Quixoticgeek

Geek, Dyke, Brewer, Rider of Bikes, Maker of Things, Quixotic, Generally Curious, Mostly Harmless, she/her.

Location: somewhere in Europe.

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npub1z5hm3jmwvcku3mf2ew0gtyqc0tqmq3mrtk4pysfehfmuycrx79hqd7dvvx

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quixoticgeek@social-v-st.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsp2tacedhxvtwga54vh859jqv84sdsga34m2sjgyum5a7zvpn0zmspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qtp2dhr

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relay.mostr.pub

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npub1z5hm3jmwvcku3mf2ew0gtyqc0tqmq3mrtk4pysfehfmuycrx79hqd7dvvx

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Last Notes

2026-10-28 18:17:48 UTC

What's the hashtag for mushroom and fungi photos ?

2026-10-26 10:40:25 UTC

As there's a story doing the rounds about it. If you, a parent, need to ask an AI for three words to describe your own child. You are not fit to be a parent. It's that simple.

2026-10-22 11:24:17 UTC

Ya know what the most disappointing thing is with this whole PHP security shit is?
How totally unsurprised I am by it all. If anything the only surprising part is how it's not happening more often. So many software projects have grown so huge that they are essentially unmanageable. No one person, or even a small team can fully understand all of what's going on. So stuff is gonna slip through. PHP is just the latest one to make the news. Almost every large project will have similar issues.
1/n

2026-10-22 10:56:08 UTC

This sums up rather a lot of what's wrong with the whole industry. Cyber security expert who had never heard of the software that underlies 70% of all websites...
Ah the over confidence of white men in this industry...
#nevent1q…m7f7

2026-10-21 13:33:09 UTC

Know the worst thing about this? My absolute total lack of surprise at this. Years ago I went to a CCC event. Several women had put forward great talks on inclusion, feminism, and women in tech. Instead of 5 talks, we got them all put together on a single panel on the subject.
When the Q&A started I had to ask. Why did we allow ourselves to be gerrymandered like this ?
CCC gave us the table scraps of a single panel. FOSDEM doesn't even give us that.
I'm glad I gave up on FOSDEM years ago.
#nevent1q…2zuq

2026-10-20 16:53:36 UTC

Ok fedi nerds. Give me your best ways of saying "I told you so" without saying, "I told you so".

2026-10-19 16:53:06 UTC

"Bikes 'not for jousting,' says Lime after duel video"
Gotta say that is a headline I did not expect to read...
Cycle jousting seems like an entirely sensible sport in the grand scheme of things...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9zrdpg7256yo

2026-10-16 15:01:47 UTC

Taking the last train of the day from this station... Such a barbaric time table.

2026-10-16 12:43:02 UTC

Inspired by this morning's toot about gauges from @nprofile…y789 here's a picture of some dual gauge track. Do any of the fedi train nerds want to guess the gauges ?
https://social.v.st/system/media_attachments/files/117/450/639/948/206/471/original/76c9253381d07f9e.jpg

2026-10-16 10:33:47 UTC

One of the podcasts in my feed has a new episode out titled "is fusion really 30 years away?" And my first thought is "no, it's 1au away, and the price of the collectors has come down dramatically in price"

2026-10-15 11:31:39 UTC

A server for an organisation I'm a member of has been struggling a lot due to being absolutely hammered by AI bots scraping it. Managed to mitigate some of the problem earlier with just 3 commands. We're still getting hammered. But it's not acting as a DoS any more. Good to know my archaic knowledge of the inner workings of the Linux kernel virtual memory management still works.

2026-10-14 11:38:08 UTC

Engineer one: "With this flamingo cruise missile, we can help Yandex transfer all their data into the cloud"
Engineer two: "why do we want to help them with this"
Engineer one: "transfer data into really big cloud of smoke"
Engineer two: "ah, excellent idea"
*Presses launch button*

2026-10-13 09:35:18 UTC

"why does the fridge have an internet connection?"
"So it can download security updates"
"Why does it need security updates?"
"To protect against new vulnerabilities"
"Surely if we didn't connect it to the internet, we wouldn't need that..."
"Oh"

2026-10-09 12:17:54 UTC

If age verification comes to Mastodon cos the EU are bonkers, I suggest it's just a picture of a cassette tape and a biro, and the question "what is the connection between these two objects?"
Or a rotary phone interface, and to verify your age you have to dial 0818118181 on the rotary phone to prove your age ...

2026-10-07 12:44:52 UTC

Ticket. Check on a dB train. I'm travelling with interrail. He walks over, I start the interrail app, which is poorly designed and really slow. He gets board and wanders off to check other tickets. The app finally loads a QR code, and I hold it up so the guy can scan it, he walks back from about 3 rows away where he was scanning and berates me in German for something which I don't understand. I say "I don't speak German" he shakes his head, scans the qr code and wanders off.
Weird.

2026-10-07 07:16:29 UTC

I set two alarms each in a different app on my phone. Both failed to go off. Fortunately the bells of the local church woke me. Half hour later than I had aimed for. But they did at least wake me. No idea why my phone failed me.

2026-10-06 10:06:07 UTC

This is why I bang on so much about level access. Noone should have to depend on railway staff and the correct alignment of the train to the platform to be able to use a train.
This also highlights another common problem with train design. The sole single wheelchair space on the train. Cos of course no wheel chair user has friends in wheelchairs tho they want to travel with ...
Public transport that isn't level access is defective by design.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5gmr3dl2lp4o

2026-09-24 12:10:24 UTC

Am sat in a cafe in the heart of Amsterdam, in one of the wealthier parts of town watching the world go by. A tram rattles past every few minutes in each direction. People on city bikes in normal clothes, including a woman in a stunning black dress are weaving in and out of the traffic and crossing the main flow.
Depressingly tho in a city so known for it's cycle and public transport is the number of wank panzers and yank tanks going past.
Autumn leaves are pretty tho.

2026-09-20 13:43:42 UTC

"this machine is so dangerous, it could kill all of humanity"
"If it's that dangerous, why don't we just unplug it?"
"We couldn't possibly do that ?"
"Why not?"
"Uh... Um... I... Shareholder value!!!!"
#TheLastWeekInAI

2026-09-10 15:58:15 UTC

Practical engineering has a video about all the mains power sockets in the US. And I'm watching it and wondering "what the utter fuck?!?!?!". Y'all got half a dozen different plug sockets for different stuff ?!?
We have a schuko socket that does 240v upto 16a. And for industrial and commercial stuff you might see blue or red iec60309 stuff, but rarely in a home.
US electricity is weird...

2026-08-30 17:32:45 UTC

For the last couple of weeks, my inbox and YouTube feed has been full of small makers letting me know they will no longer be shipping to the EU. The new PPWR regs have completely nuked the ability of small makers to sell into the EU. I wonder how many fully funded Kickstarters are going to be massively screwed over by this.
There's no way the politicians who passed this legislation didn't know full well the effect it would have.
1/n

2026-08-30 12:02:41 UTC

For the best part of 15 years. I've had a capcha on my phone alarm. This is because I seem very good at turning alarms off in my sleep. Because I can still hit snooze. I will often just keep hitting snooze long after I got up. This often results in the alarm going off when I'm with others. Many a time it handed my phone to a friend or colleague and said "can you turn off my alarm please?" Then usually solve the first puzzle then swear and hand me the phone. Back for the 2nd and 3rd.
But...
1/n
https://social.v.st/system/media_attachments/files/117/184/341/072/666/989/original/3a5e2d20aba9d75b.png

2026-08-23 16:52:27 UTC

Station name looks like an SQL injection? Yep I'm in the Netherlands again...

2026-08-23 10:14:33 UTC

Years ago when I lived in Canterbury, they brought in a phone to pay thing for parking. I wrote a letter to Canterbury city council saying this was a bad idea as someone could put a sticker over the phone number, and scam people for their credit card details. CCC said this wasn't a realistic attack, and they proceeded with the roll out.
The phone number is now a QR code.
And I was fucking right.
#nevent1q…y4nv

2026-08-18 12:52:07 UTC

Today's random historical rabbit hole.
Did the Romans know about coppicing?

