@stephengentle@ioc.exchange
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

stephengentle

@stephengentle@ioc.exchange

I’m an electronics/software engineer and consultant, mostly working in satellite/terrestrial wireless communications. Very interested in climate, green tech, sustainability etc. I also love speciality coffee, photography and music!

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stephengentle, to random
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@clive This kind of nonsense is not helpful - the main part of the story is an aircraft built in 1994 and operated in a region known for not having the safest maintenance and operations, and the other incidents mentioned are minor routine maintenance issues.

azonenberg, (edited ) to random
@azonenberg@ioc.exchange avatar

As someone who's written code at one time or another in C, C++, Verilog, SystemVerilog, VHDL, GLSL, PHP, JavaScript, Pascal, Oz, Java, Salsa, i386 assembly, PIC12 assembly, MIPS assembly, x86-64 assembly, ARM assembly, Prolog, Bash, VBScript, DOS batch files, FEI AutoScript, CMake, and even a few dozen lines of Python years back...

I can confidently say Rust is alien technology.

Maybe one day I'll grok it but today I feel like I sat down in front of a Klingon PC and tried to understand what it was doing.

People say learning an HDL as a software person is a brain twister? This is 10x more confusing than Verilog was.

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@azonenberg I'm actually hoping Swift gets more popular outside the Apple ecosystem. I haven't got much experience with either yet (also a lot of C/C++, Python etc. myself) but Swift looks far more ergonomic. There's an embedded subset being put together that looks interesting for things like microcontrollers. I'm hoping to try Swift (on Linux) on an upcoming project and see how it goes!

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@azonenberg No, my comment was meant as a general observation.

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@9point6 @ardi60 Cross-platform, sure, but most are still controlled by single vendors, like the two billion people using WhatsApp (Meta), the 1.3 billion using WeChat, the 930 million using Messenger (Meta again), etc…

aral, to mastodon
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

If you’re on mastodon.social, I would highly recommend that you switch to a different server that protects its people instead of exposing them to a well-known bad actor like Facebook/Meta via Threads.

For alternatives, see: https://fedipact.veganism.social

And remember that Mastodon is not the fediverse. The fediverse is much more than just Mastodon and definitely more so than mastodon.social and Mastodon gGmbH.

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@Wabbit @aral It doesn’t matter if an instance federates with threads - like any other instance, if you want to block the whole instance, the option is in the ‘…’ menu on any post from threads.net. You have the power to decide for yourself.

lauren, to random
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

It's important to understand that "age verification" schemes being passed by states, ostensibly to "protect the children", won't do that and will bring about incredible abuses.

In order to age verify children, obviously EVERYBODY of any age must be verified, for every account, under every name or pseudonym, ultimately on every site no matter how public or private the topic, and before downloading any apps.

Children will find ways to work around this. They'll use the accounts of adults, which will be openly traded. But because these age verification systems must by definition be based on government IDs, the verification process creates a linkage between your account names and your actual identity, subjecting you to all manner of leaked personal information, government abuses (think MAGA in charge), and worse. Firms will claim their systems either don't keep this data or can't be abused. History strongly suggests otherwise, and when courts step in, those firms will have to do what the courts say, often in secret, when it comes to collecting data.

Age verification is in actuality a massive Chinese-style Internet identity tracking project -- nothing less -- and there are many politicians in the U.S. who look with envy at how China controls their Internet and keeps their Internet users under police state controls.

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@hoco @lauren Then again, it’s surprising how enforcing real names doesn’t help much in that respect - plenty of cases of people still bullying people literally to death on Facebook/Messenger posting under their real names (and before they had end-to-end encryption)…

ajsadauskas, (edited ) to auspol
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Peter Dutton's nuclear plan is just terrible public policy.

The truth is that, in an Australian context, with nuclear power more expensive per kilowatt hour than either grid scale solar & storage or coal, nuclear just doesn't make economic sense.

The UK has a mature nuclear industry. Its new Hinkley Point C plant, started in 2016, is now expected to not be complete until 2031, and costs £35bn.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/23/hinkley-point-c-could-be-delayed-to-2031-and-cost-up-to-35bn-says-edf

So how much would it cost to replace all of Australia's coal power plants with nuclear ones?

We'll, at current exchange rates, £35bn — that's the cost of just one Hinkley Point C sized reactors — works out to A$67.6 billion.

So building just 10 nuclear reactors the size of Hinkley Point C costs $A676bn, making the AUKUS subs look like Home Brand corn flakes in comparison.

(Just for comparison, ScoMo's AUKUS subs cost $368bn, and Daniel Andrew's Suburban Rail loop is estimated at around $100bn.)

That's assuming Australia, starting from scratch, could build nuclear plants as quickly and cheaply as the UK, which was one of the first nations on Earth to split the atom.

So is it debt & deficit to fund this? Big new taxes? Even by the LNP's own measuring sticks, it's a crap policy!

