Posts by davcefai

Exocet

Does anybody remember the Falklands war? BOTH sides had Exocet missiles. And it seems that the British had not backdoored them.

It makes no sense to give away or sell your security. First the West exported its technology. Now they've woken up to the fact that its security accompanied the technology.

Viewpoint

@Neil Barnes

It depends on where you sit. If it's a desk then the problems are minor. Otherwise hope that your diaper is leak-proof.

Software Freedom

What happened to software freedom?

Ubuntu is a Debian derivative. I wonder what would happen if Debian tried to impose conditions on Ubuntu

Apps and Programs - off topic but.....

When did "programs" become "apps"?

Was it when they became flakey enough to compare with Android apps?

Waterproof Watch

Is a USB C plug compatible with water? My Cubot N1 is charged by a magnetically attached cable which touches external contacts. My previous one - an Amazfit Stratos - had a similar system but the cable clipped on mechanically.

And anyway, aren't all devices charged by a cable? How much bulk would a wireless charger add?

Freedom of choice

As somebody commented above, Chrome came from nowhere to become what it is today.

I think the problem is that a lot, if not most, users haven't a clue about how they are accessing the web. If I tell somebody to close the browser I get a blank look. "What's a browser?"

That icon on screen is "The Internet"

Last week I ran Firefox on a new laptop. I found the browser to be almost unusable with all the ads popping up. Some Youtube videos showed TWO ads before the content I wanted. The sad thing is that people don't even know that they can block ads.

So they are free to choose a browser with ad blockers but don't know that they can do so. I personally have given up trying to convert them to useing something sensible,

and taking the trouble to install it.

Is there a good messiah out there?

Translation anybody?

I'm sure that "Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai " means something. Is there anybody here who can translate? (Google didn't manage)

I wonder how well I would sleep if I knew that I had deliberately installed a spyware, trackware, adware operating system?

Mind you, I would have to have drunk a lot more than I ever have to have done so :-)

FWIIW these are reasons I have found why the switch may not work.

1. Tepid support from above.

2. Senior people saying "I'm too important to use free software."

3. And this may be the worst one: The expectation that openoffice and MSoffice can coexist indefinitely. They can't.

Solutions are obvious.

Nostalgia

At school in 1964 I helped the science teacher to build a stereo system around a BBC studio Tape Deck and a Sinclair set of apmlifier, preamp and speakers.

The sound from the Sinclair kit was, for those days, astounding. The Rector suspected that we had spent well over our budget!

When I got to Edinburgh in 1973 the first thing I bought was a Sinclair Cambridge calculator. They were so new that at examination time the Heriot Watt University Senate ruled that while Slide Rules were OK we could not use calculators in our exams as they would give their owners an unfair advantage. Only 2 out of 14 in the course owned a calculator.

I would consider that refusal to be vaccinated constitutes "reckless endangerment" to others and there are already mechanisms for coping with this.

There is compulsory vaccination for children.

So come down on these refusniks with the full force of the law and make the world safer for sensible people.

Strangely, the hack is described in terms of ppm of Caustic Soda. Dosing is usually via a dosing pump (variable speed and stroke) and would be set by adjusting a pH target. It is not possible to dose Caustic Soda directly - it consists of very hygroscopic pearls or flakes.

It is probably possible to set up such a system to work with ppm, by calculating ppm from the water flow rare and the dosig rate but who on earth would bother? !!

In any sanely engineered system you would set the target pH ( usually 7.4 to 7.8) and let the pump and pH meter sort things out. That's maybe 10 lines of code. Then you add another 100 or so to cope with all the error conditions you can think up but essentially if pH drops below 7 or rises above 8 the plant should stop and raise an alarm. The operator should not be able to set insane dosing values.

I've done, or had done for me, several such mini plants dosing caustic, acid or sodium hypochlorite.

Forget the plant security, Windows or Team Viewer. The adjustment should simply not have been possible.

It can get worse!

Malta has a growing anti-5G movement. Big to-do with photos of new masts. The sad thing is:

1. There are no 5G masts yet in Malta.

2. None of the providers have even applied for a licence yet.

Never underestimate the power of stupidity. Remember that "MRI" was initially called "NMR" - Nuclear Magnetic Resonance- but people were frightened of the "Nuclear" bit.

Ringworld

Please don't forget the concept of the Dyson Sphere and the Ringworld which has given so many of us so many hours of fun and fascination.

Reckless Endangerment

Isn't this cockup a candidate for a prosecution for reckless endangerment?

Lusers

Lusers are lusers everywhere. A few years ago we were building a new production facility. When it came to cladding the front we had to close off the road leading to the Marketing Dept. So we assigned new parking spaces, dotted the area with "Keep Out" posters and we posted maps and instructions on how to walk to Marketing via a different route

Next day 4 girls from Marketing - cookie cut types with long straight hair and sub-par IQs - came to complain that they had torn their tights climbing over the barriers in the road.

Privacy

"Microsoft's online store uses a form of device fingerprinting called a Fuzzy Device ID. Investigators, it's claimed, linked a specific device identifier to accounts associated with Kvashuk."

So they spy on you even from the store. Isn't this a breach of privacy?