Posts by Kiwi

YouTube is over 250m,

And what % of those are properly licensed, with a fair payment being made to the artist?

(surreptitiously tucks MP3 player out of sight)

Re: Love the Hendrix reference

@Teiwaz

As a sufferer of depression and having known people who have attempted (and succeeded in one case) suicide, I always enjoy ignorant twunts like you trivializing suicide.

Downvote because my life has given me plenty of reason to try to end it (yes, some of those things are my own fault), and I've lost a couple of very good friends to it over time.

Sometimes making light of things gives us something to laugh at and takes away some of the pain associated with these things.

So thanks for bringing some darkness back into this world where someone else intended laughter. Bloody well done.

Re: Love the Hendrix reference

At this point it's a close odds toss up whether the 'high suicide rate' at xmas isn't more related to the constant repeat of the shortlist of current 'in fashion' xmas pop absolutely every shop is playing.

Was thinking while out shopping just an hour ago that next week I'll need a set of large over-ear headphones. Problem is, to buy them I have to enter another shop.

I second the idea that this repetitive crap (and not "recent" music either, some of the people behind that stuff have been dead for decades (and some of the original songs go back centuries!) in the shops and on radio every few minutes and on tv (made the mistake of watching 10 mintues of live TV the other night, bloody AWFUL!) must push not just the suicide rates but road rage, domestic violence and other things through the roof. Bad enough that we have the other pressures of this time of year without that stuff as well.

I would vote for a couple of law changes. 1) christmas "music" can only be played on December 25th, and not after 7pm. 2) Any broadcaster playing such songs must have the person who opted to play that song restrained with a gun pointed at their head, electrical current attached to their testicles, and their hand glued to the trigger. The song they chose to inflict on the rest of us must be repeated to them 10 times in quick succession while the current to the knackers is steadily increased. If they reach the end without pulling the trigger (either to make the noise go away or out of convulsion from the current) then they can air said song. Oh, and the final stages of the current must be high enough to ensure that they will never breed again. Because if someone can listen to that 10 times, we don't want them in the gene pool.

The second song they want to play must have a linked gun pointed at any of their loved ones. 3rd one the gun automatically fires at the merest suggestion of it.

Set the gun up right and they can listen to their favourite xmas¹ songs till their ears bleed.

¹ "x" coz I'd not sully the Name of Christ by association with this stuff (kinda sad when you consider I sully His Name by association with me! :( )

Re: Unintended consequences?

This is what is known as a level playing field.

You mean something like M.A.D? (Only that levels the playing field. And the city. And the rest of the country.....

Re: Yawn

People always seem to go back to the mantra, "well if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear", when it comes to privacy. However, these same people have curtains on their windows, why? To stop people snooping in on their PRIVATE lives. So privacy does matter them then.

Actually I have curtains on my windows for 2 totally different reasons.

#1 I don't do well with summer heat; keeping curtains closed stops the sun getting in and warming the place so much.

#2 It was part of the settlement stopping me going to prison for manslaughter (why is that spelt "man's laughter"????) - some poor neighbour saw my partly undressed body in all it's ugliness and promptly had a heart attack. I nearly got done for murder on that one!

Re: Eat their own dog food

If MP's think they are really excluded then they are deluded

A very mathematically-balanced post you have there Toni!

"If MP's think"

100% unlikely.

"they are deluded"

100% likely!

Perfect balance! Well done!

Re: sort of confused ?

I really could have done without that changing room scene...

Calm down dears. I was trying on jumpers.

Well you got someone jumping anyway...

... away from their screen in fear of what might come next!

Re: Brownouts

Wait! No! I wasn't trying to teach you...

WTH, update CV: "2017: Coached Evil Mastermind"

You could also add "undertook study from evil mastermind" (I did teach you to think more carefully :) ), "instrumental in creating new business opportunities for overseas investors", "helped a small nation increase it's job growth potential" (At 4million population NZ is puny, and if even one potential¹ job comes out of it... )

¹ Assuming I get off my arse and do something about it.

