Debris in space.

When reading this arstechnica article it came as no surprise to learn of the inherent dangers of space  debris. Caused by mainly low orbital satellites, both some still in use and some no longer in use, but both types just floating free around our fragile Earth. NASA probably knows but your average Joe, of which I am one, probably does not, but the questions remain such as, what unknown damage is this space flotsam and jetsam creating for our Earth orbital spin and axis?

It is bad enough to know that the Earths low orbital space area is littered with objects, not just functional and defunct satellites, created after some 50 years since Man first transversed the problems of getting objects to fly outside of Earths atmosphere without having to wonder what problems these things can, and possibly will, cause for us in years to come. What, for example, would be the result of a collision in this area of several satellites at the same time? Would such a thing simply create yet more space debris making life evermore difficult for future space travelers or is it beyond the realms of possibilities that such a thing could cause the Earth to tilt on its axis one way or the other thereby possibly wiping out everything on Earth?

Other questions that should be asked is why after all the years of space travel have we not found a way to enter this area in space and simply hover up all the space junk? I am aware of the inherant dangers of grabbing such fast flying objects can create not to mention the docking of such items but we can do it with the space station so why not for a space refuse collector? I get the feeling that even though we humans have a space station of sorts out in space but we cannot seem to build a simple (yes, I know it is not as simple as just saying it but given what NASA and other space entities such as Russia's version of NASA and even China's flavour know about such things it cannot be that difficult for them) craft that can enter this cluttered area and effectively clean it up of all, if not all then most, space debris. This could then be expanded to cover areas beyond this particularly cluttered area.

Over the years since Man first ventured into space all manner of satellites have been dispatched and it would appear very little thought was given to the problems we have now in this area. Or maybe there was but the warnings were suppressed or simply ignored, whatever the reasons for being in the situation we now find ourselves the current situation is only going to get worse if the worlds space  efforts do not combine to create a better solution than the one touted in the above article. And who knows what dangers lay ahead not just for satellites, defunct or otherwise, but for the Earth itself as the more dense the debris gets the less light we will take in and the less light we take in the more living things will die.

Time for the world's space agencies to find a better solution than one that mimics air traffic control systems.

Next working day?

How often do you see "Next working day" when waiting for a parcel to be delivered? Let us consider those 3 words for a minute then let us consider what they mean in the modern 7 days a week commercial world.

Back in the old days they meant exactly what they say. This being your parcel would arrive on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday but never on a Saturday or a Sunday because those latter two were considered none-working days and, for those who can remember, Sunday was a day when almost no shops where open, save for little corner shops that usually opened for an hour or two.

Over time, big and not so big, shops started opening on a Saturday but Saturday never became part of the working day when taking deliveries into account, unless one paid a much higher price on that delivery.

Move into more recent memory and big, and not so big, shops started opening on a Sunday but still, for deliveries, Saturdays and Sundays are not considered Working days when our 3 words are under consideration. The same rules for a Saturday delivered parcel remains in force but Sunday does not get a look in.

So, we now live and work in a week consisting of the full 7 days, but, if you pay for a  "Standard delivery" option on a Friday you will still need to wait until the following Monday for that parcel to arrive. However, Saturday has been a standard working day for so many for so long it should now be considered a Standard working day and therefore be covered by our 3 little words.

Then again, if this was ever done the bosses  will almost blow a fuse and demand that because Saturday is now considered as part of the standard working week then they should not have to pay their workforce   time and a half, or third as some are still paid. But even there there is a work around. Saturday should only be considered as part of a  standard working week when taking parcel deliveries in to consideration and should not impact on the wages, payment details, of those who are forced to work on a Saturday.

Of course, there will be some winners and some losers in the above but I, and many others no doubt, would like to see Saturday as part of the Next working day delivery option for no other reason than in this 7 days a week world we now live in demands it be so.

i cannot understand.

The mentality behind such people as this jerk in a BBC report. The guy is 20p short of a pound if he thinks for one second that what he waffles on about is anything close to reality. Sure, there will be some in middle England that would go along with it but those on the various Council owned estates dotted around our cities won't give a hoot.

Take this gem as an example of his bilge.

"And to my mind the really shining example of how far the public have
come in accepting laws to help protect us from self-harm is the huge
support for smoke-free public spaces and workplaces throughout the UK."

Here is another.

"We've been largely successful with the tobacco industry, and now it's time to shift the focus onto alcohol and junk-food."

And one more.

"What next? I would like to see a ban on smoking in cars with a child on
board and a ban on displays of cigarettes in shops. I would like to see
a real hike in tax on alcohol and a ban on deep price-cuts for booze."

