* Posts by pinkmouse

48 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Mar 2011

Linus Torvalds offers to build guitar effects pedal for kernel developer

pinkmouse

Re: Aion FX are they really tracing ?

"2020's op amp doesn't sound nearly as good as a 1980s one"

The problem is middle aged blokes with more money than sense trying to recapture their youth. And not actually wanting to practise, 'cos that's boring, just get a sound out of the box/es and instantly be a guitar hero. Ha.

The kids actually making music are quite happy with the cheap Amazon or Behringer pedals

The sweet Raspberry taste of success masks a missed opportunity

pinkmouse

"On Register forums you can’t win that argument."

I know, but I've been coming here longer than a lot of the contributors have had their CompSci degrees, so I feel I have a suitably entrenched position. ;-D

pinkmouse

Hmm, you haven't read through all the thread, have you? ;-)

And though I sort of agree with you, it all falls apart as soon as they try to connect that old printer, or Uncle John's digital camera to get those pics of that family party when Auntie Doris fell in the canal, let alone the web cam borrowed from work so you could whatsapp your sister in Australia.

pinkmouse

Re: After a whole minute looking at Reaper DAW...

I don't disagree with anything you said there at all, it is different outlooks.

But that's why Linux can never be relied on in education, (or a work enviroment witthout dedicated tech support). If I went to my teacher saying I couldn't do my homework 'cos my distro didn't support the software I needed and I spent 6 hours trying to sort it out before my Mum sent me to bed, so I haven't done my English or Maths either, how would that go down? Even if it's the truth? :-)

pinkmouse

Re: After a whole minute looking at Reaper DAW...

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. But let's clear up a few things. I am old too, I started "Poke"-ing bare metal Z80 machinecode into memory on my ZX81 many years ago. Since then, I have run used many computers and OS's most recently Macs and Hackintoshes, though I do have a very cut down install of Win10 on my gaming machine in the front room. The last version of Office I installed was 2000.

I built a NAS from scratch, running UnRaid, with a few containers for music servers and suchlike. My experience with RPi has been mostly using them to drive 3D printers, or host 80's synth emulators, so basically configuring downloaded card images. So I likely have much more "hands on" computer experience than most, certainly more problem solving skills.

So Reaper. Firstly, I just duplicated your search, (on DuckDuck Go) and on the first link, (It"sFoss), Reaper is suggested as the fourth option.Secondly, though your arguments and points are well thought out, logical, and to the point, as a user who just wants to get something done it's all complete bollocks. Why should I care what distro I'm runnning? Why are there even differing distros at all? CPU type? I don't care, it's not my problem. Reaper is paid software. If they offer an installer for a system it should work. Why should I run a shell script? Why doesn't the installer do it for me?

Now, that may all have been a bit tongue in cheek, but I hope you get the point. I forget who updated Arthur C Clarke's phrase, but I think it makes a good point. "Any technology distingushable from magic is insufficiently advanced ". That's what modern users want, not trying for the 5th time to get the correct syntax for a Sudo command, that may not even be the solution to the problem you're having...

pinkmouse

"have you tried getting KDE Dolphin running under WinXP?"

Nope, I'll quite happily admit to that!. But then again, that's a pretty advanced file manager, and i'd guess, 95% of Windoze users will never have the need for anything other than the built in tools.

"Bottom line is for web/email on a the easiest/fastest setup is ChromeOS ..."

Indeed, and although web is still relevant, how long before email has gone the way of dial up BBS's? A lot of the young people I know only use the IM platforms and don't even have email acounts. Now work is another thing, but that's why companies have IT departments, and with proper support, I see no reason why one of the Linux builds should not be perfectly usable for most office tasks.

But we're getting way off topic here, so I'll shut up now! :-D

pinkmouse

Ah, so you deleted your post...

Luckily I still had that open on another tab...

"Not everything is perfect, you know that, right?"

pinkmouse

And that's my point, Linux is anything but perfect, especially in an educational enviroment where you want to get kids interested in programming and computers.

pinkmouse

So the six or so hours I spent trying, (and failing), to get Reaper DAW up and running on a Pi4 last month doesn't count? I ended putting it on a 14 year old WinXP laptop, and it took, maybe, 5 minutes, including the download, (on anther machine, I'm not stupid enough to connect XP to the internet).

pinkmouse

Don't be silly, you know exactly what I mean. Linux is made by geeks, for geeks, who like being geeks. And there's now't wrong with that.

