Posts by onefang 1954 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Dec 2017
"For example, because U.S.-based companies host and carry much of the world’s Internet traffic, a foreign country that enters one of these executive agreements with the U.S. to could potentially wiretap people located anywhere on the globe"
For those outside of USA that like their privacy, Internet routing is about to become much more complicated.
'After various experiments with Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and the like, I have discovered that a polite "No thank you" is the safest option. It doesn't leave much conversational entry.'
My favourite tactic is to turn my head away from the door, and shout to some one in the other room "The virgins are here, we can start the Satanic Mass now!".
'There's at least one type of eucalypt so dense that it's known as "firebricks" - it's almost impossible to work as it ruins metal tools and it's around twice the density of water.'
Only one problem with using eucalypts as heat shields, eucalyptus oil tends to burn far too easily. Just ask any Australian fire fighter.
"That was fun. What was not fun was pouring ultra-fine cat litter out of the box every 3 months, because that's what we manufactured."
At least it wasn't used cat litter.
Slightly less fun, I used to do sysadmin duties for a clay tile company. All that fine clay dust covering the insides of the computers, and sucking moisture out of the humid sub tropical air, then setting.
Way back in 2015 I wrote this, sung to the tune of a well known Pink Floyd song, from one of their more famous albums. I've been a programmer for longer than I've been a musician, so I refactored out the duplications, to avoid The Wall of text. Insert David Gilmour guitar solo where appropriate.
We don't need no compilation.
We don't need no source control.
No damn subversion in the repo.
Coders leave them bugs alone.
Hey! Coders! Leave them bugs alone!
All in all, it's just another bug in the code.
All in all, put just another bug in the code.
Crashed, run it again!
If you don't edit yer code, you can't have any debugging. How can you have any debugging if you don't edit yer code?
You! Yes you behind the segfaults, STAND STILL LADDIE!
"The twisted part of me is also thinking RaspberryPi OSX is probably not far behind either."
Apple really doesn't like running their OSes an other peoples hardware, so that would be an Apple iPi running Mac OS. It would cost more and be bigger, coz Apples are bigger than Raspberries, though less sweet.
I've used far too many text editors in my lengthy career. There was a time when my job involved using what ever text editor that happened to be installed on the computer I was using at the time, which often meant half a dozen different editors in a single day. From that time I have my hard and fast text editor rule. If it's not easy enough to figure it out from the moment you start using it how to do really basic editing stuff (move cursor, insert text, delete text, save, exit) then it's a complete failure. Both emacs and vi fail that test. Nano passes.
I have memorised one vi command though, coz it does tend to pop up unexpectedly every now and then -
killall -TERM vi
These days the very first thing I do for any new computer, if possible, is install mc (Midnight Commander). Usually easy to do on any Linux computer, and even my Mac and Windows boxen have it. It's also on my Android phone. mcedit works fine, passes my test, and mc works OK as an IDE.
"Oh? What if the chair has wheels and it's rolling without your knowledge because, you know, you're basically BLIND?"
If at that point a little popup appears telling you "Watch out for the cat, and the wall behind it!", then it might be worth it. Doesn't do that though.
"Send an email to a "friend" that you are thinking about getting a new car and see what happens. Mention that you are thinking about going on a cruise in a private email."
Ah, so I should be sending emails and making FB posts about how I'm planning on buying lots of posters of <list favourite sex symbols here>, wearing as little as possible, to cover my bedroom walls and ceiling. It would almost be worthwhile disabling my ad blockers.
Paris, coz she's on that list.
"Anyone who does search for your name (under the given circumstances) is either (i) you, (ii) someone you know or (iii) pure guesswork."
You left out (iv) someone searching for the name of someone else that shares your name. I was quite surprised several years ago to stumble across the fact that there are half a dozen people in a public USA phone book site with the same name as me, despite it being a rather rare last name. No doubt there are others in other countries. I do know that one of those turns up in Google searches almost as often as I do.
Now if your name is John Smith or Jane Doe...
"Plus the application that menace you about not working if you don't give 'em all the rights they ask... even when you wonder why they need them..."
Like Google Daydream for instance. Why a VR app, that is designed for sitting in a chair type VR, needs to know exactly where on Earth that specific chair is while you are sitting in it with a brick strapped to your face is beyond me. I have a brick strapped to my face, that chairs not going anywhere, it's only spinning in place.
"You don't even need to click on an ad, or buy anything. Advertising is clever, subliminal."
It's not going to be particularly subliminal if I never see the ad coz my ad blocker is working. Maybe the clever advert can convince my ad blocker to buy stuff, but my ad blocker doesn't have a credit card, bank account, or wallet, so I doubt it's gonna be buying anything any time soon.
"In order to avoid any nasty fallouts due to languages, it is deemed best to code directly in Assembler."
Assembler may be covered by both copyrights AND patents. Not sure on that one.
You would also need to avoid using libraries, those come with APIs that might be copyright.
Best bet is to use butterflies, coz at least you have plausible deniability. https://xkcd.com/378/
'Have you seen how many yachts Larry Ellison owns? Well, he "needs" some more.'
When the North and South Poles melt, and the sea level rises enough to wipe out most coastal cities, Larry wants to have enough yachts to lash them together and build his own floating country.
"Your parents may wish to sue. Did they grant you a licence?"
Well my mother must have granted me a licence to replicate my DNA while in vitro, she seemed rather keen to help with that entire process. Not like I could do anything if she chose to not grant me that licence at the time. From what my parents told me, they where both very keen. In the 57 years since, neither parent has tried to revoke that licence, and one of them is still alive. She knows where to find me if she changes her mind.
If Micky Mouse keeps extending the length of copyright, all three of us will likely be long gone before the copyright expires. Once mum dies I'm not sure if the copyright passes to me, or either of my siblings, unless specifically written into her will. If by law it's a three way split, I'm sure we'll negotiate a settlement where we each have full rights to our own DNA. We are reasonable like that, unlike Oracle.
"involving, for example, nudity, bestiality, pornography, offensive language, graphic violence, or criminal activity"
Dear Microsoft,
go suck on a dead dingoes donger, you motherfucking cunts.
Yours sincerely,
onefang.
I guess that covers bestiality, pornography, offensive language (I used the word Microsoft), and the icon should cover graphic violence. If I could include two icons, the second would be Paris, coz (at least in my imagination) she's nude in that photo. As for criminal activity, I'm sure something in this post is criminal in some country somewhere.
If this post ends up on Bing, I'd be happy for Microsoft to delete all my Microsoft accounts. Then I might finally stop getting LinkdIn emails addressed "Dear Deleted,".
"Can you build your own smartphone from parts bought on the open market (i.e. retail)?"
Maybe not a smart phone, but certainly Android tablet, laptop, and other devices can be bought on the open market, or bare metal devices, and install Android on them. I've even installed Android on desktop computers. For free. https://www.olimex.com/ is at least one source of such devices, some of which you can build from parts. A lot of their devices are open hardware, and they sell kits.
Not to mention installing free Android versions on existing phones. http://xda-developers.com/ has a lot of details about that. You can even compile these versions yourself. Still for free.
I think you still need to pay for a license to run Windows, even if you can download it for free. No need to do that for Android.
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