* Posts by ClockworkOwl

215 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Jan 2020

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Janet Jackson music video declared a cybersecurity exploit

ClockworkOwl
Megaphone

Re: Unbelievable

Nahh, that 'aint working...

UK launches 'consultation' with EU over exclusion from science programs

ClockworkOwl
Facepalm

Re: I assume a continuation of their efforts to anex NI

I'm guessing you haven't heard of the Good Friday agreement, which probably indicates the level of your true ignorance on matters of border politics...

Copper shortage keeps green energy, tech ventures grounded

ClockworkOwl

Re: Bloody batteries and solar panels

I'm confused, most heat pumps have a COP around 4 at maximum. Are you sure your boiler is only 4Kw? Most are over 20Kw...

My current boiler is 27Kw, in order to replace it in direct thermal energy terms, would probably require a 7-8Kw heat pump, which is close to the 40A breaker. It wouldn't need to be run at full whack most of the time, but when it's very cold outside, the COP also falls, so needs the ability to pump a lot of heat.

Obviously, in the real world a whole lot of other mediations will need to be taken. Like improving insulation, bigger radiators for lower temp. running etc...

Thermodynamics is always king, (even for you Maxwell's Demon!)

Being declared dead is automated, so why is resurrection such a nightmare?

ClockworkOwl
WTF?

Re: transfer the phone into Mum's name

It's a personel lottery...

One voice sounds caring but isn't, the next sounds like a sullen teenager, but has just sorted your issue out, given you a discount and reset your line profile to give you 20% better speeds..!

I've dealt with BT in so many different ways, and it's always the personel lottery, every transfer.

ClockworkOwl

Re: In the UK we have the DVLA

Seems I dodged a bullet there, I couln't find dads paperwork, so just claimed ownership. Seemed to be fairly painless and quick.

I'm pretty sure I had both V5s in my name within 2 weeks...

Systemd supremo Lennart Poettering leaves Red Hat for Microsoft

ClockworkOwl
Pint

Whilst I wholeheartedly agree with what you say.., I'm also getting quite tired of all the pointless things I have to learn, only for someone to randomly decide "it's all change, relearn the old skills...'cos!"

I mean, how much space is left now? Surely without an MIB style eraser, I'm gonna run out!

Randomised eraser>

Tech world may face huge fines if it doesn't scrub CSAM from encrypted chats

ClockworkOwl
Thumb Down

Re: If they can do why do they not tell us how?

Actually, she hasn't got a clue what any of it really means at all...

They stopped trying to be rational when they kept getting the "this won't work" response, so now they just want to bully everybody into complience without having to provide a solution... "It's the LAW!"

Given the current debacle in parliament, how she has the cheek to talk about "moral imperative" I cannot fathom.

Know the difference between a bin and /bin unless you want a new doorstop

ClockworkOwl
Go

Re: Surprised that you weren't commenting on the limey use of "the boot"

No actual clue here, but it's possibly because really old cars had no storage at all, just a place to strap your luggage trunk...

Astra fails, sends NASA's Tropics weather satellites back to Earth

ClockworkOwl
Coat

Re: "Space is hard."

And yet they still missed?

Maybe they were trying to fly instead...

Meta slammed with eight lawsuits claiming social media hurts kids

ClockworkOwl
Go

Re: Social media is terrible for "Everyone"

"The internet has become a dark, sombre, dog eat dog courtyard in which the weak are preyed upon and idiots are hoisted onto pedestals for no apparent reason..."

Reminds me of a Hunter Thompson quote:

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.

There's also a negative side..."

Record players make comeback with Ikea, others pitching tricked-out turntables

ClockworkOwl

Re: That vinyl sound

I suspect that the advent of digital mixing desks / studios was quite a complicated and protracted change across the industry.

When I did some recording in a studio back in 89 / 90 they were still very much analogue, from capture on multitrack tape to mastering. There were digital effects (Akai sampler, synths etc.) and there were DAT and CD for take outs.

I doubt that any digital desk was upto the same standard back then, but things sure changed massively over the next 2 decades..!

ClockworkOwl
Megaphone

Re: Beware sub par efforts

RIAA

You need a pre amp that has a specific frequency response. Records are purposely recorded with a boosted low frequency, that needs to be reversed on playback. Often this is cost cut down to a treble bypass cap somewhere, sometimes even cheaper options are taken...

