Posts by Kubla Cant

CP/M looked a bit PDP-8-like

Except that one is an operating system and the other is a computer. Perhaps it was a bit like RT-11, RSX or RSTS? I recall that CP/M and RSTS both involved extensive use of a command called PIP.

Re: “were quoted a ridiculous price and told it would take four months”.

Morel of the story... don't practice mushroom management.

Re: "who had a computer at home (with a modem)"

The problem was the modem - many computer didn't come with one, and they were expensive

Before BT was privatised and relaxed the rules, modems all had to be tested and approved by Post Office Telephones. As a result, there were about three models available, each costing more than a week's wages. All were robustly engineered so that you could stand on them to flash an Aldiss lamp - this being generally the fastest communication they could manage.

vi was built by programmers, for programming

I wouldn't have the nerve to badmouth vi. But for those of us who don't use it all the time, the startup sequence is usually like this:

$ vi filename

<start typing stuff, then notice that I didn't enable insert mode until the first 'i' in the stuff>

:q!

$ vi filename

i

<start typing...>

Re: What's this Silverlight thing?

In an era where complete emulators for entire processor architectures can be implemented in pure JavaScript...

But SmallBasic presumably runs in a different era.

Re: The Last One.html

The Last One was actually the first in a long line of tools that make simple things easy and complicated things impossible.

Re: All these people agreeing with Verizon...

carry on with the Ad Hominims

I think you mean ad hominem. I'm not sure what the plural is (maybe it's "testimonial").

If it means anything, "ad hominims" means "to the ape-men".

Re: Forget the geeky stuff, sort out the user experience.

an abstract application name is just not helpful

Gnu Image Manipulation Program. The name says exactly what it does. (Apart from the Gnu bit, but then Adobe Photoshop doesn't have much to do with mud houses.)

Re: Eh?

Makes sense if you assume "will" is implied before "hit end-of-life".

Re: Better than things used to be

I hate you can't ask to have items delivered all together, and you get things delivered three days in a row

I recently ordered some dental floss from Amazon. It's a fairly low-value item, and it's annoying to run out, so I ordered 10 packs.

Over the next couple of weeks I received 10 deliveries. Each packet of floss was packed in its own padded envelope (though it's not a breakable item) and individually posted from the Netherlands. Luckily, they were small enough to be pushed through the letterbox.

Re: Actually back in the 1990s I was at a company...

Lemme guess - Serial comms, and cheap cables without the DTR pin connected?

I think it was actually some weird optimisation in HP laser printers that was supposed to save memory*. It wasn't very well implemented, so the output occasionally have bits missing.

*Printers of the time, especially PostScript ones, would often fail to print complex pages because of insufficient memory.

Re: Indices...

Only Visual Basic really seems to have arrays sorted out.

It's been a long time, but I recall that Pascal allows array [x..y], and the indices don't have to be contiguous, or even numeric.

Re: What to do with the fine

Considering the possible backlash, and the cost of the litigation if I was the artist involved I'd be donating the fine back to the school as a thanks for being involved in establishing my rights.

On the other hand, the artist has had to finance a law suit and subsequent appeals all the way to the ECJ. His opponent was backed by the more-or-less unlimited funds available to a German state. In return for assuming this massive risk he gets... €400.

Never mind shops getting back lost revenue, how about consumers being refunded for overcharging? If the price-fixing manufacturers had to shoulder the cost of locating everyone who bought the overpriced goods and offering a partial refund it would right a wrong and be a costly deterrent.

Widdershins is anticlockwise, Richard.

Depends whether you're looking from above or below.

Re: If only!

the Windows 7 hold-outs should finally feel able to make the upgrade

How? I own a Samsung laptop, a few years old, but still perfectly usable in Windows 7. During the Great Nag I finally decided to try Windows 10, but the installation failed because of hardware incompatibility.

The hardware in question is an Intel processor with integrated GPU, about as vanilla as possible. I need hardly add that none of the Linux distros I've installed has had any problem with it.

Re: Oops

Maybe it's the font, maybe it's my eyes, but when I read the words "Shift Supervisor" that many times it transmutes into something that must be one of the worst jobs in the world.

Re: Linux Mint is free

complicated, confusing, and difficult. And that's just email

As far as I know, the email system built into recent releases of Windows isn't complicated, confusing, and difficult. It's non-existent.

Some Windows users may pay for a local copy of Outlook, but I suspect most simply use some kind of webmail site. And that's the same whether your browser is running on Windows, Linux, MacOS or other fine operating system.

It's odd that people who allege Linux is difficult to use seem to have managed primitive versions of Windows without issue. And many are quite happy to use MacOS, which has far more in common with Linux than Windows.

Re: To be honest...

...difference between 'professional' and other workers for overtime...

I think the rationale is that "professional" workers put in extra effort in the expectation (realistic or otherwise) of promotion. Your career prospects are also supposed to make you a stakeholder in the business, so you put in more effort than you're paid for. The free overtime is an investment in your future.

A worker in a menial retail job has no prospect of promotion, and won't be paid more if the business thrives, so can't be expected to contribute free overtime.

This, at any rate, is the line that management expect people to swallow.

The theory is borne out by people like software engineers. They're professional and often highly-paid, but they can only be promoted by turning good engineers into crap managers. They usually get overtime and out-of-hours pay. Me, I'm a contractor, so I have no prospects of any kind.

I don't see how you can say both "I need dual monitors to do my job" and then "I need a laptop".

Here I am, working on a laptop that has dual monitors, keyboard and mouse connected to it. The monitors are more-or-less essential for my job.

When I have to do out-of-hours support, or when I work from home, I can carry the laptop home in my backpack and use the monitors etc that I have at home anyway. I can also use it on the train, where I connect to the company's secure VPN via a mobile hotspot. Neither would be possible without the laptop.

This has been the usual arrangement in most of the companies where I've worked over the past five years. Fortunately, they haven't had an idiot like Lee D making the decisions.

Gobshite

I am utterly unsurprised that the Beeb are paying some gobshite who fronts up a dull regional news programme as much as the prime minister

To judge from the £2.2m paid to Chris Evans, BBC pay is in direct proportion to the gobshiteness of the recipient.

Re: Call me a cynical old codger..

Honey gets you more flies than Vinegar.

I am not an entomologist, but I think those who know say that the opposite is true. Fruit flies like vinegar and they are very numerous.

Re: Bridge on the River Kwai

They changed the original film ending of Alec Guinness screaming at the allied forces

Who did? When? I'm sure that was the ending when I saw it.

Re: "trying on shoes in a shoe shop"

I had no idea that might be old-school. What do modern people do instead? Guess?