* Posts by Kiwi

4368 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Sep 2011

I cannae do it, captain, I'm giving it all she's got, but she just cannae take another dose of bullsh!t

Kiwi
Pint

Re: "People will always argue over truth"

You might have missed the smiley... -> :-p

You're correct that I missed the smileys, but it was not yours I missed but my own! Now I re-read my post in with different eyes, it could've used a few of them especially in the first paragraph!

--> 'twas my bad, not yours...

Kiwi
Linux

But everything else from crayfish to shark can land me in the hospital. I would love to see someone invent technology that I can afford that'll help keep me safe from my own meals!

Given the masses of pollutants us twits are dumping into our oceans, you're probably not missing much! I don't eat much fish but am starting to cut back on the amounts I do eat. We need to be doing a lot better on this!

Kiwi

Re: Gluten intolerance affects less than 1% of the population

How many people do you think would actively choose to live like that?

I know a couple at least :(. I also know they're not as affected as they claim.

Hypochondria is a real thing, as are psychosomatic symptoms. Then there's the very real reactions to something bad, but we blame the wrong bad cause - you get sick from eating at a certain place and it must be that they used gluten not that they didn't clean their equipment in the last week.

Some people are truly affected, but many aren't. It's actually something that's considered fashionable, even fashionable to make a fuss about what goes into some things and about rights to be served special foods and so on.

I'm not accusing you of this, I don't know you and would take your comments as truth unless I see a reason to believe otherwise (like claiming a severe milk allergy while gobbling bar after bar of milk chocolate), but I have known enough others who are as "gluten-intolerant" as I am Santa. You may be the real thing, but there's lots who imagine they are and lots who claim it for the attention.

I do think restaurants/fast food places should be less annoying about people bringing in their own food. If 5 of us want to have a meal and one cannot (or for religious reasons will not) eat what you serve, be happy you have 4 paying customers. Otherwise we'll go elsewhere and support someone else's business.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Dont call it food poisoning - call it pickling.

I agree, though a number of people seem to have downvoted me for making this point.

I owe you an apology. I scrolled back to your original message to see how bad it was and noticed a blue icon in the wrong place. At least El Reg lets you correct that :)

(I remember my GP telling me with an absolutely straight face that some people believe total elimination of milk products will prevent asthma, and then raising his eyebrows.)

I'd had a couple of people claim that. An older friend has sometimes quite bad asthma and I'd suggested he cuts back or cuts out milk. He wasn't going to so I thought I'd go through some of the literature and find stuff I could point out to him to help. Only, to my surprise, the literature all says that despite many studies there's been no proven links. Given at least one of the studies was from the "milk=asthma" side where they had to admit they could not find a link, I'm inclined to believe that.

However, it took me years of IBS to realise the problem was wheat. I also know my tolerance for wheat - about 15g a day - and that double baked biscuits are harmless, presumably because the offending protein has been degraded.

One thing I do get is we have reactions for all sorts of stuff. Allergies are still barely understood as far as I know (the why we have certain reactions at least)

Lots of people have psychosomatic food problems - I know one - but it doesn't mean that others are not made seriously ill.

I still cannot be in the same room as minted peas. I can now eat peas happily thanks to using Kombucha (which itself may be psychosomatic, or perhaps my original allergy was and this undid that). The smell reminds me of power-chucking and the memory is strong enough it almost causes the same result. I can eat peas and pretty sure I could eat minted peas, but the smell...

Generally speaking my view is if it has been diagnosed by a reflexologist, chiropractor, or unqualified "nutritionist", it's psychosomatic. If it survives blind testing, it's real.

---> On that we have to agree. Although with food allergies blind-testing can be a bit risky - but damned tempted to try sometimes! (then again, the guy I mentioned above does use a soy sauce that contains several of the elements he claims he cannot tolerate, guess the label print is too fine or he doesn't realise I use the same brand at home). I do know a couple of dishes I can prepare though that should put him in the toilet if what he says is true, but won't put him in the hospital. I did it once before, before I knew his list of allergies, I saw no notable reaction not even IBS symptoms. I'd remember if my cooking made a friend sick.

Kiwi
Angel

Re: "People will always argue over truth"

Hah - You said "Truth"!...

The choice of this word shows you're trying to strong-arm people to accept your point of view as being the only valid one! :-p

Ah yes, the foibles of the human imagination. Take one word used in a sentence, completely miss the way the word was spelt (perhaps indicating it was used as a Name for Someone), completely miss the context, then make a false accusation on the other's motives based on your own understanding. An accusation made, it could be said, in hopes of shutting down debate and stopping others speaking their mind.

I don't need to "strong-arm" anyone. Truth is obvious to those willing to step out from the shadow of others and seek the light themselves rather than letting them be cowed into following the herd. If you feel threatened by that then the problem is with yourself and what you'd have others believe about yourself, instead of showing yourself for who you truly are.

Kiwi
Coat

Re: Egh

As has been mentioned, many people know of the failed food scanner fundraising scam.

Not one I'd heard of myself (I admit I seldom follow the links in El Reg articles - spend too much time reading here as it is! :) )

--> My pyjama jacket. Night folks, way past my bed-time!

Kiwi
Pint

Re: This

You'll soon realise how much of a scumbag you are being by denying someone's illness in front of their faces!

I do work in care, but I also see people who clearly are faking it or have convinced themselves of a certain issue (it's quite possible for humans to do it). Too much exposure to the fakers/hypochondriacs (especially ones of the latter who use WebMD etc to diagnose every slightest sniffle into a brain tumour or whatever is the disease du jour) leads one to being somewhat cynical towards them and others. It's a form of psychological conditioning, get lied to too often and you find it harder to trust.

Good luck though with sorting out your issue. I had to make some small dietary changes a while back and am so much better for it.

I'll also suggest - nay, strongly recommend you investigate Kombucha(sp) tea and other such "pro-biotic" drinks/foods. I used to have reactions (I won't call them allergies but they could've been) to many foods. Someone gave me some of that for a while and the results were staggering. Where a small amount of cooked peas (teaspoon or less) would have me bringing up everything in my stomach and reaching[1] for more, after a few days (weeks?) of regular Kombucha I could soon eat quite normal amounts of stuff without issue. Whether psychosomatic or real I don't care, the end result is it made a huge improvement in my life and health.

To me it tasted largely like ginger beer, though not as strong. Not a bad drink.

