Posts by jake

Python still has the strongest grip on developers

Every CPU has it's quirks, some are more quirky than others. They all suck, but we use 'em anyway.

Re: Languages

"CPAN was, to my knowledge, the first modern software package repository, though; certainly it was the first one I saw a lot of chatter about."

The DECUS Software Library launched in roughly 1962 and arguably had none of the issues you discuss ("bloat, software supply-chain security, and learned helplessness among developers") through its long life. Yes, I know, it was largely a paper catalog and not generally available electronically[0] until around 1980, but still.

Later came the whole BSD thing. You can see some of the archives at tuhs.org. Lots has (probably) been lost to history, alas ... but people keep digging up old tapes and getting them cleared for inclusion.

perl, while ancient to today's kids, came about quite a while later.

[0] Although Stanford (for one) had electronically searchable, yet somewhat clandestine, bits of the DECUS archive by ~1970, and all of the current archive by 1977. Berkeley had a similar thing. I assume other universities also archived the code they received through the normal channels. Caching saves bandwidth, especially when it's USPS delivered tapes or card decks.

Re: One programmer is happy with PHP

"and show of hands, who wants to build large-scale webprojects in Perl?"

Pace your definition of "large scale", me, for one.

And last time I checked, much of ElReg was written in perl.

_{It would seem that most people parse hy perl ink incorrectly ...}

Hubble spots stellar midwife unit pumping out baby planets

Mine suggested we buy a round for the house and drink a toast to the happy event.

It's Friday, and Cinco de Mayo, so why not ... Cheers, all y'all.

China labels USA 'Empire of hacking' based on old Wikileaks dumps

China says lots of things. Does anyone believe them?

:"China's Communist Party often points out that challenging the legitimacy of governments is a big no-no."

Except in the case of Russia invading Ukraine, of course. Or their own probable impending invasion of Taiwan.

Fucking hypocrites ... not that I would expect anything else from a party run by a bear of very little brain.

CERN celebrates 30 years since releasing the web to the public domain

"you might want to learn what that one man actually did."

Took existing so-called "hyper text" and a markup language and added networking? Not exactly unheard of at the time (I've mentioned Gopher here recently ... there were others that also pre-dated the WWW). It just happened to be the variation on the theme that took off. As a result, this whole worshiping at the church of TB-L comes off as the general population not understanding the concept of survival bias.

Re: The only reason that WWW ...

It's not simply disagreeing with an opinion. It is decades of past experience demonstrating that a one-word answer to a multi-level problem likely indicates a lack of familiarity on the part of the party uttering that one word.

Re: First web server outside CERN

"The first web server outside CERN came up on an IBM mainframe and was written in REXX (according to B-L's book)."

Tim's wrong. We had experimental WWW servers at Unis all over the West Coast before IBM's was running. The first one was running at Berkeley a couple evenings after the CERN release, the next was at Stanford the following morning, followed very closely by UCLA et al.

Perhaps he meant "the first non-CERN based WWW server"?

_{Not that there was much for them to do ... but it invented a lot of temporary busy work as undergrads were hired to make much of Gopher-space available on the WWW ... until they realized it would be easier to add the gopher protocol to the browser. Hindsight's 20/20 ...}

Re: *EVERY* form of communication

"most of actors were idealistic dreamers making the Web for free."

You are looking at the past through rose tinted specs[0] ... May I introduce you to James Clark (and Marc Andreessen)?

Re: The only reason that WWW ...

I was using Gopher on a Sun Workstation along side the early WWW software (early '90s) ... Gopher was far easier to use, client-side and server-side, and had a huge[0] head start. I honestly think that if the University of Minnesota had gone with the GPL, instead of a fee-based license, for the server right from the git-go, Gopher would have the place that the Web has today ... Or be operating alongside it as a peer, at least.

My 107 years young Great Aunt is not quite done publishing her life story in Gopher. When I started teaching her, it seemed like the easiest option for what she was trying to do. That was about 30 years ago, when Auntie was a sprightly 77ish. I run the server. I'd have moved her over to the Web years ago, but she's resistant to change and quite happy with gopher. I almost hope she never finishes it ... I kind of suspect that the project is one of the things that keeps the old girl going.

[0] "Huge" in the world of software development in the late 80s and early 90s time was on the order of weeks or months, not years.

Re: The only reason that WWW ...

"Gopher? EWWWWWWWWW!"

How to tell me that you never used Gopher without having to say "I never used Gopher"

"Once Netscape blew Mosaic out of the water"

Probably because the major developers of Mosaic at NCSA (Andreessen and a few others) moved to California and started Netscape Communications (originally "Mosaic Communications").

Re: The only reason that WWW ...

"[1] And are of a certain age..."

I'm older than Schofield ... does that count?

