Posts by I ain't Spartacus

Re: Waste Of Time

Last year there was a fire onboard a plane. It was the batteries of the emergency beacon on the top of the plane that goes off if it crashes. Few planes ditch. Even fewer ditch in unknown areas. But if you make all planes carry a transmitter, then you've made all planes slightly more complicated, and slightly more dangerous. With another high-capacity battery (i.e. fire risk) required.

What the balance of safety is, I don't know. But there are arguments on both sides.

Now in this case, the satellite comms remained functional. Something you wouldn't expect in most crashes. So had they paid extra for real-time tracking they'd have a far better idea where the plane was when it ran out of fuel (still leaving a reasonably big search area).

We can. But it costs money. Satellite bandwidth is not cheap. And most of the time, planes are operating under ATC in controlled airspace. So the location is known. In most accidents the crew have time to get a radio message out. Plus, if you crash in the deep ocean, everybody's dead anyway, so it's only a matter of finding the wreckage.

Remember there was a plane a couple of years ago that had a fire in their emergency radio beacon. So there are reasons not to want any more electrics on your aeroplane than you absolutely need. And none of these things are ever "a few hundred quid", because they have to be certified. So they cost mucho dinero.

On the other hand, most planes have a satellite uplink. Used for the passenger phones (horribly expensive), passenger internet (also horribly expensive) and for data communications. So they can report back to maintenance if they're having mechanical glitches, and get the plane booked in for repairs on give diagnostic info. Many airlines also pay for extra data, and use this uplink to give course, location and speed info to their control centre, so they know exactly where all their planes are. Malaysian were losing money (as many airlines do) so hadn't gone for that expense.

Re: Plane goes missing, search robot goes missing…

Didn't the Aussies also lose one of their nice deep-scanning sonar doohickeys in January? I seem to remember one of their survey ships having to run back to Freemantle for a new bit of kit, just as that Chinese ship was turning up last month.

As you say, clearly a conspiracy.

Watch out for those Old Ones.

You'd be mad not to...

Re: Waste Of Time

Actually, it is a waste of time only in a different way.

Mr Anonymouse,

It's not a waste of time to try and find out what happened for the families, and/or recover bodies. Though admittedly there should be limits on how much time and effort you spend on this. The Chinese are putting in a lot more than they normally would, because this has become a political issue.

However, the real reason to do this is air safety. Air travel is even safer than train travel. Which is an amazing achievement considering that trains don't have to rely on both wings and engines working to avoid crashing - and don't even need steering.

This has not happened by luck. But by dint or hard, and continuous effort. It means investigating every accident, and trying to learn the lessons from it.

As an example, that Air France crash in the South Atlantic. I believe the plane was lost for 5 years? Or was it only 3? Anyway they did lots of searching, and found the wreckage. Got hold of the black box and learned some extremely valuable lessons about pilot confusion - and the way that modern fly-by-wire planes can sometimes dump control on the pilots in an unexpected mode that they're not expecting. Basically they're trained to assume that you can't stall a fly-by-wire plane, because it won't let you make those control inputs. But if the flight computers have totally lost track of the situation, there's a failure mode where they'll just exactly follow the pilot. Hence some retraining is needed.

There was also an issue with both pilots trying to use the stick at once, again a total breach of training, but that's resulted in Airbus redesigning their controls to stop it happening again.

Re: The.. just.. I don't even

I would imagine the billing system is probably polling information from the control system. And presumably the treatment controls are on the same system as the network/metering ones. Obviously this should be via a locked down account with no permissions - but I guess it isn't. Well, even more obviously, it shouldn't even be connected - that info should be going to an offline database first.

I can understand wanting to have central control of the system. Rather than having to control things individually at each pumping station and works. But that should be via a private network, not the internet. And there certainly shouldn't be a bloody web server.

Admittedly they do regular testing of the water. But although some of that will be manual, so not vulnerable to computer intrusion, I'd expect that this will also be moving towards automation though.

You can do an amazing amount of damage though. If you control valves, pumps, or worse pumps and valves - then you can easily cause pipes to burst. With chemical dosing you can either overdose or underdose the water and cause problems. Sewage plants are also delicately balanced, in that they have beds which use bacteria to break down some of the waste products - and if too much of certain chemicals gets in there, it kills off the colonies, and stops the treatment plant working.