That would be the tobacco industry that they are killing. There are so many holes in his spurious comments that it really is not worth poiting them out.

The vast majority of people of this country take no notice whatsoever of what some berk says about being healthy. As i said earlier there will be some who do, mostly from the middle classes but the working class simply will not care and the younger that working class people is the less they care. It is people like that guy who provides us with the laughs that keep us going. He is so high up on his high horse he can't even see what is really happening. Here is a free clue for him.

Just because you say it is so does not make it so. Fool.

The decline of "News" sites.

Back when the Internet was but a fledgling mini beast waiting to explode on everyone the so called News web sites that have no dead tree parent soon became apparent in the eyes and minds of those with a technological bent.

Some have long since disappeared but some of those that where at the begining or came along just after are still around. Some of those still around are the worse for wear while the rest plod along as happy and snappy as ever. Those that are the worse for wear are surely to go the way of the Dodo like many before them.

For me it is sad to see formerly glorious News web sites, of the more technical flavour, fail to attract what once was a loyal readership. It is easy from a reader point of view to see those that are failing. The web site displays less advertisements. The user comment sections lay relatively empty. The  forum, should they have one, sees less and less by way of posts.  Their News  stories get evermore boring and shorter and often offer less by way of journalism and more by way of sarcastic commentary. Their head honcho moves onto  something else, usually a competing offering. Those five things are the main things that signify when a News web site is dying. Another thing is they get less and less by way of worthy submissions. But then again many of these News  web sites carry articles by the same person using a multitude of monikers so this one is harder to spot.

A new breed of, usually, Web 2.0 enabled News web sites make some of the longer standing News web sites look by comparison old and jaded as if those in charge are fast running out of ideas. While I am not an overly impressed with this whole Web 2.0 thing one has to agree, even if you hate it as much as i do, that it does make for some better looking web sites.

So, it is with a heavy heart that, while not mentioning any names, I wave a fond farewell to the, apparently (based on the totally none scietific method mention above), soon to disappear Technology News web site i have  read for years.

And so it goes.

Karoo WiFi.

Is as much of a joke amongst local people as their ADSL2 offerings. Karoo WiFi is available as part of ones contact with them but what they don't tell you is where their access points are. They are in fact extremely limited as their access points are mainly only avaiable in Queens Gardens on the edge of the town shopping are. Queens Gardens itself covers some 1000 square yards of space but the Karoo WiFi offering only covers approximately half of that. Excellent stuff that we locals have come to expect for our monopolistic telephone company.

In other news regarding my, and others, ongoing efforts to get Karoo, and therefore the companies Daddy company, to improve their dismal ADSL2 offerings they are now engaging in lies. Outright, unadulterated lies. They have been found to be fiddling their user inputs on whether or not people consider their flagship (Ha!) offering good or bad. How was this found out? Well, simply put there are moles within and these moles  are telling me that there are internal IP's showing as being from within their customer ranks. Of course, no-one outside the company ever sees a posting IP address nor do they see  headers of the emails that have been supposedly sent in from 'customers' who have praised the service offering .While it can be easily refuted by the company I will go with what the moles have said as that would be a typical compny thing to do. There will be some who will say I am bias against them but that misses the point entirely. The fact that they are reduced to doing something like this belies the fact that they consider their offering any good.

In further news the latest gaff from them is that when emailing an individual within their ranks one got back and auto-response email that had within it the claim that the email had not been read and 'helpfully' pointed one to a blanket email address where ones email is sure to get lost amongst the noise of other people complaining. Laughingly, once it was pointed out to them that this practice, or more precisely the line that said that the email had not been read was illegal they have now quietly dropped that part, and that line in particular, of their auto-response emails.

As a company they are terrible. As a provider of Internet connectivity they are terrible. In Customer Service they are terrible. In every conceivable way they are terrible. One has to wonder what with their share price dropping through the floor just how much longer they can stay away from a total buy-out. The problem with that however is who exactly could or would buy them out and if a company did would they be any better than what we suffer now? i mean, the only way they  could possibly improve the actual service is by redoing their ancient copper lines or by installing fibre to the home. Both of these are an expensive exercise which would would take a lot of money to implement which KC certainly do not have and it is unlikely, if a buyer even bothered to buy them out, would have either. As an aside who would I complain about! Seriously, no company is perfect in every way but to fail customers so specularly in every possible way as they do is astounding.

My moles have told me that while FTTH was tauted by a previous contact as being very very soon it is now firmly on the back burner as finances get ever tighter and is likely to stay on the back burner for the foreseeable future.

The Intenets hidden joke.

If there is one single web site that causes none Microsoft laden administrators, and some hardened Microsoft  administrators, to laugh out loud is is "Shields Up!" from grc.com.