Re: Brownouts

Can't that lead to employers demanding bribes from workers?

"Here's your work station"

"The safety guards don't work"

"It's your work station, I'm going to have to report you... unless..."

So what you're saying is... That furniture making shop I've wanted to set up for a wee while now (try something new) - you've just given me a way I can buy cheap old scrap metal and turn a profit on it before my staff even turn it on for the first time? Cool! Thanks!

(we don't have an icon that expresses evil enough!)

Re: Cool marketing idea

"The Intel Management Engine ('IME' or 'ME') is an out-of-band co-processor integrated in all post-2006 Intel-CPU-based PCs."

Which is correct?

I had an old IBM machine a few years back that had it on, and it'd be circa 2006. Assuming I'm recalling the right machine.

One of these IIRC :

https://www.cnet.com/products/ibm-thinkcentre-m50-8185-pentium-4-2-8-ghz-256-mb-ram-40-gb-hdd/specs/

Here's a 2010M MS technet post about IME

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/27e31ed5-b333-498b-b3db-7b710f3238c0/intel-management-engine-interface-what-is-it?forum=w7itprogeneral

Tom's Hardware in 2011

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vpro-amt-management-kvm,3003-6.html

MS Answers from 2009 :

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/intel-management-engine-interface-driver/7f13be54-fe75-4d79-aaf1-2f756e037035?auth=1

So it's at least since 2009, even if it wasn't in the box I recall it being in (can't find a reference to it - that said the box I had may've had a mobo transplant and maybe wasn't the original mobo, or I'm remembering the wrong model number)

Re: Some thoughts..

Not at all. Currently they cannot be on anything later than 18.2. Keeping them "where they are" means you won't be upgrading them to 18.3.

Or it could be that they're on 18 and I'm not putting them on 19.

I don't see why you can't just install KDE on another Mint distro when there's no longer a specific KDE Mint distro.

Sometimes native is better. And we don't know if doing so will break other things or not, will have to wait and see. If there's better options out there by then we won't see.

I see from other discussions people have had with you, well at least I'm not alone :) It's friday, it's been a long hot day (by NZ standards, cold winter's day by Brisbane standards) after a really long and painful week, let's just agree to dismemberdisagree...

Re: Some thoughts..

"Can you show the class where I said they have to include the next edition, rather than the current one?"

Kiwi, you wrote: "A lot of my older users are on KDE and love it. Guess I'll have to keep them where they are."

That is you won't upgrade them to Mint 18.3 with KDE. Why you won't is still a matter for speculation since you have not explained why.

Sorry, I forgot who I am dealing with. To hard for you to figure out that when the next Mint comes out they won't be taken beyond 18.3? (for those who're still on Mint when 17 goes out of support anyway)

Sometimes have to wonder if it's a deliberate failure to spot the bloody obvious with you, or something else?

Re: Some thoughts..

">As the distro announced in October, it also contains the last KDE edition of the project.

>>That sucks. A lot of my older users are on KDE and love it. Guess I'll have to keep them where they are."

And how do you propose the next edition of KDE be included?

Can you show the class where I said they have to include the next edition, rather than the current one?

Is there a law that says the next edition of KDE won't be ready by the time the next edition of Mint is ready?

Mint often includes software versions that are well behind the current one. Is the version of Evolution available from the repo the same as the current release? VLC?

I'm trying to load the update into a VM now, but may have to wait until the weekend as I don't have much of a download speed available here today (why is it when there's a new OS I want to play with that the connection craps out?) In a couple of hours (maybe 3) I might be able to have a look at the list of available sofware on Mint 18.3 and compare a few with the latest versions from the author. I expect most will be for much older versions (some >6months older than current release). So, why should I expect them to be going with the not-yet-finished KDE in the next version when I don't expect them to have the current release of other packages in this version?

Sometimes, Mr Git, your logic seems to be quite lacking. Or odd.

Perhaps you can try again to explain how you believe I am holding a Linux version to a different standard by being disappointed that they're dropping a certain feature? Have you not seen me repeatedly say I am not moving my Windows past 7 because I don't like what has been lost with 8+?

(For those who say I should do a clean install, 1) this is in a cloned VM - if it craps out I lost a whole 2 minutes of my life, and 2) It'd take me nearly 3 days on my current connection speed (20-30Kb download rate, sometimes as high as 50KB!) to download a full ISO, whereas at the time of writing <flip desktop> we're looking at 2hrs 7 minutes to download the update files (screaming along at 29.8k! - and yes, I am the one screaming GO FASTER YA BASTARD! - oblig Oatmeal)

Re: No KDE = No Mint for me

No KDE = No Mint for me

Did you RTFA to the end?

Ya mean where it says "As the distro announced in October, it also contains the last KDE edition of the project."?

Re: Minty

As for Timeshift, I prefer to use GpartedLive to make a clone of my root and home partitions which I can archive (at the back of the drawer) and restore from if needed.

I like full backups of stuff as well (actually these days I trending more towards /home and /etc, anything outside of those can be re-created easily enough), but creating and recovering from a full backup can take hours depending on amounts of data and so on.

If this Timeshift works as expected, then it should make things quite easy to recover from should something fail. I've used MS's system restore in that manner when working on something I don't fully understand (or pushing something to do things it didn't already want to, removing nasty software etc etc) - I create a point to go back to, make my changes, and if it screws up can revert in minutes instead of hours.

No substitute for full backups when things really go titsup, but can save you a lot of time and hassle when it's only minor changes.

System restore was also (therotically) great when you were testing a range of software to find the best tool for a job, a quite restore on a VM/sacrificial machine would save you the time of rebuilding from scratch (although it only takes moments to do a "linked clone" of a VM anyway). It could actually help you keep some of the cruft out of the registry if you could actually go back to the point before you tried the install.

(Yes, I've been giving praise to some MS software, what of it? Oh, the stroke foundation wants a word with me about suddenly increasing their workload?)

Re: Finally!!

2018. Year of the BSD desktop

Haven't we had that for a while now?

Like, every other boot, when Windows 'holds its breath' because something or other isn't quite written right?

Oh, you mean BSD isn't Blue Screen of Death?

Gotta run. There's a bunch of nerdy-looking guys coming up the road with pitchforks.... Guess the BSD guys don't like that wonderful OS being equated with the death-throes of the POS OS...

Re: Finally!!

It's going to be hard waving goodbye to PC gaming but as time goes by there's less and less new releases that interest me and there's no shortage of retro stuff on Linux (plus a reasonable collection of Steam games) so it's not all work and no play :)

I have a win7 install (that isn't allowed to know about the network) that does for some games, but most of what I do is in Linux. I play SOASE:Rebellion a lot (usually in one desktop while I have browser/email etc open in another, and just Ctrl-Alt-Left/Right to change - testing a screen for a mate tonight so have it working dual-screen fine, SOASE on one and what I'm typing on the other), I play Descent (v1 rebirth) a fair bit, both just a matter of double-clicking the installer etc files. A lot of GOG stuff runs happily as well, runs so seamlessly it seems native (under WINE no less). Have Dosbox for other favourites I play from time to time (including Carrier Command - so old you could have the game, video and audio "drivers" (I use the term very loosely), mouse driver, and enough of the OS on a single 360K floppy!). While I don't have it in here atm I've had the originals of the Homeworld series (including Cataclysm), some of the CnC stuff and Tib 3 all happily running under Linux (via WINE of course).

