Posts by Blue Pumpkin

Microsoft developer ported vector database coded in SAP’s ABAP to the ZX Spectrum

At least it wasn't an ORIC ....

Financial 'stretch' for UK to join Europe's Starlink rival, says minister

Re: I'm baffled...

"It will turn up in time" turned out to be 4 days once received - so 5 in total.

In fact my new passport turned up a day before the old one was returned.

Whereas the French passport took 3 months ...

You had a good experience in Germany, I'm happy for you, but don't believe the UK services are unilaterally really bad compared to everywhere else, it's just not true.. but, as always, YMMV depending on where and who you are and what you're asking

Proton bashes Apple and joins antitrust suit that seeks to throw the App Store wide open

So you’re complaining that

30% is too much to pay for someone else to manage

- app hosting

- distribution and download

- billing and payment processing

- VAT collection

- multi country access

- additional in-app purchases should you require them

- in-app advertising (not that I am a fan)

Other industry sectors would kill to pay only 30% …. Try working in retail

And before you say it’s all about choice, if the cost were zero you wouldn’t have a problem.

Mars may have vast underground oceans and enough H₂O to make it a water world

Underground oceans ....

.. sand on top .... just beware of the worms

Meta blames Trump tariffs for ballooning AI infra bills

Re: A bit of a worry...

Except it's turning out to be more than once in a lifetime ...

Google goes cold on Europe: Stops making smart thermostats for continental conditions

Re: Again

They are already mostly there ... and have been for some time

Under the UK’s Right to Repair regulations, manufacturers are legally required to make spare parts available for up to 7–10 years after a product is discontinued. This regulation ensures that appliances can be repaired and maintained, reducing waste and supporting sustainability.

Large Appliances: Spare parts like motors, pumps, and door seals must be available for at least 10 years.

For most heating equipment it is at least 10 years or longer, although have managed to source new parts for equipment discontinued for nearly 30 years.

Chinese carmaker Chery using DeepSeek-driven humanoid robots as showroom sales staff

Re: Cultural reference.

Sounds like they are catching up though

"In the year 2017, the United States has fragmented into post-apocalyptic wastelands with a few civilized areas. An ongoing economic crisis has led to the recycling of aging 20th-century mechanical and technological equipment."

Only about 10 years out if the orange wotsit keeps having "ideas" ....

Techie diagnosed hardware fault by checking customer's coffee

Re: Never heard of Romex cables?

Mine still is.

It’s a hang over from the 70s when everything was electric because the French nuclear program was going to make electricity almost free.

See how that turned out.

Though because of the phasing and the probably insufficient power delivery there are combinations to be avoided

Always have a torch in a well known place with working batteries.

Introducing Windows on arm. And by arm, we mean wrist

Prior art ....

I thought this had been tried before ... and didn't end well (according to some) ... also good for 1st April..... World without Sun

Apologies to Jacques Coustaud though ...

Windows intros 365 Link, a black box that does nothing but connect to Microsoft's cloud

Re: Surface Hub reboot?

Sounds like a SunRay but more expensive (IIRC the unit price was ~$250 with the monitor) and it would also remember your session from one place to the next.

It was kind of cool shoving your smart card in a machine in Paris and picking up the session you left in London.

Shirley all doable on Azure… but this was 25 years ago

But nothing beats VAXClusters and DECnet….. set host BONNET :-)

Microsoft tempted to hit the gas as renewables can't keep up with AI

Just harness Centralia

It's been burning since 1962 and could apparently continue for another 250 years ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire

iOS users left refreshing in vain as Microsoft Outlook woes drag on

Re: You win some...

Had to do that to several accounts last night.

However it was not as bad as feared - if you're quick enough the Mac doesn't have time to delete everything before it starts to re-sync.

It was only about 10m on an account with a decade's worth of mail

Altnets told to stop digging and start stuffing fiber through abandoned pipes

Re: move to France

Move to Denmark .... well København at least.

Fibreby.dk ~125DKK / month for 1Gbs down / 1Gbs up - though usually around 950 Mbs but who's complaining ....

Wozniak: I didn't reduce chip count for manufacturing. I wanted to prove I was clever

Re: state-of-the-art silicon (6502 then...)

Have I got a project for you ..... https://pong-story.com/elektor0376.htm

Microsoft warns Trump: Where the US won't sell AI tech, China will

Re: Where the US won't sell AI tech, China will

Most of the globe doesn't speak English so it matters less to them whether they get bad English AI or bad Chinese AI - in addition they are all foreign corporations as far as they're concerned - and many do have a pathological desire to stay clear of the US and any other ex-colonial states.

But in the end it comes down to money and availability - if your US AI is either unavailable or more expensive than a competitor's, then you loose.

Are you cooler than ex-Apple design guru Sir Jony Ive?

Re: Design?

just pick up the pieces ....

HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback'

If I've already exhausted those avenues I doubt that anybody in HP-land will be of help .... it's cheaper to switch vendors

Odds of city-killer asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth creep upward

Mostly harmless ..

Except that when it reappears in 2028 we'll have found it has sneaked right up on us while we weren't watching .....

Somebody will introduce landing tariffs to discourage it.

RIP Raymond Bird: Designer of UK's first mass-produced business computer dies aged 101

Re: Computers in the 1960/70s

The larger 2900 series of machines were heavily influenced and borrowed from the experimental work of the University of Manchester’s MU5.

Built in collaboration with ICL West Gorton which was just around the corner from the university.

Lots of wonderful historical information here from my old prof of processor architecture - https://ethw.org/The_University_of_Manchester_MU5_Computer_System

The biggest microcode attack in our history is underway

Re: New Meanings for PALcode.

I remember that time - there was a different but sort of samey president too. “Read my MIPS no new VAXes” ..

