m0nty

I took my three-year old, intact bearded collie for a walk where we met a couple with a spaniel bitch. They carried on walking, and about 10 minutes later (when they were a good distance away) we let ours off the lead. He raced off towards them at high speed, which is not unknown for him but largely under control these days. We eventually got him back and (almost as an aside) the owner of the other said "ours is in heat at the moment." Could have warned us pal, we'd never have let him off.

About eight weeks later, I took him for a walk along the same canal and let him off. Rounded a corner where he'd got a bit ahead, and he was just gone, disappeared without a trace. I started off as quickly as I could down the canal, passing various people who (as if it were some kind of joke) said things like "oh yes, going very fast that way". Eventually, got him back because a cyclist had the common sense to apprehend him and wait for me - "my dog does this all the time." This was after almost a mile, so the dog hadn't been hanging around.

Beardies have a reputation for going AWOL, but on this occasion I can only presume he had some memory of that fine young spaniel he'd pursued previously, and decided to rejoin the chase. I haven't been back there since. Have considered getting him neutered but we basically like him as he is and have learned to be super-careful at any time. Helps to be warned if someone has a bitch who is likely to be especially interesting at a given time, most owners are good about it but a few just don't seem to understand.

And immediately anyone mentions restricting traffic, they're all about the disabled, older people, ambulances and essential deliveries, when really all they seem to want is to drive their cars as often and far as they like, without restrictions. It really is infuriating.

Why can't we, as a society, react with the same effectiveness to air pollution?

In the UK at least, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) is a powerful lobby group. Car sales are used as a key economic indicator. Cars have long been seen as aspirational and a measure of personal success. Cars support other sectors of the economy such as civil engineering (roads, bridges), petroleum sales and car accessories, parts and repairs..

Cycling and walking on the other hand? Not so much, despite the many benefits. Just recently, there has been a move in some areas to introduce low-traffic neighbourhoods and create more cycle-ways. The hoo-ha has been deafening. It causes congestion, it blocks emergency vehicles, it increases air pollution because cars are at a standstill. (According to critics.) Newspapers have been running stories about how evil and undemocratic this is, and dear old Nigel Farage seems to have re-invented himself as an anti-cycling campaigner.

I don't think there's an actual conspiracy - there usually isn't. But the status quo serves the interests of some powerful and wealthy groups, and it takes a strong-willed government to overrule them. They'd rather hand-wave about meeting 'green' targets by 2060, and meantime hope that electric vehicles arrive in sufficient numbers to eliminate or ameliorate the problem. The alternatives cause so much political friction that they seem impossible to implement, at least without more courage than our politicians are used to showing.

You can remove the alias later, email to that address will bounce. I do the same with my own domain on postfix/dovecot.

There's also a certain prejudice against people who do practical things, which I have certainly been aware of while working in IT.

There's nothing empirical about it, it's just that journalists are not bound to mention the Polish contribution when discussing Enigma, just as they don't mention many other nuances and wrinkles in the story. The histories (many written by British historians) most certainly do mention it, so your observation is more like "journalists paint with a broader brush than historians and miss out much of the detail." Well, who knew?

even then they can't give credit where it's due

You might as well say not enough credit goes to Tommy Flowers, a man I have always admired for his ground-breaking work building Colossus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers

The popular imagination is not renowned for its grasp of detail, but the histories give due credit.

I would just say, antagonistic comments like "the Brits barely mention" and "they can't give credit where it's due" is nationalistic nonsense which has no place here.

Kellogg's says these lids will still produce the distinctive "pop" associated with the product.

No it isn't. Is this "pop" really such a big deal that they've been holding back on the redesign for so long?

Shepard's Prayer.

the bad connotation due to piracy made this protocol not standard

Back when Resilio Sync was known as Bittorrent Sync, I proposed it as a file-sharing solution between multiple locations for the company I was working for. Immediately returned with an emphatic refusal to use any kind of software that had "Bittorrent" in the name, regardless of what it was for.

This is the same company where they picked up I had "Bittorrent Software" installed on my work laptop, and the people who ran the auditing software freaked out because, you know, it's Bittorrent! I told them it was a single icon in my PortableApps folder but they just kept saying "There's a Bittorrent client on your PC, you could be fired!" until I deleted the icon.

So yes, the fact it's associated with piracy has made a huge difference in some places.

I had this happen when I put up some shutters in my room. There were about six ventilation holes at the top of each one, and the scene outside was projected onto my wall on a bright morning. It was unexpected, and unexpectedly beautiful.

But also "NDB is ideally positioned to contribute and lead change in this industry by addressing the primary bottleneck in EV vehicles, the battery, one that can last as long as the vehicle’s does."

It's a curiously convoluted sentence.

Most of the discussion so far seems to be that there's no way to get sufficient energy density to power electric vehicles. But what they say is it provides "28,000 years of battery life for cell phones, aircraft, rockets, electric vehicles, sensors and other devices and machinery". I'm starting to wonder if they're just being a bit disingenuous rather than flat-out lying - could they mean the lower-power circuits of electric vehicles, rather than the motors turning the wheels?

