DoubleGlazing

London Stansted and Manchester (same owners) recently had "upgrades" where you have to walk along a street to get to the seating area and gates beyond.

That street is narrow, long and forces you to pass every single shop in the departures area. It's blatantly hostile design.

Back in the late 90s when Ireland was starting to think about digital terrestrial TV a system called DVB-RCT was considered. Basically your receiver could also transmit back to the television transmitter. The system could handle thousands of concurrent connections, albeit each one had very low bandwidth - around 1Kbp/s in peak time.That was considered good enough for very basic interactivity and for authorising PPV purchases etc.In quieter hours or in areas were there were fewer receivers that bandwidth would be much higher, but in reality that would be rare.

In the end the company that the governement selected to start the rollout of DTT went bust and I don't think the system was used anywhere else. The developer of the technology abandoned it in 2006 as other connection methods (broadband/mobile data) were preferred.

On a similar note one of my childrens friends absolutely loves the taste of Nintendo Switch cartridges and licks them untill the bitter coating wears off.

His tastebuds must be wired different.

Unfortunately the GDPR is largely toothless if a company without an EU presence chooses to ignore it.

I live in Ireland and my data is in the databases of several US data brokers. Thise conpanies can't be forced to to comply with the GDPR because they simply do not have an EU presence. You don't have to search far to find stories from people people who made complaints to their local Data Protection office about such issues only to be told there's nothing that can be done.

That's a ridiculous sum of money that could be better spent on much more worthy things.

If it weren't for homeschooling my autistic daughter would be spending her day in the headteachers office shaking and crying due to her cripping anxiety.

We are homeschooling our two teenagers. We live in Ireland which has a pretty decent education system and has a high percentage of students going on to third level education.

The problem is that it is really bad at handling children who are neurodivergent. My daughter is autistic and my son has ADHD and they just stuggled to fit in at school. They were filled with anxiety and the supports for them just weren't there. Spending on special needs supports is pitifully low despite Ireland being so cash rich right now.

So now we homeschool them and they are doing grand learning at their own pace.

But it's not just that that makes me favour home schooling. For me one of the biggest issues with state education pretty much everywhere the world over is the idea that at a certain age a child should have reached a certain academic standard and if they haven't then that is seen as a failure or at the very least a problem. This is complete and utter nonsense. We all learn at different speeds, some pick up knowledge early, some pick it up later. What matters is that by the time they leave school they are in possession of most of the life skills they need.

I also have issue with what is taught and how it is taught. Most subjects are taught with a focus on rote. Children are told to learn things, but aren't really told WHY they should learn things. That why bit is so important to help a childs mind develop.

For me there is also a bit of a morality issue. If you go an look at a school curriculum there will nearly always be something that you as a parent do not agree with. For me its the idea of teaching children that there only option in life after education is to get a job, be a good worker and keep going until retirement. I don't subscribe to that idea, I believe there are alternative life pathways. The problem is that if I send my children to a state school they will be forced to learn and accept things I fundamentally disagree with and that to me is morally dubious.

I'm willing to stand corrected, but I can't think of a single smartphone on the market from a reputable manufacturer that is sold with root access. If I want a smartphone I have to accept that the manufacturer will have the bootloader locked down, I don't have a choice.

My thinking is that if I have device that doesn't allow me root access, then what I have is more than likely a device designed to keep making money for the company that made it or wrote the software for it.

There's nothing wrong with wanting that, but as the author said those of us who want to opt-out should have the choice to do so.

If I buy an iPhone, I should have the option to completely disconnect it from Apple and be able to replace the OS with whatever I want. If I do not have the option to do that do I REALLY own the device? The answer is no bacause what I have is a device that I can only use the way Apple allows. When the phone is obsolete and Apple stops updates then all I can do is send it off for recycling since Apple won't allow me to repurpose it with new software.

You are putting a lot of trust in the manufacturers as well. For example, they have the technical capabilities to kill the second hand market in their devices if they simply decided to refuse to allow a new user to login to a device. Sure, you could still sell the hardware, but it wouldn't be much use if the manufacturer stopped it from connecting and autorizing. I know this is an extreme example and no sane manufacturer would implement it, but I think it demonstrates why having to option to disconnect is a good thing.

