Posts by Ropewash

Re: Now I feel like a Luddite...

I think you are overlooking the billions of folks in the developing world.

Not many home internet connections, computers, or even toilets... but there's a shitload of cheap android phones.

Re: "they don't keep your priceless photos safe"

If by 'physical copy' and 'optical media' you mean photo negatives and/or slides then yes. Most other methods of storage degrade or are obsolete (both form and file format) after a few decades have passed.

Thus always with AMD.

They usually produce really excellent hardware and then cripple it with firmware/software written by a drunken hobo smashing a keyboard with his empty wine jug.

It made the pairing with ATI seem more than appropriate as they also never produced a driver that didn't contain at least one major fault.

If the supporting software by some miracle actually proves viable the only solution is to farm the chipset production and bios off to a different company so they can destroy whatever actually worked in AMD's reference build.

I'm also dropping Intel for AMD, for the first time since the celeron 300 came out, but I'm waiting to see which motherboard maker comes out on top for reliability first. Also what's with the pricing? X570 is about 20% higher than z390 same maker, same model type... Is the shitty chipset fan really worth that much?

Re: Just another stupid thought bubble...

This is just it. The more they tighten their grip, the more people will encrypt and obfuscate their connections.

If the .gov had just shut their big yaps right at the start they could still be using clearnet honeypots to nab the real villains of the online world instead of chasing ghosts through the onion at great cost for limited result.

But keeping silent and doing your job never got anyone a budget increase.

You do know there are more Indians living in India than there are caucasians on the entire planet...

I think they warrant a bit more than 10%.

Re: can squeeze 700km from a single full battery charge

Central Canada here...

How about -40C with all heating/defrost on full?

Not that I've broken my google fingers, but I'm lazy. What is the rated charge % for EV batteries at -40? I know from bitter experience that a lead-acid lasts for about 15 seconds of starter use at that temp before dying.

Re: USB ports ?

Unless you are one of us who work in a machine shop.

My mag connects look like they're going for a full biker beard.

Re: The constitution is not supposed to be optional

It takes a lot of citizens with rifles to do that sort of jailing.

The 2nd amendment in that constitution is there specifically for this reason, but it doesn't seem to be getting much popular press these days.

Re: Apple making things easier

I love those type of solutions.

How many machines does it take to get to that process by trial&error?

This right here is why schools need these devices.

Lesson one, week three - Restoring your broken boot. Students must devise and apply a method to make their busted PoS machine run again. Pass/Fail to be determined by pushing the power switch and seeing what happens.

That is exactly what children need to learn how to do if they wish to live in a technological society.

I'm not being sarcastic either.

Re: Limited resources

>>At some point there is nothing left to steal...<<

That's a nice sentiment, but there's 400,000 new things to steal born on this planet every day.

Re: It's not just Apple

>>I wonder how a smoker on a 5ish a day habit<<

Speaking as one with an 8ish/day habit I'd think the iPhone owner was a self-regarding ponce and go have a smoke.

Apples and orang...err duMauriers.

Re: And the solution is

>treachery and incompetence<

I thought those were the two keywords guaranteed to get your resume looked at around .gov

I think if they started penalizing those they'd have a lot of office space to let.

>>No, he's definitely not a moron - they don't employ morons in the NSA. <<

Being a genius mathematician =/= Being a genius mechanic.

Re: No need categorise submitted image at all

Not my fault that hashes of my privates routinely match with the Eiffel tower.

I'm a bit put out it wasn't the Burj Khalifa.

Re: So in theory, it'll run Slackware?

Also this. (If it ever gets past vapour stage.)

https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

Re: Another Day Another Lie

The government cries out in pain as it strikes you.

Re: A complete wipe?

No need.

The solution is the same no matter what generation of .gov software your country has installed.

Erase the partition WashingtonDC then create a new partition and format with whatever .gov system you feel you require.

If I might offer some advice; make the partition much smaller this time.

Re: Linux on the desktop, and printing

>>Mind you, Brother offers Linux drivers in .deb and .rpm formats on their website. But... I didn't need the .deb. It just worked. WTF?<<

I'm glad that worked out well for you, but it also raises another point against Linux in the eyes of the many.

