* Posts by jake

26591 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007

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Astroboffins discover Sun is surfing on 9,000-light-year gas wave that acts as Milky Way's stellar nursery

jake Silver badge

Re: Forget bringing a towel when hitch hiking the galaxy

Some of us have a few ...

Blame of thrones: Those viral vids of PC monitors going blank when people stand up? Static electricity from chairs

jake Silver badge

For extra fun ...

... put your favorite secretary in the chair while you've got it hooked up to the 'scope.

Once when testing for this kind of thing, I discovered that the average female office worker can generate upwards of 85KV walking down the hall to get a cuppa, but myself walking along the same path came up static free. Seems my unmentionables were made of cotton, hers were made of silk and petrochemicals. Her heels were leather, my soles were high-carbon rubber.

It might not be very politically correct to discuss such things these days, but then I don't get paid to be PC, I get paid to fix problems.

We’ve had enough of your beach-blocking shenanigans, California tells stubborn Sun co-founder: Kiss our lawsuit

jake Silver badge

Re: Americans are so polite

The beach is surrounded by cliffs . There is only one access. That's the problem.

Actually, you can also come in by water. I know a few people who make a point to putt over from Half Moon Bay to picnic once in a while, just to irritate the asshole.

Ring of fired: Amazon axes multiple workers who secretly snooped on netizens' surveillance camera footage

jake Silver badge

Why did they do it?

Because they could. Human nature, innit.

Hands up everybody who didn't see this coming.

Remind me again why, exactly, the manufacturer of my home so-called "security" equipment needs to have a feed from that equipment?

Sheeple are stupid. Dyed in the wool idiots. And the marketards know it ...

What if everyone just said 'Nah' to tracking?

jake Silver badge

Re: Two conflated things

And of those 100 people who were shown the add for the new PC, 80 bought one 6 months ago when the ad-shyster-agency slirped their info. The rest bought one in the prior 6 months. None of the supposedly "targeted" people really need a PC at the moment. The one purchase would have bought the exact same PC without the advert because his kid spilled a coke on the first one.

My wife had to temporarily drop the blocks in order to view a client's facebook page (or instagram, or whatever it was), along with associated youtube stuff. After viewing it, she forgot to turn the blocks back on, and went looking for who had her favorite "work" bras on sale.

She remembered to turn the blocks back on after a couple minutes, maybe five, probably after looking at eight or ten pages. But the rot had already set in. For MONTHS after simply going to the store and making her purchase, the bright sparks at advertising agencies across the planet decided she needed to see bra adverts whenever possible. It was surreal, she'd look up horse blankets or forklift parts or muck forks and get bra adverts ...

I wonder how much longer the ad-pushers are going to be able to carry on their con? P.T. Barnum lived a century or so too early ...

jake Silver badge

Re: But How ?

Bad analogy. Sugar doesn't dissolve in gasoline/petrol, so if you have a working fuel filter it will never reach the engine. The sugar simply drops to the bottom of the tank and stays there (barring sloshing about). Getting it out is simply a matter of draining the tank, dropping it, and flushing it out. The petrol is still usable, so don't dispose of it.

jake Silver badge

Re: McNealy Said This Ten Years Earlier Though

I came here to say much the same thing.

Fucking gookids ... they think they've invented everything, but in reality all they've done is recycle the unsavory bits. Kinda like rabbits and coprophagia, but at least the rabbits produce their own shit before consuming it.

A Notepad nightmare leaves sysadmin with something totally unprintable

jake Silver badge

Re: three decades

"Seasons are cultural phenomena. They are not determined by the length of the day."

Tell that to my livestock and they will laugh at you ... and I'm fairly certain that my apple orchard has never heard of Madison Avenue.

jake Silver badge

Re: Whitney Houston

Do they have a public key & FTP site, or are they only available on tape? I just lurves me some narsty xmas carols!

jake Silver badge

Re: Octal? You lucky bastard!

Geeze, Stevie ... Now I'm going to have nightmares about my 3rd grade Science Fair project for weeks! Thanks.

jake Silver badge

A glassputter?

I have one. It was a presentation piece for a job well done, in a place long ago and far away. I use it occasionally ... it actually works very well, but I'm always afraid of losing it.

Before you ask, yes, the glass was made by Corning ...

(I hate the game, but it's occasionally good for making contacts.)

jake Silver badge

Re: Octal? You lucky bastard!

