Posts by 45RPM

Engineer used welding shop air hose to 'clean' PCs – hilarity did not ensue

Re: BS

Also, never clean a fan with air - either sucking or blowing - without making sure that it can’t rotate first. You may very well break it. Speaking as that idiot that did do such damage!

Tories vow to boot under-16s off social media and ban phones in schools

Well I could stand to pay a fair bit more for a start. But there are ways of enforcing taxation - if you have property or investments then you must pay. For forfeit the property. If you want to vote or hold a position of power, if you want to own a newspaper or any media company then you have to be resident. It can even be made to work for social media companies - whilst the whole shebang needn’t be owned by a resident - Zuckerberg and Musk don’t need to move here - they need to have a UK branch, with a UK board and a UK CEO who will be be legally held to account (up to and including prison time) for any transgressions. That alone will warrant a large salary - which will need to be taxed. The thing is, a lot of cock is talked about how the super rich will take their business elsewhere. I doubt it. They like suckling on the wealth of this country too much, even if they won’t get to keep so much of it. And if they do decide to pack up and go elsewhere, businesses and all, then good riddance. They weren’t contributing anyway.

Once again, the tories dive in with an overly simplistic solution that will do nothing to help anyone.

If you want to reduce mental health issues you need to remove the stressors in society. You need to provide or ensure that the conditions exists for…

* good quality jobs

* good quality education (including schools, adult education, libraries, youth clubs etc)

* a good safety net in terms of income support, unemployment benefit and social housing

* good quality health care

* sports facilities (both for schools and municipal)

You need to stop, or outlaw, the othering of people for reasons of race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation etc

If these things can be done then, as a society, we will be happier and healthier (and more civilized) - and, as a bonus, crime rates will fall. There’s a problem though. It won’t come for free. We will need to…

* Tax corporations and clamp down on their tax dodging

* Tax the rich and clamp down on their tax dodging

* Hold organisations which promulgate division and antisocial behaviours to account

All these things are possible. It won’t be easy though. So sod it. Back to giving the rich a free pass, hating people who have nothing, and ensuring that the poorest people in society get beaten with the shitty end of the stick whilst offering up simple solutions which have little to no effect.

Grok told to cover up as UK weighs action over AI 'undressing'

Re: Poppers Paradox

It isn’t difficult to sort out the facts from the lies - there are entire organisations devoted to that effort. Snopes for one. And then there are news sources which have built a reputation for solid, reliable, reporting (the FT and the Guardian spring to mind), and those whose trustworthiness is laughable (The Sun, Express, Mail, GBNews etc). I think a case can be made to shut down regular transgressors, although I think perhaps that the level of evidence required should be akin to a criminal trial rather than by fiat. At the very least, when a lie is told then the apology for the lie should be front page, bold face, and fulsome - rather than buried in the back with the classified ads.

Re: "FaceBook which, whilst not overly fascist"

Thank you for the clarification. I don’t use social media, so I’m not aware of the depth of the rot - except in the broadest of strokes and from what I have read elsewhere.

If nothing else this should be a big flashing sign telling people to get off Facebook. It’ll do no good staying there!

Poppers Paradox

If we are to retain the freedoms that we currently enjoy then a serious effort needs to be made to silence or shut down organisations that promulgate lies, anti social behaviours, criminal activity or which support fascistic organisations.

Businesses like X (which overtly supports fascist and criminal positions) and FaceBook which, whilst not overly fascist, does nothing to censor misinformation or those who themselves support fascist organisations.

If we can do this then we don’t need to worry about Reform or EDL or any of these other wing nut “parties”. They appeal to the congenitally hard of thinking who lack the faculties to research the bullshit that they’re fed. So if we can turn off the shitpumps then they’ll stop receiving misinformation. They might stop voting altogether - but whatever happens, they’ll be happier and less angry for it.

