Re: This work has already been done
No - they turn into "found bicycles".
Posts by AlbertH
588 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jul 2012
BOFH and the case of the disappearing teaspoons
Businesses should dump Windows for the Linux desktop
Sunday 14th August 2022 15:27 GMT
Re: preaching the gospel
My old company migrated a major European banking institution to a bespoke Suse Linux build. The training per member of staff averaged just on 5 minutes, so wasn't expensive. Security was improved, reliability improved, maintenance costs reduced, licencing costs removed altogether, and their overall profit margins were enhanced.
Microsoft still periodically send their sales-droids to try to persuade them to migrate back, but still haven't realised that they're wasting their time (and money).
Near-undetectable malware linked to Russia's Cozy Bear
Friday 8th July 2022 18:41 GMT
Re: Iso
anyone know why the decision was made back.in the day to hide file extensions ? seems a pretty stupid thing to do.
Because Bill G insisted that their products were "easy to use", and they (wrongly) believed that the "technical bits" at the end of a filename would scare the technically illiterate numpties that they were hoping would be able to use their simplified "Windoze"
You need to RTFM, but feel free to use your brain too
Record players make comeback with Ikea, others pitching tricked-out turntables
Friday 17th June 2022 22:58 GMT
Re: Digital transmission?
Most of the problems with CD "sound" is because they are recorded too loud, so they clip. It's instructive to look at oscillogram of Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms" as released on CD in 1985 with the re-release from this century. The "new" version is seriously distorted because of clipping.
The fools in the record companies believe that CDs have to sound "loud" if they're to sell well, so instruct their mastering engineers to drive the CDs into clipping. This also has the side effect of significantly reducing the dynamic range (one of the original selling points of CDs).
As a recording engineer of many years' standing (with a number of major albums in my history), I can assure you that the studio end of things isn't to blame. We always took great care with microphone choice and placement, and took great pains to record at correct levels to whatever medium we were using. Most of the records I worked on eschewed the use of compression (wherever possible), and would apply a minimum amount of limiting to each audio source.
LP records were a "good enough" technology when they arrived in the 1950s - and represented a major leap forward in recording fidelity. However, they were fragile and wore very quickly - again it's instructive to listen to a brand new LP against the same one played (say) 30 times......
CDs were significantly more robust, and - when recorded with the same degree of care - could provide a much improved source of audio for listeners. The CD format - as originally designed by Philips and Sony - was a pretty good medium for its day.
Unfortunately, we have DAB broadcasting which has led to a severe reduction in the quality of audio available "off-air". In an effort to cram ever more stations into the multiplexes, bit rates are reduced, leading to very poor sound quality.
"Digital" is getting a bad name!
Again - it's instructive to listen to BBC Radio 3 from a DAB receiver against their FM service. Despite the audio response only going to 15 kHz, the FM sounds very much better!
The vinyl fad will soon blow over - when listeners get fed up listening to expensive, scratched records!
EU lawmakers vote to ban sales of combustion engine cars from 2035
Friday 17th June 2022 21:40 GMT
Re: And the UK ?
if the COVID had been left alone and allowed to run its natural course, there would be far less people left in the UK to complain about the current situation...
Err.... No. Actual "deaths from Covid" are about one tenth of the claimed figure. Sadly, the majority of "victims" would have died in that same period, anyway. (Excess Deaths were about the same as a bad flu / pneumonia year - check the figures for 2018 for example).
The figures were inflated by lazy medics who just found it easiest (and still do) to tick the "Covid" box, rather than actually find out what's wrong with people. The UK NHS has virtually collapsed under the weight of the insanity foisted upon us.
Friday 17th June 2022 21:27 GMT
Re: And the UK ?
Sadly Boris is still in thrall to his latest wife, and she's persuaded him to indulge in this "green" nonsense. He (and the rest of the cabinet) still think that "wind energy" is "green" and "endless" - they STILL don't understand that the bird-mincers actually CONSUME more over their lifetime than they ever generate....
Nobody in government will consider nuclear power - they're all scared of it.
They still haven't realised the problems with lack of electrical infrastructure despite the exploding pavements in Islington when every "green" numpty plugs in his electric car.....
There's little or no hope for most of the "civilised" world as long as this green stupidity continues.
