Posts by Kurt 5

Buy Amazon's tiny $99 keyboard so you can make terrible AI music for all your friends

MIDI?

Does it support MIDI?

VCs to Trump: Don't lock out our meal tickets! Save startup visas!

Buy your visa

The only visas that Trump cares about are the ones that let a (rich) person purchase one for $500,000 -- that his family has been pushing in China. Those are the visas that should be shut down IMHO.

Google nukes ad-blocker AdNauseam, sweeps remains out of Chrome Web Store

Take responsibility for content

I'd run without an ad blocker if the sites would guarantee that the ads they display didn't have malware and were well behaved. Since that will never happen I have to run with an ad blocker.

US Supreme Court to hear case that may ruin Lone Star patent trolls

Typo?

In 1957 the Supremes ruled that a case could only be filed in the defendant's place of incorporation but a 1990 US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided that cases could be bought wherever the parties do business, which in practice means anywhere in America for anything but the smallest of companies.

Interesting typo -- intentional?

Ubuntu 15.10: More kitten than beast – but beware the claws

Tried Kubuntu 15.04 with a GTX 960 and 2 4K monitors connected via Display port. Worked great on the login screen. Logging in always kills one of the monitors (and nvidia-settings shows it gets disabled - enabling it/applying didn't work). Tried a few suggestions but none worked - trying without plasma just crashed, the different nvidia drivers didn't change anything, etc.

15.10 (beta2) which was the first I tried worked great.

Oh, upgrading Kubuntu 14.10 to 15.04 resulted in the cursor only screen. Tried several of the "fixes" listed and none worked. That was the first upgrade that had failed so miserably.

Data AWOL? Thank God for backup. You backed up, right?

One large company I worked at had an IT department that went through the motions and didn't like to be questioned. In engineering we had a source server with a raid array that was managed and backed up by IT. The drives started going out and IT was a bit slow in replacing the drives. Time to rebuild from backups. Turns out they'd been doing incrementals every couple of weeks for 3+ years. Some of the tapes were missing and some were unreadable. Management's response was "IT did the best they could."

Drinking games: Tapper 1983, this Bud's for you...

Like a number of games from that era the cabinet was customized - full artwork (not just some side art), custom metals on the sides of the control panel, and a bar rail on the bottom. A great cabinet!

Q*bert: The Escher-inspired platform puzzler from 1982

Re: There was a lot of originality back then

Q*Bert actually used a 8086 for the game and a 6502 to control the sound. Definitely a big board

Tragedy strikes Vulture News Central but details remain scrambled

Re: If that's supposed to be funny...

Proof she wasn't up to hard boiled journalism.

One step closer to robot butlers: Dyson flashes vid of vacuum sucker bot

Re: This will be great @Kurt 5

Roombas don't do well with pet fur. Aforementioned cat and the german shep doomed the roomba. The german shep was convinced not to chomp it after her first reaction to it -- which was to bark, pick it up and shake it.

Re: This will be great @Kurt 5

Yes -- wonderful cats. They don't think of themselves as cats.

Re: This will be great

Last attempt with a roomba ended with cat (24lbs / 1.7 stone / 10.9kg) jumping from tall bureau onto defenseless roomba which was stopped waiting for help. Lots of plastic breakage and the end of the roomba. Cat was smug.

Microsoft's Online Exchange fixed after going titsup for NINE HOURS

IMAP nightmare

Don't try to be an IMAP user on Office365. They have a special home brewed version that doesn't work very well. When Office365 starts throttling your connection (Yes! Frequently!) or just falls down the support folks are clueless.

It should be pointed out that Thunderbird's IMAP implementation for error handling/recovery is pretty abysmal. I started cleaning up the code but don't have enough time to do it justice.

Remember Control Data? The Living Computer Museum wants YOU

Re: Port That Job!

Don't forget it was ones complement.

20 Freescale staff on vanished Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

I'd just like to say my experience with Freescale was different. They closed our entire engineering office. Two weeks notice was provided. We were required to work those two weeks training our overseas replacements in order to receive our severance. While I disagreed with closing the office I do have to say that Freescale was fair about how they executed the closure.

RIP. Thoughts go out to the families of those who were lost.

Squidge-droids maker updates iRobot for SUCK, SCRUB action

Any better?

I've tried Roombas a couple of times over the last several years. All hardwood and tile. Unfortunately I have the Roomba Kryptonite. 2 Maine Coon cats (large, long haired) and a german shep. The first roomba I had years ago was carried to me by the previous german shep. Once I convinced her to leave it alone the hair did it in -- it spent more time beeping and waiting for me to clean it than it did cleaning. Fast forward a few years. Given another "new model" Roomba as a gift. It also bogged down in the hair. One of the cats decided to jump on it -- 22lbs of cat launching from 5 foot dresser onto defenseless roomba resulted in a broken roomba (though it was just beeping to be cleaned).

The new roomba design doesn't look like it'll fit into the household any better than the previous ones. *sigh*

Meg Whitman asks HPers to drag their asses into the office

All full at the inn

They all need to show up at their designated offices. And then management can find out that some locations don't have enough room (desks, room for desks) for these folks. And the workers can wait for a suitable work area to be provided.

Twenty classic arcade games

Berzerk

No mention of Berzerk? "Intruder alert" "Coins detected in pocket" "Kill the humanoid"

Also votes for Centipede, Marble Madness and Robotron

Smiley for Evil Otto

Twitter translated to LOLCATZ: Strangely this had not been done

Re: Lolcatz?