Re: 9/11 was a "lucky shot"

DougS,

What do you expect if you fly 2 planes into a building, when each has got well north of 20 tonnes of fuel onboard? Plus don't forget the hoped-for casualties from the two other planes.

Anyway the point is that Al Qaeda were after mass casualties, as well as headlines. There was a plot that got foiled a few months after to detonate bombs on 8 planes over the Pacific simultaneously. That wasn't like the Heathrow plot here, mostly home grown, but one of Bin Laden's senior lieutenants. So they were hoping for a couple of thousand casualties there.

The point is that their schtick was killing lots of people at once. More headlines that way. I guess because their only constituency is nutters. Whereas the IRA had to have some public sympathy in order to survive in the community - and had an objective that was actually sane. Even if their method of achieving it was evil. That imposed limits on them. When AQ tried to hold territory in Iraq, the locals rose up and killed/expelled them, then did a deal with the hated US army to keep them out.

Re: I lived in London in the 1970's ...

Nice bit of revisionist history there. If you were a soldier or a policeman you and your family were fair game for the IRA. And in fact so were children as Omagh proved. Don't try and pretend the IRA were some kind of worthy opponents

boltar,

I didn't. Try reading people's posts before flying off all in a lather.

I said that the IRA weren't always trying to maximise casualties. And their operatives were also trying to stay alive and avoid arrest. Not that they were honourable, nice, fluffy or whatever else. They sometimes issued warnings, or attacked property/infrastructure when it wasn't in use. Their objective was supposedly to cause enough constant trouble that the rest of the UK would get sick of the troubles and abandon the Unionists. This made them less of a threat to life than the modern Islamic terrorists who are often trying to maximise casualties - and be as cruel as possible.

I've no illusions about the IRA - my Dad got bombed by them twice.

Oh, and Omagh wasn't done by the IRA. It was the Real IRA - or the I Can't Believe It's Not IRA... Who were opposed to the peace process.

Re: GSM ACC

Alexander J. Martin,

I'd imagine the legal argument is easy. Telecoms is a regulated area. You'll almost certainly need a license to operate. In the specific case of mobile phones, you have to buy a license to use the radio spectrum, and that comes with conditions. The network itself may or may not be publicly owned, but the spectrum is.

Anyway I'd imagine that the appeals for people to stop phoning were to get the numbers down, so they could switch the networks back on. As if you've got too many people trying to connect to one cell, it's probably not going to be able to discriminate between priority and non-priority callers due to volume of traffic. At which point, the most viable way to work things would be to drop to some other mode - that either limits or drops connection to the lower priority users. I'd assume you want to keep them on the network so texts and 999 calls can still get through - but drop call requests.

Re: I lived in London in the 1970's ...

The IRA threat was different. The World Trade Centre attack killed a similar number of people in an hour as 30 years of the troubles did. They were interested in getting away afterwards - and often not particularly trying to kill people. Whereas the current nutters seem to want to take as many people with them as they can manage - and not survive themselves. So they're harder to deter, and need more force to contain.

Not that I'm saying we should be any more worried or stop going about our daily lives. But those people in the security services paid to deal with this every day do have more of a threat on their hands. And it's their job to ask for more powers, even if society chooses to ignore them and accept a bigger risk.

Re: Not only in the capital

They were apparently still allowing text messages (at least the government statement was urging people to use them rather than calling) - so I imagine they weren't worrying about remote triggers. Or had blocked texts at the specific cells they were worried about. Some of the second lot of London bombs and the Madrid train bombs used SMS triggers.

That's not a nice trade-off to have to make - between making people's lives even harder (given the level of disruption and lack of voice comms) and safety.

Re: getting close to home

Hopefully makes you think that the beer's lovely, and so are the restaurants. As is the chocolate. So now's as good a time as any to go. I'm sure the economy will be grateful, and there'll be cheap hotel rooms available too.

Not been back for a while, so perhaps it's time to plan a trip. I used to commute through Maelbeek station every day.

Re: That's perspective for you.

I am surprised that the number of people killed was this low because we're talking peak hour traffic here.

They seem to have bombed the Metro well over an hour after the airport. And after 9am. So it willl have been a lot emptier. That's my old route to work, and it's a lot less crowded than the London Underground even at peak times. The tunnels are also bigger, and less deep - which at least makes the emergency services' job a bit easier.

