On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 21:11:06 -0000
Artic wrote:

Davey scribbled...



Back in my days in the American Mid-West, standard in-car stuff in
winter was:
Space Blanket
Cups/Mugs
Matches
Newspaper
Chocolate bars/nut bars
Shovel
Bits of old carpet



Wot no guns ?



Not me. I got into a friend's car once, though, and we were discussing
this, and he turned out to have eight pistols of various types
scattered around the interior. Being from Tennessee, he considered this
normal.
Most pickup trucks in the South have a pair of rifles on a hanger in
the cab's rear window.
Most pickup trucks in the deep South are driven by drivers who drink,
while driving. Those things we call coffee cup holders also hold beer
cans.
Hic, bang, oops. "That tree ran out into the road in front of me, so I
had to shoot it, ossifer, honest".

--
Davey.

On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 19:37:58 +0000, Bod wrote:

Have you noticed how few people even have a few candles stashed
away.

I'm under the impression that any household with a female in
residence would have box full of scented candles somewhere, probably
next to the shoes and handbags...

Ah just spotted a snag they are scented candles, not candles for
light. It wouldn't be allowed to waste them for mere light, stupid
me.



Though most households that had scented candles lyin

I find that rechargeable torches are a hell of a lot more useful.

Limited run time and once flat no way of recharging them. Gas
lanterns give much more and better quality light (think 60+ W
tungsten bulb) and can be "recharged" by giving them a new gas
cylinder.

My point being, that it has a built in 230v mains inverter and a variety
of sockets (USB etc). I keep it fully charged up(obviously) and in the
event of a power cut it would give us some light(built into the unit)
and run a few low powered mains devices for a few hours.

Very low powered. I suggest you do the maths or test it to find out
how long it will last. My UPS has 2 x 12 V 7 AHr series connected
lead acid batteries in it, after the server, switch, ADSL modem, NAS
etc etc have shutdown and been disconnected from the UPS it would
keep just the ISDN PABX running for no more than about 6 hours. At
guess the PABX wasn't much more than 10W. The server shuts and powers
down within 3 mins of the power going off.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 12:54:54 +1100, Rod Speed wrote:

Agreed, I wonder how many people have a reliable, non-tech, backup
for their satnav, in the car where they are most likely to need
it?

I don't see that as much of a problem, essentially because
most don't actually use a satnav all that much of the time,

Hum, so why do the vast majority of cars I see when driving around
the country have a satnav suckered to the windscreen?

And I don't use mine anymore even for that, I use the smartphone
instead.

And if the smartphone does die, there is usually
someone else in the car that has another.

And will they work without a data connection to download the relevant
bit of map and I have sneaky susoiscion that the route planning is
done in "the cloud" as well, not by the phone.

Maybe you are going to collect friends/relatives that have been
flooded out, along with their car, the local power is out and thus
the mobile networks...

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 21:36:43 +0000, dennis@home wrote:

Mine runs a data connection and is pretty good at knowing what the
traffic is like and where the hold ups are.

It gets data from the road sensors and from other satnav users out on
the road.

Not when the mains power is out or no mobile networks. Try turning
off the data connection and seeing how well the mapping/routeplanning
works then. There are a few apps that have offline maps but the ones
supplied with phones are nearly always online. Sheeple don't care how
things work or what is required for them to work, they just accept
the "magic".

And even if you have a data connection is that "clear" bit of road
really clear or no data as the power has gone in that area?

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 10:27:41 +0000, polygonum wrote:

Although we have gas, we have an electric cooker. Shame there is no way
of inexpensively and temporarily connecting a ring or two to allow
cooking.

Electric cooker to genset or portable gas ring to mains gas?

I sort of tempted to say use a bayonet cooker hose to connect a gas
ring to the mains but I don't think it is allowed to leave the
bayonet disconnected as the norm as it might leak or have the
actuating button pushed accidentally. A locked off, in the off
position, isolation valve before the bayonet mitigates most (all?)
those problems though.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 28/12/2013 22:43, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 12:54:54 +1100, Rod Speed wrote:

Agreed, I wonder how many people have a reliable, non-tech, backup
for their satnav, in the car where they are most likely to need
it?

I don't see that as much of a problem, essentially because
most don't actually use a satnav all that much of the time,

Hum, so why do the vast majority of cars I see when driving around
the country have a satnav suckered to the windscreen?

And I don't use mine anymore even for that, I use the smartphone
instead.

