Posts by Mage 9269 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Nov 2007
It's a pretty big dish. Two way is bigger, it's MUCH lower modulation complexity due to the poor signal to noise (fewer bits per Hz), also unless you are very far north (or south on southern hemisphere) most of the path is outside the atmosphere. See what size dishes they use Sat TV in northern Alaska, Northern Canada, Northern Norway.
The rain path on most satellite TV isn't even a mile.
Online Video and text should be covered by SAME rules as TV broadcasting and printed papers. It's mental they think it's not. It's only a delivery mechanism. Arguably a more dangerous one, as everyone gets the SAME thing on broadcasts and printed media. How do we even know that <party> is even making the same promises or pitch to everyone? Any online campaign MUST by law be the same for every internet user or it's a lie.
It's Google 3rd party funded orgs and lies that have got Governments in the West to treat online differently.
Ha ha!
Any forecast for tech that doesn't actually exist is meaningless.
Any forecast for more than FIVE years away is inaccurate, 10 years is fantasy. Researcher Translation
Worthless crystal balls: Future according to Google Search results
Stupid forecasts: Extrapolation
Logical extension of Broadcast sans frontier directive, though the slow death of MW & LW means EU radio (esp due to DAB) is getting more ghettoised.
I use multiple satellite receivers and the little "itrip" FM tx (CE marked) intended to connect MP3 / Phone to FM radio. The €4 ones run of 5V (PSU or USB) are fine. Then FM radio works anywhere in house.
Much less choice at night MW on car radio than used to be, and BBC R4 LW seems erratic power, few radios even have LW.
DAB radios are useless with often only 10 FM presets (not enough for local FM) and no AM.
Without decent broadband, using streaming is impossible, not practical in car. Erratic compared to FM, DAB, Satellite and AM.
"if a consumer is signed up to Canal+ in France and travels to Germany, they will be able to access their TV Everywhere account. Which of course does not help Canal+ sell its content in Germany, but it is a step in the right direction towards consumer protection."
Yes it does.
And helps sell it in France.
People travel.
Sadly after 2019 this will not apply to UK.
In other news the "Evil" EU is having:
* Better refuge / asylum controls, though the UK problems (when May was Home Secretary) are NON-EU people, purely under UK Control.
* Better EU voice and Data Roaming
* Lower, harmonised parcel & letter prices within EU
* Action against predatory USA corporations exploiting privacy
* Better data protection.
Also loads of other good stuff that UK has often tried to block.
I've no sympathy for the USA and Sky (controlled by ex Australian USA Murdoch even without Fox take over). Their divide and exploit attitude (even extending to jeans, software and gadgets) is despicable. It was a COMMON Market before it was the EU.
No!
A mains solenoid. That's why it only went one way. The turret tuner was similar to other models with two biscuit coil packs per channel. Biscuits is the correct UK term. Black or brown coloured plastic with studs for connection.
Various 1960s USSR transistor radio sets used the scheme for wavechange. They always need cleaned.
The 1950s Hallicrafters clone of Zenith Transoceanic also has a rotary biscuit coil pack for wavechange. The actual Zenith is a mess of coils on the push button unit.
Very few 405 sets had FM Radio, because 405 Sound unlike FM on 625 was AM (though about 10KHz rather than the 4kHz or so on AM Radio today). So it had a lot of extra IF parts and a discriminator for FM.
The remote had volume (by virtue of screened cable.) and a single button to channel change. I think some early ultrasonic remotes only had a single channel button, but electronic counter to cycle through the presets, with neon indicators on the touch operated 6 channel TV panel.
A US company had a wireless remote for a radio with preset channels in 1930s. The input "device" was like a dial phone unit.
Even some UK 1930s radios had up to 8 preset channels. No remote. Some used a separate coil for each preset but some had a partial disk with adjusters and a motor that drove the actual regular tuning. You (the dealer) moved the mechanical stops to change the presets.
Two channels.
Before 1955 only one in UK. 1955 is also when FM Radio started, which was only any point for the Third Program, or people in SE England with continental interference. Germans had MANY FM stations from 1949, because the Allies and Russians pinched most of the MW & LW.
Though I did once repair a TV (13 x 405 TV and 3 x FM channels) which had a cabled remote. BBC 2 had started, but the 4th FM channel (Downtown) was only on test. It clunked in one direction through the channels.
UK eventually had 4 channel TV when Ireland had 1.5 Channels. Except nearly half the people got the UK channels, even before Irish TV started late on 31st December 1961.
Plugging the 12V PSU (mini coax) that came with one external HDD drive adapter into one meant to only have 5V is fun.
Also the output voltage and current is on the base with plug pins, tiny writing, low contrast, needs expensive magnifying lap to read. I use a metallic silver or gold marker on the DC plug and TOP of the PSU.
Also some are fine RFI wise and others wipe out BBC R4LW, most MW, most SW etc in most of the house. Same with LED lamps, CFL lamps, TVs etc. Yet some models are perfect. The Fcc CSA and CE marks seem irrelevant.