On Apple you drop a .dmg on your desktop and a program installs. (At least that was it when I last used OSX years back.) On Windows you only have to click an .exe to encrypt your entire filesystem and let the ransom-ware folks know you're alive and well.

But on Linux...

.deb .rpm .pkg .tar.bz .etc ...It requires faith and hope to try to install anything that's not in your repo. (Faith, hope and a very detailed reading of the dependency list.) Even then the names of some of those things you need are going to change from distro to distro and versions will almost certainly be different.

This does not go over well with people who just want to do some new task in a hurry.

Yum, emerge, pacman, apt-get, etc doesn't bloody help either. Fragmentation is great for people who want to experiment and learn, but it's ass for everyone else.

Re: Blast from the past

>>because they have some industrial machine attached to their computer.<<

I had a disturbing occurrence of something similar last year. A machine needed it's control computer replaced and the replacement was Win10. It arrived already set up and patched with all software installed so all I had to do was re-do all the machine specific calibrations and everything was good to go.

I did not feel it needed to see the network so it wasn't connected.

One month in and the system decides it's pirated and pops up the notice continually. Plugging it into the network oddly solved that without any intervention from me (i.e. no activation needed as it had already been done before.)

Unfortunately it then said it needed to upgrade the system and drivers and dumped everything machine specific into the bin in the process, causing another re-do of all the calibrations. The new graphics driver it tried to load also buggered up the machine interface program and I had to disable it and run a fallback to get things back on the screen. I fully blame AMD for that one as their drivers are always ass, but why did my OS even try to push a new graphics driver? That is not it's damned job.

Thanks MS. Lovely new OS you've got there, makes me glad I'm not using it at home.

Now it's bugging me to upgrade again and I don't want to push that button.

Re: The Stages of MS Denial

You just reminded me of one of my long-time favourite bits of reading.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2008/06/24/full-text-an-epic-bill-gates-e-mail-rant/

Especially the line;

"Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?"

I recall thinking at that time that perhaps ole BillG wasn't used to using Windows.

Re: Oops, a bit of truth accidentally slipped out

I'm no expert on the GPL but what is the problem with MS doing anything involving linux?

While it is wise to be suspect of their linux efforts, what exactly do you think they'll be able to do?

Other than trying to foist another variant of systemd on the userbase there's no possible way for them to EEE the GPL. Anything released under GPL isn't owned by any entity they can buy, they can't poison GPL'd code because they have to release the source. The only thing they could do would be to try and build a whole system from the ground up while avoiding the use of any GPL code... They already have that. It's called Windows.

Re: you are a 1st world problem

>>People don't need protecting

>Yes they do. From products that will harm their health.

Fuck right off. I'll smoke if I want to, drink if I want to and stay up late eating fucking crisps if I want to.

>>children should be taught how to think, not what to think

>Impossible under capitalism

Last time I checked, parents were still parents no matter what system they live under. It's their job to teach the children.

>>Go out and do something, be the best you can

>The proletariat don't have the luxury of choice.

Yes. Yes we do. No-one is forcing us to make shitty decisions, we do that all on our own and often refuse to learn from the mistakes. That's our failure. Every person who ever worked their way up from nothing to have a decent life is proof that the choice is there.

>>ignore them and got on with our lives

>Our lives as consumers right?

I almost agree with you there... But I dare you to live without consuming anything for a week. Being alive means consumption, no way around it. If you'd said hyper-consumers then I would have been on side.

So what is your solution to these ills if I may be so bold as to inquire?

If you suggest socialism I'll point out that Venezuelan real-estate is really cheap right now. Go buy yourself some and live in your utopia. Personally I'll pass.

Re: To Constitute or not to Constitute...

At least in a communist society, the sociopaths will easily be identified and Promoted.

FTFY

Re: Inevitable

FSB & PLA

I can't be the only one who wondered what the frontside bus or a programmable logic array had to do with this story.

Re: ymmv

@ dbtx - "It bothers me that smart people are trying to "rescue" the less-smart people from having to do it, and teaching each other that it is a worthy goal."

True. The smart people that repair car engines "rescue" the less smart people from having to learn how to do it. The smart people who know how to apply roofing materials correctly "rescue" the less smart people from having to learn (and also from leaky roofs). The smart people who can use a bulldozer to build a road grade "rescue" the less smart people from having to drive to work on a roller-coaster.