Your smart TV is watching you and nobody's stopping it

Exactly this. Although I read it a little before the eponymous year. I remember thinking at the time that it would be impossible because there just wasn’t enough bandwidth to support such surveillance. But I have a famously stinky track record for predicting which technologies will succeed and which will fail. Other ‘hits’ include…

* what’s the point of the Mac - why would anyone buy a computer that isn’t IBM compatible (since then (in 1992), I stopped using a PC compatible as my main computer)

* why would anyone buy an iPod - it’s not as good as MiniDisc

* USB isn’t as useful as… you get the idea.

I do stand behind my argument that social media is a total waste of anyone’s time though.

Democracy prevents misbehaviour by states! Bwa ha ha ha ha!

I used to believe that too. Until Brexit. Until Trump. Seriously - have you seen what’s happening in the US right now!?

But yes. If you’re buying a TV make sure that it can work without a network connection. And then don’t connect it to the network. Similarly, don’t buy a smart speaker, or anything else that listens in to your private conversations.

Or, sod it, do those things and accept the risk. Seriously - have you read 1984?

Oranges and lemons say the bells of st Clements…

You don't need Linux to run free and open source software

I don’t like subscription model software. I like a nice, simple, perpetual license. But, just as I think that musicians, film makers and authors deserve to be paid for their efforts (I am one after all), I’m more than happy to pay for a license for the software that I use.

Unfortunately, a lot of FOSS is functional but not actually pleasant to use - and I’m not actually into wearing a hair shirt or eating my own peeling skin or fingernails.

US freezes $42B trade pact with UK over digital tax row

Big upvote for being the adult in the room (still only worth one vote though!)

Trump will always renege on any deal that he strikes. The other party is going to come out of any deal very badly (because the paedorange hasn’t learned that the only truly successful deals are those where both parties get to walk away with something that they want). So the only winning move is not to play. Put another way, the wisest thing to do is to tell him to F-Off up front.

Rebuilding VisiCorp's Visi On UI reveals how Apple defined the GUI era

Don’t say things like “we all owe Apple”. I mean, I know it’s true and you know it’s true - but it’ll only end up starting a flame war with the peeps who hate Apple with a burning passion.

Mind you, I hope Apple can turn the ship around with macOS / iOS UI design - or I might be joining their number!

Latest Windows 11 updates may break the OS's most basic bits

The computer in that picture looks like a Mac - so the user probably has other reasons to hold his head in his hands. It won’t be Microsoft’s screw ups though.

/pedant mode

Hegseth needs to go to secure messaging school, report says

Trump gov in shit show shock horror. I mean. It’s hardly surprising is it? If you vote in the least worthy then you have to expect an almighty screw up, with nepotism, corruption and idiocy galore.

Amazon keeps the pressure on Intel, AMD with 192-core Graviton5 CPU

Oracle did have its own silicon, albeit adopted, until 2017. But they killed it. And that’s why oracle can’t be trusted to have nice things. They’re the digital equivalent of Sid from Toy Story.

Cheaper 1 GB Raspberry Pi 5 lands as memory costs go through the roof

An excellent point. The biggest limiting factor for the Pi Zero is its limited memory - otherwise it’s excellent for those headless use-cases.

And now I have an ear-worm. Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.

I think I’m probably as close to being a Pi flanboy (see what I did there?) as anyone. I love a Raspberry Pi and, yes, there are cheaper devices - but they lack the support and the ecosystem so, for me, Raspberry Pi reigns supreme. But…

What’s the point?

Maybe I’m missing something but I think that a computer as powerful as the Pi 5 (or even the Pi 4) needs more than 1GB RAM. If you can get by on 1GB RAM then you’ll probably find that the Pi 3 or even the Pi 2 is adequate for your needs. This just seems to be a marketing thing - Pi 5 now available for super cheap (except not really).

If you want a 5, save up. Get one with at least 4GB. If you think 1GB is fine just save and get a 3.

