* Posts by anothercynic

2067 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Dec 2014

Who you gonna call? Premium numbers, but a not-so-premium service

anothercynic Silver badge

And this is why the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are considered 'home turf' for the operators of the UK and the Republic in a nice cross-border arrangement. Kent occasionally has a moment when the bits closest to France sometimes find themselves with a roaming text message 'Welcome to France!' despite sitting in their conservatory or their front room.

And of course, this is where the EC has done the right thing to enforce a single cross-border tariff agreement for mobile roaming, which we are regrettably no longer a part of. There are some moments where a certain Spanish operator does not consider Switzerland to be part of the EU (rightly so, they're not) and thus excludes the country from its EU roaming plan, causing much agony to those who flew into Basel and who oscillated between French (yay), German (yay) and Swiss (boo!) cell towers...

anothercynic Silver badge

That's interesting. How far from the Northants-Warks border were you? I can imagine that either there was a stupid postcode thing going on (oh, those in postcode X actually are supposed to be Northants but aren't), or that some smart arse thought that the police force more likely to be able to respond quickly was Northants.

But... I can imagine this is somewhat disconcerting when you're dialling 999 and are told 'you're sure you dialled 999 and are from Warks?'

It's the day before the grand opening but we need a firmware update. It'll be fine

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Friday rule

Ditto just before Easter, or Christmas, or Hannukah, or Diwali, or Eid. Or, worse, just before a change freeze!

Just... don't. It's not worth it!

Autonomy founder Mike Lynch files judicial review that pauses extradition clock

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: "Anne Sacoolas consented to stand trial by video link"

Really? I've never had this problem, whether at night or not.

The problem isn't really that she crashed into him (regardless of whether it's because it was late at night/early in the morning, or whether it was because she's used to driving on the other side of the road).

The problem is that she told Northants Police she would cooperate, only to be whisked out of the country tout de suite by her government along with her family, and then refusing to cooperate (no, her arrangement with the Trump administration is *not* cooperation, that was just political play).

And despite the amount of theatre about whether she had diplomatic immunity or not, the fact remains that she could have waived the immunity and insisted on staying, but her government told her to GTFO of the country. That's what winds up the family and friends of the lad killed. And besides, if the sentence for something like this is at most 2 years suspended, it'd have been over by now and she'd have been home a lot sooner. The US government made this a lot worse than it would've been otherwise.

Either way, whether she gives evidence via videolink or whether she refuses to attend at all, the important thing is that the lad's family get justice at last, which is what they've wanted since the beginning.

Bad things come in threes: Apache reveals another Log4J bug

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Open Source Has Failed

You. Are. *GOOD*. :-P

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Engineers' mantra

Well, log4perl is not *that* bad. :-)

At least that code you *can* still read without questioning your life choices. :D

Sun sets on superjumbo: Last Airbus A380 rolls off the production line

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: It wasn't cancelled because it was expensive to operate

The single-deck jets are already a known quantity. Boeing and various other third party companies already know what is required to turn a single deck passenger jet into a freighter. From the A320/B737 up to the A330/B777 there's plenty to pick from.

The A380 will be more difficult to convert, mostly because Airbus canned the A380F project (which cost them a massive FedEx order), and there'll have to be research into how much the intermediate floor (the floor between cargo and the 'main' deck) needs to be strengthened to allow containers on the main deck, and also what needs to be done for a cargo door on the main deck.

The upper floor would also need strengthening, but probably not quite to the extent the main floor would need to be. I think FedEx had meant to put the voluminous but light paletted cargo on the upper deck, with containers in cargo and on the main floor, but who knows. The B747F doesn't run cargo on the upper deck, so it's effectively the same as a single-decker. :-)

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Gutted and excited

Qatar Airways and Emirates are both operating their A380s again, despite Qatar saying they wouldn't really bring them back. :-)

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Pretty agile for a big bugger

It is at Farnborough where I had the pleasure of standing under its wingtip as it slowly taxied out for its number... And it was incredible to listen to the vast difference in noise levels between the small twin jet corporate jobbies (loud as f***) and the A380 (OMG, how quiet was that thing at takeoff power!) at takeoff roll.

