Posts by HorseflySteve

FCC says it's making it easier for US telcos to ditch legacy lines

"There has been an increasing focus on mobile network resilience following the winter storms of 2021/22"

That's all very fine and well but it's coverage I need!

I have, over the years, tried all of the networks starting with BT Cellnet/O2 then EE & now 3 who have merged with Vodafone so that's the full set!

Not one of them works with any reliability inside my house (brick & block construction, not thick stone walls) and I'm only 3 miles from the the M5 motorway & 4 miles from one of the largest construction sites in Europe a.k.a. Hinkley C Nuclear Power Station.

5G? Here? Don't make me laugh!

And I can still only get fttc with the cabinet being supplied from the local mains that was off for 4 days after those storms, though my power was only off for 1 day but with no internet or VoIP then.

PSTN should not be turned off untill there is 100% availability of emergency mobile access or ups backed VoIP.

Elon Musk wants to build 50 times more chips than the world currently produces, using 'new physics'

Re: new physics

The problem with new physics is that old physics keep getting in the way.

BBC World Service digital switch backfires as online audience drops

Re: They have no clue

While that's certainly true, the last SW transmitting station in the UK at Wooferton has 3x Riz 250kW transmitters and 1x Riz 500kW transmitter that were installed in mid to late 2000s in addition to the 4x 300kW Marconi's installed in 1980 and 2x 250kW Marconi's installed in 1963.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woofferton_transmitting_station

Re: What is the point of providing a World Service broadcast.. by Unicast

Maybe they do voted because I referred to what are now Commonwealth countries as Empire, but that's what it was called in 1926 and I refuse to rewrite history.

Re: They have no clue

"..cheap and free platforms like SW radio.."

Well, it's cheap or free to the listener, but consider the cost of running the 250kW+ EIRP shortwave transmitters & relays, of which there are several. Given the efficiency of AM mode transmitters, that's a lot of electricity to pay for.

I'm not defending the cost cutting but you can see why the bean counters want them gone when internet streaming is so much cheaper and, being bean counters, they don't understand the advantages of analogue radio in achieving the intended goal of the World Service. Price of everything, value of nothing..

As they've pushed some of the cost of BBC World Service onto the listeners, is it any surprise that they've got fewer of them even without all the geoblocking?

Re: What is the point of providing a World Service broadcast.. by Unicast

"But ... but ...but ... Digital is NEW and SHINY."

Well, actually it's not. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Marconi Beam Wireless system receiving station at Bridgwater Somerset UK which worked in conjunction with the transmitting station in Cornwall to provide two-way communication to Canada and South Africa regions of the empire. It used Morse Code which is a form of asynchronous pulse width & position modulation. As the radio signal is either on or off, it is, by definition, digital...

LibreOffice learns to speak Markdown in version 26.2

26.2 won't work on old 64bit Intel Linux unless you build it yourself

I installeded it on my Intel Core Quad Q8300 PC running Linux Mint 22.1 & it won't run because the CPU isn't powerful enough, it seems.

Buried deep in the release note is this statement:

"The builds provided by TDF now follow AlmaLinux 9 baseline, which means that they will only run on CPUs with microarchitecture level x86-64-v2 or higher."

Perhaps they should put that on the download page...

Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder

"when you're being forced to watch 5-6 back to back unskipable ads, just to watch one short video", you stop using browsers or the YouTube app to watch YouTube videos, and install Freetube (Linux) or PipePipe (Android)

S Twatter: When text-to-speech goes down the drain

Gude Moaning

Arthur Bostrom's hilarious mispronunciations as Officer Crabtree is all the funnier if you know that he is actually fluent in six languages including French!

Microsoft exec finds AI cynicism 'mindblowing'

Re: Micro- and Soft- Brain ?

20 years ago, an erstwhile colleague opined, "The day Microsoft make a product that doesn't suck will be the day they start making vacuum cleaners".

