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| Re: Passwords |
Posted by: jmb
Date Posted: March 16, 2010, 12:22pm |
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Whit, no swearies? 
Also some suitable comment on the IT department as password, they are usually universally hated.
Our IT department (of course they had a fancier name than that) forced you to change your password at regular intervals for improved "security" so many just wrote the password on the bottom of the laptop or somewhere else convenient (as well very insecure).
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| Whit, no swearies? |
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It looks as if the ad-blocking story might rumble on for a bit - with the people who are involved in ads trying to threaten ad-block users with promises that the loss of revenue from pages with blocked ads will lead to the sites closing down.
In a pig's ear!
I'd like to see their bluff called, and one of the options listed in the following article put into place, namely that the sites publish at the foot of their pages an independently audited (and it HAS to be independently audited, because I don't believe anything an advertiser claim about adverts) summary of the ads blocked, the lost revenue, and a list of articles that the site couldn't publish because it was skint. I suspect this would differ wildy from a non-audited version of the same story.
More seriously, the comments show that folk are reasonable, and while they generally come out against ads, the underlying message is not the principle of the ads, but the their dreadful appearance and tactics:
Quoted Text
I work for a digital advertising agency. Along with microsites, iPhone apps and long-form digital content, I make banners. And I use Adblock Plus. This is because most advertising, online or otherwise, is utter crap. And banners contain some of the worst of the crap. Flickering, squirming, farting, buzzing crap.
I suggest publishers who can, institute aesthetic standards. Try running a garish, badly designed ad for Admiral car insurance in the pages of Vogue Italia. They'd laugh at you. [The Guardian] could insist on what we in the business call "standard" (non-moving) banners. They could insist on a color palette, type size and a number of other standards. This would reduce "cut through" but it might persuade a savvy, ad-blocking audience to whitelist this excellent website.
That sums it it for me, and the first para describes the problem, while the second provides a reasonable solution - ads that advertise, rather than try and win a prized for being eye-catching at the expense of the real page content.
There is a problem though, in that the ad-blocker is now amongst the most widely downloaded add-ons - it may be too late to counter that, even by self-regulating and adopting ads that advertise, rather than ads that irritate.
For example, on one well-known mapping site, I arrived on the page (not using Firefox) to be greeted with the map, an ad-banner along the top, and a number of slots around it that were presumably supposed to have random ads inserted on each page view. Instead, Orange had fiddles something to make their ad fill every space, so I had the banner and six versions of the same phone ad whizzing non-stop around the map I wanted to see. And just for good measure, Orange had disable the option to stop the flash movie playing, so I couldn't stop the animation whizzing their stupid phone along the banner, or around the slots - my eye simply could not hold on the map without being draw away to the movement - advertisers deny they do this, and that the animation its there to look pretty. Down folks! There goes another flying pig!!
Ad-blocking software stops pop-ups – but does it also block profit? | Media | The Guardian
The most interesting reflection in the article is that, once again, and established industry can be seen merely to be trying to use old ideas and practices in the new territory of the web, and being thwarted, and trying to use old methods of coercion to get around this, rather than trying to move with the new technology, and coming up with something new and better. |
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Yes, looks more or less ok when I looked in.
There shouldn't be any issues arising from changing images inside a Picasa album, as it's the album name that provides the link to the contents. So long as the album name is not changed, then you can do what you like with contents
The update's an interesting find too - always worth a look around  |
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I have deleted and reloaded at a smaller resolution the HMS Armadillo photoalbum to gain extra storage space. Hopefully the link still works.
I also found another hut today, languishing in a field and have appended some pics of that. I don't think it is in its original position as most of the corrugated iron sheets have numbers on the inside. |
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Indeed, it does.
I zoomed in closer to the OS map data (don't know why I didn't do so before) and the coastguard lookout is just to the southern edge of the reservoir. |
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It looks suspiciously like an enclosed water reservoir.
1:10000 map - "Reservoir Covered"!
MB
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That's the one, perhaps there the HAA camp was re-used but perhaps not!
There are a couple of Collafirths, the comms site is Collafirth Hill which is at HU 33528 83547. Unfortunately the GSV car did not go up the road though not private or at least they let the public use it. It was a ACE HIGH microwave relay at one time. |
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MAGIC shows a Coastguard Station on the top of Erne's Ward.
The aerial view in Multimap shows something that looks more like an earth bank reinforced bunker!
And the view of the World War II battery and camp area is pretty complete too - these relatively remote site do retain their sights, if left alone |
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Thanks for the location, saves me staring at the "wrong" place - this one is new, and not something I seem to have tripped over anywhere else.
