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  1. Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent on What Does the Microsoft ODF Converter Mean? · · Score: 1

    My experience has been the opposite. I'm very comfortable editing with emacs, and writing a letter in LaTex is a matter of selecting a suitable template document and typing in the text. I'm faster than my collegue who uses word. I suspect you've never really invested time in using LaTeX and your one little experience at school has blinkered you to the power of text based markup.

  2. Re:OK, I'll be the party pooper here on Mice Produced Using Artificial Sperm · · Score: 1

    One subtle problem with this is that increasing the opportunity for couples to have children later so they can work will lead to a form of inflation where it makes it harder for others to have children earlier, because people who have kids late and get lots of money when they are younger will make houses more expensive, and make it harder to get into areas with good schools.

    This has already happened with two income families - when my dad was my age a single income was enough to buy a house and start a family. Nowadays, this isn't enough, and lots of middle class families are going broke despite having two jobs. (This is called the two-income inflation trap I think)

  3. Re:birds on Another Ornithopter Takes Off · · Score: 1

    yep, yet the old bernoulli story is still in the textbooks.

  4. Re:birds on Another Ornithopter Takes Off · · Score: 1

    It has also been said for many years that aeroplane wings work because a low pressure is created on the upper surface. What many people say does not always correspond to what scientists know.

  5. Re:birds on Another Ornithopter Takes Off · · Score: 1

    Actually, I can rotate my shoulder in a double figure of eight (spin 1/2) or around in a 'windmill' (as per backstroke swimming). I wonder whether either of those motions would make a good propellor. The joint doesn't need to move fast, if we have big blades. I suspect the main reason biology doesn't have such schemes is that it is hard to evolve them from something else useful.

  6. Re:One enormous flaw... on Does It Matter Where Open Source is Based? · · Score: 1

    Inkscape has its developers spread fairly uniformly across the world. The highest concentration of developers is actually here in Melbourne, Australia.

  7. Re:It's your fault anyway on Students Skip College Music Services · · Score: 1

    Whereas I look at commercial stuff and think 'hmm, I could add that feature to free software xyz and save myself time and money'. So I do. On the other hand, I've seen people struggling with commercial software only to discover that the free software equivalent is superior (For example, my work has given up on MS Excel in favour of gnumeric). Certainly 95% of everything is crap, but your claim that all free software is useless seems rather hysterical. (Or you are a troll; or you are a fool, easily separated from his money)

  8. Re:Wow! on New Human-Powered World Hour Record · · Score: 1

    Interesting, so there is a mistake in my logic somewhere. I wonder what.

  9. Re:The market apple could lose: nerds with time on Nerds Switching from Apple to Ubuntu? · · Score: 1

    Nerds with time are exactly the share that ubuntu should chase - these are the people who will do new stuff and develop existing stuff. To be honest, Ubuntu has succeeded if only because it is getting the lions share of developer time now. (Many Debian developers have moved to Ubuntu, e.g.)

    It is a common misconception that the most valuable thing a project can have is users. In fact it is developers with time, and if you are not capable/patient enough to get Ubuntu working (though your experience does not match anyone elses I know) then you are probably not a useful addition to the Ubuntu user base. In five years time, if Ubuntu does everything you want, and works out of the box for you, then you'll be a valuable addition to the user base, and we will welcome you.

  10. Re:Wow! on New Human-Powered World Hour Record · · Score: 1

    I've heard this stated many times, but I don't believe it is true. Humans can clearly apply more force than their body weight (I can lift a feather above my head without my legs collapsing) so standing on the pedals at most gets you some dynamic force at the cost of extra stabilisation. On the other hand, a recumbent allows you to push directly between the pedals and the seat (in most designs) allowing your leg muscles to deliver their maximum force.

    In the great victorian bike ride recumbents seem to do very well (but that may be selection bias). You can also go to lower gears on a trike recumbent without loss of balance.

    Perhaps someone out there has done the experiement (mythbusters?).

  11. Re:Weird Phrasing on New Human-Powered World Hour Record · · Score: 1

    Just FYI, km is written with a lowercase k and a lowercase m. 'K' is a unit of temperature.

  12. Re:What would really help Corel... on Dropping Linux Helped Restore Corel Profitability · · Score: 1

    That is worrying. Could you please write a bug report:
    http://inkscape.org/report_bugs.php

    As for Dia like editing, besides a built in collection of artwork, and ability to output limited domain specific XML, Inkscape is a strict superset of Dia. In particular I think you'll like automatic connector routing, guidelines and automatic node layout.

    I assume you are on Debian unstable (as ubuntu doesn't have 0.44 yet). I've used it at work, but I may be using my own private version for some reason. I'll try it tomorrow at work and see if I can reproduce this.

  13. Re:What would really help Corel... on Dropping Linux Helped Restore Corel Profitability · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Inkscape doesn't live up to the needs of the market. There is simply NO good vector drawing program for Linux.

