Posts by handleoclast

Re: Tides

The thing about tides is, you don't need a moon for them. The sun also causes tides. Not as much as our moon's tides, but enough to make a difference between spring and neap tides (or swede tides, if you're Scottish). Which is a good thing, because our moon is abnormally large and it's likely to be very rare for a planet to have a moon that large. Yes, there are larger moons in our own solar system, but not as large as ours relative to the planets they orbit.

I doubt seasonal temperature variations speed up the evolution of multicellular or even intelligent life. But I could be wrong about that.

It's possible you need a molten core for life. One hypothesis for abiogenesis is the convection currents and supplies of chemicals around hydrothermal vents being ideal for polymerizing nucleotides. Those vents tend to have a lot of archaean extremophiles, and archaea predate bacteria.

The magnetic field associated with a molten core also seems important to shield the planet from harmful radiation.

otherwise they wouldn't keep doing the same things over and over again and expect different results.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. Especially if you get a massive bribe for each attempt. In that situation you don't want to succeed, otherwise you wouldn't get another bribe for trying again.

Re: RE: Crossrail

@JeffyPoooh

Sometimes, the commentards around here puzzle me. Why did you get so many downvotes? What you claimed is the truth. A rather bizarre and unbelievable truth, but true nonetheless (for strange values of "truth").

Maybe you were downvoted for not providing a link. Here it is.

Maybe you were downvoted by those who found the video, watched it, and were annoyed because it took a hell of a long time to prove its point and did so in an interminably rambling way. In which case I'll probably get downvoted too.

Who knows? I certainly don't

People, eh? You can't live with them. You can't chop them up with a chainsaw and flush them down the toilet. Well, you can, but eventually you get caught and imprisoned.

lead acid and gassing

deep cycle wet lead acid batteries really need to gas from time to time

The gas is from the electrolysis of water, giving hydrogen and oxygen, and usually happens in overcharging conditions (such as the continuous trickle charge in most UPSs when the batteries are already full). Hydrogen can lead to embrittlement in a variety of materials, which may cause unwanted problems.

In the early days of submarines it was found that the filament lamps in the battery room failed far more frequently than expected. Hydrogen from the batteries diffused rather easily through the glass envelope and caused embrittlement of the tungsten filament, making it more prone to failure from vibration. That glass envelope is sufficient to retain an inert gas in modern filament lamps, or even maintain the vacuum of the early filament lamps, but it won't stop hydrogen.

Of course, most filament lamps are illegal these days, so you probably won't have that problem. But it's probably a good idea to ensure any area with lead-acid batteries on charge is reasonably well ventilated. I don't know if anyone has done any research on the effects of hydrogen on LEDs, for example, but I suspect it won't do them any good in the long term.

Re: "after ignoring NTP for 25 years"

@david 12

NTP dates to c 1985.

It existed, under the name history..

Some of us look deeper than Wikipedia for our facts.

If, as you claim to believe, MS ignored it for 25 years, that would put the first MS implementation at c 2010.

I can't remember the exact date when I no longer had to install 3rd-party NTP solutions on Windoze because Microsoft had finally included their own implementation, but that date sounds about right. It was somewhere between 6 and 12 years ago. At some point in that timeframe I walked into a room full of computers running up-to-date versions of Windoze and the clocks were all over the place. I showed the person in charge how to fix it by installing a 3rd-party solution because at that point in time there was no Microsoft implementation of NTP.

And that first Microsoft implementation was pretty crap because it used SNTP (intended for querying a serious timeserver on your local network) to query Microsoft-run timeservers across the wider Internet. Because it was SNTP it did almost none of the sophisticated analysis required to compensate for WAN latency/congestion/etc. It was as shitty as I expected, but it was sufficiently adequate that it was no longer worth spending time installing something better.

Yep, 25 years is about right, because I recall David Mills announcing NTP had been in operation for 25 years around the same time that Microsoft finally got around to implementing NTP on Windoze. Just because you find it hard to believe that Microsoft ignored NTP for 25 years does not mean that they didn't ignore it for 25 years. You should not let your personal credulity get in the way of actual facts.

The rest of your post is of similar value.

