Posts by Mast1

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch could be gone in ten years – for chump change

Re: Recurrence

Is that with or without the packaging ? (countryside)

Before or after mastication ? (kerbside)

A nice cup of tea rewired the datacenter and got things working again

"You're not using it right........."

Slightly more recently than this story, in the days when the UK mains voltage had not harmonised with Europe, so was still 240 V (later to become a nominal 220 V).

As a tech person, I worked in a non-tech department of a well-known university. Being the most computerised of the groups in the department, we had bought two UPS to support a small UNIX cluster.

After a few years, as more groups acquired more mains-powered devices, come around 11 am when the kettles went on, the UPS switch in and start beeping, but mains feed is still "live". We check with the manual. which states that trip is set at 209 V.

I found a consumer socket in the room close to the incoming feeder: yup 240 V, but 3 floors up 208 V (My reading of the then-applicable wiring regs allowed for maximum 8% voltage drop in feeders).

I sent a report to a committee to suggest we needed re-wiring, and soon. Report rejected.

Feedback received along the lines of "This person does not know how to use a UPS".

It took a few more years before it was re-wired, in the meantime we had a regular alarm clock for the morning break. UPS capacity was sufficient to cover the surge.

EVs continue to grow but private buyers are steering clear, say motor trade figures

Agreed with you, especially "If everyone could reduce their fossil fuel usage by 2/3's whilst not requiring a fully built-out and economical public charging infrastructure then we'd be well on our way.".

But that sensible approach hits HMRC in the pocket (and already has). Watch out for the creative replacement revenue stream.

Re: No doubt cost and lack of charging infrastructure are central...

Yes, apologies, slightly mis-remembered, because it was a 2002 car bought by me before 2006. But the point still stands. The car was end of line in 2002, so effectively being punished for design decisions taken long before the tax was mooted (at least publicly) (hence also my use of the word "retrospective" rather than "regressive, which it also was). As the OP points out with the dates, moving the goalposts again while the car still had useful life. And the obsession with concentrating on CO2 to drive design decisions lead to the favouring of diesel ICE, and look where that took us. At the time we were well aware of the risks with PM2.5 emissions.

Re: No doubt cost and lack of charging infrastructure are central...

The irony is as to how brands of politicians in the UK, who are supposedly on the side of the poor, introduce taxes that are retrospective in effect, and a form of regressive taxation on the poor.

I bought a second-hand car back in 2002, with a 1600 cc engine, that was low to midsize, and fairly economical for the range available at the time. After purchase, the then chancellor introduced a new form of car taxation based on the relatively new "fairer" concept of tailpipe CO2 emissions. Rather than introduce this on all cars manufactured after a certain date, hence a market signalling and forewarning, this new set of rates applied on all cars, irrespective of age. My car just fell into an upper category of emission, so I ended up paying more tax than previously.

Although I am not "poor", it did strike me as to how the tradesman/night worker often uses a second-hand vehicle to perform his/her job, and was caught by this.

A strange definition of "fairer".

Yes, I am being intolerably smug – because I ignored you and saved the project

The form over function battle with the Sharpie..........

Many years ago, a group of us were overnighting at a friend's house. One was looking for a socket to plug in his cassette player (yes, it was that long ago).

Finding a seemingly "useless" plug, he removed it, and left it out overnight.

It was the greenhouse heater (other side of wall) , supposedly protecting a crop of that year's geraniums from a very chilly night.

A very glum look was on the face of the friend's mum later the next day.

Microsoft whiz dishes the dirt on the Blue Screen Of Death's colorful past

Re: BSOD has been rare since Windows 7

Why does a robotically-voiced "share and enjoy" start running around in my head in response to this comment ?

Boeing's Q2 nosedive buoyed by appointment of new CEO

Translation of an abbreviation........

".........to recover from a series of devastating engineering failures"

Apologies for being a bit wordy, but isn't that a bit of shorthand for:

".........to recover from a series of management failures which manifested as devastating engineering failures". ?

It is 60 years since a US spacecraft first took a close-up of the Moon

Re: My first thought was

A few years later than that I worked in another UK semiconductor (attempt at) manufacturing lab.