[1] Yes it's an intentional pun. And yes I am a miserable wretch! :)

Kiwi

Re: Dont call it food poisoning - call it pickling.

My cousin's wife (a coeliac) will be in bed for days after eating even a tiny wheat... Next time someone in a kitchen is careless perhaps you could pop over and nurse her.

I know two people who've claimed that. One got fairly ill one day, seems an accident in the kitchen with someone contaminating something.. But thanks to the other, I'm a bit sus he was faking.

The other? She claims she has a serious case of coeliac's disease, yet she will happily eat the nastiest cheapest burger buns and all sorts of other wheat products. If caught, she'll complain she might feel sick later. Yet try and tell her that her symptoms don't match the literature, and you'll soon wish you'd never met her.

(Oh, 'he' also claims all sorts of other wonderful things - most people who eat meat get liver cancer, milk causes asthma and brain tumours and if he touches milk products he could die from an asthma attack (yet he can put away chocolate like no-one else I know!), has a severe nut allergy and won't let people in the house if they've had any within the last week - but again see the bit about chocolate... IOW the people I know who claim wheat/gluten problems aren't exactly causing me to have a lot of faith in the issue - of course I probably don't know your cousin's wife and am quite convinced there are a number of people who do have a serious condition, but I know others who are clearly faking it for some reason or other).

Kiwi
Angel

Re: Depends on what you eat

But you still can't necessarily trust him. Local butcher was twice fined for mis-labelling meat as UK sourced when it wasn't.

Well, it's not an exact science I'll grant you, but sit outside one and watch the clientèle. And note how old the exterior signs are. You can get a good idea of a butcher by looking at repeat business they get, how they talk with the customers etc (don't have to hear the words), and if the shop's been around a while chances are good they either do a quality product or are bloody good at faking it - good enough it fools enough people into thinking the product is decent.

Recent changes of hands can be a warning sign, but if it's what was the butcher's boy who now owns the place after the owner retired, again good odds it's a good shop.

Not guaranteed, but you'll improve your odds. And their worst will likely be vastly better than the re-packaged refuse-tip refuse the supermarkets sell.

Kiwi

Re: Depends on what you eat

Even for minimally processed food, it depends where you source it, e.g. in UK a while back horse meat got into beef mince as sold by some supermarkets.

I'm pretty sure that story was utter bullshit. Since when do supermarkets sell actual meat?

Well, I guess it is meat but it's the process.. See, butchers cut stuff up, and in the process bits get dropped on the floor. This gets swept up (mixed with the dirt, excretia and whatever else ends up on their shoes) and is sent to the pet food factory. They use what they can, but in their processes more gets spilled. This gets combined with what they don't use and gets sent to the dump.

There, the rats/gulls/hungry etc pick over it, of course spilling more and rejecting stuff. Go grab a coffee BTW, because I've got a hell of a lot more steps to get through before we got to the point where the supermarkets are buying it for what they call 'meat'.

If ever there should be people executed for false advertising...

As to restaurants... Noisy, smelly places with overpriced pretentious garbage. Not that you can taste it over the mix of strong cologne, stronger perfumes, and people who should've showered but hide it with too much scents. I could do much better at home, and there's a good chance that at least some of the vegetables were still growing mere moments before they went into the pot. When I put a tomato into a burger it's picked, washed and sliced all in a few minutes, it's on the burger less than 5 after picking. The meat and buns are the freshest I can get my hands on. Not sitting in some dingy coolstore for who knows how long before it finally gets dragged out of the roache's mouths and onto your plate, handled by someone who's likely been abused for no good reason in the last half hour and would rather be doing anything else and much rather be anywhere else. Don't care if it costs $300 for a pea and something that could pass as meat that sits on a plate that makes the London Eye look minimalist, it's crap and you can do much better at home even with a simple can of tinned tomato and some cheap pasta.

Kiwi
Paris Hilton

Re: "People will always argue over truth"

It's a fact that G-d created the Earth in six days. Agree with me, or I'll kill you and everyone you've ever loved by the most horrific means I can devise.

Of course, ignorance can cause it's own problems. Take this guy[1] for example - he shows a ton of ignorance in his post and clearly knows not the God he imagines he is speaking about.

If he would actually get to know Truth, he would have a different view of things. But it is easier to live on in ignorance and proudly display it thinking you're something greater than you are! :)

[1] or 'gal' etc.

Kiwi
Pint

Could be useful in NZ..

Although blockchain enthusiasts assure us that they will some day track the provenance of every morsel on our plates, providing all that information on the dinner plate may only confuse a diner.

Or just overwhelm. We already live in an age with too much information about a whole lotta stuff. Tell people what's in their food (especially when broken down to names of chemicals most people won't understand are quite naturally occurring and quite harmless if not healthy) and you'll not be happy with the results.

Shine an invisible near-infrared light on something, read the reflected spectrum, analyse it, and voila! Every chemical has a unique spectrographic fingerprint, every food its unique recipe, and every toxin its own signature. All of that can be detected after a moment's scan.

On that I have some doubts. How deep does the light penetrate? If I go full Ozzy and slather a ton of "tomato sauce" on top of a rather bland supposedly-meat pie, will it be able to detect what's below whatever that stuff is they call 'pastry'? Will it even get as far as that? Or will the inch thick layer of decades-old gunk trying to pass itself off as tomato sauce easily block the scan?

If I was to inject some ground glass or other nasty into your steak, would you be able to find it before it got into your system? Or would the outer layers be enough to hide whatever i wish to be hidden?

On top of that sensor we'll see components that can scan food for toxins, break down the fat, protein and carbohydrate content of your dinner, possibly even check your medicines for quality.

Now that could be useful! Here in KiwiLand(TM) there's been a bit of a fluff about some companies/groups offering drug-testing services (for free I believe but ICBW) at concerts and other large events. Their aim is to help those who buy drugs know if what they're buying is what they're getting, as some people have been given fake stuff. And of course the naysayers have been up in arms and threats of criminal charges and so on (especially from the right-wing antifun twatsquads) because these people are becoming involved in crime and not reporting it. Their idea is these kids will buy, might as well let them know if it is safe to consume, without the testing agency the kids could as easily be consuming rat-poison as ecstasy.

Having a scanner on your phone and an app that helps alert you could be very helpful!

Anything that goes into our bodies will be scanned – and it's almost guaranteed that what we'll learn about the purity of our industrial-scale food production will shock us.

