Level 41 here, managed to zip thru it getting the legacy 40 medal just in time, slowed down a bit now, like trying to get the legendary, lucky and shiny, and the more elusive 100% 4*      My code 4966 2402 6548

My Father had that op about 30 years ago, luckily so far it hasn’t got to me, but instead my index finger is bending sideways so I’ve been diagnosed with Osteoarthritis instead.

Second what Rikk suggests, turning off the GPU in Lightroom preferences usually fixes things

Ewloe Castle, in my local park, loved clambering over it as a child. Even today its a nice walk up thru the park woods to it.

Looks like the guy in grey chinned his mum

As one of those coffee snobs, doing a decent espresso pour is so hard to find. When I’m camping that way I pop to the Old Swan tea rooms for a fry up when they first open for the day, okay brekkie, but more importantly a mug of fresh filter coffee which hits the spot and isn’t stewed so no complaints. Its cash only so they’ll direct you up to the Co-op cash machine.

The usual bare minimum to squeak thru then gracefully duck out without getting pilloried, to enjoy the maximum summer holls, before reporting back for pre-season training.

Spent a week camping and walking to the north of St Davids last year in mid-July, got the same planned this year, Abereiddy, Porthgain etc. Not rammed at all. Even on a day where I popped into St Davids for a fry up for brekkie and a wander about it wasn’t crowded at all.

On my M1 MPB, I find Outlook is faster and more stable than the Mac one. Across 3 different email accounts all of which are 10 years plus with lots of mail/folders.

My Grandfather, Father and Uncles have all had it, total claw hand, my Father had surgery about 25 years ago whilst pretty invasive sorted it out. Last year the fingers on my right hand started to twist outwards so I thought its my time, but no.. osteo-arthritis in my knuckles, if it gets too bad its a case of fusing the joints. Sods law, it’ll be the contracture next. Some days I think due to the pain it would be great to just loose the index finger.

Follow the money, I wouldn’t be surprised if him or Infosys or both come out quids in from a Tory collapse.

Shuttleworth to see some really rare wonderful aircraft https://www.shuttleworth.org/airshows2024/

Draytek 28xx series there are models with analog phone ports with support for SIP for VoIP, Wi-Fi5 or 6, will act as controllers for mesh APs, QoS is supported and on and on for features.

I’m using a 2865Vac with FTTC on one WAN port and a 4G router on another WAN port for backup/load sharing. Great thing about Draytek is that they keep on churning out firmware updates for fixes and features for a silly amount of years after device release.

Draytek also have a decent website with lots of knowledgebase articles on how to set things up.

Congestion on the ISP’s LNS/interconnect, reboot means new session presented possibly to an LNS less congested. Typically an ISP will have multiple interconnects from BT, over which BT will present the ISP’s customers connections. Sometimes an interconnect can become congested, due to a number of reasons, including things under the ISPs direct control. Dropping the session and re-connecting can mean that BT present the session on a different interconnect, possibly less utilised and/or with some intervention from the ISP.

OR said second reboot was longer than the first and was affective.

T34 running awful, then they strip down the engine to see what’s wrong, talk about one hell of a tough engine to run like that!

and get into the hybrid driving style, do it right with the regen braking and pads/discs will last a silly amount of time, drive like those Prius taxi’s, you’ll get a sense of using the right pedal, to keep it on battery as long as possible.

My first hybrid was a Gs450h back in about 2006, and it had a mental at the time amount of power & torque, but at 50k the pads and discs were barely worn. Toyota do know how to build them.

Adding to what Bigrich said.

When I started my BT apprenticeship aged 16 back in 82, BT retired everyone at 60, the average age that anyone got to enjoy that final salary pension till was 61. Okay there would have been a lot a hell of a lot skew, due to the physical/mental toil WW2 would have put on those retiring and smoking. But at the time in ’82 BT employed 250,000+ with a fair portion not in hard labour, so I guess a good sample of the general population. Did those pension actuaries at the time base their figures against that 12-18 months of payments, to sustain a final salary scheme.  Said fund got buggered when it was raided to pay for early redundancies later on.

I’ll get £409 a month off the scheme in 2 years time, as I put 12 years into it, but it’ll get hammered on the income tax as no doubt I will still be working paying into that contrib pot as long as I can.  Well until the OA in my fingers gets to the sod it I need to give up stage.

Power Valve motor in a 250LC frame, lighter than the YPVS, bit flexy but sooo fast, did have the 350LC front end for a bit of extra stopping power.

I came off the tools as a Linesman in BT as I couldn’t put up with working up a stick in the cold anymore. Went to an office job on the shift in an XSC (private circuit diagnostics) and after a few years of that, yes there were people in the office sometimes. I moved into a pre-sales eng role, 23 years later I’m still in the same role over multiple employers. Home based for all that time, managing my own learning and time, and also my exposure to all those wonderful office based people. 20 years were in Vodafone (via company mergers) and I managed to avoid all the politics until I didn’t see the  signals towards the end of that time, but hey ho last 2 years small company, but everyone is a true gem and I’m having fun.

