[Ed P]

The Duke wrote:

You rearly win agsisnts these big firms, they have the councilors in their pockets, before they even start down the road.

While corrupt Councillors are not unknown (especially in Wales), a more likely candidate in these days are the Council Planning Officers. Council objections are often subject to appeal, the first thing the Government Planning Inspector will ask to see are the Planning Officers recommendations. If these say yes then sod the democratic decision.

[Ed P]

Actually Steve, Project Payne docs says that the average CEFO load is 58Kg = 128 lbs versus an ideal max CEFO load of 25Kg = 55lbs (CEFO = Complete Equipment Fighting Order i.e clothing, body armour, mortar rounds etc – the lot)

[Ed P]

Have you fixed it yet – you could try a hack to add smb2 (of course the usual backup important files applies!) — link

“Meantime for use my linkstation now i have modified /etc/init.d/smb.sh
after this line –> /usr/local/sbin/nas_configgen -c samba
add this line –> sed -i ‘2 i\ max protocol = SMB2’ /etc/samba/smb.conf

after restart linkstation, my window pc with SMBv1 disabled, can work with the NAS.”

For the usual reasons I would not advise hacking Windows to allow smb1

[Ed P]

Any house surviving from the 1840s is obviously built on stable clay. However if you are buying an old house (or new for that matter) beware of clay it is not benign stuff at all!

Do check the geology for any prospective purchase. The British Geological Society (BGS)is a good start, and look there or elsewhere for info on unstable slopes and subsidence. If you find clay find out from the seller if there is a history of houses breaking their backs in that area. This can be a especial problem if the house is on a slope or ridge line. If you can try and get detailed geology bore-hole data for the area and look out for mudstone layers interspersed with clay – this is almost a guarantee that subsidence and house back-breaking will take place. (The mud stone acts like a perforated water channel, and after rain it will cause nearby dried-out clay to swell. If the whole house goes up and down fine, but its a real problem if only half the house does. Modern builds should be piled to avoid this, if not smell a rat. Idiot insurance companies will blame nearby trees and cut them down, rather than investigate the geology – this actually can make the problem worse over time.)

Obviously old pit workings and sand sink holes can cause similar problems but again the BGS is a good start.

[Ed P]

Ditto all the luck/good wishes.

One thing I have found to be useful over the years is to take project photos both during demolition, after removal of carp just before the new stuff goes in and during reconstruction. Over the years such photos have come in handy when things go wrong. It has saved me unnecessary floor board removal and made it easier to plan further changes. (most handy if the boiler condensate line plugs!)

[Ed P]

Not the same as the full-sized version but still fun: (via Hacker News)

Lego Porsche Crash Test

[Ed P]

I said subroutines, but it would probably have been better to pick out nested ‘if then’ loops as an example, as you are correct, just exiting nested subroutines leaves a stack clean-up issue.

[Ed P]

Good luck Richard, I hope it is not the same bug as the one that infected the wife and I. It took the best part of a month to clear, and went out with a bang. A massive sneeze  — that caused  me a six hour nose bleed and a visit to A&E to try and stem it . Luckily it clotted before they wheeled out the cauteriser! (diathermy machine) – had it once and it was B-painful as locals do not work if you are bleeding

[Ed P]

Very rarely a GOTO will save a mountain of recursive subroutine exits. Even the most pedantic haters of spaghetti code will agree that a simple GOTO is actually more clear and better code in such rare cases.

[Ed P]

The object part of C++ i.e. C++ without the training wheels! (joke)

link

Could sometimes be useful as C++ for areas where you need to have very tight code coupled with more generalised UI access code in one portable module and no run-time overhead.

Sometimes I think C++ adds complexity rather than maintainability.

[Ed P]

Getting your exact dimensions is probably impossible.

Three of these is close – but no banana. My wife always swears by Lakeland products for a reasonable price/quality trade-off.

[Ed P]

Watered wine tastes almost as good and is more easily digested. It lasts longer too! An alternative with red wine is to ‘water’ it with a good quality Merlot grape juice.

[Ed P]

I think we may be barking up the wrong tree

Drezha wrote:

The command works when called from the command line but from dragging and dropping a file on to a .desktop file doesn’t seem to get it going.

It seems like the script is OK, it is the drag & drop that fails. What OS are you using to run the drag and drop part? If Ubuntu there may be a simple reason and fix. Link

[Ed P]

Unless you have a professional need to keep up with the twists and turns of C++’s evolution, my advice would be to stick to the release you started with, as whatever the new flavour of the month it will be backwards compatible. Take some pleasure in knowing you do not have the problems of the Pythonic crowd where the change from 2.7 to 3.0 was totally incompatible, and they are still releasing point releases that are not completely compatible with earlier ones!

Imo the main value in learning C++ is the insight that the Object structure gives to program design.

[Ed P]

Lovely quiet day here today. A few years ago we cracked the secret of Christmas – just the wife and I, and we lounge around, and we are able to eat/drink what and when we fancy without all the frantic preparations. Today is duty day for the kids when they do all the driving and descend on their partner’s parents to show off the grandchildren.

In contrast tomorrow will be hell when they all descend on us, but at least we can totally ignore tradition and cook something tasty like rib roast or sous-vide a large roll of fillet steak (quick bit of charring to finish). The kids also appreciate not having to put up with bits of cold bird.

I’m off now to brew up some mulled wine, and toast you all. Hope you all have a great time!

[Ed P]

Thanks Ryan – enjoy your day with the family, and of course the same good wishes to everyone!

My local shop sells ‘Sacks fir the Naughty Ones’, so I think I’m OK.

[Ed P]

I’m doing something wrong, WordFence keeps barfing when I try to embed a Youtube video.

Anyway, I just wanted to cheer up this depressing subject by saying that the Dutch still love us!

link

[Ed P]

Perhaps there is a ‘write-behind’ when dragging and dropping? Possibly starting the script off with a short ‘wait may help.

[Ed P]

Hospitals like a quiet ward if they can arrange it, so most will get thrown out – unless they forget you!

Thanks for the update Lee,

[Ed P]

Merry Chrimbo – wherever you are!

[Author]

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