Posts by jake

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

Re: Usecase?

"But then I'm not saying it is actually good."

It's a solution looking for a problem.

"I do wonder if the increased speed is truly worth the extra complexity, though."

And if there is any reason at all for this kind of thing on MeDearOldMum's computer. Maybe 1 person in 100,000 might, possibly, make use of this kind of thing very occasionally and perhaps 1 in 10,000,000 on a daily/weekly basis?

So why inflict it on the vast majority of users? Implement it as a kernel module, and allow those that need it to load it.

"I have two desktop machines running Linux and I only ever reboot them when I do a kernel upgrade."

Exactly. The whole "faster reboots" thing was a red-herring right from the git-go. Everything surrounding the systemd-cancer has been bullshit and bluster from the beginning.

Re: Hmmm

"Who is this change helping?"

Marketing. "LOOK! WE HAVE SOMETHING NEW!!!!! YOU MUST BUY (into) IT!!!"

And lo, the sheeple flocked for their masters ...

Re: Hmmm

It's a file system. Logically placing the files into subdirectories according to their use only makes sense.

A library uses the Dewy Decimal System[0] for a reason, EVEN THOUGH that system has evolved over time as our knowledge has increased.

Why people think that such a complex system that evolves over time as capability is added to that system shouldn't become more complex is beyond me.

_{[0] Yes, I know, there are other ways of storing books in a library. UDC, BISAC, LCC, etc, all have their merits and problems, but anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together should have no issues working within their frameworks. Note that none have become more condensed over the years.}

""The Reg FOSS desk is very happy that he hasn't had to edit an init script in many years, and does not miss such things even one tiny bit, but all the same it's going to irk some people.""

This is a null argument, and always has been. A properly setup system very, very rarely needs tweaking. I can't remember the last time I needed to tweak a startup script on any of the computers that help to run Chez jake.

I have, however, had to make custom startups for various clients over the years. For most of those, the systemd-cancer was shown to be more of a hindrance than a help. As a consultant, I have to show my clients why I was going with either BSD or Slackware instead of the kitchensinkware boutique Linux varietal that they had been sold on.

The systemd-cancer causes far, far more problems out in the real world than it pretends to fix.

"It's very close in my world."

Try Slackware or Devuan (or both) for your (primary) desktop first. You already know them.

_{Note that I usually go with BSD on the servers ... habits of a lifetime.}

BSD works nicely. Are you familiar with it?

If not, at your age you might want to stick with Linux.

Devuan and Slackware do not use the systemd-cancer. Try 'em. They work.

Re: something else to shout about

"hater", Prop. Noun, often used by the under-educated (usually teenagers) in order to attempt to put down actual educated people (usually adults).

Translation of 'hater' into English: "Everybody who doesn't agree with what I have faith in, despite the fact that I (me, personally) actually have faith in the belief of the given faith, and can't actually offer up a real, honest scientific argument confirming it's existence."

Alternative translation: "I hate adults. They don't know anything!".

Japanese boffins slice semiconductors from diamonds – with lasers!

Re: Diamond wafers

The diamond is the semiconductor.

Don't worry, nobody's cutting up the Crown Jewels any time soon, these diamonds are grown using chemical vapor deposition.

I've seen diamond FETs in operation in the lab. It's going to open up some fun new tech once the boffins get a good handle on it.

MIT boffins build battery alternative out of cement, carbon black, water

Re: So what's stopping all that energy ...

Have a beer for when, not if.

Nah, one slab. Bottom floor, common area for family. Next floor up, kids bedrooms, a couple baths. maybe office space and/or a large common landing. Next floor up, master suite.

Note that I'm assuming off-grid, so no electricity wasting by heating of water at point of use, and no electric heat and cooling. All that is covered by a GSHP. The single slab, as described, should be able to handle that overnight, even in northern climes (how much juice do you use when sleeping?). During the day, the PVs recharge the slab, and handle electricity needs for the house. When the sun is not available and the slab is discharged, an appropriately sized propane generator handles the house's needs, including recharging the slab.

Works for me, but I'm not using concrete/carbon for my electricity storage.

_{If you're not properly insulated, start there ...}

0.5 meters (just under 20 inches) does not get you below the frost line in much of the US. The only house I have owned on the East Coast required over twice that for a foundation (42 inches, to be exact). Granted, it was a perimeter foundation, not a slab ... They have a fetish for basements in that neck of the woods.

I don't follow.

A rather small single story home. Can always go up.

_{For my fellow Yanks, that's about 1,000 sqft ... In ElReg Units it's 4.7168 NanoWales.}

So what's stopping all that energy ...

... from bleeding off to ... err ... ground?

Presumably you can't use reinforcing steel. Where do I put my Ufer ground?

Can I bolt an auto lift down on it? (I won't ever own a garage without a lift again. HIGHLY recommended.)

What happens if the dawg lifts his leg on the corner of the foundation? Every day for a decade?

What does it cost to dig a 45 cubic meter (60 cubic yards, close enough) hole in the ground, and then fill it full of this mixture? (60 yards of concrete, delivered, is kinda spendy. I'm sure it'll cost a lot more with the carbon in it. To say nothing of the cost of testing, then disposing of 60 yards of material removed from the hole.)

What happens when it develops a huge crack, right down the middle? (With a block that big, you know it will.)

And last, but hardly least, How does the above price compare to equivalent energy storage in LiFePO batteries?

_{I won't mention size ... but the LiFePo batteries will easily fit in a space smaller than a tack trunk.}

Twitter's giant throbbing X erected 'without a permit'

Re: The X sign is now an ex-sign

He is also going to have to pay the cost of the initial permit, which he tried to ignore.

Elon's a putz. He's just looking for free advertising. I'd recommend not giving it to him.

Or, in the words of my now aging peer group "Please Do Not Feed The Trolls!".

_{The Press will not listen, alas.}

Aliens crash landed on Earth – and Uncle Sam is covering it up, this guy tells Congress

Re: Not impossible, just ludicrously unlikely

Four reasons that I can think of:

1) Plentiful free oxygen.

2) Plentiful liquid water.

3) Plentiful salt.

4) Angry Apes are tasty.

Not necessarily in that order.

Re: Not impossible, just ludicrously unlikely

Strangely enough, as a pilot I can see the crashing happening more than you might think.

First of all, any intelligence that can manage interstellar travel would have long ago given up on the idea of computerized auto-pilots as a bad idea in confined areas such as a planet's airspace. They will in all likelihood be under manual control. If the people [0] doing the flying are used to maneuvering in the vacuum of space, or in a very tenuous atmosphere like that of Mars, perhaps an atmosphere as dense as Earth's would cause trouble, especially with their reflexes.

Re: "it needs to have oversight"

"They reported nonhuman biologicals."

In other words, the drone crashed into a tree and got splinters.

More likely, the "vehicle" was a drug smuggling submarine, any "alien pilots" were from one of the drug cartels, and the "non-human biologicals" were cocaine, fentanyl and/or pot. Throw in the military rumo(u)r mill (kind of like the kid's game of Telephone[0], but on steroids), and Bob's yer Auntie.

Perhaps appropriately, my spall chucker wants me to change fentanyl to entangle.

_{[0] That's "Chinese Whispers" to you Brits.}

Re: Millions of Parsecs

"The House of Representatives?"

No. Near as I can tell, being stuck in the past does not break causality.

Re: Is there a Hunter Biden story people need distracting from

"well they are spreading lots of bullshit around to divert from the orange twat being a stoopid fucking criminal."

FTFY

Matches his so-called "base"[0] quite nicely, no?

_{[0]Base; adj., Of low value and having inferior properties.}

Re: Nonsense

"must visit in person but to largely only do so in country areas of the US"

People keep saying this. It's not true.

Rather, apparently they only visit (and crash) in areas completely under the control of the US military, in sooper sekrit locations out of view of civilians and where the grunts picking up the pieces don't carry cell phone cameras.

Re: "it needs to have oversight"

"US politics is now concerned with very little else than conspiracy theories."

To be fair, most of the nutjobs, wackos, outright loonies and complete idiots are confined to Congress. The Senate is still relatively sane, being composed mostly of professional shameless liars who actually know they are lying and can sometimes be convinced to change their minds, if it'll get them votes or money.

Re: Don't tell me, show me.

I wouldn't know. I barely have enough spare time to waste here on ElReg. The likes of Reddit are right out.

Re: Don't tell me, show me.

"Unless it's a flip-card digital clock showing the time in VCR notation ....."

Not sure about VCR notation[0], but I have a flip-card digital clock radio (with stereo cassette player!) here in the office that hasn't been plugged in since we moved in. It has shown the correct time twice per day that entire time ...

