Posts by Rich of Observationz
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OMG I never realised that. Colour me embarrassed.
(Still, Dead White Males look all the same to me. Even though I am one).
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I've always imagined a multinational funeral business called StiffCo where death is a way of life.
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He was National Party candidate for Wairarapa in 1999.
That revolving door between politics and broadcasting amazes me. Doesn't Leighton Smith still have a morons radio show, even though he's being paid as a cabinet minister.
I don't want to sound like a pom, but the UK doesn't allow it. When Ben Bradshaw went from the BBC Radio 4 morning news to being MP for Exeter, he was removed from broadcasting duties on being selected as a candidate. Former MPs are often either restricted to non-serious work (e.g. Robert Kilroy-Slik) or to appearing with someone from the other party for "balance". Having declared political views would certainly rule one out as a newsreader.
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I think a dimmed conventional bulb would only save power over CFL if you ran it at less than 20% brightness all the time. In which case, you could probably use a lower power bulb and save even more power.
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Mainstream, according to Banks' own very self-conscious distinction. When he writes science-fiction, he signs himself as Iain M. Banks.
Yes, but it isn't the same. Espediair Street is set mostly in the West of Scotland in the '70s and '80s. The Business is set in various global locations in the time the book was written. Dead Air is set in London in 2001.
Song of Stone is set in an imaginary place at an imaginary time.
Who does that, Larry Niven?
Star Trek - wooden characters, drifting in a sparsely painted universe.
Asimov, Star Wars, blah, blah - grandiose galactic geopoliticsIncidentally, one favourite factioid is that Osama bin Laden is a huge fan of Asimov, and the name Al Quaida is the Arabic title of "Foundation".
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What genre is Iain Banks "Song of Stone" (for those who've ploughed through it?).
There's nothing science based in it, but unlike his other non-scifi, it isn't set in a recognisable place and era. For that reason, I found it inaccessible and dull (and I love the rest of Bank's non-sci-fi output).
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1984 isn't scifi. It's a satire on Britain in the immediate postwar period, grounded in a setting of London under a totalitarian regime. 1984 is 1948 reversed, and the Ministry of Truth is a hyperbolic representation of Broadcasting House.
Animal Farm isn't a prediction that farmyard animals will adopt societ-style communism, either.
For me scifi is writing where a self-contained imaginary reality is created, detached from our present and historical experience. I don't like it, but that's entirely a personal opinion - I also don't do quasi-mystical historical novels set in 1850's Waikato (which rules out 95% of NZ published fiction) but that is also a personal thing.
Works that are often considered scifi, but have that grounding (Dr Who, Quatermass, much of John Wyndham) *are* included in my reading canon.
This is just my personal attitude, everyone is free to enjoy scifi, 1950's crime novels, tentancle hentai or whatever. I just reserve the right to yawn and change the subject if people go on obsessively about it.
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if dimming tungsten bulbs actually reduces the power they use (by clipping the sine wave)?
Yes. The mean current and voltage applied is reduced, and hence the power. (Diagrams would help here). The only loss factor is the power dissipated in the triac (electronic switch) - which should be small (otherwise smoke would come from your dimmer).
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My bad. I read 65,700kWh
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Publish, register or otherwise stand behind your concepts and I'm sure you'll get some credit too when the talking shiny ones take over.
I guess I just did, at least for the purposes of boring people with 'told you so" in twenty or thrirty years. I could also point to the idea as "prior art" that would negate any future attempt to patent the concept (as opposed to details of the implementation).
I only really want kudos or money for things I've actually made work.