Posts by redbarnman

Need a Ferranti Pegasus board in your life? Brit computing history could be yours for four figures

What science museum

I don't think we have a London Science Museum any more. It's a collection of cafe's, childrens play areas and reception booths selling tickets to some 'special event' and a psuedo science shop selling tat. Sad really, going to the museum alone used to be a special event. You used to be blown away with technology in action when you entered the museum now its entrance hall is a drab and lifeless area full of groups of people where there used to be groups of exhibits to try out. All those lovely exhibits put in store to 'preserve' them and make them invisible to curious minds.

Watch SpaceX's rocket dramatically detonate, destroying a $200m Facebook satellite

Gosh, how many VW units of pollution is this?

UK local govt body blasts misleading broadband speed ads

So here I am sitting on my 3.8MB/s connection (just 5 miles from BT's research Centre) at 15.06 and I feel reasonably happy. But come 9pm tonight I will probably get well under 1MB/s as people load up the system with movies etc. What matters to me is consistent performance over the 24 hour day - no good if the 'up to 10MB/s' refers to 05.00 and for the rest of the time and at weekends the speed drops right off. So I know my connection is capable of 4 to 5MB/s but the ISP is unable to cope with throughput on its servers/connectivity in the evenings so that is not a BT issue it's an ISP issue. A minimum performance guarantee at 21.00 is what we need not a maximum headline value which is no more reliable than car MPG figures..

What will laws on self-driving cars look like? Think black boxes and 'minimum attention'

Human Factors?

Has any research been done on how quickly a driver who is reading or otherwise engaged firstly react to a warning, disengage from the book, assess the situation, then take the correct action? I reckon that will be several seconds and as 30mph = 14 metres a second that is quite away down the road. At 70mph I don't see humans being able to do anything in time unless they happen to be a part time F1 driver. Perhaps future driving tests will have a section on distraction reaction. If you pass you get a super-licence and can have an autonomous car. If you fail its back to the 2CV.