But for your average class of 12 year olds, (or, indeed, most adults), it's convoluted, nonsensical and obtuse. Sure, one or two out of a class of 30 odd may get it, but most won't and will be put off it for life, ending up with the windoze and mac users you love to insult. Linux is its own worst enemy, and by its very nature, always will be.

pinkmouse

"Time to start making the hard stuff as easy as Pi"

And you can start with the incoherent mess that is Linux

Chinese space company accidentally launches rocket in test gone wrong

pinkmouse

Re: Multiple Videos and Initial Theorising from Scott Manley

Indeed, this armchair rocket scientist concurs with SM , it looks like several engines shut down explosively rather than under ground control. Still, this stuff is perfectly normal in rocket development, the only troubling thing is the location of the test site so near to habitation, it really should be much, much further away.

How Sandia hopes to accelerate US hypersonic weapons development

pinkmouse

You may want to watch Perun's excellent presentation on YouTube on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n3fjoacL20

By 2026, total AR/VR goggle sales will trail a single quarter of current tablet shipments

pinkmouse

Hmmm. So VR kit matched sales of consoles over the past couple of years. Perhaps because you couldn't actually buy a console over the past two years?

Safari is crippling the mobile market, and we never even noticed

pinkmouse

As far as I'm concerned, it all started going downhill after CSS...

JEDI contract might be no more, but case should live on, says Oracle: DoD only wants Amazon, Microsoft for new cloud deal

pinkmouse

Sorry, but you've lost all editorial credibility. A relevant thumbnail pic? Really, El Reg, really?

Poltergeist attack could leave autonomous vehicles blind to obstacles – or haunt them with new ones

pinkmouse

Re: YOLO V3/V4/V5 and Fast R-CNN object detection networks

Does rather suggest that these engineers are a bit overworked and don't have time for leisure activities. Or they're completely out of touich with the real world. Or both...

Belgian police seize 28 tons of cocaine after 'cracking' Sky ECC's chat app encryption

pinkmouse

Indeed, blow "was" definitely street slang for canabis, at least in my day in the UK. Still that was a while ago...

Anti-5G-vaxx pressure group sues Zuckerberg, Facebook, fact checkers for daring to suggest it might be wrong

pinkmouse

Phew. Aluminium is safe.

UKIP blackmail, data breach sueball allegations were groundless, rules High Court

pinkmouse

"...and those who believe Islam is an organised plot to destroy Western civilisation..."

It is? I always thought Western civilization was an organized plot to destroy Western civilization. Especially US spelling...

Watch SpaceX's Starship SN4 prototype accidentally self-destruct in a rocket test burn

pinkmouse

I was watching live, on the NASA spacefight stream, (I only do it for the 3 hours of flarestack action you know), and to me, the commenters on the stream, and indeed Scott Manley in his latest YT vid, the explosion looks more like it started in the region of the ground support system, the pipes and cables that connected SN4 to the rest of the world. I didn't see any signs of structural collapse in SN4 at all.

Use the courts, Jeff: Amazon to contest Microsoft scooping $10bn JEDI contract

pinkmouse

Still waiting for a pic of the X-Bomber. But I did dig out the EP and play it. Very 80's... :-)

Like the Death Star on Endor, JEDI created a ton of fallout and stormy weather in cloud market

pinkmouse

Hmm, now I get it. Sorry, I've been away.

But now I'm waiting for the picture on the next story of a giant red robot, that instead of the article when clicked on takes you to a recording of the cover version of Starfleet, (80's anime redub, sorry I forget the name of the original series), performed by Brian May and Eddie Van Halen.

I think my copy of the 12" is filed next to my geek card...

pinkmouse

Erm, B5 pic with a JEDI related story? Fire that sub-editor! :-)

Orford Ness: Military secrets and unique wildlife on the remote Suffolk coast

pinkmouse

Allow more time. I went round a couple of years ago, just on the one route as the others were closed for nesting, spent four hours there and could easily have doubled that.

Fascinating place.

Don't take Uxbridge, but TfL's given Uber a mini-licence for London

pinkmouse

"Understanding is a three-edged sword"

pinkmouse

"...make regulator Morden happy"

What, the agent of the Shadows? It'll end in fire...

Nikola Tesla's greatest challenge: He could measure electricity but not stupidity

pinkmouse

Re: country & western singers

I'd like to add one more to the list; anyone that uses the term "Workshop" not in reference to a light industrial facility.

Landlubber northern council shores up against boat-tipping

pinkmouse

Possibly, but Hull is even less north of Sheffield than Donny is. I wonder if the El Reg offices are still using Apple Maps?

Brace yourself, network admins, Amazon Video just hit 200 nations

pinkmouse

Poor content, and the rights management refused to let me play any HD content on my home built media PC as well as my main, (also home built) workstation.

Power to the (outsourced) people – globalisation starts small

pinkmouse

Re: "most people hate having to mess with their heating controls"

"...get the price down to the point where even someone renting can get their money back in a year (a typical rental period) and even take their smart valves with them, putting back the originals before they go..."

