Posts by Phil O'Sophical 7402 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Oct 2011
Whatever the issues with 5G and fibre are, public ownership of the infrastructure is not the solution.
At this early a stage in the technology there's no reason for public subsidies either, if the telcos think they can make money out of it later let them finance the blue-sky research aspects.
But the 110v/240v stories reminded me of a time at Uni. We were learning power engineering in the basement lab with big motors and generators. No desktop stuff here, these were 200v DC systems fed from hefty battery banks and exposed terminals (we all had the lecture about removing rings & metal watchbands).
Like all large motors the voltage has to be applied gently, in stages, as they pick up speed (think of that familiar stepped acceleration on older tube trains). This was done via a simple switched rheostat, which had a magnetic lock to hold it on at the max position. That way when the power was cut it safely returned to the minimum position. Usually.
One of my fellow students hadn't noticed that the rheostat was stuck at max when he powered on his motor. 200vDC applied to a sub-1 Ω coil resistance, the effect was memorable. Despite being securely bolted to the floor (fortunately) the whole motor assembly twitched, and the cables sagged as they overheated. Best of all was the incredible noise of maybe 100 kg of rotor going from a standstill to full speed in about 2 seconds, just a tortured scream that I can still remember. Half the lab ducked under the tables, the rest turned to watch. To our considerable surprise fuses didn't blow, and the motor settled down at speed. No-one ever had the nerve to try it again deliberately, though.
is the loud bang
Not always, we had a DEC VT240 terminal (yes, it was along time ago) that worked fine like that for a month before quietly blowing a fuse. Even worked for a few more days after that when the user just replaced the fuse...
Cue chorus of "they don't make 'em like they used to"...
you know the saying, half the truth, twice the lie
That makes no sense, either semantically or mathematically. Perhaps you meant "up to twice the lie"? :)
needs to be replaced with TWO measurements: a mean/median speed (whichever is lower) with a legally-binding guaranteed minimum speed
That would be worse, for a number of reasons. Most people have a poor grasp of statistics, and won't recognise the difference between mean and median. At best they'll take it as being a "sort-of average". Worse is that they know that internet performance varies with time of day, etc., and are very likely to assume this means that "on average" their line should produce that speed. They won't recognise it as applying to the network as a whole (why should they, they don't care about the network, only their line). Start publishing numbers like that in adverts and the ISPs will be inundated with complaints that "you said we'll get an average of 20, and I never get more than 5".
Also, as you note, there is an incentive for the ISPs to bump up the median value by declining to serve customers whose lines will only support low speeds. They won't care about flak from those people, they aren't customers.
Better to be pleasantly surprised than to be disappointed.
Best of all to have a simple, honest statement. "Our network uses technology that can support up to X. On your line we can provide Y".
My broadband provider describes my package as "up to" 16Mbit/s. When I put my phone number into their checker it reports that given the length and type of my line I will get at most 4.5Mbit/s. To no-one's great surprise I get 4.5Mbit/s.
Where is the confusion with "up to xxx"? It doesn't say "equal to', it doesn't say "everyone will get xxx", it just says that depending on where you live you will get, at most, xxx MBit/s.
Let's say that some customers get 50Mbit/s, some get 5, but for most people it's around 20. What number should they put in the ads? They can put 20, but other ISPs will offer 30 on the same line simply by refusing to accept customers who'd get < 10, hence pushing their average up.
"up to" some value depending on the line is an honest and accurate statement. Obviously if they say that your specific installation will get 20, and due to a poor line you only get 10, you have grounds to complain, but if you assume that "up to xxx" means you're guaranteed xxx then you're daft.
man breaks automated tests at 00:30
BT's blatant profiteering
BT's quoted profits are, as usual, operating profits, before all those deductions like expenses, tax, interest, investment, etc. If you look at its actual profits in relation to its size you'll see that it makes very similar profits to any other company of its size, and less than some of the bigger telcos.
If the ICO approves the corporate rules as being GDPR-compliant, and if GDPR doesn't change, the rules must necessarily continue to be GDPR compliant. It's the same situation as would apply to a country that isn't in the EU today, if their rules are accepted as GDPR compliant, they'll continue to be unless something changes.
What the ICO is saying is that it isn't going to strip anyone of approval post-Brexit.
Obviously the EU can change the GDPR rules if it wants to screw around, but that would upset a lot more places than the UK.
But you don't live in the UK. For you "Britain" is actually more a place inside your head, whose climate you don't experience and whose taxes (it appears) you don't pay.
You really shouldn't make assumptions on things you know nothing about. I spend part of each year in the UK with my family and pay UK taxes on my UK income. I've spent more than half my life there so am very familiar with the climate.
I've often wondered how many UK elections have been decided by absentee "subjects" whose actual knowledge of the country is decades out of date.
Not as many as have been decided by people who have lived there all their life and still don't have a clue about the world beyond their own town, let alone lived in other countries to really understand how the world works.
those who voted Leave would still see this as Brussels dictating to the UK
And those in other EU countries would see it as Brussels siding with the UK. That's why the EU cannot work, there will never be agreement on the serious issues. They'll keep rearranging the deckchairs while the ship continues to sink under them.