With AI, I'd guess those vacuum cleaners would suck up the furniture & leave the dirt! And will require a 60 amp supply.

BOFH: You know something's up when the suits want to spend money

Re: "colored pencil office"

"So, I take it that a striped donkey is a Zedbra now?"

It always was. The "d" is silent in pronunciation and people keep forgetting to put it in when they write it down.

Developer battled to write his own documentation, but lost the boss fight

Re: I used to own a sports bar/restaurant

"the tendency of certain people who insist that using long fancy words badly, instead of short, pithy and correct ones"

I propose the name "Twatish" for this language.

Any seconders?

Re: I used to own a sports bar/restaurant

"If you can't even spell things properly, what else is wrong there?"

This exactly. There seems to be a school of thought in the UK that correct spelling isn't important as long as the reader manages to figure out what is meant.

At the end of the school term before the summer break this year, a number of "Public Exhortation" type posters, presumably generated by the local primary school pupils, appeared on various bits of street furniture around the village.

These included such orders as :

"Please do not liter"

"Pick up your rubish and help the enviorment"

"Don't drop your sigaret butts on the floor"

Laudable though the intention behind these posters may be, my immediate thoughts were "What does this say about the quality of education these children are receiving and what does it do to the reputation of the school?".

As a general rule, if you want to tell people what to do, make sure you spell it right otherwise they're perfectly justified if they ignore you, claiming "What do they know, they can't even spell"

From Intel to the infinite, Pat Gelsinger wants Christian AI to change the world

Re: Bring out the comfy chair!

"Funny how some people get religious fervour as they get older."

I read somewhere that Sammy Davis Jr. converted to Catholicism on his death bed, having previously converted to Judaism in his younger days. He described his final conversion as "Fire insurance"

Bose kills SoundTouch: Smart speakers go dumb in Feb

Re: open source & self-build

I'm running moOde on a 1st gen. Raspberry Pi Zero with music stored on a 128Gb memory stick.

It's a very capable solution & works very well - check it out @ https://moodeaudio.org/

Amazon grounds drone deliveries in Arizona after two crashed into a crane

Re: Well that's not surprising

The problem isn't just the damage to whatever they hit, it's the fact that they then fall out of the sky in an uncontrolled manner.

Here in the UK, drones are limited to a maximum height above surface of 400ft (120m). Anything that falls out of the sky from that height is likely to encounter the surface at a little over 100mph (nearly 170km/h) which is likely to "modify" anything that already occupied that point.

Consumer class drones massing < 250g are permitted to fly over built up areas and people (but not crowds), 250g or more are not without special permission, a pilot holding a Certificate of Competence, and public liability insurance. Even then the operatort must maintain visual line of sight throughout the flight.

These Amazon drones are quite likely to cause serious harm if they fall on someone; it's reasonable to assume that people would have been working near the crane that was hit so it sounds as though Amazon have been lucky in this instance, no matter how they try to spin it.

Square Kilometre Array is so sensitive, its datacenter needs two Faraday cages to stop RF leaks

Re: Modern cars are not good in proximity either

The ignition noise on petrol engine.s is mostly radiated by the high voltage leads.

The spark plug gap typically breaks down at 15 20kV depending on the gap size and Air-Fuel ratio of the mixture in the cylinder. The arc usually burns at approx. 2 kV for 1.5ms during which time it draws as much current as it needs. The rate of drop from 20kV to 2kV and the rise of current from 0 to whatever is what determines the bandwidth of the EM waves generated. With copper wire leads, the dv/dt and di/dt are HUGE and so is the bandwidth. Modern ignition leads are carbon impregnated fibre with a substantial resistance which limits the both of these, massively reducing the bandwidth.

It won't fully eliminate the rf emissions so spark ignition engines would not welcome anywhere near the antennas.

The first radio transmitters were indeed spark based as electronic oscillators were yet to be invented.

