* Posts by Snobol4

27 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Apr 2010

Another airline finds loose bolts in Boeing 737-9 during post-blowout fleet inspections

Snobol4

So, on the back of deciding not to re-design an airframe that dates from the 1960s to accomodate modern, high bypass engines and instead for the first time in history deliberately introduce unstable flight characteristics in a civil airplane, they also now decide to deliberately introduce weak points (holes) into the airframe for convenience and cost reasons. When are people going to really hold Boeing to account and stop travelling on this airplane? You certainly wouldn't catch me taking a flight on a modern 737!

Intel thinks glass substrates are a clear winner in multi-die packaging

Snobol4

How to do vias and layers on glass substrates?

The question for me with this technology is how multiple layers and connection between layers (vias) would be done if the substartes are based on glass. Are they talking multiple very thin layers of glass?

Obviously the method of doing this on organic substartes is well known and mature - basically PCB technology. Glass?

Rolls-Royce, EasyJet fire up first hydrogen-fueled jet engine

Snobol4

Couldn't agree more. It's like all the graphs you see showing the increase in wind/solar energy over the last few years. What is it now, 20-something percent? People assume we just need to isntall more and this line will continue to increase. WHat they forget is that getting to 20% is not so difficult as that is about the percentage of the time these generation sources are producing. However, you cannot just extrapolate the curve forever upwards, as the wind and sun are not there a lot of the time.

As this gentleman says, nuclear is the only viable option. No emissions, 24/7/365 operation so extremely efficient with resources, including transmission line infrastructure utilisation, and extremely safe (safer than wind). Nuclear waste issue completely exagerated (need nuclear isotopes anyway for medical etc) and wwell contained. New generation of molten salt Thorium reactors surely need to be pushed agressively - much cheaper to construct, cheaper than coal to run and intrinsically safe (no possibility of meltdown, no danger of radiation leaks, no risk of explosions, no proliferation risk as doesn't produce plutonium) and can actually be used to burn the existing nuclear waste we have, including the UKs vast plutonium stockpile.

Solar and wind sound nice, but when you look into the detail both have huge flaws in terms of solving our need for CHEAP clean energy.

No one even questions what will happen to all the "solar panel waste". How will all the heavy metals and toxic chemicals from those be dealt with when they reach end-of-life? And yet people extol the virtues of that and won't even consider nuclear, and in particular the "new" variants of nuclear that solve the issues

Watch this https://youtu.be/N-yALPEpV4w

Snobol4

Burning hydrogen in a gas turbine is the easy bit!

Surely the problem here is not modifying a jet engine to be able to burn hydrogen instead of Jet-A. I have a camping stove that can do the same thing.

The big issue is the storage of the gas on a practical airplane. That is a problem of the extremely low volumetric energy density of hydrogen compared to Jet-A which means a suitable airplane what have to have enormous tanks. Plus also the fact that the tanks would need to be constructed to contain the liquid hydrogen, which means huge pressures and very low temperatures. Hence the impact of the tank construction will largely outweigh the mass advantage of hydrogen.

So, what has been done is the really easy bit. The hard bit remains, and may be impractical. A bit like fusion?.....

Massive energy storage system goes online in UK

Snobol4

Re: Decommissioning?

You are forgetting that there are alternative forms of nuclear power that offer far cheaper cost models, both capital costs and running costs.

Capital costs now are high due to the high-pressure nature of PWR reactors and all the safety systems needed to protect from the potential modes of failure, for example the pressure vessel and containment building. Molten salt reactors significantly reduce these costs as they operate at atmospheric pressure, meaning a hugley expensive pressure vessel and conatinemnt building are not required and that the naturally shut themselves down in the vent of a failure in cooling.

Running costs due to the use of Thorium instead of the far rarer Uranium 235 and the fact that liquid fuelled reactors burn all the fuel as opposed to 95% of uranium in a PWR remaing unburnt when the fuel rods are removed as "spent" and the massive reduction in radioactve "waste"

China and India already have experimental reactors running.

So, "new" nuclear remains by far the greenest, sefest and most likely cheapest form of energy for the future, it just requires people to look at the realities of nuclear, particularly new nuclear, and leave their historical prejudices behind.

What is often completely ignored in the race to net zero, is that the COST needs to be affordable. If people cannot afford the cost of green energy, then net zero won't happen anyway, no matter how good the intentions.

NASA wants nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030

Snobol4

Re: Location, Location, etc...

And the likelihood of that happening? Fission reactors on earth have been the cause of fewer deaths than any other form of power generation. The 3 million people a year who die from the consequences of fossil fuel power stations that don't attract media attention as there is no dramatic event? Did you know that if fossil fuel power stations were regulated to the same extent as nuclear power stations they would all be shut down overnight? The reason - the fuel they are burning contains traces of naturally occuring radioactive material and burning it chucks it up into the atmosphere. Radiation is part of life and is the reason we are alive on Earth.

