Posts by Bebu sa Ware 2771 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Nov 2024
Lynx, elinks and w3m — when I was still being renumerated for my ignorance and incompetence I had all three installed for various nefarious purposes.
Seriously though, none covered all the, admittedly some rather obscure, bases. The same might be said of curl and wget.
I must see whether this new browser integrates with Alpine (after mailx, my MUA first love.)
Like claiming "62 percent of US adults say they hold a penis at least several times a week."
Well 50% every time they take a slash one presumes. The 12% even omitting her indoors†, could be easily accounted for by the health professions without resorting to the prurient or salacious.
The two statistics are equally spurious and equally useless.
† a perilous oversight at best.
"I almost wish my son was growing up in the long-ago where a good union job making stuff only required showing up and doing your thing for 8 hours, then home with a blissfully free mind. 20 years and out by age 40 with a pension that you could actually live on. No team-bulding bullshit, no jargon, just a task."
Thinking like that risks Making America Great—less arguably—Again. :) [Apologies if not an actual septic.]
At the beginning of the MAGA nonsense I opined (which I rarely do) that making Americans great again might be a more desirable goal — making their lives liveable would be a great start.
"When an MS CEO starts conjuring up the ghost of Steve Jobs you know its End of Days..."
At least arguaby the end of his days !
I take comfort in knowing that at some point well before the end, these diddling drongos will come to the cold realisation that not only have they bet the farm on wrong horse; it's the wrong race; it's wrong course; the wrong beast… it was the greyhounds.
"Would you just bugger off already? "
Reminded me of Dain Ironfoot's arrival speech:
"Good morning. How are we all? I have a wee proposition, if you don't mind giving me a few moments of your time. Would you consider... JUST SODDING OFF ! All ye, right now !"
Certainly captures the sentiment. ;)
I could see a lot of the Rust work around memory (and other) safety might also be used in automatic memory managed (garbage collected) systems to direct more effective and efficient collection.
As a simple example it is not too hard to envisage a suitable language being able to pass object lifetime hints to the memory manager at compile time - possibly a real win for generation scavenging systems.
Rust might ultimately have its greatest effect through the transference of ideas and techniques to existing and successor systems.
Life's not too good on that side of the world for cats...If you are a feral cat in Australia...
Not exactly great for domestic cats if they encounter a fox† or dingo in their perambulations. Not to mention venomous snakes and a host of other deadlies. Although cats are apparently immune to the worst effects of the funnel web spider's venom.
† For that uneatable pestilence we can thank their pursuit by the completely deficient unspeakable.
"Oh it’s not like the UK, is it?” “In the UK, we……”
You don't get that so much - certainly never from young refugees from post Tory & COVID Britain. Pretty much restricted to older parents moving out to join their children who had already settled here.
It's more a case of: "Oh it’s not like the UK… isn't that brilliant !"
I was rather amused when Alf Garnett became a naturalised Australian (1989)… ok the actor Warren Mitchell.
When he encounters the Sydney real estate market he might blanch. I suspect it could give most the UK a run for its money in the unaffordabilty stakes.
Although to be honest the other East Coast capitals (MEL, BNE) aren't too far behind,
I initially read the "invite-only" visa after uncovering a vulnerability in a government system as a backhanded way of referring to extradition. ;)
No sane nation† would want to deprive itself of talent. So welcome !
† The wellknown, Frenchman, George Clooney might suggest an example of an insane nation.
A putative application for the fashion industry (as in haute couture) that allowed a designer to enrobe anatomically realistic models with their latest creations before scissor meets textile, when run backwards in time would arguably be exactly the kind of application that might be banned.
From what I understand that industry is fairly comfortable with the naked (even blasé) - probability a neccessity given the need to rapidly change between creations during showings.
"naked photos of even consenting adults are somehow inherently perverse, unless there's an urn or a plinth, or maybe a cherub in the corner.."