The newer 2, 4 or 6 "filament" style LED lamps seem to simply rectify the mains, no SMPSU, so longer life (no PSU to fail) and no RFI. They appear to have about 26 or 28 LEDs in series per "filament".
Yes. Dabbsy. You have my sympathy.
I have a longer answer. But I decided I don't care any more. People seem to want to buy gadgets that don't work, use stuff that exposes their privacy and fill overly expensive phones with stupid apps. I've given up explaining the better way.
I thought Logitech might be interested, but apparently not.
Most if not all THX logo on the case DVDs have a nearly invisible set up option for your screen brightness, contrast and colour (Shipped defaults are GHASTLY -- Switch off all enhancements and processing first) and for your sound system, which tells you all speakers are in correct location and DVD player / Amp is in correct mode /connections. Actually if your centre speaker has a subwoofer, you don't need a 6th amp channel and 6th speaker, it's just low frequency effects. Mathematically you actually only need four channels, but badly produced quadraphonics and three incompatible 4-channel systems in the 1970s giving "surround" a bad taint, was probably the reason to go for 5.1.
Dolby originally was a system invented to counteract poor signal to noise/poor dynamic range. The original concept of Dolby A, B, C not needed for digital.
Better than third Star Wars outing and FAR better than the later junk.
Fantastic sound track. Also you CAN MAKE OUT THE DIALOGUE!!!!!
What the hell has gone wrong with Cinema. The music and effects make my ears bleed and plaster fall if loud enough for dialogue, which is STILL poor. No difference on stereo head phones, BD, Stereo HiFi or even 5.1 with decent big wooden cased speakers. (Absolutely everything on modern TVs without external amp and speakers is poorer than an old lapttop).
It's not my ears. ALL the old stuff from 1930s to early 1990s, on VHS, Video Disk (yes I have some of those, early Star Trek) DVD etc are OK. I've no BDs yet with decent audio, as I haven't replaced any old DVDs with BD. I do gradually replace VHS with DVD.
I stopped going to Cinema once I had DVD and decent screen + sound. Pause for toilet breaks, no annoying heads in front, better sound, no rats, MUCH cheaper food and drink.
Actually I remember Josey Wales the Outlaw, Close Encounters, Star Wars, 50th Anniversary release Snow White. All fine sound and visuals, apart from rustling bags, people popping up & Down etc.
I'd like DVDs that are a sensible price, instead ox x2 to x4 Hollywood recent releases. Like it's not like they HAVE to sell the stuff to recover the studio budget?
BBC & RTE seem very greedy on prices, esp compared to old ITV shows.
I'm not interested in subscriptions to ANYTHING now, and in the past only had Sky as the dish isn't speed and cap limited like rural broadband.
Buying individual programs mean you get what you pay for, and still have them even if no internet.
iOS is sort of distantly related to BSD.
However the OS is a separate issue to the Java like application execution environment.
"Fuchsia, according to original Android kernel developer Brian Swetland, is mostly BSD."
But what replaces Davik, or whatever is the execution engine for the Java like applications. It looks like Java when I'm writing an Android App.
I'm confused as to what Google's plan B is?
Ignore Oracle? Buy them? Wut?
Yes, my external SB USB sound box and Wacom tablet always install wrong driver on Windows.
My old Perfection 1200 scanner and SCSI card a nightmare on newer windows.
All "just worked" years ago on Linux (no need to look for drivers) and just work today on fresh install 64 bit Mint 18.1
USB adapter to 4 pole 3.5mm jack difficult on Windows and just works, no driver to look for to setup/read two way radios with Chirp.
RTL USB TV stick simpler to set up on Linux with Gqrx than on Windows.
Brother has great support.
They also make decent Laser printers and MFCs
My party trick in 1999 for the Dell course was to install a flimsy toy Canon inkjet, set it up on low spec notebook running Redhat.
Then share it. The class would set up a dual boot PC with NT4.0 and RH and then use the Canon as native Canon or a postscript printer, from NT4 or RH.
I can't see it by default yet, though if windows gets much worse ...
Dell first started offering it pre-installed on some systems in 1999 at least. Certainly that's when I first gave a Linux course to Dell Plus staff. It was Redhat then.
When netbooks first came out they had only Linux.
I've actually found that LXDE is better than XFCE or Mate, as desktop for Mint on Netbooks. Tested N270 Aspire One (1.5G RAM), an N450 (2G) and an N455 (1G) with Mint 17.3 and 18.1, obviously the N270 can only run 32bits. It seems to make no difference running 32bit or 64bit Linux on the N45x version Atoms. All that family can only have 2G RAM. There isn't much point to 64bits if the CPU or Mobo can't do more than 4G. Unlike Windows 7 64 bit vs 32bit, there seems to be no compatibility penalty with 64 bit Linux.
On smaller / lower resolution screens I set fonts to 8 point. I turn of graphic styles on panels and desktop. I use "Redmond" theme. Many theme are too dark or too flat or too low contrast.