My question is - what kind of fission reactor the are planning? It would seem to be unlikely to be a PWR. Could it possibly be a molten salt type developed and proven in the 1950/60s by Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a proof of concept for a nuclear powered bomber by Alvin Weinberg and his team? Unfortunately that project was canned when in-flight refuelling and ICBMs negated the need. Very unfortunate, as if that work had continued we would have cheaper and even safer fission power stations today. Atmospheric pressure, not 150 atmospheres and a potential bomb. Also, potential to burn Thorium rather than uranium, massively more abundant.

Don't forget all long-mission NASA spacecraft have always been nuclear powered, hence their longevity. Voyager, still flying 45 years after launch. Granted not fission powered, but non-the-less

The earth ignores fission power (particularly the newer variants, not the 50s era uranium power PWRs) at its peril. 24/365 continuous power and no emissions, and with newer reactors almost no radioactive waste. Fusion? As everyone says, it is always 30 years in the future. Fission is real and now.

For those interested in the history of how we got the fission reactors we have today, nuclear and space and what the future of fission COULD be the following video is a "must see". It's long, but fascinating. You should watch when you have time to devote to it

https://youtu.be/YVSmf_qmkbg

Microsoft says hello again to China, goodbye to Russia

Snobol4

The devil is in the detail

The lack of detail in many of the announcements from companies regadring operations is worrying. There is a big difference between pulling the plug completely (i.e. curtailing all services) and only stopping "new business". One can see the former having a massive effect on the functioning of the Russian economy. The latter will have virtually zero effect. What is each of these of these companies actually proposing to do and when?

Clearly for Ukrainians who arte fighting a war right now and need as much assistance as possible right now, knowing which is the actual situation is of paramount importance. Just like the UK government saying it will welcome Ukrainians into the country but then you find out only 50 visas have been issued when 1.5m people have fled the country!

Another successful flight for SpaceX's Starship apart from the landing-in-one-piece thing

Snobol4

Can't even get a reliable video link?

The thing I actually found most worrying is the fact they couldn't even get a reliable video link to work over a line-of-site range of a few km. Surely that should be easy in this day and age? I remember Apollo had "good" pictures from the moon. Why can't Space X get reliable feeds from a few km up, especially when images such as this must be important in the process of analysing failures? It's not just there for fan entertainment value!

Also, whilst I accept that landing a rocket successfully is not a trivial thing, I do find it rather intriguing that it is not more consistent given the many orders of magnitude of transistors and lines of code that are certainly being thrown at the control system than on early landings, such as the LEM. Anyone watched the videos of the Apollo guidance computer? Very basic technology, but maasterfully executed and amazingly effective - from the very first landing!

Arm China brands itself a 'strategic asset', calls for Beijing's help in boardroom dispute with Brit HQ

Snobol4

Well said, the most relevant comment here. If you (UK government) allow a UK company like this to be sold to a foreign buyer you lose all power or right to criticise what is done by that entity in the future. Softbank bought if for profit, no question. Who knows, maybe they had a secret agreement already lined up to flog the Chinese arm before they did the deal? Wouldn't surprise me, as China knows it would never be able to buy Arm directly. But what if someone less controversial bought it first and then found a way to hive off to you what you want.....? We all know how desperate China is to free itself from reliance on the West. What better way than to have guaranteed access to the dominant CPU architecture? Or am I just being too suspicious??? Whatever, the UK government made (amongst countless others) a huge mistake allowing this sale to proceed, on numerous grounds.

2 + 2 = 4, er, 4.1, no, 4.3... Nvidia's Titan V GPUs spit out 'wrong answers' in scientific simulations

Snobol4

First Nvidia quantum computing product

Does Titan V therefore represent Nvidia's unexpected entry into the quantum computing market?

'The capacitors exploded, showering the lab in flaming confetti'

Snobol4

PSUs

I remember visiting a PSU factory in the early 80s and looking around their test/rework area. The ceiling was unusually interesting - the usual fibre tiles above the operator’s bench were peppered with hundreds of aluminium cans (from exploding electrolytic capacitors) lodged firmly in them. This was a well-known phenomenon in the early days, which is why modern electrolytics have an "X" pattern formed in the top of the can to allow them to rupture and gases escape without any ballistic effect.

I can also personally attest to "cratered chip" syndrome. I experienced this when applying power incorrectly to some 74LS TTL logic when I was a teenager. Likewise a black piece of hard epoxy became ballistic in the process and a smouldering and glowing piece of silicon instantly became visible beneath!

