RupertG

Doesn't say anything about the name being in a Latin script, though. Haven't settled on a name for my (one day) boat, but 脆皮鴨 is tempting (Crispy Duck)

Every instinct in my nerdly body agrees that you shouldn't, but I can't see why not - especially as it's a standard way of categorising them. I have read some very strong warnings against short-circuiting them when connected to a controller/charger, which can fry the electronics. But solar cells are current sources, not voltage sources, and so will deliver what they can but not get upset if asked for more. And I've often done it, and never had a problem. I know that's no proof of anything.

There's a simple (really!) equation that says how much current at a particular voltage a particular wattage lightbulb will take- watts equals amps times volts. Rearrange that, and you get amps equals watts divided by volts - so a ten watt light bulb on twelve volts will take ten divided by twelve, or 0.83 amps. A thirty watt bulb will take thirty divided by twelve, or two and a half amps. Sixty, five amps. This only works up to the maximum amperage the panel can produce, so if it's a five amp panel it should drive a sixty watt light bulb (in practice, it won't as you won't get enough light to drive the panel to full output), but if you put a hundred watt bulb on it it'll still only be able to deliver five amps. And for light bulbs, it only works if the light bulb is the right voltage for the panel, because the stated power is only taken when the bulb is fully illuminated and that won't happen if you've got the wrong voltage bulb. The maximum current a panel can deliver is sometimes measured by shorting the output, and measuring the current delivered. In general, it's a very bad idea to short-circuit sources of electrical power as things like batteries can deliver stupendous amounts of energy very quickly if you let them, and before they or you are permanently damaged, and generators can similarly get most unhappy. Not so with solar cells, at least of the sort found in boaty world...

Even if you've got marina wi-fi with WPA2 and 256-bit AES banana ice-cream and custard, with a password taken straight from GCHQ's Big Book Of Very Safe Passwords, it doesn't matter that much. That only protects the wireless bit. As soon as your data is inside the router, it's in clear and part of a network shared with the other users and whoever it is who's running the system. Even if they're totally honest and completely incapable of doing anything technically clever, that doesn't mean they can't be running a PC with any amount of malware under the direct control of Ivan Toreadyourdataovitch in Tomsk. Which is one reason that sensible sensitive systems use end-to-end encryption - your bank, Gmail, online payment systems and so on will be using HTTPS, which to some extent means it doesn't matter who can see the data anywhere between your computer and the server you're talking to. It all boils down to playing the numbers. You can't remove all risk from the Internet, you can only look after the things you control (strong passwords - good. Not sending sensitive personal or financial data to a system you don't have any way of trusting - good) and judge that of the billion-plus people on the Net you're not so interesting that you'll be worth anyone with evil intent wasting time on you. In that context, I'd not be that bothered about using a small wi-fi system in an out-of-the-way place without wireless encryption. The extra risk is small. Put it another way. I've run network scanning software on the address range I share with others locally on my ISP, and found plenty of interesting possibilities that, were I of a naughty nature, might let me cause a lot of bad things to happen. I'd guess (in some cases, know) that most if not all of those have properly encrypted wi-fi routers that would resist any attack I'm capable of mounting. If I were naughty, that's not what I'd do. Much more effective ways to spend my time. Or another: a friend had a six-month stint working in Stockholm for the Swedish bit of his company. They sorted out an apartment for him, but he had to arrange net access for himself. That took a week or so, during which he noticed that most of the visible wi-fi in his block had no encryption or access control whatsoever, and he availed himself (guiltily, but what are you gonna do?) of a selection of these while waiting for Telstra to do its thing. After he'd been connected and had settled in at work, he mentioned the remarkable lack of security to a local co-worker. Who was a bit surprised that he was surprised: it turns out that in Sweden, bless it, people expect others to share their wi-fi if need be. Leaving your router open is part of the social good. I'm not aware of this causing significant problems.

There's a classic "couldn't hit a barn door with a banjo" from epic commentator Chris Kamara here at 1:15... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5T-ItZc8TA&NR=1 though not sure I've heard "fighting like beavers" (3:10) before, though.

"To the nines" was a general statement of perfection, that's only survived in this phrase. Nine has been associated with perfection for a very long time... http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dressed-to-the-nines.html Getting the smit is interesting. It's old and northern, but can't find much about it. Wonder if it's from the same root as smite and smitten? [later edit] 'Smit' meaning a mark or blemish goes back to the 11th century 1. A sullying spot or stain; a taint or blemish. Freq. fig. of moral taint. Obs. c1030 Rule St. Benet (Logeman) 4 Se e ingæ butan smittan, swylce wyrc rihtwisnesse. a1100 in Napier O.E. Glosses 93/2 Inluuiem, i. inmunditiam, wom, smittan. a1300 Cursor M. 9462 at sin..nan of left, wit-vten smitt, ateuer was vnder heuen born. c1375 Sc. Leg. Saints ii. (Paul) 867 Blowmand bewte but wane or smyt of sawle and body to-giddir knyt. c1425 WYNTOUN Cron. IX. 1858 Bot qwhat at sal be put in wryte Off falssit sal ber nakyn smyte. a1500in Ratis Raving, etc. (1870) 92 For lesing is sa foul a smyt, That quhay sa euer be taynt with It [etc.]. 1562 A. SCOTTPoems (S.T.S.) i. 220 Smaill sweit smaragde, smelling but smit of smot. but is first recorded as disease or infection in 1829, in Northern and Scots dialects. It seems synonymous with smut, where: 1698 J. COLLIER Immor. Stage i. (1730) 4 The Modern Poets seem to use Smut as the old Ones did Machines, to relieve a fainting Invention 1664 H. MORE Myst. Iniq. 474 That there is not the least smutt of Antichristianism in Episcopacy itself. Give me smut, and nothing but! R

