* Posts by jake

26591 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007

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Nostalgic for VB? BASIC is anything but dead

jake Silver badge

I think I can safely say ...

... that if there is any language family that I will never be nostalgic for, it would be BASIC.

In fact, quite the opposite ... If BASIC had never existed, the world of programming would be a far, far better place. Never has a single language fucked up more neophyte programmers than BASIC. I've been cleaning up after the messes it leaves behind almost my entire career.

We've got plenty of AI now but who asked for it? El Reg's vultures chime in

jake Silver badge

"And there's no reliable way as yet to filter AI content out."

Of course there is. Use your wetware and verify your source(s).

Computers and networking are not supposed to take over from human thought, they are supposed to augment it. They will NEVER remove the need to think.

Sadly, religions and politicians are trying to remove the teaching of thinking, so my point is moot ...

jake Silver badge

Re: AI is a Tool. It creates nothing.

"Seems as though he knew more about statistics than he's been given credit for."

Either that, or George didn't give a shit.

He knew full well that he was addressing an audience full of normal people looking for a laugh, not a room full of pedant statisticians who have never laughed in their entire lives.

AWS wants to cook its datacenter chips with vegetable oil

jake Silver badge

"More importantly, they are going to stand around unused for how long?"

Actually, most HVOs built from used cooking oil seem to last longer in storage than diesel, although not by much.

However, when they turn gunky[0], they become very, very gunky fairly quickly.

[0] A perfectly cromulant word, which should be used more often in articles like this.

jake Silver badge

Re: T?his whole "green" thing is getting sillier and sillier.

The propane comment was an over-all comment on backup power, not the article specifically, based on my own rather extensive research on the subject.

Using HVO as a diesel substitute doesn't make any useful difference in "carbons" released with this intended use. Worse, as the article makes clear, many commercially produced HVOs use a large percentage of the planet-killing Palm Oil, making it worse than useless.

jake Silver badge

T?his whole "green" thing is getting sillier and sillier.

These generators are for BACKUP power, not primary power.

They will be used how often, exactly, in the lifespan of the data center? So how many "carbons" are really going to be saved?

And how many "carbons" is it going to take to implement the idea?

It seems to me that the greens are incapable of calculating TCO ... as long as it reduces "carbons" it's good, everything else must be bad. Even when reducing "carbons" actually costs more in "carbons" than it reduces.

For backup power, Propane is a far, far better alternative ... and well proven.

Potatoes in space: Boffins cook up cosmic concrete for off-world habitats

jake Silver badge

Sounds like research invented just to pay the bills.

“Since starch is the primary constituent of staple foods such as rice, potatoes, and maize, any sustained off-world habitat will likely have the capability to produce starch as food for inhabitants,”

Not just as food. Any permanent settlement will be making drink out of all of those (it's human nature) ... there will be no "leftovers" for pseudo-concrete. Growing any of them in bulk on Mars will not just be exceedingly difficult, I would go as far as to say it'll be nonsensical to even try. In adverse conditions like that, one does not waste food on building.

Instead, use empty fuel tanks for dwellings/labs. Design the entire mission around the concept. Waste not, want not.

UNIX co-creator Ken Thompson is a… what user now?

jake Silver badge

Re: Only slightly off-topic

"The Design and Implementation of 4.x BSD by McKusick, Marshall et all"

Marshall McKusick is one person, not two. He became one of the top guys in BSD when Bill Joy left to start Sun Microsystems. That was at the tail end of 4.2BSD.

That's not to say Marshal wasn't an important part of the BSDs prior, but Bill Joy was the designer and implementor through 4.2,

jake Silver badge

Re: Not shocked

It's an emasculated version, but a version nonetheless.

jake Silver badge

Re: Ken Thompson gets a lifetime pass

I'll not just listen, I'll pay very close attention.

Thank you, ken, for all you have done for computing.

jake Silver badge

Re: Only slightly off-topic

"sold in a plain brown cover"

You've got your eras wrong ... that was 1976's Lions' Commentary.

jake Silver badge
Pint

Re: Joshing or not - I couldn't tell

Thank you!

jake Silver badge

Re: I was expecting he'd compiled his own OS.

