* Posts by decoherence

25 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Dec 2008

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

decoherence

Re: Ignorance?

Yes, it is ignorance. What you described in your first couple of sentences is ignorance. It isn't a four letter word or a judgement on character, it's just something that's good to be rid of. Maybe some commenters have friends with CP who are ignorant of what the word gimp can mean because it isn't used that way where they live. That's fine for them but their ignorance (again, no aspersions!) doesn't change a thing. Also, I'm not casting aspersions on the developers at UC. I dont know why they picked that name and its not germane to what I'm saying.

On a lighter note, I'm touring the US right now and yesterday passed a beer store that advertised that they'd fill your growler. So yeah, language can be funny. It's good to be aware of how it can be funny and who your audience is.

decoherence

Ignorance?

It is clear that some of the commenters here don't have any disabled friends. I can just imagine telling my friend with cerebral palsy, who can only walk with extreme difficulty and lives with near constant pain, that he should use the GIMP. 'No, it's okay, it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program!' I'd tell him. 'Oh, well in THAT case I'll totally use a program that blithely shares its name with something aholes have been calling me all my life!' He'd say. Except with sarcasm. No, I would point him at Glimpse and be grateful for their efforts.

First low-frequency fast radio burst to grace our skies detected at last

decoherence

Re: It's obvious..

My cloaca in engorged! Wanna preen?

How a tax form kludge gifted the world 25 joyous years of PDF

decoherence
Facepalm

What page was that on?

I love it when the publisher thoughtfully includes page numbers, then manages to prepend a title page and a blank or two. Page 17? You'll find it on page 19.

Atari accuses El Reg of professional trolling and making stuff up. Welp, here's the interview tape for you to decide...

decoherence
Mushroom

Re: Oh how the might have fallen...

Super Librarian! Notator! Passport! MT-32! I'm crying here, and it's not because I'm feeling nostalgic!

Those were the days, good riddance!

Set your alarms for 2.40am UTC – so you can watch Unix time hit 1,500,000,000

decoherence
Pint

Well paint me chuffed and call me a dandy! That was AMAAAAZING! SPECTACULAR! What a time to be alive!!

Linus Torvalds stops personally signing Linux kernel RC tarballs

decoherence
Pint

Here's to Linus Torvald's mother!

Farewell Unity, you challenged desktop Linux. Oh well, here's Ubuntu 17.04

decoherence
Trollface

All you people...

you want pretty ez to use guis but you don't buy the windows or the mactinosh. linux has gui but you probably haven't heard of it. it is call twm and only the pros running the openbsd linux knows anything about it.

i left the oven on under my bridge, gtg

Startup remotely 'bricks' grumpy bloke's IoT car garage door – then hits reverse gear

decoherence
Trollface

A hero to us all

Don't like a user? Disconnect them! This man is living the dream!

Arch Linux: In a world of polish, DIY never felt so good

decoherence

I use Arch at work and for years it has been rock solid through upgrades, as long as you pay attention to announcements. Recently this changed with the release of the nvidia 370 driver, which broke my GeForce 460. There was no announcement. I guess the people who signed off on the package didn't have a 460. It happens.

Since I was rather busy and had a spare disk with Debian 8, I popped that in, mounted my home directory from my Arch disk and carried on.

Yesterday I noticed that nvidia 375 was in testing, and not being terribly busy, booted off the Arch disk at runlevel 3, enabled the testing repo and updated. Problem solved! So now I am back on Arch which is great because some Debian python packages were starting to piss me off (cffi, cryptography, etc.)

Most of the issues I have had with Linux systems stem from poorly chosen versions of packages for the release (Debian, Ubuntu) or bugs in the packaging itself (Fedora). Arch solves both problems since it is a rolling release and since the package manager and the build system are comparatively simple. So I might get bitten by an upstream bug that slips through the cracks once every couple of years but that beats trying to shoehorn a working version of software in to a brittle system that isn't necessarily designed for it.

The problem with Canada? The price of broadband is too damn high

decoherence

Re: C51 product of Harper's Conservatives, .: loathe Trudeau's Liberals

"I'm left to decide... Does Mr Pott loathe *all* Canadian politicians, especially the Harper Conservatives even more than the Liberals? Or is he just another right winger whose thinking is completely confused?"

Or maybe he likes the NDP, who were flatly opposed to C-51.

Uninstall QuickTime for Windows: Apple will not patch its security bugs

decoherence

Some Adobe CC applications still make use of QuickTime. What do they have to say about this?