The noted arbiter of Ankh·Morpork taste (sgt Fred Colon) put it thus†:
"Nude women are only Art if there's an urn in it", said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added, "or a plinth. Both is best, o'course. It's a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it's Art and okay to look at." §
†Terry Pratchett Thud ! … § The rest of the dialogue is too good to omit.
"the day that a human body is not an offensive, unacceptable thing." — little chance once the AI overlords have the upper hand.
In any case utterly impossible the US as that excuse for a nation ceaselessly strives for a global monopoly of hypocrisy. [Hypocracy - rule by hypocrisy ? ]
While anything even vaguely touching on Musk's interests ought to be condemned out of hand, I am a bit puzzled about the details. I don't have any actually experience of these AI "disrobing apps", but I would be surprised if these apps produce an accurate representation of the subjects body; at least from a single image.
Thanks to the "miracle" of the internet the availability of unclad images illustrates the enormous variety of human anatomy. An interesting experiment might be be to take the initially clothed images from the likes of Prontube†; have grok et al. disrobe it; compare the result with an unclad and presumably later frame of the subject.
I was thinking that an unclothed child would be of little interest to all except the paedophile minority until I realised that "child" in the US means anyone under 18 years without distinction between the youngest and eldest.
The production, possession or dissemination of any depiction of child exploitation whether computer generated, hand crafted or photographic is a serious offence in most jurisdictions. Posting to social media of even inaccurate images of unclothed children would likely constitute such an offence.
Ultimately taking an image of another person and without their consent modifying it, certainly demonstrates a lamentable lack of respect; sharing or publishing such a modified image is fairly clearly an invasion of the subject's privacy. The question might be posed: "How would you feel if your 14 year old daughter's image were so treated ?"
† taking the internet's "killer app" generically.
"Only if you think a junior dev is one that is complete shit and incapable of learning anything."
In one of the few short stints where I worked with actual engineers I recall junior engineeers as being the irritating little shits that kept asking inconvenient and challenging questions (many of which I couldn't answer† - hence the irritation. ;)
They were in sharp contrast with the senior engineers that never asked anything, clearly knew everything and could not be told anything — consequently could never learn anything.
One of life's great mysteries is how junior engineers evolve into senior engineers. Brain cell apoptosis I suppose.
† "Here, borrow my copy of Interconnections. Rada is pretty much the full bottle on that stuff. I want it back" … still waiting.
I was thinking about the senior people in skilled roles.
While years of experience is one characteristic, another is the diversity of strengths and by implication weaknesses of particular individuals in identical roles.
One might be a devil for detail and irreplaceable when troubleshooting the most subtle of problems, but have the imagination of an extinguished candle; another might have a double helping of imagination and creativity but blind to a small but critical detail; another blessed with the penchant of asking the right questions - most of which they themselves are incapable of answering; and so it goes.
The intellectual life of people, or at least some, is exceedingly complex (natural languages alone make that quite clear) and undoubtedly requires far more than the trumped up finite state automata that passes for AI, to replicate.
In the wash·up after the damage has mostly been remedied, I imagine AI/LLM technology will be just slightly more useful than expert systems were after the somewhat fainter bloom of AI 1.0 in the 1980·90s. That is to say there, in the background, doing useful work in very narrow well defined domains, but largely invisible.
Reminded me that supposedly durable networking technologies (thinking here asynchronous transfer mode) can be rather ephemeral.
My punt is that TCP/IP will still be alive and kicking† in some form in 2126—that is if we aren't back to banging rocks together and catching on to this newfangled fire thing.
† presumably arse.
"comphot" — I mentally pronounced that as comm·fott which unaccountably seemed slightly obscene.
I am pretty sure Microsoft has never given their customers what they needed; very occasionally what the customer requested; but frequently what the silly sods deserved.
"https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/12/12/wendys_bork.jpg"
Looking at the partial menu to the right of the borked firefox, this Dave looks pretty deadly:
Dave's Triple (by-pass?) @ 12.49 Cal: 1500·1830could qualify as assisted suicide in some jurisdictions. :)
The lack of a currency symbol and the big 'C' calorie would deem to implicate Trumpisstan as the location.