Tiny tweak for Pi OS, big makeover for the Imager

It’s always a good day when there’s something new and raspberry flavoured. My only grumble is that they didn’t update their imager icon to fit in with macOS Tahoes ugly new icon look. It wouldn’t have taken too much effort

Vibe coding: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing (Sorry, Linus)

Re: Let's take what Dijkstra said with a pinch of salt

Okay. Fair point. I have use BRAnch (which is the equivalent of GOTO in 68000 assembly). But remember that assembler is a mnemonic map to the machine language of the architecture that it’s written for. And so all the niceties that make Rust, Kotlin, <insert language of choice here> so great are missing - and, in fact, any hypothetical processor which implemented all of them would be hideously inefficient.

It’s the job of a capable software developer to be sympathetic both to the architecture that they’re developing for and the needs of future maintainers of the software, and use the most appropriate tools for the job (and follow coding standards etc). In my view, GOTO just leads to spaghettification. Except then, when its use is unavoidable.

Re: Let's take what Dijkstra said with a pinch of salt

I can’t remember if I started out consciously avoiding using it in C - it was thirty years ago, and I’ve truncated my memory several times since then. But now I genuinely can’t think of a situation where it might be necessary. For and While have me covered.

I would be interested to see an example of code that it more clearly expressed with goto than refactored to exclude it.

Re: Let's take what Dijkstra said with a pinch of salt

As a C developer (yes, I am self aware enough to realise that I’m a dinosaur) I can honestly say that the last time I used GOTO was in Basic on my TI99 computer. It is nasty. It is unnecessary.

Re: We have a Winner ... Pick any prize off the top shelf !!!

I’ll have the machete please. It doesn’t need batteries, and I think I might need it when the AI apocalypse comes.

My dogmatic view was that if you don’t understand the requirement well enough to write the code for yourself, how do you expect to be able to write a prompt which is well enough expressed for an AI to do it for you? And it’s worse for writing tests (TDD), which can be thought of as the format requirements. I feel very nervous about AI writing those.

But it’s a case of do as I say, not as I do, and I’ve found a use case where vibe coding can be very useful (subject, of course, to careful code review).

Legacy code was often written without the good practices of TDD, and the result is a tonne of code without good regression tests, which makes it the very devil to bring up to date with the latest security patches. The thing is, it’s already in Production. It’s already performing correctly. So… we can get AI to…

1. Review the code and document the tests required. A human will review this, add additional tests as necessary (and, in this case, more likely remove the crufty testing that the AI has suggested for no good purpose)

2. Get the AI to implement these tests. (Naturally, the tests will need to be renewed by a human to ensure correct implementation.)

In my view this is a useful task for AI, and greatly accelerates the building of test coverage.

Selling your identity to North Korean IT scammers isn't a sustainable side hustle

I can imagine Trump, someone in his family, or one of his allies doing this. And I guarantee that if they do, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel will turn a blind eye.

Brits believe the bots even though study finds they're often talking nonsense

When I ask AI a question I always get it to cite its sources - and then I take a quick gander at the sources before placing my trust in the summary. Same as I would with a human (I remember a time when my boss told me that 50 data points wasn’t sufficient for a decision, so he asked me to re-run the tests. Did I? Did I eck as like. I used a random number generator to whack an extra 450 numbers in which supported the genuine numbers already in the data set. He didn’t check. Point is, if humans can’t be trusted, why should machines be considered beyond reproach?)

If the citations exist (and they often don’t) and stand up to cursory inspection then I’ll at least give some credence to the AI answer. It’s still quicker than doing it myself. If the citation doesn’t exist then I’ll consider the AI answer to be entirely untrustworthy.

Retro Games opens pre-orders for THEA1200, a full-size working Amiga replica

Well… Maybe.

