1

Geek Speak / Does Ubuntu-13.04 have a printing problem?

« on: 16/05/2013 19:04:45 »

Is anyone using Ubuntu-13.04 ? , I tried it but found a strange problem printing it finds a driver for my HP LaserJet 4M plus and allows me to send text to the printer but blank pages come out !

2

Technology / Google glass

« on: 15/05/2013 07:32:31 »

I understand Google glass wearable computer communicates via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will this lead to another brain tumour scare do to its proximity to the brain ?.

3

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Are individual gravitons detectable?

« on: 05/05/2013 08:33:50 »

This is a quote from the Scientific American article
The Search for a Unified Theory: A Pipe Dream? 

"The fundamental problem with detecting gravitons is the extremely weak nature of the gravitational force. To address this problem researchers have designed exceedingly sensitive equipment that should in principle be able to detect even discrete gravitons."

This is a ludicrous claim as the exceedingly sensitive equipment has not as yet detected the gravity waves from colliding black holes and Gravitons are postulated to be something like 10^-10 the mass of Neutrinos


[MOD EDIT - PLEASE FORMAT YOUR THREAD TITLES AS QUESTIONS, IN LINE WITH THE FORUM CONVENTION. THANKS.]

4

Technology / Can you still get bread sliced to order?

« on: 09/04/2013 21:25:29 »

Before the war grocery stores had adjustable bread slicing machines and would upon request slice your loaf either for toast or dainty cucumber sandwiches' but today although bread slicing is still available you get no choice of thickness.
This is maybe only in the UK do other countries have high tech machines ?

5

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What is the Schrodinger equation all about

« on: 09/04/2013 11:06:34 »

I understand a few of the symbols the reduced Plank one for instance which that has a numerical value but what is H and t and why is i (-1^.5) there for and what do the vertical bars mean.
What was Schrodinger trying to tell us ?

6

Geek Speak / Windows blue 9364

« on: 27/03/2013 16:00:46 »

Incredible as I may seem Microsoft have produced a evaluation version of Windows 8 that is even more awkward to work with than the normal version I know that real geeks only ever use UNIX but I wonder if any one out there has tried it.
Despite its serial number 9364 it is in fact X86 and it seems impossible to run classic set top with it that makes the normal version of Win 8 just about usable all though it seems to be complete for the moment so you don't have to spend an hour or so loading updates.

7

Technology / How secure are missile carrying nuclear submarines

« on: 21/03/2013 18:46:15 »

At one time the missile carrying submarine was considered the ultimate undetectable weapon but detection technology moves on there are three types of radiation emitted by these submarines firstly thermal with their 100MW reactors secondly they create a gravitational anomaly (we might say they emit Gravitons) and thirdly they emit Neutrinos and a small leakage of other sub atomic particles.
While no compact Neutrino detectors seem likely to be developed satellite detectors for gravitational and thermal anomalies have been developed for scientific purposes and could certainly track submarines.

8

Chemistry / Is it possible to unboil an egg

« on: 20/03/2013 12:35:01 »

I don't of course expect to make it hatchable but are there any chemical processes that will make it runny again ?

9

Geek Speak / How many reported memory errors are acceptable?

« on: 09/03/2013 15:55:06 »

I have recently installed  Zorin Linux system which incorporates an intensive memory checker when I run it which takes about an hour it shows up errors on two addresses out of 4 Gb of memory.
These are consistent and move if I interchange the modules between slots, is this number of errors typical is it likely to impair the computer performance ?

10

Geek Speak / What are the jumpers for on SATA drives?

« on: 01/03/2013 20:50:35 »

My computer has 4 sockets for SATA and 1 socket and a double cable for ATA drives, I notice my SATA drives have a small peg board (jumpers) similar to the master/slave peg board on the ATA drives, What is this used for are there any master/situations that I should take care of using SATA drives ?.

11

Technology / Can I harvest energy from overhead wires?

« on: 26/02/2013 20:18:41 »

I wish to harvest energy from nearby 400Kv power lines so to this end I suspend a 100 meter long wire 1 meter above the ground below the power line that is 10 meters above the ground with a ground wire beneath it.
I now have a capacitive potential divider formed by the capacitance of my wire to the power line and its capacitance to the ground wire.
To know how much power I can draw I must know the reactance of these two element's of the potential divider which will tell me the open circuit voltage induced in my wire and its internal impedance as a power source.
I would of course have to use a transformer to convert the high voltage induced in my wire to a lower value for my load.
When I check the tables for capacitance per unit length I find that a voltage of 300Kv is induced in my wire that has a capacitance of .004183 micro Farads hence an impedance of .761 meg ohms at 50Hz If my load terminates this until the voltage is halved it seems that I can harvest 29.57 Kilowatts would someone care to redo the calculations !!

12

Physiology & Medicine / Sasquatch

« on: 19/02/2013 21:58:28 »

Researchers have obtained DNA from Bigfoot (sasquatch) and published their result here
http://www.denovojournal.com/#!news-release/c1yzj
I am surprised that now almost everyone carries a mini video recorder we do not see more recordings of our hairy cousins perhaps they are becoming more shy.

