* Posts by Mast1

191 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Oct 2019

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Global tat supply line clogged as Suez Canal authorities come to aid of wedged 18-brontosaurus container ship

Mast1

Re: eerrr...not quite "by the side"

In 1973, the Egyptians showed that they were very good at moving large amounts of sand by the Suez canal in a very short time. Maybe the pumps they used are a bit past it. (Hint, start of Yom Kippur war)

Your hardware is end-of-life... and it's in space. Worry not, Anglo-Japanese sat to test new orbital cleanup method

Mast1
Coat

Re: Err...

Break out ? You are trying to get them to escape from the "prison" of their orbit.......

Samsung spruiks Galaxy Buds Pro performance as comparable to hearing aids

Mast1

Re: Shop around.

And Boots & Specsavers also dispense NHS-stocked hearing aids under the "Any Qualified Provider" (AQP) scheme..... for FREE (to the user, qualifying UK residents only) . The price they get for doing so also covers several years of support, and, even for a pair, it is less than the online price quoted above..... So why not try those out first before shelling out thousands ?

From Maidenhead to Morocco: In a change to the scheduled programming, we bring you The On Call of Dreams

Mast1

Re: Gatwick -> Edinburgh ?

As a lowly student trainee, working in a north London research lab, we needed some variable capacitors urgently, and RS components did not stock them. Cue a 4-mile each way bicycle ride (on my own bike) to a local component shop (shows how long ago). There was no offer on paying mileage on my tyres......

Don't be a fool, cover your tool: How IBM's mighty XT keyboard was felled by toxic atmosphere of the '80s

Mast1

Re: The 80s were generally a happy time...

We helped a friend move into a rented property, only about 10 years ago. Our job was to clean the residue from the previous smoker (carpets had been stripped out by the landlord). Since I am pretty tall, I was sugar-soaping the (artex) ceilings without using steps, which meant that it was easier to dodge the drips of liquid tar from an area just sprayed. Full PPE for that.

Google says once third-party cookies are toast, Chrome won't help ad networks track individuals around the web

Mast1

".........product management in Google's Ads Privacy and Trust group..."

Am I just too old & cynical in thinking that this had an echo of "Newspeak" ?

Mast1

Re: Targeting

Quite the opposite: "confirmation bias" means that expanding your horizons, eg participating in the debate, has been "cancelled".

Homo sapiens: Hey you, Neanderthals! Neanderthals: We heard that

Mast1
Joke

lurrrrrvvvvvv ?

Perhaps its because they went out clubbing more often on a Saturday night ?

Mast1

POTS

Well, we have survived as homo sapiens using the "plain old telephone service" for around a century with an audio bandwidth extending from 500 to 3000 or 3500 Hz, (varies with the side of the pond), presumed to be sufficient to carry the bulk of the articulation in speech. The assumption is true if the context is easy to understand ("Get out of my cave") but much less so if there is little context, ("Do you prefer Bach or Bartok?"). Your homework for tonight: "Was communication between homo sapiens and neanderthals likely to be high context or low context? Discuss."

Dept of If I'd Known 20 Years Ago: Call centres, roosting chickens, and Bitcoin

Mast1

$12.46 in transaction fees

I may have heard it somewhere else, but it seems like the only people who consistently strike it rich in a gold rush are.............

the people who sell shovels.

We know it's hard to get your kicks at work – just do it away from a wall switch powering anything important

Mast1

Why have the switch ?

I often wondered why UK sockets sometimes come without a switch. Seemed a bit cheapskate, until I lobbed a lightweight holdall under the counter into a space beside the freezer. Two days later I noticed a puddle on the floor in front of the freezer. Yup, complete de-frost. Had managed to hit the rocker with the holdall: so then I "cheapskated" and went for a switchless socket.

UK college courses show decade-long surging interest in computer science – just as new intake was locked down

Mast1

Cruel joke ?

In my uni days, once, after 4 morning lectures in engineering, I went round at 1 pm to see a friend who was on the political science course. He was a still in bed. In the best possible light, he could have had an "essay crisis" the night before.