If this had a serial port compatible with the Amiga software then I’d be champing at the bit to buy one. After all, by the time you get to the 16 bit era networking, even over a serial link, was becoming common for multiplayer games. And, with a serial port, you can also (slowly) connect to Ethernet with an adaptor.

But no ability to connect to the outside world? It’s just a novelty act.

AI music has finally beaten hat-act humans, but sounds nothing like victory

I mean, maybe… I can’t see AI being any worst or artistically less meritorious than the work of Stock Aiken and Waterman, or the output of shows like Britains Got Talent.

But I thought I’d see what Chat GPT could come up with (I haven’t checked to see if it’s ripped anyone else off, and I can’t see this ditty replacing Nobby All or The Yogi Song in my pub repertoire)

—————————-

I once met a barmaid in Bristol,

She said "Would you like a quick whistle?"

I said "Only if—" (crowd shouts) "—it’s wet!"

And we all had a drink on that bet!

So drink it down, down, down,

Pass the jug around, around, around,

If the barmaid smiles, you’ll never resist,

Raise your glass and give her a kiss!

I once met a milkmaid in Dover,

She said "Would you like to come over?"

I said "Only if—" (crowd shouts) "—it’s cream!"

And we all had a pint with the team!

So drink it down, down, down,

Pass the jug around, around, around,

If the milkmaid smiles, you’ll never resist,

Raise your glass and give her a kiss!

I once met a sailor in Brighton,

He said "Would you like me to tighten?"

I said "Only if—" (crowd shouts) "—it’s loose!"

And we all had a round of the booze!

So drink it down, down, down,

Pass the jug around, around, around,

If the sailor grins, you’ll never resist,

Raise your glass and give him a kiss!

I once met a baker in York,

She said "Would you like me to knead your fork?"

I said "Only if—" (crowd shouts) "—it’s hot!"

And we all had a drink on the spot!

So drink it down, down, down,

Pass the jug around, around, around,

If the baker winks, you’ll never resist,

Raise your glass and give her a kiss!

I once met a teacher in Leeds,

She said "Would you like to learn my needs?"

I said "Only if—" (crowd shouts) "—it’s rude!"

And we all had a pint with the brood!

So drink it down, down, down,

Pass the jug around, around, around,

If the teacher laughs, you’ll never resist,

Raise your glass and give her a kiss!

I once met a farmer in Kent,

He said "Would you like to pitch my tent?"

I said "Only if—" (crowd shouts) "—it’s big!"

And we all had a jug and a swig!

So drink it down, down, down,

Pass the jug around, around, around,

If the farmer grins, you’ll never resist,

Raise your glass and give him a kiss!

25 years of meatbags permanently in space on the ISS

I think that the wonder of the ISS isn’t the ISS itself, or space, but that for just a moment we were able to put aside our differences and build something amazing together.

I look forward to that day coming again.

Gullible bots struggle to distinguish between facts and beliefs

Re: Yeah, but...

I think that nearly everyone believes in at least one aspect of socialism. They just might not know that it’s socialism.

* state pension

* public health care

* public education.

* unemployment benefit

… and many more besides. All these good things are Socialist (for the social good). Socialism is not always at odds with capitalism. It is perfectly possible to have public and private education, hospitals, pensions etc.

So yes. I believe in socialism because I’m not an effing eejit. You probably do too, although you may not call it that. Well, you do unless you are an effing eejit ofcourse.

Re: Yeah, but...

Oh, I make no claims about my own intelligence - in general terms, at least. I have expertise in a few specific areas. But I work with some truly astonishing minds. All of them organic. None of them in favour of denigrating experts and scientists (although… given that they are experts and scientists… wait a minute!)

Re: Yeah, but...

Or that Brexit was a good idea, or that Trump and Farage are anything other than grubby little con men. Some people think the moon landings were faked, that vaccination is a bad thing, that climate change isn’t real and that immigrants are bigger drain on resources than billionaire spongers who won’t pay their taxes.