Dramatic title for a post which basically says "use tmux".

I read the article with interest. Thanks for taking the time.

My father-in-law forever refused to buy an upright freezer because "as soon as you open the door, all the cold air falls out." Which I now know to be only partially correct.

I like the additional monitor on its side. Terminal window plus Telegram open in that, or a code editor with web browser on the horizontal screen. Even two 24" monitors side-by-side horizontal seems like a long way to go from one side to the other, the arrangement I have now seems very natural. Multiple workspaces on my Linux desktop really help as well.

I wondered about that 'soccer' thing as well. It was always perfectly good English when I was growing up, and at school we used it to distinguish the game from rugby.

The origin myth I heard was along the lines of 'I don't want to play rugger, but I do fancy a game of assoc-er' where it was an attempted play on words with 'association football' by someone at an independent school. I doubt the truth of this, but anyway...

On the whole the ‘z’ alternative has nothing whatever to do with America

I was told that using a 'z' is old-fashioned, and using it or an 's' is optional - just be consistent. Only recently have I noticed a trend to condemn it as 'American', and if anything is sure to bring out a rather nasty, old-fashioned snob in some English people, it's being 'American'. Personally I cringe at this and quite happily use the 'z' form.

On the subject of anti-American snobbery, one of my friends whom I have known for over 30 years was adopted by a very old-fashioned English couple and (sure enough) often had a disparaging word about anything American. When he was about 20, his natural father made contact with him ... from America! After things had settled down a bit and he had met his 'new' family, I put it to him that, you know what, you are basically an American now. Foolish to pretend otherwise. He's changed his view quite a bit since then :)

See also Tim Hunkin: https://www.timhunkin.com/94_illegal_engineering.htm

Sorry I missed your reply.

My experience of cycling in the UK is many cyclists already go to great lengths to make themselves visible, and it makes no difference at all to close passing, etc. Hi-viz clothing, bright strobing lights - drivers act like you're not there.

It also makes drivers lazy - having nearly been knocked off my bike, the driver stopped and berated me for not wearing hi-viz, despite the bright lights I was using. Not impossible, therefore, that I also get berated for not using your device to warn me about drivers. There have been attempts to do this in the UK already with apps which notify drivers of cycists, with the app maker saying it would be the cyclists' fault if they were in an accident and weren't themselves using the app. (This was repudiated by the Advertising Standards Authority, but still.) This is similar to the all-too-frequent reporting about "A cyclist was crushed to death by a truck. Police said the victim was not wearing a helmet." Even the helmet manufacturers don't say it will stop a 20-ton vehicle from killing you :(

As Chris Boardman says about the helmet debate, it's the wrong emphasis. The issue is safety on our roads and drivers being careful around cyclists. Also, cyclists being predictable and riding safely. An electronic device will make little difference without that, and I feel it could make things worse.

Also, I find a mirror on the handlebars, a life-saver check when turning, and listening for engine noise to be pretty good at alerting me to drivers. Not sure electronics would improve this.

Well, the thing about Google dropping products keeps coming up because ... they keep dropping products. I'm not sure every google-related thread goes that way.

So you're telling potentially distracted drivers that hey, it's OK to be distracted, the AI will take care of that for you? Like with Tesla's auto-pilot, it doesn't matter what the product manual says - too many drivers will interpret it to mean you can pay less attention and the computer will take up the slack for you.

The accuracy he gets from the most basic of tools is astonishing really. Knows his stuff and tells it well.

Someone mentioned Blender now has Sketchup-like facilities. Haven't yet tried it.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blender+vs+sket...

+1 for Ishitani and Pask, and thanks for the other links. If we're talking about boat-builders, don't forget Louis Sauzedde, who seems recently to have returned from a long hiatus:

https://www.youtube.com/user/TipsfromaShipWright/videos

The one thing I find (as a UK woodworker) when watching US or Canadian channels is (a) they all seem to have massive workshops, like size-of-a-barn massive, and (b) they have machines for everything. I could not tackle many of the projects they do because of limited space, which restricts the machines I can accommodate.

Paul Sellers definitely understands that many UK woodworkers are in their garage or garden shed and keeps that in mind for his projects, and uses predominantly hand tools. I'm not saying I don't like the North American channels, and Matthias is a true hacker as well as a woodworker, but it's a different world.

Just to add my own recommendation: Alain Vaillancourt does some excellent stuff, from his vast workshop located somewhere in the New World:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCsdIja21VT7AKkbVI5y8bQ

If you mean "why do they prevent pasting?" -- because their talented and conscientious devs think password managers are insecure. I've tried emailing several webmasters about this but it's a waste of time.

I didn't realise :( He joins a rather long list of people from my childhood and adolescence who have suddenly been diminished.

My understanding is he didn't realise she was 15 and the marriage ended when he found out.

Another my mechanics fan ;) Was literally just watching his latest video. Happy not to use WD40 if that's his advice.

I know oiling bearings which have grease in them is a no-no for just the reason you describe - will loosen the grease and so ultimately damage the bearing.