Posts by werdsmith

Re: Postscript

Colour postscript lasers would take forever to process back in the 90s.. This caught out a person who hung around to be last in the office so he could secretly print out some stuff that he really shouldn’t. He ran out of patience waiting, assumed an error and sent the print job again.

When the first one came out he collected his flesh-toned picture and left the office. Second print job came out some time later and was sitting on the printer when the early arrivals turned up next day.

Re: The Soviet Way

You illustrate one of the problems very well.

It’s easier to get them to ditch their familiar os if the world they are moving to isn’t a world of fragmented choices, and when they moves between one place and another, they are not faced with different package managers, repos, guis and so on.

And when they need to know something and the do a web search they don’t get a set of instructions or tutorials that aren’t relevant to their distro. Or even their version of it.

Re: One question

This is why we can’t compare Raspberry Pi to BBC computer, because Pi genuinely is affordable.

Our school had a single TRS-80, locked in a special room like some kind of inner sanctum, with occasional access for elite sixth form nurds.

Re: One question

I enjoyed this in the article:

"Harking back to 1981, the Acorn Computers-manufactured Micro introduced the nation to programming, thanks to its built-in BASIC interpreter and reasonably affordable price."

Bollocks was it reasonably affordable, OK so it was cheaper than a Commodore PET, but it was about a months pay for a typical job. ZX81 was an affordable price. Kids with a Model B at home had either wealthy parents or family debt.

Re: AI

Imagine a circuit with a battery, a resistor and a lamp. It's not a serious piece of electronics, but it is a working demonstration of a circuit.

A couple of logic gates can demonstrate digital electronic concepts but isn't a computer.

So a network with a 2 node input layer, an output layer and a 3 node hidden layer with a bias on the links can demonstrate a NN.

It doesn't have to be an image classifying task.

Re: Welcome to Windows Phone all over again....

I don’t know if you are a troll or not, but on the desktop it has some nasty flaws, but I can’t see past Linux as server of choice for most situations.

Re: Welcome to Windows Phone all over again....

Yes, people should understand that this is a techie site and many users are socially stunted, so you should expect to find people using the words “me thinks” in a failed attempt to shoehorn some Hamlet whilst disastrously adding a space. Just imagine the nasality if you were speaking to them in real life and live with it.

Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet, the mild cigar....

Re: Try your pharmacist

Do what you want. Just an anecdotal example, not deliberately designed to trigger dickheads.

Re: Small houses

If I’m on a restaurant outdoor terrace and a CV19 carrier is at another table 3 metres away and we are facing away from each other for an hour or more , I feel I am unlikely to be infected.

If I’m in an indoor pub with loud music and face to face with a carrier who is raising his voice at me and close to me to be heard above the noise for 30 seconds, I feel more likely to be infected,

Which one would the app register?

Re: Botch 2.0?

The apps are not expected to be much good on there own, but will function as one of a range of different measures.

Re: At this time, what's the point?

I don’t think every death for any reason is being classified as CV19 now, I think that death has to actually be CV19, unlike the last peak.

Re: Try your pharmacist

Father in law, in his 70s booked one at a smaller pharmacy chain, got it done within 2 days.

Re: Licenses

Incredibly banal cliche, and not even a valid cliche because McCulloch knew what he was doing and to this day the Lake Havasu Bridge is proving to be an astute purchase.

A cliche that makes a fool of everyone that uses it.

Re: 18 months?

I have been out with my Tecsun several times to help track down RFI.

Re: grandfather rights, repurposing old kit

Even Radio Amateurs who cause local RFI are first warned and asked to get a balun. Nobody gets a fine straight off first ball.

Re: 18 months?

Openreach should use kit that is not so sensitive to RFI. Pathetic.

Re: Need a rubber hammer

People with authority are said to have plenty of clout.

Lucky them!

Re: Need a rubber hammer

The old dry solder joint. Or for older stuff, a valve needs reseating in a socket.

Or the scan coil round the neck of the tube, where it connects to the vertical scan with a push on connector, the contact surface oxidises.

In the old days we fixed tellies with tools. Then it became sub assembly swap, now it’s complete unit swap.

Re: FTFY

There are a lot of counter theories that suggest the speed of combustion of the outer fabric was much quicker than expected in pure air.

Re: Looks good to me

Didn’t happen on film so doesn’t get the same attention. Same for Akron and Dixmude.