And the pilots who get to fly this 'baby' say it is such a pleasure to fly, although I know a couple of BA 747 pilots who switched to the Airbus say it's a bittersweet switch because they love the Queen of the Skies more (iconic!) despite being not quite the same smooth ride as the A380. But they both have a place in the sky...

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Knock-on effects

The 777X will be sporting the world's largest turbofan (the GE9X), which is the same model as on the B747-8F and some 747-8I passenger jets.

East Londoners nicked under Computer Misuse Act after NHS vaccine passport app sprouted clump of fake entries

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Inside job

Absolutely spot on.

anothercynic Silver badge

Unfortunately, the NHS (regardless of country) is already ramping things back up in terms of COVID wards, if the NHS staff I follow are anything to go by because they are concerned that omicron will return things to where they were in April last year.

Of course, whether it will remains to be seen, but I think the NHS would rather overreact and *not* be caught with their pants down, than just trundle along and have a repeat of April last year. It may be an illogical response in our eyes, but...

After deadly 737 Max crashes, damning whistleblower report reveals sidelined engineers, scarcity of expertise, more

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: The People ARE The System.

Ironically, someone did suggest that maybe large capacitors would be a better (and less... flammable) alternative to using Li-Ion batteries for the 787 (or the next large all-electric plane).

I believe the A350 went back to NiCd batteries during test, but they are running with Li-Ion now (appropriately designed to not combust completely).

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: In Case of MCAS: Logical Reasoning, Calculus

@BobC,

And you've just described synthetic airspeed ;-)

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: The People ARE The System.

@BobC, so nice to see that organisations still take their testing seriously. Welcome! ;-)

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: In Case of MCAS: Logical Reasoning, Calculus

The fix is also quite obvious: have a second sensor to check the first one and disable the system if sensor readings dont match. Signal problem to pilot or another strategy to work around the failure mode.

This, my good man, is why anyone in avionics and safety tends to rely on a quorate type system (and always with uneven numbers)... multiple sensors, returning the same type of data, so that in the case of a dud sensor, you don't get dud data.

If you have 5 sensors, and one has a moment (a bug got lodged in the pitot tube and obstructed it), you still have 4 sensors giving same data, and overruling the dud. Ditto for three sensors. But when you get to two sensors, or worse, one, you don't have that failsafe anymore, and that's why EASA has insisted that Boeing come up with a similar thing to its synthetic airspeed that the 787 uses in its systems as a backup to the backup to the backup.

:-)

£42k for a top-class software engineer? It's no wonder uni research teams can't recruit

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: IT person

You'll be surprised how many of them need to have someone show them how to book a flight or a train online...

Absolute geniuses in their field, absolutely *not* made for booking their flights to their next conference because they either don't know how to, or don't care to know how to because it's not related to their field.

It takes all sorts, I'm afraid.

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: IT person

Compared to some private sector schemes, the original USS scheme that many lecturers are striking about is *very* generous... and that's how academia roped in the expertise: "Come work for us, the salaries are not great, but the bennies and eventual pension are!"

And of course, that's now being trimmed to the bone, while some Vice Chancellors run around with mid-6-figure salaries, which, to be fair, is not particularly cool when you're telling your teaching staff that money is tough to come by these days.

That said, I took a job in science that was less than my last private sector salary primarily because it was science, it was different, it sounded like fun, and for the time I was in it, was just that. Today I'm still sort-of in academia, on ironically one of the USS schemes myself. But given how I've always been of the opinion that governments and universities will inevitably rob the piggy banks that are the pension schemes, I'm annoyed by how changes are being sold to everyone (while everyone knows it's a pile of bollocks), but know that there's not much that can be done about it (short of striking, which I can't do).

So... plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Popular password manager LastPass to be spun out from LogMeIn

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: There is a lot to be said for keeping your passwords locally.

1Password is fabulous. I was put on to 1Password by several security podcasts who suggested users use it because it was straightforward and it syncs using iCloud or DropBox. That was good enough for me.

I am aware though that 1P is also offering cloud-based accounts like LP does, but I opt for the local vault purely because I don't want to ever find myself locked out because of whatever reason.

What came first? The chicken, the egg, or the bodge to make everything work?

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Batteries not required

Very smart woman, your wife. Paper is always useful, as I discovered even in this day and age. Especially now that vaccine passports, pre-departure tests and the like are all needed more often than not.

:-)

anothercynic Silver badge

Sounds familiar. The joys of DR at a UK bank with their trading software... ;-)

What if we said you could turn any disk into a multi-boot OS installer for free without touching a single config file?

anothercynic Silver badge

Ohhhh goodie!

This is brilliant! Will have to download and do this with one of my 1TB sticks.

Bloke breaking his back on 'commute' from bed to desk deemed a workplace accident

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Is that only valid for working from home?

If you're having a beer whilst finishing off your big project, that's a whole new can of worms... drinking at your workplace etc. Trust *someone* to make that connection.

anothercynic Silver badge

Yep. That sounds familiar. No uncovered hot drinks on stairs for us. We're required to use the lift for that.

anothercynic Silver badge

Some insurance companies already mandate this for home working. You as the home worker have to consider what is risky in what you would consider the workplace at home. If it's the next room, then you're probably ok, but if it's downstairs and you sleep upstairs, the stairs do add a risk that needs to be declared.

Welcome to the new world.

German court rules cookie preference service that shared IP addresses with US firm should be halted

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: And the rest too, please

All the third-party systems that people use, like TrustArc, do that. It's utterly irritating.

Prisons transcribe private phone calls with inmates using speech-to-text AI

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Difference?

Ah, my apologies. I had been under the impression they'd been given the heave-ho along with the tens of thousands who subsequently ended up on British shores. Ta muchly for the correction :-)

anothercynic Silver badge

I suspect she refers to 'big name investors in the AI space'. Are any of those foundations actively involved in investing in companies active in AI, or do they actually get involved in the social sciences more? Either way, I hope she can do her research appropriately without corporate interference from her employers/funders.

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Difference?

Indeed that is the case. Just because you were born somewhere does not make you a citizen. Ask all those born in Uganda who Idi Amin evicted, telling them to get the hell out. The parents of our illustrious Home Secretary are amongst those who this happened to. And that's just *after* the second World War. Before that, scores of Jewish people suddenly found themselves stateless because the countries they had been citizens of summarily cancelled their citizenship in a fit of national-socialist fervour. Citizenship only exists on paper, and with one decree or signature, that can be cancelled in an instant.

Begum is an interesting case in that UK authorities claim she has Bangladeshi citizenship, which gave them the opportunity to strip her of her British citizenship (which many say 'she has by birth', but the British law has no such clause), and which Bangladesh vehemently denies. There might be a case that she *could* claim it, but I'm sure the Bangladeshis don't want an ISIS-sympathiser (whether voluntarily or not) to be given citizenship in retrospect and all the bad rep that goes along with it, especially given the country regularly needs help from the international community. Either way, the way it's been done (regardless of whether Begum is guilty or innocent of terrorism charges) is somewhat... suspect. I'm sure the legal profession has plenty to say about that.

MySQL a 'pretty poor database' says departing Oracle engineer

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: There is no reason not to choose Postgres

I find myself wrangling both Postgres and Excel to get the information I need, although I'm starting to find myself adding some of the functionality that Excel gives us to Postgres (as queries) that do away with formulae that are a mess to handle in Excel.

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: There is no reason not to choose Postgres

Same. Postgres for the win.

:-)

Google sued for firing staff who claim they tried to follow 'Don't be evil' motto

anothercynic Silver badge

Don't be evil?

