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April 2, 2022 at 7:48 am in reply to: I need local storage but don’t really know what I’m looking for…. #69363
but I’d like something here that doesn’t go online that I can drag/send files via WiFi.
If that really defines your requirements then why not just add extra storage to your main PC box? Maybe something like a 2TB USB3 box. With this, if you have some huge files on the Android then just disconnect it from your PC and use an OTG connector to directly link it to the Android, or even your Chromebook assuming it has some sort of USB port. Sometimes the old plug/unplug routine is a lot easier than setting up software, it is also a bit more secure!
If you regularly go for hospital checkups then it is worth applying for a Lateral Flow Test Kit today. My local hospital still asks that visitors take a test before going for an examination.
After today such tests will cost you £2+. Hopefully you can still get the free ones by applying today!
Yet another route to nuclear energy is being pursued by the Aussies. This one works by smashing together hydrogen and boron to directly produce charged particles.
https://newatlas.com/energy/hb11-laser-fusion-demonstration/
I’m not so sure about the potential energy balance and economics of this route. Hydrogen production is very energy intensive, while boron is pretty rare stuff and only forms 0.001 percent of the earths crust, so production and transportation costs will be high.
Novel, but I think I prefer the NASA Cold Fusion type approach.
The gas transmission group are replacing quite a lot of underground pipes in this area (recognisable by the bright yellow colour of the plastic pipe) and ‘roaring’ gas burners are quite a frequent occurrence. Obviously they are only doing a ‘near enough’ purge and our gas burners are set up near the lean limit. However it all settles down after a day or two.
Back to the OP. I assume that a number of properties in your area also had ‘Smart’ meters installed. If so, then it is possible that a fair quantity of air made its way into the distribution system and you may be an end of the line customer getting the full benefit of too lean a gas mix.
If you have a gas range, you will note that the flame ‘roars’ a lot, and sometimes goes out. Your problem will eventually go away if that is the case. Hopefully it disappears before the northern return of winter takes place later this week.
Just to add a bit of irrelevant data to Les’ s comment. The old ‘Town Gas’ used to have about 60% hydrogen in it as a result of the coking process that produced the gas. Hydrogen has a very high flame speed and this helped prevent the flame lifting off the nozzle even with low pressures. One odd-ball aspect of pure hydrogen is that it is a pig to transport, hydrogen will ‘leak’ through solid steel walls and even embrittle the steel, but this was not so much of a problem with Town Gas.
When you read about the ‘green’ hydrogen economy and all the BS about needing hydrogen powered vehicles, just remember that a very cheap fix for gas home heating would be to mix 60% green hydrogen with North Sea gas and reconstitute a new form of ‘Town Gas’. as we know exactly what would need to be changed to make each gas burner work properly. Such a mixture would be much easier and safer to transport than trying to handle pure hydrogen.
Thanks Dave, that is a useful network tip.
As Dave said, use a vm for XP, you can then make sure that it will never connect to the Internet by removing its network adapter. Unfortunately M$ never issued an ARM version of XP, but they have for Windows 11. This makes it possible to install Windows 11 on a £54 Raspberry Pi4.
Other than it being (just) possible to do this, no sane person would want to use such a beast for anything in the real world. However, just in case you want to try for yourself, the method used is given in the link:
https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/how-to/install-windows-11-raspberry-pi
I believe M$ made ARM versions for Windows 8 and 10, but unfortunately never made one for Windows 7 as that could have made a fairly viable machine.
March 21, 2022 at 2:24 pm in reply to: Read First if flying on a Boeing 737 Max–or maybe not! #69325I just wish that Boeing would address what appears to be inherent flaws with the whole 737 range. Today’s accident in China reminds me of a number of very similar accidents that have occurred over the years. The China crash is however especially horrific in that the plane plummeted vertically for over three minutes from a height of 33000 feet.
This Australian link includes footage from a mobile that shows the last few seconds showing the plane diving vertically into the ground.
Understandably, China has grounded all its 737-800s. I hope the rest of the world quickly follows them!
BullGuard, Comodo and Sophos are British A/V companies. Bitdefender is Roumanian.
As I stated earlier it was not paranoia that made me dump Kaspersky but purely politics. There is little I can do in practical terms to aid Ukraine other than send money. While removing Kaspersky does not immediately hurt Russia, it does send a message that Putin has miscalculated the implications of his actions in many aspects and the harm it will do to Russia in the longer term. I believe that the US may have pushed him into making a huge error of judgement by continually stating that Russia would invade Ukraine.
While I understand the reasons for Russia’s actions it does not excuse them in any way at all. If he had just postured with troop movements on the borders and then sent them home, I think he could have obtained most of Russia’s objectives without killing innocent people.
As it is, he has lost even if he gains Crimea and a chunk of Donbas. Pundits say that over 5000 Russian troops are dead, and very significant numbers of tanks and their aircraft have been lost. Russia has also lost politically and economically. The US has won in that it has managed to unite the EU and will almost certainly achieve the US objective of getting Germany etc to buy more US arms and spend more on defence. The US has also won from a weakened Russia. BoJo has also won as Partygate and Tory Sleeze/corruption has disappeared from the headlines. However not all Tories have won, Rees-Mogg has lost big time on his Russian investment vehicle. China will almost certainly win from both Russian oil and gas going to them at discount prices, and also on the trade front by laundering Russian goods and minerals before carefully re-badging them as Chinese in origin.
