I once watched two engineers/technicians argue for two hours about what power definitions should be displayed on a HMI interface. One of them argued that VARs were being EXPORTED during lagging conditions, so a lagging current should be shown as POSITIVE VARS and Power Factor! The other argued that VARs were IMPORTED during lagging conditions, so a lagging current should be shown as NEGATIVE VARs and Power Factor!

I was fairly new to the business and had no skin in the game, so I couldn’t contribute at the time, but I did find both arguments compelling and the whole scene was hilarious. Now that I’ve had some experience, I realize that they were both correct… from their perspectives.

Here’s an excerpt from The Relay Testing Handbook: Generator Relay Protection Testing that should help clarify how Phasor Diagrams can be interpreted differently by electrical workers with different backgrounds, and why you should NEVER plot a phasor on a Power (P-Q) Diagram:

“(Abraham) Lincoln called the introduction of patent laws one of the three most important developments ‘in the world’s history,’ along with the discovery of America and the perfection of printing.”

Using checkpoints to revert virtual machines to a previous stateOne of the great benefits to virtualization is the ability to easily save the state of a virtual machine. In Hyper-V this is done through the use of virtual machine checkpoints. You may want to create a virtual machine checkpoint before making software configuration changes, applying a software update, or installing new software. If a system change were to cause an issue, the virtual machine can be reverted to the state at which it was when then checkpoint was taken. //

Deleting checkpoints

Deleting checkpoints can help create space on your Hyper-V host.

Behind the scenes, checkpoints are stored as .avhdx files in the same location as the .vhdx files for the virtual machine. When you delete a checkpoint, Hyper-V merges the .avhdx and .vhdx files for you. Once completed, the checkpoint's .avhdx file will be deleted from the file system.

You should not delete the .avhdx files directly.

Our free VIN decoder can be used to determine everything from vehicle trim level to fuel tank capacity to crash test ratings.

One thing that ultimately allowed the impact of this event to be greatly reduced is that Android devices do not check the expiration date of the Root CA Certificate when establishing trust in the certificate chain... This means that it is still possible to anchor on the expired IdenTrust Root CA, and those Android devices would work, //

The 'New Default Chain' still ultimately anchors on the IdenTrust Root CA, meaning compatibility with Android devices that won't check the expiration date, but it passes through the new Let's Encrypt ISRG Root X1 CA which more modern clients will have in their trust store. This means those modern clients will stop the chain there and accept it as trusted too. Win-win. //

One interesting side effect of this though is that you can then modify the Root Certificates in the trust store and because no signature validation is taking place, meaning no integrity check is taking place, the modified Root Certificate will be treated as perfectly valid. This is the part that I'd never thought about. //

When first thinking about this issue, I felt a little bit like I did when I first found out, all those years ago, about signatures not being validated on roots and how that seemed ridiculous. Once you think about this more though, you realise that it does make sense and that it just doesn't seem logical upon first thought. In order to make this change and it actually have an effect on the client, you need to have access to that client with administrative privileges to change the root store. If your concern is that an attacker might do something like this, well, I'd suggest you have far bigger issues to concern yourself with given that the attacker has admin/root and is on your device!

Optimize-VHD

Module:
Hyper-V

Optimizes the allocation of space used by virtual hard disk files, except for fixed virtual hard disks.

Resize-VHD

Module:
Hyper-V

Resizes a virtual hard disk.

One of the many benefits of virtualization is portability, meaning that you can easily move selected virtual machines (VMs) from one location to another without experiencing downtime or service disruption. Portability within a Hyper-V environment is ensured through the Hyper-V Export and Import functionality, which allows you to easily copy and move a Hyper-V VM to a target location and then restore the VM to how it was at the time of export.

The Flight from Truth: The Reign of Deceit in the Age of Information Hardcover – January 21, 1992
by Jean Francois Revel

A distinguished French philosopher argues that the greatest threat to modern democracy is the dissemination of false information, myths that endanger the viability of freedom and the democratic way of life. //

“Human beings experience all sorts of needs for intellectual activity other than the need to know. The average human being seeks the truth only after having exhausted all other possibilities.’’ //

“For the philosophers of the enlightenment it naturally followed that once the obstacles have been overcome and we are in possession of the truth, we will mold our conduct and the governance of society accordingly.’’ //

“However, the main thesis of this book is exactly the contrary. It is based on the cultural contradiction that separates accessibility to knowledge from the irrationality of human behavior.’’ //

“I do not believe there is an automatic link leading from true knowledge to sound action. I believe this link can be established only through persistent, willful effort, intellectual rigor, mental discipline — in short, that the link is anything but natural.’’ //

“I also think that the hour has struck and that this effort must now be made for the survival of mankind.’’ //

“Knowledge only plays a part when it is not blocked by some sterile prejudice. Error, based on dogmatic ‘principles’ and unworkable ‘solutions’ is generally preferred to effective action based on knowledge and solid information. . . . To understand what is needed to late — at least for taking effective action — is almost the same as not to understand.’’ //

“The history of philosophy can be divided into two different periods. During the first, philosophers sought the truth; during the second, they fought against it. This second period, of which Descartes was the precursor of genius and of which Heidegger has been the most putrid manifestation, entered its heyday with Hegel. Between Descartes and Hegel there were several heirs of the truth seeking epoch, the most pathetically sincere of whom was Kant and the most subtle Hume, who vainly sought a middle way in order to stave off the ineluctable triumph of imposture.’’