I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems all too well
Saturday 11th June 2022 01:46 GMT
Re: Computing smarts in the cloud
My aged Father used Mint from 2013 until his demise last year. He was 89, and had found that it was easy to use and maintain. After the initial support calls (back in 2013), he was able to update and upgrade his system himself, and encouraged any number of his similarly aged friends to make the same move.
California Right-to-Repair bill quietly killed in committee
Tuesday 7th June 2022 23:02 GMT
Re: Not just tech
Err... Not quite. Deere sales have collapsed in some territories. The advent of cheaper, equally efficient machinery from the Orient has ensured that their sales will disappear altogether eventually - there's now no reason (except for American jingoistic masochism) to buy the over-priced American kit.
Voyager 1 space probe producing ‘anomalous telemetry data’
John Deere tractors 'bricked' after Russia steals machinery from Ukraine
Wednesday 4th May 2022 21:20 GMT
As an aside.....
Macrovision is trivially disabled by detecting frame syncs, and replacing the first 11 lines of each frame with a mid-grey. The Macrovision signal - which consists of over-peak white and black alternating signals in the first few lines of each frame (designed to freak out the AGC of video recorders) - is thus replaced with a benign, average signal, and video normality is returned!
The circuit to achieve this is trivial - a monostable switching off the video for a few lines, triggered by a frame sync detector, and switching on a DC level for the video content.
Beanstalk loses $182m in huge flash-loan crypto heist
Windows 11 usage stats within touching distance of... XP
Friday 22nd April 2022 12:55 GMT
I (almost?) got week-long uptimes from my workstations (didn't bother to power them down, but they were rebooted each weekend).
I've got a machine at a radio studio running Mint 18, with an uptime of over four years!. It's running 24 / 7 / 365 and has yet to fail! My only concern is for the spinning rust drive.....
Friday 22nd April 2022 12:34 GMT
"Upgrades"?
Win 10 "updates" now appear to slow down and sometimes even cripple otherwise working installs. With each update, Win 10 gets slower and less stable. MS tell us that the "cure" is to "upgrade" to Win 11....
This feels like a forced "upgrade" and the hobbling of Windoze 10 is deliberate. The amount of data shipped to MS under normal usage has increased significantly under Win 11 - is there even more spyware in this latest version?
The abysmal performance of Windows 10 and 11 on even the most modern hardware suggests that a migration to OS (probably Linux Mint) is the best option for my clientele. I think that this is close to the end for Windows - their "software as a (paid-for) service" model is uneconomical for many users, and is sure to be their downfall....
Not before time!
Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop
Friday 15th April 2022 13:24 GMT
Re: re. Anyone who tells you Linux is hard to use wasn't paying attention
Exactly - a Pi 4 with a cordless keyboard / touchpad device and a nice big monitor has proved to be an excellent "Granny Computer". The only hardware-related thing that she has to remember is to reconnect the charger to the keyboard when she finishes using it. She watches TV, organises her photos (both from her digital camera and from her Android phone), types the occasional letter (and sends it to a shared printer next door) and listens to her favourite Radio Stations.... It does all she wants, and takes little space and power. It's also equipped with a pair of small "bookshelf"-sized self-powered speakers.
The only (minor) issue is that all her neighbors on the "Granny Farm" (OAP Home) now want the same gear!
Friday 15th April 2022 12:57 GMT
Re: Linux "Desktop"
My wife uses Linux (Mint) and has done for some years. She's happy to handle her own updates and upgrades, and seldom has any issue that requires my intervention. She uses an HP laptop and a Dell desktop, and enjoys using both. Email and browser are synchronised across the machines, and she also has log-in rights on the other machines around here (though she seldom does).
Recently, she tried to use "Office" on her sister's machine, and ran into endless problems. It wouldn't even "Save" her work sanely - she was glad to move back to her laptop, where she was able to complete the work they were doing very quickly in Libre Office.
She would tell you - if you asked - that Windows is a complete waste of time, and a very hard way to get things done!
Friday 15th April 2022 12:46 GMT
Re: Linux "Desktop"
A certain ex Prime Minister got a really nice Belgravia house very shortly after signing up HMG to several more years of Windows woes. No money changed hands, but (as described above) it was a "very effective use of money"!