The story I heard there was that, years before, one of the more senior members of the lab had increased the yield of his germanium transistors by taking them over the public corridor to wash them in the "washrooms" in between processing stages. Date undefined, but you could call it an early "clean room" (because everywhere else was "dirty" in comparison).

Europe blasts back into the heavy launch biz with first Ariane 6 flight

"... homophone......"

Does that mean that Ariane 7 will be set to work ?

Outback shocker left Aussie techie with a secret not worth sharing

Re: 100Amp

Is that why we call them "bangers" in the UK ?

Techie installed 'user attitude readjustment tool' after getting hammered in a Police station

Re: Keep your feet warm

The old Tektronix valve oscilloscopes near-doubled for that as well, as a room heater, ca 1980.

Re: Could have been worse

Can only be called an HUD if they got to see it coming.

We need a volunteer to literally crawl over broken glass to fix this network

Re: Sounds like ...

Given the Regonym, does this imply that broken glass was a not very INTELligent thing to use ?

Student's flimsy bin bags blamed for latest NHS data breach

Re: Inexcusable

Don't feed it to the students; think of the poor starving dogs, for whom their supply of "homework to go" will be dried up ?

I didn't touch a thing – just some cables and a monitor – and my computer broke

Re: Crows

Yes, let the crows squabble over the shiny.

I too see the cast-offs as usually "shiny enough": it means that no-one wants to come and nick them off you.

Then you can get on with your real work unimpeded.

Two big computer vision papers boost prospect of safer self-driving vehicles

Re: Naples, anyone?

Agree about Kampala Uganda.

Was there a few years back with a charity and using the same local taxi driver for repeat visits. On the first visit it was found that his eyesight was way below legal for UK driving. Spectacles were sufficient to bring him up to legal. On the repeat visit it was amazing how he usually won the scrums with other taxi drivers by driving closer to them than they would to him. I wondered if the other drivers had uncorrected vision and so were less confident of the proximity of their vehicle to others.

Fortunately they were only low-speed scrums in Kampala.

So you've built the best tablet, Apple. Show us why it matters

The 1984 meme

"hurling a hammer through a giant glowering Big Brother video screen lecturing a gray, thuggish audience"

But surely the recent advert was just carrying on that "1984" meme: unfortunately they hopped into the audience.

Were they intimating that, like Winston Smith's job, they could destroy the historic record at will and re-write it in their imagining ?

(Then, like WS, they would have to keep on re-writing it. Result: a job/market for life.)

I told Halle Berry where to go during a programming gig in LA

Alternative uses for hotels

Within the past few years two female co-employees went to London and used the company's (contracted out) travel booking system for a hotel.

Fortunately it was only for a night. It turned out the hotel doubled as a knocking shop. Too late to hunt for an alternative

They did not venture out of their rooms after 10 pm.

On their return to base they were strongly urged to file a complaint with our company.

Some smart meters won't be smart at all once 2/3G networks mothballed

"...... delays since its inception in 2012,....."

Am I the only who, while speed reading, missed the 'c' in "inception".

I almost went to the dictionary to look up the meaning, but reading the rest of the article saved the effort,

Windows 95 support chap skipped a step and sent user into Micro-hell

Re: Those were peak 'fix by reinstall' days

Ah, are you hinting that we have progressed from something like "fish food" releases to "dog food" ?

Want to keep Windows 10 secure? This is how much Microsoft will charge you

Sorry to be a pedant but over 3 years it is (1+2+4)*61 = $427

Truck-to-truck worm could infect – and disrupt – entire US commercial fleet

Re: The Hollywood script writes itself

So the sequels to "Snakes on a plane" could be :

"Bugs on a Truck" or "The Caterpillar worm"

This children's rhyme is a pretty good summary;

Iggy-Wiggy was a worm

Iggy-Wigy learnt to squirm

Iggy-Wigy crossed the road

Ooey-gooey

New year, new bug – rivalry between devs led to a deep-code disaster

Re: Out in the fields

"Nobody uses [hard-copy] maps anymore!"

.......because, at least in the UK, when their phones/tablet devices have got water-logged, they whistle up the local mountain rescue team.

