Posts by Neil Barnes

Re: Testing failover.

Twelve or fifteen years ago, when the BBC rebuilt most of its radio playout systems, A studio had a local server which cached the audio from the apps room servers. The apps room had three servers using two different OSes; all these ran at once to deliver audio. In most cases there were two identical apps rooms, at opposite sides of a broadcast centre, on separate power and network systems and fed from external circuits that didn't share ducts...

I recall driving up the M1/M6 to Birmingham with *all* of Radio 2's music on a server in the back of a rented van; significantly faster than transferring it electronically (though a couple of years later we re-engineered the delivery backbones with 64Gb/s circuits).

Re: Renting of licensed instructions

To make a late payment, please use your browser to log into your account page... oh, wait...

Re: Weight of passengers

My first day of paragliding training I was weighed, to ensure that I got the right size of glider. The one I got was fondly known as Big Bertha (I weighed over 80kg then, and fifteen years later and 20-oddkg lighter, I still do...)

Re: This is mildly terrifying

The 10.7MHz mixer frequency for the IF... my godfather, who got me started in this whole electronics/computing lark, took the trouble to build a TRF tv receiver, just to annoy the detector operators. Tiny little circular green screen as I recall, ex a radar receiver display.

Re: to sunset

Verbing weirds nouns!

I wondered if it was made up of a number of lesser sums, and searched for the factors (which was unhelpful). However, it did turn out that the COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule) act has the same maximum penalty... as does the Credit Practices Rule, and the CAN-SPAM act... somebody liked that number.

Perhaps https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/01/ftc-publishes-inflation-adjusted-civil-penalty-amounts-2021 offers a suggestion: inflation adjusted amounts this year, on what looks like previously adjusted amounts. Perhaps the generic fine started at forty grand or so, and grew over the years?

Re: Wot no Wi-Fi?

Yes, given the way browsers chew through memory, 4G is a minimum these days, which is annoying.

Re: Respectfully

I agree one hundred percent: pooling health data will improve medical outcomes (I speak as one with a number of ongoing health issues) but the problem is it looks like it's all or nothing.

"Mr Barnes, would you like us to submit your medical data to this company for the express purpose of researching that condition? It will be fully anonymised and will go no further than the research analysis."

Well, yes, maybe... but wait, isn't that company part of a group which is a wholly owned subsidiary of an insurance company? I don't really want to tell *anything* to an insurance company. Or indeed, start receiving adverts for that stunning new medical magazine "So You Think You've Got Problems".

The very companies who are doing the research are likely to be sponsored by the very people I don't want to talk to.

Re: How much tracking information

Yeah, the critical comment there appears to be "Websites and Internet service providers can still gather information about your visit, even if you are not signed in.

Sadly it doesn't say what information they can gather.

And I bet the manufacturers had more fun producing it, too...

Re: NHS Data Slurp As A Threat

Date of birth and postcode... Given that suburban postcodes may contain only thirty houses, there's a pretty good chance that those data alone are sufficient to identify someone.

In the postcode in which I lived before I emigrated to the EU, it happened that I shared a birthday (even the year) with a neighbour. But as we were of different gender, we would still be identifiable.

Re: "oxidizer and moisture interactions"…

I agree - the design engineers knew. But the management/engineers(?) who made the go/no go decision? They were apparently told (see Feynman's analysis) but either didn't understand or chose to ignore the risk.

However, the point remains. People will make risky decisions until one bites them.

Re: "We never want this to be abused in any way"

because we want to get it right

The way to get it right is not to do it at all.

Re: Missing the point

We go after the one who is actually PERFORMING the illegal activity

This. The person who is performing the illegal activity is the one who should be punished... why is this so hard to see? The fact that they are out of your jurisdiction is a problem for treaty resolution, not one of setting the lawyers on whoever is nearest and has even a peripheral connection.

The US seems to have a blame anyone but me culture... the reason people will copy existing products, with varying degrees of similitude but always at a cheaper price than the original, is that most people *don't care* about the label - and they will buy things that look like the original if they can get it a buck or two cheaper.

Re: Compete on function, not whinging

Last time I looked, the simple clean search box on Google apparently required over 200k of scripts to deliver it... really?

Re: Ron Hubbard?

But the Danube isn't blue, it's green... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQql1k5v_A0

Re: "design paradigms from those devices could successfully carry over into a new Start"

If only there were some sort of OS where the OS were separate from the GUI, so the user can select the UI of his choice - or no GUI at all, if that's what he wants.

Oh, wait...

Re: --As-a-service is nothing new

Buying a car will no longer be a one-off purchase;

Bets? I may have already bought my last car. They do last somewhat longer than three years, and you don't have to change then just because the colour went out of fashion, or the neighbours got a new one.

Re: Pretty much standard

I have a book of early photographic chemistry - hydrofluoric acid was a common ingredient.

For its time it was surprisingly safety-conscious, suggesting the use of a clean silk neckerchief over the mouth and nose, and heavy leather gloves.

Re: Looks like this can be disabled

I reckon the best face recognition on this type of thing involves faces of HM The Queen or Ben Franklin. Though in the EU we have buildings instead...

/me does nothing with money on a phone.

Re: Relevance and utility

Oh I dunno. Obviously the only way I'm going to stop buying all these fridges I keep getting advertised, having bought one, is to run out of room to put them...

Curious that no-one *ever* seems to offer an option to pay for a service, rather than monetising the poor bloody user. (And perhaps curiouser still that the vast majority of services that carry adverts are basically click bait; in it for the advertising revenue and that's it.)

Re: Question: 10MB/s per Channel?

Raw contribution PAL is a phrase I never recall hearing in over thirty years as a broadcast engineer.

If it was PAL it was analogue, 6MHz bandwidth with a 4.43361875Hz colour subcarrier; audio was always separate until it left for the transmitter.

If it was digital it was CCIR601 - ten bits sampled at ~six times subcarrier frequency. Digital audio could be inserted in the sync pulse time. That is uncompressed.

But with a broadcasting chain as complex as the BBC with multiple channels, local opt-outs, provision from multiple sites to the network... naming gets a bit complicated.

Re: Salesmen

MBA thinking. Everything that is being counted is being controlled, and only the bottom line matters.

Re: Nice

am I going to regret it?

Just a wild guess here... but yes?

Well duh... obviously they just fly home and report in when they're finished with their data gathering.

(There would be a get-my-white-coat icon here, but for some reason I don't seem to have that option on this browser. Strange...)