Posts by John Brown (no body)

Just $10 to create an AI chatbot of a dead loved one

Re: Horrifying

I was thinking along similar line. The sort of situation where people around the world sigh and say "Only in America". There seems to be, IMO, an unhealthy attitude to dragging out the grieving process, an emphasis on "closure", primarily lead by so-called therapists who, as far as I know are completely unregulated and don't need any qualifications and pushed by "celebrities" who have a pathological need for attention.

Having said that, different people handle grief in different ways and may take longer to be able to move on with their lives. A few may even need help to do so and come to terms with it. But I would suggest that is the exception rather than the rule that seems to be pushing foisted on us. I suspect this chatbot, for most who try it, will not only be sorely disappointing, but will extend their grieving process even more.,

Senior engineer reported to management for failing to fix a stapler

Re: Fixing toilets.

"if you have IT training you must also be a qualified electrician and plumber..."

Plumbing digital/binary, isn't it? It's all just 1's and 2's. It's only an off-by-one error.

Re: Is it just me

Maybe more people need to send in their stories instead of putting them in the comments to On Call? :-))

Re: Not just in IT

"You needed to check the oil anyway didn't you?"

I suspect only people of a certain age will understand that. The days when you pretty much always checked the oil levels whenever filling up with fuel because not only were things like oil pressure sensors "high end tech", you might might be lucky to have an indicator lamp, let alone an actual pressure gauge dial or other warning and oil tended to disappear almost as fast the the fuel in the tank!

There was a documentary on Ch4 the other night about the building out of the UK motorway network. Many, many cars blew their big ends on the new motorways due to a lack of oil and temp indicators and cars suddenly doing many, many miles flat out, something they were not designed for and previously were not able to do because it was rarely possible to find that long and clear a road to do it on.

Re: Not just in IT

"Daddy, did we just drive 60 miles to put that mans car in Drive?"

For me, it was printer with the IEC (kettle!) mains plug not pushed in all the way and 140 mile round trip. This was a maintenance contract call out, not the long expired warranty coverage. Turns out the plug "has always been a bit loose", so they used brown parcel tape to hold it in place. No one had ever figured out that all they needed to do was push the plug firmly in passed the friction grips. Why they thought they could get a "free" fix on a service contract but not on the original warranty is beyond me. We charged them the full call-out fee as "no fault found, user error".

Oh, and they used an identical plug on the kettle which they frequently plugged/unplugged when filling it at the sink.

Re: Just maybe ...

" I can't think of any occasion when it wasn't made clear that the staple issue related to a particular photocopier..."

I can. User will be users.

Open ticket: Stapler not working.

Close ticket: See office supplies team

Open ticket: Stapler not working.

Close ticket: See office supplies team

Open ticket: Stapler not working.

Close ticket: See office supplies team

Open ticket: Stapler on printer not working

Update ticket: Fault noted, ask user to replace staple cartridge following animations displayed on printer control panel and escalate to site visit if problem not solved. Close ticket if no further responses within 24hrs.

Re: Local Manager - Former Architect (Log cabins).

"number two loved doing everything in Access...the other team in Edmonton were working from the master spreadsheet in Excel""

It does rather sound like a job for a database rather than a spreadsheet. Though maybe not Access :-)

<mutters about people abusing Excel as a database>

Re: Shredder

I remember going around installing Cisco VPN package on users home PCs[1] years ago when WFH was for the very few. As well as setting up the VPN and an encrypted virtual disk in a big file on the HDD where work stuff must go, it also added a "shredder" on the desktop for securely deleting documents.

[1] Yes, the users provided their own PCs[2]. It was a government department and these particular people were classed as self-employed contractors. The majority only did work for that department and eventually became employees thanks to the earliest incarnation of IR35 when the tax man came calling.

[2] It was a ball ache installing the software BECAUSE it was the users home PCs. We had to take a full image of the HDD before starting so if anything went pear-shaped we could at least put them back how we found them. This meant having multiple methods of imaging the HDD because there were many different PC configurations and even Windows versions out there so one size most definitely did not fit all.

