Posts by William Clark 34 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Sep 2007
I am so glad I do not work there - being a Brit there are loads of things to be ashamed of but I am happy to be stuffy if it means we do not do this kind of stuff.
If I had been in the store I as a customer, I would have walked out - those staff should be serving customers not doing some stupid corporate dance.
Corporate culture - resist the crap!
The unified memory - get rid of all this copying data back and forth, don't bother 'loading' an app into RAM, just run it where it is, modify a few bytes her and few bytes there, only duplicate when you need to.
Now all we need are OSes which would work with this architecture.
But I would like to have seen a bit more of what the bridge was spanning as being track laying vehicle, it spreads the load out more than say a lorry with a few axles and therefore I wonder if it is mostly resisting shear forces at the ends rather then bending moments in the middle.
I still like the idea of it - something (else*) to use up all that dumped plastic.
*Thermal insulation made from recycled drink bottles seems to be getting common now.
Why are they given such free reign these days? - is the car industry trying to kill the electric car by making them undesirable? Why do all these electric cars have to look weird? (with a few notable exceptions of course)
If I was designing an electric car, I would make it function well first before trying to make it look good. It's a bit like architects coming up with the design then asking the engineers to make it however complex and impractical it is.
Although I think they have done the best they coudl on the numbers the have collected, I wonder if:-
1 More linux notebooks shipped in Q1, and linux users are more ready to have a go at fixing things for themselves or conversely later machines had more windows and less skilled users 'messing them up' - I am not a linux user myself but would opt for it if I was getting a notebook (unless Apple comes out with something AA1 sized and similarly priced - yes I know.......)
2. How many of these issues were OS/Config/Software/User cock-up related and not hardware issues?
Nice to see figures in context though.
And this came to court, I would to the DEP - 'have your learnt our lesson?' and waited until the explained without prompting how sorry they were and how they made a stupid mistake and will make sure it does not happen again. I would ensure they pay for a sneaker and nominal sundires - plasters and then I would ask the claimant if she had learnt her lesson to pay attention to what I around her and then I would dismiss the case and tell the lawyers tough, go do some proper work.
is that he and Top Gear, entertaining as it can be (though more often purile) it only seems to assess a car's ability to go as fast as possible around a race track and how good the think it looks. We never hear how good a car is for going on a longer journey with lots of luggage or how good it is for bringing stuff home from the DIY store or other important practical stuff.
I did see last week's with the dogs and small cars which was a bit of an exception and made me laugh uncontrollably.
I read in the 70s that typical passenger miles per gallon were:
Car:- 150 (I guess 4 passegners - 35-40 mpg)
Jet airliner: - 90 - i guess a full 490 seat Jumbo - I am not sue how man of these there are.
Diesel Train:- 800 - I presume this is also full, and I suspect that an empty passenger train uses only a little less fuel than a full one - I'd bet tube trains vary more full vs empty while express trains vary little.
I also suspect that the figures should be revised for modern transport. Some modern cars are getting much better mpg and I do not know the quoted figures for more recent airliners. I suspect trains are much the same as man can go faster but probably return the same pmpg.
(Imp gallons used here)
I want a computer where the app does not 'load' into 'RAM', but the RAM and 'HD' are effectively the same thing so there is no loading - it just runs from where it is - surely this is where the technology should be heading (and yes I realise current flash memory is not suitable for this)
I agree on your comment about the battery being flat when probably needed - thoguh having said that my parents have these as 'normal' mobiles - they never text or use voicemail - when they make a call they want to talk.
'Its not like there aren't normal phones around now with big buttons, and vibrant large screens which would suit them down to the ground, as for complexity, well just dont tell them how to get to those features!' - I find most non-tech people have a habit of finding the hidden features, changing the settings and then not being bale to use the device again.*
[not necessarily @Stu]
This phone has hardly any features/settings. Sadly you cannot turn off the annoying chime it makes when you turn it on - at least I was unable to find it....
But I feel this is a good idea - too many device these days are deisgned with too many great features which are too diffcult to use or avoid or just get in the way.
*My mother in law used to set the video by following the instruction manual to the letter. One step said select LP/SP and she had no idea what this was so pressed the button each time. Alternate recordings were SP and LP. Too many features I think.
Most people have a very poor grasp of power consumption. They tend to know that boiling the kettle 'uses a lot of electricity' but do not equate this to a similar amount of energy used by leaving a 100W bulb on for an hour. I blame everyone for this, the education system, the media, the government.
The majority of the population see this as 'Science' and are turned off immediately. It is either too complicated before they have even tried or too dull. The main reason we have trouble getting students - particularly females - into science/engineering is that it is not sexy/groovy/fashionable.
The media have a very poor grasp of numbers and science. It's all 'carbon' - whatever happened to -dioxide and -monoxide??? Why cannot they say kWh instead of KW for energy used? Why do they have to emphasize 'billion', when put into perspective the relative quantity might be small?
I work with a load of engineers who should all understand power (watts) but they still leave PCs idle when they go home - probably through laziness. I put a simple power tester on our idle PCs and found they used around 30W sitting on their login screens - and let's face it - most offices are mostly unattended for 70% of the time (evenings/nights/weekends)
I suspect companies need help in this respect rather than the iron fist approach, but turning off unused items (lights, aircon) would make massive savings to energy used - forget the money and cost savings - that would be a bonus, what about the environment and fuel stocks?
I agreed with many of the comment about netbooks getting too big - a bit like hatchbacks - the original VW Golf is the size of today's Polo..
What I think the manufacturers are missing is making the bezel around the screen narrower and giving us a larger screens but in a more compact unit overall. I don't care about the camera above the screen.