And if the smartphone does die, there is usually
someone else in the car that has another.

And will they work without a data connection to download the relevant
bit of map and I have sneaky susoiscion that the route planning is
done in "the cloud" as well, not by the phone.

Maybe you are going to collect friends/relatives that have been
flooded out, along with their car, the local power is out and thus
the mobile networks...

I have satnav across two phones and a tablet - some are online, some
have downloaded maps. Granted they will not get up-to-date road
conditions if there is no signal, but at least some will navigate
perfectly well within that limitation.

--
Rod

On Saturday 28 December 2013 22:55 Dave Liquorice wrote in uk.d-i-y:

On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 21:36:43 +0000, dennis@home wrote:

Mine runs a data connection and is pretty good at knowing what the
traffic is like and where the hold ups are.

It gets data from the road sensors and from other satnav users out on
the road.

Not when the mains power is out or no mobile networks. Try turning
off the data connection and seeing how well the mapping/routeplanning
works then. There are a few apps that have offline maps but the ones
supplied with phones are nearly always online. Sheeple don't care how
things work or what is required for them to work, they just accept
the "magic".

Which is why it is sensible to buy a proper app, eg CoPilot (wot I have) or
some similar real GPS.

And even if you have a data connection is that "clear" bit of road
really clear or no data as the power has gone in that area?


Yes, but a paper map guarantees you will never have that information. With a
smart GPS, at least you'll have some info some of the time

--
Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://squiddy.blog.dionic.net/

http://www.sensorly.com/ Crowd mapping of 2G/3G/4G mobile signal coverage

On 28/12/2013 22:55, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 21:36:43 +0000, dennis@home wrote:

Mine runs a data connection and is pretty good at knowing what the
traffic is like and where the hold ups are.

It gets data from the road sensors and from other satnav users out on
the road.

Not when the mains power is out or no mobile networks. Try turning
off the data connection and seeing how well the mapping/routeplanning
works then.

It works fine thanks.
It may not know of unexpected hold ups but it knows the average speeds
for all the roads at various times of the day.

There are a few apps that have offline maps but the ones
supplied with phones are nearly always online. Sheeple don't care how
things work or what is required for them to work, they just accept
the "magic".

Even the free google maps will work offline if you enable it.


And even if you have a data connection is that "clear" bit of road
really clear or no data as the power has gone in that area?


Its still at least as good as a map and nearly always a lot better.
You can even get to a particular house number within a few meters most
of the time, useful with these dark nights and the lack of house numbers
these days.

On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 23:45:47 +0000, dennis@home wrote:

There are a few apps that have offline maps but the ones supplied
with
phones are nearly always online. Sheeple don't care how things
work or
what is required for them to work, they just accept the "magic".

Even the free google maps will work offline if you enable it.

Only if it has a data connection to grab the required map tiles
before hand. The versions I've played with you have to manually tell
it to store the map but it only stores the current view resolution
map, it doesn't store the highest resolution available to allow
decent zooming in.

You are of course stuffed if you move off the tile(s) downloaded.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Dave Liquorice wrote
Bod wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Have you noticed how few people even have a few candles stashed away.

I find that rechargeable torches are a hell of a lot more useful.

Limited run time

I choose ones that have at least 8 hours to run.

and once flat no way of recharging them.

You deleted the bit from the quoting where I said that I have
a generator for when the power outage is longer than that.

Gas lanterns give much more and better
quality light (think 60+ W tungsten bulb)

The light from my rechargeables is fine.

and can be "recharged" by giving them a new gas cylinder.

Dave Liquorice wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Agreed, I wonder how many people have a reliable, non-tech, backup
for their satnav, in the car where they are most likely to need it?

I don't see that as much of a problem, essentially because
most don't actually use a satnav all that much of the time,

Hum, so why do the vast majority of cars I see when driving
around the country have a satnav suckered to the windscreen?

For the odd occasion when you do need to go where you arent
familiar with.

And I don't use mine anymore even for
that, I use the smartphone instead.

And if the smartphone does die, there is usually
someone else in the car that has another.

And will they work without a data connection to download
the relevant bit of map and I have sneaky susoiscion that the
route planning is done in "the cloud" as well, not by the phone.

It is very unlikely that the cell service will
die at the same time the phone does.

Maybe you are going to collect friends/relatives that
have been flooded out, along with their car, the local
power is out and thus the mobile networks...

In that case I will have included both the satnavs in the car.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 12:54:54 +1100, Rod Speed wrote:

Agreed, I wonder how many people have a reliable, non-tech, backup
for their satnav, in the car where they are most likely to need
it?

I don't see that as much of a problem, essentially because
most don't actually use a satnav all that much of the time,

Hum, so why do the vast majority of cars I see when driving around
the country have a satnav suckered to the windscreen?

And I don't use mine anymore even for that, I use the smartphone
instead.

And if the smartphone does die, there is usually
someone else in the car that has another.

And will they work without a data connection to download the relevant
bit of map and I have sneaky susoiscion that the route planning is
done in "the cloud" as well, not by the phone.

Maybe you are going to collect friends/relatives that have been
flooded out, along with their car, the local power is out and thus
the mobile networks...

Don't forget, Dave. You're typing to 'our Wodney'
http://blog.intuyuconsulting.com.au/...1/05/hovel.jpg



---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Dave Liquorice wrote
Bod wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Have you noticed how few people even have a few candles stashed away.

I find that rechargeable torches are a hell of a lot more useful.

Limited run time

I choose ones that have at least 8 hours to run.
and once flat no way of recharging them.

You deleted the bit from the quoting where I said that I have a generator
for when the power outage is longer than that.

That's ma boy.
LMFAO



---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com

wrote
dennis wrote

The satnav may know which roads are closed, the map wont.

How does a satnav know that roads are closed?

The best of them get continuous updates on stuff like that.

A satnav is simply a map that knows dynamically where on the map it is,

The best of the satnavs are in fact a hell of a lot more than just that.

They not only can have the latest map info available all the time,
the best of them get real time info from current users on what they
see the current users are doing on moving on particular roads.

it isn't psychic.

Doesn't need to be when its getting real time info from current users.

I find that rechargeable torches are a hell of a lot more useful.

Limited run time and once flat no way of recharging them. Gas
lanterns give much more and better quality light (think 60+ W
tungsten bulb) and can be "recharged" by giving them a new gas
cylinder.

My point being, that it has a built in 230v mains inverter and a variety
of sockets (USB etc). I keep it fully charged up(obviously) and in the
event of a power cut it would give us some light(built into the unit)
and run a few low powered mains devices for a few hours.

Very low powered. I suggest you do the maths or test it to find out
how long it will last. My UPS has 2 x 12 V 7 AHr series connected
lead acid batteries in it, after the server, switch, ADSL modem, NAS
etc etc have shutdown and been disconnected from the UPS it would
keep just the ISDN PABX running for no more than about 6 hours. At
guess the PABX wasn't much more than 10W. The server shuts and powers
down within 3 mins of the power going off.

Oh I agree about the low power, but I also have another
separate mains inverter that runs off the car.
Thee'a always my fishing Tilley lamps for some extra light :-)

I've been considering a small solar set up around the 200w mark.

Dave Liquorice wrote:

dennis@home wrote:

the free google maps will work offline if you enable it.

Only if it has a data connection to grab the required map tiles
before hand.

Correct.

The versions I've played with you have to manually tell
it to store the map but it only stores the current view resolution
map, it doesn't store the highest resolution available to allow
decent zooming in.

Incorrect ... recent versions of gmaps on android (maybe iOS too?) don't
use tiles except for the overview, it pre-loads a vector format which it
can zoom and rotate smoothly and progressively show/hide details as you
zoom in/out.

You are of course stuffed if you move off the tile(s) downloaded.

It won't let you pre-load areas when you're zoomed out "too far", but
you can load multiple areas, the largest area it will let me load in
portrait mode covers Stevenage down to Croydon, Watford across to
Dagenham, if I then put it in airplane mode I can fully zoom in to any
section of that map.

On 28/12/2013 22:43, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 12:54:54 +1100, Rod Speed wrote:

Agreed, I wonder how many people have a reliable, non-tech, backup
for their satnav, in the car where they are most likely to need
it?

I don't see that as much of a problem, essentially because
most don't actually use a satnav all that much of the time,

Hum, so why do the vast majority of cars I see when driving around
the country have a satnav suckered to the windscreen?

Mone's almost always on at work in the coach for an up to date ETA and
for unexpected diversions.

And I don't use mine anymore even for that, I use the smartphone
instead.

And if the smartphone does die, there is usually
someone else in the car that has another.

And will they work without a data connection to download the relevant
bit of map and I have sneaky susoiscion that the route planning is
done in "the cloud" as well, not by the phone.

The only satnav system that I know of that does route planning and
stores maps "in the cloud" is Google maps.

All the others, Tomtom, Garmin, Navman, Mapfactor and so on, use locally
stored maps and calculation, with the only use for the GPS receiver
being to calculate the current location, with an optional data
connection either via FM radio or 3G for traffic data, if that's been
enabled. Even the open source ones hold the maps and do the calculations
locally.

I have run Tomtom, Navgon, Mapfactor and a FOSS satnav system on a
couple of mobile phones, and the only data connection needed is for the
initial map and program download, and updates to the satellite positions
and map data as it changes. About once a week for a few minutes.

The whole of Europe streetmap totals about 2 Gbytes, and the UK is a few
hundred megabytes. Using the Open Source maps. you can fit the whole
world in less than 10 Gbytes

Maybe you are going to collect friends/relatives that have been
flooded out, along with their car, the local power is out and thus
the mobile networks...

That would, in my experience, only upset someone using Google Maps to
navigate, and even then, it would depend on the caching arranement in
the phone, as some are set to cache the data tiles containing the whole
of the calculated route when it's first calculated.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On 29/12/2013 09:52, John Williamson wrote:
The only satnav system that I know of that does route planning and
stores maps "in the cloud" is Google maps.

All the others, Tomtom, Garmin, Navman, Mapfactor and so on, use locally
stored maps and calculation, with the only use for the GPS receiver
being to calculate the current location, with an optional data
connection either via FM radio or 3G for traffic data, if that's been
enabled. Even the open source ones hold the maps and do the calculations
locally.

Waze also requires connectivity during journeys. (Though now gobbles up
by Google, it didn't used to be part of that empire.)

--
Rod

On Sat, 28 Dec 2013 15:40:34 +0000, wrote:


Have a read of this,
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Technica..._Inverters.pdf
As with anything you can buy cheap on Ebay but reliability and doing
what it claims it can do usually costs bit more.

Personally I was thinking along the lines of running the car engine
for the short period you may want to do a few things rather than run a
battery down too far,especially a car one.
For some people that is the only generator they have access to and in
many homes won't have room for much else.
Others may actually be better off with an actual generator if they
have room for it and to safely store the fuel as well.
But cheap ones aren't really designed to run for days. You really need
a well built diesel one for that.
That you have an electric fence suggests you may have a bit of land so
do have a tractor? you can get generators that run of the Power take
off but even if you need to charge a battery to run an inverter a
tractor would usually be a better tool than a car.
It's all about making the best of what you have.

G.Harman

Thanks DD-e, the link is very useful. No, we don't have a
tractor...electric fence is just to slow down the actions of the
equine fence demolishers.
It looks like an investment in a largish leisure battery or two (which
were recommended for the fencing unit) to replace the old vehicle
batteries currently put to this use, and a moderate inverter might be
justifiable.
I don't think 'the chancellor' would authorise the tractor on the
basis of keeping her laptop going in a power cut!
Please reply to group - email address is not monitored
Ian

In article ,
Tim Watts wrote:
On Saturday 28 December 2013 00:10 Dave Liquorice wrote in uk.d-i-y:

On Fri, 27 Dec 2013 18:21:53 +0000, robert wrote:

With smart phones accessing such information has become feasible as
long as the local Mobile network is not down.

Which in the event of a wide area power outage the mobile networks
are very likely to be down. Very few cells have much, if any, backup
power.

The more we rely on technology and get used to resilient services ...

The mobile networks are anything but resilient. If they were
resilient they would stay working short of the aerials/masts failing.
A simple loss of mains power should not be a problem for *any* half
decent resilient system.

It is an extremely poor state of affairs considering how solid the wired
system is. This is why, despite using VOIP a lot, I will always have a
POTS line.

ours went down on Dec 16th and was restored today. Fault - affecting a
large number of people - was caused by BT work on High Speed broadband.
And, of course my mobile phone only works in certain parts of the house -
mostly.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

In article ,
wrote:
dennis wrote:
The satnav may know which roads are closed, the map wont.

How does a satnav know that roads are closed? A satnav is
simply a map that knows dynamically where on the map it is,
it isn't psychic.

But if you pay for a "live" service the relevant info is transmitted to you.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

On Sun, 29 Dec 2013 15:59:39 +0000 (GMT), charles wrote:

ours went down on Dec 16th and was restored today. Fault - affecting a
large number of people - was caused by BT work on High Speed broadband.

