I bought a mid-range digital multi-meter and was disappointed to find there is no damping on the readout. Even such a simple thing as reading a battery voltage the display acts crazy until you press the probes on really hard and keep dead still. As a result I still reach for an old, really cheap (it was from Tandy) little analog meter for most jobs unless I want particular accuracy or something out of the analog meter's range.

I would put a damping circuit in it myself if there were any means of doing so (the display is surface mounted on the PCB). I so mistrust it that I will not use it for checking that house mains circuits are dead before I work on them. That is a sad state of affairs.

In fact I have a lot of old analog stuff (multi-meters, audio kit) that my father left. I am currently refurbishing his multimeter - only because the sockets for the test leads have corroded, nothing wrong with the analog galvanometer itself.

Much of that old stuff did not "die", people threw it away because they assumed newer stuff was better, or because the old stuff becomes incompatible. Marketing droids see to the first, and as an example of the second I threw away a tube TV only because it would not receive digital broadcasting; another example is my father's camera which would last for ever except soon you won't be able to get film processed any more.

Older stuff did not look better, but tended to be made better, partly because people expected things like cameras, TVs, and even early PC's(!) to last their lifetime. I have some 1950's kitchen cupboards now in my workshop containing tools, nuts and bolts etc of massive total weight. I could have replaced them with more modern surplus cupboards but have put those in the trash instead, as there is no way they could have stood that weight. I do tend to keep a lot of older stuff; but because most people do not, they never see a direct comparison so do not realise the race to the bottom in quality that has been going on for a generation now. It is the boiling frog effect.

What are you complaining about? I once used an IBM keyboard to a mainframe (different from the Model M) and it actually had a little speaker inside it to make a clicking sound each time a key was pressed. It was to satisfy people who had come from mechanical typewriters.

You could turn the speaker off (I did) and then it just made the Model M sound. Same technology I suppose.

I find the sound of keyboards soothing, in fact worryingly somnolent.

The UK at one time (certainly around the 1950s-60s) had the world's highest number of electric vehicles on the road - tens of thousands of them I believe.

They were milk delivery trucks (called "Milk Floats") which typically delivered milk around town in glass bottles to people's doorsteps at around 5-6 am every day. That was before most people had fridges but wanted fresh milk every morning. They ran on batteries and had a top speed of about 8mph.

It was ideal, like it would also be ideal for rubbish (US garbage) collection. Electric drives are good for the constant start-stop driving with long-ish pauses in between. Also the early morning milk floats did not wake people up as a IC-engined truck would have done.

Fridges and car ownership brought an end to most doorstep milk deliveries, but there are still some around.

I dont think you understand how the UK NHS works. They make you wait for a long time for treatment in the hope that you will die first. It saves money.

International Standards eh? Like my company management is always droning on about "World Standards". Actually, if you take the average of "International" quality standards, it's shit.

Lennie wrote :-

It wasn't an insult. If you want an insult, try this :- It's Lenny

RTFA. It said they changing the default from Xfce, not KDE

... the Pope is a ... Oh damn, you guessed that already too?

I have driven trains. They have massive momentum, but feeble acceleration and braking. Make a normal brake application at full speed and nothing seems to happen for a while. Driving them is quite a knack, nothing like driving a car, and you need to be familiar with what is still out of sight ahead. I think that a human taking over from auto will do poorly because, as the train is in usually auto, they are simply out of practice.

Incidentally, the train (electric ones at least that I have driven) might as well have only 1mm of control handle travel. You drive them full on or off. For a lower speed you tend to nudge it along.

As an outsider, but a slightly knowledgable one, I though the North started it. Yes, the South declared secession, but the North started the war by marching into Virginia with the intent of occupying Richmond, although they only got as far as Bull Run. It would be like England invading Scotland tomorrow if the Scotish Nationalists win. Or like Germany and France invading the UK if the UK declared it had left the EU.

Pity this discussion has gone off-topic (was about Malasian workers).

They said the same thing about computers (ie we would not need teachers) and then the same about the Internet. Hasn't happened. I believe a similar thing was said about tape recorders when they first came out too.

Anyway, why does some CEO get so much news coverage? As CEO of a VR company, he would say that wouldn't he?

Sloppy Headline? It is a whole f#@king sloppy body of the article, the one in the link above I mean. Actually, I don't have a problem with the headline, which reads "Local Motors’ 3D Printed ‘Strati’ Car Has Just Taken Its First Test Drive. I don't expect detail in a headline.

In fact TFA says "Over the six day span of the IMTS, the company managed to 3D print, and assemble an entire automobile"

... so in the context of this news item it states exactly that. If it were meant to be read as not the entire automobile then it doesn't come over as a news story - the 3D printed part could just be the badge on the front. So the reader is being urged to believe it is the entire car. That is being dishonest.

I don't know why they needed to be. If it had been told correctly it would have been an interesting story anyway. Instead they have created a flamefest.

So who decides which 50% (or whatever) of the road is suitable for auto control? My daily drive takes me through easy bits and much trickier bits, sometimes changing within 100 yards and back again, and how tricky depends on what other drivers are doing. What will the "50% competent" car do? Will it be saying :-

"Quick Dave, it's tricky, take over ! - It's Ok now Dave, let go the steering wheel - Oh hang on it's tricky again! - Now it's OK again - Oh jeez, some idiot's just pulled out in front I can't cope, LOOK OUT !! where the fuck are you Dave? TAKE THE FUCKING STEERING WHEEL DAVE !!! Aaarrrgghh !!! "

So the human must sit there with just as much attention, and with just as much skill as if he were driving anyway. So much for those hopes of drunks/non-drivers/blind people etc.