Posts by Nematode 88 publicly visible posts • joined 15 May 2018
Nothing like it.
I would never store something vital to my security under someone else's control.
Naebuddy's gonnae git ma passwurds withoot breaking in an' nickin ma computer first. Then break my password safe master password. And at least if the computer's not there, I know to ring the bank etc. And I refuse to have bank apps etc on my phone in case of losing it.
Paranoid? Moi? Oui.
Just about qualifies as computer/user interface error...
As we know, all modern cars are in fact a number of computers surrounded by pretty metal and some leather. My old jalopy (2006) still young enough to have about 30 of the damned things. One of them is supposed to do something, which indeed it did on cue.
So, I'd had the old jalopy's headlights refreshed by a Man who does - fine paste grind-back of the plastic lenses and polish, followed by sealant and UV barrier coating. Whilst we were wrapping up after the last stage which, Mr Man reminded me, needed to be allowed to fully dry (I was even thinking about garaging it as rain seemed to be due), we started discussing his other old-jalopy-skills, namely sealing chips in the windscreen. We were looking for the chips and I said "it's easier to spot them if I run the wash-wipers", which I proceeded to do (3 x unstoppable 2 second bursts). Whereupon the module responsible for washing the, er., headlights on the first then every seventh windscreen wash, sprayed wash water all over the headlights. Doh. At this point we discovered that 5 minutes in direct sun turned out to be as good as the quoted hour in less friendly weather for the coating to dry.
Got away with it, apart from the embarrassment.
I'm a zero-delete kind of emailer, but of course, the one (or two) emails you wanted to check back on, I did delete. Pretty sure I did get a migrate email from TSO and that the promised seamless migration did happen. The one remaining site I still have with them (I can't get the charity to agree to move to a proper - but paid - hoster, so stuck on their free charity package + not-free domain name), is now on their cPanel servers (though with a klutzy front end without direct access to the cPanel main menu) whereas before was an entire klutzy not-cPanel. I did keep the DNS migration emails, which effort was a pain - if they can migrate us themselves, why not fix the DNS records, too.
Have ensured I have whole-site back-ups away from their servers ready to migrate on the inevitable day it all goes tits-up* and I can finally tell the charity I told you so, and get free SSL into the bargain.
* Reg-ers expansions invited...
Comments above about subtle cues from other meat-based drivers, not being visible due to dark screens etc: I'm not sure it's the actual driver you'd get subtle cues from, more the behaviour of the vehicle under the meat's control. However, I would absolutely agree that as your driving experience increases, your natural wariness increases, in the same way they say that 2/3rds of verbal communication is actually body language (provided you're not a driver in the latest go-faster make of machine - was originally BMW drivers, then Audi, I suspect Tesla now high on the list). Just yesterday I found myself slowing just because I felt the road arrangement I was entering had potentially hidden dangers. How AI/driverless is ever going to get to that sort of awareness, I don't know.
For goodness' sake, please can they get round to supplying a built-in option for a full Reply header ("Outlook style" if you must, but whatever, with full info, not just "On [date] [someone] said" which is most uninformative). They still have it for Forwards, why not just use the same routine for using it in Replies too ???!!!! This has been a persistent lack in Thunderbird, hole filled by add-ons, but of course, 102 breaks ReplyWithHeader add-on which hasn't caught up with 102 yet. And some add-on Devs are getting fed up with Thunderbird's changes and given up, so at present we can only hope it will be updated for 102. Or, stick with circa v 66 as I have ! :) :)
As a sound engineer, you're probably thinking pre-manufacturing sample rates and bit depths, which are designed for true fidelity to any number of possible final formats, and what you say is right. But once mastered to CD at 44 kHz, D to A conversion of anything much above 10 kHz audio is a compromise, as one can demonstrate with a bit of Excel work. Put down, say, a 15 kHz sine wave at 0.1° intervals, then sample that curve's values digitally at 44 kHz, which results in roughly 3 points per 360°, then curve fit those digital points back to a "sine wave". It's a mess. Do the same sub 1000 Hz and you find out why bass and vocal ranges reproduce so well on a CD. Of course, fancy audiophile CD player D to As do some fancy interpolation to construct a better fit, but once you layer on things like cymbals, it's pretty difficult to get a true output.
Reproduction is always a compromise, and you'll know as a sound engineer that you deal with different output formats and media players differently.
From an audiophile perspective, or for anyone who simply doesn't like the harsh sybillant high frequency sounds of digital recordings being converted back to analogue, why would the manufacturer embed bluetooth/usb connections? Unless mega expensive, these are just likely to degrade the sound quality in the same way mp3's do. Just use analogue outputs.
