* Posts by H in The Hague

907 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jan 2013

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Claims emerge that Citrix has doubled price of month-to-month partner licenses

H in The Hague

Re: Sigh (again)

"If we could dump Adobe, life would be perfect."

Do you absolutely need their products for compatibility with clients?

If not, take a look at https://affinity.serif.com

That's replaced Photoshop, etc. for me.

Justice Dept reportedly starts criminal probe into Boeing door bolt incident

H in The Hague

Re: Airlines Being The Safest Form Of Transportation

"that was a Dash-8 (serves you right for flying a plane with propellers)"

Why would an aircraft with propellers be less safe than one without?

Intern with superuser access 'promoted' himself to CEO

H in The Hague

Re: This is where technology lets you down

"If you, as an Engineer, were seen carrying anything, you could be stopped by a union rep,"

In which socialist country was that?

OpenAI sued, again, for scraping and replicating news stories

H in The Hague

Re: So how do you stop this?

"... is mostly form over function — the form looks high quality, which we tend to think implies that the content is high quality as well, but that's not the case."

Yup, same problem with machine translation: it looks OK, most of the words and grammar are OK, but the content might not be OK.

Now, in the translation industry they use Machine Translation Post-Editing. But if you're under pressure due to the low rate and are not familiar with the subject of the translation I would think it's going to be very difficult to spot mistakes. I have seen MT leave out a little word like 'not', and that does rather change the meaning.

All this ML stuff would be a lot more useful if you could train it on just your own documents, instead of on a large chunk of the web. Funny, thing is, that's rather like the Computer Assisted Translation some of use have been using for a decade or two. That does work well, and makes translators more efficient, without distracting you with irrelevant stuff.

Starting over: Rebooting the OS stack for fun and profit

H in The Hague

"On a Raspberry Pi 5 (not even one with an NVME hat) my working Smalltalk image ..."

Sounds fun. Which Smalltalk implementation do you use?

'Crash test dummy' smashed VIP demo by offering a helping hand

H in The Hague

Re: There's a reason pilots always do their own walkaround inspection

"a pitot tube (how a physical, non-GPS/Radar altimeter works)."

As far as I'm aware the pitot tube measures airspeed.

The altimeter is basically a pressure gauge/barometer (adjusted so the current atmospheric pressure at ground level corresponds to an altitude of 0 ft).

Aircraft rivet hole issues cause delays to Boeing 737 Max deliveries

H in The Hague

Re: Bit of white duct-tape?

"Bit of white duct-tape? "

Absolutely not! This is the aero industry, we have standards!! No duct tape here, only speed tape.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_tape

Tesla power steering probe upgraded after thousands more incidents reported

H in The Hague

"On the Cybertruck the steering is steer by wire."

Are you sure that's right? As far as I'm aware in the US vehicles need a physical connection between the steering wheel and the steering mechanism. Certainly a requirement for trucks in the sense of heavy goods vehicles.

H in The Hague

Re: Lucky for them...

"Old cars were light weight, had narrow tires, and they had a lower steering gear ratio. "

A few decades ago I went to pick up quite a large hire van. I was used to driving those without power steering, bit heavier than the Austin Maxi I had at the time (great car). That time they gave me a new model, so when I pulled hard on the wheel to make a turn when leaving the hire co building I discovered that it had power steering and came close to crashing into the petrol pumps. Fortunately it also had upgraded brakes so I just managed to stop in time. Next time I picked up a van I noticed that another customer had been less lucky and had indeed crashed into the petrol pumps.

Warning the customers about power steering was apparently beyond the wit of these folk.

Techie climbed a mountain only be told not to touch the kit on top

H in The Hague
Pint

Book suggestions?

Speaking of networking: does anyone have suggestions for a good, basic book (or website) about networking for small businesses?

TIA

For the weekend -->

BOFH: Looks like you're writing an email. Fancy telling your colleague to #$%^ off?

H in The Hague

Re: Another one bites the dust

"AI is clearly going to be the time wasting,expensive and useless buzzword based clusterfuck of the next year or two."

A good opportunity for the oldies among us to dig up some reports we wrote a long time ago, search and replace 'fuzzy logic' or 'expert system' by 'AI', and then be congratulated on our quick response and insights :)

Standards-obsessed boss ignored one, and suffered all night for his sin

H in The Hague
Pint

"Philips LDK5 cameras"

That's a while ago! Grass Valley in Breda, the Netherlands, who took the product line over from Philips, still use LDK designations for some products, though the cameras are now designated LDX.

