Posts by jake

Re: Size.

Yes, politics is stupid. This is true the world over.

There are horrific tales of consumer woe for any billion dollar company that sells goods or services to the general public regardless of where you live.

Re: Comm System Constraints

"I was living in the USA in the 90s and this was a CDMA thing."

Yeah, when cell phone use exploded, the system was frequently overloaded in high-density urban areas. This has mostly been fixed.

Re: Size.

"Honestly, I suspect the American problem might be the telcos, and their inability to play nicely with each other."

The 911 system came about when Ma Bell was a (near) monopoly, so that wasn't really an issue. It wasn't set up to be a national service, mostly because of the size of the place, but also because the usual suspects balked at the cost and started yelling about "State's Rights". So even though the 911 number was reserved nation-wide, and the switch gear knows to keep such calls local, not everybody got the system immediately. Each individual region had to pay for their own system, so the roll-out was slow with multiple generations of hardware in use. However, the various call centers do have communications capability between each other in places where it makes sense. Here in the Bay Area the emergency folks can co-ordinate (mostly) seemlessly. But it would make little sense to include the Sacramento area or the San Diego area or Los Angeles in that. With 440 (last time I checked) 911 call centers in California alone it would become unwieldy if each one had to talk to even 10 percent of the total.

So while it looks strange to folks coming from a physically much smaller country, it actually makes perfect sense here. And yes, once in a while there are edge cases where it would be handy if two (mostly) incommunicative call centers had better info sharing capability. We are getting there. Fortunately that kind of emergency is few and far between.

Things like wildfires are handled with their own communications systems, where the local folks in charge can communicate with crews coming in from all over the nation (and Canada, occasionally... and we send crews North to help them, too). Same for the Coastguard.

Re: Size.

"So you're saying the US telecoms intrastructure is so useless that someone in LA can't call someone in Schenectady?"

No, I never said that.

"when you suggest it wouldn't be possible for an emergency call"

I did not say that, either.

"And ignoring the deeply condescending tone of your reply"

Then spit the hook, little fishy.

Re: Size.

"You know the Alps are higher than the Rockies?"

Last time I checked the Alps were in Europe. You Brits aren't.

"Oh a tiny place called China want a word about your post as well."

I know the Chinese are buying the UK piecemeal, but that's hardly something to be proud of.

Re: Why the down vote?

"Long distance fibre relies on repeaters, which are powered by copper powerlines that run alongside the fibre itself."

Not anymore. Look up optical amplifiers and optical regenerators.

Re: Why the down vote?

Our local CO has a natural gas genset that will recharge the battery as it keeps the lines up. There is a redundant diesel generator, just in case the natural gas gets cut during/after an earthquake. Yes, it's all tested regularly, and known good.

Re: Why the down vote?

We've had vehicles take out telephone poles between us and the CO several times. Each time, the wires held up what's left of the pole long enough for $TELCO to hot-swap 'em over to the new pole. In all the years I've lived here, the POTS lines have never gone down. I can think of perhaps half a dozen poles that have needed replacing, though.

Re: I still have analog landlines.

"when was the last time you saw a home phone that was actually wired to the wall socket (and thus receiving power)"

Daily. My desk telephone is about 70 years old. It's a 1950s Western Electric Model 500, my Father's first telephone. It does everything I need a telephone in that location to do, except DTMF, which was easily rectified with a little circuitry and a couple switches and buttons. (My telco still supports pulse dialing, the DTMF option is handy for accessing voice-mail torture devices "helpfully" provided by third parties.)

A couple years ago I offered a teenager $50 if he could place a call on it.

He refused to touch it. Said he was afraid of it.

I made a call to his cell to show him it worked, and asked him to try again. He still refused.

My granddaughter discovered the phone when she was 5 years old. I gave her one of her own for her 6th birthday (with the same DTMF capability mine has). Around half a decade later, she's still using it. She thinks it's wonderful ... and her friends think she's weird, which she also thinks is wonderful. Mission accomplished. Thanks, Dad :-)

Re: Artform

Picking the lock on the coin box was fast and easy. Pinball machines and air hockey, too. Then Pong.

Recycling something as filthy as money is a good thing, right?

Or so I heard from a friend ... who claimed they never stole a dime. Which I believe. The machines took quarters.

The model in this case is "should have been", you illiterate buffoon. The contraction is incorrect in this case, even in written English.

One should never contract a perfect infinitive, or so my A-level English teacher beat into me.

Re: "the final word in bag miniaturization"

"Unfortunately, just when I finished, the cat jumped on the desk and the resultant air flow blew it away . . ."

Naturally, you collected on the insurance, right?

Ta.

