Posts by jake

Murdoch calls for world+dog to 'expose' Google

Regardless of potential senility (I am not a doctor, and this is not a diagnosis) ...

... he's right. google is evil and should be shunned.

McDonalds tells fatties to SUPERSIZE THEIR BRAINS

As an educated Yank ...

... the entire mcdonalds franchise is a horrible, horrible embarrassment.

Passing off unhealthy crap as "food" should be illegal. Especially when luring TheGreatUnwashed[tm] in with promos like this, that have absolutely nothing to do with diet & nutrition.

Microsoft wants to 'move beyond' the Cookie Monster

@AC10:01 (was: Re: Redmond?)

Uh, no AC. I don't use, support, or condone anything Microsoft.

Reading comprehension problems, AC? Or are you hard of thinking?

Actually, DougS, it was Delphi's Usenet gateway, long before AOL.

HTH, HAND.

(Agree with you about AOL & eternal September, though.)

@JDX (was: Re: Redmond?)

That's businesses, not business ...

All but the kennel & tack store are in the black. Thanks for asking :-)

Redmond?

Oh, yeah, the company I banned from systems under my control on January 1, 2010.

One wonders when the world of computing will move away from the marketards and manglement who are completely destroying personal privacy ...

Wanna be Zuckerberg's neighbor? Tough luck, he bought the block for $30m

@ Charles Manning (was: Re: What a dim-witted plonker.)

What? Drive to PAO, fly out of PAO, land at PAO, drive to work?

Oohh-kayyy ...

Granted, I have a friend who commutes to PAO out of Pescadero via helicopter ... But for that kind of commute, it makes sense if you have the money. Even if the total distance isn't all that far. Shaves about 40 minutes off his round-trip commute, when you include pre-flight checks.

(I just looked ... Mapquest is deluded as to route, as usual. Pescadero to Loma Mar, right turn on Alpine Road, over Skyline/Hwy35, down Pagemill, and you're in Palo Alto. Helps if you know the roads and know how to drive ;-)

All of Palo Alto? Uh ... no.

~30,000 houses @ 1.3 million (average) each?

Not even Zuck's only-on-paper, not really real-world money would cover that ... And I'm not selling the twit my house in the Johnson Park neighborhood, regardless.

@AC: 06:51, Re: traffic (was: What a dim-witted plonker.)

Yeah, maybe fifteen minutes, considering he defines his own schedule.

Also, considering he defines his own schedule, commute time is immaterial.

Also, considering he defines his own schedule, working from home is an option.

Also, considering he defines his own schedule, well, he defines his own schedule.

He's a dimwitted plonker, regardless.

What a dim-witted plonker.

He could have spent less than half of that & moved up Page Mill road, and had a couple dozen acres of elbow-room.

Computer Chess: Geek, gaming and retro-tech movie of the year

Indeed, Steve the Cynic (was: Re: Teletype)

Here's a gander at mine:

http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Heathkit-DEC-H11.htm

First booted in early 1978 ...

Turkish TV presenter canned for flashing too much cleavage

@ John G Imrie

Concur.

Whatever.

Boobs have been boobs for hundreds of thousands of years.

Teenagers seem to think it's a goal in life.

Marketards play on the teenagers inexperience.

Governments trying to twist popular opinion try to stifle viewing same.

Religious groups try to turn the human body into a bad thing.

Teenagers, Marketards, Governments & religious groups need to get a life.

Twitter-mad twits trade 14 million shares in BANKRUPT zombie biz

Twits are twits.

::shrugs::

Microsoft's Azure will bring tiers to your eyes

Whatever.

I've been using this concept with un*x since before microsoft existed.

And the world rolls on ...

Like your cars?

@ Steven Raith

When you decrease the back-pressure in your exhaust, you have to increase the fuel-flow on the intake side of things to compensate for the increased oxygen flow into the combustion chamber. If you don't, you will be running VERY lean, which eats valves.

Your car, like most modern cars, is already in a "nearly too lean" condition from the factory, in order to get better mileage. Thus the occasional subtle popping with the stock exhaust.

And no, the stock computer will NOT compensate for the increase in airflow. It's not designed for that kind of thing.

You need to change the EEPROM(s) and/or injectors/jetting and/or fuel pump flow (not pressure, VOLUME!) if you don't want major repair bills down the road.

