The Thief Peter Howard = News2021 = Flunkmeister

On 2/14/2021 5:34 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 1:33:26 PM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 2/13/2021 12:24 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/12/2021 9:48 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 12:28:48 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/12/2021 2:40 AM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 05:28:15 -0000 (UTC), News 2021
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 10:19:18 +0700, John B. scribed:

On Thu, 11 Feb 2021 21:07:16 -0600, AMuzi
wrote:

Never wanted one.
Inherent to the system, someone always knows your
location.

Yup, and that is a common subject on the "hand phone"
sites. But I've
always wondered, "what is someone doing that he/she/it
is frightened
that others would know where he/she/it is?"

Aaah, the question asked by sheep.

If I've paid for a phone, I PAID for it and the
service. I want it for my
use.

I d not accept that my data can be consumed by shops
sending me messages
to buy their crap as I come into range. Did you miss
that proposal.

Not having your web search results warped to point to a
local store that
pays, google, et-all for priority listing. Haven't
noticed that?

Not having your door kicked in by plod because your
mobile was recorded
in the vicinity of some crime. You must have missed
that in the news.

Not having your door kicked in by plod because your
mobile was recorded
in the vicinity of some "person of interest" You must
have missed that in
the news.

At your age you would have observed changes in the law
as to acceptable
behaviour. some time reciprocity is applied.

There are plenty of other reasons why you do not want
the government to
track you.

There are plenty of reasons why you do not want big
business to track you.

Then, there is the criminal element. If GovCo has the
technology, the big
business has it and just as sure criminal have the
tech. Although "social
engineering' still plays a big part in hacking.

But what are you doing that you seem reluctant for the
government to
"track" you? Or Big business for that matter?

From your address above you have an account with
Wombat and Wombat
states that:
We need your name and address to do business.
We don't sell your name and addresses to anyone.
We do keep contact information in databases
for correspondence
addressing and marketing purposes.

So you are leaving a trail simply by posting here. Do
you really
believe that if the Australian Government wants to know
what you have
been sending through Wombat that they can't find out?

Does your Missus have one of those membership cards
handed out by the
big department stores. Show your card and get a discount
and the
computer logs every purchase you make.

Do you have a credit card, or debt card? Then every time
you use it
the location is recorded.

Or for that matter the so called "surveillance cameras"
now common in
most cities. Here a surprising number of crimes are
solved solely by
the cameras, and there are also "traffic cameras" that
will photograph
your number plate when you make an illegal turn, or
other illegal act.
You've had that sort of thing in Australia I know. I
distinctly
remember being shown traffic cameras" when I was
visiting a bloke in
Western Australia some years ago.

And, of course, if you have a cell phone then every time
you come in
range of a cell tower your location is known to the
telephone system?
And of course to the "State" if they want to look.

The days of being invisible are long past.

Several years ago I heard a radio article about license
plate cameras -
not fixed ones, but mobile ones on police cars. Later I
remember being
in traffic behind a cop car with two large cameras
conspicuously mounted
on its rear deck. (I guess most are much less conspicuous.)

According to the article the cop's cameras can scan
license plates very
quickly as cars pass by, and store the location of the
passing car. They
can also flag the cop if the plate turns up bad in a
database. (That may
explain some of the traffic stops I see listed in our
paper, where the
cops stop people with arrest warrants, etc.)

I don't know about cameras in cars, but here, and I assume
in other
countries as well, there are cameras located, usually at
intersections
that can photograph a car showing the number plate. I know
this as my
wife recently received notification in the mail, complete
with
photograph of her car clearly showing the number plate, of
a fine that
she must pay for making an illegal turn, right/left? I
don't remember.
And down at the bottom of the notice was the added
statement that
"Failure to pay this fine will result in license
cancellation".

The claim is that not all states have the resulting data
on plate
locations deleted quickly. In some states, that data is
public record.
That would open the possibility of (say) a stalker
learning a victim's
schedule to plan an attack; or a burglar learning when a
house is
unoccupied, etc. It seems to me that this plate camera
system is
potentially a bigger threat than the cell phone.

And here, and from what I read in many countries there are
surveillance cameras which record people just walking down
the street.
In fact very frequently you read in the local news about
someone who
committed some crime or another and he was identified by a
surveillance caners and they even include a photo. And not
only on
streets but many stores have surveillance cameras. I
remember a case
where some English woman was arrested for stealing
something from the
Duty Free shop at the air terminal. "Nope, she didn't do
it! Wasn't
her! It was some sort of plot!" so they published the
pictures showing
her taking the item and later discarding it in a trash
container when
the store started making a rumpus.
.

The cell phone location data (for apps, etc.) can
purportedly be turned
off. The cell towers still know where you are, but
accessing that data
supposedly requires a court order. And I suppose you
could keep the
phone turned off, or in a Faraday bag if you didn't trust
the courts or
the law.

I believe that the secret, or at least as portrayed in
novels is to
only use pay phones located in areas where you would
normally never go
:-) Or as the Jihad chaps were said to do, pass all
information by
hand, or face to face.

Around here, speed cameras or red light cameras are not
illegal, but the political party normally associated with
Law & Order has made it as inconvenient as possible for
municipalities to use them.

That's because every red-blooded American has a
constitutional right to exceed the speed limit and run red
lights. And if they take out a pedestrian or cyclist, they
can always say "I didn't see him" to make it OK.

OK, there's a sensible a priori argument to be made.

Back here in reality, and I follow Chicago political news,
red light camera timing, yellow light duration and placement
(which neighborhoods yes and which no) have been very hot
issues for some dozen or more years. This over and above
several corruption convictions with the various vendors and
insiders.

Yellow light timing, pursued aggressively, can bump revenues
at the cost of loss and injury when rear-end crashes spike-
as they have and will.

Now with speed cameras, Mayor Munchkin finds herself
criticized for location as well as her recent decision('hey
we're broke I had to do it') to tighten up the threshold for
a robo-ticket.

https://chi.streetsblog.org/2021/01/...after-march-1/


I have yet to figure out the red light cameras here. When you have a red light and roll to a stop well short of the crosswalk the cameras will flash as if you did something wrong. They when you have a red light and someone rolls the right turn or goes directly though the red when there's no cross traffic it never flashes.


Perhaps the logic in the camera reads the plate, checks the
voter registration and then decides whether to report or to
invent a violation. Or not. After extended reading of the
various Chicago schemes for robot traffic revenue, nothing
would surprise me.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

:-)Â* Nope. Around this town, bike bells are very uncommon. Aside from my family
(whom I've supplied) I can think of only one other member of our club who has one.


New Jersey law requires a bell, but that's mostly ignored:

39:4-11 Audible Signal.
A bicycle must be equipped with a bell or other audible device that can be heard
at least 100 feet away, but not a siren or whistle.

https://www.state.nj.us/transportati...gulations.shtm

On Sunday, February 14, 2021 at 3:10:08 PM UTC-8, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 14 Feb 2021 07:55:30 -0800 (PST), jbeattie
wrote:

On Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 8:51:47 PM UTC-8, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 13 Feb 2021 19:30:17 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
On Sat, 13 Feb 2021 02:05:05 -0800 (PST), Andre Jute
wrote:

Talking of jet paraffin, I operate our central heating on it because
it is cleaner than diesel and requires attention to the filters less
often. Before Mr Trump the cost of heating 15 rooms was about a
thousand American dollars a month, and after Mr Trump liberated
American fuel sources, the price of fuel fell to less than half, so
that heating came to about $450 for a month. The minute that senile
panderer Biden was elected, the price of fuel shot up again. That
little detail of household economics explains why everyone, not
just Americans, have an interest in who is the President and what
his policies will be.

I beg to differ slightly. The price of oil started to drop before
Donald Trump was elected president in 2016:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WJFUELUSGULF (Click on "1Y")
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=43735
Prices hit bottom in 2016, when he was elected, and slowly increased
after that. Recently, the price of A1 jet fuel again dropped suddenly
in about Mar 2020 because of a sudden reduction in jet passenger and
cargo flights caused by Covid-19. Airlines were committed to taking
delivery on the jet fuel, but had no place to store or consume all of
it. So, they unloaded it to anyone who would take it, even at a loss.
Much of it went to the shipping industry:
"Jet Fuel Is Now So Cheap It’s Being Blended for Use by Ships"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-20/jet-fuel-is-now-so-cheap-it-s-being-blended-for-use-by-ships
Now that the backlog in deliveries and storage has somewhat
stabilized, prices are again creeping back up.

That is kind of interesting as I had thought that all large ships used
"bunker fuel" otherwise known as "Heavy Fuel Oil" (HFO) although lower
sulphur fuels are coming to the fore with the anti emission rules. But
"kerosene" or A1 jet fuel is a very light blend. I also think,
although I didn't check, that heavy bunker's have more BTU per unit
than lighter fuels.

I just did check and heavy bunkers, i.e. residual oils are about 140 -
150,000 BTU per gallon while kerosene/A1 jet fuel is in the
130,000/gallon range. While that sounds like an almost inarguable
difference it might be noted that the Emma Mearsk's main engine burns
about 14 tons of fuel an hour and the auxiliaries burn an additional 6
tons per hour. (something like 285 gallons = 1 ton :-)
So, what was Former President Trump (FPT) doing during this time to
reduce jet fuel prices? Nothing that I can find. Attributing the
drop in prices to the activities of FPT fails to demonstrate cause and
effect. I could just as easily take credit for the price drop by
claiming it was caused by me switching from drinking coffee to tea.


As an aside, "bunkers" just refers to the fuel used by the ship --whatever type or grade -- and originally referred to the bunkers where coal was stored on steamships. I haven't looked into this, but it would seem to me that the BTUs for HSFO need to be determined net of energy consumed for preheating.
Certainly true in part but "bunker fuel" as a designation for the
heavy oil fuel for ships is a common term "in the trade".
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/i...er-fuel-market
https://www.shipandbunker.com/prices...-sin-singapore

The tab for filling the tanks on a crappy little bulk carrier can be $500,000 USD, which creates a huge credit risk for owners/head time charterers if they subcharter to a deadbeat who orders fuel and doesn't pay for it. I've had a lot of those cases. That Maersk container ship probably spends $5-6M USD for a fill.

-- Jay Beattie.
I'm not in the business but I did know a chap, Marine Engineer, that
spent some time surveying crude carriers for charter by his company
and I believe that in his case the ships would be chartered "dry",
i.e., as a bare ship with, essentially, no fuel aboard.

That is the case with a bareboat charter between owners and head time charterers because the owners are basically just investors. It's like buying a hotel and getting someone else to run it. The real action is down stream between head time charterers and sub-charterers and sub-sub-charterers. The vessel is inspected and bunkers measured when the charter is fixed, and inspected again when it goes off-hire. The problem is a deadbeat sub-charter buying fuel on credit and then going belly-up. The bunkering company has a lien against the vessel which the foreclose by arresting the vessel in a favorable jurisdiction, e.g. US of A, and the head time charterer ends up paying the bill and chasing the deadbeat. For example -- one of my cases: http://maritimedenmark.dk/?Id=19212

-- Jay Beattie.

On Sun, 14 Feb 2021 17:56:34 -0800 (PST), jbeattie
wrote:

On Sunday, February 14, 2021 at 3:10:08 PM UTC-8, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 14 Feb 2021 07:55:30 -0800 (PST), jbeattie
wrote:

On Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 8:51:47 PM UTC-8, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 13 Feb 2021 19:30:17 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
On Sat, 13 Feb 2021 02:05:05 -0800 (PST), Andre Jute
wrote:

Talking of jet paraffin, I operate our central heating on it because
it is cleaner than diesel and requires attention to the filters less
often. Before Mr Trump the cost of heating 15 rooms was about a
thousand American dollars a month, and after Mr Trump liberated
American fuel sources, the price of fuel fell to less than half, so
that heating came to about $450 for a month. The minute that senile
panderer Biden was elected, the price of fuel shot up again. That
little detail of household economics explains why everyone, not
just Americans, have an interest in who is the President and what
his policies will be.

I beg to differ slightly. The price of oil started to drop before
Donald Trump was elected president in 2016:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WJFUELUSGULF (Click on "1Y")
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=43735
Prices hit bottom in 2016, when he was elected, and slowly increased
after that. Recently, the price of A1 jet fuel again dropped suddenly
in about Mar 2020 because of a sudden reduction in jet passenger and
cargo flights caused by Covid-19. Airlines were committed to taking
delivery on the jet fuel, but had no place to store or consume all of
it. So, they unloaded it to anyone who would take it, even at a loss.
Much of it went to the shipping industry:
"Jet Fuel Is Now So Cheap It’s Being Blended for Use by Ships"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-20/jet-fuel-is-now-so-cheap-it-s-being-blended-for-use-by-ships
Now that the backlog in deliveries and storage has somewhat
stabilized, prices are again creeping back up.

That is kind of interesting as I had thought that all large ships used
"bunker fuel" otherwise known as "Heavy Fuel Oil" (HFO) although lower
sulphur fuels are coming to the fore with the anti emission rules. But
"kerosene" or A1 jet fuel is a very light blend. I also think,
although I didn't check, that heavy bunker's have more BTU per unit
than lighter fuels.

I just did check and heavy bunkers, i.e. residual oils are about 140 -
150,000 BTU per gallon while kerosene/A1 jet fuel is in the
130,000/gallon range. While that sounds like an almost inarguable
difference it might be noted that the Emma Mearsk's main engine burns
about 14 tons of fuel an hour and the auxiliaries burn an additional 6
tons per hour. (something like 285 gallons = 1 ton :-)
So, what was Former President Trump (FPT) doing during this time to
reduce jet fuel prices? Nothing that I can find. Attributing the
drop in prices to the activities of FPT fails to demonstrate cause and
effect. I could just as easily take credit for the price drop by
claiming it was caused by me switching from drinking coffee to tea.


As an aside, "bunkers" just refers to the fuel used by the ship --whatever type or grade -- and originally referred to the bunkers where coal was stored on steamships. I haven't looked into this, but it would seem to me that the BTUs for HSFO need to be determined net of energy consumed for preheating.
Certainly true in part but "bunker fuel" as a designation for the
heavy oil fuel for ships is a common term "in the trade".
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/i...er-fuel-market
https://www.shipandbunker.com/prices...-sin-singapore

The tab for filling the tanks on a crappy little bulk carrier can be $500,000 USD, which creates a huge credit risk for owners/head time charterers if they subcharter to a deadbeat who orders fuel and doesn't pay for it. I've had a lot of those cases. That Maersk container ship probably spends $5-6M USD for a fill.

-- Jay Beattie.
I'm not in the business but I did know a chap, Marine Engineer, that
spent some time surveying crude carriers for charter by his company
and I believe that in his case the ships would be chartered "dry",
i.e., as a bare ship with, essentially, no fuel aboard.

That is the case with a bareboat charter between owners and head time charterers because the owners are basically just investors. It's like buying a hotel and getting someone else to run it. The real action is down stream between head time charterers and sub-charterers and sub-sub-charterers. The vessel is inspected and bunkers measured when the charter is fixed, and inspected again when it goes off-hire. The problem is a deadbeat sub-charter buying fuel on credit and then going belly-up. The bunkering company has a lien against the vessel which the foreclose by arresting the vessel in a favorable jurisdiction, e.g. US of A, and the head time charterer ends up paying the bill and chasing the deadbeat. For example -- one of my cases: http://maritimedenmark.dk/?Id=19212

-- Jay Beattie.

O.K. I can see how that would work although in my limited experience -
mostly leasing tugs and barges - one is very careful about who one
leases from, or to for that matter, and certainly the companies we
dealt with required substantial advance payment before they would
agree to a contract, I assume at least partially for the reason you
state.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 06:09:59 +0700, John B. scribed:


I'm not in the business but I did know a chap, Marine Engineer, that
spent some time surveying crude carriers for charter by his company and
I believe that in his case the ships would be chartered "dry",
i.e., as a bare ship with, essentially, no fuel aboard.

Perhaps that allowed the chartering company to use the 'best' fuel'
available. From another 'marine engineer' I heard a comment that the
'grade' of the fuel can determine the (speed) performance of the ship. He
recounted story of a trip to northern Russia where they picked up more
fuel, which was of a lighter grade and he described the return trip as
"almost flying" compared to their normal pace.

So he grade of fuel may be a factor in "time sensitive" cargoes.

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 03:14:25 -0000 (UTC), News 2021
wrote:

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 06:09:59 +0700, John B. scribed:


I'm not in the business but I did know a chap, Marine Engineer, that
spent some time surveying crude carriers for charter by his company and
I believe that in his case the ships would be chartered "dry",
i.e., as a bare ship with, essentially, no fuel aboard.

Perhaps that allowed the chartering company to use the 'best' fuel'
available. From another 'marine engineer' I heard a comment that the
'grade' of the fuel can determine the (speed) performance of the ship. He
recounted story of a trip to northern Russia where they picked up more
fuel, which was of a lighter grade and he described the return trip as
"almost flying" compared to their normal pace.

So he grade of fuel may be a factor in "time sensitive" cargoes.

I'm not quite sure how that would work. A ship's speed is directly
related to propeller RPM which is directly related to engine RPM and
since as far as I know all ship level propulsion engine speed is
either mechanically or electrically governed I can't quite see how
changing the fuel would effect the speed. Remember you are talking
about a hulking great device producing somewhere from 10,000 to
100,000 H.P. which if you break will cost an astronomical amount to
repair.

--
Cheers,

John B.

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 11:47:20 +0700, John B. scribed:

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 03:14:25 -0000 (UTC), News 2021
wrote:

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 06:09:59 +0700, John B. scribed:


I'm not in the business but I did know a chap, Marine Engineer, that
spent some time surveying crude carriers for charter by his company
and I believe that in his case the ships would be chartered "dry",
i.e., as a bare ship with, essentially, no fuel aboard.

