* Posts by jake

26591 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007

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Russia fines Google $374 million for letting the truth about Ukraine be told

jake Silver badge

Re: Gosh, really ?

"I'm a Brit, this is UK forum"

No, ElReg is not a UK forum. According to ElReg:

"The Register is a leading and trusted global online enterprise technology news publication, reaching roughly 40 million readers worldwide. Our core audience is in America, Asia-Pacific, and the UK. We also have readers hailing from Canada, northern Europe, India, and beyond."

Read it for yourself here.

"The US just outlawed Abortion"

No, the US did NOT just outlaw abortion. The supreme court (lower case on purpose ... I have nothing but contempt for them at the moment) decided it wasn't a right that was in the Constitution, and has left it up to individual States to decide if it should be allowed, or not. Most States still allow it. Some backwards, stuck in the 19th Century states do not.

"I can - they are lying to us."

I think you can't ... I also think you have been hoodwinked, and are cherry picking to support your theory(s). I also rather suspect you have been spending too much time on that side of YouTube ... shouldn't do that, mate, it rots the brain. Which also neatly explains why that starwars footage was run on an obscure Israeli news channel which should have known better. Brain rot in the newsroom is a far more likely theory than mass conspiracy.

As for you last couple paragraphs ... All this angst and pro-Russia propoganda is simply because you're still pissed off at your ex-? WTF, man‽ Step away from the keybr0ad, go outside, sniff the roses. Life's too short ...

jake Silver badge

Re: Gosh, really ?

"what 'kridging' means?"

I seriously doubt that you do ... First of all, it's "Kriging", with a capitol K and no d. Secondly, it's pronounced with a hard G, which (given the d) you obviously didn't know.

As with the rest of this conversation, you're clearly in over your head ... which is the job of the bait, not the trolling party.

Don't be bait. It just makes you look like a buffoon.

jake Silver badge

Re: google's response

A more fitting response would be a rather truthful "You needs us more than we need you, but suit yourself. Goodbye". Then make like a cat, put the tail straight up and walk away, never looking back.

Until the inevitable regime change, of course.

After 40 years in tech, I see every innovation contains its dark opposite

jake Silver badge

Re: "Ignorance amplifier"

"I must have seen it somewhere before something reminded me of it.

My Dad and Uncles used the term, as in "Don't be an ignorance amplifier", when talking about gossip. The Uncles brought it back from their stints in the US Navy (at least I assume that's where they got it ...).

Religion was known as an Ignorance Amplifier back when I first got to Uni (King's College) ... the term was applied to Usenet in the early days (as in "this has the potential to become a massive ignorance amplifier").

jake Silver badge

Re: a planetary-scale "ignorance amplifier"

"Alas they seem to be unable to extend searched to other library systems."

Look up inter-library loan. It's possible they don't know it exists. Politely educate them ... more flies with honey & all that.

jake Silver badge

Re: Tie me down

I've spent pretty much my entire career sorting out BASIC written in other languages. NEVER teach a kid BASIC as a first language, it screws 'em up for life.

jake Silver badge

Re: Tie me down

He's talking neck wear, not family ties.

jake Silver badge

You are moving across country based on nothing more than the correct house?

Every time I made that move, I had a reason to go ... and found a house once I got there, based on whatever criteria the reason for moving presented.

Moving for the sake of moving seems somewhat contra-indicated.

jake Silver badge

"Potentially lots of useful stuff that can be done with a 3D model of an environment."

Including widening of that modelled corridor to make the piano fit.

Seen that ... except it was a very large antique British wardrobe, not a piano. Fortunately it was caught before the sale was finalized. They knocked enough off the sale price to remove a window and the cripple wall under it, and sneak the wardrobe in under the header. Ended up replacing the flush-mounted glass with a lovely large bay window and a door to the garden. The door has a sidelight that is hinged, allowing removal of the wardrobe should they decide to move.

jake Silver badge

The 3-D images were equally capable of being manipulated. And were, of course. A big one was converting a weed-filled pasture or paddock into a mature vineyard, or adding a non-existent "water feature" and/or mature fruit and nut trees. Upgrading the kitchen and bath(s) digitally was also common. As was adding a deck with outdoor kitchen.