The same applies to all other devices that are locked down, things like smart TVs, IP cameras and appliances. Just look at how many early smart TVs are now dumb because the manufacturer stopped updating the on-board apps. There should be no reason why the owner of such devices should be allowed to do whatever they want with them to try and bring them back to life.

I agree, If I were an IT manager this sort of stuff would make me start looking at alternatives.

If an app/pluging/package is maintrained and published by X, I want to make sure no one else can interefere with it - even if they have good intentions.

What Automattic should have done is removed the plugin from distribution and told WP Engine to fix the problem. By doing what they did they have breached the trust of their users.

Being a savvy sports gambler will only get you banned though, the house always wins also applies to sports betting.

I live in Dublin where a lot of the tech developement centres for many online bookmaker and casinos are based. I have been approached by recruiters for some of them and even though they offer VERY generous packages I refuse to work for them on moral grounds.

The thing that bothers me the most is that they know a lot of poitential employees have issues with the whole sector, so they try to give it a false veneer of acceptability. A good example of that was that both Paddy Power and Boyle Sports referred to themselves as suppliers of "risk-based entertainment" in their recruitment literature, something I found to be very sleazy.

I also know people who work for some of these companies and they tell me that all their talk about caring for problem gamblers is complete nonsense and that they actively seek ways to lure back problem gamblers who were able to quit.

It's also very weird that as governments around the world are cracking down on alcohol poromotion at the same time they seem to be encouraging the promotion of gambling. I would say gambling can do as much harm to a family as alcohol addiction can. I'm frankly shocked at the amount of gambling adverts there are these days. And so many of them carry the subtle sub-text that if you don't bet on your team then you aren't a true fan.

The problem is that people will gamble no matter what, so providing a safe way to do so is better than banning it. I agree with you that it's all about to what degree you allow gambling. At the very least I would ban advertising as it's effectively normalising something that most definitely should not be normalised.

It was a sort of spin-off from an episode of the BBC pop-sci documentary strand QED. A few years before Threads they did an edition called "A Guide to Armageddon" in which they descibed in detail what would happen to London if a bomb was dropped over St Paul Cathederal. They also used make-up to show the sorts of injuries people would receive. A lot of the people involved in the documentary went on to work on Threads.

It's on YouTube if you want to check it out.

In the early 80s a couple of lads found the Derrynaflan hoarde. A collection of stunning religious artefacts dating from the 9th century.

This resulted in a whole legal mess where they were demanding a payment from the state of what would be arounf €25 million in todays money, after months of legal arguing they got a payout of what would be around €200k today. While this was ongoing there was an explosion in the number of people going out metal detecting for similar items and it's almost certain some items were found and not delcared to the state.

So to protect the nations heritage - and we have a lot of it - from being scavenged these strict laws were introduced.

But isn't that a direct by-product of Chrome being owned by Google.

If Chrome was made by an independent company regulators couldn't care less if they disabled third party cookies.

Sky did a thing in the 90s called Intertext.

You would dial a premium rate number and you would then be read out a page number. You went to that page and used your telephone keypad to do interactive stuff and the page would update in near real time. The two biggest things were managing your Sky fantasy football team and banking from the Co-operative bank.

Our TV had a function to let you see all active page numbers so I would often go and spy on what other people were doing.

I used to work in a building that was once a factory, the room I was in was once a break room. For years workers would come in for their lunch and lean back against the walls. Years of (probably Brylcreme'd) heads being placed against the walls led to a situation where no amount of painting would cover it up. All these little brownish-grey spots appearing on the walls a few hours after each painting.

Then one day the room was properly refurbished and management paid the decorators to put in a special barrier layer and the grease spots finally dissipated.

There was a case a few year back around the time of the 2008 recession where a man in debt used the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to earn a decent living from their aggressive/dishonest practices. I did try Googling for the story, but I could find it.

His process was to let them lie to him - he even encouraged it, all while he was recording the call. After the call ended he'd launch a legal claim for compensation and he'd always win.

For example if they implied he could be jailed for not paying him debt, he ask them to confirm what they must said and use that as evidence of a violation of the FDCPA.

His logic was that in the good days credit companies were begging him to take on debt, but when the economy crashed and he found himself out of work they weren't so understanding about his circumstances.

