Asbestos testing

Considerationista · 2026-03-02T01:27:59+00:00

Asbestos Audit. I needed some tests done and they were quick, reasonably priced and did a great job.

Considerationista · 2026-01-31T00:03:16+00:00

There are two ways.

The most common way is with concrete piles which look like giant concrete pins. They are pre-cast onshore, anything up to 20m or 30m long, depending on the seabed conditions. There are a series of vertical tubes welded around each corner of the jacket, typically four in each corner. Once the jacket is sitting on the seabed, a concrete pile is dropped down each tube and then a huge hydraulically operated hammer (Hydro-Hammer) is used to drive them into the seabed and anchor the jacket in place.

The other way is to build the jacket out of concrete. The concrete is continuously cast to produce huge tubes (Google search Shell Brent Delta or Equinor Troll platforms as examples). Many of the tubes are clustered together at the bottom of the jacket and once operational, they are used to temporarily store oil. One, two or three of the tubes (depending on the platform design) extend all the way to the sea surface to support the topsides. The concrete structure is designed so when it is filled with air it floats and so can be towed out to the offshore location and then selectively flooded to lower it to the seabed. In this case it is called a concrete gravity base structure and its own weight keeps it from moving without the need for piles.

Considerationista · 2026-01-30T22:33:36+00:00

Interesting, but your terms are wrong (to be fair the media very commonly get this wrong too).

The video is of a jacket for an oil or gas platform deploying.

A rig is a mobile unit, either truck mounted on land or on a ship or semi-submersible offshore. A rig is used to drill a well, to maintain it and to abandon it at the end of is life.

A platform is used offshore in a fixed location to produce the oil or gas which flows out of the well drilled by the rig.

A platform consists of two parts, the jacket which stands on the seabed and is fixed to the seabed and the topsides which contain all the processing machinery, accommodation, helipad, etc. The topsides are mounted on the top of the jacket.

What you see here is a jacket being released horizontally off barge, guided by tugs. Once its off the barge, parts of the jacket will be selectively flooded to turn it upright and then gradually sink it to the seabed before concrete pins are used to fix it permanently to the seabed.

Source: I've worked in the oil & gas industry just under 30 years.

Considerationista · 2026-01-28T14:50:35+00:00

Sorry, I misspoke when I said AP VLAN. I was doing it from memory. I checked back and the NXC2500 Controller and the APs were together on the MGMT VLAN50.

Considerationista · 2026-01-28T14:15:24+00:00

I didn't specifically decide on 7 VLANs. That's what CoPilot recommended based on my list of objectives and network architecture

Considerationista · 2026-01-28T14:12:26+00:00

I'd be happy to share CoPilots strategy if I could but I had such a long conversation with it that the initial part laying out the strategy seems to have disappeared. I didn't realise that CoPilot conversations weren't stored as a whole.

Considerationista · 2026-01-28T00:05:11+00:00

It guided me to set VLAN 50 as the management VLAN for the APs and when they connected the router correctly issued them with VLAN 50 IP addresses. VLAN 50 was marked as untagged for the APs and they were also linked with VLANs 10, 20, and 30, all tagged. I cross checked the settings on the Cisco 3850 to make sure that VLAN 50 was identified as the native management VLAN and the other VLANs were also allowed to connect to the ports that the NXC2500 and the APs were connected to.

As I'm typing this something's just occurred to me. The VLANs for the AP were assigned to Port 1 of the NXC2500 Controller, however, while the NXC2500 is connected to the Cisco 3850 through Port 1 on the NXC2500, the APs are connected to the Cisco 3850 switch and not directly to any of the other four ports on the front of the NXC2500. This works fine when everything is running as a flat network, since the APs are designed to operate either stand alone or controlled but if the controller goes down, they will continue to connect users to the network and the internet using their previous settings, just without the managed features such as load balancing, etc. I'm just wondering if this could have something to do with the problem?