2026-08-18 09:03:52 UTC

Yesterday I posted a picture of a hole in the side of a train and asked what it was for. Here's the answer.
It's to put flags in. Such as this red flag.
Red flags are important signals, they mean that a live firing exercise is in progress and it's not safe to cross to range... Or it means you shouldn't swim here. (There was one on each end).
Or more accurately in this case, that station staff are aboard the train, and it should not leave the station.
https://social.v.st/system/media_attachments/files/117/115/694/520/113/560/original/fb79194528737391.jpg

2026-08-16 16:35:15 UTC

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@nprofile…nger @nprofile…y789 @nprofile…7x2z given the rise of betting on anything and everything, what's the etiquette on placing bets on first cancelled train... First missed connection... Etc... ?

2026-08-15 17:31:27 UTC

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@nprofile…m5r9 @nprofile…awd8 you know something I noticed reading the Murderbot diaries series of books? At no point in the books are there any stairs.

2026-08-15 11:00:16 UTC

One for the train nerds, are there any nice railway stations that have been built since the end of the cold war? Places where you stand and admire the architecture, that don't give you a headache just walking to your platform. I'm looking for a modern built station that is the antidote to Barcelona Sants.

2026-08-15 09:44:24 UTC

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@nprofile…awd8 please excuse my ignorance. What is raised print ?

2026-08-14 12:33:43 UTC

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@nprofile…y789 @nprofile…gent didn't not just bikes visit a place that does battery trams for part of the route for the same overhead wires thing

2026-08-14 08:52:04 UTC

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@nprofile…y789 ideally 2. Currently I have ideas that involve either a night in french Basel, or Karlsruhe. But they rely on stupid early

2026-08-14 08:47:46 UTC

Trying to work out how to get home from Barcelona next week. Ideally my ideal route home would:
1) avoid Paris
2) avoid Thalys
3) avoid Barcelona Sants station
4) not require leaving stupidly early.
It seems I can meet at best two of these.

2026-08-14 08:45:23 UTC

"good news, the Rhine remains navigable"
"And the bad news?"
"The vessel of choice is now a land rover"

2026-08-13 07:36:27 UTC

Dear the people of Clacton,
You have an opportunity to something that is indisputably hilarious. Please, we beg of you, bring us hope in this trying time. Elect Count Bin Face.

2026-08-12 18:34:01 UTC

Good news, the reboot of the sun has been successful. Please bear with us for the next 90 minutes or so as illumination returns to full power.

2026-08-12 09:44:02 UTC

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@nprofile…4f7h I thought some countries had a max width limit for bikes of 1m

2026-08-10 12:55:55 UTC

One of the twitter accounts I miss was called "RateMyBuffers" where basically people sent them a picture of buffers, and the account owner would rate them.
So in the absence of a single account, we'll have to crowd source the rating.
How do you Rate My Buffers?
https://social.v.st/system/media_attachments/files/117/071/310/348/643/556/original/93b79fa9bc1741ed.jpg

2026-08-10 12:42:26 UTC

The friends I travel with know me too well. A train pulls into the platform. My friend looks at the doors.
"Can we assume you've had your rant about the lack of level access on these trains and move on?"

2026-08-10 07:43:58 UTC

Come to France they said. See our beautiful cities they said.
The cities:
(For the geoguessers among you. Where did I take this photo from ?)
https://social.v.st/system/media_attachments/files/117/070/082/239/741/348/original/8659c8dac9374e1c.jpg

2026-08-09 09:49:11 UTC

Sitting on a train, eating home made fruit cake, watching the world go buy.

2026-08-09 08:59:02 UTC

An intermodal freight train just went past, over a ⅓rd of all the trailers on the train we're Amazon prime branded.

