donalhunt

Joined 12 years ago

Karma
1,022
Submissions
392
Member since
Sep 26
[ my public key: https://keybase.io/donal; my proof: https://keybase.io/donal/sigs/RWvn0926tP5L31GNHPt2tiKDH08TAAu_lt5Xf3_i7Tk ]

badges: https://hnbadges.netlify.app/?user=donalhunt

meet.hn/city/ie-Cork

Interests: DevOps, Hiking, Remote Work, Open data, SRE, Operations

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Recent submissions

Comment · 1 day ago
The Process Environment Block (PEB) should provide this info.

Process Explorer (Sysinternals) and System Informer both provide access to this info. There are powershell commands that will allow you to inspect it too.

Comment · 22 days ago
In Denmark, a CPR number (short for Det Centrale Personregister, or Central Person Register) is a unique 10-digit personal identification and social security number assigned to every resident and citizen.

Equivalent to social security information in the US I guess.

Comment · 29 days ago
Sadly not always the case. The Irish government went with CCBY 4.0 as the primary license which causes some compatibility issues with OSM due to specific clauses. :/
Comment · 1 month ago
In my experience, UK airports seem to not want you to leave the country — contra to the perception the government project regarding not wanting you to stay in the first place. :/

Had a number of experiences where their identity scanners (for some destinations they scan you at the start of security and just before the gate to ensure you get on the right aircraft) failed to be operational resulting in delays that ultimately may have forced me to miss my flight and stay in the UK. On the other hand, arriving from Ireland to the UK results in no checks because of the common travel area — you get waved through a special gate which is reserved for passengers from Ireland. LOL

Comment · 1 month ago
The system is also likely designed to have false positives so they can validate that the security people are doing their job. This is more obvious on the x-ray machines but resembles the "can you spot the phishing email" emails that often get sent out in corporate environments to detect people who need additional security education.
Comment · 1 month ago
And this is why building governance out of a pack of cards is a risky business...

If you cannot escalate a governance issue to a higher power, the controls are not worth the paper they are written on.

Comment · 1 month ago
Even if they tell you the flight is cancelled, they seem hellbent in avoiding telling you why.
Comment · 1 month ago
I think the frustration comes from airlines not being able to accurately predict what the impact of a delay will be for the schedule for the remainder of the day, following day. They always hope they'll be able to recover some of the schedule with fast turnarounds.

On a recent trip (when I encountered issues on every leg — cancellations, delays, missed connections, you name it), it is clear that airlines are incentivised to not communicate delays until it is clear the delay can't be recovered. In one case, at the airline's hub, the airport displays were showing a 2 hour delay and their app showed on-time departure (to the point I had to go and ask which source to trust). Having been a frequent flyer in the past I was able to determine that the delay was likely (but airlines can swap in equipment at hubs and mitigate the delay).

Once you do have a delay the ripples are complex to handle. You have some passengers that were meant to connect to other flights. You have some that won't travel at all die to the cancellation. You then have 100+ people who you somehow have to accommodate in the coming days when flight loads are hopefully already 90+%.

To be fair to my airline, their app was actually great at offering me a rebooking option the following day when my flight was cancelled. Unfortunately, the option I selected resulted in a non-direct flight with a transfer time that was impossible in reality (shouldn't have been offered in my opinion). I was literally rebooked 5mins after they declared the flight cancelled, skipped the queues back in the departure area (I don't think the local service agents even knew about the app) and drove home to my family for an extra night.

Comment · 2 months ago
Worth noting that one of the most high profile uses of Mechanical Turk was in September 2007 to review satellite imagery in a massive crowdsourced effort to find missing record-setting aviator Steve Fossett.

The effort failed to find any areas of interest and the missing aviator was found the following year by a hiker. I wonder if there was any analysis after the fact to understand if the imagery actually provided any hints regarding the eventual crash site.

Comment · 2 months ago
Comment · 2 months ago
Started yesterday (Aug 25) with workforces sent home on paid leave (at least in Ireland per local reporting). :/
Comment · 2 months ago
Depending on the age of the poster… Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.
Comment · 3 months ago
I live in Ireland. 10+ years ago I used to the travel to the US quite a bit (5-10 trips a year). The majority of the time I would fly via a major EU hub like AMS or CDG even if there was a direct flight from Ireland.

The reason? Other factors that were important to me!

Examples:

- cost optimisation. I could fly business within company budget rules.

- flight time. I highly valued longer flight times between Europe and the US west coast so I got a proper night's sleep when flying east-bound. Doing connections on the east coast often meant quite short transatlantic flights that arrived very early in the morning. Much harder to manage the jetlag.

- Product offering. Some of the routes from AMS and CDG had much newer planes and cabins.

- Airline alliance loyalty. Given the travel pattern it meant sense to pick an alliance that delivered some value. Irish airlines didn't have much to offer and were much more expensive for a worse end to end product.

Comment · 3 months ago
Having chatted with friends who have gotten stuck in elevators, you definitely should care about total travel time.

In one case, the building was still being commissioned and it took a while for anyone to even realize they were stuck (could spawn a whole discussion about launch processes in itself).

Comment · 3 months ago
Maybe they were embracing YOLO - who knows the possibilities of putting your trust in others' decisions / destinations.

Or should it be YORO? You only ride once?

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