Although EM waves had been predicted by James Clerk Maxwell, it was Heinrich Hertz who discovered them when he discharged Leydon Jar (capacitor) across a Riess Spiral & saw a spark jump across the gap of a separate nearby one

Re: Are they are two separate cages?

The article implies that one is inside the other as there is an interlocked door system to prevent any leakage during entry or egress.

Microsoft declares bring your Copilot to work day, usurping IT authority

Re: Fecking hell

Have you tried deleting it & making a read-only, undeletable dummy ai.exe?

If you can't use AI then it's bye bye, Accenture tells staff

All you need to know about Accenture...

..is encapsulated in this paragraph:

"We are investing in upskilling our reinventors, which is our primary strategy," said CEO Julie Sweet in an analyst's call [PDF]. "We are exiting on a compressed timeline, people where reskilling, based on our experience, is not a viable path for the skills we need."

The fact that Julie Sweet thinks training people not to think, or do original research, fthemselves is "upskilling" and people that actually can do this themselves & don't want to use AI are being booted out tells me that Accenture is committed to dumbing down their workforce so they can reduce payroll while bullshitting customers into signing up for a never-ending stream of AI generated slop at enormous cost.

Once their customers realise the can get similar results by using ChatGPT themselves, Accenture will become less mega...

UK to roll out mandatory digital ID for right to work by 2029

The Labour party is not noted for its sensitivity to the concerns of the Jewish community. anti-Semitism is rife as I recall from their last few sessions in opposition.

What the House of Lords is for..

Those of you that wonder why we have a second house that is full of people who weren't voted in are about to find out why it's there.

The Introduction of Digital ID for all adults was not in the Labour party manifesto at the last general election so the government has no mandate for it. This means that the law introducing it must be passed by the House of Lords.

It will almost certainly be rejected by them & the only way the government will get it passed will be to include it in the manifesto at the next general election & win.

No, we'll all have QR Codes tattooed on the backs of our necks, a bit like hitman 47 but with more data

The first rule of liquid cooling is 'Don't wet the chip.' Microsoft disagrees

Not water...

I doubt they'd use water in this scenario, no matter how pure, as it's physical properties would cas serious problems. Water is an electrically polarised molecule which means it has:

Strong cohesion and adhesion leading to high surface tension and capillary attraction. Once it's in the microtubes, good luck getting it out again.

Solvent properties. It can dissolve so many ionic & polar substances, it's known as "the universal solvent"

Low solid density. If it ever freezes in the microtubes (e.g during transport), it'll explode the chips - see https://youtu.be/YpQwQx2lMGk

I think they'd use a far more inert fluid for this job.

Trump admin says tech companies are abusing H-1B visas, slaps $100k a year to allow entry

Re: Reality check

I'm sorry if my description of police procedures in the UK doesn't match the in-depth research you have made that makes you an expert in UK policing.

Perhaps you'd be good enough to share the links to the 2 videos you mention so we can all review these 'incidents'

Re: This is illegal

I don't know TBH. I could tell you what I was doing when I posted it but that would be TMI....

Re: Reality check

"How many of them were arrested for saying these things?"

I'll answer that: none. Anyone arrested during these rallies would probably have been arrested on suspicion on public order offences, not on the basis of their opinions. They would have been detained and either released without charge, or charged to appear before a magistrate where, if found guilty would most likely have been given a fine or conditional discharge. It is highly unlikely that they would be jailed.

'"Mohammed". I'm glad Muslims as a group have apparently settled on the "correct" spelling. It's a welcome sign of improving education and integration.'

There are still a few variations in the spelling, however I believe this is a case where cultural influences are skewing the statistics.

Traditionally, UK families of non-muslim faith tend to name their sons after significant family members, such as fathers, grandfather's favourite uncles, etc. sometimes as first names, other times as middle names (as in my case). However, in Muslim faith families, I suspect that it is traditional to name all sons Mohammed (or variant spelling) out of respect and use middle names in everyday conversation.