When Google spotted the area as Collafirth, I thought of the Cold War entry mentioned, but it seems to be rather further away, and on the hill itself, which is much more sensible for such a comms site.
I had a quick look in Canmore after you mentioned the battery, and see there was a camp there too.
Is this on or near the same spot you are concentrating on, or is it distant from where you are looking? |
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You can see the position with Streetview by zooming out when it drops back to the aerial view or map.
The entrance point where I posted the link is at HU 39056 12785
There appears to be a quarry or similar down the track now but the 1:25000 shows groups of buildings around HU 386 127. Fortress Scotland does not list anything there so could be a red herring but sure someone had said there had been a signals site there. Might just be the remains of the WWII HAA battery there but did not have time to go down the track.
MB |
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Can you provide a little more location data?
I'm guessing the use of Street View means you are having to use the links Google provides, so the spot you are thinking of is not the spot shown by the Google links.
Can you have a stab at the grid ref or lat/lon of the actual subject?
Something like a MAGIC link would be ideal.
I have a little info on the area, and will be adding a Wiki page for it within the next week or so, but don't want to launch off into the detail here, in case it is not related. |
| Erne's Ward |
Posted by: jmb
Date Posted: March 12, 2010, 5:42pm |
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Anyone know anything about Erne's Ward on Shetland, there were suggestions that there had been some sort of Cold War military establishment there. There are outlines of buildings on the 1:25000 map and appears to be something in the distance on Streetview.
http://bit.ly/9OzTSK
http://bit.ly/9f3iNb
It is just about across the road from a ROC post.
MB |
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The ROC post in the hills above Callander has been become a geocache:
CALLANDER Perthshire
GC24WQE Roc On Callander (Traditional Cache) in Northern Scotland, United Kingdom created by Scottiedogz
I have to declare an interest, and am beginning to think that this is not a "Good Thing".
Although I have a bit of a hole in my records, when I wasn't able to monitor events closely, I am beginning to form the impression that becoming a cache site is not conducive to the survival of a post.
The last one I recall being notified was located in an extremely well hidden location. In fact, it was in the middle of a dense forest that had been planted and grown around it. I visited it about seven or eight years ago, and despite having had its hatch smashed open, was actually more or less complete inside, containing the usual artefacts: comms gear, tables, cupboards, maps, lighting, and more importantly, some memorabilia relating to the crew.
As usual, I took pics, and left it as I found it, but couldn't lock or close the hatch behind me due to the damage.
Some time after the site was announced as a geocache, which obviously publicises exact details of its location, no matter how well hidden it is from view, I received another report from a visitor, to the effect that it was bare, having been stripped and trashed some time after the cache was published.
I should add, I'm NOT casting any aspersion or accusation at cachers, just pointing out the conflict of interest that follows when preservation meets publicity. Millions of people know about caching, and you can't really hide the info contained therin. While the post locations have always been on the research site, only a few interested explorers knew about them.
As ever, things are ruined by being drawn down to the level of the lowest common denominator. |
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While some of the detail isn't quite what I remember from the time, and that may be down to both my sieve of a memory, and the fact that what I experienced was done so at a distance, being in the UK and playing catch-up, compared to the US, where the action was taking place.
(Excuse the use of "Secret" in the article title. It's the original author's choice, not mine, and I really fail to see why he used it, other than to possibly attract readers looking for some sort of conspiracy based story.)
The Secret Origin of Windows
It's no surprise to see the old stories along the lines of "We wuz first", "We wuz robbed", "We wuz better", "Ww wuz faster"... yada yada yada
I'm sure they're ALL true - the important thing is that Bill Gates took Windows to the market, sold it, people bought, and DIDN'T beat a path to all the others who have spent decades bleating "We wuz..."
I'm also sure that if one of those "better" solutions had prevailed, the only difference would be that instead of everyone knocking Microsoft, we would merely be looking at the same moaning posts and blogs that rant and rave against Microsoft, only there would be different corporate name in their title.
(If any of you were/are particularly close to Microsoft. IBM, and similar large company stories and histories, you will probably also by aware of the number of original founders of such companies that have died in various accidents, and which conspiracy nuts love to read all sorts of plots into. It doeas actually make fascinating reading - provided you keep one toe in the bath of reality.)
I still remember the pre-Windows 3 days, when we had to boot and run our IBM PC compatibles under MS-DOS, and then load Windows just to run a graphics program - and unload it to carry on using the PC. I'd even admit that at that stage, I didn't even "get" Windows and what the point was, as running it consumed just about every resource a PC with no hard drive 640 kB of RAM (and another hidden 128 kB to be had if you were sneaky), and two 360 kB 5¼-inch floppy disks, hence having to unload it to do anything else.
