Posts by jake

You're fired! No – you're acquired! Reality TV hits Silicon Valley startups

Lovely.

Yet another heavily scripted and massively over produced so-called "reality" TV show. Just what the world needs.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty certain TheGreatUnwashed[tm] will love it.

Greybeard monobrow baldies rejoice! Boffins comb out hairy genes

Re: Genetics...

For the record, Graham, human male hair is genetically linked to the maternal Grandfather.

@ LINCARD1000 (was: Re: Meh)

You do know that "Chewi" (spelling varies) is the diminutive of the name "Jesus", right? It's quite common, here in Sonoma California. Two of my friends use that handle ...

Whatever.

SWMBO has put me on notice that if I ever get vain about my appearance, she'll leave me.

a) I don't believe her, but I'm not prone to that kind of vanity in the first place.

b) My genetics are my genetics. I relish that reality.

c) All y'all who care about your hair, get over yourselves.

Vendor rep 'Stinky Sam' told to wash and brush teeth or lose job

Re: Weren't there stories

Yes. Steve(RIP) stank back in the day. Fact. I know, I was there.

But it's not a factor when it comes to where his company is today.

A billion years ago ... in Internet time ... say 1995 ...

... I landed a contract to update an office's computers/network/connectivity.

The owner insisted on breathing over my shoulder.

I seriously don't think the guy had bathed in over a month.

I bowed out of the contract ... Alas, the IRS informed me my time was valueless.

No more Nookie for Blighty as Barnes & Noble pulls out

@Phil O'Sophical (was: "Re: I have a local library ...")

When I'm on vacation (rare, that) I have no interest whatsoever in reading anything I can read at home.

Re: I have a local library ...

"Also not everyone lives within walking distance of a library, certainly not a main library."

There is a branch library anywhere there is a school. Look up intra-library loan. You can access damn near anything that has ever been in print. Try it, you might like it.

I have a local library ...

... I can walk to it. It carries almost all the content that "Nook" does.

And it's available for free.

Do the math(s).

Docker may be the dumbest thing you do today

Out of curiosity ...

... why did "developers" replace "programmers" in the GreatUnwashed's[tm] mindset?

Gut feeling? Management & marketing, neither of which have a clue about how computers & networking work, felt a need to re-arrange the perceived reality ...

I think Adam from "Mythbusters" tongue-in-cheek comment "I refute your reality and substitute my own" applies to most of marketing & management.

Essex cop abused police IT systems to snoop on his in-laws

Take him out behind the barn ...

... and horse-whip[0] him.

Put the video on tehintrawebtubes.

Might stop other idiots from misusing their so-called "power" ...

[0] I, personally, have never actually beaten on an animal. Not even dumb-shit humans. Even though I've been tempted ...

Rejoice, sysadmins, there's a new glamour job nobody understands

"“Internet of Things Architect” as the new go-to job description."

::snorts::

Maybe for management/marketing.

Not so much for engineering.

One profession will last indefinitely. Choose wisely, Grasshopper.

UK biz fails to report two thirds of cyber attacks, says survey

On the bright side ...

Folks with a clue are raking in the bucks cleaning up the mess ;-)

Hint to marketing & management: Stick with what you are good at.

Leave computers & networking & associated security to professionals.

Regular Fast Radio Burst detected outside our galaxy

Hmmm ...

Three or five neutron stars rotating around each other?

These Chicago teens can't graduate until they learn some compsci

@ Joefish (was: Re: @jake (was: Sweet localhost Chicago?))

"127.0.0.1 is not 'Home'"

Really? I'm fairly certain that when I telnet into 127.0.0.1 and successfully login, I will be home.

@ tfewster (was: Re: Sweet localhost Chicago?)

Some three days later and nobody has explained it.

Think "Sweet Home Chicago" ... You and your 12 up-voters should ask your grandparents where modern music came from.

One credit?

Uh ... so I guess they will need to show they will have to learn to logout so nobody will be able to take over their account?

Computer work ain't for everybody. One wonders what would happen if they decided to make all the kids get one credit in metal-working, wood-working, auto repair, logging, fishing, gardening, cooking, swimming, animal care, bread making, institutional laundry, framing, HVAC, and paving.

The mind absolutely boggles.

McDonald's Sweden adds fries to VR

Better use for greasy used cardboard ...

Fire starter. Learn to grill/BBQ for yourselves, people. It ain't rocket science. And it's hell of a lot tastier than anything you're going to get at a fast so-called "food" joint.

GitHubber wants to revive the first Unix in a PDP-7 emulator

Ask at the source, Warren Toomey.

