@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

ben

@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk

I'm Ben and I'm rubbish at writing bio's.

I'm a general geek, who's core skillsets boil down to trouble-shooting and reverse engineering.

I mostly talk about #Tech, #Monitoring, #SoftwareDevelopment, #Privacy & #Security

If you want to send messages encrypted with PGP, you can find my key in the links below.

My Toots auto-delete after a month (https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/opinion/arguments-for-and-against-auto-deleting-mastodon-toots.html)

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Edent, (edited ) to blogging
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

🆕 blog! “It was twenty years ago today”

I wrote my first public blog post on 2004-05-11. I immediately followed it up with a brief review of my BlackBerry. I kept up the blogging for a few months, then it trickled off. I preferred posting on Usenet and other primitive forms of social media. But, by 2007, I was back to blogging on […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/it-was-twenty-years-ago-today/
⸻

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@Edent A slightly late Happy anniversary

Looks like I'm about a year behind you

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : My won't power on or charge

I originally tooted about this about a month ago. Through a dose of bad luck (combined with shipping times), it's taken a month to get the up and running again.

Post covers:

  • Initial troubleshooting
  • Mainboard replacement

It's actually not too bad to do on these.

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/documentation/general/keyboard-removal-and-reinstallation-on-a-thinkpad-x280.html

danieldurrans, to random
@danieldurrans@mastodon.me.uk avatar

What domain registrar is the "go to" these days?

People who run their own registrar need not answer this question ;)

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@pwaring @danieldurrans @beasts

Same here

verge, to random
@verge@mastodon.social avatar

OpenAI could unveil its Google search competitor on Monday https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/10/24153421/openai-chatgpt-google-search-competitor-service-io

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@verge They're bolting it onto Bing?

They're going to hit exactly the same issue as Slack's AI: if it's built on top of crappy search functionality, the output can only ever be crap.

And that's before it starts inventing URLs that don't exist.

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

My inbox isn't just elite, it needs enunciation

Yeah, I should probably have a clear out

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@tom But.... but... I'm totally going to read them at some point.

Edent, (edited ) to random
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

From an artist's point of view, is there any difference between you buying a donated CD from a charity shop and downloading pirated music from a torrent site?

Neither gives the artists, songwriters, producers, publishers, or distributors any money.

Neither reports to a charts authority to show popularity.

Both have the same impact on secondary revenue like gig tickets & merchandise.

Vote now - and please show your workings.

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@Edent I've put charity as being better, but that's purely on the basis of perception.

For the single transaction, there's no real impact to the artist (they get no revenue either way).

But, if you went up to them and said "I got your album from...", they'd likely feel you'd "stolen" from them using torrents but wouldn't with charity.

Realistically, they're never likely to know either way, but it's the only differentiator I can think of from the artists PoV.

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New post: Spending an Afternoon in the Sizewell Control Room Simulator

I'm a bit late in writing something, but @popey, @8none1, @sil got to spend an afternoon in the operations training centre at B power station

T'was an awesome afternoon

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/general/an-afternoon-in-sizewell-b-control-room-simulator.html

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@Smoljaguar Thanks!

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@pamiiap Glad you liked it, it was an awesome afternoon!

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : Plugging a heater into an extension lead, what could go wrong?

We had a 2kW heater plugged into a multi-socket lead which ultimately failed.

I took the lead apart to see what exactly had gone wrong.

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/plugging-a-heater-into-a-switched-extension-lead-what-could-go-wrong.html

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@steve Yeah, definitely not space rated :)

I suspect the advice about extension leads is probably driven more by it involving additional physical connections (so more to be loose etc) and the risk that someone'll then plug a hoover into a spare socket.

You're right though, it absolutely should have coped - it claims 13A @ 250v (3.2kW) and we were well under.

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@steve Huh, interesting...

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@steve Yeah that's a good shout actually

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@steve Yeah, makes sense. Dropping a thermister into the plug is quite a nice solution to it really.

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@edavies @steve Nice catch, thanks!

amici, to linux
@amici@fribygda.no avatar

question (Plasma desktop). When I move my cursor to the top left the entire screen zooms out to give me an overview of applications.

This is very annoying and I've several times done this by accident. However, I can't figure out how to turn it off. Anyone knows what this thing is called and where the setting is?

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@amici It is annoying.

Go into settings, then workspace settings. There's a screen edges option

The top left box will probably be checked, click it and change from "Present Window - All Desktops" to "No action"

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New : This was our worst Yet

There was a powerup this morning and, as a result of various things we completely fluffed it.

Last year, there was a powerup that I forgot about and we still managed to pull more from grid than today.

So, I thought it was worth a small post

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/this-was-our-worst-powerup-to-date.html

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

Admittedly it's not often I do, but I hate catching a cold this time of year.

You end up sat in a warm room, staring at a steaming mug and wondering whether Iced Lemsip should be a thing

popey, to linux
@popey@mastodon.social avatar

5️⃣ 0️⃣ 4️⃣
https://news.itsfoss.com/mastodon-link-problem/

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@popey That post baffles me.

I'm totally onboard with people who say "I don't use a CDN because" (particularly if they won't use Cloudflare).

But they're behind Cloudflare, but have configured it not to cache HTML pages (check the response headers) and then complaining that a few thousand hits overwhelms the site...

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

It sometimes strikes me just how weird the tech industry can be.

Kicking together a quick slide deck.

Google's "smart" enough to figure out that I've just written "Content-Type: " and so might want "application" after.

But it's also too dumb to know that when I write a double quote I want an actual double-quote not those fucking magic quote bastardisations.

Kind of sums up how I feel about AI actually - lots of cleverness involved. Ton of other shit that should've been done instead

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm just slightly too young, my parents weren't up for this or it wasn't a thing round here.

https://heatherburns.tech/2024/04/30/i-hope-you-know-this-will-go-on-your-permanent-record/

stefano, to privacy
@stefano@bsd.cafe avatar

Today I've been really busy and I'm exhausted, but I wanted to share the "gem" of the day.
A colleague (whom I've never spoken to before) calls me and explains that they need to connect a client's server with their management system. To communicate, the client's server needs to be reachable via telnet. I explain that I can't open telnet to the world, but if necessary, I can set up a VPN of their choice (Wireguard, OpenVPN, even Zerotier if it's helpful) and grant telnet access through the VPN. Not ideal, but better than nothing...

That said, the colleague attacks me: "Here you are, with these VPNs - don't you understand they're used to spy on us? Governments intercept all VPNs to steal our personal data." I try to clarify that I may not have explained myself well and that I don't mean using the famous commercial VPNs, but a private VPN access to allow the two machines to communicate securely. No luck: "Haven't you realized yet? Every time we open a VPN, they know and intercept us."

Frankly, I was speechless...

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@stefano Yet somehow that clearly couldn't happen when sending it over the net in the clear....

ben, to random
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

Being young's great and all that, but it's not usually until later in life that you discover you can properly headband even whilst dishing up an entire family meal.

ben, to Blog
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

New Post - Ex-Owner Wants To Walk Our On His Own

Bonnies old owner got in contact last weekend to ask whether we'd be open to him taking her for a walk around town for an hour.

We replied and said that we weren't comfortable with this, which resulted in some fairly grumpy pushback.

In this post, I put my thoughts in order a bit.

I'm curious to hear whether there's anyone who would have allowed it?

https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/house-stuff/aita-for-not-allowing-my-rehomed-dogs-ex-owner-to-walk-her.html

ben,
@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk avatar

@bencc Oooff. Glad to hear he's found a home that he can start to feel comfortable in.

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