In other news today...
-
@boomzilla said in In other news today...:
And here I was just thinking I needed to find a reason to post this song:
I was just thinking (without reading the article of course): After you're done spying, always point the telescope back where it belongs.
-
@dcon said in In other news today...:
without reading the article of course
Spoiler
It was the janitor sharing stuff online after connecting to the facility's wireless.
-
@PleegWat said in In other news today...:
You frequently hear in NL that you can get DUI while driving a bike, though it's not enforced and you're unlikely to get written up for it unless it's so severe that they can take you for public intoxication.
That's how a friend of mine lost his driver's license. Back then we had this "point" system in Germany where you lost your driver's license after accruing 18 points. Small stuff like speeding 10 km/h too fast yields a fine and 1 point. Bigger stuff like running a red light would yield 3 points, a fine and 1 month of license suspension. And a DUI with a BAC of 0.11% would amount to 9 points, a fine and 6 months of suspension, for 0.05% you'd only get 1 month of suspension and 3 points. And a fine, of course.
The limit for cyclists, however, is 0.16%. Before that there's no fine (but the police may sweep you up anyway for hazardous driving), after that it's the same as for drivers with 0.11%.With that explanation, back to the story. So this guy, after a hard night of partying, came into our university-wide chatroom (well, strictly speaking, the filesharing client's chatroom. Downloads take time, even over a 1 GBit/s connection!) one morning and asked us if there was some way of finding out what his blood test's results were.
Blood test? Yes, the test the police forced him to undergo after they had scraped him and his bike off the street. And since he already had 9 points on his driver's license...
Well, luckily for him, the police precinct in Göttingen did regular short press releases on what they had been up to the day before. But those were always anonymized! Bugger. Let's have a look anyway.
"Soo, the police report say that they collected one bicycling student at 4 am with a BAC of 0.23%. Guess that's you then?"
-
@Cursorkeys said in In other news today...:
@LaoC said in In other news today...:
@Cursorkeys said in In other news today...:
@LaoC said in In other news today...:
Why 3000?
To get a supercritical fluid with a density the same as cryogenic hydrogen at atmospheric pressure you need to acheive 77kg/m3
OK, but if you can get by with 700 bar and half the density, why bother? It's not like there wasn't any room on trains as long as the stuff doesn't get too heavy.
It was just a silly thought that room-temperature liquid hydrogen would be cool.
It might be cool, or it might be warm; it depends on the room.
If it's still a gas and not a liquid then it loses style points.
How many style points for solid?
I think anything that contains hydrogen at integer amounts of bars should be looked at sideways, let alone hundreds or thousands of the damn things!
Or 5 million. But major style points.
-
-
@boomzilla Are the Florida men (and women) all moving to Virginia?
The security officer then escorted the woman out of the building. Upon their arrival outside of the building the woman pulled out a knife and threatened the security guard.
Bury the lede much? Yeah, it's not as quirky and click-baity as a pigeon in a fanny pack, but that's the felony she's charged with.
-
-
@LB_ Wow. TL;DR: Company stored data unencrypted. Literally millions of records — many TB — containing names, addresses, emails, purchase details, payment info including CC numbers, passwords in plain text, SINs, photos of ID cards, employee data, backups of every byte of data the company ever had. Company went bankrupt and abandoned their equipment. The landlord sold the equipment — and the data it contained to multiple anonymous buyers for $15000 each to recover unpaid rent.
-
@anotherusername said in In other news today...:
What he's describing is primary/hot standby.
Surely that term is offensive to all the other standbys that aren't as physically attractive.
-
@HardwareGeek So the real outrage is that the landlord didn't realise the value of what he had, and got ripped off?
-
@Scarlet_Manuka If the landlord had realized the value of what he had, it probably would've been illegal for him to sell it. If the landlord didn't realize what was on the computers, then I suspect the illegality of it all rested entirely on the buyer(s) who found confidential info and committed crimes with it rather than deleting it.
-
@anotherusername The shady broker he hired to sell it for him certainly did.
-
@Benjamin-Hall said in In other news today...:
One issue with hydrogen is that it leaks (in gas form). Badly. It's so light that it diffuses through solid metal, and the molecules that don't diffuse through make the metal brittle instead.
It's not like that would affect a modern pressure vessel much though. The Nazis already operated a 240 km hydrogen pipeline at up to 200 bar, without losing too much of it nor blowing it up inadvertently, so that's ancient engineering.
-
-
She's going to the Galapagos Islands next year...
-
@mott555 said in In other news today...:
I wouldn't consider hydrogen or gasoline to be explosive, although they are certainly quite flammable. Their burn rate is fairly slow and heavily limited by access to atmospheric oxygen.
Both are only explosive when close to a critical ratio with a gaseous oxidiser (e.g., oxygen). However, spills of gasoline are more of a problem than spills of hydrogen as gasoline vapour is heavier than air and tends to pond, whereas hydrogen gas (and yes, it will be a gas once spilt, if not immediately then very shortly after; keeping hydrogen in any other state in the vicinity of the Earth's surface requires pressurisation and/or cryogenics) just immediately makes a break for outer space, as it is the lightest possible gas. No ponding problems possible.
Whatever hydrogen's problems as a fuel source, accidental explosions in normal use won't be a common one.
-
@PJH Not a good week for Mario fans.
-
@Boner said in In other news today...:
@PJH Not a good week for Mario fans.
Indeed. I posted about the other one in the Garage Thread.
-
-
@pie_flavor said in In other news today...:
@PJH said in In other news today...:
It's more likely than you think.
Women feeling ill? Yeah, it's incredibly common.
-
@dkf said in In other news today...:
No ponding problems possible.
(Inverted) ponding is possible in enclosed (roofed) spaces. And that can lead to explosive mixtures.
Fairly safe (kinda, sorta, maybe) experiment:
Materials:
Flat surface
Metal can, open at one end, with a small hole in the other end
Thin object, like a matchstick, to prop the bottom of the can just slightly off the flat surface
Hydrogen gas
Source of ignitionTurn the can open end down and fill it with hydrogen. Place it on the flat surface, with enough of a gap for air to enter to replace the hydrogen as it escapes through the hole in the top of the can. Ignite the stream of hydrogen escaping through the hole; it will burn with a very hot but nearly invisible flame, and a whistling sound will be heard as air rushes in through the gap to replace the hydrogen.
The whistling will stop abruptly as the can flies into the air with a loud bang. The air rushing in will mix with the hydrogen (even though it's much denser, because of turbulence) and eventually the concentration will get into the range where the mixture is explosive.
OTOH, if one must be caught in an explosion, a hydrogen explosion is perhaps not the worst sort to be caught in. If you have an explosive cloud of hydrogen and air in an open space, the hydrogen is dispersed so quickly that only about 1% of the potential energy is actually released in an explosion. The pressure wave from the explosion is sufficient to knock you down, but not to injure you. (The heat and flame is another matter entirely. Also, this is true of an unconfined explosion; YMMV drastically in an enclosed space.)
-
@Tsaukpaetra said in In other news today...:
@pie_flavor said in In other news today...:
@PJH said in In other news today...:
It's more likely than you think.
Women feeling ill? Yeah, it's incredibly common.
-
@pie_flavor said in In other news today...:
@Tsaukpaetra said in In other news today...:
@pie_flavor said in In other news today...:
@PJH said in In other news today...:
It's more likely than you think.
Women feeling ill? Yeah, it's incredibly common.
Yes, that's one way to do it. But there are far easier and available methods.
-
-
@pie_flavor I knew I read it somewhere yesterday, but I thought it was between the phase diagrams and the speed of flame propagation in deflagration and detonation conditions.
-
@Tsaukpaetra said in In other news today...:
@LB_ said in In other news today...:
NCIX ... Isn't that the company LinusTechTips came from?
Yes, there are quite a few LTT videos about the NCIX situation, he actually went to one of the auctions to buy stuff.
-
-
-
-
-
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
You realize that hydrogen is no more explosive than gasoline?