Sound result >

Google calculates Pi to 100 trillion digits

ClockworkOwl
Boffin

Re: Measurement creep

Well you made me check!!!

My Casio fx-83 says:

3549999698556 / 1130000000000 - PI = 0

Also : PI =3.141592654

So now I know...

When management went nuclear on an innocent software engineer

ClockworkOwl
Boffin

Been to quite a few over the years, but the best was Berkley.

I cycled there after hearing about an open day, and well I hadn't realised...

There station had been shut down and whilst they were waiting for the fuel rods to cool, they had the place totally open (ish). So whilst any actively 'hot' areas like the cooling ponds or fuel handling areas were closed, you were left to wander freely around the reactors and over the charge caps etc...

They also had a big marquee with lots of cool stuff like early solid state detectors with gamma spectroscopy.

The Nuclear Electric reasearch labs were there as well so lots of boffins too.

I seem to remember getting home quite late :)

Confirmation dialog Groundhog Day: I click OK and it keeps coming back

ClockworkOwl
Alert

Re: +++ REINSTALL UNIVERSE +++ REDO FROM START +++

+++ WRONG TROUSERLEG ALERT!!! +++

I actually think I've felt this error subconsciously several times in my life...

LIDAR in iPhones is not about better photos – it's about the future of low-cost augmented reality

ClockworkOwl
Boffin

Mouser jogged my interest with a new product line:

Osram Multizone ToF Sensors. (TMF8820, 21, 28) Tiny little SMD LIDAR units (2mm x 5mm approx.)

Upto 5m range and upto 8x8 zones. Multiple targets in each zone, you just get an I2C signal giving you the range of each target in each zone... They even have 2 GPIO pins!!! All for under a tenner.

However I don't presume Apple had much to do with their development.

MIT's thin plastic speakers fall flat. And that's by design

ClockworkOwl
Go

Bass response...

Given how the perceived sound changes as the sheet is manipulated, I suspect the frequency response issues are mechanical in nature.

Maybe if a large sheet was tensioned in a frame you could get some good low frequency response.

I'm thinking of a solid state version of the legendary Quad electrostatic speakers...

The wild world of non-C operating systems

ClockworkOwl
Mushroom

Re: In terms of popularity [ ... ] Rust is eclipsing C++

There are many ways to 'kill' rust, my favourite involves aluminium powder..!

Internet backbone Cogent cuts Russia connectivity

ClockworkOwl
Facepalm

Re: Difficult choice to make

I support the mass posting of ice picks!

Both sends a message, and provides a tool to achieve the result. As a bonus, there's good cultural synergy and a possible sense of deja-vu...

Europe's largest nuclear plant on fire after Russian attack

ClockworkOwl
WTF?

Re: Not fake news but…….

They also store spent fuel there, any kind of explosive ordinance anywhere near this kind of facility is just batshit insane. You have so many obvious examples of how wayward even the most upto date munitions can be.

Please stop trying to make this OK, it's just not, on any level.

A tale of two dishwashers: Buy one, buy it again, and again

ClockworkOwl
Joke

Re: wait , what??

Everybody knows you SHOULD only listen once to each disc, I mean how could it possibly sound as good the second time?

Maybe if you used £30k+ rig you could recapture the first play experience, but a TRUE audiophile wouldn't even contemplate it!!!

You'll be telling me you use ordinary 'room' air for listening next!

Jeff Bezos adds some more overheads to his $485m yacht by taking down historic bridge

ClockworkOwl
Pirate

Re: Can't they remove the masts, simply?

I don't normally yearn for fictional tech too much, but oh for a reel of mono / hyper / diamond filament..!

The towers are perfectly set up, you could nip a bit off the top or slice it into boat sushi...

Russia's naval exercise near Ireland unlikely to involve cable-tapping shenanigans

ClockworkOwl
Black Helicopters

Re: NOTAM

Given that there are unMANned aicraft about nowadays, how about:

NOtice To Air Machine ???

How to get banned from social media without posting a thing

ClockworkOwl
Coat

Re: "I haven't posted anything yet," she replies. "We had lunch instead"

Pill cam!

Here's my food before I eat, here's me eating it, and now, here's my guts digesting it!

Pass it quick, I'm of to the patent office>>

Crack team of boffins hash out how e-scooters should sound – but they need your help*

ClockworkOwl

And if you're getting any assistance over 15mph, then it's as illegal as any private scooter...