Leaving aide the software and abilities side of things, I wish devices with this form factor were still available.

I used to own a Philips Velo, Psion 5mx and a Nokia Communicator. The keyboards were good enough be useful, great for typing something up whilst on the train or as a pocket-able computer to take with you on trips.

There are some mini laptops on the market which are certainly a lot more versatile and powerful, but they don't have the narrow rectangle form factor of all those 90s devices. They are small, but not really suitable for throwing in your pocket.

Yes, I know you can get Bluetooth keyboards for modern smartphones, but they just aren't as convenient as a single device you could fold up and put in your pocket.

Ex-railway signaler here.

To expand on the article the most fundamental principle in railway signaling is the block section. That is a length of track for which there can only ever be one train inside it at any time. The length of the block section is typically decided upon by at the very minimum accommodating the train that would be the slowest to brake from its top speed at that location. However in practice most block sections are much longer because it reduces the need for extra signal boxes and line side equipment which results in a cost saving. For example in the UK the longest block section is 26 miles between Carnforth and Settle junction. The flipside to have having longer block sections is that you massively reduce the amount of trains the can run on that line and there have been major problems in the UK where block section lengths were increased in the 70s and 80s to reduce costs, but now with increasing demand they can't run extra trains.

Around railway stations and busy junctions block sections can be quite short, sometimes just a bit longer than the trains that run on those lines. So you might wonder how a train going at full speed could stop within its block section? In those cases there are mechanisms in place to prevent trains going faster than they should. In the UK a system called TPWS is used to control this speed of trains. If a train goes over a TPWS balun too fast then the brakes will be applied and a lot of paper work will have to be completed.

The three main systems used to actually control the movement the trains are absolute block, route relay interlocking and computer-based/solid state interlocking.

In absolute block the signals in adjacent signal boxes use a device known as a block instrument to protect the line between them. Using a bell messaging system the signaller at one box will ask the signaller at the next box if a train can enter their section, if so that signaller will turn a handle on the block instrument which will allow the first signaler to clear their starter signal to allow the train to enter that section. That signal is called the starter because it is at the start of the next section. It's worth noting absolute block is just a method of working and you could control it using old-fashioned mechanical levers, or modern switched control panels. Likewise the signals could be semaphores or electric lights.

Root relay interlocking was developed in the 1930s and uses huge numbers of relays to control the safety of railway operations. Track circuits indicate the presence of trains which will prevent conflicting train movements. An interesting thing to note that in the British railway rulebook is that under absolute block the signallers primary purpose is to ensure the safety of trains, whereas with route relay interlocking their primary purposes to keep the trains running on time. Route relay interlocking takes away the safety responsibility from the signaler. RRI signals are controlled using a vertical panel that shows a diagram of the railway tracks under control with buttons placed at the junctions between each block section. To set a route for the train the signaller simply presses the buttons at the start of the section and end of the section and if that's allowed by the relays then the section will light up and the points and signals will be set appropriately for the train.

Computer based interlocking, also known as solid state interlocking in the UK, is just basically route relay interlocking but now the logic is controlled by computers and instead of standing in front of a big panel the signaller now sits at a computer terminal.

One of the biggest advantages of computer-based interlocking is that it allows for the development of moving block sections. What this means is that physical block sections are replaced with virtual ones which are the length of the stopping distance of each particular train in that area. This means that each train has exactly the right amount of stopping distance in front of it. That allows for more trains to run on the same line.

Edit: Forgot to mention token block working which is an extension of absolute block working where a bi-directional single line is in operation. In addition to the normal signaling equipment, there is also a token machine in each signal box. In each machine there is a supply of tokens which look like big brass keys. The two token machines are linked so that only one token between them can be removed at any time. When a driver is about to enter the section they will be given a token which will be given up at the signal box at the other end and inserted into the token machine there. If you've ever seen the driver handing over a something that looks like a leather handbag with a massive metal loop for a handle then that's what's going on. Even though only one token is ever needed to go down the line, typically there might be a total of 20 or 30 tokens between the machines this is to allow for when there are a lot of trains going in the same direction repeatedly. Although it is rare there have been occasions where all the tokens ended up at one end, so a signaling engineer has to come out and remove some tokens and take them back to the other box.

