Posts by jake 26662 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007
... one of the most pirated small bits of code out there in the early 1980s ... for those who didn't have his earlier version that was shared through user groups, that is.
And who among us didn't have a series of bootabe floppies with the necessary system files for all the variations of MS/PC-DOS that were in the wild at the time? I still have that box of disks (and a couple releases of 4DOS). Comes in handy six or eight times per year ... you'd be surprised at how many pieces of decades old computer controlled equipment still runs on MS/PC-DOS. Bridgeport CNC machines of the era, for one example that is going to be around for decades to come.
"Seems as though it has been approximating that goal."
So has EMACS, these last forty-odd years. And systemd is attempting a latter-day coup. But that still doesn't make either of them operating systems. And they won't be, either, until you can boot from them as a stand-alone kernel (monitor, executive, whatever).
"A browser is an Operating System Application"
A browser is an "Operating System Application"? Oh, c'mon amfM ... I thought better of you. Inventing new concepts that don't actually mean anything doesn't help your cause. Try again?
For greater than four nines of all WWW sites, there is another pasture. I can afford to miss out on the one in ten thousand; one can only laugh at so many cute cat pics in a lifetime.
As for .gov ... I visit them in person. It's much less trouble, and I usually get whatever it is I am doing done in a single visit, instead of it taking several trips and many days as it so often does on the Web.
The modern day OS, to all intents and purposes, is the traffic cop between CPU, memory & I/O and applications. An easier way of looking at it is that the OS is in charge of the hardware's on/off switch. The OS can contain code to turn the machine off, user-space can't. Browsers run in user space q.e.d.
Note that it doesn't matter one whit what the guest OS or application "thinks"[0], what matters is the reality of hardware ownership.
An operating system living in a virtual machine is just that, virtual, not a real machine. It is not in actual control of the hardware that it is running on, therefore it is not a full OS, it's just a virtual OS. Note that browsers run on virtual OSes, not in lieu of them.
And yes, I am aware of Intel's Management Engine and AMD's Platform Security Processor, but unlike the OS vs. Application dividing line, the OS vs. ME/PSP is dancing on the head of a pin territory. Besides, both of those technically have their own CPU core that they are in charge of, with hooks onto the main system bus of the host computer. I look at them as parasites more than anything else.
[0] Indeed, the point of good virtualization is ensuring that the OS+Application doesn't even notice that is, in fact, virtualized ... to the point of the OS thinking it is capable of turning off it's virtualized hardware. It's still just a virtual OS when running on that machine, in that manner. Without specifying context, these conversations are meaningless. The devil is truly in the details.
"Isn't debating with amanfrommars almost as much a sign of madness as trying to extract meaning from it's high-faluting algorithm?"
No more so than debating with you is as much a sign of madness as trying to extract meaning from your high-faluting(sic) algorithm, nagyeger.
If it makes your badly designed web page look like shit, I'll try another browser. Or, more likely, I'll pass on your badly designed web site entirely. But leave the choice to me ... that way, at least you'll have a chance of me trying another browser. Blocking me outright right from the git-go doesn't give you that second chance; I'll assume you're either hostile or an asshole and move on to greener pastures.
You've said that before, amfM. You are still incorrect. A browser is an application, not an OS, no matter how hard you squint at it.
Unless your browser controls your hardware, of course ... in which case, I submit that your actual OS is very, very b0rken.
For the record, there is still far too much work for not enough Fortran and COBOL coders. If you know either of them well, you can make a lot more money than a common or garden Java Script coder. If you know both, you can pretty much write your own ticket.
Good old fashioned C will always have a place in the world of coding. It should be a part of any real programmer's toolbox.
"Proper racing gloves are a must too, if you have a direct-drive wheel, because those things can mess your hands right up."
If you're all that worried about your girlfriend getting hurt when gaming, a good set of gardening gloves will work just as well as proper Nomex when you're in your mummy's basement. Besides, I really don't think that my SFI-15 gloves would be conducive to fiddling about with your joystick.
Why is it that whenever I see EPG my brain parses it as Eggs Per Gram?
I typoed, should have been 50 years ago ... I was specifically thinking about 1968, when IBM transferred it's Information Marketing Division to SBC ... Later, in the mid-late 1980s, a certain high-tech market payed for the placement of advertising into the MOTDs of a couple Silly Con Valley BBSes ... they were detecting connection speeds of 1200 or 2400 (or less) and offering cheap 9600 baud modems to those folks "still in the slow lane". The outcry was loud and instant, and they stopped the practice within a day or so and apologized for the "experiment".