    Could you substantiate this claim? What exactly does Inkscape not do that makes Corel draw irreplacable in your eyes? (That way I can get it added ;)

  14. Re:And this is why I don't feel comfortable on VW Raises the Bar for Self-Driving Vehicles · · Score: 1

    I understand where you are coming from, but evidence is that humans aren't very good either. And having several million cars out there experimenting with this new tech might reduce the odds of a problem to less than that of a human driver.

    Considering many of the drivers round here, I'd rather they used a cyberchauffeur...

    (Incidently, the Chauffeur were 'Brigands in bands, who, about 1793, pillaged, burned, and killed in parts of France; -- so called because they used to burn the feet of their victims to extort money.'. Now I've heard of hot foot drivers, but I wonder how the word became associated with professional drivers?)

  15. Re:Incomplete study... on Cell Users As Bad As Drunk Drivers · · Score: 1

    I agree with what you're saying, but I do wonder if more people caught the bus this problem might be alleviated? Perhaps people need to be more proactive about promoting the behaviours they want?

  16. Re:Incomplete study... on Cell Users As Bad As Drunk Drivers · · Score: 1

    If you like reading on the way home, catch the bus!

  17. Re:Higher transmission losses with UG lines... on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 1

    The R-G colourblindness problem is solved by having a yellow stripe on the earth. Brown-green is just as bad, if not worse, for colour blind people (as brown is basically just dark orange) - if you have ever seen colour blindness tests they usually use green and brown rather than green and red. Anyway, you seem to have missed the point - away from the distribution box all the wiring is in the same colour set (and this is the case everywhere I know, otherwise electricians would have to get three times as many sorts of wire). And I gave you a reason that you might connect two phases mistakenly - ring wiring, which is standard in the british isles (and probably hong kong).

    Brown/black/grey is harder to distinguish than red/white/blue, particularly in low light conditions. (Indeed it's hard to think of a worse combination for most people).

    And yes, people make mistakes (or shortcuts), even trained professional. An electrician was killed recently here working on a lighting circuit in a house, because the previous electrician was lazy and had used a power circuit for one switch+fitting which was still live. Was he careless? yes. Did he deserve to die? I don't think so.

  18. Re:Higher transmission losses with UG lines... on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 1

    I'm sure things are different in Europe, but in australia all power circuits are wired with core double insulated cable with coloured inner insulation. In Australia these are coloured red for active, black for neutral and green/yellow for earth. The same approach is used everywhere else I've been - fixed colours for active, neutral and earth. If you have two phases in the same house near each other you cannot tell from the wiring alone which phase they are (indeed you can't tell unless you measure between them). In british wiring it is common practice to run loops and splice in circuits. I can imagine an electrician not paying attention my cross the phases.

    Sure people shouldn't do wiring if they don't know what they are doing (here in .au it is illegal for people to do so without a permit), but accidents can happen. And multiple unmarked phases can cause accidents.

    People who rely on people doing the right thing for safety shouldn't make assertions about safety precautions.

    3-phase for stoves and whatnot are wired separately with suitably coloured(red white(or yellow) and blue here) and rated cable and are switched separately. Even with multiple phases the power circuits are usually taken off a single phase, and metered separately.

  19. Re:Higher transmission losses with UG lines... on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 1

    I think that is very rare here, even with houses with 3-phase power connected. Probably they figure that 83A (20kW) is enough for anybody. Also there is a risk of wiring the active of two different phases together by mistake in ring wiring (which we don't use here).

  20. Re:Higher transmission losses with UG lines... on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 1

    I will direct the reader to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_ power .

    You almost certainly can get three phase in your area (if you have above ground wiring, do you have 4 or 5 conductors on the poles? Then you probably have access to 3 phase power). It is common for big house air conditioners to use 3-phase power.

    Part of the magic of 3-phase is that individual houses can use 1-phase, and as long as the whole section/street is roughly balanced, the transformer can fix up any imbalance. A few months ago we lost a phase on our section (we happen to have the transformer on a pole outside our house - in 240V distribution you'll generally share a single transformer across maybe 30 houses) and the result was weird haunted house like flickering in the lights, as the remaining two phases tried to support the missing phase.

  21. Re:Hot Lines on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, although I guess they train for it, and do everything on the presumption that the lines are live. (But I still think they'd turn the power off for a broken line :)

  22. Re:It isn't free once it is in the ground either on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 1

    They send high frequency-carrier signals up and down the lines already. I imagine the same techiques would work here. Anyway, the original poster talked about breaks. In that case you would have turned the high voltage off as a matter of safety. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if they have this stuff in use now.

    (I was not suggesting they use a CAT5 TDR!)

  23. Re:what about liability? on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Western Australian christmas tree (Nuytsia floribunda) is parasitic, and apparently its 'tenticles' wrap around cables and sever them.

  24. Re:Higher transmission losses with UG lines... on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, 240V power is distributed as 415V three phase with power tapped off separate phases. Three phase power is more efficient than the two phase you describe.

  25. Re:DC on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 1

    Willie O. would probably unplug the UPS to prove this :)

    To create transients, plug a big electric motor (say a fridge) into the same outlet and see what you get.