Posts by jake

If the old games are all that important to you ...

... that you must see them in situ, simply put them on an airgapped system. It's not like old hardware costs money, and the old code isn't going to suddenly stop working.

Re: When programmers were robust

Short trousers? Not even an itch in his daddy's pants ... Zschmuck was born 3 years after the TI99/4a came out.

Re: Developers hide their stuff from security teams

Sane people don't have important development infrastructure connected to TehInteraWebTubes in the first place.

Re: "a hack on the production system"

Is the company's wetware not an integral part of the production system?

Re: Perhaps

Hourly should be more than enough for most businesses.

For home use, once or twice per day.

Unless you WANT to be a slave to email, that is ...

I still use (al)pine for my email needs. It's an old friend, the fingers know it well. Still maintained, too ... "stable" was last updated on June 19th.

Re: Instant Email (Not!)

I maintained dial-up UUCP links for a couple of non-profits until the dawn of the year 2000. They used Pegasus for their MUA, and a local mail spool, connecting to the MTA hourly. I handled the MTA on my end with Sendmail and an always-on connection. The system wasn't b0rken by Y2K, but they both decided to wake up and join the 20th Century to celebrate the beginning of the 21st with an on-demand dial-up TCP/IP connection to one of my routers. They both still use that system ... I've offered to upgrade them for free, but not needing much Web access they see no real need.

Re: What's wrong with "times"?

The X in DX2 certainly did mean times. See the advertising of the era. The DX4 was supposed to be called the DX3 (signifying 3 times clock speed), but Intel was stopped from using that name because of ongoing litigation with AMD, and thus went with DX4 ... so naturally all the wags laughed about how Intel couldn't do math, and of course Intel Marketing, in the long tradition of the Technical World[0], declared that it didn't mean that at all and never did, often in a print interview in a rag currently running advertising that clearly showed it did.

Dontcha just love Marketing?

[0] See Redmond and "NT doesn't stand for New Technology" ...

Re: What's wrong with "times"?

Too young to have used a DX2 or DX4 processor? Same concept, different order. (I suspect this is a "separated by a common language" moment. Vive la différence.)

Re: What's wrong with "times"?

Yes. Out loud. Ever need to take a prescription drug 2X/day? I remember it used in many other places, too ... For example, 2X or 3X stock performance was common marketing bullshit in aftermarket car parts for a while. Etc.

Re: What's wrong with "times"?

Eh? That's been a common abbreviation for as long as I can remember.

Re: Couldn't happen to a more deserving company...

To be fair, TOA was posted at 23:24 UTC ... Europe was asleep, most of the US was winding down for the day. That's, what, probably 90% of ElReg's commentards? Commentardary usually slows way down between about 4PM Pacific time and around midnight Pacific, when Europe starts getting to work in the morning.

"You have distributed resources that cover a large geographic area, but which need to be centrally managed and monitored."

We were doing that literally decades before "the cloud" became a marketing term.

"You need both local and op center users to be able to monitor and manage your plant(s)."

We were doing that literally decades before "the cloud" became a marketing term.

"You are in the middle of a pandemic, and you need at least some of your operators and managers to be able to work remotely."

We could have done that literally decades before "the cloud" became a marketing term. In some places, we were.

"You are rapidly expanding, and you need your control infrastructure to be highly scalable on demand."

For water needs? (Electricity, sewer ... ) Pull the other one ... it's not as if all of a sudden we need three or four new reservoirs and attendant plumbing to come online by the end of the week because 12 new subdivisions and a handful of heavy industry plants suddenly popped up without warning.

Re: SCADA in the Cloud?

So a new and bigger attack surface, then.

Thanks for the confirmation of the OP's initial assessment.

Re: Survival.

There are two kinds of people in the world:

1) Those who think that vid is real.

2) Those who got the joke.

Rumo(u)r has it that the 3310 could defeat Chuck Norris in a fair fight.

My 5185 was advertised at 200 hours of standby. I managed about a day more occasionally.

Re: I'll See Your 33xx and Lower You

Best phone I ever had was a 5185. I'd still be using it if I were allowed, but after carrying it around quite happily for over 15 years, $TELCO decided it wasn't good enough for my needs and shut off cellular access for it. I still haven't found a worthy successor.

Over that 15+ years, it was stepped on by horses, gnawed on by sheep and puppies, run over by tractors, "cured" in the smokehouse overnight, left outdoors in the rain overnight a few times, dropped into toilets (three times), into a pot of boiling soup (twice) and into a bucket of used motor oil (once). When $TELCO forced me to retire it, it was still on its original battery, and didn't seem to function much different than the day it was new. I replaced the outer case and the "antenna" several times, and the screen twice.

