Posts by jake

Re: The whole activation scheme for a lot of stuff drives me nuts.

Ship of Theseus.

Why do today's yoof always think they have to re-invent the wheel, and then pat themselves on the back for it as if they had done something inventive?

"We even combine them."

Indeed. Last time I was in Blighty, during lunch I ordered myself a pint of bitter and the Wife a half liter of water.

Re: Don't forget Crossover Office

I put 'em into c:\usr\ws, c:\usr\sc and c:\usr\db (or c:\u\ws etc.)

Seems I was using *nix systems almost exclusively in those days :-)

Re: Don't forget Crossover Office

"wee covered peanuts in a bowl on the bar"

Nice bars you go to. Is it a game they play? Volume, distance or accuracy?

Concur on apps vs. programs.

Re: Technical debt

et alia

Re: SLAC, Sandia, JPL and LLNL. Also at IBM Almaden... and obviously Stanford & Berkeley

Not random?

Are you insinuating that Sabroni is targeting me in particular?

I'm not sure if you expect me to feel flattered, or to dissolve into a fit of giggles.

Re: K

As you know very well, those differences depend entirely on which style guide or manual of style you subscribe to, and as such are quite subjective. It's probably not worth debating in this forum, though —Knowing the commentardariat, it'd probably devolve into something as silly as how many tittles can dance on the head of a pica pole, and whether or not they are strictly necessary.

Re: You bastard.

Don't make me get all Jersey on you ...

Re: You bastard.

I knew you lot would milk that for all it was worth.

Re: Wolfram|Alpha still exists? Who knewD.

::smacks self in forehead::

Of course! I knew I was forgetting something. That's truly handy, I must make it my homepage.

Re: Dude!

bob, dude, you need to chill out and hit the beach. Catch a few waves, commune with the great outdoors, man. Do you a world of good.

Re: Won't Fly

The supposed "strong opposition" is from a very small, but loud, number of bible thumpers. Fortunately, their numbers are dwindling with each generation. Probably dying off as a result of refusing to believe in the modern world and the things that it has brought us. Like medicine.

And I'll take a God's name in vain even if one chooses to prove that it exists. (Which has never happened, ever. I wonder why?) Nothing is deserving of worship. Period.

Bracknell? Humphries, Shirley!

(Yes, I know, it was an homage to the original.)

Re: Why use a vernacula expression in instead of a well defined one?

Of course. California never produced anything of note.

Re: SLAC, Sandia, JPL and LLNL. Also at IBM Almaden... and obviously Stanford & Berkeley

Have you considered posting on-topic life observations and experiences instead of off-topic ineffectual sniping at random commentards?

"Quinkametres"

Used especially by by mathematicians and theoretical physicists when measuring their pocket stains. For other uses, see Rorschach.

Re: Yeah but...

Lucas tried to have a bigger name ... but they could only manage to light up 5 letters at a time.

Re: Yeah but...

I don't see PETA complaining much. Well, not about their name being used in science anyway. Probably because they don't seem to understand much about science ...

But it does bring up the obvious question: Would People Eating Tasty Animals take a peta-bite?

Re: Hella

Re-read the final two paragraphs of TFA.

I agree. There is nothing wrong with showing a little levity in science ... Especially when it provides a short, easy, amusing tale to tell the nippers in an otherwise dead boring classroom.

Re: Twatter

"When everyone you hear from is telling you that you are a God, then eventually even the most cynical of us will start to believe it.

Except those of us who grok critical thinking. And people who remember Tony Webster and David Harris-Jones (Great! and Super!) from Rossiter's Reginald Perrin.

The fawners need their collective heads examining.

Re: Promote healthy conversation?

I never said that about the Web. I said that about how the Web was used.

Gopher isn't all that bad. My 105 years young Great Aunt is not quite done publishing her life story in Gopher. When I started teaching her, it seemed like the easiest option for what she was trying to do. That was about 28 years ago, when Auntie was a sprightly 77ish. I run the server. I'd have moved her over to the Web years ago, but she's resistant to change and quite happy with gopher. I almost hope she never finishes it ... I kind of suspect that the project is one of the things that keeps the old girl going.

Re: I'm not a twitter user

Yes, there are thousands of good reasons to be able to post (and read!) anonymously. But you can't convince me that there are similarly that many good reasons to use twitter.

Re: Screwed the pooch and knows it

Sooooo...Mastodon?

Nah. IRC.

Re: Promote healthy conversation?

"It's unfortunate that nobody thought through the consequences of unrestrained social media before letting the genii out of the bottle."

