Posts by H in The Hague 912 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jan 2013
"And it is a bit sad to think that an entire category of shops has been almost entirely eliminated ..."
I'm v lucky that here in The Hague there is still one place like that. Yes, they do sell new-fangled stuff like transistors and Arduino related kit but they also have a huge range of weird vintage kit. A few weeks ago I was admiring their shop window stuffed full of valves/tubes, HV transformers and resistors larger than my laptop computer and got chatting with a guy in his late fifties who commented that this particular display hadn't changed much since he was a teenager, and the stuff was already seriously vintage then.
They don't have much of a website, but you can see part of the shop in the banner on:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbjoz7YmutD-JMwNrqKBvGA
Here's one for the weekend -->
Here's a pic of the moving part of the bridge lifted out by sheerlegs for the most recent restoration.
https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/1607046888/rotterdamse-brug-de-hef-een-dag-uit-elkaar-voor-megajacht-jeff-bezos
Also includes a pic of the yacht in the yard, on SPMTs to take it for a spin.
A few decades ago I lived in a flat and watched a thunderstorm pass overhead. Lightning then hit the drain cover in the road outside, so the bolt was right in front of me, less than 10 m away - made me jump. The lights in the flat went out as the induced current had tripped the RCD/ELCB.
We had two computers connected to a printer by fairly long serial cables so I expected all that kit (running at the time of the strike) to be toast. To my amazement both the computers and the printer survived!
"Is that, just possibly, because the EU never actually had the power to force us to put those safety regulations in place, ..."
Correct. As far as I'm aware EU regs are mostly about test standards for building products and some product performance standards. Building regulations (what you construct with the products) are generally up to national governments.
For example - when are sprinklers required in dwellings?
- England: if > 38 metres high, changing to if > 11 metres
- Scotland: all flats/social housing, etc. (until recently only if > 18 m)
- Wales: all dwellings (since 2013)
International example: the standards for front door thresholds (yup, I've done CPD on that) are stricter/better in England than in the Netherlands.
So, nothing to do with the EU.
"... by scrapping onerous safety regulations"
Which has little to do with Brexit. On the whole, EU regs apply to products (ladders, safety glasses, machines, etc.). The safety stuff people complain most about (very occasionally with justification) generally has to do with safety at work, i.e. processes - which are mostly covered by national rather than EU law. On the whole, UK health and safety regs are stricter than those in other countries and possibly better observed and enforced.
"it was the whole touring industry of specialist hauliers"
For details, specifically those affecting British hauliers who used to do a lot of work in this sector but have now lost cabotage rights in the EU:
https://www.lsionline.com/news/touring-transport-sector-calls-for-government-support
And the sound and lighting hire companies which used to serve the EU market from the EU are also greatly affected as they now have to make arrangements for temporary import :(
I always fancied mounting one of the front panels on the wall as decoration, art even.
Never got one but love browsing through the pics on http://www.righto.com/2019/04/iconic-consoles-of-ibm-system360.html Iconic indeed - how many of us grew up thinking that computers look like that. That site also has an interesting discussion of the 555 timer chip.
"There was a Top Gear episode where they interviewed the woman who did the design of the signs."
Margaret Calvert. If you have access to BBC iPlayer it is currently available as Series 14, episode 7. She also recently featured in Secrets of the Museum, the programme about the V&A, but that's not currently available.
Or see:
http://britishroadsignproject.co.uk/jock-kinneir-margaret-calvert/
Incidentally, the brown background for tourist attractions (introduced in the 1980s) has more recently been adopted in other European countries.
"I can't help but worry what I would do if they chewed through the wire insulation somewhere above the drywall ceiling. I wouldn't even be able to figure out where the break was"
That would be the perfect excuse to treat yourself to a nice Time Domain Reflectometer. Used to cost more than a car, now cost less than a bicycle (pedal, not motor).
Here's an example: https://nl.rs-online.com/web/p/time-domain-reflectometers/2261537
Explaining that it's not a cool toy but a tool essential to fix the intarwebs normally greatly enhances the spouse acceptance factor (if that's relevant). (Hmm, beginning to regret mouseproofing our basement now.)
"Seals are surely the purview of marine biologists."
A friend of mine used to run the in-house translation department (when there were such things) of a large oil company. One day he got a phone call from an angry freelance translator complaining about them clubbing seals to death to use their oil in the refinery.