I set it to 4:04, as I do all my non-running analog clocks. That way one can tell at a glance that time was not found.

[0] Blinking 88:88 wouldn't be a time ... but blinking 12:00 would. Except flip-cards don't blink ... )

Re: warning

"ever seen God directly? (said to be fatal to us) so how do you know what his image is?"

God and Abraham had a meal together in Genesis 18; Jacob (no relation) looked upon the face of God in Genesis 32:30; Moses saw the back of God in Exodus 33:23, and all survived to tell the tail.

And yet, years later, John 1:18 claims nobody has seen God. Apparently John never read the relevant bits of scripture. But that's OK, neither do modern xtians. Making it up as you go along is much, much more lucrative.

Re: warning

"And we see paintings in stone-age caves that we say are just amateur images of people but maybe aliens have been visiting the Earth for the last 40,000 years?"

My daughter, budding artist that she was at age 3, invented images that were the spitting image of stone-age petroglyphs and petrographs (including paint-spattered negatives of her hands). Later, at the ripe old age of 9 or 10, she created drawings of animals around here that were remarkably similar in style to those at Lascaux. I'm sure that other commentards who are parents can report similar.

"how were the Egyptian pyramids built? Can you pick up a few thousand 200 ton blocks of rock and start to build a pyramid perfectly aligned with the planet?"

My brother and I built a 360ftX240ft barn, the exterior walls of which are made of cinder blocks to a height of 16 feet. The four corners are plumb and level. It is perfectly aligned north/south. I could easily do it with larger blocks, given a supply of them. Give me the national budget of Khufu and the willing cooperation of the population of Egypt, and yes, I could in fact duplicate The Great Pyramid. Modern tools would make this almost easy, if expensive ... but doing it with hand tools could be done. Stacking Lego is a skill learned in childhood. (And has been noted elsewhere, the largest blocks in the Great Pyramid are nowhere near 200 ton. Long, short or metric.).

"And then create some images of "people" with long conical heads?"

Tom Davis and Dan Aykroyd somehow managed this incredible feat.

Re: Don't tell me, show me.

A stopped clock is correct twice per day.

Re: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

And yet an absence of evidence is no evidence at all (at least in this case).

Re: and don't quote some dumb-ass movie script at me, this is Real Life

Clever. I laughed enough to wake the velcro whippet. That's rare at this hour.

This round's on me, sabroni.

Don't tell me, show me.

Funny how not a single one of the (presumably hundreds, if not thousands) of US military grunts involved in the so-called recovery operations has actually managed to "collect" a small bit of the supposed material. They can mail home spoils of war (confiscated weapons, mainly), but can't pocket a small shaving from a crashed "UFO"?

And then there is the impossibility of keeping it secret for any length of time. Have you SEEN the shit that people babble about on antisocial media these days? Especially the former idiot-in-chief, who as Commander of the Armed Forces would presumably have had to have been briefed (and don't quote some dumb-ass movie script at me, this is Real Life).

Re: Alien UFOs

One of many thingies that make one go "hmmmmmm ... ".

I mean, seriously, aliens come from who knows how many millions of parsecs away, and somehow they manage to ONLY crash-land on property controlled by the US military, completely out of view of civilians (and grunts with cell phone cameras in their pockets).

Yeah, sure, right. Pull the other one.

What does Twitter's new logo really represent?

"Is it?"

Yes, it is.

"Do you really think these "free" services are a) actually free"

No, I do not. The advertisers are paying a pretty penny for access to the merchandise (that would be the users, for those not paying attention).

"b) philanthropic activities?"

Don't be daft. twitter is^Wwas a for-profit organization, and the shareholders liked it that way.

"And who said anything about "forever" apart from you?"

Implied in your "fucking about with service used my many millions worldwide is a pretty dick move" comment ... I agree with you, it IS a dick move. But WTF did those millions expect? "Free" tweeting for life? Not on your nelly ... it's only "free" so long as the advertisers are happy. With the current Boss seemingly intent in running the joint into the ground, and the advertisers grumbling ... well, do the math; It's not exactly calculating Hohmann transfers.

"a lot of things could come under that. Linux, for example."

Linux is not a "service". The ability to tweet world-wide is.

I'll have access to the latest FOSS Linux kernel until roughly the heat death of the Universe, or I get bored, whichever comes first. I'll have access[0] to the twitter servers until Musk takes his ball and runs away home with it, and I have absolutely no say in the matter.