Is your Broom Closet under the stairs?[0] Or is that the glory hole?[1]

[0] Yes, I know about the BBC kiddy show. Never watched it, I'm in the wrong demographic. Was when I was a kiddy, too.

[1] Just to precipitate an argument. Beer?

Re: The only reason that WWW ...

"Gopher was barely more than a way of indexing documents served by FTP."

It is/was far, far more than that. Don't be disingenuous, it doesn't behoove you.

Wow.

Have you any other xenophobic thoughts to share with us?

"I think you're the only one complaining about the web becoming popular"

Nobody said anything about "becoming popular".

"WWW != Internet ... that's a whole different invention"

No, the WWW is just an add-on to the foundation provided by Internet. The Internet would carry on without notice if the WWW were to disappear overnight. The WWW would collapse instantly if the Internet went away overnight.

"How many times have you heard someone say I'm going to check the internet when they really mean the WWW?"

All the fucking time. It's a daily demonstration of the ignorance of the great unwashed.

I often check Internet resources that are not on the WWW, and likely never will be ... but then I'm a computer user, not a shiny interface fondler.

Re: it changed software development

"In the 1970's, there was an expectation of the "end of programming" -- that all the (green-screen) applications needed by business would be completed, and all the world would need would be a small coterie of operations and maintainence programmers."

Only a few folks suggested this was possible, mostly management being hopeful that they could get rid of costly staff, and their sycophants and hangers-on.

"Then PC's were introduced, and we got to do everything all over again."

Not all over again. Rather, finding new ways of doing certain things. The old things carried on, and STILL carry on, to this day. I'll bet your bank runs code written in the 1950s.

"Then the Internet came, and we got to do everything all over again."

Again, no. Finding new ways to use computing tools as they became more sophisticated and networking became ubiquitous. The old ways stayed put, and were still used as needed.

"Then smartphones came, and we got to do everything all over again."

The biggest change here was dumbing down and shrinking computing so any old idiot could play angry birds on the bus to work. Note that Mattel sold Auto Race, a hand-held portable digital game, in 1976. (Motorola's DynaTAC came out in 1983, Nintendo's Gameboy in 1989.)

"Then web services and the cloud came, and we got to do everything over again."

To all intents and purposes, those had existed since the 1930s. See: "service bureau". Later, as computers and networking became faster and more powerful, the so-called "timeshare" grew popular.

"Nobody I knew was predicting this in 1975!"

It was all predicted long before the 1970s. Dick Tracy had his 2-way wrist radio in 1946 (2-way wrist TV by the early 1960s). By the mid-1950s, it had percolated from popular culture into upper management. Here's a link to a clip of an AP article, published in many mainstream newspapers on April 10th, 1953. Have you not read the science fiction from the Golden Age?

The only reason that WWW ...

... beat out Gopher was because the University of Minnesota decided on more restrictive licensing than the toy out of CERN.

And we're still suffering for it.

Intel to rebrand client chips once Meteor Lake splashes down

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

"And it is communicating that this is the shiny new product"

Of course. And the Industry Press is gobbling it up, regurgitating it where we all read it and discuss it. Basically, ElReg and us commentards are doing the Intel marketing department's job for them ... getting the word out that Intel has new kit.

"since I don't buy their overpriced crap."

How much extra per day does Intel cost for similar performance?

_{My machines typically last 10 years or more before replacement ... This laptop is nearing 20. YMMV.}

Re: Downhill

"I warned them I would stop purchasing their wares if they didn't remove the Intel spy CPU (Intel Management Engine) from their processors."

Unless you control a significant percentage of total CPUs purchased world-wide, I seriously doubt Intel gives a fuck. The couple dozen (maybe!) processors you purchase in your lifetime will be far, far less than the amount Intel spends re-striping the visitor's parking lot every year.

"I've only purchased AMD Ryzen processors since."

Because AMD's Platform Security Processor doesn't exist in your world, presumably. What an absolutely brilliant plan.

_{Lest anybody wonders, no, I'm not particularly enthralled with the idea of Intel's IME or AMD's PSP ... but I have a stateful firewall analyzing traffic coming out of my machines to the world at large. Near as I can tell, neither Intel nor AMD based systems have ever tried to call home out of any of the networks that I control. Possibly because I'm not important enough (nobody reading this is, IMO), or maybe because they don't do that, or maybe a bit of both. Who knows? But at the moment I'm not too worried ... Obviously, YMMV. Have a beer.}

Re: Ultra Max Super

My Wife, glancing over my shoulder just now, saw "Ultra Max Super" and wondered why the denizens of ElReg were talking about tampons/pads or makeup.

Re: Fiddling while...

Horses for courses has long been a mantra around these parts.

Re: Marketing: why do we need it again

I've seen benefits with renaming and rebranding. They've all been negative, though.