Turns out the document to be translated contained a reference to "seal oil", which is a barrier liquid pumped through sealing components of rotating equipment. Guess the translator had a language degree rather than an engineering degree.
Here's one to start the weekend -->
"Just do it."
Yup, on the whole FF works perfectly well for me. Even when I have three instances of the browser running with dozens of tabs in each it seems to run perfectly well on my fairly average laptop.
Though a few sites don't work nicely with it, in which case I use Brave or Pale Moon, v occasionally MS Edge. Any suggestions for other web browsers to try?
"So no users on any modern end device can use it..."
Well, they're planning to replace it:
"The PEACH system will be changing to a new IT system in early 2021."
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-the-peach-system-to-import-plants-and-fresh-produce
Last updated 31 December 2020
Now remind me, what year are we living in?
"the absolute failure and devastatingly bad management of vaccine procurement by the EU"
I'm not familiar with the details, but I get the impression that vaccine procurement is now going perfectly well, and that the EU negotiated lower prices than the UK.
"EU's slow pace to approve vaccine nor will to actually sign the orders killed people?"
Interesting point: do you rush through approval so you can start vaccinating early, or do you have a more thorough approval because you're going to give a new vaccine to millions of people and want to be confident it's going to do more good than harm? Any medical statisticians out there who could comment on this?
Incidentally, as far as I'm aware the implementation of the vaccination programmes is a matter for national governments, not the EU. NL made a slow start but the booster programme now seems to be going well and I think by the end of January everybody will have been able to get jabbed.
"Brexit is a UK decision we have the right to do regardless of traitors trying to sell off the country ..."
Call me old fashioned, but I thought in British political discourse we don't usually refer to those we disagree with as traitors.
Incidentally, what is the correct term for those who sided with foreign politicians such as Trump, Putin and Le Pen whose reasons for supporting Brexit probably had more to do with their own national interests than those of the United (for now) Kingdom?
"It was supposed to get rid of red tape."
Only it doesn't. While we were in the UK for Christmas we picked up some bayonet light bulbs as you can't easily get them in NL and we need them for some light fittings. They still have the same indication (coloured bars and letter code) of the energy efficiency printed on the packaging. Only "[EU flag] ENERG" at the top has been covered by a "[Union flag] ENERG" sticker, and there's a sticker with the UK manufacturer's representative. So a fair amount of unnecessary work, making the supply chain more complex and increasing the cost to the UK consumer - while not resulting in any substantive change, let alone benefit of any kind.
And if the UK decided to invent its own energy efficiency classification you would need completely different packaging or even products or the UK = more costs, more hassle.
There's an interesting article on the benefits, or otherwise, of Brexit in today's FT. Their paywall is easily circumvented by searching for "site:ft.com Tories are wondering what happened to the Brexit they promised"
The comments underneath the article are also interesting, though some Brexiteers would claim that FT readers are anti-business and left wing.
Personal note: We just returned to NL from Christmas in the UK - not v happy that we now have to join the "Non-EU/EEA/CH" queue. And to avoid having to take the red lane at customs and pay VAT on imports we no longer spend significantly on art, sound equipment and tools in the UK (when taking stuff out of the UK you can no longer reclaim UK VAT so we would end up paying both UK and NL VAT - no thanks). Such a great way to support British businesses and the creative industry (which successive governments claim to champion), not.
This is definitely not my area, but when I hear the term "robot" I think of a unit which is fairly versatile and can carry out a number of tasks. The PV panel cleaning unit is dedicated to that task and I think of that as a machine. The carts moving books and food around strike me more as replacements for conveyor belts, etc. than being in competition with human workers.
"Here's a company with a rather different approach to supporting their, admittedly expensive, microphones."
Tempted fate by posting that, didn't I?
A few weeks later one of my mics suddenly lost about 50 dB of sensitivity. Returned it (out of guarantee) to Schoeps who said they would probably return it in three weeks. In fact, it only took them two weeks to diagnose and fix the problem (connection had gone bad). They didn't charge for the repair, only the inspection fee for the mic head and preamp (EUR 70 in total). So, v happy with their service. Now I just have to start saving to get more of their kit :).
Happy new year to all commentards.
"A less arrogant EU would shovel investment to ASML."
Why? ASML is a v successful company which doesn't need public sector investment. The rise in their share price indicates that private investors are very happy to support them if they need more capital.