Just remember - "any politician who leaves office richer than when he went in is corrupt"!
Help, my IT team has no admin access to their own systems
How experimental was Microsoft's 'experimental banner' in File Explorer?
Friday 18th March 2022 19:24 GMT
Re: Why is easy
MS will discover (the hard way, as usual) that if provoked, a significant proportion of their users will actively seek to migrate away....
Recently I've seen any number of Win10 / 11 installs choke themselves to a halt. The OS gets slower with every "update", and performance eventually collapses to being unusably slow....
It's at this point that they try Mint or something else equally friendly, and there's no going back! I can't count the number of machines that I've reinstalled lately - all reasonably recent and quick laptops, and all with Windows in "Molasses Mode"..... Many people I know have made that move, and none have regretted it!
The right to repairable broadband befits a supposedly critical utility
Friday 18th March 2022 15:07 GMT
Re: Lightning Protection
I used to design telephone line connected gear - answering machines, fax machines and the like. The only lightning protection that worked at all effectively assumed that a good, solid mains earth with low ELI was available, and used a pair of tritium-filled gas discharge tubes. These were the only protectors that were fast enough to handle lightning spikes.
Of course, because they were filled with a slightly radioactive gas, the "green" eco-loons banned them, depriving manufacturers of telecom equipment from the only lightning protectors that worked at all!
Privacy is for paedophiles, UK government seems to be saying while spending £500k demonising online chat encryption
Saturday 22nd January 2022 04:54 GMT
Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....
FFS stop calling that clown "Boris". That's just a cuddly affectation suggested by his PR people. His name is "Alexander Johnson". Sounds a lot less cuddly, doesn't it?
Just remember - his ex-girlfriend is Ghislaine Maxwell...... That should tell you all you need to know about him.....
Linux Mint 20.3 appears – now with more Mozilla flavor: Why this distro switched Firefox defaults back to Google
Friday 14th January 2022 16:18 GMT
I've installed several different flavours of Linux on Thinkpads over many years, and have never had to "recompile" anything - ever. It Just Works™
The lightly used Fourth generation X1 carbon thing I recently bought secondhand is just about the best laptop I've ever seen, cost about one sixth of the price of the cheapest Mac laptop, and has a significantly better specification than even their highest-end models.
There's no longer any contest - Apple is great if you don't want to learn to use a computer properly, Windows is a waste of space in all environments, and the current crop of the major Linux distros are superb: Easy to install and configure, efficient, stable and secure.
There's no longer any contest!
Friday 14th January 2022 15:57 GMT
Re: And this is why
I've run a "modern Mac" and it's truly horrible - the way they force you to use their choices, with no chance to change anything is contrary to the way most sensible people might like to configure their own computers.
Similarly, Windows takes choices out of the hands of users, and I (generally) don't like their choices. I also don't like the performance hit of running such a nasty, bloated, unstable mess.
Linux Mint has served my (and many of my friends) very well for year. The Mint team has (generally) made sensible choices, but if you don't like them, you can change them to suit yourself! The freedom that this provides is truly refreshing.
The dark equation of harm versus good means blockchain’s had its day
Sunday 12th December 2021 12:20 GMT
Re: Lack of comprehension and imagination ...
FFS - don't conflate "climate change" with crypto currency. Both are non-problems:
"Climate Change" is a ridiculous political construct use to scare the average idiot into unwarranted compliance.
Crypto currencies will live or die according to their utility - just like any other currency.
How do you call support when the telephones go TITSUP*?
Saturday 4th December 2021 14:44 GMT
Re: Local Calls?
The one that was really amusing was back in the '80s, when I set up a "Call Diverter" across two phone lines in a Vicar's Frocks Shop ("Clerical Garb" Shop) in Surrey, and diverted the incoming calls to our naughty broadcasting studio in Dulwich. The Diverter was operated by a timeswitch so that it only worked at night, and so, on the air at night, "Bedside Radio" gave out the shop's phone number as our "Call-In" number!
There were two side effects of this:
During the business day, the Mother of one of our DJs worked at the shop, so fielded any Radio Station calls she received....
....and, better yet, the "Radio regulatory Authorities" (and the Police) raided the Clerical Garb Outlet looking for our pirate studio!
Google's VirusTotal reports that 95% of ransomware spotted targets Windows
Sunday 17th October 2021 00:37 GMT
Re: The hubris of Apple (oops I meant Google)
Windows' security is broken by design, and it is not fixable without a major redesign.
....Actually, it's just NOT possible to secure at all. That's the way the NSA wanted it, and the fundamental corporate inability of MS to understand the real nature of the problem ensures that it'll never be fixed.
Sometimes we all feel a bit like Shutting Down. So just imagine how tired Windows 7 is
Giant Tesla battery providing explosion in renewable energy – not as intended
Monday 2nd August 2021 21:10 GMT
Re: 300 MW
300 MW for a few minutes is insignificant. Australia does have some measure of power distribution between states, so the problem of consistent power generation is distributed somewhat. Their stupid moves towards solar and wind generation have made giant UPS efforts like these necessary.
Pretty soon they'll realise that their insane "green" generation schemes aren't going to work. They'll find that their commerce is crippled by the intermittency that they'll suffer (the Californians have just realised this and are about to do something about it by commissioning the construction of several nukes!).
A paper has recently been presented to the UK government, laying out the utter stupidity of their "green" power proposals, and amply demonstrating that this government has little time in which to dither around "deciding" what to do.
Unless significant amounts of generation capacity is added to the grid very soon, the UK will have rolling power cuts (that's why your "Smart Meter" has a remotely controllable contactor inside it). The closure of most of the old nuke stations has precipitated this collapse in power infrastructure, and no number of worthless bird mincing windmills and solar arrays are going to make up the energy shortfall.
The UK doesn't have the engineering capacity or a sufficiently educated populace to deal with the problem any more. The UK government will have to hire in expensive "talent" from elsewhere. It really is a shambles!
Monday 2nd August 2021 20:52 GMT
The battery systems simply don't have sufficient capacity to do much useful work. They are a solution for your desktop PC, so that you have time to back up your work before the battery dies.
They're truly useless for anything large scale, are incredibly expensive, are ridiculously inefficient and tend to burst into flames (this is NOT the first of these storage arrays to self-immolate!).
Monday 2nd August 2021 20:45 GMT
Re: Smoke 'em if you've got 'em.
Fun how people understand the purpose behind Dinorwig, but seem to have problems with a high-tech version.
It's actually a very low-tech, terribly inefficient way of trying to stabilise a power grid that is fundamentally unstable because of the insane adoption of solar and wind generation. The battery plant doesn't have sufficient capacity to make a significant difference, and is outrageously expensive.
Conversely, the pumped storage power stations actually work - particularly where there is spare off-peak generating capacity provided by nukes. They're also very cheap and very efficient when compared to these stupid, giant UPS efforts!
The only viable forms of generation for the future are nukes (both uranium and thorium cycles), hydro, tidal (to a small extent) and pumped storage to handle demand peaks. Nothing else comes at all close to the cleanliness, efficiency and stability of such a generation system. We have to overcome the uneducated stupidities of the "greenies", and get some governments on this planet with some real foresight and intelligence (probably a vain hope....)
Rackspace literally decimates workforce: One in ten staffers let go this week
Tuesday 27th July 2021 10:29 GMT
Re: Leveraged buyouts should be illegal
Nope - Maplin's error was to try to be "Tandy". They loaded up their shops with rubbish that nobody wanted to buy (especially since you could get better gear at lower prices from Richer Sounds and Novatech). They virtually stopped their original core business of selling electronic components to hobbyists, and the few parts that they continued to stock were ridiculously overpriced. They completely lost the plot when they were taken over by some "private equity" company....
BOFH: Here in my car I feel safest of all. I can listen to you ... It keeps me stable for days
Googler demolishes one of Apple's monopoly defenses – that web apps are just as good as native iOS software
Tuesday 4th May 2021 13:01 GMT
Re: "Safari's lack of compatibility with web standards... "
How does that differ from Microsoft's many attempts to dictate web standards to "suit" their entirely non-standard, incompatible web browsers Internet Exploder and Edge? MS have been playing this game since the Netscape days, ensuring that IIS wouldn't render properly on non-MS browsers.
Granted that Apple's business tactics are pretty shabby (and their insanely expensive SDKs are deliberately designed to prevent third party software development), but isn't this just more of the same?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