I'm surprised they're even allowing text messages. That's a tough dilemma for the police. Bombs have been triggered by text message before - I know the UK system has therefore got the facility to block texts - but on the other hand people need to be able to communicate. Especially when public transport has been shut down.

Re: Live Below the Line Challenge 2016

I'm normally prepared to spend the extra 30-40p required to get tinned ones, when I'm not on such a strict budget.. Though the real answer is that it put me off the humble chickpea, which was never an ingredient I cooked with much anyway. So I've not had them since. I'll find an alternative, probably lentils.

Someone likes the things though. Or so I deduce from the downvotes I've received, possibly from the chickpea liberation front?

Re: Live Below the Line Challenge 2016

When they've been soaked in food factories and the skins taken off by nice machines, chickpeas are OK. I wouldn't say yummy, given they don't taste of much - so the flavour is down to how nice your sauce is. Also why roasted red pepper humus is the food of the gods, and plain humus is a bit dull.

But I soaked them for longer than the 8 hours the packet said (I think I gave them 12), and then they were cooked in a stew that got 2 hours, and they were still hard so I had to cook the stew for another hour the next day. Whereas the tinned ones soften up nicely. The problem was that it was more expensive to buy a tin, than a much larger packet of dried ones - and I was straining my budget by trying to have as much variety in my meals as possible.

Looking at my spreadsheet, I spent more on chickpeas than I did on rice (44p as opposed to 42p). Weirdly, my biggest expense was £1.05 on tinned tomatoes, next 94p on frozen mixed veg, and 73p on 11 eggs. I think the chickpeas might have been better replaced with some cheese, more eggs, or another loaf of homemade bread (32p) and more marmalade. Lidl's 49p thick cut marmalade is surprisingly nice, though only had 2 or three actual pieces of (admittedly thick cut) peel in the whole jar...

On checking my spreadsheet I went 10p over budget. Which I'm quite pleased with, given I did it in my head and calculated the budget at the end of the week, by working out what I'd used and comparing to the reciepts. If I do it again, I really want to try and get some meat in there, just to see if I can still make it add up.

Re: refused work visas .. And why would they do that?

The euro is steadily increasing in value against the pound.

Temporary fluctuations in foreign exchange rates are not a substitute for economic analysis.

That smart money is betting on the euro having a better future.

Smart? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Wheeze! If smart money always knew what it was doing, please explain the recent global crash?

The Euro, in it's current form, is doomed. That doesn't mean it'll collapse, just that it'll have to change, or some countries will have to leave.

Ireland's GDP is predicted to grow at 8% next year. Greece will be minus something, France and Italy will stagnate, Germany is predicted to get about 1.2% growth. Riddle me this: How is the ECB supposed to set the correct interest rate?

What do you think caused the last Eurocris? In the last boom, Germany was barely growing, as they'd decided to fuck over their fellow currency users by cutting wages for export companies (Hartz IV). This increased their exports, but at the cost of domestic demand - and with the hang-over from the unification with East Germany it left the economy very sluggish. It was also a breach of the Growth and Stability Pact, which was supposed to stop governments over-spending (France and Germany first broke that in 2003), and also to keep intra-Euro trade surpluses down and stop competitve devaluation.

Meanwhile Ireland and Spain (for 2 examples) were growing much faster. France was also growing slowly, as it has consistently done since joining the ERM (precursor to the Euro).

The ECB set interest rates quite low, to help France and Germany. Spain and Ireland were therefore saddled with interest rates lower than their inflation rate! During a boom. Thus making borrowing money effectively free. Can you see how this might go wrong, and lead to a huge speculative housing bubble? Well, guess what happened...

Germany, and the other trade surplus states, had a surplus of cash. The reason the rules on stability were there. BTW Germany's intra-Euro trade surplus has been over the 6% limit for the last 6 years. The European Commission haven't even written them the mandatory letter to tell them off, let alone taken the actions to start punishing them for their breach of the Eurozone rules. Funny how they're so great at preaching about budget deficits though...