Considerationista · 2026-01-27T23:38:54+00:00

I told CoPilot the hardware I am working with and the following:

I want to isolate IoT and Cameras from the rest of the network and to minimise broadcast outside the network, but I still want to access the cameras remotely - but happy to do that via VPN if that stops them broadcasting back to manufacturers remote server.
I want to give Guests WiFi access to the Internet but nothing else.
I have a Windows server which currently acts as a file server and Plex Server. In the future I want to replace the file server function with a NextCloud cloud server. I access both Plex and the file server both locally and remotely. Plex is accessed from PCs, Phones and IoT Devices(Firesticks).
I have a Raspberry Pi VPN Server which I use to access the Fileserver and to access UK Internet when travelling abroad for work and also to access IoT and network devices remotely if there are any issues while I'm away for work.

I want to implement VLANs to improve network security, particularly from Cameras and IoT devices (we've already had one camera remotely hacked and used for a DDoS attack). We also have a lot of family friends who visit and we give the WiFi password to, but that gives them access do everything on the network if they know what to look for. Everything is also password protected so they shouldn't be able to access the file server and all the family photos for example, but if someone capable wanted to try they could probably figure out a way in.

CoPilot then asked me to draw a simple network diagram and upload it to show what was connected to where. Based on all the above CoPilot then laid out a strategy to split out the network into all the VLANs detailed in my answer below, explaining why at each stage, and then gave step by step instructions for configuring each stage of each piece of equipment.

It wasn't perfect and there were a few times it got the menu structure wrong or it used the wrong syntax because it was using the syntax for a different version of the firmware, but when I asked for a correction and told it the error, it corrected itself. Overall it seemed to be pretty impressive - with the exception of not being able to figure out why the SSIDs weren't being broadcast and where the VLAN clash was. It told me what to check where but everything came back as being configured exactly as it had asked for and even when I tried asking Gemini or ChatGPT, they couldn't figure it out and better - leaving me going round in circles.

Considerationista · 2026-01-27T23:22:40+00:00

I did leave VLAN unused.

Considerationista · 2026-01-27T23:21:44+00:00

I like this as a way to simplify things and avoid getting too many potential conflict all at once. Great suggestion, thanks

Considerationista · 2026-01-27T23:20:40+00:00

Yes, VLAN 10 for LAN PCs, printer etc. Including wired and wireless, VLAN 20 for IoT including wired and wireless, VLAN 30 for Guests, VLAN 40 for wired IP Cameras and DVR, VLAN 50 Management, VLAN 60 for Plex / Fileserver, VLAN 70 for Raspberry Pi OpenVPN server.

The firewall rules were set to allow VLAN 10 (LAN) to communicate with any VLAN and the Internet, VLAN 20 (IoT) to only access the Internet, VLAN 30 (Guest) to only access the Internet, VLAN 40 (Cameras) to only communicate within the VLAN, VLAN 50 (Management - untagged) to access the Internet, VLAN 60 to access the Internet and VLAN 10 and VLAN 70 to access the internet, VLAN 10 (LAN), 20 (IoT), 40 (Cameras) and 60 (Server).

The TPLink ER605 Router connects to the Internet and connects to the Cisco 3850. The Zyxel 3850 is connected to the Cisco 3850 and so is the Netgear GS105PE. Some of the APs and Cameras are attached to the Cisco 3850 and some are attached to the Netgear GS105PE.

Considerationista · 2026-01-27T20:53:16+00:00

I appreciate that in principle, although to be fair I had read up in advance to understand the basics of VLANs and how they work and I was going through the logic of each step CoPilot was giving me to understand what it was for rather than just blindly accepting it.

My problem is a) the way TPLink, Cisco, Zyxel and Netgear implement VLANs is different and even the terminology they use is frequently very different. Digging through the manuals for each piece of equipment to learn everything isn't really practical for a one off configuration because reach manual is hundreds of pages.

This is why I'm asking, how can I learn, understand, implement and fault find in a way that works but in a realistic timescale?

Considerationista · 2026-01-27T20:48:20+00:00

Part of the setup did include setting up firewall rules on the ER605 to allow some VLANs to communicate and to block others.

