* Posts by jake

26584 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007

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Seriously, you do not want to make that cable your earth

jake Silver badge

"I thought RS232 was a Ford rally car that never went in to production?"

That was the street version, the race version was RS422.

jake Silver badge

Re: PCSA, Vampire Taps and All-In-1...

"He must consider early 50s as young!"

It's not?

jake Silver badge

Re: Sparkies...

"Of course it's dedicated! It's only going to be used for this purpose!" —Anon "engineer" at Hewlett-Packard, circa 1985.

jake Silver badge

Re: Rainbow - Nostalgia

What was really fun, many moons ago, was discovering that Slackware had automagically sent a login prompt to the dumb terminal that I had connected to a serial port ... and it WORKED out of the box!

jake Silver badge

Re: Bee-sting ?

The unit was always called a vampire tap, yes.

However, I knew quite a few network engineers who called the tap's probe a stinger. I tried to get them to knock it off because we were often discussing three-phase power in the same conversation, but to no avail. Perhaps it's use here is an artifact of this nomenclature?

jake Silver badge

Re: Bee-sting ?

I've still got a thicknet link from up here in the office to the small cluster of vaxen down in the machine room/museum/mausoleum/morgue. Seemed silly not to include it when I wired this place, because the walls were open & you never know. A couple years ago the concept was justified when I inherited a DEC Rainbow from a friend :-)

jake Silver badge

Re: Bee-sting ?

If we're really lucky, they'll get the Moderatrix back ...

jake Silver badge

Re: Bee-sting ?

"and almost guaranteed to start leaking in a few weeks, if not same day."

FTFY

Seriously, learn to sweat copper pipe, it's not exactly rocket surgery ... unless you're enlightened and have switched to PEX. Regardless, turning off the water for 15 minutes (if that!) while properly installing a tee is hardly a hardship.

An international incident or just some finger trouble at the console?

jake Silver badge

Re: Typing is not a good idea.

I agree. However, as a guy who gets paid to do pen testing of various kinds, I can't tell you how many times I've pulled passwords out of the cut buffer of unlocked workstations in supposed "secure" areas. And (my favorite) off the PEE CEEs of the C* set ... It takes mere seconds, and is easy to do if they turn their back. (I generally ask if they'd be kind enough to get me a bottle of water or a cup of coffee. Works every time.)

It is a very real security problem, and pervasive.

Removing this ability is simple, effective, and does literally no harm. Frankly, I'm absolutely flabbergasted that so many ElReg commentards seem to think it's a bad idea.

jake Silver badge

Re: Not lost in translation

We were using the term "internetworking", and calling what we were building "the internet" long before TCP/IP went live. There is a direct line of progression from the first two connected & talking IMPs and the 1822 protocol in 1969 to every one of today's pointy-clicky TCP/IP driven intrawebtube delights.

jake Silver badge

Re: Typing is not a good idea.

"how are you supposed to use a password manager?"

You're not.

A password manager is the perfect tool to collect all the passwords of the weak minded.

jake Silver badge

Re: Typing is not a good idea.

To paste, it first has to be in the cut buffer ... or, in *nix terms when you select something, it shows up in X Selections (items hilighted, before you copy or cut them). This is available to anyone who has access to that session. If you make the option unavailable to the rubes, they won't be tempted to expose themselves ... or advocate that others do so, as is happening here in this thread.

Votes don't affect me one way or the other.

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." — Anon.

jake Silver badge

Re: Not lost in translation

Just a kid or two who doesn't know history. Doesn't bother me any if they refuse to learn from their elders. Their loss, not mine.

The bowsprit is not considered a mast[0]. Masts are perpendicular(ish) to the water. The mast nearest to the bow is called the foremast.

[0] Just to confuse things, there is/was sometimes a small "mast" at the end of the bowsprit, called the sprit topmast ... but it was not counted when calling out a three-masted vessel, four masted vessel, etc., nor was it ever called the foremast.

jake Silver badge

Re: Typing is not a good idea.

"From this I learned that every change should be cut and paste, and not typed."

A password entry box should never accept copy/paste. It's a security thing.

Seriously. Think about it.

jake Silver badge

Re: Not lost in translation

"Long before 'tinternet ...mercy snip... "le floppy disque"."

The thing we now call "The Internet" existed a couple years before IBM released the first commercial floppy disks to the world, in 1971.

jake Silver badge

Re: At long last...

