of a journey when its less convenient and costs significantly more to charge up instead?

Re: Think

"Pray, can you elaborate on the process to produce blue hydrogen from floating offshore wind power?"

Yes, its called the bigger picture, without a hint of irony they lobby govt to make sure some hydrogen is made that way to guarantee that hydrogen has a market. They then produce vast quantities of blue and grey stuff to undercut it, or to where transport of green hydrogen is more of an issue and/or just use creative accounting to make people buy it thinking it was produced from renewable sources.

Re: Think of the Grid!

but they ARE generally charged at night, we already know this from those that own them, this is all about averages, the average motorist drove 6-8000 miles a year in the UK pre-covid and thanks to home and hybrid working its now lower. Contrary to popular belief 2/3rds of the UK population has access to off-street parking and for those that dont we still have 10 years for infrastructure to catch up

At an average of 3 miles per kWh We dont really need that much to top up, according to the National Grids calculations it will only take us back to the early 2000s in terms of overall energy use.

Re: Think

"Why in gods name can't you ask yourself why companies with thousands of engineers and decision makers are working on it if it's so stupid?"

Because its funded by fossil fuel producers who know that it would buy them another 15-30 years of producing blue hydrogen and car manufacturers who think that the idea of building cars that need their most expensive components replaced every few years due to hydrogen embrittlement is a good one. To anyone who says b.bb.but they will find a fix for that somehow gets past the fact that hydrogen is the smallest element in the universe and that it gets through everything, then I say to them we will most likely have cold fusion or burned the planet to a crisp well before that point

What if Microsoft had given us Windows XP 2024?

Wobbly windows

Never mind that, what if Ubuntu still had nice default wobbly windows and fades? I miss the easy desktop ricing from ubuntu 10

Valve celebrates New Year by blowing off Steam support for Windows 7 and 8

Re: Outnumbered By Linux ...

I rather suspect that most of that Linux figure is users with Steam Decks and that the number of users with Linux desktops is still a fraction of Win 7/8.

Although many of us here use Linux, I also rather suspect that most of those with Linux who game also have access to a Windows PC for gaming and run Linux for browsing and other duties on separate or older kit.

Post-Brexit tariffs on EU-UK electric vehicle imports staved off till 2027

Re: So, Brexit means Brexit, except when it doesn't

Its because its not enough to counter the multiple extra billions that would be required in welfare payments that could be triggered by a collapse in those supply chains and knock-on effects in other manufacturing industries.

There's also an element of wanting yourself and your friendly neighbours to retain advanced manufacturing capabilities, Ford and the British car industries' experience and capabilities were enormously important in the previous world war and, should the world descend into another period of widespread warfare, well lets just say we would have problems if we were reliant on an enemy building everything for us....

Logitech's Wave Keys tries to bend ergonomics without breaking tradition

exchange rate

Why is it more in £ than $.

I'm used to us paying more in Blighty after currency conversion, but it seems significantly pricier over here.

Boris Johnson's mad hydrogen for homes bubble bursts

Re: Start right, now

Insulation is red herring in this argument, it isn't really more important for heat pump use case than it is for gas boilers.

In terms of decarbonisation, how is case one where a decent gas boiler running at 85% efficiency spaffing much of its heat energy out of a drafty victorian homes roof, doors, walls and windows any better than case two where a heat pump running at 300% efficiency is spaffing much of its heat energy out of a drafty victorian homes roof, doors, walls and windows?

Just fit a bigger more powerful heat pump you are still wasting exactly as much heat as you were before but now you are using maybe a quarter as much initial input energy in order to do so.

The wastage and lack of insulation is an entirely separate (but important) argument.

Starlink speeds ahead in the satellite race but rivals aren't starstruck just yet

Re: You can see why SpaceX doesn't want Starlink to be used by organized military

being used by the military doesn't seem to have dented uptake of GPS by cars, phones, tablets, watches etc....

Mozilla's midlife crisis has taken it from web pioneer to Google's weird neighbor

could we all just agree to go back to making simple HTML pages again?

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

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

they already take the VAT on public charging, the rest can be said to be 'saved' in terms of health and environmental costs which is why we need the transition to electric in the first place

BMW deems drivers worthy of warmth, ends heated car seat subscription

I think some of you are confusing cars equipped with automatic stop/start technology with the newer breed of so called 'mild hybrids' which are basically the next evolutionary step on from stop start cars in the road to electrification.

Mild hybrids generally have a combined starter motor/alternator and will indeed cut the engine while slowing. They have much smaller batteries than 'normal' hybrids and can't match them for economy but they are more fuel efficient than a normal ICE car.

Re: connected services as a strategic imperative and a driver of future revenue

It might sound counter-intuitive at first, but generally speaking with with EVs heated seats are thought to increase your available range.

