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This reminds me of something I heard that my ISP told someone. They said that multiple premises share an IP address. All I could say is that has to be rubbish.

It’s actually possible; it’s called CG-NAT and is on my list of things to never touch with a barge pole.

Also if I were try to change I’d lose my ADSL2+ connection at the exchange and be left in limbo halfsaw between providers because the slot would be taken by someone else before changeover occurs. It’s been full for years, so I’m sticking with it.

That’s still a thing there? Ugh…

So the water meter is smart enough to track and record hourly water usage apparently. This kind of bothers me.

Today I learned that “smart” water meters exist. Mine is an old-fashioned one where they send someone around to read it every six months. The power one, on the other hand, is connected to the (2G?) cell network.

Why cut out the desk rather than remove the foot from the TV?

Taking the feet off the TV would have lowered it by 40mm. That was the first thing I tried; it wasn’t enough. I’ve lowered it by 130mm. And yes, I can still see the bottom of the picture, below the level of the desk, by looking down into the hole in the desk. Just like looking at bits of paper on the desk, just beyond where my keyboard sits, if there wasn’t a hole in the desk there.

I didn’t cut the desk; I made a new desk the sensible shape for the purpose. It’s also a better fit in the room, length and width and height, even the exact shape, size and location of the hole, all purpose designed. The old desk is in use elsewhere.

I also don’t get on with varifocals. The distortion of everything in lateral peripheral vision made me feel nauseous as soon as anything over there moved – driving wearing them was impossible. I have a couple of pairs of bifocals, but since I retired my vision has improved so much I don’t need them any longer, single vision for close work is all I need now.

After saying you had to get explicit permission for cookies they then backtracked, the jist AIUI is you now just have to tell people you use them. See here
The more authoritative sites I found were all written before the backtracking.

Found a better article on The Register

Well, whatever – whether I really needed to or not, I’ve acted on Jeffrey’s heads-up. I’ve now implemented a very discreet voluntary user number cookie setting facility – see http://clive.semmens.org.uk/ – don’t know how many people will sign up 8~( – we’ll see, and I’ll report. Hopefully you lot will, but I’ll never know whether it’s you lot or other folks (unless you tell me, of course).

I’ve not done anything clever to foil Rick’s randomized user number trick. I have a fiendish idea of what I could do about it, but won’t bother. Unless a lot of people did it, or someone did it a lot, it doesn’t really matter.

That’s still a thing there? Ugh…

It’s one of the better options. I don’t know if The Register has a bias toward region specific stories or whether IT is a hotbed of IT disaster. If it’s the latter it gives a good idea of the shambles of our infrastructure.

ADSL2+ is one of the better technologies available, and many don’t have access to it.
The way stories seem to reference the “copper” network makes me laugh. Copper would be nice. Many places, here included are still using the ancient lead lines.

I’d heard that your NBN is a disaster, but I wasn’t sure how true it was (you know what the media is like!). I’m over in NZ and we have a process for “churning” between providers without losing your connection; I’m amazed that in Australia you’re still put on a waiting list just to switch providers.

In contrast with your statement above, ADSL2+ is one of the worst technologies available here (aside from a handful of ADSL1 areas). GPON (up to 1 Gb/s download, 500 Mb/s upload) is available to about 60% of the country, with VDSL2 (up to 100/30) filling in a lot of gaps. There are also a few pockets of DOCSIS (advertised as up to 1000/100 but apparently it’s rare to actually get those speeds). It seems that our countries are worlds apart…

As for The Register, I believe that it shows more stories from this part of the world when you have an AU/NZ IP address.

Glad you saw past my braino. The first IT = Australia.

Funny thing is NZ is downstream of Australia as far as backbone connections go, but we have so much more trouble.

I know people that still have dialup, and people that are forced to rely on very expensive mobile data. Their signal is also patchy at best.

We have churning, it’s just because of the way it works, I would lose my place on the exchange. I have verified this more than once.

Reading some horror stories on The Register and on some online versions of newspapers has given me a little hope. I didn’t realise the “copper” network is being killed once the fiber is laid. This is exciting. Anything more than a brief light shower throws telecommunications where I live into chaos. Phone lines get static-y or drop out completely for hours to days. This causes people issues with their home and businesses. Most businesses use mobile network based EFTPOS at least, but the mobile networks are also failure prone and hard to get a signal. I’ve filed multiple complaints about that as have others but it’s pointless.

I’ll be getting FttC which is lucky I guess. I would have preferred FttP because it would have eliminated the last section of ancient infrastructure, but it’s better than nothing for sure.

I think I would have enjoyed the Telstra(?) workers job of finding the access covers. It would have been like an ongoing treasure hunt. Even near my house they found two unmapped ones!

Funny thing is NZ is downstream of Australia as far as backbone connections go

Depends on the provider. Some route everything via Australia, but there’s a direct cable from NZ to the US (and another almost-direct one being built).

Anything more than a brief light shower throws telecommunications where I live into chaos. Phone lines get static-y or drop out completely for hours to days.

Charming. Although we’re not perfect either; a few years ago my (ADSL2+ at the time) connection plummeted to ~2 Mb/s. It took a week of arguing back and forth with Telstra¹ before they finally sent a tech out… who saw the issue immediately and fixed it in 5 minutes (corroded cable in the mushroom²; he said he was amazed that it worked at all).

