* Posts by jake

26589 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007

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Never let something so flimsy as a locked door to the computer room stand in the way of an auditor on the warpath

jake Silver badge

Re: Wouldn't Happen Here

When you've been a consultant in a field for as long as I have, you get called upon to wear many hats. Mayhap you'll find this out for yourself when you get a little older.

jake Silver badge

Re: Wouldn't Happen Here

I've seen doors like that. So I went in over the ceiling or under the floor ... and once through the sheetrock wall next to the door. A buddy took out a cold chisel and mini-sledge (lump hammer to you Brits) and physically removed a couple cinder blocks once. He was even nice enough to repair it later (his Dad was a bricklayer and he earned pocket money as a teenager, helping him on weekends).

Microsoft Windows 10 'Burger King' build 1903: Have it your way... and it may still leave a nasty taste in your mouth

jake Silver badge

Re: The pricks!

"In our case, it's the Cabinet Office."

One of many reasons I refuse to bid on .gov contracts anymore.

jake Silver badge

Re: The pricks!

Or, bite the bullet and make the move to Linux today, and not have to worry about the capriciousness of Microsoft's marketing department in the future.

I have Vet clinics here in the Bay Area that I moved from Windows to a version of Slackware in 1999. I also had clinics who chose to stick with Windows.

The Slackware side just keeps on trucking, with absolutely seamless updates and zero security theater. The systems never go down unless told to go down. The only calls I get from these folks is for hardware issues (PEE CEEs and attendant peripherals aren't exactly well known for their reliability, when measured in terms of many years in a high hair/fur environment). The only formal training they received was back in 1999. They have no on-site administrator, as there is no need.

The Windows side, which I no longer support, has been nothing but trouble, especially whenever Microsoft rolls a revision out the door, and when the malware du jour strolls past their defenses. These systems are down for what totals weeks every year, crash fairly regularly, and need constant hand-holding by an employee who does nothing but look after the system. The only reason I know what's going on with them is because the Vets call me fairly regularly, asking if I can't PLEASE come look at their computers. I decline. I don't do Windows anymore.

It's pretty funny, at rad-rounds the Slackware folks are all on one side of the room, and the Windows folks are on the other ... The Slackware people don't want to listen to the constant bitching about Windows from the other side of the room.

What is mind boggling is the Vets using Windows insist that they HAVE TO "because compatibility" ... despite how that is obviously bullshit, given their compadres have been happily using Linux for about 20 years now.

Some crap options are much better long-term than other crap options.

jake Silver badge

Re: The pricks!

"Do they have to? As Windows 7 approaches EOL, the answer (sadly) is yes."

Have to? Really? Who is holding a gun to the head of their firstborn?

I think the phrase you really mean is "they choose to".

jake Silver badge

Re: @bombastic bob

Actually, I enjoy it more because I DO know. Side benefit of raising your own meat is that you are in complete control of the source. Unlike the clusterfuck from Redmond.

jake Silver badge

Re: The pricks!

No, sabroni, they are not trustworthy because they constantly release very badly broken code. It's like they have no QA department at all, and really don't give a shit about public perception. One wonders how much longer the corporate world will allow this to continue before they start screaming ENOUGH!

Redmond, perfecting the art of slowly bringing frogs to a boil since 1975 ...

jake Silver badge

Only if you choose to partake of it ... just like Windows updates.

Programmers' Question Time: Tiptoe through the tuples

jake Silver badge

I thought we had almost ended up in porn after the "Does the panel believe in threads" question.

I wonder if that kind of thing would fly under the RAJAR?

jake Silver badge

Re: welcome to Programmers' Question Time, which this week comes from DevOps-on-Slack

Note that the Slackware community has nothing to do with any of the above.

jake Silver badge

Re: Fab

A cure? Not really, the best you can do is interrupt their life cycle and reduce their numbers. Try a dilute solution of neem oil and Castile soap, combined with squishing the visible critters.

