Posts by John Smith 19

Re: Combi boilers v Old Boilers

"Combi boilers are like any other tech you get the "cheap and cheerful" end and the "dearer, works better,higher spec and lasts longer type".Ergo you go for a low spec system you get more maintenance and repair bills.As for efficiency you would be lucky to get in the range of 30-40% from an older type boiler whereas a newer well built and maintained boiler can get over 70% efficiency."

Well strictly you'd expect 80% from an old boiler but modern (condensing) types run something like 90-95% by preheating the water through the flue heat exchanger.

But combi boilers are a compromise design. Either you want hot water for a tap and/or bath/shower or you want it to heat radiators.

Better solution is to separate the 2 tasks with separate systems that are best at each.

BTW IIRC in the book "Alternative Energy Without Hot Air" the author says solar water heating is always a good idea, even in the UK, as it's something everyone wants and the panels can use all the solar spectrum, unlike PV panels.

Yes I probably spend far too much time studying plumbing.

Re: Will they still be around next year?

"It would have made his argument no more or less valid. The old AC straw man argument is so feeble."

Wrong.

Because in 5 or 10 years time we'd know who made such a remark and recall that either they were a)Farsighted and wise or b)A fool with no knowledge of history.

I'm no great fan of MS (which you can check my posts to confirm). They've released many s**t products over the years, sometimes multiple fails in the same year.

But they are so damm big (and have so many lawyers and PR types to do lying

damage control for them) that the odds on bet is they will survive this, just as Linux will not be the desktop OS of 2014 either.

Their "argument," as you (they?) put it is simply an assertion.

Mine is based on historical evidence.

@qwerty

"I for one have several apps that would work well on this kind of device but have enough complications (e.g. 3rd part libraries) porting to WinRT that I simply don't have the incentive to invest the time while RT-only accounts for such a tiny part of the market."

Which I think is rather the point,

Increasing the "ARM is rubbish" meme and supporting their long term partner in crime (and I mean that literally give the number of cases they've been involved with) Intel.

Re: Will they still be around next year?

"Pretty much every single Microsoft product line is upto it's neck in crap right now."

Blah blah..

Now if you'd had the guts to put your name on that post...

"BT aren't the better service. They just started out with a massive advantage."

Damm right.

The rule of an effective monopoly is of course "Monopoly, what monopoly? All users have a choice."

Re: Yes and No

" but BT have no plans yet to install the vital fibre to the cabinet that would help. They are not especially rural, and northern jokes aside it's nowhere near being classed as the back of beyond."

They might be better to form their ownISP and raise the cash locally to sort out the link to Barnsley, as a few places have done.

Re: A way to go yet

"In the late 1980's I had access to a 2.4Ghz (bipolar) process "

GEC Marconi? I did not think MOSIS offered bipolar.

"I never made one cos there wasn't any suitable ram available! "

The Achilles Heel of any architecture.

Re: Finally!

"Now where is my hoverboard?"

Actually the technology for that should have arrived about a decade ago, when scientists worked out the genetics of the "flagellum motor," and how to tweak it so it could be mounted to a framework.

1 motor generates about 1 nano Newton of force.

stick about 1000 billion of them on a framework (that's about the size of a full stop on a page), supply regularly with ATP and hey presto you have lift off..

The control problem (bit like the Segway but much tougher) is left as an exercise.

" Wonder what kind of application photon matter would have"

Read the link might be an idea?

But the TL:DR answer is :

"Particular applications of this technique include all-optical switching, deterministic photonic quantum logic and the generation of strongly correlated states of light9."

Re: If I was making a press release like this

"I would make damn sure I released it on April 1st - just to fuck with everyone who dismissed it as a joke."

No can do.

This academia.

Publish or perish.

Re: while engineers worked on fixing the problem

"Just turn it off and back on again."

What did you think the phrase "This is ground control, you are go to cycle power" meant?

Works more often than people might realize too.

Re: The motley is not optional

"Civil Liberties & Privacy Officer"

CLAPO for short?

Re: Responsibility, but no mention of power

I've had jobs with responsibility but no authority..

Never again.

Responsibility without authority --> CLPO

Authority without responsibility --> everyone else in the NSA

Re: "(CLPO) is conceived as a completely new role"

"Because before Snowden grassed us up we never had to give a flying fuck about civilians or liberty"

What makes you think that will change now?

Re: Do have a extra CPU

"As discussed a few times on semiaccurate.com, these later Intel chipsets *do* have an ARM CPU on board to do some kind of various functions (i.e. it is in fact a black box that Intel says is for security.) Does it have a 3G radio? I really don't know but to me it seems doubtful."

What an intriguing observation.

So ARM good enough for their server (IE Expensive) processors but not for your next mobile design?

Not exactly a case of eating your own dog food is it?

And has the FCC gotten a lot more relaxed about RFI & unlicensed emitters spaffing out lots of RF energy? I got the impression they can get pretty awkward if stuff that's not designed as a radio transmitter starts acting like one.

Re: So likely to hit the non IT literate pretty hard.

"Not just writing malware...

Writing butt-ugly, cross platform malware..."

Yay. Java's developers must be so pleased at how successful their development environment has been.

Most really believe what they are told.

And few even bother to ask anything that is not on the nightly news, every night?

Outside El Reg's (and other tech web sites) I doubt many in the US have a blind clue what's going on.

The believe the "We're keeping you safe from TERRORISTS (IE anyone outside America).

In reality the real enemy of the NSA is the US people.