Here's one for the weekend -->

Tesla Cybertruck gets cyberstuck during off-roading expedition

H in The Hague

Re: Sports Futility Vehicle

"Electronics are (despite what people say, and iff designed correctly) more sturdy and way more flexible than a mechanical solution (though I really do like ingenious mechanical devices)."

Hmm, not sure about that. One of my customers makes materials handling equipment used in demanding environments and one of their selling points is that they have fewer electronic systems than their main competitor, and rely more on hydraulic systems. Another customer is a user of extremely heavy handling equipment and they asked the manufacturer of the kit to fit fewer electronic systems to improve reliability.

The New ROM Antics – building the ZX Spectrum 128

H in The Hague
Pint

Re: Two head scratchers...actually, it was old school

"The great thing about Foyles was that if you willing to mount an expedition into the darkest recesses of the buildings there was no knowing what treasures you might find"

Many decades ago, on a school trip to London, I spent an hour or so wandering around the old Foyles and got myself a few books, including one on analytical chemistry which is still in the bookcase behind me and still useful. A bookcase which now holds more technical technical books than the entire engineering department of Foyles when I last visited them - which made me feel very sad indeed, old fossil that I am.

I propose a toast to all the technical bookshops some of us had the privilege of growing up with, which often guided our careers.

Fujitsu wins flood contract extension despite starring in TV drama about its failures

H in The Hague
Pint

Re: A longish stretch, but...

"there is an excellent podcast series on BBC sounds called cautionary tales"

Thanks for the tip! Some interesting programmes. And by Tim Harford, my favourite FT columnist.

You don't get what you don't pay for, but nobody is paid enough to be abused

H in The Hague

Re: Question

"Don't take my word for it ... go and check the OED. It caused me to have a serious re-think."

OED tends to use z-spelling and the Collins dictionary (which I prefer, for various reasons) tends to use s-spelling.

I think it's got to do with transcribing words from Ancient Greek into English.

Bank's datacenter died after travelling back in time to 1970

H in The Hague

"If you know of any that can be wired into a mains spur, please let me know in a reply."

You could just mount one of these in an appropriate box:

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/c/?searchTerm=power+supply+din

H in The Hague
Pint

Re: Yearly tasks....

" Yearly tasks are a pain to schedule"

Alas they are. I know of the voluntary group where the new secretary or treasurer didn't apply for a grant in time so the group was ineligible for it. That made a hole in their finances though fortunately they'll survive.

So when I friend recently became chair of a similar organisation I advised them to make sure that any time-limited grant applications are a task of the secretary or treasurer, but that everyone on the committee should note those dates in their diaries and check if the applications have been filed. Better to learn from other people's mistakes :(

That time of the week again, 'cheers' to all Commentards.

Ukraine cyber spies claim Putin's planes are in peril as sanctions bite

H in The Hague

Re: "the civil aviation sector of terrorist Russia"

I'm not sure there's much point attempting to reason with you, but here goes:

"and more libertarian ones elected, eg The Netherlands recently. Of course Wilder's is described as 'far-right', but that's as always relative to the person's PoV, so if you're on the extreme left, like the Bbc, any libertarian is going to look like they're far to the right of you."

In my view, the parties which had recent electoral success in NL are certainly not libertarian, more authoritarian. Mr Wilder's election manifesto includes quite a lot of 'nice things for ordinary people' which are going to be costly - that's more like traditional socialist policies. Furthermore his party did not submit their manifesto for an assessment to the NL equivalent of the Office for Budget Responsibility - unlike many other parties. Being a fairly fiscally conservative bod with a distaste for unfettered public spending that leaves me thoroughly unimpressed. Lastly, being of a certain age, with a fairly conservative upbringing I believe in taking responsibility for once actions and considering future generations - i.e. not destroying the environment we live in. So I object strongly to the plans to scrap a range of environmental protection programmes which in my view are incompatible with a responsible/conservative approach.

Incidentally, Mr Wilders' party is not a party in the usual sense - it has only two members: Mr Wilders and Mrs Wilders. In other words, party supporters cannot influence its policies. I guess it's one way of interpreting 'one man, one vote'.

Bright spark techie knew the drill and used it to install a power line, but couldn't outsmart an odd electrician

H in The Hague

Re: Other folks' DIY

"This is where an IR camera comes handy."

Yes! And now reasonably affordable. Detects not only pipes but also cables if they carry a reasonable current. I use a FLIR "imaging thermometer" which is almost the same, but cheaper, and shows v small differences in temperature.