The Linux box that runs the exec carpark gate is down! A chance for PostgreSQL Man to show his quality

Mast1

Re: Execu-barge

Again, slightly OT, but talking of "beached BMWs", I saw one actually perform the beaching on an oil drum as he started to pull onto a roundabout. It had fallen out of the back doors of a (slightly battered) crew bus that had been in front of him and rolled under his bumper (fender). Rear wheel drive ensured that the BMW managed to rise up and go beyond the point of balance.

How do you save an ailing sales pitch? Just burn down the client's office with their own whiteboard

Mast1

Re: When <i>something</i> goes bang

Not always smoke stains. How about the ca 12V-rated electrolytic capacitor on a bench top power supply that can go up to 30 V ? Fortunately (a) it was only about 100 uF and (b) I was outside the room where that happened. Walked in to find a nice shower of confetti cascading down and a gibbering experimenter.

That's it. It's over. It's really over. From today, Adobe Flash Player no longer works. We're free. We can just leave

Mast1

Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

I work for a large UK public organisation and mid 2020 had to perform compulsory internet security training, delivered by .....flash.

Pizza and beer night out the window, hours trying to sort issue, then a fresh pair of eyes says 'See, the problem is...'

Mast1

Re: Pineapple on pizza

Salad cream : for something nominally regarded as bland by people outside of the UK, it runs a very close second to mayo on calorie count.

So let's get this straight:

bread: carbs

fish finger : a thin sliver of fish (protein) covered in (golden) breadcrumbs and oil (fat)

salad cream: fat

Does one have to put butter on the bread as well in case the above is seen as the low-cal version ?

Mast1

Re: The value of not working all hours

Turn of the millenium; as a UK-based Brit on a usual 40 hour week, I did a week's stint with an LA-based company with the 12 hour days, but only 5 days per week. Noticed that they were doing a lot of fire-fighting clearing up previous mistakes.

Amazon turns Victorian industrialist with $2bn building project to house workers near new headquarters

Mast1

Re: Next comes the employee cryptocurrency, only valid at the company store

Who needs the "crypto" aspect ?

It was called "scrip money". Beloved of 19th century industrialists: yup, only redeemable in the company store, which used marked-up prices anyway.

Of course any similarity between this and 21st century UK rail refund vouchers, not redeemable online, but only at a staffed ticket office (where a higher set of prices are shown) is purely illusory.........

Microsoft pokes Cortana's corpse to give her telepathic abilities on Windows 10

Mast1

Re: 10 lb lump hammer on standby

I see why you need to go for the toaster : judging by teh article, Cortana is already toast.

Ticketmaster: We're not liable for credit card badness because the hack straddled GDPR day

Mast1

Re: Small Claims Court

Streamlined small claims procedures, yes. But results depends on the company involved. I used the process against a well known big (well it was big at the time) travel company. After 2 years of dragging their feet, they then tried to object to the interest charge (8%) that the court was allowed to add over the time taken to settle. After that they still would not pay up, so I paid the extra fee for the bailiffs to be sent in. Net result was they ended up paying out over twice as much as I was originally claiming. Adds a new dimension to any claim to be "customer focused".

European Commission to take a closer look at how Amazon uses business data of third-party sellers using its platform

Mast1

Re: Erm

"Valid ?", agreed, "fair ?": debatable. Flood the listings with your product, drive out the competition, and then rack up your prices. Seems to be the standard business model these days (and relies partly on consumer laziness for not shopping around or going beyond the first page of a search result).

Mast1

Re: Erm

Ah yes, the wonders of the 'free' market. Just like the fantastic range of broadcast news outlets we have in the UK: BBC1, BBC2, BBC Radio 1, ITN, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, Channel 4, BBC Radio 5, BBC Radio 6 (where available), Sky, BBC World Service, RT. Oh, did you miss the non-BBC ones buried in there ?

