Posts by Dr Gerard Bulger

Ergonomics. In the 1990s we had a choice of GUI systems on Windows and a system using Telnet session on SCO Unix, yes THAT unix. Anyway we were able to use a THIRD of the staff to achieve the same output and input of medical and accounting data for sone 300,000 lives once we gave up on the GUI systems. Once learnt a few quickeys, we confiscated the mice, the system was SO slick. Clinical systems have gone backwards as they insist we stare at the screen all the time. A touch typist and the function keys never need do so. It would peeb with an error or wrong box.

What GUI/Windows does is gives the impression of being intuitive, but you can never speed up. It makes processing painfully slow. Clinical systems in the UK have never got back the speed and elegance of the disciplined TELNET/SSH sessions of old. Medical IT has gone backwards.

Gerry

What I like about the madness of the monarchy is that if keep politicians in their place. It's a job they CANNOT have, cannot aspire to. When they bow and curtsy to he monarch they are forced to have a bit of humility and we like to see that. In effect they are bowing to the people.

Does that mean Tor itself and those running tor exits will be next?

The implication is any hiding of ID and path is now illegal.

Tor may be a bit broken anyway. But glad I closed my exits last month or PC plod might call. Pity for those in Burma etc that were using them

Bring Back Telnet (or VT100/ansi via SSH)

There is a good reason it is popular. Brain is not cluttered with junk and mouse actions. Every now and again I have to open up an old clinical system of the 90s that used a telnet session. It seems SO slick compared to its modern versions if clinical systems, The quick keys, discipline the telnet session it enforced on programmers makes it SO fast and quicker to use than modern GUI. It gets information in and out that you need ergonomically. I often wonder if there could be conversion of telnet sessions for Ipads and Tablets. We need to get back to clear uncluttered text for so many applications.

I had my first jab in England, where I work, then the second jab (A-Z) was in Scotland where I was working when it was due

According to the National Health Service app I have only had one jab, as the nations systems cannot talk to each other. The English Covid jab recoding system as linked to payment, so as there i nobody in England to pay there is no mechanism to add my record.

The Scottish system cannot enol me as i am not resident in Scotland.

So I can never have a Covid passport....

A developer made such a blunder listing all the addresses of its new buyers in the completed blocks. That should have been that

Anyone using any email address provided may be in breach of GPDR, but not necessarily in private person to person emails. Anyway, mysteriously but unsurprisingly a residents and owners support group popped up a few days later. Apologies from the developer accepted with thanks

Agree. it is the arrogance these companies have assume the internet data is free. In Falklands that would cost me £10 plus. Its difficult to stop this chatter. Worse if using satellite expensive. The only way I found is to set up a proxy server external and kill any default internet connection.

https://bulger.co.uk/satellitecost.htm

https://bulger.co.uk/satellitecost2.htm

Good luck to them!

Gerry

So looking forward to this for places the remaining British overseas Territories who are being ripped off by monopoly suppliers.. enforced by local law. Most have to rely on satellite, so of course more costly and geostationary latency is so long. But now they have been awarded long contracts setting local technology into aspic.

Bringing in a Sat phone with data may even be illegal in Falklands, but Musk kit will be difficult to prevent locally as the service will be cheaper, much faster, and low latency for homes. https://www.sure.co.fk/mobile/mobile-price-plans/ And they charge you £30 to reactivate you sim on every trip. Broadband is iffy, grinds to a at end of each month as everyone uses up their allowance. https://openfalklands.com/business-continuity-vsats-and-the-law-of-unintended-consequences/

Bring it on!

What that on the second picture? I thought 240v kills Americans.

Or have they at last woken up to the waste and waste of cooper at 110V?

A right to repair is Luddite. The policy will not work as the companies will stop selling you stuff. You will have to lease it, and return on upgrade or repair. They are so close to that model anyway, the lease not buy, the change will allow them to build in redundancy as they they do now but with more aplomb. OK, the firms will recycle the chemicals, but there will be no right to repair as will not own it.

The modern single chip is made up what was multiple components. You cannot repair a chip. It is inevitable that a phone will almost be a single printed component.

