* Posts by Terry Barnes

670 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2008

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Fukushima's toxic legacy: Ignorance and fear

Terry Barnes

Sense?

That makes no sense - to be treated for cancer, they'd have to have cancer - so how does increased testing reduce the incidence of cancer? Deaths from cancer, maybe you'd have a point, but incidences?

Japanese earthquake sparks nuclear emergency

Terry Barnes
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No

I understand your thinking, but it would cause a giant, radioactive explosion. The vast quantity of water turns instantly to a vast quantity of steam, under vast amounts of pressure. You'd be turning a faulty reactor into a fairly effective bomb.

Spaniards bemoan 'joke' speed limit cut

Terry Barnes
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No

Your assessment is wrong. You neglect breaking distance. It has a non-linear relationship with speed. The faster a vehicle travels the greater the space that is needed around it. Throughput is increased by reducing speed - the optimum speed for throughput bearing the breaking distance issue in mind is about 40MPH. This is why the variable limits on the M25 work to clear congestion, reducing the speed limit as the road gets busier increases traffic throughput.

BT fibre-to-the-premises trial takes 7 hours per install

Terry Barnes

Hmm

Your mesh would give you good speeds to the next mesh node - but who provides and pays for enough aggregate backhaul to give you the throughput you'd all need? Who maintains it, manages it, resolves config issues - all that? Unless all these things are thought through you'll end up with a disappointing white elephant.

Terry Barnes

Engineer

...is not a protected term in the UK - anyone can call themselves one.

Terry Barnes
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Err

And why should PC manufacturers be allowed to sell quad core machines when not everyone has got even a Pentium4 yet? Also, we should turn off the nation's gas and water supplies until every property is supplied with these from the mains.

I'm just off to tell my neighbour that he can't use his Audi until my Citroen C8 is capable of 160MPH.

Terry Barnes

highway

Highway used ISDN-2 (note - not "an ISDN" - ISDN is a network not a product) - but it added capabilities to it beyond the vanilla product. These were intended, I think, to make it usable by an average human and not just techies. Essentially a fairly clever Terminal Adaptor.

Terry Barnes
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Bust

I think that would be a good, quick way to go bust. Spend a fortune to provide service to a small number of customers for a product with a low selling price.

Companies have to borrow to invest and they need to explain their plans to the banks when borrowing it - who'd lend you any money for the plan above?

iPhone 'Death Grip' effect is real, plastic cases don't help

Terry Barnes

RF

...and the never-healing RF burn will serve as a constant reminder of your 100w japes.

Terry Barnes

re-tune

It's possible to compensate and get the VSWR down to an acceptable level, but you can't magically replace the gain lost by attaching a conductive bag of water to your UHF antenna.

Terry Barnes

Erm

Not spent any time in the field of RF design then?

At some wavelengths and in certain circumstances touching an antenna can result in an increased ground plane effect which might improve reception.

That's not true for UHF or microwave.

The issue here is that the finger bridges two different antennas creating a new hybrid metal/person/metal antenna that is severely compromised for any of its intended uses.

Terry Barnes

Decibels?

Go look up on wikipedia about decibels and then come back.

No reduction in signal will make it any less usable until it stops working. The point is that the amount of degradation and the method in which it is introduced means that point will be reached sooner than with other phones.

Ofcom demands ISPs close 'upto' gap

Terry Barnes

Really?

So you expect to be able to transfer data at the headline rate, 24/7? Then you need a business grade private service, which will cost hundreds and hundreds of pounds a month. Bandwidth sharing and the lack of SLAs is what gets consumer broadband down to the tiny prices we have today.

The obvious alternative is for ISPs to meter usage and charge accordingly. I've not done the sums but it would likely cost £1-£3 per GB. The current model means that people who do next to nothing with their connections subsidise the big users. It would be ironic if the complaints of those subsidised big users meant that they ended up paying more under a fairer system.

I think really those are the three choices - cheap unlimited which does really have some limits for £15 a month, true unlimited for £500 a month or PAYG for £2 a GB. What's your preference?

Terry Barnes
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Three factors

But but but...

There are three factors that affect the 'speed'.

1) Bachaul capacity

2) xDSL kit employed

3) Local loop characterstics.

The first two have just as much impact as the third, and they're under the control of the ISP. Having a 16M last mile speed is pointless if at peak times there's only enough backhaul for 512K.

Terry Barnes

Virgin?

They're immune to line-length concerns, but if there's too much contention in the backhaul network people will see throughput speeds lower than their headline connection rate. So I think the same applies - it's misleading to say "upto 20M" if your 20M last mile can only deliver 10M of throughput or lower.

Terry Barnes
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Not sure

I don't know how that would work in practice. What speed are you measuring? Last mile? Throughput? The former tells you nothing about the latter, and the latter is subject to influence beyond your ISP's control.