LOLCODE is fun to give in programming interviews. Most of the interviewees have never seen it. The language is trivial and makes it good to see how the interviewee picks up on new things.

NASA: THE TRUTH about the END OF THE WORLD on 21 Dec

Important for project completion

I have the end of the world on the 21st factored prominently in my project schedule. Using this I'm actually going to be able to achieve the milestones. Without the world ending on the 21st I'm in big trouble.

Beer since that I'll be needing a lot of it.

Snake-fondling blonde nude punts Polish coffins

Casting Casket

I'm sure selection of the models for these shoots was interesting.

Seagate: Our tech will be better than WD's helium-filled hardness

Greed

When a lot of the manufacturing got hit by a wall of water prices skyrocketed. Lots of money was made on the inventory. Manufacturing was restored. Prices are still way up and consumers aren't happy and are willing to look for alternatives.

Motorola outs Jelly Bean friendly phones

Having dealt with Motorola's "promises" and "intentions" before of "we'll support new android upgrades on your Motorola phone" I wouldn't trust them. Only when it ships on the phone. (My only solution was cyanogenmod)

Chinese man's six-ton balls save lives

Into orbit

Now they just need a giant cannon.

EA sues Zynga over ripping off Sims Social

Copying is ok ONLY for Zynga

Don't forget that Zynga doesn't like when other companies base their games on Zynga products. When Vostu used the same strategy as Zynga for game "innovation" Zynga decided it was "a violation of the law."

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/16/war-zynga-sues-the-hell-out-of-brazilian-clone-vostu/

Olympic athletes compete in RAYGUN SHOOTING for the first time

Drones and laser designators

The sport would be much better if you had a drone flying overhead and from horseback you used your "laser pistol" as a targetting laser to designate a target. And then the drone would release a missile and blow up whatever you were lasing. Seems perfect for today's warfare.

Sozzled Americans nagged by talking urinal cake

Must be fun for whoever gets to change the batteries.

The most dangerous job in America: Keeping iPhones connected

Re: Should be safer than rock climbing

As someone who used to be a tower climber as part of my job in college I have to say that the safety harness is nice for when you're working at the top (or wheverever on the tower the equipment is located) BUT for the ascent and descent being clipped in is difficult. You spend more time clipping/unclipping to get around all the stuff attached -- guy wires, lower level antennas, lights, etc. Some towers run a clip line attachment up the tower that minimizes the amount of reclipping but that is rare (at least when I was doing this 25 years ago).

New pics of giant black sphere hurtling toward Earth

Now entering orbit

I welcome our new galactic overlords.

Boffins fix dead satellite using 'dirty hack' in space

Odyssey 5 reference

They just sent the appropriate command - "leviathan"

BOFH: Robot wars

Roomba factory service

Maybe it would be worth sending my Roomba back for service. I wonder how playful their support staff is.

Underground tunnel complexes FOUND ON MOON

Dahak

Probably just one of the outer ports of Dahak. Which would be really cool -- assuming my DNA sequence was correct.

City Police still using Terror Act to bother photographers

Phone Dump

They need his phone to find out who the rest of the members of his terrorist cell are. Then they can properly expand their inquisition.

Apple files 'in your face' iPhone patent

Internal, not External

I'd rather see a patent for a slot in the side of my head so I can have the iPhone BEHIND my eyes. Also means I don't have to wear the silly looking glasses.

Russian Olympic boss walks plank

Winter? Really?

Isn't the weather in Sochi this time of year rather warm for a Winter olympics? It's a resort on the Black Sea. Looking at the weather during the end of Feb timeframe it was in the 40s/50s. Not conducive for snow. Unless they plan to truck it in from Siberia.

Pizza delivery man cops to life in DarkMarket

hands on punishment

You can bet that some of the people who had their cards stolen would like to help with the punishment. After you spend countless hours trying to undo the damage it would be nice to have a way to vent your frustration/rage in a "constructive" manner.

AT&T to choke your iPhone

Those pesky definitions

And yet the contract says "unlimited." And they require it for the iPhone. And charge for it.

If the service isn't "unlimited" then it shouldn't be advertised and sold as that.

Nokia sues Apple over iPhone

Maybe Nokia didn't ask for $$

My thought is that Nokia told Apple "The cost for YOU to license our patents won't be $$. It will be a cross licensing agreement so we can get access to your patent pool."

Burger King cooks up Windows 7 Whopper

Needs a bit more

Maybe modify it a bit -- some cheese and bacon would be good.

http://www.aboutcolonblank.com/2008/04/02/a-whopper-with-cheese-and-bacon-and-bacon-and-bacon-and-bacon-and-bacon-and-bacon-and-bacon-and-etc/

The heart because this would definitely be Heart Healthy.

Man dissects Apple's Magic Mouse

Obligatory reference

I'm still happy with my muggle-mouse.

Hitachi Data Systems fingered in Sidekick disaster

What could go wrong?

Amazing that ALL of your backups are stored in the same set of hardware. And that an upgrade can wipe it ALL out?

Was there no replicated database at a separate location?

NASA iceberg-finder prangs into Moon's south pole

Mutineer's Moon (David Weber)

I was kind of hoping for Dahak to respond.

Secret US spontaneous human combustion beam tested

Demo footage available

This is project Crossbow from the movie Real Genius. Except they used occupied moving vehicles.

KDE 4.3 promises polish, polish, polish

Core functionality

Did they fix any of the core functionality issues? The two I am curious about are:

- ability to start KDE apps like Konsole with a specified geometry and have it be honored

- using multiple X Screens (multiple graphics cards) -- like was possible in 3.5