Yeah nah..

Seriously, no to both. I am trying to be a reasonably 'organic' grower but I have no doubt parts of my soil are contaminated, and even if not as bad as I fear there's going to be some plastics getting into my food chain. But even if what I grow is pure, I have no doubts the other stuff I eat won't always be despite NZ's laws. I also know how amazing our bodies are at dealing with things - and how amazing they are at psychosomatic symptoms that can become life-threatening (think the food is poisoning you and causing heart problems? Well the stress of that alone can lead to problems like heart failure or stroke if it becomes bad enough!).

It's not likely to bother me none even if I did know, but I ain't going to trouble myself to know. God gave me a body that deals with stuff quite well if I don't abuse it and keep it basically healthy. If I have too many nights like tonight where a large packet of crisps disappears over the course of a couple of hours then I'm going to be having problems (or course, it might also rebel against me for using "crisps" instead of the proper "chips"!), especially when followed up with a large ice-cream.. But I don't do that often anyway - the chips are the first I've had in at least 6 months and I seldom eat ice-cream, plus I did a lot of extra work today and had a very healthy dinner (I think) so pretty sure I'm OK.

Er, yeah anyway.. Knowing what's in your food won't help. Looking after your body, cleaning up the ground etc - that's what we need to do. When it comes to packaging and chemicals etc... If you think it's OK to put in your compost heap it's probably something you can have around. If not, maybe try to get rid of it - like plastics and most of the other pollutants we dump on our environment. Idiot nutjob greenies etc are all caught up in the bull over carbon/CO2 yet without that all life ends - but we can do without our individually wrapped cucumbers and other fruit/veg. We can do without using one car to drive one person the same trip at the same time as many other people are doing. We can do without our massive fuel guzzlers to try to hide we're little boys/girls insecure about ourselves and need big armour suits to feel tough/superior..... We look after our food and our planet we don't need apps to tell us it's good...

--> For the rest of the article - tyvm! And El Reg - I don't always trust you (especially after the LP mess :) ) but you're much better than any of my local press, and of course you have the BOFH... And the commentard community here is pretty good too!

(PS : My view on drug use - if you harm no one have fun. The moment the way you are after using or the cost of using starts to hurt others, then it's time to stop)

Have you been naughty, or have you been really naughty? Microsoft 365 users to get their very own Compliance Score

Kiwi
Trollface

Re: I'm sure this will work just as well..

In low volumes that can be tolerated - the human filter can move them to the "new mail" folder. You would think the MS 365 algorithm would learn the pattern of what you consider valid emails.

If you're using Thunderbird or Evolution, you should be able to make a simple script to move messages out of the junk folders as needed.

If you're using that Other thing, well, welcome to the 90's... :)

Kiwi
Coat

Re: I predict...

I predict people being locked out of things they are supposed to have access to.

Pretty sure you're wrong.

I mean, no automated service/system anywhere has ever locked a user/admin out of data/systems they should really have access to! Nothing's ever lost private keys or blocked all access or somehow flipped a bit in a password entry...

Hope the customers have good backups of their data on their systems (only I'll not be surprised if the MS T&Cs claim 'copyright' of all data on their system...).. Although that'd kinda defeat the purpose of using any 'cloud' service like this anyway, as said data are outside the scope of the scamscanner

Sure, we made your Wi-Fi routers phone home with telemetry, says Ubiquiti. What of it?

Kiwi

Re: Outbound firewall?

So there are people in enterprise IT who don't put third party devices into a sandbox where they have restricted access? Who are these people and who let them loose in the network?

1) Build a great product that people will want to use.

2) Be a very trustworthy company and do everything right, with "our users security/privacy at the foremost of our decisions"

3) Wait till you have a large number of users loving your product and trusting your exceptional service, reliability and security.

4) Slip in an update that steals all their data

5) Profit!

(Somehow MS managed to skip 1 & 2...)

Besides, given that so many places still run Windows and use cloud products (O365/G-Docs etc), I don't think as many there give a stuff about who has their data as you'd imagine :(

Kiwi

Re: Limits to your madness.

How do you connect to the internet? There's always that one pesky device that really does need to talk to the rest of the world.

When the internet drops off (as it does from time to time where I live), I don't expect my WiFi, DHCP, switch etc to stop working. I only expect to not be able to contact machines outside of my home network.

Why does WiFi functionality require internet access?

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Common Sense

Put a listening device on myanyone's gear without telling me and watch how fast I never buy your products again.

FTFY.

YW.

HANW.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: A lot of pissed-off people

They screwed up by not making it opt-in and not clearly informing people. But at least they are reacting responsibly. I'll blacklist the trace.svc.ui.com address in my DNS server and on my USG, that should deal with the problem, for now.

Very brave... Not in a GDPR-type area?

Me... I'd have a lot of trouble trusting them given their past practice (just these events alone, not making opt in AND not informing the customers) and past behaviour can be a good indicator of future behaviour. Would you give a known fraudster the job of managing your accounts? Especially without careful oversight? It's trivial to set up a new domain, or put something on another domain requesting/sending to a specific path (eg "ui.com/spyondumbcustomers.html"), or another port. I think if I wanted to hide something, I could have the router send a specific string as part of the update check which would let it send the pilfered data during that process (although HTTPS urls wouldn't be easy for you to read anyway).

I take protecting my data and the data of those I do stuff for very seriously. And I know full well companies work on the principle of "They didn't mind us pointing at them and laughing a little bit, so we should be fine to tie them up and beat the shit out of them" - IOW if they get away with a little they'll go for a lot. If this lot had gotten away with sending a little data, next thing you know your usage rates would've been doubling as every packet was copied to them "just for quality control purposes" - same as with MS/your documents.

Kiwi
Mushroom

Re: Once more, with feeling

Because of that history, more than this particular instance, I have them on my "never do business with" list.

A house-wirer acquaintance of mine uses them, and from his talking I'd been interested but not looked. I don't think I'll bother looking any further without putting them behind some serious firewall. Might just stick with no-name-brand repeaters and my dogged preference for wired networks wherever possible.

(I refuse to call him an electrician because if it's not 240V mains sockets/lighting or deep fryers, he doesn't have a clue. I doubt he could fix a 1980s torch with a flat battery! Once refused a customer request to have 10A breakers installed in a fusebox because "The standard is 20a for safety, therefore 10A must be more dangerous" (the request was made because the customer wanted the circuits limited to 10a absolute max, not 10.005 and --> definitely not 20! -->)

Socket to the energy bill: 5-bed home with stupid number of power outlets leaves us asking... why?

