Posts by jake

Re: Yeah, smart appliances are DUMB.

"Why are we doing this to ourselves again?"

Who is "we", Kemosabe?

Re: Has anyone tried ...

In 1972, ELIZA (as "The Doctor", at BBN (tenex?) ) and PARRY (at SAIL) had a conversation at the first ICCC ... Well, they had a conversation that was followed over the ARPANET during the ICCC. It was immortalized in RFC 439.

Not much has changed in half a century.

Re: Not trusty

"Would you expect to find such people at Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon or Google?"

FTFY

Re: This is a bad take

"because Siri was never intended to create a revenue stream or harvest user data."

Keep telling yourself that, Sunshine. Saint Jobs of Marketing would approve.

Re: Lights, FireTV and heating

"Which bell is mum's, and which is her down't road?"

I can hear three of the neighbors variations on the theme. They have a completely different sound to my two ... one is "the dinner bell", a traditional triangle in my case. The other is "emergency", a WWII surplus hand-cranked air-raid siren. This last brings the neighbors running, too (although they know they are welcome to respond to "come and get it!" if they are hungry).

Re: "ye ancient code wizards"

Some of us never left.

You can thank us every time you review your bank statement and it is correct.

Re: I'd quite like an X-term

"PCs + Hummingbird X-Windows software replaced them."

I had pretty good luck with DesqView/X and the optional Motif and TCP/IP packages. Worked quite nicely with the existing (mostly) mixed DEC and Sun networks I was playing with at the time, but was a trifle spendy.

_{But then, coming from a BSD background all similar commercial products seemed a trifle spendy ...}

Re: HDD removed +

Next time, bend some sheet metal into a new cage/mount/whatever, drilling appropriate holes as needed. Old PC cases make a good source for free raw material. And small screws.

Re: Dissenting opinion: Nostalgia is a drug, kids...

I hear you, but ...

In my opinion, DEC kit is hands-down the best tool box for teaching computer and networking concepts ever invented.

And quite honestly, there is nothing wrong with nostalgia. Nor having a hobby.

Re: Not even close

"At least seems like it's moved from always being 30 years in the future to always being 20 years in the future."

It moved from 50 to 30 with the wide-spread adoption of general purpose user programmable computers. Late '50s. Ish.

30 to 20 happened when the boffins stopped carrying sliderules and started carrying programmable pocket calculators. We've been stuck on '20 years" since the HP-35 was new. That was 1972, for you youngsters.

Unfortunately, since the early '70s the Safety Nazis have increased in numbers faster than the technology ... I suspect that we are now back in the 30 year range. This morning's news conference suggested this was optimistic, in fact, when one of 'em said "another couple decades in the lab before we can start building a RealWorld example" (paraphrased).

That's 20 years before we can start building. And at a guess, the first large-scale plant will take at least 15 years (probably longer ... government project) from breaking ground to commissioning ... Well, do the math. Not before 2060ish. 40ish years.

We need copious new fission plants, and we need them operational 30 years ago, if not sooner. Everything else is whistling past the graveyard.

Re: Not even close

Also, hardly a sustained output capability. This is a tiny burst of energy for very, very small fractions of a second.

Probably makes Fusion Power about twenty years away.

_{Now where have I heard that before?}

Re: Tiny...

"It is EXTREMELY rare for a lake high up in the mountains to be tidal!"

ALL lakes are tidal, bar none. There is a tide in your teacup.

"It's not something that people would even consider."

Indeed, but that's a whole 'nuther kettle o'worms.

"What is going on with the DNS?"

To which you replied helpfully "Probably just having a private hissy-fit. Try it again in a minute, I'm sure it'll be fine".

I was just putting the finishing touches on a small cluster of vaxen at SLAC one fine Friday afternoon. The annual Big Game between Stanford & Berkeley was to be the following day. A couple of grad students started passing a football (American version) between themselves. In the glass room (that wasn't glass). Just as I was threatening mayhem if they didn't knock it off, the ball hit the Big Red Button. Needless to say, a bunch of very pissed off people couldn't attend the game the following day. The grad student's computer privileges were suspended for the rest of the academic year. Personally, I'd have hung them by the thumbs in the Quad as a warning ...

Re: Abracadabra

There were lots of conference rooms like that in the early Silly Con Valley. Did they show you the lap pool(s), sauna(s) and hot tub(s)? I know of one building which had three of each, in each of the founder's office suites. None were ever used, to the best of my knowledge ... but were still maintained in fully working condition some 30 years later. What a fucking waste.

Re: Flanders and Swann - The Gasman Cometh

Sounds suspicious. How do you keep sewer gas from backing up into buildings?

Re: new fitted benches had been installed over the shutoff valve

You never know what you'll find in an old house.

When we moved in to this place, there were two overhead light fixtures in the downstairs hallway, about a foot and a half apart. One was controlled by the normal wall switches, one upstairs & one down. The other was always on, with no switch, so we removed the bulb. It wasn't until I started tearing into the attic space to create my office that I discovered that the downstairs hallway light was controlled by the attic light switches ... Turned out that a prior home-owner decided that leaving a light on down three flights of stairs was a good way to remember to turn off the attic light ... but his wiring skills didn't include knowledge of using three switches to control one light. I added a third switch downstairs, and kept the overhead indicator.

