I bought a Freeloader solar charger to play with. Unless you can leave it outside in full sun, and keep moving it to maintain optimal angle I find it can barely keep my phone going. Generally it gets much less solar exposure. Windows, clouds etc drastically reduce the charging. In a British winter you have no chance.
I didn't expect it to pay for itself. I see the benefit of PV to be when you don't have access to other power sources. You see panels on some roadside devices that might have cost more to connect to the grid.
My Freeloader may of use on long flights if I can get it fully charged beforehand, possibly via USB, to keep my gadgets going a bit longer.
Thanks for that. I didn't realise how friendly the BOINC software was. Much easier to use than F@H. I've set it up on a couple of PCs and will see how it goes.
It's always a wrench to leave a project where you have built up some points, but I didn't have a huge amount on F@H.
I ran OGR25 again for the last few months in hope of seeing that project complete. RC5-72 just seems pointless to me. We already know it will take decades without some radical improvement in processing power.
I've been disappointed by the lack of updates to the dnet site. Even now the projects page still says that OGR25 is active.
I've moved to Folding@home now as I hope it will have tangible benefits. My contribution is pretty minor as I don't have the hardware for GPU processing.
Not really 300mpg as it's electric with a range of 120 miles. TFA says they may do a hybrid that does 130mpg (US I assume). Not too bad. If you want 4 wheels and better economy then the Loremo looks cool if it ever gets into production
I was just saying that without us having to become 'better' just to survive then there will be no pressure to evolve in a particular direction and so we will continue to have various random variations, but they will lead nowhere. If anything we will become 'worse' as the 'bad' genes will not drop out of the pool.
I know little about genetics, but I think I understand some of the general principles. Okay, I've read some Dawkins.
I've thought for some time that evolution in humans must be stagnating. There is very little natural selection if most humans are likely to grow up and reproduce regardless of their intelligence or physical attributes due to medical advances and states caring for their citizens. This probably means that many genetic disorders will not die out as they might have in the past.
You start wondering if some people should be allowed to reproduce, but that gets into dodgy territory.
Are their any societies where 'selective breeding' takes place on a wide enough scale to have a chance of producing evolutionary changes?
I use Skype, mainly because it has become a default standard among people I know. It has the advantage of being easy to set up on all platforms. 'Just works' is an important feature.
I've used it for video chat with a Logitech webcam with no set-up issues.
The downer with Skype is that you can only do one to one video chat. But then, do any more open apps do better?
A fan trailer for a book? Strange. I gather it's about monks and chavs who fight, but then some bloke with a dazed look gets involved. Can't wait for the game.
The attack doesn't compromise what MicroID does, which is to confirm that an account on a site is associated with a given email address. It's just a way of working out an email address from the MicroID hash.
As long as it's not easy to guess your email from your name or you don't use a common provider then you are probably pretty safe.
Spammers got my main email ages ago and seem to have hacked a few forums for one-off addresses I used there too. So I don't worry too much about giving out my email address. The spam is mostly filtered, so I don't have to see it.
I'm not sure exactly where they got my address from. It could have been on a keyserver. Searching for my address finds lots of hits on those. Much easier than trying to extract it from a MicroID. Those were potentially useful for proving identity.
That said, spammers, identity thieves and other low-lifes have conspired to make the internet less useful than it might have been since we cannot share as much information as we might want to. I'm still wary of sharing some details on social sites and in my FOAF file. Others seem less bothered about this or perhaps just don't realise the risks.
The internet could have been a universal phone/address/email directory, but too many people would abuse that.
Note the copyright of 2005-2006. I saw these ages ago. Not really news, but still a neat gadget. Having a PC this small means you can put it in places where you might not normally have one, providing it has the power for the application. I'm sure it could be good in a car for audio and assorted data logging.
You can get something more powerful for less money, but sometimes size and power consumption will be the main factors.
I've got a Freeloader solar charger that came with a load of adaptors, including USB. It's a great idea, but doesn't work that well due to taking ages to charge up the internal battery, especially if you cannot leave it outside.
I charge stuff from USB when I can, but that often involves buying an extra cable.
For other stuff I plan to set up a charging station in a cupboard with the PSUs plugged into an extension with individual switches mounted under a shelf and cables tied up to minimum possible length.
I don't have too many gadgets to charge. Couple of phones, PDA and various stuff that runs on AA and AAA. I need a better battery charger to keep those going.
