* Posts by jake

26591 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007

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The successor to Research Unix was Plan 9 from Bell Labs

jake Silver badge

Re: BSD would have picked up all that slack.

"I notice you didn’t mention the point I made about supercomputers."

I chose to ignore it, rather than point out your ignorance.

"Because that is some “slack” that BSD could never have picked up."

BSD was a strong player in the supercomputer world back in the day. The Cray-1, arguably the first modern supercomputer, ran quite a bit of BSD code once Los Alamos was done with it. (Also arguably, most Linux machines also run a lot of BSD code, but that's a story for another day.)

The last BSD-based supercomputer dropped off the top 500 list less than 10 years ago. Not for lack of ability, but because SUSE and IBM/RedHat pay more money to the research institutions who build the boxen.

jake Silver badge

Re: Long scale (EU) sex-OS / und-OS (US) short scale

We've been working on 128-bit computing for a very long time.

The IBM System/360 Model 85 could handle 128-bit floating point arithmetic back in 1968.

At DEC, the VAX line called 'em octawords and HFLOATs, using four consecutive registers ("four longwords").

If I were you, I'd be calling for 512-bit computing and wait for everybody to call me a visionary.

jake Silver badge

Re: There is one important legacy from it...

Yes, UTF-8 was first implemented on Plan9 ... but that is just an accident of history. It would have been implemented on whatever Thompson and Pike were working on at the time that ken grabbed a pencil and started sketching. Most of the spec came out of USL, not Bell Labs.

jake Silver badge

That icon looks more like a GNOME.

Just to stay on the topic of useless Linux projects.

jake Silver badge

There was no System I or System II ... there was no System IV, either.

System III was named after a couple Bell-Labs-only 3.0 UNIX releases, namely Columbus UNIX 3.0 and UNIX/TS 3.0(.1(?)). It was a kludge of the best bits of many internal-only variants on the theme, including the Real Time project, the virtual memory project, and etc.

jake Silver badge

"Plan 9 is an interesting OS."

Indeed.

I've been running it on one box or a dozen since it was first made available. To date, I have found absolutely no use for it at all, except as a tool to learn about OS design, and as a curiosity. (I used it as my main writing platform for about a year (coding, documentation, contracts, the books I'm writing, longer posts to ElReg, dead-tree letters, etc. ... honestly, I gave it a good solid chance, but I'm back to Slackware.)

Plan9 is the poster child for a solution looking for a problem.

But I like the silly thing. I want to find a use for it. Maybe someday.

And no, using it as a container server for Linux applications isn't it ...

jake Silver badge

Re: not because [Linux is] hugely better than UNIX or XENIX

"I would argue that Linux made possible new application areas that would not have existed without it."

Nah. BSD would have picked up all that slack. When Linus started the kernel, what was to become 386BSD was already being made available to anybody with enough clues to look for it and ask. (Read up on 1991's Net/2 and the BSD Tahoe and Reno story if you are unaware of the history.)

"do you think Microsoft would have allowed XENIX to be used in such an application?"

Why do you think the early cisco built their own IOS? On the other hand, the early Sun Microsystems chose BSD for what became SunOS. And Minix was a wildcard, currently being (ab)used by Intel..

Note that I'm not suggesting BSD is better than Linux (nor vice versa ... I happily use both), but I AM saying that Linux did not fill the vacuum that everybody thinks it did.

jake Silver badge

Re: little to no _technical_ resemblance between them

Coulda, shoulda, woulda.

It's all an accident of history ... and one that will likely not be repeated.

jake Silver badge

Re: OK, but is "multiuser" relevant any more?

"Think of SAMBA servers"

I try not to.

jake Silver badge

Re: So...

"OK, but is "multiuser" relevant any more?"

Absolutely.

Take the small example of MeDearOldMum. Her computer (Slackware based) has multiple users. Her own account, Dad's account, the Admin account (she has the root password because it's her box, but I'm the admin and to the best of my knowledge she's never used it), a "guest" account for visitors to her house, my siblings and most of the grandkids have accounts for when they are visiting, etc. And yes, two or more of these accounts can be, and often are, in use simultaneously.

Hackers mod a Sony PlayStation Portal to run PSP games

jake Silver badge
Pint

Nice.