I wish STUPID Mozilla would not ignore my theme / desktop and make Thunderbird and Firefox flatter and more stupid GUI with each release. LibreOffice seems to be creeping this way and the the default Mint Calculator is stupidly flat and low contrast!
Yet in Ireland operators only have to give Comreg 6mths notice to cease 2G (presumably replacing it on 900/1800 with 3G/4G).
Loads of cheap GSM only feature phones in shops about the €20 mark.
So much for TWO years, SOGA.
At this stage, you only buy a 2G only device as a disposable toy or display piece.
A suitably programmed tablet can blink or contract irises.
There are other ways too.
You can tweak biometrics and later it will fail again. Some ideas are just dead ends. Security wise, Biometrics and/or RFID are doomed.
You can't change your own biometrics
RFID is INHERENTLY vulnerable to sniffing/eavesdropping etc, as is WiFi and BT. A physical contact to card/key/dongle is the only secure method other than PIN or Password. The accelerometer and any other such sensors should be disabled during any security data entry.
Um,
1) The SIM isn't registered to me, it's anonymous. I don't live in Spain, etc.
2) You can be sure I'd complain loudly to everyone that my phone is stolen, inc the Garda, to beef up their crime statistics*
So they'd need to take phone and replace it while I didn't notice (clone IMEI and SIM is possible) and somehow make the anonymous number/SIM be identified to me. I bought the phone S/H too. €50 cash, though the seller knows me.
(* Someone in there gets bored and invents statistics, we don't know why, perhaps they'd like some real ones. I ALWAYS report crimes. Even if it seems pointless)
My phone is setup for Border Control.
Only PAYG, so if stolen, no big bill.
Four years old, and not an Apple, so not a huge target
Only used for note taking, photos, FM Radio, SMS and phone calls. Nothing important kept on it.
No PIN or lock, to allow instant calls.
I appreciate it's a special use case ^_^ and not much help for most people. I only take my real laptop to known "secure" places, otherwise I take a semi-disposable small netbook (Linux Mint + LXDE).
Anecdotal.
We had 80 Segates fail in one day. Assembly area too cold, in days when you did low level formatting.
Then half the disks in two classrooms of new computers we installed (I forget why?)
Another period it was Quantum disks.
Then all those Western Digital 0.5T and 1T SATA drives, loads. Was it a firmware bug?
I've one faulty Samsung 1T drive, "dumped" yesterday.
Replacing HDDs since 1983. All anecdotal. You need a BIG sample. You need to know if moved about, in smoker's atmosphere, weather, power cuts, storms, temperature of PC etc.
Never invented for security but tracking palettes etc instead of barcodes which are not convenient. The non--contact nature of RFID makes them inherently insecure.
Criminal also can use a scanner and cut it out. I'd rather have a physical "electronic" key / card / dongle.
The contactless debit and credit cards are already a disaster.
A pet's RFID is NOTHING to do with security.
No, just forget biometrics. I said from the start it was just a Hollywood trope and doomed.
Anything that can't be changed is no use for security.
Also people believe computers, so you only have to hack in a desired biometric. It's worse than a password or dongle BECAUSE the real person can't easily change it without fake skin or contact lenses etc.
Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia, Philips etc developed stuff in an era when patents meant more, though the USA has been into approving dubious patents since Victorian times, more than any other country.
Can anyone show me even a dozen Apple phone patents that are genuinely innovative, not a copy of prior art and not obvious to any competent Engineer schooled in the art?
Apple vs Samsung was ludicrous. Not ONE of the Apple patents (or "Design Patents" = UK "Registered Design") should ever have been approved by USPTO.
I'm not surprised Apple has settled and the money is going to Finland, nor that MS got anything for their money except staff and factories that Nokia was going to close anyway. They have done paper, welly boots, TVs, setboxes and people were surprised when they decided to do phones.
Apple entered already proven markets with their iPod (the only "innovation" was iTunes and its ability to dismember LPs a track at a time with publisher agreement) and later iPhone (9 years after smart phones appeared) just as mobile data was getting practical, the innovation being the operator exclusive deals per country with bundled data when only corporate staff could afford data. The GUI was bought in and the HW was commodity parts, the clever HW being Samsung's 6400 family ARM that had CPU(with all I/O), RAM and Flash stacked in one package making PCB design simple for a beginner, no external memory PCB tracks needed.
Only use the Cloud for copies of public facing information, or transactions later stored on your own system.
It made sense in 1960s and 1970s for smaller operations to outsource computer use to hosting. It makes no sense now to outsource core business data to the Cloud. It's not magical, just less secure hosting than 1970s over a less secure connection.
"actual cloud computing will overtake the classic empire of on-premises computing some time in the early-to-mid 2020s"
So at some point there will be a critical mass outsourced to Cloud.
Even if a 100x more reliable, it WILL fail, (and a wrong patch might propagate in a way than makes malware writers jealous). Then you won't be able to make calls (no billing), buy food (no POS) or get cash (ATMs will be using the Cloud as will the banks anyway).
There will be no silver lining.
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