Re: Are we there yet?
I thought that was Fusion Power.
38 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jan 2014
I was in a remote are of Aberdeenshire in the early 50s.
Being a pre-teen I thought as Luxembourg was 208 meters I needed a long aerial. Looking round one day I spied the telephone wires all nice and bare.
I connected the radio aerial to the top one from the bedroom window. I was the only one at school who could listen to 208.
Problem later. As the aerial wire blew in the wind it caught on the lower telephone wire and intermittently caused phone problems as the insulation wore away.
Telephone engineer and my dad were not impressed !
Shortly after I connected it to the bottom wire. Back to normality (?)
I updated my original (calculator type keyboard) Commodore PET which had 8k static ram with 32k of dynamic RAM. The RAM board was almost the size of the motherboard. Cost 1979 over £350
I think I was earning about £3k
Cannot remember the cost of the floppy drive but I kept that from my wife !
Then went to BBC B.
You were very lucky as my first house in 1964 was 5.5 x my annual wage. Luckily before my wife became pregnant she was also earning, but it was tight with very few treats and any holidays were B&B.
We did not complain much - then came Harrold W, then Ted Heath !!!
The problem was later when we moved to a new job when mortgage interest rates were 15 - 18%.
We were very relieved when they dropped to 10% ! a few years later.
New house prices may be more, but interest rates are vastly lower.
Watch the 74 and stuck in his ways bit.
75 and still going ! However I am still on WIN7 but glancing over my shoulder at WIN10. Maybe/possibly next year or so ! Main OS is Yosemity as I find it far more stable and much less hassle than Windows. I do also have a WIN7 desktop and laptop for programs that don't exist for OSX.
Before you all get on your high horses It does have its problems. but for what I do it is the better OS.
Ran my own business (11 employees) and started with Commodore PET 8k ! upgraded to 32k dynamic RAM at about £400 in 1979/80. Ram quite a few scientific programs I wrote in BASIC.
1984 got a BBC B which over time was upgraded and this produced better word processing than the PC till WIN3. Spread sheet and data base (Interword, Intersheet etc.) Good BASIC or alternate languages also available.
PCs all self built through 286, 386, 486 and Pentiums. Gave up and bought after 2008. Sold the business but the computers, network and backup bits are still in my spare bedroom.
Now act as consultant and the old stuff is still useful. Surprising what 'old' info is still useful.
Always upgraded about 3-6 months after software came out, but avoided Millenium, used WIN2000 pro but got caught by Vista ! Still got a stand alone XP for some legacy bits.
Computers were cheaper than any equipment we had and provided sales, technical and IT, all of which helped the business. Computers are very cheap now !!
Started in 1972 with HP FFT analysis machines. Used on Polaris I think. Cost the company I worked for £50,000.
I think the problem is the difference between whistle blowers, ie people who point out the security problems and abuse of power, and the release of information that can cause actual harm and cause friction between countries.
I am sure you would want to blow the whistle on your bank for failing to secure your details, but would you want the personal information that was obtained to show such a breach to be freely dispatched over the web ?
I don't have any problems with dropped calls. No signal.
Moved from Vodafone as they had no signal and as did Vodafone before, they lied about having signal.
Why does Trading Standards not stop this. It is worse than up to 8Mb/s claims for 0.25Mb/s which I had for a while.
So BT (EE) gives me no signal 6 miles south of Norwich with a combined adjacent 3 village population of 4000+.
Heaven help anyone in South Norfolk that brakes down or needs urgent assistance. Coverage is area NOT population.
Yes I used to use AMD chips on all my home-builds. The only problems used to be the drivers for the north and south bridge. Always had problems installing them. Some other drivers could also be a problem. However when working I never had any trouble and timings were always comparable with Intel, occasionally better. I think the money I saved gave me a free PC over the years.
One upmanship (would use upwomanship but might be misinterpreted}
NR14
Took an old black MacBook back as screen did not work, neither did second screen.
replaced - one at a time - screen, mother board and HDD. Each time got it home it didn't work. Gave me £500 of a new one - It still cost me £350. Luckily the new white one has worked fine.
Used to make many electronic gadgets from amps in the 50s to computer bits for BBC B in the 80s to PA related bits in the 90s.