Oh, to live in that tech bubble with rainbows and unicorns. Get real.

So what landlord is going to let a renter fiddle with the central heating system to fit new valves, let alone the cost of getting a plumber in to drain and refill the system when the valves are installed or removed? Then there's there the connection to the boiler the controller needs. That's assuming the boiler even has the appropriate connections, most rental properties are lucky to have a boiler newer than about twenty years old. And the fact that most renters are on or about minimum wage. So they might save £100 over a year, not much point if they don't have a spare £100 to start with to invest.

I could go on, but I won't. Instead, I'm going to put a jumper on as I can't actually afford to turn on the heating.

BAM! Astroboffins now have a second way of picking up black holes' collision super kicks

pinkmouse

Erm... How do we know what the default frequency of gravity waves is? Without that, how do we know if it's been shifted?

Holy kittens! YouTube screens go blank

pinkmouse

Re: A team of monkeys,

...and GoPros...

Three non-obvious reasons to Vote Leave on the 23rd

pinkmouse

Thoughtful article. However, it gives me no reason to change my Remain vote, all of Andrew's points are equally as applicable to British society and governmental bureaucracy. We need to change that before we can criticize others - first remove the plank from thine own eye, etc. etc.

Lester Haines: RIP

pinkmouse

As a pinko-commie-subversive vegetarian, I think I disagreed with just about everything he ever wrote for El Reg.

I'll miss you mate.

Clucking hell! Farcical free-range egg standard pecked apart by app

pinkmouse

Chook?

Swede builds steam-powered Raspberry Pi. Nowhere to plug in micro-USB, then?

pinkmouse

"..Alexzpro's generator is a small compound steam engine... "

Don't think so. A compound uses exhaust steam from a high pressure cylinder to drive a lower pressure one. This means the low pressure cylinder is bigger than the high, and both look the same to me.

Now, some may say that they could be bored out to different diameters. True, but it looks like the exhaust runs from both cylinders, not just one as would be the case with a true compound.

Oh, and it does look like a reversing gear to me too.

al/ waiting for a pint...

Kaminario salesmen will now be told why they're earning their dosh

pinkmouse

Oh look, another PR puff piece...

Microservices are not the same thing as components

pinkmouse

PR techno-b0ll0cks. I really hope this isn't a sign of things to come...

'T-shaped' developers are the new normal

pinkmouse

" ...do not push bottlenecks through waterfalls..."

Stopped reading at this point. I'll put a month's pay on this chap being a "consultant"

Just WHY is the FBI so sure North Korea hacked Sony? NSA: *BLUSH*

pinkmouse

Come on chaps, think like a spook. You have an actor who you can't crack. What do you do? You persuade them that their current system is broken so they will change it.

The organized chaos of a changeover would be the ideal time to compromise a system.

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

pinkmouse

The whole point of design is to steal a good idea and make it better.

Not steal something dreadful and make it worse.

So, what exactly defines a 'boffin'? Speak your brains...

pinkmouse

Haven't had time to read through all the previous comments, but true boffinery should involve a certain amount of "Shed-idity". This could be an institutional shed, like the Bletchley Park huts, or domestic, Barnes Wallis building catapults at home come to mind. It probably also involves a certain amount of sticky tape, and possibly string as well.

Forget invisible kittens, now TANKS draped in INVISIBILITY CLOAK

pinkmouse

So, you've got a tank constantly emitting RF to baffle (active sensing) radar. Passive homing missiles anyone?

Indestructible, badass rootkit BadBIOS: Is this tech world's Loch Ness Monster? VOTE NOW

pinkmouse

Re: The ultrasonics bit sounds like utter cobblers to me.

Exactly. Most PC speakers roll off around 18K, and of those that go higher, it's mostly distortion so I doubt you'd get any significant bandwidth. Then, you also have the fact that most cheap mic capsules as fitted in PC's roll off at about 15K...

Canadian comet impact fingered for triggering prehistoric climate shift

pinkmouse

"...an extraplanetary body came down over Canada around 12,900 years ago, possibly trigging the death of the giant animals then roaming the North American continent and starting a cooling spell that helped drive mankind towards agriculture and civilization."

Hmm, a giant alien body wandering North America. Cthulhu?

Firefox 4 debuts: The last kitchen sink release

pinkmouse

Shame

Ta for that specs page folks, but strange that Intel processor is only recommended, not obligatory.It's a shame they've gone down this route as old Macs do wear much better than the PC equivalents, (please no Mac v PC arguments).

pinkmouse

Tried to upgrade...

And failed. Get message on startup that my system isn't supported. Running OSX10.5.8 on a G5. Went to home page and can't find any system requirements or an alternate download. So it supports XP but not anything older than 10.6 on the Mac? Pointless.