Recent submissions

Comment · 10 years ago
Bluetooth 5 extends the range and increases the data rate of BLE, but not both at the same time. This will allow you to stream high quality audio over BLE, saving power over regular Bluetooth, but you won't get the range benefit.
Comment · 10 years ago
I still do. The ability to stream music in my kitchen is the reason I bought a 5GHz router.
Comment · 10 years ago
This is really a poor marketing job by the Bluetooth SIG. Bluetooth 4.0 added BLE, the low energy mode, but it didn't change anything about the power usage of existing modes.

BLE is almost and entirely different protocol, albeit implemented on the same chipset, which is running alongside the existing Bluetooth stack on your phone. Nothing in the Bluetooth 4.0 spec reduces the power usage of the Basic Rate and Enhanced Data Rate modes.

Comment · 11 years ago
Comment · 11 years ago
Absolutely, the article presents the problem as trying to minimise the time that an individual wastes in a queue, not the problem of processing all of the people in the shortest time possible.

In the airline example, the airline wants passengers to be at the gate before they begin boarding so that they can start looking for missing passengers as early as possible. I think we see this technique most often used by low cost carriers, and this is one of the many ways that they are able to turn aircraft around so quickly.

Comment · 11 years ago
I played a lot of games as a pair with friends around that time. I think it was something about liking games that had a story and therefore didn't lend themselves well to taking turns. We even played Quake like this a few times, one person moving the other shooting, even when we could have taken it in turns with a level each.

I also remember arguing with my sister about who got to play Commander Keen one day, so our mum blindfolded one of us and had the other shout directions.

Thanks for reminding me, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it at the time.

Comment · 11 years ago
I think you make a valid point, although I was able to acquire a course of Chloroquine to cover me for a couple of months at one week's notice, for <£10, whereas the vaccine would need two months for the three initial doses. So maybe it's a practicality argument that I'm making, rather than a financial one.
Comment · 11 years ago
I can't say any of this for certain, and I have no qualifications to back it up, but I would assume that any or all of the following may apply:

1) Cost - if a you only visit an area with a risk of malaria for two weeks every year (which is far more often than most holiday makers), then taking a short course of pills that cost pennies a dose will be cheaper than receiving a vaccine that requires three doses and a booster.

2) Malaria strains - if you've been to multiple places in the world with malaria risk, you may have been given different medication. The first time I went to Cambodia/Vietnam I was given Larium, but the most recent time I took Doxycycline because the NHS no longer recommends Larium for the region. For Iran they recommended Cloroquine, which was significantly cheaper. This vaccine may only fight one strain, leaving you to have to take pills for other destinations anyway.

3) Effectiveness in adults - The article suggests that the vaccine was most effective in children within a given age range, so it may be the case that it simple doesn't work on adults. I have no idea if this is likely or even possible, but it certainly seems plausible to me.

I don't know anything about fighting malaria, but it looks to me like they are giving these vaccines to children to get them through the time when they are most vulnerable, rather than giving them lifelong protection.

Comment · 11 years ago
Comment · 11 years ago
In the UK (I have no experience of this type of finance anywhere else), interest rates improve as your loan to value percentage decreases. If the house increases in value by the time you come to re-mortgage, you're likely to get a better deal.

Again, this doesn't help people who are trying to buy for the first time.

Comment · 11 years ago
I think I may have seen this a couple of times, but it's certainly not constant for me. It may just be my router.

I'm dual booting Ubuntu 15.04 and Windows 8.1 as I support software on both platforms. So I'm suffering from the "reboot twice to get working audio" issue and occasional touchpad problems.

I believe that both will be fixed with kernel 4.1.

Comment · 11 years ago

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