Yes of course for items we own we should be salvageable for those who can be bothered; be able to flash an old Iphone with a new OS to make it usable again. The first ones were so well made, there is little wrong with them apart from being a bit slow. Only the software is useless.

They uploaded some shit to be on the forums and started chatting. That's kind of awkward, so they are shutting up, in doing so letting you believe it was some clever hack..

They will get round it as you will "agree". So soon when you land on any web site you will have to tick T&Cs, before reading anything. and those will be will be 3000 words plus. Life is too short, tick and Facebook gets its data

I saw the Netflix too long documentary and then The Guardian's Ted Talk. What seems SO shocking to me is the astonishment of the chaterati that any politician would ever seek to manipulate emotions to get voters out. Since Perecles surely this is what they do. Tap into the needs and expectation of voters and use rhetoric to bring them in.

What then is so immoral for politicians to use the new tools available to do what is necessary? It's fine tuning what has been happening for centuries.

The moral point they missed was the irregular source of the data, in effect stolen, but I cannot see anything immoral in trying to track down your voters, and potential voters and targeting them accordingly. Voters hate being ignored by politicians. I am free to be manipulated. I still CHOSE to vote or not.

I know the real cause of their ire. The elections they are talking about kept coming up with the wrong result.

You are right. It will be popular because there is one thing that sells. SlothApp. Anything that enables sloth sells Plug and Play.

Could not care about privacy control: it works, click on messenger, sent.

EU and USA for that matter should insist that third parties and other fledgling systems out there trying to do the same thing should have a place to be able to add their click and send systems onto all Facebook apps. The monopoly must me killed at birth.

NHS Numbers were at one time only given after you registered the baby, sometimes weeks later. So they set up a system to give your baby an NHS Number at birth in the maternity unit. I had literature about this on my desk at my GP clinic, when a farmer came in and saw it and proclaimed "so they are now chipping babies at birth!

The article read to me in favour of that approach. Its easier for the cat. So we should be chipped a birth with a place on an immutable block chain, until quantum computers....

The trouble is we only get criticised if something goes wrong, more then me jobs worth. So the default is to overdo it. Its easier to measure security breaches and failure than it is to measure ergonomics and human happiness. That threat of being sued, reprimanded, is also that which is driving the NHS to the wall. Since this default now requires us to over diagnoses, over treat, go for screening turning the nation into the worried well. The Daily Mail will only go for the missed diagnosis, not the "human interest" story the the millions of over-treated, scared populace we have harmed, even killed. Most of those over-treated will believe they are cured of cancer they were never going to die of. So you can never have too much health care, never have too much security, even when it is harmful.

So I can lug my desktop, an ASUS 270-P board based machine round there and there gurus will magically fix the May Update that prevents my PC from booting?

I have had to de-install it three times now, as their tool tool to hide a borking updates is made to fail by Microsoft's determination to force feed it.

I can just imagine... the effort of explaining this issue..

Not just Sophos?

My ASUS Z270-P board i7-7700k machine hangs with the May update with spinning circle. I have no idea why. Multiple reboots eventually it uninstalls in safe mode and I get back my working PC. Running the MS utility to stop it trying it again, wushowhide.diagcab, seem to fail to block it, as soon the May update is back on, as is the determination of micro$oft to stuff your machine no matter what.

It think Brits will simply grin and bare it, assuming the rental could be is an Airbnb dogging experience.

USB Devices

Does it access USB ports other than connected drives? WSL does not so far as I can tell, That limits its use for me, no matter what flavour penguin installed.

The point is you have a distributed ledgers, all then agree, all round he world.

The snag to this is the speed of light. It will never be instant. If you you are trying to transact something fast, as in finance, you will prefer to have it authenticated locally, within a few metres, and so better not bother with a distributed ledger and block chain at all.

A.I. will replace {insert professional here]

I sit there as a doctor, seeing patients, and for something rare I will go to dr google, adding restriction other search terms to make sure not USA, but UK guideline or Oz or NZ medical sites.. Alas the patient says "I could have done that! But you did not, and you did not know how or would have settled on Gwenneth Paltrow instead I retort. Similarly I still use Travel Agents for the more complex trips and their always find a better deal than I could extract on the internet

Why the fuck do Estate Agents still exist in this internet age. Thier demise has been predicted for decades long before the crap term AI was all the rage.