2026-08-08 22:11:28 UTC

People will die because of this, and the majority of those will be women, children, and people of colour.
But then, that's probably the intention.
#nevent1q…l8zx

2026-08-08 11:07:22 UTC

So I'm on this train because of a comment made by @nprofile…y789 a few years ago. I've tried to take it in the opposite direction a couple of times, and failed. But this time things have lined up a bit better. And despite being an IC service, it's a pair of single car DMUs... And it stops at 21 stops on the way.

2026-08-08 07:12:08 UTC

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@nprofile…ds0l @nprofile…3qha @nprofile…7q7j my very European brain is looking at this and is very much thinking wtf... Are they at least going through electronically, or is this still the carbon paper embossing thing ? My brain is very confused.

2026-08-08 06:55:11 UTC

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@nprofile…ds0l @nprofile…3qha @nprofile…7q7j what's with the taking the card away thing? How do you do a pin number for payment?

2026-08-07 08:15:12 UTC

Something I still don't understand is why noone is trying to compete with Thalys on the Paris/Amsterdam route. Lots of companies are coming up with all sorts of attempts to operate through the tunnel, but there's service connecting three capitals without any competition, and none of the safety headaches of the tunnel. It's absolutely crying out for competition.

2026-08-06 20:43:28 UTC

Train nerds and #BahnBubble, is there somewhere at Paris Bercy station to refill a water bottle?

2026-08-05 23:12:41 UTC

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@nprofile…awd8 brilliantly put.

2026-08-05 10:49:49 UTC

Given the excitement about the new feassibility study about cross channel night trains, I've finally sat down and made a helpful flow chart for understanding if a railway project is likely to actually happen. Feel free to use it as a first line check of if a project has a snow balls chance in hell of ever reaching fruition.
#CrossBorderRail
https://social.v.st/system/media_attachments/files/117/042/496/465/851/977/original/114f0e7233a91532.png

2026-08-05 10:38:27 UTC

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@nprofile…y789 @nprofile…gent oh. That's not good... I guess there's no other suitable loco available either?

2026-08-05 10:33:27 UTC

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@nprofile…y789 @nprofile…gent if they used the same stock as the nightjet NG (ignoring loading gauge issues in the UK for now), which can do 230kph, would that make life easier for fitting in on the HS lines of France and Belgium?

2026-08-05 10:17:14 UTC

Jon is completely correct about the complexity of running a Scotland to Europe night train. None of the problems are technical. They are *all* political. Every single one can be solved through political will and throwing money at it.
Which is why it won't happen.
But. There is this: this service is a necessity in a sustainable future.
#nevent1q…skny

2026-08-03 20:25:48 UTC

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If there's no room on your trains for bikes and luggage, then you're system is poorly designed, and has no resilience.
The purpose of public transport is to transport the public. And the public want to travel with more than a handbag...
2/2

2026-08-03 20:24:04 UTC

I don't want stations cluttered up with personal luggage and bags, people should leave their bags at home and just rent a public suitcase of clothes at their destination...
If public transport is to be a viable alternative to cars, then it needs to be usable to transport people and their stuff in similar ways as cars do. That means some people will want to take their bike across the country to go for a bike ride somewhere. They may also need to move a couple of bags of stuff. Etc...
1/n
#nevent1q…vesn

2026-07-26 22:15:32 UTC

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@nprofile…rtl5 @nprofile…cs0w a bash script and rsync...

2026-07-26 20:34:50 UTC

Why the fuck are we growing eucalyptus in giant plantations in Europe?!?! FFS

2026-07-25 19:56:59 UTC

At the makerspace we have some 3d printed boxes with a custom circuit board inside that we use to control various things round the space. Yesterday one of them started giving weird errors. We wondered if it was software, or hardware.
Well today we found the bug.
Literally. Seems a spider had made it's home next to the CPU, and caused some corrosion to the pins so it lost connectivity...
First proper bug I've come across in a circuit...

2026-07-25 08:08:37 UTC

Of all the places to want to put AI. Emergency calls are absolutely the last place for it. You need incredibly well trained humans with empathy and understanding who can help humans communicate when they are going through the worst time of their life.
#nevent1q…xk2a

2026-07-23 19:49:18 UTC

I backed a book on kickstarter, it eventually shipped, and tracking showed it had been delivered, but nothing was in my mailbox. I was a little miffed, and wondered where it had got to.
Today I found it in my mailbox. The package had been opened. I'm guessing it was delivered to the wrong mailbox. The question is, did my neighbour read the lesbian space sci fi before they put it in my mailbox? and which neighbour was it?

2026-07-23 11:09:33 UTC

The same for passkeys. Not everyone has their own device. Being insistent about passkeys without understanding context is bad m'kay?
#nevent1q…49dg

2026-07-22 17:48:48 UTC

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@nprofile…cm0q @nprofile…yxyg have run out of all original task master and all NZ task master.

2026-07-22 15:37:33 UTC

On the search for a TV series or film to watch that:
A) doesn't have any weapons
B) isn't a romance
C) isn't a horror
D) will leave me feeling joyful and happy.
Seems very hard to find such a thing.

2026-07-22 10:04:59 UTC

Reminder, social media bans for kids are nothing to do with protecting kids, and everything to do with removing anonymity from the web.

2026-07-21 01:06:06 UTC

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@nprofile…l7em @nprofile…xhv0 yep. Makita make great tools. I'm a bit nervous cos they recently bought Panasonics power tools division. But as far as I can tell they haven't yet been taken over by private equity.

2026-07-21 00:12:48 UTC

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@nprofile…xhv0 it's not just cookware, same in power tools and many other markets.
https://www.protoolreviews.com/power-tool-manufacturers-who-owns-them/

2026-07-14 21:03:54 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0 this quote from Chris aka Clickspring, a Horologist, seems relevant.
"How, and what we choose to make is an expression of our deepest selves. It's the definitive record of who we are at that moment of creation."

2026-07-14 09:52:35 UTC

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@nprofile…y789 @nprofile…d3df when sailing from Germany to Finland, I gave my Dutch residence permit as my ID, and they were very very very confused by me speaking English with an English accent, whilst having and ID document in Dutch.

2026-07-10 08:01:41 UTC

Question 1, we ask if the station where @nprofile…nu3t is hiding at starts with the same letter as our current station. Which is Hannover Hbf.
#JetlagTheGame

2026-07-09 10:08:14 UTC

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Solar energy is an absolutely incredible technology. It's a key building block of our sustainable future. We need lots of it. But maybe before we start trying to cram it into the safety critical infrastructure of our railway tracks, we start first with every equatorial facing roof top. And maybe some platform shelters to provide shade for passengers as well as electricity.
13/13

2026-07-09 10:03:53 UTC

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The number that really puts this all into perspective comes from the Wikipedia page on LGV Sud Est. The french high-speed line from Paris to Lyon. The total area of the train line is 16km². By comparison Charles de Gaul airport is 32km². Trains are an incredibly efficient use of space
To throw in another data point. Disneyland Paris has approximately 200000m² of carpark. And they've covered it with solar panels. Local to where the power is needed, no faffing with safety critical systems.
12/n

2026-07-09 09:59:04 UTC

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"yeah, but that's the tiny install, what about that 20MW 100ha install you talked about?, that's bigger than your station carpark!!"
Yep. So let's use the local supermarket roof... And maybe their carpark... And some businesses... And some homes. Maybe the local school roof. That'll quickly add up. Simpler installs, no faffing in safety critical environments. No bonkers long cable runs. Power generated near to where its used.
It's just there's no VC funding for such sensibilities...
11/n

2026-07-09 09:53:49 UTC

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Now if we took say the original 100m² demo array, and instead of putting it in a safety critical location with all sorts of risk headaches. And we made it into a single 10m x 10m square. Our longest cable run becomes about 14m, we can build it say, over the station carpark, which also reduces energy for the cars to cool themselves. The station is of course near homes, businesses, etc... so near demand. Cheaper. Easier to maintain, and no safety critical systems headaches.
10/n

