Member postings for Peter Greene

The excesses of website advertising are increasing all the time and will continue to do so as long as people go along with it. Knocking it back to a more reasonable level requires people to say no. One way is to use ad-blockers; another is to quit the site at the second pop-up and hope that the the owner is reading the site-statistics. If that means that some otherwise decent sites go under, then so be it. It's not worth the aggro to me.

I won't tolerate flashing at all.

I think perhaps he's referring to exchanges such as these:

>>.....They even go on about rubber tyre pollution, the dust from road tyres for goodness sake

>According to several sources tyre wear produces several times (some say up to 1000x) more particulates than tailpipes. I guess the tyre fairy must go about clearing up after your car?

I couldn't get a locksmith to fit me a mortise lock on the inside here. (It's possible that it's illegal).

I'm pretty sure there are others here who have a loved-one with Alzheimer's who also "wanders" and are therefore faced with the problem of making their home "escape-proof".

I've been through the door chains, childproof doorknob covers, chimes that go off when the door opens (though not for metal doors). None have been completely satisfactory (ask my local police constabulary).

I hit upon a simple idea shown in the picture which may be of use to others with the "standard" Yale lock. The silvery part is a Rivnut. When I want to prevent egress I install a SHCS (Allen screw) in it. (At first I used a plain screw and kept a key handy but I've since changed to a screw with a press on thumbscrew head which is much easier).

In principle, the Rivnut can be installed from one side without removing the lock-plate. In practice, Yale seems to have used a number of designs for the plate both pressed and cast so it's safer to remove it a position the Rivnut in a clear area.

Don't really know the hardware under discussion, but normal design would have the HD sleep when it isn't actually being used, even if the equipment is powered. Network drives for example typically do this.

Even so, it could be advantageous to use a SSD if replacing the drive. The spinup time is essentially zero and the power consumption much less.

Graphite particles floating around a multi-multi million dollar space capsule was considered by NASA to be an unacceptable risk.

On the early Biro front, when I was about ten I had one in my trouser pocket which leaked and turned my leg blue. Not knowing what had happened, I was terrified. Thank heaven for Mums! (Even if I did have to, mortifyingly, take my trousers off in front of her).

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 06/06/2023 22:14:23

Maybe copper and tin ages occurred together so they combined them into one age called the bronze age.

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 06/06/2023 16:54:08

There's quite a lot of information on doing this (including YouTube tutorials) if you Google:

freesat hard drive swap

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 05/06/2023 21:14:03

Anyone who has their browser set to disallow redirection (a really good idea, for security reasons) won't be able to open that link (via Google ads).

Rather than make the complete holder and having to select a suitable material, would it be possible, to modify an existing commercial holder by adding the tang or whatever is needed to fit the tailstock?

Don't get it. You were the one who made the original statement - now you seem to be arguing with yourself.

Did you screw up your sock-puppets?

Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of re-reading Rob Sawyer's WWW series of SF books (Wake, Watch, Wonder) and it's interesting in the light of current AI developments (and this thread).

Apparently, Chat GPT has privacy issues

Me too. For one thing, if someone does steal my login credentials and tries to use them from another machine, the bank will detect the new machine and send me email to my own email address to verify. Or by telephone.

For someone perhaps getting access to my machine via wifi .... first that's harder I think than often believed. It can be mitigated by sensible precautions:

- don't broadcast your ssid (most people do broadcast it).

- don't fall for the "range extender" sales carp. In most cases the power of the basic wifi modem or access-point is more than sufficient and can often be reduced from the maximum.

- more of a nuisance but further protection can be had by limiting mac addresses that the modem will connect to.

- for direct infiltration via the internet, make sure you have a decent virus scanner.

You and I can probably never completely protect against threats but we can make it difficult enough for them to try further down the line.

Many of us would be happy to be behind if our world still works for us. Unfortunately the new tech often replaces the old, rather than co-existing, so it becomes a matter of being left out rather than left behind.

I just realised that I might have read you wrong there, Mark. Were you saying that about me or yourself? If the latter, as I now suspect, then I apologise unreservedly.

Wrong on both counts.

The app is on my iPad but also got automatically installed on the iPhone - though I don't use it from there. I'll try deleting it when I whomp up enough interest.

I've been into computers since I played around with 8008s, 8080s and Z80's and built an Altair in the mid-70s. All programmed via a combination of assembler and direct machine code (all we had at the time) I have several computers in my house plus a LAN that goes all over with multiple network storage.

Why the offensive tone?

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 23/05/2023 00:08:11

Can't say for your corner of the world but here I need a pin to wake up the phone plus a password to connect to the bank.

That said, I don't do anything that needs security through a third party wireless system - be it public wi-fi or cell-phone network.

Quite .... which is what the above sentence demonstrates: if you say it the (technically) correct way, it sounds awful.

(And my "preposition" should have been "conjunction" I think - I'm sure, around here, someone will let me know).

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 20/05/2023 22:56:42