* Posts by jake

26585 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007

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C'mon SPARCky, it's just an admin utility update. What could possibly go wrong?

jake Silver badge
Pint

As usual ...

... two kinds of people. Those who admit to it, and liars.

A little experience doesn't make brain farts and/or fat fingering go away completely, but it helps.

Beers all around. We've earned it.

jake Silver badge

"Stir in the fact that changing a 1Gb drive back in the day was a two or three-person job"

Nah. By the time the SPARCs arrived, that was an easy one person job. The first SPARCs were Sun-4 models, with full height CDC Wren 5.25 SCSI2 drives. Not lightweight by modern standards, but hardly the 8 inch monsters that CDC had made a couple years earlier. Some early machines even had 3.5 inch half height drives. I can't remember if they made it past Pilot build and Alpha test prior to Sun actually labeling the machines SPARC though ... lot of water under the ol' bridge.

Good news: Neural network says 11 asteroids thought to be harmless may hit Earth. Bad news: They are not due to arrive for hundreds of years

jake Silver badge

Sounds like ...

... there is a wannabe SciFi author at Leiden University in the Netherlands, because this announcement doesn't seem to be based upon science fact. Nobody ought to bet the farm on a WAG ... Get back to me when you've bothered to calculate their orbits.

We're afraid it might be terminal: Tesco top-up box looking less than tip-top

jake Silver badge

Re: Eye popping performance not surprising

"Try actually wordprocessing for example a 15 page document with a few graphics in it, maybe some circuit diagrams or something like that, on your 1990s 486, and let me know how you get on."

I'm pretty sure that I was doing all that with WinWord 2.0 on Win 3.0 in 1991 with no problems at all.

"and you won't have to press ^S after every other keystroke"

I didn't have to press ^S. Its a computer, I told it to do it for me.

jake Silver badge

Indeed.

"Like many ancient bits of Microsoft OS technology, putting it on modern (disconnected) gear demonstrates some eye-popping performance compared to code nowadays."

Try putting ACAD2K on NT2K on modern hardware. With the exception of video driver issues (the old generic "hi-res" ones work perfectly adequately), it's surprising how fast it is. Overall, seat of the pants suggests at least three times as fast as the modern code on the same hardware. And quite frankly, there is absolutely nothing in the modern equivalents that I would find important enough to switch to.

jake Silver badge

Re: Can Be Your Toilet Paper Scratching You Ow!

Upvoted, with the caveat that most people (whoever that is) don't know that Lorem ipsum exists.

Call us immediately if your child uses Kali Linux, squawks West Mids Police

jake Silver badge

Backtrack?

How twentyteens. I occasionally still use a much hacked, patched, modified, massaged and otherwise molested version of Dan Farmer's SATAN.

Does your distro of choice come with nmap? You too might be a 31337 h4><0r.

jake Silver badge

Re: Be fair

Teen son, all furtive, in the small hours?

It's pr0n. It's always pr0n.

jake Silver badge

Re: Be a government informer! Betray your family and friends! Fabulous prizes to be won!

"Arent't the herbs rather dead once you've harvested them"

No. Most herbs stay alive for quite awhile after harvesting, and can easily be rooted to clone the original plant.

Incidentally, if you prefer the rocking action for chopping herbs, look into purchasing a mezzaluna, an Italian tool which is designed for just that. You might also find it under it's French name, hachoir. They sell 'em in one, two and three blade versions, but I only use the single bladed one for ease of sharpening and cleanup.

jake Silver badge

Re: Whatever next in the UK... reporting our neighbours for harbouring Jews?

Ta for the name. A little poking around turns up this link (BBC, SFW) from 17 years ago.

That's entirely too close for my initial estimate to be nothing more than a WAG ... I must have read it somewhere and my lizard hind-brain dredged it out of the depths. What is it that they say is the first thing to go?

jake Silver badge

My daughter reads here, and just called in ...

... and wondered if I should have shot her when she was 12, after I discovered she was dual booting Slackware and BSD.

She had four partitions on a huge 800 meg IDE drive: BSD, Slack, swap and her personal directories. She was afraid I'd get mad at her for blowing away Windows to make room for a persistent partition for personal stuff ...

jake Silver badge

Re: Do you know someone that owns a knife?

I've got about 100 pounds of black sand from Lake Superior leftover from a couple forging projects.

jake Silver badge

Re: Do you know someone that owns a knife?