Knowing how to use the sed command does not make a person more intelligent than knowing how to make a tree fall in the direction you want it to. (Also, the errors in tree falling make for better .webms than the sed command errors)

Re: In five years we could have Triage AI

@ Rattus Rattus - "I'm not sure I want to be part of an operation that requires a surgeon's sense of taste."

Can't see how wearing flared trousers has any effect on surgery...

Re: S is for Spyware

@Dave 126

You know... Last time I browsed the Windows store it did not seem to have autoCAD available as a UWP application. I highly doubt there's any CAD/CAM, circuit design or, in fact, ANY engineering or manufacturing software of any sort on the store.

So what "third party applications" are these "engineers" using that the S version of Win10 could possibly offer them? A dictionary? Maybe a new alarm clock? Do they do their design work solely within the world of Minecraft?

Why wouldn't these folks just buy a real windows machine to actually get work done on?

I'm certainly no engineer, but I still prefer Win7 on a full-fat desktop complete with a vidcard you could brew coffee on and an uncanny ability to run any Windows software from any source.

In many cases yes, in others...

Not so much.

Blender has grown so far from the 2.4 days that when upgrading to the 2.6 & 2.7 versions I was amazed at how intuitive and easy to use it has become. I now use it as a primary meshing tool on both my windows and linux installs.

GIMP... Not so much. Though I do use it for a couple of file formats it has plugin support for, it's not my primary software. Especially not on the Surface where it's menu driven interface fails hard for me and my big, fat fingers. So for content creation that's a 50-50 split free vs commercial.

As for operating systems I have one dedicated windows machine, one dedicated linux machine and my gaming rig has both installed as the tie-breaker. I try to buy and run any games I want on Steam-linux to show a little support, but realistically most of my gaming is still on the Win7 install. So that probably tips things to 45-55 in favour of the commercial OS given approximately equal usage time for each machine.

Free software is definitely a much bigger part of my life than it was 18 years ago (my first Linux install... Redhat5.2 bought at a big-box store on a whim), but it can't cover all the bases. So commercial software on a free base would be the next best thing.

I've been saying that for all of those 18 years though and it still hasn't happened.

Re: Why not

Precisely.

The helicopter IS the flying car. The reason you won't be able to pop down to the shops in your 'flying car' is the same reason you can't do it in a helicopter. You'll blow the neighbour's dog through his basement window, clip the telcomms lines off your home, snag a high-tension cable by the highway and come crashing down right in front of a 40ton freightliner. If you're sober.

It'll get messy after a few pints.

The license, training. airport and flightplans all exist for a really good reason.

Oh... and screw automation. Once you've got a few hundred thousand fliers in the air around a big city you'll get to see the three dimensional version of gridlock with the added bonus of falling out of the damned sky. How would the central control (there would need to be a central control for a city or you'd have absolute flaming chaos) for that many aircraft actually work?

Re: My 2 cents regarding ditching Unity

Ditto on the compiz here. Always one major regression away from being usable.

I tried unity when it first came out and was sort-of getting used to it when I noticed something up after an update, my fans were on while watching a video. Why? The system was using 25% processor to run an 8-bit vid, and 70% to decode hi10p. On a quadcore...

Swapped to my ever-present fallback UI openbox and those numbers were 2% and 15%.

Filed a report to the unity devs and got the reply it was a compiz thing and they would look into it. I installed Mint instead. Never went back to Ubuntu and though I departed from Mint quite a few years ago, I've never left cinnamon behind for long.

Re: Fighting back?

Every so often I try to find a flak generator for the modern internet, some little program I could piggyback to the browser that randomly pings various sites off some whitelist of millions constantly in the background. I always come up empty handed and forget about it by the next day. It's easier to go the VPN route than to try and mess the system about for fun anyhow. Though I've always wondered what sort of ads would show up. Probably just as effectively targetted as the ones I get now... Not at all.

Seems similar would be a good idea for telemetry. Just a hook into a valid channel that injects a little trickle of nonsense, like 500,000,000 handwriting examples from some OCR database somewhere fed into their system one line at a time. Anything disruptive would be helpful (or at least fun).

@hans1

Well it IS free software. That doesn't mean it's free for everyone except Microsoft.

As long as they don't violate GPL I don't see the issue.