The bit about 'monks' being shut into chambers that do not open for 10/100/1000 years sounds a bit like something I remember from the Heliconia trilogy (I think) where people went into chambers in a huge wheel and were trapped until it completed a rotation.
I'm looking forward to it. I was one who enjoyed the Baroque Cycle. It was hard work, but rewarding.
Some sites offer a comment feed for each post. I need an easy way to manage those. The Google Reader subscription manager is a bit clumsy. I use Reader so I can browse my feeds from home, work or elsewhere.
Perhaps comment following needs an enhancement to RSS, but that's not something I know too much about.
Is Snowl (not sure about the name) anything like Flock? I've not used either.
I have an elliptical trainer in the study. I can get my exercise whilst watching internet videos, listening to podcasts or catching up on something on MythTV. I'm not sure I could coordinate playing games whilst doing it.
There's an initial investment in the machine, but it's cheaper than going to a gym for a year and makes it more likely that I will exercise given that I don't have to drive anywhere and cuts my carbon footprint too.
I don't have weight problems, but then I don't exist on pizza and Coke.
How is this number significant? It's not an internal combustion engine, so you can't compare that sort of thing to anything people are used to. I bet it won't make the sort of npis
As for the 256mpg figure, is that in terms of equivalent CO2 from the power plant? That would depend on the type of power generation. If you can power it from solar or wind then that's great, but I suspect that for most people it's likely to be coal.
Strangely enough popularity does influence what people use.
I use Skype as it is the standard software for my office, but also because I do not relish trying to get my family to install the open alternatives. If someone brings out open VOIP software that supports video and can be installed by anyone then I'm interested.
I also have Flash to allow my kids to play various web games and for my wife to watch BBC iPlayer. That saves me a lot of grief. If Gnash could do all that then I would use it.
I prefer free apps, but have to compromise to keep others happy. I'll still encourage them to use free apps like Open Office and Firefox.
Maybe the increased running costs will help end the arms war of ever bigger vehicles. If the big ones get forced off the roads then we will all be better off.
Cue posts by those saying they need a huge truck to tow their boat or whatever. Those that need them are a very small minority. The rest do it for ego or other reasons.
You are supposed to measure your pressures when the tyres are cold, but they will be considerably warmer are running at speed for a while. I'll be interested to know how much the maximum temperature (and thus pressure) varies through the year.
It's all a compromise. I'm sure race cars have their tyre pressure tuned according to the conditions on the day, but your average driver will check theirs infrequently.
How good are the replacement caps that show when the pressure is down?
I think of them as the Top Gear (UK car show) of Linux podcasts. Personally I could have done with an edited version without all the inane chat so that I could listen to just the good bits. It was always meant to be like a chat you would have at a LUG, but also included some great interviews with prominent people.
I would also say that it was generally better produced than many podcasts. Jono and co are good speakers and it was well recorded, so was easier to listen to some others that were full of hesitations and hard to make out. I think general quality has improved over the last few years.
I haven't made it to a LRL and won't this time, but would have liked to. The range of speakers and low cost were attractive even if you didn't like the presenters.
So I will need to find some other podcasts to listen to now. The Ubuntu UK one is pretty good. I also listen to Stack Overflow for general programming stuff. It helps pass the time on my journey to work.
I commute 40 miles into London. I can do it by train, but it costs a lot more and generally takes longer than driving. It's at least 5 miles to the nearest supermarket, but we generally get the groceries delivered.
Not all Europeans live in cities with convenient public transport, so we have to drive too. Okay so we are not going to drive hundreds of miles very often, but how many folk in the US do that regularly?
I'm trying to save a bit by driving a bit slower (saves 10% fuel) and working from home more.
The whole long-distance commuting lifestyle is not sustainable.
To get back on topic, I'd love to see a clean form of nuclear that solves all our energy problems. I don't know that it's available yet.
I learned BBC Basic on old Acorn Archimedies computers I used it on my BBC Model A with 16KB. I had a lot of fun with it and wrote loads of programs, including my first Mandelbrot set. It was a big step up from the simpler Basics I started with on the local college mini via a Teletype. I remember the editor being quite good for the time.
There is something to be said for simple languages where you just type in a few commands with no worries about loading libraries. Mind you, I would have killed for something like Python.
I ended up working on some fairly big applications in Turbo Basic and Quick Basic.
Slashdot Mirror
Do any netbooks have a CD drive? I suppose you may be able to boot from a USB drive.
