Posts by jake

IBM and Apple sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g e-n-t-e-r-p-r-i-s-e b-u-y-e-r-s

@ VeganVegan (was: Re: Back in 1984, who in their right mind)

In 1988, working for a third-party company, IBM and Apple tried to recruit my team into the Taligent/Pink kludge. I have a T-shirt that has the IBM logo of the time superimposed on the Apple logo of the time on the front, and the words "Your brain, on drugs" on the back. We were informed that if we wore them at work again, we'd be fired.

I worked for NET, an early wide-area voice, data & video multiplexing firm (over leased T1(E1) and T3(E3) lines). Funniest thing is, we used Sun computers internally and we resold Sun systems outfitted with our network management software. IBM bought our OEM Sun kit[0] to manage their global networking needs. We had no Apple gear anywhere on the campus, to the best of my knowledge. Even Marketing used Sun gear ... Most secretaries & middle management used microsoft-based PCs & Netware (as was the norm in that timeframe).

[0]Yes, IBM used Sun gear to control their WAN. My NDA has expired ;-)

Why does it take 8 hours for my posts to be approved?

Re: @ diodesign (was: Comparison)

"If something is rejected, just let it go."

That's all OK and fine. Your forum, your rules ... but why are posts that aren't against ElReg's published policy&procedure being rejected on a regular basis?

"It's the fact that we don't have time to read every comment"

Ah. I see. It's my handle, not my content. Again, your forum, your rules.

"and we do want every story to be accurate. So if you hide corrections in the comments, we may not see it, most readers won't see it, and it's a losing situation. If the correction is spotted, and the story fixed, the comment loses its context and becomes confusing."

So no biting the hand that bites the hand that feeds IT? Here I thought funny typos are funny, always (I've had my share of mea culpas and laughed at them myself!). Sure it's not thin skin?

"It is so much more efficient to email us if you spot something bad."

When posting such a comment in public, it's only when I spot a funny. Otherwise, email. From year dot. And it's not "bad", it's usually a typo that the splel chequer OKed.

"It's like posting a serious bug report in the app store reviews section on a popular app."

What's an app? I'm not exactly a consumer ... I use computers, not toasters.

"Ta. I am always in the SF office."

I'll let you know next time I'm in SF ... If you're heading for Sonoma or Napa county, let me know. If we both have time, I'm more than happy to meet face to face over a beer :-)

Re: @ diodesign (was: Comparison)

Case in point, my reply to:

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2015/08/03/lottery_chief_resigns_after_winning_combo_partly_broadcast_on_live_tv_before_random_draw/

How was that anti-ElReg policy & procedure on commentard posting?

Re: @ diodesign (was: Comparison)

"You keep bitchin' on and on about moderation, which is noise"

Only after (an) immoderate moderator(s) started rejecting my posts. Think about it.

"and you post corrections when you should email corrections@thereg so we can fix them ASAP."

I only post "corrections" to the forum(s) when I see a funny/punny side. See my reply to: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/17/new_horizons_surface_of_pluto/

It's never malicious. Are you sure skins aren't thin?

"Many of your posts are allowed through."

True enough. If you're ever in the SF office, drop me a line. I'll buy you a beer.

Re: @ diodesign (was: Comparison)

"Surprise! We don't."

Care to comment in public on why many of my posts (over the last year or so that I've been on "the naughty step") have been rejected, despite not being against ElReg's published policy and procedure on posting?

@ diodesign (was: Re: Comparison)

The meta-question is ... why do ElReg's moderators have such a thin skin?

And why are such meta-questions invariably nixed, despite not targeting any particular ElReg writer?

Bound to happen: BIND bug exploits now in the wild

Slackware patched July 28th.

Thanks PV & team.

Chechen women swindle ISIS via social media: 'We need roubles to join you xx'

SHIT!

Why didn't Capital Hill think of that? Soak 'em out of money with the promise of virgins here on Earth! Gawd/ess knows there are any number of proliferate self portrait "sharers" out there. A little mild gimp manipulation to hide the (maybe not so) innocent, and Bob's your Uncle :-)

OS X remote malware strikes Thunderbolt, hops hard drive swaps

Re: Doh!

"If there are, it's the fault of the software designer designing that "BIOS""

I think you mispleled "the fault of the project manager, ruled by marketing, defining the specification that the poor kids attempting to write code need to follow".

Remember, kiddies: This is all in the name of "ease of use". Marketing has spoken.

Let kids delete their online rants, demand campaigners

@ Tom Chiverton 1

"I thought only terrorists had something to hide ?"