Anyway a country with a trade surplus by definition isn't spending enough internally. So they're not buying exports from their target markets, and have cash left over. But with insufficient demand in their economy (else they'd have balanced trade), they will have excess savings. Excess savings won't find anywhere to be invested internally due to low demand, so get invested abroad. This funds the trade deficit of the other countries). Hence German banks lent loads of money (very badly) to Greece, Spain, Ireland etc. - which pumped up their booms even higher, and then made the inevitable crash far more devastating.

This is called an asymetric shock. And is what was predicted by the economists before the Euro came into being. Policy cannot be coordinated, because now Germany is growing, but Italy's economy is smaller than it was when it joined the Euro.

The correct policies for different bits of the Eurozone bugger up the other bits. This is also true of any single currency area, though the US and UK have more convergent economies than the Eurozone does. But also we have fiscal transfers. Hence we spend more on Scotland than it raises in tax, and this makes up for the oil shock. And saves Scottish workers from all having to take pay cuts (like Greece) or move South. The US Federal government also sends more cash to those states with greater needs. I quote from Tim Worstall, formerly of this parish, for the graph at the top - though I'm sure the article is also good: Torygraph linky.

Re: Brits who live in other parts of the EU...

Net migration to the UK from the EU has been something like 2-3 million, over the last ten years. I seem to recall it's averaged something like 500k in to 200k out. So yes, there's plenty of Brits in the EU - but then there's plenty of EU citizens living here. That's a good incentive to do a deal - which looks mostly like what we've got now, but probably with less benefits on both sides. It also might make it more attractive to seek citizenship, if you're throwing your lot in with another country in the long term.

But this is politics. You have your concerns. And I believe you get a vote too. Others have their concerns. And we get to find out what the majority of people are most worried about. Other peoples' interests are harmed by the EU, and where's your concern about them?

This is what the political process is about. Resolving disputes between competing interests.

Re: Freedom of movement.

Leaving hurts us more than 'them'.

That depends on how you slice it. Ireland would suffer massively if the EU chose the nuclear option. It would be so bad for their economy that they'd have an appalling choice of quite the Euro and leave with us and suffer a huge recession, or stay in and suffer a possibly huger recession for longer.

We have now overtaken France as Germany's number two export destination (after the US). While we export a lot less to Germany. We have a trade suprlus on our non EU trade, and trade surplus on our services industry (the second biggest in the world after the US), but a trade deficit with the EU because they sell their goods to us but keep the trade barriers up against our more competitive services. Also because the Euro is still in depression due to pisspoor policymaking, and so their imports of goods have collapsed, while they try to export their way out of trouble.

Before the crash 60% or our exports were to the EU. Now it's down to something like 42%. Imagine how much faster our recovery would have been, had the rest of the EU tried a vaguely competent economic policy... Osborne made spending cuts (well actually lowered the rate of increase), partially offset by QE and low interest rates. The Eurozone made much deeper cuts (27% in Greece!!!!!!!), and the ECB actually raised interest rates in 2009! And didn't start QE until last year.

As for the argument that they'll punish us if we leave, there is certainly a risk of that. But I'd argue that with friends like that, who needs enemies. Either they're our allies or they're not. Germany in recent years have shown a distressing tendency to fuck over their supposed allies for short-term gain. Such as opposing the Southstream gas pipeline to Russia, on the legitimate grounds that it was a way to screw over Ukraine and divide the EU attempts at a commone energy market. Then secretly did a deal behind the rest of the EU's back to expand Nordstream (a competing pipeline that just so happens to screw over both Ukraine and Poland). Not to mention Germany's treatment of Greece, Cyprus and to a lesser exrtent Spain and Ireland. And Germany's continuing flouting of Eurozone rules by running a 7% trade surplus, while preaching loudly to everyone else about sticking to the fiscal rules. Not to mention the continuing attempt to make a unilateral German Syrian refugee policy for the whole of the EU.

I expect tough negotiations in peoples' own national interests. That means we'll lose things as well as winning some. And it'll be unpredictable. If they try to fuck us over - they risk a recession that will finally destroy the Eurozone, and possibly the EU. And an attempt to destroy say our car industry, does as much damage to their own, given how integrated it all is. Same with aerospace, pharmaceuticals, even to some extent banking and insurance.

Re: refused work visas .. And why would they do that?

Jess,

One of the problems is that the outcome of staying in is also totally unknown.

The Eurozone is utterly doomed, unless something radical is done. Italy, Portugal, Greece and Finland can't survive in it, as currently constituted, and France, Ireland, Spain and Belgium (also possibly the Netherlands) can stay in, but at the cost of every boom being too big and inflation-y or bust being deeper than need-be. Or both.

Either there needs to be a solution involving pooling more sovereignty and some tax, spending and government debt - or a managed break-up losing some countries. Or it'll collapse - causing a hideous global recession, and possibly taking the whole EU with it.

The public are becoming more anti-EU in almost every country.

Cameron tried to get the EU to agree to take ever closer union out of the treaties. No one cares about it anymore. There are very few Federalists left in power. Almost no-one is working towards an EU superstate, the public no longer believe in it, and that generation of politicians have mostly retired or died. Germany are one of the most pro-Federalist countries, and certainly the only big country left with that opinion being mainstream. The polls still show this. Even though lots of them are unhappy with the Euro. Yet the whole tone of the debate about bailing-out Greece, or even Cyprus, Portugal and Ireland was bitter and very unpleasant. And showed that neither the people or the governments really believe they're part of the same group.

And yet they wouldn't give it to him, because that would imply a 2-speed Europe. Which we've already got of course. Us and the Danes aren't joining the Euro, we have opt-outs. Sweden promised to, but keeps losing the referendum and the Poles aren't even pretending to join anymore. Schengen is collapsing, and the core countries can only save it by kicking out the peripheral ones.

And yet apparently Cameron couldn't get a simple, basically non-controversial change through that would have made winning the referendum quite a bit easier. And that suggests that we'll again be faced with a bunch of new regulations to save bits of the EU that are currently in crisis - and told if you don't sign up we're screwing them all over. And forced into an unwilling choice to torpedo neccesary reform, or sign up to stuff we don't want.

Not that Brexit isn't also a large risk. But with the EU in it's current state, I'd argue there are no safe choices. And no ideal ones either. It's messy compromise all the way. At which point, I'm tempted by the messy compromise that involves more democracy, where if politicians screw up we can kick them out and get new ones who'll reverse it. The EU is good at new regulations, but quite bad at fixing broken old ones.

Re: Referendum

You could of course ignore the campaigns, and do a bit of reading about it yourself. And form your own conclusions.

The problem with taking the attitude that if you ignore politics it'll go away, is that it doesn't go away. There's decisions to be made between competing interests in society, that means politics. You can ignore it, but it assuredly won't ignore you.

Re: Freedom of movement.

I'm tending towards supporting Brexit, but haven't decided. My anger over the appalling treatment of Greece and Cyprus, and belief in democracy are currently trumping the desire for an easy life. I still believe we'll vote to stay in, so hope it's a close vote or we might suffer political revenge for staying - which is a minor threat also if we leave. There are some things that annoy me about the EU, some that are good, and bits in between. But I'd say it's almost a nailed on certainty that little will change in the short-term, whichever way we vote. Unless common sense does break down, and everyone decides to start a trade war. There was a perfectly acceptable compromise deal to do on Greece (and particularly Cyprus), and yet Merkel's government, and others, chose to posture and grandstand and totally fuck over their economies, to no purpose.

I'd love us to have a free trade deal, with limited freedom of movement much more under our own control. And the EU to complete the single market in services (France, Germany and Italy in particular were much more eager to nail down free trade in goods, where we have a trade deficit with the EU, and have continually blocked/slowed freedom for services exports back to them from us). I'd also like to have seen some sort of associate membership for Turkey to tie them in as a democratic ally (looks too late for that now), and an end to the Common Agricultural and Fisheries Policies. Plus the EU to either get serious about a common security/diplomatic policy, or leave it to NATO. Sadly a bunch of those are mutually exclusive, and not all available if we leave, or if we stay.

Even if the rest of the EU were willing to grant us our fantasy, perfect deal, it'll take years. I read a piece on this that said the EU takes 4-10 years to negotiate a trade deal, the more complex the longer. And we're wanting something incredibly complex in a part of the EU that is still mostly done by unanimous voting - so if you don't get everyone on board, it gets vetoed. And there's going to be some natural resentment that we've buggered off, and that we're forcing hard negotiations on governments that they didn't want.

Additionally, the civil service have been more europhile than the politicians in every government except early Blair and Heath. And they're doing the negotiating.

