* Posts by MJI

6857 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2009

Come kneel with us at UK's Cathedral, er, Oil Rig of the Canal: Engineering masterpiece Anderton Boat Lift

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Re: One of Severn Wonders

No they are

The Iron Bridge

Healings Mill

Upper Lode Lock

Gloucester Docks

Gloucester & Sharpness Canal

Severn Tunnel

Hinkley Point (sort of - I needed 7)

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And a few thoughts from above comments.

Old railway lines and canals, I used to love finding them and examining them, seen such as the Coombe Hill canal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coombe_Hill_Canal

https://www.gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk/nature-reserves/coombe-hill-canal-and-meadows

Droitwich canal pre reopening

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droitwich_Canal

Always had an interest in Thames and Severn Canal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_and_Severn_Canal

Small streams off the Thames when I was young, explored some with a cheap old canoe (parents had a cabin cruiser) from where we moored.

Old railway lines, like Forest of Dean, managed to get my bike on a couple, but rather too bumpy for a road bike so did not do much, didn't have a traily.

As to unpaved roads, same sort of thing, I just love to be off the beaten track, still finding them, but many are not obvious, and others blocked from traffic, but I now have a 4x4 for ones I am allowed on.

Cornwall, about 25 years ago my parents won some first class train tickets and gave them to us, we went to St Ives. Managed to get to Penzance, Falmouth, Truro, Looe, by train, Newquay was closed so still need to do that branch.

Helston was really really annoying as some idiot closed the line so could not go there.

We travelled down behind a 47, through Cornwall in 158s and branches were ran by a right mix, Looe was the GWR150 117 set. Home by HST.

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Very interesting

I find things like this fascinating.

Thanks for the article.

As Australia is gripped by bog roll shortage, tabloid says: Here, fill your dunny with us

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Re: Am I missing something ?

We have two toilets, one upstairs one downstairs.

I managed fine a few weeks ago with epic bottom squirty problems.

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Re: Am I missing something ?

I have started abusing them, calling them dirty bastards, they look very sheepish.

If security say anything.

"That dirty bastard didn't wash his hands after using the toilet, and now he is going to walk around the supermarket touching food people eat. People are going to eat his pee or poo."

If they tried to hit me I would not hesitate to break their kneecaps. (Stamp on them).

Microsoft's Cortana turns its back on consumers as skills are stripped from Windows 10

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Re: Cortana

Mark 2 as well as the Capri had rear cartsprings and newer Cortanas had coils.

Surprise! Plans for a Brexit version of the EU's Galileo have been delayed

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It already did!

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Re: Good

Airbus & Boeing - after the 737 Debacle?

Cars - I prefer British cars to Yank cars. I own an early 2000s British made 4x4. My previous cars have been Scottish and pan European (German French and British in one car).

Want to see horrible look at German basic level cars, I had a nice car a big saloon, large EFI engine, lots of nice stuff and it was bottom of range but did not feel it.

German version, no rev counter, small carb engine and no power steering!

If you're serious about browser privacy, you should probably pass on Edge or Yandex, claims Dublin professor

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With Firefox

A recent update removed the search box (now refitted).

But I have the ominous text in the address bar of Search with xxxx or enter address

Where xxxx is current search engine.

How do I get rid of search with as I want seperate boxes?

Samsung will be Putin dreaded Kremlin-approved shovelware on its phones, claims Russia

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Makes a change

From their own shovelware.

Oracle staff say Larry Ellison's fundraiser for Trump is against 'company ethics' – Oracle, ethics... what dimension have we fallen into?

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Re: God we're dumb

That is so vacuumist.

What is wrong with Dyson, Brazier or Grey?

25 years of Delphi and no Oracle in sight: Not a Visual Basic killer but hard to kill

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The saddest thing is....

Most of the tools mentioned are now heading towards end of life. Small teams trying to keep things alive as free to use, original writers retiring or sadly dieing. Or bought up as cash cows.

But I am so glad to have worked through this era, it was a great time.

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Funny how so many of the Clipper tool writers went to Dephi.

I have had exposure to most of the various databases, found bugs in some, I could crash some on demand.

Was a tester for an AS400 database engine, best described as slow.

Just had three different tools up using our data.

Advantage Data Architect (part of server software in Dephi)

My own DBU (multi RDD version recompiled with Alaska XBase++into WIN32 Console)

Our own software in Visual Objects.

If I wanted I could go to an XP PC and load up our last gen software.

All playing nicely.

