Posts by simon croft

Australia to get 1,000 megawatt wind farm

@reality

I wont bother arguing with you on wind farms viability except this -

every free (almost) unit of electricity that you can get from your wind farms in Oz is one that you don't have to use fossil or nuclear to generate !

This means that you Ozzies get richer as you can sell that fuel to the rest of the world desperate for energy.

With respect to your argument about needing extra generating capacity - whats new about that ?

You have to have extra capacity at present because the amount generated by plants of all types including windfarms have to be matched to a constantly varying demand by users and to cover breakdowns.

explanation:

Minute by minute electricity demand is met by a mixture of sources at present. baseload ( typically coal or nuke ) stations churning out most of the demand.

faster reacting but less efficient generating plants fill in the gap ( typically gas turbine or pumped hydro storage )

With wind in the energy mix the top up is still needed as demand changes, just the mixture of sources will be different.

In a well sited wind farm the output will change slowly compared with demand and will be predictable from meteorological conditions.

French court says non to pre-loaded Windows on Acer laptop

re: Pathetic

Wrong John.

Yes Mrs Bloggs, we will install all the software you need and make sure it all works properly before we send it to you. That will be an extra $50. ( cost us $30 :-)

We will deliver it to your home , connect it up and train you how to use it for an extra $30.

Sure, on Monday OK?

have a Nice Day.

ISPs turn blind eye to million-machine malware monster

Business opportunity ?

As others have said - ISPs are existing on threadbare margins. This is their own fault as they have just been competing on price which has driven down levels of customer service across the board.

Surely there is a market for a full service ISP that will 'hold the hands of users' and talk numpties through problems. Watch out for malware and spam and give a protected environment.

- I'm sure someone will tell me they already exist, If they do they are not very good at publicity. There maybe a high level of ignorance out there but there is also a good deal of concern about online fraud which could be translated into willingness to pay a bit more for a service that that had antivirus anti spam, alert services. There is a considerable market for AV - with £30 annual fees so the money=concern is there.

How about a layered offering:

Gold - for granny : fully filtered , high security setting, 0870 helpline.

Silver - family : good kiddie protection, medium but with exe blocking etc

Bronze - for DIY experts like El Reg readers - alerts and feedback from the ISP in case of infestation only.

BBC cans Planet Relief special

@Mathew and Wade Burchette

The point about global warming is that we wont get solid facts until it is too late. We have to take the advice of the IPCC and change the 'unlimited growth' archetype of the current world economy. Sure there are a minority of scientists that disagree with the IPCC - but there are probably some who also still think the world is flat, there are certainly some 'scientists' who believe in biblical creation of the world. There are definitely politicians who are counting on divine intervention to solve the worlds problems. None of this invalidates the advice of the IPCC who have weighed the evidence on our behalf and concluded that there is a problem.

The real problem the BBC have is that big business and politicians don't want to change the mass consumption and feelgood factor that gets them re-elected.

A lot of their voters also have a 'very nice lifestyle thank you and if you think I will change it then you can fcuk off'

I don't think our children have much of a future to look forward to.