When I first started using it I thought it was interesting to read what people claimed had happened in their lives - what really annoyed me was people saying the had Jonny ad Mary aged 5 and 7 - how do you get children who don't get older each year????. After a few months I thought - the 'inventors' need to sell that asap and get out of it.
The creators sold it about a year later and still appeared to do well - which surprised me because I thought it had had its day then.
I think social networking will now be with us for the foreseeable, always re-inventing itself, but it has peaked and many of us will never sign up - I have since signed out of FU and never been on Facebook, bebo etc.
The UK price without VAT would be equivalent to $175.65
I wish people would stop comparing US prices without sales tax with UK ones which include the VAT. Apple list prices appropriately for the the country where they are selling, and yes, when the non-VAT price is much higher it annoys the shit out of me, but if you don't like the VAT rate have a word with the treasury/government.
IMO UK road signs are pretty good and clear. I have just been driving in France and theirs are not bad, but unlike ours, lack useful detail until you get right to the turning.
Having said that why does the 'no cycling' sign simply show a bicycle? - surely a bicycle with rider and a red stripe through it/them would be more logical??????
What I don't understand is why so many people talk as if they have some god* given right to fly as and when they please.
(*apostate/atheist here - no particular god as such)
Hopefully the price of oil and credit crunch will start to have an affect on the number of flights people take and reduce the number of aircraft flying - though just be be balanced - I do realise that this affects the poor first.
"I can't help noticing the obvious price hike for the UK - £799/$1199 should be more like £599/$1199 !!"
Um, not quite, US price does not include sales Tax, UK one does. So in fact £599 inc VAT would be a better deal than the US price - however at roughly $2=£1 the price ought to be more like £705 inc VAT.
I blame Apple UK for this (the £95 'overcharge') - I doubt Apple US gives a damn what the prices are overseas - maybe that weird Mr Jobs might open an international store with international pricing someday....[/wishful thinking]
Sorry to be boring, but there was a programme about it a while back and this time the process of repainting is much more than just painting over the top. Sections of the bridge are carefully sealed against the elements, old paint is shot blasted to bare metal and the metal is primed asap with a decent (etching?) primer with corrosion protection - I was told once by a shotblaster (person) that bare steel starts to oxidise quickly once being exposed to air and getting the primer on asap is important.
The primer is cheked with some sort of handheld scanning device to ensure it has coated/stuck/taken properly to the metal else it gets blasted off and they start again that area again.
Hopefully this will last or they can build a new one in stainless (if there is that much chromium around...)
I like the Eee but I wish it had a slightly bigger display - not just resolution, but the border around the edge could be made thinner to accommodate say an 8 in display (if there is such a thing) but not increase the overall size of the machine.
Still - seems a good value device.
What is the difference between this and a treadle 'powered' sewing machine or potters wheel - very little except that potter or seamstress/tailor is probably doing some actual work.
I think this is a great idea - I would love a treadle desk to recharge/power a laptop or even a desktop - might eat some of those excess pounds we westerners are prone to accumulate and would save time and money wasted at the gym.
Yes I listen to freeview radio - well sort of - I record it via a USB DTT tuner - but only because I have not found an easy to use radio recorder which works like a video recorder with the ease of programming of the better ones. I know there is
listen again, but quality is a bit iffy and there are a few programmes which are not available.
But I sort of agree - if the number of DTT TV channels was reduced to 10 quality ones instead of the 25ish crap plus 5 so-so ones....
Half of the passengers on the Hindeburg survived - none of them were blown to bits and the fireball went upwards away from the poor falling people - jet liner disasters though rarer usually have a much higher death toll.
Hydrogen is explosive and burns nicely if it leaks an ignites, however it does not explode if it leaks - it needs to be nicely mixed with oxygen to go bang.
Also if if does leak, it floats upwards and away unlike say petrol or propane which will hang around creating a nice explosive mixture so yes it has its problems but it is not as dangerous as the ignorant posts here suggest.
If hydrogen could be readily generated from solar powered electrolysis then maybe it is a good idea and I think trialling 10 hydrogen buses is a brave idea - at least then they can be assesed on reality rather than a load of idiots on a discussion forum.
I have only had one bad ebay experience as a seller when a winner of a bid said he would not pay as I did not take paypal at the time - he had not read the listing properly and did not trust me (his words) with £5 even though I have 100% rating and I am a private seller of 'my old stuff' - no problem, I sold the item to the next bidder. I decided against marking him down as I suspect he was the kind of stupid idiot who would have retaliated.
As a buyer I always check before I buy/bid if the seller allows you to collect the goods. If the seller does not or will offer no addres - I smell a rat. Also anything over £50 I would not dream of paying for without seeing it first. Pretty basic stuff this.
I always offer local collection on sales even thoguh 99% of the time people live too far away for the item or it is to cheap to worry about.
For the fiasco the UK Olympics will be.
It will not run well - we are not good at running things - the infrastructure will not be ready or capable.
It will costs loads - much more than predicted beacause the UK is full of greedy people wanting their 'cut'
It will not even break even.
It will not revitalise the areas concerned (I work in White city which had the Olympics in 1908 - I undertstand it has been a dump before and since then and for at least the past 20 years)
Many of the best seats will be filled by people who have not paid for them - just like WImbledon and major football matches - fortunately I don't care except we all pay indirectly for corporate sponsorship and get little for it(maybe that's why many things in the UK are expensive)
Why is'nt the Olympics more like a circus which brings a resuable portable stadium where it goes rather than dumping underused expensive stadia all over the place?
On the upside, I intend to rent out my house and go on a World tour for 5 weeks (I hardly travel so my carbon footprint is banking up now) - I will just have to to keep quiet about my nationality.
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