Damn, I miss that phone!

That would be a ...

... sinking pig, Shirley?

Re: Did the guy look like Elon Musk?

Three miles east of LAX that Airbus would have been well under 1000 feet, not up around 3000 ... Unless the pilot was planning on giving his passengers a thrill. Are A321s rated for aerobatics? Somehow I doubt it ...

Re: hah

One might be suspicious that they didn't mention China Lake or Fort Irwin ... If one were prone to that kind of paranoia, of course. I'm not, so obviously I've been gotten at ...

Same question.

The A321 has, what, 45 or 50 windows down each side? Every time I ever flew commercial, people had their cameras out when coming in for a landing ... this was true even in the days of film! These days, everybody has a camera, and everybody loves that aerial shot. Shirley somebody managed a picture (or six) of this thing, even if it was somewhat blurry. It's not like the lighting would have been bad at ~6:30PM local time. (This is a daily commuter flight, currently over the Iowa/Nebraska state line, just south of Osceola as I type.)

In the words of the GreatUnwashed, pics or it never happened.

Re: Can you say hypocrites?

It was not self defense. The idiot kid took a loaded rifle across state lines, into a region of extreme unrest. On purpose. He obviously had the intent to use the weapon. IMO, that was pre-meditated murder, no matter how you try to spin it.

Re: Interesting note from the field.

"The police acted professionally and didn't pull a gun."

Nonetheless, he was killed. Had he been black, there would have been huge backlash against the police[0]. You and I both know this is true. But he was white, so that didn't happen. Apparently it's OK in the minds of the protestors if the cops kill white guys.

"Why did the cop shoot him seven times, why was another application of the taser not an option?"

Put yourself in the position of the cops. He had already physically fought with the cops. He claimed he had a weapon. The tasering already didn't work on him. He was (possibly) reaching for his weapon. Other lives are potentially in danger. You have milliseconds. Choose wisely.

"It's hard to escape the conclusion that lethal force is disproportionately used against people of colour."

That is an entirely different conversation, and one that needs to be addressed. But probably not here. There are too many emotions running hot.

[0] But instead of protesting in tiny, little Guerneville (Pop. 4500ish), they'd no doubt protest in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley ... whose cops had nothing to do with it.

Re: @jake -- Hrmmm

"If Jacob Blake had been white, he wouldn't have been shot in the back 7 times at close range in front of his children."

If he had an arrest warrant out on him for sexual assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct in connection with domestic abuse ... had the warrant served on him, fought with the police who served it, managed to ignore a couple tasings, declared he had a weapon, tried to get into his car (bringing his fight to three children in the car), presumably to retrieve the weapon[0] ... Then yes, he quite likely would have been shot if he were white. But you and I would never have heard of the shooting. And there would have been no protestors. Because he was white. Which is kind of my point.

[0] What would YOU have thought he was doing if you were that cop? You have a couple of milliseconds to decide, multiple other lives may be in the balance.

Re: Interesting note from the field.

Ignoring the issue of how many of those police shootings are suicide by cop, I don't really have an answer to your question. Why ARE the protestors picking one incident over another?

Except for the obvious, of course ... They never protest a white guy getting shot. Or any shooting where the cop is black. And more white guys get shot by the cops than non-white guys. It couldn't possibly be their own racism making their decision for them, could it? I mean, that would make them hypocrites, right?

Re: Can you say hypocrites?

Sabroni, I realize that you have always had issues with parsing my writing, but could you please show me where you think that I typed anything at all about Kyle Rittenhouse's heinous crimes? Or where I condoned them? Because I did neither. I would very much like to see you post a retraction and an apology for those blatant untruths about me.

Re: Interesting note from the field.

Regardless of what has happened over the last 400 years, you can't solve racial inequality by being overtly racist. That is the same stupidity as fighting for peace, or fucking for virginity.

Re: Interesting note from the field.

"What are MLB supposed to protest against?"

Nothing. It's not in their remit.

The guy here in California was walking out of a store holding his wife by the arm, trying to stop her from calling 911 to get some help because he was off his meds. She told the cops he was off his meds. He was was tased several times, which lead to his death. Frankly, if they had let him wander off until he calmed down, chances are good he would have survived, but the cops decided strong-arm tactics were required.