I wonder what they would have done if you had Total Care on your
line? Fix yours as a one off priority within 24 or just leave yours
off till they fix everyone elses.

When I had an ISDN line, they fixed a fault on it almost before I'd
noticed it had failed, linecard in the exchange shared by a line at
the local bank.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Friday 27 December 2013 17:54 wrote in uk.d-i-y:

In listening to the reports of people without power for the last
couple of days am I alone in thinking that complaining about a
service with a 99.98% up-time reliability is a bit of a moan.

(Guessing that she's in her 50s, so she's had 5 days downtime in
20,000+ days.)

jgh

I found this by accident (been looking for something like it before without
success, maybe it's new??):

http://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/fau...nal_Iview.html

Anyway, that'll tell you what's broken within the UK Power Networks area.


--
Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://squiddy.blog.dionic.net/

http://www.sensorly.com/ Crowd mapping of 2G/3G/4G mobile signal coverage

Tim Streater wrote:
So I typed in the name of our village and apparently I live just
outside Boston on the US east coast.

That would explain any under-voltage problems ....

Owain

John Williamson wrote
Dave Liquorice wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Agreed, I wonder how many people have a reliable, non-tech, backup
for their satnav, in the car where they are most likely to need it?

I don't see that as much of a problem, essentially because
most don't actually use a satnav all that much of the time,

Hum, so why do the vast majority of cars I see when driving
around the country have a satnav suckered to the windscreen?

Mone's almost always on at work in the coach for
an up to date ETA and for unexpected diversions.

But most of the general public he is talking about don't
use there satnav like that, and even those who do would
not have any real problem if the satnav stops working
and so would not need a backup for that situation, and
it isnt even feasible to provide a backup for that situation
except with another satnav or smartphone kept in the car.

And even that sort of redundancy isn't going to help
if the source of the real time info on traffic delays and
road closures is not available because the mobile phone
system has gone down due to a widespread power outage.

And I don't use mine anymore even for that, I use the smartphone
instead.

And if the smartphone does die, there is usually
someone else in the car that has another.

And will they work without a data connection to download the
relevant bit of map and I have sneaky susoiscion that the route
planning is done in "the cloud" as well, not by the phone.

The only satnav system that I know of that does route
planning and stores maps "in the cloud" is Google maps.

The Apple mapper does too.

All the others, Tomtom, Garmin, Navman, Mapfactor and so on,
use locally stored maps and calculation, with the only use for the
GPS receiver being to calculate the current location, with an optional
data connection either via FM radio or 3G for traffic data, if that's
been enabled. Even the open source ones hold the maps and do
the calculations locally.

I have run Tomtom, Navgon, Mapfactor and a FOSS satnav system on a
couple of mobile phones, and the only data connection needed is for the
initial map and program download, and updates to the satellite positions
and map data as it changes. About once a week for a few minutes.

That's not true of google maps or the apple mapper.

The whole of Europe streetmap totals about 2 Gbytes, and the
UK is a few hundred megabytes. Using the Open Source maps.
you can fit the whole world in less than 10 Gbytes

Maybe you are going to collect friends/relatives that have been
flooded out, along with their car, the local power is out and thus
the mobile networks...

That would, in my experience, only upset
someone using Google Maps to navigate,

And the Apple mapper as well.

and even then, it would depend on the caching arranement in
the phone, as some are set to cache the data tiles containing
the whole of the calculated route when it's first calculated.

On iOS, google maps works fine when you schedule
the route using say wifi before you set out, but you have
to follow the route it specifys, it cannot recalculate the
route if you deviate from it without mobile phone access.

That's true of the android version as well.

Huge wrote
Jethro_uk wrote

Indeed, this (for me) is the greatest feature of sat navs ... the ability
to dynamically recalculate a route in the event of whatever. The
only catch is, you need to watch it carefully to make sure it has really
given up on the original route it had in mind ....

The built-in in my Disco III cheerfully and swiftly recalculates, but my
Tomtom spends ages trying to get you back to the original route ...

My TomTom 710 doesn’t.

On 29/12/2013 18:29, Tim Streater wrote:
So I typed in the name of our village and apparently I live just
outside Boston on the US east coast.

Try the postcode.

Neither the name of the hamlet we are in, nor the next village (which is
the parish) get anywhere near us, as they are both ambiguous.

Though it's St Ives that usually causes these problems. (do you mean St
Ives, or Saint Ives?)

Andy