Re: But I DO want to know!

Some printers have an over-ride option for A4/Letter/. It's worth checking if that's available. In most cases, with normal sized margins, there's a high probability that an A4 document will fit on Letter and vice versa.

Re: But I DO want to know!

"Usually there will be some big obvious "paper tray empty" message flashing on a screen or a LED blinking with "Paper" written below it, but somehow the user will miss that until you ask them about the paper explicitly."

You mean the ever so helpful "PC LOAD LETTER" and user thinks it means something is wrong with the PC and it's run out or letters to send to the printer?

Re: But I DO want to know!

I agree with that comments!

On the other hand, we were paying extra for the convenience. Not having to drive a few miles off-route into a nearby town or village, hope there was something open, pray we could get parked nearby hope it wasn't too busy, then get back on-route.

On the other hand, I used to travel a lot and stay overnight, rarely knowing more than 24 hours in advance where I'd be each night so stayed in a lot of Travelodges (company budgets!!) so went completely through the Little Chef menu a few times. When booking, I tried to find a Travelodge near where I wanted to be that had a Harvester pub attached rather than a Little Chef!!

BOFH: The Boss has a new watch – move readiness to DEFCON 2

Re: I wonder if

She's not a proper PFY if there's not another script redirecting his salary to an untraceable account too. So we'll just take that as a given, shall we?

Laugh all you want. There will be a year of the Linux desktop

"The PC was originally a niche product aimed at the space between enterprise (green screen) and home (playstation etc)."

Er...what? Playstation? That was over a decade after the PC came out. And even small businesses were using computers before the PC and long before Windows, which is what I think you may have meant when you said "PC".

Re: You still need to be far more tech savvy

"After that, it's learning what the alternate programs are called on Linux and clicking on the right icon or menu pick."

Until the inevitable Windows re-install, at which point, at best, it will re-write the boot loader and hide Linux from you, at worst, it will spitefully wipe the Linux partition and use the whole disk for Windows, either way, requiring the user to know how to restore the boot loader or re-install Linux :-)

Re: @Missing Semicolon - cloud pc

"Works best with XBOX For Business"

_{You may need the XBOX For Business Pro if doing CAD, Video Editing or other high CPU intensive tasks - Only 5 times the price}

Re: cloud pc

And at least 16 years ago, I was installing Wyse WinTerms for a client in NE UK which ran on VMs at their London HQ. Have also done this for at least two other very large nationally operating clients in more recent years. The only difference of course is they were running their own servers on-prem. Mind you, in every instance, the external bandwidth was calculated by the client for "normal" usage. In every instance, the users were complaining about how long it took to start up and get logged in on a morning as everyone switched on at about the same time causing quite high bandwidth demands. I wonder how many companies will take that into account if they go with this MS idea of "everything in the cloud, including the OS"? And just how much will (not) get done when the connection goes down.

Re: #@$Drivers

"even cheap garbage from China seems to have Linux support,"

Isn't China in another drive to switch from Windows to a home-grown Linux distro at the moment? They;ve tried a few times with varying levels of success so I can imagine Chinese hardware havine Linux support as standard either because someone has strongly recommended that from high up in the party, or because it's an actual requirement. Anyone know how that's currently going over there these days?

Re: #@$Drivers

"But if your workflow depends on some older piece of gear, you may be stuck with some older version of Windows pretty much forever."

FTFY.

neither MS nor the hardware suppliers are interested in updating drivers for anything other than popular hardware for the latests version of windows. There's a steady stream for printers and scanners (to name but two hardware families) heading for landfill because there's no Win10 drivers for them. Or Win8 drivers. Or Win7 drivers. It happens every time a new version of Windows comes along. Industrial and instrument control are other areas where people are running old hardware and an old OS because the £million kit is no longer supported with updated drivers for newer iteration of Windows because they can't afford to replace that kit and send it to landfill.

