Viewing profile — PaulAJ

Anyone who doesn't understand what's so difficult should read this: https://wiki.c2.com/?WhyIsPayrollHard Its from a different domain, but it gives you a flavour of the headaches y…

Would this also be potentially a DoS amplifier? If you sent it the right spoof packets, would it return a lot of packets to the apparent origin?

The ONT's job is to translate from (typically) Ethernet to the optical fibre, and nothing else. In networking terms its "Level 1"; concerned only with moving bits from one end to t…

I think I see what they mean. "Misconception" means something where you can point out "no, that's incorrect". But these people have more than just an error in their knowledge, they…

Also missing from this are: * The time you spend managing and supervising, including desk-checking the stuff they send out, because it goes out under your name and you are only as …

How much maintenance does this take to keep its reflectivity? Does it get colonised by algae? If it needs to be scrubbed with bleach once a year, I can see that being an issue.

Has anyone pointed out that in the UK 999 is the emergency number (like 911 in the US). So "999 Request Denied" sounds like a public safety issue to someone who doesn't speak tech.…

I use a Raspberry Pi, cheap USB webcam and https://raspberry-valley.azurewebsites.net/MotionEye-OS/ Motion Eye to watch out for intruding cats coming through the cat flap. Entirely…

During COVID the government tried skipping those procurement rules in the interests of expediency. The result was a huge corruption scandal.

Nothing specific, but I've seen some big systems from the inside, and I know the kind of thing that leads to failures: * Back in the 60s they got a big IBM computer to do some stuf…

Here: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/36/ad/9f/36ad9f245cf7b76cccd5...

One thing to remember: Small Claims Court (or whatever it is called where you live). Most jurisdictions have something like this: a light-weight court system without lawyers for lo…

I keep a few £ in bitcoin stashed on it. If it ever disappears, I'll know.

SAP has a very clear idea of how it makes money. It makes money by selling to senior managers who don't have to use it, and have very little idea of the realities for people on the…

Not necessarily. Kids with poor social skills get bullied.

Just to point out that Stross's blog is running off an elderly PC in his office, so no surprise that when it makes the front page on HN (twice in two days now) it gets slashdotted.…

Up until 1990 that was a reasonable approximation to the truth. The USA certainly had its issues, but in a comparison between the USA and the USSR there was no question about who t…

On secrets: you should be cycling all your secrets on a regular basis anyway. If you aren't, now might be a good time to start. In addition to the good advice here, you might want …

Funny how the Republicans are so outraged about cancel culture, but not about this.

Here in the UK stroads were pretty much eliminated everywhere during the 70s and 80s by building bypasses. A bypass is a road built in an arc around a town to divert through-traffi…

People sometimes secretly do bad things that are not actually illegal. When that happens the public need to know so that they can pressure politicians to change the law. That is wh…

Did anyone else find this headline confusing? To me a "dropped story" means that an editor decided not to publish it.

One of the difficulties of separating small-tribe economics from the rest of their social system is that the members of a small tribe don't think of it like that. If you live in th…

I checked that one out myself. Modern economics textbooks don't do that. That entire section seemed to be Graeber saying "Economists have been promoting a myth for the last two cen…

I've read "Debt: The First 5,000 Years". It is not a work of genius. It is a rambling incoherent mess. Graeber cherry-picks bits of real history, anecdotes and random myths, and sh…