You can buy circuits today with a CIR (committed information rate) but the cost is ten or more times what people pay for consumer DSL.

Also - the cost of providing you with service doesn't change just because you have a long local loop. Your suggestion would result in higher prices for all.

English Defence League site pulled offline after defacement

Terry Barnes
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Why?

Unite Against Facism don't protest against Muslims for much the same reason that paramedics don't sell pizzas. I think probably if you look closely enough you'll see that the clue's in the name.

Boffins squeeze a mesh onto Android handsets

Terry Barnes

Marmalade

It would be hard to jam a mesh. You'd need an awful lot of power to disrupt comms between lots of small devices relaying signals to each other. If you can determine where the jamming signal is coming from it's possible to be shielded from that signal but not from nearby devices. The beauty of an auto-mesh is that the user doesn't need to do much other than wander about until it works.

Your other point - how would they know where you are? If they're transmitting some kind of megawatt jamming signal they won't be able to pick up your transmissions, they'd be blinding themselves. Ham radio is easier to detect because typically operators are licensed so you know who they are in the first place and they're transmitting over longer distances which makes it much easier to jam.

Christmas shoppers hit by BT fire

Terry Barnes

Flood & Fire?

Go to an HV switchroom and start spraying a hose around. Come back and tell us what happens when the water hits the volts - assuming you can.

Terry Barnes

SPoF

Most operators will offer full redundancy as an option.. It's not 'cheap'. It's almost certainly cheaper to lose a day's business once evey fifteen or twenty years than to buy full resilience.

The network hasn't failed, the services provided by one node has - as far as I'm aware the national PSTN is still working.

Terry Barnes

After the generators

Introducing dual feeds after the main/standby power supplies is actually a massive safety risk. The chance of an electrician being killed if you did that is high. Pull the fuse out - the circuit should be dead. Dual feed it and that may well not be the case. I don't think electrical regulations even allow it in normal circumstances.

The theoretical risk of a 'stupid' thick cable and fuse, clearly marked and running in its own ducting and trays failing is minute. Alas in this case it looks like the minute risk happened. As it's a 'stupid' thick cable, it's relatively easy to replace, you just need to wait for things to cool down a bit.

Terry Barnes
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Internet

Card readers don't typically use the public Internet. Apparently there are, like, hackers and stuff on there. Much safer to have you reader dial a known number (PSTN or ISDN) from a fixed or mobile connection.

British troops in A'stan find festive minutes in Santa's sack

Terry Barnes

Free?

Firstly you presume that Internet bandwidth is free - it isn't. Assuming they can't just sling a fibre a few hundred miles to the nearest PoP, they'll have to use satellite - and that's definitely not free.

Secondly - Even if it were possible - you think it's OK to bring the public Internet into a military facility in a war zone? I can't see anything bad ever happening with that, after all - it's not like anyone has any malicious intent towards our soldiers is it?

Three bumps up mobile broadband contract charge

Terry Barnes

Inflation?

Well - staff like to get pay rises that bear some relation to inflation - and the cost of kit is increasing due to the relative weakness of the pound. I think inflation affects all businesses.

Apple says no to Android-oriented iPad mag

Terry Barnes

Not quite

My local dealer (Citroen) has a range of car magazines scattered around the showroom and service waiting areas. Those magazines aren't Citroen specific and cover a range of manufacturers.

Incendiary MacBook blamed in house conflag inferno suit

Terry Barnes
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Erm

Simple answer is actually - don't make, or buy, products that catch fire.

It's ludicrous to claim that the user is somehow culpable by leaving something turned on. A fire could just as easily happen during the day, and people running backups might need to leave something turned on overnight.

Terry Barnes
Jobs Horns

Deathgrip

Maybe people aren't holding it right?

Researcher warns of iPhone phishing peril

Terry Barnes

Meters

There are tariffs in the UK where the consumer pays less if they agree to read their own meters.

Apple Facetime flings out frightening random calls

Terry Barnes
Jobs Horns

Or

How about buying a reasonably priced phone that works properly?

The Mac that saved Apple (and Steve Jobs)

Terry Barnes

Best Selling?

The best-selling computer of all time is the Commodore 64 - by a significant amount.

There's a tendency amongst both Apple execs and fans to re-write history in their favour - Commodore had the best-selling computer ever with the 64, and the first colour DTP machine with the Amiga.

Windows hits 25

Terry Barnes

Bin

It went in the bin and stayed in the bin? You need a new cleaner.

Terry Barnes

Window 1.0

Maybe they'd have gone bust if Windows was their only product - but it wasn't by a long shot. Especially as people were still buying DOS regardless.

MS 'won' because their products were just about good enough and sold at a price the market was willing to pay. History is littered with products that were technically better but were beaten in the market by cheaper things that worked nearly as well. Technical superiority isn't enough - else I'd be typing this on an Amiga while hurtling to Manchester on an APT, while listening to my DAT machine.

