🆎

We (A&A) have added to the text of the autoreponse that is sent when a new sales or support ticket is opened. I don’t think most people will read it, but we will see. We have surprisingly already had at least one positive response to it. It would be improper not to acknowledge the influence the blog of @beasts@social.mythic-beasts.com had on this action, and text.

Three words never before said together in this order : “Too many sockets.”

I think that previously there were people with ideas, but without the skill to implement them. Whereas now, they perceive themselves to have the skill to implement them, using AI to actually do the work. I think this probably results in a customer we (or anyone else) might actually assertively not want. When things go wrong, they will possess no actual domain knowledge, and we will end up saying one thing, and their AI will say something different. And who/what will they trust?

I grew up in the era of writing letters. And once email arrived, I treated it, and still do treat it, largely as a digital medium for the same shape of communication. I (think I; say if I'm wrong) notice a trend amongst the young - I'm talking late teens into twenties - where their frame of reference was SMS, or another form of IM. As such, even when some of them email, they will write one short sentence, send it. Get a reply, send another single sentence. Has anybody else noticed this? 1/2

@steve@mastodon.nexusuk.org @lorask@social.vivaldi.net I think think is spot on. There is a tranche of people who believe every tragedy can be prevented. So they come up with utterly insane “solutions” without properly considering the downsides. Then won’t take any rational, knowledge-backed critique. We could cut the infant mortality rate massively by banning all cars immediately. But I don’t see many of them queuing up for that.

Some years ago a report came to light that elderly vulnerable people were being abused in care homes. This is, of course, very bad. What was the mooing masses' brilliant campaign? CCTV in *every* room in every carehome. Me: "even the toilets?!??" Them: "ESPECIALLY the toilets". What about privacy for the elderly? Who is going to watch all these feeds? What about the costs? Autonomy? How to trust the watchers of all this private activity? When I point problems out, I'm the bad guy, though.

What was I doing on this day, sixteen years ago? Suing Ford Motor Company, that's what.

24th September 2024. Trees. Fuji X100VI, f/2 1/1600 ISO500. Processed in Capture One.

@mal3aby@mastodon.smears.org @greem@cyberplace.social The biggest irony was that after all that, the car was written off, I think less than one year later.

Every single time I’ve transacted a property they have said “sign, but don’t date *here* , *here* , *here*” etc, the idea being that they then add the dates later, to suit the transaction. What a weird thing! The date is SUPPOSED to be the date you actually signed it, by any other convention. Is there an explicit law that prevents what might otherwise be (almost) a kind of fraud?

Example of AI-driven price increases : 2T SSD: One year ago: £228. Today: £909. (this is for the exact same model)

@mal3aby@mastodon.smears.org @greem@cyberplace.social Having bashed my head against a wall for probably a couple or few weeks, within 48 hours of filing the CCJ against Ford, they had given me what I asked for. I think in my comms to the dealer I had said that, were I to sue, I would document the whole thing on the same forums that had provided evidence of a widespread issue. So maybe they feared a pile-on of retrospective claims from folks who'd paid up for new wheels?

@mal3aby@mastodon.smears.org @greem@cyberplace.social I asked the dealer to liaise with Ford and provided them with many forum posts from other similarly disgruntled alloys-made-of-cheese owners. They claimed they tried to discuss it with Ford, maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But it was looking like over a grand to re-wheel the whole car. So I told them (and ford) that I'd be suing Ford if they did not sort this out. The dealer did nothing. So I sued Ford.

@mal3aby@mastodon.smears.org @greem@cyberplace.social To be clear, had it only been the fronts (which was what they initially told me) I could have maybe believed I'd hit a speed bumb too hard/fast. But when they told me this, I told them swap fronts for rears..... at which point they owned up and said "oh the rears are buckled too". I asked if they thought I'd taken the car off road (it was a fiesta 1.6 TDCI). They said they agreed I probably had not.

@mal3aby@mastodon.smears.org (and @greem@cyberplace.social) They folded almost instantly. Backstory: I had been casually told by my Ford dealer at a routine service that ALL of my alloys were buckled and would not take a balance. I said "how can that be?" then I searched online, this particular car's alloys seemed to have been weak and problematic to LOTS of owners, some of whom had been shaken down for £££ to replace, and then suffered the same again even.

@mal3aby@mastodon.smears.org @greem@cyberplace.social I have a suspicion the dealer thought I was joking or bullshitting. But IIRC I sued the dealer and FoMoCo jointly (two defendants). And I suspect this immediately panicked the dealer into actually talking to Ford. Whose legal team then contacted me with one question "What do you want?" I asked if they had read the claim, which detailed explicitly what I wanted. They said they had. I said I wanted that; four new wheels, at someone other than my expense.

ok disk usage now beneath 50%. 47% to be precise. One other thing i'm just doing ... dd-ing a 250MB file in /root full of zeros, to give me something really quick and easy to delete if the disk fills up again and i need to fix it.

