Posts by Nial

First there were notebooks. Then tablets. And now ‘book tablets’

The whole advantage of the chromebook is nearly iPad speed of power up, _with_ a keyboard and ~10 hours battery life.

Without the keyboard it's just another tablet.

Trump buries H-1B visa applicants in paperwork

"You are either a genius, or an idiot.. your statement is an oxymoron - if they are paying less, the chances are there is a skill surplus, not shortage"

Companies advertise "IT" jobs at below the going rate.

No applicants.

They then go to the government claiming there's a desperate shortage of suitable people in the UK, they need visas to bring in foreign workers to fill these roles or the economy will be terribly constrained.

Multiple visas issued, temporary foreign workers arrive, supressing wages and the vicious circle starts.

This is a well known tactic by big outsourcers.

IT peeps, be warned: You'll soon be a museum exhibit

Re: Back in the day

" I can remember the first 1GB hard drive appearing in the building"

I remember one of the software engineers in the first company I worked for getting an _800MB_ hard drive. I was amazed and thought you'd be able to store your whole life's work on such a beast!

Electric cars to create new peak hour when they all need a charge

Re: I've been pointing this out for years.

"All those old fossil-fuel power stations have a finite lifetime. They'll have to be replaced. The issue is - do we replace them with 20th century fuels (or, indeed, 19th century), or do we acknowledge that this is the 21st?"

This is like asking...

"Do we want to guarantee keeping our hospitals/ schools/ places of work open, or not".

Or do you mean building more nuclear (which I'd agree with)?

Re: I've been pointing this out for years.

> > Does their supply drop out at night when there's no wind?

> What makes you think there's no wind at night? Where do you think it goes after sunset?

The point was there's no solar input at night, if there's no wind then renewable input effectively = 0.

A few slower readers don't seem to have got that.

Re: I've been pointing this out for years.

I missed this bit... "The premise made in this report (from a pro-coal/gas) organisation assumes"

"Research conducted by Matteo Muratori of the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) "

?

Re: Answering a few points in the comments...

"Thanks to http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php

I can see that the wind is generating 26.38% of UK Power at the time of this posting. Coal is around 2%. "

Thanks to the same web site we can see that on Saturday there was almost no wind, yet they were able to ramp the coal output up to compensate.

We need 100% conventional backup available for when the ruinables aren't generating anything. This double supply is making all our electricity _much_ more expensive.

Re: Answering a few points in the comments...

"Our EV works out cheaper by far than the car it replaced. We pay less now including the repayments for the car and all fuel and servicing, etc. than we did for just the fuel on the car it replaced"

How much would it be costingt if you didn't get the £5K (or more?) subsidy to buy it (we're all paying), plus the grant for updating your charging point (that we're all paying) and the goverment started taxing EV charging to recoup some of their lost diesel/petrol taxes?

As before, with the current level of subsidies EV makes sense now for a lot of people, but if the number of people going electric vastly increases the govt won't be able to maintain the current level of subsidy.

Re: Off peak?

"Then you can set your fridges and car chargers to pause when the frequency drops below 60 Hz or 50 Hz. In fact, you could do that without the pricing changes."

So all across the country loads are suddenly dropping out or being applied, with less spinning generation to keep things balanced?

That's not going to cause carnage or anything, >:-|

Re: The pro-EV set always shouts me down

"Perhaps they are right?

All the evidence seems to point that way."

Perhaps they are involved in the PV/EV subsidy farming and don't want anyone challenging this?

Re: I've been pointing this out for years.

"There are a number of companies out there that sell 100% Renewably generated Electricity"

Does their supply drop out at night when there's no wind?

If not then their supply is not 100% renewable. Obviously.

Re: I've been pointing this out for years.

"Personally, I charge my EV when the sun is shining"

So you're not charging it much this time of year?

And most people would have their cars at work during the day, how does that work?

"Now with careful juggling of where and when I charge and a light right foot, the cost of my motoring so far this month has been £42.60 and I've done more than 1000miles."

This is a single user case with the massive subsidies that you're currently getting (probably a sensible decision for you).

The report was about what happens to the grid if everyone jumps on board the subsidy wagon. The government will have to replace all the tax lost on petrol/diesel somehow, and the grid won't cope, especially here in Scotland.

NASA is sniffing jet fuel over Germany

Re: Market distortion

"We have about 200 years of coal under our feet and that is capable or nearly capable of being made into oil"

The Chinese were synthesising oil from coal before the oil price crash, it might not be cost effective now.