Marketards are only legends in their own tiny, little minds. They are truly one of the lowest forms of life, ruining almost everything they touch. The rest of us would get along just fine if the lot of them were to jump off the edge of the world, never to be seen again.

Shocks from a hairy jumper crashed a PC, but the boss wouldn't believe it

And quite often the subtleties.

Yes, even the original orange Sun logo was readable about all four rotations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-1#/media/File:Sun-1_Badge.jpg

Re: True story

Picture a data center in the basement of a tall building in San Francisco's financial district. Card punch up against a wall, near the ancient Otis heavy goods lift. Every now and again, at seemingly random times, the punch generated errors for a couple characters. Nobody could figure out why, not even IBM's field circus dudes.

Until IBM was traipsing in and out one fine weekend, upgrading who knows what hardware, as only IBM could. Someone (ahem) noticed that the gibberish was being generated about ten seconds before the elevator doors opened.

Turned out that the motor for the lift was drawing so much current when it first started that it was inducing errors in the punch on the other side of the wall. Nobody put two and two together prior to this because the lift rarely went into the basement (that level was key-protected) ... until IBM was in and out that morning.

Once I figured it out, and could reproduce the problem at will, a little shielding (spec'd, provided and installed by IBM, gratis!) made it go away permanently.

Re: Multi I/O Boards

We built them for the S-100 bus, Unibus, Q-bus, STD bus and etc, long before the IBM PC was invented. In fact, in the early days most such peripheral cards for the IBM were modified S-100 bus designs.

Re: Pooh-Poohing Anti-Static Cautions

The instructions beginning "Run tub with cool water. Remove clothing. Stand in tub."?

I know people who actually did that when populating RAM ... Memory was very expensive, and quit delicate at the time. There was a lot of superstition surrounding it.

How expensive? I have a hand-written receipt[0] dated early December of 1977 for "8ea 16 Kbit Mostek MK4116 DRAM, new, in factory tube, with seals" ... for the low, low price of $336, plus tax. So I guess one question to the "42" answer is "What was the price in US dollars for 1 (one) 16K bit DRAM in late 1977?" ...

By way of reference, $42 in 1977 money is just about 325 bucks today.

[0] From the late, very much lamented Haltec, no less ...

Re: No Goat related metaphor?

There's never enough cheese.

Re: "Hairy jumper"

Note to my fellow Yanks: A "jumper" is to the Brits (and hangers-on) what we would call a sweater.

Re: "Hairy jumper"

You don't fry the spider ... you use the spider to remove food from the oil after it's cooked.

Re: "Hairy jumper"

The tarantulas are making their presence known here in Northern California, now that it's finally Spring. I don't think they live as far north as BC, though.

"the ones which needed a metal mousemat painted with dots to work"

Not dots. A grid of grey and blue lines. Made by Mouse Systems Corporation. I've got an original, attached to an orange logo Sun 1 ... 40+ years old, and still going strong. They don't make 'em like they used to.

Re: capital of BC

Not the capitol of Canada. The capitol of BC.

Re: Static

Remember the anti-static mousepads they used to sell? The ones with a snap in one corner for attaching a ground wire?

They weren't for grounding the mouse. They were there to ground the user.

The "What if ... ?" aspect of destructive testing was one of my favorite games for several years. I've measured 115,000V after running a standard vacuum cleaner over the floor of a SillyConValley shipping & receiving department. Lots of very small particles moving quickly through a plastic tube caused the static buildup. The next stop on the cleaner's schedule was the stockroom, with shelves & shelves full of static sensitive parts. Much hilarity ensued.

I once measured 61,750ish volts on an empty, unused Styrofoam coffee cup set down on an isolated table after a colleague walked across a nylon carpet wearing Nikes ... Was an example, just to prove the point.

In other news, the average secretary can generate upwards of 85KV walking down the hall to get a cuppa, but myself walking alongside her came up static free. Seems my unmentionables were made of cotton, hers were made of silk and petrochemicals. Her heels were leather, my soles were high-carbon rubber.

No, the above isn't sexist, it's observed reality ... and she volunteered to take part in the experiment. She also managed to drag another 21 of her female cow orkers into "the game" (as she called it), giving us some real data to make recommendations. Interesting couple of months, that.

Online Safety Bill age checks? We won't do 'em, says Wikipedia

Re: FFS

"we have nothing to fear as long as we have nothing to hide."

Conversation starter for your local government official who says one variation or another of the above quote: Might I point out that you don't have a plate glass exterior wall in your shower, and you do have drapes over the windows in your living room & bedroom ... and hopefully there is a door between your toilet and the rest of your house. What are you hiding? Are you a criminal?

While I'm on the subject, presumably you don't want me to have access to your banking, health and tax information, and you don't want me to be able to access your computer/phone from my computer/phone without your expressed consent, right?

