Posts by Alan Brown

Re: a mobile phone that you only have to charge once a week rather than twice a day

"Of course it's a Nokia C6-01 with the Qt remake of Symbian."

You have a phone.

The rest of us have a high powered pocket computer with always-on network connectivity that happens to make phone calls (but in fact hardly ever does so). And I can remember when _those_ were both bulky and only lasted an hour or less on rechargable batteries. (I'm not referring to Psions here)

Re: Good news, everyone!

"their next device will have a battery half the size of their previous device."

I have my suspicion that this has as much to do with limiting the damage if a 12Wh battery does decide to burn up (vs a 40Wh one) as marketing. It was bad enough when Samsung's galaxies were banned from aircraft due to fire risk, imagine them being banned from public transportation altogether.

Re: Good news, everyone!

" incredibly fast charging means much larger input power source"

Yes, but.... The main thing is that faster charging doesn't result in overheated batteries and increasing parasitic losses.

Which in turn means that things like regenerative braking can be made more efficient (especially on heavy vehciles) and you don't need to add in extra stuff like supercapacitors to act as buffers between the batteries and the source/load, which in turn makes the control electronics simpler/cheaper/lighter _and_ means improvements in efficiency/range along with sale price (supercaps have less than 10% the energy density of batteries, which in turn have less than 10% that of gasoline/diesel)

The question about all these technologies isn't the patent fees, but "how much do they cost to make?" and "how well can they handle an automotive temperature environment?". Some of the most promising Lithium tech (10,000 cycles @ 2% degradation, etc) is formulated around olivine (one of the most common minerals on the planet) but hasn't come to commercial use yet - tellingly noone's talking about charge/discharge rates on that one and it could be these amazingly resiliant batteries are useless for transportation because they can't provide the necessary instantaneous currents.

Re: Good news, everyone!

"Battery "improvement" patents"

Tend to be misused:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries

The above will explain how NiMH research got stifled by GM/Ford/Chrysler and then ChevronTexaco, despite being arguably safer than LiIon technology.

"they have PSE's which are supposed to check the work is completed to the required standard's but, clearly that didn't happen."

Not as if that isn't rampant across sectors.

The local council (Surrey) has inspectors who've been signing off streetworks as completed and remediated for decades without bothering to actually set foot on site. In many cases it's turned out that the work that contractors were paid for, wasn't even started.

the level of fraud runs into the millions, but large companies and councils are afraid to call in the police because it would expose how slack they've been - one spooks investors and the other results in voter anger.

"Virgin are taking the hit, because the contractors didn't do the job properly"

It's a systemic problem, not just in Carlisle and Vermin seem disinterested in keeping things safe.

The thing that grates is that even with the fines you know they're still going to make out like bandits.

Re: Thomas Watson quote seems apposite here

"Someone who makes a screwup of that magnitude is someone who has a reasonable chance of remembering it."

You assume they even realised they'd done it.

Salestwits can do even more damage than that to a company in a heartbeat (and usually "they're our most sucessful guy", leaving a trail of peopel swearing never to do business with XYZ again due to overselling and general pushyness(*)), as can incompetent management allowing tech staff to refuse to fix their "rather unique" interpretations of standards (eg: some vendor implementations of SNMP) which don't play nice with anything else and have a similar long term effect on repeat sales (along with being struck off candidate lists for other outfits who've been related the horror stories and rely on ABC standard being implemented the same way as everyone else does it)

(*) I was related the story of one salesman who would oversell product capabilities to management then let the customers get so angry and goad them with silence until the tech staff would swear at him in meetings - at which point he'd pick up his stuff and walk out, using the outburst as justification that the customer was being unreasonable and he couldn't work with them. It took the employre more than 20 years to realise the tens (maybe hundreds) of millions of dollars in damage he'd done to the company's reputation and long-term sales figures.

Re: I can forgive 'Matt' for all of his sins...

"One day they will have the brains to put some lighting in the hot isles....sigh."

Funny you should say that. That's exactly what I'm working on at the moment.

Re: Betting against Elon Musk?

"satellite repair [actually do what the Space Shuttle never could, bring it back for repair, re-launch later]"

The primary reason the shuttle only ever did that once wasn't the cost. It was the fact that doing so made the Soviets _extremely_ jumpy that something like that would happen to one of their birds.

Re: A half complete network of Iridium satellites...

"I think the problem with the feed dropping out on landing is because of the massive vibrations from the engine(s). "

Pretty much this.

About the only feasible way of handling it would be to play out about a half mile of floating fibre to another boat with the uplink on that - and then go through the hassle of gyrostabilising that platform.

Then again his muskiness might well do that.

"other people's electronics make amusing biggenbangs "

Single ended Electrolytic capacitors hoked up backwards to 50V make a fairly satisfying bang.

The cans can do significant damage though.

Re: Lightning icon required =========>

"MiL had one still in the late 1980's. When she switched it on you could see the electricity meter rev up to 5000 RPM.."