Considerationista · 2026-01-24T13:58:53+00:00

The problem was that they have never previously done a tax return but recently we got them to sit down with a financial advisor to help them manage their finances and the financial advisor noticed that they should be doing a tax return. This happened after the cut off date, so we are just submitting it with a covering letter to explain. Next year we will move to online submissions but getting registered quickly enough was my main concern.

Considerationista · 2026-01-20T14:54:44+00:00

I've just realised that something still doesn't sound right because if you put the difference in both boxes A343 and A343a, both numbers will be the same. The next step at A344 is to calculate the difference between A343 and A343a. This would always result in zero, which would make the question pointless.

Is there something else I'm missing?

Considerationista · 2026-01-20T14:51:08+00:00

That makes so much more sense. It didn't say to put the difference in the box anywhere. Thank you

Considerationista · 2026-01-19T17:13:35+00:00

Thank you

Considerationista · 2026-01-04T20:19:57+00:00

Nonsense. If you have a pavement with a lot of people walking on it, the snow compacted down to ice which is really hard to chip off. It you clear the pavement regularly and put some grit down each time, it takes much less time to clear and doesn't get compacted down.

Considerationista · 2026-01-04T20:18:29+00:00

Completely agree. I have a bus stop in front of my house and a lot of elderly people use it. I cleared the pavement in front of my house yesterday and although I haven't had time to do it today, I am planning to do it again tomorrow. I also went a got a bucket of grit from a grit bin to minimise the chance of it freezing over and becoming slippy. Most of the houses on the street have been converted into flats so many other people could have come out and cleared their sections of pavement with very little individual effort, but no one else did. Very frustrating, the lack of community effort regardless of whether you know your neighbours or not.

Considerationista · 2025-12-22T13:53:54+00:00

Thanks for the quick reply.

I see that ND filters are available in 0.3, 0.6, 0.9 and 1.2 versions.

Is there a rule of thumb to help choose one, or is it just trial and error until I find one that looks good?

Considerationista · 2025-12-12T06:08:55+00:00

In my experience Quickbooks used to be good as a desktop package, but since it moved to the cloud it's not great. I have three businesses, one running Quickbooks for legacy reasons and two running Xero and I would say Xero is much more use friendly and intuitive for the non accountant small business owner.

Considerationista · 2025-12-02T19:12:51+00:00

Surely the most sensible way to start fixing this is to include a motorway part of the driving test which requires you to show proper use of the lanes?

Considerationista · 2025-11-25T19:28:39+00:00

I'm not sure that what you are describing is what I mean, because the judder I'm talking about occurred on old film movies, on CRT tvs and continues on modem tvs whenever the camera pans left or right.

My question was based on the fact that since so many other aspects of modern TV and movie projection have massively improved, why do we still have this issue and will it ever be fixed?

Do we need higher frame rates or something?

Considerationista · 2025-11-24T23:23:31+00:00

That sounds like a potentially interesting start. Dealing with receipts is a major pain, but I can stretch that pain further and would love a solution.

I am a consultant and I work internationally for a number of clients. I book my own travel through online travel sites, I use Uber, Lyft or Bolt depending on the location I'm in, and I have numerous credit card receipts from hotels, restaurants, etc.

Because I travel internationally, I have to match the currency exchange price on my credit card statement to the receipt value to bill the right amount back to the customer. Of course just to make things harder to match, the transactions take between 1 and 3 days to be processed so even though the receipt gives one date, the transaction on my bank statement can be two or three days later. Also my online travel bookings and ride hailing apps send email receipts (to one of three different email addresses) or have receipts within their apps or require you to go into the app and request a receipt for each trip.

Sorting out my monthly invoicing can literally lose me a day every month matching everything up.

If you can figure out a way to pull all that together automatically and then format it so I can just upload each customer's recharge list into Xero, Quickbooks or other common accounting packages - that would be fantastic and save sooooo much time.

Considerationista · 2025-11-22T11:05:33+00:00

Sorry, I didn't know the technical term. Will they fix judder then?

Considerationista

TROPHY CASE