* Posts by Unicornpiss

1616 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Oct 2011

IBM overhauls rewards program for staff inventions, wipes away cash points

Unicornpiss
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Membership in Jelly of the Month club..

I think many employees will be singing "I know it hurts to say goodbye, but it's time for me to fly.."

IBM, once a foundational company in computing, seems to be doing everything it can to make itself irrelevant and not competitive these days.

Boffins fool AI chatbot into revealing harmful content – with 98 percent success rate

Unicornpiss
Meh

"Cleansed rather than hidden"

I guess you could say the "psyches" of AIs are very much like humans then. Only small children are truly free of toxic content. As adults we just bury it with varying degrees of success depending on our personal filters until 'coerced' (or adding enough alcohol for some folks)

Scientists trace tiny moonquakes to Apollo 17 lander – left over from 1972

Unicornpiss
Meh

I measure it in Pink Panthers..

Pedant. Pedant. Pedant, pedant pedant.. There, 5 Pink Panthers.

Want tunes with that? India-made POS terminal includes a speaker

Unicornpiss
Meh

Nothing new..

The credit/debit card/tap-to-pay terminals at my work are basically a generic Android phone with a printer bolted on, and a little interface widget that has jacks for linking to the main POS terminal, power and Ethernet. Not only does it have a speaker, but it still has the camera flash (on the bottom), and being Android, you can turn it on and use it as a flashlight. Presumably the camera is still there too, but buried inside part of the plastic shroud that's part of the printer. And these terminals are at least 5 years old.

Why would a keyboard pack a GPU and run Unreal Engine? To show animations beneath the clear keys, natch

Unicornpiss
Meh

That is cool..

..it's just not $349 worth of cool.

Xcel smart thermostat users lose their cool after power company locks them out

Unicornpiss
Meh

Override..

While I could handle some inconvenience to save energy as long as it isn't at night when I'm trying to sleep, it would be pretty easy to add a manual override switch that would engage your A/C, bypassing the thermostat.

BOFH: Something's consuming 40% of UPS capacity – and it's coming from the beancounters' office

Unicornpiss
Alert

Similar but not entirely different..

At a facility about 800 miles away, that we support remotely, the big UPS died. A manager with access decided it would be best to shut down the facility before a major storm and when the UPS was powered up again... well, it didn't. So the quick-thinking office manager gathered every power strip she could find and plugged all equipment in their small server room into 4 power strips, going to all 4 wall outlets in the room. And it held until I made a trip down there a month later.

One thing she didn't know is that 3 of the 4 outlets in the room were daisy chained on once circuit. When I found the breaker, it was noticeably warm, but holding. She had somehow hit the magic combo by sheer luck--if she had put all the switchgear on the same circuit as the servers, the POE providing current to all the phones and cameras would have surely popped that breaker. As it was, the power strip was also comfortably warm and its internal breaker was probably barely hanging on by its electronic fingernails.

As it was going to take several months at best for the PO to be cut, the purchase made, the new UPS sourced, and then installed by a local electrician, I purchased 2 fairly beefy consumer-grade off the shelf units, suitable for a well-endowed home office, and balanced the load as best I could between them. The transformer box for the old dead UPS was still good so I was able to connect these to it and not use the wall outlets. Some months later they didn't have the new UPS yet and were experiencing some power problems again.

Diagnosing the problem over the phone with the office manager and the photos she sent, I finally discovered that some exec visiting from corporate had complained about how messy the server room was so after hours some of the staff decided to neaten up all the wiring. they had taken my interim solution and had one UPS plugged into the other now, with most of the load on it, and some back plugged into a wall outlet again "because it was more tidy."

Elon Musk set to buy Twitter in $44b deal, promises stuff

Unicornpiss
Flame

Re: If..

Please spare me your rhetoric. This was a valid example. Congrats on utterly missing the point by a parsec or so by dwelling on semantics. And for letting me you're one of the fine folks that is clearly, irrevocably "in the know". Good one. We'll have your plaque shipped out soon.

While I'm all for free speech being protected, it has to be reasonably true free speech and not the frivolous, self-serving, completely bald-faced lies that Trump has spewed for years. Trump's prior rants on Twitter and other platforms protesting the false election fraud is very much the same as someone yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre: They are not true, are entirely constructed for selfish reasons, and the man spewing them 100% knows he is lying and doesn't remotely care. It's not a case of a personal belief being put out there for consideration, or someone's rights being wrongly trampled upon, but a conscious attempt to mislead for personal gain, and very much to the detriment of others. And just like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, someone is going to get hurt at some point in the confused scramble. (If you look at the events of Jan 6th, many already have been by this megalomaniac's rabble-rousing.) At the very least, "crying wolf" like this desensitizes people from valid, healthy rhetoric and makes it harder for honest, earnest people to express valid points that are a call for truly needed changes.

Unicornpiss
Alert

If..

..Musk decides to let Trump, Q-Anon crazies, and other people from the shallow end of the gene pool back on in the interest of "free speech", he is doing the world a serious disservice, IMO. Next he will possibly campaign for the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre in the interest of freedom.

While I respect Mr. Musk's accomplishments and energy, it seems a shame that the secret sauce that drives people to make billions doesn't seem to have wisdom as one of its ingredients.

But time will tell I suppose, as to what choices are made. I hope he doesn't take his role as this powerful platform's custodian and curator lightly.

Rivals aren't convinced by Microsoft's one-click default browser change

Unicornpiss
Meh

Re: Condescending messages

Teams, while better than Skype in myriad ways, also 'grinds my gears'. When you install it, it has to launch itself, make itself maximized, and then pop up a bunch of annoying internal help messages and suggestions that must be dismissed before you can get to the settings or use it.

And if you're logging in with an admin acct. to do some maintenance on a machine with the Teams 'machine-wide installer' on it, it pops up all over your screen like a rash. So much so that I (probably passive-aggressively) made a simple script to kill it and remove the autostart entry from the registry.

And why can't the damn app use the system's global audio settings properly? Almost every freeware app that does audio manages this, but often Teams must be tinkered with before if manages to use your headset or other default device. Better than the old Skype for sure, but how does Microsoft manage to get their own apps to perform so badly on their own OS when other companies get ti right? I suppose because they have less incentive, having the monopoly.

Unicornpiss
Meh

Infuriating

What really irks me about switching from Edge is the dialog prompting you to "Check it out" when you change the default, adding an extra pandering step to the process. And Bing search is like the person that always needs the punchline of a joke painfully explained to them.

For the person that hates Firefox, I'll admit I wish it was a bit more stable. But its feature set well outclasses Chrome IMO. And it often works with sites that are cranky with other browsers, or at least manages to give you a detailed error message as to why it's misbehaving.

Microsoft accused of spending millions on bribes to seal business deals

Unicornpiss
Meh

On standards, x2

"As a company, we do not tolerate employees and partners who willfully break policies that go to fundamental issues of business integrity."

*Nudge Nudge* --*wink wink*

Fujitsu: Dumping older workers will wipe out quarter of forecast profit

Unicornpiss

True

If you want everyone to be able to use a UI properly, you design it for the least capable or lowest common denominator of the public. If you want, include on the homepage links to either the 'simplified', low bandwidth or 'large type' site, along with the site where you show off your design skills. Otherwise it's like designing a public space with no wheelchair ramps or elevators.

Unicornpiss
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Disgusting..

Maybe some workers 50+ are truly past it or so set in their ways that they're not adaptable to the dynamics of IT these days. But mostly when you get rid of older workers, no matter how 'gently' you do it, or how gracious you try to be, you end up losing a lot of talent and experience. You don't just shuck the people that know where the bodies are buried (though maybe that is part of the intention), but the people that understand why decisions were made that seem illogical on the surface, without context. So you end up making the same mistakes that could have been avoided if anyone was left to remember the ordeals of the past. You truly end up stepping over dollars (or pounds, or yen) to pick up pennies, for a short term unsustainable gain, and besides the human harm, you truly hurt the business IMO. Not that there aren't a few crusty old bastards in every organization that only contribute friction and frustration to others.