The Australian Federal Government has previously examined the prospect of building nuclear power plants in the Switkowski report: https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20080117214749/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/79623/20080117-2207/dpmc.gov.au/umpner/docs/nuclear_report.pdf

The big thing that's changed since it was published is that grid solar + storage is now cheaper than coal or nuclear power.

So would you support holding up the closure of coal plants for 15 years until nuclear plants are completed, then paying substantially more on your power bills, while the federal government pays hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies, while also hiring thousands of additional public servants to regulate it all?

@australianpolitics

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@ajsadauskas @australianpolitics I don’t believe it’s an honest policy though. Sure, some zealots in the party and their supporters at Sky News etc. truly believe it can happen, but most of them probably realise it’s hogwash. So I have to assume that the point is (if they were elected, God forbid) to spend a good decade delaying closure of coal plants and scrapping as much renewable transition as possible until they finally “find out” that the economics don’t make sense. Probably some good consultancy money for mates in the meantime…

Seems cynical, I know, but I just can’t believe they are acting in good faith. As you say, it’s just too dumb…

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@abartlet @ajsadauskas @australianpolitics Perhaps I am giving them too much credit?

nixCraft, (edited ) to infosec
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

Poll: Are you encrypting DNS traffic using protocols such as DoT (DNS over TLS) or DoH (DNS over HTTPS)? #infosec #security #DNS

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@nixCraft I want to at home for sure, unfortunately the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter doesn’t support it out of the box without all sorts of hacks and it’s not getting any new feature updates anymore… For work we tend to run our own recursive resolver so it’s not (yet) an option.

mattblaze, to photography
@mattblaze@federate.social avatar

Titan Missile 571-7, Sahuarita Arizona, 2009.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/4185185541

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@mattblaze @grumble209 It’s a good strategy when the enemy is constrained, but didn’t it (as well as other factors) ultimately just spur them to build many, many more nuclear missiles? And then the US had to build more missiles to compensate? And then the enemy had to…

marcelias, to random
@marcelias@mas.to avatar

I'm sorry this pisses some people off, but it's true.

A vote for No Labels, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West or any other third-party candidate is effectively a vote for Trump. Not voting is as well. https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/donald-trumps-plot-against-america/

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@marcelias This is why y'all in the US need preferential (ranked choice) voting. You can then vote for who you want to, but if they're knocked out then your vote runs down your allocated preferences until you're voting for one of the final two contenders.

It actually gives other parties or independents a chance to be elected, because you don't have this exact problem where you need to directly vote for a bad candidate to try and stop an even worse candidate getting in.

aral, to Bulgaria
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

🚨 Another EU mass surveillance attempt. Will kill privacy on web. Must not pass. 🚨

“[A]ll web browsers distributed in Europe will be required to trust the certificate authorities and cryptographic keys selected by EU governments.

These changes radically expand the capability of EU governments to surveil their citizens by ensuring cryptographic keys under government control can be used to intercept encrypted web traffic across the EU.”

https://last-chance-for-eidas.org

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@aral Could malicious compliance be an option if this goes through? Like the page loads, but a big banner is displayed in the browser informing the user that an unsafe CA is being used which probably means that the web use is being directly surveilled?

TechConnectify, to random
@TechConnectify@mas.to avatar

Hi, I'm stuck waiting on laundry to finish and am bored, so why don't I come on here and write some hot takes about YouTube?

I mean, I can think of several reasons, but too bad I'll do it anyway.

Knowing the leanings of the folks on this particular platform this is likely to spark some debate, but note that I'm not trying to paint YouTube as a saint - in fact, the first thing I want to talk about is a strategy they've taken which puts me and all YT creators in a weird place:

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@TechConnectify Yeah, I'd love it split out too, since I use Apple Music and don't use YouTube Music at all. Would be great if it meant Premium was a bit less expensive, or you could choose to bundle in music if you wanted it for the current price now.

briankrebs, to random

I like Parallels for Mac, but I don't appreciate their refusal to ship security updates after a year unless I "upgrade" to their yearly subscription model.

Parallels' model seems to be that with every new version of macOS you should have to pay them again, or run a product with known vulnerabilities.

I'm really sick of how everything has to be a continuing revenue stream for software companies, and it steams me that we still don't have any basic rights or guarantees defined as buyers and users of software.

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@dharrison @briankrebs Oh interesting, I have Parallels, I was just about to comment on the main post that “I felt exactly the same way with Fusion” - they’d make a new major version with minor changes, you’d need to pay the upgrade price to stay current. I did keep using an older version but eventually Windows stopped working with it for some reason…

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@dharrison @briankrebs Oh, cool, I didn’t know they’d changed that model, interesting!

helenczerski, to climate
@helenczerski@fediscience.org avatar

It is completely ludicrous that anyone is still talking about hydrogen for home heating - it’s far less efficient, less safe, more expensive and less flexible than heat pumps. This report is the last nail in a coffin that is already more nail than coffin.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/21/hydrogen-boiler-home-heating-uk?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@muratk5n @helenczerski No, it’s not. Hydrogen is mostly made from natural gas today, and if you count the energy used in that process (and yes, you need to), it’s better efficiency to just to burn the natural gas. Using green hydrogen on the other hand struggles to reach 40-50% round-trip efficiency, so it’s better to just use green electricity directly even in conventional electric, which is close to 100% efficient (heat pumps are 3x more efficient again).

