Posts by Pompous Git

Low energy lightbulbs were my best investment ever.

They have been my worst. CFLs have cost me an order of magnitude more. Haven't had one last longer than about 9 months. LED replacements for my QH downlights over my kitchen workbench were nowhere near bright enough and one of them died after less than a month. My last ordinary incandescent is now at least 13 years old. It lights up the entry to the house automatically when SWMBO arrives home from work in the winter months.

Re: Downvoted pv panels

it was at least two years ago when the FIT dropped from lucrative to marginal

And there's further to go yet. Spain Approves 'Sun Tax,' Discriminates Against Solar PV

President Obama has frequently told us that Spain should be a model for America in green technology and presumably the ROTW.

Re: Downvoted pv panels

They don't need regular maintenance or cleaning or "etc", whatever that might be.

Not much in the way of bird life where you live then? Or are they just scared shitless? From the Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy maintenance manual:

The most common maintenance task for solar modules is the cleaning of the glass area of the module

to remove excessive dirt.

....

when working on roofs there is always the risk of falling. NEVER climb onto a roof to perform any service on the solar modules (eg. clean them) unless there is a barrier (eg. scaffolding) to prevent you from falling

I can understand you not wanting to climb on the roof, or spend on renting scaff, but not needing to I find a little difficult to believe.

Apropos the inverter, it should be good for 15 years, about 10 years less than the panels, but if one of your panels fails, don't think you can mix and match panels. A replacement panel in 10 years' time will likely need its own inverter.

Re: The benefit:

Is to be able to be remotely switched off.

"Switched off" being a euphemism for executed I presume. The Git recalls The Big Freeze of 1962-3 and pensioners and the poor dying from the cold because they couldn't afford fuel to stay warm.

Fuel poverty campaigners reckon the number of excess winter deaths surged last winter to 49,260, of which around 14,780 were due to people living in cold homes.

Story Here

Re: Massively beneficial ...

It's not hard to plumb in a mixer valve upstream of the washer.

No, not at all difficult. Just illegal where I live [sigh].

Re: Well, its nice to see we have intelligent people here :)

I think the encouragement to migrate from leaded petrol was a good one as we don't want children's brains damaged with the excessive lead content in the air.

We would much prefer it if they contract cancer instead:

Identification of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in unleaded petrol and diesel exhaust emission

Re: Omnishambles

And with the amount of money you save by doing that you can buy half a banana in a year's time.

But think of all that nasty radioactive potassium in that banana!

Re: Rob Smith

When are you and the rest of The Cure, going to play in Manchester again?

Or Hobart? Ever!

Re: Massively beneficial ...

Someone hasn't thought this through.

And why does this surprise you? 'Course you could always give up working and go on the dole. I'm quite sure that would please the water melons who seem to despise business.

Re: I thought this one was fairly clear to be "proper" plague

Without being an expert in the field it was my understanding that Ebola was one of a number of viral haemorrhagic fevers?

Indeed it is, but they weren't what Olson proposed in his 1996 paper to which I referred. It was the first of many papers proposing that the Athens plague was most likely Ebola.

Ebola in Antiquity?

Re: I thought this one was fairly clear to be "proper" plague

Were Gerbils common in the predominantly agricultural grain growing English countryside of the fourteenth century?

Given that the British pet industry introduced them* for the first time in the early 1960s, I'd say not.

* Meriones unguiculatus is a Mongolian native.

Re: I thought this one was fairly clear to be "proper" plague

Read the article

I did! The green monkeys are the giveaway. And note that I didn't deprecate the possibility that smallpox was a cause, just that you omitted an important possibility: Ebola.

Re: I thought this one was fairly clear to be "proper" plague

Obviously in London, its likely that pneumonic would dominate. But in the countryside? I dont think so.

What makes you think that people didn't sleep many to a room in the countryside, but did in London? A major killer, year in, year out in medieval times was malaria (called ague at the time). As the number of people sleeping in the same room declined, so did the incidence of the disease.

