Posts by Seret

3D printed guns: This time it's for real! Oh, wait – no, still crap

I'm an ex-armourer I agree wholeheartedly with the technical details of what Lewis has written here. Firearms have been using plastic for ages, but only for parts of the furniture and when they do it's proper engineering grade plastic. Plastic 3D printed guns ain't happening.

Cutting CO2 too difficult? Try these 4 simple tricks instead

How is this newsworthy?

Lewis, this is not new information. The impact of GWGs are routinely published in units of CO2e, that's CO2 equivalent. This is a metric which takes account of the fact that there are other gasses (such as methane) that have a greater effect per unit. A lot of the time when you see figures published in terms of CO2 they're actually CO2e, the distinction isn't always made explicitly, even though it should be.

A sensible climate change strategy targets all emissions with high GWP, not just CO2. That's why we've taken action on refrigerants, for example, and as you rightly point out doing so is very cost effective. It sounds like you're trying to suggest that climate change mitigation currently focuses solely on CO2, which is not the case. This paper merely reinforces a widely known fact.

'Leccy-starved Reg hack: 'How I survive on 1.5kW'

Well, your only realistic option is controlling demand as much as possible then. You can do a bit on the technological side to attack base load, but attacking the peaks is more behavioural.

You're in Spain, install a PV array and soak up all that lovely Iberian sun. Not much use to you at night, but solves half the problem at least.

I wouldn't advise going off-grid and using batteries. They're expensive, require ongoing maintenance and you'll still need to be generating yourself. You can't generally mix electrical storage and a grid-supplied connection.

Just go for a grid-tied microgeneration option, the easiest and least hassle being PV.

War On Standby: Do the figures actually stack up?

Case of ideology over experience here

Lewis has made himself look even sillier than usual on this one. A few minutes going around the house taking some measurements would have shown him that the 47W figure is very easy to achieve (and so is the higher one).

Computers at 8W, boilers at 10W, lots of little transformers and power supplies, routers, things with clocks on the front, hell my toaster even sucks 4W for god's sake. There are tons of things in your house quietly drawing power, and they all add up. Lewis tries quite hard to dispute even the 47W figure, but anyone that's actually taken some measurements knows he's barking up the wrong tree.

UK.gov energy policy: You can't please all the people much of the time

The article seems to be suggesting that open cycle gas turbine plants are a suitable type to be building for all future needs. That's at best misleading: that type of plant is used for peaking loads due to low capital costs and fast response, but their efficiency is terrible. Combined cycle gas turbines are much more suitable for general use, and indeed did largely replace coal during the 90s.

The Reg guide to Linux, part 3

Better package

Since you're telling people to connect up to Medibuntu anyway, it's be easier to just tell thel to install:

non-free-codecs

That way they automatically get the right version of either w32 or w64codecs (plus all the restricted extras goodies)