That appears to be the pot calling an iceberg black.

Re: EE? No need to say any more

Yet, the nearest EE and Three masts are next door to each other...

But not operating on the same frequency. Perhaps not even on the same frequency band. Propagation depends upon frequency. Interference effects depend upon frequency.

Whether I get 3G or 4G from Three depends on whether or not it's raining and other (unknown) factors. Such is life in this modern world.

Re: Am I the only one who read that as

Strangely, I read it as "homeopathic."

Re: Not impressive. But then again if you're a sysadmin how would *your* company fair ?

My gut tells me a lot of it's about setting up a process (and the automation to support it) so it's so easy to do the right thing it gets done.

SCAP.

Official pronunciation "Ess-CAP" or "Ess See Ay Pee." I think those pronunciations are C-RAP and use the forbidden (and obvious) pronunciation.

That quibble aside, if you're not using SCAP, why not? OpenSCAP on Linux, a Microsoft embraced and extended abomination of it on Windows. A checklist of all known problems you should disable/neuter (e.g., sendmail, NFS) and automation to check they stay disabled/neutered. And you can customize the ruleset where circumstances demand it, such as not complaining about a web server and an email server on the same host (having one host for each minimizes the size of the attack surface, but small hosting providers may choose to live with that risk).

Why rely on your experience and memory to tell you what to disable/neuter/check when SCAP can do it for you? And keep checking that nobody has slyly installed/enabled something they shouldn't. It's not even pets vs cows territory, it makes sense for pets too.

@wolfetone

I don't, but I'd rather be seen to be a lonely old man than have to use that God awful online portal.

No need to pretend (or even be) a lonely old man. Not when you can use this...

"I'd use your on-line portal but I'm hopeless with computers."

"Erm, but it says on your account details that you're employed as a computer programmer."

"Yes, I am. Tell me, what do you think of your IT system?"

"I see your point. How can I help you?"

Make it a criminal offence to file a false report, See how many they get then.

It is a criminal offence to file a false DMCA claim to take down a youtube video you dislike (by filing a DMCA you are claiming, under penalty of perjury that your copyright has been violated). Guess how often false DMCA claims are filed on youtube... It seems to be a favourite pass time of hard-of-thinking religious people to file false DMCAs against atheist videos which point out the contradictions/flaws in their religious beliefs.

As one US president (no, not Dubya or Trump) was surprised to learn, 50% of the population are of below-average intelligence. Adolescents are known to be less capable of resisting the urge to make impulsive actions because they have yet to gain the experience to cause them to apply rational thought before acting. So, "see how many they get then"? Fucking shitloads.

Re: ISPs could mitigate this

@ andyp-random-number

We do it for cars, people have to make sure their car is compliant so as not to be a danger to others, it's called an MOT. While MOTs aren't perfect, at least the responsibility is put onto the owner.

My father use to have this approach to driving: assume the other driver is an idiot. Sure, it's the other driver's responsibility to drive safely and with due care and attention, but the injuries you suffer in an accident aren't any less severe because you happened to be in the right.

The same principle applies to MOTs and car maintenance. Your injuries aren't any less severe because the guy should have ensured his car was in a safe condition but did not. At best, the insurance companies will pay for your expenses because the accident wasn't your fault. It's still better to drive defensively.

Yes, people running memcached should tighten their security. There should be a way to fine those that do not, or at least to pass costs of defending yourself from their stupidity onto them. But this isn't an ideal world, so drive defensively.

Re: Wordpress is NOT a CMS

@nevstah

just because you can use a tool for something other than what it was designed for, doesn't mean becomes a different tool.

You missed out a word which invalidates your conclusion. Wordpress was originally designed for blogs. Drupal was originally designed as a CMS. Wordpress evolved into a multi-purpose tool (by adding CMS), as did Drupal (by adding blogs).

One can argue over how well either of those two (and others, such as Joomla) have evolved into multi-purpose tools. One can argue over whether Wordpress's CMS is better or worse than Drupal's CMS or whether Wordpress's blog is better or worse than Drupal's blog. One can argue which of them is a better multi-purpose tool, although that is heavily influenced by what one uses the tool for.