"I was kinda hoping he'd have his own WIP pet project OS."

He does. Two actually. Plan 9 and Inferno.

Apparently he runs Plan 9 on his Mac at AlphaGoo/go ogle.

jake Silver badge

Re: Good luck...

Why would I need a Pi (of any kind) to run Raspbian?

jake Silver badge

Where, exactly, does it say ...

... he runs Raspbian on a Pi?

The only instance of Raspbian that I have here at chez jake is running natively on a PC.

jake Silver badge

The Mac is an AlphaGoo thing.

Back in 2000, Thompson didn't really like Linux (too rough around the edges for his kind of work) ... but as of an interview in 2009, Thompson was using Linux. See page 479 of Siebel's Coders at Work.

According to something I read from Russ Cox, Thompson was indeed using a Mac at go ogle, but he used Plan 9 from user space on it.

Cosmic rays more likely to glitch out water-cooled computers

jake Silver badge

I've used all three of those for answers to questions that would otherwise need to be answered"I don't have time to give you a lesson on computer and networking theory" to "it's a Windows thing" to "I haven't the foggiest idea WHY, exactly, but it's bloody obvious that bit of hardware is dead".

Deliver the line with authority and appropriate body English ... "It's sunspots ::looks up::". "The Earth's magnetic field shifted overnight" ::waves hand::. "Probably just a stray cosmic ray." ::shrugs::. This isn't strictly honest, but allows you to get on with the job without spending too much time in explanation to someone who probably wouldn't get it even if they took a four year course on the subject.

jake Silver badge

"The next paper will be published typeset in Cosmic Sans."

Are you suggesting they'll be jivin' us with their cosmik debris?

The Stonehenge of PC design, Xerox Alto, appeared 50 years ago this month

jake Silver badge

Re: Proper paper orientation

In 91, or thereabouts, the Radius Pivot display could be turned between portrait and landscape on the fly, at the whim of the user. I installed several dozen at a design house in Silly Con Valley. Normally, I didn't (and don't) do Apple work, but the hardware-shy Mac using "designers" offered me a lot of money to plug them in for them. Who would say no?

jake Silver badge

Re: First? The Xerox and Symbolics and TI Lisp machines were contemporaneous

"Bloody noisy, like having a fan jet nearby."

The early 1980s to mid 1990s was peak fan noise, when processor and bus speeds nearly outran the technology of air-cooling. Lots of money went into developing heat transfer technology in this time period. Such tech also helped with the physical down-sizing of lasers and etc.

Techie fired for inventing an acronym – and accidentally applying it to the boss

jake Silver badge

Re: Oh no...

"I shall not be using it in future!"

Why the fuck not? It's worked for you for 30 years, so just carry on.

jake Silver badge

Re: PICNIC, PEBKAC you softies

On the other hand, Dr. Wang told a roomful of Silly Con Valley luminaries and hangers-on that he got over the locker-room derived humo(u)r of his name during his first year at Harvard, but we should feel free to snicker at it if we liked. In his opinion, it said more about the person doing the snickering than the owner of the name. He further said this applied to any name.

jake Silver badge

"Where's the soap?"

"Yes, it does ... "

jake Silver badge

That would be meatwear.

jake Silver badge

Re: FUBAR

FUBAR is US Army slang, circa 1944 (according to my OED). Probably at least a little earlier, as these things are usually in widespread use before they are written down fr posterity..

jake Silver badge

Re: Well that was unfortunate.

"Maybe a woman who doesn't like the implication that a random woman can be blamed for any and every problem"

It wasn't a random woman. It was a non-existent woman. Who wasn't being blamed. The word was being used as a handle to indicate a specific problem, it was in no way an indictment on anyone who uses the name "Sue". Especially not a Sue who entered the picture long after the handle was implemented. Anybody who thinks otherwise is probably in need of serious psychological help.

Here's a fun idea: Try to unlock and drive away in someone else's Tesla

jake Silver badge

Re: Its not only cars!