"Perhaps... they are murdering lunch"

I harvested a dozen chickens this morning.

jake Silver badge

Re: Let's hope West Midlands Police learns something useful

A soldering iron? Luxury! We used wirewrap and relays ... and we liked it! It was an upgrade from the beads on sticks that out forefathers used. Try telling that to kids today ...

The funny thing about the above paragraph is that it's actually true :-)

jake Silver badge

Re: Whatever next in the UK... reporting our neighbours for harbouring Jews?

How can you be far from the sea in Blighty? Is there a single point in the UK that is more than 70 kilometers (call it 45 miles) from a body of water that experiences ocean tides? From here to Bodega Bay is about that, and I go there for lunch fairly often ...

Not a Genius move after all: Apple must cough up $$$ in back pay for store staff forced to wait for bag searches

jake Silver badge

Re: It took seven fucking years?

So what you are saying, phuzz, is that Apple's so-called "Geniuses" are so fucking useless that they can't find a job outside of Apple? Fair enough. I can live with your estimation of their general ability.

jake Silver badge

Re: It took seven fucking years?

"Most jobs, let alone minimum paid ones, states "8 to 5" then obvs explain, you turn up 30 mins before the shift starts to get ready, and it takes 30 mins to clean/close up after, and that 1 hour every day, every shift, is unpaid."

I have never, in my entire life, seen this. Employers rent (pay for) the use of employees from the time they punch the (perhaps figurative) clock, until the employee punches out. Before and after those times, the employer can fuck right the hell off. Thus the term "Sorry, I'm off the clock", followed immediately by turning around and walking away. It is against the law for the employer to require your services off the clock. As Apple has discovered, despite spending tons of money on land sharks trying to argue otherwise.

jake Silver badge

It took seven fucking years?

The mind boggles ...

Out of curiosity, Apple employees, why are you still working for a company that clearly doesn't trust you ... and doesn't care enough about you to ensure that the daily exit procedure is automatically included in the 8 hours they pay you for? Seriously. WHY? I'd have told them to fuck off the second time they attempted to hold me up (I'd allow it once. Anybody can make a mistake.) ... and I'd have called the cops for them holding me against my will if I wasn't allowed to leave. That's kidnapping, no matter how you try to gloss it over.

You'll never select all and mark as read again after this tale of peril... Oh, who are we kidding? Of course you will

jake Silver badge

Re: and it was said to rip the keys from your trousers.

"Normal people don't link more rings than keys."

I've got a winding key on the end of my watch chain ...

jake Silver badge

In somewhat the same vein ...

... one morning I rode my horse from Portola Valley Equestrian Center to SLAC. Got her into one of the buildings, and down the heavy goods lift into the basement, hitched her to my office door and got to work. I stopped there, but I could have taken her into the actual computer room down the hall.

At lunch time, I rode her back to PVEC. Nobody seemed to even notice, except a janitor who poked his head into my office to say "Nice horse! Are you expecting me to clean up after her?", to which I replied that I'd take care of it if necessary.

Why? To prove a point about lax security ... Neither the horse, nor myself, had our badge with us. Funny how video of a horse in a basement can light a fire under otherwise disinterested management ... security is much better at SLAC now. No, I wasn't arrested. Today, I'd probably get life without for even suggesting such a stunt ... Prior to this, I had been riding my panhead down the same path for about a week, including the trip down the lift, without anybody batting an eye.

jake Silver badge

Re: User problem: needed to be escalated.

I think we could lift the mood and elevate the conversation by simply ramping things up.

Parks and recreation escalate efforts to take back control of field terrorised by thug geese

jake Silver badge

Re: "I hate them."

Your comment is not even wrong.

jake Silver badge

Except ...

... the coyote is native to North America. Last time I checked, Pennsylvania was in North America. So no, nothing at all like rabbits & cane toads (and cats!) in Oz.

In actual fact, the coyotes of the Lehigh Valley, where Palmer Township is located, have been there since at least the 1940s, after Humans made the territory more hospitable to them by deforestation and eradicating the local Wolf population. They weren't "brought in", they simply moved in to fill the niche that was made available to them.

In fact, I'm willing to bet that the park in question already has a population of coyotes ... they are very opportunistic and can fit in with humans pretty much anywhere. Even the City of San Francisco has a local population of coyotes. All the Township probably needs to do is encourage them instead of harassing them.

jake Silver badge

Re: Selectively shooting them is the only thing that will work.

