Posts by Steve D

Nobody Mentions Why the Mods Are Upset

This comment on Techdirt (https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/14/reddit-communities-decide-to-extend-boycott-after-ceo-says-its-almost-over/#comment-3046724) is insightful:

Almost all of the reporting, including here, has missed the reason why moderators are upset.

Reddit does not provide a viable way for the mods to actually moderate. The official apps are garbage which gave rise to many 3rd-party apps. These 3rd-party apps give the moderators the tools needed to provide free work for reddit. Charging everyone for API access makes the apps too costly to run.

Now, moderators will have to use the official apps slowing down their work. This will result in more spam and hate-speech, especially in the large forums.

Eleswhere (https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/16/reddit-ceo-triples-down-insults-protesters-whines-about-not-making-enough-money-from-reddit-users/#comment-3048063) the attitude of the owner is summarised as

“We don’t do things for free, so all the unpaid mods should get back to work”

"Frore is confident it can defeat dust": More details please.

The article states "Frore is confident it can defeat dust". This is the key here as the very small air channels will be very prone to clogging by dust and fluff. If their solution is to use a filter, then the system is only any good until the filter gets clogged.

The conventional ways of keeping dust and other airborne contamination out of forced air cooling systems are filters, or a sealed primary system that relies on heatpumps, air con or heat exchangers to exhaust the heat. If Frore have a way around that, then that is a really interesting technology, but I suspect they do not.

Seems like a James Veitch prank: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5d8pVg3Qtg

Read the Official History of MI5

If you read the Official History of the Security Services "The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5" by Christopher Andrew, you realise that communication interception and reading (of content not just metadata) has been central to almost every success that they will admit in public. The exceptions being mostly major defectors.

I suspect the prospect of strong encryption by default is deeply worrying to them. But as plenty of people have posted, they have only themselves to blame.

The elimination of student grants is to blame

One obvious point is the effect of the elimination student grants in the recruitment of PhD students. If you have any bank debt from your undergraduate course then you want to start paying it off. If you delay for 3 years to do a PhD, the interest on that is still ticking up. So not many English & Welsh nationals want to start a PhD when they could be earning instead. So the places are taken by foreign nationals who tend to be far more mobile, and go elsewhere on graduation. They do not hang around to start a start-up.

As PhD students are the cheap labour of the university system, this is important. Much of the knowledge gained in a PhD project remains in the head of the person who did it. To develop that project to the point that a start-up could be viable requires that person to stick around.

Did Dyson participate in the standards setting process?

This is precisely why it is important to actually participate in the standards setting process. It is a very dull, detail-orientated and time consuming process. No-one else is going to do it for you, because unless they are actually in the same industry they will not be as alert for all the ways you can get fucked over.

True example: About 16 years ago there was a British Standard being drafted concerning eddy current non-destructive testing instruments. One clause stated that the instrument must be returned to the manufacturer for annual calibration. That would have guaranteed the manufacturers a nice steady income stream, and cut out perfectly competent and cost-effective independent calibrate-and-repair companies.

Of course, being in Europe we have a right to participate in the standards drafting process. After brexit goods will still have to comply with EU standards to get into Europe (that's what CE marking is all about), but we will be able to do absolutely nothing about what is written in the standards documents.

Lucy Porter's approach

Lucy Porter had this in her set about 9 years ago:

"I went to the bank and they told me I needed a security question for telephone banking. I asked if there was a list to choose from and they said no, I could pick any question. So now it's great, whenever I call the bank the person on the other end has to ask me "You're not going out dressed like that are you?" and I reply "You can't tell me what to do, you're not my real dad!""

More security Q & A fun suggestions can be found here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/04/fun_with_secret.html

But can you change a headlight bulb?

Nice looker, but how easy is it to change a headlight bulb? Can you do it by the side of the road, by torchlight, after a traffic cop has stopped you for having a blown headlamp bulb?

Is there somewhere to store a full size spare wheel without displacing passengers or luggage?

NEVER buy a Fiat

Fiats may be nice when brand new, but their build quality is crap.

Mine had:

Massive clutch problems.

Air mass sensor failure.

Leaking sunroof.

Wheel bearing failure.

Gearstick to gearbox linkage failure when crossing 3 lanes of traffic (no prior warning).

2 separate occasions when an engine sensor failure dumped us out on the M1.

This was despite having the car from new and dealer servicing throughout.

Fiat: Just say NO!

Sounds like botched distribution engineering to me

A site like this will have a high voltage distribution network, operating at 11kV, perhaps with a backbone at higher voltage, e.g. 66kV. In order to provide redundancy, much of the network will be interconnected so that it is possible to switch off any single part such as a breaker, substation or cable for maintenance without affecting users. A major consideration in such networks is fault level. This is the current that will flow into a short circuit until a fuse or breaker interrupts it. Obviously the fuse or breaker has to be rated to interrupt the fault current, which may be in the mega amp range, otherwise you get the kind of failure described here.

What is sometimes not obvious is that the more interconnected the network is, the harder it is to estimate the fault level accurately, and the easier it is to exceed equipment fault interruption ratings by having all the links closed. High fault capacity switchgear is expensive, and will generally not be installed at the lower levels of the network. I suspect that for the reasons stated by others, tight cost control, poor project management and security paranoia have combined to produce an unmagageable distribution network.

The intersection of two major power corridors probably complicates the whole issue as well.

@Captain DaFt

There is a procedure called "Phasing Out" to counter precicely this problem. Even so, equipment should be rated to interrupt fault current without damage to non-wearing parts.

@Chris G

Once an ionised path has been established, 11kV goes exactly where it wants and will chew up EVERYTHING.

Where is The Thing?

The John Carpenter one.

Who will want to do a PhD when they have >£27k debt?

The point that worries me is that there will be very few people applying for UK PhD's when they already have interest on a >£27K loan ticking away after finishing their first degree.

With this cut in funding I think that the government is recognizing that there will be fewer applicants for however many places remain.

What the full force of RIPA should be used for..

Is catching the dirty bastards who fail to clean up after their dogs. And then make them eat it up with a spoon.