Sure we thought about it. We even built it. It's called "Usenet"; you may have heard of it. It was (and is!) a grand experiment ... but it's not exactly what I would call "family friendly" ... and by it's very nature, it cannot be made family friendly. But as an adult toy, used by and for adults, it is perfectly adequate for what it does do well.

As a result of the reality of the Usenet experience, some of us old-guard warned the newbie point&drool WWW set what would happen when they re-invented the wheel, but with an advertising-driven capitalist bent. Would they listen? Hell no. Follow the money, they said. And did. With absolutely zero thought of anything remotely resembling social ramifications.

And here we are. Lovely, ain't it?

Methinks the clouds they are walking on are wearing thin ...

Re: Free speach

"So the 'Cloud' is now looking inside its customers data?"

What do you mean "now"? When haven't they been?

"How many orgs that have gone big on public cloud could survive being thrown off their 'infrastructure' at almost no notice?"

Who cares? We warned 'em, they ignored us in favo(u)r of better marketing. They have made their beds, let 'em lie[0] in 'em.

[0] Or more probably, they will take their lay, and bugger off & lie about it. My O-level English teacher is now spinning furiously.

Re: Trump's you-tube account has been suspended as well

Who is "we", Kemosabe?

Trump's a wanker.

It's pretty easy, actually :-)

Re: Goodbye Parler

As a Great One once said, correlation does not imply causation.

Re: What about places that hinders me to enter if I don't abide to their rules?

Apparently it's hard to separate reality from fiction when you are in an echo chamber and everyone's talking at once. This was inevitable when they removed critical thinking from the list of important things children should know before graduating grade-school.

Re: I saw one, naturally

The OP said the string went through (not over) fences. What is the lowest altitude aircraft are allowed to fly in your jurisdiction? Crop dusters[0] excepted.

More likely it was a couple drunk kids from the nearest Uni with the largest roll of baler twine they could find, stuffed into a backpack (or backpacks) and trailing out behind.

Come to think of it, they probably found it on the side of the road[1]. Now, what can we do with 15ish miles of string in a single long length? Wrapping the village Bobby is too obvious ...

[0] "Aerial Applicator" is the new PC term, but I always forget to use it.

[1] Honest, Guv, it fell off the back of a tractor!

Re: everything is explainable...

It's worse than that ... as everybody knows, you can't ever travel faster than 30MPH because your will suffocate trying to breathe the air rushing past so quickly.

Re: I saw one, naturally

"I was just amazed that you could get a single piece of string that length."

You can get bailing twine that long. It's usually sold in 20,000 foot lengths (two still connected 10,000 foot spools in a single box (this one measures 8.5x10.25x16 inches)), but the factory will ship 100,000 feet (5 boxes, just under 19 miles) or more in a single length. I have seen a pallet with 45 still connected boxes. That's over 170 miles of the stuff.

Cost? US$25 for 20,000 feet at retail. Always in stock at the local Tractor Supply Store. Far cheaper per foot for bulk orders. Just make sure you ask the factory not to cut the string between boxes.

Re: We Saw Nothing - Obviously

No downvotes from me ... You described what your memory says you saw as a 6 year old, and didn't go into baseless flights of fancy about it.

I created one of those triangles in a campground in the Sierra by stringing three little dim lights about 40 feet up, in an open space between some pine trees. Come later in the evening, we were all telling tall tales around the camp fire, as is typical in such situations. I told a story similar to yours, and at the opportune moment had my Wife turn on the lights and point up with a "Just like that one?".

The lights were just bright enough to fool the eye into thinking that there were no stars showing between them .... Presto, huge dark triangular shaped "craft" over our camp fire. When the wife shut them off after about 5 seconds, I yelled "Shit! Did you see how FAST that thing was?". One of the guys not in on the trick commented that it made it over the next ridge (about four miles away) in under a second. Strangely enough, almost everybody agreed with him. At this point, some people were claiming they thought it was redish.

The oddest thing is that when I collected my wire and lights the next morning, several people asked what I was doing. I told them. They did not believe me! So I told everybody the truth about the hoax over breakfast. Most of them refused to listen, and today many of them still tell the story of the huge triangle craft hovering over our camp that disappeared like a bat out of hell when we all looked up at it.

I never messed with that kind of mass illusion again. Too much room for error.

Re: Modern Fakes

Nah. Magic is one of the ways that James Randi attempted to teach critical thinking.

Re: multipage .tiff files

Not in this screen font.

Re: Modern Fakes

The modern Sharpie brand indelible marker was introduced in 1964.

Permanent markers in general were invented in 1953 by Sidney Rosenthal. He called his version the Magic Marker. You may have heard of it.