H in The Hague
Pint

Other folks' DIY

"that stretches diagonally across walls"

Many years ago I lived in a house with ugly porous tiles in the kitchen, dining area and loo.

So I rented a Kango hammer and started removing them in the kitchen and suddenly heard an odd hiss above the noise of the hammer - some !?@#! had laid the gas pipe diagonally across the kitchen floor, embedded in the mortar used to set the floor tiles! Fortunately I got to the main gas valve before anything happened.

When I removed the tiles in the dining area I discovered they'd put a sheet of plastic on the wooden floorboards, then mortar, then the tiles. As result of which the floorboards and the joists carrying them had largely disintegrated due to dry rot :( Oh, and that floor carried the spiral stairs going to the upper floor, so had to get help from a mate, go to the workshop, cut a bit of 6" pipe, weld plates top and bottom and fit that under the spiral stairs before I could go to bet (rather late). At least when I removed the ugly tiles in the loo and hall I discovered a nice, undamaged granito floor under them.

The joys of undoing other folks' DIY! -->

CompSci academic thought tech support was useless – until he needed it

H in The Hague
Pint

Re: " the entire point of university degrees is to teach you critical thinking"

"I think it's a good call, especially because the kinds of jobs you get after completing an MBO or a lot less likely to be automated or made redundant due to AI. Now it's just a matter of shifting an entire culture based around academic performance.."

Yup. Just visited a customer here in NL this morning which has very hand-on people doing metalbashing and wiring to build high quality products which they then export worldwide, even to low wage countries. Probably helped by the smart software they also incorporate in their products, and write in-house, don't do offshoring. But they, and several other of my customers, do find it difficult to find technical operatives.

Almost the weekend -->

Ransomware crooks SIM swap medical research biz exec, threaten to leak stolen data

H in The Hague

Re: SIM swapping and hijacked cellphone number

"Is it possible for the telecoms to put a lock on a mobile to prevent SIM swapping?"

It all depends on the telco's approach. Here in NL Vodafone will give you a new SIM in one of their shops, but you'll need to show your driving licence or passport. Or they'll send you one, but to the address in their records only I think. So that's reasonably secure.

Ask a builder to fix a server and out come the vastly inappropriate power tools

H in The Hague
Pint

Re: Shocking!

"Cue H&S appearing on the scene & evacuating the whole site, before shutting down the power to the section of the building where the table was! "

Not surprised - dust explosions are a major hazard in flour mills!

https://www.ukflourmillers.org/dustexplosionsfire

--> For the weekend!

How is this problem mine, techie asked, while cleaning underground computer

H in The Hague

Re: Dickensian

"Nasty stuff newsprint ink. It has to be scrubbed off surfaces, or use a very harsh solvent, to get it off any surface."

Ermm, so how do the operators clean it from their lungs???????

H in The Hague

Re: "......the mine had closed."

"I read somewhere recently that one is reopening as they can also extract Lithium from it"

Different site, same idea:

https://www.imerys.com/media-room/press-releases/imerys-and-british-lithium-announce-strategic-partnership-accelerate

It's almost the weekend -->

PS

They're just installing fibre to the premises in our area. Working impressively quickly: just lift up the paving slabs in the footway, dig out some sand, lay the fibre bundles (one fibre to each dwelling), backfill and compact the sand (it'll be interesting to see if the vibration from the Wacker plate affects my spinning rust), put the slabs back, have a cuppa.

Now IBM sued for age discrim by its own HR veterans

H in The Hague

Re: PART 1625—AGE DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT ACT

"Ah yes, Napoleon's "you have no rights at all, but I graciously allow you the right to X"

I rather doubt that is correct - one of those claims that pops up every now and then. Could you provide a source for that? (Something more reliable than a Brexit party (or whatever they call themselves now) leaflet.)

I'm not a lawyer, but I've read a few books about it, both common law and civil (European) lawy.

Lawsuit claims Google Maps led dad of two over collapsed bridge to his death

H in The Hague

Re: So answer this.

"Useless trivia: these are called "mountweasels"."

Or "trap roads" I think.

Came across one when visiting Pembrokeshire, it was shown on one OS map, but not another at a different scale.

H in The Hague

Re: Were there no signs indicating that the Bridge was out?