The sheer scale of hyperbole on there aimed not at seasoned professionals but at the all American everyday common and garden Microsoft Windows users is simply stunning. Every facet of that web site is designed and created to scare the Hell out of  Microsoft Windows users. Take a look at  a snippet of text taken from within the "Shields Up!" process and you will see exactly what I see and that is pure unadulterated hyperbole.

"Solicited TCP Packets: RECEIVED (FAILED) — As detailed in the port report below, one or more of your system's ports actively responded to our deliberate attempts to establish a
connection. It is generally possible to increase your system's security by hiding it from the probes of potentially hostile hackers. Please see the details presented by the specific port links below, as well as the various resources on this site, and in our extremely helpful and active user  community." (any and all links removed to protect the innocent).

Now, I run a Usenet news service so of course 1 port is open otherwise noone would be able to connect to it and what is the use of a server if that be the case? So, that said I fail, with huge red banners proclaiming my failure. This is ridiculous but surely scares the uninitiated. If the average person sees something on a web site self proclaimed as the leader in all things security related says you failed the most basic of ping tests what are they going to do? Panic. That is what and that is what Mr Gibson wants them to do.

Some will say that the web site is not aimed at battle hardened administrators but that itself belies what the web site is all about and that after all is securing a connection. All over the site, which is designed in such a way as to scare people, he makes claims  and points out what people should do and some of that advice is plain wrong or if not wrong then ill-advised. As an example he states that to achieve true stealth mode one should disable pings. This is bad practice for anyone connected to the Internet be it via a router or a modem within a computer. A ping test ensures that the Internet runs  smoothly, by turning off pings it creates the illusion that there are huge black holes all over the place when in fact  the computer or router is sitting there connected to the Internet.

Hyperbole is what it is all about. The information a tools available should be taken and used with a large  dollop of salt. We seasoned and in some cases, mine included,  professionals know to ignore  the advice given. It would be better for the whole Internet is the web site did not exist but it does and while it does we will continue to laugh.

I suppose it serves a purpose for the paranoid but other than that I see no reason for its existence unless of course it is meant to be a joke in which case the joke is on us.

Be careful out there.

Karoo email.

In an effort to stifle customers  Karoo are now sending out the following email when a customer emails an individual within the organisation (all email addresses munged for obvious reasons).

"Thank you for your email.

So that we can ensure that your query is handled appropriately please
direct it to the relevant contact listed here.

***@***.com <mailto:***@***.com> 

This email has not been read.

Thank you."

Then there is the usual organisational bumph following that.

"This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs SkyScan
service.

Please consider the environment before printing this email.

The content of this email and any attachment is private and may be
privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, disclosure,
copying or forwarding of this email and/or its attachments is
unauthorised. If you have received this email in error please notify the
sender by email and delete this message and any attachments immediately.
Nothing in this email shall bind the Company or any of its subsidiaries
or businesses in any contract or obligation, unless we have specifically
agreed to be bound.

KCOM Group PLC is a public limited company incorporated in England and
Wales, company number 02150618 and whose registered office is at 37 Carr
Lane, Hull, HU1 3RE.

118288 - KCOM UK Directory Enquiries. Calls will cost no more than 49p
connection + 14p per minute including VAT from a KC or BT landline. Call
charges from mobiles and other networks may vary. If you are calling
from a mobile you will now receive your requested number via text
message. You will not be charged for the text message."

Ignoring the crap at the end which nobody with any sense takes any notice of, let us consider the first part and why they are sending these email out as auto-replies.

My take on them are that they are designed and created in the hope that genuine customer emails get lost in the noise that such email addresses generate. This then enables them to claim that they never received the email. This has happened to me, and others, several times when being directed to a blanket email address.

While such blanket email addresses make sense for the organisation they make no sense whatsoever for the customer. As always it is the customer that loses out in this deal for the reasons stated in the above paragraph.

One such example was an ongoing conversation I was having with an individual with an @***.com email address. After some 40 odd emails to and fro suddenly the above auto response was generated to which I foolishly duly replied. After a wait of 10 days I then emailed the individual again who said that the previous email i had sent was never seen by her. After some investigation it turned out that the email referred to was 'lost'. Now, we all know that organisation never 'lose' emails but due to the fact that the person  claimed it was there was nothing I could do. I did try emailing the individual again but that ended up creating the never ending  circle of email sent, auto-response returned and so on.

So, if you ever receive one of these auto responses you now know why they do it. After emailing an individual I urge you to ignore what the email says and continue emailing the individual. While this may seem counter productive it will, hopefully, inform them that such a blanket email address is wrong for the customer.