Posts by jake

Habbo Hotel to 'unmute' chat so users can show they love it

@+++ath0 (was: Re: Whatever.)

It's not about control of the teens. It's about education of the parents.

My daughter's terminal was in family-space, not her bedroom. Same for her first personal computer ... She didn't have unsupervised access to TehIntraWebTubes until she was at Uni.

My nieces & nephews have very basic telephones. They are for making telephone calls, not accessing the unwashed underbelly of mankind.

I've been in the business for a long time ... my siblings & their spouses grok that I have clues on the subject, and have been paying attention. YMMV.

Whatever.

The real issue is Parents allowing kids unsupervised access to the ugly underbelly of the world's largest city called "The Internet".

Remember back when parent parented?

Linus Torvalds drops F-bomb on NVIDIA

Re: Or..

"He could just install Windows which would work out the box"

For small values of "work".

@h4rm0ny (was: Re: Great now we have a child)

If I posted that, I'd probably get 60 or 70 thumbs down.

People really don't get the point of FOSS.

Carry on, Compadre :-)

As a Slackware user since 1995ish ...

I grok the sentiment.

I'm surprised it's taken him this long to get frustrated enough to blow up over the situation. Hardware companies need to understand that if they allow access to the firmware/microcode, it'll only lead to more sales of their product.

And it isn't like competitors aren't already aware of the guts of their competitors code (c.f. How many examples of the same "bugs" in any given hardware category are common across multiple companies?).

IBM: Our kit needs to be sold with '-as-a-Service' on the end now 

What the fuck is the difference?

MSP, VAR, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

I'm glad I didn't go into marketing. I wouldn't be able to sleep with myself.

Honour for Queen's IT manager

@Wensleydale Cheese (was: Re: It's not like The Queen actually knows what IT is)

A dude/tte who identifies with Wensleydale Cheese didn't know what a Whippet was until consulting Wikipedea? How sad is that?

@JohnG (was: Re: It's not like The Queen actually knows what IT is)

Charles is a qualified RAF Helicopter pilot (lapsed, probably). Seems to me that he took part in a couple rescues off Cornwall on the mid-1970s. They might have been training missions (lot of water under the ol' bridge ...), but they were still flight operations.

To the three chuckletrousers downvoting me (was: Re: The Royal Email)

I was referring to the 26th of March, 1976. Look it up. I did, to get the exact date.

I knew it was 1976 (the USofA was in the throws of the somewhat silly run-up to the bicentennial celebrations at the time), but I'm kinda surprised I correctly guessed March ... maybe I haven't started losing it yet, after all :-)

@AC 19:52 (was: Re: Kind of a useless award ... )

Using iFads and Crackberries doth not make you an IT professional.

Re: It's not like The Queen actually knows what IT is

"She knows what horses are, I'm sure she can manage computers,"

As a semi-retired near 40 year veteran IT bod who is owner/operator of a horse ranch and sight-hound kennel, all I can say is that you are deluded. Most animal-oriented people don't know squat about technology ... and vice-versa.

Charles always struck me as a born-commoner, forced into Royal service ... and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. I was shocked when they allowed him to not only learn to fly, but actually partake in Helicopter operations ... I kinda feel sorry for him, in a way. He has a built-in glass ceiling; no matter what he does, he's in the shadows until his mother dies. Poor bastard.

Re: The Royal Email

I was referring to early 1976 (March?) ...

Kind of a useless award ...

It's not like The Queen actually knows what IT is.

I had hopes, all those years ago, when she supposedly sent that email ...

New Forum Wishlist - but read roadmap first

So ... Is this "user forum" thingie working?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Apple adds gay and lesbian icons to iOS 6 messaging

@ STB (was: Re: @TRT:)

Hmm ... Covent Garden?

Oh, no, crap ... I meant the next stop ... Holburn ... but I already used that, so I guess I'm back in Nidd. Dammit. Foiled again!

@DN4 (was: Re: AC writes: "It isn't an anti-gay thing.")

In the Venn diagram, marriage is a subset of a (hopefully) permanent union between two adults who love each other and plan to spend the rest of their lives together.

The fact that marriage is a subset of how humans decide to live their lives doesn't alter my premise.

Grok where I'm coming from?

Oh, hi, AC 09:02 (was: Re: AC writes: "It isn't an anti-gay thing.")

I agree that the definition of marriage is changing. For the better, IMO.

The rest of yours? Where was I disagreeing with you?

On top of that, EyeCU (was: Re: My only question for the idiots against gay marriage is ... )

How many of the so-called "christians" have read the bible for content?

Jesus himself (supposedly, according to whoever actually wrote "the gospel according to Luke, 17:34 and :35") said "I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.", implying that at least half of all gay folks are A-OK with Jesus ... And if you read the rest of that passage for content, pretty much the rest of humanity is half rotten ... according to Luke's interpretation of what Jesus had to say.

@AC06:11 (was: Re: ..)

Sometimes a rose garden is just a rose garden.

This one was planted as a joke, but a loving joke ... She loves roses, and likes Loretta Lynn's version of the song "Rose garden". While she was off helping her sister with new-born triplets, the Foreman & the Hands & I put in a rose garden between the herb garden just off the kitchen, and the fence we share with the gay guys. When she left, it was about a fifth of an acre of lawn, visible from our third floor bedroom (second floor to you brits).

She flew into SFO late afternoon and I drove her home, in time to arrive after dark. Remembering her "What the FUCK!" waking me up first thing in the morning still makes me smile :-)

AC writes: "It isn't an anti-gay thing."

One word: Horseshit.

Have you never actually listened to the anti-gay sheeple minor sub-set of humanity incapable of thinking for themselves being "guided" by their shamans ... uh ... genetically human, but hard-of-thinking people, here in the US? I mean, seriously?

A marriage is a (hopefully) permanent union between two adults who love each other and plan to spend the rest of their lives together. Period.

My only question for the idiots against gay marriage is ...

... how in the hell could the fact[1] that the two guys living in the house on the other side of my Wife's rose garden are married possibly have any affect on my Wife & I's heterosexual marriage? Are the idiots really so unsure of their own marriage? Perhaps they should look within, instead of removing the rights of other tax-paying Californians.

[1] They had had their wedding planned for several years, and managed to hold it before Prop 8 ::spit:: was passed. They are legally married.

[2] It probably only passed because most of the ignorant voting public thought that "Yes" was in favo(u)r of gay marriage ... I can't tell you how many times I've had to tell someone that "Yes" was anti-gay, a "No" vote would have continued gay marriage. They usually look furtive & scurry away.

Council chief overrules blackout on Scots 9-yr-old's school lunch blog!

Re: An Oldie Recalls

When I was doing my O-levels[1], my form's common room was the home-ec room. After a week or so of "school dinners"[2], I started bringing in raw ingredients and cooking for myself. Over the space of a couple weeks, pretty much my entire form were bringing in ingredients to turn into food ... most of them had no idea how to cook, but seemed to like my take on it. The kids would volunteer to bring random stuff in, and I'd develop a menu and show 'em how to turn it into dinner ... Was a lot of fun :-)

We always tidied up, the home-ec teacher didn't twig that "her" kitchen was being used until she showed up mid dinner-hour to set-up for a particularly complex demonstration. She threw a conniption fit ... and called in the Headmaster. The Head came in & looked at what we were doing (home-made spinach, chicken, ricotta and tyme ravioli & chopped tomato sauce, with a tossed salad, and several Hovis loaves from the local baker's son, along with a couple chunks of hard cheese & unsalted butter from one of a local dairy's kids).

She was all "How dare the Yank use my kitchen!" ... The Head commented that it looked like I was doing a better job of teaching cooking skills than she was, told her to go away, and joined us for dinner! We were allowed to continue, but were advised to keep mum on the subject. We often served our teachers dinner after that ... and the Home-ec teacher hated me. On the advice of the Head, I sat the home-ec O without taking any lessons, and received an A ... two years later, he advised me to similarly sit the A, but I declined ... I already had a full schedule.

When I entered the lower 6th, our common room included a proper kitchen ... Our 6th form Headmaster came in on the first day of school and had us all sit in alphabetical order, alternating boy-girl, front to back, teacher's right to left. I took the same seat I had had since I first got to the school ... but the Head grabbed me & sat me on a bar-stool in the kitchen. In his Glasgae accent, he said "There's your rightful seat, laddie". The new 6th-formers who hadn't been part of my O-level form gave me shit for a couple days (Apparently, men didn't cook in Yorkshire) ... until they realized that cheap good-eats were to be found ...

My A levels? Pretty much the same as my Os ... mostly science & Maths related. But you still gotta know how to feed yourself. And sometimes you need to jump over the counter & pour your own coffee. To this day, I couldn't tell you how I managed to pass 'em all, and Graduate from Highschool in California, with all the jumping back and forth across the pond my family did ... Gut feeling is that blowing off steam in the kitchen helped :-)

[1] Harrogate, early-mid-70s ... I'm still in touch with about half my classmates.

[2] Note to my fellow Yanks: read "lunch" instead of "dinner".

Re: That looks quite tasty....@Bell peppers

Why the hatred for Bells? Besides, I'll bet you eat 'em without knowing it. Like Caribbean cuisine? Much of it has a base called "Sofrito", which contains Bells. Likewise a lot of Italian soups and sauces start with sauteing a fine dice of bell, carrot, onion and garlic in butter & olive oil.

Ever use paprika? That's the result of drying & milling various varietals of Bell.

Oh, and they are fruits, not vegetables. I usually have a dozen or so varietals, in a rainbow of colo(u)rs growing. Think of it as a flavo(u)r enhancer, or spice, not a main course.

There is no God. We are a fluke of the universe[1].

(Side note: It ain't the Westie that's the problem. The problem is that most Westie owners are fucking[2] morons who don't understand that the word "Terrior" has a meaning ... )

[1] STR, win a beer :-)

[2] Just use the fucking word, dude/tte.

Super sushi-bot churns out 2,500 rolls an hour

@Oh4FS (was: Re: Hipster)

I was taught to catch rice in a canoe. Use the paddle to beat/harvest the grains into the floor of the vessel. Works a treat ... A slow process, perhaps, but any day on the water is better than a day at the office! :-)

@AC12:12 (was: Re: Fish dead over a couple hours is nauseating.)

Not arrogant, nor holier than thou. Rather, self assured. Hard to convey in ASCII ... we're not all the Bard of Avon, you know :-)

I don't listen to posts, I read them ... And perhaps the comprehension is on the other end of the link.

Being frequently correct on unpopular stances would be a problem ... if, and only if, I gave a rats ass about thumbs down (or up, for that matter).

BTW, AC (if I may call you that), aren't you unashamedly ::insert your nationality here::? If not, why not? And why are you posting AC?

@Evil Auditor (was: Re: Fish dead over a couple hours is nauseating.)

Thawed deep frozen fish isn't sushi, no matter how hard you squint at it. Grill it, instead. The heat will drive off some of the excess moisture that the ice-crystals bursting cell walls allows to escape. Not optimal, in my mind ... but passable, in a pinch, if the dude/tte running the freezing process knows what they are doing. (Kinda like IQF shrimp.) The cook needs to have a clue, too, of course.

Yes, I collect two or three "thumbs down" with most posts these days. It would seem I have a couple fanbois. I find it funny, in a sad kind of way.

Re: @ jake posting 08:21 a.m. GMT

"Not been to Japan have you ?"