The way that business is being handled stinks to high heaven of underhanded tactics. Quelle surprise.

Think that spreadsheet in your company's accounts dept is old? 70 years ago, LEO ran the first business app

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Shame

It's called "changing fashions"... All revealed in the book about LEO.

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Trailblazers

Indeed! A great book it is too!

When civilisation ends, a Xenix box will be running a long-forgotten job somewhere

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) computer, which will celebrate its 70th anniversary this week

And there is a *fabulous* book about LEO too. It is utterly worth a read. It's 'A Computer Called LEO' here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1009975.A_Computer_Called_Leo.

anothercynic Silver badge

Rolls Royce Cars? Or Rolls Royce the jet engine company?

If it's the former, I suspect I know someone who'd like a word with you ;-)

Nuclear fusion firm Pulsar fires up a UK-built hybrid rocket engine

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Rocket science

Indeed. That is one hell of a good read! :-)

Future of the three NHS bodies managing health tech in doubt after £2.1bn cash injection

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Another one

To be fair, NHS Digital (or whatever their name du jour is) have some good stuff up their sleeves, so I hope those projects don't die a death just because it's been merged into NHS England.

British Airways Executive Club frequent flyers have their airmiles grounded

anothercynic Silver badge

Non-executive Club...

Cos it wasn't executing yesterday or the day before. Today it works. Finally. And no, I'm not flying frequently. I do use the points for my occasional trips for extras. Anyway. I can only say that BA has *really* lost its past. Which is sad...

Unvaccinated and working at Apple? Prepare for COVID-19 testing 'every time' you step in the office

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Priority

Amen, well said.

EasyJet flight loadsheet snafu caused by software 'code errors' says UK safety agency

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Weight of passengers

That's funny! The two cities are a 3 hour drive apart... How long was that flight? 40 minutes? :-)

Joburg and Cape Town are a 2 hour flight compared to a 12-14 hour drive (did that twice, never again).

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Not a trolling comment

That sums it up really... A clever bit of software curation would look if any queued changes could be merged... But that requires changes.

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Weight of passengers

That sounds almost like BA at London City... Was it BA at London City? ;-)

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Weight of passengers

This used to be the fun and games in Africa... "Do we have enough power to get all these people off the ground?" with actual weight. But back then people didn't carry 'carry-on' luggage going into the cabin weighing half a ton (I jest, kinda)... it used to be a coat, a book and (for women) a handbag.

Before the Lockerbie bombing, there were times when luggage simply had to be left behind to get planes off the runway before it ran out, and it would get loaded the next day. Inevitably that meant your luggage was not on the belt when you landed, but hey, at least you didn't run off the end into a ravine or tinder dry bush.

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Weight of passengers

There is one airline that actually prices its tickets based on weight: Samoa Air.

But yes, the 'average passenger weight' has been upped but not by all that much. TUI probably tries to be *really* clever with average weights for men, women and kids to fly as lean as possible.

I've had it on a small flight across the Gulf of Bothnia (Finland to Estonia) where I was asked to move back 3 seats to give the little ATR taking us across on a hot day a better CoG, given that most sat either behind (closer to the exit) or around the wings. I like it up front. And I've had it on flights from H-A-H airports where people had their seats moved to help the plane get off the ground better by shifting the CoG back. The crew then allowed us to change our seats back to where we originally wanted to sit once we were in cruise.

anothercynic Silver badge

Even if you lease the jet, you generally know *what* you've leased and have the correct loading sheet for it.

Well... most airlines do anyway.

Chinese developers rebel against long working hours with crowdsourced tell-all on employers

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Perhaps we could have a version of this for the west as well

And Glassdoor may or may not be available in China.

Boeing 737 Max chief technical pilot charged with deceiving US aviation regulators over MCAS

anothercynic Silver badge

Re: Somewhere, somehow, both the public and the media

Snake's not wrong. Management culture persists for decades. All I'll do is point at IBM. Remember them? ;-)