All of the UK is coastal. It's just a little island, with no elevation to speak of. I've seen gulls on the highest hilltops of Eryri and in the heart of the so called "highlands" of Scotland. Takes a bit of a storm to blow them into the Yorkshire side of the Pennines, but I've seem 'em there, too.

jake Silver badge

Re: "I hate them."

I save Yorkshire pud for beef. Call me a purest.

Besides, I save the goose (and duck) fat for roasting spuds. Sticking it into a iron pan that's hot enough to start it smoking seems to be sacrilege somehow.

jake Silver badge

Re: Federally protected

Lehrer wasn't satirizing hunters, he was satirizing city slickers with a deer tag.

On the rare occasion that I wear camo, it's bright orange. I don't want the likes of Dick Cheney mistaking me for game. This wardrobe change only happens on opening weekend of deer hunting season. That's when the city slickers come out to the woods and blaze away at anything that moves, thus causing any wildlife with a central nervous system to dive for deep cover until the clueless idiots go home again.

jake Silver badge

Re: Federally protected

If you're lucky, swans come out of ovens.

jake Silver badge

Re: Funny...

I once overheard my Grandfather tell my Grandmother that he'd stop acting childish if he ever grew up. He was in his early 90s at the time. IMO, life's far to short to live the last 75+% constantly forcing one's self to be an "adult" (whatever that means).

jake Silver badge

Re: Funny...

"I shudder to think what goose falling would do to a car."

Probably not as much damage as you might think. I ran into one that was flying low across Hwy 101 just South of Cloverdale a couple years ago. I was doing about 70MPH. Took out the right front running light and put a slight dent in the grill/headlight trim of my 1975 F-250. No other damage. There is a lot of air in feathers and bird bones, provides some cushioning on impact.

No other damage to the truck, that is ... The only bits of goose that were salvageable were the right leg and breast. Threw 'em into the little smoker, 220F, no seasoning at all, just wine barrel stave smoke for about 2.5 hours. Tasty.

jake Silver badge

Re: "if there's something winged in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call?"

Nah. They avoid our geese, probably for the simple reason that the geese live too close to human activity. Mountain Lions (Puma, Cougar, Catamount, etc.) don't travel in "brigades", they are (mostly) solitary. Also, with rare exception, they quite sensibly avoid humans at all costs. They are, all in all, a very easy big predator to share space with.

I've seen one maybe twenty times in all the years we've lived here, nearly always just before sun-up ... although I see evidence of their existence regularly. We live on the junction between three of their territories, and quite appreciate the fine job they do controlling the wild turkey population and taking care of deer with broken legs and the like. I've lost a couple dozen lambs to them over the years ... but only lambs that managed to stray beyond the field the rest of their flock was in. I don't fault the cats for this, and look on it a being another variation on the angel's share.

jake Silver badge

"I hate them."

I can change your tune. Try roasting them with carrots, onions, celery and fennel. Salt, pepper and the ubiquitous bay leaf doesn't hurt. Serve with potatoes (any cooking method, I like mashed). Turn the drippings into real gravy for the spuds. Two or three veg of choice rounds out the meal.

The smell of one cooking might attract your neighbors, so share. They are plenty big for a crowd.

Don't forget to turn the carcass into stock! Waste not, want not.

jake Silver badge

Selectively shooting them is the only thing that will work.

They have become non-migratory for a reason ... that reason being that the location is perfect goose habitat. Humans NOT hunting is a part of the reason it's such a good habitat ... even if you shift the existing population, wild ones will settle into the slot and take over. Obtaining a federal permit to send in hunters to remove most of the problem birds, leaving only a few behind to fill what would otherwise become a vacuum, is the only thing that will work long-term. Once you've got the basic problem under control, standard hunting licenses should be able to maintain it.

Of course the greenies will shout down this logical approach to a man-made problem ...

jake Silver badge

Re: Federally protected

They are protected as a part of the Migratory Birds Act ... but that doesn't mean you can't shoot them. There is a designated hunting season, but take note of bag limits. Also, you CAN get federal permits to remove non-migratory populations which have become nuisances. When we first moved into this property, we had around 80 Canada Geese that lived here year-round, squeezing out local waterfowl. The prior owner had fed them regularly, making them into rather dangerous, noisy, stinky, messy, destructive "pets".

It took about two years (and the ire of local greenies) before we received our federal permit to remove the problem. It's been almost two decades of carefully culling the flock, but now we now have a manageable population of what is in essence domestic Canada Geese. And ongoing permission to cull them as required, to keep the population under control. (We are audited yearly.)

