When the upside-down-ternet was slashdotted it originally had more images in the page, but the 100Mbit upstream on the server filled up, so I took some out.

We have custom built rack shelves for Mac Minis that neatly hold the power supplies and minis.

http://www.mythic-beasts.com/macminicolo.html

14 minis in 5U including the power supplies. You need to allow some rackspace for the masterswitches and switches too.

Recording at -20dB isn't 100% FAIL. Suppose you're recording outdoors and it's windy. The difference between the ambient noise floor of the wind (say 40dB) and the spoken voice (say 90dB) gives you 50dB of dynamic range. Setting it to peak at -20dB puts the wind noise at -70dB, compared to the digital noise floor of -90dB (16bit) or -120dB (24bit). That's a perfectly sensible optimisation which gives a huge safety margin on clipping the signal whilst having the digital noise floor so low it doesn't matter. Remember when setting up you have a much better estimate of the minimum background noise level than the maximum peak - e.g. should your interviewee suddenly shout and you're recording with peaks a 0dB in normal speaking you're going to look very stupid.

In general a professionally mastered recording should peak at 0dB to use the full dynamic range, but sometimes computers are used with original content before it's been mastered.

So electric cars with a 500 mile range are problematic if

1: You live somewhere very isolated with very unreliable electricity supply and life threatening weather

2: When you plot a 500 mile journey you're completely unable to go past a quick charge point to compensate for (1)

I'd suggest that when you go to Heaven, you don't have a conversation with Mr Darwin and his survival of the fittest theory.

Here's a potential solution.

At present we drive a big lorry full of petrol from the refinery to the petrol station every so often?

How about we drive a big lorry full of batteries from the power station every so often and take the old batteries back?

Or how about we put a great big power lead into the fuel station. The sort of lead they use for hospitals, data centres, aluminimum factories etc.

You only need to supply replacement batteries to people who are making >500 miles journeys without an overnight stop so the number of people stopping and drawing energy from the fuel station is comparatively low. In the UK you could get away with less than a dozen stations in total on the major motorways (M5,M6,M1,A1M,M62,M25,M4, somewhere in Scotland) and you'd cover almost every non pathological 500mile journey you could do. Really, that's replacing the entire petrol station network in the UK with less than 12 battery stations.

Actually that's probably overkill. Starting from London, Aberdeen and Inverness are the only cities that's far enough away to need a recharge (535miles/560miles). It's entirely possible that the number of people needing a battery swop on the way would be so low it would be uneconomic to make the batteries swoppable or to fund a battery swop station.

Besides, in the UK you're strongly recommended to stop for 30 minutes after every three hours driving. At most that's 210miles of energy every 30 minutes, that's a delivery rate of 180kW to the car while it charges. That's difficult (in particular getting the battery to accept the power without overheating) but may not be impossible.

This is a very silly line of argument in being neither correct nor generally applicable.

It is legal to cycle on roads where I (and every poster other than you) live.

The roads were designed for roman legions, pedestrians and horses. Bicycles came later. Cars came even later.

If he is Canadian he's very misguided. The particular quote was, "I live in the U.S. Where I am, unless there is a bike lane, you are not allowed to be in lanes designated for motorists." My experience of Canadians is they really don't like be mistaken for Yanks :-)

and this time with the line breaks, d'oh

I'm know of the laws in the UK - all cyclists have the same rights as motor vehicles except on motorways. I'm aware of the laws in the EU, and I'm pretty certain bikes are allowed everywhere except motorways.

I'm not aware of all the laws in the USA, so I looked them up. After going through the first four states I could find the laws for, pretty much all four had the same laws as the UK. I failed to find a single state that banned bikes.

I'll note that you specifically stated that you live in the US and US law states the bikes aren't allowed on the road. I did some research and demonstrated that your statement was not generally true.

Now I'm going to be exceptionally generous and accept that it's possible that I'm incorrect, and those of us in the civilised world are prepared to retract and apologise for our failings.

If you can provide me with the appropriate citations of the laws of at least eight states in which cycling is prohibited I'll apologise unreservedly for my ignorance and concede that in general cyclists don't have the right to use the road in the US.

If you can provide one citation of one state/city I'll modify my statement of you to either a parochial moron who's blissfully unaware of anything outside his immediate experience, or a disingenuous troll who's deliberately over generalising.

If you can't do either, then I think my statement of ignorant fuckwit stands happily on it's own merit.