13

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Will the orbit of this asteroid be disturbed

« on: 31/01/2013 15:54:01 »

On Feb 15 at 19:26 asteroid 2012DA14 is scheduled to pass the Earth at a distance of 25Km is this sufficiently close for the Earth disturb its orbit so that its next pass will be different.

14

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Was there some very cold weather in 30AD to account for Jesus walking on water?

« on: 25/01/2013 00:43:18 »

Walking on water was described as miraculous by early Christians it is no great problem when temperature's are low is there any evidence for abnormally cold winters in the middle East round about 30 AD ?   

15

Geek Speak / remote screen view on windows 8

« on: 21/01/2013 21:43:36 »

I have upgraded my regular and spare computers to windows 8 and wanted to incorporate the remote screen view that I had with windows 7.
I tried to set it up in the same manner as windows 7 but vital bits of networking were missing but I found there was a very simple way to do it you simply search free "apps" and download one called remote viewing and it all happens automaticly.

16

New Theories / Einsteins field equation

« on: 04/01/2013 21:28:16 »

The complexities of special relativity are way beyond me but it seems it can be simplified to one special equation 8*pi*G/c^4 that can be further simplified by setting G=c=1 hence it becomes 8*pi, what is this telling us about the real universe ?

Correction             
I meant General relativity of course I can just about get my head around special

17

Geek Speak / Pogoplug cloud

« on: 02/01/2013 20:51:21 »

I have a Pogoplug micro server and with it comes 5GB of cloud storage, where is this stored and in what manner is it held, on HDD,s initially then transferred to tape or does it stay on HDD

18

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Should special relativity be taught at kindergarten?

« on: 02/12/2012 18:09:17 »

I think they should start teaching special relativity in Kindergarten and general relativity in junior school as they seem to be the two subjects that cause the most confusion if this forum is anything to go by.

19

Geek Speak / Optical charactor recognition

« on: 30/11/2012 14:23:49 »

Does anyone have any OCR experience I have Acrobat 9.0 and SimpleOCR but neither make much of it I have an old 16 bit program Bit ware that might run on a 32 bit system that I will try to use that was very good with FAX if I can find the CD.

20

Geek Speak / Performance variation

« on: 20/11/2012 13:23:36 »

I have two computers one regular and one for guests networked together both running windows 8.
The regular one (AMD 3 core) works fine on everything but Facebook with IE10 when scrolling is a pain in the arse although OK with Firefox.
The guest one (INTEL single core) works fine with the same software and even works better than the regular one over the network when accessing Facebook .
Both are no trouble with windows 7 and IE10 that can now be used with Windows 7.
I do not really expect any quick answers this is really just a Cri de Couer !

21

Technology / Race car engines electricity supply

« on: 19/11/2012 11:13:09 »

During several recent formula one events cars powered by Renault RS27-2012 engines have failed to finish due to alternator failures.
There seems a simple temporary solution to this problem until the alternator design can be improved, All modern F1 cars carry a kinetic energy recovery system which store a considerable amount of power at I believe 490 v computer power supply units weigh very little and when fed from a KERS battery could more than replace the output of the alternator.
Could not one be carried with automatic switching to replace the alternator output in the event of its failure.

22

Just Chat ! / Old techniques

« on: 31/10/2012 16:51:38 »

It is strange how old terms persist when the technology has moved on, we still talk about events being filmed or taped when they are much more likely to be recorded on a HDD or semiconductor store, about pictures being airbrushed, when it is done on a computer, conversations being wire tapped or the wires running hot when an exciting news story is making the rounds.

23

Geek Speak / what use are Bernoulli numbers

« on: 25/10/2012 16:47:14 »

what use are Bernoulli numbers beside testing that your Mathematica program is working

24

Geek Speak / Who's afraid of windows 8

« on: 24/09/2012 07:29:34 »

When windows 8 first became available I hated it with is fancy garish GUI and missing functions but with the availability of various third party additions it can be made quite lovable.
It is at least as stable as Win 7 and faster and can be made to look just like win 7 with these additions.
I don't think there are to be as many variations like basic, home, ultimate etc I think you will buy a basic version and pay to upgrade it with various "apps".

http://techtalk.pcpitstop.com/2012/09/17/15-windows-7-features-removed-from-windows-8/?winclub-15missingwin7=

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

https://www.virtualbox.org/

Also the IE10 version that comes with it incorporates a spell checker that functions on all text input, I have yet to find any programs it won't function with or peripherals it won't find

25

Geek Speak / How do you reformat a computer that's running pre-activated software?

« on: 12/09/2012 12:08:15 »

I run my computer with a pre activated OEM windows 7 system disk with Microsoft recognizing the resulting system as activated.
After a failed attempt to set up a XP32 partition I found the computer would no longer boot so I had to resort to a boot repair disk that brought it back to life.
Unfortunately Microsoft no longer saw the system as activated and demanded a large sum of money within thirty days my only alternative seemed to reload the system from scratch and re install all the programs a laborious task.
So I reformatted the partition upon which I had installed XP32 and installed a basic windows 7 system a half hour job and thankfully that restored recognition of the the activation of the main system.