Posts by Amorphous

Microsoft, Google: We've found a fourth data-leaking Meltdown-Spectre CPU hole

Side-channel timing attacks on Humans

Reminds me of those psych experiments revealing racial bias in humans who react slower/faster to flash-cards of different races. How to patch that?

FBI iPhone brouhaha sparks Apple Store protest in San Francisco

Re: Idiots all

Can't clone phone since the encryption key is baked into hardware and can't be extracted.

Hurrah! Windfarms produce whopping one per cent of EU energy

European Grid

Here in the Antipodes we are able to move wind/hydro/gas/coal electricity thousands of kilometres, even across the Bass straight which is several hundred kilometres wide. I feel confident that the windiness or otherwise of UK in any particular week can be offset by connecting to the great European landmass across the relatively narrow channel.

Hilton, Marriott and co want permission to JAM guests' personal Wi-Fi

Chromecast

Hotels also want to stop people watching movies (on the hotel's TV) unless they pay. Chromecast or similar devices bypass this racket.

Google's first stab at control-free ROBOT car rolls off the line

Car Insurance is a scam that can die with this device

The 'driver' is Google, so they can cover themselves. No need for monthly insurance payments, excess changes, no-claims bonuses, etc.

Nork-ribbing flick The Interview AXED: Sony caves under hack terror 'menace'

Kum sa ham ni da

Kum sa ham ni da, Sony - you have been moderated. Kim has got you by the balls.

'Turn to nuclear power to save planetary ecology from renewable BLIGHT'

Re: Never say never!

Not clear from article what LP distrusts more: renewables or climate change.

One size fits all pronouncements are simply unhelpful. In the medium term outlook there will be a mix of energy technologies of all kinds, from renewables, to coal and nuclear.

Rooftop solar is easily price competitive with grid power (in Oz at least, even without feed-in tarrifs) and getting more so as grid suffers death spiral (i.e. as less grid power is used, prices rise to cover fixed network costs, prompting more rooftop solar, repeat).

Nuclear will suffer from the NIMBY effect and take decades if ever to get built. Needs to be beside a good deal of water for cooling, and in Oz that's were all the people live, or food is grown. So not likely to happen.

Wind generates 27% of South Australian electricity (and growing). Some days it generates 100% of SA power. Takes up almost no space in a paddock so the farmer can earn some extra dough. Most bird deaths due to humans (apart from hunting) occur due to buildings (I've seen this happen many times). Wind turbines are well down the list of hazards.

Coal prices will drop as the rest of the world leaves it behind. Australia will be burning coal for a long time to come.

Deprivation Britain: 1930s all over again? Codswallop!

Re: "Let them eat cake"

Best save our energies for innovation and production, and let rationing take care of education, health, food and housing. Those are things everyone needs a minimum amount of, so may as well do that efficiently (i.e. not run for profit or by donations).

For the merits and pitfalls of r@tioning see http://www.sliceit.org/

Re: Relative poverty of thought

I agree he is though provoking, in the same way as Hilter or Marx is thought provoking. As for "relative poverty of thought", I'm saying he is a bit more thoughtful than the thinkers of the 1930s (e.g. Ayn Rand, Hilter), but much less thoughtful (not to mention less generous) than most thinkers of today (e.g Thomas Piketty, et al).

Just because it is well researched and though-provoking, doesn't mean it isn't UKIP propaganda (which it is - obviously). TW doesn't bother to write anything unless it promotes his party. If I was him I wouldn't bother either. All those facts and figures take time to research and must be motivated from something more than an online Grauniad article.

So, why would this article be published on the Register at all? Where is the tech angle? ... ah! got it! The Guardian is online == IT and it makes for juicy Click-bait (i.e.'Though provoking').

So I'm obviously being facetious. The real reason for this article is because The UK-Register is a Neocon outfit.

Solar sandwich cooks at 40 per cent efficiency

Investment mix - Death Spiral

Your comment is a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good.

I see the future being more a mix of energy sources: Renewables (Solar PV, Hydro, hot rocks, power tower, etc), along with traditional energy sources (nuclear, and coal). The mix will shift towards renewables over several decades as the technology develops.

I've bought a couple of small panels for my roof. They are current "suboptimal" tech, but they do take the edge of the airconditioning bill for hot Aussie days in summer (and winter for that matter). They are easy to install and remove, and just plug into the wall socket (usually just to power the fridge). So when we move house we can take them with us.

Slowly but surely, the grid power prices are creeping up in Oz as more people install PV and use less grid (thereby forcing them to raise prices to cover distribution costs). This makes is even more economical for rooftop solar PV and so the cycle repeats in a "death spiral" for grid power.

I'll be adding more PV to take advantage of new tech, just a couple of panels at a time, over the coming decade or so.

Re: Uh, so let me get this straight...

Average panel lifespan is about 20 years. All those roof top panels have about another 10 years before they need replacing, which is about the time required to commercialise this new tech for the consumer. So the jump to rooftop PV was probably the right thing to do at the time, and has increased investor confidence that made this kind of innovation possible.

You are right that over-generous feed-in tarrifs do not foster trust from skeptics and anti-government types, but neither do over-generous subsidies and tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry.