Notices by Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK (vfrmedia@social.tchncs.de), page 3

@thefishcrow pity these aren't made any more (and were bloody expensive when they were in production):

@varx @djsundog @vertigo @banjofox

I am not a medical professional (I just help them keep their systems working) so don't know the exact term for this (does seem like what is commonly is called burnout) is a real and dangerous thing that should be professionally treated. Late 30s/early 40s do not *seem* to use like "senior" or even middle age but they can alas be a prime time for health problems to present especially when under stress (or that working hard you neglect your health)

@gdkar @djsundog they are still selling Z80s at radiospares and mouser, even in normal DIL package but they are CMOS and 10 MHz now (mouser also seems to automatically come up with a list of all the other bits you might want/need to go with it as well 😎 )

@mcscx @cypnk I also remember the smell from working on electronics in high school, we often reused a lot of 1970s era surplus components and circuit boards, I think British Telecom donated a lot of them as where I lived we had an unusually advanced (for UK) electronic telephone exchange which was upgraded several times, as a lot of audio from #ColdWar #radiomonitoring and #surveillance went through the region due to the #BBC #Caversham Monitoring service being down the road!

@mcscx Unfortunately my chemistry isn't very good (I'm slightly better at electronics) so I am also probably getting the names of the plastics mixed up.

There was also some stuff called Paxolin (possibly known as Pertinax in other North European countries) which was paper bulked up with similar phenol formaldehyde resin used for a lot of ciircuit boards Its use was discouraged at some point in 1970s(?) and now EU banned/restricted as the dust from that stuff is suspected to give you cancer!

@elomatreb @djsundog @erinbee

we have that here as well (even survived library service being split from the Council during the budget cuts! They got a "new" bus recently, old one was literally falling to pieces (maybe "farewell" gift from council)

They use satellite for their net connectivity (slow and laggy but good enough for the library computer systems which are usually based on 20 year old tech anyway)

the places below are many km in middle of nowhere!

https://www.suffolklibraries.co.uk/mobiles-home/

@djsundog @erinbee

this is my towns official playbus. Often the bus itself is of interest to spotters as its usually a preserved service bus from about 20-30 years ago (but repainted in bright colours)

Old buses aren't expensive, but the driver *does* usually need a special type of driving license in most countries due to their size and/or the number of passengers (even if not strictly public transport), I think they get retired town drivers to volunteer for this.

http://www.ipswichplaybus.org.uk/

@erinbee @djsundog in many British towns there is something called a "playbus". Perhaps we should have that but for adults too 😁

Copyright/Google doesn't seem to help artists - heard tune on Radio Caroline I liked and wanted to *buy* it.Uploading an actual cassette recording (from AM radio with load of wow and azimuth error) caused YT Content ID to snag it (which I *wanted* to happen), but no easy link to anywhere I could buy the tune, had to use multiple google searches, eventually found it in obscure corner of Amazon but took way more effort than expected (ironic given the title and subject!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx9Dt8UHh9g

for CET-zone folk:

Happy new year!
Frohes neues Jahr!
Gelukkig nieuwjaar!
Bonne anneé 2018!

@bob @aral I've seen EU funding for beneficial things ranging from drugs #harmreduction, #communityradio and even tracking #bears and #wolves in countries which are currently unused to dealing with them (as they return after being hunted to extinction in previous centuries). Perhaps all strange edge cases/niche projects but they do genuinely seem useful to communities..

@djsundog especially In Europe towards end of 1980s there were also filofaxes (these being more portable). I still have my 1991 leather one somewhere and am half tempted to start using it again (its a UK company, the refills are still made - you even used to be able to print from Outlook to A4 sheets that could then be cut to the odd size a standard Filofax uses (this functionality has alas been removed from recent versions of Outlook)

@veer66 this is Redmonds own fault - PS *is* powerful but has a startup speed overhead compared to a DOS CLI,

to me it reminds me of scripting/OS of 1980 era VAX/VMS.

Its not a simple thing to learn and because MS jealously guard licenses VMs aren't so easy/cheap to set up for newer versions of Win compared to Linux; where you can run multiple VMs for free on a Windows laptop and experiment without being worried about wrecking important data..

@veer66 it is only very recently Redmond have been promoting its use, I watched a training video about it from about 2 years ago and they spent quite a lot of time explaining to (presumably younger) people "do not be afraid of the command line!"

@colon_three @djsundog In my younger days NYE was usually a day to set up and hold a warehouse rave (cops would be fully busy dealing with neds/townies so if you picked the right time (no Airwave then, police comms on unencrypted V/UHF bands 😉) then they would not bother you at the crucial point of getting into the building and setting up), usually that carried on well into new years day and early afternoon sometimes (it wasn't feasible for the cops to close it down if town had kept them busy)

True story re letters to #Santa in #1992s #UK (worked for #RoyalMail then) - they ended up on International section and we *did* deliver them. Where to? The managers said "distribute them evenly to anywhere you think Santa *may* be". DK, NO, SE, FI got the bulk, LT, EE, and LV got some too (if you knew these countries existed) (last 3 probably not as happy about a flood of foreign mail just months after breaking from USSR and rebuilding infrastructure!) Today they are handled internally in UK.

have not been on here as much, I finally decided I *should* see optician (corrected vision in my left eye was getting steadily worse), ended up sent here (Ipswich Hospital) and put on antibiotic eyedrops (and some other stuff).

#Mastodon can be hard to use if you cannot see well!

But my vision is at starting to improve now (back to hospital again tomorrow for more checks).

At least even with the cutbacks and pressures the staff at UK #NHS still try to do their best.

A #hackerspace #makerspace in #France is destroyed by arson by unnamed activists "against digital culture takeover" - but *why*? seems like a fairly harmless place, funded by local public authorities, not even by big domestic or foreign companies i.e Google, France Télécom...

https://usbeketrica.com/article/l-incendie-de-la-casemate-est-bien-une-action-politique

"mag niet" (EN: must not do it!) - then goes on to carefully show exactly what sort of antenna you *shouldn't* connect this transmitter to, which has a proper matching network on the endstage so may result in a surprisingly long range out of the 50 mW, even a few km).

Both NL and DE ceased licensed AM broadcasting, Opa and Oma could thus get away with transmitting to their entire retirement village without hassle from Agentschap or BNetzA (who would be looking for the stronger VHF FM pirates)

LB:

For those who do not read German, this #CCC page (about the ethics, motivation and borders of Hacking) is now also available in English (this wasn't always the case, I was just about to try and translate it myself then noticed the update)

https://www.ccc.de/en/hackerethik

@Verfassungklage