You obviously never worked with some of the gorillas provisioning equipment at DEC or Amdahl, then. Or sat next to Steve Jobs at a Homebrew Computer Club meeting ...

jake Silver badge

Re: three decades

Whatever.

To the general public, if it starts with a 2 its the twenties and the second decade of the century. If it starts with a 3 it's the thirties and the third decade of the century. Etc. You can make any claim to the contrary that you like, but you're not going to change the minds of the GreatUnwashed. It's called "the vernacular". Might as well get used to it. Unless all y'all actually enjoy the angst that comes with counting angels on pins, of course. In which case who am I to question? Carry on.

jake Silver badge

Re: Octal? You lucky bastard!

You had solder? Luxury! In my day, we used wire wrap ... and considered ourselves lucky, because it made computers so easily to re-program!

Kids these days, they don't know they're alive ...

jake Silver badge

UNIX v.s. MS/PC-DOS

Back in the days right after Redmond laid the turd known as MS-DOS on us, I had been hacking BSD for six or seven years (longer than it had been called BSD). I had to support both when Bigger Blue agreed to take on half a dozen 5150s for test purposes ... it took me all of about two days to put together a bootable DOS toolkit so I could get out of jams caused by my muscle memory telling DOS to break itself. I wasn't sure if I should be happy that it was so simple to fix, or if I should be terrified that it might take off. I probably would have bitched about it more when asked by IBM, but the silly thing didn't do networking, so how much trouble could it cause?

The rest, as they say, is history ...

Linux in 2020: 27.8 million lines of code in the kernel, 1.3 million in systemd

jake Silver badge

1) It solves the authors ego problems, to answer the first part of your question. The answer to the second part is "apparently".

2) There is no real need for them to speak up. The Kernel and the init are two different things with a clear demarcation between them. In essence, the kernel doesn't give a shit which init is used, never has, never will. This is as it should be.

3) There is no need to fork anything. systemd isn't in the kernel tree (see above). In fact, systemd isn't a part of Linux at all. It is, however, a bit of bloated code that some Linux Distributions use as their init code.

systemd and other inits are (loosely) the bit of code that handles the passing of control from the booting kernel to the fully working computer environment. It is the first process run on the system (imaginatively named "PID1"), and it basically keeps an eye on the rest of the processes as they start, stop, sleep, close, etc. It's kind of an important piece of code. Traditionally, it was a little, tiny thing that did it's job, and did it very well, with little to go wrong.

Along comes systemd. It is designed to handle far more than just the init function. And as more and more bits of the running system are incorporated into systemd (unnecessarily, for the most part), leading to dependancies upon systemd in that code, systemd will become MANDATORY to run Linux. This is already starting to happen.

To me, this sounds foolhardy, at best, and an attempt to take over the entire Linux ecosystem at worst (if the paranoid among us are correct). A power grab, if you will. Probably brought about because the two primary developers were kicked out of kernel development because they don't play well with others, and so are throwing a tantrum.

And that's without going into any of the technical arguments against it.

Clear as mud?

jake Silver badge

Oh, bullshit. Greg.

"Everybody who has ever worked at that level in the operating system has agreed that systemd is the proper solution."

Total, complete and utter bullshit.

I know plenty of people who have been developing un*x kernels since before BSD was called BSD. Very, very few of them consider the clusterfuck known as systemd to be a good idea. For anything.

There is a reason that an init, traditionally, is a small bit of code that does one thing very well. Like most of the rest of the *nix core utilities. All an init should do is start PID1, set run level, spawn a tty (or several), handle a graceful shutdown, and log all the above in plaintext to make troubleshooting as simplistic as possible. Anything else is a vanity project that is best placed elsewhere, in it's own stand-alone code base.

Inventing a clusterfuck init variation that's so big and bulky that it needs to be called a "suite" is just asking for trouble. systemd is b0rken by design and implementation.

jake Silver badge

Putting it bluntly,

systemd is a cancer that is growing out of control, and needs to be cut out of Linux before it infects enough of the system to kill it permanently.

Tragedy: CES squeeze forces frequent flier hotshots into economy hell

jake Silver badge

Re: While they sit in their seats

Seeing as baby seals HATE clubbing and much prefer dinner and a show, I rather suspect that the only answer is "mu".

jake Silver badge

Re: One wonders how many ...