Lenovo inherited a switch authentication bypass – from Nortel

"More evidence that the US government only wanted US switches in 'merica because they were the only ones the NSA could hack into"

Nortel was a Canadian company. :-)

Worst-case Brexit could kill 92,000 science, tech jobs across UK – report

Re: Brexit

"Apart from the Tories never being a left-wing party, both SNP and Plaid Cymru were Remain"

Only for political expediency.

If the SNP had 'won' in 2014 we'd (Scotland) have been out of the EU.

Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Siemens tease electric flight engine project

Electric motors in the undercarriage.....

There's already enough juice to do that...

http://www.wheeltug.com/

I worked on the early electronic control for this. :-)

Tesla launches electric truck it guarantees won't break for a million miles

Re: Sport truck! 0-60 in 5 seconds

"Ever heard of regenerative breaking? The biggest difference between a leccy and an a gasoline vehicle is that a leccy vehicle recoups >60% of the stop/stop cycle."

How much of a 500 mile trip across America or Australia is going to be "stop/stop"?

Boffins trapped antiprotons for days, still can't say why they survived the Big Bang

Re: The universe will now disappear

"If reality doesn't match theory, discard reality"

Ah, so you're a climate 'scientist'?

Microsoft and Facebook's transatlantic cable completed

"because while it contains just eight fibre pairs"

You'd think if they're going to the hassle of laying a transatlantic cable they would put a few more pairs down? >:-0

UK PC prices have risen 30% in a year since the EU referendum

Re: Markets are mostly psychology

" UK needs EU more than EU needs UK"

Except we buy a _lot_ more from them than they do from us.

?

Re: Markets are mostly psychology

Jeezo, does everyone on here read the guardian?

"The whole thing wouldn't be much of a problem if the UK still had a big manufacturing sector, but that was apparently killed during the Thatcher Era."

http://www.cityam.com/272260/british-manufacturing-now-eighth-largest-world

"(OT: My prediction is that there will be an agreement, the UK will pay back 20% of its debt and will get special treatment in exchange for it)"

We have any debt wrt the EU, it's the opposite if anything.

Smart meters: 'Dog's breakfast' that'll only save you 'a tenner' – report

Re: Smart meters and electricity storage

"The thing is, though, that if you've spent 15p/kWh (for example) charging your car, you don't want to sell that back to the grid "

You might also want to have your car charged to go to work in the morning, or be at work when it probably won't be plugged in.

Some people haven't thought this 'smart' malarky though very well.

ASUS smoking hashes with 19-GPU, 24,000-core motherboard

Re: PCIe x16

Ah, right enough, getting data in and out probably isn't the bottleneck!

Re: PCIe x16

"There is a difference between the physical connectors and the number of PCIe lanes a component uses when plugged into any PCIe slot (though an x1 slot can only use 1 lane - and x16 slot can use up to 16 lanes)"

Eh, yes.

This is touted as a crypto mining machine.

It has 19* PCIe x1 slots.

How many mining cards come with a PCIe x1 slot?

The answer might be 'lots', but the example card they listed is a x16 board, so you can only plug one in.

I don't get it, this has 19* PCIe x1 slots, that recommended P106 is a PCIe x16 card.

So you can plug 1 in.

?

Elon to dump Trump over climate bump

Re: Technological welfare queen

"Fossil fuels are subsidized to the tune of several hundred billion..."

Ah yes, the old fossil fuel subsidy bollocks.

Fully destroyed here...

http://euanmearns.com/the-appalling-truth-about-energy-subsidies/

"We are comparing apples with oranges but normalising for energy production, the renewables subsidies are 8.4 times larger and amount to 94% of the value of the energy produced. This latter statistic is hard to believe, but if it is close to true, it suggests that new renewables are contributing virtually nothing to society."

NASA taps ESA satellite Swarm for salty ocean temperature tales

As an engineer, reading the details I call bullshit on this.

"have demonstrated – at least at the proof-of-concept level"

"while conductivity varies with salinity and temperature in a regional way, conductance really varies primarily..."

..but not exclusively...

"with only the depth-integral of temperature (heat content)"

How much does conductance vary with fractions of a degree? That's what we're talking about here.

And you only end up with the integral of the heat profile, no details of the heat at different depths.

"which theoretically could determine heat content throughout the oceans' depths. His work is still in its early stages"

"Describing his model's development"

MODELS, not raw data any more, should ring alarm bells.

"If – when – Tyler and his team succeed in precisely discerning signal from noise in the cavalcade of Swarm data"

IF, EVER.

Rik Myslewski above asks "What do you fear?"

I fear $1.5 trillion being pissed up the wall on this instead of suppling clean drinking water to the world's population.

It's put quite well at the end of this article...