(Disclosure: I'm a shareholder in the company and the very modest investment I made about a decade ago has done very, very well.)
"A less arrogant EU would shovel investment to ASML. But we know perfectly well why they don’t. Because France insists on pushing money to their fab in Crolles, and spends vast lobbying budget to prevent investment going to Netherlands."
I don't get that at all. You mention a semiconductor fab in France which is supposed to be in competition with ASML.
But ASML isn't a fab - they make equipment used in fabs. They may be a supplier to the Crolles plant but they certainly aren't a competitor to it.
Perhaps I misunderstood you - could you explain your point?
"That's why 3rd party led testing is a must."
Depends how good the testing is. Some of the Kingspan insulation panels used on Grenfell Tower were tested by BRE in the UK. But during the inquiry a BRE employee testified that the company had added fire retardant boards to the test rig - but that detail was not included in the test report, etc. So the test was unrepresentative of the behaviour of the insulation in a real fire.
Source: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/bre-technician-did-not-know-about-grenfell-insulation-fire-test-hustle
(Note: Kingspan actually only provided a small percentage of the insulation but matter does shed an interesting light on their attitude, as well as the quality of the work carried out by BRE.)
"It would be interesting to work out a way if Piezo tubes could somehow be re-designed to allow realtime validation against a known state mid flight?"
I wonder if you could use a GNSS-derived speed for validation of the pitot tube output. Now, I know the aviation industry doesn't like to rely on GNSS for various reasons, but it struck me this might be a valid application. Must ask my pilot friends, after the hols.
"Worked quite well for about 1kb-5kb or so"
That's pretty good. In mud pulse telemetry, used in the oil industry to transmit data from the bottom of the well to the platform, they get much lower data rates. Admittedly over a greater distance and a rather challenging environment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_while_drilling#Mud-pulse_telemetry
"There was a furniture catalogue that managed to misspell the colour of a sofa that was supposed to be “Niger”."
Years ago I had to update the articles of association of a Dutch public transport research organisation. When proofreading my work I suddenly realised that both the original translator (v experienced) and their proofreader (also v experienced) had overlooked a missing letter L in at least one occurrence of 'public'.
This was in de days of WordPerfect so I could exclude that word from the main spell checking dictionary, to avoid making that mistake myself. (Though I've made plenty of others :) .)
Incidentally, I get the impression that in Microsoft Word you can only delete words from your custom dictionary, not the main dictionary. Any thoughts on that?
"I've also fed paper tape to a PDP-11 to boot it"
You were spoilt! One of my first close encounters with a computer was with a PDP-8 (admittedly already long in the tooth then). Before you could load a program with the paper tape reader you first had to enter a boot program using 12 toggle switches on the front panel, inputting one 12-bit word at a time. Though the system did have a light pen so you could play a moon lander game with it.
"... so we are now a nation of rule takers!"
Yup, exactly that. Entirely predictable by anyone who took the trouble to consider the issues for a minute or two.
Funny thing is, the First Mrs H used to do English language coaching for some Dutch civil servants who used to represent their government in Brussels. They mentioned that often the UK had more influence on the decisions than other countries, because (1) their fluency in English (the de facto language of the EU, just don't mention that in earshot of the French) and (2) because of their deeper subject knowledge (the UK civil service apparently being one of the better ones, though that's something British politicians fail to appreciate). Sadly the UK has now lost that influence - an odd way of 'taking back control'.
"Give it a whirl."
Thanks for the tip! Always fun & useful to learn a skill that doesn't involve computers. (I should really use the long winter nights ahead to get to grips with the Festo PLC, Arduino and RasPi gathering dust here - but I really don't want to look at a VDU in the evenings or at the weekend.)
I have is that I didn't keep a few punch cards, mark sense cards and a bit of punched tape from when I was a teenager (though those media were already on the way out then). That was the time you could actually see and feel the digital data. Still think it would be good to show them when teaching folk the basics of data processing.
Mrs H has similar regrets about the manual card punch she threw out a few decades ago. Perhaps I should point my browser at Fleabay.
"It was generally known that the noise from gas fire suppression systems can damage hard drives, but not sure it was well known."
Fairly well known to El Reg readers me thinks.
My knowledge of fire suppression systems is v outdated. Does anybody know if such a system would be equally effective if it discharged the gas slightly more slowly? Or does it need to discharge so rapidly to get high turbulence = effective mixing?