There is a reason that every indigenous peoples in every land revered their elders and kept them around despite their apparent burden on the younger folk. And its name is wisdom, which is not obvious to 20-somethings that "know it all" despite having experienced very little overall.

Microsoft says hello again to China, goodbye to Russia

Unicornpiss
Meh

Re: @Pascal Monett - "China's huge market"

While the right thing to do, it is of course also political. You can't simultaneously ban Russia and China. One Autocracy at a time. You don't want to give a nudge towards Russia and China forming further alliances with things as unstable as they already are.

Silk could tie up all-but-unbreakable encryption, say South Korean boffins

Unicornpiss
Meh

It was a good idea..

..but they forgot to sanitize the inputs and it was quickly hacked by inputting a rapid succession of 1970s plaids from old polyester suits, causing a multi-system crash and temporary blindness in some of the system operators..

Unicornpiss

Re: Just like Tom Cruise's balls?

I suppose the pattern of wrinkles would be unique..

BOFH: On Wednesdays, we wear gloves

Unicornpiss
Happy

Nicely done.

That is all.

ASUS recalls motherboards that flame out thanks to backwards capacitors

Unicornpiss
Flame

Had an "Elite Group" mobo do this to me

It started making a sizzling sound and let out the magic smoke. Fortunately I was home and near the PC, though it probably would have been safe enough in a metal case.

In this circumstance nothing was installed backwards, it was just the poor quality components that the manufacturer specd for the board.

Unicornpiss

Re: Does no-one do ERC these days?

Since the boards were happily working in users' systems... um, until they weren't anymore, applying power at the factory (which no doubt is done as a basic test before they leave), wouldn't have caught it. It really would take some sharp-eyed QA inspector to notice it.

Google Chrome's upcoming crackdown on ad-blockers and other extensions still really sucks, EFF laments

Unicornpiss
Alert

Monopoly?

There are monopoly laws in the USA that have been invoked to split up companies that have gotten too powerful for the common good. This led to the "Bell breakup" in the 1980s for similar behavior in trying to completely corner the market, and with other companies in using their position to strong arm their customers. (think Intel) I'm not sure if this can be directly applied, as other companies are apparently going along with these standards 'voluntarily'. But it does raise eyebrows. Amazon is kind of approaching this critical mass as well.

For now, I will keep using Firefox until the day that Mozilla caves to the pressure, or all of the forks can no longer run the web apps I use. Hopefully everyone (including Google, which has the best overall "ecosystem" for devices and automation IMO) comes to their senses and realizes that user experience is at least somewhat important, and should not always take a back seat to revenue. But every time someone makes a better mousetrap, mice get smarter too. So I am somewhat confident that there will always be workarounds.

Google sued for firing staff who claim they tried to follow 'Don't be evil' motto

Unicornpiss
Flame

Then there's Facebook and Twitter..

Their mottos seem to be "Don't be accountable."

BOFH: What if International Bad Actors designed the vaccine to make us watch more Steven Seagal movies?

Unicornpiss
Meh

5G for mind control?

I suppose that 4G didn't have enough bandwidth to control minds. Certainly a weak 1X connection would be over sufficient to control the minds of most of the conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers I've met though.

Seaberry carrier board turns a Raspberry Pi into a desktop PC with 11 PCIe slots

Unicornpiss
Meh

Looks kind of like..

..having a kit to install your lawn mower engine in a car body. For the same price you could build or buy a fairly decent desktop, or a NAS solution already equipped with drives and a warranty.