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/ocean-acidification-yet-another-wobbly-pillar-of-climate-alarmism/

"To those of us who have been studying the global warming scare in some detail, the answer is depressingly obvious. It’s because in the last decade or so, the climate change industry has become so vast and all encompassing, employing so many people, it simply cannot be allowed to fail.

According to a report last year by Climate Change Business Journal, it’s now worth an astonishing $1.5 trillion — about the same as the online shopping industry. If the scare goes away, then all bets are off, because the entire global decarbonisation business relies on it. The wind parks, the carbon sequestration projects, the solar farms, the biomass plantations — none of these green schemes make any kind of commercial sense unless you buy into the theory that anthropogenic CO2 is catastrophically warming the planet and that radical green measures, enforced by governmental regulation, must be adopted to avert it."

Bill Gates joins $170bn climate change investment club

Re: Trumpity Trump

"The world is getting hotter and it is, or will, affect many of us"

But not most of us. 0.8 Deg C since the 1840s? And the Sahel greening (and crop yields increasing) and no increase in extreme weather events?

"Carrying on regardless isn't going to fix the lack of water in regions that used to manage"

So massive population increases using limited water resource isn't the source of the problem? It must be "climate change"?

Aye, right.

Norway might insist on zero-emission vehicles by 2025

Re: Political deals...but if they do

"You omitted "just like fossil fuels" from your list of subsidised power sources"

Ah yes, the old follsil fuel subsidy lies......

http://euanmearns.com/the-appalling-truth-about-energy-subsidies/

Nobel bro-ffin: 'Girls in the lab fall in love with me ... then start crying'

Re: Are Men Really More Intelligent Than Women?

"Girls do better at boys in school, up to a certain age. It then appears that girls self-censor or restrict themselves, either int he face of male hostility at female success, or because their lifelong understanding of male importance makes them back off"

So it's the fault of males, rather than boys maturity catching up ?

Re: Why Apologise ?

"Finally, never piss of a man who can kill you instantly."

Is this an admission that wimmen can't control their emotions?

'Look into my eyes: You are feeling very worried about the climate ... so worried'

Re: Didn't have to look

"Yes, retreating and disappearing glaciers..."

...revealing evidence left by previous civilisations.

You know we're still slowly recovering from the little ice age?

What is the 'right' temperature we should be keeping the planet down to?

"who are screaming from the rooftops."

No they aren't, they're goign about their day jobs manicaly trying to paper over any cracks that have constantly appeared in the 'theory'.

This reminds me of......

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/lying.htm

"You have made some observations and calculations, which show that humanity is doomed unless it changes its ways. You have total belief in the accuracy of your predictions. Do you:

(a) Announce your results, but keep your workings secret for fear that someone will criticise them.

(b) Announce your results, but set up a group of companies to make yourself mega-rich on the back of the scare you have created.

(c) Drop everything, including secrecy and profit, and devote yourself to saving the human race."

Scientific consensus that 2014 was record hottest year? No

Re: Well

"We only have records going back about 600,000 years (from ice cores). Which in fact show a very close correlation."

The corellation is very close on a 600,000 timescale, and shows CO2 concentrations follwowing temperatures.

Out of interest TheVogon, what do you do for a living?

Million Mask March: Anonymous' London Guy Fawkes protest a damp squib

"Take No Shit, Take No Orders".

Is this not an order?

It's the peelers trying to f**k with the soap dodgers heads isn't it?

Met Office: 2014 was fifteenth warmest on record

Re: Name me one English summer

AC wrote:

"people should be working on making storage solutions that could earn them a pretty penny"

"It suprises and disappoints me that the readers of this site, who I suppose imagine themselves to be modern, educated and technical"

It surprises and disappoints _me_ that someone who imagines themselves to be modern, educated and technical doesn't realise that the reason this isn't being done is that it's an impossible task.

In September wind produced almost _zero_ output for 22 days....http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Wind requires 100% conventional backup to be available nearly 24/7 and _doesn't_ reduce CO2 emissions (if you think that's important). The only people who benefit from wind are windfarm (subsidy farm) owners and landowners.

Just TWO climate committee MPs contradict IPCC: The two with SCIENCE degrees

Re: No Surprise

"We (the scientific community) came to consensus decades ago."

You are showing the quality of your scientific training if you think consensus means anything.

"People like you don't want to hear it because it may cause some minor inconvenience to your lifestyle. Don't pretend to be skeptical for any other reason than convenience."

This is a really odd thing to post, I've been pondering over this for the last day or so.