Many times.

"Sushi is primarilly cheap junk food."

McDonalds is cheap junk food, too. Doesn't make it worth eating. I had a Japanese Aunt ... She taught me how to prepare proper sushi and sashimi with the fish my Uncle & I caught in the Pacific, out of Noyo Harbo(u)r. Someday, I may learn to get it right. The Wife likes my cooking, that's really all I care about ... but I still work on improving it :-)

@Ace11:15 Re: @AceRimmer (was: The next time you're in San Jose)

Never try to joke with computer nerds who have lived on both sides of the pond from either side of the pond, because your perspective is parochial, and is easy to troll.

@Silverburn (was: Re: @AceRimmer (was: The next time you're in San Jose))

You bonk during hard bike rides?

The Wife & I might be interested ... technical details please? :-)

(Y,y,y, I know ... cross-pond humo(u)r is hard to do ... )

Re: @AC 09:47 (was: Hipster)

Not difficult to grow wine ... Fruit juice, warm spot, about a week. Prisoners call it "pruno".

The difficulty is in the details ... which most Consumers seem to miss :-)

Re: @AceRimmer (was: The next time you're in San Jose)

I get your point. I don't think you get the point.

Carry on, have a nice day, Consumer :-)

@AC 09:47 (was: Re: Hipster)

The vinigared rice is called "shari".

I don't catch it, I grow it. Including the wine I make the vinegar out of ...

Re: @AceRimmer (was: The next time you're in San Jose)

Ace, I feel ever so sorry for you.

Food is far more important than just fuel. Learn to cook. It's by far the most important hacking tool that HomoSap has ever come up with ... outside of useful distribution of potable water, of course.

Re: Hipster

I like sushi because I catch it myself.

Fish dead over a couple hours is nauseating.

Re: hands-on

I think that was my point, Evil Auditor ...

@AceRimmer (was: Re: The next time you're in San Jose)

Enjoy your lowest common denominator bliss, Consumer. Want fries with that?

Some of us enjoy the better things in life.

Re: Why would you want 6 speeds?

In my mind this kind of thing is selling to yuppies who don't know what food is.

1) Proper sushi isn't "batch food". Old fish stinks, has bad mouth-feel, and tastes worse.

2) Proper sushi doesn't cater to the lunchtime crowd.

Gut feeling is that it'll have an option to go up to 11, eventually ...

Do not want. Sounds 'orrible.

Proper food in this style is hands-on.

EOF

Re: The next time you're in San Jose

Blech. That's narsty, consumer-grade, corner-store crap. Yes, I've been there.

On the rare instance that I go out for sushi here in Sonoma, I go to Shiso. I go fishing on a regular basis and can make similar myself. It's good, but not "perfect". Fortunately, Morimoto Masaharu has opened a restaurant less than half an hour away in Napa ... Now THAT is good eats!

Western consumption helping to kill off species

Re: @ Cartman and jake

You miss my point, Triggerfish.

I know the land, critters & the weather. I'm a rancher, fisherman, and sometime logger. I have to understand it to survive. Neither side of the eco-argument has ever really meshed with my reality. We're still fully capable of running this place with 1850s technology, and do for a couple-three weeks once a quarter/season when we do Camps for "at risk yoof".

Yes, it changes from year to year. But overall? I have planting, rain-fall and crop yield diaries from my Great Grandfathers & Grandfathers & Father ... and my own. It's a wash. They all had good years, and bad years. So have I. Same homesteads. Dating back to 1860ish.

Gut feeling is that the Sun drives all ... and us humans are too puny to ever make even a small dent in that fact. Get on with your life, locally, and deal with the weather. You can't control your local micro-climate and region, never mind the entire World, much less the Solar System or Local Group, to say nothing of the Galaxy.

And of course, as always, I recommend relaxing & enjoying a homebrew :-)

Re: Things that make you go "hmmmm" ...