NASA boffins seem to think we're worth saving from fiery asteroid death so they're shooting a spaceship at one

Unicornpiss

Re: Impacts are not always bad

"..and could have the effect of making every nation start to work together to create a better and safer world for the entire human race"

While the nearly dead idealistic part of me would hope that would occur, what would likely happen is the survivors would squabble over the remaining habitable zones and resources, up to and including using nuclear weapons and making the planet even less habitable. Even an event that should be survivable could easily be an extinction-level event with our current attitudes, and would at the very least likely set us back 100+ years as a species.

</pessimism>

Unicornpiss
Meh

Armageddon..

Not that it's particularly pertinent to this article, but "Armageddon" was the only move I've seen in a theater that I've ever walked out on before the ending. I was annoyed by the banal cliches throughout it, it lost me at the utterly improbable (and likely impossible) simultaneous dual shuttle launch, and finally I couldn't take it anymore during Bruce's character's hammy "I did it for God and country" speech when he knew he would die. Just utter dreck. YMMV.

A lightbulb moment comes too late to save a mainframe engineer's blushes

Unicornpiss
Alert

Re: Positive signals

A lot of older cars fed the field winding in the alternator through the warning light in the dash. If this lamp burned out your alternator wasn't charging and you had no indication of it. The only way you'd know is if you happened to notice the lamp didn't come on before you started the car.

Unicornpiss
Happy

The universe just likes to mess with you

A few years ago, was working on several laptops on my desk, which due to the lack of desk space, were stacked on top of each other. (our version of vertical integration, I suppose) Suddenly the machine on top went black, just like someone pulling the plug, I played with the power button, eventually getting it to reboot, only to have it go black again. I resolved to look at it later and started working on the second machine in the pile. It too, went 'off' suddenly. Frustration soaring, I picked it up, only to have it come back on, set it down, it shut off again.

Finally, it dawned on me that the permanent magnet in one of the laptop speakers on the machine immediately below was lining up perfectly with the 'lid closed' sensor and turning off all illumination on the top machine. After that, I had to show my coworkers a "magic trick" where I concealed a powerful neodymium magnet in my fist and passed it over their machines, making them suddenly go dark.

Red Hat forced to hire cheaper, less senior engineers amid budget freeze

Unicornpiss
Meh

Let me be..

..the 19th person to say it, but "You get what you pay for."

Once in a while you'll find some gifted, naive person that lives and breathes IT, and is willing to work for less than they're worth. But mostly you get idiots that padded their resume and their only skills are sucking up and making everyone else's life difficult.

The return of the turbo button: New Intel hotness causes an old friend to reappear

Unicornpiss

Re: I use the Scroll Lock at least weekly....

Scroll Lock: Also useful in some versions of VNC to allow you to send the Windows key and other functions to the remote session you're working with.

Say what you see: Four-letter fun on a late-night support call

Unicornpiss
Happy

Many years ago..

..I remember a waitress in one of the restaurants I supported at the time turning from the credit card terminal and saying deadpan: "Why does it say it's dilating?"

Visions of it at 9 cm and ready to give birth flashed through my mind for a second before I realized she meant "dialing"...

Waterfox: A Firefox fork that could teach Mozilla a lesson

Unicornpiss
Meh

Agree

I'm still a Firefox user, but many of their decisions have been unfathomable to me. Open Source projects need to LISTEN TO THEIR USERS or they are missing half the point of it and stand the chance of devolving into a Tower of babel-like Goo of random forks with the whole being less than the sum of its parts. We are all weary of the Microsoft credo of "We'll change it on our whim and you can like it or lump it."

And (just to nitpick) why do the latest releases of FF not have a home button enabled by default? You can add it back or bookmark your favorite pages, but really? And whose 'artistic' vision was it to have the floating tabs?

iFixit prises open the iPhone 13 Pro, claims 'any display replacement knocks out Face ID'

Unicornpiss
Meh

Re: Upgrade

"Faster for what exactly?"

Faster for draining your wallet. And deep down, your sense of self-worth.

BOFH: You'll find there's a company asset tag right here, underneath the monstrously heavy arcade machine

Unicornpiss
Flame

Phasers on stun..

We used to have a couple of these old Xerox "Phaser" printers. These were slow and used an outrageous amount of power, even when just idling in their 'low power' state. But they did produce beautiful prints, and our marketing dept. loved the way you could print very professional looking brochures without needing to involve a print shop.

The technology behind these basically had blocks of toner that were very much like crayons, and upon a cold start, the machine would have to melt these so that it had a reservoir full of the molten toner for each color. So the startup would take 10-20 mins and the machine used about 700W when it was just idling to keep the toner at least semi-liquid. It also always smelled a bit like a candle shop. The cleaning cycle would use a large quantity of this very expensive toner too.

I remember one day a ticket came across our desk to check the printer because "It's working fine but smells like it's on fire and it's scaring people!" Basically someone moved the printer while it was on and caused some of the hot toner to slop around inside and burn on something.

Unicornpiss
Flame

Heated throws

Some years back we used to see illicit space heaters under desks, and usually the cheap, junky plastic ones. (really, you make something that heats up out of something that melts easy?) After our guards discovered a few that had been left on at night, and a few ultimatums, this behavior mostly stopped.

Now the trend is heated throws, basically personal sized electric blankets. In the height of summer here in the US, only a couple months ago, I was summoned to assist a young woman with something. I sat down in her just vacated chair and after a few moments realized my posterior was burning. My initial thought was: "Wow, she's a really warm person!" Followed by: "Oh crap, is she running a fever? Ugh--Covid." Then I realized I was sitting on a heating pad turned to high that she was either using to keep warm or induce grill lines on her bottom. I don't know how she stood the level of heat present. She was apparently like my cat that would lay on a radiator that you could barely touch for hours at a stretch.

Also fun was my GF's old car that had heated seats. Which are great, but she would reliably park her phone by the switches and accidentally turn my side on high on a hot summer day. It would slowly dawn on me after feeling like I was burning up and wondering if I was having some kind of medical episode.

Fix network printing or keep Windows secure? Admins would rather disable PrintNightmare patch

Unicornpiss
Meh

Re: Explains lack of school printing!

There must be a company somewhere that properly funds and staffs their IT department, but I've never seen this particular unicorn.

Spot the dog? No, we couldn't either because Spot is a robot employed by United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

Unicornpiss

Re: At yd...

They've built up an enlightened society and are now postulating whether there is life on other plates..

Unicornpiss
Alert

*shiver*

This reminded me of the "dogs" from Black Mirror, which were terrifying.

SAP 'investigating' after viral video allegedly shows anti-mask employee coughing on shoppers

Unicornpiss
Thumb Down

Regardless..

..of whether we're in a pandemic or are all perfect, healthy specimens, I don't ever want some stranger invading my personal space and sharing bodily fluids with me. That's what Tinder and Grinder, plus various bars are for if you're so inclined.

I'm glad SAP fired her. She clearly does not have the emotional stability, much less the intelligence to be an asset to any company. Perhaps she should be forced to do community service tending to people stuck on respirators due to Covid.

I've always suspected that a large percentage of the population were just raving idiots. In the USA at least, the last 2 years have really driven home in a scary way just how many willfully ignorant people are out there though.

Horizon Workrooms promises a virtual future of teal despair

Unicornpiss
Meh

It may..

..still be better than what Webex would come up with though for VR..

So the data centre's 'getting a little hot' – at 57°C, that's quite the understatement

Unicornpiss
Flame

Similar story..

One of our facilities was housed in a few units of an old strip mall while a new facility was being built. This was in Texas. The server room was just an average room with a few racks in there. There was a big A/C vent in the room, and normally it was quite cool in there. One thing that hadn't occurred to the planners was that they took occupancy in May, just when things were starting to warm up. Come September, the heat was turned on for the first time, and with the 'server room' lacking separate temp controls, that nice big vent efficiently heated the room nice and toasty. The thermostat for the system was located in an area that never got properly warm, so it just ran and ran. We did have a monitoring module added onto the UPS, and it started spewing emails (on a Sunday of course) that the temp was going up and up. I think it got to about 110 before someone was able to get to the facility and turn off the heat, open doors, run fans, etc. None of the equipment suffered any ill effects. The door open/fan solution remained in place until summer came again, and we dialed down the threshold for temp reporting on the UPS. This would happen a couple more times as staff with short term memory loss would shut the door until we just took it off the hinges for the season.

Never Knowingly Underborked: Double trouble at Southampton's John Lewis

Unicornpiss
Mushroom

Had a semi-apocalyptic day..

Weary and trying to get back from a week-long business trip. The last leg of my return flight was cancelled. Working with the airline, managed to get onto a flight to Detroit Metro, about 6 hours later than originally planned. Upon landing near midnight, the fire alarms were going off while an automated voice gently urged people to proceed to the nearest exits, calmly. Which was being completely ignored by everyone in the airport. Using the moving tramway, I saw an information screen with a Core Dump, which looked like a hard drive failure. I couldn't identify at a glance which flavor of Linux was having as good a day as the rest of us, but was somewhat impressed that they were using it for airport displays instead of Windows. Of course no OS is immune from a hardware failure.

Microsoft to require proof of vaccination from on-site staff, pushes back full reopening

Unicornpiss
Flame

Re: What a busy day you have had !!! :)

In the early days of Covid, you probably were a potential menace to others, should you have had asymptomatic Covid, or had some symptoms and decided to venture out anyway. Now, with the more dangerous delta variant, even vaccinated people can have enough of a viral load to still infect others.

So currently you are probably not more of a danger to others than a vaccinated person (except perhaps with your ideology) But IMO, it's people like you that have refused the vaccine out of fear or a misguided sense that their freedoms are being trampled that have allowed the pandemic to continue for this long, and given rise to more dangerous strains of the disease, just as people living in hovels full of rats with fleas gave rise to the plague centuries ago. The difference is that those poor souls didn't really have much of a choice, while people refusing the vaccine with no good reason are just being willfully ignorant.

Unicornpiss
Meh

Re: At the risk of attracting many downvotes..

"Too bad there's not a vaccine for Trump Derangement Syndrome. He's been gone from office for 7 months now, but some folks just won't let it go, and continue to beat a horse that's dead and dust. It's like long-covid, except it's entirely a mental condition."

--If there was a cure for such muddy thinking, or "Cranial-Rectal Inversion syndrome", don't you think the so afflicted would fight tooth and nail for their right to continued ignorance? They have thus far..

Unicornpiss
Flame

At the risk of attracting many downvotes..

..I personally believe that anyone that doesn't have a valid reason for not getting vaccinated, or lives in a bubble and never leaves home, is being a complete fool for not getting one of the vaccines. Please note that I'm not saying anyone should be vaccinated against their will. I'm much happier to be in a public space with people I know are vaccinated, just the same as I'm happier when my coworkers don't come to work when they're sick, and when they regularly bathe or shower, for that matter.

I'm not enthralled with the idea of someone putting something into my bloodstream, but am happy to have had the privilege of being vaccinated, especially with the delta variant around now. The risks of not being vaccinated greatly dwarf the reward. And the unvaccinated, besides putting their own and possibly other lives at risk, are the incubators for the next more deadly strain of this. If we don't reach herd immunity fairly soon, there is the real chance that a variant will arise that is yet more contagious or deadly, and possibly much more vaccine resistant. The excuse that 'it's not fully tested' kind of wore thin after the first millions of doses administered with a literal handful of serious side effects. Really, less side effects than pretty much any drug you can buy over the counter. Statistically, there are much more adverse effects from taking aspirin. But there are still people that won't wear a seat belt because it 'infringes on their freedom' and those too lazy to put batteries in their smoke detectors.