Privacy isn't always covering something illegal.

Re: aims to make the UK "the safest place in the world to be online"

"However, in reality it will just drive people to more dodgy underground sites run by heavy criminals where they will be a lot less safe."

Or people will learn to use VPNs en-mass.

There is absolutely no fucking way that a mere government is going to keep teenage boys away from pR0n ... and from what I've seen as the local "fixer" of b0rken equipment, the teenage girls have finally caught up with the boys in the pR0n viewing department.

Re: Dog years

"And we can't have that, can we?"

Of course not. Because dogs are Not Allowed. Not even Spot.

"I refuse to flag it up as an "error"."

And yet here you are, very publicly pointing out the error.

Presumably you are hoping for many thumbs up from the spleling nazis (I can't be arsed to turn 'em on and look). What they are up is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re: The Lords said they felt that "anonymous age verification is possible."

"commission a proof of concept implementation and then let the experts take it apart."

And then promptly arrest the lot of them for "terrorist hacking" when they are successful and have rubbed the .gov's nose in it.

If you don't get open source's trademark culture, expect bad language

Re: "trademarks don't work that way"

"The funders should think to themselves "what sort of complete fool would brand their thing with a word like 'Rust'"."

The fine folks behind Rust-Oleum seem to have done all right. As have those behind Evapo-Rust.

Oh, wait ...

"I’d be surprised if they don’t even contain microcontrollers"

Industrial microcontrollers for motor control, yes. But they are designed for the environment they are used in, are insulated from the consumer, and last virtually forever. Note that the user controls on most Speedqueen units lead to control circuitry with stand-alone components which can be individually replaced if they ever die ... none of mine ever have.

Most other modern consumer washer/dryer pairs have flimsy computers that are wired directly to the membrane switch control panel where they can get zapped by the static generated by whatever the consumer has just removed from the dryer. (To be fair, Maytag and others may still sell machines with non-computerized controls, but I can't be arsed to look.)

I don't buy the laundromat versions, I purchase the household units. Yes, I'm aware of the membrane controls on the TR line. I haven't eyeballed those machines physically, nor have I seen their schematics, so I'll defer passing judgement. Gut feeling is the control panel is a primary failure mode, though.

No, it's far more illogical than that. I can legally get the parts here in California (except some refrigerants), it is just illegal to install them.

_{Stand back, greens ... I have charging and testing manifolds, vacuum pump and several kinds of refrigerant, and I'm not afraid to use them.}

Florida folks dragged out of bed by false emergency texts

Re: Worry about it in the UK

"In the spike regime, everybody is being much, much more careful."

Even the drunks? What colo(u)r is the sky in your world?

"I'm pointing out that you feel safe driving at 30mph and you probably are safe, but other people are not safe from you."

If those other people don't understand f=ma, lane control, and flow of traffic, they should be kept off the roads ... they are a hazard to both themselves and to others.

Why do people like you advocate punishing the vast majority of people in order to protect a few idiots?

Re: In reality, what's one meant to do if there's a real alert?

I was clearly discussing popularity vs. size, which have little or nothing to do with type of music.

_{Or how good (or bad) it is, either, contrary to popular belief ...}

_{icon: Beer}

Re: Remove the what now?

Teen-age locker-room name calling makes you look quite ignorable. The people you are discussing are quite execrable all by themselves without you resorting to that kind of childish display. All it does is make you look silly. Stop it.

"Although presumably, in The Big One, the building doesn't collapse straight away."

Around here, it probably wont collapse at all. In fact, chances are good that the buildings on this property will not even need to be inspected by the State for occupancy safety, mainly because I over-built (at least according to Code) just for this possibility. When, not if.

1989's "Loma Prieta" quake was a 6.9. The epicenter was approximately 30 miles SSE of my home in Palo Alto. 42 of the 57 deaths in that quake were on Oakland's Cypress Structure on I880 (about 35 miles North of me), 5 of the remainder were in a brick wall collapse in San Francisco (also about 35 miles North of me). Both had been flagged as probably unsafe in general, never mind earthquakes, and were due for removal or retrofit. That leaves a whopping 10 deaths caused directly by the quake, in a major Urban area, with around 6,000,000 people living in it (guesstimate, from 1990 census data). My house[0] was untouched, as were the rest of the houses in my neighborhood.

Seems modern construction and retrofit techniques actually work. Whodathunkit.

[0] Stick-built on a slab in the 1930s, retrofitted in the early 1980s with bolts between the sticks and the slab, and some wall reinforcement in places.

Re: Worry about it in the UK

"a stiff sharp spike in the centre of the steering wheel"

So when a drunk blows through a stop sign/red light and you T-bone him in the passenger door, you die and he very probably lives?

What a plan. Absolutely brilliant.