Just for once
A useful SWOT analysis!
Posts by mikecoppicegreen
72 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2013
Small ocean swirls may have an outsized effect on climate, NASA satellite shows
User complained his mouse wasn’t working. But he wasn’t using a mouse
SAP says GenAI will help solve legacy migration skills shortage
Digital River runs dry, hasn't paid developers for sales since July
LinkedIn started harvesting people's posts for training AI without asking for opt-in
Missing Fujitsu PCs? It's back with a fresh lineup of 16 models
Microsoft sends Windows Control Panel to tech graveyard
BOFH: Come on down to the dunge– erm … basement
Microsoft dusts off ancient MS-DOS 4.0 code for release on GitHub
They call me 'Growler'. I don't like you. Let's discuss your pay cut
Curious tale of broken VPNs, the Year 2038, and certs that expired 100 years ago
UK PM promises faster justice for Post Office Horizon victims
Former infosec COO pleads guilty to attacking hospitals to drum up business
UK throws millions at scheme to heat homes with waste energy from datacenters
Shock horror – and there goes the network neighborhood
CompSci academic thought tech support was useless – until he needed it
Millions of smart meters will brick it when 2G and 3G turns off
Scripted shortcut caused double-click disaster of sysadmin's own making
Beta driver turned heads in the hospital
'Small monthly payment' only thing that stands between X and bot chaos, says Musk
Watt's the worst thing you can do to a datacenter? Failing to RTFM, electrically
Monday 11th September 2023 10:41 GMT
Re: Check the power supply
Back in the analogue world, I used to supply pencil galvanometers, which had a max current of 75 mA in most cases. These were not cheap, at around 200 pounds an item.
Some expert in a stores decided to test a batch of these with an AVO 8 - which was capable of a couple of hundred mA if I remember correctly. I think they got through 100 or so before figuring out that they have made an error........
Man who nearly killed physical media returns with $60,000 vinyl turntable
UK's GDPR replacement could wipe out oversight of live facial recognition
Unplug that Anker battery pack now: House blaze sparks recall
Friday 17th February 2023 09:05 GMT
Always a surprise....
when people find out that stored energy has the potential to do harm as well as good.
(by the way, not intended to offend anyone here - I'm assuming the average El Reg reader is one of the enlightened!)
Energy, by it's nature, has to be managed. the management challenges vary on the type of energy and the type of storage.
No, you cannot safely run a network operations center from a corridor
Friday 3rd February 2023 19:30 GMT
Re: Losing face
I'e had similar within Europe. I was tech support for a range of digital panel indicators, and these were supplied from my English employer to our french importer to a local distributor to a panel builder for a new bakery conveyor oven for a large french bakery. The RS485 comms on these panel indicators was simply not talking to their computer.
With a bag full of laptop and testgear, I arrived on site with the importer to find the bakery company, the oven manufacturer who was supplying the computer and RS485 controller, the panel builder and the local distributor all on site ready to give me a hard time.
I requested 30 minutes to set up my testgear, and the crowd went off for a coffee, and I tested the indicators, and all looked good, they all worked correctly.
When they came back from their coffee, I showed them that the indicators were all good - which was followed by a collective shrug, and the inevitable "why are they not working with our RS485 converter" I requested the manual for the converter, and it showed that they had connected everything correctly - except for two optional wires.
I said - why not connect those?
They said - we never need to.
I said let's try - and 30 seconds later all was working perfectly.
The bakery owner was furious with the oven supplier - who lost huge amounts of face by having an english guy read a french manual and add two wires that had delayed the project for several weeks. I thought our french importer was going to explode - he was trying so hard not to laugh!