The press using the term "hacker" properly for a change.

Rare, that. Beers all around!

Space nukes: The unbelievably bad idea that's exactly that ... unbelievable

jake Silver badge

"this is the surest and fastest way to deliver magnetic pulse to the enemie(s). "

Depends on the orbit, and where in that orbit the bird is at the time of the ... uh ... emergency.

Polar orbit can cover the entire planet ... eventually. Equatorial, not so much ... but can be quicker over what it does cover.

jake Silver badge

Re: Whatever is behind the Russian space nuke scare :o

Nothing boosts the morale of the troops like clean socks and skivvies.

Except perhaps dry, well-fitting boots and three squares a day.

And peace, but they are not supposed to even think about that option.

jake Silver badge

"Back in the day you could wipe a floppy disc with a magnet"

Could you?

Many moons ago, I witnessed a field engineer open the back of a piece of equipment, pull the diagnostic floppy (8", just to date myself) off the inside of the door where it was affixed with a magnet ... and the fucking thing still worked! Observing my surprise, he just shrugged and said "I know. I don't get it either. They did it this way for years before I got here. I don't ask questions, I just go by their playbook and collect my pay." He claimed to have seen several tens of these things, and the disk was only dead once ... and that was caused by a couple of rather obvious staple holes.

Consider also the ubiquitous box of floppies that lived right next to the monitor's coils way back in the halcyon days.

jake Silver badge

That was my thought, too.

Just an aging boogieman, brought out of it's crate and dusted off for this election cycle in order to scare the proles.

Next on the agenda: Be sure to check under your beds for reds.

Dave's not here, man. But this mind-blowingly huge server just, like, arrived

jake Silver badge

Re: Jazz Cabbage

"To us"

Who is "us", Kemosabe?

jake Silver badge

Re: Jazz Cabbage

You can use any citrus and almost any of the green herbs. Note that some herbs are stronger than others, so experiment carefully.

jake Silver badge

Re: Jazz Cabbage

It is because the fruits (not seeds!) have a completely different flavo(u)r and use than the greens, so a different name is warranted[0].

Here in the US, Spanish influence gave us the word for the greens.

Note the roots are also edible ... and might be part of the reason that you have issues replicating your favorite Pad Thai at home.

[0] Cf. Mace and Nutmeg.

jake Silver badge

Re: Jazz Cabbage

"Dagga" is a Gazan version of salsa fresca, with dill and lemon replacing the cilantro[0] and lime.

Some dumbass will no doubt call me anti-semitic, just for knowing this ...

[0] That's coriander (the greens, not the seeds) to you Brits.

Self-taught-techie slept on the datacenter floor, survived communism, ended a marriage

jake Silver badge

Re: Daily Emails are a luxury

"For the majority of the planet’s population Internet did not exist until after 2000."

In the context of this space that's non-sequitur.

Consider that readers of ElReg are a statistical error when compared to the rest of humanity.

jake Silver badge

Re: Ironically

I have found that email between California and Cuba takes about as long as email between California and the rest of the Caribbean ... but then, nobody I know is fomenting revolution.

Surprisingly, the usually suspect Wiki has a rather decent article on Cuban Internet access.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Cuba

It's complicated, primarily because of the fatheads in power at all possible bottleneck points.

As Granpa once told me, there is a reason there are castles all along the Rhine.

jake Silver badge

For the record, I do not know of any Americans who have felt like they have been living under constant threat of a Cuban invasion ... except folks in Miami, perhaps. But that's OK, because they voted in a guy who promises to keep all the Hispanic immigrants out of America.

Wait ... They did WHAT? WTF? Seriously, what the fuck?

These Republicans are crazy ...

jake Silver badge

Re: Commie Linux

"And they all vote red."

To be fair, Trump, their Glorious Leader, claims to be best buds with a couple of communist dictators ... and admits to wanting to be a dictator himself.

Tailgunner Joe is now spinning furiously ... Who would have ever thought that a commie lover would be leading the Republican party?

jake Silver badge

Re: Daily Emails are a luxury

"I came over to the US to work in mid-1984 in a time when the Internet didn't exist"

The TCP/IP version of the Internet went live on January 1st, 1983. The NCP version went live in late 1969. Very soon after, we were using it for UUCP email between the US and GB, and the rest of Europe a trifle later. UUCP itself was released in 1968, but was Bell Labs only until they included it with V7 UNIX.

jake Silver badge

Re: Daily!?! RFC begs to differ

"I so wish users would stop confusing email with instand messaging."