Re: I thought this one was fairly clear to be "proper" plague

Which is my exact point - all historical books call it plague.

Of course the kind of disease differentiation that became normal post Enlightenment wasn't the norm prior to it. Thucydides gave us a very detailed explanation of the symptoms without of course having the vaguest idea that we would call his plague Ebola in the 21st C.

Have you read Hans Zinsser's Rats, Lice and History? That was the book that really got me interested in disease in history. One of the most delightful books I have ever read.

Re: Bugfix?

Any ideas on when they plan to release the bugfix to prevent this happening again?

They already did -- years before the world was afflicted by The Git. It's called DDT and this was the "magic bullet" that was going to solve all our insect problems.

Re: I thought this one was fairly clear to be "proper" plague

The only other diseases getting a honorary different mentioning were Smallpox and Cholera. So we in fact do not know if some of the earlier pandemics were real plague or let's say extremely virulent flu (middle ages version of the Spanish Lady).

Not quite; the Athenian epidemic of 430 BC described by Thucydides, who contracted it himself, was likely Ebola. The idea that it was Ebola rather than smallpox or typhus was first proposed in 1996 by Dr. Patrick Olson. Olson was an epidemiologist at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego and revealed his idea in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

The Thucydides syndrome: Ebola déjà vu? (or Ebola reemergent?)

Also, The Black Death of 1348-50 has been positively identified as Yersinia Pestis, but most likely the pneumonic form rather than bubonic.

Bones Tell Black Death Story

Finding a pre-built computer sold without an OS is fiendishly difficult

Back in 1996 I was managing a computer training organisation that had a site license for all MS software. I managed to order 14 new PCs by... I know this is difficult for some to comprehend... picking up the telephone and requesting a computer retailer to provide them sans operating system.

I have also purchased single computers from EYO in Sydney, Principal Computers in Hobart and Game Dudes in Brisbane. In fact, hardly any of the dozens of computers I have purchased for myself or on behalf of others has come with an OS.

Is it really the case that it's only in Australia that it's fiendishly easy to purchase a computer without Windows? Or are we Australians just a helluva lot smarter than anyone else on the planet?

Rather Microsoft more or less gives OEM copies to manufacturers.

Are you on crack? Principal Computers are currently selling Win7 Pro OEM for $AU234.84. Do you honestly believe that MS gives away software for free so that retailers can sell it for that kind of price? FFS! I think you pulled all of your post out of a bodily orifice.

For some reason El Reg doesn't want to accept my HTML for the hyperlink, but here's the URL:

http://principalcomputers.com.au/product-category/software/operating-systems/

@Roland6

In Australia MS's conditions are that you have 30 calendar days in which to request a refund and that "we may also require you to sign an electronic letter of destruction as a condition of withdrawal from this contract." I would imagine that it's similar elsewhere.

Re: You can't always get what you want

This is the foundation of this absurdity. Here's what I'm selling - don't want it - don't buy it!

Not at all absurd. In the 90s, The Git had a business training computer end-users. Initially, he had a problem with cash flow. So he offered a 10% discount for clients who paid in advance, or on the day. Clients who "needed" 60-120 days to pay rapidly found that The Git was unavailable. Presumably you would somehow have had him forced to accept doing business with the laggardly payers.

Re: Economic Behavior Of Consumers

I think the distortion of the market is clear to see and has been going on for decades.

It has indeed. Where's the Linux versions of InDesign, AutoCAD, Quickbooks etc? If there were viable alternatives to such applications it would be a no-brainer to make the switch. Is it really MS's fault that there are no suitable Linux alternatives for essential production software?

Re: Is there some point missing ?

Except, you paid for Windows license you did not want, worse corporates pay for Windows licenses with volume licenses, yet, when they buy their laptops, they paid for an OEM license AS WELL. The EULA states that you can get a refund - END OF DISCUSSION.

Evidence required. Dell and HP sell machines sans OS to their corporate customers who have volume licenses as well as individuals who request them.