I've just realised, it's a defence mechanism. If you convince yourself that only lazy anti-'science' big oil funded luddidtes question what we're told by the all powerful all knowing 'scientists' then it helps you convince yourself that all is well in your, enormously funded, bubble.

" I was always taught when looking at a paper then I needed to consider the perspective of the writer and the context of the paper."

A true observation is a true observation, it shouldn't matter who says it.

But if you are adopting this approach then you'll have to take into account the fact that those working in climate 'science' have a massively vested interest in not de-railing the funding bandwagon. What are they all going to do when the sham is exposed?

Or if you want to discount the input of anyone funded by 'big oil'....

http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2013/general-information/thank-you-to-our-sponsors/

Re: Maths is not science?

"Science is an acceptance of a working hypothesis, a model, ready to be struck down and replaced at any moment, when a better one is found,"

A better one doesn't have to be found.

If an experiment shows a hypothesis to be wrong, then it's wrong.

End of.

Re: Selectivity

"Why did they pick 1997? Because 1997 and 1998 were high-anomaly years,so they skew short-term analysis. Had they started from 1999, or 1996, they would have seen a clear trend"

A _tiny_ trend (depending on how you cherry pick your start point).

You have missed the big picture.

~ 1/3 of the CO2 since the industrial revolution has been emitted since then, the increase in temperature has been practically 0.

Hypothesis destroyed.

Re: Selectivity

> This is why we have the scientific method.

Can you tell us what you understand this to be?

Re: The heat is on?

Instead of being spoon fed bollocks from 'skeptical science' why don't you look at the raw data to see what's going on...

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1840

You can pick the data source, dates, apply averaging etc.

Any changes in "deep" ocean heat are within the measurement errors.

Re: A Physicist and a Chemist (walk into a bar).

"All you've managed to demonstrate is that some people, sometimes even those with a sciency background, be they MPs or naval-officers-turned-journalists, let dogma override reason whenever this particular topic comes up."

Aye, except two of them are letting reason override dogma.

Climate: 'An excuse for tax hikes', scientists 'don't know what they're talking about'

Re: Again...I prefer to get the opinion of scientists...

"Wheeling out NASA astronauts and engineers is a classic example of the appeal to authority fallacy"

Whereas saying that because they aren't climate 'scientists' they suddenly can't follow a logical train of reasoning, isn't?

When it came to discussing getting someone into space I think they'd have been a hell of a lot more honest than.....

“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

Re: Again...I prefer to get the opinion of scientists...

Ability to lie through their teeth to keep the gravy train rolling = 0.

Re: Again...I prefer to get the opinion of scientists...

"Even NASA unfortunately has a few Republicans that believe the stuff on Faux News working for them."

Perhaps they do but what has that to do with 49 vastly experienced engineers and astronauts demainding that NASA takes a scientific approach to AGW?

As you obviously didn't read it here it is....

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dear Charlie,

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.

As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.

For additional information regarding the science behind our concern, we recommend that you contact Harrison Schmitt or Walter Cunningham, or others they can recommend to you.

Thank you for considering this request.

Sincerely,

/s/ Jack Barneburg, Jack – JSC, Space Shuttle Structures, Engineering Directorate, 34 years

/s/ Larry Bell – JSC, Mgr. Crew Systems Div., Engineering Directorate, 32 years

/s/ Dr. Donald Bogard – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 41 years

/s/ Jerry C. Bostick – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 23 years

/s/ Dr. Phillip K. Chapman – JSC, Scientist – astronaut, 5 years

/s/ Michael F. Collins, JSC, Chief, Flight Design and Dynamics Division, MOD, 41 years

/s/ Dr. Kenneth Cox – JSC, Chief Flight Dynamics Div., Engr. Directorate, 40 years

/s/ Walter Cunningham – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 7, 8 years

/s/ Dr. Donald M. Curry – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Leading Edge, Thermal Protection Sys., Engr. Dir., 44 years

/s/ Leroy Day – Hdq. Deputy Director, Space Shuttle Program, 19 years

/s/ Dr. Henry P. Decell, Jr. – JSC, Chief, Theory & Analysis Office, 5 years

/s/Charles F. Deiterich – JSC, Mgr., Flight Operations Integration, MOD, 30 years

/s/ Dr. Harold Doiron – JSC, Chairman, Shuttle Pogo Prevention Panel, 16 years

/s/ Charles Duke – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 16, 10 years

/s/ Anita Gale

/s/ Grace Germany – JSC, Program Analyst, 35 years

/s/ Ed Gibson – JSC, Astronaut Skylab 4, 14 years

/s/ Richard Gordon – JSC, Astronaut, Gemini Xi, Apollo 12, 9 years

/s/ Gerald C. Griffin – JSC, Apollo Flight Director, and Director of Johnson Space Center, 22 years