I agree with you. However ...

About a billion years ago (in Internet years, say roughly late 1989) I talked a guy through compiling, installing and setting up IRC client and server software. We used email as a close to real-time communications method during this process. He was in New Zealand, I was in California. When we were nearly done, and using IRC to wrap things up, he commented that email was just about as useful as IRC in some ways ... and more useful in others. Nothing much has changed.

Apples and oranges.

Election security threats in 2024 range from AI to … anthrax?

jake Silver badge

Re: the first place all governments make cuts is in education

"Well, they don't "all" do that, do they?"

Don't they?

"I get your point, which I imagine is mostly pointing at the Republican/Conservative axis of government, but there have been other varieties."

From what I can see, they all do it. Unless you have specific examples that don't?

Teachers having to spend their own money to get paper and pencils into classrooms, and then not get refunded by the fucktards in power is way, way beyond evil REGARDLESS of political affiliation.

Sometimes it's not a matter of one "side" being right, and the other being wrong ... it's a matter of both being worse than wrong.

jake Silver badge

Re: Can't imagine where this crap might come from.

"Uniparty" is hardly alt-right ... It describes the combined cesspool that is the combination of the current business-as-usual Dems+Reps.

Please feel free to supply your own essentially two-plus-a-bit-party shithole of power as you see fit.

jake Silver badge

The biggest problems with the electorate in all Western countries is widespread ignorance and apathy.

This has been a long-term goal for all political parties since the 1960s or thereabouts.

Why do you think the first place all governments make cuts is in education?

If you can keep the populous uncaring and stupid, you control that populous.

jake Silver badge

To be fair, Anthrax, Metallica and Slayer aren't exactly knocking then dead anymore, either.

If, indeed, they ever were ...

Chrome engine devs experiment with automatic browser micropayments

jake Silver badge

Re: What's the first word you think of when someone says "Amazon"?

"They've stopped that, but it's too late for me."

Holding grudges doesn't work in animal training.

jake Silver badge

Re: Just accept donations as a voluntary adblocker sub

"Personally, I would happily pay the Reg whatever money they are losing out from me blocking their adverts."

Back in the day, ElReg had an online store called "Cash & Carrion". I'm fairly certain that they have already made far more money from me buying T-shirts and mugs and other tat than they ever would have made from me seeing adverts.

An attempt was made to reanimate it back in the summer of 2008, and again in late 2014, but it seems to have failed both times.

Perhaps if enough people ask they will try again? Squeaky wheel & all that.

https://cashandcarrion.co.uk/index.html

Damn Small Linux returns after a 12-year gap

jake Silver badge

Re: We were all Linux noobs back then. Strangely, none of us whined about it being "too hard".

And netsplits always seemed to happen just when the one person who could help finally got onto IRC ...

jake Silver badge

Re: Small?

On the other hand, consider that I can create and print a document using Wordstar or create and print a spreadsheet using Visicalc (both running on DOS 3.3) MUCH faster than I can perform the exact same task(s) using anything that Redmond is currently pushing. Using DESQview I can even run them simultaneously, side by side, with copy/paste between them possible, on just 4 megs of RAM.

jake Silver badge

Re: Cool, a new toy to fiddle about with.

"Ass kisser."

Thanking somebody who pointed out a distro that I missed is ass kissing in your tiny little mind? You poor, poor thing.

"Drop dead."

After you, Sweetpea.

jake Silver badge

Re: Cool, a new toy to fiddle about with.

I have a pile of old corporate laptops that are perfectly good. I give them away to people who need them. This kind of distro is a good option to include with them.

I'll also look at it as the supervisor for several ATMega328 controlled greenhouses.

Normally I use a cut-down variation of Slackware in these kind of rolls, but having a backup OS "just in case" is always prudent.

jake Silver badge

Re: Alpine?

https://alpineapp.email/

https://repo.or.cz/alpine.git

jake Silver badge

Re: Memory lane

"[Insert the Dylan lyric.]"

