* Posts by bucksboy

2 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Aug 2012

Spirit of Steve Fosset lives on as glider is poised to soar to 90,000ft

bucksboy

It'll be jolly cold up there (approx. -50 deg. C?): in fact, much of the flight will probably take place in sub-zero conditions. I'd be concerned about control surfaces jamming, and degradation of the structure due to repeated cooling/heating cycles. Presumably there will be some kind of onboard powerpack to run things like instruments, oxygen supply and cabin pressurization. One plus point though: wave lift is usually smooth, unlike thermal lift which can be rough (usually the stronger, the rougher :-( ), so it should be a nice ride.

Wintel takes kicking from Apple, market share at all-time low

bucksboy

Re: Meh!

"the classification of an iPad as a PC is wrong": not if many of the functions of the traditional PC are now performed by other classes of computing device, such as tablets and even smartphones, as other posters have pointed out. In the last 12 months I've bought: a Win7 desktop (which I expect to use for at least 5 years), 2 smartphones and an iPad. I previously owned a WinXP laptop, which I still have. So that's 2 x86 and 3 ARM chips (in CPU terms); I wouldn't be surprised if that is a typical mix. In daily usage terms the smartphones get the most (we carry/use them all the time, including for email and browsing), the iPad next and the desktop and laptop the least.