Mon dieu! Il pleut!

We have recently started using a small green "food waste only" bin. The nifty bit about this thing is it is collected weekly; both with recycling and with general waste. It really does increase "rubbish capacity". If you have one, and you've not used it, or if your council will give you one, and it works the same way (food waste every week, recycling and general every other) give it a try.

Most people are aware of the shortages in components; particularly high speed RAM; caused by the demands of AI companies. I think a smaller number of people are aware of basic raw material supply issues also being caused by the same. FR4 - the material PCBs are made from is reportedly in shortened supply, leading to less CCL (copper clad laminate). This hits EVERYONE who makes electronics. Some reports show a monthly supply gap of 8 million square metres of this stuff.

The Milwaukee SDS has a safety clutch (which is good) but the mass of the core bit is so huge if you do not slowly wind up the RPMs it clutches out even when not cutting at all; even in free air, no load! So I had to slowly wind it up, then slowly gradually start cutting. On the whole, impressed with both the bit and the drill.

Manually doing a media remove w/ 1 day.

HOBOY doing days=1 removed THIRTY ONE GIGABYTES WOW.

The outside grills just to check they do indeed fit. Yes.

Antenna acquired. Just awaiting an Amazon delivery with mast clamps, threaded rods and other bits of metal hardware, now.

Had an eye exam today. They used a variety of very precise equipment and I now know I have … two.

It is wild that this case trundled so far. But not wild that the costs were what they were. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/steve-karen-gibson-thundersley-essex-b3026251.html It seems insane that the losers of this case seemed to be almost comical and gleeful earlier in it. I suspect glee is far from what they are feeling now, with (apparently) £120k+ of lawyers bills to pay. It'd be ironic if they had to sell their house, and the winners elected to buy it, neatly and finally physically solving the dispute.

Meanwhile, I have actually bothered to set real DNS up and real email forwarding on milliways.co.uk and milliways.uk..... both of which are owned by me and not a chewing gum maker. I WONDER WHAT MISADDRESSED LOLS I WILL RECEIVE!?!??!

We are getting a hose pipe ban here. The only thing I use my hose pipe for... is filling up the water feature that the birds in my garden drink from and bathe in. So the fucking cunts who can't stop leaks from their shitty underinvested pipeworks, and pour shit in our local rivers, now have legal mandate to dehydrate birds too. And if I dare to use my hosepipe to save these gasping birds, I am a criminal. Not they. Me. 1/2

@kemra102@mastodon.social @lunarloony@dosgame.club @homegrown@social.growyourown.services @beasts@social.mythic-beasts.com +1 Beasts are good.

Now I don’t usually charge my car up to 100%, generally leaving it at 80% for battery longevity. And the interesting thing is that regen doesn’t work at all at 100% and I think not as well at even 95% or lower. So if in more “optimal for regen” conditions, it will likely be even better pro-rata.

All the brick dust vacuumed up inside and out.

Offering the unit up for sanity before drilling the second. It lines up. Thank f**k.

First core through. Amazing this was done with a battery drill!

@simonzerafa@infosec.exchange this one is for 10m , 15m , 20m and 40m. So roughly 28MHz, 21MHz, 14MHz and 7MHz. I am interested to see how well it works; I am really intending this as a bit of a “reference” antenna for comparing with others I install over time. DX would be nice, for sure. I expect I’ll get some on 20m. I doubt it’s incredibly efficient on 40m. But we will see.

@simonzerafa@infosec.exchange this is a big antenna but not that big. This one is eight metres high, and will be just above lower roof level (garage roof).

@simonzerafa@infosec.exchange I also have a MFJ mag loop antenna that I will put up at some point, which covers a couple of the same bands. And finally I currently have plans for two remote-auto-ATU driven wire antennas; a dipole and a long wire.

@simonzerafa@infosec.exchange and that’s before we get into 6m, 2m and 70cms, which will eventually get a new colinear at height, and some rotatable yagis strapped onto the chimney.

Hmm no that only removed 195MB.

Some background snaps.

Second hole measured and cut.

Here's how that went. 2/n

@jamesoff@mastodon.jamesoff.net fairly sure it is just ext3

@bencc@morehammer.uk @Maker_of_Things@cupoftea.social same - I think about 9 out of 10 charges only go to 80% for this reason (plus it helps the battery last apparently)