Re: So what does this do for Italy?

That is NOT true, there are few Dell laptops available with Linux, precisely, 2 (I just looked), that cannot be further customized. One with a dual core Celeron, thank you - but NO, and one with an i5 (but 13" screen, tx, but NO).

Try telephoning and asking the sales rep for a Dell laptop without Windows. You do know about telephones and asking...

Thought not.

Re: "without pre-installed software"

@ Chemist

To your list I will add my ASUS Zenbook and an ancient core solo Toshiba Satellite. This latter was bricked by WinXP SP3 (it came with XP SP1), but runs Mint 17.3 just fine.

Re: "without pre-installed software"

"Apple OS is free. You're paying for it in the hardware."

So it's not free then...You still pay for it.

The only OS that Apple currently charge for is Snow Leopard. Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan are all free downloads. If you want to pay, there are sellers on eBay who are more than happy to oblige, but that's an option I wouldn't be willing to take.

Re: Three heads and bare machines

Two or three years ago, the only option for the "deranged" buyer was build-your-own from a list of components, and hope you knew enough to spec your bits properly.

What evidence do you have that Dell, or HP make you assemble the machine yourself? Or are you just making the claim because you read it on the Internet so it must be true?

I'd love the option of buying a system without Windows 10 preinstalled but if you walked into Currys/PC World...

For some reason this reminds me of the Marty Feldman sketch where he goes into the Post Office and demands they sell him a pint of milk.

Post Office sketch

we turned to Dell for all future purchases and just simply wipe them on receipt..

Er, why didn't you ask Dell to supply the machines without an OS? They charge less and you don't need to do any wiping. Not €450, but a worthwhile saving nevertheless.

Re: Who on earth is going to buy one?

The lofty goal is presumably to reduce people's lifespans. While the press keeps rabbiting on about "The Obesity Epidemic", they never mention the impact of weight (BMI) on mortality.

Compared to individuals without elevated BMI levels, both overweight (BMI ∼25.0-29.9 kg/m2, RR 0.84, 95% CI 0.79-0.90) and obesity (BMI ∼≥30 kg/m2, RR 0.67, 95% CI 0.62-0.73) were associated with lower all-cause mortality. Overweight (RR 0.81, 95% CI 0.72-0.92) and obesity (RR 0.60, 95% CI 0.53-0.69) were also associated with lower cardiovascular mortality. In a risk-adjusted sensitivity analysis, both obesity (adjusted HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.83-0.93) and overweight (adjusted HR 0.93, 95% CI 0.89-0.97) remained protective against mortality.

Body mass index and mortality in heart failure: A meta-analysis

Re: Why not give a little time before judgement?

it might prod other device makers into taking security more seriously. Might.

So, what would you do to improve the lamentable security on St Jude's CRT-Ds? Personally, I have always worn full earthed silver mesh underwear anyway and the house I have lived in for the last decade is a Faraday Cage. I really can't think of much else I can do apart from retire to a secret lair on Macquarie Island.

Re: Lawsuit?

If the exploit proves to be the real deal, well, I see nothing wrong in monetizing it THIS way. In fact it should be monetized THIS way because this is the ONLY way people are finally going to learn start paying attention.

That's a very nice tinfoil hat you're wearing today. My supposedly vulnerable CRT-D device can only be reprogrammed when it's under the influence of a strong magnetic field. Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but magnetic fields decrease in strength to the inverse fourth power, so to flip the reed relay from a "remote" location such as the room next door would require a superconducting magnet.

Having managed to put the CRT-D in receive mode "remotely" with what must surely cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars, there's still the problem of talking to the device. Any old windows lappy won't do it. It's done at the hospital with a dedicated machine using proprietary software running on Linux. You might notice it doesn't have a keyboard or mouse. You're also not likely to manage to do anything meaningful with it if you lack the appropriate training.

Frankly, if you want to kill someone there is an endless number of ways to do this at far lower cost and risk. Not to mention more likely to succeed.

because Windows is wonderful, object-oriented, more modern in design than all these Unix-derived OSs and that drive letters aren't in the least clunky.