On the face of this evidence, AI has reached human level intelligence. Sadly, it seems, many humans aren’t very intelligent.

O2 cranks prices mid-contract, essentially telling customers to like it or lump it

Yes. But you have to feel sorry for all the Musk fanbois, Faragistas, Magaists and so forth. They’ve been played, and most of them aren’t prepared (despite the evidence) to admit that they screwed up. So they fall back on their last resort - which is always along the lines of “well, it was worth it to own the libs”.

Deep down, if you mine the reason that they voted the way they did, I think you might even find a genuine seam of discontent. And if you really poke away at it, you’ll find that the real cause of their discontent is the same as the discontent that fuels all of our ire. There are real concerns about the quality, availability (and, in the US, cost) of healthcare, education and social care. There are real concerns about crime and policing, maybe even geopolitics, and the wellbeing of ones friends and family. These are universal concerns. And if you stop for a moment to think about it, the problem isn’t immigration (it’s a convenient scapegoat, but if handled correctly it could be part of the solution. There are qualified engineers, medics, builders, farmers and so forth in the diaspora coming to the shores of the wealthy “first” world. Rather than using taxpayer money to pay for them to live in crappy accommodation, we could house them in custom built immigration centres for a few weeks whilst work is found for them - and then let them pay their way whilst their immigration claim is processed.). The problem is the billionaires to refuse to pay their way. The Musks. The Trumps. The Farages and so forth. And guess what? They’re pals with the media magnates like Murdoch who also don’t want to pay their way. The owners of the social media networks who are similarly tight, and able to weaponise and amplify this discontent, directing the anger away from the real source of the problem (the super rich) and scapegoating those who have nothing at all.

And the evidence that these con men are selling a con is plain for everyone to see. Remember how Trump said that he’d make America Great Again - but instead is turning it into a tin-pot dictatorship, increasing the divide between the rich and the poor? Remember how Brexit was going to be brilliant - but instead is ruining the British economy and, er, increasing the divide between rich and poor?

So yes. I feel very angry with the people who are genuinely responsible for the ills of society, and who make enemies out of those who most need our help. But I also feel pity for those who lack the ability to think critically, to recognise that they’ve been played like a cheap fiddle. Many of whom, it seems, are on this very forum - and posting as Anonymous Coward. And if you’re wondering if you’re a poor, dumb, mark, there’s a simple test. The people who post on the forums of the Register are, on the whole, highly educated and rather good at critical thinking. So if, on balance, you have more upvotes than downvotes then you are probably not a dumbass. But if you regularly find yourself being downvoted into a smoking hole, that you’re in the red over all on the register, then yes. You should probably think twice before voicing any opinions. And make sure that you learn to think critically before you next vote.

What with this price rise, and O2s announcement of a contract signed with StarLink, I’m switching provider.

I’m not prepared to be a Nazi enabler by putting any of my money, even indirectly, in Elon’s pocket.

Developer puts Windows 7 on a crash diet, drops it to down to 69 MB

I mean, Classic macOS didn’t need to be coaxed onto a floppy disk. GUI and all, it fit into 1.4MB. System (macOS) 6 fit into 800K - even with a few apps.

There's mushroom for improvement in fungal computing

But do button mushrooms work any better or feel clickier than cherries?

This is Doom, running headless, on Ubuntu Arm… on a satellite

Never tried either of those. I did have a crack at the C64 version. I crashed. Fast. With a very low frame rate if I recall correctly.

I loved Driller! I’d upgraded to a <sarcasm>mighty</sarcasm> PC1512 by that point. It felt light witchcraft to be able to explore that 3D world.

I remember playing Flight Simulator on a 4.77MHz XT. That often hovered around 5-10 FPS. I still enjoyed it. In cyan, purple black and white. Happy days.