I think I would have enjoyed the Telstra(?) workers job of finding the access covers. It would have been like an ongoing treasure hunt. Even near my house they found two unmapped ones!

I think that’s probably typical in any country. I’ve even seen situations here where they put equipment in one place, then moved it a year or so later… and almost a decade later, the online maps still show it in the old place. Meanwhile there’s still a old copper phone line pole outside my house with no services on it; they removed all the other poles when they moved everything underground but for some reason this one’s still there.

¹ Technically TelstraClear; local provider Clear Communications had been bought by TelstraSaturn (which in turn had been created by Telstra buying Saturn). TelstraClear was eventually bought by Vodafone, who killed off the Telstra and Clear names before the Commerce Commission had even approved the sale!

² Copper access point, shaped a bit like a mushroom. Google is not being very helpful with pictures; this one is the best I can find (it’s the grey thing to the right) but you normally can’t see all the cables :)

On the topic of regional variations, words are always a fun one! I was reading a story earlier today from someone in the UK, containing the statement “The next day I got my swimming costume and goggles on”.

The comments included these:

“Do they really call swimsuits “swimming costumes” in the UK?”

“Is…that weird? I’ve never really thought about it before, but yes we call them swimming costumes.”

“It is kind of weird sounding to Americans since we typically only use the word “costume” in reference to Halloween costumes, or dressing up as a character, as in cosplay. So typically it means some kind of fun disguise. It doesn’t really fit in with people wearing swimsuits on the beach. It makes me imagine a bunch of Frankensteins, vampires, and ghosts wearing bikinis and swim trunks lol."

We typically use UK spellings and pronunciations here in NZ, but to me “swimming costume” also conjures up some sort of superhero disguise.

Another one is “yard”, referring to the grass lawn outside a house. Apparently it’s an Americanism but it’s incredibly common here. Google tells me that the UK term is “garden”, which to my ears describes a thing with flowers and vegetables in it.

A yard, in English, is a small space behind, or more rarely in front of, a house, with a paved surface. If it’s grassed, it’s a lawn, but it probably has at least a narrow border with flowers in it, and then it’s a garden.

A yard, in English, is a little less than a metre. ;-)

That too. Close to 91% of one, in fact. And a meter is a thing you use to take a measurement of something such as voltage or gas consumption, not a distance 10% greater than a yard. And gas is a fluid at a temperature above its boiling point, not petrol.

And this being Aldershot, I’m perfectly happy for my relatively serious thread to have become completely derailed…first by something different but still vaguely serious, and now by something perfectly silly.

And a meter is a thing you use to take a measurement of something such as voltage or gas consumption, not a distance 10% greater than a yard.

Indeed. Meanwhile I was talking to an American friend the other day and learned that he was completely unfamiliar with the character µ being used to represent “micro”.

Meanwhile I was talking to an American friend the other day and learned that he was completely unfamiliar with the character µ being used to represent “micro”.

An Imperialist, presumably! And presumably not a scientist, but (just) possibly an engineer?

But back to the subject of the thread: since I implemented the unobtrusive opt-in alternative to my previous unobtrusive opt-out for cookies, four days ago, nobody has opted in 8~( – in fact, only three people have even looked at the About Cookies page… while many other pages have had lots of visits, in some cases 50+ … 8~(

They also use ‘mil’ to mean ‘thou’ and not millimetres. Which made a talk on painting a bridge (coating 3 mil) go off down the line ‘what about the weight of the paint?’.

I once saw a sign that said “No thoroughfare”. Left pondians shorten this down to “No thru road”. Since when was “thru” a real word?

I looked at the About Cookies.

Methinks you hid it too well. Stick the explanation and buttons on your main page. See if you get any bites.

Not to confuse Ðou (meaning you) and Þou (meaning thousandth of an inch)… jeez, English spelling…

Stick the explanation and buttons on your main page. See if you get any bites.

I considered that, and decided that it was bad enough having a link there. The main page is cluttered enough as it is, with things I actually give more than a tiny toss about.

I once saw a sign that said “No thoroughfare”.

In good Irish, “Dead End”.

In good Irish, “Dead End”.

No, it means “no public right of way”! Dead-end would be English: “cul de sac”, French: “impasse”. The French equivalent might be “Sauf riverains”, which might otherwise translate as “Residents only”.

The French giggle when they see our “cul-de-sac” signs, as it literally means “arse of a bag”, implying no passage possible!

Merde, aucune merde!

Been to French class this morning, and am still language-orientated!

No, it means “no public right of way”

Indeed – “No Thoroughfare” means “no public right of way”; it’s "No thru road” that means “Dead End.” Just me creating confusion by quoting the wrong bit of Rick’s post and tangling things up.

I just had my ISP’s DNS redirect page pop up when I tried to do a search using Chrome’s address bar.
My network’s DNS server is a Pi-Hole setup which points to Google and OpenDNS servers. My router also points to my server and it’s secondary is Google DNS.

I’ve been suspicious of how badly DNS lookups have been behaving over the past few days, and had images of Chinese censorship popping into my head (as opposed to Australia’s thankfully pathetic DNS based censorship). I have to wonder if my ISP is redirecting me to their DNS server.

Concerning.

e: also lol I found out the NBN infrastructure’s max speed is 100MBit/sec, costing a bargain AUD106/mo.
I really hope mobile network based internet gets a toehold and causes some competition.