What you can't legitimately argue is that any of them are no good at what they now do based upon what they originally did. You would take exception to me claiming that you are hopeless at coding software because originally all you could do was eat, sleep, cry and shit yourself. Things change.

@Lee D

I basically agree with just about everything you wrote. Except this:

This should have ALWAYS been like this.

There was damned good reason for it being that way in the early days of the net. There were few virtual hosts, technology was still evolving, and there were very few non-geeks having a domain name. Back then you could do something really stupid that affected large chunks of the net and it was imperative people contacted you in a hurry.

These days any non-techy can grab a domain name, pay for a vhost (or cloud host) to put up an eyesore of a website. But that's OK, because if you do something on a vhost that causes big problems your hosting company will notice (in an ideal world, anyway) and do something. Nobody needs to contact you to get you to fix it because you wouldn't know how anyway.

I've seen a number of people bitten by whois. Back in the early days one paid by credit card for Yahoo! for hosting and they dumped her name, address and phone number from the card details into the whois. As a result of which, given the nature of her website, she got a stalker.

So yes, it needs to change. But it should have been like this back in the early days. The Morris Worm was just one of the many occasions where being able to find out-of-band contact details (like a phone number) allowed things to be cleaned up a lot faster.

Re: Surely it can be adapted...

The idea of a device that is sutured to a very sensitive area of the participant in advance is likely to encounter... a certain amount of push-back.

Offer it as a labial piercing and they'll all want one, pregnant or not.

Re: Ethics? It's a county just north of London, innit?

Next to Kent.

Immanuel Kent?

Re: FOOM?

"voom", surely...

Welsh spelling.

Welsh "f" = English "v." Welsh "ff" = English "f." Welsh "dd" = voiced English "th" (as in "this," not as in "thing"). Welsh "ll" = something unpronounceable.

Re: Tobacco is a carcinogen whether or not you burn it

I suspect big 'baccy likes HNB because there's still the opportunity to tweak the balance of nicotine, MAOIs¹ and enhancers to make them even more addictive using methods they've tweaked to perfection over many years, whereas vaping is pure, pharmaceutical grade nicotine,

Smoking delivers at least 6 different alkaloids, of which nicotine is known to be addictive and two of the others are suspected to be addictive. I think this may be one reason why many people mix their usage of vaping and real cigarettes. Vaping just isn't quite the same. I use vaping to stretch the time between having a cigarette, and in situations where smoking is not permitted but vaping is. The cigarette is a reward for putting up with the less-than-satisfactory vaping. I've cut my usage of cigarettes and cut my expenditure on nicotine delivery, but that's about as far as I can take it with current formulations.

In a sane world we'd be doing research on the addictiveness and harmfulness of those other alkaloids and, if the research warranted it, authorizing formulations including them. And it's almost guaranteed that it would be safer to get nicotine+alkaloids by vaping than by smoking (where you get nicotine+alkaloids+tar+carbon monoxide+witch's brew of other crap).

For those who vape for the nicotine rather than the taste, LiQuid does 10ml of 18mg nicotine liquid for a pound. Reviews of the flavours are mixed, but they're good enough for me. There are weird breakpoints on postage, so check carefully before ordering (last time I ordered, 80ml came in cheaper per ml than 100ml because of postage breakpoints). Other companies are around £2.50/10ml, so this is a big saving.

Re: Legitimate encryption

There's an interesting twist to this. Any claims that backdoored encryption will only be decrypted with a warrant are false. The people proposing it may not realize this is so, but it is.

Thought experiment. Gov't introduce backdoored encryption and mandate its use for personal communications (things like banks are allowed to use better stuff). Bad guys simply use good encryption which they then super-encrypt with the mandated backdoored encryption. How would the gov't ever know? Only when they get the warrant will they find out that the baddies have thwarted them.

So if backdoored encryption is ever mandated, it will be routinely decrypted en masse. Which will let the authorities know who is being naughty, and allow them to decide whether to arrest immediately or monitor more closely. Because using good encryption underneath the backdoored encryption will be illegal and carry heavy penalties.