Forget griping about Windows...
With the massive power we have in even a basic PC today, are we really (and I mean an honest really) doing that much more than we were back at the start, and suffering from lots of bad bloaty programmers, filling programs with useless and needless trivia to turn it into graphical eye-candy?
With the arrival of the internet - and even that is now twenty - we are moving into cloud computing, and adopting the concept of a dumb terminal with our data and programs stored somewhere out on the web, and little capability in out PCs.
The idea was proposed decades ago - look into the past of a company called ORACLE - but everyone laughed.
Not only not laughing now, but apparently happily walking into what amounts to the same principle now, with open arms and not a care - eg the facebook genreation, dumping their lives out onto the web; flickr and everyone's photos, etc etc... |
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Deliberately choosing the Americanised spelling of skeptic, rather than their native sceptic - just to be different - Skeptics in the pub seems to be set to do what it says on the tin:
Provide an opportunity for rational thinkers to meet and discuss all things skeptical as well as have a monthly presentation by a renowned skeptic or even believer followed by a Q&A.
They say there are over a dozen Skeptics in the Pub in England, but that there are only two in Scotland, at the time of writing - (maybe we Scots have a natural scepticism that means we don't need to be led to it).
Glasgow Skeptics in the Pub
Skeptics in the Pub, Edinburgh
The organiser said, "I think a lot of people confuse scepticism with cynicism. That's a tendency to reject ideas out of hand without giving them any real consideration, and that's not what scepticism is about. Scepticism isn't a set of beliefs. It's a system of inquiry that ultimately gives people the ability to understand the world around them - and I think that's a really positive thing."
The featured in a BBC review:
BBC News - Out of the labs, into the pubs
(Wonder if they'll take on Global Warming and Climate Change - that could be a busy night ). |
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What's a wind farm worth? 
If it's not hidden subsidies by another name (ROCs), then it's simple bribery of the local community to gain favour for your wind farm plans...
Even though the planners recommended against an extension to a wind farm in Fintry, it looks as the offer of £1,000 a year, and a share in the operating profits, was enough to get the Fintry community to to put pen to paper and support the extension, which will go ahead despite the official recommendation against.
Interesting:
BBC News - Fintry wind farm extension plan approved |
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I wasn't going to bother about this one, then I noticed one of the early comments:
Quoted Text
While I haven't noticed any real-time results (which, I suppose, is kind of the point), the reason seems simple enough for me: they're displayed up there in that junk area that daily use of search engines has trained me to ignore.
You know, that block up top where sponsored results, shopping links and other such spammy fluff that I haven't asked for lives, and which I automatically skip over to get to the information I actually wanted.
It seems odd to me that the supposedly clever researchers appear to have taken this fairly obvious point into account.
I, for one, never look at sponsored results - I'm simply not interested in any link that someone had paid to have pushed up the listing, for the same reason I am not interested in anyone who cold calls my phone or home, and throw out on there ear.
The article seems to reinforce my belief that folk in advertising have some sort of misguided belief that people actually want to pay for and be subjected to their tripe:
Why do we ignore 'real-time' results from Google search? | Technology | guardian.co.uk
It reminded of another article I read only this morning, where I was basically being accused of being a "Bad Person" for using adblckers, and that I was a thief for doing so.
Should you use ad blockers or not? | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Well, all I have to say in response to the accusations is that I am now a "Worse than Bad Person" - the first thing I did after reading it was go and turn up the metaphorical "wick" on my adblockers and Flash-blockers so they would be even more rigorous that they were before.
The web advertisers crossed the line many years ago, and have only themselves to blame for the popularity of blocking.
Had they not embarked on campaigns of flashy, animated, hypnotic, which (despite their remonstrations to the contrary) are intended to do one thing - draw the readers' eye to them, then blokers would not have become so popular. Same goes for popup windows that suddenly appear than lay themselves over content you are trying to read.
There used to be an unwritten rule among web designers, that the marquee, or self-scrolling text was not "a good thing" and would be ignored. It's seldom seen.
However, even reputable sites are now wasting their own design by employing continuously scrolling "tickers", incessantly showing the latest additions or items on the site - and the worst of these (like most Flas-based adverts) don't have a Stop or Cancel button to make then go away.
Thank goodness Firefox has an addon that gives you a button than can be clicked on ANYTHING on the screen to make ot go away |
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Er...
No.