TINC

jake Silver badge

Re: Figured out what THAT meant

DOOM was the game of choice among networked computer users of the time. The unimaginative used it as a template for almost everything. Was a bloody boring time for a couple years ... everything was DOOM related. Worse even than everyone and the dog attempting to get the first bloody obvious reference to Red Dwarf ot HHGTTG in before everyone else does ...

No, Cisco didn't semi-officially ever call a router that. They sure had some other good names for them, though ... some were even repeatable in mixed company.

jake Silver badge

Accidentally? No ...

... but in the early days of the spam wars, I very intentionally dropped two /8s on the floor. Twice. At the time, they needed killing. I also dropped several other smaller, but still largish blocks. I even intentionally dropped entire countries more than a handful of times ... A couple of those blocks and countries are still in my personal blackhole list (probably only used by ~2 million seats these days ... was considerably more back then).

IBM's autonomous Mayflower ship breaks down in second transatlantic attempt

jake Silver badge

Re: Size of vessel

It was a civilian ship in the early 1600s. I seriously doubt they were using anything resembling modern watchkeeping methods. Only the bare-bones number necessary would have been above decks most of the time, the rest would have been huddled below (well, in the poop deck) trying to get dry and cold (as opposed to near frozen ... warm would have been out of the question, unless you were the cook, the Master[0] or a mate).

The passengers (102 people), not being seafarers, had nothing to do with the running of the ship. That's why they hired ~30 crew. It's also why they got suckered into hiring a ship that had been scrapped a couple years previously... and one that had been built for the relative ease and comfort of the cross-channel trade. There is a huge difference between only one to three days port to port (London to Bordeaux & back, maybe a side trip to Amsterdam occasionally, certainly never as far as Stockholm or Helsinki or St. Petersburg.) and open ocean work with months between ports. It was also built for bulk cargo, not passenger comfort.

Thirdly, read the history of the trip. The weather wasn't exactly conducive for sunbathing. In fact, it was so rough that one crewman was washed overboard and lost, and a passenger who was also washed overboard managed to grab a rope and was rescued. All accounts state they had difficulties keeping dry, even below decks.

Fun trip! It's little wonder that the after affects, combined with a nice New England winter that they were ill prepared for, managed to kill off over half of the voyage's survivors ...

[0] "Captain" was a military rank, and not used in this civilian context back then.

jake Silver badge

Re: Shame about the poor project

"I think the main real goal is to get rid of expensive people like Masters"

The cost of a Master, per year, is far, far lower than the cost of (for example) replacing a propeller or rudder on a container ship. The downtime alone is horrendous, never mind the hardware.

And if the shaft is bent, and the stuffing box is damaged ...

jake Silver badge

Re: IBM in this case...

As in "What a maroon! What an ultra maroon! ::he he he he::" —B. Bunny, Esq.

jake Silver badge

Re: Size of vessel

After taking on stores (food and water, mostly) best modern estimates suggest no more than 1600 sqft of living space below decks. That's not a lot of elbow room for 130 people.

jake Silver badge

Re: Size of vessel

I rather suspect that the genetics of the 47 survivors are somewhat diluted by now.

On the other hand, the Puritan nutters (which we were quite happy to throw back at Blighty as soon as possible) went on to take over the UK almost entirely ... You can still quite clearly see the affects all these years later.

jake Silver badge

Re: Size of vessel

We do know that only 47 of them survived the affects of the journey (most died after making landfall).

jake Silver badge

"Sets off from Plymouth heading for Washington and ending up in Portugal."

Azores, actually. The island of Horta, specifically. About 1400km West of Lisbon. Might want to eyeball the concept of ocean currents before setting out from your seafaring nation.

jake Silver badge
Pint

Re: The bow camera is working.

And they are safely docked ... I just watched a couple blokes[0] fiddle about with the bowlines. Almost looked like they knew what they were doing.

Beers all 'round for this phase being completed.

[0] Was one a blokette? Hard to tell, poor quality video. Thanks, IBM. So much for your supposed "technology showcase".

jake Silver badge

Re: Size of vessel

"How they didn't all murder each other..."

Ever been in a small boat in the North Atlantic from mid-September to mid-November?

Most of them were probably all lined up along the rail praying ... "Oh, god" ::hork:: "Oh, god: ::hoorrk:: "Oh, god" HOOOORRRRK!:: etc. etc. The few who didn't get seasick were kept busy trying to keep the rest hydrated. No time or energy for fisticuffs under those conditions.

jake Silver badge

Might be three of 'em, if IBM is using triple modular redundancy.