2026-07-09 09:50:39 UTC

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You might think the railways are lots of space, so this just scales great and we can have oodles of power. Let's take a hypothetical 100km stretch of track, and fill it with a continuous string of 1m wide panels. That gives us an area of: 100000m². At 200w/m² output, that's 20MW! Loads! Except you now have to transmit that power 100km (well 50km to each end). We have technology to do very low loss long distance power transmission. But it all relies on really high voltages.
9/n

2026-07-09 09:42:39 UTC

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And while there are some countries that run their trains on low voltages (1500VDC in .NL, 3000VDC in .BE). Most overhead electrified lines use either 15KV AC at 16 ⅔hz, or 25KV AC. Taking your tiny 100m² 18KW solar install and trying to make any of those voltages and feed it to the trains is just not gonna work. High voltage electrical engineering is Really Complex!. So instead small installs feed into the local 415v grid.
Now that word local is the next flaw in the idea.
8/n

2026-07-09 09:39:00 UTC

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At such low voltages, voltage drop over that sort of distance is going to mean quite an efficiency hit. Unless you use really thick cable. Which is expensive. Or run things at a much higher voltage (now you have extra risk assessment concerns)
It's probably a good time to dispell perhaps one of the misconceptions many will have about this install. That the power it generates can power the trains. These solar panels are going to be generating electricity in the 100s of volts range at best.
7/n

2026-07-09 09:35:16 UTC

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Any half competent installer would spot this and recommend against such an idea. But then such people aren't trying to get VC funding.
The next suboptimal part of this setup is one of wire lengths. By it's nature, a solar install in between railway tracks is long and thin. The news article says it's 100m long. Assuming that it's 1m wide (there's only 1435mm between the rails anyway). So essentially that's a 100m² install. But that means you have to run 100m long wire to connect the panels.
6/n

2026-07-09 09:30:53 UTC

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Partial shading of panels is a big problem that is often overlooked by solar installers. Any shading of a section of a panel not only stops they bit of the panel generating electricity, but it turns it into a higher resistance section of panel, reducing even further the output of the rest of the panel. Having support posts and knitting and all that other gubbins above and around the track to shade the panels is a really suboptimal situation to build solar.
5/n

2026-07-09 09:27:48 UTC

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Railways also come with a lot of extra gubbins beyond the two rails nailed to wood planks (or more often bolted to concrete these days). In more modern networks, rather than burning dinosaurs, the railways have power which comes from all that knitting above the tracks. The above here is the problem. Cos it's going to shade the panels. "But it's only a thin wire, so a small shadow" I can hear some techbro angry typing. You don't need to fully obscure a whole panel to reduce it's output.
4/n

2026-07-09 09:24:02 UTC

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If you ever look at the area of track between the rails. You'll see it's covered in all sorts of crap. Oil, lubricants, and all sorts of other fluids fall out the bottom of trains into this space, along with dust, sand (from brakes), leaves, litter, etc... This will all need to be cleaned off to keep the panels operating at peak performance. Except you can't just send a student down with a mop and bucket. You need to arrange track possession, and do all the risk assessment stuff.
3/n

2026-07-09 09:18:57 UTC

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Unfortunately because it hasn't resulted in fire and death, the company behind it are trying to do it again. This time in Italy.
https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/05/italy-could-be-the-next-country-to-build-a-solar-railway-after-switzerlands-successful-tri
The problem is, it's still a fucking stupid idea. Railways are a really bad place to do anything. Vehicles weighing hundreds of tons doing high speeds on rails, with stopping distances measured in kilometres. Railways are safety critical infrastructure. Which means there's processes and procedures to follow everytime you need access.
2/n

2026-07-09 09:16:01 UTC

Ye fucking gods, just like how techbros keep reinventing the bus, it seems in solar circles, the idea of putting solar panels in transport surfaces is an idea that a) should never had be got off the fag packet sketch, b) keeps coming back.
We had the trial of a 100m long 18KW install in Switzerland. Which unsurprisingly, did generate power. Noone is surprised by that. It's quite hard to fuck up a solar install so you don't get power from it. But. Does it mean it's a good idea ?
Fuck no.
1/n

2026-07-08 12:21:54 UTC

I just saw the Clacton bi election described as the cunt Vs the count...

2026-07-07 12:09:23 UTC

Train nerds and Wikipedians of the fediverse, I need your help. (Apologies for blatant nerd sniping).
The Wikipedia page for LGV Sud-Est (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Sud-Est) has the following claim:
"The line has a surface area of 16 km2 (6.2 sq mi) – in comparison Charles de Gaulle Airport occupies 32 km2 (12 sq mi) – with an average width of 40 m (130 ft)"
But then it has.
[Citation needed].
My dearest train nerds, #BahnBubble, can help you find a source for this claim so we can fix this citation?

2026-07-06 22:02:07 UTC

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@nprofile…k95v yeah, the pouch is not helping. They don't stack nicely on the shelf...

2026-07-06 21:55:32 UTC

Ugh. A multimeter is a really useful tool in electronics and electrical work. But with the wires and probes storing them is like trying to find a bed for cthulhu. Is there such a thing as a good way to store them?

2026-07-05 13:40:04 UTC

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@nprofile…u76z have you come across Https://v.st/daft ?

2026-07-05 11:19:32 UTC

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@nprofile…y789 until they have no lines at all?

2026-07-05 11:16:46 UTC

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@nprofile…y789 how is SNCF a serious train company? Has anyone involved in management ever actually used a train ?

2026-07-03 10:29:14 UTC

Saying this again cos it's so important.
There is an eclipse this summer. And because this came up in a conversation, something I didn't realise needed to be said.
DO NOT TRY TO MAKE YOUR OWN ECLIPSE GLASSES.
Your eyesight is more important than that. A pair of iso standards certified eclipse glasses are about €3.
Seriously, do not risk your eyesight.

2026-06-26 12:11:55 UTC

For reasons the topic of super heroes came up during therapy. I mentioned how batman had been ruined for me when I fully understood that Bruce Wayne as a billionaire could have solved all the problems of Gotham city, but instead chose to spend his nights beating up the poor and mentally ill.
"Now you've ruined batman for me too"
"Oops"

2026-06-25 19:23:52 UTC

Beautiful nerds of the fediverse, if you have Aircon at home, what temperature do you have it set to? In °C please.

2026-06-24 19:27:20 UTC

Dunno which of you suggested it, but using my travel mug as a cold drink mug at home works great.

2026-06-23 20:27:23 UTC

Why on earth does @nprofile…kyv9 not have an option to not auto play animations? That's basic accessibility stuff.

2026-06-23 11:22:40 UTC

The idea of nuclear reactors to power datacentres isn't the worst idea. At least with a nuclear reactor the waste produced is a largely solid item you can put in a box somewhere safe, rather than pumping it into the atmosphere. We just need to agree on where that safe place is.
May I propose under the bed of every member of the AI company's board?

2026-06-18 13:03:50 UTC

Why does noone make a nice hat that has cut outs for big headphones?

2026-06-18 01:02:52 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0 this whole real name thing really annoys me. I have friends who I only know by their irc nick. That name is more real to me than any that might be written on their government issues paperwork.
With one of them, when we were all much younger, after a night out having a few beers, I slept on their sofa. The next morning their mother asks "so how do you know James?" Hungover, and not awake, I ask "who's James?" that's how I discovered my friends "real" name. And the only time I've used it

2026-06-10 16:14:15 UTC

I've seen a lot of coverage about a Canadian tractor company marketing a "no tech" repairable tractor.
Which is great.
Except it's loaded with amazing technology...
Like the internal combustion engine...
Or the metallurgy it's built from...
Or the chemistry to make the tyres... Or the glass... Or the paint...
Or the hydraulics...
It's all technology. It may not include microchips and firmware and the like. But it's all still technology. And it's all amazing.

2026-06-09 12:33:18 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0 this song popped up in my recommendations recently and it's basically been an ear worm for a few weeks now. Mixed in with songs like "Bears and wolves" by Lilith Max, and various songs by Lydia the Bard. I think this song touches on something for many of us.

2026-06-08 16:54:25 UTC

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@nprofile…yzy8 Wikipedia?