Kiwi
Boffin

Re: I'm not buying it...

Cat-5 to the privy was the mark of a serious BOFH dwelling in the days before WiFi.

Actually no. The BOFH was very much against computers at home.

[El Reg - when are we getting our BOFH icon back?]

Kiwi

Wired efficiently with a couple of separate circuits (say left and right of the room) it shouldn't have caused any breaker problems.

Maybe explains the mix of colours.. One style of faceplates on one breaker (or phase if they've used more than one phase in that lot!), another on a different breaker... Helps if your local supply is prone to dropping a phase or two and you can quickly tell which one(s) are still operating and move plugs across.

Kiwi
Coat

Re: Property suitable for First Time...

Crypto miners wouldn't have bothered with all the downlights, especially the ones level with the power sockets.

Ever tried fitting cables to a computer when the room is very well lit and the box is in shadow? Might explain some of the lights (me, I use a handy reflective surface (usually an old CD lying around) and a torch, then memory of the spot and a fingertip to find the hole)

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Seems fine to me

...also run empty conduit from the utilities room to just about everywhere that didn't have sockets a meter away already.

I remember advising several people of that in the 90's when I was a bit more involved in new construction work. In recent times a few who didn't have told me they wished they'd done so, as even back then you had at most a STB, TV and VCR in the lounge, plus maybe a spare for the vacuum. And who'd ever want more than one phone jack in the house?

Kiwi
Coat

Re: WHY ARE THERE DOWNLIGHTERS UNDER THE WINDOW SILLS

At least three of those suggestions are the things done by people who don't consider safety a prime factor. They use multi-gang extension leads, often daisy chained. Way cheaper and they care more about costs and profits than anything else.

The growers I've known (not many of course, honest, and only anecdotal tales long after they've paid their debt to society, honest!) were very considerate when it came to safety. Anything but the best could damage their product and thus their income, and of course one of the quickest ways to let cops etc know the location a growing op was to set fire to it.

Grow well, sell well, play well....

(Besides, they had to spend their money on something. With all sorts of laws in place to detect people using lots of cash for things, might as well spend it on decent electrical fittings, it's not like they were short... Mines the one with "propagating for beginners" in the pocket)

Kiwi

Re: Lots of sockets

If you are fitting metal back boxes then I suggest you put silicon grease on the threads of the socket screws.

Plus one billion for this! (complete with sharks with frikken lasers!)

I learned this doing aerial installation work decades ago. It's helped me out a lot where I'm dismantling something I built maybe 10 years or more ago, and the threads are still in pristine condition even when exposed to the elements. And the stuff comes off so nicely when you need it to!

Its one of the best tech tips I will ever give.

Kiwi
Alert

Looking at the screens...

Looking at the security screens on the windows, the "indoor botany hobbyist" comment may be very much right..

But then, the arcade idea by mark4155 is also a good bet.

Perhaps someone doing PC repair or a holdover from the "Lan party" days?

As to the structure, oblig XKCD (apols if already posted), though I wonder if something a little more schlocking is appropriate.

A few years back I was looking at other options and came across a bedsit with attached garage, and a mere 32 sockets in the garage. Not all the same, not exactly in line, not looking like a professional did the work. The place was cheap, but still on the rental market some 6 months later. Don't know if/when it was let or why it didn't go, but I didn't feel the power supply would be reliable. Some of my projects could be using a table saw, skill saw, jigsaw and repsaw, 3 drills (2x drill bits and 1x driver), a couple of lights, hot glue gun, chargers, laptop and external screen with powered USB hub.. Hell, lets throw in another dozen power tools all plugged in at once and I've still got a long way to go. Chuck in a fridge and kettle and still got plenty. Chuck in a microwav[BANG]. Chuck in a higher rated breaker, then chuck in the microwave...

I'd want to know quite well what wire gauges were used, how well each point was fitted (a poor connection can lead to a meltdown), and where the breakers are.

Boffins blow hot and cold over li-ion battery that can cut leccy car recharging to '10 mins'

Kiwi

Re: "we can't just ignore major blockers to uptake."

There's no way I'm willingly going back to an old fashioned car.

You might not have much of a choice when materials for making batteries run low, or people start to realise just how bad the EV's are when it comes to pollution.

Kiwi
Boffin

Re: "we can't just ignore major blockers to uptake."

Of course that assumes that you only charge whilst you sleep, which is probably unlikely, unless you run on an economy7 style tariff. In reality you'll have many more hours than that available.

Just a small point many people seem to miss...

When you're charging a lot of cars over night, the overnight demand rates will climb - much more like the peak demands (and for longer). Don't think the cheap rates will survive long. Here in NZ we've already lost out cheap night rates because of demand/use patterns. It'll happen anywhere else such use patterns occur.

As to grid power/fuel pumps, give a thought to how much power is needed to move 50L of petrol from an underground storage tank to an above ground car tank. An EV will get very few KM for the same amount of 'leccy.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: "we can't just ignore major blockers to uptake."

"When petrol engines first arrived they were inconvenient - far easier to take a horse."

That quickly changed when they found a car didn't get distracted or spooked, plus it required much less maintenance (horses have to eat even when they're not being used, cars less so--then there's the other end, recall one of the Labors of Hercules).

Horses never require as much maintenance as a car. They can be self-fuelling, have a will-to-live (though that doesn't always carry over to their rider!), and have internal maintenance and repair systems that only an exceptional intelligence could've dreamed up or built.

Leave a car with a full tank parked up for a while in warm enough weather and you'll tend to get the fuel either evaporating or 'going off' ie breaking down and fouling carbs/injection systems and the like. This isn't always the case, I have known cars with 5 or 6 year old petrol in the tanks to still start and run (though not perfectly as the fuel did lose some of it's key bangmakerjuice).

A horse cannot do the same range as a modern car, but it can fuel itself without operator intervention, and it can find its way home without swerving off the road/under trucks etc. Oh, and their emissions are actually quite good for the environment, especially gardens!

But early cars? I think you were looking at a week's maintenance for every hour's driving! :)

Kiwi

Re: "we can't just ignore major blockers to uptake."

EVs are easier, and more versatile than liquid fueled cars - there are a very small number of journeys for which they extend the duration slightly.