For no particular reason I had always assumed until reading this Bork report that Wendy's was purely an English aberration like Whimpy. Doubly odd I thought given the English, but perhaps dated, double entendre.
I now notice the UK menu gives the prices prefixed by £ and energy in kcal. We have a couple in AU where the nutritional information still gives energy in kcal whereas the Golden Arches give theirs in kJ although the ¼·pounder weighs in at 2.2MJ.
These fine dining choices always remind of the US sitcom Roseanne which was a sort of supersized† Married… with Children although I recall Kelly Bundy was…… Oh, never mind.
† the McLibel case was in the air around then defended by a much younger although probably no more wiser Starmer. :).
My impression of the typical military career is that the attraction is to the leadership role—being masters of men† which has a cachet that masters of machines might not.
Still it could be the ultimate WFH gig; even a career path for the chronic gamer.
Young Bang is an unfortunate name for anyone involved with munitions. The are old bangs, there are bold bangs but there are no old bold bangs. Definitely not the name for a powder monkey.
† intended to gender inclusive besides I suspect mistresses of men could convey the wrong impression altogether.
Dataflow architecture aren't exactly the new kid on the block.
I was still rather young when I read how dataflow and/or VLIW architectures were going to revolutionize processor design; probably in BYTE.
"…there is no new thing under the sun…this is new? it hath been already of old time"
probably the best idea ipv6 brought to the table.
Not so much of a problem now but back in 10base2 days broadcast fuckups were a regular feature of LAN life.
Ipv6 neighbour discovery at the time seemed a bit more rational than arp and more technology neutral.
The router friendly implemention of optional headers seemed like a good idea.
IPsec which was also implemented in ipv4 always appeared a bit over·egged or the over·elaborate in the standards committee tradition but I am not really competent to determine whether that is so. I also recall that the designers of IPsec were accused of purposely ensuring the original spec was incompatible with NA(P)T in a foolish attempt to force the adoption of ipv6 — almost certainly bullshit.
I remember when Google's QUIC was being touted at conferences that the main problem it sought to solve was the preponderance of diversely dodgy middle·boxes littering the path between client and service. Possibly if the planet had adopted a scaleable peer to peer networking technology, such as ipv6, in a planned, concerted effort there would be far fewer of these kinds of problems.
NAT is neither a security policy nor a security mechanism — but I have never worked where it wasn't (in)effectively both.
"able to change the battery and keep going in no longer than it takes to fill at a station."
If you could increase the energy density (J/kg) of flow cell batteries sufficiently, you could replace the electrolyte in that time frame.
Whether recharging the electrolyte in the service station would then be more efficient than pumping or tankering the fluid back to a central facility, is a good question.
"So instead of having the battery in a pack that can catch fire but give the occupants a chance to escape, you're placing the occupants in a shaped charge explosive device with no chance for escape."
If we are thinking of Teslae and the enclosed Teslarati, it is difficult to see the downside.
That new year's resolution lasted on a few hours. Ah well I'll try an be nicer 2027.
At start of the week I walked past a store of the smallest of the three phone service providers in AU where their large >A0 display screens were proudly displaying without further adornment although the '!' was in red.:
Your license has expired.( ! )Contact your system administrator.
Two things struck me at the time: the license for what, and a system administrator would be a vague memory in the minds of the very few surviving corporate greybeards who doubtless recall him(her?) as "a difficult chap with a penchant for chucking inconvenient fellows from windows. Useful though."
Surely a sign of these dismal times that porcine headwear is probably the least unreasonable suggestion on offer.
Was always curious whether said pig was to be alive or dead and if the former, what particular oriface or naris was preferred for intrusion.
"conspiracy to obstruct, delay, or affect commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce by extortion."
The gods alone know what that actually means — the demonspawn of lawyerdom will undoubted make it mean whatever suits them.
Strikes me the orange idjit at face value could be guilty of this particular accusation especially the extortion part.