I know for a fact that both ken and dmr (RIP) had the original source of the complete system in their archives, on DECtape & cards. Email ken & ask ... the estate of dmr is probably clueless on the subject. I'm pretty certain I still have a complete system original Unics[0] card deck myself (made from a DECtape copy I got at Berkeley, the tape itself is long gone), and I'm certain that I'm not the only one. Unfortunately, us little guys can't share the wealth without the remains of MaBell's lawyers taking us to the cleaners ... you're on your own there ;-)

PDP 7 emulators already exist, see SIMH for a pretty good example.

[0] If you think I mispleled that, you aren't qualified to comment on the subject ...

Intravenous hangover clinics don't work, could land you in hospital

Easier answer.

Don't get crocked. Or, if you must[0] get crocked, don't do so the night before you have to go to work in the morning. Simples.

[0] Must? WTF?

SCO vs. IBM looks like it's over for good

I'll believe it when ...

I can take a dump on SCO's gravestone, and then piss on the grave.

Some lawyers just don't know when to quit. One wonders if there is a list of "top 10 most money burned in a single lawsuit" ...

Standing desks have no effect on productivity, boffins find

@ Simon Sharwood, Reg APAC Editor

"No, actually. Lots of call centres now close a call by asking to rate the experience from 1 to 10"

Really? In 40-ish years of dealing with call centers, I have never seen this.

"to calculate net promoter score. Agents who aren't getting 7 and above get coached"

Ah. Marketing.

"then fired if things don't improve."

No loss, then. No plus, either. The next under-trained flunky will do the exact same thing. Lather, rinse, repeat. Hint to marketing: Doing the exact same thing, over and over again, each time expecting a different result, is one of the clinical signs of insanity.

My own desk is good ...

... it's even better because I can wander around my office while trying to get idiots with zero clue off the telephone ;-)

Machine self awareness

Re: Why the downvotes?

Because that's not "machine intelligence", rather it's human stupidity. Not yours, mind, but that of the so-called "engineers" who can't, won't, or are not allowed to design hardware and associated drivers to a so-called "Industry Standard".

As a side-note, this 14ish-year-old HP laptop (zv5105) has charged USB devices quite nicely since I bought it when running Linux (slackware-current the entire time). When running Redmond software (all varieties I have tested), not so much.

One weekend left to save big on Continuous Lifecycle

Methinks Slackware's ...

... "continuous lifecycle" has been pretty good these last couple decades ;-)

Science contest to get girls interested in STEM awards first prize to ... a boy

@frank ly (was: Re: I wonder)

There was an effort to teach more men to cook at Foothill Jr. College in Los Altos a about three decades ago. The feminists went berserk. Their theme was "men already have all the opportunities!" It was funny, in a sad kind of way.

That said, my wife throws 1800 pound horses around, I do maintenance, the gardening, cooking and coding, and my daughter is a C programmer & Member of the Technical Staff working for a Fortune 50. Atypical? Perhaps. But we like it :-)

The question remains ...

"a young lad who came up with the idea of building clockwork energy storage devices into a games controller to harvest power generated by playing."

... did the lad do the math(s) to demonstrate just exactly how much of an energy sink fiddling about with video games actually is?

Google wants new class of taller 'cloud disk' with more platters and I/O

I'm pretty sure ...

I've been stacking spindles (with redundancy) for about 30 years now ...

NASA boffin wants FRIKKIN LASERS to propel lightsails

Re: @DAM (was: "photons may lack mass")

"It is after you turn the switch off at bed time."

For very small values of "rest".

@DAM (was: Re: "photons may lack mass")

"Jake post coming from another universe (as usual)!"

So where do you live? I live in the observable universe ...

"zero rest mass"

Light, by definition, is not at rest. See: gravitational lensing.

"photons may lack mass"

No, they do not. Light has mass.

Side-note: How do you put on the brakes?

Feds look left and right for support – and see everyone backing Apple

Re: US: you can buy guns but not secure phones?

Sorry, Gaz, but you are wrong (at least in the US). My Kimber .45 is properly called an "automatic". The "auto" denotes auto loading, not continuous firing.

Machine guns, like my Thompson M1928A1, also in .45, are called "fully automatic". (Yes, it's legal for me to own it and use it. Took a while to dot the ts and cross the is ... ).

HOWever, nomenclature around tools is fuzzy, so YMMV. Beer?

Re: US: you can buy guns but not secure phones?

"I find it weired that the us goverment wants to crack down on the phones and not the automatic guns."

For the uninitiated, an "automatic" means "magazine fed, one trigger press, one shot weapon". It's not a "spray&pray" machine gun.

"can anyone explain this to a non-US person?"