I loved Computer Shopper. I regularly bought the UK version in the 90s just to gawps at all those adverts and dream about buying my ultimate PC.

I was wondering the same, because everything about this organization seems a bit iffy to me.

Part of me wonders is there an ulterior motive to the campaign.

I find it interesting in these comments that there is a lot of discussion as to the pros and cons of the pledge that this website proposes, but very little discussion as to the motivations behind the people who operate the campaign.

Looking at the people behind the campaign I am noticing a pattern, people who live in the similar geographic region and who are linked to other campaigns that talk about letting children be children. Plus the use of the term pledge just seems a bit puritanical amd a bit religious to me. Is it nefarious or do they have a hidden agenda? I don't know, maybe, but something about the whole operation seems a bit off to me.

I do accept that smartphones can be bad for children, but at the same time I think it is up to parents to make the decision that they feel is right for their own children. A campaign that informed parents of the pros and cons of giving their children a smartphone would seem more appropriate to me.

I had a few disc cameras in the 80s. My mother bought them for me because they were cheap and easy to use.

It was a great concept in theory, but as the articles states the picture quality was terrible. Every picture I took was a little bit blurry with over exposed colours and that was after taking them to a processor who had the right equipment. I also tried various different brands and qualities of film, all with the same result.

I have about 80 disc negatives in a cupboard somewhere. I wanted to scan them to JPG, but I couldn't find a DIY scanner that accepts the format without having to cut the frames from the disc and put them in to a 35mm slide mount. There are a few companies that have the means to scan them, but they are pricey - I was quoted €30.00 to scan one disc.

I feel that if Kodak had waited a few years and did a bit more work to increase the formats resolution it might have been more of a success. The small size of disc cameras were their biggest selling point, but that counted for nothing when the image quality was so poor.

In my experience the write a new test bit is where it all falls down. It's too easy to skimp out on that when there are deadlines to hit or you are short staffed.

I've seen loads of examples where the tests haven't been updated in years to take account of new functionality. When that happens you aren't really doing TDD anymore.

My wife is a speech therapist and has to buy in to various diagnostic systems e.g. TILLS, OWLS, CSBS. The publishers go to great lengths to make their particular test the standard in each particular area of speech therapy.

Each test kit costs €600+ and she has to keep buying the special forms they issue for doing the tests. These forms are deliberately coloured to make them hard to photocopy.

It is quite common for therapists to share and borrow the kits because they are just so expensive. Now one of the tests is going online and the publisher is using IP geolocation as well as 2FA with the registered users phone before the materials (just PDFs of the paper version) can be accessed. Same goes for some of the mobile apps these tests have, there are a lot of hoops to jump through to prove you are the person who owns the kit. And of course the online versions cannot be sold to a new user.

Okay, not strictly related to crypto in book sales - but I posted to show just how greedy some of these publishers can be.

For me I had one manager where every time he said "how long will is take?", I got that feeling of fear and dread in my stomach. I suppose the problem was that he wasn't asking for an estimate, he was asking for a specific date when the project was fully deployed. He wanted pinpoint accuracy, even though that was impossible. Missing or undershooting a target would have him bringing you into a room where he would start interrogating you about what he perceived as a personal and professional failing on your part.

So anyways myself and others started pushing back and refusing to give estimates and instead just saying "it will be ready when its ready" and when pushed giving super vague time frames like "a few months". He did not like that.

So I took step two and moved to a new job.

Stop estimating.

This! It's more or less impossible to correctly estimate how long it will take to develop anything but the most basic pieces of software, and even then you can't be sure.

I've had so managers who just don't get that there are so many unknown variables in the software development process.

No matter what estimate you give, you cannot win. Estimate short, but it takes longer? Then you are accused of not knowing what you're doing. Estimate long, but come in short? Then you are expected to shorten all future estimates. Estimate right? Nah, that never happens.

Every price of software developed is different and will take a different amount of time to be developed. It is really quite stressful for a dev who is working their ass off to hit difficult targets in an organisation that refuses to be flexible about that sort of stuff.

I've seen a fair few reviews for companies I used to work at where it was really easy to ID the reviewer as they were too forthcoming with details. Some people just don't see the potential dangers of posting negative reviews without properly hiding their ID.