Posts by jake 26675 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007
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.
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 ...
"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?
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
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.
"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
"Keep in mind that not long after Amazon went public in 1997, George Colony, founder and CEO of Forrester Research, referred to the online bookstore as as "Amazon dot toast." "
To be perfectly fair, he was right. THAT particular Amazon has gone the way of the Dodo.
When was the last time you thought "books!" when someone mentioned Amazon?
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.
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.
"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.
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).
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.
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
"I think this would be an equivalent location in Glasgow, Scotland"
A quiet cul-de-sac in an obscure corner of Glasgow is the equivalent of a major intersection like Columbus at Kearney in San Francisco? OK, if you say so.
"The white pick-up truck would definitely not be road-legal."
A quick poke around online shows quite a few Toyota Tundras of that model available for sale in the UK, all displaying plates indicating they are legal for over the road use[0].
On the other hand, note the car parked[1] on the double-yellow in the Scottish pic, and the truck parked on a red curb[2] in the SF shot. Perhaps the residents of both cities are more alike than they would care to admit.
[0] I'm not sure what kind of idiot would want one on those roads. It certainly wouldn't be my choice of a daily in the UK ...
[1] At least she's in her car ... but it looks like the oblivious idiot is texting. Of course. Totally missed the alphagoo droid wandering around her.
[2] Note that parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk is illegal in California, regardless of other street markings (new law this year).
I lived in the Haight for a couple years in the early 90s (long story). SF was much, much more fit for human beings at that time. Today, all it is fit for is a convenient bit of road to get from Marin to San Mateo (or vice-versa). And they are trying to put the kibosh on THAT by forcing CalTrans to make the through-highways into toll roads.
"I think that the people of San Francisco are sick and tired of being guinea pigs."
Living in a massive habitrail doesn't help. People aren't meant the live in their millions, cheek by jowl, stacked on top of each other like so much cord wood.
So of course San Francisco is building MORE housing (ostensibly for "the unhoused", who will never be able to afford it), thus packing even more people into a tiny, little 7X7sqmi city. It's getting close to the point of critical mass, and the explosion will make a mess when it happens.
San Francisco is a shithole, and its elected officials seem determined to keep it that way. Keep voting them back in, idiots!
"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?
... as always when it comes to these "surveys", is how exactly were the folks surveyed selected?
Gut feeling is the numbers generated aren't worth the bits it took to display them on my screen.
In other words, it's a complete waste of time on everybody's part ... but it got McAfee some free advertising on ElReg.
I hope you're getting paid for all those evening hours ... They add up quick!
Many moons ago we were given pagers to carry "for emergencies". I turned mine on when I got to work, and off again when I left work. My reasoning was that I wasn't being paid when I was off work, therefor they had no right to try to contact me. Needless to say, management wasn't very happy with my interpretation. They called HR, to get me to see reason or to fire me. HR took my side (!!!). Long and short of it, everybody with a pager wound up with an extra dollar per hour for each and every hour we were required to be on call when otherwise off duty.
A couple years later a few of us were presented with DynaTacs ... we all said "more money, please". This time, we were compensated $1.75/hr. For awhile there I was collecting for both the pager and the phone. It was quite lucrative, added up to a hair over $18,000/yr in mid '80s dollars. Fortunately Upper Management liked me more than they liked the mid-level idiot who ran our division ...
Then Middle Management discovered email. Every single last one of us refused to use email out of hours because actually sitting down and typing was entirely too disruptive to our RealLife. That was the end of it ... until the Blackberry made email a telephone thing (yes, I know, there were attempts before the Crackberry, but RIM put the concept on the map, at least for the non-technically inclined). Thankfully, I was already out of the 9-5 loop by the time that happened.
Daftest thing is that you idiots actually use YOUR OWN EQUIPMENT to do your company's business! WTF are you thinking? If they need you to check your email outside of working hours, Shirley they can bloody well pay for the gear required to do so, right? The entire BYOD thing boggles my mind ... how much money are corporations, world-wide, saving by forcing workers to pay for the privilege of doing their jobs?
And then there is the actual meaning of "BYOD", to wit "Break Your Own Defenses". One wonders how many emails world-wide are being opened at home as I type that would get the user fired if he printed it out and tried to carry it out of his office at knocking-off time ...
Suggestion: It's called a 9-5 for a reason. Treat it as such. Leave work at work, even if "work" is a company-issued laptop on your kitchen table. Close it after hours, and LEAVE IT CLOSED until after breakfast tomorrow. Your life will be a lot happier.
/rant
"WTF are elections held on a Tuesday?"
They are not. They are held over a period of time. I received my ballot for the election to be held on March 5th, by mail, last Wednesday (Feb. 7th). I can fill it out and return it several ways between now and the close of polls. Counting of ballots begins at close of polls on Election Day, which is on a Tuesday for historical reasons, as you point out. Not that anyone gives a fuck, they could start counting at High Noon on the following Sunday and I'm sure that only the usual batch of religious whackjobs and other bellyachers would bitch about it.
With that said, employers in California are required to give 2 paid hours off for employees to go to the polls on so-called "election day".
As a side note, last time I renewed my driver's license, it was online.
I am in California, which last time I checked, was still in the USA.
Strangely enough, I have never had issues with your "gaps".
Perhaps I don't partake in web sites that offer that kind of thing? I dunno ... I do not actively avoid such things, though.
Maybe I'm missing out ... or maybe they are not quite as necessary as you believe?
The only browser I have installed on my daily driver is Firefox.
::shrugs::
"What is “Mozilla,” a portmanteau between Mosaic and Godzilla?"
In 1998, the Mosaic Communications Corporation released the originally named "Mosaic Netscape", which was called "Mosaic Killer" internally. This internal name morphed into Mozilla. The Godzilla reference and subsequent logo came after the name change.
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