Probably not.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness ..." --SLC

Re: 50 years ago...

50 years ago, Echelon/FiveEyes started ...

Re: @Keef -- FBI

I kinda suspect that if you can piss petrol, and do so on a guy, and then try to set him on fire, you will have the same problem that the guy has. (Ever heard of back-splash"?)

Logic. We've heard of it ...

There are slippery slopes ...

... and then there is deliberately skiing into 2 feet of new-fallen snow sitting on 6 feet of previously fallen snow with a 1 inch ice cap from the mild weather over the prior week, thus triggering an avalanche and killing entirely too many innocents[0].

The .fed needs to back down. They are completely wrong on this one.

[0] Some dumb-ass will do this very thing in the Sierra this weekend, mark my words ...

Solution to tech bros' disgust of SF homeless people launched

Re: Actually, the real issue here ...

"You don't know how the economy works, do you?"

Why yes, yes I do.

Thus my point ... techno-twats throwing money away on renting a dump, when they could actually be purchasing a decent home instead.

As a side-note, where, exactly, do the techno-twats think that the poverty-line people who provide all the essential services (which the techno-twats claim to enjoy) are going to live? Nevada? That's a hell of a commute on a minimum wage salary ...

Actually, the real issue here ...

... is that the techno-twats paying ~US$4500/month rent[0] for one of 4 flats in a 4-story Victorian dump, instead of actually PURCHASING[1] a house further down the peninsula for far less (and almost zero commute), are driving people into the streets.

And here I thought techies were supposed to be logical.

[0] Throwing money away.

[1] Putting money into your retirement account.

The paperless office? Don’t talk sheet

Every time I read "paperless office" ...

... I purchase a few more shares of Georgia-Pacific.

This practice has done rather well for me these last forty years :-)

Yahoo! is! up! for! sale! – so! how! much! will! you! bid!?

5¢

I think it should be five cents. </lucy>

(With deep apologies to the memory of Charles Shultz.)

Even Google is abandoning Google+

Re: Didn't everbody with a clue ...

"This made me think."

That's refreshing, here on ElReg ...

"Google didn't exist 20 years ago."

I didn't say "Google", I said "goo-tards".

"How did we ever manage??"

I have managed quite nicely, TYVM.

Didn't everbody with a clue ...

... abandon the goo-tards about 20 years ago?

Just askin' ...

Subscription music download service drip.fm closes

I guess ...

... nobody wants to live with a drip ;-)

Bitcoin burrower biz Butterfly Labs billed $38m for 'bilking' buyers

::heh::

Yet another reason to champion BTC, apparently ... Specifically, "a fool and his money are soon parted" ... if you are a purveyor of BTC kit, of course ;-)

Eurovision Song Contest uncorks 1975 vote shocker: No 'Nul point'!

Re: 'Nul Points' for ElReg

Beat me to it, Jan 0. Have a pint of whatever on me :-)

I first ran across ESC in 1974 ...

... as a Yank schoolboy in Yorkshire. I was appalled. It was hideous.

Then in self-defense, I discovered John Peel and Radio Caroline.

ESC has been a completely laughable institution since I was first exposed to it, over 40 years ago.

We're four years away from digitising England's courts – report

Ain't gonna happen, but ...

... good luck with the aftermath as citizens are ploughed under, Blighty!

I mean that in the most sincere way possible.

Beer, because methinks some will need it ...

New NASA theory: Moon radiation drops so HULK RIP MOON LIKE SHIRT

To say nothing of the fact ...

... that solid H2O banging on the door at a great rate of knots will inevitably raise the local temperature and result in local liquid H2O, at least for the .moment ... Internal radiation, combined with gravitational energy between Charon & Pluto adds into the process (probably) Several dozen millennia later, it should set up enough to become a solid again. Enter plate tectonics, and Bob's-yer-Uncle.

Energy conversion at the extremes isn't exactly normal to human genetic thought processes.

Helpdesk? I have a software problem. And a GRIZZLY BEAR problem

Critters are a normal fact of life for field engineers ...

... A couple of my best producing hives are run by the progeny of a Queen Bee (RIP) pulled out of the old Fabian Avenue Telco in Palo Alto in roughly 1975.

We deal with rats, mice, skunk, beaver, bear, puma, racoon, coyote, wild boar, etc. on a regular basis around these here parts.

This time of year? The Geese are shitting all over everything ...

Cybersecurity is slowing down my business, say majority of chief execs

The real issue is ...

... that "management" and "marketing" are seen by the MBAs in charge as "Profit Centers", whereas the folks running the hardware that make it all work are "Overhead".

Until this attitude changes, secure corporate systems will never exist.