Don't worry, the harvested culled critters don't go to waste. They do, however, go to waist ... Them's seriously good eats!

Voatz of no confidence: MIT boffins eviscerate US election app, claim fiends could exploit flaws to derail democracy

jake Silver badge

Re: I'm baffled

"Security is not perfect and you want a Boolean answer."

The question was "is it secure?". The answer, as you know full well, is no. The rest is just waffle.

jake Silver badge

Re: I'm baffled

"Yet sheeple seem to accept mobile banking and payment systems are secure."

FTFY

"Make yer minds up, either it is possible to make secure mobile apps or it isn't."

We (TINW) have made up our minds. It isn't.

Remember, just because it is possible to do something doesn't mean it is a good or safe idea ... no matter how much marketing tries to tell you otherwise.

jake Silver badge

27 times? In the world of DevOps and so-called "agile"?

"The app biz claims the researchers looked at an old version of Voatz, one that has since been updated at least 27 times."

So that's what, last Tuesday's mid-afternoon version?

When was the last time your DearOldMum updated an app?

Internet security is an illusion. So-called smart phone security doubly so.

Crypto-upstart subpoenas Glassdoor to unmask ex-staff believed to be behind negative reviews. EFF joins the fray

jake Silver badge

Re: Kraken Crypto?

Could easily be a Wyndham reference. Us Yank SciFi fans know the book by it's original title, and have done since long before the Kraken CEO was out of three cornered pants.

jake Silver badge

Brilliant.

Apparently nobody at Kraken has been online long enough to know the fastest way to get a bad reputation.

Startup Mycroft AI declares it will fight 'patent troll' tooth and nail after its Linux voice-assistant attracts lawsuit

jake Silver badge

Re: Startup Mycroft AI declares it will fight 'patent troll'

Who is "we", Kemosabe?

jake Silver badge

Sounds a trifle broad.

From here, it sounds like Voice Tech claims it owns voice mail and modems, amongst other things that clearly existed long before 2007.

Raw sunlight is going to cause our asteroid belt to spin itself to death by YORPing – but not for another six billion years

jake Silver badge

Re: Can you get the spinsies from a jump to the left?

EVERYBODY! This time with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that ... "Let's do the time-YORP aga-aain!"

jake Silver badge

Uh, no. No, it isn't.

Shall I project an image, or are you good at projection all by yourself?

jake Silver badge

Re: Can you get the spinsies from a jump to the left?

If you put your hands on your hips you'll spin faster.

jake Silver badge

Re: Snowballs

Did we ever?

Coronavirus to decimate server supply chain, analysts claim: Sales to fall 10% as factories stay shut

jake Silver badge

Re: That's the first time in a long time ...

It's not a Latin word, it's an English word.

The Latin root is "decimat", meaning removal of a tenth. The Roman army disciplinary action of drawing every tenth man by lot and putting them to death (not removal of hands!) was first called decimation in English around 1600. It was also briefly used in English similarly to the word "tithe", also starting in around 1600.

As a side note, most linguists consider the word to have mutated into the more common "utterly destroyed" meaning. Some of us pedants disagree.

Jeff Bezos: I will depose King Trump

jake Silver badge

Re: To be honest ...

Check the spelling. If they can spell, they are probably trolling (bob, for example). If their spall chucker don't do reel gud, they probably believe the bullshit they are parroting.

jake Silver badge

Re: "Has anyone calculated the difference between Trump and Obamas time spent"

The tl;dr and/or "I never follow links" version:

114 games of golf played during this Presidency, at a cost to US taxpayers in excess of $125,000,000 ... and counting.

"I'm going to be working for you. I'm not going to have time to go play golf." —-Donald J. Trump lies his ass off, as usual ... This time August 2nd, 2016 in Ashburn VA.

jake Silver badge

Re: To be honest ...

I see no platter yet. Silver or otherwise.

jake Silver badge

Re: To be honest ...

"I wouldn't be surprised if they're all sock puppets of the same 1 or 2 individuals."

Because you firmly believe that only one or two folks who read ElReg think Trump is a blustering, bumbling, bulbous buffoon with delusions of grandeur? And that the vast majority of ElReg readers are firmly on the side of Trump?

Either you are trolling very badly (and getting worse at it as you go), or you're just as deluded as the idiot in chief. Do you worship his blessed senility?

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