I suspect the ‘dead-hand’ of marketers have influenced the sensor price. Such sets normally come with a top of the range model and the marketers do not want to give a cheaper way of getting top of the range benefits.
The German Security Service Advises people to dump Kaspersky because it is a potential risk.
I am now much happier with Bitdefender having discovered that when opened by an Administrator it offers the same fine-tuning as that of Kaspersky. It actually seems better behaved than Kaspersky and does not slow things down as much when file copying etc.
If you remember the derided Cold Fusion – check out NASA’s Lattice Confinement Fusion. Its as close to Cold Fusion as a Mule is to a Horse!
Being very cynical it would not surprise me if 99% of the Cold Fusion criticism came from JET, Iter and Tokamak stakeholders. Or maybe it was the Saudis/Russians as they had the most to lose!
Even if your car meets the low emissions numbers, you could still have a congestion charge hanging over you if you go through central London.
Driver assistance packs can be both useful AND irritating. My wife likes all the bells and whistles turned on which can make the Kia a medley of sound whilst driving. Unfortunately not all the bells and whistles are intelligent. For example, the ‘lane wandering bong’ happens even if I have signaled and I am moving into the right hand lane. Frankly I find it b-annoying that the programmers did not think to turn off warnings whilst the indicators are being used.
My mental reaction is always one of irritation, ‘I KNOW I’m lane crossing – I bleeding well meant to do so!’
Drezha, with a little one I’m surprised that you did not need a furniture van!
I guess modern buggies take a lot less space than the old prams/push chairs, and even less if you just opt for body slings.
Segueing back to cars, we decided that for our new (probably ultimate) car that we would go fully electric and opted for the Kia e-Niro. Given the current prices for petrol and diesel I feel that we lucked out, even more so as we can charge it up from our solar panels. The wife loves the car, even more than she did with our old Toyota hybrid. She is in the petite size range and often has problems with front and side visibility in the cars we drive, but the Kia’s seat adjustment has totally fixed that issue.
We now have three grandchildren who are all school age, so we can get away with relatively little boot space even if we are taking them all off somewhere.
The range quoted for a 64Kwh battery is around 230 miles (warm weather, not threshing it) This equates to around 3.5 miles/Kwh, a figure that experience shows to be fairly accurate, however battery performance is reduced in cold weather and goes downhill fast when the car heaters are used. (Apparently better to use seat warmers as this is more efficient, but kids tend to complain a bit).
The high torque of an electric motor means acceleration is extremely good, not quite up to hybrid acceleration, but more than acceptable. Braking can be a fearsome experience when both motor and discs cut in – give such cars plenty of braking space if behind them as their ability to stop on a pin may give you a shock!
The only real downside for us is range worry. Going away further than 100 miles means looking for hotels or venues that have chargers – preferably a high speed one. It also means planning to take breaks en-route where there are chargers we can use during the break.
I guess all this will improve with time as the numbers of electric cars increases, but it is going to make motorway recharging an interesting logistical exercise.
It appears that the ClearDisk warning was accurate. Unexplained errors disappeared when I substituted a new SSD. I suspect that SSD soft read errors were causing difficulties somewhere.
Dumping Russian software and tech sales to Russia is having an effect on them, they have announced measures to prop up their tech industry.
It is a pity that Putin does not just back down. Unfortunately he will never do such a thing as it would just result in him being kicked out, maybe even thrown to the ‘mercies’ of the Hague as was done with Milosevic. (I’d maybe less cynical about the Hague if they would also prosecute TBLiar.)
+1 for CEX.
CeX offers a 24-month warranty on all items purchased from CeX stores or webuy.com except consumables (removable batteries and projector bulbs).
They may be a little more expensive in their second=hand goods, but the quality is reliable and the warranty is excellent value, though for phones it is often the battery that causes the problems. I guess it depends how they define ‘removable’!
March 6, 2022 at 2:53 pm in reply to: Russiagate, Geopolitics, National Politics, Gas, Ukraine and us #69267Nice Mural PM!
For those with an open mind, Neal Ascherson has an Opinion piece in the Sunday Observer that chimes well with what I picked up when overseas and out of the usually Yankophile/Murkydog orbit of UK Newspapers.
It is difficult to pick up the opponents views of a situation, but it is important that we do, otherwise it will be very difficult to find a peaceful end to this horrendous ‘civil war’. If Putin ‘wins’ without this, it will just give rise to a situation that will fester for years.
A successful negotiation requires that both sides win and lose something they value. Maybe Zelenskiy should be encouraged to recognize Russia’s claims to the Russian speaking Donbas. As Russia has spent the last week bombing and shelling these same people they are not likely to be too happy about their ‘liberators’! Equally Russia should be encouraged to give up its aspirations for reclaiming Catherine the Great’s territories which are almost as valid as our possible claim to the Angevin Empire.
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