Posts by PT

Re: I have a button/badge from the '70s ...

Actually I think it was a White Person thing, since only a minority of the records destroyed at the rally were disco, but all of them were by blacks.

Re: Never so happy as when they are moaning

At Denon-DJ: well, the fact is, Windows XP sp3 WAS just right. The only improvement offered by Windows 7 was 64 bit and multi-core support, which could quite easily have been added to XP without passing through the horror that was Vista, and then carrying the Vista bloat into W7 with the totally unnecessary video effects. As far as I can see, the only "need" that existed for Windows 10 was Microsoft's need to take control of everyone's computer through the compulsory upgrade system, probably with a view to changing everyone to an annual license plan once there was no alternative.

Re: Not sure the comparison is valid

That should be easy. There are approximately 8000 hours in a year, so the possible down time is 8/10 of an hour, or 48 minutes.

Re: Not just IT

Unfortunately, behavior like that causes no surprise to people who live here and are familiar with MGM. The main difference between MGM and the owners of earlier times is that the Mob knew how to run a casino and show the customer a good time. The New York private equity funds that own MGM have made even the parking lot a profit center.

There are other conference facilities in town.

The REAL real pain

The real pain is that if you're registered for sales tax you have to make a monthly return even if you don't owe any, and if you don't send in a return there's a penalty. So how's that supposed to work when you're registered in all 50 states and 10,000 different cities and counties?

Furthermore, when I was registered for sales tax they made me post a bond. It wasn't much, it was $500, but it would be a serious problem to have to post one for all 50 states.

No, they are not the world's richest people. They have their wealth in financial instruments, which are currently doing quite nicely, but if they tried to liquidate it to cash they'd all be a lot poorer. The real world's richest people own things - they're rentiers, not workers. Some of them own entire countries.

Re: Agenda?

I live in Nevada. We have legal brothels here, which run quite peacefully - they even occasionally place ads in the Situations Vacant section of the local paper for new ladies. The only place there is trouble with pimps and exploitation is Las Vegas, since prostitution is illegal in Clark County and it's 100 miles to the county line.

Re: Unless you are Really Big Biz this...

"Or trying to stop 'svchost.exe' from using all the RAM and CPU for no effing reason."

OMG - I thought I was the only one who had that problem! Yep, every week or so it takes 50% of my cycles for 16 or 20 hours at a time, even with the network unplugged. What the hell is it doing?

Re: Back when BIOS was actually useful

I wrote a CP/M BIOS at least three times, and it always contained quite a lot of I/O code, including video unless it was just talking serial to a terminal. It had to do all the low level disk control. The example BIOS in the CP/M documentation was just a bare bones guide, capable of serial IO but not disk IO. That you had to do yourself.

Re: I actually had trouble getting the Windows 10 nagware to show up

Are we supposed to be impressed?

Re: Anybody can crack an iPhone, if they have I.C.E. technology

Not so. There are security flags in all micros to disable memory read and verify, clearing which usually requires dissolving off the plastic and lasering a track on the IC. Without that you may be able to hook up an ICE - assuming you can somehow attach it to a BGA package with inaccessible pins - but you won't be able to dump the code. Modern micros with a JTAG interface have a non volatile flag that disables JTAG and can only be cleared by a bulk erase. Apple would be fucking incompetent if they didn't activate these hardware protections.

Re: "was visible all the way from Northern California"

I live in Nevada (Las Vegas). I wasn't looking at the time this shot went off so I didn't see it, but launches from Vandenberg AFB, which is about 300 miles away, are easily visible here. The first time I saw one it was close to 11pm, but the smoke trail was lit up by the over-the-horizon sun. It went so high it could probably have been seen from Texas.

Re: Pick up your laptop and walk

In spite of some reverses lately, America is still a free country - though not as profitable for contractors as it formerly was, since the large influx of H1B Visa holders has had the intended effect of depressing salaries and contract rates.

I've never regretted leaving Britain, aside from the lack of Marmite and newspapers with actual news over here.

Re: Two points to make - Linux & W7

... given the specifications of what most vendors shipped ...

You do realize, I suppose, that those specifications were imposed by Microsoft as an anti-Linux action? They were a condition of manufacturers getting the loathsome crippleware "Windows 7 Starter Edition" practically free, and threatened with unfavorable terms for grown-up Windows if they didn't comply, they all caved.

Re: It's something.

While the assault in this particular case can probably be attributed to one person, unfortunately this kind of prosecutorial overreach is ubiquitous throughout the US "justice" system. Persons with such flawed judgement not only belong, but advance rapidly in their careers, by carrying out exactly this kind of ferocious assault - providing it results in the patsy taking the plea.

Re: Is that what it's really about?

those are illegal and if I were running a company I would refuse them too.

Indeed, and the world would applaud you for it. Then you would pay, like Joseph Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest.

Re: Even Windows 8 has drawn fire lately for failing to revive the flagging PC market.

LOL, exactly the point I was going to make.

New versions of Windows are only of benefit to Microsoft. Everyone else just gets a world of trouble and expense.

Re: Waste of Energy

What's really a waste of energy is a modern technology company thinking it can do anything to impress the Greens. Maybe if they powered the data centers with pedal driven generators, or replaced them with fields of organic vegetables, that might work.

@P_o

I still find it hard to understand why people hate Thatcher so much.

I can give you my reasons.

It was her utterly inexplicable and hubristic policy to hold a strong Pound at or above $2.40, by maintaining interest rates above 18%, and keeping it up for more than two years. If you ran a manufacturing business, as I did at the time, your domestic customers weren't going to invest in new plant at those rates, and you were priced right out of foreign markets. I believe it's this that did more damage than anything else to the UK manufacturing base.

Worse, the almost overnight transition from record low to record high interest rates devastated the housing market. My monthly mortgage payments more than doubled over three months, and a year later people were just walking away from their under-water properties.

Everyone remembers the miners and privatization, nobody seems to remember the depression.

Re: Prices

For cable TV it's probably defined in the local contract, but for data, monopoly arrangements probably depend on the thickness of brown envelopes handed to the local utilities commissioners by the incumbents.

@ObSolutions

Matt seldom has a point to make, that's why his posts always contain ad hominem attacks and insults. Matt's overall theme seldom changes - "The US Government can do no wrong, and its critics are the enemy".

Re: PFE?

I still use PFE occasionally, especially when I need keyboard macros. It's primitive, but fast. It could do the TADREP test with two easy find-and-replace in less time than it took to read about it.

Re: Double Standards!

Corkscrew action, fnarr fnarr. Plus 1.

Re: Don't like it, DON'T BUY IT!

No, please not a Yucatan meteor. I only live 1500 miles from Redmond, and in any case they're too close to Yellowstone for comfort.. A Tunguska meteor will be quite sufficient.

Re: "Each will contain as much steel as eight Eiffel Towers"

Correct, sir - the Eiffel Tower is made of wrought iron. For what it's worth, it weighs 7,300 tons.

Re: US Sales Tax - you think EU VAT is tricky?

Correct, it's ridiculous. When I was running a small internet sales operation a few years ago, I refused to accept orders from my own state to avoid the complexity of charging something like 17 different rates. I was still required to register for sales tax, deposit a large bond, and make monthly tax returns. All my returns were for $0.00, on which I incurred a penalty if they were a day late.

Every computer user in New Zealand should install a Bit Torrent client, whether they intend to use it or not. Call it a gesture of solidarity.

Re: twisted Pair...

"...a peer to peer Windows for Worksgroups network (remember that!)"

Yes - I'll never forget the blinding epiphany when I discovered I could add computers on the existing network without having to pay the Novell tax.

Re: Lewis misses the point

Dave Bell, you are right. The British were still using Lyddite (picric acid) at Jutland. It was too sensitive and the shells exploded on impact, not after penetration. The Germans were using TNT.