Laws, cover everyone equally fortunately.

UK government responds to post-Brexit concerns and of course it's all the fault of those pesky EU negotiators

ClockworkOwl
Pint

I'm not sure, do you mean that a significant section of the public who got their way, are now moaning about it?

If so, I guess you're right. Evidence suggests that democracy is equally bad for everyone, or something...

I wonder if many who voted to 'just make it go away' feel their choice was vindicated or not?

I still feel like I need lot's of these every time this nonsense occurs >>

It's more than 20 years since Steps topped the charts. It could be less than that for STEP's first fusion energy

ClockworkOwl
Go

Re: To be Prufrockian

Fusion has been successful for decades, and was first demonstrated in 1932.

It's had commercial use for a lot of that time in all sorts of ways...

Power generation however is not one of those uses, yet!

UK government opens consultation on medic-style register for Brit infosec pros

ClockworkOwl
WTF?

Re: Ditto

Is it not a legal right to advocacy?

If it is then this is just another bullet meets foot situation for the gov.

If not, then I'm more than slightly sickened by the judicial implications...

European silicon output shrinking, metal smelters closing as electricity prices quadruple, trade body warns

ClockworkOwl
WTF?

Re: re: Windmills are rubbish.

Nonsense, honestly you are so wrong...

When do you get one leaking tile behind a solar panel? When you installed on the cheap, and failed to maintain your roof before fitting.

From my direct experience, a 12 panel install produces approximately 5 units a day on average (over 10 years or more), that's actually around a 40% saving on the average daily usage.

12 units a day is around a £1000 a year, so you're saving £400 a year, before any feed in tariff.

In the case of this particular installation, the feed in tariff was around 50p per unit produced (yep, that high!), meaning approx. £900 yearly income...

Paid for it's install in 6 years, and that's not including all the direct savings of power and the payments for overproduction.

Joint European Torus celebrates 100,000 pulses: Neither Brexit nor middle age has stopped '80s era experiment

ClockworkOwl
Thumb Up

My dad worked there back in the 60's.

I have an end of year progress report for the whole lab for '65 - '66 that is facinating reading!

I also have a friend who worked there in the early century, and many of there key problems were the same...

NASA's gamma-ray-burst alert satellite put into safe mode after suspected reaction wheel failure

ClockworkOwl
Go

Re: 17 years

It's got no thrusters, it needs pairs of wheels to pass angular momentum from one to another, it can't unload excess momentum using linear thrust...

Privacy is for paedophiles, UK government seems to be saying while spending £500k demonising online chat encryption

ClockworkOwl
Thumb Up

Re: Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear. Something to Hide, Everything to Fear.

I always did think that if an algorithm was going to fade over into thought, that cynicism would be the favoured mode...

Again I find you have a very clear view of reality..!

North Korea says it's launched a third hypersonic missile, this time reaching Mach 10

ClockworkOwl
Facepalm

Re: Why?

Given it was an observed and semi open test, even if there were secret eyes on the test there would be no publication, it's secret!

If you start publishing secret spy stuff, everybody knows what you're looking at and how...

US Senator Marco Rubio calls Intel cowards for scrubbing remarks about Xinjiang and apologizing to China

ClockworkOwl
FAIL

Re: This is not cowardice

Oh sure, let the 'free market' sort it all out eh?

Cowardly capitalism comes without a conscience it seems...

To err is human. To really screw things up requires a wayward screwdriver

ClockworkOwl
Thumb Up

Re: is there a reason

I have a couple of pairs of ceramic ended tweezers for working on live stuff.

Mostly anything using a LiPo battery, they tend to turn "oops, damn" into "BANG!!! F*CKF*CKF*CK!!!!!!!"

They are surprisingly strong, but yes, brittle when really pushed...

It takes more clicks to reject their cookies than accept them, so France fines Facebook and Google over €200m

ClockworkOwl
Gimp

Re: A Google spokesperson said...

Or C) Avoid them like a syphalitic sex toy...

Hauliers report problems with post-Brexit customs system but HMRC insists it is 'online and working as planned'

ClockworkOwl
Joke

Re: Hmm

Given how much red tape there is, perhaps you could zone NI into percentile bands, dropping a percentage of red tape for each distance travelled?

( serious apologies to anyone in Ireland, North or South, this shit isn't really funny )

ClockworkOwl
Mushroom

Re: While avoiding the question of just what the 'planning' actually covered.