On the first day, just apply the solution first thing in the morning. Soak the leaves, top and bottom, and the stems. On the following days, squish first, then apply the solution until you can't find any more to squish. Then check daily ... on first sight, squish and apply. Lather, rinse repeat. After the first year or so, you'll probably only have to do this for a week at the beginning of the season, and then perhaps occasionally throughout the season. (You can easily squish the bugs without harming the plant leaves, if you are wondering.)

If you have money, an easier option is to put mosquito netting over the affected plants, and release predatory insects under it. The netting isn't to keep the aphids out, it's to keep the predators in.

Get rid of ants! Ants farm and milk aphids. I have peppermint growing wild around the periphery of my veggie gardens, which seems to help. Ants hate peppermint oil.

Tim Peake's Soyuz lands in London after jaunt around the UK

jake Silver badge

"But it might be a better tourist attraction if London hadn't nicked all the good stuff."

You could say that about tourist attractions all over the world.

jake Silver badge

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Whole Foods Markets usually have a decent selection of cheeses here in the US, although they are a trifle on the spendy side. I'm expecting Amazon to notice and remove them any day now.

jake Silver badge

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

"American Cheese" is what you find on fast food cheeseburgers in the US. In the rest of the world, the same fast food chains use "Imitation American Cheese". I suspect that Top Gear didn't know this when the broadcast was made.

Hope this answers your question.

jake Silver badge

Why? You know the answer to that.

But just in case somebody's not paying attention: Political Graft.

jake Silver badge

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Indeed. This place seems to be an equal opportunity swiper. This is a good thing.

Note that my ill-informed complaint wasn't about the swiping, per se, rather it was about the complaining about said swiping while taking a swipe at another party ...

jake Silver badge

Re: Manchester

The City of Manchester isn't all that big. At 44 sq mi it's smaller than San Francisco (49 sq mi), and has under 2/3 of SF's population ... and SF is a little, tiny city in the great scheme of things.

jake Silver badge
Pint

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Fair enough. I must have mentally filed you in with the lot who have clearly never even traveled as far as Hull. Mea culpa. This round's on me.

In other news ... take it from a Yank, so-called "American Cheese" is neither. Narsty stuff. As for Texans ... they claim to be the only state that can secede from the Union. Most of the rest of us wish they'd stop babbling about it and get on with it.

jake Silver badge

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

And how many lazy and ill-informed swipes have you personally taken at the Yanks in this very forum? There is a word for that, and not one I'd like to be saddled with ...

Comcast – the cable giant America loves and trusts – confirms in-home health device to keep tabs on subscribers

jake Silver badge

Re: Pointless

I think the idea is to make money for Comcast and the insurance industry.

FTFY

jake Silver badge

Re: The basic idea may be sound

As much as I am a fan of the work of Zappa, he clearly had the wrong end of the stick when it came to Koop in that song.

jake Silver badge

Re: The basic idea may be sound

Most of my elderly relatives use Life Alert. It has extended the lives of several of them, despite most of them being cantankerous old farts who insist on living alone and taking care of themselves in their old age. My Great Aunt, who is well over 100, has had the service for over 25 years, after seeing the Dr. C. Everett Koop commercials on TV in the early '90s. It has saved her life a handful of times. Recommended.

jake Silver badge

Re: keep tabs on elderly or disabled people

Nah, no need for a long retractable chajn. Just an ankle bracelet with GPS that calls home with location info on a regular basis. Or a cell phone.

jake Silver badge

Re: "Loves and trusts"?

Its not just you. Comcast is one of the most hated and distrusted companies in the United States.

Wanted: Big iron geeks to help restore IBM 360 mainframe rescued from defunct German factory by other big iron geeks

jake Silver badge

Re: AsbestOS

Wasn't that a version of Linux that ran on the PS3?

Agree that it would be a good name for a firewall's OS.

jake Silver badge

Re: Just bunged them a tenner

My steam engine[0] has lots of valves ... I think you mean "tubes". As in "cathode ray tube", "vacuum tube", "phototube", "thermionic tube" and of course the boob tube ...