Hi, Tom. Might I point out that you don't have a plate glass exterior wall in your shower, and you do have drapes in your living room & bedroom? Hopefully there is a door between the toilet and the rest of your house. Privacy isn't always covering something illegal.

Whatever.

My kid had free reign to the Internet. In the family living quarters, not in private ... at least not until she went off to Uni. When she ran across "icky stuff" (her words, not mine), we discussed it. Her daughter (pre kindergarden) will be raised the same way, or so she says ... Growing up in a barn helps, IMNERHO ;-)

Why parents provide unsupervised access for their kids to access the tawdry underbelly of the entire planet is beyond me ... In my day, parents parented.

Windows 10: Buy cheap, buy twice, right? Buy FREE ... buy FOREVER

I much prefer my free upgrades to BSD and Slackware.

Between the pair of them, two decades later ... It just works.

Gay emojis? GAY EMOJIS?! Not here in Russia, comrade

Earth to Russia:

This het dude finds your opinion not only very, very retro, but also completely stupid. Do grow up and join the 21st century. Ta.

This hospital drug pump can be hacked over a network – and the US FDA is freaking out

Why, exactly, do these things need outside connectivity in the first place?

If you've ever spent any time in a hospital (or a vet clinic, for that matter!), you'd know that there is always somebody within arm's reach when pushing life&death drugs mechanically.

Marketards in charge of engineering will undoubtedly be the death of humanity ... and are probably the biggest signal that humanity is an evolutionary dead-end.

Windows 10: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE to Microsoft's long apology for Windows 8

I've been fiddling with it for a couple months.

Still recommending BSD on the servers & Slackware on the desktops to my clients. One exception is AutoCAD, and that on air-gapped systems only.

Ford's parallel PARCing: Motor giant tries to craft new tech just like Xerox

Re: "Cars already decide when to change gear for you"

"Hah! Try to find a station wagon with a manual transmission."

I own a drivable, street-legal, insured, not-yet-restored, first registered in 1969, Oldsmobile Vistacruiser. 455ci (7.5L, ish), Hurst 4 speed manual. The numbers match.

The 8-track player works, too, but that's hardly impressive ;-)

@ John Robson (was:Re: "Cars already decide when to change gear for you")

"Hopefully the act of changing gear will be as old as feeding horses anyway - the electric motor will kill it off."

Electricity will never kill off feeding horses. Nor will "automatic" transmissions or electric motors. Horses & other manually driven vehicles are here to stay.

"But seriously - when did you last see an automatic gearbox fail?"

A couple months ago. A friend's Lexus transmission fried. Was pretty comical, actually. The guy went off the deep-end, went on and on about how "that's impossible, it's a Lexus!" ... despite the fact that I watched him bottom out on the dips in the road west-bound at the corner of Chase Street and Austin Avenue here in Sonoma. He refused to listen to me when I pointed out the leaking fluid ... and then told the engine control system to stop complaining.

"The possibilities for carnage are *far* higher if you put tired, distracted, fallible, meatsacks in control of a lethal weapon."

Shirley you are discussing fast-so-called-food rather than automobiles in the above sentence?

@fandom (was:Re: "Cars already decide when to change gear for you")

"driving is a hobby that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year"

Intake of nicotine, fat, alcohol, salt and sugar is far worse when it comes to mortality ... Do you want those banned in your lifetime, too?

"Cars already decide when to change gear for you"

None of mine do. Nor will any of them, ever. Too much to go wrong.

One wonders how, exactly, these obvious non-driver executives are planning to get rid of actual drivers and real cars. There are many of us, and we are legally allowed to drive on public roads here in the USofA, and I suspect we always will be.

One also wonders what will happen the first time a self-driving car kills somebody ... it's only a matter of time, after all.

Facebook pumps up ENTIRELY SELFLESS, altruistic Internet.org

Out of curiosity ...

... which idiot dropped the ball and allowed "internet.org" to become owned by facebook? Seems to me that the domain name existed when the founder was still in three-cornered pants ...

Hole in (Number) Two: MYSTERY golf-course pooper strikes again

Re: Must be a man because the poos are so big?

I don't know who you are, nor where you are ... but I had a funny feeling you'd make a comment here. All I can say is:

::standing O::

And have a drink of your choice on me. I'm going to be giggling for hours :-)

@ hplasm(was:Re:"an application to put up surveillance cameras has been denied.")

"You say that like it is a bad thing, Jake[0]."