I bought a Freeloader solar charger to play with. Unless you can leave it outside in full sun, and keep moving it to maintain optimal angle I find it can barely keep my phone going. Generally it gets much less solar exposure. Windows, clouds etc drastically reduce the charging. In a British winter you have no chance.
I didn't expect it to pay for itself. I see the benefit of PV to be when you don't have access to other power sources. You see panels on some roadside devices that might have cost more to connect to the grid.
My Freeloader may of use on long flights if I can get it fully charged beforehand, possibly via USB, to keep my gadgets going a bit longer.
Thanks for that. I didn't realise how friendly the BOINC software was. Much easier to use than F@H. I've set it up on a couple of PCs and will see how it goes.
It's always a wrench to leave a project where you have built up some points, but I didn't have a huge amount on F@H.
I ran OGR25 again for the last few months in hope of seeing that project complete. RC5-72 just seems pointless to me. We already know it will take decades without some radical improvement in processing power.
I've been disappointed by the lack of updates to the dnet site. Even now the projects page still says that OGR25 is active.
I've moved to Folding@home now as I hope it will have tangible benefits. My contribution is pretty minor as I don't have the hardware for GPU processing.
Not really 300mpg as it's electric with a range of 120 miles. TFA says they may do a hybrid that does 130mpg (US I assume). Not too bad. If you want 4 wheels and better economy then the Loremo looks cool if it ever gets into production
http://evolution.loremo.com/
As for safety, the US has issues if their fatality rate is x3 the UK one
http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info%20section/statistics/stats-multicountry-percapita-2004.htm
I was just saying that without us having to become 'better' just to survive then there will be no pressure to evolve in a particular direction and so we will continue to have various random variations, but they will lead nowhere. If anything we will become 'worse' as the 'bad' genes will not drop out of the pool.
I know little about genetics, but I think I understand some of the general principles. Okay, I've read some Dawkins.
I've thought for some time that evolution in humans must be stagnating. There is very little natural selection if most humans are likely to grow up and reproduce regardless of their intelligence or physical attributes due to medical advances and states caring for their citizens. This probably means that many genetic disorders will not die out as they might have in the past.
You start wondering if some people should be allowed to reproduce, but that gets into dodgy territory.
Are their any societies where 'selective breeding' takes place on a wide enough scale to have a chance of producing evolutionary changes?
I use Skype, mainly because it has become a default standard among people I know. It has the advantage of being easy to set up on all platforms. 'Just works' is an important feature.
I've used it for video chat with a Logitech webcam with no set-up issues.
The downer with Skype is that you can only do one to one video chat. But then, do any more open apps do better?
A fan trailer for a book? Strange. I gather it's about monks and chavs who fight, but then some bloke with a dazed look gets involved. Can't wait for the game.
The attack doesn't compromise what MicroID does, which is to confirm that an account on a site is associated with a given email address. It's just a way of working out an email address from the MicroID hash.
As long as it's not easy to guess your email from your name or you don't use a common provider then you are probably pretty safe.
Spammers got my main email ages ago and seem to have hacked a few forums for one-off addresses I used there too. So I don't worry too much about giving out my email address. The spam is mostly filtered, so I don't have to see it.
I'm not sure exactly where they got my address from. It could have been on a keyserver. Searching for my address finds lots of hits on those. Much easier than trying to extract it from a MicroID. Those were potentially useful for proving identity.
That said, spammers, identity thieves and other low-lifes have conspired to make the internet less useful than it might have been since we cannot share as much information as we might want to. I'm still wary of sharing some details on social sites and in my FOAF file. Others seem less bothered about this or perhaps just don't realise the risks.
The internet could have been a universal phone/address/email directory, but too many people would abuse that.
Note the copyright of 2005-2006. I saw these ages ago. Not really news, but still a neat gadget. Having a PC this small means you can put it in places where you might not normally have one, providing it has the power for the application. I'm sure it could be good in a car for audio and assorted data logging.
You can get something more powerful for less money, but sometimes size and power consumption will be the main factors.
I've got a Freeloader solar charger that came with a load of adaptors, including USB. It's a great idea, but doesn't work that well due to taking ages to charge up the internal battery, especially if you cannot leave it outside.
I charge stuff from USB when I can, but that often involves buying an extra cable.
For other stuff I plan to set up a charging station in a cupboard with the PSUs plugged into an extension with individual switches mounted under a shelf and cables tied up to minimum possible length.
