Posts by dlc.usa

Bond, debt bond: Investors shaken, not stirred by Oracle’s borrowing spree sue Big Red

Re: Don't by coy. Your nomination was: "We all live in a virtual machine, a virtual machine, ..."

Actually, it was a parody developed in the '80s for singing (and eventually buffalo stomping by leaders) during the Thursday night session of the IBM mainframe user group SHARE. However, the chorus was "we all run in a virtual machine..." and the only VMs available ran on the IBM S/370 family of computers. See https://techchannel.com/performance/seeing-the-world-via-the-mainframe/ for corroboration.

Gmail preparing to drop POP3 mail fetching

Have We Reached "Do No Good" Yet?

Not that they'll make that public, mind you...

One real reason AI isn't delivering: Meatbags in manglement

Management Has Moved On

from airline magazines to AI magazines.

Memory is running out, and so are excuses for software bloat

Re: "long shaken their heads at the profligate ways of modern engineering"

Hmmm... Inquiring minds want to know if AI can be led into such software design and implementation...

BOFH: If another meeting is scheduled, someone is going to have a scheduled accident

Triggered from my Punched Card Days

Google '"It is a crock of shit" "and it stinks" status report joke', read top link.

From Intel to the infinite, Pat Gelsinger wants Christian AI to change the world

Re: Dammit Gelsinger!

I'm curious--on what evidence do you plan B choosers suppose everyone in Hell, presuming it really exists, won't be eternally in total isolation from the rest of the population (each in his own galaxy, so to speak)?

Debian demands Rust or rust in peace for legacy ports

Devuan Impact

"Will this be the day that Devuan loses its Debian dependencies?"

Certainly not in immediate practice--a statement of direction is needed at this time. Does Devuan have the manpower to lose the dependencies? Probably not at this time. Can they acquire such manpower? TBD...

Major AWS outage across US-East region breaks half the internet

Meanwhile...

Global credit card and airline reservation transactions just work. File this datum under things an IT architect should know (and have the guts to say to the bean counters when necessary).

AI chatbots that butter you up make you worse at conflict, study finds

In the Image

of the trainers, they created AI...

Intern had no idea what not to do, so nearly mangled a mainframe

MVS OS/360? Most certainly not

MVS could not run on S/360 hardware--it requires the DAT hardware of S/370 that supports virtual storage. At best, you're confusing MVS with OS/MVT or OS/MFT. But since your JCL won't run on either, thank you for playing.

Trump’s tariff‑shaped stick can’t beat reality on US chip fabbing

Re: And that will mean nothing

I, too, was alive, as was my oldest brother who had graduated the year before and was visiting the week before (had a significant conversation with the ROTC student who was killed). What of it? The only real question is was any legal precedent established in the following investigation and legal proceedings that may have relevance today.

Re: And that will mean nothing

Now wondering if the Kent State University massacre has any relevance...

Atlassian drops $1B on company that helps measure dev productivity

True, But...

There now is this glimpse of progress: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04664

It's AI all the way down as Google's AI cites web pages written by AI

Common Sense Is Uncommon

"It takes one to know one."

Nabiha Syed remakes Mozilla Foundation in the era of Trump and AI

Re: Position

It _does_ depend upon who you ask--the truth is a mix of different opinions and unity is hard to come by. The not so United States may be worse off than when Lincoln was elected President.

'It looks sexy but it's wrong' – the problem with AI in biology and medicine

Re: Not really AI

Apparently Intelligent is better (except for that minority that can tell the output is Actually Unintelligent).

Another massive security snafu hits Microsoft, but don't expect it to stick

Unfortunately, we all use Windows at least *indirectly* (and some of us against all willingness).

Large Hadron Collider data hints at explanation for why everything exists

Re: Might

s/and/to/

Credible nerd says stop using atop, doesn't say why, everyone panics

Re: My response

RTFM is almost as old as computers themselves, and it applies to technologies older than computers, even if the acronym wasn't commonly used then. In the 21st Century it boggles the mind how few people RTFM _before_ they use some technical widget, despite the serious harm that approach can cause themselves and others. Somehow "human nature" falls short as an explanation. Does anyone know of any credible studies regarding this phenomenon?

Of course, with too many apps devoid of a manual (I'm looking at you, smartphones), the users cannot be blamed.

Why do younger coders struggle to break through the FOSS graybeard barrier?

Re: There is no "graybeard barrier"

So, life is meritocracy or something focused elsewhere... But do all approaches produce equal results?

White House attempts to 'explain' mystery drone sightings: The FAA authorized 'em

What About This?

https://www.meritalk.com/articles/house-lawmakers-want-to-extend-expiring-counter-drone-authorities/ Is it coincidence the sightings stopped after the 20th?

AI poetry 'out-humans' humans as readers prefer bots to bards

Re: Well, I Don't Know Much About Poetry

That was a quotation from the popular song "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderful_World_(Sam_Cooke_song)], not a statement regarding my educational achievements nor was it intended as a question seeking an answer. Oh, and the SR-71 design employed heavy slipstick support back in the day, so I guess it was faster than referencing log tables.

Well, I Don't Know Much About Poetry

...but I know what I like.

P.S. "Don't know what a slide rule is for," either.

Verizon wobbles on the East Coast, outage cuts off night owls

A User Report

It was odd for me at home via FiOS in the DC Metro area. My Ethernet-connected subnet of GNU/Linux boxes was solid but the FiOS router's WiFi connections all complained the AP was not connected to the Internet. ???