Lads shouldn't 'ave t'play in a place like this.

Kids shouldn't 'ave t'grow up in soot and muck.

From a 1942 British Ministry of Information film, scripted by Dylan Thomas.

jake Silver badge

"Yeah but it was text only"

Did you see where I mentioned the X windows system?

"and umm... early versions of Linux weren't noob friendly."

We were all Linux noobs back then. Strangely, none of us whined about it being "too hard".

jake Silver badge

"Old versions of DSL could run with only 256 of ram"

If you go back far enough, Linux ran in 2megs of RAM, 4megs (at least) if you wanted to compile stuff for yourself, and 8 if you wanted Xwindows. It could be run from a single floppy drive, booting the kernel from one disk, and then swapping that out for the root file system.

jake Silver badge

Cool, a new toy to fiddle about with.

I'm sure I can find a use for it somewhere around here.

Thanks, Liam.

jake Silver badge

DVD drives are supposed to be backward compatible and should support CDs. Cheap ones sometimes aren't.

caveat emptor

jake Silver badge

Alpine?

Alpine hasn't had a new stable update since June of '22 with ver. 2.26 ... and why would I want to put something that small into a container?

Yes, I know what you meant.

Angry mob trashes and sets fire to Waymo self-driving car

jake Silver badge

Re: Curious?..so never been to Califoria then..

Whatever. It's apples and oranges.

jake Silver badge

Re: Curious?..so never been to Califoria then..

That pickup has a curb weight of around 2,300kg, wet and empty (plus or minus a hundred kilos or so, if I remember correctly and I'm doing the conversion properly in my head).

The 3/4ton and half-ton (non-metric) ratings are the factory rated load capability (do the math(s) yourself if it's all that important).

jake Silver badge

Re: Curious?..so never been to Califoria then..

That truck is just a 3/4 ton, might be a half-ton. Despite the looks, it is probably under your 3.5 ton (metric) weight when fully loaded.

It IS, however, parked on a red curb ... and in a turn lane in a "keep clear" area. If the SF cops were not hamstrung by City politics, ticketing such scofflaws would probably make the department self sufficient. But the board of supervisors say no, because "the poor driver is just trying to make a living". Idiots, the lot of them.

There is no tax loophole. People buy them because they have bought into the myth that "bigger is safer". Personally, I am of the belief that no matter how big your vehicle is, you can still kill yourself, your passengers and perhaps a few people in other vehicles IF YOU CAN'T FUCKING DRIVE, which most of the idiots who purchase this kind of thing as a grocery-getter can't.

You are quite correct, the modern trucks are nowhere near as sturdy as the old ones. You also can't get them with manual door locks, manual windows, and a hose-out interior (etc.) anymore. That's why my pickups are all working restorations of older vehicles. Much, much cheaper (including insurance) my way, too.

jake Silver badge
Pint

Re: There is a Report on Ecch (Twitter)

There's a first time for everything. Don't let it go to your head. Have a beer.

jake Silver badge

Re: The place not to be..Blame Props 47/57..two people who dont live in SF

That's not "Candlestick Mountain", it's Bayview Hill. Are you certain you know fuck all about San Francisco?

The hillside was quarried in the late '50s to provide landfill for Candlestick Park. Didn't work very well ... during construction, field level sank to well below the high tide mark, making drainage a major issue and footing treacherous, especially in the Winter during football season. Awful, awful place to put a ballpark ...

This reporter is the recipient of eighteen Croix de Candlestick pins, so it's quite likely that his memories have been frozen in time. Veni, Vidi, Vixi

Quarter of polled Americans say they use AI to make them hotter in online dating

jake Silver badge

Re: If you’ve fallen as far as using a dating app

"Several friends of mine have gone the online dating route. Some have had a lot of fun, which was the point. One has been happily married for twenty years, another for 5."

Sounds a trifle sketchy. Do their spouses know they are using the dating sites?

jake Silver badge

Violets are blue

Roses are red

I'm totally appalled

Because that didn't scan

jake Silver badge

Re: Can someone explain?

"Cassanunda would just take his step-ladder..."

Buddy Clinton, 1957ish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgMidz9alPU

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