Mast1

Re: Erm

.....and when the search engine almost invariably returns Amazon or Ebay as the top hit(s), is that just because of popularity or because they outbid the independent vendor ? Of course the search ranking algorithms would never be tilted in favour of big boys, that really would be creating a cosy cartel.

Let's... drawer a veil over why this laser printer would decide to stop working randomly

Mast1

Re: Rain? Luxury!

Try living on the ground floor of a rubbish bit of 1960's 3-storey UK-built maisonette/flat combinations (Planked floors between successive floors, with plasterboard on the underside. You could easily hear the microwave bell from the kitchen above). The route of the PVC foul pipe was boxed in behind wooden panels inside the corridor, and the bend was just below the floor. Acoustic, rather than physical, leakage was the problem.

Mast1

Plan B fail

Many moons ago, a certain broadcaster built an isolated studio suspended on springs within an outer building. Site was next to a canal, so high groundwater levels. "Never mind we will (a) tank it, and (2) put in an emergency float-activated pump in case the tank fails". During a wet period, the tanking fails, basement floods, float switches on pump, pump cannot initially keep up, float continues to rise and eventually flips over, switching OFF the pump.

You only live twice: Once to start the installation, and the other time to finish it off

Mast1

Re: Not just in exotic places

Allegedly, a £100k (1980s prices) bit of large broadcast equipment was sent to a developing country, but went missing at the receiving airport. The equipment was reportedly found at a roadside, but minus its protective wooden packaging. A lesson there how "perceived value" depends on your perspective.

Mast1

Silent button

Went from a minor UK regional airport 30 years ago to Schipol. I pre-warned the airline that I was carrying prototype electronics with me to demo to a company. Carried in hand luggage, for obvious reasons, it was about the size of a spectacle case, but covered with mechanical switches and entirely hand-built. Going out was OK, but on return through Schiphol X-ray I suddenly found myself facing two gun-toting guards, but no polite verbal request to go for a manual search. Maybe the 4 NiCd batteries showed up a bit too well.

There ain't no problem that can't be solved with the help of American horsepower – even yanking on a coax cable

Mast1

Should have known better....

I started my working life fresh out of school in a north-west London research labs of a once-famous ELECTRIC company (similarly named but different companies on both sides of the pond). Old-fashioned industrial building. Labs could be sub-divided by benches stick out at right angles off the walls where the mains socket were. I say "benches" because there were two in my lab, daisy-chained. Occasionally we moved the benches around (installed in pre-history), so having a "male" and a "female" end on the power cords was too much like hard work if the benches went back the wrong way, and a hard-wired male end could get damaged in a move. So we had two female ends, ie sockets on each end of the bench, connected by a 13A plug to 13 A plug on a short, detachable "suicide cord". At least someone had made a little brass clip that wing-nutted down over the plug. In my enthusiasm to move an end bench, I suddenly realised I was holding a live (240V) 13 A plug...... And this was after the "Health & Safety at Work Act" of 1974.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin. Hang on, the PDP 11/70 has dropped offline

Mast1

Hand me no but(t)s......

Back in the 1980's security guard had to make his rounds and log his presence at various points around the site by inserting a physical key into a body-worn time-stamper. For the computer room, the key was chained to a wall behind a VAX11-750 and its accoutrements, leaving only a small alleyway to squeeze through to get to it. To aid his squeezing he steadied himself on the front of the VAX, only to press a reset button........ in the middle of an overnight run.

Finally, a wafer-thin server... Only a tiny little thin one. Oh all right. Just the one...

Mast1

Smoke-induced aphasia......

Many years ago I was debugging a very expensive bit of electronic kit with a few design issues on one particular board. eg under-specced ceramic wirewound resistor that gave an instant blister burn when lightly touched, and could melt its solder attachment to board. All hinting that a hefty power supply was lurking behind the scenes. Cue a more senior work colleague rushing through a revision and with a flourish hits the "on" button. My slow brain was registering that such haste was possibly not appropriate. The lights appeared to come up, but a few seconds later the magic smoke fairy emerges from a transistor can: actually probably more than one fairy. Although I was the first to observe it, the words of alarm froze in the brain. The only "f"-word was "aphasia".

Beware the fresh Windows XP install: Failure awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth

Mast1

Not quite IT, but involves electrons. Way back in the early 70's in Singapore, my parents had an electric toaster go duff. Opened it up to find a dead lizard ("chit chat"). Nearly all rooms had security grilles and louvred shutters. Lizards had free run.

In Hancock's half-hour, Dido Harding offers hollow laughs: Cake distracts test-and-trace boss at UK COVID-19 briefing

Mast1

"......worst death toll in Europe"

That statement is a bit cheap on statistical accuracy given the otherwise reasonable summary of Thursday's instalment of the UK soap opera. Try comparing death rates per million across Europe and you will see that, although the UK rate is bad, it is not yet a "world beater". More like "primus inter pares". To adapt Baroness Harding's metaphor : using that statistic is no way to ice the cake.

Huawei's latest smartphone for the UK market costs £1,299. And yes, that's without Google apps

Mast1

Re: Nearly spat my tea out

Surely Noawei Huawei Five-G ?

An Internet of Trouble lies ahead as root certificates begin to expire en masse, warns security researcher

Mast1

Re: Simple solution

Surely, if it has a "Mare" in the title, it should have a picture of a pink horse on the box ?

Ooo, a mystery bit of script! Seems legit. Let's see what happens when we run it

Mast1

Re: Efficacy of warning messages

Yes, FAT. As I said : naive. I thought M$ had provided a seemingly useful tool, and I was not officially in IT support.

Not so naive that I had not backed up all my data after previous uses. Not so true of the other users of that same computer (a data collection machine, off network to reduce response latency).

Mast1

Efficacy of warning messages

Ah but then you have to choose the correct wording in your warning-before-you-proceed message.

Consider a Win2k system that detects errors in your filing system, and it helpfully offers to "repair" it for you.

"Yes", this naive person clicked.

Cue a screenful of helpful lines reporting what it found wrong.

Cue a 30GB disc fragged into same-sized chunk with helpful names such as filexxxxx,frag where

1 < xxxxx < infinity

Yes, definitely naive in believing the "warning-before-you-proceed" message.

So you really didn't touch the settings at all, huh? Well, this print-out from my secret backup says otherwise

Mast1

Re: It went wrong all by itself

And the irony was that the BBC proposed a cheap-as-chips alternative to D-MAC (E-PAL), but rejected by the Part committee who thought the superior picture quality of D-MAC would promote uptake. And look what that let through the door.......

A real loch mess: Navy larks sunk by a truculent torpedo

Mast1

Re: Oops!

Well macaroni does have a curve in it : seems like they never did manage to straighten it out.

So you locked your backups away for years, huh? Allow me to introduce my colleagues, Brute, Force and Ignorance

Mast1

Re: One up all of y'all

As a PFY, I worked in research for a company developing microwave oscillators for a combat aircraft.

One day I approached the test bench with a powered device attached and accidentally kicked the bench as I got seated. Result : level on power meter goes AWOL, frequency goes off analyser screen.

Approach boss to point out that this may not be a "marketable feature" for the particular aircraft: his solution was "Don't kick the desk".

It convinced me that a degree involving the study of structures was a very good choice.

Heads up from Internet of S*!# land: Best Buy's Insignia 'smart' home gear will become very dumb this Wednesday

Mast1

Re: Ah, yet another joy of IoT

Sounds like the business model your run-of the-mill political party........ "This promise will last for N years" The "buyer" is looking for N >= 5 (in the UK) but, where often, N << 5.

UK ads watchdog slaps Amazon for UX dark arts after folk bought Prime subs they didn't want

Mast1

Re: Been there, done that

Happened to me over a year ago. Could not find link on page to "Continue without signing up for Prime". Less than 30 days later, tried to cancel and eventually found the hard-to-find "Cancel subscription" link. Then went through pages of "Are you sure ?", "Are you really sure?", "Are you really, really sure ?".

Scrapped my account there and then and will not use them. Amazon, the Ryanair of retail sales.

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