In the days when Lever Arch files existed and were even used (!) they usually got very full and very heavy to lug about. The PC on my desk at work was the old style (well, it would be, wouldn't it) desktop monster horizontal box with screen on top, Many Controls on the front, etc etc. I was looking up something in the lever arch file, and having found what I wanted, went to move it out of the way so I could input Stuff to the computer. As I swung the lever arch file across the desk to the left, the back right corner of if struck the monitor with a bang and the screen went blank. Convinced I had broken it I thought I had better call the help desk. Man arrives, turns up brightness again, all sorted. Face. Red.
Nope. Had a bounce just yesterday evening (1st Aug) from an NHS mail address, who use Trend Micro scanning http://www.mail-abuse.com/cgi-bin/lookup?ip_address=198.71.224.24 . My mail was relayed via a2nlsmtp01-01.prod.iad2.secureserver.net 198.71.224.24 which is a GoDaddy server with, er, a bad rep. Also, I only got the bounce 24 hrs after sending, and it only took 7 hrs from gemini to godaddy, plus there's another 19 hours I can't account for from the headers
I've had enough, this has been 2 years of p***ing about. Now got to get up to speed on how to migrate WP sites painlessly :(
There are so many totally stupid and in-credible conspiracy theories around that something tells me these are not benign. Who benefits from touting these stories? Who would dearly love the "West", and in fact the whole world, to get divided and fighting each other? Putin & co. That's my conspiracy theory, and I'm sticking to it. It's almost certainly more accurate, too.
Oops, must keep an eye on who's trying to access my router...
Yet the EU seem to have rolled over when it comes to FATCA, and in spite of the many challenges by "Accidental Americans" (Google them), are refusing to budge and willing for their own tax authorities to hand over citizens financial data to the US IRS just because they happened to be born there but never had any further connection with the US.
Not that I disagree with the guy going, but what's the connection between a CEO and some dude deciding that the MCAS system only needed a single sensor? I'd be interested to see the full causal analysis. Like, er, what part of Safety Critical System did they not understand? Definitely sounds like the bean counters were ruling. I'd wager there are engineers in Boeing biting their tongues from saying "I told them..."
I was that Legacy Customer. I moved as I got the larger GB package for the same dosh. They moved me to Gemini. Doh. MS mails non funzione. Took a week to stop the bounces, then stopped bouncing but still failed to get through, probably the lack of an SPF/DKIM setup. Got that sorted, mails sent were received. 2 days later, bang, bounces again. At least it took them only 24 hrs to get delisted again. It's plainly a problem of not understanding and not implementing or enforcing anti-spam/mer policies and of not checking against MS policies, which ARE published
As a Barclays customer (yeah, I know, I know), I can soon expect a further worsening of service, then. Jeezo, this incarnation of IR35 is not really that different from the first. Once the anti-contractor bunch find they're losing all their contractors to clients that work with the rules in a more imaginative way, shall we say, then they'll all do it. There's many reasons for the contractor community and IR35 doesn't make them go away. #gladimretired
All the time, Pentland Ferries are quicker and cheaper (to Orkney - don't serve Shetland) https://www.pentlandferries.co.uk/ A damn sight more comfortable and less spew-inducing than Serco's floating bricks. The book, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pentland-Hero-Roy-N-Pedersen/dp/1841588881 about their boss's creation of the route is great. It includes a stinging critique of the cozy relationship between the Scottish "Government" (the one that thought up the crazy Named Person scheme and who think that Independence is a magic bullet and will solve all woes - like, er, Brexit is a magic bullet and solves all woes?) and the big ferry companies. A good read of itself, anyway, if you're "for" the little man.
BTinternet is another ISP who use blocklists which seem to pick up every tiny indiscretion (and often block gmail addresses =:-o)
But I saw a friend's TSOhost mail get bounced the other week. AFAICR, the relevant TSOHost IP block blacklisted was only blacklisted by one organisation, so either M$ use that same blacklist or keep their own. That TSOhost account was I think one of their Cloud accounts. My own email & site is a legacy Cpanel site originally on Evohosting (who were bought up by TSO) and I have not had any problems (touch wood).
Real issue I think is a quick and effective means of saying Oy! this email is genuine. </holdingbreath>
Strangely, I just bought a super cheap HP lappie from Costco to mess with Win10 (W7 luddite that I am) and to install a play version of Linux on a machine that's not been built before the advent of microprocessors, i.e. one of my old disused machines. Long term plan is to get off Windaes to something that doesn't bork at each update, nor consumes vast amounts of cash at start and at every couple of OS releases (Apple, I'm calling you out). Latest download of Mint failed the basic test that it should "just work" - no driver for the oh so modern wifi adapter. Dur. Zorin iso sitting waiting to pop on a stick. We'll see...
From a non-specialist non-expert punter point of view, many more are needed. At least with an iThing you can just take to the "local" store and get your broken iThing unbrokened. MS's "proposition" is more prone to breaking and a lot harder to get fixed and the local laptop repair shop isn't going to be able to unbroken a Surface since MS have out-Appled Apple on repairability there.
