Posts by Arthur the cat 3378 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Aug 2009
More to the point there will be a crippled version for the UK
Considering I compile all the code on my machines from sources hosted outside the UK, the idea that some HMG twattery would stop me using the same security code as the rest of the world is away with the fairies, even if they can pass the legislation.
BSD is for experts
Look Mum, I'm an expert!
Personally I frequently end up cursing whenever I have to use Linux because they've buggered about with most of the traditional Unix commands. It's really a matter of what you're used to(*), not "X is for experts, Y is for idiots". Given that I've used Unix since 1980 and BSD variants since 1984, FreeBSD is a comfortable fit for me. YMWV.
(*) As in actual real world tests that showed the best editor is, gasp, the one you're used to!
Hanlon's razor suggests perhaps their webdevs don't know about RFC 5233 and they consider "+" an invalid character.
[Maybe that should be RFC 2822, which specifies valid addresses. RFC 5233 is just the Sieve subaddress extension.]
If you really want to have fun, ${HOME} , %TMPDIR%, `' and /\/\/\/ are all valid local parts for email. I don't think the average mail handling software would accept those.
Mine's the device running that software with a set of single disposable email addresses for registration to ensure all contacts from the wi-fi provider and their carelessly selected business partners fall screaming into the abyss unread.
I find a random gmail address works fine for 99% of free WiFis (unless the mail contains an access code of some sort). Gmail will happily accept and drop mail if the address doesn't exist, so pick something unlikely to be a real person's address.
I think there's also an element of the politician's urge to "do something", and a large dollop of seizing the opportunity to be seen to be "doing something ".
The Politician's Syllogism:
Something must be done.
This bloody stupid idea is something.
Therefore this bloody stupid idea must be done.
The UK's strategy of focusing narrowly on certain segments of the supply chain where it has a comparative advantage offers an alternative approach
Concentrating on areas where you have comparative advantage was first pointed out as a sound idea by a chap called David Ricardo, about the time Jane Austen was enjoying balls in Bath(*).
(*) This latter may just have been a scurrilous rumour.
Kahn's "stop the proles from travelling" cameras
First you have to recognise the proles. Here's an excellent Twitter post on the effectiveness of CCTV cameras.
I've gotten those for years: I think they are the male equivalent [etc]
I don't think you necessarily have to be (obviously) male to get them. My TwitterX account name is an arcane one with no indication of gender, but at least once a day a post of mine, often an old one from weeks back, gets a like from a random account with more cleavage than followers.
the original word was 'aluminum' (as used by Sir Humphrey Davy) but it was later changed in British English for unknown reasons
The original was alumium (because it was first isolated from alum), which got renamed (by Davy, but possibly it was a typo) to aluminum some years later. It was then changed by British chemists to end -ium to fit with other elements like sodium and potassium. IUPAC made the -ium spelling the official name back in 1990.
And when the Yanks finally start spelling it correctly, I'll consider spelling sulphur with a godawful 'f' in the middle.
Why should the rights of those who want to ${THING_I_DONT_LIKE_TODAY} be respected?
Because rights are supposed to be universal and apply not only to most virtuous saint but the biggest, most unpleasant arsehole on the planet equally. If they don't they're not rights, they're privileges.
so adequacy at +7°C, which is the sort of number I've just seen quoted for a 10kW unit, is going to be stonking inadquacy below zeo.
Not in my experience(*). We've had our heat pump for 2 winters and have got daily data for it(**). The COP can be as high as 4 on not very cold days (>5 °C external temperature). It falls to 2.8-3 around 2-3 °C depending on humidity. High humidity means we have regular defrost cycles(***) reducing the COP. Below freezing the COP doesn't fall any lower because there's far less need for defrost, although with the caveat that we've not seen daytime temperatures below -5 °C. (This is in Cambridge, I have no idea what performance would be like in the Scottish Highlands.)
(*) "Oh god, the bastard is using facts again!"
(**) My wife's an environmental consultant, specialising in building energy efficiency, so everything energy related in the house is monitored, evaluated, plotted and statistically analysed. Fortunately she doesn't do it for my beer consumption.
(***) Not done by resistance heating, but by using some of the heat in the system to melt the ice and then running the fans backwards to blow the frost off. We get a mini ice storm for 30 seconds every couple of hours.
Ground-sourced heat pumps are a much better option for northern Europe
At the risk of bringing more facts into the discussion, Norway has the most heat pumps per capita in Europe and more than 90% of them are air source.
The linked paper has a useful discussion of heat pump types and economics. If anybody cares about such things, rather than merely wanting to grind their axe on the nearest hobby horse, have a read.
The heating capacity of heat pumps isn't sufficient for many poorly insulated 19th and early 20th century British homes. You'd need additional electrical resistance heating or supplemental natural gas heating to compensate.
If that's the case, how come my late Victorian (1896) house is perfectly comfortable with a heat pump?
Also, heat pumps take up valuable space and make continuous irritating low frequency noises.
Nope, no irritating noises (and it wouldn't be continuous anyway). A properly installed heat pump should be on anti-vibration feet. Yes, if you're standing next to it, it makes fan noise when working, but you don't have the windows open when you need heating so don't hear it in the house.
IMHO only new, highly insulated homes should have heat pumps. For older homes we should just upgrade the electrical network and use resistance heating. New nuclear plants and a huge investment in the power distribution network should therefore be top priority.
Agreed on the grid needing upgrading, but resistance heating gives 1 kW of heating per 1 kW of electricity, a heat pump will give 2-3 kW heat per kW of electricity under the worst conditions likely in the UK. Even if your house leaks like a sieve you'll be warmer with a heat pump. "Fabric first" is a daft idea.
BTW I personally had the same idea as Johnson since there's already a well developed gas distribution network and hydrogen gas can be made to flow through those pipes. Gas heaters can also be modified to bun hydrogen gas relatively easily. Maybe we were both wrong but I don't think it was (or is) a bad idea.
It's a bloody awful idea when you get into the details. Johnson's qualified in bullshitting with a minor in Classics, and doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground about anything technical.
as they try to push us back into mud huts and peasant lifestyle
There's lots of whinging that an unspecified they are making us do things we don't want to do, and then people's houses flood due to torrential rain or their roofs blow off in a hurricane and the whinging becomes "they should have done something".
I do wish people would realise that governments are generally fairly useless at doing most things, deep complex conspiracies only exist in the minds of paranoids and half wits, and that there's just us(*) and we need to take responsibility for what we do rather than blaming everything on a nebulous them.
(*) ™ PTerry
The Tories broke the UK
If you think things are bad now, you should read up about the Anarchy. (Or maybe the Thirty Years War.)
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