When gas boilers are banned in about 15-20 years you're going to see them again too. Heatpumps are efficient but not portable or fast to heat up.

Re: Lightning icon required =========>

"After seeing that, I came to appreciate my mother's paranoia with televisions spontaneously combusting."

In later days (when infrared remotes came into vogue), setmakers started designing the mechanical power switches for only a few thousand (or even hundred) power cycles. The idea being that people would leave their sets on all the time and switch 'em using the remotes.

They weren't counting on old habits dying hard and a lot of sets were religiously switched off every night by owners paranoid about things burning up, which eventually resulted in the less durable switches wearing and sometimes developing carbon tracks in such a way that when the sets were turned _off_, the tracks would get 240V across them and heat up. over a period of years they'd progressively get worse (and hotter) until they set the plastic body of the switch on fire (this was before brominated plastics became common) and so there was a second wave of housefires caused by TV sets - but unlike the first wave, this time it was usually happening overnight whilst the occupants were asleep.

" Hot--glue guns are a really simpler fix!"

Until one of the little darlings prises the glue off with a screwdriver.

Re: resistance is ...err... not futile....

"*Cough* Beagle II *cough*"

That failed on account of the money being made available so late in the game that there simply wasn't time to make flight models, so everythintg that went was test models and prototypes.

The airbag in particular had been tested, failed, patched and tested again. After six weeks in the vacuum chamber it was still outgassing water (having killed a couple of pumps) when it was packed and shipped off for launch. Only a madman would have sent a _used_ airbag to mars, but there wasn't enough time to get a new one made to the new spec and it was a case of "ship it, or we'll just bolt a lump of lead in its place"

In all likelihood the bag was frozen solid and either didn't inflate properly or so brittle due to the remainining water and beinf doled up for months that it split and deflated too quickly. Either way we were taking bets about how deep a hole it would make when it hit. The fact that it survived well enough to open a couple of panels was actually a surprise. We didn't expect it to survive the impact.

In other words: what killed Beagle wasn't Pillinger, but the people funding it spending 2+ years dithering about handing over the money, then doing it long after the drop-dead date.

"How did you manage to force a female molex connector the wrong way round into a male connector? "

It was fairly easy on 5.25" edge connectors.

"flashing ones may save lives."

There are 2 kinds of flashing cycle lights:

The ones which are on and "ping" in brightness slightly.

These are pretty good at getting attention whilst still being able to see the cyclist's position and track their speed.

And the ones which "flash" once a second - these are bloody awful for seeing where a cyclist actually is and how fast they're moving in anything except the best well-lit conditions where you can see them via other methods. I don't usually encounter the latter in such conditions.

Re: Overly bright STREET lights (shining in bedrooms)

"banning streetlights I am 100% behind, "

If you live in Scotland then the environment act's nuisance lighting section allows you to complain about streetlights which shine in your window. (They added "or fixed installation" to the definition)

If you live in NI, England ot Wales, then streetlighting "falls between the cracks" of nuisance definition (the law says "emitted from a premises" and the argument is that "streetlights are not premises" (unless mounted on the side of buildings), so councils don't have to comply.

On the other hand I've also been told that this argument wouldn't stand up in court, especially as the environment agency wrote documents stating "the government expects" that councils will not position lighting so it won't be a nuisance.

I've quizzed the environment agency about this and the jobsworths are very good about fobbing off, despite these official documents.

Milton Keynes council took it as far as stating there was a £100 charge per complaint about nuisance streetlighting (for a nuisance they had caused!) until it got pointed out that was tantamount to extortion and could result in legal action. The wording came off their website the following day (but is still in their PDFs)

If the "rest of UK" law was changed to match Scotland, then councils would be scrambling to comply. As it is, the usual response is "fuck you" until they get a lawyer letter - at which point they do something. It's pretty clear they don't want a precedent to be set in civil court despite the claims about streetlights not being covered by the statutory nuisance act.

Re: Toooooo bright!

"I get more than a little annoyed with cyclists using flashing, ultra-bright lights pointed straight ahead."

Firstly, there are actually legal limits on the brightness of cycle lights and secondly there are also laws that say they must be pointed at the road, not into the sky or eyes of oncoming traffic.

Neither of these are actually enforced, just like laser laws, but a couple of blitzes might start making the lycra louts pay attention.

Twats using retina-burning lights fitted to their heads(*) on unlit country lanes make it impossible to see where the road is and on a twisting road are a particular hazard around here. If you're on a twisty section of road it's completely disorienting even at 20mph.

(*) They seem to specialise in using 50W MR16 household lights with 30 or 60 degree flood patterns, not something designed to light up the road ahead, and of course being headmounted means they're swivelling all over the place.

Re: Briefly before the transformer itself burnt out.

