Early Risers.

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl, 

A pop up  has just indicated that rain will arrive at 15:00, it's certainly getting darker.

 

 A short run of mower was successful before it went on strike.

 

Shelving built up to banister height,  back panels painted. Side of above to ceiling fitted.

Ben the i want out Collie, was taken for his walk, which didn't last long, he took a dislike to the verge/ hedge smasher nearby and wanted home. He now cuddled up to me on the sofa.

 

As predicted several emails have been passing between me and the GEC friend. Our older compatriots have of course retired, but some of the younger ones are still in the business, one is in Oman, another is still in Saudi.

He himself was very lucky to stay in the business until retirement, with jobs happening to appear just as a previous one finished.

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by TheQ

[PupCam]

Afternoon everyone.   No need to Clear Prop, flying has been scrubbed today due to poor weather ...

 

So, Puppers finds himself still looking for a needle in a very large haystack trying to crack the problem with the controller for the thing that must not be mentioned!      Further debug code has been added to the WiFi library source code to try and trap useful information that might emerge and a bit of care has been taken to format the log as compact as possible so that the wood can be seen for the trees so to speak.   What is apparent from the new log is the amount of processing done as every single character is handled.    If you have the remotest interest you can see the contents of one of the messages spelt out down the right-hand side with the name of the low level function function responsible to its left .  You might notice the line numbers (and hence the magnitude)  of the log file .....   Looks like someone's closed the socket.   But who and why? 

 

Of course, if you don't have the remotest interest just pass on down the bus

 

IT WILL NOT BEAT ME!    Please!

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by PupCam

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

Sorry, but I've not read all posts, But as usual, the best of greetings are proffered to all fellow Ers.  Chrisf - sorry to read of the numbers - no doubt your Professor Onclologist will have a stategy for tackling the cancer with you.  Jamie - hope you are able to get out soon.   Tigerburnie - nice picture, and don't be to disappointed that it is the "same one", as it is also a very nice "same one" and is a triumph that it exists at all - I have only seen and stood on the footplate of 60163 once, and then thought I'd never see a Peppercorn A1 again after seening them quite often on the "Queen of Scots" at Waverley in the 1960s and when I was visiting my aunt in Edinburgh.

 

Today we put a load of clothes into vac bags which are stacked on top of the wardrobe, and when we tidied up, I asked 30747 "where's the hoover adaptor for the bags?" "It was on the bed" "Well it's not now" - there are two different makes of these bags - the larger needs the adaptor, the smaller doesn't.  We did the larger ones first, then scooped all the remaining clothes into the smaller ones, and now we can't find the adaptor - I'm guessing and hoping that it has been scooped up with the clothes, and is in one of the small bags.  We will have to get them down tomorrow and decant all the clothes.

 

CHichen chow mein now calling.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[Tony_S]

11 minutes ago, PupCam said:

  But who and why? 

Is it something that you can open? Or if you did have it open, does it shut when it gets full? 

[TheQ]

A video made by my GEC friend of his trip in 1997 to the Falklands, to calibrate the kit I assessed and calibrated in 1996.

 

[PupCam]

14 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Is it something that you can open? Or if you did have it open, does it shut when it gets full? 

 

It's a path through which data is transmitted from one process to another. 

Who or what controls it heaven only knows and why it got the hump and closed is the $64000 question!

[BoD]

3 hours ago, JohnDMJ said:

It's not flat-packed!

They forgot to include the Allan key too.

[JohnDMJ]

6 minutes ago, BoD said:

They forgot to include the Allan key too.

 

And an illustrative piece of paper!

[BlackRat]

Typical summer weather......... rain stopped play.

 

Again.

 

[tigerburnie]

1 hour ago, 45156 said:

Afternoon All

 

S   Tigerburnie - nice picture, and don't be to disappointed that it is the "same one", as it is also a very nice "same one" and is a triumph that it exists at all - I have only seen and stood on the footplate of 60163 once, and then thought I'd never see a Peppercorn A1 again after seening them quite often on the "Queen of Scots" at Waverley in the 1960s and when I was visiting my aunt in Edinburgh.

 

 

 

Regards to All

Stewart

Not so much disappointed about the Tornado as the fact that a lot of steam locos could and should still be running on the mainlines, looking forward to seeing the Prince of Wales, hopefully next year.

[Tony_S]

39 minutes ago, PupCam said:

 

It's a path through which data is transmitted from one process to another. 

Who or what controls it heaven only knows and why it got the hump and closed is the $64000 question!

In the old days it was buffers getting full. I have forgotten everything I used to know but what happens when a buffer gets full seemed to be a problem,  though with the stuff I used to do you sometimes only had 128bytes to play with. I don’t seem to be able to do anything now.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, PupCam said:

Afternoon everyone.   No need to Clear Prop, flying has been scrubbed today due to poor weather ...