[0] Traction engine, actually ...

jake Silver badge

Re: Be quick... Brexit looms....

Got a site where I can read a cite of that sighting? Last I noticed, Brexit is nothing more than a lot of hot air, and rather hard to spot in the RealWord.

jake Silver badge

Re: And the only lap big enough for it ..

Well, to get things started I've got a 256K Core memory array from an IBM S/360 Model 50 in storage. It is not mounted in a frame. It weighs about 500 pounds, is roughly the size of a three drawer file cabinet, and (from memory) it runs about 3,500 watts.

This document might help you on your quest:

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/fe/GC22-6820-12_System_360_Installation_Manual_Physical_Planning.pdf

jake Silver badge

Re: A couple of potential problems

Or, if you prefer to be slightly more politically correct, "dryer than a popcorn's fart".

Humidity is kept up in air conditioned space primarily to cut down on static. We usually run around 50% or thereabouts, and about 65F. This has to be managed, otherwise the AC will wring all the moisture out of the air. Conversely, you have to make sure not to inject too much moisture ... watch that dew point!

jake Silver badge

Re: Divorce..

Mine calls my collection of ancients "the machineroom/museum/mausoleum/morgue". I knew she came with horses, she knew I came with old computers. There is give & take in any relationship. Fortunately for her (me?) I'm also interested in horses. Unfortunately(??) there is no way I'll ever interest her in old iron, unless it has an internal or external combustion engine ... her specialty is rapidly becoming hit-and-miss equipment from the mid 1920s back. My fault, really, I helped her restore a 1916 industrial washing machine to wash the barn's horse blankets :-)

jake Silver badge

Re: Just bunged them a tenner

300 baud was possible in the early days, but typically they ran at 150 baud. Many ran at 110 baud because the signal to noise ratio on the telephone lines in those days was atrocious. Vadic had 'em cranked up to 1200 baud by the early 1970s, on clean lines.

I encourage all y'all to read up on Robert Weitbrecht, if you're not already familiar with the name. He was one of the pioneers of the modern world. Or was that the modem world?

jake Silver badge

Re: The good old days...

Your post scratched an old memory, so I made a phone call ... According to an friend who was at SAIL with me, the system at Richmond was scrapped just before a grad student at SAIL could grab it, in the late 1960s or very early 1970s. It wasn't an SS90, it was an SS80 (Hollerith 80-column cards, not RemRand 90-column), or so he remembers. If either of us can dig up or remember any more info, I'll post it here.

jake Silver badge

Re: My first job

Anybody interested in finding out what a noodle picker is, see:

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_2321.html

I only saw these things "in the wild" at SLAC, LLNL and SNL. The only system I got my hands on was the one at SLAC ... Somewhat surprisingly, the kludge worked quite well!

jake Silver badge

Re: 7070 emulation

The 1401 was available from 1959 to 1971ish. You could still get the NOS parts from IBM to build one until 1980ish, if you had a .gov or .edu purchase order, but IBM wouldn't ship it as a complete, working unit.

jake Silver badge

Re: Yeah, but...

IBM doesn't seem to care what you do with old code, as long as you aren't making money with it or sharing it.

For example, I have two separate card decks, and a Mylar tape, for the final version of Amdahl FORTRAN IV. They all match from a ones & zeros perspective. It seems to work as it should. I have archived them to more modern media.

However, IBM's lawyers tell me that they are still the owners, and will sue the shit out of me if I release it into the wild. Seems that .gov & .mil contractors still use it. I'm allowed to own access to the source, to archive it, and to run it off-line, but not to distribute it.

The mind absolutely boggles ...

Fujitsu (who bought Amdahl), seemingly a more enlightened company in this regard, has basically told me "whatever, dude, follow your bliss".

jake Silver badge

Re: Be quick... Brexit looms....