Thus, of 100 male children born there may be 10 named Mohammed, 8 named Oliver, 5 named Bernard, Robert, Arthur, Charles, James, John, Luke, Mark, Bruce or Eric, etc with a smattering of Steve's, Dwaynes, Jays, Finlays and Donalds.

So in this example, Mohammed is the most common first name but only given to 10% of the children.

Re: This is illegal

So what? Trump will get his chums in the Supreme Court to rubber stamp it.

Even if they don't, they've granted the President immunity from prosecution so there'll be no consequences and, given he's stated that "you 'll never have to vote again", he may well be in office for the rest of his life.

When are the majority of people in the US going to realise that they now have a dictator who is above the law and the much revered US Constitution, designed to stop exactly that, has been torn into squares that are hanging on a nail next to Donald Trump's presidential toilet?

BOFH: These office thefts really take the biscuit

Re: muffin != fairy cake

Got to agree about English muffins, although I'd describe them as more like congealed wallpaper paste rather than PVA

VAT

Oh, I'm not laughing about the millions in VAT but, let's face it, tax rules frequently throw up odd distinctions because of their sometimes arbitrary nature.

For instance, edible snails are defined in the EU as "fish (land based)" so that snail farmers in France could get the same subsidies as fish farmers.

That someone got a PhD by proving something that's demonstrably obvious by just leaving the disputed products uneaten for a few days & observing how the change is, perhaps, funnier.

Slimy layer

That'd be the Jaffa orange preserve from which the cake gets its name.

Without it, it would just be a Cake.

Re: South Up Map

We in the Northern hemisphere do not believe such things exist, rather like custard in France

Re: cookie != biscuit

Agreed cookie != biscuit. A cookie seems to be an amalgam of ground cereals and nust bonded with a soft edible thermoplastic, but not as soft as used for flapjacks which, in some ways, they resemble.

More tea & biscuits/cakes/cookies/flapjacks needed for investigation, methinks!

If there's one thing I've learned about the internet, it's that there are always other people that share your tastes, whatever they may be. It's not always a good thing, though...

Re: Definitions ...

No, the UK is definitely on the right side of the North Atlantic; just look at any world map.

No, your personal preferences do not change the reality. It just means you have to open the packet a couple of days before you want to eat them, which suggests that you have admirable restraint.

I never understood the cake-or-biscuit controversy over Jaffa cakes. It's simple:

A cake is soft when fresh and goes hard as it gets stale.

A biscuit is hard when fresh and goes soft as it gets stale.

A Jaffa cake is soft when fresh & hard when stale so it's a cake! Yes, I know the chocolate layer on the top is hard but that applies to all chocolate-topped cakes & doesn't stop them being cakes.

Nano11 cuts Windows 11 down to size, grabbing just 2.8 GB of disk space

Re: Where is nano11?

To be fair, the article did not say they were related and implied that they were two separate projects, but a link would have helped.

Re: We need to go back to an unbloated OS.

How about QNX4? From Wikipedia:

"To demonstrate the OS's capability and relatively small size, in the late 1990s QNX released a demo image that included the POSIX-compliant QNX 4 OS, a full graphical user interface, graphical text editor, TCP/IP networking, web browser and web server that all fit on a bootable 1.44 MB floppy disk for the 386 PC.'

I remember playing with it at the time & being mightily impressed with its capabilities.

I was a part-time DBA. After this failover foul-up, they hired a full-time DBA

Re: You should do this

Legally important words, such as must, may, should, and, or,etc, are to be interpreted in the UK as instructed by the Interpretations Act 1978 as ammended. See https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1978/30

The importance of this was illustrated when the EMC directive was incorporated into UK law more or less verbatim. It stated that the CE mark "must appear on the product, packaging or documentation"

Unfortunately, the Interpretation Act defines "must" as compulsory and "or" as exclusive, so it meant that the CE mark had to appear on one *and only one* of these places. Placing it on on more than one was, therefore, illegal in the UK.

They had to amend the EMC legislation to sort out the mess.