My station wagon cost me a couple of $hundred a few year ago (actually I've had it around 7 years now!). Still runs great with no major issues, only some minor electrical work once and 'consumables' (oil, tyres etc) replaced in that time.

Every now and then it has to take standard sized fridge/freezer as I am helping someone move house. Usually it can take that, plus a lot of other stuff (eg bedding packed around the sides of it), plus tow a small/medium trailer with some of their other stuff.

At least fortnightly I'll take one of the oldies I care for out shopping or to do other things. That means their walker or even scooter in the back, them in the car, and still their shopping or whatever else we do. Other times I do shopping for several people in one trip, which means maybe the equivalent of at least half a dozen large suitcases in the back plus myself and 2 others in the seats (ie 3 adults).

During winter it becomes a 2-seater and gets the back part filled with free firewood at least twice a week, which goes to people who otherwise couldn't (I do get paid by someone else for this service).

This summer I plan to use it as a mini campervan and do some actual camping which I haven't done in ages. Toss a mattress inside, some curtains for the windows, little bit of space for stuff..

Any EV that is anywhere near as versatile as a basic 1990's station wagon? Any I could buy for less than a weeks wages? Hell, any I could buy 2nd hand and get even 2 years of life from?

My other vehicle - my daily runner - is a motorbike. Even older than the car, and I've had it a lot longer.

Range isn't an issue for me most of the time (I could borrow/hire if I really needed it). Price, long-term reliability and carrying capacity are. Especially the ability to be able to move a lot of stuff on very short notice, which has happened a few times over the last few years.

Can you name an EV that meets my needs? Especially price and longevity?

If you're going to exploit work's infrastructure to torrent, you better damn well know how to hide it

Kiwi
Mushroom

There's probably a worrying number of them out there with my blood stains in as well. It turned out building computers left me with as many cuts as working in a professional kitchen, although less burns.

I used to build stuff for a while and also had the blood etc go out. Watching some crime show one day I started to doubt the effectiveness of DNA, when I realised that my blood was in many places (including several countries) I'd never been. Imagine a wiped-down crime scene but a small but of your blood was on the computer case - not wiped down because the perp was no where near it.

I did a few months in a professional kitchen as well, starting as a general hand on a temp-lark and suddenly being thrown in as veggie prep (ie cutting/peeling/dicing all the vegetables). I don't recall once cutting myself. But I often felt that a large box of band-aids should be a standard part of the bits that come with a new computer case (and perhaps several large-size bandages, those pads for covering large wounds etc, --> maybe even a large cauterizing blowtorch --> ).

I'm not sure a PC is able to be powered up until a blood-sacrifice has been given. Perhaps that's why one of mine acts up so much at times...

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Pick your dates better if you're going to make up a story

So, this is the early 2000's, right, and bittorrent. Ok, I'm going to call 7 kinds of BS on this.

Afraid I'm going to have to call a few bits of BS on your claims of BS..

So, in the early 00's, membership sites worked on IP, so random IP address suddenly showing up, unnusual bandwidth, nope, it'd have been investigated and locked for unusual behaviour, plus it's not like today with passcoded torrent announces.

Back then many users were still on DU, and even those on any form of household broadband still had dynamic IPs and IP changes were common. Few (especially those on 'Telecom" in NZ) could get long periods of uptime.

There was a fair amount of competition in the market in many countries with LLU and Telcos were competing for customers. One of the big offerings was to be increasing data limits, and some were going to unlimited (Europe perhaps was even ahead of the curve there, including the UK). As such, many of us were ramping up our torrenting and seeding, especially those of us who did not fear the RIAA et all. Hardware prices were coming down, speeds were going up, and having a computer doing more stuff in the background was also more feasible. I have no problems at all seeing an account starting to seed heavily.

BUT, at that point every site got a LOT more paranoid (following EliteTorrent's busting) so they'd have been even less likely to accept a random account that's been in such poor condition, suddenly pumping gigs out. flagged and locked out.

No. Not every site, just some you maybe knew of and some who were widely publicised. There were a great many membership sites that were a lot more quiet (in visibility, not in membership ;) ) and also many were outside the reach of the US companies and their abuse of the law.

And that makes it even more likely when he uses XPSP3 as an excuse, because that came out in 08.

Can't argue with that (though maybe he meant SP2 or maybe, since it was more than a decade ago, his memory is out by a couple of years and what he thought was '05 was '08 - I certainly would not be able to state when W1, 2, 3, 311, NT1/2/3/4, XP, XPSP1/2/3, Fista, FSP1/2, W7, W7SP1, W8 (IIRC around 2013), W10 (2014/15?), any version of *nix and any MacOS with even a hint of accuracy. I would've thought XPSP3 was pre-Fista meaning well before '08 but I guess my memory of unimportant dates is inaccurate. (And no, I could not state without going through records which jobs I was at with any accuracy back then, it's all kind of a time-smeared blur today)

So it's a good story, but doesn't fit with the facts of how such activity-logging trackers work (and I've been covering them for 15+ years).

You didn't cover nearly enough of them then.

At the start of torrenting I had dial up. I had a 2nd line and a computer to spare that stayed connected 24/7 and I throttled/paused the torrenting when we were browsing or doing other stuff (originally coax-based LAN then hub then 8-port 10/100 switch which I still have, can vaguely remember running software on 98 that let me throttle the data speeds other LAN users got). In '02 or 03 I was invited to a member-only torrent site and for a wee while was stymied by my lack up uploads till I made my music collection available. That was hammered as I had some rare but popular stuff, and I had my system online 24/7. Then late '03 I was able to move to a suburb that had ADSL available. I still did much of my seeding on DU as ADSL then was in much smaller numbers and you were charged heftily for going over your data limits.

I'm not sure when I signed up with Actrix but at that stage they had a daily limit of 700Mb which was from I think midnight - 8pm, after 8pm you were wide open. If you hit your limit you were throttled back to DU speeds but of course after 8pm you were fine (or maybe 9pm, it was a long time ago). Other providers soon started going with throttling rather than charging big money for over-limit runs (and it was a massive phone bill that caused me to change ISP to Actrix in the first place, when I accidentally left the seedbox on the ADSL rather than DU).