Back in the day, before I got a 486, I had a 20 MHz 386. I used to play Doom on that - by shrinking the play area down to postage stamp size. More recently, and continuing the theme of using the wrong hardware for the job, I got Quake running on a 25MHz 68030 (Macintosh IIci). Although it would be hard to say that I enjoyed playing it - even shrinking the play area, it struggled to hit 5FPS.

Elon Musk's Grokipedia launches, filled to the brim with plagiarism and AI slop

A thousand times yes. But I can only give you one thumb up.

I hope that democracy in America isn’t so irredeemably broken that MAGA remains in power forever more. I fear it might be. But, if democracy does still mean something in the US…

I hope that the Democrats grow a spine, rebalance the Supreme Court to represent the people, and then charge the perpetrators of the crimes being committed against American people by the likes of Trump, Musk, Zuckerberg, the televangelists and the Christian ‘right’ and their enablers. Then sentence them promptly, no hanging around, and confiscate their wealth - using it to repair the damage to the US.

If these arseholes are as rich as they claim to be then a lot of people could be fed, a lot of medical bills could be paid, a lot of schools could be built, with the confiscated loot.

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

Re: Step 1 might be the hardest.

Much like Musk and his robot army, I would retain complete control over the Time Machine. So those pesky MAGAots won’t get their grubby mitts on it. Unfortunately, power corrupts - and I cannot make any promises that a world government led by me will be an improvement. Just differently corrupt. Muhaha.

1. Build a Time Machine

2. Go back to before the 2024 US Elections

3. Do a better job of campaigning for not-the-MAGA-Republicans

4. Not the MAGA Republicans win and…

5. Donald Trump and his enablers go to prison, and have all their ill gotten loot confiscated.

6? There is no 6. No one is discussing a preposterous plan to move a space shuttle.

Step 1 might be the hardest. Followed closely by step 3.

Boris Johnson confesses: He's fallen for ChatGPT

My biggest objections to AI are…

* the constant stream of empty flattery. My sense of self worth is not so low that I need to be constantly complimented. I also have a keen sense of what my limitations are. And AI’s always seem to forget, even within a session, that I don’t want to have my tummy tickled.

* the inability to say when the AI can’t complete a task, or cite sources for a particular answer.

Until these problems in particular are solved, AI is useless to me.

SpaceX's Starship: Two down, Mons Huygens to climb

Given the proclivities of Musk, I’m surprised it doesn’t look exactly like the original V2. Complete with insignia.

By Grok. So it’ll almost certainly crash but, while it does, it’ll be busy spouting whatever fascist tropes it’s been trained on. So, swings and roundabouts.

Apple goes all in on AI acceleration with M5 MacBook, iPad, and Vision Pros

Re: Yep

I have a dual 3.something GHz dual hexacore Mac Pro, fully upgraded (whatever the hell that means) which makes a great space heater in my office. I’ve upgraded to Sequoia - and I’ll take it to Tahoe when Tahoe is supported by OpenCore. I haven’t tried, but with all the upgrades I have doubts that it will boot the original OS (10.6 Snow Leopard!) anymore.

Not a bad life span for an old Mac. But my M1 Mac Mini absolutely floors it for performance. It’s not a great heater though - so pros and cons.

I’ve got an M1 that I got back in 2020. It feels just as fast as it did back then for the workloads I chuck at it (general office use and compiling loads). It was bloody rapid then and it’s bloody rapid now.

Which is a problem for Apple. They’ve accidentally slowed down the pace at which computers obsolesce. It still gets all the functionality of the latest OS (for better or, ahem, liquid glarse) and I get the best IDE in the business (for my needs at least) for free. So why buy a new one at all? You know what? I think I’ll just keep my money.

Trump's anti-sustainability agenda comes to Eurozone

Re: TDS

No. You’re supposed to believe whatever supports Code Junky’s argument. Keep up!

Re: TDS

I mean, you could look it up for yourself. But go on, just for you (and everyone else here).

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/06/clean-energy-china-emissions-peak/