In case anyone is wondering why the CE mark wouldn't be on the product, there is a legal minimum size and spacing for the mark and some product are just too small, hence the reason for the alternatives

Junk is the new punk: Why we're falling back in love with retro tech

Re: Why ? Surely no one can't work it out ?

The only time I noticed digital artifacts on audio CD was when I was listening to one very loud using headphones. One track had a very long fade out that I heard quantisation distortion in the last half second.

I thought I'd heard something odd on an ogg encoded CD ripped audio track once but it turned out that the piano that Keith Emerson was playing during the recording had a slight squeak in the sofa pedal mechanism; I never noticed that on the original vinyl!

Audiophile quality Hi-Fi

The fundamental problem with Hi-Fi is that, by the time you can afford a system that will give you the the best quality reproduction, you are too old to hear it properly.

I recently gave a young (i.e. less than half my age) friend an old stereo record player that had been up in the loft for 40+ years & had to explain that she should separate the two speakers to create an apparent audio sound stage between as she had no experience of stereo except with headphones/earbuds

Toy Matinee

Excellent but short lived partnership between Patrick Leonard and the late, sadly missed Kevin Gilbert that produce just the one superb album.

I bought the Unitone Recordings Special Edition that was released in Kevin's memory in 2001. It has 2 additional tracks plus some alternative versions/demos of the original release. Last copy I saw on eBay went for >$60

Make sure you're sitting down before you look up the price of "The Shaming of the True" on Amazon...

Hyundai: Want cyber-secure car locks? That'll be £49, please

Re: What do we think of those who buy our cars ?

That applies to pretty much all manufacturers unless they're forced by legislation.

I recall my brother's 1965 Ford Corsair could be opened and started using a wide flat-blade screwdriver;

I found this out when I accidently slam-locked the driver's door while the key was in the ignition with the engine running as I was working on it for him..

The dead need right to delete their data so they can't be AI-ified, lawyer says

Digital resurrection vs Hollywood Resurrection

Hollywood has been resurrecting real dead people on film for about a century, which has upset their relatives on several occasions (such as the ship's officer on RMS Titanic who was falsely depicted as shooting one of the steerage passengers, then himself).

I honestly don't see how this would be any different, aside from the visual image being more accurate.

In all cases, there is a danger that history is rewritten which should be discouraged but, again, Hollywood does it all the time citing "artistic licence" and I bet that there are now people who think that the American forces captured an Enigma machine from U571, when it was actually the British, as a result.

UK secretly allows facial recognition scans of passport, immigration databases

Re: right to privacy

"Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence."

Define "respect" as a legal term under UK law. How was it defined by ECHR?

Re: Always remember RIPA

If you aren't hearing people complaining about local authorities using RIPA to spy on residents, I would suggest that you book a hearing test.

The Snoopers' Charter has been the subject of much complaint since it's introduction.

Prohibition never works, but that didn't stop the UK's Online Safety Act

Re: Ignorant politicians

Living as I do less than 5 miles from Hinkley Point C (note the spelling) construction site, I can assure you that no corners are being cut as the Office for Nuclear Regulation are very proactive in their oversight of the project.

Quite apart from that, the Chinese are only investors, it's EDF that actually running the construction.

Microsoft eventually realized the world isn't just the Northern Hemisphere

Re: Oh, whoopee doo

On behalf of the United Kingdom, I'd like to apologise to the United States for the Industrial Revolution that you like to think you invented.

Servers hated Mondays until techie quit quaffing coffee in their company

Re: HDD spindle bearings

Thank you for the beer, though I suspect it'll be a contributing factor to my failing memory :)

I tend to remember things by association to the products that were being developed at the time rather than the actual years so, thinking about it, it was probably nearer 1988/1989 as the Deskpros were used with Intel I2ICEs to develop & debug 80196 based products, whereas COBEST was 80188 & 8032 developed on Intel Series 4 & AUTOMATE 450 was 8085 developed on Genrad.