Re: Is it 'flying cars are just around the corner' time again ?
Yeah we definitely need a new 'Moller SkyCar' icon for these stories ;-)
223 publicly visible posts • joined 5 May 2010
I once contracted at a company who had a VERY expensive new server dissapear one weekend. From an internal secure server room. With multiple layers of security do to the fact we connected to other organisations who like to keep things very secure too. And 24hr manned security on site. On a site with only one entrance (past security). With electronic monitoring systems external to the building. And for various reasons the server would not be easy to sell on.
Security saw/heard nothing. The first we knew was when we tried to log on to said machine on monday morning only to find we couldn't connect..
Strangely there didn't seem to be a big fuss about it, and it was quietly replaced. Thinking back now, there was more than a whiff of anchovy about the whole thing ;-) I was just a lowly contractor - so I took my money each month, did what I was told, and kept my mouth shut :-D
Well this has all reminded me of being a callow yoof at polytecnic, and learning to use Sunview/Suntools on some kind of workstation with a giant CRT monitor. Also DEC Ultrix on workstations with those wierd round mice. THen worked for quite a few years with SGI Irix from the old Indigo all the way up to the days of the O2, Indigo2 etc.
Must dig out that Jurassic Park poster SGI were hawking around at the time, and get it framed. It's probably worth several hundred pence these days ;-)
Hmm, AdBlue needs to be topped up (fairly) regularly so is unlikely to be hidden. So I wonder if Ford were also using a similar system to Stellantis - i.e. a hidden fuel additive tank or pouch (Eolys, pat fluid, other names) that the car decides is empty after certain parameters are met (e.g. 100,000 miles travelled / x fuel ups, or somesuch). THat sounds more likely including the price to refill.
I had the emissions light come on on a Subaru once. Of course dealers want to replace lots of expensive parts. Some internetting later and I discovered the issue was that I hadn't closed the fuel cap enough 'clicks' after the last fuel up. This lead to a sensor somewhere getting upset and throwing the code...
Sadly main dealers no longer employ mechanics with diagnostics skills. They seem to be just parts-fitters who are presumably on comission for each unnecessary part they replace!
It's about "my system works just fine now, and I don't trust microsoft not to fuck it up with the upgrade"
My work laptop is Win11, its ok, its just windows, no different to 10 really.
My home machine is Win10, there's no way I'm upgrading until forced - not because I 'hate' win11, but because it works fine now and I don't want it broken by the upgrade (even if the chances are smaller these days of that happening).
YMMV of course.
Biz says folks know the difference between fixed and mobile broadband. Do they, though, asks ASA?
I think anyone event slightly technically minded is well aware that most people have NO idea about their internet connection. As far as they are concerned 'WiFi' is the magic thing that allows them to see pr0n and memes, regardless of how they're actually connected.
"Plus, if you have an emergency in West Wales, are you on your own?"
I mean, quite often yes. But that's more to do with the lack of emergency services coverage here rather than any communications issues. Best to make your own way to hospital here, rather than waiting for an ambulance for example (and that's not a slur on the overworked WAS staff, there's just not enough of 'em).
Gen X here, and I've no idea what the word-salad-wankers are on about either. Having run out of fucks to give years ago, I've no problem with telling them to start again and this time use English to explain whatever the hell it is they're on about. It's probably one reason I'm never going to get promotion :-D
Vulcano, near Sicily.
Ooh, that looks interesting, I'll take a walk. 30 seconds later I'm hop-skipping across the sand like some kind of lizard, heading for the cooling refuge of some concrete that was merely blisteringly hot ;-)
I suggest you wear something on your feet if you visit such a beach in the summer !
(icon for the temperature)
I have very fond memories of RISC-OS at school - we had a 'wacky' computer science teacher who made everything fun and interesting (and also let us take machines apart to fit hardware etc - I seem to remember we didn't destroy the Hawk V9 hand scanner :-D )
It was a bit of a shock when I went to Poly and had to use PCs running Windows 3.0 - it seemed so janky, and only 2 mouse buttons ;-)
I wanted a RiscPC but the price was too high for an impoverished student at the time, sadly.
Now I'm wondering if there's somewhere on the web I can go and play Zarch again, good times :-)
Whenever I see stories like this, I think back to my undergrad days, and a project to write a neural network to recognise patterns. (Written in Eiffel - is that still a thing!?) Long story short, when given a pattern it ought to recognise, it always came up with the inverse of the 'right answer' as the result.
When asked why, the lecturer's response was (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Fuck knows".
In summary, nobody ever knew how any of this stuff works, and probably still doesn't ;-)
I've been searching t'webs but haven't found a straight answer anywhere. Can you actually 'buy a game' for these new consoles, or do you HAVE to subscribe to something monthly? I'm almost tempted by the cheaper one, but it stops being cheap when you're spending loads each month on subscriptions. My IT equipment is low power linux boxen, and a windows box supplied by work which is probably powerful enough for Tetris but not much else. I just want to play Just Cause 3 occasionally for the explosions and sillines ;-) (I am aware of 4, but 3 looks more fun to me)
As someone being run ragged by having to update systems due to covid, I have some sympathy for the developers of this app. If it's anything like my experience they'll be battling constantly changing and contradictory requirements that are generated daily by random members of a hastily assembled 'task and finish' group (barf). They will probably have spotted problems before they arise, but will either be ignored, or railroaded into releasing it yesterday, if not sooner. Of course any actual problems post-release will result in shocked pikachu faces all round by the T&F gang.. (and late nights for the developers where they get to implement what they said was needed in the first place)
Thorough testing? ahahahahaAHAHAHAHAHAHA *gasp* Yes, nice idea, you need to actually know what they want it to do, first ;-)
Having said that, I'll be seeing if I can contribute to the maintainers of utPLSQL after all this, as it has saved my bacon a few times already....
Given that windows search has been broken for SO long... I always revert to dir c:\<whatever> /s /b to find files with wildcards on my work PC. It runs almost instantly. Is there a powershell equivelant of that? I found the syntax so bizarre and verbose that I gave up with it long ago...
It *is* still handy on locked down machines though, as admins often forget it is there and leave it open.. so I heard, anyway ;-)
Each manufacturer to have an allocated chime (Yankee doodle dandy for all usa built cars of course). The faster they go, the louder ( and more distorted) the chime. In fact, speed the chime up proportional to speed too..
Absolutely no downsides to this idea at all. Nope, none! ;-)
Because these days everything MUST be 'curated' - you're not smart enough to just look at a list of things and decide for yourself what's interesting. Well, that's what just about every major website thinks these days, anwyay. <mutter> I remember when everything around here was green (screen).... gophers for goalposts... </mutter>
Some variation of the above is now my go-to method of searching for files under Windows. Ever since the search indexer appeared the GUI search has got slower and more useless with each release.
dir is now the fastest way to find a file if you know something about the name. IME, YMMV of course ;-)
Part of me is sad that the bloated UI of windows makes this necessary. Part of me is happy it is still an option!