I'm glad I don't need to use it, but it sounds like it's currently more akin to Hieronymus Bosch doing a multi panel depiction of Dante's Infero...

ClockworkOwl
WTF?

I do ofted wonder how her "Pork Futures" are maturing...

Dutch nuclear authority bans anti-5G pendants that could hurt their owners via – you guessed it – radiation

ClockworkOwl
Go

Re: WTF?

Any aliens that have spent 5 minutes around here and still want to Takeover™ are clearly missing several space marbles. I'm not sure life under the Takeover™ will be any worse than our current inglorious lot..!

Mars helicopter mission (which Apache says is powered byLog4j) overcomes separate network glitch to confirm new flight record

ClockworkOwl
Stop

Re: Nothing here....

Yet another empty and pointless statement from you...

Revealed: Remember the Sony rootkit rumpus? It was almost oh so much worse

ClockworkOwl
Go

Re: You have to wonder

An RJ11 fits perfectly in the centre 4 pins of an RJ45 socket, even the retaining clip works!

I'm assuming the laptop didn't have the requisite transformer isolation...

It's primed and full of fuel, the James Webb Space Telescope is ready to be packed up prior to launch

ClockworkOwl
Boffin

Re: New! Improved! oxidiser!

Yup, and from a link provided below, it seems they are using both types of thruster.

The biprops are for orbital manouvers and station keeping, the monoprops are for pointing and momentum management...

ClockworkOwl
Thumb Up

Re: Why so long to fill?

Picture for perusal...

https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2021/image-james-webb-space.jpg

Seems like they're taking it seriously...

Nuclear fusion firm Pulsar fires up a UK-built hybrid rocket engine

ClockworkOwl

Re: Doesn't scale well.

Indeed, the Big EaARS I attended more than a few years ago had a Rattworks Tribrid* launch!

It also had one of the best firework displays I've ever seen...

The Robin Reliant shuttle used 6 Contrail O class hybrid motors, that are 6KN average thrust, 4 on take off, and 2 air starts...

The video seems to show a very poor start, too much smoke and only diamonds at the end.

6/10, not too impressive, but to be encouraged anyway!

*Tribrid, is a hybrid (ABS/N2O) that transitions to Methanol/N2O: http://www.rattworks.net/research_tribrid.html

New study demonstrates iodine as satellite propellant... in space

ClockworkOwl

Re: Nice

Not sure, but I bet it's latent heat.

Mercury takes 5 times as much energy to vapourise as Xenon, and none of that will provide propulsion...

Phone jammers made my model plane smash into parked lorry, fumes hobbyist

ClockworkOwl

Re: Once Upon A Time, A Long Time Ago........

That's 27Mc/s I'll have you know!

And fly aways were much more prevalent back then, there's a whole section on mitigation in one of the old (60's) Aeromodeller annuals...

All you needed was someone to turn up and test their own transmitter!

ClockworkOwl

Re: Mobile phone jammer doesn't make sense

I guess it isn't really necessary for something to be a 'jammer' to jam the signal...

There are plenty of illegal 2.4Ghz video senders (analogue signal) with somewhat ridiculous power outputs. 25mW (the legal limit in the UK) is a bit flakey over distance, so I can imagine the more powerful (2W and more) units finding their way into security camera setups.

If your RC setup has played nicely (LBT etc.) with the other transmitters, and found it's chink of frequency space, it's easy for a somewhat broadband, analogue signal to swamp it out.

I do wonder about failsafe issues, but a big bird like this will possibly 'idle' a long way...

Rolls-Royce set for funding fillip to build nuclear power stations based on small modular reactor technology

ClockworkOwl
Go

The important bit, is that there are schemes to separate the actinides (long lived radioactive 'fuel'), from the fission products (highly radioactive, shortish lived).

If you do this the actinides go back to the breeder, and the waste fission products need storing. However, these are fairly short lived, and within 250 Years would be reduced to almost background levels.

I can think of several 250 year old structures that are pretty solid still, in fact if they'd been stored in some of the local mines when they closed, we'd possibly be trying to mine them as a source of transition metals...

Juno what? Jupiter's Great Red Spot is much deeper than originally thought

ClockworkOwl
Thumb Up

By Jove!

Clearly the Dweller regatta is only just getting into full swing!

Seriously though, you have to love the whole Juno program and there's so much to come...

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