"Recently Goldman Sachs first year bankers were talking about an 80 hour per week cap."
If I was one of their customers I would now be looking for another service provider. Wouldn't fancy the idea of my account being handled by someone working stupid hours. There is a reason folk like lorry drivers have to stick to limited working hours!
"Not to mention junior doctors..."
Another reason to try and stick to a healthy lifestyle and reduce the risk you're going to need them :(
"W3W will be reduced to that anyway so cut out the non-standard middleman."
Technically speaking that is quite correct. However, we are dealing with people so we have to consider more than just technology. And some people find words easier to deal with than numbers.
"A minister has just been on the telly to tell us that "we’ll be able to buy things, there will be food on the table" this Christmas."
Yup, they've made that possible by simply allowing EU hauliers to operate in the UK pretty much as before:
https://trans.info/en/uk-government-says-it-is-set-to-allow-unlimited-cabotage-within-a-2-week-period-258544
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/temporary-extension-to-road-haulage-cabotage
I guess that's one way to make Brexit work. Not sure UK hauliers are exactly thrilled by that.
Have a good weekend, and one of these -->
The post from which this quote was taken seems to have disappeared.
I guess it referred to bureaucracy such as the CE mark and underlying Machinery Directive (which aims to provide for safety, without making life too difficult for manufacturers). That's so bureaucratic that this proud American, employee-owned company is happy to list compliance with it as one of the key features of its new kit: https://www.stoneagetools.com/sentinel-virtual-overview/abxs-3l.html "The Sentinel-enabled AUTOBOX 3L is a CE-certified system ..." (Warning: may contain computers. Not for home use.)
"I heard a rage against the Guardian for being too right-wing by a Corbyn fan not that long ago."
Years ago I visited friends who subscribe to both MoneyWeek and the Morning Star (formerly the communist party newspaper). There was a wonderful reader's letter in the Morning Star which accused them of being stooges of the CIA!
"... and other countries most certainty are experiencing problems due to shortages of HGV drivers"
Situation in the Netherlands: I haven't noticed any empty shelves in the supermarkets or smaller shops (still v important here). Though about 10% of the shelves in the Asian food department of a local food wholesale place were empty - that might have to do with supply lines across a longer distance. Just did a quick search through a few NL newspapers' websites and there are only a few items about lorrydriver shortages here.
That time of day/week -->
"That's the theory about the formation of the English Channel, being scoured out by a catastrophic event."
That's covered in a really interesting exhibition:
https://www.rmo.nl/en/exhibitions/temporary-exhibitions/doggerland/
Current thinking is that the UK and Ireland used to form part of mainland Europe, the area joining them is now referred to as Doggerland. At the end of the last Ice Age sea levels rose, gradually forming the North Sea. Towards the end of that period part of the coast of Norway collapsed, causing a tsunami which reshaped the area to form the North Sea as we know it know.
Apparently you can find archeological artefacts from Doggerland on some reclaimed areas fairly close to where I live, so planning to go there and have a gander.
"There is no standard width for fitted machines (I found this out the hard way years back)."
A friend also realised that when she ordered a new washing machine for her oldish house in Utrecht: even after unboxing it simply wouldn't go through the front door (and no suitable windows). So they took it back and she had to order another brand which was a few millimetres narrower.
"I have a friend who thinks like that... He is a public menace with anything above half an Amp."
Sounds like we have a mutual friend. Years ago a volunteer in the theatre group decided that it would be more convenient if the two differently coloured lamps in a scenic unit were connected to a single connector. So he used the earth contact of a Schuko plug for one of the live circuits! It took me a great deal of control to stay polite when patiently explaining to him why this really wasn't a good idea. But he did listen and rewired the unit with two separate plugs.
"... you'll go left around the roundabout."
As told to me by a friend:
"We'd gone on holiday to France and were running late for the ferry back to Blighty. My husband was driving and really floored it. Then we reached a roundabout and he couldn't remember if he had to go left or right, so he went straight on. The incline launched our car into space and I thought we were going to die. Then we landed on some small trees which bent and ensured a soft landing. After a while the French police turned up, checked we were OK, organised a tow truck to get us off the trees, and wished us a safe onward journey. No ticket, no towing fee."
I've managed to avoid that mistake - so far.
Here's one for the weekend -->
[insert customary whinge about the lack of a wine icon]
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