I'd rather eat Johnson, sir!

jake Silver badge

That's twice.

Do you suppose somebody should tell them that Harbor Freight's chineseium gensets aren't built for continuous duty, especially in a marine environment? Talk to the folks who ship things that need refrigeration via container ship. The gensets that power the refer units are built to go months without human supervision. I'd recommend starting with SeaBox or the like ... Most such companies do custom kit, and I'm sure they'd welcome the advertising. Might even do a free installation (with redundancy) in return for prominent largish sticker placement.

Besides, this really isn't something new. Autopilot for civilian boats has been around for over half a century. For example, the unit I pulled out of my Monterey Clipper was a 1970's system based on LORAN C and made by Raytheon. It has since been replaced by something that'll get me a trifle further off the coast ... but I only use it to take me from harbo(u)r to harbo(u)r in SF bay and up and down the California coast. Overkill? Absolutely ... but it was cheap. My buddy can (and has!) get into his boat and program a route to Hawai'i. It'll happily take him there (and back) without any supervision, including avoiding storms and other shipping, while the occupants of the boat party

The sad state of Linux desktop diversity: 21 environments, just 2 designs

jake Silver badge

Read? Don't be silly.

Search for keywords/phrases to trigger on? NOW you're talking!

jake Silver badge

Re: So what would a a 21st century UI look like?

"I want an icon that says: write stuff"

I regularly use a couple dozen or more programs to "write stuff". Are you seriously suggesting that I should have icons for all of these, each identically labeled "write stuff" on my desktop?

"of (sic) something else, equally informative."

Perhaps the name of the actual program you want to use would be a good idea?

CamelCase is fine. I have yet to find anybody that is confused by the concept.

jake Silver badge

Re: You forgot the third ...

Which CLI? command.com? bash? The C shell? All are actually quite different, and there are many, many more.

jake Silver badge

Re: Brilliant and exhaustive work of research

Most of that wasn't Microsoft. It was IBM.

jake Silver badge

Why are they all the same?

Because IBM spent a crap-ton[0] of money and research hours on actual educated and well trained professionals to come up with what a computer interface should look like. The result was IBM's Common User Access, or CUA, back in the mid '80s (officially published in '87). Virtually all projects since, FOSS or proprietary, have been based on this ... albeit with some adjustments and supposed enhancements. Quite frankly, nobody has come up with anything better.

Yes, I know about Apple's HIG (human interface guidlines) from '84, but nobody but Apple-leaning programmers ever paid much attention to it.

[0] Or crap-tonne for the metrically inclined. The conversion factor is 1:1

We can bend the laws of physics for your super-yacht, but we can't break them

jake Silver badge

Re: But it's in the contract

Actually, at the San Andreas Fault Zone the Pacific Plate is shifting in a North-westerly direction with regard to the North American plate. So no, the bits of the US that are on the Pacific Plate (mostly California Coast and bits of the SoCal desert) are NOT moving closer to Asia. They are moving towards Alaska.

Appeals court unleashes Texas's anti-Big-Tech content-no-moderation law

jake Silver badge

Re: Republicans are the perps not the victims

"Republicans are not the victims here, they are the perpetrators."

At the present moment in time, this is quite true.

Sadly, they are perfecting their brainwashing techniques. The sheeple are buying into their machinations. (Why do you think the first place Republicans cut budgets is in Education? Can't have a well educated electorate, capable of thinking for themselves, now can we?)

jake Silver badge

Re: Only a sith deals in absolutes

"AR15 is overkill. On the other hand, a nice 1911..."

The AR is an over-priced toy purchased by idiots. The 1911 is way, way too heavy for EDC.

And quite frankly, I hope I'm never so paranoid as to feel a need to have a gun with me when I'm shopping for groceries. Seriously, you dumb-asses, if things are really that bad where you live either get off your fat asses and vote in a government that'll fix the problems, or fucking move! Why are you putting yourselves through all that headache and/or heartache? Gluttons for punishment?

jake Silver badge

Re: They should just stop doing business in TX and FL.

"Of course, half of America will disagree with the other half about which states are anti-American and anti-Constitution."

Which half would that be? The less than half who elected Trump? Or the less than half that didn't re-elect him?

"Only one of those two groups gets a voice on social media."