I'm know of the laws in the UK - all cyclists have the same rights as motor vehicles except on motorways. I'm aware of the laws in the EU, and I'm pretty certain bikes are allowed everywhere except motorways. I'm not aware of all the laws in the USA, so I looked them up. After going through the first four states I could find the laws for, pretty much all four had the same laws as the UK. I failed to find a single state that banned bikes. I'll note that you specifically stated that you live in the US and US law states the bikes aren't allowed on the road. I did some research and demonstrated that your statement was not generally true. Now I'm going to be exceptionally generous and accept that it's possible that I'm incorrect, and those of us in the civilised world are prepared to retract and apologise for our failings. If you can provide me with the appropriate citations of the laws of at least eight states in which cycling is prohibited I'll apologise unreservedly for my ignorance and concede that in general cyclists don't have the right to use the road in the US. If you can provide one citation of one state/city I'll modify my statement of you to either a parochial moron who's blissfully unaware of anything outside his immediate experience, or a disingenuous troll who's deliberately over generalising. If you can't do either, then I think my statement of ignorant fuckwit stands happily on it's own merit.

Just for the record, Edlll is an ignorant fuckwit who's oblivious to the law of the land.

In the grandparent he said,

I don't know where you live, but a bicyclist does not have the RIGHT to use any part of the road UNLESS there is a bike lane.

In the parent he said,

I live in the U.S. Where I am, unless there is a bike lane, you are not allowed to be in lanes designated for motorists.

It is clear that Edlll believes that cyclists do not have the right to use a road unless there is a bike lane.

In the UK this certainly isn't true. I'm not familiar with US traffic law so I thought I'd look it up,

New Jersey

39:4-14.1 Rights and Duties of Persons on Bicycles. Every person riding a bicycle on a roadway is granted all the rights and subject to all of the duties of the motor vehicle driver.

Montana

(2) A person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing shall ride as near to the right side of the roadway as practicable except when: (a) overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction; (b) preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway; or (c) necessary to avoid a condition that makes it unsafe to continue along the right side of the roadway, including but not limited to a fixed or moving object, parked or moving vehicle, pedestrian, animal, surface hazard, or a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and another vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.

Ohio

A motorist must: â Share the road with bicycles. The bicyclist has the same right to use the public road as any other driver, except freeways.

California

21200. (a) Every person riding a bicycle upon a highway has all the rights and is subject to all the provisions applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this division, including, but not limited to, provisions concerning driving under the influence of alcoholic beverages or drugs, and by Division 10 (commencing with Section 20000), Section 27400, Division 16.7 (commencing with Section 39000), Division 17 (commencing with Section 40000.1), and Division 18 (commencing with Section 42000), except those provisions which by their very nature can have no application.

So in 4/4 states we fine three explicitly grant the cyclist the full rights and responsibilities of a motorist, and the fourth state clearly grants the right to use the roadway but adds some restrictions about not impeding traffic where possible.

In the UK, the highway code states,

163 Overtake only when it is safe and legal to do so.

-- list of rules for over taking ---

You should give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car (see Rules 211-215)

It doesn't matter if the cyclist is 8 feet out - if you can't overtake them when they're taking up as much space as a car, you can't over take them at all.

Utilise your right to work no more than 48 hours / week under the EU working time directive.

If you can't, I suggest you change country.

In the civilised world we've figured out this is bad for you and we guarantee your right not to be exploited in the way you are.

Oh, while you're at it, get a legal minimum of 28 days / year holiday - that's the *lowest* in the EU.

The BBC are peered with every UK ISP. If you don't peer with the BBC you don't get any content at all. The BBC doesn't pay for bandwidth at all.

Historically the ISPs have concluded that in the UK your broadband should come with access to the BBC.

It's essentially going to be a peering spat, BT may pull peering from the BBC and try to get the BBC to pay. The BBC will cut off access to all streaming services if they do it. BTs customers will flee.

If the BBC are really nasty, I bet they could get a superb deal for streaming from Sprint who transit BT and nail BT for a huge transit bill for delivering the content.

Einstein, The principles of relativity.

Very readable papers on special relativity, essentially the same way it's taught now in a modern physics class (at least mine was).

Feynman, QED

Smart arse replaces great big pile of maths with pretty pictures with arrows in. Excellent.

Copernicus, On the revolutions of Heavenly Spheres,

Won't tell you very much, but worth it for the sheer horror of deriving the motions of the planets as viewed from Earth without using fractions.

Feynman, Lectures

The best presentation of a decent physics course there is. May only be comprehensible to people who already have a physics degree, I never tried reading it until I already had most of one at which point I was entranced.