The Wheel is magnificent - the feeling when the section of canal you're on starts heading into the sky is unique. (It's quite possible to have a go by getting there on an afternoon's trip by train from Edinburgh, which is how we did it.) A rare example of a local council sending back plans to developers saying "No, not striking enough...". If you do get as far as Edinburgh Quay, don't waste any time in the restaurants and stuff by the canal, they're tres yuppy. A short walk into the Tollcross badlands will get you to gems like the Blue Blazer or Cloisters, if you like characterful pubs with tons of tasty tipples. The Festival will be winding down by then, so it shouldn't be too horror-show. R

That's what I did when I was trying to find the answer, but when I got to a posting that talked about rolling back to an earlier kernel because support was missing in the latest version, I recognised the warning signs of mucho pain in store! R

Jacob, a canny young fella Invented a brand new propeller The Jones' said "Mate! Revolve or rotate?" Discouraged, he gave up marine engineering, took holy orders, and is now curate for Sub-Saharan Africa.

£1.6 million, great rolling waves of specs, and then... "Bose system in all cabins" What really impresses me about these guys is that they really know their market - outside the military, this must be the zenith of LOMBARD. R

I have to say that Windows is most certainly not in the 'everything just works' camp! Nothing is... no, not even OS X. However, neither is Ubuntu. I've had a hunt around, and while it's not clear why your network isn't working there are a number of reports that the network interface chipset used in your Dell has problems under the most recent versions of Linux. It would be possible to find out why and fix it, but only with a great deal of mucking about. If you're dead set on getting Ubuntu working, though, I'll be happy to help out. Still, this is the point of having that Live CD - you can try it out with the smallest possible investment, and zero risk. For the record, I've done around ten Ubuntu 9.10 installations for friends, family and myself, and nine have gone perfectly. The tenth was a nightmare.

That's the big question, Having looked at solar power for canal boats for a while now, I suspect that they are worth having but some sort of extra generating capacity is needed in winter - and a little diesel genny may be the best source of that. I've seen the claims otherwise, and that if you have an electric motor you can manage all year round with quite a lot of cruising, but it still seems unlikely! R

Can you tell me what the model number of the Dell is? Also, if you're running Ubuntu, can you go to the System menu, then choose Preferences and Network Connections, then tell me what the window says under the Wired tab? R

The Internet (wired or wireless) should work just fine - but I too have had the odd problem on some network hardware with Ubuntu 9.10 (I guess that's what you're running). If you can say what model laptop you're using, I'll have a look and see if there are known issues and fixes. The set-up here, by the way, is Ubuntu 9.10 with XP and 7 running as virtual machines (I need that for access to my work email, as Microsoft Outlook Web Access will only work properly with Internet Explorer, and Internet Explorer will work properly only with Windows. There is, of course, absolutely no technical reason for any of this - it is my daily reminder that Microsoft has little respect for its users. Rant over). I've found this is more convenient than dual-booting. Rupert

Kaspersky is probably the best, from everything I've heard - certainly, it's the one recommended by my friend who makes his living as an independent (and very good - he's qualified to forensic evidence level) PC support consultant, and it does consistently well in tests I trust. It is possible to be too worried about all this, though. I haven't used AV or anti-malware software for years and have had no problems, and there'll always be things that get past even the best protection, if you get tricked into loading them or they're a zero-day exploit and you're unlucky,

One advantage that all these different radio systems have over mobile phones, t'intarweb and so on, is that they need no infrastructure to work. You don't have to be an End Times fruitcake to know that all these clever digital networks we've built are actually rather fragile, and a small solid-state HF rig with a SLA battery, a random wire and an autotuner can do an awful lot when the chips are down and the solar flares are up. (including all the PMR, CB, marine and other frequencies, often at rather more useful power levels, if you ignore certain legal quibbles). My fantasy boating life (to be fulfilled when my bosses finally notice I'm having a fantasy working life) involves rather a lot of radio. I'd just be a bit worried that anything too exciting by way of antennas would be too tempting to passing neds - although one of my grumpier ham friends from the West Country did do a natty line in small boxes that detected increases in capacitance (as when grubby mitts grasp an antenna) and switched in a few attention-grabbing kilovolts of thuggish electrons. The police read him the riot act about 'setting a mantrap', but he insisted it was an experiment in an autotuning linear amplifier: they called it a no-score draw, but the local ciderpunks gave him a wide berth thereafter and he (and I) considered it victory. R

Don't buy Norton or Symantec. A couple of years ago I'dve typed that in screaming caps, but they have got better since then. They're still not anything like good value for money. Which is why they're marketed so heavily. Kaspersky is good value for money. Avast is very good and free. Microsoft Security Essentials is OK, it's got lots of good things going for it (doesn't knobble your machine, installs through the standard Windows update) but is heavily targeted by the malware mob. But better still is - not clicking on dodgy links, don't run Windows, don't go hanging around online filth or warez sites. (I originally clicked on "report this post to an admin" instead of "reply". Second time I've done that. My mind's going...)

Nonsense. Spark gap was the original spread spectrum...

Alternatively, use a USB Y cable - http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=usb+y+cable&aq=f - which has an extra power-only USB plug you can use in either an unused USB socket on the computer or on an external power supply. If it's too short, then it should still be fine to plug it into the dongle and have two extension leads. Need to pick the right sort to plug into the dongle.

A long time ago in a land far, far away, a friend had a SuperStar 2000 multimode CB with CW. We were never quite sure why, but it did work. And as it was one of those nice designs with a PLL chip that did what it was told, it was even possible to operate it legally at the CW end of 10 metres. However, I feel strongly that CW on canal boats should be via coherers and spark-gap transmitters. Audions, at a stretch. R