Nick

AMD will sell server CPUs at Happy Meal prices so you can supersize servers

Snobol4

Re: The Biggest Reason

That's down to M$, not AMD. Same goes for Intel. All new silicon is Win10 only. Microsoft is forcing everything to Win10, even those people and industries that have serious issues currently doing so

Maplin Electronics sold for £85m to Rutland Partners

Snobol4

They started as predominently mail order

The interesting thing is Maplin started life mainly as a mail order outfit (based in Southend) selling from a catalogue (which used to be interesting reading for the electronics hobbyist back in the 70s).

One would have thought that "online" is simply going back to Maplin's roots - mail order.

Back then it was mainly components, not finished goods. They opened up a few regional "shops" (I remember the one behind Brewers on London Rd, Bromley) that were more like walk-in warehouses, but then they seemed to shrink back to mail order. Not sure what happened to enable them to appear in force on the high street.

I hope they survive - if only for memories sake!

UK micro pioneer Chris Shelton: The mind behind the Nascom 1

Snobol4

Re: An inspiration for a generation

Edgware Rd - yes, what a memory. Not just Henry's but all the other component shops that opened up within a couple of hundred yards south of Henry's. And Maplin when it first opned up a few stores outside Southend (one in the back streets of Bromley as I remember) when they pretty much just did components. Proops for rumadging around? Those were the days!

Deep inside Intel's new ARM killer: Silvermont

Snobol4

Re: tri-gate advantage

Already done:-

http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-and-tsmc-tape-out-first-arm-cortex-a57-processor.php

AMD pins its server hopes on SeaMicro technology - maybe in APUs

Snobol4

The process technology

Why do you say AMD "can't get ahead on process"? What is being forgotten is that under the new arrangements AMD has the freedom to work with founderies such as TSMC. Now TSMC might not be ahead of Intel, but they are arguably almost on a par. Intel spent $10.8bn on property, plant and equipment in 2011. TSMC is spending $8.5bn in 2012. So, it is not true to say "similar" levels of process technology aren't (or won't be) available to AMD. Yes it's true that Intel spends far more than any other company on manufacturing technology, but then most other large chip companies use fabs that are focused purely on manufacturing.

Do people honestly believe Intel will be the only company in the world capable of manufacturing leading-edge chips? Intel may be rich, but there are a lot of other wealthy and innovative companies (e.g. Qualcomm) needing high-end process technology from the likes of TSMC and others.

I just hate it when people say companies like AMD are "as good as dead" based on a view they will just be incapable of competing based on process tech.

A million TVs to go dark across London

Snobol4

But when will the Freeview power be increased?

Are we to assume that the power output for Freeview is being increased the following day? Or are we actually going to have to wait longer for that.....?

HP readies AMD, Intel sub-notebook

Snobol4

Re:- Why, if it has an AMD APU....

This is a mistake in the article. The HP press release uses the standard AMD wording for the E-series APUs - "discrete-class graphics", i.e. the integrated HD6320 DX11 GPU. There is no discrete GPU.

Will be interesting to see benchmarks comparing the AMD and Intel versions of this item - particularly considering the price delta.

New DVD discs claim 1,000 year life

Snobol4
Happy

Re: Natural Aging → #

Depends on whether you continue to degrade at 1% of your current state each year - then you'll live for ever !

Beeb rolls out global paid iPlayer app in €urope

Snobol4
FAIL

Re: Make it a volontary subcription → #

What, you mean like how you choose exactly how all your taxes are spent on a "per case" basis? Defence, Olympics, regional regeneration programs, libraries, swimming pools......

What a crass, idiotic statement !!!

Get a life in the real world

Snobol4
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Re:- so where does the revenue go? → #

Cliff has it right. By chance have just read news of BSkyB latest reported profits:-

"BSkyB increased its customer base by 426,000 in the year to give it a total of 10,294,000 subscribers.

Average revenue per customer grew £31 to £539"

£539 per customer average!!! And guess what - even if you are fool enough to pay these robbers, you STILL have to watch bloody adverts!!!

My only disappointment is that this article seems to be saying only available on iPad. Why not a full annual subscription version of iPlayer so that all the ex-pats (or people who have to spend large amounts of time working outside the UK) can watch most of UK BBC TV? I am sure this would also attract many non-UK viewers who would love to be able to download and watch the broad range of interesting programming that DOES come out of the BBC - without any BLOODY adverts!

As a well travelled person I challenge anyone with a strong anti-Beeb attitude to live in another country and experience what "freedom" brings you - millions of channels of cheap, useless crap, interrupted every few seconds (after just the opening credits in the case of the USA) with mindless adverts!

AMD targets tablets and cloudbooks in Intel showdown

Snobol4
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What AMD is shipping now:- <6W TDP Dual core HD6000 series DX11 APU

What is missing here is reference to what AMD has shipping now - a dual core 1GHz APU complete with integrated HD6000 series DX11/OpenGL 4.1 graphics and a UVD3 multimedia engine - all for less than 6W TDP!