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Re: OT

Clippers great tricks were, very basic OOP in places. Replacable Database Drivers (If you didn't use Advantage your software was born to corrupt indexes.)

I used to like the VGA mode in 5,3B and managed to make a DOS application pretty usable and good looking even in XP days.

Oh and EVERYONE had Blinker

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Re: C++ != BCPL

Haven't used BCPL for about 20 years

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Re: A great product that is too expensive now..

You are lucky.

I have to get support from ex developers of the system I use.

The current rights owner has retired and refuses to sell.

I will be learning C#

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Re: Why didn't it sweep all?

VB6 was horrid.

We tried it, just horrid.

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Re: not Cool

Actually it was something completely different.

MANY Delphi programmers came from the Clipper world, a big selling MSDOS database handling compiler which could handle a number of databases.

As to the replacement environment there were many.

Number one rules was - can my new development environment use the same database?

In most cases yes, but Delphi not straight away.

A large number of Clipper applications used the data formats DBF CDX FPT.

This was supported in a few other environments including Visual Objects and Alaska XBase++, Delphi used Paradox.

HOWEVER serious systems using Clipper used client server systems with Advantage XBase Server, this was a server based NLM handling the data, later on a Windows service and even more recent a Linux versions were added.

When the Advantage wrappers for Delphi appeared it took off. It was one of the bigger DOS escape routes.

I would put its escapee market share as similar to Visual Objects but with more non Clipper programmers on top.

The writers of AXS later ADS also used Delphi themselves.

But with the improvement in hardware specifications making SQL more usable for medium sized systems the need for fast client server ISAM is dropping, also we do not trust SAP with Advantage, SYBASE were fine.

Also all us older Clipper programmers are either retired, or within a decade of retiring, so systems are now moving to more main stream stuff like C.

We are currently benchmarking tools for our post WIN32 world. We took one choice to WIN32, Delphi users took another.

Oh and in the DOS days it was almost open warfare between Clipper and F*x developers.

Judge Vulcan-nerve pinches JEDI deal after Amazon forks out $42m to pause Microsoft's military machinations

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Re: It was the end of history....

B5, Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly.

Lots mentioned.

Seen bits of all, but still favourite is Trek.

I liked Firefly but the film ending upset me (Wash).

Wars, prequels, and the latest films seem odd.

Now when will ElReg channel a few other series?

And what will they be?

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Don't you mean Donald Bankrupt?

Aw, look. The UK is still trying really hard to be the 'safest place to be online in the world'

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Re: OFCOM

Block them

It's a Bing thing: Microsoft drops plans to shove unloved search engine down throats of unsuspecting enterprises

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Re: Questions II?

A German tin plate toy manufacturer.

Hear, hear: The first to invent idiot-cancelling headphones gets my cash

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Re: Not a lot of people know this ..

Say you have two car lengths at about 30 and someone dives in the gap, leaving about 3m either end maximum.

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Re: Not a lot of people know this ..

Free space in front of car.

When a car invades it becomes my crumple zone.

A lot of people drive crumple zones.

I would rather not have to replace my bumper, I care more about that than the crumple zone which barged in front.

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Re: Selective attention

My hearing is a bit duff.

I cannot bear being interrupted, it starts me stuttering (and I don't stutter) and breaks train of thought.

Two people talking at once, I do not even TRY to work out as to me it is a wall of noise.

I actually have to concentrate to listen to people.

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Last time I traveled first class

Was a long time ago.

Operator was called BR and the power cars still had Valentas.

But no mobiles, it was great.

EU tells UK: Cut the BS, sign here, and you can have access to Galileo sat's secure service

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Re: foot, shot.

Made an error. Nm correct not NM.

Shift was slow being released.

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Re: foot, shot.

Imperial and Metric

I use both

Miles for distance, HP for car power, but NM for torque, fuel in litres but quick conv to gallons for consumption.

DIY all mm and m, none of this cm or inch nonsense.

Use kg most for weight except people weight when stones, converting stones to pounds is easy

10 stone x 6.35 = 63.5kg, 63.5 x 2.2 = 140 pound, I do not know how many pounds in a stone, some even teen number I think.

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Re: Were we not told...

I think (as in I have a recollection but am not sure) that pre-Thatcher Tory governments supported ailing industries

Rolls Royce during RB211 development

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Re: "Star Trek is better than Star Wars"

Yes it is.

Sorry I grew up with Star Trek and we had a first generation transistor colour TV in 73 or 74.