"That's not to say that Google should probably have updated the way on Maps at some point in the last ten years"

Their system seems to be a bit weird. Their map identifies the house of a colleague as a Middle Eastern embassy, which is actually around the corner from them. So they used the feedback link on Google Maps or something to report that error, with a link to the embassy website showing the real address. Google fixed that quite quickly and their map showed the correct location. But strangely enough, a few weeks later the location reverted back to their house. Weird.

Probe reveals previously secret Israeli spyware that infects targets via ads

H in The Hague

Re: How to pay

Thanks for the tip. Do you have any experience of it? I would be more than happy to pay for a good search engine.

Watt's the worst thing you can do to a datacenter? Failing to RTFM, electrically

H in The Hague

Re: I I be a-goin there, I be-n't start from here

"I barely have a working knowledge of electricity, but I always thought amps were "drawn" rather than pushed."

Traditionally, that's entirely correct.

But this seems to have been kit which could be set to deliver a certain current. So when it was set to deliver a higher current it probably increased the voltage (which, assuming the resistance of the load remains the same, will also increase the amps drawn) until the selected higher current was delivered. The resulting higher power then destroyed the kit (which as someone else pointed out, could have done with a bit more protection).

When I was at secondary school one of the teachers built a sizeable analogue synthesiser - and then one day connected the power supply the wrong way round leading to loss of a lot of magic smoke :( . So now if I build something significant (rarely) I try to remember that and provide adequate protection.

PEBCAK problem transformed young techie into grizzled cynical sysadmin

H in The Hague

Re: Plausible...

4096 words of 33 bits. Executes between 40 and 1000 instructions per second. Around 2100 pounds. Draws 6 kW. Low price (how much?).

I actually used to know folk who started their careers on kit like that.

Thanks for the link!

Windows File Explorer gets nostalgic speed boost thanks to one weird bug

H in The Hague
Pint

Re: File list - easy way to create?

Thanks for the tip!

That it shows the full path isn't a major problem. I just paste the list into Word and then use Alt+mouse to select the actual file names and then copy and paste those. (Selecting the beginning of the path and deleting that doesn't seem to work.)

So in future I'll use your tip for shortish file lists, and muck about with Dir for longer ones.

Have one of these, on me -->

H in The Hague

File list - easy way to create?

Is it me, or is File Explorer still incapable of printing/saving a list of the files in a directory?

At the moment I open a command window and then use dir > filename.txt to save a directory listing. But convenient it ain't.

For a while I kept a copy of WordPerfect at hand for just that - its file explorer could save a directory listing.

Any suggestions for an alternative file explorer? (Thanks for the Everything tip, but that seems to focus on searching file names, which is less relevant to me.)

Three years after setting off, Bus Open Data Service wants consultants to help it on its journey

H in The Hague

Why is this so challenging?

They've had something like this in NL for ages: https://9292.nl/en

That's a travel planner, so must be built on some sort of open data service. Works nationwide: local busses, regional busses, trains, trams, metros (which, annoyingly, they refer to as 'subways').

Or am I misunderstanding something?

BOFH: What a beautiful tinfoil hat, Boss!

H in The Hague

Re: I remember well...

"My theory was that it had something to do with the static charge that collected on the CRT faceplate, or perhaps the dust attracted by it."

That takes me back around five decades, when the monochrome CRT monitors on the very first computers at secondary school seemed to have a similar effect on my face (rash/redness/dryness). Also figured it had to with static electricity, didn't have a screen to try out, and this was in the era when teenage boys wouldn't dream of applying moisturiser to their face :).

UK flights disrupted by 'technical issue' with air traffic computer system

H in The Hague

"... before I realised there was a hidden window waiting to be clicked on."

I haven't had too many problems like that, but recently started using some new software which is affected by this issue. Sometimes launching Task Manager, right-clicking the application and selecting Bring to Front helps. But that depends on the phase of the moon.

Lesson 1: Keep your mind on the ... why aren't the servers making any noise?

H in The Hague

Re: electrical avoidance

"if you didn't know where the root 3 goes, you shouldn't be doing power engineering."

Root 3 I can cope with. It was root -1 that always put me off electrical engineering. Imaginary numbers being ... well a bit beyond my imagination.

H in The Hague

Upstream breaker

"He'd push the breaker back in, but each time he reconnected the power it popped right back out."

Many circuit breakers have two trip mechanisms, a fast magnetic one based on overcurrent (which Hans tripped - protects against shorts and gross overloads) and a slower thermal mechanism to protect against limited overloads.

