Posts by Primus Secundus Tertius

Rather computers than cars

Just imagine what our roads would be like if people had he same problems with their cars as with their computers. But for some reason that does not seem to happen. It is not as if cars are idiot-resistant, far from it.

Compare cars and computers

I'm glad my car does not need gigabytes of updates every year.

Er, gulp! Should I be that confident?

Ernie's real purpose?

I always wondered if the real reason for building ERNIE was to generate random numbers for encrypting government messages.

So the only security problems are PEBCAK ones.

Who pays?

Who is paying all the enormous legal fees for this extended abuse of legal options?

Pointers to failure

Pointers are fine when the right chaps use them. But a lot of programmers I met did not seem to understand them properly.

Ideal for data

Spreadsheets are ideal for data. But it is a pity they could not use a generic spreadsheet that will work equally with Libre Office, Google Office, Softmaker Office, ONLYOFFICE, or even good old Gnumeric.

When I was claiming Gift Aid tax rebates for a small charity, I downloaded the appropriate spreadsheet from HMRC. There was one version for Excel and one for Libre Office Calc. Other spreadsheets were unsupported. The problem seems to be the manic desire to incorporate macros within spreadsheets.

Unique features

"the only language I've ever met with invisible diacritic marks, which aren't written but you must pronounce"

Every language has its own special features. Welsh is the only language I have met which, in some circumstances, conjugates prepositions.

Failure of capitalism

Microsoft had virus protection in Windows v3, but in Windows95 they left it to the free market. Ten years later they had to accept that the free market had failed, and they reintroduced Windows Defender into XP.

History is bunk

Not an article I can agree with.

"… it's impossible to imagine how the global pandemic would have played out without it [the Internet]".

Many of us remember the Asian Flu pandemic of 1957. People either stayed at home or got on with life. The Government did not make a fuss. Pity that was not remembered from 2020 onwards, especially now we have all had our arms pierced. 2020 vision, what a joke!

"… with power comes responsibility …"

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. The last is especially true in the computer trade, and greatness has been thrust upon many who subside under the challenge.

No advance on 1953

In 1953 a famous experiment by a scientist named Miller showed that hydrides of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen could form simple organic compounds if in the absence of free oxygen they were exposed to sparks or UV light, etc. But that is a long way from the highly structured DNA or proteins.

That gap is yet to be bridged.

Out in the sticks

Back in the 1990s, I worked at a place out in the countryside. (One day I saw a fox stroll past the window.) Frequently we would arrive Monday morning to find the electricity had gone down over the weekend, and all our computers were 'resting'.

Our internal network had 'just grown', with many interdependencies. It took most of a Monday morning to restart the computers in the right sequence. Eventually we recruited an experienced network engineer to sort us out.

Splinternet

The so-called Splinternet is a real possibility, because some national authorities insist on censorship for political or religious reasons. Then there are the commercial interests discussed in this article.

The Old Internet was a tribute to American and academic idealism, But few others share those ideals.

I am surprised Microsoft never tried to buy out Notepad++. They have bought out so much other software.

Government secrets and personal throwaways

The government take care to protect government secrets e.g. cups of tea served per day. But it seems the Treasury refuse to allocate money to protect personal data. This incident is just one of many. I hope, forlornly, that some Treasury official gets sacked and loses their pension.

It would help if the article briefly explained what LoRa was, instead of assuming we would Google it.

What free means

Free means free as in free beer, no matter what all the nerdy people say. Free, costless, priceless, untrammelled.

The Other Lot

I'm a member of the other lot. I wonder when my data will go walkies.

Clock embuggerance day

1. This was supposed to be a wartime emergency thing, to save fuel. Time to end it. Why should I have to get up early in summer just to please the busybodies?

2. I have several dual-boot computers. It is tiresome when both OSes adjust automatically.

Wishful thinking

"It's them or us, and it has to be us."

Wishful thinking, old chap.

Talking or listening?

It is not clear from this report whether that processor is intended to listen, talk, or do both. In the human world, someone who only talks is not welcome.

Was it them who gave my email address to the spammers who keep telling me my McAfee subscription has expired?

Dates

How about moving the international date line from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic? It could be much straighter, not dodging around hundreds of islands.

Computer storage required

I guess this list of legacy systems will be held on a computer somewhere. Probably on one of the ICL 1900 systems that are still around.