 

So, Puppers finds himself still looking for a needle in a very large haystack trying to crack the problem with the controller for the thing that must not be mentioned!      Further debug code has been added to the WiFi library source code to try and trap useful information that might emerge and a bit of care has been taken to format the log as compact as possible so that the wood can be seen for the trees so to speak.   What is apparent from the new log is the amount of processing done as every single character is handled.    If you have the remotest interest you can see the contents of one of the messages spelt out down the right-hand side with the name of the low level function function responsible to its left .  You might notice the line numbers (and hence the magnitude)  of the log file .....   Looks like someone's closed the socket.   But who and why? 

 

Of course, if you don't have the remotest interest just pass on down the bus

 

IT WILL NOT BEAT ME!    Please!

 

Computers will always beat us, they have far more zillion ways of not doing what they're supposed to than we can possibly imagine.

I think they rely on spells created at Unseen University but that lot reminds me of trying to machine code Specrums and BBC micros and why I never wanted to go down the DCC route.

With car manufacturers cutting production back because they can't get any processors, it can't be long before the chip shortage reaches toy trains. 

Fortunately, apart from the wireless stuff, our Cessna 150 is very chip free (though when did you last encounter a car that used magnetos to create the sparks that make the petrol go bang, ancient tech. or what ?)   

Edited August 21, 2021 by Pacific231G

[Ian Abel]

21 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Honestly it's a mixed bag here.

Agreed - in our town (Minneapolis burb over 49,000 population) it's a LAW to stop for pedestrians at crosswalks, and there are plenty all over town. There's one on a slow, due to the road turns about 200yds from it, section of road 500yds from us that we cross regularly walking Whitney, and it's amazing how often you can be stepping off the curb with a car 200+yds away with the crossing in full view and they don't look like they might stop or even slow down.

Not true of everyone, of course, and many residents know EXACTLY how to do the right thing. You do have to keep your wits about you when walking though

 

[Ian Abel]

17 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Saw news last night, Alabama has now run out of ICU beds......

Happening all over, especially in the south, notably Florida!

 

Today in our newspaper, even though Minnesota is "fairly" well vaccinated, except in outstate "it's a hoax" areas, cases are rising at an alarming rate overrunning some ICUs.

 

To add to the southern anti-vax irony, states as far away as Tennessee and Florida are now asking if we/Minnesota have any available ICU beds. 

While it may sound callous and rather inhumane, my response would be, NO, we need them for our own folks, especially the sensible element.

 

"Poor planning/listening to social media over scientific evidence on your part, does NOT constitute an emergency on our part..."

[southern42]

Excellent afternoon watching The Hundred (women), the Final.  I am not giving away any spoilers, though. 

 

Playtime, today, but waiting for some less dark weather to do my decals. Looks like I will have to wait until tomorrow. A set of things on wheels that run on parallel bits of metal finally due in the post....

 

Time for a mugadecaf then I must get on and do dinner.

[NGT6 1315]

Right, furniture (two bathroom closets, to be precise) has been assembled and placed, my better half visited FiL in hospital and brought him some clothing to change, dinner was had and I’ll now see Annika to bed. We’re counting down to her 4th birthday next Friday. Flippin’ell, has time really passed that quickly?

 

FiL says he’s likely to be discharged on Thursday. He seems in much better spirits now that the surgery has been carried out successfully, which is a big relief for us for sure. He also mentioned a couple of favourite dishes he’d like to have once he‘s home!

 

Weather‘s predicted to change to wet and miserable tomorrow. We shall see what we might end up doing. Dinner‘s been taken care of as we bought some frozen Swedish meatballs at the Masters of Flat-Packing yesterday!

 

Thinking of @chrisf in particular and everyone else who could do with some moral support for any reason.

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Not done much today, I was going to do a bit of the G word but rain stopped play. The car also needs a good clean after the mud bath the other weekend. I washed the bulk of the mud off but things like the insides of the wheel arches still need a good hose down though much of it has fallen off which means I will have to sweep the drive tomorrow. Time to prepare dinner, liver and bacon with onions, mash and peas I think.

[Coombe Barton]

... and some personal history today ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/08/21/still-rising/

[PupCam]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

In the old days it was buffers getting full. I have forgotten everything I used to know but what happens when a buffer gets full seemed to be a problem,  though with the stuff I used to do you sometimes only had 128bytes to play with. I don’t seem to be able to do anything now.

 

A circular buffer is used to pass messages back and forth and, from other clues I've seen, this appears to get corrupted which is when it all falls over.   However the precise interface between the processes is not understood and there's no documentation to explain it (Hmm, I knew there was a good reason for the Gamekeeper rather than the Poacher style of software development!) I'm stumbling around in the dark albeit slowly getting a bit more of an overall picture.    What is causing the corruption (or even if it is a real corruption) remains a mystery but if it's a memory leak or dodgy pointer in some far off bit of the library then I could be in for a very long slog.   Alternatively, I could just take up stamp collecting.