That's Atom territory for TDP but with far superior graphics and out-of-order execution CPU cores.

Clearly this may still not be a low enough TDP for tablets, but certainly makes for nicely performing products with long battery life for anything bigger.

As usual there seems to be too much talk of what is coming next, not enough about what is actually shipping now - a common fault with us techies?

The fact is the new Bobcat core architecture wedded to latest generation ATI/AMD GPU architecture already makes for a very nice product. The gradual move in emphasis away from raw CPU grunt to GPU hardware acceleration of common parallel processing tasks (which, after all, is where most performance is really needed) is already starting to favour AMD with their superior GPU technology. Anyone who has seen a die shot of the Onatrio/Zacate won't fail to be impressed by the fact that two thirds of the die is actually GPU - and the total die size is less than an Atom. That demonstrates a much better balance of resources in today's world.

As I see it AMD is already on a role with this APU stuff, not something that is vaguely out there in the future.

Intel does fondleslabs with Atom 'Oak Trail'

Snobol4
FAIL

Re - Choice?

Errrrr - how about the AMD E-series APUs? Single/dual core 64b x86 with integrated HD6310 DX11 graphics? OoO execution. Variants down to 5W including the GPU? Not bad....... and certainly a real alternative to the crippled Atom architecture

Nvidia flexes Tesla muscles

Snobol4
FAIL

Re: and AMD still working to bring out their entries

Don't understand this comment. AMD has been shipping hardware and software tools to enable GPGPU applications for some considerable time.

Check out http://developer.amd.com/zones/OpenCLZone/pages/default.aspx

In fact there are already apps out that leverage the enormous efficiencies achievable by using GPUs resources rather than CPUs to perform certain applications on AMD GPUs. The future is clearly to enable application programmers to freely choose from the available computing resources, whatever they may be, based on "suitability to task" rather than code just for the CPU as has previously been the case. OpenCL provides this capability. There is even a Java to OpenCL tools (Aparapi).

I notice that even Intel has released an "Alpha" OpenCL tools for its GPUs. A sign for the future?

So, Nvidia is certainly not alone in this territory!

AMD: Intel still 'scaring customers'

Snobol4
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Webcast available here

For those interested, AMD webcast is available here:-

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?p=irol-eventDetails&c=74093&eventID=2696265

UK.gov may cut BBC licence fee in 2012

Snobol4
Thumb Down

What's all the fuss about?

Well, looks like I might be the only one lining up in defence. As someone who enjoys the broad range of interesting programming on BBC2 & BBC4, along with radio and the BBC website I just cannot understand what all the complaining is about. Tell me where else you can get all of this content for £145.

I can tell you that most people in nearly every other country in the world would bite your arm off for that kind of service! Having had to face the crap and endless adverts put out in other countries believe me we are bloody lucky! For example, I spend a lot of time in Italy now. RAI charges a subscription AND shows adverts! Whenever I watch anything interesting on the UK independent channels I am faced with having my viewing interrupted (is it me, or are they becoming more frequent and longer?) by advert breaks. Don't even get me started on Sky...... When Sky launched I lived in Japan. When I came back I was talking to someone about it.

"So, you pay £30/month. Not too bad I guess to avoid watching ads"

Reply - "Well, actually still get ads"

"What - you pay £30/month and still have to watch ads?"

Reply - "Yes, and actually sometimes you have to pay per-view for some content"

"So, let me get this straight. You now have to pay £30/month to receive stuff you used to be able to watch for free before? Are you mad?!!"

BTW - when was the last time you saw a decent drama or factual program actually produced by Sky?

My case rests.....

Like all big corporations, I am sure there is waste in the BBC.However, equating that to the need to cut back on a (modest) license fee - I just don't get it. If you want an example of a group of overpaid media directors who don't know their arse from their elbow, try the current board of Channel4. Remember the interesting programs they used to make? Now.... Big Brother??!!!

Please, please, please - understand properly what you've got and stop trying to destroy it as part of a fad hate relationship. Before passing judgement ask yourself exactly why British television is held in such high regard across the world and how much you would have to pay Mr Murdoch for such a service (with 25% "dead time" every few minutes thrown in to boot).

A satisfied BBC customer, not related in any way to any broadcaster other than by consumption.

AMD set to release low-cost six-core Phenom IIs

Snobol4

Re: AM2+ compatability?

>> Can anyone tell me if these chips will slot into an AM2+ mobo?

An AM3 CPU should run in an AM2+ specified board. However, the DRAM will be DDR2 instead of DDR3, so performance will be down compared to an AM3 motherboard.

Also depends on the BIOS of course....