/s/ Thomas M. Grubbs – JSC, Chief, Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Branch, 31 years

/s/ Thomas J. Harmon

/s/ David W. Heath – JSC, Reentry Specialist, MOD, 30 years

/s/ Miguel A. Hernandez, Jr. – JSC, Flight crew training and operations, 3 years

/s/ James R. Roundtree – JSC Branch Chief, 26 years

/s/ Enoch Jones – JSC, Mgr. SE&I, Shuttle Program Office, 26 years

/s/ Dr. Joseph Kerwin – JSC, Astronaut, Skylab 2, Director of Space and Life Sciences, 22 years

/s/ Jack Knight – JSC, Chief, Advanced Operations and Development Division, MOD, 40 years

/s/ Dr. Christopher C. Kraft – JSC, Apollo Flight Director and Director of Johnson Space Center, 24 years

/s/ Paul C. Kramer – JSC, Ass.t for Planning Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Div., Egr. Dir., 34 years

/s/ Alex (Skip) Larsen

/s/ Dr. Lubert Leger – JSC, Ass’t. Chief Materials Division, Engr. Directorate, 30 years

/s/ Dr. Humbolt C. Mandell – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Program Control and Advance Programs, 40 years

/s/ Donald K. McCutchen – JSC, Project Engineer – Space Shuttle and ISS Program Offices, 33 years

/s/ Thomas L. (Tom) Moser – Hdq. Dep. Assoc. Admin. & Director, Space Station Program, 28 years

/s/ Dr. George Mueller – Hdq., Assoc. Adm., Office of Space Flight, 6 years

/s/ Tom Ohesorge

/s/ James Peacock – JSC, Apollo and Shuttle Program Office, 21 years

/s/ Richard McFarland – JSC, Mgr. Motion Simulators, 28 years

/s/ Joseph E. Rogers – JSC, Chief, Structures and Dynamics Branch, Engr. Directorate,40 years

/s/ Bernard J. Rosenbaum – JSC, Chief Engineer, Propulsion and Power Division, Engr. Dir., 48 years

/s/ Dr. Harrison (Jack) Schmitt – JSC, Astronaut Apollo 17, 10 years

/s/ Gerard C. Shows – JSC, Asst. Manager, Quality Assurance, 30 years

/s/ Kenneth Suit – JSC, Ass’t Mgr., Systems Integration, Space Shuttle, 37 years

/s/ Robert F. Thompson – JSC, Program Manager, Space Shuttle, 44 years/s/ Frank Van Renesselaer – Hdq., Mgr. Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, 15 years

/s/ Dr. James Visentine – JSC Materials Branch, Engineering Directorate, 30 years

/s/ Manfred (Dutch) von Ehrenfried – JSC, Flight Controller; Mercury, Gemini & Apollo, MOD, 10 years

/s/ George Weisskopf – JSC, Avionics Systems Division, Engineering Dir., 40 years

/s/ Al Worden – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 15, 9 years

/s/ Thomas (Tom) Wysmuller – JSC, Meteorologist, 5 years

Re: Again...I prefer to get the opinion of scientists...

"Again...I prefer to get the opinion of scientists...Like the guys at Nasa:

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ No internet troll can argue against them. If they say it is getting worse, it is getting worse. They collect the data."

I'll counter your NASA climate 'scientists' with some NASA employees who have a record of actually getting things done (astronauts and engineers)....

http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-scientists-dispute-climate-change-2012-4

Do they have to fuck off too?

Britain's costliest mistake? Lord Stern defends his climate maths

Re: Incompetent Fools should pay for their own medicine!

"They think 'green power' is getting special treatment"

And they would be right....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10542388/Wind-farms-handed-5-million-to-switch-off-turbines-as-thousands-of-homes-left-without-power.html

And that's on top of the vastly inflated price per KWH green energy producers are paid.

The ZOD FILES: Climate documents from 2007 'must stay secret'

Re: I wonder

> Those files must hold some seriously bad information to be withheld

As an example of 'seriously bad information' I'd invite all readers to have a look at Harry Read Me for an example of the quality control involved in (one) climate model......

http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/HARRY_READ_ME.txt

I still haven't heard what software development quality standards the current models are developed to.

Re: These climate researchers should publish everything, and be done with it.

"The problem here is that the information being asked for requires processing into a format where it's of use to the person requesting it and this takes custom software to be written and there is no funding for it. "

Why? This sounds like arse covering balearics.

If its any use to climate scientists as it is then that format should be OK for anyone else who wants to look at it.