My own 2400dppi scanner is one such "rescue from landfill" a friend was going to bin because there are now drivers beyond Win7. It worked immediately with Sane on Freebsd 9. And still does on FreeBSD 12. Now, don't get me wrong. I know there are many printers and scanners out there that have never worked on any version of *nix and never will. But support for those drivers that do exist does seem to just keep chugging along, usually because the entire subsystem never changes, so just a few tweaks to an existing driver to bring it up to date.

Re: Nope. Ain't gonna happen.

"coof"

What? I'm guessing, from context, you mean Covid. But coof? Where does that come from?

Re: MS Office

"It's bullshaite. And, no, it is NOT MS's responsibility to create a .DOCX format that allows others a guarantee of compatibility. They don't have to - it's their format, their software, to call the shots on."

Didn't MS force it's formats through as "open standards" or something? Don't they have a responsibility to that? Or can we just say it's yet another example of MS setting and then moving the goal posts for their own benefit?

Scottish space upstart's rocket crashes into the drink

It crashed in the sea. There's ;ots of wildlife there. And it's probably even more wild now someone just crashed a rocket into the bailiwick!! Especially if some of said wildlife was impacted by the falling wreckage and died as a result.

Re: No such thing as failure

Right. So you are incapable of searching the web? I have no idea why El Reg didn't link to the actual launch where it's clear within a few metres that it's going wildly off course, but it's easy enough to find. Try the BBC,

'Baby Al Capone' to pay $22m to SIM-swap crypto-heist victim

On the other hand...

...How much would the original owner have now? Would he have cashed in or transferred his TRIG coins before they crashed? Would he be worth more by being astute and moving the value around through various cryptos over the years? Or broke?

Junk cellphones on Earth would stack higher than the International Space Station

Re: Hmm

It's already being done. But AFAIK, it's rarely profitable in many jurisdiction because of the nasty chemical processes and resultant toxic waste used to extract the valuable metals. And the labour intensive part of separating the cases and batteries from the boards etc.

Re: We used to have deposits on bottles...

Do you trust your average phone shop employee to wipe or destroy the phone without have a rummage around the data first? Most people don't seem to know how to wipe their old phones and that, I suspect, is another major reason why people hang onto their old phones.

Boffins grow human brain cells to play Pong

No, it's a character IN Doom :-)

Re: And yet,....

There's many more to choose from nowadays. Apparently, there have been more Chancellors of the Exchequer in the last 5 months than were in government for the 20 years preceding the last election! Strong and Stable indeed!!!

Re: Why?

Did it look like a Dalek?

(No, not their mobile "tanks", the actual creature inside that operates it)

Japan space agency blows up eight satellites aboard Epsilon rocket

Why does non-foaming toothpaste mean no need to rinse?

Is it ok to swallow, along with all the rotting debris you just dislodged? And isn't toothpaste only foamey because they add a foaming agent anyway?

Re: Sensitive image

Agoraphobics and/or Acrophobics?

Mormon Church IT ransacked, data stolen by 'state-sponsored' cyber-thieves

breach happened in late March 2022

This is why US "data protection" laws will never be compatible with EU data protection laws, Privacy Shield 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 whatever point zero, without major changes in the US. How the fuck is a data breach of this magnitude and scope allowed to be kept from those affected for so long without some sort of legal punishment? It's entirely possible that data has been used maliciously in identity theft already with those affected completely in the dark as to how they lost their money.

Microsoft HoloLens proves to be a headache for US soldiers

Re: Telepresence

"The killer drones are also extremely tame, they wouldn't be competitive whatsoever on "drone racing league," for example."

Killer drones need to loiter and have the capacity to get to where they are needed. Drone racers are stripped of all excess weight and the battery has just enough capacity to run the race before it falls out of the sky. You'd not use an F1 racing car for a military mission! :-)

Sony, Honda collaborate on 'premium' electric vehicles that are born in the USA

Re: Sony Playstation Car?

<Has image of Maggie Simpson from the title sequence "driving" with her toy steering wheel next to Marge>

Re: Honda only offers a single EV currently, and it's not for sale in North America.

