Posts by Uncle Slacky

A requiem for Optane, Intel's KV cache killer that could have eased the RAM price crunch

Not Linux-friendly

I first discovered what a PITA Optane was when I tried to dual-boot with Linux - ended up just not using the Optane storage at all (but took a couple of days of hair-pulling before I realised why Linux wouldn't boot).

Cassette simulator rewinds digital audio to a more analog time in hiss-tory

Re: As Brits of a certain age will remember.

Vitalite!

LG monitors are using Windows 11 feature to serve adware

Re: CMA (UK)

PipePipe seems to block YouTube ads pretty well:

https://f-droid.org/packages/InfinityLoop1309.NewPipeEnhanced/

Ublock Origin does the trick on Firefox, at least on the desktop.

Microsoft emails Windows 10 holdouts: Fine, keep your old PC another year

Re: Family IT support...

Put Win10 IoT LTS on it.

https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

Smug Win10 IoT LTSC user here

2032 or bust!

It's an AI web, and we're just rats in the walls

Intentional HPL reference?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rats_in_the_Walls

Thief posed as Wi-Fi fixing hero, then stole priceless trophy

Re: Meek & submissive, never forward & assertive.

Or just "trained" to see anything unusual as Somebody Else's Problem (credit due to DNA of course):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else%27s_problem

Raspberry Pi OS gets a new kernel but apparently not a new version number

antiX (MX's stablemate) is good if MX is too heavy, though it's not very pretty to look at. I think Trinity DE has a (suggested) minimum resolution, but in practice that only means that sometimes you have to "ALT-drag" windows to see the buttons at the bottom. Exe GNU/Linux is another to try, it's similar to Q4OS but based on Devuan: https://exegnulinux.net/

How about e.g. Q4OS Trinity, PeppermintOS or MX? They all have fairly traditional-looking desktops, are reasonably straightforward to install, and as close as you're likely to get to "it just works" on low-end machines (they even have in-support 32-bit versions).

End of era as the BBC switches off Radio 4 Long Wave service

Re: Tuned in for the last time

Someone recorded the last few hours here:

https://swling.com/blog/2026/06/the-end-of-bbc-longwave-news-and-the-final-off-air-recording/

(Last signoff is around the 4 hour mark)

Flatpak-NG sounds like bad news for systemd refuseniks

Try MX Linux...Debian without systemd (if you choose).

Britain plots digital bedtime after kicking under-16s off social media

I forsee unforseen consequences

It would be funny if kids went to somewhere like RedNote (Xiaohongshu) if TikTok became inaccessible, thus creating a generation of communists...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaohongshu

MX Linux 25.2 provides possible refuge from AI as well as systemd

Re: I love it when geeks refer to something as user-friendly....

How many do you think could install Windows from scratch?

Re: Creeping Americanisms... - Thank you and you are very very welcome!!! :-)

So why are you being forced to spell things the American way? If not a change of ownership, it certainly looks like there's been a change of focus to the left side of the pond.

Re: Creeping Americanisms... - Thank you and you are very very welcome!!! :-)

I think it's because the new owners are American, so the house rules seem to have been changed, even for non-American writers like Liam.

Creeping Americanisms...

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by now, but "favorite", really?

Oxford Uni student data pwned yet again - this time via career platform breach

Re: Idiocracy is real

Idiocracy had a better president, though.

Google is cannibalizing the web to feed AI

Re: I use a Firefox extension to do away with it

https://udm14.com/ does much the same thing, if you don't want to add an extension.

Marketing demanded IT add website feature that was already working

Re: "Hamish"

For anyone wondering:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamish_and_Dougal

"Hamish"

...ah, you'll have had your tea!

America's top cyber-defense agency left a GitHub repo open with passwords, keys, tokens – and incredibly obvious filenames

Re: Yahoo?

Sounds like "Hot Tub Time Machine" but it was Google, not Yahoo.

X limits hot takes from freeloaders to 50 a day

Re: :-)

IIRC it ended when Andrew Orlowski got upset at being downvoted.

Microsoft remembers that taskbars used to move

WinME FTW

My Gateway 2000 that came preinstalled with ME only bluescreened once in the 5 years I used it.

Yes, you can serve a website from a $1 microcontroller

Re: 24 MHz??

Someone got a web server running on a ZX81 a few years ago:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200205123951/http://zx81-siggi.endoftheinternet.org/index.html

We've only gone and done it: Changed what you're used to

Re: Glad I read the archive link

I got rid of the images using a UBlock Origin filter for the site:

||image.theregister.com/*.jpg$image

Kids say they can beat age checks by drawing on a fake mustache

Relevant...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWJFfnHNOWI

Ask.com, former home of search butler Jeeves, closes just as conversational search comes back

Re: Is Dogpile the last of the early search?

