Posts by Steve E-G

Steam-powered computers: Retro cool or old and busted?

Magic Roundabout

It may have come to grief trying to calculate the best way to navigate the Magic Roundabout just outside Swindon. I once watched someone go around the whole thing the wrong way and then just give up and stop.

Enterprise vendors offering big Black Friday discounts

Apress Deals

Apress offering all eBooks for £9.99 and physical copies for £12.50.

Shivering boffins nail Earth's coldest spot

Not 100% Accurate

At the risk of being called Peter Pedantic this is the coldest 'natural' temperature on the Earth but not the actual coldest, that would be in a laboratory where I believe the boffins have managed to create the coldest temperature in the Universe, just above 0K.

Kepler continues exoplanet bonanza

Re: Moore's Law and the Fermi Paradox.

You seem to be clever enough to get some decent qualifications but not to learn some basic manners.

Instead of just being rude could you perhaps set out what you see as being incorrect with the paper? I believe that is how scientific progress is supposed to happen, but then I don't have a PhD in Biochemistry and so could be wrong on that.

Moore's Law and the Fermi Paradox.

Some recent research suggests that life on Earth may have taken a lot longer to evolve than first thought, even longer than the age of the Earth and thus we might well be the only intelligent (?) life in the Universe.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/04/16/1740254/moores-law-and-the-origin-of-life

Nintendo supersizes 3DS

Re: Nintendo has revealed an larded-up 3DS handheld

The h in hour may be silient for you but not for me thus I would not use 'an' and would say for example 'Excuse me tradesman could you spare a hour of your time'.

'Asteroid mining company' makes classic hypegasm debut today

Squids in Space?

Are they also going to be using super intelligent squid to pilot the rockets? (Stephen Baxter ref.)

Poynt

Prices Out of Date

Looking on the website where the data comes from for my area (rural Cornwall) most of the prices are out-of-date or not there at all so would be useless for me, suspect it may be better in more urban areas where there are more volunteers willing to update the data.

Waterstone's to take on Kindle and Nook with own reader

Production Cost Not Linked To Book Price

The production and distribution cost of a book has a very small impact upon how much it is sold for so expecting a digital book to be much cheaper just because you don't have those costs is wishful thinking.

The vast majority of a books cost is so that any advance to the author can be got back plus the high costs of editing, marketing and support for literature in general. Those costs are still there no matter what format the book is in.

Most writers don't earn enough to make a living out of it and if digital books get a lot cheaper then expect there to be a lot fewer professional authors out there. Cheap / free music means that for a lot of musicians they don't make much on the actual albums they sell but instead have to get their money via touring and merchandise; authors don't really have that option.