Re: Quintain

Indeed - I have seen people patch the microcode on certain VAXen to get around a hardware failure until the appropriate part could be delivered ....

For a trip down memory lane try the AMD 2901 bit slice processor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am2900

Eggheads crack the code for the perfect soft boil

Re: "Flunchy"

It is and they do .... flunch.fr

Though it must be ~30 years since I went to one - looks like they're thinner on the ground than they used to be - the French wikipedia has more details

Linus Torvalds offers to build guitar effects pedal for kernel developer

Re: There are only so many ways of clipping a signal.

Oh Denshi - I had forgotten about that too ... happy days

Same experience here - because of it decided chemicals were not for me and went off to do computer engineering ...

Celebrating when EVs went to the Moon with a Lego Lunar Roving Vehicle build

Re: "We asked Lego why it did not create a custom part for the dish"

Yes you are being an old curmudgeon, but so am I and so is my significant other... have an upvote

The latest language in the GNU Compiler Collection: Algol-68

Re: Crikey that brings back memories

Upvote for the Maths Tower ... it was still ugly but nothing quite as ugly as the CS bunker next door where daylight was not allowed if you were an undergrad

By the time I got there everybody was on Pascal ...

How a good business deal made us underestimate BASIC

Re: FORTH anyone

It also had an interesting way of storing and addressing data on "screens" or blocks if I remember.

RPN is never going to endear people to your language - though it does tend to make them think more about what they are trying to do

Parker Solar Probe set for blisteringly hot date with the Sun on Christmas Eve

Re: Metric units courtesy of GNU units

Ahh accuracy, precision and margin of error…. All well misunderstood terms.

At one time it was drilled into you in the very first weeks of university maths for science and engineering. I hope it still is

British Army zaps drones out of the sky with laser trucks

Re: Sadly not a item of bad englishes

You meant verbized ....

Like burglarization ... committed by burglarizers ....

Though I have never understood 'obligated' when obligarized is obviously the correct word

Boeing busted by employee over plans to surveil workers, quickly reverses course

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Veteran Microsoft engineer shares some enterprise support tips

Re: Where are they?

MrBanana surely you have met Evil Pea?

Fortunately Supertato is on hand ....

Vodafone and Three permitted to tie the knot – if they promise to behave

The fable of the scorpion and the frog comes to mind…

AI Jesus is ready to dispense advice from a booth in historic Swiss church

Dark Star

I remember the "intelligent" bomb 'getting religion' .... it didn't end well ...

Re: Saved!

You forgot the cheese !

You must always lookout for the Wurst Käse scenario ....

BASIC co-creator Thomas Kurtz hits END at 96

Re: Forth is just cryptic

The worst part is coming back to something you did ages ago and try to figure out what you did - although it's not as bas as APL !

And just like BASIC, it's still going https://www.forth.com

I remember attempting to write a FORTH interpreter in 8086 assembler for fun ... with only 4k available - those were the days.

Apple drops soldered storage for 2024 Mac Mini

Re: Power on the bottom

You just need the Mac Mini holder

IKEA has the answer

I have the previous Mac Mini and the previous IKEA holder .. good to see them pre-empting the technology upgrade

Clues to Windows Intelligence found in Windows 11 builds

Disappointing title ...

There I was expecting Alice Roberts or Joann Fletcher turning up to tell us how they had found evidence of long lost traces of intelligence from past versions that could still be found today...

And how the use of any intelligence became an evolutionary dead-end in favour of a six-legged dromedary approach.

The US government wants developers to stop using C and C++

Obligatory FORTRAN text here ….

Re: Stop with the useless A better than B crap

But specifically excludes APL.

And pothibly Lithp ath well …

Alphabet posts big revenue and profit growth, just 1,100 job losses

Re: This would explain...

Where CCP is Celebrated Capitalist Process right ?

Smart homes may be a bright idea, just not for the dim bulbs who live in 'em

Re: Not that you'd know this from experts on YouTube or most retail sites

Don't even talk to me about those 3-way valves and stupid spring controlled synchronous motor that burns out stuff ....

With Granite Rapids, Intel is back to trading blows with AMD

Perhaps a Clearwater Revival ….

What is this computing industry anyway? The dawning era of 32-bit micros

Re: 386 and 68020 had ports of Unix

Not forgetting the original SCO - we used to run it on Compaq 386 laptops in preference to Windows

SETI boldly looks beyond the Milky Way in latest alien hunt

A right barrel of laughs …

Ex-Microsoft engineer resurrects PDP-11 from junkyard parts

Re: What makes a minicomputer?

> the difference between a microcomputer, a minicomputer and a mainframe

You can race some minicomputers down the hallway - microcomputers and mainframes not so much

The MicroVAX coffee table edition was the fastest - good turning circle but difficult to steer except in straight lines - especially when sitting on it ....

UK tech pioneer Mike Lynch dead at 59

Re: Random tornadoes

He doesn't believe in acts of God ....

RIP: WordPerfect co-founder Bruce Bastian dies at 76

Alas I don't think there was one - though I did send a request for one :-(

Wiki page is pretty good though.

Microsoft founder Paul Allen's tech museum closes, sells off collection

SDF.org, quite appropriate really

SDF in French means Sans Domicile Fixe - or Homeless….

VMware giving away Workstation Pro, Fusion Pro free for personal use

Re: Free as in, of no value…

No they're CA - where software goes to die ... sums it up really

Brexit border system outage puts perishable goods transport in peril

Re: The gift that keeps on giving…

.... taking

What's with AI boffins strapping GoPros to toddlers? We take a closer look

Re: Quelle surprise!

I don't remember who it was (am obviously approaching old fart age) but there was, some possibly animal behaviourist, who named one of his wards Norm Chimpsky