Usually I keep up on that kinda thing, but this person seems to have kept herself out of the international news.

Re: There's an old proverb

I prefer the somewhat simpler "idiots abound".

"bought by Suella Braverman"

Who?

Never mind. Probably outside my demographic.

Re: Real reasoniong behind the resilience.

Yes, that bit. Maybe try parsing it after reading it?

Apparently you are unaware that one can still connect to the existing Internet with a stack from the early 1980s, and use that connection[0] to do useful work in today's world. In other words, as I said, "The hardware and the relevant parts of the OS+network stack haven't really changed all that much complexity-wise in decades".

[0] _{Note that I don't recommend doing this unless you have a good working knowledge of firewalls.}

" the mention of building the network to survive large scale enememy attacks"

Not "the network", rather "a network". The paper you cite is an abstract on networking in general, not a design study for The Internet. The fact of the matter is that (D)ARPANET, and later what we now call "The Internet" was never intended to survive such an attack. It just plain wasn't in the design specs (such as they were).

In actual fact, the US Government already had such a high probability of survival communications system. The networks that were designed to survive nuclear attack included the "Minimum Essential Emergency Communications Network", or MEECN, and the prior "Survivable Low Frequency Communications System" or SLFCS, Besides, if you use an ounce of common sense, it only stands to reason ... no military would design a command and control system that inherently wasn't securable, and the Internet was not then, and still isn't securable.

Boiling it down to basics, the (D)ARPANET was just a research network designed to research networking. The "survives nukes" myth came about much later ... The cold, sad reality is that the only reason it was built to be resilient is because the available hardware was really, really flaky.

Re: and don't forget the AlGorithm!

"Globe Al Warming"

Maybe if he didn't fly around all over the globe in Big Jets bitching about the climate he wouldn't be contributing to the problem? Same goes for the rest of the global warming conference attendees. Hypocrites. You know who you are ...

Re: Now forgotten

Funny but true: IBM's WorldWideNetwork wasn't overseen with IBM computers ... it was overseen by Sun Microsystems computers which were re-badged by a company called Network Equipment Technologies after their software was installed on them. IBM Field Service knew virtually nothing of UNIX, TCP/IP or even modern email in that era (early to late '80s), and tended to look down their noses at those of us who did. Funny thing is I (in my jeans and T-shirt) was making more per hour than any three of them (in their three-piece Armanis) ... Probably fair, given that I also knew SNA along with the UNIX side of things.

Re: Now forgotten

"Is it better now that everyone can run a super-computer with his thumb?"

They are not running that computer. They are using it.

There is a big difference between an interface user and a computer user.

Re: Now forgotten

"for some reason, I just could not get a modern(!) KERMIT implementation to talk to the KERMIT software I have for the BEEB"

If you can be arsed, ask over at https://www.kermitproject.org/ ... I'd be interested in the answer (if any), might come in handy someday. (There was a bug from a couple years ago where -T and -B (text or binary transfer command line switches) were accidentally reversed, but if I recall correctly that was for E Kermit, the embedded version.)

There is not much BEEB gear on this side of the pond, but I have friends over on your side who still dabble.

Re: Now forgotten

Current loop was all but gone once UNIX was becoming widely available at Universities.

The DEC VT-50 (1974?) was *optionally* available with current loop (20mA), according to the advertising of the era and the manual that came with them. I have four or five squirreled away, just in case (two are still out on loan to the The Computer History Museum ... I should probably just sign them over to them permanently). Most of the other early DEC terminals were also available with the current loop option, but I don't have a handy list, nor any physical examples. My point being that it was an option, not the standard, as early as 1974.

Not certain why you're calling out a line editor in this conversation ... it goes without saying that the operator had to know whatever editor came with the system at hand.

Re: Now forgotten

To be fair, Konsole (and most other KDE stuff) was programmed by kids who never used a Model 33 in anger. Or at all, probably.

Are you sure your tape handler has a punch, and is not just a reader? You should be able to manually put the unit into punch mode, where it will take whatever you send it as input and punch the result ... which might be gibberish, if your hardware settings are incorrect.for the data type, but you'll probably get something.

If it's not a 33, is it five, six or eight hole tape? Manufacturer & model number?

Re: Now forgotten

A mass-produced UART and a D-sub connector were a lot more "standard" than a flat cable snaking out between two panels with no connector at all.

But yes, it was a nightmare of competing "standards". I own some test equipment (probably ex-US Army) that has true D-sub 9 connectors for serial communications. That's a D-sized connector with 9 pins in a single row down the middle. The pin-out seems to have been assigned at random. I have absolutely no idea why they built it with such a non-standard part ... In about 1990 I called Amphenol for spares, they told me that they made them for a limited time in the early 1970s for a government contract, and they sent me a box full of old stock, gratis (individually wrapped, complete with pins, hoods & hardware). I probably still have a couple dozen or so of each (male and female) in my junk collection. I've never seen 'em anywhere else.

