Posts by jake

Re: It was nice while it lasted

"In many places" is not "in all places". If more people eschew Internet banking and instead use the branch on their High Street, more local branches will re-open. Supply & demand, innit.

Re: Fingerprinting

The fastest way to cure that is to become your own boss. Most of the regular posters here are perfectly capable of doing that, it is only fear of the unknown that is stopping them.

As the Boss, when the waters surrounding the ship are filled with sharks, I make soup. It's rather tasty soup, I invite all y'all to try it.

Re: Yet

I'm not going to give up the Internet, silly! I might, however, give up most of the insecure festering shithole subset of it called "the web".

Come to think of it, I pretty much already have ... And it doesn't seem to have made my life any more difficult or frustrating than it already was. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Re: Trustworthy?

The person I was responding to was forced "by a video streaming site". SHINEY!!!!

As for your argument ... When I run across government sites that don't allow me to use my browser of choice, I simply tell them that their broken software doesn't run on my machine, please give me the alternatives that are available by law under 42 U.S.C. § 12101 ... either that, or they can ship me a machine that'll run the broken code. It might take a week or three, but I have plenty of time.

To date, I have never been penalized. It's their fault that their system is broken, and they know it.

If you just sit and take it, eventually they won't let you sit anymore. But that's OK, because you probably won't feel like sitting after taking it long enough ...

"As a plus this does solve an issue I personally have at work so I'm not entirely against it."

I have a mosquito problem, but that's OK because I also have a 12 gauge Browning.

Re: What happened to Do no evil?

Go ogle dropped it as a motto in 2015, when Alphabet decided "Do the right thing" was more appropriate.

But right for whom? They don't say ... My guess is the shareholders. In their warped, fuzzy little brains it's OK that they are evil now, as long as they are making a profit.

Some of us have been shunning go ogle since the year dot ... not paranoid, pragmatic.

Re: Fingerprinting

"Until they remove it, "for your safety" of course."

So preemptively remove Chrome. Simples.

Re: Fingerprinting

"There is an API-blocking extension for Chrome that might help with this."

The one I use is called "NeverInstallChrome". Has worked for a long time. Try it, you might like it.

Re: It was nice while it lasted

"Dunno how I'm going to manage banking though. There aren't many branches left."

Walk into a local branch and tell them why your are there. They will be happy to set you up.

I have NEVER used Internet services to do my banking. Ever. And I never will.

In these here Covid days I'm forced to use a drive-through, but I still talk to my banker of choice face to face, albeit through about 4 inches of bullet proof glass and via a microphone/speaker. They will physically let you in to the branch to open a new account or accounts and to take care of other important "wet ink" paperwork, at least here in California.

Re: It was nice while it lasted

"I suppose I'll soon be back to usenet and irc for any sanity."

Some of us never left.

Re: Yet

"What its acknowleging is that a browser envrionment is now the preferred environment for local code execution."

Preferred by whom? Certainly not anyone with clues.

Re: Yet

But they don't teach that history in school.

It's "legacy", don't you know. And of course "legacy" is old and bad and must go away (because they don't understand it).

Re: But look at the response to April in the Twitter thread

"Who's calling who "legacy"?"

"Legacy" is used at Boardroom Level to indicate stuff the youngsters don't understand because they don't bother teaching it in school anymore. It must be eradicated at all costs, because it's not new and shiny.

If you want to see a C-suite member go apoplectic, point out that all his financial assets are handled by Legacy Mainframes running Legacy COBOL and Legacy Fortran.

Re: But look at the response to April in the Twitter thread

You forgot one:

TCP/IP: 1975

Re: Brilliant

"Google really have lost the plot"

They haven't even read the CliffsNotes[0] from what I can tell.

They see that familliar black & yellow "under construction" sign, and all they comprehend from that point forward is the Almighty Buck .... and fuck everyone and everything that they trample in its pursuit.

[0] That'd be Cliff's Notes if you are my age ...

Re: Trustworthy?

You mean you haven't banned Chrome yet? Why ever not?

Re: Trustworthy?

"I was forced only the other day to fire up Chrome"

Forced? Were they holding a gun to the head of your firstborn or something?

Or do you mean "I had to because SHINEY!!!!1!"?

Re: good joke

Yeahbut ... those "black box insurance deals" were not only optional, but you were fully informed as to their nature, and what they were doing. This new telemetry that is built into cars? Not so much.

Audi, Subaru, Opel, BMW, whatever took the fancy of the local prats in your jurisdiction (it varies from country to country, state to state, county to county) ... Chances are good that they couldn't lie their way out of it anyway, before automotiveSPYware started becoming inflicted on the rest of us.

Essentially, automotiveSPYware assumes that all drivers are criminals. I don't do business with companies which assume I am a criminal, and thus they have a right to invade my privacy without so much as a by-your-leave.

And for GAWD/ESS sake, don't you DARE hit me with the totally bogus "If you're not doing anything wrong, what have you got to be afraid of?" line of bullshit. Unless, of course, you have a plate-glass window to the outside world installed in your shower. You're not guilty of anything whilst showering, right?

Re: I'm trying to remember

You mean they will lie through their teeth to make a sale?

Yep.

Re: I'm trying to remember

Yes, I do expect them to be aware of it. How else will they be able to lie convincingly to the GreatUnwashed?

Re: That's settled, then.

What did I say to deserve THAT insult, Sir? I'm appalled.

Re: That's settled, then.

I don't carry a so-called "smart" phone. In fact, I rarely carry any cell phone at all. I see no need to always be electronically leashed to the rest of the planet.

Re: eCall only activates when there's been an accident

"but since the accused were found guilty, then I guess that's all for the good."

Unless the accused weren't actually the guilty party, of course.

