Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Complete waste of time (Score 2) 44

As someone who recently lived in China for a couple of years I can tell you it is a complete waste of time. The Internet in China is so badly broken it is an open joke and it must be holding back the development of China. When you dig into the problem you quickly discover ALL your traffic passes through a single IP address, which I assume is the Great Firewall of China. This IP address not only makes your routes longer and traffic flow slower it also breaks different traffic types in different way depending on the service you want to use and the destination IP.

Adding more bandwidth to the country will have zero effect while all traffic is filter through a single bottle neck, their firewall. If they really wanted to improve performance they need to take the firewall out of the route, that would be far more effective than more fibre.

There is a lot to like about living in China but somethings, over time, drive you nuts. The biggest one for me was not having a reliable Internet connection, after two years of fighting for every packet I had had enough. It was so good to be back home where the Internet works as intended.

Comment Get some decent size monitors (Score 1) 464

Firstly I assume you have the normal 40+ age related close focus problem. If so first by 10 pairs of $2 reading glasses and put them in every room of your home, your work desk and your jacket pockets. Only wear them when you need them.

If you need them to read your desktop computer monitor then you need to fixed the problem so you see your monitors without them. I'm 52 years old so I can see monitors clearly if they are about 60cm (2ft) away, or further. At that distance 19" is too small, and who would even consider acceptable 19" these days? In my case a 23" monitor is the smallest I would consider and I currently use a pair 24" monitors at home and work. If I find the minimum distance increases with age then I will simply get bigger monitors and place then further away. I can work a 8 hour day in front of the monitors with no ill effects with this set up, but more than 30 mins with reading glasses on a small screen, such as a tablet, and my eyes are definitely tired.

The key here is wearing glasses is bad idea if better set up can fix the problem. You need to be able to focus, unaided, on your monitor without effort if you want to be free of eye strain and related discomfort.

Comment I though the hydrogen distraction was history (Score 1) 216

It's pretty clear the pure EVs won the race against hydrogen options so I though the days of news reports such as these was history. Looking back at the history of hydrogen offerings I can't help but think they were promoted by the oil industry as a way to slow pure EV development and as was fall back plan should someone actually work how to make a cost effective hydrogen vehicle. Lets hope that news sites such as Slashdot don't waste space on such rubbish in future.

Comment Re:Electric. (Score 1) 659

My last employer (in China) put power strips in the the scooter park to give all employees free charging at work. I would guess around 50% of the employees use it to to charge for free and if they live within 10km, as most do, they would not need to charge at home. So free commuting for an outlay of USD $400 to buy a new 500W electric scooter. While the rest of the world discusses range limits a very large percentage of the Chinese population use EVs everyday.

Comment Re:Electric. (Score 1) 659

Yes, these are the break thoroughs that will make the range issue mute. Take the 270 mile range already mentioned, multiply by 5 and you get 1350 miles, or 2160km as I prefer to think it. I can drive 600km in a day but not a lot more. So the limit is then the driver. With such technologies I doubt the would make such long range packs but instead reduce cost and size. I may be when you go to the dealer you pay for the size battery pack you need. This is already how some laptops are sold, different battery packs to meet different needs on the same base model.

Comment Re: Electric. (Score 1) 659

Depends on the country and supplier. Here in New Zealand we are over 70% green energy, typically hydro and geothermal. I can chose my supply company and I chose one that is 100% green energy for a very modest additional cost.

To me it's simple, ignore hydrogen, it full EV for the future. Ignoring batteries they are simpler, cheaper and more fun to drive. Look at battery performance and cost over the last couple of decades and the trend is clear, with enough demand the cost will drop and performance rise such that all other options will be a footnote in history.

Comment A wiki (Score 1) 170

Several years ago I started to use PMWiki and was surprised to find it replaced my use of notebooks. There is probably better wiki software out there but it does what I need.

The search feature makes it easy to find old notes just by remebering one word specfic to the info I want. This was the key short coming of my paper notes, after a while finding stuff was no longer pratical.

The other thing was being html on a server meant I always have access from any PC or from my phone. When my job started including international travel this remote access to my notes was great.

Comment Could do well (Score 1, Interesting) 133

Kimmy has picked a good time to launch a political party in NZ. In the past the traditional voter split was the low paid and beneficiaries on the left voting Labor and higher paid on the right voting National. The current, and normal Labor voter pitch has been to blame the rich for not paying enough taxes which is idea that appeals to low income groups. The problem is that it has created a a situation where once you earn 44% above the average salary your are classed as mega rich and taxed at the top possible rate. This see a large portion of the population paying the top tax rate and they tend to gravitate right. A gross over simplification of the status quo, but gives non-kiwis the general picture.

The National party has been in power for two terms and seeks a third. The catch is, like many second term governments, they appear to have stopped listening to their traditional voters and have been pursing policies that appear to serve US corporations more than the people who voted them in. So people such as myself who were worried about being overtaxed for working harder are now worrying about our disappearing freedoms. I don't want to vote labor as I don't want to pay more taxes and if I vote national it's like I am telling them I think is is ok to sell out my freedoms on the promise of a US free trade agreement that will never come. The USA will never sign a free trade agreement with NZ because the US farmers have too much lobbying power and will never allow NZ primary produce to compete on US soil on equal terms. That's fine, the US has every right to protect their farmers, we can simply compete with them on the world market. So with nothing to gain then giving away our freedoms through secret deals such as TAPA does not appeal.

So I was looking at not voting, a protest in it's own right, but a protest without voice. Along comes Kimmy with some issues dear to my heart and now I have somewhere to make my point. If he doesn't make the 5% threshold then I'm no worse off than not voting and if he does then his mob can stir things up a bit and under the NZ MMP voting system one seat parties can have an influence in coalition governments. They have been able to set policy to the bigger parties on minor issues that are important to them and can swap sides if the bigger party starts acting like a dick. Yes, this election has the potential to be interesting.

Comment What fragmentation? (Score 1) 323

The "future of digital TV and movies is destined to be fragmented across several services" but right now there is one website that has the torrents for them all. I'm not advocating piracy but just saying there are reliable one stop options if you don't mind testing the copyright laws of where you live.

Of course if you happen to live in China, as I currently do, then there is approximately zero legal options for English language movies and TV. Fortunately I have found books are not region locked, yet...

Slashdot Top Deals

"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl." -- Dave Barry

Working...