* Posts by Uncle Slacky

2131 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Sep 2008

'They took away our Cup-a-Soup!' Share your tales of bleak breakout areas with us

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Windows

Re: Break? out? Room?

When I first started work in the early 1990s (at the Cornish training college of a certain telecommunications behemoth which no longer exists) we used to get pots of coffee and tea (and biscuits, if memory serves) with REAL CHINA cups and saucers laid on by the catering staff during morning and afternoon breaks in an actual break room.

Icon: nearest thing to an old fart icon.

Blue Monday: Efforts to inspire teamwork with swears back-fires for n00b team manager

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Managers looking good!

More like the SNAFU Principle:

In the beginning was the plan, and then the specification; And the plan was without form, and the specification was void.

And darkness was on the faces of the implementors thereof; And they spake unto their leader, saying: "It is a crock of shit, and smells as of a sewer."

And the leader took pity on them, and spoke to the project leader: "It is a crock of excrement, and none may abide the odor thereof."

And the project leader spake unto his section head, saying: "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide it."

The section head then hurried to his department manager, and informed him thus: "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength."

The department manager carried these words to his general manager, and spoke unto him saying: "It containeth that which aideth the growth of plants, and it is very strong."

And so it was that the general manager rejoiced and delivered the good news unto the Vice President. "It promoteth growth, and it is very powerful."

The Vice President rushed to the President's side, and joyously exclaimed: "This powerful new software product will promote the growth of the company!"

And the President looked upon the product, and saw that it was very good.

After the subsequent disaster, the suits protect themselves by saying "I was misinformed!", and the implementors are demoted or fired.

Artificial Intelligence: You know it isn't real, yeah?

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Still waitiing for Artificial People Personalities(tm), aka "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With".

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: re: an evil Robot Algocracy, they’ll achieve it through being thick

Obligatory XKCD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/

One click and you're out: UK makes it an offence to view terrorist propaganda even once

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Boffin

Re: "(2)In this section “record” includes a photographic or electronic record."

Thermite and its uses also feature heavily on episodes of Sky TV's old "Brainiac" series - better not have any old vids of that lying around still!

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Boffin

Re: So how many teachers are they planning on incarcerating, anyway?

Under no circumstances cut and paste the following link into your browser:

https://archive.org/details/GoldenBookOfChemistryExperiments/page/n23

Prez Trump orders Uncle Sam to step up AI efforts – we all know the White House knows a lot about artificial intelligence

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: We could replace him with a Raspberry Pi...

Shirley an OrangePi would be more appropriate?

Sure, you can keep Grandpa Windows 7 snug in the old code home – for a price

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Prevaricating?

It's a perfectly cromulent word.

Using WhatsApp for your business comms? It's either that or reinstall Lotus Notes

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Another good reason not to own a smartphone

My employer can't expect me to use my phone for business purposes if it can't run any apps. If they want me to use a smartphone they can bloody well buy me one and pay for the contract. And I can switch it off when I leave work!

Want a bit of privacy? Got a USB stick? Welcome to TAILS 3.12

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
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Re: With Systemd? No thanks

If you want something similar without systemd (and/or 32-bit compatible) there's heads:

https://heads.dyne.org/

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Linux

Re: Why Etcher?

I use the even older classic "dd"...

Florida man's deadliest catch forces police to evacuate Taco Bell

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Homo floridianus

It's why /r/FloridaMan exists.

Data hackers are like toilet ninjas. This is not a clean crime, you know

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Headmaster

Re: Cow orker

The term comes (AFAIK) from the old Dilbert newsletter (AKA Dogbert's New Ruling Class), along with the term "induhviduals", from back before Scott Adams went full Trump.

The Apple Mac is 35 years old. Behold the beige box of the future

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Stop

Re: Apple hardware quality

Take the battery out before it leaks everywhere!

Everyday doings of a metropolitan techie: Stob's software diary

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Cracker screwdrivers!