I work all over the place. Dual SIM essential. Carphone don't sell dual SIM phones, so I felt they were under the thumb of the of the big airtime boys, who also don't sell dual SIM phones. Funny that. Dual SIM or better still carrier hopping will offer competition.

There were no dual sims at the Carphone stores I went to.

So I got a Wilyefox on line, although the company is just surving and still no promised Oreo update...

ASDA of all places has a range of dual sim. Some almost half decent but not branded. No doubt Sainsburies will stop that lark

Google and Microsoft Police with No accountability

Google and Microsoft now believe they are the Internet Secret Police, and with no accountablity to anyone.

They like stop and search, and do random breath tests and never declare any reason.

They are arrogant and rude (shock)

We have to prove we are innocent.

Last year emails to microsoft's email accounts got blocked from my tiny email server. It took ages to work out what was going on since my server is not on any blacklist and is squeaky clean. But Microsoft runs their own secret blacklist and nobody knows the special rules how you get on it. And is seems if anyone nearby is being naughty they put the whole class (ho) in the corner until you prove your innocence, which is achieved days later after fighting through a dense forest or poor microsoft help sites to find the right forms and procedures, to then beg to be taken off their list. No explanation from them other than claiming the domain sent spam, which we never did, none of our logs nor traffic suggests it. We have a bolted down tiny system (i'ts really an archive now, only two active users left, handful of emails a day), SPF reverse DNS DKIM DMARC all set, no relays, no proxy, no SSH ports and so on.

I wonder if they really do random blocks

Now Google are at it, and blocked and delayed emails to their email addresses. Once again complex a hunt to find the forms, verify youself, and look at their postmaster tools of my domain. Their onw portal had no data at all as spam, nothing on IP or domain reputation about my server. So Google's public interface knows we are innocent, but some internal lottery still fingerred us. After 2 days, not even knowing if they got the forms as no acknlowedgement, we get unblocked with no explanation and no correspondence. In fact they state clearly they will not email or correspond. So what the F@ was that about?

Surey we have a right to know why we woz stopped and searched? If there was an error how does saying nothing help mitigation? Cannot they admit they got it wrong, and just were lazily applying a ban on a serction of IPs to see who protested.

Are Google and Microsoft trying to piss off all other email server and domains such we capitulate and have one other their accounts?

Everyone goes on about lack of hi-speed in the countryside. It's inner cities and those living in blocks built before 2010 that have issues and nobody mentions it. All suppliers can only over 6-7mbs here in a small block of flats in EC1 Central London. So we use a 4G service. I cannot find any supplier that offers fibre to the block, then using the copper within the building. There are those offering to set fibre to earch door in building but expensive and a locked down single contract. Let's hope CityFibre lives up to its name and offers decent speeds for City dwelllers, most live in blocks.

Can anyone explain how LIGO gets an a rough idea of the direction of the gravitational wave? Its never mentioned, probably because its something beautiful mathematical, enjoyed by those few gifted individuals in the inner sanctum. Or its not mentioned because its bleeding obvious to them. Boffins seldom mention the bleeding obvious. Us mortals want some idea as to how distance and direction and detected by such a fractional wobble. They seem to know how far away and roughly where to look. How does watching an atom hardly move allow for such deductions?

Settings

Nothing about the crap settings menu whereby you have to jump though a series of clicks to get to the old style setting pages, such as adaptor settings where you can actually do stuff. You cannot go direct from the wifi connection icon on the task bar. You cannot see IP/gateway from there. Similarly actual graphic settings are hidden behind a tree of useless GUI guff.

Add blocking. Nah; we need stop that background chatter background blocker.

Why does every damn app, or programme on any device now believe you have access to infinite and free bandwidth? It is a form of theft. I really notice this when having to use BAGAN satellite links. To avoid being bankrupted I had to set up a false default route, proxy server than only Firefox (in text mode) knew about and set one route to that, in order to avoid megabytes of crap with any device attached to the Sat Modem being pulled down and up FOR NO BENFIT OF MINE. The screen is doing nothing, but within a few minutes 700kb costing me $$ came down. I quickly stopped that. If left megabytes and my $$ stolen for nothing.