Do you REALLY want the .gov of your choice to tell you that you are not allowed to keep an eye on your own personal property? Have you thought that through?

[0]SIC

"an application to put up surveillance cameras has been denied."

A private property in Norway needs to apply to put up surveillance cameras? Really? Strike Norway off my list of places to move if The Donald is elected Commander in Chief ...

Unhinged Linux backdoor still poses a nuisance, if not a threat

"If successfully planted"

Uh ... "if"?

Not exactly a backdoor, now is it?

Pakistan bans BlackBerry Enterprise Server

@A "4 hrs" (WETMER) (was: Re: Irrelevant)

Yes, irrelevant. But your reasoning isn't exactly copacetic. Rather, Pakistan & and BlackBerry are both irrelevant on the world security stage.

Crazy Chrysler security hole: USB stick fix incoming for 1.4 million cars

@"AC 16 hrs", WETMER (was: Re: I've been warning about this for years.)

"Not even for traffic alerts"

Nope. When driving, drive. It's kind of important.

"which are best done well enough in advance so as to reroute around such things as accidents?"

Are you actually implying that TehIntraWebTubes know about traffic issues before they happen? The mind absolutely boggles ...

"And no, the radio doesn't work too well around here."

So you're so far outside of major traffic that the radio doesn't work too well? Why, exactly, do you think you are qualified to comment on the subject?

I've been warning about this for years.

My fleet (except the Peterbilt) are all restored 1970 or older vehicles.

Internet connectivity has no place on public roads, for lots of reasons.

Blessed are the cheesemakers, for they have defined the smidge

@Cyrus (was: Re: Ha!)

If you wander out behind the tourist portion of Sebastiani in Sonoma (Forth Street East & Lovell Valley Road), you'll discover about two acres of dirt parking lot. Roughly in the middle of that lot, you'll find a carpet of grape nuts ... leftover from moving the wine off the solids. The plonk goes one way, the compost goes another, and the seeds (nuts) are left behind.

Re: "........ consider how to translate 0.15625ml to a dry measure of furikake"

Seems to me that teh metrics make this fairly easy to calculate. Just mill out a cubic 0.15625cm hollow into the material of your choice. If you can't manage the math, that's a hair over 0.052cm on a side. No meniscus in dry measurement, just scoop, swipe & dump, so no worries there.

Strangely enough, the smallest standard hex-key in 0.052 inches. Coincidence? I think not. It's all a grand conspiracy, clearly.

Whimsical measuring spoons are nothing new.

I bought my first set in English Silver, hallmarked 1879, in an antique shop that used to be on the corner of Westmoreland St. & Regent Parade in Harrogate, Yorkshire back in about 1980. I've been collecting them ever since. My oldest set is whittled out of cherry wood, and seems to have been made in New England in about 1700.

@AC "10 hrs" (whatever that means, ElReg ...)

"Where oh where can I buy a set of these cheesy measuring spoons ?"

Locally, you can get a variation on the theme from "Sign Of The Bear" in Sonoma, California. Brand is "R.S.V.P.", product line is "Endurance". I've used the non-whimsical variations for my dry measurement cooking needs for well over a decade. Can probably find same at a cooking store near you.

First Direct making my life HELL!!!

Re: First Direct making my life HELL!!!

"but moved on when kitty pics, flash & javascript took over the interwebs."

Haven't you noticed that 99.99 percent of everything useful on teh human-readable IntraWebTubes is good old fashioned 7-bit ASCII text? (This includes pointers to binaries, of course).

HP slaps dress code on R&D geeks: Bin that T-shirt, put on this tie

Somewhere, Bill & Dave are spinning.

Clothes aren't the measure of the person ... rather WHY one chooses the clothing is the measure of the person.

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/1128866

And please note that I grok the difference between "comfy" and "slovenly".

Disaster-gawping cam drones to be blasted out of the sky in California

We have operating jamming tech.

The .fed won't let us deploy it. Yet. It'll happen if the fuckheads continue putting highly trained pilots already in a dangerous situation into worse danger ... all for what? 15 minutes of fame on the fucking IntraWebTubes?

WOW! What heros. In their own mind, maybe ... to the rest of us? Fuckheads, every single one of them.

jake --retired VFD

Reg top tip: Don't have the same name as someone else if you use Facebook's Instagram

@ Stoneshop (was: Re: One wonders ...)

"Either both [Jj]akes are you (which looks likely, given the tone of the content),"

Honestly? My commentardary makes me sound like a tea-bagger?

"you either forgot you already had a login or were too, ahem, inattentive to spot the "Forgot password?""