If you trip a downstream breaker a couple of times on overcurrent then the upstream breaker might warm up and eventually trip. And often you won't have access to it, and it will disconnect more than just your own equipment :(

Lock-in to legacy code is a thing. Being locked in by legacy code is another thing entirely

H in The Hague
Pint

"I often wonder how much is needed to trigger those."

A friend lives in a block with an underground car park. They keep a metal bin lid close to the exit, to trigger the loop if you want to open the main door to leave by bike (easier than using the wicket door).

That time of week again -->

Nobody would ever work on the live server, right? Not intentionally, anyway

H in The Hague

"To be fair, most of us don't have a simulation country tucked into the desk drawer ..."

Doesn't quite fit into your desk drawer, but this should do nicely:

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co64127/phillips-economic-computer-analog-computer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC

An analogue fluidic simulator.

To infinity and beyond, with a swarm of tiny computers costing under $1K each

H in The Hague

CubeSat volume

"... are smaller than a 10 cm3 1.33 kg (3 lb) CubeSat.""

According to the linked NASA information CubeSats are 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm = 1000 cm3 (not 10 cm3), or 1 litre,

Bizarre backup taught techie to dumb things down for the boss

H in The Hague

Re: "you have to wonder how they get home each night

"it may not have been quite as stupid a request as it sounds..."

Quite.

And if she wasn't from London, or rarely used the Tube then the request would have been perfectly justified. Not all metro/light rail systems have trains arriving every few minutes.

Nobody does DR tests to survive lightning striking twice

H in The Hague

Re: At least you fixed the problem.

"But yeah - roundabouts and concrete cows."

As only an occasional visitor to MK I find the roundabouts a bit difficult to remember. Here in NL they tend to put pieces of public art on them. So you recognise them by the archeologically inspired sculpture, the giant trowel, mega-tulips, etc. Makes the drive easier and more fun. But admittedly in MK you would need a v substantial arts budget to plant something on every roundabout! Just as well we've got satnav now.

H in The Hague
Pint

Re: At least you fixed the problem.

"To be honest that description of the DC extends to most of Milton Keynes in general"

Thanks, just what I needed to be reminded of while packing my bags to go and visit the family in MK!

Though Gallery MK hosts some good exhibitions and the National Museum of Computing offers many moments of nostalgia to older Commentards.

And this looks potentially interesting: https://miltonkeynesmuseum.org.uk/collections/view-our-collections/#Telephone

A good weekend to all Commentards -->

Quirky QWERTY killed a password in Paris

H in The Hague

Re: All your QWERTY belong to us...

"Until very recently it was cheques and exercise books. And most organisations like this will be too, until the wheel turns."

Interesting. Here in NL all clubs, associations, etc. that I'm aware of receive their membership fees by bank transfer. If they sell tickets for performances, etc. they usually use a ticketing platform which supports direct bank transfers and credit cards. For ticket sales at the door they usually use a card reader like https://www.coolblue.nl/en/product/777648/sumup-air-contactless-card-reader.html (that does charge fees, but lodging cash with the bank also incurs a fee and most groups want to avoid the hassle of dealing with cash anyway). I think cheques got phased out here two decades ago or something.

Techie wasn't being paid, until he taught HR a lesson

H in The Hague
Pint

Re: Proof if needed

"I suspect ISO9000 and its spawn lie behind this sort of behaviour. It's likely to prescribe things like ..."

Nope. The ISO 9000 series tells you how to structure and document your processes (so you are aware of what you're doing and do it consistently). The content is entirely up to you.

E.g. a recruitment criterion could be "Must have 3 degrees and 99 years experience." or "Must give the impression they understand our widgets when interviewed over a cup of tea." Both are acceptable as long as they're documented.

However, many people writing procedures lack the intelligence and, especially, understanding of the business, to write procedures which actually benefit the business, quality and efficiency.

Here's one for the weekend -->

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

H in The Hague

Re: Repair shop?

"You can make a device with a removable battery waterproof... it's not all that difficult."

That's right, my fairly cheap Samsung Galaxy Xcover is waterproof and has a replaceable battery. Reasonably robust too. Possibly a few mm thicker than other phones - the horror!

A good example of small electronic kit with a user-replaceable battery is https://tentaclesync.com/sync-e the manufacturer's replacement battery kit (which includes the required tools) costs less than 10% of the price of the unit.

So it's perfectly possible.

A toast to being in the right place at the right time

H in The Hague

Re: Who are these people...

'...who remove a mains plug from its socket without checking, or apparently even wondering, what is on the other end?'

Most of them.

Led a sheltered life, have you? :)

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