People don't want to see "what could be", they want to see exactly what they are plonking coin down on.

jake Silver badge

Re: Once again, convenience

"prime sellers at eye level"

Sugar disguised as "food" at the eye level of children ...

jake Silver badge

Re: a planetary-scale "ignorance amplifier"

ChoHag, I seriously doubt that "Liam Proven" is a nom de plume of Mark Pesce.

I could be wrong, never having seen them both in the same room together ...

jake Silver badge

Re: a planetary-scale "ignorance amplifier"

For books that I would not accidentally run across, I have a couple of used booksellers that I frequent. The owners know me, and my tastes, and invariably have several titles from authors that are new to me when I show up. They also call me when they get in first editions of books I collect, and that kind of thing. Don't let "used" fool you ... this isn't just about musty old tomes. They always have used copies (only read once) of the current NYT best-sellers list, and etc., for those of you who like to turn off your minds when reading.

As for classifying books, I don't care how they do it as long as it's consistent. DDC, UDC, BISAC, LCC, etc, all have their merits and problems, but anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together should have no issues working within their frameworks.

jake Silver badge

Re: a planetary-scale "ignorance amplifier"

Some have a similar dilemma in selecting a Linux distro, which seems to be common in this forum (at least it would appear that way, judging by all the noise it generates ... ).

jake Silver badge

Re: Tie me down

"I love that."

Feel free to use it ... it's a meme that's been around since before the TCP/IP version of the Internet.

jake Silver badge

"Hopefully the metaverse goes the way of 2nd life."

I doubt we'll have much to worry about. There was a brief fad where RealEstate agents in these parts (Northern California) were playing up 3-D "tours" of their listings. Was quite the little cottage industry, making scans of properties for sale.

Only lasted a couple months. The buyers weren't even close to being interested in viewing property through goggles. Seems they universally wanted to see what they were buying in person. Good, old-fashioned boots on the ground.

What a bunch of luddites! (I actually heard an estate agent say that ... the mind boggles.)

As for the kids ... my Grand-daughter, age 11, wants no part of this kind of thing.

jake Silver badge

Re: Tie me down

Ever get a tie caught in a cooling fan or a line printer? There's a reason that ties were fair game for anyone with a pair of scissors at most early Silly Con Valley companies.

The only real use for a tie is as a handle when trying to shake sense into the wearer.

Microsoft Teams outage widens to take out M365 services, admin center

jake Silver badge

Re: Also ...

Let's throw a little perspective at it.

1200 or 2400 isn't really all that slow ... How fast can you read?

jake Silver badge

Re: Oh so Telephones always work huh?

"Everything can fail when some engineer has a whoops moment..."

Only if the system has a single point of failure. Or points, as seems to be common today.

jake Silver badge

Re: Also ...

It's not about lobbying, it's about marketing convincing consumers and management that ... OH! Look! Shiny!

jake Silver badge

Also ...

IRC, email and private Usenet hierarchies still exist, and rarely (if ever) go down when run by competent staff.

UK lays world's longest autonomous drone superhighway

jake Silver badge

There is only one remote location in the British Isles.

That would be the lovely Rockall.

There are very few places I would even consider rural.

jake Silver badge

AC/DC? Lemmy would be appalled ...

... that's an Aussie group. Shirley it would be the UK's own Motörhead and "Ace of Spades".

"You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools ... " —Lemmy. Clarke, Taylor '80

Tavis Ormandy ports WordPerfect for UNIX to Linux

jake Silver badge

Re: Tavis Ormandy ports WordPerfect for UNIX to Linux

An aging Aunt and Uncle of mine found it faster and easier to use Netware, MS-DOS 3.3 with WordStar, dBase III+ and Lotus on an airgapped 25 year old network than it was to use the latest offerings from Redmond. I finally converted them over to a Slackware+LibreOffice based solution[0][1] ... Their final year of using the legacy system brought them a tick over 1.5 million in sales, in 2015 US dollars. Not too bad for a small mom&pop family business!

[0] It was becoming quite spendy to get parts ...