Second hard standing, got a set that came with the socket that has a hex head to fit in a drill chuck, so just pack a cheap cordless drill in with my car camping gear. Otherwise for grass find I can most times just push them in a fair bit with my foot and reserve the mallet for the awkward buggers.

Yes a good pun is its own reword

When I worked in a Telco Network Ops Centre, every so often our fax machine would start receiving deluges of Spam faxes. Silly thing to do, as after doing a dump on the call detail records for all calls to our fax machine it was easy to see the originator of the Spam.

We supplied said operator of ‘marketing faxes’ with a whole pile of ISDN30’s for their fax modem banks, and  it was amazing how often there was a fault not found, after hours sometimes even weekend long outages on all of their ISDN30’s for their entire operation.

EE are becoming BT’s main broadband brand, that’ll confuse the telephone scammers for a while who are still saying they are from British Telecom. Other news is a 1.6Gb FTTP package.

EE Becomes BT’s Main UK Broadband Brand – Launch 1.6Gb FTTP

I wonder how the usual big broadband provider standard shonky router will handle that throughput, plus a lot of FTTP ONT’s out there only have a Gig Ethernet port on them, so will need a physical swap out for one with a mGig port on it.

Based on their current track record, there’s some serious scurrying about buying up shares and future directorships in construction companies, prior to the gov finding 50billion spare in the Downing St party kitty that will be released. Oh and firms that have been recently incorporated in some far off tropical paradise, that can obtain said beams from China which will be discovered to be made of Playdoh.

1994 for me with Demon Internet on an Amiga 1200, changed to the dark side with a PC in 1995 due to Command&Conquer. Wi-Fi must have been 99/2000 ish as a Radio HAM I just had to create a Pringles Cantenna

Totally agree with you both on that, shame that the railways have been a licence to print money for their cronies.

Back on subject 20mph is going to be a godsend around here, just hope there’s some enforcement on it for a while. I’ll take my EV thoughts over to the on-topic for those.

Oh yes there’s rail investment in NE Wales, I’ll take their main bullet points from their strategy

unlocking Chester station capacity to allow additional
services through to the North Wales coast

Yes this is going ahead, but see my earlier comment about Avanti cutting back over summer and the TfW trains being rammed

increased capacity to allow more services on the North
Wales Mainline

Pointless if the main operator turns around and says that they are running a reduced service over summer.

enhancements on Borderlands line to enable improved
regional connectivity and direct services into Liverpool
improved connectivity at the Shotton interchange between
the North Wales mainline and the Borderlands line to
provide enhanced rail services in support of our North
Wales Metro ambitions.

Aka the rolling stock that get knicked to fill other gaps elsewhere on TfW, and the new well refurbished TfL trains struggle with pollen in their engine filters, fires in older trains, resulting in a service that struggles to have an hourly train, often replaced by a bus service that due to the geography can mean hours added to the travel time.

Spring this year

Last month, the Wrexham Bidston Rail User Association (WBRUA) expressed significant concerns regarding the management and operation of the Wrexham-Bidston line by TfW and urged the Welsh Government to initiate an independent review. ‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌​

The WBRUA held a committee meeting on 24th March and unanimously agreed that TfW is incapable of delivering an acceptable service on the line. ‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌​

They believe Merseyrail would be better placed to provide a reliable service than TfW, which is “both South Wales based and focussed.” ‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌​

They have predicted that by 2030 there need to be somewhere between 55,000 and 6o,ooo ish chargers of various types in Wales.

“Successful
action will rely on public and
private sector collaboration.
Mechanisms to facilitate this
collaborative delivery model will
be set out in the action plan.”

“Welsh Government will enable
the above through integrated
planning for energy and transport
(including the Low Carbon Delivery
Plan, and on-going Regional
Energy Planning), and improved
regulatory standards (including
amendments to building codes
regulations). The creation of a
national quality standard for
charging that reflects both quality
and sustainable outcomes could be
a reliable mechanism to drive an
improvement in industry standards.”

Regulatory standards, planning, standard = stick, where’s the incentives ? At most its this at present

“Welsh Government can create
favourable conditions for
economic and employment
opportunities to be captured in
Wales. The creation of a national
procurement framework could
support the above outcomes
through encouraging solutions that
deliver the most advantageous
outcomes for Wales. ”

Could also be written as the WG spent nearly a billion connecting some small towns whilst the people of N Wales struggle on shitty even older trains or are crammed onto even more congested roads.

Earlier today I spent some time ready the Senedd strategy on EV and charging points, 34 pages of what is in place now and what’s needed in 2030 etc. and they strategy to achieve it wishful thinking and a bit more of the stick, no incentives.

Their transport strategy can be summed up as delivering bread n circuses to the plebs that surround them (and vote for them) while the rest of the country they can just sweat as much as they can with minimal investment.

But despite the rants about them, I still agree with the 20mph limit coming into place.

There’s routes that were closed in the 60’s that could be looked at one being Aberyswyth to Camerthen, they’ve estimated at about £800million to re-open so that’s been given a big nope, even thou they are prepared to spend more than that on the SW Metro upgrade. It would also add resiliency into the routes North/South as well as allowing more freight from the ports on the coast.

