Comment Re:It's a conspiracy! (Score 5, Funny) 118
I fail to see why it takes Diego Maradona to free the rover, wherever it is.
Comment Er, price? (Score 1) 347
I can't believe that no-one here seems to have pointed out the elephant in the room - price. The iPhone is a really nice gadget, but it costs a fortune.
The Palm Pre is also a really nice gadget, with numerous cool features (at least one of which is that it's not controlled by Apple). But, in the UK at least, it's being launched for the exact same price as the iPhone! Are Palm completely batshit insane?
I'd love a smartphone, but I'm not paying in excess of 700UKP for one. Get them under 100UKP, no contract crap, then maybe they'll take off. Maybe I'm unusual in that I don't need or want 30UKP worth of calls every month, but I doubt it.
Comment Re:Does anyone really prefer NEMA 5-15? (Score 1) 711
Woah, my original rant picked up quite a number of sensible responses...
Since the same points were raised multiple times, I'm going to abuse the thread system by answering them once, here.
First off, the hollow (rolled) earth pin. I have to concede that I haven't got a good engineering point against this - it's just an instinctive "eugh" response. Some (poor) arguments against it though:
The finish at the tip is often quite poor, meaning that it has sharp edges (as with the 2 main blades) that snag on things (like inside laptop bags).
The current carrying capacity is lower than it could be. I want to be reassured that the earth pin is going to be able to handle whatever loads it's required to handle in an emergency (which should be some way above the nominal rating of the plug). I guess its capable of handling 15 amps, but it doesn't look like it has a lot of capacity to spare.
As for the blades not going cleanly into the socket, yes, I get this all the time - seems like I'm forever having to "tweak" the spacing between the blades to get them to fit properly.
Intrigued by the poster who stated that the Ozzies have tried to introduce insulation on their blades. Can't see how this would work - either the insulation would have to be really thin (and ineffective), or the socket would have to be made wider (running the risk of foreign objects getting in, since there's no shutter system).
To my mind, you're most likely to touch the half-inserted blades when withdrawing a plug, and your fingertips accidentally curl around the face of the plug. Maybe such momentary contact isn't such an issue with 110v.
But my main argument is that, if you consider the British plug, it consists of some absolutely inspired design decisions - such as the way the cables are routed inside the plug, so that if the cable is forecibly pulled out of the plug, the live is pulled out first, then neutral, then earth. If you look at the wiki page, then you can see a whole list of safety features that have been engineered in. You may think it's big and clunky, but this is a plug that's had some serious thought put into it.
Whereas the US plug gives the impression that someone, given the brief to design a plug, followed the following process:
Blade for live
Blade for neutral
Job done!
(Followed by the later addition of that nasty earth pin...)
Since the same points were raised multiple times, I'm going to abuse the thread system by answering them once, here.
First off, the hollow (rolled) earth pin. I have to concede that I haven't got a good engineering point against this - it's just an instinctive "eugh" response. Some (poor) arguments against it though:
The finish at the tip is often quite poor, meaning that it has sharp edges (as with the 2 main blades) that snag on things (like inside laptop bags).
The current carrying capacity is lower than it could be. I want to be reassured that the earth pin is going to be able to handle whatever loads it's required to handle in an emergency (which should be some way above the nominal rating of the plug). I guess its capable of handling 15 amps, but it doesn't look like it has a lot of capacity to spare.
As for the blades not going cleanly into the socket, yes, I get this all the time - seems like I'm forever having to "tweak" the spacing between the blades to get them to fit properly.
Intrigued by the poster who stated that the Ozzies have tried to introduce insulation on their blades. Can't see how this would work - either the insulation would have to be really thin (and ineffective), or the socket would have to be made wider (running the risk of foreign objects getting in, since there's no shutter system).
To my mind, you're most likely to touch the half-inserted blades when withdrawing a plug, and your fingertips accidentally curl around the face of the plug. Maybe such momentary contact isn't such an issue with 110v.
But my main argument is that, if you consider the British plug, it consists of some absolutely inspired design decisions - such as the way the cables are routed inside the plug, so that if the cable is forecibly pulled out of the plug, the live is pulled out first, then neutral, then earth. If you look at the wiki page, then you can see a whole list of safety features that have been engineered in. You may think it's big and clunky, but this is a plug that's had some serious thought put into it.
Whereas the US plug gives the impression that someone, given the brief to design a plug, followed the following process:
Blade for live
Blade for neutral
Job done!
(Followed by the later addition of that nasty earth pin...)
Comment Does anyone really prefer NEMA 5-15? (Score 4, Insightful) 711
Really? Rather than just being more accustomed to it?
The standard US connector is absolutely awful. The pins never seem to go cleanly into the socket, which isn't surprising, because the pins are actually blades, whose orientation is such that they're prone to bending together or apart.
There's no sort of insulation on the blades either, so you're quite able to touch them while the plug is only half inserted.
The earth pin is for shit - being a tube that's been pinched shut, rather than a solid pin.
I can only assume that you're stuck with it for historical reasons, rather than anyone "preferring" it. I find it hard to believe that anyone put any significant thought into actually designing it.
It is, frankly, shocking.
Flame on...
Comment Why move Endeavour to pad 39A? (Score 2, Interesting) 110
If Endeavour is all set to launch from pad 39B in the event of an emergency rescue mission, then why are they planning to move it across to 39A for the "regular" mission?
Xerox's 'Intelligent Redaction' Scanners 154
coondoggie writes "Xerox today touted software it says can scan documents, understand their meaning and block access to those sensitive or secure areas so that prying eyes cannot read, copy or forward the information. Xerox and researchers from its Palo Alto Research Center debuted "Intelligent Redaction," new software that automates the process of removing confidential information from any document. The software includes a detection tool that uses content analysis and an intelligent user interface to protect sensitive information. It can encrypt only the sensitive sections or paragraphs of a document, a capability previously not available, Xerox said."