BOFH: They say you either love it or you hate it. We can confirm you're going to hate it

Unicornpiss

Surely the cattle prod..

..is still operational?

Windows 11 still doesn't understand our complex lives – and it hurts

Unicornpiss
Meh

Recent experience

I recently had to assist a contractor that freelances for many companies get on 'our' Teams, and connect to 'our' VPN. Had a lot of fun getting the thing to use the correct Microsoft ID to register his credential for remote access. Just when we thought everything was signed out and we were signing in with the correct ID, it would suddenly choose yet another one that was cached on his machine. Eventually after cleaning his Credential Manager, trying several browsers, deleting everything I could find, and general prayers, it suddenly began working.

Re. Teams: Like so many Microsoft ideas, it has great potential, and does much of what it's supposed to, but with major quirks and aggravations that get resolved at a snail's pace. And of course the random 'feature updates' that no one wanted or needed. Really, it has problems you expect from freeware, except freeware seems to run better on MS OSes than MS products do. Possibly because they weren't developed by committee with a looming deadline and no one communicating, which is the bane of so many companies, regardless of the industry. (some irony I suppose as it's supposed to be the de facto communications suite) I would just be happy if it was a bit less quirky with the audio settings, when everything else seems to get them right. I will say it's leaps and bounds beyond what Skype for Business was, and the call quality usually rivals my SIP phone on my desk. I fear that MS will abandon it for something else developed with a clean slate just when it hits its sweet spot fro usability and most of the bugs have been quashed.

Hubble Space Telescope may now depend on a computer that hasn't booted since 2009

Unicornpiss
Pint

I have confidence..

This is NASA, after all. With the exception of some hiccups (*cough*... Mars probe with wrong unit conversion programming, myopic lens on Hubble, and sadly Challenger, Columbia), they have a great success rate and a reputation for pulling off hardware and software miracles. (Voyager, Spirit, Cassini, etc., not to mention the whole Apollo program)

The computers may be based on 1980s technology, but that technology was hardened and pushed to its limits. It will still be capable of running Pac-Man for decades after our current smart phones and laptops have been shredded or are rotting in landfills. (though even then there may still be some Amigas, Apple IIs, and the PC that controls our building automation still functioning out there)

Dependable Debian is like a rock in a swirling gyre of 'move fast and break things', and version 11 is no different

Unicornpiss

Re: Desktop is boring?

I 'discovered' Linux back in about 1999. It was far more frustrating to me than Windows at the time, though I liked the idea of a totally free (as in beer, and as in speech) operating system. I supported it for years in a previous job. I am grateful to Microsoft for its failings as it certainly helps keep me employed. And some MS efforts are a real masterwork, such as AD. But I love coming home and using Linux. It's like a vacation by a cool river after a day of supporting Windows.

Unicornpiss
Childcatcher

Re: Desktop is boring?

An example of an 'exciting' desktop OS is Windows 10. When it doesn't dazzle, it baffles with its bullshit. You never know what you'll get with the next 'feature update'. Eg., we just had to deploy a group policy to block the idiotic weather and temperature that suddenly appeared on the taskbar with the last update. (which might be marginally useful if it didn't default to a different area than yours if you have location services turned off) It just keeps you guessing. One day it boots, then you shut down and after 20 mins of unexpected updates, what will be broken? it's anyone's guess! And then the Edge browser... Oh yeah, it's edgy all right! Like mystery? You never know how your icons will be arranged, especially if you connect to a different display. 64-bit files are in system32 and 32-bit in syswow64. What a kidder! Mistype a UNC path? You'll be greeted with the court jester network troubleshooter that you have to swear at and cancel. Every. Time. Then there's the utter randomness of what features you'll have or not have, and how the UI will be rearranged with each O365 update. I just can't take any more excitement!