At the end of one year it was discovered that I had been upgraded more than any of my colleagues, and by a fairly wide margin. When asked what my secret was, I told 'em the truth. Airline staff are in the same business that we are in in the IT world. It's called "customer service". I simply treat them the way I would like to be treated if our positions were reversed.

Works for hotel, restaurant, and bar staff too. Etc. PleaseAndThankYou and a smile go a long way, ESPECIALLY when the party you're speaking with has been dealing with assholes all day.

And get this ... it works even if you are having a bad day! If you pass your bad mood on to another person who is capable of making your life miserable, you deserve what you get. On the other hand, if you are nice to them for fifteen seconds, they'll probably help make a fifteen+ hour flight somewhat bearable.

And on the gripping hand, if you're really, really lucky you'll find a friend for life. A buddy married the stewardess he met on an SFO to Heathrow flight... both had been having a shitty day, but he put on the cheerful mask before boarding. During the flight they comiserated on the idiocy of the general public, which lead to dinner in London. Two years later they tied the knot ... that was over twenty years ago, they are still happily married.

jake Silver badge
Pint

Re: One insane week

I left out a couple of words: "tens of thousands of". Insert between "of" and "marketards". Sorry for the confusion. The camera just can't do the ... what's the word I'm looking for ... "bulk!", that's it! ... The camera just can't do the bulk of it all justice. Kind of like trying to photograph the Grand Canyon, only not quite as pretty.

This explanation brought to you by the number 4 and the letter U. You may now put your seat trays up and return to your usual bickering. Carry on, all.

jake Silver badge

Re: While they sit in their seats

No, no, no. Humble exists. Its rare, but it exists. It's the BOFH that is a figment. I can see where your confusion stems from, though.

jake Silver badge

Re: While they sit in their seats

But reductio ad absurdum can be so much fun!

For example, if all the Global Warming alarmists were to immediately stop all personal local production of CO2 and other pollutants (in the best of the "think globally, act locally" tradition/mantra), don't you think the world would become a vastly better place, practically overnight?

What do you mean they won't do that‽ Shirley saving an entire planet is worthy of SOME individual sacrifice, right‽‽‽

jake Silver badge

One wonders how many ...

... of these idiots actually expected an upgrade. Did they honestly think they were the only cattle-class warriors eligible? Or that suit-and-tie salesdroids didn't have business-class booked three years in advance? Or maybe they thought that they were the only people on the flight actually stopping in Vegas, and business class would be empty?

Regardless, the mind boggles ...

jake Silver badge

Re: One insane week

The Internet will NEVER be able to fully convey the macabre spectacle of marketards masturbating each other whilst leering at porn stars.

CES has been a complete waste of time since before 1995.

Rowhammer rides again as FPGA attack, RSA again reportedly up for sale, anti-theft kit to nuke laptops, etc

jake Silver badge

Re: Ransomware

A crime for the public good?

What do you call one dead telemarketing firm? A start.

Greetings from the future where it's all pole-dancing robots and Pokemon passports

jake Silver badge

Re: But the drones!

You'd probably be better off reading Bob Brister's immortal "Shotgunning" ... at least in the context of this conversation. Except, of course, in Britain, where both books would be equally useful.

jake Silver badge

Re: Greetings From the Future

It's not a third of CO2 emissions. It's a third of exported CO2 emissions.

Note that China, which buys most of Australia's coal, doesn't even make the top 30 on that list, yet they are the largest producer of CO2 emissions ... and will stay that way thanks to internal mining capability, even if Australia shuts down all coal production completely.

As a result, Australia doesn't have the capability to even dent total global CO2 emissions, so they might as well profit from some nice Chinesium dollars while they still can.

jake Silver badge

Re: Haptic dick pics popularity

As the actress said to the bishop.

jake Silver badge

Re: Greetings From the Future

A third? Hardly. The real number is under 5% ... and most of those sales are to China, which can ramp up internal production as needed if the lower cost Australian coal is removed from the market.

Stack Overflow makes peace with ousted moderator, wants to start New Year with 2020 vision on codes of conduct

jake Silver badge

Re: They

"Chaucer isn't a neologism."

Chaucer himself wasn't ... but the Middle English he wrote in certainly was full of them! Ask any Anglo-Norman French speaker of the period ...

jake Silver badge

Re: The article is...not great

The best Norton is a Commander. The bike and the file manager.

jake Silver badge

Re: "she can apply to regain her moderator status"

Actually, they ganged up on her and kicked her out of their clique because of a CoC that hadn't even officially been put into place yet. In some communities, this would be considered bullying. What does their precious CoC have to say about bullies?

jake Silver badge

One question remains unanswered.