I have found asbestos in wire and other insulation in early electronic kit.

jake Silver badge

Re: A couple of potential problems

A faster printer than the 1403 N1 in that context? Mine (a lowly model 3) does about 23 pages (~1400 lines) of 11X14 (132 columns) per minute. Can crank up to over 6 feet of paper per second if the printout contains a lot of blank lines. It's rated at 1,100 lpm, but easily beats that in practice. It's over-kill for the 1401 that it came with ... and indeed, IBM's internal docs suggest that my 1401 shouldn't have had a Model 3, just the slower M1 or M2 ... The 1401G used the M4, M5 or M6.

jake Silver badge

Re: The good old days...

Old Used Programmer, I think we may have met. The lumber company was Union Lumber Company. My dad helped to convince them to make the donation.

FB to Willits on Hwy 20 can be done fairly comfortably in ~40 minutes ... if you know the road and none of your passengers gets car sick. Granted, in 1969 it was a trifle twistier than it is now. And longer ... today it's only 33 miles. By way of reference, the Golden Gate Bridge to Fort Bragg is almost exactly 3 hours by road, if you don't hit traffic and don't bend traffic laws too much. If you haven't been back to FB since, it's well worth a long, quiet weekend.

Just remember to pull over and let the log trucks pass you on Hwy 20 ... They know the road, are on the clock, and are doing the speed limit.

Honey, hive had it with this drone: Couple lived for years with thousands of bees in bedroom wall

jake Silver badge

Re: Wait, wut?

$ cat bees

cat: bees: No such file or directory

$

jake Silver badge

Re: How could you not notice?

Actually, you'd be surprised. If the bees aren't interested in your garden[0], they will exit their hive and make a bee-line (to coin a phrase) for their preferred source of pollen and nectar. You might not notice them at all if their doorway is above eye-level in a corner of the house that you rarely look at. Up under the eves is common ... One pencil sized hole on your soffit vent screen is all it takes.

[0] Many garden flowers have been bred to be pretty to humans, not bees.

jake Silver badge

Re: Not exactly uncommon

Instead of worrying about what I can and can't do, perhaps ask yourself why you aren't keeping bees? The tools are minimal (all you need can easily be carried on a bicycle). You don't even need land, most farmers will be happy for you to keep a couple hives in their fields. It's a fun and rewarding hobby that costs very little to get into ... AND it gets you out in the fresh air and sunshine. What's not to like?

Or you can hang out in mummy's basement, making sarcastic comments in obscure online forums if you prefer. No skin off my teeth.

jake Silver badge

A little advice from an amateur beekeeper ...

It's spring here in the Northern Hemisphere. Honey bees are coming out of Winter maintenance mode (contrary to popular belief, honey bees don't hibernate). Some are swarming. You will likely see more bees than normal for a month or so. This is normal, it happens every year.

If you happen to find bees in an inappropriate place at home or work, DO NOT take matters into your own hands. Call a local beekeeper. Most will be quite happy to come and collect a queen and her colony free of charge. Getting a free colony that being wild/feral is fully adapted to local conditions is worth the work. If the first one you call won't do it for free, call another. Your local city/town offices can usually point you in the right direction. Failing that, call your local ag extension.

Likewise, if you have a swarm hanging in a tree in your backyard, call a beekeeper. The bees are just looking for a new home, and the keeper will be more than happy to provide them one. Some (myself included) will happily provide a hive to you at cost, so you can keep the bees for yourself. They will also be happy to talk to you about taking care of them once you have them. Some will take care of them for you, at the cost of a percentage of the honey/wax/pollen/popolis collected. Ask. Squeeky wheel & all that ... and I have never met a beekeeper who isn't happy to talk about beekeeping.

DO NOT use poison. Chances are you won't be able to kill off the hive, and you'll make the honey inedible, which is sad. Worse, if you DO manage to kill 'em off, the hive will rot in place ... and trust me, you don't want a rotting hive in your attic or wallspace.

jake Silver badge

Re: Not exactly uncommon

I'd go as far as to say it's quite common. Every year I get called to remove 3 to 6 colonies from private residences, and I'm not really a beekeeper. I pulled a happy, healthy colony of around 60,000 from a sports equipment shed at a local school just last weekend. Strangely enough, we received no News coverage of the event. Should I feel neglected?

