Posts by Mishak

Elon

Did you see the message Elon sent to management?

In summary - "If you block information flow up the chain and it turns out that is was important, then you're out"!

"mouth watering figures"

And can someone explain why Product X costs £N to buy as a new license, but £Nx4 if you renew an old one? I guess there are enough people out there who don't check and dump...

Re: Obsolescence

Though, in this case, Netflix is not running because they have decided to drop support for iOS 9.

Would it be fair to expect Apple to support migration of the hardware to an OS it was not designed to run, or should Netflix be required to maintain support for older versions until the number of active users drops below some threshold?

Re: You’ve possibly made a mistake....

Whilst a lot of automotive is based on AUTOSAR, other protocols are also used - such as J1939 (mainly large trucks) and MilCAN (military vetronics; compatible with J1939).

These operate mainly in a synchronous mode (but do also support asynchronous), with a high-priority sync frame being used to trigger the synchronous nodes to send their messages. Each sync frame also includes a counter so that messages can be assigned to specific slots, ensuring that the bus load is distributed and the system doesn't end up with bandwidth starvation that could arise if everything were sent at the same time.

This really helps when you're running hard real-time closed loop control systems over the bus, as sample times and output generation occur at much more well-defined points in time, reducing jitter (and therefore loop gain errors).

I used a similar system to this (before J1939 emerged) to implement vehicle dynamics controllers on prototype platforms.

Re: It's not over yet

That's bad. I would have expected a safeing procedure and interlocks to stop that.

Let's hope Boeing do a little bit better when they launch tomorrow...

Re: Write your MP

And that's where the system is broken. An MP's primary responsibility should be to support what the majority of their constituents want, not what the party wants.

Re: Reason

Not always the case though.

I know of a local stone mason (one of the best in the area) who built a dry stone wall round a garden and had not been paid many months after the work was completed. He eventually rolled up in his truck and started to take it down and load the blocks. It was surprising how quickly he then got paid.

The guy who owned the house was a "self-builder" (and general scallywag) who had managed to get himself on "account hold" with all the builders' merchants within a 100 mile radius...

Re: Less poor wiring than poor building

Hmm. You would really have though that was something the bank's security team should have checked well before moving in!

Re: "restricted to motorways and to speeds of 37mph"

It's certainly a risk if the control loops aren't optimally damped (including how they interact with each other) - could end up with some "fun" oscillations if a resonant frequency can be found ;-)

Re: Supply pipe location

A friend of mine moved into a new build. After a few months, they got the first water bill - for £0.00.

They thought this was a bit strange. Even the children were reasonably willing to wash, so they were sure they had used at least some water. However, maybe it was just because it was the first bill.

No - the second was also for £0.00. They contacted the water company and told them they thought something was not right. The company sent out someone to read the meter, who confirmed that it still read zero, so where was nothing wrong with the reading.

The company didn't seem to care that there was obviously something wrong - either with the meter or the identification of which one was theirs.

After about a year, the guy gave up trying to tell the company he was not being billed for the water they were using. He's kept all the correspondence for when the company take him to court for theft of water.

Re: Adjust the monitor settings?

Used to work for a monitor I had that would make a loud whistling noise from time-to-time. A good whack 1/3 of the way down on the right hand side soon fixed it.

Re: 250 mile range/19 passengers

Do they mean 250 mile range including or excluding contingency? You're going to want at least 30 minutes of "spare" battery for missed approaches and other unexpected events.

Re: Simple way to make Magnox/AGR reactors and their spent fuel safe

Some of the products in spent fuel remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years (some of the plutonium isotopes, for example) and will require proper geological disposal (using current methods). You also have to put them out-of-reach of terrorists and the like.

The best way of dealing with the "waste" fuel is to recycle it and use it as fuel. The UK used to recycle its fuel, but stopped doing that a while back now. Putting recycled fuel into fast-breeder type reactors (the UK was one of the first into this technology, but gave in in the 70's - I think) is also another possibility as that "burns" a lot of what would otherwise end up as waste. If that's done, then about 96% of the waste is reused, with the remaining 4% only needing to be stored for about 1000 years before it is no more harmful than the uranium ore from which it was produced.

Depends...

Why was it EOL'ed? Was it because:

1) It is no longer capable of doing the job;

2) The manufacturer didn't want to keep supporting it.

Either way, they should be required to fix security vulnerabilities (a.k.a "defects") in products that are EOL where it can reasonably be expected that a significant number are still in service. We need to stop the creation of scrap when it can reasonably be prevented.

Re: What about...

Sounds like a feature that should be made more readily available ;-)

Unlike the £1 coin...

That someone I knew glued to the pavement (sidewalk in the US) so they could spend the day watching passers-by trying to pick it up through the street-level window in front of his desk.

Re: Why?

Probably not likely in a lot of places, but there will be some small businesses (perhaps two in the office, a couple on the road) that have one box that does everything (and can accept a few days of down time if there are problems).

Muse's audacity knows no bounds

Indeed. The audacity of Audacity is unbounded.

Has that requirement gone then?

Yes, I think it was removed as a requirement for IP phone services last year.

I had an Openreach engineer here on Monday. They are still installing ONTs for FTTP with battery backup (for phone and internet) in new build estates, but that's just to use up stock. Single installs and replacements are all now without the backups.

I'm using a fit-Uptime to power the ONT and Fritz!Box (which includes DECT and analog phone support), which will cover most of the outages we get.

I've also got another small UPS (from Amazon) that I use for a pfSense box and WiFi AP (PoE) - mainly because I work from home and it's a pain when a cut of a few seconds interrupts a conversation ;-)

I don't get the downvote

How can a refund not be due? At the very least, the goods are not "as advertised".

Only in Britain could you suggest taxing

Well, it's been raised in Britain, but it's not from an official (government) source.

"Warning: contains nuts"

I did once find a packet of nuts that had "Warning: May contain nuts"!

In contrast

Rural location, order placed about 6 weeks before VDSL contract expired as my new ISP said it could take up to that long to get an FTTP connection appointment (all underground).

Openreach contractor turned up the next day to install the exterior box and run the fibre, with another contractor arriving a few days later to complete the install.

I am now working with a very helpful Openreach engineer to resolve a speed issue, but he's fairly confident this is down to a provisioning / capacity limit that he can work round - supposed to be 900/100, but sometime only get 230/90 with a minimum of 450/50. That's still 5 times faster download and 8 times faster upload than I had before!

Companies House

Nature of business (SIC)

47990 - Other retail sale not in stores, stalls or markets

Not quite sure how that matches supply of staff...