Twitter engineer calls out Elon Musk for technical BS in unusual career move
Rare hexagonal diamond formed by crash of dwarf planet and asteroid, scientists believe
Voyager 1 data corrupted by onboard computer that 'stopped working years ago'
You need to RTFM, but feel free to use your brain too
Monday 27th June 2022 12:45 GMT
There used to be a standard for writing test procedures used in part of the armed forces, and these had to be of the detail of:
1) remove device under test from from travel case
2) plug power lead into device
3) plog power lead into test supply socket
4) switch on device
5) Connect red lead from red socket on device to red socket on test source
6) connect black lead from black socket on device to black socket on test source
7) ensure test source outlet switch set to zero
8) switch on test source
9) allow all to stabilise for 20 minutes
10) ........
It's mind bending to write, and even then stuff can go wrong!
Thank you, FAQ chatbot, but if I want your help I'll ask for it
What a bunch of bricks: Crooks knock hole in toyshop wall, flee with €35k Lego haul
Reg scribe spends week being watched by government Bluetooth wristband, emerges to more surveillance
We have some sad news about Facebook. It has returned to the internet after six-hour mega outage
Computer shuts down when foreman leaves the room: Ghost in the machine? Or an all-too-human bit of silliness?
Saturday 2nd October 2021 12:46 GMT
Re: Power and lighting together
The short answer is to reduce fire risk. a short in a light bulb, connected to a 30 A circuit, can cause ignition long before the circuit protection operates. the same short circuit in a 5A circuit is much more likely to cause the circuit protection to operate.
The other benefit is that the lights don't go out if the appliance circuit goes over current (like when my compressor trips out the circuit in my garage, and plunges me into darkness)
RIP Sir Clive Sinclair: British home computer trailblazer dies aged 81
Friday 17th September 2021 07:44 GMT
Rest in peace
Condolences to Sir Clive's family
I never met the man myself,
I had one of the kit scientific calculators - reverse polish notation, ate AAA batteries for breakfast, lunch and tea, but was a real calculator that people could make and use for tiny money.
My first programming was on a borrowed Heathkit 6502 machine (late 1970s?), but the Spectrum was the computer that really got me into programming, with the "one touch" basic, and the odd PEEK and POKE to liven things up!
Sir Clive's biggest contribution is to make a whole generation of people willing to take on computer technology - before the spectrum, computing was a niche activity, after the spectrum, computing was for the masses.
Rest in peace.
Visual Basic 6 returns: You've been a good developer all year. You have social distanced, you have helped your mom. Here's your reward
OVH says burned data centre’s UPS, batteries, fuses in the hands of insurers and police
Amazon coughs up $62m to shoo away claims it stole driver tips, cut pay rates without telling them
Wednesday 3rd February 2021 09:18 GMT
The ultimate expression of free enterprise
is the stocking mask and the sawn-off shotgun.*
Anti-monopolistic, anti trust, labour protection and inside trading legislation which are punitive and enforced are the tools needed to ensure that stuff like this doesn't happen. While large corporations fund politicians, though, there are limits to the likelihood of sound regulation being put in place.
*I got this from Mike Harding, the UK comedian/folk singer, but he may have got it from somewhere else!
Oh, no one knows what goes on behind locked doors... so don't leave your UPS in there
There are two sides to every story, two ends to every cable
Friday 4th December 2020 11:18 GMT
there is alway's the looped mains lead
I recall on one occasion going to sort out a "my PC won't power up" issue, where the user had elected to plug the 4 way adaptor back into itself.
They appeared to think that, as long as it was plugged in somewhere, all would work. Unplugging the adaptor from itself, and then plugging the adaptor into a wall socket magically fixed the problem.
We're going underground, and this time it's not an inebriated banker crapping themselves, but Transport for London
IBM to GTS staff: Not volunteering to leave with a redundo cheque? We'll give you a helping hand
Serial killer spotted on the night train from Newcastle
The time PC Tools spared an aerospace techie the blushes
Monday 23rd December 2019 17:39 GMT
I seem to recall "editing" command.com to disable del as a command., forcing use of erase. Somehow, typing the 5 character command rather than the 3 character command would give me just enough pause to dramatically the occurrences of erroneous delete, and reduced the workload on my pctools disk dramatically
Biting the hand that feeds IT