[1] Yes, they required a little hand-holding at first, as would be expected, but now they have been using it for seven and a half years, support calls are nonexistent. As is downtime. No user support at all for about the last 5 years, and the only downtime has been during kernel upgrades, which take a couple minutes at worst, and then only when the system is not active. Try to emulate THAT with your Windows/Office/Web/Cloud solution ...

jake Silver badge

Re: Preferably with some bug fixing

That's not a bug, that's a feature!

Simply distribute the pages missing bits to the people least likely to bother reading it. Saves ink, and, if the document (and print-run) is long enough, paper.

One might say that folks lacking character get pages lacking characters.

jake Silver badge

Re: Netscape Communicator 4.x

Netscape Communications (under Jim Barksdale) released the source for Communicator back in the '90s. In theory, you could find a copy and do what you like to it. Perhaps start looking at archive.org? Failing that, mozilla.org will have a copy ... but good luck getting a response out of them.

Happy hacking!

jake Silver badge

Re: Preferably with some bug fixing

No real need for a port ... Last time I needed it, Sprint ran quite nicely in DOSBox.

jake Silver badge

Re: Who needs it when ... ?

Anybody who has a copy of EMACS can make it work exactly like WP. Likewise, you can setup vi to use WP keybindings.

jake Silver badge

Re: Who needs it when ... ?

"hacking was called phone-freaking"

The phone phreaks were a minor subset of the hacking community, more specifically it was a subset of the cracking subset of hacking.

Note that I'm talking about logical grouping ... neither begat the other.

Now where did I put my crunch whistle ...

Oracle, Microsoft agree to shared custody of your workloads in the cloud

jake Silver badge

So now I pay rent to not one, but two ...

... companies to ensure I am no longer in control of my corporate compute infrastructure?

No thank you. I'm good.

Sage accused of strong-arming customers into subscriptions

jake Silver badge

Re: Ha ha ha

"We saw what Adobe did"

Yep. And now the only adobe on this property is in the walls of the guest house, and in the outdoor oven.

Crypto miners aren't honest about power use – time for a crackdown

jake Silver badge

Re: One wonders if ...

You didn't even bother to look at the video, did you, msobkw?

I love the sound of knees jerking ...

jake Silver badge

Re: One wonders if ...

That's not EV vs. ICE, it's EV vs. Hybrid.

jake Silver badge

Re: So What ?

"Evolution in Action" is the title of a 1953 book by Julian Huxley.

jake Silver badge

Re: Google

"If Google stopped serving ads,"

Ads? What are these things you call ads?

"can you suggest how else you would like to pay for its services?"

The only way alphagoo services anybody is the same way the bull services my cows. He doesn't kiss 'em & murmur sweet nothings when he's done, either.

jake Silver badge

Re: So What ?

Texas doesn't have the power the government is selling to the crypto-miners. It just plain doesn't exist. It's not available. Their electrical grid infrastructure is both vastly under-powered, and in really, really bad condition with absolutely zero redundancy or other room for error. And it's not even August yet ...

Perhaps they are planning more blackouts and brownouts for the ordinary people in order to power the crypto-folks? Shirley they aren't stupid enough to think the crypto-folks will produce more power than they need, just because they are super nice and want to help Texas?

But don't take my word for it ... How about Forbes take on the subject of Texas power ... or lack thereof.

Shit, even CHINA has thrown these charlatans out. And yet Texas is actively courting them? Doesn't that kinda, sorta make you wonder WTF?

For the copy-pasta set who dislike blind pointy-clicky, the Forbes article is here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2022/07/17/why-everyone-is-talking-about-the-texas-electric-grid/

jake Silver badge

Re: So What ?

As the article pointed out, there has been a huge surge in crypto-mining in Texas.

Enough said.

jake Silver badge

One wonders if ...

... these same six[0] are going to go on and point out that Electric Vehicles are using more and more of the electrical power generated world-wide? Here in the US, some 61% of the electricity on the grid[1] is generated by Natural Gas, Coal or Petroleum (mostly diesel). When will the electric car manufacturers be similarly investigated for the TCO of the EV? At least the crypto miners[2] make no bones about their energy usage ... whereas the EV folks claim "electricity is good for the environment", without pointing out how that electricity is actually generated for the manufacture, use and disposal of their product.