"but the rest of us are just waiting on reliable infrastructure."

I suspect it will be a long while before all use cases are covered by EVs, if ever, other than people needing to change their behaviours and expectations. Something that may never happen. But a significant majority never tow or travel long distances. They are the current target market. Even my fairly high annual mileage driving is almost covered by existing EVs. It's fairly rare my daily drive exceeds 200 miles one way with a number of hours stop at the other end but is commonly 200-300 total per day. I just can't afford an EV at that higher range capacity yet and leasing isn't an option. Prices rise sharply at the higher annual mileage allowances for leasing and none of the ones I have looked at go above 30,000 miles per year. That means phoning them up for a quote. Which basically tells me it's in the price range of "if you have to ask, you can't afford it"

Re: "When I purchase a car, my cash outflow is done with that one transaction"

None of those are fixed monthly outgoings and generally depend entirely on how you use the vehicle. Don't use it for a week? No cost, no wear and tear. Subscription based apps, heated seats? You pay whether you use them or not.

Re: "continuous relationships with customers across the entire value-chain."

Have you tried buying a non-"smart" TV recently? The options are very limited, if available at all. That's how they "force" you. Take what's on offer, do without or try for a less optimal workaround.

My TV was purchased as an "end of line" dumb TV at about the time when there were no new models of dumb TVs available other than cheap tat. Today, pretty much the only option would be a computer monitor at a significantly higher price for a similar screen. That's doable since I don't actually use any "over the air" services so a display with a tuner is redundant in my case anyway. On the other hand, few computer monitors come with remote on/off and I might have to get of my arse to turn it on :-)

SpaceX reportedly fed up with providing free Starlink to Ukraine

Re: Putin has some dirt on Musk?

Not much the species, more certain parts of society in some countries. After all, look at the USA. Blood and gore all over the TV, but the slightest hint of a nipple brings down the full wrath of the censors and boycotts, especially in the Bible Belt.

I wonder how much paying capacity there is over Ukraine and surrounding areas the sat can work with while dealing with "free" Ukrainian data and therefore are there actual paying customers getting less than they paid for or unable to connect? I find it hard to believe that Starlink isn't just using excess capacity and so apart from the hardware cost, there's little actual ongoing cost to Starlink. that can be directly attributed to Ukraine as "lost income".

I suspect the biggest problem is that Starlink is not in profit, so they can't write off these costs as losses against tax so it is actually costing them money. On the other hand, how much free advertising and kudos are they getting for that money that might otherwise have been spent in tradition advertising?

Inmarsat gets $1b from US Navy for 10 years of satellite data

Re: Commercial teleport services?

Yeah, $1B for 10 years worth of teleport services. The navy doesn't need ships any more!! What does an aircraft carrier cost these days?

It's official: UK telcos legally obligated to remove Huawei kit

Re: It's official

Whilst I applaud your effort, the most scary thing about it was that I understood the meaning.

Re: It's official

Of course. Failure may incur a disciplinary.

Water pipes hold flood of untapped electricity potential

Re: More proof phd's can't look beyond their nose

"There is no such thing as free energy. The water in all these lines has pressure for a reason. This is created by pumps."

Depends where you live Not all water deliver is pumped. I'll grant thet there is no free energy, but hydropower does actually exist. There are some big, world recognised places that have it. Hoover Dam, Aswan Dam to name but two. Now, technically that's not "free" energy since there are laws of physics describing that. But from an everyday practical point of view, it's "free" in that it's tapping gravity. The paper refers to "gravity fed" systems. There may also be places where water needs to be pumped up and over a geological feature such as hills or mountains. You ar paying to pump it up and over, so why not stick a turbine at least part way down the other side and reclaim some of the energy being imparted by gravity as the water falls down the other side? As others have mentioned, think about regenerative breaking. Why waste energy as heat if it can be recovered in a more useful form? That's what's happening as the water comes down a gravity fed pipe. It might even be that the pressure at the bottom is too high and has to be reduced. Without using a turbine to reduce the pressure and reclaim some energy, you need to use baffles and constrictors to reduce the pressure. That's the car equivalent of wasting energy by converting it to heat through break pads and disks instead of regen breaking taking the momentum back as electricity.