When and why did our society decide that an accusation was proof of guilt? Seems that it has become more and more the norm with the rise in anti-social media.

Re: mea culpa - always check compatibility

"I'm not entirely sure what my oldest "active use" tech is."

This would make an interesting ElReg column ... and probably the longest comments section ever. For the record, the oldest bits of computer kit I use regularly are printers ... an IBM 1403 from 1963 (plus a parts machine from 1960), and a Xerox Daisywheel from 1976.

Re: No unplugging required

"circa 1974, no "just telnet in" option"

I'm fairly certain I had telnet on a PDP-11 in 1974 ... See <a href="https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc206.pdf</a> ... However, for that particular problem, I'd have probably used dial-up. Regardless, I would have completely missed the cleaner. For some things, absolutely nothing beats boots on the ground :-)

Re: took his hammer and smashed it to very tiny pieces

They are called "mortisers" or "mortising machines", depending on where you are on the planet. I have an ancient one that is foot powered (inherited from my grandfather), but you can purchase mains powered versions for your home woodshop if you do a lot of that kind of work. As usual, beware of the cheap ones made of chinesium, unless you want to spend your money again.Consult a local woodworking group for the best deals in your area. (Be careful here, too ... woodworkers are almost as religious as audiofules. Do your homework. Caveat emptor.)

Note: Learn the mortising process with chisels before trying the powered tools ... Electricity allows you to make bad mistakes a lot faster than doing it by hand. Mortises are three dimensional. Measure eight times, cut once.

Re: took his hammer and smashed it to very tiny pieces

"One of his stories was being given a design which required him to make a square hole in a timber component to take fitting a square-shafted fitting. Once he was left to get on with it he drilled an ordinary round hole, then got the fitting and a suitable hammer..."

The square hole is called a mortise. For smaller versions, most people drill out the bulk of the hole, and then finish it with a chisel. For timberframing, I use a couple of different chain mortisers ... and often still wind up finishing it with a chisel for a perfect fit. Hammering the proverbial square peg into a round hole is just asking for the joint to fail at an inopportune time.

If you are handy and have never done any timberframing, I recommend giving it a try. It's a sturdy, long-lasting method for building almost anything out of wood ... the first project I made was a figure-four mailbox stand, the second was a coldframe. Both are nearly fifty years old and show no signs of failure.

Re: With great power comes great incompatibility

For future reference, they make locking outlet covers that fit over an inserted plug or plugs, preventing the removal of same. The locks are trash, easier to pick than a file cabinet, but they work for this kind of thing. Under twenty bucks, and usually in stock at your favorite purveyor of sparky stuff.

Re: took his hammer and smashed it to very tiny pieces

Mine range from the 10x10x24 inch Douglas Fir mallet that I use when assembling timber frame bents to a small brass one that I use to tap pins back into clockworks and the like.

Horses for course & all that.

Re: With great power comes great incompatibility

No need to replace plugs, just separate the cleaner from the keys ...

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the cleaning staff. It's their job to clean the place, floor to ceiling, board room to bog, watering plants, replacing dead light bulbs & emptying the trash in their wake. The modern world wouldn't run without janitorial staff. Extending this to include the labs that evolved into computer centers in the 1950s wasn't even thought about, it just happened. Janitorial staff having the keys to the entire kingdom (as it were) was the norm.

But computers are fickle. And jealous. They don't appreciate sharing power with vacuums.

So we in the glass room started putting our collective foot down in the late 1970s/early 1980s. It wasn't until the late 1980s that it started becomming uncommon. By the late 1990s it was as rare as hen's teeth. The last time I witnessed a janitor coming unannounced into a data center "in the wee hours" was 2005 ...

Re: Stuff that, I want one of these!

"I wonder if you can still buy luncheon meat?"

Looks like it. Princes, of course. Not recommended, if it's anything like the product I sampled back in the '70s.

Re: For a home office, set boundaries.

Yeah, we've had a long time to practice. Doesn't alter the concept I was trying to convey.

Re: Stuff that, I want one of these!

Did you note the saddle-broke Crocodile, nicely accessorized with a cannon? Who needs sharks with lasers?

(Not sure I'd want that cannon firing if I was at the reins, though ... )

Sounds like a plan. When do we start?

Re: Stuff that, I want one of these!

To be fair, the police don't claim that stun guns are not dangerous. They say that they are "less lethal". Which is the absolute truth.

How many people who are a threat to the general public and/or themselves have been zapped and taken into custody, none the worse for wear (and alive, good to waste everybody's time and/or hurt somebody, as soon as the 72 hour hold is up), that would otherwise have been shot and potentially killed with conventional firearms? Last time I looked, the numbers were in the high tens of thousands.

Re: Spin

On the bright side, there is good money to be made picking up the pieces when it all comes crashing down. The fun part is that, as a consultant, your job is to tell management that they have fucked up yet again, and cost their company $megabucks through their own ineptitude. The second (third, fourth, ... ) time around you can even say "I told you so!" if you play your cards right.

Re: Hypocritical

The 2nd Amendment says nothing about shooting drones. In fact, it doesn't say anything about shooting period. Really. Go read it for yourself. Its pretty easy to parse, being just the one line.

With that said, not buckshot. Goose loads, modified choke. Handloads optimized for your particular firearm work best. Good out to 80 or 90 yards, maybe 100 if the weather cooperates and the shooter has clues. Any duck hunter worth his/her salt should have no trouble taking out drones if they are in range.

Re: Thanks for the laugh.

Following up to myself ...

That was the group Manfred Mann, pre-Earth Band, in '68. Brain fart. And wonder of wonders, I found the John Peel version, which to the best of my knowledge has never been officially released. You can hear it for yourself, if you like. Might want to borrow a copy have a listen before Auntie Beeb nukes it.