Back in the late 1980s, there was a company in Taiwan which "recycled" MAC addresses on its clones of NE1000/2000 ethernet cards. When you got a new batch of cards which matched the MAC address of one or more cards on your existing LAN[0], much hilarity ensued. As a consultant, the first time was the worst ... after that, the symptoms were fairly obvious. I probably ran across the problem at a couple dozen small companies between '88 and '91ish, and then again (!!) in the mid-late '90s, when people started recycling old Netware kit for Windows networks at home.

[0] An "impossible event", at least according to Novell and IEEE.

jake Silver badge

Re: Is this your car, Sir?

California here ... my insurance covers my passenger vehicles for any legal driver, and similarly, in the event of a claim there are financial incentives to name a second (third ...) driver specifically for he vehicle(s) covered on that policy. Usually, but not always, the extra driver(s) is(are) a dependent.

jake Silver badge

Re: Is this your car, Sir?

"If I've got "car insurance" in Sweden, can I borrow a long-haul truck-tractor from a friend, hop in, (at least try to) drive off, and still be "insured"?"

Here in California, the insurance I have for my Peterbilt will cover me and an alternative vehicle, should I see the need to borrow (or rent ... which has it's own insurance) another vehicle. There are limits to how long this insurance transfer lasts, but it can be invoked as needed with a phone call. Likewise, the insurance I have for passenger cars follows me when I have a need to drive an alternative passenger car, but no phone call needed. Same for motorcycles. None of the above cost me a dime extra ... but then my record is clean.

jake Silver badge

Re: Is this your car, Sir?

"So if I - ahem - borrow - your car (with every intention of bringing it back before you wake up, no "intent to deprive" here) I'l be fully insured during the joyride?"

No, because you are breaking the law by stealing the car.

jake Silver badge

Re: But physical keys can be hacked

Usually doesn't even need "a special hook". Keys get work-hardened at the point where the twisting force is maximized. They break right at the top of the cylinder, with no twisting in the body of the lock. Usually a bit of chewing gum or bluetack will wiggle the busted bit out ... if your multitool can't grab it.

jake Silver badge

Re: But physical keys can be hacked

The OP said the key was lost, not broken off inside..

jake Silver badge

Re: But physical keys can be hacked

Who needs keys, much less pictures of keys?

All locks do is prevent crimes of opportunity. Determined crooks will either defeat them, or go around them. Usually in a minute or two at the most.

jake Silver badge

Re: You laugh

I get SMS "emergency" messages from Dominican University of California. I have never been enrolled at, have never worked for, nor in any other way been affiliated with Dominican. Read the rest of the stupidity here:

https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2019/11/12/gary_email_mixup_pt2_dartford_toll_bridge/#c_3913782

It's been over four years since that post, close to ten years since the first message. I *still* get SMS "emergency" messages from Dominican.

jake Silver badge

Re: You laugh

"This is why you have your own domain so you can hand out individual email addresses and cancel them when they're finished with."

Your email daemon still has to bounce the junk mail (or bit-bucket it, if you prefer).

Personally, I'd rather cancel the spammer and not have to deal with it at all.

jake Silver badge

Re: It's a feature

Mine are flat-black, and usually hang on the roll cage when not in use.

jake Silver badge

Re: Call me old fashioned, but

"Not someone else’s key."

How about someone else's Morgan Nokker?

Or coat hanger, for that matter ...

jake Silver badge

"Keep the car locked but have it drive itself away."

This has already been possible, and demonstrated. Search on "Jeep Cherokee hack".

The fun one will be when 10,000+ locked and unoccupied cars all head for <insert target here> at a great rate of knots. No brakes needed. Nor obeying any traffic laws.

Think it won't happen? Then you have more faith in humanity than I do.

Duelling techies debugged printer by testing the strength of electric shocks

jake Silver badge

Re: The rule of thumb

Ny 1999, for some reason I had become the "go-to" guy for many of the Veterinarians on The Peninsula[0]. They were all running late 1980s, early 1990s IBM PCs (486 "ValuePoint" machines, for the most part, if I recall correctly), with SCO Xenix 5.x ... The Vet Practice Management software was provided by IDEXX, but was built by PSI ... Needless to say, IBM, SCO, PSI and IDEXX all claimed the other three were responsible for any Y2K issues that may (or may not) crop up.