Re: Now forgotten

I was talking about the kit in and around chez jake, much of which I've built. I was not talking about the industry at large. The only thing I have that isn't standard is an APC UPS that I keep running for contractual reasons. That contract expires shortly, at which point the APC will get recycled with great conviction.

"It turned out to be his doctor."

Was his doctor offering him cut-price penis enlargements or viagra? Or perhaps letting him know he has a virus? Or offering to provide advice to help pay his bills? Or offering low cost insurance?

Re: When I give up stringing them along...

I ask 'em if their mummy knows what they do for a living, and if she's proud of them.

"I try and remember that they are humans"

Assumes facts not in evidence. Post proof or retract.

"stuck in a dead-end job"

Trying to MAKE MONEY FAST without actually working. The more folks they annoy, the more money they earn. Lovely.

"trying to make a living to put food on their table."

So are your local drug dealers and burglars. Do you use the above defense for them, too?

Re: Thanks, Gartner.

As I wrote in this very forum over 10 years ago, "Gartner is quite insane".

They have shown me nothing to change my opinion in the last decade.

Re: The V/A R killer app

"VR has one single, obvious use: Porn!"

Nope. If that were true, the industry would be pouring billions into it. They are not. QED

Yes, I know, there are many so-called "VR" porn movies, but if you actually look at them critically, all they are is nausea-inducing false-perspective variations on the theme previously known as "POV", sometimes with a little 3D thrown in for good measure. Those producers are obviously jumping on the buzzword bandwagon, separating fools from their money[0].

See also teledildonics, which the porn industry also isn't exactly embracing.

[0] Speaking of fools, who actually pays for porn, anyway? It's been freely available for centuries, if not millennia.

"Barely more."

I suspect fewer. Quite a few fewer, actually.

A lot of those people are there in name only, they never actually use it anymore and in fact may have forgotten they have an account. Many of the rest are only there out of inertia, signing on and going through the motions, but not really all that interested. If they ever leave it'll be because they have found something more interesting to do ... and it won't be another online world, they are already bored of that. And for most of the remainder, it's a religion and any upstart is an evil false idol to be shunned.

I'm speaking as a guy who keeps a MUD running for a group of die-hards.

Re: Not very good, and not of any use indeed. Try again in 10 years.

"Remember the whole frenzy around 3D televisions?"

Every fifteen years or so since the 1950s for motion pictures, 1830s for stereoscope images. So-called "3D" is always a fad (marketing hype) that comes in hot and then fades out in a hurry. Once you've seen enough cycles as an adult you'll ignore it.

Re: On a more serious note ......

"you can remove all the nasty nitrogen compounds"

Or just grow veggies with it. Nitrogen is plant food.

I typically spread fresh(ish) and freely available for the transport cow muck on various fields, depending on the time of year and the crops I'm planning on growing. The fresh urine kills off most weeds almost on contact, then disk the lot under. Prep the surface and plant in a month or so and Bob's yer auntie. Works nicely for most silage crops. I pay no money for herbicides or fertilizer when it comes to critter rations. The smell after spreading tends to piss off the nouveau-country SillyConVally transplants for a couple days, but that's just gravy.

The rest of the shit that we generate around here[0] gets composted en mass (with a little help from red wigglers), which we sell to clueless yuppies who could probably make more than enough compost of their own with all the food they throw away ...

There is a reason that "Where there's muck, there's brass" (and variations on the theme) has been a saying for centuries.

[0] Two exceptions: Rabbit litter, not being "hot", goes directly onto the flower beds. Human waste goes into the leach fields.

Re: Mmmmm let me think...

"I think it demonstrates that the Turing Test isn't a suitable test of intelligence."

That's hardly a great revelation, considering that Turing himself called it "the imitation game".

Re: Mmmmm let me think...

Passing the so-called "Turing Test" is fairly easy. Any idiot can do it.

What is difficult is having the ability to take the test in the first place.

The machines, being built specifically for the purpose, should be capable of this.

Old Etonians? Maybe not so much.

Re: Is it technically possible ?

My veggie garden's automated anti-deer sprinklers[0] are supposedly programmed to ignore human targets.

I get soaked every now and then ... I'd sue the manufacturer, but he is me.

Now ask me why I use water, not my preferred paintballs.

[0] Individually aimed 1.5 inch, 60 GPM@100psi impact sprinkler heads ... the sudden noise scares the deer off as much as the water.