"Jake, how much do you get on Orlowski's redneck retainer?"

Zip. I'm an independent haranguer.

"Sussed you."

Can you get raw data from that web page that is meaningful? I sure as hell can't. It's an 'orrible example of so-called "web design", and can't really be used to derive meaningful data..

"You know, or should know, that there is no such things as proof outside of mathematics. No certainty. However, no certainty that x will happen != certain that x will not happen. Whether you like it or not, reality will do as it pleases, which may not please us. It may kill us. You don't want that? Okay, you're invulnerable now."

My point is that telling me that it IS happening, without proof, is not likely to make me campaign for your cause ... on EITHER side of the eco-debate. From personal perspective, and family history, the weather hasn't changed, sea-levels aren't rising, and critters are plentiful from insects to fish to reptiles to foul to apex predators like puma, bears, house cats and HomoSap. A few species might go missing along the evolutionary journey, and a few might get remixed into something completely different[1] ... but what else is new?

"Bollox to this, you used to post useful stuff."

OK. If you require litmus tests, you require litmus tests. It's your life.

Suggestion: Relax & have a homebrew :-)

[1] Does Dinosaur taste of Duck, Chicken or Goose? Inquiring minds ...)

Re: Things that make you go "hmmmm" ...

"Loading 4.5MB of figure data" ... No thanks.

It's astonishing, to me anyway, how many people cling to crap they read on TehIntraWebTubes[tm], just because it fits into some convenient mind-set, with handy graphics to "prove the point", without actually proving anything.

@rav (was: Re: Say it aint't so)

"How many boffins does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

One. We grok how shit works.

Things that make you go "hmmmm" ...

The entire Pacific isn't in the graphic?

That's about a third of the globe ...

And what do the colo(u)rs mean?

'Zombie bullets' fly off US shelves after wave of undead attacks

Re: Welcome to canada

I believe the word I was searching for is ... uh ... "stupid".

Talk about separating fools from their money!

Re: Did nobody spot this?

When I was at DEC, my Boss & I often went trap or skeet shooting at Los Altos Rod & Gun during our lunch break. On the occasional Saturday, when we came in early in the morning to do destructive testing without scaring hoi poloi, we often did some combat shooting at the local police range with the Palo Alto & Mountain View police Chiefs, sometimes followed by trap and or skeet at the same range ... We both carried the shotguns and handguns, and ammo, into work just off University Avenue in Palo Alto (rather than leave them in the car). The weapons were locked into gunracks on our office walls, and the ammo was in a locked file drawer. The racks & file cabinets were bolted to the steel wall studs. We carried the keys, not security.

But then, we're sane. You idiots discussing "zombies" as potentially a real threat, maybe not so much ... And no, it's not "funny". Firearms are never "funny" ... IMO, of course.

Insider cuts into Apple, peels off Intel Mac OS X port secrets

Re: Oh, c'mon.

In addition to what Liam Proven added, when I admin Apple Servers (and the occasional friend's Apple machine), I always head for the command-line (occasionally single-user), and treat it like it's a BSD box. This approach hasn't bit me in the ass. Yet :-)

Funny how folks find simple hardware modern-day "sacred cows", innit.

Japan still in love with the fax

@Dan55 (was: The alternative being... PDF?)

"I'm a customer of two companies which send me bills as digitally-signed PDFs"

The correct answer is "PDF? What PDF? I never received a PDF ... Snail-mail me the bill, please." PDFs are evil, and should be outlawed. My kit drops PDFs at the routers ... When it comes to .gov, I always call & have 'em send me the paper instead ... Why should I have to allow 36Megs of bandwidth when 1Meg of HTML will do ... or 36K of ASCII ... or a 48 cent stamp & less than a cent of paper?

The mind absolutely boggles.

@AC13:13 (was: Re: Here in the USofA... )

I have my toys because I know how to use my resources (and I'm stingy).

Faxing is a waste of resources.