Apple scraps 'never-formed plans' for iPhone SIM in 2011

Terry Barnes
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Pedantic

I think from the article's context it's pretty clear it means cellular telephones. Why would a phone connecting to POTS need to comply with the GSM standard?

Terry Barnes
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Erm

Any device connectiong to a mobile network must comply, not just something described s a telephone.

UK.gov ignores 'net neutrality' campaigners

Terry Barnes

Not enough money?

It's not enough money for the ISPs to make a profit, that's for sure. Broadband pricing is too low now.

Vodafone warns investors of rival spoilers

Terry Barnes

Why?

Erm, because the copper *isn't* the internet? It's an access network.

Clive Sinclair unveils 'X-1' battery pedalo bubble-bike

Terry Barnes

Power>

Unless you're going uphill. Then a recumbent is where you start paying. With sweat.

One-third of iPad fanbois don't download apps

Terry Barnes

Maths

Unless there have only been 90 iPads sold to date, I think we still need to keep looking for some others that haven't had anything downloaded to them. Seriously - you think 1/3rd of all sales are to developers?

TalkTalk reveals faster broadband plans

Terry Barnes
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Nova?

The Nova thing is an urban myth. GM have never attempted to sell a model called Nova in any Spanish speaking market.

BT preps nationwide TV network

Terry Barnes

Fac93

"The UK needs fairer bandwidth regulation and a better infrastructure before BT roll out TV over their network and wrecks the existing purposes of the internet."

It's not the Internet. Your broadband connection is not the Internet. It's an access method to any number of potential IP networks - one of which is the Internet. The article says that this is a private IP network that can be used to deliver traffic to your broadband connection - how is that wrecking the purpose of the Internet?

Undead Commodore 64 comes back for Christmas

Terry Barnes

Amiga?

It even has the 'A' keys....

Microsoft ID guru slams 'duplicitous' Apple

Terry Barnes
Gates Horns

Erm

"I don't see why Apple, or anyone else, should be responsible for other people's illegal activities."

Because their publication of personally identifiable data enables it? It needn't be telecomms customer details anyway - I can legally in the UK search the electoral roll to find out who lives at an address. If I took this data and built an app that informed criminals when iPhone owners are away from home would you think that I shouldn't be responsible for other people's illegal activities?

Wikileaks double dares Pentagon hawks

Terry Barnes
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Hmm

History has shown that change in a country can only come from the inhabitants of that country driving it. We can't enforce a new way of living in Afghanistan through war or any other means. What can we achieve that the Russians couldn't over a very long period with far more resources deployed?

Bring them home now. People will die - but they'll die too if we stay. If Afghanistan wants to emerge into the 21st century it will only happen when the Afghans make it happen.

ISS cooling pump refuses to come quietly

Terry Barnes
Stop

Outside?

Because there's not much room inside? Because if it does fail it's better to have ammonia squirting into space instead of into your face? Because the heat echange process works better in the cold of space instead of the relatively cosy interior of the space station?

Ofcom sets out recompense for luvvies

Terry Barnes

Obvious?

I'm not sure that would work. These aren't one-off pieces of kit but complete systems. If you ban the import and sale of it then the failure of a single mic could mean replacing the whole system - unless you introduce the unintended consequence of a thriving black market.

Fully depreciated isn't the same as 'zero cost to replace' either - the frequencies are being taken for commercial gain, it's only right that the existing users are recompensed.

Now, where's my 934 Mhz CB radio?

RIM answers Apple iPad with...The BlackPad*

Terry Barnes
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Copy?

I'm intrugued as to what products you think have been the result of original thought within Apple and not based on copying what others have done previously?

BT quotes pensioner £150,000 to get broadband

Terry Barnes
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Part of BT?

No it wasn't. The customers were migrated to BT when Ionica had to shut down because their kit wasn't Y2K compliant and they had no money left in the kitty to upgrade. Ionica's kit only supported telephony.

Broadband boss: 'The end of freeloading is nigh'

Terry Barnes
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Ermm..

The point of iPlayer and co is that it's on demand. Even if your freeview download was second in the list you'd have a thirty minute wait. If I wanted to watch something less popular I could be waiting for days. If I wanted to watch the most popular thing, but transmission started five minutes previously how long would I need to wait for it to come round again?

I don't see people paying money to buy extra kit to get a poorer service.

BT mops up after flood and fire

Terry Barnes

Continued to work?

Not if the server with the account details of all the people on the mesh network was in the building that went down and there was no backup.

BT ordered to share telegraph poles for fast broadband

Terry Barnes
Stop

Pylons?

Exactly how many people do you know who have an electricity pylon going to their house? You understand the difference between backhaul and last mile?

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