UK PM promises faster justice for Post Office Horizon victims

Re: No Justice

OBE: that would be a poor reward for his efforts.

What is your definition of a Middle-Age "knight" ? (non Hollywood)

How about a person who fought to protect the weak, who fought for justice and for truth ?

My vote would be for Alan to be called a true knight. And it is another "going" for which previous recipients have had to hand theirs back when some of the consequences of their actions came to public light.

Unfortunately, after 20 years of campaigning, Alan is no longer middle-aged.....

Facebook, Instagram now mine web links you visit to fuel targeted ads

Re: Nothing more annoying

The first time I met "targetted" adverts was with a friend who was in the early stages of pregnancy, and searching for the usual preparations.

She commented how, months later, she was still receiving adverts for baby products.

Fortunately she carried it to term, but others are less fortunate, and the results are very distressing.

Does one really want to receive regular reminders of a distressing incident ?

NASA engineers scratch heads as Voyager 1 starts spouting cosmic gibberish

Re: Have they tried

Isn't there a scale that tops out at "Hard Reset", depending on footwear?

Eg

Hard Reset = "Totectors"

Power cycle = "cycling shoes"

Soft Reset = "sneakers"

Google teases AlphaCode 2 – a code-generating AI revamped with Gemini

Re: Viva la coding gibberish!

And does it leave the code well documented so that in 40 years time the same functionality/algorithm can be ported to a new platform or programming language, and verified?

It would save having to keep COBOL programmers in suspended animation.......

Government and the latest tech don't mix, says UK civil servant of £11B ESN mess

Re: Hot Air

With Cameron before one election (2010?) having said that he saw himself as the "heir to Blair", and this past weekend we have had Starmer implying that he sees himself as the heir to Thatcher, then the comment above has quite a lot of mileage.

Just like the "degrees" of PPE supplied in the COVID pandemic:

Out of date, not on time, and not fit for purpose.

Move along, nothing new to see here.

We challenged you to come up with tech predictions for 2024 (wrong answers only) – here are some favorites so far

Re: Optional

I used to call it WORN memory.

Write Once, Read Never.

IT sent the intern to sort out the nasty VP who was too important to bother with backups

Re: How was it basically the VPs fault?

Sounds a bit like a UI design "feature" I recently met at a self-service checkout (UK).

Labels were mounted vertically, underneath the weighing scales and packing shelf, each about 75 cm off the floor.

But, as you approach, if you are looking for a free position, you are looking at the screen, about 150 cm off the floor.

By the time you get close to the position, and if you are tall, the shelf labels are near-invisible. They were pointed out to me by an assistant, being about 70% of the height of me, to whom they were obvious. Not her fault: the station design was poor. Tilted labels ? Or what about putting arrows on the screen where eye contact is first made with the station, rather than adverts ?

Binance and CEO admit financial crimes, billions coughed up to US govt

Re: The cost of a jail-out card

That does say something about inflation.

My 1970 version of the board game "Monopoly" only used to require a GBP50- fine to get out of jail.

Boris Johnson's mad hydrogen for homes bubble bursts

Re: A daft idea from the beginning

Can I suggest you get an old envelope (fag packets appear to be in short supply), and see how many "Dinorwigs" you would need to keep the lights on in the UK for say 14 hours, when the "wind does not blow and the sun does not glow".

My last guestimate was around 200. Sure batteries are an alternative, but the bottom line, as from above is "too little, too late".

The home Wi-Fi upgrade we never asked for is coming. The one we need is not

Re: You forgot "politicians" ...

Surely that should be spelt : "outliar" ?

No, no, no! Disco joke hit bum note in the rehab center

Re: Why stop with a music track?

We had a similar episode of an unattended mobile 'phone in an open office.

No interference/hacking required : just pop it into the office 'fridge.

Not a perfect sound-proof box (and radio waves get throug the seals), but it dialled the level down to "minor irritation".

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

"......the mine had closed."

I had heard rumours that some Cornish tin mines were considering re-opening due to the increase in the world price of tin.

Here is one from March 2023:

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/cornwalls-last-tin-mine-plans-8217474

TLDR : It says that the mine closed in 1988.

Maybe a mincomputer is still down there waiting to be re-booted (after receiving its "once-in-a millenium clean").

