Posts by Gene Cash

Re: SQLite

If you read their "methodology" (https://db-engines.com/en/ranking_definition) you'll see it's basically a social media popularity contest... i.e. what's the "coolest" not what's the most installed/actually used.

* Number of mentions of the system on websites, measured as number of results in search engines queries. At the moment, we use Google and Bing for this measurement. In order to count only relevant results, we are searching for <system name> together with the term database, e.g. "Oracle" and "database".

* General interest in the system. For this measurement, we use the frequency of searches in Google Trends.

* Frequency of technical discussions about the system. We use the number of related questions and the number of interested users on the well-known IT-related Q&A sites Stack Overflow and DBA Stack Exchange.

* Number of job offers, in which the system is mentioned. We use the number of offers on the leading job search engines Indeed and Simply Hired.

* Number of profiles in professional networks, in which the system is mentioned. We use the internationally most popular professional network LinkedIn.

* Relevance in social networks. We count the number of Twitter (X) tweets, in which the system is mentioned.

Re: Not "nearly impossible to enforce"

If they're a public company in the US, they'd be required by the SEC to disclose both that they got cracked and that they paid ransom.

And the SEC is one of the few agencies with teeth, other than the IRS.

The little padded benches around the Cray multi-sided "column of computer" were where the liquid cooling equipment lived. I looked at a lot of pictures and I never saw any visible radiators.

Re: This is why I abandoned Windows.

> You seem to think that Linux provides a difficult user experience, It doesn't.

Nope. After 30 years of using it, I can confidently say the Linux user experience is absolute crap.

For example, GIMP is the only program I think I've ever encountered that doesn't let you save a modified file on exit. I can talk about other stupid Linux UI tricks ad infinitum.

But it's still better than Windows.

Re: Just imagine

Yeah, every time Microsoft releases a "security" update that breaks printers or wifi, they have to STFU about other people's stuff for a month.

Looks like a couple Microsofties downvoted you.

Re: Licensing

YES. Man.. I wish I could give you a thousand upvotes.

I've had 8 or 9 excellent apps disappear because they couldn't update to the latest Android for whatever reason.

I still miss the PYKL3 app, which was the best weather and storm app ever. It even supported airport high resolution TDWR radars, such as Orlando International, which had about 10x-25x the resolution of the NWS WSR-88D radars but only half the range. As I was usually inside the range, it was great. It also displayed lightning and earthquake activity.

Gone, because they couldn't update to Android 12.

Google need to be hit again. Harder.

Re: Windows CLI text editor?

I tried to install EMACS on a new Debian box I set up a week ago:

Retrieving bug reports... Done

Parsing Found/Fixed information... Done

serious bugs of emacs (→ 1:29.1+1-5) <Outstanding>

b1 - #1041415 - emacs: fails to install: post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1

Summary:

emacs(1 bug)

Oops. Guess I'll be waiting a bit.

Re: Jedes Schrift'l ist ein Gift'l

Heh. BBC America subtitles some of the British shows.

"Be warned: The following program contains British accents. Therefore, portions have been subtitled for the easily confused"

I still have the screencap.

I wouldn't be able to resist phoning some people up and singing 'em the "I tolja so" song

Re: It is only Rural if they say it is.

It's not that it's not "rural" or not, or space-based or whatever... it's that Starlink is SLOW and doesn't meet the contract's internet speed requirements.

The FCC doesn't care if Muskrat uses two tin cans and a wet string, as long as it's fast enough to qualify.

Re: Impressive engineering

While I really agree that robot probes are an excellent value for money, if we had astropalentologist boots on the ground, they could look for actual fossils.

A couple hours of astronauts on the Moon did more science than all the Surveyor, Ranger, Zond, or Luna probes ever did, even discounting the sample returns. For example, "what? look! it's ORANGE soil!!"

I can't put my hand up and I'm getting f*cking tired of it...

Re: Platinum

So 2MW/77kW is about 26 cubes. If there's 20g of platinum per, that's over half a kilo of platinum.

Re: Chips

Potato chips? Is that anything like crisps?

Re: I suspect

Especially considering it was pre accelerated graphics cards, IIRC.

Re: Another option

I was also fortunate enough to get Devuan to boot on my Raspberry Pis because PiOS (or whatever the f*ck it's called these days) is similarly infested with systemd.

Maybe, but it probably backfired with all the people going "this is why I bought Brother and not HP" and just reinforced their resolve to not buy HP and tell all their friends to not buy HP.

At least I hope so.

Re: RadioShack was wonderful

They were awesome. You could buy any electronic componentry, including 74LSxxxx chips and some CMOS stuff in single quantities and I REALLY miss that.

I recently needed a 1uF capacitor for my garage door and there is no longer anywhere that sells electronic components by the piece to anyone that walks in.

Fortunately, we have Sky Craft in Orlando, which has an entire supermarket size aisle of capacitors. And another aisle of resistors. They even found a Radio Shack store display with component drawers and set it up for us old fogies. Sky Craft started out as aerospace surplus when the space program would scrap an entire computer for having the wrong color paint or something. That practice has stopped, but they still have unique stuff, like equipment parachutes, cleanroom bunny suits, and weird test equipment.

I got a TRS-80 Model I Level I 4K for Christmas, 1979. I remember arguing with my mother about the $160(?) for a Level II kit, for 16K and enhanced BASIC. She worked on mainframes and 16K was an ungodly amount of memory that you'd never use as a single person. She passed away before I was able to show her my desktop with 32GB of RAM.

Re: Overton

Does the nurse know you have access to the internet?

> we had to go for a more expensive model

Hm. So you rewarded them for having an iffy supply chain?

Re: Every single time

"She had a voice that sounded like she had grown up on an estate in the countryside with acres of land and friends like Jocasta etc. Think of someone announcing the guests at a posh party and you have the idea of what it sounded like"

A friend once described such as "oh my GOD, she talks in CURSIVE!!"

Re: No-one..

You're confusing the SLS booster, which has flown, with the Starliner capsule, which is years late and *may* fly next April, and isn't designed to go to the Moon anyway, just to ISS.

Re: A speical kind of fail

When they cut ALL the corners on quality and safety in pursuit of teh bux.

It was probably very safe to start with, when the engineer originally designed it. Then it went through "how do we make this cheaper?"

As usual there's an XKCD for that. I'll bet Heaviside & Munroe would have been great drinking buddies...

https://xkcd.com/435/