Glad to see I'm not the only one who uses these for delicate PC surgery - there always seem to be a few knocking around when you need one.

Ever feel like all your prayers go unheard? The Catholic Church has an app for that

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Devil

Re: No point

This is known as the "problem of evil" or the Epicurean paradox:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

World's first robot hotel massacres half of its robot staff

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: So that is why it starts

Relevant XKCD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
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Re: The room doll was removed

Don't forget the deluxe model (that's the one with the real hair).

(It's a NTNOCN reference, for you young'uns)

Begone, Demon Internet: Vodafone to shutter old-school pioneer ISP

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: And another old name is discarded...

Speaknig of early/free ISPs, anyone else here have an account on Spuddy? The support was great - they even installed a termcap for the crappy ICL m303 terminal I had to use to access it.

The info page: https://www.sweharris.org/spuddy/

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Historical accuracy

> (Please remind me of her name)

That would be EUnet GB - I know as I was at UKC at the time, and *nearly* got up the courage to ask for a job there when their office was still on an industrial estate in Whitstable (and been kicking myself ever since).

There are some references to it here: https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/about/history.html

Excuse me, sir. You can't store your things there. Those 7 gigabytes are reserved for Windows 10

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
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I still use an original eeePC 701 4G Surf (with 1Gb RAM and a 16Gb Class 10 SD card) running MX-18 when travelling. Takes a while to boot up but otherwise fine for watching movies, email and basic browsing.

I'm just not sure the computer works here – the energy is all wrong

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Ah, the carefree days of yore

My wife still insists on the TV being off while vaccuming, even though it's not a CRT.

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Stop

Re: Ah, the carefree days of yore

But nothing sucks like a VAX...

Um, I'm not that Gary, American man tells Ryanair after being sent other Gary's flight itinerary

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Re: It'll never happen...

A fellow early adopter here (thanks to a contact inside Google when Gmail was launched) - as I download my mail via Thunderbird I've set up filters to delete anything of the form firstnamelastname@gmail.com (I insist on the dot). I had to set up a special one for some nutty woman in the US who seems to be in some kind of weird passive-aggressive-narcissistic relationship (probably why the guy made up an email address) who used the "dot" form but who I didn't want to have to argue with. I sometimes see random messages on the rare occasions I use the browser to check email, they're mostly medical appointment reminders for some guy in Florida.

In its early days I even wrote to "abuse@pinterest.com" to cancel the subscription of a young girl (I think) using my address, as there was no other way to contact them via their site at the time. After several months, I actually got a (very polite) reply, possibly (from the sound of it) one of the founders.

I'll bear in mind GDPR, though, if I see anything relevant in future (most spam seems to be American/non-EU).

Heard the one where the boss calls in an Oracle consultant who couldn't fix the database?

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

About 10 years ago I had to explain the concept of big-endian/little-endian to a ~25yo French engineer with a 5-year degree under his belt, so the age limit checks out.

Support whizz 'fixes' screeching laptop with a single click... by closing 'malware-y' browser tab

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Stop

Re: Darned tech!

First seen as one of the "AI koans" from the Jargon File:

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html#id3141171

"Tom Knight and the Lisp Machine

A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.

Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: “You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong.”

Knight turned the machine off and on.

The machine worked."

It's a patch bonanza as Microsoft showers its OS platforms with update love

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Linux

There is a certain irony in seeing all these fixes requiring the command line, after all the (misplaced) criticism of Linux for supposedly always needing to use the command line to fix things.

Great Scott! Is nothing sacred? US movie-goers vote Back To The Future as most-wanted reboot

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Reboots

I think Hot Tub Time Machine probably milked the 80s for all it was worth, time-travel-wise.

Edit: Also the short-lived TV series "Do Over".

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: How unimaginative

No, we need a remake of "Plan 9 From Outer Space", or "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" or "They Saved Hitler's Brain".