No ... I'm pretty certain I've been here for a while and know my password.

"one of which then evidently needs to make do with "jake"

"I'm not "making do", I'm just "jake". Have been, for quite awhile.

""Jake1", "AnotherJake", "NotTheSameJake" or any other variation .nes. "Jake""

No idea who any of them are, nor even if they exist on ElReg.

@ Gideon 1

Just seeing if anyone is paying attention to reality ;-)

Note that my statement is accurate as written.

One wonders ...

... how, exactly, did "ainiesta" become "andresiniesta8"? Do the children running instagram really not understand that computers are quite literal when it comes to ones & zeros? Do they really not actually understand how computers work? Are the investors worried (yet)?

Note: One of my pet peeves is that I'm not "Jake" here on ElReg, rather I'm "jake". There really is a difference between '01010100' and '01010110', like it or not.

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/user/26670/

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/user/4800/

Apple Watch is such a flop it's the world's top-selling wearable

@ Peter Gathercole (was: Re: Who actually wears a watch anymore? And why? @jake)

"unless you've either dropped out to the extent of living by the sun"

Exactly. Since the late 1980s. The critters tell me when it's time to be a farmer. The closest thing to a clock that I need (for the most part) is if the shadow is getting smaller, it's morning. If it's getting longer, it's afternoon. I'm usually pretty accurate +/- 5 minutes Zulu. I don't have time for idiots who insist on more precise timing, day to day ... People who constantly look at their wrist tend to be tedious.

That said, the computers are all synced to ntp.org ;-)

Who actually wears a watch anymore? And why?

Serious question ...

Hackers invade systems holding medical files on 4.5 million Cali patients

@AC "20 hrs" (whatever that means, ElReg) was: Re: Calling California "Cali" ...

"You missed "it is also done by the Reg to annoy jake""

Post proof or retract.

Calling California "Cali" ...

... is roughly the same as calling Queen Elizabeth II "Liz". It's only done by tabloids & their readers. Oh, wait ...

El Reg hosts the IBM Bluemix Programming Competition 2015

The coolaid is strong in this one ...

... Use the force, finesse is not really important.

Being common is tragic, but the tragedy of the commons is still true

@Tim (was: Re: Logical management?)

"I don't actually know of anyone else who is that long term."

NASA

Farmer mooved after reunion with two-year fugitive cow

@ tony2heads (was: Re: "The day after her farmer brought Matylda home")

Cow's(sic) truly have no concept of "abattoir". Nor the concept of typ(o)ed English.

But thank you for your contribution.

"The day after her farmer brought Matylda home"

Cows hate change, worse than cats! She was just trying to figure out how to get back to her real home. If I were her, I'd have belted the original owner galloway into the next county for even thinking about the sale.

You Musk be joking: Tesla's zero to 60MPH in 2.8 SECONDS is literally 'ludicrous'

Re: Also hope it comes with ludicrous brakes and something better than the human 0.25 sec response.

Uh ... DougS ... You missed the point.

"Big John" was discussing "super-grippy drag tyres", not poor-little-rich-kid's toys. Which was the point I was answering.

One wonders ...

... How many laps of Sears Point (my local track) can one of these things do on "loco"[0] before the battery is empty ... or more likely, the engine management system backs off on available power, or something in the drive-train melts down (Shirly not!).

[0] Real driver at the controls, preferably The Stig, of course.

Re: Also hope it comes with ludicrous brakes and something better than the human 0.25 sec response.

I dunno about that, Big John. Top Fuel & Funny Car regularly hit a hair over 4G. The deceleration is worse, can lead to detached retinas when the laundry is deployed ... c.f. Don Garlits, who retired after this happened to him back in 1992 when the parachutes only produced about a negative 4G.

CVS shutters photo website in credit-card hack attack scare

Two points and a question.

P0: The CVS here in Sonoma has no carpets, sticky or otherwise.

P1: The floors are, however, filthy.

Q: What kind of person uses this kind of photo printing service in the first place? Even my techno-phobe Mom & techno-can't GreatAunt (78 years old & 104 years young, respectively) happily print out photo-quality pictures at home.

Commodore PET lurches out of its 1970s grave – as a phablet

Re: I'm pretty certain VICE has been around for over two decades ...

"It seems like two decades since you posted anything on these forums"

How many minutes is a "decade" in your short attention span world?

"- I was beginning to think that you worked for "Hacking Team", and had gone into hiding or something..."

Nah. I don't work with teenagers. No point, and no profit.