...which they ripped off CP/M anyway, an operating system that was released in 1973. It seems that the business world seems determined to cock the world up one way or another, all for the sake of familiarity and a fast buck.

CP/M didn't have windows. Nor subdirectories IIRC. I think the business world wanted software to get the job done. Basic, easy-to-use accounting and payroll software on Linux? Dream on... I bet you'd be the first to complain if your employer moved to Linux and told you you couldn't be paid for several months while they re-instituted manual accounting and payroll because the computers could no longer manage such things.

Re: Another reason to avoid WIN 10 like the plague!

If you do need to upgrade your PC, take heed that the latest CPU's from intel and AMD will not be supported unless you are using Win 10 - Alternatively you will be able to install any non-MS OS and it will work fine and as an added benefit it will be more secure/stable/efficient and be truly 64 bit :)

I think we already disposed of that piece of bullshit here. Win 7 and 8 will run fine; just not support the latest cpu extensions.

As for non-MS OSs being more "secure/stable/efficient" I today discovered that "upgrading" to Linux Mint 18 borked both Steam and Civ V. I manged to get Steam to run, but it would seem that I need a new video adapter to get Civ V to work. AMD Radeons are no longer fully supported. Nor nVidia it would seem. Sadly, my Matrox Millenium II adapters are long gone and IIRC weren't PCIe anyway.

FWIW I'll be attempting to install Snow Leopard next week. Maybe I'll have more luck with OS X...

Re: Is that so?

The problem with this is, it becomes arbitrary after a while.

It always has been arbitrary.

"In fact, until the mid 1960s, the legal age of consent in Delaware was 7 (Kling, 1965: 216). So a 50 year old man could legally have sexual intercourse with a 7 year old boy or girl."

[Opposing Hate Speech By Professor of Sociology Anthony Joseph Paul Cortese page 85]

“…the nineteenth century, the minimum age of consent for sexual intercourse in most American states was 10 years. In Delaware it was only 7 years.”

[Parental Kidnapping in America: An Historical and Cultural Analysis By Maureen Dabbagh Page 128]

Indeed, though I think the correct reading - the point the author was trying to make - is that men purchase sex (a sexual encounter/event) whereas women purchase toys.

IOW women objectify sex and men prefer something more emotional; directly contra the feminist narrative. This is a very interesting conversation...

Re: Correlation does not imply causation

this forum is *public*, and thus also read by women.

It may have escaped your notice, but this is also El Reg and while there are few who are obviously female that post here, they seem to give as good as they get. Live with it!

Re: Am I worried? Nah!

To be honest, if I had to choose between Morris dancing (pedant: only "Morris" gets a capital letter) and sex (which deserves one but doesn't get it, fnarr fnarr) I know what I would rather be doing when I passed away.

Hint: it wouldn't involve Morris

I'm not sure why the surname Dancing doesn't justify the use of a capital letter. I wouldn't have sex with anyone called Morris either, regardless of their surname, mainly on the grounds that they are most unlikely to be a female. Though you never know these days...

Re: Life is a terminal disease...

Me: I'd rather "go out on top".

I'd rather go out with her on top, but each to their own I suppose :-)

Re: Next Weeks Headline

Not in absolute time, but certainly the time saved by not crashing PC's should enable them to spend their time more efficiently, thus saving a lot of time otherwise spent OT.

Sounds like wishful thinking. I never had any particular problems with w7 crashing. Mint 17.3 locks up about once a week, most likely due to the Radeon video driver. The FOSS driver is complete shit and the proprietary one is almost as bad. Further, copying the boot partition to a removable hard drive with gparted killed Mint.

Don't get me wrong here; over the last 14 months I have become quite fond of Mint. It's just that pretending Linux is faultless is just as fatuous as believing Windows or OS X are faultless. They all run on computers!

I seem to recall the BOFH describing computers as devices for losing data some years ago...