Techie labelled 'disgusting filth merchant' by disgusting hypocrite

Re: Ah, the good ol' days

Ah, as in the directions one allegedly gets from the locals on the Suffolk coast (right pond). Harwich for the continent, Frinton for the incontinent.

Cisco: Don't use 'blind spot' – and do use 'feed two birds with one scone'

Re: IglooDame

Oh dear, I had better not give up the day job. There was no intention to be a pedant, just TRYING to make a link between "ticks" and "fleas in the ear" in the context of people trying to erase ancient aphorisms. But thanks for the clarification anyway. Obviously, whichever way one uses the apostrophe there, one opens up oneself to getting a flea in the ear from a Reg commentard.

But at least Cybersaber thought it was (could be) a joke.

IglooDame

Re " It's the mistress bedroom, thank you very much."

Make the mistake of adding one little tick at the end of one of one of those words and you will end up with you getting a flea in your ear from your other half.

Try [mistress] cf [mistress']

Boffins claim to create the world's first wooden transistor

Re: Make a great calculator

... not just logarithms, but pseudo-random number generators.

It can provide its own seed.

Re: I had a wooden computer once

Surely everyone knows that Steve Jobs got there first.....

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/apple-1-wooden-computer-possibly-hand-built-by-steve-jobs-could-be-yours/

Re: ?

Not because you can, but because you would.

Hey Siri, use this ultrasound attack to disarm a smart-home system

Re: One C, one R

Yes, 500-3500 Hz on POTS worked OK-ish for decades because you have redundancy in speech as well as (usually) context to help you resolve ambiguities. Add in background noise, and the redundancy degrades, and so does the resulting accuracy of interpretation. Hence the need for Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo.......

The range above 3500 Hz is useful for resolving direction, as well as being less prone to corruption by reverberation, and so helps separate out competing sources. As for the remaining range up to 20 kHz bit, true for music, dog whistles, and mosquito tones, but there is negligible energy above 11 kHz, in even high-quality recorded speech.

........ speaks a person too old to hear above 10 kHz these days.

A wadge of cotton wool over the microphone would serve as a reasonable low-pass filter for speech.

Defunct comms link connected to nothing at a fire station – for 15 years

Re: Fun(d) distribution

The 80's saw a boom in the UK for people (mostly) in financial services taking a percentage cut of the money they made for their clients.

It was an interesting contrast to see those, such as engineers, who saved large sums of money for their company, surviving with a pat on the back.

But I'd still rather be an engineer.

NASA finds crashing spacecraft into asteroids is a viable defence strategy

Re: Crashed. Will the insurance pay?

re kinetic "imp actors"

Was it not a rugby antic a few years ago to throw people of diminished growth as part of a drunken "frolic" ?

Ah yes:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2011/sep/15/dwarf-throwing-england-rugby

Could that be what the Firefox spellchecker was alluding to ?

Take the morning off because Outlook has already

Re: Microsoft proves that the 365 branding was a terrible choice

Whoever said that it was intended as 365 base 10?

For the pessimists, how about base 8 (245 decimal ), or for the contrary, base 7 (194 decimal).

BTW re acronyms for airlines below, allegedly related to passenger "care" :

Try Walking Across

Don't Even Let Them Aboard.

NASA Geotail spacecraft's 30-year mission ends after last data recorder fails

Re: Say what you want about NASA's inefficiencies

Oliver Wendell Holmes had it nailed in 1858 in a poem:

"The one-hoss shay".

But that was possibly over-engineered compared to the 6 months challenge: it lasted 100 years, exactly.

Smart ovens do really dumb stuff to check for Wi-Fi

Re: That's some sort of record!

No. I was “made” in W Germany BEFORE the Berlin Wall went up. I strongly object to the notion that 30+ years is a good life........ I am nearly double that.

Truck-size asteroid makes one of the tightest fly-bys of Earth ever recorded

Yes but.....

To the UK-based cognoscenti, there is a sub-division in weight for the Luton box van aspiring to become a Reg standard.

Road legal, you can have it in at least 2 flavours, 3.5 tonne, or 5.5 tonne load limit.

Lightweight & heavy weight ?