Longing to bin Photoshop? Rock-solid GIMP a major leap forward

decoherence

Photoshop user since version 2 (pre CS, pre-layers) and I find the GIMP generally less annoying to use compared to modern Photoshop's 'workflow'. But I also think Blender's UX is the best out there so don't mind me.

iOS 9 kludged our iPhones, now give us money, claims new lawsuit

decoherence

Bahahahaha you thought Apple gave a damn about products they don't sell anymore! That'll teach you! But count yourself lucky -- at least you didn't drop fifteen grand on on a tricked out version of their last (as in, final) workstation.

Android Security: How's BlackBerry going to fix it?

decoherence

Who's gonna patch your Priv if/when BlackBerry goes under?

Apple iPhones, iPads BRICKED by iOS 9's 'slide-to-upgrade' bug

decoherence
Trollface

This is obviously a feature, not a bug. Apple, in their infinite wisdom, is separating the wheat from the chaff. Those who don't make regular backups (via iCloud of course) are the Lesser fanbois and can't gloat over their Apple-calibre data hygiene practices. They should probably just go buy a Samsung since they're obviously not wise, sophisticated and well liked enough to use Apple's superior products.

Native hypervisor coming to OpenBSD

decoherence

'x86 virtualization is about basically placing another nearly full kernel, full of new bugs, on top of a nasty x86 architecture which barely has correct page protection. Then running your operating system on the other side of this brand new pile of shit.

You are absolutely deluded, if not stupid, if you think that a worldwide collection of software engineers who can't write operating systems or applications without security holes, can then turn around and suddenly write virtualization layers without security holes.' -Theo de Raadt

I use FreeBSD every day at work but I find OpenBSD much more pleasant to use. It was doing a fine job of running my personal x201 until we 'upgraded' to an idiotic Silverlight payroll system. Here's hoping I will soon be able to run Windows on my preferred desktop OS. Also, here's hoping Theo doesn't hunt me down and punch me in the face for saying that.

Screw your cutesy plastic art tat, the US govt has found a use for 3D printing: DRUGS!

decoherence
Thumb Up

William Gibson referred to this sort of thing in his (excellent) 2014 story The Peripheral. I wonder if he knew it was going on or if it's just more evidence of Gibson being a time traveller (I wouldn't be surprised by either case.)

Valve aiming to take the joy(sticks) out of gaming with Steam Controller

decoherence

While I am also perfectly happy with wsad and mouse look (which valve was good enough to acknowledge -- but why they getting up in my grammar?) I'm very interested in trying this controller. I think its great that they're trying something new with a form factor that hasn't changed significantly since its inception. And no, I don't consider these 'analogue' joysticks to be something new. Just a bad implementation of a design that predates controllers by a couple of decades. Also, I guess you haven't heard but hl3 will be a launch title for when this thing is finally released. Honest!!

Ace Reg reporter in career suicide shock

decoherence
Joke

REALLY?

"It's been an absolute pleasure to serve this unique and esteemed organ, which has some of the most knowledgable and sharpest readers around. I couldn't have wished for a better place to learn how to be a reporter."

You would think on a solemn occasion like this you could be at least a LITTLE serious...

Best wishes on the new job!

MS store staff in spontaneous electric boogie

decoherence
Coat

Yes,

"I have been a hard core Mac person for the past five years,"

You can tell by how very credulous he is.

I know, mine is the coat making the ironical 'wooshing' sound.

Can you talk and drive?

decoherence
Alert

Aren't passengers just as distracting?

The answer is 'they can be' but generally they aren't. Why? Because a responsible adult having a conversation with you while you drive is hopefully also at least peripherally aware of what is going on on the road. So if you're in a situation that requires your concentration, the other person in the car can shut up for a minute. Or, if they are oblivious, they can at least look around and discover that they should shut up for a minute when you don't answer immediately.

Children, in general, should be ignored when in the car, as should your drunk mates.

Ontario recently passed a bill banning cell phone use while driving. It comes in to effect some time in the fall. Hands-free kits are still allowed because enforcing a band on those would be near impossible, particularly the ones that wire in to your car stereo.

Vodafone shows off HTC's second Android phone

decoherence
Alien

@ Thomas Jolliffe

"Let's not forget that 'smartphones' (broad label I know) simply were not popular with the masses until the iPhone rolled around"

over-exposure to reality distortion field. recommend abstinence from all apple products for six months.

suggested replacement product: blackberry -- pre iphone model.

City of Heroes fingered in MMO patent lawsuit

decoherence
Coat

blizzard should get in on it now

"Hey NCsoft, wanna borrow some lawyers?"