So, whether or not politicians currently realize the case, whether the legislation introducing it admits it or denies it, backdoored encryption will lead to universal decryption. Everyone and everything,

On an unrelated note, my sister Jacqueline just adopted three rescue kittens which she has named Mr Poo, Marmalade and Biscuits (because he has ginger nuts, but not for much longer).

Oh, and anyone tempted to use codes should try to ensure that the messages they produce make some sort of sense. :)

Re: Build it and they will..

It's a continuously-advertised event. Or so it seems.

I try to refrain from clicking on these, but then my attention wanders and even though I've avoided it 3 days running, I end up clicking it by accident. Which inflates the apparent popularity of it. "Look at how many people read it!" More like "look how many people clicked on it by accident."

I don't even want to read about it, so there's absolutely no chance of me attending.

Re: Running in France

Obviously the Dems, as the minor partner has to give more.

Really? I'd have said they have less to lose. They may have valued their few seats at the big boys' table more, but they had far fewer of them. I think the Tories would have folded if the Lib Dems had kept raising the stakes.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Tories would have tipped over the table rather than give way. And then in the next election the Lib Dems would have gained a lot of votes for standing on their principles. As it was, they lost a lot of votes for apparently putting a few cabinet posts over principles.

Yes, to some extent the Tories gamed the Lib Dems. Gave way over their vilest ideas in private, so the Lib Dems didn't get any credit for stopping them. And traded giving up something vile in private for getting something less vile in public, where the Lib Dems got the blame for acquiescing.

If the Lib Dems had responded with "No fucking way, let's have a general election" either those less vile ideas would also have been dropped or we'd now have a different political landscape. As it is, it will be a long time before I again consider voting for the Lib Dems.

Doing private stuff at work

Some of us are content merely to have a shit at work on that basis.

A long time ago I worked with somebody who would always go for a crap five minutes after lunch break ended. It was an hour-long break so employees had the opportunity to do some shopping or whatever after eating. But he'd always hold it in until lunch break was over, rather than do it in his own time

I'm not faulting him for that attitude, but some days he did look a little strained before visiting the bog. A man of principles, prepared to suffer discomfort rather than violate those principles.

Re: C Nonsense in BASIC

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to say what the error in that program is.

The programmer used a PRINT statement instead of a DRINK statement. OTOH, that could be debugging code, just to test the concept before switching to production code.

Re: re: it was deemed over-engineering to cater for anything other than the specification required

Why are you writing software that goes beyond the specification? Who's paying for your time to do this? Where's the value to the business?

Some of us try to avoid painting ourselves into corners. We try to anticipate, a little, how things might evolve in future releases. So if we see two ways of doing something, with little to choose between them except that one paints us into a corner and the other does not...

Re: So basically it's just a bluff, and has been for the last 13 years at least

Yep. Security through obscurity. Gets the terraists thinking "They have very good passport ID chips so we can't use fake passports any more."

Now the vulnerability has been exposed CBP have a very short period of time to fix it before it starts getting exploited.

Plus ça change, plus c'est foutu. (Blame Google translate, not me).

Re: phishing mails

@AC

I really don't understand how race can affect or influence peoples behaviour then maybe that's just me.

I agree that race shouldn't affect or influence people's behaviour. But, for some people, race does. For other people it's women, or gays, or atheists who are thought to be inferior.

It shouldn't matter because there is no statistically significant difference in the abilities of the "races." It does matter because the racist thinks he or she is superior in some way to those with a different skin colour. Which, as I've pointed out earlier in the thread, is stupid.

Scammers want their marks to be stupid. So they target people showing some indication of stupidity, such as racism.

Scammers want their marks to think the scammer is stupid, so they'll eagerly fall for a the scam in which they think they're getting the better of the scammer. "He doesn't realize what he has there, I'll be able to sell that gold bar on for much more than I'm paying him," they think as they pay a lot of money for a turd wrapped in gold foil.

Given that the scammer is targeting racists for their stupidity, what can the scammer do to make the mark feel superior? Pretend to be of an "inferior" race. So that's what they do. And they're very successful.

Time on hands

@AC

It does look like Google employees have a lot of time on their hands available for talking politics.

Whereas others have a lot of time on their hands available for posting comments about all sorts of topics here. :)