This really confused me learning to fly until I found this video. If flying depended on the shape of the wing why do commercial jet aircraft have the curve UNDERNEATH.

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/how-wings-really-work

That explains it

I could not understand the rush for the NBN while connections to the rest of the world from Oz was so bad. I could not get more than 2Mbs connection to my UK VPN from Cairns and complained about Telstra awful routing. Help lines where terrible and source of much grief. Nothing to do with us mate as the response.

Suddenly speeds improved to to 10 Mbs to my UK servers...This purchase may be the reason.

Delighted and I always knew that it was Telstra problem to fix. If only they could sort out customer service and tech support.

Junk

I understand that junk is something you kept for 10 years, threw away last week and need today.

Does it still have SSH?

The WD DRIVEs were SLOW but at least you could get SSH root access to the PowerPC Debian running it, so could make it do more useful things, tunnel and sock proxy for a start.

I wonder if the "upgrade" locks that out.

Ooops. I thought you always could do a clean install

Terrified of what Windows 8 would do to my XP system and other partitions I did clean installs onto separate disks. You need to make a bootable USB installation image and I get the process to do that off the Microsoft's site.

Was that bad?

Try Telstra

You think BT is bad.

You dunno noffink

Come to OZ and enjoy the pleasures of Telstra service calls

They have not stooped to malware messages yet but things UK have a habit of blowing over here eventually.

HealthSpace

I was a member of Connecting For Health Committees and I cannot tell you the flak I got at meetings saying this was such a waste of time. The problem was how patients were to be identified on line. It was difficult to get permission to log on as a user. My protestation that others will do it better and cheaper fell on deaf ears.

The whole Connecting for Health project was a misconception from day one, as if the NHS was a single bank with only money, not complex data to transact.

CfH destroyed competition between suppliers. The Government in effect nationalised by stealth clinical systems by rules and regulations and specifications and abuse of monoploy. CfH, the Government, was designing software. The abuse of its monopoly purchasing power as by wayof creating just one customer, HMG, the NHS, as against 30,000 GPs and then hospitals and trusts. This is the new way to nationalise and get state control of industry. Does not need legislation, and was the new Labour way to achieve its ends. This was so destructive to innovation on clinical informatics, which was been stuck in aspic by the Government designed specification and zealous contractual obligations and lack of a free market.

What they should have done is recommend standards of communication on NHS Net (Intranet), and have a secure search engine search for data on whatever clinical system being used rather than attempting to create the single records. If anyone searched for data (only those with NHS net Access) then patient would be notified by whom and when if not their GP or consultant.

They thought it so clever, HealthSpace, so trendy, Remember MySpace

BBC lost the plot

I am in Australia. I found Oz Sky a bit OTT... it gave impression whole of UK was ablaze. However Sky was better. What is SO depressing out here is to see Al Jazeera replace the BBC reporters in the news over here, on SBS at least on terestial channels. because their reports are better and more varied, that's why.

BBC World Service news is shameful, a disgrace. It often just have ony four (boring) items to report, squeezed between adverts and jingles, where as Al Jazeera has many many different NEW stories from everywhere, and old fashioned reporting (longer, calmer) with lovely camera work. The anchors and reporters getting out of the way.... using mainly British speaking or ex-pat staff so it sounds authoritive. It may have another agenda, but is gives more news without never ending jingles, adverts for itself and spinning f*ing logo. It's better on the eye. BBC world service TV is just awful.... I suggest the FO subcontracts it to Rupert Murdoch.... anything would be better than what is does now.

Mobiles in Prison

One chap at a London HMP had one up there for four years before dropping it when crouching; mindyou he used every day to call his wife, so it came out for air daily. Us docs realised the likey cause of his rectal prolapse.

He tired to claim it was against his human rights to take it away after such a time

Keeping mobiles charged up is the challenge as chargers are too easily found and a bit spikely to be stored with the mobile.

Reminds me of Wireless World Computer

It was a home brew Z80 but it had a maths co-processor, reverse polish I think. Then along came the Sinclair and that was the end of maths processing on the side.