Posts by Andy The Hat

Re: Amazing

"One gyro breaks and it breaks down, no automatic roll over when it fails."

Oh the irony! :-)

Re: Sour Grapes are a Gripe when Local Apples are Treated Better than Imported Oranges

There was far more than a passing comment concerning Autonomy's accounts (allegedly).

The world of stock markets is based on statistics, opinions and whispers and, occasionally, facts. That's why there are laws concerning financial declarations that obfuscate the facts.

Re: Optional

I think he said exactly that, to paraphrase "... the wingspan is bigger than something that is smaller."

Ok, so not exactly, or even vaguely close, but technically accurate :-)

Re: Not a real problem

How long do you spend in the loo? And no, I don't associate stopping at Waitrose for 30l of fuel with that sort of convenience.

Nozzle selection issues? Been driving for long enough to realise what size and colour my nozzle is.

Much cleaner and safer to refuel - that's a tick. But paying three times the market price for the same electrons as feed my house is not reasonable (before you say it, that includes their charges for that infrastructure too). And just wait for the screams when the 65%(ish) fuel duties currently levied on petrol and diesel is transferred to charger stations ...! This does unfairly hit the less well off, those who live in rented properties, above the ground floor or with no off-road parking who physically or economically can't have chargers fitted to their homes.

Re: AceMagic?

Here's what you could have lost ...

Re: 47% increase in what, exactly?

Not exactly an office application though. Will it stop the rotating blue wheel of annoyance or let me type faster, I think not. I agree that for many office applications a 10 year old i3 is more than enough.

It's all the adver-crap piled on top and the insistence that everything heads up a shared piece of wet string that slows stuff down ...

Re: Wallbox

"could potentially be exploited to turn them all on at the same time, causing a sudden drain on the power grid."

This would only be an issue if vehicles were plugged in and actually required charging (otherwise there would be no load). Heaven forbid that owners would actually need to go to work in the morning ...

To be honest, if the grid is that susceptible to load variation I'd not be looking at the chargers but the National Grid resilience plans.

Re: A, B, C, . . M ?

Easy,

Average flare

Big flare

Considerable flare

Massive flare

eXtreme flare

Re: Ingenuity also far outlived all expectations before its retirement.

No.

"... lasting years longer meant that extra staff and budget had to be allocated to them" is incorrect.

The beancounters always have the option to kill the mission on the due date. They never "had to" increase the budget or continue to fund the project, the budgetary decision was made to do so.

The only thing to consider is the pressure of a functioning multi-million/billion dollar project being shut down simply for the want of relatively little funding ...

Re: I see a serious issue with the idea

But we'll end up with the hundreds of auto reloads of the page, pop-unders and pop-ups (from the days when dodgy websites did that) which auto close to not hassle the user ... Each one makes a small amount but a hundred from each visitor soon makes money. And what happens if the page references material on another page - does the live link get charged too? So many holes, so much profit ...

So the Russian ambassador to the US discussed the Russian military's nuclear strategy with Musk?

As in all war, and on all sides, there is propaganda, deliberate misinformation and a small sliver of truth ...

Unfortunately for Britain, our politicians suck various parts of whoever is incumbent in the US, so we do get lumbered without a vote ...

Re: On the right track?

The issue is that it "still could be on the right track" - as it was 20 years ago! 2035 onwards will indicate whether that's still the case or whether we'll be waiting until 2045 to see whether we can both produce commercial quantities of energy and produce it economically, then 2065 before we have half a dozen plants in Europe the with the output of Sizewell ... Can't help feeling that it's an incredible science experiment but will not have a commercial future ...

At the moment, we should be ploughing government money into a bucketload of solar farms where it's sunny, a bucketload of windfarms where it's windy, a bucketload of tidal plants where it's err tidally and some massive interconnects to distribute it across political boundaries.

Re: " The spyware business is booming despite government crackdowns"

Why would those companies bother with commercial spyware when you already give them your data on a plate?

Re: Lucky for them...

"all the safety framework"

Since when were crappy plastic trims and decoration safety related? They are small because they've always been small, and smaller now because of all the fluff that Ford will tell you "the customers demand". And yes I can still drive a Fiesta and no, I still can't get my knees under the steering wheel.

Re: GDPR breach here we come

Hypothetically, a web address could be entered with username/password information allowing access to personal information. If that URL was slurped, wouldn't that be significantly overstepping the bounds for gdpr as it would give access to your private data ...?

Re: Why don't people see the bigger picture?

"So no, this is not "the holy grail" of anything. If it works, it's just a novel way of doing something, that is already possible, because prosthetics attached to remaining motoric nerves already exist."

I don't think you have *any* idea how significant being able to move an electronic pointer on a screen or move a single physical digit via a brain implant could be to some people ... (which has been attempted in the past but never with long term success). This is not about controlling a prosthetic so you can "fist pump" someone by tapping off existing motoric nerves (your Wiki reference), this is about the fundamental ability to communicate with the outside world or exhibit any physical control at a very basic level.

"they didn't have any sort of sensors ..."

Why didn't I think of that? Doh! Try watching the landing sequence (search engines are available) which was transmitted live and was constructed *only* from multiple live streams of sensor data.

I believe the correct English translation is "Loadsa' money!".

Re: Zero

... nearly every politician who is given such decision making power then?

Re: If anyone should be taken down, it's Haier

You miss the (network) point - LAN is not enough! It is essential for you to be able to view to the real time washing status of your underpants whilst at work ... apparently.

Whatever happened to the start button and the finished light? The last time I checked not one of these machines had a "sort washing", "put washing into washing machine", "empty washing machine" or "hang out washing" option on either the dial or the unfathomably deep menu system, so what's the point? Am I a dinosaur or is the world becoming increasingly techno-pointless.

Re: Small to invisible

Micrometric improvement?

Makes me wonder if Win10 to Win11 is Microsoft's vision of Sinclair's "quantum leap"?

Re: Aahh... yeah.

I'll have you know I heat both my second mansion in Scotland and my Tesla batteries using but a single tealight in a flowerpot, whilst simultaneously shrinking my prostate with triple filtered Highland Spring and a crystal of purest Green ... spam pah! :-)

Re: Enough with the Elon Musk Snark

The big hole left was, by definition, not full of anything apart from hole ...

The concrete was up to 2' thick, reinforced, refractory grade stuff and basically you can't buy better for that application.

Unfortunately the rocket, being the most powerful ever built, took one look and decided "Puny concrete! Hulk smash!" and dug out the crater (although, strangely, it may have started to produce a crater *first* which caused the pad to fail ...)

Re: Unwieldy

My concern are not the little things like windscreens but if the "1/3 nose" is a requirement then it becomes (a) a weight issue for an industry where weight costs money and (b) a size issue for access to ground facilities. In addition, if the top mounted engine set very low in the fuselage is a design requirement that becomes a capacity restriction.

So, it's quiet, quick and looks great but as a significant passenger vehicle will be too big for terminals and have a low passenger capacity, therefore would at best be developed as a billionaires' private jet ...