Dedicated techie risks life and limb to locate office conference phone hiding under newspaper

jake Silver badge

Re: Shouty men...

"No gaurantee there is insurance. No gaurantee they'll pay out in a timely manner."

That's why I have insurance. My company pays me, in a very timely manner TYVM, and then THEY go after the other guy's insurance company for compensation. If the other guy doesn't have insurance, my insurance company goes after him ... but I'm out of the loop either way. Do you even have insurance? Or do you simply not know how it works?

"And no gaurantee I'll come out of the incident without any injury."

Infuriating the guy by slowing down increases the chances that he'll get angry enough to use the 1+ ton weapon at his disposal. Even if you are driving at 5MPH, his automobile can easily cause severe damage or even death to you by moving at 30+MPH. You do not control the other vehicle's momentum or direction of travel, regardless of what you do with yours. Better to not cause the provocation in the first place.

It's not a matter of "being right". It's a matter of prudence and knowledge of human nature.

jake Silver badge

Re: Shouty men...

"if you are tailgating and I cannot let you pass then yes. To protect myself and my property from your bad driving I will slow down. If necessary I will stop. That is a standard part of prudent driving - drive to the conditions and stop if you have to."

I can't believe how many of you lot seem to think that provoking a tailgater by slowing down somehow defuses the situation ... and worse, you also seem to think that stopping and thus inviting a face-to-face physical altercation is a good idea! I'll bet you a plugged nickle that if you ask your local law enforcement, they will give the same advice that I have.

"I realise that your countryfolk cherish the right to murder people over even small imagined slights, but the rest of the world doesn't live like that."

ODFO, prat. road rage in New Zealand exists, and you know it.

jake Silver badge

Re: Shouty men...

So basically you are saying that in order to make an unsafe situation safer, you decided to take the law into your own hands and not only slow down somebody who was obviously in a hurry and driving irrationally, but actually bring him to a halt. Not once, not twice, but three times. And this is supposed to somehow make the already pissed-off driver suddenly see the light and back off?

You live in a fucking dream world, mate. You're lucky he didn't run you off the road, putting you in the hospital. Or the morgue. Hardly a good example of what I wold call "your duty of care to you and yours". Quite the opposite, in fact.

jake Silver badge

Re: Shouty men...

PhilipN, what makes you think that you slowing down makes the situation any safer? How does slowing down make you less of a target for the tailgater? That makes absolutely zero sense. If anything, it'll infuriate him, making you an intended target instead of a potential accidental target.

jake Silver badge

Re: Shouty men...

If there is no place to pull over, maintain the speed limit (or whatever is safe at the time). If the moron rear-ends you, it is HIS FAULT in every jurisdiction I am familiar with. Let him; allow his insurance company to pay you for renewed body work and paint.

However, going slower than the flow of traffic is contraindicated, and as I said it'll get you a ticket here in California. If you park in the middle of the road and confront the driver behind you, YOU will be arrested for instigating violence, even if he defends himself against your assault with a baseball bat and is arrested himself. Worse, if he hits you from behind as a result, YOU may be at fault ... if not through the court system (depends on exact circumstance), your insurance company certainly won't be happy with you.

jake Silver badge

Re: You wouldn't like me when i'm angry

You, as an unarmed person, could not close a five foot distance before I could draw and shoot you. I've done it with paper targets controlled by a random timer. The target loses every time. Not that I would, mind ... I'd still drop you on your ass, but without putting any extra holes in you. A charging human has almost zero control of their center of gravity, whereas the person they are charging has full control. A little simple leverage applied just so, and Bob's your Auntie.

I have checked the stats, Hollerithevo. The Swiss completely disagree with you. Clearly, it is not a simple matter of allowing private ownership of firearms that causes violence. To suggest otherwise is patently ridiculous. Knock it off, you're smarter than that.

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