So while you're saying that he could not have been doing this, and while he did get a date wrong if he really did mean XPSP3 it's plenty plausible the writer has some confusion over when SP3 was released. After all, a quick DDG shows SP2 was in 2004. Then again, a Computerworld article copywrited 20071 says that there was a release of SP3 in 2007 at >300MB but when the Windows Update release was to happen later (in "1H '08") it would be much smaller - this ties in more with the original story. SP2 was 260+mb so it would also tie in with the story, if the writer got the SP2/SP3 confused.

So if you take the reasonable assumption the person was writing from memory and got a date or a version confused, and if you realise that your own experience of torrent sites was more limited than you'd like to realise, his story remains plausible. I'm not saying it happened (though I know someone who did get in trouble for killing their work's data allowance in a single weekend with torrents).

Given your history, I'm quite surprised at the mistakes you made in your post! :) Speaking of your history, thanks. I may not always agree with your politics but I appreciate you taking a stand.

1 The article is at computerworld.com/article/2538363/update--microsoft-releases-windows-xp-sp3.html. I'd make it clicky but that triggers a recraptcha hell loop, which I cannot get through because I am even less willing to allow google's spyware on my system these days and thus cannot complete it.

Kiwi

Sometimes just a "we know what you're doing, stop it and it goes no further" can end all sorts of naughtiness in a company...
A perfect example of this happened overnight. An email from Firefox with the topic "Keep that weird thing you searched for private". Apparently I have an account signed up to their "account tips", must be a throwback to when I was trying out their "sync" some years back.

Anyway.. How many people around the world would've been doing a search they felt was 'weird' or embarrassing at the moment they received that email? If it went out to more than a million people I'd say there's at least a handful 'caught in the act' at the time, and hundreds if not thousands more who'd done some 'weird' search in the last few hours, more so for the last few days etc.

Kiwi
Big Brother

Until the day the Security Manager stopped at my desk and said quietly – “Very bloody clever. Now knock it off…”

HeadSec walks off thinking "That'll stop the smartarse graffiti in the toilets!"

I knew someone who pulled that trick on a few people. No clue who was up to no good but did something very similar to that. Sometimes just a "we know what you're doing, stop it and it goes no further" can end all sorts of naughtiness in a company - sometimes even stuff that was completely un-detected (or fully known but not cared about - don't ask how I know! ;) )

All based on the theory that we're all guilty.

Oblique XKCD

Kiwi

My point was that supposedly good business connectivity shouldn't be worse than cheap consumer broadband.

Guessing you've never dealt with Vodafone (at least VF NZ) or "The cuntany formally known as Telecon" (ie 'Spark').

In recent times around $100 would get you unlimited ADSL and decent if not unlimited VDSL (if avaialble) for a home connection, but over $200NZ would maybe net you 5gig of data for a business connection - if you were fool enough to stick with them (Tele$cum were charing over $250/name/year for domain name services when '1st Domains' were charging $21 for the first year and $24/year for each year after that - and more services than smellycon even knew existed at the time (I know coz I asked about something and was told it cannot be done such a thing doesn't exist, went to 1stD and "Yes we do that, costs you no extra". (sorry, this was 15 or so years ago, cannot recall the full details - which brings me to another really great thing about 1stD - in that time the basic layout of their page has not changed aside from necessary additions for improved functionality! None of this 'rebranding' bullshit just coz they haven't changed fonts or fucked up the layout this month, they know how to get repeat business and that's by making it as easy and quick as possible for us to deal with them!)

Kiwi
Coat

(fuck you Evesham Micros)

Evesham? Wasn't that a contraction of "Ever Sham"?

Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street? The AI had no clue about jaywalkers

Kiwi

Re: "the AI thought Elaine was, at times, a static object"

The classification shouldn't affect the tracking of an object at all...

Yup. As another poster mentioned, trees fall over. As can lamp posts, power lines, fences etc. Hills can become landslides, houses can move as well (usually on trucks but sometimes with the aid of 'natural forces'). While the correct ID can help you predict an objects actions, slowing down when you know you don't have it ID's is quite prudent. And if you're changing classification, you don't have it's ID pinned.

Kiwi
Coat

Re: Surely

and their future career path.

If their code practices are anything to go by, I'm guessing "crash and burn" features quite strongly on their career path.

Kiwi
Coat

Re: Surely

What kind of idiot writes software like this?!

Easy.

An Uber-idiot!

Kiwi

Re: Surely

"Never hurry into a situation you don't understand". Braking means giving yourself more time before you arrive at the scene which in turn gives you more time to make sense of what is happening; that could make the difference between life and death - yours, or someone elses.

When I've been teaching people to drive, or just chatting with others about driving (especially newbies), I've asked one question.

What is your biggest asset?

I've mentioned it applies to cars, trucks, bikes, spaceships, supertankers, aircraft, any form of vehicle. I'd usually give them a while before answering.

Time.

If you have enough time to assess a situation and react, even if you cannot identify all the elements or correctly predict their path, you're not going to be in an accident. If you're heading into an unknown situation and you slow down, you have more time to assess what is happening, more time to come up with a course of action, and more time to react. Go in too fast and you run out of time before you have a clue what hit you.

If in doubt, stretch it out.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: "However allowing the vehicle to do that would result in a horrendous ride"

Moreover even our peripheral vision is more sensible to movements than high-precision imaging which happens only in the fovea - and we can react to movements well before we "categorize" the object. Often, what it is is important only after you avoided it...

EarlyAM on the way to work one day, I had a large black dog rush at me from the side of the road. Avoided it easily enough of course, but did take a look at it to make sure it wasn't continuing the chase (legal speed limit of 50kph but weather conditions meant I was going slower, I think some of the larger breeds could be a threat at those speeds). Wasn't a dog at all, was rubbish day on that street and someone's rubbish bag was blown across the road.

Dog or bag, it was on a collision course with me and if I'd not avoided it I've have been eating gravel for breakfast. As you said, only after it was no longer a threat was the actual ID of any real interest :)

Kiwi
Flame

Re: "Fall Creators Update"

The more pertinent question should be: if it detected an unknown object that may or may not have been going into its path of travel, why didn't it slow down (unless it was already going much faster than the 39 mph it was doing when it hit)?

I came here pretty much to say the same thing.

There's other options too. It could've alerted the operator, slowed, stopped... Lots of things.

If you're playing solitaire and there's something on your screen you can't identify immediately, it's probably safe to ignore. If you're driving and there's something you cannot identify, it's not safe to ignore. You give it more attention until you can ID it, or at least tell if it's fixed/maybe moving/maybe heading your way. This is absolute basic safe driving, spot something, rate it as a hazard and respond accordingly.

