Posts by Tom 7 8318 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009
So are we seeing the early signs of governments deciding that there's been way too much technology sharing going on unfettered?
No - its pure pig ignorance that drives it. I'm convinced the people that want to restrict sharing do not have the mental capacity to understand how things work, let alone how to make them work better.
re wordstar - before mice came along istr many apps had very powerful command line interfaces that were, due to the programs being written either by or very closely with the users, would be incredibly ergonomic and usable one you got into them. And as for Cherry - I could do with a DEV VT100 which IIRC were ergonomic too and in combination with the sensible programming of keys and keystrokes resulted in workflows that could only be repeated today if you were to look like someone off that bloody christmas jumper add.
I was fortunate enough to have played on 'proper' computers before net send came along. Running decayscreen or similar on other workstations meant that by the time net send arrived we were all under orders not to do that shit. So we didnt much - mainly because death could ensue.
largely to prevent code development conflicting with the project plans so my code frequently contains comments marked so they can be scanned by a simple parser and the plans can be easily updated to march reality. Of course this rarely happens satisfactorily and the comments are sometime left in the code and comment like '/**** this library could easily be replaced by stndrsearch.lib but for some reason nameoftwattyignorantmanager wont listen to sense again ****/' get left in.
ISTR people doing this actually enjoy the challenge and the 10nm team will be hoping the 7nm team get it almost right so they can leapfrog to whatever comes next.
I am prepared to believe modern management may insist on people not enjoying their job but there is some progress here so I guess the people in the know keep them out of arms reach.
I find it hard to work out why rolling in rotting animals or shit is so enticing for them. I cant imagine creeping up on a flock of sheep smelling like hades is a good hunting technique. And given the little bastard can track a deer for about a mile* at full pelt when its just their hooves on the ground why do they want to swamp their sense of smell?
* the little bugger seems to follow them until he cant hear us screaming and whistling for him to come back at which point he realises he's on his own and shits himself and comes back as quickly as possible until he comes across a stock fence he cleared by 3 foot while chasing the deer scent and then stops and barks like fuck so we have to go and fetch him asap before Farmer Palmer blasts him to bits.
The thing is it wouldnt go up in flames. Morgan 3 wheelers run on alcohol because its got a bigger bang than petrol. These things would explode and then the floors above would come crashing down. It would all be blamed on terrorists though and the 'security' would be stepped up even further.
My dad was a Zoology Prof and had a penchant for animal skeletons, On a trip round the Farn Islands we located a dead seal. The return boat journey involved our family at the stern of the boat and everyone else up the bow making the boat plough through the water. The several hour car journey home with the dead seal in the boot and all the car windows open was hell. As was driving in the car for weeks afterwards.
My brain somehow forgot about this until on the local beach the dog found a well rotten seal pup and managed to roll in it for a good 10 minutes before we found the little shit. Was sorely tempted to pressure wash him after 4 bottles of doggy shampoo and you would still gag close to him.
The skeleton came out lovely mind.
"I think city dwellers are becoming a little oversensitive to smells." Are you kidding - these idiot pay fortunes to go to restaurants where everything tastes of diesel fumes. Last time I went to the GBBF if took 5 pints before I could taste the beer and not the tube and by then it was too late.
I have a serious problem with certain airports now you are forced to walk through the endless chicane of duty free that occupies the once 10 yard walk to the gates. I think it was Gatwick where my lungs were burning and my eyes watering profusely by the time I'd cleared the perfume area. I can see why smoking was banned!
But Durian tastes divine if you hold your nose! Fish I have a problem with - just the smell can make me projectile vomit due to poisoning as a child. Its taken me 50 years to be able to walk past the fish counter in a supermarket but dont invite me to a non-country paella party!
I've just been reading about the interstellar #2 and that has a huge amount of Oxygen around it. This. it seems comes from water sublimation being ionised by solar radiation (UV presumably) and I can see exactly the same thing happening on Mars as the sun warms subsurface ice during the 'summer'.
If you concentrate on the data and not the GUI/'marketing' then its amazing what you can do with stuff. I used to help write and run a web site and back end for 30,000 customers and 300 in house PCs on 3 hefty windows pentium boxes and a big IBM box for the erp DB in the late 90s. Out if interest I pissed about on a PiZeroW and found I could run the web and DB on it with similar latency to the windows/ibm setup for similar user loads for up to 100 customers using the system when memory started to run out. I dont think we ever had that many customers online at once on the old setup. Not a perfect comparison but it did make me wonder WTF my own desktop is doing with all that CPU it seems to use!
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
