Posts by jake

"memories of using Linux in the mid-90s when the Internet was still barely a thing"

The Internet had been "a thing" for about a quarter century by the mid-90s. Some of us had been using UNIX with it for pretty much that entire time. Linux is a relative newcomer. Those "special programs" started because we needed to write tape images to disk, and vice-versa (to say nothing of punch cards and paper/mylar tape). It was a normal part of computing. Still is, in some areas

That was more of a generic"you" than directed at you, personally, Liam. I should have specified.

Yes, it's big. But it's built to be used for years in the Real World, not dicked around with in a VM for four or five hours. It has a complete development environment, several GUI environments, etc. etc., and all the source for everything included ... not all of which is required for a complete, functional system. Get rid of those you don't need (easy to do in the installation procedure) and it becomes much slimmer.

With a little effort and customization, you can make the initial install very small, and very clean, with just the tools that you, personally need/want. I have an installation script that generates the system in use by my Wife, DearOldMum and GreatAunt and quite a few other functionally computer illiterate people. It is about 8% of a full install, and I could probably cut it down quite a bit further by removing some admin tools that the users involved will never even know exist.

Ozan pointed out Eric's mini installs in an earlier post in this thread. One could start with one of those and customize it for one's own needs.

Much easier and more recommended, find a cast-off computer that nobody wants anymore. (We've probably all seen one or two year old computers sitting by the side of the road ... ) Wipe the poor thing, and install Slackware on it. In this modern era of multi terabyte drives for under one hundred dollars, 16 gigs isn't really all that much to complain about ... especially when that 16 gigs is all functional and doesn't contain spyware, ad-ware, or other malware. Use the same machine for other distro reviews. That way you'll be reviewing them in their native habitat, instead of in a constricted VM, which will obviously colo(u)r the opinion of the user.

Or, depending on the tax laws for such things in the country you are living in, purchase a dedicated computer strictly for reviewing OSes and software. Use it as a write off, a necessary tool of your chosen trade. Worked for me back when I was reviewing commercial PEE CEE UNIXes for <redacted>.

Re: imagination

"We, for example, have no real idea of how Homo erectus, never mind the Neanderthals, lived."

Not at a micro level, no. At a macro level, we have a pretty good idea.

"They might have become post-human"

There is no archeological evidence that even hints that this is a possibility.

"or never were even humanoid at all"

They were humanoid. We have the bones to prove it.

Re: " 'we're living in a simulation,' says author"

It's deja vu all over again!

Re: This could be an option...

And about 1,400 years earlier than that, the Romans had a similar issue with Britain(nia).

_{Insert a few boring, but quite historical, groans about the picts and scots (or was that the irish?) ...}

Re: Critical Questions

Having converted my entire family (except my sister), almost all my friends (except the odd gaming machine[0]), nearly every student I've ever taught (again except the gaming machines[0]), and every single one of my clients (except a couple CAD stations, and a handful of Macs), your incredible rarity is my near ubiquitousness. And has been, for a long time.

Don't you wish you were in my shoes?

_{"The journey of one thousand miles begins with but a single step." —Laozi, the Dao De Jing, Chap. 64}

_{[0] And even the gamers are using Linux more and more.}

Re: Definitely a simulation

The same way you explain religion and other scams for the unwary.

Re: Critical Questions

I've had Linux on my desktop for 30+ years. Now what?

Re: Nothing new.

That, too.

Re: Odd argument

"Organisms don't live in an isolated system"

Organisms live in the isolated system we call "The Universe".

Re: how much it would take to simulate the human brain or, for that matter, 7 billion human brains

Wrong way around. Shirley that would be 8 billion humans, maybe 1 billion brains, simulated or otherwise.

Re: Critical Questions

[1] Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? It's turtles all the way down.

[2] Heat death of the Universe.

Re: Information is not knowledge...

"Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you" —The Central Scrutinizer

Re: If this is a simulation...

"I want my money back."

I'm absolutely certain you'll get back every penny that you paid.

Nothing new.

Most (all?) religions have "laws" that are untestable.

Re: Bollox

Entropy says no. The universe is tending towards fragmentation.

Re: Bollox

Computers do indeed delete temp files and compress log and other files to save on storage space ... and I suppose one could make a case that reading a large compressed file from storage and then decompressing it in memory to be used, reversing the process when done might save some energy over having to read in the entire decompressed file. Maybe. In some cases. Perhaps. Such as in the case of punch cards or paper tape.

Not "what", rather "why?".

Why would such a simulation be deemed necessary?

Especially given the obvious insatiable power requirement.

The supposed "640K limit" was an IBM hardware limit, not an MS software limit. The IBM hardware spec was already firmly in place before Gates even heard about the project. Even if he had made the comment (which is extremely doubtful ... nobody has ever documented it), he would have just been agreeing with IBM's spec. And it wasn't really 640K, it was more like 704K, if you knew what you were doing. I find it absolutely amazing that this piece of incorrect trivia is still being parroted as fact after all these years ...

OTOH, I personally remember Steve Jobs saying that "128K ought to be more than enough for home users". It was at a meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club in late 1983, as he was demonstrating the original Macintosh, just before the public unveiling. At the time, he had a point ... people were running flight simulators in 64K.