"getting a corona discharge AHAHAHAHAHA just before the contacts on the rotor catch fire"

Only until the radio inspectors catch up with you. (FCC, or Ofcom or whatever country you happen to be in)

Those arc discharges are excellent at wiping out most bands for a few miles around (and anything below 30MHz for a few tens of miles), so complaints tend to be plentiful and fines $LARGE.

Re: IBM 4019

"excessive paper curl / jams"

Have you noticed that paper reams no longer come with an an arrow indicating the direction of curl on them?

Re: Had the fire brigade called to a five star hotel, in Malta....

> Some reactor in Chernobyl also had the safety devices disabled during an "unauthorized experiment" ...

And to add to the coincidences, what happened as a result of the disabling was the operators were able to get reactor output down to dangerously low levels and neutron poisoning blocked being able to turn it back up, but they kept trying to turn up the wick anyway, resulting in it punching through the poisoning and going from "almost nothing" output to "prompt critical" (which is full power plus a few thousand percent), causing most of the water in in the core to boil almost instantly, generating a massive steam explosion, which blew the top off the reactor and then the top off the building.

It was only after then that things got really messy and caught fire. Perhaps an extra safety valve might have helped.

(To put prompt criticality in context - in the SL-1 accident, the 400kW (thermal) reactor with a design maximum of 3MW (4.5MW in tests) was estimated to have reached 20GW output in a few milliseconds and stayed there for a few seconds.

Just about every civil (and most military) nuclear accident has been caused by or been exacerbated by water being in close proximity to the glowy stuff. It worked for the Nautilus as a proof of concept but Alvin Weinberg was extremely worried about his prototype design being unsafe when scaled up to civil power generation sizes and spent the 1950s-1960s developing something much safer (molten salt systems) only for Nixon to kill it off in 1972 for political reasons.

You won't be setting off any fire or radiation leakage alarms with a MSR design

Re: Re:Victorian railways had a few exploding boiler incidents

"I can't substantiate the meddling with the safety valve in most of the ones I've found."

It was definitely mentioned in a few early incidents. Look between 1780 and 1820 (more Georgian than Victorian)

Re: Had the fire brigade called to a five star hotel, in Malta....

"a fully paid up member of the Gherkin-less Burger Appreciation Society"

I'll take your gherkins and add them to my pizza. Thanks.

Re: Had the fire brigade called to a five star hotel, in Malta....

"running at 250V rather than 100V "

China's mains is (officially) 220-230V 50Hz.

About the only place in the world using 100V is Japan

I'll see your 250V and raise you 253 on a good day, 256 otherwise. It's a good stress test for electronics and eats incandescents like Oreos.

Re: Had the fire brigade called to a five star hotel, in Malta....

" conveyor belt toaster?"

Dunno about one of those, but I've always wanted a Sunbeam T20 toaster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxkbjovrDd0

These were made between ~1955 and 1997

Re: Had the fire brigade called to a five star hotel, in Malta....

"So when they had to leave so did the rest of the tower"

At least they left.

one radio station I worked at had the morning studio staff arrive(*) to a building full of smoke, open a few doors to clear it out and start their breakfast shift after putting a screwdriver through the alarm sounders. Management wasn't terribly happy.

(*) Overnight was nationally syndicated and the alarm wasn't linked to the brigade

Re: Aerospace Valley

" if you work in the British aerospace sector Brexit might mean an all expenses paid move to Aerospace Valley near Toulouse. "

Might, but more likely means redundancy coming your way soon.

Re: So if I trademark all combinations of RGB..

"The eye focuses on the red, but the red-blue boundary is blurred. So it focuses on the blue, but the red-blue boundary is blurred. "

Which is why flagmakers put a pinstripe between clashing colours centuries ago for visibility. the classic examples being the Union flag (it's not _all_ the St Andrew's cross) and the red stars of the NZ flag on their blue background.

Re: So if I trademark all combinations of RGB..

"It was surprise one day to see a car transporter with pretty much an identical livery - and near enough the same "ICL" logo."

Trademarks are only granted in the area of operation. Unless you're a conglomorate like some of the korean or japanese outfits you can't have your trademark covering every possible area of business.

If I was a fish and chip shop, I could quite happily use that shade of magenta without fear of a trademark claim, as T mobile don't do takeaway food.

Re: Way Back...

> "about 25 years ago (radio-operated phone system long before the days of mobiles)"

>

> My DynaTAC is a couple months shy of its 35th birthday.

You missed the part further down where I explained it'd been installed for 20 years.

At the time I finally diagnosed it, mobile service in that country had only been up and running for about 5 years and only in major cities. As soon as it activated in the area (about 6 months after my visit - the site visit I was coming back from at the time was part of commissioning the AMPS system), the old clunky single channel VHF phone system was dumped and the ships were given mobiles.

Thinking back, it was '88-89, so closer to 30 years than 25.

Re: French Cinema

"which was a Japanese version of a Chinese story dubbed into English."

Where every cast member was a japanese pop star and the boy priest central to the story... wasn't.