Posts by graeme leggett

Re: Aren't the fire control systems of Belfast completely mechanical?

If I've understood correctly, there's one other element to the actual fire control - the gun crew.

The fire control computer sends the elevation and training (left-right direction) to indicators in the turret (strictly the "gunhouse") . The gun crew then operate the hydraulics (or in emergencies handwheels) to move the guns up/down until they match the mark on the indicator.

So no good trying to fire the guns if the crew are all in their bunks, or at breakfast.

as Lord Reith said : "educate, inform, entertain" - does this new idea not fall under any of these elements?

I suspect the US internet firms merely pop to top of list of examples as they

1) are well-known names

2) already have a fair degree of suspicion and mud sticking to them

3) being the internet, to the average person, it's vague as to how money is made in the first place but being huge, and therefore able to employ (do-no-evil) tax advisors they are "probably up to no good, init"

No doubt other names could be given as possibilities - in the more conventional service or hospitality industry perhaps - say a coffee house chain

Re: Meanwhile, in associated news

No online equivalent?

https://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/nhs-health-check/Pages/check-your-heart-age-tool.aspx

Re: unappreciated prophets

Mitchell managed the test against the Osfriesland to get the result he wanted - a demonstration that aircraft could beat warships, and not a scientific assessment of what it took to beat a warship with an aircraft.

That included having a target that wasn't fighting back, that was slowly travelling in a straight line, and that didn't take measures to counteract the effects of the bombing.

Re: All this shows me....

Changes of "0.07 per cent" as noteworthy?

I suspect the (estimated) margin of error in measurement would be much larger than such a change.

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our weapons include..... and not phoning the week before to make an appointment at a mutually convenient time.*"

*though perhaps the real inquisition did.

They do seem to be decent TVs brought low by this problem.

I can only guess that at the design stage, it made sense for the TV to make a check that the internet was "working" rather than a user being baffled why iplayer (for instance) wasn't working. What they hadn't put enough effort into was then being sure that this check upon which all the smart functions depended was itself dependable. I shouldn't have thunk the extra code for it to test more than one ip address would have been that much effort had they realised the weakness.

Re: I was quite find of Mr Brush, but not his foils

Well (in my opinion) Rodney Bewes and Derek Fowlds were better suited as actors than in light entertainment.

perhaps there's a market for a voice operated app on your mobile phone that sends commands to the TV. That would create a barrier between you and the TV manufacturer.

or a voice operated app that sends the equivalent of key-presses to the app that controls the TV.

Now of course to save on programming, you need a "cloudy" provider of voice recognition.... oh.

Re: reminds me of a problem I had

I had a problem more recently with a TV remote that wouldn't work. Changed batteries - no effect. Then I discovered that the DVD player remote which was in the same room had one of its buttons stuck down. The second remote was jamming the first.

"The number of TOTAL UK gun crimes,..., so UK gun crime is around five times more than US gun murders, or about 30% more than total US gun deaths."

What's total US gun crime figure by comparison?

Re: The Hodges biography

"Arsenal (store not football team) of Freedom" was definitely an apt phrase for the US manufacturing output.

Re: Pre 1972?

If the aforementioned services don't pay royalties on pre-1972 recordings in the US because they don't have to, do they pay royalties on pre-1972 recordings in other locations where they are covered by copyright?

Re: Education just got more interesting

" the Battle of the Bulge, but you walk around in it, experience it"

You put the lenses on, I'll turn down the aircon, and throw ice chippings and steel ball bearings at you.

Or there might be a surprise. Like when the UK helped test the US air defences in the early 60s (Skyshield) and perhaps (or not) surprisingly some of our bombers got through. By dint of some impressive flying and electronic countermeasures, I believe.

Re: Consumption is not the same as production

"Mr. Putin cannot turn off a non-Russian tap"

Soviet fleet in Straits of Hormuz? Diplomatically 'awkward' but might have the effect of curtailing supply.

Re: Excellent.

And is the answer to certain of societies ills still to 'cut them off'.

(Not the Nine O'clock News. Pamela, Mel and Griff, if memory serves me right)

Re: "greatest British comedian of all time "

"He was Irish"

Anglo-Irish, and certainly British enough to serve in the RA. Only Irish nationality after bureaucracy intervened (to put it politely) and he ended up 'stateless'.

Thinking on it. The forgotten Goon was Anglo-Peruvian.

And Sid James was South African born English, which with Bill Kerr the South African-born Australian made Hancock's Half Hour quite international.

Re: The love of money is the root of all evil

"six times as many accountants as doctors "

Unsurprising since companies over a certain size will probably employ one or more, and at a much lower ratio than that of GPs to population (1:1000 to 1:2000 ?)

Re: In theory....

"BT should be charging the same for backhaul to competitors as to its own business, and thus the advantage to BT, and disadvantage to the likes of 3 UK would be minimised."

It could but it doesn't have to. It could cite admin costs and accounting reasons why it has to effectively charge 3 more. And if forced to, it could try and play something along the transfer pricing game, increasing the cost of the backhaul and decreasing something somewhere else in BT such that the internal costs remained the same but the competitors paid more.

Re: Bureacrats Are a Sociological Class

I've met "spend your budget this year or get it cut next year" in private business too.

Re: Old Clara

yes, having discovered that he'd not seen Clara for 60 years, he could go back and see her. But then she wouldn't have seen him for 60 years. Paradox.

Or as the Doctor once said "You can't change history. Not one line!"

(though writers have a clever way of working round this)

My brother had the 100-in-one. lasted for years.

He gave my son something similar for his birthday, though it is based on components on mountings that clip together and few flying leads. Manual is good for assembling circuits but not so for understanding them.

I think I ought to get accompanying book that gives the knowledge. Turning off the home router and faking a powercut might also get my son off Minecraft videos and into something practical.

Speaking as one who started playing board/card/tabletop games at university in the mid 80s, I ain't no hipster neither.

But my stash is modest. I do know of people who install more and more shelving to accommodate their collection. And visit Essen annually for the Spiele.

Re: I don't know...

A pertinent point.

There's a wall plaque a stone's throw from where I'm typing this that records two incidents that happened nearby. An 8th Air Force B-24 Liberator on a training mission had some sort of trouble and came down on the parkland near where the memorial is now. A second -also on a training flight - about a month later parked itself into a house at bit further down the road. Two crews, no survivors.