However the cost of the bits became more expensive than the retail items. It then was only worth it if you needed a specialist item. Luckily recently when I need a width controller for a PA setup - stereo too wide and mono bland so i need a narrow stereo sound field - I had enough components in my tray rack to build it.
I would have been pushed to get the bits from Maplin as when I tried to get an 8W bridge rectifier for my daughter's shower unit, which they said was in stock, my daughter who went to pick the ordered part up was given a bag with an 8 pin CMOS IC in it. When I took it back it took the third person I spoke to to know anything about components.
Liked their 100W MOSFET DIY modules
Voda have virtually no signal in our local village group (approx 4,000) only 6 miles south of Norwich. I was with 3 but got fed up with no signal, so on the 'guarantee'! that they had a better signal than 3 I went to Voda. I can drive round the villages and if lucky I may occasionally pick up a text. Arrive home and my SureSignal box, which I had to pay for, picks up all the missed calls. I thought that is why I have a BT telephone with built in answer-phone.
Found out that the transmitter is 4-5 miles away at Tacalneston.
The whole point of a mobile - in the name ? - is that you can use it away from home. Maybe most important when an accident happens or an emergency in the middle of nowhere.
The actual official international name is Aluminium.
The confusion started when Charles Martin Hall misspelt the word on a handbill publicising his aluminium manufacturing process and the spelling stuck. He thought it was too expensive to scrap and reprint.
So the citizens of the USA are perpetuating a misspelling.
I hope I am note repeating what someone else has said, I have only read about 5 of the answer pages !
One of the main problems with wind and solar renewables is that none can provide a consistent and 24/7 supply. This is compounded by the problem in northern climes that during winter the day is at its shortest and often during the coldest periods there is little wind. Backup supply is therefore needed and whilst continuous output gas turbines are efficient, they can only be reduced by about 10%. To have a gas turbine that can by varied to cope with the variation of renewables the units used are much less efficient and the latest idea of using diesel powered generators as ultimate backup makes it very inefficient and puts lots of CO2 into the atmosphere. Altogether the inefficiencies add up to very little saving, if any, from using all high efficiency continuous gas turbines.
I will not go into the farcical situation of paying wind turbine owners money to turn them off when the power is not needed or to windy !
If we could get wave power or similar to work, it would be far more useful as the tide times are known, there are 2 per day and change times round the coast, so a set around the coast could provide a consistent output 24/7. How much is an unknown ?
This really leaves us with nuclear.
I know to many this is a horror story, but as has been stated the death rate due to nuclear is small compared to most industries. The Japanese problem was not the earthquake or really the tsunami, but the security feature of turning off the power plant in the event of an earthquake. This caused a loss of power to the cooling pumps. Compounded of course by not putting the standby generators inside the protective building. Thus the generators were destroyed. The nuclear building survived the tsunami and earthquake. The problem was human.
So to be safe we need a ‘safer’ version of Nuclear – Thorium.
The Thorium cycle was one of the generating proposals looked at by the Americans in the early days and was the favourite. However not by the military as it did not produce very much plutonium, which they wanted for weapons. This now is a very good reason to use Thorium. It cannot sustain a nuclear reaction and needs a neutron source to supply enough neutrons to keep the reaction going. We have lots of this – High level nuclear waste and plutonium.
So an ideal reactor would have liquid lithium salts fed by neutrons from nuclear waste, which if something went wrong and the neutron source could not be withdrawn quickly enough, a thermal plug would melt and dump the whole thorium salt liquid into a sump. I could only solidify as it could not continue its nuclear reaction. Very simple mechanical fail-safe.
The Thorium cycle produces the majority of its breakdown products with half lives of 50 years or less. Only a small amount of Plutonium is produced and could be processed and used as a neutron source. As the process is based on a liquid cycle – it is however possible to use a similar process as is used in existing nuclear power plants, but a lot of the advantages are lost – allows the liquid to be processed to remove ‘impurities’ without shutting down the plant for months.
It is estimated there is enough Thorium for about 1000 years.