I don't know why the person looked away but there can be valid reasons for it while driving. They may also have been using a phone. But regardless, if Uber were stupid enough to make their car only spot peds at designated crossings then they're still at least 50% culpable. Have the designers never driven in an urban environment? Pedestrians are stupider than sheep, and certainly by and large don't respect designated crossings. How can they be designing cars/control systems and not know this?

(I also wonder if the 33 vehicles that drove into a self-driving Uber were the reason that they turned the erratic auto-brakes off....)

Microsoft welcomes ancient Project app to the 365 family, meaning bleak future for on-prem

Kiwi
Pint

Re: How much?

Apols for my regular late response :)

I doubt that Microsoft are just going to shut down Office 365. It's one of their most profitable businesses and what they see as the future of their company.

Shut it down? Maybe not. Change terms, remove your data, suddenly cut your allowance etc? They've done that. Decide features are not going to be supported any more despite a large % of their userbase begging them to retain it? They've done that a few times.

What about the legal implications? Do you work with other people's information? What of the privacy laws where you and your customers are based - can you survive having client data sent to MS? I'd hate to discover my Dr had moved to W10 (they haven't as yet), and will be making things a bit more difficult for them if they do, until I am satisfied that their IT arrangements meet the rights I have RE data protection/privacy. Same for any one else.

I have offline copies of our emails. And I control our domains. So if it suddenly disappears I'll have to scramble to set up some other email service and deal with it the best I can.

I ran ours on an old laptop, admittedly that only supported a few staff and also some friends were given access for the hell of it/testing purposes. Perhaps 10 people/accounts in total. Didn't take much to set up (perhaps a weekend) and maintenance was trivial.

I also did my own jobs as well as supporting our customers. I did web design work, some on my server some on other arrangements, and a fair bit of other stuff, supporting Windows Mac and Linux. Oh and Android (we didn't do IOS stuff but more from a lack of experience than anything else).

Admittedly I did work many more hours than the shop was open, but it was mine and I was intent on making it work. (small tip for business success, don't hire a lying cheating thieving bitch as a business manager!)

At the moment that's me, but I'm not competent to manage an Exchange server, and have no intention of learning. I support our PCs and deal with IT in the breaks between actual paying work.

--> There's enough effort in supporting PC's days so I don't blame you on not doing Exchange! :) I honestly am happier being (mostly) out of it.

For a large company, there are much better alternatives. For a company our size cloud is far more reliable and cost effective than what we can do ourselves.

As you've probably seen, I'm a cautious cloud advocate. I've seen come firms die or majorly change (Mega could go the same way as Megaupload, copy.com was decent but suddenly cut storage services, MS has changed/cut storage services and other things, AWS commonly gets hacked (usually due to user error but not always it seems). I do from time to time use other services where they can provide better than I can but I strongly advocate if you use another's computer make sure you keep your own copies of data (properly backed up) and if you cannot back up the software then have a way of replicating it (even if just saving to standard formats rather than proprietary).

Couple of years back we had the Kaikoura quake, which was interesting on both sides of the cloud debate. Some buildings were damaged so much that people were not allowed to even remove parked cars from the streets outside let alone go in to retrieve computers. Anyone with all their data on-prem and no where else was screwed whereas places with all their data in "the cloud" would've been OK.

OTOH, areas were without power for a while (12 hours for my suburb so not bad, but others were out for a while longer) and coms were down in places as well. Those with all their data available and mobile enough to move would be OK, those with power but no internet could not use cloud anything.

We've had large-scale internet losses (whether a telco's systems go TITSUP or 'natural disasters" knock out coms lines) as well. Oh, and un-natural ones like the idiots at Chorus who list "single digit IQ" as one of their prime qualifications it seems (Chorus manages most of our telecoms infrastructure).

I guess I advocate backups by whatever means gets you running quickly. Me - had our shop server and had another machine in a mate's closet, now have the two split up across geographically different areas. When we had a long-term outage I was able to change DNS entries to the backup system once I drove far enough to get a connection.

But yes, I wouldn't want to manage exchange either :) I did owncloud for data and calender stuff (pretty much outta the box setup) and IIRC "Flurdy" was the guy who wrote the email tut I followed. Apache+PHP for the web stuff. (IIRC - been a while since I actually had to pay any attention to it!)

Traffic lights worldwide set to change after Swedish engineer saw red over getting a ticket

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Red for stop?

Better a lazy asshole, than an asshole who races through amber lights...

Yup.

Not that it'd make you lazy. In fact kinda the opposite, it takes more effort to stop than to keep going :)

(as to the making others late - imagine how late they'd be if a major intersection in a gridlocked city is blocked by a bad crash)

Not just adhesive, but alcohol-resistant adhesive: Well done, Apple. Airpods Pro repairability is a zero

Kiwi
Boffin

Re: So much for "design"

So, it's rather ridiculous to claim these sound "probably tinny"

The size and shape of any speaker can tell you a lot about it's audio characteristics. Seeing a frequency response table can tell you a lot more.

Ear buds generally fall into the 'probably tinny" category simply as a function of their size and shape. IME, the more expensive the price tag the more likely it is that they will actually sound like crap. The problem with people is we assume that since we paid so much for them they must be good and it's US who must be in the wrong. Or, and my experience of apple users has led me to this, some people just have never had anything better and think the product they use is good vs other products that are more functional, better made, and cheaper. It's the whole "I pad a lot for this so it must be good and you paid much less for that so yours must be much worse" mentality.

Kiwi
Boffin

Re: Removable stem seems like a reasonable suggestion...

At $250, what *other* $250 earphones was he trying? I mean, they have been sold and around for decades, but I seriously doubt this is not a comparison on a free $1 set and a $250 set!

TBH, most of the 'expensive' stuff has been for badging (like the garbage with the 'dre' name attached), nothing at all for the quality. I've got a $30 set of Philips over-ear phones that are superior by far to most other stuff out there, especially to stuff over $200. I've got quite decent $5 ear buds as well which out perform the few more expensive ones I've tried.

It's like the Denon cables or whoever makes the $10,000 patch cables, marketing to stupid people too embarrassed to admit they were had. Probably the only decent premium phones ever made were the "Motorhead Bomber" ones, but I've not been fortunate enough to get my hands on some for a good testing.

Kiwi
WTF?

Wish I'd got to this article sooner too..