Which of those groups are getting kicked off social media for advocating violence against people who refuse to march in lock-step with them?

Discussing politics in all it's disagreeableness and disingenuousness is OK. Suggesting going out and beating people up (or worse) just for disagreeing is not. Funny how the wingnuts[0] don't see it that way.

[0] In my mind rightwingnuts and leftwingnuts are all like turds floating in a cesspool. Each one is just as bad as any other.

jake Silver badge

"it's rare to see a discussion of a "corporate persons" responsibilities."

The goo-kids finally noticed this, and promptly dropped their "do no evil" motto.

jake Silver badge

Re: Only a sith deals in absolutes

"I thought"

Assumes facts not in evidence. Parroting what you have heard is not thinking.

jake Silver badge

Re: But

"What if the AR-15 that you bought at Walmart is defective?"

It's well past it's warranty period (as you pointed out, Walmart stopped selling them in '15), so I stick it in a guncase and take it to my local gunsmith (the gunsmith himself mandates that all firearms brought into his shop are in cases, as do all sane gunsmiths).

Who buys pre-built ammo? Handloading is fast, and easy.

Note: I do not actually own an AR15 ... my firearms are not toys, they are functional tools.

jake Silver badge

Re: They should just stop doing business in TX and FL.

As a Californian, I can assure you that I have absolutely nothing on this Ranch that originated in either Texas or Florida. This is not on purpose, by the way ... it's just that it would seem that neither State makes anything worth exporting (at least not to this side of the Rockies).

jake Silver badge

Re: Republicans are the perps not the victims

"There was 435 miles of new wall built. It is only perhaps 50 miles longer than pre-Trump walls,"

So that's about 385 miles of rebuilt wall (not new wall!), and 50 miles of new wall ... of which how much was built with money suckered out of private citizens by that shyster Bannon?

jake Silver badge

Re: They should just stop doing business in TX and FL.

"Let's go back to 1861, time for another civil war?"

No need for fisticuffs ... with global warming and sea level rise, Florida will cease to be a problem shortly[0]. Texas claims to be the only state that can secede from the Union. Most of the rest of us wish they'd stop babbling about it and get on with it. Then we can just build a wall, and of course we'll make Texas pay for it. Needless to say, being Texan they will not get the joke.

As a side note to our British contingent, a "caravan" as used in this context does not refer to a temporary home used by city slickers on vacation to clog up the highways and byways of Britain. Rather it refers to a large group of travelers with a common destination.

[0] The irony of the concept of hoards of Floridian Republican boat people trying to land in the Continental US does not escape me.

jake Silver badge

Re: Only a sith deals in absolutes

I can assure you that there are very, very few people who would carry an AR15 into Walmart, even if it was legal. Those people are called "loonies" by the vast majority of the population.

Last time I checked, Walmart didn't require one to dispatch one's chow prior to purchase ...

jake Silver badge
Pint

Re: They should just stop doing business in TX and FL.

I also have never used twitter, metaface, alphagoo, etc. and I quite agree with you ... but we both know it's not going to happen. So we might as well attempt to use the anti-social media twits as a big stick against the anti-American, anti-Constitution states, hoping to get them to see the errors of their ways, right?

Not that it'll ever happen as long as they are run by anti-American, anti-Constitution fuckheads, of course. But yelling is cathartic. Beer?

jake Silver badge

They should just stop doing business in TX and FL.

No great loss.

::shrugs::

Open-source leaders' reputations as jerks is undeserved

jake Silver badge

Re: rude language

"As my delightful English teacher Mr Hurdley used to say, swearing is just indicative of a lack of vocabulary."

Swearing is often useful punctuation when using syntax tactically. It's all in the timing ... and knowing your audience. There is no one size fits all when dealing with human beings.

jake Silver badge

Re: Offensive and poorlt thought through

"MS was the creator of this misinformation machine, with IBM close behind."

Before them, Apple lead the way with the "ease of use" myth.

Twitter buyout: Larry Ellison bursts into Elon's office, slaps $1b down on the desk

jake Silver badge

Re: Dickheads?

"He's just doing what other MAGA sheep do"

Remember, kiddies, MAGA stands for Muppets Annoying Genuine Americans. Please, pass it on wherever you see an idiot wearing the hat.

This public service announcement brought to you by the letter T and the number e; we now return you to your usual ElReg weekend warriors bickering.

No actual republicans or democrats were harmed during the making of this PSA.

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