Neither gasoline nor hydrogen would be under condition to explode in a crash, so that's not the concern. It's the huge amount of enthalpy in a pressure vessel holding probably over hundred of kilograms of hydrogen at 70 MPa.
A 100 kg of hydrogen, at 70 MPa, will (if the image linked by LaoC is correct) be about 2.5 m³ and that will contain about 175 MJ of pressure potential energy, which amounts to about 41 kg of TNT. That's still pretty big bang if the container fails and the pieces go flying in all directions.
-
-
@Bulb said in In other news today...:
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
You realize that hydrogen is no more explosive than gasoline?
Neither gasoline nor hydrogen would be under condition to explode in a crash, so that's not the concern. It's the huge amount of enthalpy in a pressure vessel holding probably over hundred of kilograms of hydrogen at 70 MPa.
A 100 kg of hydrogen, at 70 MPa, will (if the image linked by LaoC is correct) be about 2.5 m³ and that will contain about 175 MJ of pressure potential energy, which amounts to about 41 kg of TNT. That's still pretty big bang if the container fails and the pieces go flying in all directions.
Right. And the actual pressure used in real life on Earth (and not, say, in the center of Jupiter) is what again?
-
-
@anotherusername said in In other news today...:
@Scarlet_Manuka If the landlord had realized the value of what he had, it probably would've been illegal for him to sell it. If the landlord didn't realize what was on the computers, then I suspect the illegality of it all rested entirely on the buyer(s) who found confidential info and committed crimes with it rather than deleting it.
The article clearly indicates that they were aware they are selling it with the data. May not have known how sensitive they are, but at that point ignorantia juris non excusat comes in play – a law regulating sale of data exists, so when you have data, you are required to familiarise yourself with it and follow it and court shall not consider whether you did¹.
Besides, if the company went bankrupt, a trustee should have been appointed by court (or some office) and approved by the creditors (one of whom would be the landlord) to be in charge of selling off the assets and that trustee would be a lawyer – or at least that's how it works here, does it not in Canada?
¹ Makes me wonder, the store for rent shops probably have in their terms of service that you may not store illegal goods there, but would it really indemnify them from liability when they auction off a booths with expired rent without inspecting them (much)?
-
@PJH TRWTF: is a medical interpreter?
-
@boomzilla There are language interpreters (Spanish, Chinese, Sign Language, whatever) who have specific training in medical terminology and interpreting in a medical situation. I assume that is being referred to.
-
@boomzilla said in In other news today...:
@PJH TRWTF: is a medical interpreter?
Probably someone involved here:
If not, it's one of those made up jobs like 'gender studies professor' or 'diversity outreach coordinator' that no-one else really takes seriously and no-one outside that field believes to be productive or value for money.
-
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
Right. And the actual pressure used in real life on Earth (and not, say, in the center of Jupiter) is what again?
70 MPa AKA 700 bar is right. Although high pressure tanks are usually tested to have consistent leak-before-burst behavior. In a train accident with enough force to immediately squash the tank so badly that it explodes, the tank will probably be the least of passengers' problems.
-
@LaoC said in In other news today...:
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
Right. And the actual pressure used in real life on Earth (and not, say, in the center of Jupiter) is what again?
70 MPa AKA 700 bar is right. Although high pressure tanks are usually tested to have consistent leak-before-burst behavior. In a train accident with enough force to immediately squash the tank so badly that it explodes, the tank will probably be the least of passengers' problems.
Yeah, got the magnitude wrong because I usually take
bar
oratm
as a reference. But your other point is fully correct as well: If your tank explodes and sends shrapnel through the air, you probably won't care anyway.
Plus, those things are designed quite safe. When's the last time a scuba diver's tank exploded? Those are filled with gas pressurized at 200 bar. And we have cars which are converted to drive with natural gas - their tanks are also pressurized at 200 bar. Not many rapid unscheduled disassemblies there, either.
-
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
rapid unscheduled disassemblies
-
@Bulb said in In other news today...:
The article clearly indicates that they were aware they are selling it with the data. May not have known how sensitive they are, but at that point ignorantia juris non excusat comes in play – a law regulating sale of data exists, so when you have data, you are required to familiarise yourself with it and follow it and court shall not consider whether you did¹.