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
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Re: Did'nt

About time for "Spaceballs 2:The Search for More Money"...

Consultant misreads advice, ends up on a 200km journey to the Exchange expert

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Trollface

> "Just delete the organisation" or "Just upgrade the entire domain" or "Just format the entire drive"

Or indeed "Just leave the EU"...

Linux kernel Spectre V2 defense fingered for massively slowing down unlucky apps on Intel Hyper-Thread CPUs

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Calibre uses multiple cores when converting ebook formats (one core per book), and of course those online cryptocoin miners will use them all if you let them.

My hoard of obsolete hardware might be useful… one day

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

> Two iomega zip drives, one with an 80 pin IDE connection and one with a USB 1 connection. Should I dump the IDE model and keep just the USB one?

I've got a parallel-port and a USB version - they came in handy when tranferring data/installing software on an old IBM PS/2 Note N33sx laptop whose floppy drive was dodgy.

Mything the point: The AI renaissance is simply expensive hardware and PR thrown at an old idea

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Don't forget PARRY!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARRY

Nikola Tesla's greatest challenge: He could measure electricity but not stupidity

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Anti-intellectual?

Largely by the Islamic empires translating the Greek originals into Arabic (which were then translated into Latin after the fall of Islamic Spain).

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Anti-intellectual?

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

- Isaac Asimov

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: The name 'Tesla' has been hijacked

Not to mention the Toyota MR2 in France.

Clunk, bang, rattle: Is that a ghost inside your machine?

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Library of Doom

Ook. Ook Ook!

RIP Charles Wang: Computer Associates cofounder dies aged 74

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Obligatory Simpsons reference

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S05E05/624506.jpg

F***=off, Google tells its staff: Any mention of nookie now banned from internal files, URLs

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Just tell 'em...

Or feck off...

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Just tell 'em...

What a load of felgercarb!

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
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Re: And then there are Spoonerisms

There was also the Kenny Everett character Cupid Stunt. All in the best possible taste, of course.

Silent running: Computer sounds are so '90s

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
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Re: Oh Gawd...

I digitised the entire intro from The Prisoner for use as the startup sound on my Mac IIsi at work in about 1992. It took up most of the hard drive, as I recall...

For the SE/30 I used occasionally at the time, I had HAL 9000 saying "I am completely operational and all my circuits are functioning perfectly".

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
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Re: Trigger Happy

Maybe he was a former Speccy user.

POKE 23609, 255

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
FAIL

Wot, no Trio?

"Da Da Da" is surely the grandaddy of all no-effort, piss-taking synth music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg

BTW, my SMS alert is Majel Barrett saying "Incoming Message", my ringtone is the phone ring sound from the Matrix and my alarm is the theme from the Twilight Zone.

Raspberry Pi fans up in arms as Mathematica disappears from Raspbian downloads

Uncle Slacky Silver badge

Re: Cross Distro?

It will also work in QEMU on Linux or Windows, e.g.:

http://linux-mitterteich.de/fileadmin/datafile/papers/2013/qemu_raspiemu_lug_18_sep_2013.pdf

30 years ago, NASA put Challenger behind it and sent a Space Shuttle back out into the black

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Meh

Re: Space Shuttle - Pop Culture Favorite

Meh - I prefer the Skylon: https://vimeo.com/42682980

UK space comes to an 'understanding' with Australia as Brexit looms

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Re: RE: Mooseman

Here's a link to the Brexit red line slide, showing how May has excluded all but Canada or South Korea style deals: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/BRITAIN-EU/01006039065/brexit.jpg

US and UK Amazon workers get a wage hike – maybe they'll go to the movies, by themselves

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: I Say!

Implied, not inferred.

Cookie clutter: Chrome saves Google cookies from cookie jar purges

Uncle Slacky Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Case for a new Marx

> Just, Google & C. understood from 1984 what proles want - they're giving them aplenty (especially YouTube), so they won't turn against the Big Brother.

Indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolefeed