Posts by Robert 22

I remember that it didn't enable DMA by default for the optical writer. In that state, even a good computer would choke on playing a DVD. And it treated AGP video cards as PCI devices.

I suspect a lot of the snappy response had to do with using much lower resolution video than is now the norm. Also, I'm sure the overheads for security related functionality was a lot lower.

They thought they had artificial intelligence, but they had really only achieved artificial incompetence.

Re: Delay, Delay and Deny

and use one's legal problems as evidence to argue that he is being persecuted by out of control prosecutors and judges.

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-comms-ukraine-world-hertz

Re: I've seen similar

That scheme works best when interest rates are high, as they were in the early 80s.

The Russians haven't been able to obtain air superiority over the actual battlefield, despite having more and newer aircraft.

Re: "what processes the department has in place to measure the performance of any contracts"

I recall that, years ago when I worked for a Canadian R&D organization, being told that we were NOT allowed to consider past performance in the contracting process.

Re: In All The Good Democracies ...

It strikes me that the complexities of having dozens of states, each with their own arcane set of election rulers and procedures is NOT a good thing. Much of the disinformation about election fraud seen in social media is based on misinterpretations/misrepresentations of these rules and procedures. There are also issues such as the possibility of people who own property in multiple states to vote in those states. Interestingly, the people who do most of the wailing about voter fraud do not seem to be concerned about that.

Conversely, there are real issues that hardly any one is talking about. Consider voter suppression - for example, make it difficult for people who frequently move, such as students. There are others, such as gerrymandering, the electoral college and the allocation of tow senators to each state with no consideration of their population.

Re: Corruption

The "nobody got fired for buying IBM" mentality.

Speaking of IBM, they were responsible for the Canadian government's Phoenix pay system fiasco. My understanding is that they were the sole bidder and were able to insist on the waiver of penalty clauses in the contract documentation. If you are a small supplier, you definitely won't get that courtesy i.e., there are perverse incentives that favor the big suppliers. At the same time, many of those suppliers, IBM again being a notable example, have gone through bouts of downsizing and outsourcing with the result that the project team has a lot less experience and capability than the contract managers believed they were getting.

Since Musk took over Twitter, my feed has been filled with the rantings of RW nut-jobs. And if you try to dispute the lies, you get piled on by the true believers.

I recall being interviewed by IBM when I graduated in the late 80s. The interviewer made a big deal about how they had never ever laid anybody off. How times have changed.

Re: Carbon sinks

Only helps up to a point. Then you have carbon getting back into the atmosphere via organic matter decaying and forest fires.

Re: Pilot ejected for reasons that have yet to be explained

I suspect he put it on autopilot to see if that helped with control problems and/or to make sure it remained headed towards an unpopulated area.

Re: CEO contempt of users ends badly as predicted

So this is just the time honored practice of eating one's future.

Re: Labour have always balanced the books

Maggie did benefit from North Sea oil coming online at a time of rising oil prices.

Re: No bias found, but…

Ad they get to play the victim!

Re: Really?

Early US spy satellites used cassettes of photographic film that were returned to earth for retrieval.

Re: Orange man...

It is curious how Republicans would have you believe that Biden is senile and clueless while, at the same time, being a criminal mastermind who has pulled off all kinds of crimes without leaving a trace of evidence.

Re: @Elongated Muskrat

There is some truth in that. Communist theoreticians had assumed that the revolution would happen first in the most advanced countries. To get around the paradox of the revolution NOT happening in an advanced country, they had to do some improvising and invented a phase of "State Capitalism." Stalin's regime ruthlessly exploited the population and, with the gulags, basically reinvented slavery. And of course, an elite was needed to runt things.

I suppose there is the issue of running wires through the hull without introducing weak points prone to failure. The slightest leak wouldn't stay slight very long.

It is not clear how much redundancy there is - that is something I would expect to see.

Re: Spy vs spy

Similar technology was used by many countries.

That is a feature.

Re: symptoms are also consistent with known RF effects

I would have thought that they would have looked very carefully for any RF signals that might conceivably be an issue. They probably do that regularly at the embassy to look for RF bugs - I am reminded of the "Great Seal" bug that did require that it be radiated with a strong continuous wave RF signal to work.

Where does the model suggest that the rain will go?

Higher temperatures increase evaporation. Also, changes in atmospheric circulation will change where what rain there is ends up.

Another issue is that key aquifers are being depleted with no real prospects of refilling them i.e., we are already living beyond our means.

Re: It doesn't have to influence by *much*

"A classic example of this being the German Green party politician Annalena Baerbock who said she would support Ukraine no matter what her voters thought about it. They have turned into proper tinpot despots." - A leader who has principles!!! We can't have that!!!

They tend to throw in requirements for all sorts of documentation that people who have recently moved or are homeless will have trouble providing. The business of purging voter rolls hits those people as well. And the laws are enforced in an uneven way. Governor Youngkin's son, who was not old enough to vote, tried to vote at two locations in the 2020 election without incurring any legal consequences.

Re: There's a reason for the statement

True for nuclear weapons and satellites, but not for most other applications. Mil-spec chips are rated and tested to work over a larger temperature range and use packaging that has a high resistance to moisture.