[0] Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), along with representatives Jared Huffman (D-CA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

[1] Rough 2021 stats here.

[2] Note that I'm no fan of the crypto-fad, I think it's a massive scam akin to a pyramid scheme.

That emoji may not mean what you think it means

jake Silver badge

Re: "there are 3,633 emoji in the standard at time of writing"

You don't use LibraOffice?

To be fair, I had to look to be sure. I use <alt>F, S or <alt>F, A ... Icons? What icons?

jake Silver badge
Pint

"That works both ways."

Sometimes it works three or four ways.

Language is complicated. That's what makes it fun :-)

jake Silver badge

Re: It's often just the facade of politeness

Not quite. That's the embellished version. Here's the actual story:

https://www.cnet.com/culture/britains-prime-minister-thought-lol-meant-lots-of-love-so-what/

jake Silver badge

Re: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"The first emoji eg. :¬) could be keyed on a standard ASCII keyboard - AltGr, extended character sets and Unicode came years later."

ASCII was a 7-bit child of the '60s. The first keyboard with a Meta Key was the Stanford Keyboard, in 1970. So-called "extended ASCII" (in its wild and various guises) was an 8-bit bastard child of the late '70s. The first emoticon as we know them today was the :-) smiley, in roughly 1982.

First-ever James Webb Space Telescope image revealed

jake Silver badge

Re: Larger still

"I do science not silly word games."

Martin Gardner would be appalled.

jake Silver badge

Re: Larger still

"even with sub-light speed propulsion it would take the Human race less than a couple thousand years to populate the entire Milky Way galaxy."

Neat trick, seeing as it takes light somewhere around 180,000 years to cross the galaxy. From Earth's position on the inner edge of the Orion Arm, the furthest reaches of our home galaxy are ~120,000 light years away ... but to get there from here we'd have to take a rather large detour around the Galactic Center (at least until the demolition and rebuilding slows down a trifle).

FYI: BMW puts heated seats, other features behind paywall

jake Silver badge

Re: Monthly?

"Well I had an old 1997 bmw e36 and the air conditioning compressor seized, brought the car to a complete halt. So in that case it did drain the engine power completely."

I know that most e36s were under-powered heaps of shit, but that doesn't sound quite right. Every time I've had an engine-driven accessory seize, the drive belt has snapped instantly (or burned through, if loose) and the motor kept going as if nothing had happened.

jake Silver badge

Re: Monthly?

"Windows up and aircon on might be more efficient at motorway speeds."

There is no might about it, it Is more efficient. This has been proven time and time again.

jake Silver badge

"I can only assume that because the car was moving when the disaster occurred all the oil was circulating up in the engine so enough was available to keep it running."

That's not how it works. The oil pump pulls from the sump to circulate through the engine. The oil then drains back into the sump (gravity), to be picked up by the pump again. Said pump supplies pressurized oil to the bearings continuously ... unless the oil has all drained out.

Long story short: You got very, very lucky. Don't do it again.

jake Silver badge

Re: So who is responsible for fixing the heated seats if they fail?

"For want of a £8,000 ECU, the car was useless."

So install an aftermarket ECU that is actually user programmable for under $2000, possibly under $1500, maybe even under $1000 if you're not planning on hotrodding it. Prices include all the bits of wiring harness you night need to facilitate the swap. There are several name-brands to choose from. I don't recommend the chinesium varietals.

Hive to pull the plug on smart home gadgets by 2025

jake Silver badge

Re: Thanks for the money but your stuffed.

I use this (or a fair approximation) on the front door:

https://www.amazon.com/Chrome-Embossed-PRESS-Renovators-Supply/dp/B00AIIEVP4/ref=sr_1_51?keywords=doorbell+buttons&qid=1657839989&sr=8-51

Actual chime, wire and transformer are up to you (and the wiring code in your jurisdiction), but at least once you install it you'll be secure in the knowledge that it'll last your lifetime, and possibly through your grandkid's, too.

If you need/want a camera ... get a camera, not a doorbell.

Mars helicopter to take a breather, recharge batteries

jake Silver badge

Re: Thanks NASA!

It's a better use than propping up religions, which are all failing for what should be obvious reasons.

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