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Transportation

Mammoth "Metal Moles" Tunnel Deep Beneath London 294

Posted by samzenpus from the it's-burrow-time dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that the first of eight highly specialized Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM), each weighing nearly 1,000 tonnes, is being positioned at Royal Oak in west London where it will begin its slow journey east. It will carve out a new east-west underground link that will eventually run 73 miles from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west, to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. Described as 'voracious worms nibbling their way under London,' the 150-meter long machines will operate 24 hours a day and move through the earth at a rate of about 100m per week, taking three years to build a network of tunnels beneath the city's streets. Behind a 6.2-meter cutter head is a hydraulic arm. Massive chunks of earth are fed via a narrow-gauge railway along the interior of the machine, which is itself on wheels, as the machines are monitored from a surface control room which tracks their positions using GPS. Hydraulic rams at the front keep them within millimeters of their designated routes. 'It's not so much a machine as a mobile factory,' says Roy Slocombe, adding that the machine is staffed by a 20-strong 'tunnel gang' and comes with its own kitchen and toilet. Meanwhile, critics complain that the project is a peculiarly British example of how not to get big infrastructure schemes off the ground, because almost 30 years will have elapsed from its political conception in 1989 to its current projected completion date of 2018."

Comment Re:medicore (Score 1) 132

by aCC (#33531422) Attached to: T-Mobile To Begin HTC G2 Preorders

Ah, but it comes with Swype! There's no need for a physical keyboard.

I know, we're on /., but as I'm interested in this phone I broke /. rules and actually read the article and there it says:

Notable for the HTC G2 is that it has a modified hinge that opens up to a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

That sounds to me like it has a physical keyboard.

Comment Re:Worth every penny ... (Score 1) 377

by aCC (#33310924) Attached to: Intel Buys McAfee

A "scan on write" would definitely not be a solution. It really comes done to some kind of detection mechanism if a file that is being read has been checked before and is unchanged or not. If you plug in a new HD, it should detect that those file are unchecked. Obviously I don't pretend that a system like this is trivial, but I would expect it is possible.

Comment Re:Worth every penny ... (Score 1) 377

by aCC (#33303066) Attached to: Intel Buys McAfee

Here is a question regarding the on-demand scanner: why isn't anti-virus software tracking which files are new to the system, i.e. need to be scanned, and which ones it has already scanned? Surely, it must be possible to do this to a high level of reliability and therefore reduce the performance bottleneck by scanning only new software. Or is this already being done? If yes, why is there still a major slow down?

Comment Re:Duh... (Score 5, Interesting) 428

by aCC (#32924876) Attached to: Murdoch's UK Paywall a Miserable Failure

For the Economist, I (as a subscriber) can tell you why it worked for their subscribers: they offer fantastic value. I sing the praise for the Economist whenever I can, because I think that they are one of the few companies that get it. With my paper subscription I get:
1. Full access to the website including ALL past issues!
2. The current issue as an audio podcast (800MB!).
3. I can cancel my subscription whenever I want AND GET THE REMAINING MONEY BACK! (This is a big YES THEY GOT HOW TO TREAT THEIR CUSTOMERS.)
4. If there are problems with deliveries (e.g. a UK postal strike), they switched to hand deliveries to make sure the subscribers got their issues.

These are all added-value services that ensure I will subscribe to their magazine even though I manage to read it only occasional due to the volume of articles. Obviously, I also believe their articles are top-notch (they even get technology reasonably well).

I am not affiliated with the Economist in any way. Just a very happy customer.

Comment Re:Treating symptoms instead of disease (Score 1) 565

by Kefaa (#32778402) Attached to: Intel Co-Founder Calls For Tax On Offshored Labor

"truly globalized and free economy" may be a wish for some but it is the fallacy. Take India, where they can compete and are even given preference on contracts within the US as minority owned businesses. However, to get a contract in India, as a foreign company, makes winning the lottery look easy. A rule as simple as "sustaining displaced workers." The "English" version means you need to hire a worker in India if your business would displace that worker in order to do business there.

Free traders need to recognize that we have neither free nor fair trade and being the first to unilaterally choose the option has proven a complete failure to all except those few board members making millions on the savings.

Comment Re:When will we learn... (Score 1) 365

by aCC (#31368252) Attached to: Where Android Beats the iPhone

That's so true! I LOVE my N900 (even more open than Android), mainly because of the endless possibilities of what I can do with it. Freedom to do anything with your phone/computer rocks.

But in the current state of its software I would NEVER recommend it to my wife or family. They are so much better served by an iphone at the moment because it just works. Maybe once all the developers have fixed the missing features of the N900 it starts to get interesting for non-developers (probably in the 3rd generation N900 like with the iphone). To me the current software of N900 feels like KDE 4.0 felt. Ready for developers but really lacking for users.

The N900 is like a DIY set of a Ferrari. Not much use if you don't spend a lot of time putting it all together and fixing what needs fixed.

Submission + - German data retention laws unconstitutional (spiegel.de) 2

Submitted by mseeger
mseeger writes: The german supreme court has ruled the current data retention law unconstitutional. All stored data has to be deleted ASAP. The court criticized the lack of data security and insufficent restrictions for the access to the data. Contrary to the expectations the court completely invalidated the law. While it not generally disallowed data retention, the imposed restriction demand a complete new law. SPIEGEL Online has the complete story, Google an english translation.

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