The guy in Milwaukee had warrants out for his arrest on charges of sexual assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct in connection with domestic abuse. He chose to ignore the cops attempts to peacefully arrest him, fought with the cops, shrugged of a couple of tasers, and was in fact trying to get into his car, putting the three children in the car at risk when he was shot.

Still missing the point?

Re: Hrmmm

The ElReg quote was simply a reference to where I was jumping into the conversation. It's long standing tradition in this form of communications, no?

Yes, I know why the games were called off. And I have no issue with it. I actually made that very point in my post.

It's not whataboutism. You have it precisely backwards. My meaning is not "A violent encounter with the police doesn't get widespread attention so no violent encounters with the police should get widespread attention", as you put it, rather my meaning is "if one violent encounter with the cops gets attention, all should get equal attention". As I stated, I am pointing out the hypocrisy of the protesters.

The fact of the matter is that if Jacob Blake had been white, the local Press wouldn't have spent hours going over and over the details, whipping its audience into a fury ... and the National press probably wouldn't have reported it at all, much less ad nauseam ... and not a one of the protesters would have even blinked an eye.

I am voicing my opinion here, and I have voiced my opinion to various news outets here in the bay area. All have told me that I am racist because I think that ALL lives matter, not just black ones.

I am not envious of anything. Actually, I am sad ... all sides investing in violence are in the wrong, and innocents are getting hurt ... and I am getting caught in the backlash because of something I have had no part in. Somewhere Dr. King and Ghandi are crying.

Re: My contribution ...

In the very early days (1970s), the user's home directories were on /usr ... Economy of typing further shortened this to /u on very early BSD. At some point, primarily due to splitting the filesystem over multiple disks, the user home directories were moved to /user, leaving /usr for shared read-only executables and their attendant tat.

/user became /home much later ... and just to confuse things, MacOS (which is a bastardized BSD) uses /Users ...

Yes, Sun's "stock" installation media wasn't exactly friendly. However, being based on BSD it was fairly easy to make your own to suit yourself. You could boot from tape, CD or floppy ... depending on your system ROM, of course. And again, changing the ROM wasn't really all that difficult. Personally, I think Sun's biggest sin in the early days was shipping each and every system with the same default root password ... They didn't even suggest changing it in the installation guides! And this for a machine that was designed from the ground up to connect to TehIntraWebTubes ... The 'N" in Sun stood for network.

Re: My contribution...

The beauty of hieroglyphics is that if a picture doesn't exist, even the illiterate can invent one. Thus we have emojis of poop. Joy.

Re: My contribution...

Those weren't feisty knickers, those were board shorts, and it wasn't the Monkees, it was the Beach Boys.

Honestly, you British ...

Re: There, but for the grace of God,

There is no god. You'll join the ranks eventually.

Re: We've all been there

But wait. It gets better. Today's DevOps advocates are using stories like this to justify getting rid of QA entirely ...

Re: Viruses and duplicators

Mass distribution of floppies infected with a virus happened several times over the years. There used to be a web site listing them, but today's useless search engines won't tell me anything about the history of viruses, they will only tell me where I can purchase an AV product for Windows. How fucking useless is that?

Re: capable hands of Windows Server 2003

To be fair, in the early days, CD mastering and pre-mastering software was fairly esoteric, and ran on proprietary hardware. This hardware usually ran whatever OS the lead engineer used/preferred at University ... AIX, HPUX, SunOS, BSD, and yes, Xenix.

But WinDOS? Not so much. It was nowhere near stable enough for such critical tasks. (NT didn't exist yet, at least not in the early days.)

Re: My contribution ...

""Is there a non-worst time to do that on a production server?"

Yes. During scheduled shutdown/maintenance windows come to mind. Immediately after a full system backup, of course.

One that happened to a friend down at IBM Almaden ... Running late to get out the door (baseball game was due to start), he accidentally entered a similar command at approximately 5:04 PM local time on the 17th of October, 1989. About one millisecond later he realized what he had done. About one microsecond after that, the Magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake hit, with the epicenter approximately 14 miles to the South South West.

The SCSI drive, which, in his words, "was happily losing it's tiny little mind, and destroying mine alongside it" suffered a hard crash before the power went out. Seems that even high-end SCSI drives don't like imitating a pogo stick when the heads are moving around. DriveSavers in Marin managed to salvage most of the drive, thus saving a high-temp superconductor project over a year of data. Drivesavers didn't volunteer that the command had been run, so he didn't lose his job ... but his entire department got yelled at for not having a proper off-site backup strategy in place.