Posts by Neil Woolford 80 publicly visible posts • joined 10 May 2007
Usually attributed to Sir Josiah Stamp in his book "Some Economic Factors in Modern Life",
"The Government are extremely fond of amassing great quantities of statistics. These are raised to the nth degree, the cube roots are extracted, and the results are arranged into elaborate and impressive displays. What must be kept in mind, however, is that in every case, the figures are first put down by a village watchman, and he puts down anything he damn well pleases!"
When I 'pushed' film it was by (under)exposing at a higher (faster) ISO setting and then extending the development time.
So a nominally 400 iso film (Tri-X, Delta 400, Fujipan 400, whatever) would be used with the light meter set to 800 or 1600iso (one or two stops more sensitive) and then the development time extended. This would generally produce reasonable shadow detail but could run into problems with 'blocked' highlights and of course much increased apparent film grain. (Choice of developer and working dilution also had effects on characteristics. I seem to remember Kodak HC110 being quite good at the job.) The resulting negatives could be challenging to print well.
I did quite a few years of theatre photography in the pre-digital age of photography...
Even in the studio, some transparency materials (Fuji 64T???) could give a touch of extra 'snap' if pushed about a third of a stop, my E6 lab recommended that as routine. 'Pull' seldom had any great benefits in my experience.
I'm not saying it is better or worse than any other particular keyboard.
But, while I'm a reasonably proficient and fast touch typist on a standard querty board, I find the querty layout on a screen is just bizarre and difficult to work.
MessageEase uses a completely non-querty grid with swiping and circling motions.
I find it pretty damned good, but have never knowingly met anyone else who uses it.
Are you out there? Or did you try it and decide against using it?
Ah, that moment when you have to ask then "What are you trying to do?". Often repeatedly, to cut through the mix of panic and bullshit. Also "What can you see on the screen?", again repeatedly to get to the error message or status indicator that actually starts you on the path to working out what is actually happening.
My brother (never do family support, but you knew that) has a speciality, which is that he begins to read the message, then about five words in starts saying "... dah de dah de dah..." rather than just reading what it says out to me.
I'd not heard of fintech or Monzo until I read https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jul/07/heres-how-scammers-get-away-with-it
I immediately opened an account with them, as their approach to security didn't appear to involve excessive secrecy and obscurity or denying that there is a problem but was an integrated part of growing the business.
I trust that more than anodyne soundbites about 'robust systems', how many bits of encryption are used and other such 'nothing to see here' statements.
Or is it just me. I've never found it the least use as a pain-killer or anti-inflammatory.
Aspirin seems pretty good if your gut tolerates it, Ibuprofen certainly acts well as an anti-inflamatory for me (as do Diclofenac and Naproxen) but for pain relief the opiates are the way to go. In the UK Codis (Codeine and dispersible Aspirin) is pharmacy only but doesn't need a prescription. However it has moved 'behind the counter' and risen in price a lot recently.
But yes, if you are getting chronic back pain, then posture, working arrangements and the right excercise are probably as important as anything.
Well, it isn't trivial. There's an excellent research white paper from the bbc at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP209.pdf which details the problems.
And yes, I do agree that ameliorating them would be much better than faffing about with stereoscopic technology of dubious value...
"Hard cases make bad law."
Layman's translation; if you base your laws on the worst behaviour possible it is a poor basis for a general law which would cover a wider range of less extreme cases. In other words, a general law is better drafted for the average circumstance as this will be more common.
So don't use this vicious and unusual crime to pass legislation that will creep into general surveillance for many purposes.
So where is the energy coming from to create the light?
Every time one has lit up for me, it's been forward biased, with a ballast resistor or other arrangement to ensure a sustainable current level and avoid self-destruction.
As I've been tinkering with them since their infancy I think I've got them the right way round.
Bought when I were a lad. From Hamilton Electronics in Southampton, in case anyone else remembers them. Still a superb sound as far as my aging ears can tell, natural, clean smooth and detailed. Good for a very wide range of music types and speech too. If things sound poor on them it is due to bad engineering in the origination or poor equipment in the reproduction chain. By the way, their current earbud production isn't bad either...
I know there are certain elements that will always be common across sites doing similar jobs, but I've spent a few minutes playing with the hotels section of both sites, and they are very similar, not only at first sight but also when you get on to the way the results pages function and are laid out. Though for my money Kayak is tidier and has some useful bookmarking features.
If you compare Kayak and Bing to, for example, laterooms.com you'll find a very different look, feel and functions for the same task of finding accommodation. (Only laterooms has a crumb trail, results presented as a table rather than a series of individual panels as in the other two, very different map presentation...)
I think there's a case to answer.
And I just have to use that icon! Whacko! (Though not Wacko, not any more anyway.)
Not in an advertising campaign. One off use in a presentation, according to the Telegraph website if you care to search. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1549846/Decapitated-motorcyclist-used-in-speeding-campaign.html if you want to have a look.
"The presentation included details of a T-shirt worn by the motorcyclist which bore the message: 'P**s off and catch some real criminals.'" That's a nice detail. I must get one for my mate who's learning to ride a bike and foams at the mouth in the pub about speed cameras...
Do you include my then aged and now late mother in the class of fools who *deserve* to be parted from their money?
For the last few years of her life one of the problems I had to deal with was her willingness to send cheques for five to ten pounds to this kind of scammers at a rate of several a week, sometimes several a day.
Initially she'd show me the letters, and I'd explain that they were from swindlers and that she should throw them away. Later she concealed them from me because she didn't want that advice.
If you had sat at the Sunday tea table with your octogenarian mother and said "Mother, I am worried sick that you are being targeted by confidence tricksters from across the world. Please do not send them any money, please do not respond at all to any of their approaches." without it having any effect on her behaviour, perhaps you might have a different opinion on this problem.
Until the end of her life she was capable of shopping, holding a sensible conversation, personal care and (limited by mobility and eyesight) housework. Her critical faculties were not totally impaired, as letters from 'psychics' were always shown to me and laughingly chucked into the bin as ridiculous.
However, she was preyed on systematically by confidence tricksters who used carefully crafted letters to steal money from her. (Letters managed by sophisticated mailing techniques and response monitoring, undoubtedly using computers. Look, an IT angle!)
So tell me why she deserved that?
I am glad that the police have taken action here; I know that there are many other similar crooks who also need to be pursued.
Neil
@ AC at 20:08 Friday...
I'm perfectly aware that there is no "Leica Look" Photoshop (or indeed Gimp) filter. That was entirely the point of my naive query.
The hint is "Googling hasn't helped much yet."
It was a joke, just in case we are in a totally irony free zone.
Otherwise, happy to see some sharp responses to the original article, including yours.
I know this is off topic, but perhaps the most important reason for disabling your front passenger seat airbag is the carrying of a baby in a rear facing child seat. The seat already restrains them well, but the airbag deploying will strike the back of the seat violently...
The site http://www.childcarseats.org.uk/faqs/index.htm gives more information. According to them it is actually illegal to fit a rear facing child seat to a front seat which has an (active) frontal airbag.
Neil
As John posted, "I can happily report that the Huawei E220 modem works under Fedora 9 and Ubuntu 8.04. To get text messages you need to know a bit of minicom, but we all remember how that works, right?"
I've forgotten the minicom AT command stuff that I had to learn to get a GPRS card working under Ubuntu a few years back; this time round I'd suggest using the Vodafone Mobile Connect Card driver for Linux (it's on betavine, google including 'Linux'). Despite the Vodafone Card branding it configures easily for other services and devices (ok, I've not checked it with a USB device, but it looks like it should...).
The icing on the cake is a nice easy text message interface.
The software isn't perfect, with some interface glitches and for some reason it doesn't seem to receive system texts like "you have topped up" but it is usable.
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