The amount of energy used to heat the seat and steering wheel is considerably less than heating the air in the whole cabin, so by using them you can generally get away with turning down the cabin temperature by a few degrees or not even need to turn on the cabin heater on at all.

AI to replace 2.4 million jobs in the US by 2030, many fewer than other forms of automation

I think that someone once said something along the lines of, "if the functions of intelligence and the human brain were so simple that we could understand them, then it would be so simple that we couldn't."

Boffins reckon Mars colony could survive with fewer than two dozen people

Re: Why do people call a small outpost a colony ?

Earth after a nuclear war would still be more survivable than Mars after a nuclear war on Earth.

Lamborghini's last remaining pure gas guzzlers are all spoken for

Hide from the fact that the destruction you speak of pales into absolute insignificance when compared to the destruction and spills caused by the oil and gas industry

Hide from he fact that the recycling rate for a burnt tank of fuel is 0 the recycling rate for spent batteries is above 0 the main reason for more extensive recycling is a lack of source materials because despite of the perceived 'wisdom' of 5 year life expectancies there simply are simply not dying fast enough

Hide from the fact that the carcinogens are kept inside the battery instead of released into the atmosphere for all to enjoy (quick reminder that benzine used in petrol is so carcinogenic that the WHO says it has no safe level and schools are not allowed to do experiments in it with fume cupboards yet everyone gets to breathe it in at filling stations.

SAE says yes to making Tesla EV chargers an American standard

The thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from

North America isn't like the rest of the world.

Due to misplaced overconfidence from the legacy manufacturers who convinced themselves that EVs in America would only a be fad and a lack of investment, Tesla superchargers represent over 60% of the available rapid chargers over there. If you want to go on longer journeys off of some of the better trodden routes you had better be in a Tesla or you might not get there, so this move shouldn't be too surprising.

As someone else above pointed out the CCS connector used in North America isnt even the same as the one used in Europe and the test of the world, CHAdeMO is pretty much a dead duck now outside of Japan and China has its own standard too.

I think Tesla represents 15-20% of the available charging sites around UK and Europe, so its CCS rather Tesla is the one with market traction (not to mention compulsory EU legislation on its side) I dont see anything other than CCS becoming dominant here.

Its not that hard to fit two cables to chargers, much in the same way fuel pumps often offer, unleaded, premium unleaded and diesel. In the UK upto now they tend to be CCS type 2 and CHAdeMO but I can see that quickly changing to become CCS type 2 and Tesla

Fat EVs may cause 'more death on our roads' – watchdog

Re: Weight is relative...

Not necessarily the case, although not widely acknowledged potholes and road degradation are often started by mini fuel spills rotting the binder (even a single drop of fuel especially diesel). EVs are not part of that problem.

End of an era as the last 747 rolls off the production line

except that's a totally different car with a name badge slapped on it, the last 747s avionics may have been updated and elements of its structure tweaked, but its still very much a 747

...great analogy, you do know that Ford stopped making the Escort almost 20 years ago don't you!?

InSight Mars lander has only 'few weeks' of power left

Re: Use inclined solar panels

..or a simple windscreen wiper type arrangement.

or a slight incline and a vibration function maybe?

NASA AI shows slashing sulfur in shipping fuel cut air pollution at sea

pollution shift

It's not just Sulphur either. Marine and coastal air quality is another reason why we need to wean ourselves off of petrol and diesel cars as quickly as we reasonably can. In basic terms every barrel of oil has a certain amount of nasty toxic shit in it. As we don't generally like breathing in toxic air in our cities we lobbied the oil industry to refine as much shit out of the fuel that we put into our cars and trucks as they possibly can, which they duly did for us.

The thing is though, the toxic crap doesn't magically disappear it just gets more concentrated further down the chain, ie goes into marine diesel and bunker fuel.

The more 'clean' city diesel we refine to use in our cars, the more toxic leftovers there are to put into bunker fuel and marine diesel. When we refine less fuel for cars the stuff that gets burned by the marine industry gets 'cleaner'

Sony, Honda collaborate on 'premium' electric vehicles that are born in the USA

Re: Honda only offers a single EV currently, and it's not for sale in North America.

Not only that, its barely competitive with everything else that's available on the market. The Honda EV is woefully short on range, its USP is that it looks cool and has some interesting tech and good you tube reviews all of which are translating into next to f all sales.

Tesla Megapack battery ignites at substation after less than 6 months

Re: Wait until we get te cheap Chinese knocks-off

@Stoneshop no correction needed, contrary to popular belief, EV drivers typically do more mileage than average gas drivers, gas drivers who drive mega miles are actually a minority

https://its.ucdavis.edu/blog-post/no-electric-vehicles-arent-driven-less-than-gas-cars/#:~:text=Using%20multiple%20sources%20of%20data,higher%20than%20previous%20studies%20report.