When I first started working on the house (was a "Victorian" farmhouse before I bastardized it), I discovered to my horror that no fewer than 12 unused 3/4" copper water pipes were still pressurized, but were sealed off with nothing more than a wine cork and a couple well placed dents (peens). Seems the elderly gent who owned it before me was a bit of a DIY guy and decided to move two full baths and the kitchen sink. Seems he didn't need the old copper, because he was an early adopter of PEX ... Not a one of them dripped even once, judging by the dust underneath them.

Re: new fitted benches had been installed over the shutoff valve

"Now to find someone who can do spray insulation foam to stop the dripping!"

Spray foam insulation might hide the dripping, but it won't stop it. Being hidden, you'll fail to notice the rot setting in until the roof collapses.

"Out of sight, out of mind" is not a good thing when it comes to roofs.

Re: Paint all over everything, including power sockets and emergency buttons?

At one SillyConValley startup, I volunteered to replace a bunch of power sockets after an insurance company denied coverage due to inappropriate paint. Took an afternoon, and the guy was nice enough to re-inspect it before going home, so we were allowed to occupy the premises on schedule the next day.

At another company, I was in the glass room when an insurance guy found a drip of paint on the BRB and pulled coverage immediately. Heads rolled over that one.

Re: The programmer's fault

"Are the C programmers who only write perfect code in the room with us now?"

C programmers working on the Linux Kernel who seem to think they write perfect code are shown the door personally by Linus.

See Poettering and Sievers, for example.

Re: The programmer's fault

"Productivity is one of the most common praises by those using Rust, after all."

Oh, GOODY! Kernel hacking can go agile! WOOHOO!

Re: The programmer's fault

"But, given that I, and most programmers, are writing business applications, not OS's or similar"

And yet, you (and others) deign to tell kernel coders what language they should be using?

Re: The programmer's fault

"perhaps I'm missing something"

Perhaps you think that neophyte coders can, or even should, program kernels?

Re: Better Security, nearly always makes things a bit more complex.

"It is still being worked on"

So is the Linux Kernel. So is the Hurd Kernel. One does useful work nearly everywhere. The other?

"They have goals to meet to keep the funding flowing."

I suspect that "They have goals to keep the funding" is more accurate.

With that said, I like the concept. I'd love to have actual hardware to play with. I'm not holding my breath.

"Particularly impressive and beneficial is how much code Rust can save you writing in the first place"

You've never written (for) a kernel, have you?

Fewer.

My Guinness and coffee staned first edition is also signed. I dunno if it'll outlast Rust, but it'll definitely still be around when Rust is displaced by the next language d'jour.

Re: The programmer's fault

Except that most expert chisel users actually like the feel and sound of a sharp blade cutting through wood ... and I'll bet you a plugged nickle that a neophyte with your magical tool will find a way to hurt themselves.

Not that there is such a tool. Reality is king. And of course running code trumps all.

Re: The programmer's fault

I would think a rusty bridge would eventually be dangerous, parapets or no :-)

Re: The programmer's fault

"(Yeah OK, so I don't see why they had to put those spirally things around modern nails that make them so much harder to hammer in, either)"

That's not to make 'em harder to hammer in, that's to make 'em harder to work loose.

Fortunately, spiral shanked nails aren't the only game in town.

Re: The programmer's fault

"Its said an adze is the only sharp tool that one draws towards oneself"

Three others that I have used recently: Spokeshave. Drawknife and Scorp (aka inknife). And I usually use a cardscraper pulled towards myself; some people claim this is a no-no, but I find I have better control. (An Amish friend is teaching me to make his take on the Windsor Chair.)

Yes, there are many types of hand plane that are often or usually pulled towards oneself ... sometimes this is determined by the grain of the wood being worked, but not always. The kanna (Japanese plane) is pulled towards the user.

Most farming tools of the hoe family. Also pickaxes, mattocks.

Iceaxes, if you are unwary (an arm-swing is an arc).

A splitting axe's downward arc will often intersect with the operators feet or shins.

Etc.

No, we know it splashed down, and is floating.

We have no idea whether or not the interior has been torched.

Re: Boeing use(d) them

I do an annual cleaning & adjusting (if needed) of a couple of 8" floppy drives that have been in near daily use since the late 1970s. They are attached to a couple pieces of equipment at a machine shop located in SillyConValley. I've replaced the read/write heads, the motors and other parts[0] a couple times each with NOS[1] parts that I squirreled away in the '90s .... sometimes being a packrat helps pay the bills.

Granted, they aren't running Linux.

[0] We started calling them "Theseus's Floppy Drives about two decades ago ...

[1] New Old Stock ... brand new original box product that's been on the shelf for a while.

Re: Looks like I'll not be updating then

If you just need it to recover data from old floppies, Shirley running Linux 2.6.x would suffice? Or even 2.0.x, for that matter. Not sure why 64bit would make a difference one way or the other.