You've misunderstood the reference to the four-cylinder engine:
Quoted Text
Tavner says. "It worked and it was rugged."
The problem with the two-blade rotor is the centripetal force the two opposing blades generate on the central hub as they rotate:
Quoted Text
The trouble was that the hub at the centre of a two-blade turbine is under severe strain as the two blades rotate. That strain reduces the turbine's life expectancy; adding a third blade eases the problem.
The addition of a third blade reduce the load by spreading the opposing force through two mounting arms, rather than one, so makes a terrific difference for relatively little complication.
It probably has a secondary effect, in that the additional blade will allow a smaller diameter rotor to be used to generate the same power as a two-bladed rotor, reducing the hub load still further, or probably allowing the rotor to spin faster while still remaining within a given shaft load, compared to two-blades.
The smoothness of a 6-cylinder engine as compared to a 4, down to the rotation of the crankshaft, and the angular positioning of the big-ends on the shaft. The straight or flat six in inherently balanced, while the straight four is inherently unbalanced, and need a combination of counterweghts and massive flywheel to smooth out the vibration.
However, you only have to carry out that design fix and compromise once, and then the straight four become an excellent choice, trading off that problem for power/weight/complexity by comparison with adopting either more, or less, cylinders.
The two bladed rotor is a fine approach, depending on the circumstance, and the GU vessel had little weight and power to worry about in terms of hub loading, so two blades was the obvious choice. There also the turning moment to consider, and at low wind speeds, you have to have long rotor to get a sufficiuent turning moment - so it can all get very complicated, and turn into usual "compromise vs best design" contest. |
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| The three blades question had crossed my mind given that the 1980s Glasgow University research vessel was powered by a two bladed rotor. Basically it is like the smoothness of a 6 cylinder engine vis a vis a four cylinder one. Simples as they say. |
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This article contains a few interesting nuggets of information, worth filing away at the back of the mind for future reference.
There's little point in bemoaning the underdevelopment of power generation from the sea or waves, good old wind power was the easy option, and became the "Look at me, I'm green, renewable, and environmentally friendly" equivalent of "Kissing voter's babies" for MPs and politicians out to gain favour and votes. Fair enough, "That's life" as they say.
However, wind power is now being shown up as something of a fraud (as a panacea, not a principle), and not the "One size fits all" solution that at least some would have us believe.
Power from the sea, (which is, in fact, still 'wind power' to some extent - what causes the waves after all? ) has a fifty year catch-up to carry out in only a few years, and the article details some of the reality of the problems that need to be overcome, and why.
It's also a little gem, as it tells you why wind turbines all have three blades:
Go on, admit it, you always wondered why
Will the anaconda or the oyster rule wave power? - tech - 09 March 2010 - New Scientist |
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The RCAHMS have put online a page of old photographs of Scotland associated with the free booklet in The Scotsman this week (don't if all appear in the booklet).
The section on North Scotland has their images of the Cromarty QF battery under construction, I think that issue is on sale today.
MB |
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Not quite the same but don't forget the various GPS Trackers available for logging where you have been so you Geocode your photographs. You can do this with a GPS but the trackers are smaller and most have an integral rechargeable battery that charges from the PC when you download the track.
There are various programs that will Geocode photographs from the track.
Very good habit to get into so you can always find where you took a photograph.
MB |
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Only alerting about Maplin pricing policy, just in case
But the last post does need to be expanded a little.
The £20 does not refer to a handheld GPS as such, but a "director" with limited functions that gives positions details, and will provide an arrow that point towards a preloaded destination.
Still, not bad for £20 - that would have been over £100 in the mid-1990s, and that £100 in 1990 £s too
Basic handheld GPS with usable functionality would be something like the Garmin eTrex, which will start around £80, is good value, and can be had in smarter version with more toys and features built in, for an increasing price, of course.
For info, the units with the extended mapping facilities, which were raised above, will take you well through the £200 barrier, and quickly reach the £300 level. |
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| Don't shoot the messenger. I only offer an alternative to someone who is coming for an all too short holiday and may not want to wait on mailorder. Prices start at less than £20 as far as I remember. |
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But you might end up paying an arm and a leg as they hold their prices to the catalogue unless you are lucky and there is clearance on - you absolutely must check the web for current prices of commercial goods like GPS or other electronics, as they can nearly always be had for less elsewhere, as prices fall (and the catalogue lags behind).
I'd have to say I bought all my GPS online, and paid a little over half of the retail or "over the counter price". |
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| Wanlock, if you are looking for a simple over the counter retail purchase Maplins keep a reasonable range There is a branch in St. Enoch's Square. |
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