Economic co-operation works, and is accepted by most people, but the spectrum of social and political views is simply too different across Europe (which is its huge strength). It's a classic case of the whole being more than the sum of the parts, but a central government will never see beyond that simple sum of parts. They can't even commit to one place for the parliament for fear of offending the French, most MEPs would prefer to be in Brussels full-time,but they still have to have the Strasbourg-Brussels commute to keep the French sweet.
But the UK had to "industrialize" it's farming during WWII.
As a result it's got a relatively small number of very large (by European standards) farm holdings in a small number of hands.
It's not that simple.
It's been a tradition in England for centuries that the eldest son inherited the farm, and other children had to do something else (hence the stereotype that the 2nd son went into the army, and the third entered the church). That model ensured that farms remained intact, and large, and over time, as people bought neighbouring farms, the overall size increased.
In other countries, France as an obvious example, that practice is illegal. The law requires that all children inherit equally, so when a farmer with 4 children dies the farm is necessarily cut into 4 pieces and shared out. Even if one child can raise the money to buy out a sibling this still tends to keep farms small, fragmented, and uneconomic. It's almost impossible to create a large farm in such countries, hence the huge tax subsidies handed out to keep such small farms going. This imbalance in the CAP is one of the reasons that the UK rebate was negotiated, because UK farmers received far less in subsidy than their continental equivalents. If left to operate solely on their own merits the UK farming sector would be in far better economic health than those in most of the EU.
Standardizing inheritance rules across the EU would of course be a way to "solve" this, but would clearly be politically impossible. Like so many things (taxes, pensions, etc.) it shows why the "union" is just a pipe dream, and why all those tax-funded eurocrats can only nibble at the edges of a true common Europe by tweaking the trivial stuff, like mobile phone roaming charges.
Apart from this one, you mean?
That was a vote to remain in the European Economic Community (EEC), otherwise known as the Common Market. The political entity called the EU wasn't created until almost 20 years after that, and there was no UK vote to join it. Only one to remain in it, which resulted in a choice of "leave".
all we heard was how bad the EU was and lies like they banned bendy bananas,
If that's all you heard you have very selective hearing.
The old common market (whose banana policies were replaced by the EU, FYI) worked pretty well. It solved a real post-war need. The EU brought in an unwanted and unecessary political dimension, purely to satisfy the vanity of politicians. Even the French barely agreed to join, we wouldn't have had we been asked (which is why John Major didn't ask).
Since the EU was created we've seen a drop in growth, a monetary system stumbling from crisis to crisis, and a massive Europe-wide increase in support for extremist and populist parties from people who see mainstream politics as offering no alternatives. If it goes on like that it will implode, messily.
Leaving is a drastic solution, it's a great pity that it became necessary and it will be painful, but at least we'll have a chance of a better future.
We don't want to work to dig you out of the hole that you made.
Fine, we'll do the digging for you, and maybe your kids will appreciate it. In the meantime it would be good if you at least wouldn't throw the dirt back in.
those morons in charge who campaigned to leave thought that Article 50 contained a complete & comprehensive guide
I'm more surprised by the morons who seem to think that Leavers expected everything to be just perfect the day after we leave. Of course it won't be.
Brexit will take years of hard work to undo the damage and establish a decent result, especially if the remainers just sit back saying "Told you so" instead of doing something constructive. At least those of us who never wanted to join the EU in the first place did our best to make it work, untill we could get out.
Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, and sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone to get some real improvements. Personally I think it will be worth it. We'll see.
It's called Windows Insider. And obviously is optional.
And I'm not signed up to it. I'm using the "released" Windows 10, and believe me it's Beta quality. I'd still be on Windows 7 if some lowlife hadn't stolen my laptop, and the new (company-supplied) one won't run W7.
recharging that to 80% full in 30 minutes is going to need a 1MW supply.
Exactly.
Of course, recharging it over the 12+ hours of mandatory rest (with only one seat you can't have two drivers working shifts) would only take ~50kW, and a 50kW diesel genset could be tucked in the back of the trailer along with a 100 gallon tank without sacrificing too much cargo space. Diesel-electric: no range problems, and much more efficient than a straight diesel.
Those who DO have more money than the 'working class' will hate the idea of supporting these 'freeloading plebs'
You've put that in deliberately imflammatory terms. I suspect most people's thoughts go more along the lines of "Those who work hard to earn money will hate the idea of supporting these freeloadiers", and I can't say I blame them. No need to bring class into it.
wouldn't it be a better option to concentrate on Wireless solutions rather than digging up roads and pulling expensive cables/fibres..
High-speed wireless connectivity can only be achieved by installing a very large number of wireless transmitters, all of which need to to be connected to the network somehow. It doesn't matter if the last 100 metres is wireless or fibre, you still need a core fibre network in place to support those final links. This is why Openreach wants to install the microcells that the article refers to; by installing one fibre network and connecting both homes and microcells to it, they can get both FTTP and 5G. As noted, though, the large number of cells means that they need to be hidden somehow, most likely in "street furniture" (which means 'lampposts")
Though you would need to be an ape to turn over a 2l diesel
The hand-cranked diesels I remember had a lever to open a valve so there was no compression, you cranked to get the flywheel spinning and then closed the valve. At that point it hopefully burst into life, belching black smoke as it burnt off the overfuelling.
A world where Blighty wins the First Prize for Premium Quality Truffles
Or beats the French at making sparkling wine.
