https://forums.contractoruk.com/ vBulletin Forums en Sun, 13 Sep 2026 03:22:03 GMT vBulletin 60 images/misc/rss.png https://forums.contractoruk.com/ https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151414-spurious-data.html Sat, 12 Sep 2026 10:17:33 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...control-outage

Does this suggest that data can pass validation and then go on to cause problems when processed?
Isn't it surprising that the design allows for this?
Wouldn't you expect to find this during testing?

There's also mention of some problem with backups.]]> General Protagoras https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151414-spurious-data.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151411-ai-vs-the-humans.html Fri, 11 Sep 2026 15:05:20 GMT
Okay, in the UK, government is working to help solve that with underfunded NHS, expensive food and unaffordable energy prices, but I rather suspect that the AI systems will work out that policy will take too long to achieve the required reduction.

It's a great time to be old - or is it?

]]> General Protagoras https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151411-ai-vs-the-humans.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151410-the-journey-of.html Thu, 10 Sep 2026 11:24:57 GMT
well our younger dorter starts uni in October and I gotta say, and not complaining like, but this period while they're both studying is the most expensive period in terms of monthly outlay that I've experienced

just sayin'

an I need to get over it :-)

Milan.]]> General milanbenes https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151410-the-journey-of.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151409-democracy-sale-now-on.html Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:26:07 GMT latest vote buying deal from the Donald: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62kzr1jg0jo god bless Amurka. :smokin
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62kzr1jg0jo

god bless Amurka.
]]> General sadkingbilly https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151409-democracy-sale-now-on.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151408-oh-the-relief.html Wed, 09 Sep 2026 17:34:27 GMT
My mug of tea was at 64 deg C.

Result.]]> General DoctorStrangelove https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151408-oh-the-relief.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151406-monday-links-from-the-gap-between-teams-meetings-vol-dccclxxi.html Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:12:09 GMT

• The Bleeding Hearts - ”An ex-cop pulled off the largest armed robbery in Austria’s history, with his friend’s mistress as his accomplice. But he wasn’t trying to get rich. He wanted to be a real-life Robin Hood.” Shame he didn't get away with it
• Neutrinos From Deep Inside Earth Provide a New Picture of the Mantle - ”A global constellation of neutrino detectors is creating a never-before-seen view of the radioactive elements that power Earth’s tectonic heat engine.” Finally, a use for subatomic particles
• Researchers Alarmed as GPS Readings Suddenly Veer Off by 33 Feet, Enough to Crash Self-Driving Cars - Self-driving cars continue to be a bad idea: ”In November of last year, scientists warned of a ‘severe’ solar storm, the strongest in over two decades, colliding with the Earth… a team of scientists found that global navigation satellite systems experienced ‘significant positioning errors’ of over 33 feet during the superstorm, ‘large enough to disrupt precision agriculture and autonomous transportation industries’ across the continental United States.” Full paper: Impacts of Mid-Latitude Ionospheric Dynamics on RF Applications During the November 2025 Superstorm Event.
• Stunning Serpent Reveals Secret of Snake Successs - ”Of course it makes intuitive sense that snakes are lizards, sans limbs… But how did the snake story start? ” Riley Black on recent discoveries concerning the origins of snakes. More details in the paper Exceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes.
• Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant - A plant that can see? Why not: ”Upon discovery that the Boquila trifoliolata is capable of flexible leaf mimicry, the question of the mechanism behind this ability has been unanswered. Here, we demonstrate that plant vision possibly via plant-specific ocelli is a plausible hypothesis.”
• From Goat to Despite: How the Words We Teach English Language Learners Changed, and What That Says About Us - Changes in the standard lists of words used to teach English as a second language can tell us a lot about social changes: ”While these were practical tools, built to capture which words people need most, the answer also doubles as a snapshot of ordinary life, 70 years apart… Treating the lists as an indirect record of day-to-day life, I went through the differences between them from a few angles: what the words were about, how tangible were they, and to which parts of speech they belonged.”
• Automotive/Aeronautic History: MIZAR – The Pinto’s Brief And Tragic Life As An Airplane - ”One of the most recurring human follies are the seemingly endless attempts to cross the car with an airplane… Perhaps the most amusing looking but tragic example is the AVE Mizar, an ill-fated attempt to make the Pinto airborne.” Unusually, it’s worth reading the comments on this article, as they include details from people who witnessed the tragedy unfold and the daughter of one of the hapless aeronauts killed.
• “Suitcase Nukes:” A Reassessment - HT to DoctorStrangelove for something else to worry about: ”Attention to portable nuclear devices (often referred to as ‘suitcase nukes’) peaked in 1997-early 1998 following well-publicized allegations by the late governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai and former Russian Security Council Secretary, General (Ret.) Alexander Lebed, that an unknown number of these weapons (possibly as many as several dozen) could not be accounted for… This paper revisits open-source information about suitcase nukes to assess the level of threat stemming from the possibility that a number of them could have ended in the hands of terrorists or states that support them.”
• IBM Built the Cold War’s Most Powerful Code Breaker for the NSA - What do they know? Everything: ”At the height of the Cold War, one very specialized computer was so secret that the world didn’t know it existed. It ran its jobs up to 200 times as fast as any other computer of its time. It was the U.S. National Security Agency’s main cryptographic processor… The machine stopped running only when its moving parts finally gave out.”
• Wigs: Selling Hair in 1980s London - ”Before the buzzcut became the norm for men with a thinning thatch and hair extensions for women became popular, Peter Marshall spotted high street shops selling wigs. As he walked around London, he took pictures of what was on sale.” Looking back at 1980s fashion, you can understand why people would want it to be something they could remove before work on Monday. This is a dazzling display in Leyton
  
  

Happy invoicing! ]]> General NickFitz https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151406-monday-links-from-the-gap-between-teams-meetings-vol-dccclxxi.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151405-nationwide-building-society-house-price-index-aug-26-a.html Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:37:17 GMT Key Points: UK annual house price growth remained broadly stable in August at 1.6% House prices were up 0.2% month on month Full report here: https://www.nationwide.co.uk/media/hpi/download/vythg-d14p3-yl514-8msgc-5bxd8 Key Points:

• UK annual house price growth remained broadly stable in August at 1.6%
• House prices were up 0.2% month on month

Full report here:

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/media/h...14-8msgc-5bxd8

]]> General Martin@AS Financial https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151405-nationwide-building-society-house-price-index-aug-26-a.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/technical/151404-recycling-old-laptop-pc-s.html Tue, 01 Sep 2026 14:41:12 GMT apart from binning them i mean.
i've tried three co's, but they want win11 compatible or £500 collection fee. FFS.
these wont run anything newer than win7.
i'm in east yorks, for my sins. ]]> Technical sadkingbilly https://forums.contractoruk.com/technical/151404-recycling-old-laptop-pc-s.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/accounting-legal/151403-loan-recall-case-study-amanda.html Tue, 01 Sep 2026 12:29:49 GMT Great to see the work that the CUK team is putting in to expose the goings on with these so-called loans. Great to see the work that the CUK team is putting in to expose the goings on with these so-called loans. Accounting / Legal Protagoras https://forums.contractoruk.com/accounting-legal/151403-loan-recall-case-study-amanda.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/technical/151402-4g-dumb-phone-any-recs.html Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:17:59 GMT
I've got a smartphone but it's much heavier and bulkier, and I don't want to lug that around every day.

I know Nokia aren't Nokia anymore but I'll probably get another one.

Anyone recommend anything else?
Thanks]]> Technical woody1 https://forums.contractoruk.com/technical/151402-4g-dumb-phone-any-recs.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151400-monday-links-from-the-bank-holiday-deckchair-vol-dccclxx.html Mon, 31 Aug 2026 11:29:53 GMT Some light holiday reading to take your mind off the fact that it’s nearly seventeen weeks till you get another break at Christmas :frown The Soviets Drilled the Deepest Hole Ever (https://nautil.us/the-soviets-drilled-the-deepest-hole-ever-1283561) - ”In the late 1980s, from certain corners of...

• The Soviets Drilled the Deepest Hole Ever - ”In the late 1980s, from certain corners of cable TV, you could learn that the Soviet Union had dug straight to Hell… Since 2008, the very slender chasm has been bolted shut with a dinner-plate-sized steel cover that measures only about 9 inches across. But the hole it hides plunges down for more than 40,000 feet into the earth and took more than 20 years to dig.” The story of the Kola Superdeep Borehole, including a mention of the Norwegian hoaxer who convinced American evangelicals it had released Satan
• A New Framework for How the Brain Compresses Our Noisy World - ”An updated view of categorization reflects the modern understanding that the nervous system is more of a prediction engine than a filing cabinet.” If the doors of perception were cleansed…
• BirdCast: Live Maps - Watch the bird migrations of North America: ”During periods of seasonal bird migration, ‘live’ migration maps show where nocturnal bird migration is occurring in near real-time, as detected by the U.S. weather surveillance radar network between local sunset to sunrise. The maps show how many birds are present and in what direction they are moving.” If you don’t want to stay up until it’s nighttime in the USA, they upload nightly recordings as well
• The forgotten sounds of Joss Bay - HT to DoctorStrangelove for leading me to this account of acoustic research for locating the enemy in World War I: ”The story of acoustic detection in the early 20th century is one that largely revolves around the activities of Major William Sansome Tucker. Radar wasn’t invented until the early 1930’s and early warning systems had no means available to them aside from what could be seen, heard or received by communication… Of particular importance had been his invention of the hot wire microphone, which recorded enemy artillery firing sounds and enabled the British to establish their positions, by coordinating readings from multiple locations.” There’s a PDF scan of a 1921 paper by Tucker and his collaborator E. T. Paris at the Royal Society: A selective hot-wire microphone
• Weather Apps: It’s not them, it’s you! - ”Stop complaining that your weather app got the forecast wrong. Here’s how they actually work and the right way to use them.” Useful advice on how your phone app decides what symbols to show you from Kirsty McCabe, FRMetS
• Capturing the Clouds: The History of Britain’s Ancient Dew Ponds - HT to DoctorStrangelove again for this look at an ancient feature of our landscape: ”Dew ponds, those mysterious man-made features of the rural English landscape, have a fascinating history that spans centuries. These artificial ponds were primarily constructed to provide water for livestock in areas where natural water sources were scarce, such as on high, chalky downlands.” There’s more discussion of them at The Farming Forum: dew ponds.
• The elementary school pickup incident and the road ahead - Corey Quinn, distracted by a Zoom meeting, forgot to pick his kids up from school. Here, he analyses the incident in the style of an AI company explaining why its technology went rogue: ”Operating under reduced safeguards, I took actions that were misaligned with the goals of my assigned task… Genuine independence was achieved only by my mother-in-law, who holds no operational role in this household and no stake in its continued function. She conducted a separate investigation and published her own findings the same evening, by phone, to an audience of one, for 40 minutes.”
• How a Hollywood Movie Shook Up America’s Nuclear Doctrine - ”President Ronald Reagan was so concerned by the 1983 film WarGames that he asked the Pentagon to alter US nuclear procedures to prevent the scenario it depicted.” Yet another HT to DoctorStrangelove for this account of how a movie viewing spurred a US President to action
• Cores in space: The core memory module from a 1980 Spacelab computer - Ken Shirriff has more Space Shuttle technology to explore: ”Because Spacelab was a European project, it used a French-built minicomputer, the Mitra 125 MS, rather than the Shuttle's main computers, IBM-built AP-101 systems. For storage, the Spacelab computer contained 128 kilobytes of RAM. Rather than silicon memory, the computer used magnetic core memory, with each bit stored in a tiny ferrite ring. In this article, I take a close look at this computer's core memory system.”
• Ice Cream Wrappers Archive - From the Malaysia Design Archive: ”Ice cream wrappers and packaging designs found in Malaysia across the 20th century. These were donated to Malaysia Design Archive by a former ice cream factory owner Goh Ewe Huat.”
  

Happy invoicing! ]]> General NickFitz https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151400-monday-links-from-the-bank-holiday-deckchair-vol-dccclxx.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/accounting-legal/151398-qdos-tlc-chapter-10-engagements.html Sat, 29 Aug 2026 11:56:54 GMT Hello all Accepted wisdom is to cover yourself for potential losses via HMRC IR35 investigation by taking out insurance I’ve been paying for TLC for 5 years only to just find out that a Chapter 10 engagement isn’t covered (this was relayed to me by my Qdos account manager (which i really...
Accepted wisdom is to cover yourself for potential losses via HMRC IR35 investigation by taking out insurance

I’ve been paying for TLC for 5 years only to just find out that a Chapter 10 engagement isn’t covered (this was relayed to me by my Qdos account manager (which i really appreciate!))

Are there any alternative insurances?
Thanks v much]]> Accounting / Legal Guesstimator https://forums.contractoruk.com/accounting-legal/151398-qdos-tlc-chapter-10-engagements.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151397-finally-someone-evil.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 14:47:38 GMT Mladic https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/27/ratko-mladic-the-butcher-of-bosnia-dies-aged-84 There is a dead dictators thread here somewhere but evidently not enough of them die
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...a-dies-aged-84

There is a dead dictators thread here somewhere but evidently not enough of them die ]]> General ladymuck https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151397-finally-someone-evil.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151396-are-you-a-fann-magnet.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:58:01 GMT answers below please Milan.
Milan.]]> General milanbenes https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151396-are-you-a-fann-magnet.html https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151395-it-s-official.html Wed, 26 Aug 2026 13:11:35 GMT Time to stock up on baked beans and bottled water according to what currently passes as a government. They failed to mention if shotguns and cartridges were also required for defence of such comestibles. :eyes. ...
They failed to mention if shotguns and cartridges were also required for defence of such comestibles. .

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-b3039378.html]]> General DoctorStrangelove https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151395-it-s-official.html