Re: Wait until we get te cheap Chinese knocks-off

I expect that the fire departments are more likely to be playing pool to expert levels and experiencing lay offs by the time full EVs reach 80% market penetration

combustion engined cars catch fire far more often than EVs

Re: Look to Dinorwig

you mean funny how alternative energy sources were not needed until we over used fossil fuels

Wearables sales slacken as the novelty wears off

Re: Even with the money available, I'll give them a miss

Just to be clear, there is no way to safely answer a phone while driving, hands-on or hands-off.

Startup rattles tin for e-paper monitor with display fast enough to play video

Would it not just be cheaper to ask the people who make Amazon's kindle devices?

EU lawmakers vote to ban sales of combustion engine cars from 2035

Re: In other words...

..or you could use 30-50% less electricity to charge a battery and go further

Even desktops showed up on growth radar in global PC shipment stakes for 2021

long, long term maybe, but in the short term as some offices open back up to hybrid working there might even be a period of further growth as a large swathe of currently unused office desktops that are now 2+ years older get upgraded or replaced, not every firm uses laptops.

...also not sure what it was like for everyone else, but as all the cheaper kit got bought up overnight at the start of the pandemic and only more expensive things seemed available for purchase, many staff who were historically lumped with machines previously badged 'Pentium' are now used to the delights of modern i5s and i7s with lots of RAM.

Staff retention might even become more of an issue with the double whammy of A forcing people back into the office and B forcing them to use noticeably slower more sluggish computers,

To err is human. To really screw things up requires a wayward screwdriver

is there a reason

....they don't shroud the shafts of screwdrivers with plastic or some form of insulating paint?

Microsoft: Many workers are stuck on old computers and should probably upgrade

Re: Productivity peaked around Windows 2000 Professional, perhaps XP

more importantly than that Windows Desktop search in integration with office was epic in those days!

Click start paste in the reference number, card number, employee number whatever and then in instant you saw every e-mail, spreadsheet and word doc that was relevant to the case.

Green hydrogen 'transitioning from a shed-based industry' says researcher as the UK hedges its H₂ strategy

Remember where that energy comes from

Whenever considering hydrogen as a fuel source it is important to always remember that Electric cars are charged at peak times using coal and gas-fired power stations, whereas the electricity needed to crack hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles tends to be spilt from water using surplus green wind and solar energy.

The UK is running on empty when it comes to electric vehicle charging points

Re: “ban on new petrol and diesel cars from 2030”

Yeah, you're that guy aren't you, the one from the wedding breakfast table that told me you would never get a digital camera because film was more convenient and available everywhere and was much better quality for the average user and you only replaced the battery in your camera every year or so.

The one who at the Christening snapping away on his digital camera told me that he would never get a smart phone as you had to charge them every day which was far too inconvenient when their Nokia lasted 7-10 days.

That's you that is.

Re: Hmm....

I'd did yes, like many I'm lucky enough to live in a 2 car household and used the hybrid for longer trips.

Turns out we did a lot less long trips than we thought we did! Instead of being the intended 2nd car though the Leaf was used for the vast majority of family outings and almost all local errands. The negative impact on my lifestyle for going electric was 0.

Again, the National Grid seem to suggest we already have enough supply for the EV transition.

Citation, please?

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted

to cut a long story short, getting rid of CRTs switching to LED lightbulbs and the loss of some heavy industry means that if every car went EV overnight we would only be using a similar amount of electricity as we did in the early 2000s

Re: Hmm....

re The current premium for buying an EV is just too great. vs the running costs of the 4yr old Mazda

I bought a used 2015 Leaf with only 12K miles on the clock on a PCP in 2018 for £155 / month using only a knackered 2007 Nissan Note as a deposit

Parking used to cost me £6 a day but was free for EVs and I definitely used to spend more than £10 a month in fuel in that Note and thats before I paid road tax servicing and cost of replacement parts..

Re: Hmm....

on the topic of that nasty nasty cobalt, the biggest user of it is the petro chemical industry who use it the make it their city fuels 'less polluting'. The nasties simply get moved into ship and bunker fuel where they get burned anyway so the net global benefit is close to 0.

It's true that car traction batteries are not currently recycled effectively, however, this isn't because it isn't possible its because we don't yet have sufficient quantities of them to create a viable recycling market!

The recyclable content of the thousands of gallons of fuel used over an ICE car's lifetime is exactly 0%!

A considerable amount of electricity is required to pump crude out of the ground, to and from refineries often over very considerable distances and then as part of the refinement process (along with lots of heat energy). It may surprise you to find that electric cars use little more electricity (and in some use cases less) than ICE vehicles.

I'm also pretty sure its not electric cars that are responsible for giving me black snot after walking round London