[Ed P]

I cracked my personal Python mental block. It basically arose because I come from a background of highly typed/structured programming languages such as c++ and I just wasn’t really up to speed on a language like Python where the compiler takes most of the strain. I did however find a useful book that helped me break my block. “The Python Cookbook“.

It did raise a different question in my mind – why is so much opensource documentation written to be completely incomprehensible,. while someone else can take the same subject and make it easy. Python Tuples are a good example of carpy Opensource documentation. The cookbook on the other hand shows that it is just simple data packing, where the compiler takes the strain.

e.g. given a tuple data= (‘ACME’, 50, 91.1, (2012, 12,21)

then this may be unpacked by setting

name, shares, price, (year, month, day) = date

where of course the value for year is 2012, month=12 and day=23

Packing is the opposite process.

[Ed P]

Richard – if you have a tiny modicum of pc and networking skill then it is quite easy to pick up the ‘understanding’ in a very practical way with a low cost DIY approach. Pan/tilt cameras (i.e. fixed focal length) are relatively cheap – <£50 in this example.  Then install Zoneminder on your Linux PC, and you have enough to learn the basics(including autotracking etc) in a very practical manner. The only potential gotcha is choosing a compatible camera link, but I cheated and just searched on pan/tilt ip camera+android to home in quickly!

Compatibility is probably the only important point to hammer home for a diy approach. Scan through the compatibility list and you will see that even for Hikvision (the ‘Apple’ of ip cameras) not all are compatible – just like Apple!

I left out the zoom bit as quite honestly it is of little use for the average home owner. (we use ours to watch the bird table and nest boxes). If you live on a farm or keep horses then it will be of value, but it is only another parameter to add to the autotracking, and not really needed to learn the basics. (main one being the best/worse places to put a camera!). Adding zoom increases the budget to ~£100 if you feel you must have it.

Btw you need the pc skill to lock down the IoT camera as cheap ones rarely have up-to-date firmware. Assuming you cannot figure out how to change the firmware you will need to put the camera in an untrusted firewalled area.

[Ed P]

If you are a photographer moving away from DSLRs towards a Bridge camera (for size+convenience), DO NOT sell your zoom lenses on the cheap! There are numerous how-tos showing the simple mods required (to the camera end cap) which allow you to turn a 1080p raspberry pi NOIR camera into an awesome but very cheap PTZ security camera. Pity there is no way (yet) of adding FLIR on the cheap as that really would be unbeatable! (both for security and monitoring heat losses around the home)

[Ed P]

Take a look at the isometric paper option in the print link and you will see just how useful it can be for scaled 3d sketches..

[Ed P]

It will not work in Edge because the certificate is forged.

[Ed P]

Richard wrote:

Bob Williams wrote:

Richard wrote:

Apparently the problem has been splashing about in the mud for years, perhaps as far back as 2005 without anyone taking action.

Well, we just did Richard!

I meant to put in place a fix, though apparently IE is not affected, or so I am told. The problem sort of comes with stop gaps adopted without thinking them through at the technical level, in spite of several past attempts to start a solution. Edited typos.

Unless things have changed IE is completely vulnerable. I’m not certain about Edge as I do not have a Phishing example to use.

link

[Ed P]

It will be interesting if social media manage to mobilise the young the way they did in the Netherlands, if not we are doomed to the old Phart vote again.

[Ed P]

According to the Sky bod it was the wifi transmission power (lousy aerial) rather than the bit rate.

[Ed P]

Getting some graph paper and a pencil is probably the way forward

Isometric paper used to be the old skool way of doing such things, as you can do two walls+floor+ceiling on each page.

I’d forgotten how many different forms of graph paper existed. Print your own! link

[Ed P]

There is always the USB stick repository (assuming you have not got one of the latest (silly) Mac Books without that option. Just remember to rename each attempt and you will even have a ‘rough’ historising setup. For years I just used my NAS to do the same thing.

[Ed P]

blacklion1725 wrote:

Homeplug with a wifi extender built in has worked well for a few that I’ve suggested it to – particularly to two folks where SkyGo has not been as successful as Sky hinted. External Ethernet if logistics allow is also a solution I used here for a bit and still use at my mum’s.

+1

The Sky fitter who installed my set-up said that the Sky kit was pretty carpy (Dave’s wifi analysis said the same). He said if you have Ethernet use that for internal connectivity and just use your own wifi kit for phones, tablets etc. For some unknown reason Sky make this an ‘advanced’ not recommended option.

[Ed P]

Much better than yesterday evening, and better than MM’s efforts.

[Ed P]

+1for Dave’s response. Classic Shell gets top marks for a Win7 experience. It gets rid of Windows 10 ‘klunky’ tablet form menu. My personal favorites for a paid solution are Stardock Start10 and Stardock Fences.

In theory Fences should run with Classic Shell, but I’ll admit I have not tried that combination.

[Ed P]

Good luck with Blender – it is not ‘simple’, you may need to stick at it. Custom furniture could be quite a hard task.

You may be better off making a cardboard model of your room from a shoebox and then use lumps of playdoh to model your furniture.

[Ed P]

Well at least for current Windows M$ has already quietly fixed the publicly released exploits. Ars link

[Ed P]

I just remembered a cynical expression that was doing the rounds during my (short) period in South Korea (ROK).

“The problem for Yanks in Asia is that they always find themselves stuck between a ROK and a hard place.”

 

It looks like that is an expression that unfortunately proved to be both apt and timeless.

[Ed P]

Graham, the US has a mixed record on WMD – it depends who has them, and whether they REALLY have them. There are a lot of nuclear nations e.g. Israel, India, Pakistan etc that are quietly left alone. North Korea (DPRK) is in a different league because it does not obey the normal rules e.g. it is actually threatening the US!

If the DPRK had been on an isolated island hundreds of miles from anyone then I agree, the US would probably have done a unilateral Grenada years ago. However the South Korean capital of Seoul is just 35 miles from the DPRK and well in range of their nuclear capable artillery/short range rockets. Adding to the situation is a battalion of US soldiers with their families who are garrisoned in Seoul and more of a sacrificial lamb than a real deterrent. All that without even getting into the strategic importance to the US of Japan, Guam. Hawaii etc which are well in range of the DPRK’s already tested sub-orbital weapons and SLBMs.

The US now find themselves with an intractable situation, easily ‘resolved’ by attacking the DPRK but risking massive damage to US interests in the region, even threatening war wins them few friends. Diplomacy is the only real way forward – but it is now difficult to see how that even gets started never mind resolved.

[Ed P]

Free normally means very limited.Scaled textures are likely to be very simple options, and furniture will be just representative.

Search for free interior decorating software. Your best bet for a simple (easy) approachis to go with an on-line option. Alternately use Sketchup – more work required by you to make it functional.

[Ed P]

Unfortunately mistrust and distrust have been constant companions in US/N.Korea relationships. It may need china to act as an honest broker between the two sides. A good start would be for China to join the naval task force at US behest. That would defuse that situation a little, and confuse the hell out of N.Korea!

Based on my time in South Korea (20 years ago) I’d say that the situation in the north has been fairly accurately portrayed, except that until very recently there were quite a number of South Korean and International companies operating in the north a fact which received little Western publicity — link

[Ed P]

Wheels-Of-Fire wrote:

As always a backup is a good idea but the question was how to prevent ransomeware. On that note there is evidence to sudgest that some ransomware that actually dose encrypt your discs in the background uses Windows own Bitlocker service to do it. I wonder if that would work on home versions of windows that dont have Bitlocker activated ?

Some A/V e.g. Kaspersky offer on-the-fly protection if suspicious activity is detected. I cannot imagine that this is 100% effective except for malware that attacks the file structure rather than individual files.

[Author]

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