"listening to a radio."
I grew up in a fairly backward part of the world where there was no television until my teens and recall as far back as I can remember listening to kids' radio† programs some of which were stories - some serialized; some more like a radio play (seemingly now a dead artform) - but the common requirement on the part of the listener was imagination which visual media doesn't normally require to any great extent.
I do remember that when reading with our parents being able to ask questions was a critical part of understanding the story.
I have a vivid recollection of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang‡ being read to us on successive evening from a serialization in the local newspaper. [Must have been ca 1964.] My fathers Ford de Prefect certainly could certainly do the sound effects but aircraft were a rare sight so flying cars required some explanation - the germ of the necessary "suspension of disbelief" I suppose.
† although everyone called it wireless even though it was a massive valve superhet with a tuning "magic eye" in no way lacking in wires.
‡ then a story by Ian Fleming published posthumously. Later a stage show and film.
Leaving aside the electronics I am puzzled by "blankets" being on the list ?
I would guess some junior apparatchek was instructed to construct a blanket list if prohibited items. :)
You wouldn't require a blanket to conceal a Pi nano. If it doesn't run on solar power I can think of one place…
The electronics might just be a cunning plan to get on Musk's goat.
"I'm genuinely not sure governments will be able to afford the size and scale of such a bailout."
I suspect you are right. Whether governments intervene or not, a fair chunk of the global economy is going to be decidely off colour for a prolonged period; in fact intervention is only likely to aggravate matters.
All in all the prospect of next decade or so is shaping up as being pretty grim.
"with all the crap" just made explicit the steaming pile of turds it always was … the turdish tome: fæcesbook.
Manus is an peculiar name for a Chinese AI flinger. Manus would seem to mean "hand" as in Manus Dei but here manus diaboli might be more appropriate. Perhaps that is the (only?) point of Zuckerberg's "deals in actions not words."
LLMs work with tokens which might denote words, actions or anything that could be related to any other thing. Indeed one might suggest AI/LLMs are a roiling cauldron of a witches' brew of denotations spewing forth dubious connotations:
"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble…
For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble†."
It would be pleasingly ironic if the house of Zuckerberg were ultimately brought low by its unholy infatuation with AI.
† Macbeth act IV sc.1
I was always puzzled by the peculiar capacity — 44 imperial gallon ~ 55 US gallons. They appear to have started life as 200 litre containers used by the Axis and like the Jerry can, later appropriated by the Allies.
Ironic that the seemingly most un·metric container in widespread use is essentially metric.
Still 43 imperial gallons (195L) of flammable, denser·than·air iso·propanol vaporizing might be an inducement to exit the building… posthaste even in the absence of fire alarms.
I don't understand why Simon and the PFI didn't serve the surplus isopropanol to the hangry mob - I am sure they could have passed it off as "vintaged†" scrumpy.
Isopropanol isn't all that toxic at least when compared with methanol or ethandiol (ethylene glycol) and doubtless actual scrumpy.
† flavouring the liquor with the buildings accumulated dead rats.
"Shops in Sunderland literally changed their stock to easter eggs at 12:01am 26/12/2025."
I thought this lack of sensitivity was restricted to the godless antipodes.
I walked into the local supermarket on Boxing Day and just beside the turnstile were two pallets of Easter Buns—talk about cradle to grave.
It is not as though anyone craves hot sweet buns or sickenly sweet caramel chocolate eggs when the temperature is in the high 30s [°C] with an equally horrid relative humidity.
(1+i ) × (1-i ) works for me.
Of course doesn't work for Tribbles (or Guinea pigs for that matter.) Or modulo 2 arithmetic.
The novel concept of thinking like your adversary dates from at least Sun Tzu (viz 5th century BCE) if not earlier.
Actually in this context you need not trouble yourself with the undoubted effort required to out·think the adversary, just enough grift to get inside the confined space of the corporate mind of the C-suite to sell them the barest sizzle of the cooked security sausage.