That page also doesn’t count the energy used to run the gas network - given the differences in volumetric density you need a lot more energy to power compressors in the gas network (which need to be around 3x more powerful than natural gas networks).

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@Hypx @muratk5n @helenczerski Ok, so you need to pay attention to the technical terms used. “Round-trip efficiency” includes producing the hydrogen, which is less than 50% efficient (that is, the energy content of the hydrogen is less than half the energy used to produce it, since a lot is lost to heat etc. in electrolysis or generating steam with natural gas reformation). With a furnace, you lose some heat out the flue too so you’re not 100% efficient there either (but more like 90-91% for a good condensing boiler). So hydrogen heating, looked at overall, is certainly less than 50% efficient.

Heat pumps are a little complex (I have three in my house, two split system cooling/heating air to air units and one air to water for my domestic hot water), but so are computers, phones, TVs, fridges… We manage to mass produce those massively complex products too cheaply, it will happen for heat pumps too. Sure there will be exceptions, but they will be very common.

mattblaze, to random
@mattblaze@federate.social avatar

Been hearing whispers all weekend, some from people who I'd definitely listen to, of a remote execution 0day in the Signal desktop and possibly also mobile app. Mitigation is supposedly to disable link previews (under settings->chats).

I have no more details. What I've heard doesn't completely make sense, but disabling link previews should be at worst harmless and seems prudent until this is clarified.

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@mattblaze My link previews was off already, I wonder if that was the default, or if I had the app installed since before the option existed (perhaps they only made it default for new users), or if I turned it off long ago and just forgot?!

superbetsy, to random
@superbetsy@mastodon.social avatar
stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@superbetsy Did you tell it you were a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Arnor? Usually helps.

timrichards, to melbourne
@timrichards@aus.social avatar

IMO this should only continue if spaces are made for the scooters to be parked on the roadway, not the footpath.

Melbourne e-scooter trial extended for third time

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/third-time-s-a-charm-melbourne-e-scooter-trial-extended-again-20231004-p5e9pn.html

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@timrichards @NickSchwanck It's legal in general to ride on footpaths here (for bikes too). I don't think it's been an incredible problem for pedestrians in terms of numbers of collisions, but I have heard news reports quoting a lot of people saying they fear collisions. At least that does help the case for putting in more separated cycleways that helps everyone, which they've done some more of in the Brisbane CBD for example.

stephengentle,
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@timrichards @NickSchwanck Ah yep, should have been more specific. I’m talking about in Brisbane.

TechConnectify, to random
@TechConnectify@mas.to avatar

I'm going to irritate a subset of electricians with this new video...

https://youtu.be/vNj75gJVxcE

stephengentle, (edited )
@stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

@TechConnectify Wow, that bit plugging it in a little and the light coming on is scary! What a terrible design - ours in Australia were a bit less susceptible to that already, the pins being at an angle to each other, but they fixed the potential problem (of maybe like sliding a knife or screwdriver in) anyway like a decade ago, changing the standard to insulate the pins half way for any new plugs.

An interesting thing about our plugs is that they’re usually ground pin down, but China used basically the same design but put them upside down, so if you buy something direct from China that comes with a right-angle plug, the wire usually comes out the “wrong” way!

RM_Transit, to random
@RM_Transit@mstdn.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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    stephengentle,
    @stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

    @RM_Transit Always fun to see a thumbnail and be able to say, “hey, I’ve been there!” - that’s Stadelhofen station in Zürich, isn’t it?!

    mcc, to random
    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar

    Me: Why the fuck is my RAM at 44% in use when no programs are running

    Task Manager: So here's a list of electron apps that do nothing but display an icon in the task tray

    stephengentle,
    @stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

    @mcc @seldo It's true, I was going to comment the same thing! Steam was doing this for a long time before Electron was on the scene. It's hard to tell if Steam has since been ported to Electron (people allege it has but I haven't seen solid proof) or if it's their own solution built on the same Chrome engine, but I guess it's basically exactly the same either way!

    davidho, to random
    @davidho@mastodon.world avatar

    Anything that makes a city a worse place to drive makes it a better place to live… 👀

    https://xkcd.com/2832/

    stephengentle,
    @stephengentle@ioc.exchange avatar

    @davidho Almost, but not quite. Places that reach even a fair amount of population density, that are designed to be good to drive in get clogged up with huge amounts of traffic (from induced demand) and end up being the worst places to drive anyway. Improving public transport, walkability, bikeability etc. can actually make it better to drive, since good transit options takes people off the road relieving congestion - it’s just you might have to take a longer way around (can’t go through pedestrianised areas, filters etc.) and drive slower. But driving slower feels fine if the road is designed for it, as opposed to those designed like a 70 km/h road with a 40 or 50 km/h limit!

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