There are still a few around, though no doubt under new ownership since the old days:

https://www.hotbot.com/

https://www.lycos.com/

https://www.webcrawler.com/

https://www.excite.com/

https://www.metacrawler.com/

(all listed here, with some defunct ones: https://www.oldest.org/technology/oldest-internet-search-engines)

User found the perfect formula to make Excel misbehave

Re: 1/60 sec...

Mine's the microfortnight (1.2096 seconds):

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/M/microfortnight.html

Phone users know when to hold ’em, delay upgrades amid inflation

Nine years and counting...

... and my secondhand (inherited from wife) Moto G5S keeps on running (with LineageOS the last few years, though even that support has ended now). I don't use it for much, so it's unlikely to be replaced unless the battery dies, I guess.

Met Police's Palantir deployment has its own officers watching their backs

Re: The hypocrisy

Or each other.

Friendster rises from the grave to make social media great again

Re: If it sounds to good to be true...

You might be thinking of Friendface:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE0orX3TjvA

Patch to end i486 support hits Linux kernel merge queue

Re: Buggritt

I run HaikuOS on my 701 4G...

Re: Buggritt

Void still offers up-to-date 32-bit builds as well.

Gmail celebrates 22 years by finally letting users change their addresses

Re: gmail names not unique

Use an email client like Thunderbird and filter out all messages with incorrect To: addresses, that's what I do.

Artemis II countdown begins as NASA prepares for crewed Moon flyby

Re: "We will ... talk to our astronauts while they're on the far side of the Moon."

Why not both?

Systemd-free antiX Linux 26: Debian 13, in bonsai form

Re: But...

Can't see why not, it's still essentially Debian. I don't think Proton has any systemd dependencies.

Re: Pronunciation?

32-bit Void also works well on them all.

BBC World Service digital switch backfires as online audience drops

Re: What is the point of providing a World Service broadcast.. by Unicast

Presumably BBC Sounds would also not work in those cases, though? We weren't discussing broadcast media, I agree that (e.g.) having thre World Service available on short wave radio would be preferable.

Re: What is the point of providing a World Service broadcast.. by Unicast

I can still access BBC radio from abroad using the streams listed at http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/. I copy them into Transistor (from the F-Droid repo) though I imagine any radio streaming app will work.

Those who 'circle back' and 'synergize' also tend to be crap at their jobs

Paging Gus Hedges...

https://www.quotes.net/serp.php?st=gus%2Bhedges&qtype=2

"Could we interlock brain spaces in my work area?"

"I'd just like you to stir-fry a few ideas in my think-wok."

"Just a thought I wanted to pop into your fishbowl to see if it blows bubbles."

"There is just something I'd like to pop into your percolator, see if it comes out brown."

Ig Nobel Prize flees US for Switzerland after 35 years over safety concerns

IIRC every year a (different) eight-year-old girl is recruited to do this.

Techie was given strict instructions not to disrupt client. Then he touched one box and the lights went out

Lecture demo gone wrong?

Reminds me of an demonstration given by one of my lecturers at university (a true "mad/eccentric professor" type) - it was something to do with nodes and antinodes in AC circuits, and the moment he turned it on the entire city's power went out. I wonder to this day whether he mgiht have caused it...

Lenovo shows off snap-together laptop with removable keyboard, screen, and ports

Re: T60?

They *can* be either 32 or 64 bit (up to T7600 C2D), but they're physically limited to 4Gb RAM regardless:

https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2_Duo_(Merom)

Re: T60?

T60 *can* be 64-bit, it can take up to a T7600 C2D (though T7400 are more commonly available). Mine came with a T5600:

https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2_Duo_(Merom)

Re: T60?

You can access a little more RAM (about 3.5 Gb) on the T60 if you Libreboot it.

Trump orders purge of 'woke' Anthropic from government

Kathy Burke said it best...

“I love being ‘woke’. It’s much nicer than being an ignorant fucking twat."

Burger King turns to AI to flame broil employees who aren't friendly enough

Re: Next..

Still waiting for the three seashells, though.

Life imitates Marshall Brain

Reads like the beginning of "Manna":

https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

"The goal of the software was to replace the managers and tell the employees what to do in a more controllable way. Manna version 1.0 was born.

Manna was connected to the cash registers, so it knew how many people were flowing through the restaurant. The software could therefore predict with uncanny accuracy when the trash cans would fill up, the toilets would get dirty and the tables needed wiping down. The software was also attached to the time clock, so it knew who was working in the restaurant."

Brit dual nationals grounded by border digitization drive

Re: unsure whether she would be able to return to the UK

That may have played a part in his decision, but the main reason was that he didn't want to liable for (more) US tax:

https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-says-bye-bye-to-us-citizenship-after-tax-row-irs-data/

All your bots are belong to US if you don't play ball, DoD tells Anthropic

"autonomous weapons that use AI to make final targeting decisions"

Do you want Skynet? Because that's how you get Skynet.