X to allow third parties to train their AI models with social media users' data

Perhaps XAI or AIX as a suffix or prefix pronounced "mad" would fill the bill; e.g., AIXthink (yes, I am aware to the connection to IBM).

That needs to include a strangely capitalized "AI", I suggest. Perhaps just "XAI" would suffice, but then there's the pronunciation standard to consider, unless those letters are deemed silent.

Methinks we will need new words to connote the new levels of irrationality and hallucination that will ensue.

US government reportedly ponders crimping China's use of RISC-V

Re: Next week's news

...as a "munition" (word choices really matter with such usage)...

BOFH: Looks like you're writing an email. Fancy telling your colleague to #$%^ off?

Re: Life imitating art

As expected, state-of-the-art cannot compete with the real Simon.

It's been two decades since Spirit landed on the red sands of Mars

Proof Reading?

Second paragraph: change "Spirit and Opportunity" to "Curiosity and Opportunity", I think.

Soft-reboot in systemd 254 sounds a lot like Windows' Fast Startup

Re: SysVinit Scripts Deprecated

A new thread has sprung up on DNG due to an update to powerdns:

https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/thread/20231011.112423.04ef68ef.en.html#20231011.112423.04ef68ef

SysVinit Scripts Deprecated

Nobody seems to have noticed this:

> * Support for System V service scripts is now deprecated and will be

> removed in a future release. Please make sure to update your software

> *now* to include a native systemd unit file instead of a legacy

> System V script to retain compatibility with future systemd releases.

There's a thread on the DNG mailing list discussing the ramifications at https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/thread/20230730.180432.a707194b.en.html#20230730.180432.a707194b

GNU turns 40: Stallman's baby still not ready for prime time, but hey, there's cake

Don't Forget gcc

Without gcc, the Linux kernel would not have developed and ported as widely and quickly as it did (and other kernels, too, of course).

BOFH: What a beautiful tinfoil hat, Boss!

Re: ECO DECT

"In that context I am an indirect vegetarian. I only eat animals that eat plants."

To the waitress: "There's been some mistake. You've confused my food with my food's food." --Ron Swanson

Moscow makes a mess on the Moon as Luna 25 probe misses orbit, lands with a thud

Attribution and Text Correction

https://www.newsweek.com/top-20-quotes-chuck-yeager-first-man-break-sound-barrier-1553038

Number 5: "If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing."

He would know, as a WWII ace shooting down Nazi aircraft over the Channel at the beginning of his stellar career. Sometimes maintenance had a lot to do overnight to make the aircraft reusable.

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

Re: Thanks El Reg...

Surely there is an inverse correlation between quantities of waffle-speak and tangible value-add to the enterprise. Has this not been documented somewhere?

How prompt injection attacks hijack today's top-end AI – and it's tough to fix

Re: Meh

Your last line almost cost me a keyboard--well done, sir!

NASA wants a telescope on the far side of the Moon

Re: Telescope on the Moon?

"The flat earthers seem to be the least harmful of our resident nut-jobs"

Especially since they're not seen in positions responsible for nautical and aeronautical navigation.

To build a better quantum computer, look into a black hole, says professor Brian Cox

s/Narian/Narnian/ -- I was a far better proof-reader in my youth.

Nerdy Musicians

I'd love to listen in on any discussions between him and Dr. May. I wonder what they think of C.S. Lewis' idea that the Narian 'verse was sung into existence by Aslan?

BOFH: Would I lie to you, Boss?

Incomplete

Do not forget to ensure all traces of this function are also eliminated at the same time (backups?).

SpaceX Starship booster in flames after unexpected ignition

Oops

The first FAA acronym expansion is incorrect. The second is correct but aviation is misspelled.

Microsoft accidentally turned off hardware requirements for Windows 11

Meaning of "great"

The scope of great in this context is Windows and only Windows. No Windows release can ever be great within the context of all operating systems.

Waterfox: A Firefox fork that could teach Mozilla a lesson

The Browsers Are The Symptom, not The Problem

It is the ever-extending HTTP(S) protocol that has produced all these warts on warts we have to deal with, combined with anti-free-software and ethics-challenged profiteering agendas associated with the development of these "improvements". May the straight-forwardness of Gemini increase in adoption. Does anyone remember Gopher?

If your apps or gadgets break down on Sunday, this may be why: Gpsd bug to roll back clocks to 2002

76 Upvotes

Made me think of 76 trombones in Iowa (River City to be precise)--more coffee, stat! Anyway, applause, whistles, cheers, and marching bands for Mr. Miller!

Sysadmins: Why not simply verify there's no backdoor in every program you install, and thus avoid any cyber-drama?

Re: Linux proves that doesn’t work

While gcc may be the elephant in the room, under the room lurk the true leviathans, as Thompson mentioned: in the microcode, ME technologies, etc. Some years back I read an account of installing GNU/Linux in an HDD drive's controller--gave a whole new meaning to installing something on your hard drive.

After staff revolt, Freenode management takes over hundreds of IRC channels for 'policy violations'

The Suicide

So are yesterday's actions discussed here or has a new article, like https://www.devever.net/~hl/freenode_suicide been published for commentary? This is so bizarre.

Re: Sinking

Which leads to musings about who might want that outcome and why...

BOFH: But we think the UK tax authorities would be VERY interested in how we used COVID support packages

Re: IT Education (Funny thing...)

And I always strongly recommend reading the Reader Comments when I cite any El Reg article.

IT Education (Re: Funny thing...)

I like to point newbies to "https://www.theregister.com/2014/08/01/bofh_2014_episode_7/" when the subject of backup SOPs comes up.