Posts by peter wegrzyn

Microsoft releases firmware fix for faulty Surface Pro 3 batteries

Mine was running fine until yesterday. Now its randomly switching off and the charge light randomly fails to light up.

Cameron's F-35 U-turn: BAE Systems still calls the shots at No 10

Re: Would have been better off with

The harrier has a very good combat radius and weapons load, better combat radius than the Hornet would you believe, because of the huge fan which is very efficient. In vertical take off its useless, but in normal operation (rolling ski-jump) its pretty damn good.

Re: Worrying

"This is terrible news. How in the name of sanity is this possible. The RN should be screaming bloody murder from the rooftops."

Its not, becuase its getting an aircraft and system that will probably provide a better fighting machine than the F-35C.

First, the F-35B with very long deck and ski jump will easily be able to launch FULLY loaded with drop tanks if required and as much ordinance as the Maximum Take-Off Weight off range will allow, better than the F-35A, almost the same as a F-35C.

Due to the fact that the F-35B is much lighter than the F-35C it will perform better as a fighter.

Not having a catapult removes all the expense of buddy refueling for landing problems. Few tankers=much less wasted effort

Vertical or Ship Board Vertical landing is much easier than conventional landing so a back up landing site or deck will probably never be required, even if it is there are three times as many decks in the alis forces available. The UK will have FIVE landing platforms with the Auxiliary ships its building/has.

Weather will not be a problem for operations.

Only a small group of aircraft will have to be at sea (six?). When needed the RAF can fly from its land based and operate from the decks. This is a massive cost saver.

The only issue will be AEW and there are STOL aircraft as possible candidates who will be able to operate off the very long decks with relative ease.

China begins work on world-beating MEGA power cables

Re: Long history

Yes, its DC at very high voltage, you then only get loses of around 1% per 1000km

How politicians could end droughts forever But they don't want to

Re: @peter wegrzyn

Typo, its 58p.

Wife demanded a hug and.. oops.

Re: Irrational rationing

"when the installation of a water meter at our house dropped the annual bill from a flat-rate £440 to a pay-for-what-you-use cost of £160 p.a. "

Lucky you, my fixed charges are half my old flat-rate bill and the per tonne price is so high my bills are near the old flat rate, even though I'm a single person using very little water. The flat rate is supposed to assume two people living in my flat. In fact with meter I hit the same charge with about 167liter one person average.

Now I know water costs far less than 20p per tonne and thames charge 117p per tonne plus 580p for disposal

IATA: this iPad could BRING DOWN A PLANE

Most equipment is screened

"don't any of the multitude of devices in use in my home interfere with each other?"

However, electrical goods can go faulty and cause all sorts of interference, some times so bad that Ofcom will come and track you down.

"Is EMF shielding too heavy for use in aircraft. Or is a scapegoat being sought for the diminishing quality of aircraft components designed to reduced cost?"

They are not making toys.

Boeing and Airbus do not spend $15billion developing an aircraft so that passengers can act silly buggers with their toys. The develop the most fuel efficient and reliable aircraft possible using the best components they can do. Obviously testing every piece of electronic kite to be safe to use, in all the uses it may have, in every position in the aircraft is a pointless and incredibly expensive thing to do.

You can do as they say, or buy your own aircraft and do what you like, if cost is not an important issue to you.

Hefty physicist: Global warming is 'pseudoscientific fraud'

The Global Warming 'debate' is not science , its politics.

On the one hand you have the vast majority of scientists who make their judgement based on facts. On the other you have politicians, economists journalists and everyone else who doesn't like the cost implications. So its big news when someone educated apparently supports the Anti-GW science, however there is an apparent reason for his personal attack - he has a political conflict with the American Physical Society.

Not that that will be a problem with the AGW lobby, he can add up, so thats a major win for them.

Blighty's stealth robojet rolls out a year late

It is cheap, compaired to the US built equivalants

Smaller US drones are costing 800million+ dollars (the Phantom for instance) and seem to have lower spec.

This aircraft has deep penetration capability and the fact that the RAF don't want is a good sign - people who 'fly for a lifestyle choice' are not going to be keen on a remote piloted drone.

BAE have built this to export (all UK source parts) and it will be cheaper and more capable than manned aircraft so the export potential is there.