Perhaps that allowed the chartering company to use the 'best' fuel'
available. From another 'marine engineer' I heard a comment that the
'grade' of the fuel can determine the (speed) performance of the ship.
He recounted story of a trip to northern Russia where they picked up
more fuel, which was of a lighter grade and he described the return trip
as "almost flying" compared to their normal pace.

So he grade of fuel may be a factor in "time sensitive" cargoes.

I'm not quite sure how that would work. A ship's speed is directly
related to propeller RPM which is directly related to engine RPM and
since as far as I know all ship level propulsion engine speed is either
mechanically or electrically governed I can't quite see how changing the
fuel would effect the speed. Remember you are talking about a hulking
great device producing somewhere from 10,000 to 100,000 H.P. which if
you break will cost an astronomical amount to repair.

IME, every engine performs differently under different fuel. In the
experienced outlined to me, they used the better fuel to achieve faster
speed. A feature of my engineering education/training was that items are
generally designed to be able to operate a higher levels and or with
greater resilience. Any gamble is operating at the design limits.

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 05:01:26 -0000 (UTC), News 2021
wrote:

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 11:47:20 +0700, John B. scribed:

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 03:14:25 -0000 (UTC), News 2021
wrote:

On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 06:09:59 +0700, John B. scribed:


I'm not in the business but I did know a chap, Marine Engineer, that
spent some time surveying crude carriers for charter by his company
and I believe that in his case the ships would be chartered "dry",
i.e., as a bare ship with, essentially, no fuel aboard.

Perhaps that allowed the chartering company to use the 'best' fuel'
available. From another 'marine engineer' I heard a comment that the
'grade' of the fuel can determine the (speed) performance of the ship.
He recounted story of a trip to northern Russia where they picked up
more fuel, which was of a lighter grade and he described the return trip
as "almost flying" compared to their normal pace.

So he grade of fuel may be a factor in "time sensitive" cargoes.

I'm not quite sure how that would work. A ship's speed is directly
related to propeller RPM which is directly related to engine RPM and
since as far as I know all ship level propulsion engine speed is either
mechanically or electrically governed I can't quite see how changing the
fuel would effect the speed. Remember you are talking about a hulking
great device producing somewhere from 10,000 to 100,000 H.P. which if
you break will cost an astronomical amount to repair.

IME, every engine performs differently under different fuel. In the
experienced outlined to me, they used the better fuel to achieve faster
speed. A feature of my engineering education/training was that items are
generally designed to be able to operate a higher levels and or with
greater resilience. Any gamble is operating at the design limits.

True enough, as a mate informed me when the guy at the pump topped off
his diesel pickup with gasoline. Yup, a diesel engine will start, and
run for a little while on gasoline but another chap had someone poke
the diesel nozzle in his gas tank and "fill it up" and nope a gasoline
engine doesn't run hardly at all on diesel fuel :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

On 2/14/2021 6:17 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 14 Feb 2021 16:41:00 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:


Speaking of tech: What's the mechanism that they use to give electronic
keyboards that feeling of "weight" to the keys?

I'll let the experts answer that one. It's rather complicated:

Weighted vs Unweighted Keys & More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEVBEp-m5w4

Choosing the Best Musical Keyboard for You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xkH1qAbmjA

Huh. It surprises me that to replicate the feel of levers and hammers,
they (sometimes) choose levers and hammers. I was expecting something
more compact and techy - perhaps little solenoids with electronics
programmed to give appropriate resistance forces. Or maybe dashpots.

I'm glad to see there's still a job for MEs at the Roland company.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 2/15/2021 9:58 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/14/2021 6:17 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 14 Feb 2021 16:41:00 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:


Speaking of tech: What's the mechanism that they use to
give electronic
keyboards that feeling of "weight" to the keys?

I'll let the experts answer that one. It's rather
complicated:

Weighted vs Unweighted Keys & More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEVBEp-m5w4

Choosing the Best Musical Keyboard for You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xkH1qAbmjA

Huh. It surprises me that to replicate the feel of levers
and hammers, they (sometimes) choose levers and hammers. I
was expecting something more compact and techy - perhaps
little solenoids with electronics programmed to give
appropriate resistance forces. Or maybe dashpots.

I'm glad to see there's still a job for MEs at the Roland
company.


To film the original Star Trek, several mechanisms were
tried to quickly and smoothly open the compartment doors on
the Enterprise set- hydraulics, motors, levers, springs.
They finally came to two guys, one on each side, to pull
them open.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971