"Which requires user consent, btw" Yebbut, it'll be buried in a huge EULA or similar. It's time consent moved to a specific-agree-to-item basis, assumed non-consent unless punter knows exactly what is being slurped and why. "Do you consent to us selling your address? Y/N" Hell yes, of course, why wouldn't I?
Well, I finally went to Windows 10. Noooo, not on my main machine, dafty, I still got Work to do. No, I saw an HP lappie in Costco for £300 with a few decent features, enough memory, SSD, plenty ports, half decent keyboard, same screen as my old Dell, and thought I'd be daft not to buy it to (a) investigate Win 10 - conclusion: just plain unnecessary, (b) stick Linux on a machine that doesn't have 8 year old hardware and set it up properly to see if it's a solution for when I pop my clogs and leave the wife to have to use a computer without my constantly maintaining it (read:stop M$ screwing it up). Nearly finished the (a), next, choose which distro. I sort of like Ubuntu but I think Mint is prolly best, and for pure MS document compatibility, she can use Word online, though she doesn't do documents anything like as complex as I used to, so Libre Office is prolly fine.
Seamless updates, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ........
I had just returned from the wilds of Scotland and a major gas terminal there on a Friday night. Saturday morning I received a call from work to call the client, which I did. He very quietly said that there was a serious problem with the control system and the alarms and printer were going crazy and I needed to get back there pronto. Questions about what exactly was happening were met with further "you need to get back up here now"s and the Client's voice was very quiet and I could tell he was s****** himself, er, was very worried. About something, what I knew not.
No remote access in those days, so I climbed back on a plane (sheesh) and got there Saturday afternoon. Shure enuff, printer going bonkers, alarms having to be silenced every few seconds (it was a new system they weren't familiar with). I took a look and it all seemed to be just one alarm. Shurely they could see that? I asked what were they doing outside, on the plant. They had recently re-started flow from the offshore gas line and suddenly, alarms like crazy. Er, might these be connected? As Process Engineering was actually my original discipline, I could see that there were slugs coming in from offshore, and the alarm in question was the Slug Catcher liquid level low-low. The plant had been below that level and as the slugs came in, they temporarily raised the level then levelled out below low trip again, setting off the alarm, quite correctly. I asked how long did it take to restart the line, to which they said several days in all. The slug catcher was a monster beast and this was definitely going to continue for a while.
Just one of those things you learn that drop between the cracks of the functional spec. We can't know which loop(s) need filter blocks unless you tell us which loops are liable to jump around, we do try to ask you, but you can't see that such things are necessary if you don't realise what's going to happen. I configured a filter block and it all went quiet. Fortunately the flight south was not followed by another northwards until some good time later.
Hmmm. Bl**dy h**l. There I was expecting a discussion on IR35, and all I learn is a new set of slang that has passed me by in all my 64 years. How come, and this is a criticism of all News Site "Comment" sections, all of you guys have the time, during the normal working day, to post all these (mostly fatuous and thoroughly unimportant) posts, and of course to read the article in the first place, and, actually, to be on El Reg site in the noughth place. Or don't you have work to do? Actually, no I don't, I'm retired and managed to go my whole contractor career without an IR35 case, phew. (OK, some, but not all, will have a genuine excuse.) And what's the proportion of permies vs. contractors on this thread? So, for those who don't have a valid reason for being here, think - are you a professional, or an MGB? Don't bother replying, I'm not going to rise to the bait. You're probably saying, no, we don't need to be serious, it's alright to have a bit of fun. My point entirely. On either Company or Client time. Ducks brickbats and thumbs downs. And off to work out what I can do next out of all the post-retirement possibilities....
"They are designed by people that are engineers in the more traditional sense, not software people." Or just as likely (more so in my experience), software peple who haven't got a clue about the real world. Unfortunately some of the software people I was dealing with with the system I worked on were the main dev engineers. Common problem: 12 controller cards in a cardfile, 11 are operative, the 12th was a standby failover card. Software problem on one of the 11? Fails over, then takes the backup card down too, and with it, the plant. Or the asynchronous "set this valve to X position" call, which then allows the next line of code to execute without the valve yet being as required. Had to add in a synchronous call function into the basic opsys - after 2 years of this system being in existence. How did the deve engs not know the set statement had to complete and get feedback from the valve position. In a major control company. In a Process Engineering environment. Like they had been working in for 20 years+
All sounds entirely normal commissioning to me. I am still suffering the physical-after effects of when the valve that moved, that shouldn't have, was a 36" diameter gas line valve from one of the major offshore high pressure (70+ bar) transport lines coming to the beach. And why is this noteworthy? Cos it was in 1988.
Nice idea to use evidence in assessing benefits for the truly ill. Evidence is arbitrarily and constructively ignored at present. As someone who is fortunately retired but if I wasn't a major health event a year ago (and I mean major, only just surviving it) would have had me entirely unable to work now, but by the DSS rules I would actually have no chance of getting benefits, I would welcome an evidence based assessment system. Chance of this actually happening? Nil.
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