Re: This is ridiculous.

"Extracting electricity from the flow of water in pipes will reduce the flow of water to where it needs to go."

There are situations where the pressure has to be reduced. Not everyone gets water from a water tower. Having said that, would the pressure in the pipes at the bottom be lower if the generator "stealing" energy was at the top of the pipe directly under the base of the towers tank? Think about regenerative breaking on EVs. Yes, you paid for electricity to get the water up into the tower and turned that electricity into potential energy so why not see if some of that potential energy can be recovered when it turns kinetic at the top of the drop pipe?

Re: Just no

So, obviously that means your area is one of those not considered suitable for the suggestions put forward by the authors of the paper. That doesn't mean it's not possible to do so elsewhere. Such as the existing 500+MW already in place referred to in the article. Clearly your area isn't an ideal site for building dams for hydropower. But it may well be suitable for wind turbines if it's all wide flat empty space :-)

Re: entirely gravity driven

Yes. Another apt comparison would be the current HS2 project compared with the creation of the motorway network. At one point I think they were building a mile per day of motorway.

Re: Grammar, please...

It's the new "North American Style Guide" used by El Reg these days. AFAIK, that means "anything goes" now since US grammar seems to be whatever the person speaking or writing wants it to be ;-)

Re: Back to the Future

I suspect that's the sort of thing the authors are on about. After all, even a "low ball" estimate of 1.41GW across the entire US is a relatively small amount. That indicates either very few places it could be done or very many places where the output is too low to make any economic sense. It might be they are suggesting generation from gravity fed pipes to generate power for use within the water supply system, eg running control valves, powering telemetry or possibly even powering pumps further down the system, especially in out of the way places where they are using generators or batteries.

Re: The elephant in the water pipe?

"That, and it's illegal (?) for end users to use water for power generation because it increases water loss."

I think I recall seeing a shower-head that used the water flow to power either LEDs or a radio. Some sort of silly gimmick anyway but I suppose it did work and generated power from consumer water flow :-)

Re: The elephant in the water pipe?

If you are talking a rural cabin in the woods such the one in Vermont the OP mentioned, I'd assume he has a local stream (or creek now El Reg is American) with enough of a drop in height to give a constant flow to a generator. Depending on location and local planning/conservation regulations, he might be able to divert the stream and create "mill race" and divert some or all of the water via a pipe in the turbine. As he says, if he can get 1-2KW from it 24/7, that's a decently useful amount.

There are also Archimedes screw type generators for slow moving, low drop rivers where a portion of the water is diverted to drive the screw using a much more significant mass of water depending on the length of the screw so can still generate a decent amount from a slower rotation passed through a gearbox. These are actual devices out in the field now and have been for some years.

Here's an example at Cragside House a few miles up the road from me and covered by El Regs own Geeks Guide back in 2019. Back in the day, it was "the house of the future" with many "modern" gadgets mainly powered by either hydraulics or electricity generated from hydropower, so nice to see it getting up to date with modern hydropower.

Re: The elephant in the water pipe?

"Avoid flooding how? The only way to do that is to build a reservoir to hold the water upstream, which means trading unplanned flooding downstream for planned flooding upstream."

Some points, nor especially related to the Mississippi or other large rivers, but slowing down the overall flow helps with flood control. Whether that be by adding back meanders that used to be there until people straightened them out for whatever reason, allowing "natural" damming, not dredging ,or creating flood plains/reservoirs upstream where people etc won't be flooded out, are all ways of helping. reduce the levels or amounts of flooding downstream where people and businesses could be affected rather more badly. Planned flooding is always better than unplanned flooding since you know exactly where it will happen and be prepared for it. That probably won't work near the coast where the flooding is sometime caused by storm surges, that's a whole different problem.