Pretty sure my dad bought it for the opening of colour at our local TX

Fed-up air safety bods ban A350 pilots from enjoying cockpit coffees

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Is tea safe?

That is more important.

Bada Bing, bada bork: Windows 10 is not happy, and Microsoft's search engine has something to do with it

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Used it once WTF, never again

I never knew because I do not use it, nor the menu, they are too weird. I wanted to reboot new PC, no obvious button, so added one.

Windows Key R is all you need.

mspaint

notepad

regedit

services.msc

shutdown /r

these work

Most importantly

CMD

Now I can use it

Find a file C: DIR name.ext /s /p

How easy is that?

Still trying to get open with working properly though, keeps on about a store.

Very little helps: Tesco flashes ancient Windows desktop on Scan-As-You-Shop device

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We chat to the checkout operators.

Be nice to them, they are people too.

Ever wondered what Microsoft really thought about the iPad? Ex-Windows boss spills beans

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Re: Windows 8

The centreing of the titles was bad enough.

So used to top left.

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Re: Windows 8

For Desktops it makes 10 almost pleasant.

If you have any 7 users who have to go 10, put 8 on and they will detest it.

Not call, dude: UK govt says guaranteed surcharge-free EU roaming will end after Brexit transition period. Brits left at the mercy of networks

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The people I know to be most affected are

a couple of leave voters.

I will need to ask them why don't they start paying more now.

AMD really, really wants you to know its chips are doing OK without any help from Intel and its supply issues

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Consoles helping well

With the consoles all running AMD they have a stable income which must help well.

Apple: EU can't make us use your stinking common charging standard

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Re: We should just all use SCART

Since I have had DVD always used SCART RGB, even works with NTSC on a PAL only TV.

Decided on newer TV to do multi way tests, and I tested DVD via RGB SCART, Component, and then DVD in the PS3.

TV upscaling and PS3 upscaling were indistinguishable.

SCART provided WS switching and the colour balance appeared better than component.

So I still use an old DVD player for DVD on a HDTV.

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Re: We should just all use SCART

My TV

3 SCART

3 HDMI

1 DVI I think

1 Component

1 Composite

Plenty of ports.

Did some TV test ages ago. DVD RGB SCART vs Component RGB won.

Take DOS, stir in some Netware, add a bit of Windows and... it's ALIIIIVE!

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Re: All IT issues are caused by management...

4 x quicker according to a supplier of our.

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About this time we were still installing

Netware 5 and friends.

Customers were not allowed Windows servers until.

1) Our database could run on it.

2) Our customers had hardware support.

3) Server 2003.

4) They accepted the performance decrease.

We did have one NT family to Netware upgrade as they were hammering the server too hard.

Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly? It's about to be screwed for... reasons

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Re: Another great example

My Sony TV occasionally shows Sony Games.

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Re: Microsoft

I actually fitted the tow bar to my last Vauxhall. Last one I had because they stopped making them in favour of giant Vectras.

Also did the wiring.

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Re: Microsoft

A 50mm towball is a 50mm towball

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Re: Sonos grasped the wrong end of the stick

Get good service from a company they get repeat custom.

Get good life you look at same brand to replace.

Get good performance, the same.

Had 4 TVs same make, 3 Video cameras same make, gone from heavy separates to an all in one with HD tapes.

I am prepared to spend more occasionally to spend less overall. Known people buy a TV every 3 years. I spent £1200 on one, less money than 3x£500.

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Tellies

New one every ten years or so, does me.

First because wanted to see TV

Second because first was portable

Third because it was DVB-T, widescreen and flatscreen

Fourth because HD and HDMI and big

Fifth will be higher resolution, HDR and more HDMI, will probably go same make.

So I had a really good 14" portable from about 1980 or so. An expensive 32" IDTV, now a big LCD which upscales rather well.

Same make as my video recorder from early 80s and my last few games consoles.

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Re: "Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly?"

Music?

Just go along and see my friend band play, did my a gig recently, I was the audience.

(OK it was a final pre concert practice, but yes it was for me)

Rugby legend Will Carling tells El Reg: Techie stats bods will love this year's Six Nations

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I still remember 20:17

Good way of shutting up annoying Aussies.

I remember at primary school that balls were ran with not kicked.

I also remember that football fans were unusual.

Squirrel away a little IT budget for likely Brexit uncertainty, CIOs warned

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Re: The uncertainty has barely even begun

I do like the Wexford area, lovely over there.

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I blame Borris

Well it is his fault isn't it?

Along with the scruffy alien and the minister for the 1850s.