Most of the Vets, assured by these four companies wonderful bedside manner, switched to Cornerstone or Avimark software running on Win98. I cheerfully set 'em up and then dropped out of that world (except for a few cases). Xenix worked great, was never an issue in all the years I took care of them. Windows ... well, you know.

[0] The Peninsula is the local name for the bit of San Andreas Fault fractured rock roughly between the Golden Gate and Palo Alto.

jake Silver badge

Re: Visa Electron

Watt? I R ohm!

jake Silver badge

Obvious reply ...

"He had a standard response of 'that must be a software issue' when his attempted fixes failed"

There is no such thing as "software". So-called software is merely the current state of the hardware.

Thanks to generative AI, catching fraud science is going to be this much harder

jake Silver badge

Re: Goodhart's Law

Exactly. This has nothing to do with research or science.

This has everything to do with papers == grant money.

It is time to institute an across-the-board rule that says something along the lines of "If you are caught with AI fakes in your paper, you and your department will never get grant money ever again. Period. Because we can't trust cheaters, and everyone knows that once a cheat, always a cheat." And maybe rivet a big, polished brass S to the department head's forehead for being Stupid enough to allow the paper to be submitted for review in his/er department's name.

Meta confirms decentralized Twitter rival in the works

jake Silver badge

Oh, goody.

"We're exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates."

Yet another group of "geniuses" is re-inventing IRC.

I can't wait.

Welcome to Muskville: Where the workers never leave

jake Silver badge

One wonders if he has a backup plan.

Perhaps a currently empty lot in Guyana, with the name on the map tentatively scribbled in in pencil: Musktown.

Boffins find 'missing link' between interstellar ice and what comes out of the tap

jake Silver badge

Re: Nobel Prize Winning Stuff

"How many olympic sized swimming pools full are we talking here?"

All of them. At least.

US House reps, staff health data swiped in cyber-heist

jake Silver badge

Idiots running the place.

"Put it all in the cloud", they said. "It's fast, cheap and safe", they said. "What could possibly go wrong?" ...

LLaMA drama as Meta's mega language model leaks

jake Silver badge

Re: Question?

"For example, expect more places to start adding captchas, whether the typical kind or more browser and device fingerprinting, in order to make it harder for bots to send data."

As an admin, that's not how it works. What I expect to see is similar to Usenet and Email filtering, where address blocks that permit such abuse are not just filtered, but are actively dropped on the floor. Note that this is not CONTENT based filtering, this is filtering based on sites allowing meaningless noise.

Yes, this can cause some collateral damage, particularly with anonymizing services ... but as soon as anonymous services start doing their own noise filtering, legit traffic will be allowed to pass again. "What is legit in this context?", you might ask. Simple ... humans having a conversation is legit. Noise drowning out that human conversation not so much. Yes, some humans come close to drowning out legit conversation all by themselves, no bots needed. These should be treated as special cases, similar to Usenet's "substantially the same" rules for spam filtering.

It's not freedom of speech when it drowns out all other conversation.

Note that this will all happen at the transit level (and in fact already does, in some cases), ordinary users will never know the difference.

Also note that this is NOT about Facebook, Twitter, or even ElReg policing their own. Their own internal networks are their own issue, and that's a whole 'nuther kettle of worms. What I am talking about is the Internet (and the people who run it) protecting itself from abuse. There is a reason the phrase 'Tragedy of the Commons" exists ... some of us have been working towards seeing that it does not happen in this medium, despite the best efforts of clueless Marketing and bad Management, for several decades.

There is no Cabal.

jake Silver badge

Remember, that "isn't straight-forward" is directed at marketing and management types, for whom unpacking a compressed archive is arcane.

I once watched a marketer attempt to replace the flint in a zippo. He gave up after ten minutes. As I took pity and replaced it for him, I asked how long it took him to figure out how to refuel it, and he just waved his hands around allowing as to how he preferred butane, but it was his Grandfather's, so ... His wife later told me it took about a week. The guy was trying to fill it through the wick!

Texas mulls law forcing ISPs to block access to abortion websites

jake Silver badge

Re: Freaks

In my experience, attempting to make sense of corrupted tarballs is an exercise in frustration.

But please, do carry on without me.

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