That's an interesting theory. I'm unsure just how much culpability they'd have, though, since "hard drive containing sales and user database" may be fairly impenetrable to someone who doesn't know how to mount the disk, spin up the database server, and query it to find out what's inside. And depending on the database's schema, even if you could query data from it, it may be difficult to identify whether any of the contents were sensitive or not.
Even more so, if the contents were sensitive, it may be difficult or impossible to remove or redact the sensitive parts before selling the data. I think it is more likely that they were simply selling the data under the agreement (implied or explicit) that any sensitive data would be kept private and/or destroyed, but certainly not used to steal people's identities.
¹ Makes me wonder, the store for rent shops probably have in their terms of service that you may not store illegal goods there, but would it really indemnify them from liability when they auction off a booths with expired rent without inspecting them (much)?
It's a comparable situation to the way storage unit rental places will sometimes auction off the contents of locked storage units whose owners have abandoned the unit and stopped paying the rent. Either they'll cut the lock off and open the door so that buyers can at least peek inside before bidding, or they'll just sell them as-is and the buyer cuts the lock off and sees how lucky they got.
They're selling the contents of the unit, but they don't go through those contents with a fine-toothed comb before selling it, so if someone had kept a stash of drugs where they weren't immediately visible from the door -- say inside a filing cabinet -- the contraband probably wouldn't be found until the buyer started unpacking their haul. At that point, I think it'd be on the buyer, not the seller, to deal with the contraband in a legal way (i.e. notify the rental place and the authorities, not cart it off and sell it on the black market).
-
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
Not many rapid unscheduled disassemblies there, either.
-
-
"When this happens, the animals, unfortunately, do not survive the high-voltage contact," the company tweeted.
:(
-
@HardwareGeek said in In other news today...:
Turn the can open end down and fill it with hydrogen. Place it on the flat surface, with enough of a gap for air to enter to replace the hydrogen as it escapes through the hole in the top of the can. Ignite the stream of hydrogen escaping through the hole; it will burn with a very hot but nearly invisible flame, and a whistling sound will be heard as air rushes in through the gap to replace the hydrogen.
The whistling will stop abruptly as the can flies into the air with a loud bang. The air rushing in will mix with the hydrogen (even though it's much denser, because of turbulence) and eventually the concentration will get into the range where the mixture is explosive.My elementary school chemistry teacher showed this in class, but slightly differently. He had a large bottle with the bottom cut off and a small valve mounted on top with the whole thing attached to a heavy stand. Fill bottle with hydrogen, open valve, ignite. Wait a moment and loud bang.
-
@boomzilla said in In other news today...:
@PJH TRWTF: is a medical interpreter?
An interpreter who knows medical terminology in the target language. You get a lot of Hispanics in rural areas, which she said she was in, so it's a necessary thing to have.
-
@Atazhaia When I attended lectures in Organic Chemistry the
bastardprofessor showed us how a fuel air bomb worked by using a live miniature model.I mean, that's definitely cool but not something I needed on a Monday morning at 08:00 am. We were wide awake afterwards, though.
-
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
Yeah, got the magnitude wrong because I usually take bar or atm as a reference.
Don't worry, I got it wrong on the first time too and then quickly corrected myself. The calculator that understands units is a big help.
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
If your tank explodes and sends shrapnel through the air, you probably won't care anyway.
That depends very much on how well designed it is. So yes, if designed well, it can survive all but the worst crashes where you wouldn't care, but it is a concern.
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
When's the last time a scuba diver's tank exploded?
They don't often get into crashes, do they? Especially not when pressurised, because that is usually done in the port before diving; in transit, they are usually not pressurised.
@Rhywden said in In other news today...:
And we have cars which are converted to drive with natural gas - their tanks are also pressurized at 200 bar.
Yes, that's definitely where some experience can be taken from. A hydrogen tank for a train is somewhat bigger beast than one for a passenger car though.
-