Posts by Gene Cash

Seriously though

Is this the same David Levy that wrote a ton of Creative Computing articles back in the '80s?

Everyone else is worse

Considering the California express train is now costing $77 BILLION and delayed another 5 years, nobody has the standing to laugh at Musk.

Nooooo Android P 4 J00!

Turns out that the old Nexus phones (like my 6P, etc) and the Pixel C tablet won't get it.

Nice.

> Maplin, once known for its well-trained staff, began to lose a reputation for technical knowledge and so its unique selling point started to become less apparent

This is the case with all the brick & mortar stores that I can see. There's now zero training in a business's basic line of product or work.

Radio Shack used to have staff knowledgeable enough to suggest component values, or at least a relevant Forrest Mims book.

Barne's & Noble used to have staff that could actually suggest books based on what you said you liked. Now they just pound the hell out of you to BUY a loyalty card.

Best Buy staff used to be able to point you in the direction of PC video cards. Now there's things locked in cabinets that I can't actually buy, like SSDs, VR headsets, cameras, and drones.

Sears sales staff used to be able to actually tell you the pro and con of buying a particular appliance or tool and the difference between this model and that one, other than the price.

There's no longer any "added value" to going to a physical store, other than the tiny, tiny chance they might actually stock something you know you already want.

£4.5m for a satellite? That's actually pretty good rates.

PDA market?

My "phone" manages my calendar, meetings, and appointments, my contacts, my to-do list, my email, my bank accounts and credit card balances, the restaurants I like to eat at, a list of tips & tricks I've collected, displays a map of where I am, handles my navigation, tells me where the nearest EV charging spot is, opens my garage when I get home, and plays solitaire.

Far more than any of my Palm Pilots did...

If THAT is not a PDA, I don't know what is...

DIY sales

Does anyone track raw CPU & motherboard sales?

"two Audi Lunar Quattro rovers"

So they're guaranteed to crash into each other then?

So basically they've decided to not do the census and just guess

On this side of the pond, the census decides a lot of government resources, such as health "care", housing/city planning, emergency police/fire funding, welfare, roads, and other important stuff.

And yes, we have morons that don't fill it out. I threatened to evict a roommate over that. You wanna be that kind of idiot, don't do it in my house.

Blocking tracking

If you block google-analytics.com, you get nothing. No login or anything.

Hm, while reading this, I started humming The Cranberrie's "Zombie" - I don't know why...

I wonder if I can buy a Verizon phone, then get Google to bankroll a lawsuit to test this, like Thiel bankrolled Hogan...

> New York refused to provide the FCC any data

> Seven states refused to provide the FCC with any data

How the hell does that happen?

Stupid generic names

Yeah, this happens in open source too... there's a visio-alike called dia or diagram or something like that, so when you search for it, or for plugins or source, the actual hits are 3 pages in.

I suggested they use a more non-generic name and they got all pissy.

Saw it from 3 miles away

I plopped for the "feel the heat" package for $230 which meant you got bussed to the Saturn V center, about 3 miles from the pad and 9 miles from the landing zones. We stopped on the way at the Shuttle Landing Facility to see the plaque where Atlantis rolled to a stop in 2011 at the end of the last Shuttle mission. That was unexpected. The 4.5km long 100m wide strip is a huge piece of tarmac.

Anyway, there were no winds locally, they were all high-altitude and you could see wisps of clouds skidding over. It was a beautiful perfect Florida day. Sunny, 78F and barely any clouds.

Bill Nye was there to stump for people to join The Planetary Society. He's actually got a nice sense of humor.

Most of us figured there was about a 30% chance it would launch, and we were wasting our time. People didn't think it would go "boom" but they also realized most "first" launches get scrubbed 2 or 3 times.

If you think the SpaceX people were cheering and yelling, they didn't have nuthin' on this crowd. When they announced fueling start, people went nuts. When they announced "go" for the launch at 3pm, people went nuts.

We got to hear the SpaceX webcast without the usual 10 second delay.

It was REALLY LOUD. AND BRIGHT. It was welding-torch bright. And yes, we were warned to stay away from the Saturn V center glass windows, which was a good idea as you could hear the entire building shaking at launch from 100 feet away. Of course you were shaking too. Megadeth & AC/DC only wish they could get a bass rumble that deep and loud.

You could see the boosters fall away, then they were two bright dots overhead for the re-entry burn, then they fell some more, and finally they did that synchronized science-fiction landing just to the left of the VAB, from where we were sitting. Just amazing. You couldn't script something that looked so much like a '50s sci-fi movie.

Just after they landed, there was the 4 sonic booms BAM-BAM, BAM-BAM, and then the rumble of the landing rockets, as the sound finally got to us.

Afterwards, we got a complementary champagne toast in a nice glass keepsake that says "Falcon Heavy Test Mission 2018", and a SpaceX Falcon Heavy hat, and a red "Falcon Heavy: I was there" t-shirt. So it was literally "been there, got the t-shirt"

Worth every nickle.

Waterfox

The first 15 hits for the Waterfox browser (another fork of Firefox) are not the browser. Been that way for months. Sad.

So, quick question

There was a bit going around on how to vote for Hillary via twitter...

Now, you and I know that's an absolute joke, but I ran into a fuckton of people that seriously thought it was legit and thought they had actually voted for Hillary that way. Seriously. I am not kidding. I'm talking waitresses in restaurants, people's parents, non-tech types like sales and repair people... People saying the day/week after the election saying "oh I voted by twitter" and meaning it.

Any idea who started that bit? It was effective, if that was its aim.

> precipitous drop in advertising revenue thanks to the dominance of digital companies

No, it's a precipitous drop in advertising revenue thanks to the precipitous drop in quality.

My local paper is so shite I get angry when they throw it on the lawn for free.

They can't even get a story about maintenance on the local decorative water fountain right.

They can't get a story about the airport building a new terminal right.

They can't get a story about the Falcon Heavy right, even when it should have been just a copy&paste from the AP newsfeed.

Blue on blue

This is self-inflicted. The US Army actually issued FitBits to quite a few people. No concern about opsec at all.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/10/22/army-issues-fitbit-bands-in-test-fitness-program.html