So our choice is leave the EU without much of a trade deal, and suffer tariffs and discocation of trade while we slowly grind through sorting it out. Or do a deal where we do a quick and dirty shift from EU members to EFTA or EEA (there are technical differences which always confuse the hell out of me) - with the intent to slowly negotiate a few changes. Presumably once out of the EU we can discriminate on benefits against EU citizens, even though they get access to the country to work, which is a better balance than we have now. But while the Eurozone is so utterly fucked, we're going to get skilled migration from the EU, as well as unskilled, and short of deploying the army to the coasts and introducing ID cards, that's unstoppable anyway.

Re: "That means that the answer lies in completely ignoring Peeple altogether."

El Reg have done a bad thing though:

We downloaded and logged into the app and couldn't find a single other person either through our phone's contacts or Facebook friends. So long as it stays that way, then this monstrosity of an idea will stay where it ought to be: in a grave.

So now Peeple have got an entire addressbook of El Reg's contacts to furtle.

Hence providing a vector for this internet zombie plague to spread.

Re: There's no problem, only solutions

The problem with that, is you can then shove so much stuff into your many pockets, that you can no longer walk. Or find which pocket any of it is now in...

Re: As for the RAZR..

I now hate you both! Say after me: "The RAZR was the best phone ever!" Now write that down 100 times!

It's forever implanted in my memory as my favourite ever phone. Because ergonomically it was perfect. I don't ever remember having problems with the shiny keyboard - partly I suspect because it was a proper keyboard with big keys for my big fat fingers, so I didn't need to look at it. Even though it had that weird, flat, interleaved metal design, you still got positive feedback from pressing them. Unlike the occasional frustration of tapping on unresponsive glass smartphones. I had the original, in silver, and don't recall it being too shiny, followed by the the V3i in (ahem!) metalic aubergine - it came with an Orange contract, so I suppose I should be grateful it wasn't metalic orange.

The flip was brilliant. Made it small, and thin in the pocket - because they'd made the phone so wide. This made it very nice to hold in your hands - and meant the microphone reached your mouth. Also the flip and your face together act as a wind-break - so your listeners don't think you're standing in a hurricane when talking to them on the street. And they could use a more directional microphone too, hence the call quality was better. And you couldn't accidentally press buttons in your pocket. Even my smartphone has managed to unlock itself in my pocket before. Finally, you could end a call by flipping the phone shut, one handed, with a very satisfying snap.

The software on the other hand. Oh dear. Aaarrgggh! Now you've reminded me, and spoiled my happy nostalgia. What a mess. And on the V3i - the hardwired WAP button, that couldn't be reassigned. The one that they put, right next to the on/off/end-call/cancel button. Aargh! I think it was about 2p just to open the Orange WAP portal, that it defaulted to.

I wonder if it's some kind of law? The better a phone is ergonomically, the worse the software? Certainly borne out by my favourite smartphone case design, the HTC Wildfire.

I dug an old Samsung slider out of a drawer for Mum, when her phone broke. It was my second favourite dumbphone, bought after flip phones stopped being sold, and the RAZR had died. I had fond memories, until I tried to show her how to use it. That Samsung UI was even worse.

My esteemed colleague has got WiFi calling turned on permanently. As it doesn't appear to have a setting of use the phone network that actual works when it's available, and only default to WiFi when that isn't working.

So, wonderful, he can make Dalek style calls on Tube platforms. But it then uses Dalek mode WiFi when he's in the office and he ends up coming and standing virtually on my desk (which is next to the WiFi router) in the vain hope of getting some reception. I've pointed out that it's our office broadband connection that's flakey and the WiFi not only reaches into his office perfectly well, but also the next door pub garden...

The other constant conversation I overhear is, "just a minute. Let me call you back. I'm about to leave the office and it'll cut the call off when I do".

Sadly he's still ignoring my suggestion of just turning the damned thing off - though he's also still complaining about it.

Re: Welcome to the wonderful otder of Luddites

utter bollocks will always make its way onto the Internet. It is the way of things.

This is Dabbsy's problem. He's worked out the reason for everything, but failed to make the vital final connection.

No, his phone isn't trying to slice off his bollocks. It's trying to bite them off. Once achieved it can then upload them to the internet. Where they belong.