Always cracks me up when the CluelessBikerBoys[tm] pull the baffles from their exhaust and/or install a coffee-can muffler and pop-pop-pop away ... until they need a major rebuild.

Why yes, yes I do. (was: Like your cars?)

"I recently replaced the centre section with a straight pipe, which makes it crack and pop on the overrun"

Ah, yes. Changing exhaust for "sound". Contraindicated. It's called "lean popping". You're burning your valves. Get your intake re-tuned before you need to do some very expensive head work.

TWELFTH-CENTURY TARDIS turns up in Ethiopia

Re: Get ready!

"snacks"?

Shirley you mean Guinness?

Cool!

The older kitschy versions are much better than the over-produced modern versions.

IMO, of course :-)

Looking forward to seeing the lost episodes.

Wacky racers – The Reg's guide to 2013's Solar Challengers

Re: "capable of brining home a week's worth of groceries"

"Just because its not real world applicable right now"

That's why we're pickling peppers ... Ain't exactly rocket science.

This IS the actual real world that we are living in, after all.

"capable of brining home a week's worth of groceries"

Funny. I've been pickling gallons of peppers & chilis this last week ... 'tis the season ;-)

The solar cars? Fun to play with, but hardly useful in TheRealWorld[tm].

Apple's new non-feline Mac operating system, OS X Mavericks, ready to go

Can I tow it into the break with my jetski?

It's already soggy ... hopefully it'll sink.

Oh, shoppin’ HELL: I’m in the supermarket of the DAMNED

For the record ...

... I've never had a problem with this option.

In fact, I quite like it. Much better than being sandwiched between two mothers/fathers with three or four squalling kidlets pushing over-flowing shopping carts for 15-20 minutes after heading to the till ... .

In, out, 5 minutes total, max.

All y'all so-called techies who can't handle the (so-called "easy") interface? Look within.

On the other hand, perhaps Tesco's software sucks rather more than Lucky/Raley/Safeway?

I dunno ... I'm on the left side of the dampish bit of solid ground on the left side of the pond ... Anyone in the San Francisco ElReg Office care to speak up?

How to design a storage array: NOT LIKE THAT, buddy

@AC 0846 (was: Re: Whatever.)

Uh, AC, do you REALLY think that store-bought commercial systems are tested at the ones&zeros level by anyone other than the company selling it to you?

Me, I do development & quality control in-house. It's cleaner. And cheaper.

And I hire adults, not kids. Nothing beats butt-in-the-saddle time.

Whatever.

Pick an operating system. I prefer BSD for this kind of thing.

Chose the necessary software (homegrown is usually best).

Find the hardware that the above runs on.

Install, proof, and roll with it. It ain't exactly rocket science.

Boffins offer ROUTER DEATHLIST for software-defined network builders

@AC 12:28 (was: Re: Software Defined Network/Radios/Whatever, and other damn lies and delusions)

This machine (my main day-to-day portable & desktop device) is a near-10 year old HP Pavilion 5000 series laptop, with docking station when at home. It runs slackware-current. It also runs my businesses, without a hiccup in all that time.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is my mantra.

No, I'm not an idiot. Yes, I take daily incremental backups, weekly full backups, and have several alternate bits of hardware that can take over ... the GNU tool-set makes that easy.

“if there's got to be an upgrade, which kit do I nuke first?”

In my mind? The kit to nuke first is the management & marketing bods with absolutely zero clue as to how computers, networking and the attendant security issues actually work in the real world.

But what do I know ...

Cloud biz model 'unproven' as Amazon scares world+dog into competing - or ELSE

Uh, no, DAM. (was: Re: Gee.)

I made no mention of the NSA (or whatever).

It's NOT easier to "cloudify" (what an 'orrible word!) if you have competent staff. If your staff is incompetent ... well, what can I say? Bad management hires incompetent staff.

And as a side-note, TheInternet (whatever that is!) is NOT secure, by any stretch of the imagination. What we now call "the Internet" was designed as a research network to research networking. It was designed right from the git-go to SHARE data, not to stifle it. And it still does that remarkably well.

And the marketards of the world have latched onto that, alas ...

Gee.

You think?