Chip and PIN security busted

Chip and Pin is definitly faulty

For personal experience, there is a flaw with chip and pin. I used a terminal at my local fish monger. Twice it report that the pin number was invalid, so I paid with another credit card.

I was billed for both failed payment attempts (as well as the payment on the other card).

Barclay's sent me a form which made me basically accuse the shopkeeper of fraud. There was no way to fill it in explaining that Barclay's has stolen money from my account, not the shopkeeper.

Barclay's refused to accept that it was possible to withdraw funds without a valid pin being entered - but it is.

I never received a refund.

Over half of US HD TV owners blurry on Blu-ray

Whatever, sales of Blu-ray films are booming

http://www.hollywoodinhidef.com/blog_detail.php?id=201

Sales so far this year to May have surpassed the whole of 2007. Some Blu-ray titles have sold 28% of the DVD volume. 400% growth doesn't seem to back up NPD's numbers.

Google Translate speaks in (more) tongues

Useless at Spanish

Google's spanish translation of Marca.com is terrible.

Spotigo promises Wi-Fi mapping within 5 metres

Navizon has it

Navizon's database is now pretty big and world wide, they have been collecting for several years now. Its not just limited to area's around commercial AP's either and covers phone cells points as an additional check.

Works on all phone platforms and they pay you for mapping - its rather lucrative..

The area inside the m25 has over 500K mapping points in their database for instance and in busy areas like central London accuracy can be with a couple of meters.

AJAX patent threat to giants under the hammer

RDS predates Ajax

Microsoft's Remote Data Services goes back to 1997 and has the ability to asynchronously load data.

Cambridge boffins draw map to Free Our Data

Soon it won't matter

http://www.openstreetmap.org/ is making great progress on an open source map of the world.

Then how much would The Ordinance Survey be worth?

Wal-Mart blogger claims retailer will ditch HD DVD

Its official..

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/15/technology/wal-mart_blu-ray/index.htm?postversion=2008021511

Confirmed..

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=980

The Electric Car Conspiracy ... that never was

You can buy several differant electric cars today

And many more in the future

http://www.greencarsite.co.uk/cars-coming-soon.htm

The G-Wiz for instance is estimated that the (soon to be available) Li-ion batteries will give a range of 70miles. The advantages of free parking, no congestion charge, no road tax, very cheap insurance and 60 free power points in central London make it a pretty attract city car. There are 800 in use in London.

Plunging player prices to reveal Blu-ray vs HD DVD winner?

Little difference in price between them

The cheapest HD-DVD in the UK is currently £188 and the cheapest Blu-ray is £234, so the quoted 'average' prices are way too low for HD-DVD, other players (well, the other two Toshiba models as they are all thats available) bring the average price up considerably.

Space brains resign over efforts to attract ET attention

Nuke 'em

You can never be too sure.

If I was an alien species I'd send a tiny little package of the most virulent biological weapon my technology could devise. Nasty little species, humans.

Tiscali sets 200,000 TV subscriber target

The service is great..

For some reason there is a lot of anti Tiscali-TV propaganda going about.

If you you look at digitalspy there are one or two people with problems, but line faults occur on all ISP's

I've been a Homechoice customer for years and the service is great. They are slow to bring out upgrades but when they do they work. BT Vision is a nightmare in comparison, it often simply doesn't work. They have launched a PVR service (to complement the Replay TV service) very discreetly and it looks great. Download speed and pings (8ms to BBC) are good, no caps or service limits and unlimited music videos (not PPV). Its also cheaper than VM and has Sky. Tiscali don't seem to advertise the service, they don't pre-announce anything either which is dull but at least they can't be accused of failing to deliver promises.

Cops seek 179mph net vid biker

The speedo is set to KPH.

I've done 180mph on a bike and a lot of bike riding and that is definitely not 179mph.I think kph is showing on the LCD to the right of the speed.

The other indicated speeds are way too high as well, compared to other vehicles and the scenery. I agree the rider is crap and inexperienced which is why he can't figure out how to switch the speedo back to MPH.

He also fails understand that, riding fast up the arse of another bike, overtaking on bends and over double white lines are stupid noob mistakes.