For those that don't want to play that I want to play there's Win7. For those that don't want Win7 there's another game for me to play instead of them, and many of the older games have much better gameplay than newer ones (even remakes - I got HW:Remastered almost as soon as it came out, I've played around 16 hours of it in that time - the original Homeworld has much much better gameplay (even if crappier graphics) and I've probably played several hundred hours in that in the same time period (plus played it through a number of times before that, giving it a complete run every 6 months or so).

So yeah, you can dual-boot for some stuff and a lot still likes Win7, some you can do under Linux, some under a VM.... Lots of ways to have great games and NOT have Win h8 or Win McSlurpy.

(No Charles, we're NOT talking games that require DirectX 52billion here! :) </troll>)

Re: We turned it on its head

It's something you don't do a second time. Of course, if you do, you're probably better off working on a farm.

Ahem.. large animals that can do lots and lots of damage if annoyed/scared. Large powerful (if somewhat slow) machinery that can do lots and lots and lots and lots of damage if misused (I had so much fun in my youth!), lots of stuff that burns, lots of stuff that goes bang in rather pretty and rather noisy ways.

Oh, and commonly several lots of 3-phase mains...

Wanna rethink that? :)

Re: I'm old school

Like chess-by-mail, I do the internet by correspondence.

I am currently waiting for a ping letter...

Most of the time lately my current feed is like that, but with an electric typewriter attached.

Re: Polices the irresponsible, perhaps: not the wicked

Flying into a plane engine deliberately would be very difficult, although not completely impossible.

Depending on the type of weather system, air craft flying into Wellington airport fly along one of a few standard paths. They're on a straight-line approach in both direction and angle of descent. A few days observation gives you much of that information (I've had a few years of it myself).

That gives me a "ballpark area" to position my drones (gotta have more than one - you can target more than one engine and maybe cause a major crash - bonus points if you can target both sides of the cockpit and knock out the crew).

The engine itself is a fairly large target BUT has a fast closing speed. However if you're fairly well lined up in the plane's flight path already, it's probably fairly trivial to fly towards the plane and if your flight system, camera angle etc are good enough and the incoming plane doesn't suddenly change direction or angle of descent, you have an easy target. Suspend a small fishing sinker below your drone, instant death of engine (the speed the engine blades mode at, hitting something like a lump of lead will cause them to break without question)

Thankfully while they're far enough out that a failure of both engines would be a big problem (ie to far out to glide in without power) they're probably high enough to reasonably be above all but the most expensive drones.

An aircraft taking off, at an airport like Wellington, could be in a much worse situation. I've not spent much time near there so don't know how far down the runway the planes lift off from; is it possible that loss of all engines at the last moments on the runway (ie just as they reach take-off speed) mean they don't have sufficient braking distance to stop before they go over the end of the runway and into the Cook Straight or Wellington Harbour? What if you hit them a moment after launch? I think that'd be harder though as a 1/2 second earlier/later take off than you expect would mean a change of flight path by several metres, and of course a drone near enough to that area is going to be picked up and troops sent out to have a "friendly" word with the pilot.

(I think of this stuff because a) I still have a very over-active imagination and b) watch too many movies. But I don't think the guys with the black helicopters circling overhead will necessarily believe that...)

Re: So...

If this is just altitude limits and no fly zones (airports etc) from the GPS, or something more deeply involved I've no idea sorry.

May's government is involved it. That should give you plenty of "idea". The same government who employs rhymes-with-Elmer Fudd.

Altitude limits, airport no fly zones, attitude limits (ie "Drone operator pissed us off by finding a way to capture footage of..."), and also protest limits (not near protests to film bad stuff by the piggywiggies), alleged terror incident limits (so you can film all the fleeing panicking people to your hearts desire, but you can't film that it's just a couple of blokes having a dust-up), and more that even I can't conceive of.

Re: "I suggest a trip to Stevenage town centre on any Saturday night.""

I need to lie down until my level of self disgust at having thought that up has dropped.

Does the thought that such a show would involve lots of things being "dropped" and other people "lying down" help your mindset?