"a mobile application the state will specify"
I bet it'll uses a load of mobile data - after all, it'll be streaming everything in real time to the KGB FSB.
923 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2021
A friend of mine had a border collie puppy that they used to shut in the utility room when they went out as it was still being house trained. It was a bit cold in there in the winter, so they put an electric heater in to keep it warm.
They came back one day to find the power out. The main RCD had tripped when the puppy decided to chew through the power cable to the heater. It was totally unharmed (thank's to the RCD), but it never went near a cable again!
I "love" the way you can get an AI to change its opinion.
For example, I recently asked a well-know one to give me an example for MISRA C Rule 15.2. It replied that the rule stated "An unconditional break or continue shall not be used."
Wrong! When I told it so, it "changed its mind" and declared that it meant to say "The goto statement shall jump to a label declared later in the same function", which is correct. However, it then proceeded to give non-compliant and compliant examples that were exactly the same.
And people actually let these things write code or find vulnerabilities?
Yep, which is where things like CAN bus come in handy - it can handle ground differences and all transfers are validated and re-tried if there are any errors (so the receiving end only ever gets valid data*).
* Nearly - it is theoretically possible for the CRC check to pass a bad frame, but it's so unlikely that only a few system need to worry about it.
I use a similar service that started out as free but became a monthly subscription (including services I do not need) or £4* a quarter for the VAT filing. Any idea if this one is going to stay free?
* Not worth fussing about, I know - but I do object to having to pay to pay the tax I owe (or, even worse, to get the refund I'm owed).
I used to be able to use the HMRC gateway to enter the figures on a web form. Took a few minutes and cost nothing.
I am now expected to file electronically, either by:
1) Use of accountancy software (Sage, etc), at a cost of £hundreds (I currently use a spreadsheet for my trivial accounts).
2) Use a third-party system to make the submission for me. This only costs about £4 a quarter, but the process is a pain and takes up my time.
From my POV, there was nothing wrong with the old way.
In the case of Apple, an alternative purchasing mechanism may have reduced the final cost to the consumer as the merchant would have had the opportunity to reduce the cost of sales.
In the car finance case, consumers did have the option to compare prices and use another (probably less convenient) source of finance if a cheaper one was available. Personally, I have no problem with the car companies not disclosing that they were getting a cut from the finance, as consumers could look elsewhere.
I came here to say the same - OpenTherm and "traditional thermostat" are all that's needed, and OpenTherm is very easy to implement - though they would then have to work out how to scale the demand to a percentage (no more than basic school maths).
I can understand the old versions not supporting OpenTherm (no hardware), but it would cost virtually nothing to add it to a new product. I will happily consult to Google for a suitable fee...
A lot of the best engineers I know are those who qualified through routes other than degrees.
My daughter wants to get into nuclear engineering (not sure yet if that'll be design, civil, mechanical or electrical - knowing her, it'll be the lot), and it looking at a four year apprenticeship that leads to a full degree (but without the debt).
I don't imagine many international projects (not just space) will want to retain connections with the US where funding is involved.
I feel really sorry for the scientists that are going to be affected. I just hope the rest of the world will welcome and support them if they decide they need to move elsewhere to get work.
Aren't the UK companies trying to use satellite to "fill in" the rural areas where they are required to provide service but don't?
If they do, then I'm not going to pay again* for the service that I am already paying for.
* that's actually "again again", as I already pay for broadband to use the "services" they charge me for over WiFi calling when I am at home (where there is no coverage).
Yep, and that's why the centre engines keep burning at stage separation so the booster doesn't get into free-fall before the boost-back burn starts, with cold-gas thrusters being used to keep it on track when it is coasting to re-entry. The re-entry burn happens when there is enough deceleration for the tanks to have settled.
It was failing well before then - you can see the thrust vectoring starting to move the exhaust stream well before that. Round about when the FTS shut down the engines, it is also obvious that a significant roll had built up.
Failure could be something as simple as a sensor being wired back-to-front, as that would lead to an undamped oscillation along the lines of what appeared to happen. Will have to wait for an investigation to find out, of course.
I've just had a "discussion" with Acrobat (which I have, fortunately, not had to use for a long, long time) about the helpful annotations crap it was adding to an EMC report I was trying to use. Things along the lines of "See this, this is a graph - but I may be wrong, so don't trust me".
I'm hoping I've found the kill-switch, but I suspect I've only managed to give it a flesh-wound.
The only app I have that is a pain (and was before the changes) is pCloud - which updates itself after every OS update in a way that needs the "allow this to run" setting to be set, followed by a restart.
I can't say I've noticed any others except for the "this new app wants to access files on your desktop" type when I install something new.
Though guess I could mention OneDrive, which keeps adding a startup item that I don't want - if I remove it I get told it has been added back next time I restart (with a note that I can disable it). Microsoft don't give an option to not have the autostart for a feature I don't use...
I worked in a place with a high-speed dot-matrix printer (it had four heads to reduce the travel) on a stand with metal legs.
It used to print a very, very long sales report every month (that was never collected).
One month, there was a loud "BANG"! as it fell to the floor - the vibration caused by the carriage changing direction had caused metal fatigue in the legs!
The report was turned off after that, and no one noticed.
It makes sense to have redundancy, as a failure of Falcon/Dragon could lead to a long break in service (as happened to the Shuttle Program).
However, there is nothing to say that redundancy has to come from Boeing; I wouldn't be surprised if another commercial provider surfaces at some point (such as the Sierra Space Dream Chaser DC-200
It was the end of the week, so the sys admin responsible for the CAD servers at a large automotive OEM executed "shutdown -h now" on his local workstation.
"That's strange", he thought, "it's still running".
At which point all the phone lines lit up - and he remembered he had been remoted into the main CAD system...
I once worked for a company down south that provided energy management systems for office blocks and the like.
The hardware was a eurocard version of the BBC micro, with the code being stored in battery-backed RAM. An external board had been added to provide a watchdog with a thirty second timeout - if this wasn't serviced, then a reset was triggered to restart the system. A modem was used to transmit alarms, to allow settings to be changed, and to support remote software updates.
However, there was a "known risk" with the "software updates". These needed the running program to be stopped so that new code could be entered at the command line over the modem (redirected from a file). The trouble was, the watchdog was not being serviced when the program was stopped, so the person loading the new software had to ensure that the blocks were small enough that "resetWatchdog" could be manually entered at least every 30 seconds; timing was therefore critical and distractions a real risk.
Of course, the inevitable happened - with a shout of "I'm just off the airport to get the next available flight to Glasgow"...