 

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Computers will always beat us, they have far more zillion ways of not doing what they're supposed to than we can possibly imagine.

I think they rely on spells created at Unseen University but that lot reminds me of trying to machine code Specrums and BBC micros and why I never wanted to go down the DCC route.

With car manufacturers cutting production back because they can't get any processors, it can't be long before the chip shortage reaches toy trains. 

Fortunately, apart from the wireless stuff, our Cessna 150 is very chip free (though when did you last encounter a car that used magnetos to create the sparks that make the petrol go bang, ancient tech. or what ?)   

 

I haven't got a car with magneto ignition ........

 

          .........  but I've got two bikes with mags     

 

Fantastic - rugged, simple and generally reliable devices although they do get a bit tired after 50 or 60 years of faithful service.      Not all that long after I started riding my AJ  I was happily chugging my way round the local lanes and I suddenly had the sensation of someone tapping me on the back of my left leg for a second.    I thought this was strange if not a little spooky ....

 

Anyway, just as the ride was coming to its end I had occasion to use the horn and so the button was pressed.  Nothing happened which again I thought was a little strange but no matter I'll look into when I get home.    When I got home all became clear.   The bolt that holds the battery strap in place had vibrated out and departed.  This allowed the strap to drop liberating the battery.  The tap on the leg was the battery waving goodbye but the engine of course never missed a beat     I did go back the next day but never did find the battery.

 

2 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

To add to the southern anti-vax irony, states as far away as Tennessee and Florida are now asking if we/Minnesota have any available ICU beds.

While it may sound callous and rather inhumane, my response would be, NO, we need them for our own folks, especially the sensible element.

 

"Poor planning/listening to social media over scientific evidence on your part, does NOT constitute an emergency on our part..."

 

I don't think that's callous at all both practically and morally .    I call it proving that there's still life left in good old Darwin

 

Stay safe, stay vaccinated everyone.

 

Alan

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by PupCam

[polybear]

5 hours ago, PupCam said:

Afternoon everyone.   No need to Clear Prop, flying has been scrubbed today due to poor weather ...

 

So, Puppers finds himself still looking for a needle in a very large haystack trying to crack the problem with the controller for the thing that must not be mentioned!      Further debug code has been added to the WiFi library source code to try and trap useful information that might emerge and a bit of care has been taken to format the log as compact as possible so that the wood can be seen for the trees so to speak.   What is apparent from the new log is the amount of processing done as every single character is handled.    If you have the remotest interest you can see the contents of one of the messages spelt out down the right-hand side with the name of the low level function function responsible to its left .  You might notice the line numbers (and hence the magnitude)  of the log file .....   Looks like someone's closed the socket.   But who and why? 

 

Of course, if you don't have the remotest interest just pass on down the bus

 

IT WILL NOT BEAT ME!    Please!

 

 

 

Line 874 - there's a full stop missing....

 

2 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

To add to the southern anti-vax irony, states as far away as Tennessee and Florida are now asking if we/Minnesota have any available ICU beds. 

While it may sound callous and rather inhumane, my response would be, NO, we need them for our own folks, especially the sensible element.

 

 

Sounds just fine to this Bear.....

 

21 minutes ago, PupCam said:

 

A circular buffer is used to pass messages back and forth and, from other clues I've seen, this appears to get corrupted which is when it all falls over.  

 

 

 

Aha...there's your problem....should be an oval Buffer....

Bear's just wasted.....

Bear's waiting for an email regarding availability of a certain home assembled item powered by a leccy motor....

[scots region]

 

This image brings me so much joy.

 

 

Still got this to sort out though.

[Ozexpatriate]

33 minutes ago, PupCam said:

I call it proving that there's still life left in good old Darwin

To be pedantic, Charles Darwin implied no such thing. Nor did he coin the expression "Survival of the fittest"* which was a construct of "social Darwinism" rather than "natural selection".

 

* Herbert Spencer Principles of Biology (1864)

 

"Social Darwinism" is a concept created by contemporaries of his who upon reading the "On the Origin of the Species" extrapolated a warped version of his ideas into a social context - which I find quite unfair to Charles Darwin, along with contemporary interpretations like the so-called "Darwin Award".

 

The concept of species evolving adaptations is quite unrelated to people making foolish decisions.

 

It is my observation that the majority of people making really bad choices have already reproduced - which is completely contrary to Darwin's thesis, since if indeed these tendencies were hereditary, (they're not) they would already be passed on.

 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

14 minutes ago, scots region said:

Still got this to sort out though.

It actually looks very sorted.

[scots region]

Just now, Ozexpatriate said:

It actually looks very sorted.

 

Thank you very much, unfortunately the camera hides more than it reveals.  

[PhilJ W]

Compared to mine its very well sorted indeed. No pics as it can't be seen underneath all the other stuff piled on top.