The entire "cloud" model is marketing-driven, and has absolutely zero bearing on the reality of real-world secure computing infrastructure ...

You put up with CRAPPY iOS 7. You can put up with Obamacare too, says prez

I haven't put up with Apple's OS's for decades, Obama.

Stuffing humans into a pigeon-hole isn't something Ben Franklin would approve of ...

Multipath TCP: Siri's new toy isn't a game-changer

@Neoc (was: Re: TCP/IP has been multi-path from the git-go.)

Neoc & the rest of you lot ... TCP relies on IP for transport.

Thus, TCP/IP has always been multi-path.

The mind boggles at the ignorance being displayed here ...

@Phil W (wasRe: @ Eugene Crosser (was: TCP/IP has been multi-path from the git-go.))

"The OSI model" has been fucking useless for over a quarter century.

HTH, HAND.

@AC 07:28 (was: Re: @ Eugene Crosser (was: TCP/IP has been multi-path from the git-go.))

"To connect to that web site you ran up single-handed in 1983?"

No. Back then it was FTP and/or telnet..

MUDs, MUSHs and MOOs, on the other hand ...

I won't go into Usenet, that would probably only confuse you.

@ Eugene Crosser (was: Re: TCP/IP has been multi-path from the git-go.)

"January 2013"

We were doing this in ~1985.

HTH, HAND.

TCP/IP has been multi-path from the git-go.

It's the way we designed it.

Seriously, learn about networking & history before trying to report on it.

Filipino phablet squawks 'I'M STOLEN'

"phablet"?

That's pronounced "phadlet".

Atomic clocks come to your wrist

Expensive toy, at best.

My network time-keeper checks in on ntp.org once a week (and is accurate to under a quarter of a second every six months). The rest of the kit take clock from that box daily. It's close enough for government work, so it's close enough for me. My weather gear also checks ntp.org regularly, as does the telco kit that keeps my cell phone's clock accurate.

I don't wear a watch. I can see the time from nearly everywhere, these days.

Steve Jobs AIRBRUSHED from history by APPLE months before his death

Somewhere ,,,

... Steve's rolling.

Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois

Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

"Or even a .docx file.

An anathema foisted on idiots by microsoft.

" Or a .odt file."

microsoft's implementation isn't exactly what I would call ".odf compliant".

@AC1138 (was: Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.)

The point was OS+word processor. Visio isn't exactly part of the issue.

Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

"I wish I could still demonstrate how an early DOS computer could have a Word Processor and some documents all running from a single floppy disk."

I can. IBM 5150, DOS 0.96beta and WP. Still runs quite nicely ...

And it's a hell of a lot faster, seat of the pants, that the "modern" MSOffice on Win8 ...

@ MattEvansC3 (was:Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.)

Enjoy your bliss, consumer. Who am I to tell you what to do.

Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

"What do you actually mean by that?"

What part of "bloated piece of shit" do you not understand?

"Can you give real, actual examples of what you see as needless bloat?"

Uh ... gigabytes of crap that aren't actually useful to the userbase?

"And what is your ideal operating system that does not exhibit this bloat?"

TOPS10/20 ... BSD comes close. I personally run Slackware.

Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

One wonders how many of the fan bois are being payed by microsoft to spout this nonsense.

(Don't get me wrong, apple's OSX is a bloated piece of shit too.)

CERN releases retro 'Line Mode' browser

Text is considered "retro"? That's sad.

I still use Lynx regularly ... 99.99%+ of everything useful online is text.

The LSD guru, the 1980s pop-star and video games to reprogram your brain

Re: @Geoff Campbell (was: Computer games & drugs? Seriously?)

My reality is my day-to-day life. And I'm pretty happy with it.

YMMV. Think about it.

@Geoff Campbell (was: Re: Computer games & drugs? Seriously?)

"tell us what you view as important?"

One word: Reality.

Computer games & drugs? Seriously?

Hardly important.

Some of us actually grow up after we are teenagers.

Hong Kong's data centres stay high and dry amid Typhoon Usagi

Whatever.

Data-centers should never be built in flood-plains.

Regardless of where the water is coming from.

It ain't exactly rocket science ...

accessing thecreg on a mobile device

I suspect that ...

... the problem is BKAC.

Why? Computers are literal. Typos don't work in this medium.