I’m saying there’s a big bias to slowing things down to try and hit pollution targets, without addressing the root causes of the congestion/pollution i.e get cars off the roads.  Just putting more coaches/trains back on routes that can already cope with the extra volumes, would get cars off the roads.

You do need to stick to the 50 limits with all of the ANPR cameras along the routes where they have implemented the limits due to pollution.

What Motorway is this linking North to South?

I’m suggesting in investing in better rail transport not more roads.

An example Aberyswyth – Cardiff on a weekday train can be somewhere between 4 and 6 hours, in a car about 3 hours, so what are people going to use? Noting that route will go along the M4 where they have got 50mph pollution limits in place, due to the traffic volumes. I’m saying there’s no coherent transport strategy in place beyond connecting the Valleys to Cardiff.

I’m all for the speed limit changes and it will make a decent change to the quality of life for residents in such areas, unless that it is you want to get to anywhere in Wales at a speed beyond cart n horse pace.

Being a North Wales resident one of the things that annoys me are the 50mph pollution limits along with the carrot/stick attitude of plenty of stick but no carrots, when it comes to getting people out of their cars and onto public transport infra.

They have been put 50mph limits in place with no consideration for changes/upgrades in public transport infrastructure in the corridors along such routes, in fact they seem to be pushing people to use more cars visiting N.Wales creating even more congestion/pollution on those roads with pollution reduction targets.

Examples, allowing Avanti trains to  get away with running less services on the North Wales main line during the summer, when even the small local trains are totally rammed. Bidston/Wrexham line anytime a TfW Wales train breaks down on any other route they rob the trains of the B/W line,  investing in new (well refurbished) trains for the B/W line that manage to break down due to pollen ingestion!

We then get onto S.Wales where whenever there’s a massive sporting event in Cardiff, they decide to run reduced trains for the weekend.

Then there’s the huge South/North bias shown yet again earlier this year where they cancelled 14 out of 15 road improvement projects in N.Wales, but only 6 out of 12 in S.Wales, and they have basically washed their hands of any investment in speeding transport North to South, citing the green agenda.

I think they know they are in a bit of a mess cash wise with the costs of the Valleys transport upgrades, and they are now doing the usual politicians trick of passing the mess onto some future Gov.

Most spammers will be using some sort of auto-dialler, calling a whole list of numbers, then when someone answers connecting them to an agent or a recording. Trick is that answer isn’t picking up the handset/accepting the call, its saying something, the auto-dialler is listening for someone before doing its next action.

So if you pick up the call but remain silent for a few secs, waiting for the caller to say something, then 90%+ of diallers will just hang up, if its a genuine call then you’ll most likely hear someone speaking as they expect you to say hello. If you hear some sort of bleep/tone then it’ll be the dialler followed by Kevin from British Telecom Calcutta saying they have spotted a virus on your line.   Love those as I can troll them to hell.

1: Look for Wireless Access Points that do Wi-Fi6 (802.11ax)

2: Said Wireless Access Points will most likely be powered over the Ethernet (PoE) so once you have decided which ones you want, then understand their PoE wattage, or use a local power brick

3: You will typically have all the Ethernet cables from your AP’s coming back to a central point, where you will connect them to an Ethernet LAN switch. Ideally with 1Gb PoE ( at the Wattage you need) ports

4: The AP’s will need a device to act as a controller for them. Sometimes this could be a router, Draytek as an example have routers that will control a number of AP’s. Or it might be a Cloud (internet) based controller, Meraki as an example.

OR…

You could go with a wireless mesh network, some mesh AP’s have the ability to work either wireless or wired (via Ethernet) Netgear RB series for example.

On Samsung its come in on a recent Android update, “press the side button 5 times to call for help” trouble is in their wisdom Samsung on some of their phones have disabled the ability to turn it off. Was on all the news sites back in June as the update rolled out to enough phones to increase the problem.

https://wccftech.com/galaxy-s23-galaxy-s22-and-other-samsung-phones-no-longer-have-the-option-to-disable-emergency-sos-feature/

Only thing you can do for now until Samsung patch it, is set a custom number to call, I’ve set mine to my operators voicemail number.

Take a look at the home 5G broadband routers, a lot of them come with external antenna sockets. Huawei as example do the 5G CPE Pro with a few variants, one that has WiFi6 another with only Wifi5 but covers a few more 5G bands etc.. but they both have a pair of sockets on the back to plug in another antenna. Pair the router with a Poynting 5G/4G Omni or directional external antenna and you have something that will pull a signal where others will struggle. Subject to your SIM/mobile operator of course.

Plus you can then use the router at home too.

Use Duck Duck Go and enable the app tracking protection in it. Stops that linking your browsing/ searches to Facebook ads, so they’ll taper off without any data to recommend similar stuff to you. Also works in blocking lots of other apps that do similar tracking.

That’ll no doubt be these https://www.nwmas.com/air-displays/ I’m only a few miles from Hawarden so see them all the time.

mstdn social for me for a while @RusBak@mstdn.social

Twitter has made Musk a millionaire

It does seem that the limits have been put in place due to their limited compute