Now that Stack Overflow admits to being built on argumentum ad passiones[0], and is thus to all intents and purposes useless, who do we send the wannabe programmers to in order to plagiarize b0rken versions of standard code snippets?

[0] Clearly, the most easily offended is in charge.

It's always DNS, especially when you're on holiday with nothing but a phone on GPRS

jake Silver badge

Re: It's always DNS - most of the time

"Except when it is the cleaner unplugging the server so they can use the hoover"

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 until 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 became 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" at a place I was consulting for was 2005 ...

jake Silver badge

Re: It was a quiet Friday night and I wasn't on call,

"why does the AM/PM notation not switch exactly at midnight and exactly at noon?"

It's in the name, and from the Latin. AM is ante meridiem (before midday), and PM is post meridiem (after midday). Noon and midnight aren't considered AM or PM, they are just named markers of zero duration between the two.

Try to remember, when this notation was first being developed the concept of minutes didn't exist yet, much less seconds.

jake Silver badge

Re: It was released to the GreatUnwashed in '86

Don't be daft. Computers had been in wide-spread use for thirty years at that point.

jake Silver badge

Re: No Service

What's really fun is pointing out the obvious when somebody claims to be off-grid, but has a 1,000 gallon propane tank and several hundred gallons of gas/petrol and/or diesel on hand at all times.

jake Silver badge
Pint

Re: In '95 ...

Many moons ago, I bid on a contract at a un*x shop. I won the contract without a face-to-face interview. When I walked in on the first morning, the guy in charge of the data center looked startled & exclaimed "Where's your beard‽‽‽" ... Despite over forty years of un*x experience, I do not now and never have had a beard. Still makes me chuckle :-)

Now git orf me lawn! (Beers all around.)

jake Silver badge

Re: In '95 ...

Cutler's NT4 was an OS, true. Unfortunately, the Redmond marketing department managed to completely fuck up the "as shipped" implementation. This could be fixed in the field by competent IT staff, but rarely was, alas.

jake Silver badge

Re: IT's always DNS

"The wonders of DNS at work."

Or in your case, the wonders of DNS at home.

jake Silver badge

Re: "decided modern one"

BIND might be younger than you think. It was released to the GreatUnwashed in '86. Some still used Jon's list for a few years after that ...

jake Silver badge

Re: No Service

All kinds of places just North of San Francisco that have no service. If you need a quiet place to vacation, try Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino or Lake counties in California. Friendly people, and the best wine, beer and food in the US, as well.

</shamelessplug>

jake Silver badge

In '95 ...

... my Satellite Pro (a 400CDT, if I remember correctly) triple booted. 4.4BSD, Minix 1.5 and this new-fangled thing called Slackware Linux. Slack had in the last year and a half taken over from BSD as my go-to OS. I wouldn't have been caught dead troubleshooting network issues with a Redmond based program loader pseudo-OS.

We live so fast I can't even finish this sent...

jake Silver badge

Re: Knights Templar Live in Practically Revolutionary Phorms Too

"Do you want to bet it is definitely not such an improbable plot?"

Yes. I am willing to bet the farm that is it not such an improbable plot. In fact, I am so absolutely certain, that I have done that very thing ... The alternative, assuming your scenario is anything close to reality, is to curl up and quit living due to the futility of it all. I'm not a quitter. Are you?

jake Silver badge

Re: Is that...

Blue snow marks ancient ice.

Blue snow also marks the newest of ice ... that dumped from an airliner's potty.

Watch out where the huskys go ...

jake Silver badge

It's been around long enough to have a name.

It's called "short attention span theater".

Today's budget for application improvements is brought to you by the letters "Y", "K" and the number "2"

jake Silver badge

Re: Y2...um... okay?

Probably not ... We'd be living in an octal world. Then again, you need a clock to tell an LED to do anything useful, so time had to be invented first regardless.

Behold Schrödinger's Y2K, when software went all quantum

jake Silver badge

Re: I found a Y2K bug a few years ago

Not comedy, tragedy. Easy mistake to make.

jake Silver badge

Re: Tuesday Jan 19 03:14:08 2038

Because they don't know a George Benson hit when they hear it?

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