[0] Note that this is strictly an example; I personally never bought into the world of twits.

Many millions world-wide expecting a FREE service to remain usable forever is pretty fucking stupid[0], don't you think?

_{[0] We won't discuss the poor deluded fools who think makeing it a vital part of their business is a good idea ...}

Re: Musk deserves all the bile he gets and more

Who is "Brony James"?

I'm guessing a prominent member of the MLP fan club ... Does Musk follow that scene?

_{Speedy recovery to James, whoever he is ... heart attacks are never funny.}

Re: "...put on a pedastal."

"Yeah, I have no idea where <whatever> came from."

Brain-fart. We've all done it. No harm, no fowl.

_{Have a beer. Dos Equis, of course.}

Nobody's answered ElReg's question, to wit ...

... " What does Twitter's new logo really represent?"

What it represents is the massive, insatiable ego of one sad and lonely man, trying to make his mark on the Universe and failing in his intent quite publicly.

I'd feel sorry for him, if he wasn't such a massive twat.

Mint 21.2 is desktop Linux without the faff

Re: "Pretty" Considered As Unimportant!!

"It did, but for some of us it did so far too late."

So when out driving, after you choose a branch in the road you never change your mind and turn around to take the other branch?

Re: What's not to like?

EMACS has a great text editor!

I shell out to vi all the time when I'm running EMACS.

Musk's X tries to win advertisers back with discounts

Re: X to top off the search engines ?

The porn industry is actually very good at making sure they don't offend anybody who isn't actively looking for their product. They know what happens when the hand-wringers, namby-pambys and curtain-twitchers get their panties in a bunch ... With the current crop of clowns, bible-thumpers, and outright lunatics on Capitol Hill, they are keeping a lower than usual profile. No point in inflaming the sheeple any more than necessary

The various search engines cooperate with them in this, usually not displaying obvious porn links in searches that aren't blatantly looking for it. Also, most search engines have an option to turn on "mature content"[0] in results, leaving it off by default.

If you want it, it is there. If you do not, it isn't. This is how it should be ... filter with your wetware, that's what it's there for.

No, I'm not a porn aficionado. Dots don't do it for me, be it pixels or halftones. Not enough senses involved.

_{[0] Why do they call it "mature content" when it's mostly teenage boys who partake?}

Re: What a pile of ...

"I thought single letter domain names were not allowed?"

No, they are allowed, are RFC compliant, and nothing in DNS stops them working. Single digit, too.

However, about 30 years ago, IANA (the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) reserved those names that hadn't been assigned yet, grandfathering in the names already in use. At some point they will no doubt make a pile of money auctioning off the unassigned names.

The always suspect Wiki actually has a fairly decent article on the subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_domain

What are these things called "ads"?

That's a question that Twitter's supposed "advertisers" would do well to ask themselves.

Seriously, advertisers ... Does YOUR grandmother/mother/daughter/granddaughter ever see ads? Why? Why not?

Social media is too much for most of us to handle

Re: American spelling

And just to confuse things, I can my own beans.

Twitter name and blue bird logo to be 'blowtorched' off company branding

Re: Risky

"I'll have it off with a big screwdriver"

What happens in EVs should stay in EVs ...

_{I'll allow one of you Brits to explain that one to the North American contingent ...}

Google's next big idea for browser security looks like another freedom grab to some

Re: The Google devs response

go ogle dropped their "don't be evil" motto as of October of 2015, when Alphabet decided "Do the right thing" was more appropriate. Following that, "don't be evil" was vestigial, at best, a footnote in the CoC, before eventually being quietly removed entirely.

They don't mention what 'the right thing" is (making a profit?). Nor to whom they are supposed to do it (the shareholders?).

But at least they admit that being evil is OK in pursuit of "the right thing". Nice to know where they stand.

Some of us have been shunning go ogle since the year dot ... not paranoid, pragmatic.

Linux lover consumed a quarter of the network

"A dozen CD-ROMS doesn't sound right, at 650Mb per CD that's 7.8Gb "

The bulk of the "foreign" language versions is duplicate code.

Re: CDs ?

"We people on the fringes didn't have the luxury of direct tcp connections"

There was usually a BBS with an FTP gateway somewhere fairly local. Failing that, UUCP over dial-up to a local Uni was a thing.

I helped people all over the UK (and parts of Europe) get connected in the early days ... it was there, if you knew how, and who to talk to.