For me as long as the 170+MHz range of VHF spectrum Trantecs are still usable I am OK, but I understand since the last shake-up, it would not be possible to do another Olympic games as there are not enough mic channels now available. Hope the small UHF free band is still going to be available and free !
I must admit I am now watching 99.9% of the time on Sky (I Know!) As long as I switch off about once a week and let it do its thing I have had little problems. My old box is used with an old card for free to air channels.
The bit rate for BBC HD transmissions has dropped quite a bit since they just had BBC HD.
The BBC used to go for quality and innovation. Since they closed their research facility at Kingswood Warren, things have gone down-hill. Although the horrible DAB, I think was just meant for car use, was developed there. Pity they did not use the NICAM system which was in use for Television sound and is still used in the line for VHF FM.
They now seem to be putting quality after everything else.
So all the employees bring their own same CDs into work and tracks are played in turn from each ?
No one is listening to a piece of music they don't own. New meaning to a stack of music.
I had a Hi Fi shop at one time and the argument that we asked the customers to bring in their own CDs held no sway. We also pointed out that without the equipment we were selling, there would be no or a very reduced ability to play CDs leading to fewer sales and perhaps they should pay us a royalty.
Those people have no sense of humour !
Most musicians get nothing from any of these 'taxes', only a few of the largest sellers, and one could argue that these are the ones that least need the money.
Coverage in most of rural Norfolk is virtually non existent.
My local Vodafone transmitter in miles away from the major block of villages I live in. 3 villages almost touching and extending along a major B road for 1.5 miles with a combined population of about 5,000.
I have no coverage, although there are small reception areas, but theses seem to vary day to day.
However Vodafone do alright as they sell little boxes to attach to your broadband at £50+ a go. No cost in providing transmitters, but a good income in box sales. However only registered users can access these boxes, so the only signal I get is 50ft round my house. Very helpful.
Pass the roaming law quickly, or force them to give full coverage - I don't get a lower monthly call rate for no local signal !
Poor Michael Gurzon must be turning in his grave. All the hard work he put in to develop the system over many years.
I heard it demonstrated a few times at AES conventions. It was in the form of Periphonics a three dimension version which gave full height reproduction with only 6 speakers. It was very impressive and when you turned it was perfectly natural, which ever way you faced. IMF (RIP) were one of the main proponents and Nimbus records produced quite a few discs.
The main problem was the NRDC who tried to make money from everyone in the chain, unlike Dolby, then in south London, working on Dolby A, who got it right. But how many government type quangos ever get anything right !
I enjoyed BBC Basic, a great advance on previous versions and with Procs it was possible to do some good structured programing. Oh those missing GOTOs.
It was also a good stepping stone to Turbo Pascal then on to C etc.
I started with a Commador PET, 8k static RAM and upgraded to 32K dynamic for £350 in 79-80.
Oh those Rhinos.
Playing for fun now with a RPi.
What a great shame that such a innovating company has come to this. They did a full range of test equipment, much ahead of the game. What happened to the 'shed' ?
Back in the early 70s a speaker company I worked for had one of their computers (used in the Polaris subs I think ) and FFT box. First company to do speaker testing using FFT. HP were very helpful.
Plus their HP35. THE first proper scientific calculator. RPN - enter and the answer comes FORTH - pun intended.
Nostalgia.
"To illustrate its poll, YouGov issued this image, which resembles the 20th century charts which terrified Londoners by showing the damage a Soviet nuke would inflict upon their city."
That is the description.
Although it may not be as you want it, it does state why and in that context it is accurate as a nuclear bomb would have an effect decreasing with increasing radius.
“Cloud-based technologies and the increased use of mobile devices as our work tools of choice are ushering in a new social, cultural and corporate paradigm where workplaces are more federated and collaborative, less hierarchical and increasingly less location-specific, as more of #GenMobile employees clock in by logging on.”
6 miles south of Norwich.
Broadband speed - 0.4Mb/s
Mobile - 0000 signal strength bands.
I can see that working well
Lunar Lander - Yes! But what about Rhinos ?
Still got an original PET - calculator keyboard and built in Tape deck. 8KByte static RAM with a 32KByte Dynamic RAM upgrade board that was as large as the main board. £375 in 1979 I think !!
Been sitting around, with a BBC B for decades.