I don't have too many gadgets to charge. Couple of phones, PDA and various stuff that runs on AA and AAA. I need a better battery charger to keep those going.
The bit about 'monks' being shut into chambers that do not open for 10/100/1000 years sounds a bit like something I remember from the Heliconia trilogy (I think) where people went into chambers in a huge wheel and were trapped until it completed a rotation.
I'm looking forward to it. I was one who enjoyed the Baroque Cycle. It was hard work, but rewarding.
Some sites offer a comment feed for each post. I need an easy way to manage those. The Google Reader subscription manager is a bit clumsy. I use Reader so I can browse my feeds from home, work or elsewhere.
Perhaps comment following needs an enhancement to RSS, but that's not something I know too much about.
Is Snowl (not sure about the name) anything like Flock? I've not used either.
YT has ads? Can't say I've noticed.
I have an elliptical trainer in the study. I can get my exercise whilst watching internet videos, listening to podcasts or catching up on something on MythTV. I'm not sure I could coordinate playing games whilst doing it.
There's an initial investment in the machine, but it's cheaper than going to a gym for a year and makes it more likely that I will exercise given that I don't have to drive anywhere and cuts my carbon footprint too.
I don't have weight problems, but then I don't exist on pizza and Coke.
How is this number significant? It's not an internal combustion engine, so you can't compare that sort of thing to anything people are used to. I bet it won't make the sort of npis
As for the 256mpg figure, is that in terms of equivalent CO2 from the power plant? That would depend on the type of power generation. If you can power it from solar or wind then that's great, but I suspect that for most people it's likely to be coal.
Strangely enough popularity does influence what people use.
I use Skype as it is the standard software for my office, but also because I do not relish trying to get my family to install the open alternatives. If someone brings out open VOIP software that supports video and can be installed by anyone then I'm interested.
I also have Flash to allow my kids to play various web games and for my wife to watch BBC iPlayer. That saves me a lot of grief. If Gnash could do all that then I would use it.
I prefer free apps, but have to compromise to keep others happy. I'll still encourage them to use free apps like Open Office and Firefox.
Maybe the increased running costs will help end the arms war of ever bigger vehicles. If the big ones get forced off the roads then we will all be better off.
Cue posts by those saying they need a huge truck to tow their boat or whatever. Those that need them are a very small minority. The rest do it for ego or other reasons.
You are supposed to measure your pressures when the tyres are cold, but they will be considerably warmer are running at speed for a while. I'll be interested to know how much the maximum temperature (and thus pressure) varies through the year.
It's all a compromise. I'm sure race cars have their tyre pressure tuned according to the conditions on the day, but your average driver will check theirs infrequently.
How good are the replacement caps that show when the pressure is down?
I think of them as the Top Gear (UK car show) of Linux podcasts. Personally I could have done with an edited version without all the inane chat so that I could listen to just the good bits. It was always meant to be like a chat you would have at a LUG, but also included some great interviews with prominent people.
I would also say that it was generally better produced than many podcasts. Jono and co are good speakers and it was well recorded, so was easier to listen to some others that were full of hesitations and hard to make out. I think general quality has improved over the last few years.
I haven't made it to a LRL and won't this time, but would have liked to. The range of speakers and low cost were attractive even if you didn't like the presenters.
So I will need to find some other podcasts to listen to now. The Ubuntu UK one is pretty good. I also listen to Stack Overflow for general programming stuff. It helps pass the time on my journey to work.
I commute 40 miles into London. I can do it by train, but it costs a lot more and generally takes longer than driving. It's at least 5 miles to the nearest supermarket, but we generally get the groceries delivered.
Not all Europeans live in cities with convenient public transport, so we have to drive too. Okay so we are not going to drive hundreds of miles very often, but how many folk in the US do that regularly?
I'm trying to save a bit by driving a bit slower (saves 10% fuel) and working from home more.
The whole long-distance commuting lifestyle is not sustainable.
To get back on topic, I'd love to see a clean form of nuclear that solves all our energy problems. I don't know that it's available yet.
I have memories of a Goodyear airship flying over my school back in the early 70s.
Airship Industries operated from the old Cardington Airship hangers in the 80s. They did trips over London
http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk/airships/ss500/index.html
One morning I drove past to see one spread over the airfield after they could not get it in before a storm.
There is something to be said for simple languages where you just type in a few commands with no worries about loading libraries. Mind you, I would have killed for something like Python.
I ended up working on some fairly big applications in Turbo Basic and Quick Basic.