It's all been downhill from there.
Cost/benefit says no.
There aren't enough usable square $UNITOFMEASUREs to do more than trickle-charge the system, giving you a couple miles of extra travel per day at best. In other words, your round-trip before range anxiety starts to set in is increased negligibly for a relatively high cost.
By way of reference, good consumer grade solar cells typically put out about 15 Watts per square foot, or 160 Watts per square meter. Keep in mind this is under ideal conditions. A Tesla Model S takes about 13,000 Watts to cruise at 55MPH, 20,000 Watts at 65MPH and 32,000 Watts at 80MPH. More if fully loaded.
At current technology levels, solar is good for one thing when it comes to automobiles: Keeping the battery from going flat during long periods of non operation. But you'll have to park it in full sun when you leave it in long-term parking ... don't pick that shady spot, and forget the garage.
... who had the job description "Boffin at Large" on his business cards when he worked for one of the largest companies in the world, I'm fairly certain that I'm not alone in calling her basic premise nothing more than twaddle.
But she'll make a quarter million quid or more selling a book to idiots, and she knows it. In other words, she's making a quick buck off the supposed downtrodden that she is supposedly championing. We have a word for that.
Ah. yes, "it happens in the cloud", meaning the speaker has absolutely zero idea how computers and networking actually work. Just eyeball any introduction level textbook on networking theory from the 1980s. Almost all of them have many drawings with a cloud-shaped squiggle to indicate where the "too difficult for management to understand" bits hang out and work their magic. Many advanced level texts from the era also have the cloud squiggle.
The name "cloud computing" was already a fairly common meme by the time Y2K rolled around. Most of us with some experience in the field tried to stop it, because we could see where it was heading ... marketing-driven beancounters running the centralized computer service bureau again, just like in the mainframe days.
And here we are. Everybody has a super-computer on their phone (with matching local storage!), and yet the sheeple GreatUnwashed have been brainwashed into thinking that somehow "the cloud" is better/safer/faster than local. The mind absolutely boggles.
My job title at Bigger Blue was "Boffin at Large"; it was even on my business cards (only because they wouldn't let me use my preferred "Chief Cook & Bottle Washer"). My actual position? Floating Senior Member of the Technical Staff. I wandered from department to department, putting out fires.
"even if the original spec is NO WATER PIPES IN THIS AREA WHATSOEVER"
... That's when The Boss decides she needs an Executive Powder Room, and the only place the lowest bidder can figure out to run the fresh, grey and black water pipes is through the ceiling of the data center. Naturally, they all leaked at various times in the ensuing decade. Fortunately, my warranty was made null and void by this bone-headed mistake.
"Lesson three: Someone will ALWAYS go "what does this button do?" whilst pressing it, especially if it is under a protective cover of some sort that can't be broken by simply walking into it (see #1) very clearly labelled what it does, how much pressing it will cost and that there's a camera monitoring it."
FTFY
I usually have a kill switch and fire suppression within arms reach, too. Prudent. The switch itself isn't protected by a molly-guard, but the arming switch for the fire suppression is.
Yes, just like the aircraft emergency power button, but often to the point of destroying the motor just as you cross the finish line. It can activate another level of nitrous (dry or wet), increase the redline (if you normally run a rev limiter), tell the wastegate to increase the boost, adjust the timing, or more usually some combination. It is normally only used in the semi finals or the finals because of the chances of doing internal damage to the engine.
As a side note to my fellow IT techs ... If you ever come across a drag racing advocate in your travels, don't assume that the "scram" button, often on the steering wheel, means "power down all systems". In fact, it means quite the opposite, and usually adds between 10 and 15% more power to the motor for a last-second improvement in ET and MPH. It's basically a press to pass button, and can activate one or more of several different methods of pushing a motor past it's normal limits for a second or two.
It's short for "scramble", which some racers call it.
The "All systems off" switch is located at the rear of the car where track personnel can access it in an emergency, and is usually well marked.
My daughter just sent me this link:
https://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2011/05/17/putting-the-axe-to-the-scram-myth/
And now you know.
On the other hand, the wiring on those cars is so easy that ripping it all out and re-wiring from scratch isn't really all that difficult. My 1963 Ford Consul Capri GT is now 12V-ve, from 6V+ve. Only took a couple days to build a new wiring harness. Probably didn't hurt that while I was at it, I swapped in a Mazda 13B engine & 5-speed from an RX4 ... That bit took a trifle longer.
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