It's surprising how many of the "Extinction Rebellion" and other such twats will rush out and buy the latest crap fad product, or buy electronics with a life span measured in months, and fill their lives with other plastic-loaded garbage, yet wail and protest about damage done to the environment and how other people should take responsibility.

Now it's warmer I am eating cold meals more often, starting to spend some of my free time building furniture from recycled timber that was destined for the tip (and have had orders/requests for a pile of stuff from neighbours - maybe I should change jobs again!), and expect at least 5 years life from any phone or other device (excluding dropping from more than twice my height or accidental dunkings - which I've not actually managed to do aside from a phone forgotten in an outside pocket while tramping with a very unexpected downpour (more that I'd forgotten to put the phone in my pack in it's plastic baggy than the rain though).

At least from the very first post someone has picked up on this (not that I've actually read any more than my own verbiage thus far :) )

These ER people should be fighting the companies who make the products they use first. Instead of buying these things (and other companies' versions) like no doubt a great many of them will, they should be rejecting the brand outright, perhaps even giving away products of said brand that they own (why give away - imagine if a few million I'mOwned[1] twits give away the stuff instead of trying to sell it - apple's new and 2nd hand prices as well as their stock will take a significant hit). Actually many of them probably badger their parents into buying the latest ishiney (or is that 'is hiney'?) rather than doing the work and paying themselves (yes I started earning my own money before I started high school - and it meant I could charge my parents for doing our lawns as I'd otherwise be able to be out doing other work - and they soon started charging me cooking and cleaning etc costs :) )

[1] Semi-phonetic pun on 'iphOne' in case you missed it - explained because explaining seems to piss some El Reg readers off

Tesla driver killed after smashing into truck had just enabled Autopilot – US crash watchdog

Kiwi

Re: Stop blaming tesla

"You need professional help, whether it's getting off addiction or a damned good psych."

I'm a teetotaler. I'm not on anything, I'm always like this. And the last psych who tried needed a psych herself.

Not surprised. But you can do lots to improve yourself y'know. Some of it takes effort, but it can be done. I'm the poster-boy for rising above your status and improving your lot in life (though I do have to credit God with most of the work, I was just willing to act and allow myself to be treated :) )

"Lifetime loss of license. In other countries it can happen with a single incident."

So again, what do you tell the dependent spouses and children of the people you force off the road and out of their breadwinning jobs? "Life sucks. You lose. Better luck next life."?

I've been over this several times. How do you justify your claim that the dangerous driver who is a "breadwinner" is more important than the many other decent drivers who are also "breadwinners"?

I would tell them what the courts tell them. There are laws. Those laws are in place to protect other people from harm. Your partner broke those laws. Your partner knew that breaking those laws could lead to a lifetime loss of license yet still chose to act. Your partner got the known consequences of breaking those laws.

That's why we have things written down in law and that's why the consequences of breaking those laws are often part of the driving test questions or "driver's ed". It's so people know that driving is a conditional privilege, and if you break the conditions you lose the privilege. No one who is capable of passing a driving test should be able to claim they didn't know the consequences of bad driving.

I'm sure you can look up the judge's decision and sentencing notes in many such cases yourself if you want to see what people get told in these cases. Or go and sit in your local traffic court for a few hours, listen first-hand.

For drunk/drug driving, I'd give 1st offence a fairly light sentence, maybe a few hours community service and a suspended sentence. 2nd offence within 20 years is at least 5 years prison plus lifetime loss of license, no excuses. 3rd offence life in prison with no possibility of parole, OR amputation of arms and legs so you cannot operate a vehicle again (got to give them some hope of release). I might consider raising the alcohol limits some above what NZ laws currently have though, as they are quite low.

I've lost friends to drunk drivers and had people hurt by dangerous drivers, myself included. In the last few days I was nearly in a head-on by someone desperate to complete a passing move after the passing lane ended (rather than waiting less than a minute for the next one). I have no issues whatsoever with removing their ability to drive for a very long time if not permanently.

What would you "tell the dependent spouses and children of the people" who are killed by a dangerous driver you would allow to keep driving?

I'm not a teetotaler, but I've also never been drunk. I have often had more than enough to put me over the legal limit. My rule is quite simple though, if I have had any alcohol in the last 8 hours I am not driving. If I may need to drive in the next 8 hours I am not drinking. It is really easy to manage, and if anyone cannot manage that then they cannot manage to safely drive and thus should not be driving. If someone as bad as me can manage it, anyone can.

Kiwi
FAIL

Re: Making a drink

"The case snopes mention may have been untrue, but I'm pretty certain that it or something much like it has been done."

If there were, it would've made the news.

True.. None of them have. Oh wait a minute, we're in a comment thread on an article where one such case appears to have made the news. We don't know why this driver engaged the AP and took their hands off the wheel but there's possibilities including stuff done on the phone, sleeping, reading a book or newspaper. We do know from other articles and many many many many many many many youtube videos that people do these things. So I base my "pretty certain" on a great deal of known fact, or at least on a number of news reports and large amount of video footage.

I guess you need this stuff explaining to you.

For something to be in the news it has to be witnessed, has to pass through any editorial checks (not common these days I'll grant), and be of more interest than other items vying for inches that day. For you to see it one of the bits of press you read has to cover it, or a search you perform has to bring up an item that you choose to read.

There are probably hundreds of thousands of news outlets that you don't know exist, and millions of articles published hourly that you will never hear about.

More than likely, such an event would garner Darwin Award attention, too. IOW, much like the incident of the sex-in-the-car-on-camera incident, stuff like this would grab instant attention...IF it actually happened (which would mean one would be able to nail down the time and place--funny thing, though: multiple versions of the story have turned up in the past, NONE have been actually supported by actual news articles).

And yet again, we're in a comments thread on an article where one appears to have actually happened. An article that links to other articles containing links, and likely those articles also link to more articles and reports.

As to pinning down a date.. Here's one for sex in a car caught on video on 15 Sept 2018, assuming the source can be trusted (The Sun) : https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7566523/couple-have-sex-video-car-madrid-motorway/. No idea if AP was used.

Lots of stuff happens that is not witnessed, or does not get reported to the press. Lots of stuff happens, has video submitted to the press, but for various reasons (usually coming down to "something else will sell more ads") it does not get published.

But there you go. One search, 20 seconds of effort, and I give you supporting news articles. Do search engines not exist in your weird little world or something?