On the gripping hand, none of this matters any more. It's all just an accident of history.

Re: Where's the dictionary?

"Have they looked up the word "security" lately?"

That word was probably redacted forty years ago.

Re: You might even say...

Something to remember is that the kids who graduated Uni/College and got into the corporate/government computer and networking world back when computers started becoming ubiquitous on desktops all over the corporate world are now roughly in their late 50s.

Note this is managers, users, coders, programmers, systems folks, everyone.

They started commercial computer work with Windows 2.x and DOS 4.0 (or thereabouts), and have become conditioned to the Redmond Way ... In their minds (and the generations following) it's supposed to be shoddy code, it's supposed to not be secure, it's supposed to break at the least convenient time, it will crash at random, updates will make things worse, over time it gets bigger and worse, if you turn it off and back on again it might fix it (maybe; try it again) ... these are all enshrined in the corporate mindset.

So why bother building clean, elegant code that just works when the underlying OS doesn't support such a concept? There is no point.

Those of us who started coding in the 60s or earlier are just left shaking our heads. Can you imagine what the reaction in Corporate America would have been if DEC or Burroughs or Sperry or IBM had made just one release that was as buggy as the code that is run as a matter of course on modern computers? Or worse, the drek in "the cloud"? The company's stock would have tanked, they would never have been trusted again, heads would have rolled ... ugly wouldn't even begin to describe it.

But these days? Navigating through crap, buggy, crash-prone bullshit has become business as usual. Because THAT'S HOW COMPUTERS ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK! Ask any manager. Or coder under 50. (Thankfully there are still a few real programmers out there in each generation.)

I have no answers. I'm not sure there are any. It's probably too late.

Thinnet.

Did the job for small offices (and more than a few large ones) for about two decades.

Was really cheap once NE2000 clones started showing up, and thus became nearly ubiquitous. A couple of techs could crank out a couple hundred seat network in a long weekend, given enough coffee. I must have run several hundred miles of the stuff.

I don't miss it a bit ... but I still run it at home when it makes sense. Why not, I still have all the tools and several 2,500 foot rolls of the stuff. And I maintain a couple of legacy machine shops that use it, along with a few SCADA odds & ends.

Now ask me why I've had a top of the line TDR in my toolkit since time immemorial.

Yes, they were very expensive in the early days, but worth every penny. Recommended.

It might be surprising to those not in the know, but Rolling Stone magazine has been the home of some pretty serious journalism over the years.

Re: Can't turn it off

"If you are in any Capital City in the World, you might have to work hard to find food.."

FTFY

Re: My only question is WHY?

I believe a more realistic version would be something like "the alert goes out giving the citizens a few minutes' warning so they can bend over and kiss their ass goodbye ... or possibly enough time to panic and have a heart attack or stroke (at least the bad guys won't get 'em!)."

But time to possibly survive? From a cold stop? No fucking way. That would be about 5 minutes from sub-launched weapons[0]. Regardless of which "side" of the war you are on.

Note that I place a value on limited, geographically specific warnings from local, state and federal agencies. But a nation-wide warning? That is completely useless. There is absolutely nothing that would warrant such a broadcast. It is a useless concept, and does nothing but waste taxpayer money to feed politician's egos.

As for the "millions that do", consider that millions voted for Trump. People are easily led astray.

[0] Most experts agree that SLBMs are roughly 10 minutes away from striking their targets. It would take at least half that to detect the threat, and then decide what to do, and then act upon it.

Re: No 5G initiated Zombie Apocalypse...?

My fiends the AJs agree with this poast!

Re: My only question is WHY?

Growing up as I did, in South Palo Alto during the Cold War, I wasn't afraid of The Bomb ... Living about 4 miles from Moffett Field, I knew that we probably wouldn't even survive long enough to register the flash ... As my Dad put it,"We won't even need to worry about fallout because we'll be the fallout".

So basically, when humans finally are stupid enough to launch another[0] nuclear war (and people being people, it's probably inevitable), the trick is to move to one of two places iwell in advance: The back of beyond, or Ground Zero. In the first, hopefully you've found a place where the Jet Stream & miscellaneous eddy currents will conspire to keep the fallout away from your "victory" garden[1]. In the second, you are the fallout, and won't give a shit.

Frankly, I'm more worried about a large earthquake hitting us.

[0] Yes, another one. The first was rather one-sided, but it existed nonetheless.

[1] Some victory ...

Re: Can't turn it off

Thankfully I own the on/off switch.

And the wall socket and plug.

Re: My only question is WHY?

Yes, I know where it is from. That was daft, too. Sending more good money after bad is not sound fiscal policy.

Yes, it can be limited by geography, area code, zipcode, state & etc.

Re: My only question is WHY?

"When they dropped nukes on the Nevada desert"

There weren't a lot of nukes dropped on the Nevada desert. None, to be precise. All were buried, on tethered balloons, or on towers. One was a missile fired at altitude, and designed specifically not to directly affect the ground.

Yes, there were long term after effects due to fallout from the testing.