* Posts by The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

60 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Sep 2012

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Windows isn't an OS, it's a bad habit that wants to become an addiction

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

I will just drop that here: "Outlook" was pronounced as "Out Of Luck" in some communities I have been... it might be still.

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Big Brother

Re: Over the 20 years I have been here...

Closed source drivers lost many hours of my sleep too... I feel your pain.

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Pint

My grandfather used a mainframe built with discrete bipolar transistors, ferrite memory (each bit with its own ferrite torus) and stored data and software on punched cards. He was a civil construction engineer.

I've touched that kind of hardware (still functional in 1991) with awe and reverence during my formative years as technician... but they were already on their last breaths that year already, even in my poor (at that time) corner of the world. Minicomputers built with a mix of TTL and MOS ICs were the backbone of my practical training... and at home I was playing on a ZX Spectrum compatible, learning Z80 assembler (just for the tricks it allowed on that machine)...

Still, about 12-13 years to retirement, and still confined to using windblows at work and at home... but at least my (already 10 y.o.) desktop runs only Xubuntu and I keep a couple of old laptops even older on the same distro to keep al those old joints lubricated :)

Ninite to win it: How to rebuild Windows without losing your mind

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
IT Angle

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

While LTSC versions might "buy" some years of slack, it's generally better to upgrade your PC if you're not technically inclined (or interested) to use Linux or BSD... Just sell the old hardware to those interested after you backed-up your precious data (and eventually licenses for some wares), invest in a upgradeable system (minimum 2 slots for DIMMs), buy the most affordable license for your OS (Oberlicht System) that covers your needs and move on...

In this great article (and in the comments) a Windows user can find enough hints to do a painless upgrade (software wise).

The penguinistas, the home-lab afficionados, the tinkerers - they will be happy to take that perfectly working hardware at a perfectly reasonable price to give it many years of use.

Bear in mind, though, that old hardware is less energy efficient than the newer one.

As always, the truth is out there, usually in some middle place ;)

Microsoft total recalls Recall totally to Copilot+ PCs

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: BTDTGTTS

I wish the powers that be will just consider FOSS...

Some [and/or] most will drink the poison and ask for more...

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Big Brother

#meow2

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Trollface

Re: ...better choices

Errata: please read "cockwobble" instead of "cockwomble"...

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Coat

I wish you the best of luck... and your resident BOFH[s] too...

Just imagine being asked to run SAP [not Hanna] on a not-Redmond-bound machine used by a prominent managing committee..

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Gimp

Re: Resistance is futile

You might have forgotten the Cylons.

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Devil

Re: Recall: Law Enforcement & Class Action Lawyer Wet Dream

Purity tests will be available soon...

How datacenters use water – and why kicking the habit is nearly impossible

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Coat

What about re-using waste heat?

DCs are industrial assets that output "compute" products and waste heat. Why not using that waste heat to reduce energy (and water) consumption in another industrial or residential domain? There was a short article somewhere that described a (small?) DC providing heat to the municipal heating system nearby. AFAIK the silicon wafers are extremely energy intensive to create, requiring sizable chunks of power just to melt the raw materials... Similarly, metallurgy and cement production could benefit from direct heat contribution to their processes...

To me it looks like the Capex is a major driver of decisions regarding the design and placement of the DCs, while Opex is to be transferred into the price of the final product, regardless of the long-term consequences.

I could rant along those lines a lot, but it would be another waste of water and energy to power the DCs and infrastructure needed to provide me with such a marvelous fondleslab :P

Twigstats software sheds light on mysteries of Europe's old-school migrators

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Joke

Re: Possible reasons for invasions not causing language changes in Britain

Vikings are the *masters* of a powerful text editor.

FTFY

Honored guest Bork visits Warsaw, Poland

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Joke

Re: Windows never worked right

I remember reading somewhere (maybe here) that "Microsoft Works" is the greatest oxymoron. It was in a time when Bill was at the helm...

Open source router firmware project OpenWrt ships its own entirely repairable hardware

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Trollface

Best of two is a melange

A Mikrotik with RouterOS at least Level6 and a bunch of OpenWRT One as access points... plus a person with decent knowledge to bind them all...

Google Cloud shows it can break things for lots of customers – not just one at a time

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Joke

Re: intended to shutdown an unused network control component

This reminds me of the immortal words of Yoggi Berra (to Boo Boo): "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

Raspberry Pi OS 5.2 is here, with pleasant tweaks to Wayland-based desktop

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: 800MB

Or the 48k available 'cause 16k were ROM... Because CP/M wasn't available until Spectrum 3+ for pedestrians like me... and by the time it was available in my corner of the world, the world moved to 16 bits...

GPS interference now a major flight safety concern for airline industry

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Old proven ways with modern approaches

Smarter persons than me already mentioned inertial and celestial systems, as well as known ground references (optical and/or radio based). Adding signal analysis (polarization, power, timed variation and directionality) would be feasible with modern computational means.

I remember that gravimetric maps were considered "strategic and restricted data" on grounds that they were used to at least help ICBMs (and other flying contraptions) to get a reasonable "fix" on the map/path*.

With enough motivation, the industries will find solutions. Politics might interfere a while, for better or for the worse, but with proper incentives, education and training, it's achievable.

I'm an old fart that remembers the time before Internet was available to mere mortals and GPS electronics was carried in a pick-up truck, so I might have an optimistic bias here.

Top Linux distros drop fresh beats

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Linux

Re: Style is optional

Try the solution(s) in https://mxlinux.org/wiki/xfce/changing-border-size-with-xfce4-window-manager/

It's not straightforward but it might work.

Google dumps 12,000 employees after project probe

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Working from Home might have a big advantage

The advantage might be less than one expects, as office buildings often have more efficient HVAC and lighting than average household can afford these days. Also, a lot of trades involve expensive specialized equipment that can't be easily and/or securely lugged to employee's home.

Sure, for plain administrative tasks, working from home *can* be an option, but the reduction on emissions argument must factor in the impact of energy consumption and utilities at the residential level. That would make an interesting study.

Native Americans urge Apache Software Foundation to ditch name

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Boffin

Re: Bit ridiculous

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_ite_domum

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Angel

Re: Bit ridiculous

"1. Isn't God female"

Helloween stated that about that same time...

https://youtu.be/15G7Lpbidos?t=22

To make this computer work, users had to press a button. Why didn't it work? Guess

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: cattle-prod category

Cattle-prod category: users that went through lecture, visual and practical training and still miss-report what they actually did when complaining that the product/system doesn't work.

Sadly, you have cattle-prod category users almost everywhere, with slightly elevated chances to find them in middle to upper manglement.

Dev's code manages to topple Microsoft's mighty SharePoint

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: It's often an IT decision made to save IT $$$

It's often an upper manglement decision made to save $$$ to improve the bottom line after talking with a M$ trained $ale$per$on... IT receives a note that their budget was reduced by 30% (or more).

Zero-day vuln in Microsoft Office: 'Follina' will work even when macros are disabled

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Pint

Nice one. Our "creative" marketing and "digital" departments might be a bit ruffled by that, though.

Given the fact that the alternative is dire, I might not care this time about the "business' views".

Have a cold one on my tab :)

Ransomware encrypts files, demands three good deeds to restore data

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: I couldn't have said it better myself...

... but I could:

Just wipe the disk and install BSD/Linux... No need to "uninstall".

Supercomputer to train 176-billion-parameter open-source AI language model

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: I reckon the first 40 years are the worst.

Only the years from 5th to 20th are to be feared. First 5 are giggles and obsessive care, then after 20 they usually get more or less independent... and less of a nuisance. Also, everything that you do (or don't do) in the 5-20 interval will be used at least once against you at some point more than once (if they survive the first time).

I'm a terrible parent, probably. Time will tell. The same goes with all training models (time and telling), albeit seemingly a bit faster.

Cisco inferno: Networking giant reveals three 10/10 rated critical router bugs

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Here is a bug fix....

Meraki is all nice and cozy until you get the bill(s). And they get you by the ovoids with licensing their dashboard... at least yearly.

Research finds consumer-grade IoT devices showing up... on corporate networks

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Depends what else is in the dishwasher

Fingers from undisclosed owner, stuck in RJ-45 ports.

Computer scientists at University of Edinburgh contemplate courses without 'Alice' and 'Bob'

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Pint

Re: I'll continue to use good grammar whenever I can.

Good grammar deserves a pint.

In space, no one can hear cyber security professionals scream

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: "If it asks whether you want to play a game, may I recommend you select 'no'"

If you accidentally select 'yes', then make sure you choose to play 'tic-tac-toe' instead of 'Go' or 'Chess'.

Windows 11 will roll out from October 5 as Microsoft hypes new hardware

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: disable the TPM in the bios?

Most mid to big corps are making heavy use of TPM (mostly for Bitlocker, but not only).

Right to repair shouldn't exist – not because it's wrong but because it's so obviously right

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: I've lost my google mojo.

Just don't google it. Many others did and lost too much time sifting through advertising and youtube links.

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Consumption

Most of EU (if not all) states have VAT.

Hey, AI software developers, you are taking Unicode into account, right ... right?

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Trollface

Of all the names...

"Nicolas Papernot, co-author of the paper and an AI security researcher"

Paper NOT Nicolas?

Is it broken yet? Is it? Is it? Ooh that means I can buy a sparkly, new but otherwise hard-to-justify replacement!

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Don't recycle that display yet

"You only have one????"

I have only one now because I was giving the other ones away as gifts to some techie friends... But that was around 10-12 years ago.

Autoforwarding in Exchange Online falls over due to a problematic spam rule deployment

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Pint

Re: Yeah

With only 5 years to catch up with yours and noticing that today is Friday... have a cold one from me.

At least we can glimpse more bearable days ahead of us.

Boffins improve on tech that extracts DC power from ambient Wi-Fi

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Proof of concept

Oh, Casio... The devices they make are so underrated... I love their reliability and (often apparent) simplicity.

Your private data has been nabbed: Please update your life as soon as possible while we deflect responsibility

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Fake PII FTW.

Even better, make it that of their competitor's MKTG/HR/CEO.

Scientists stumped by strange X-rays from Uranus

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Not to be confused with ...

Uranus, black holes, auroras and sunshine... What a funny sounding weekend!

That awful moment when what you thought was a number 1 turned out to be a number 2

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Simplified English

Engrish

Tinfoil hat brigade switches brand allegiance to bog paper

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: DIY bidet installation kits

Yeah, plenty of those in my area, at ~40 EUR and change. Made in China, obviously.

The major drawback is they have to be powered somehow from the wall socket and their User Manual is mostly useless. They can vary the pressure, the temperature and the spread of the jets trhough a control panel akin to the remote control of a small toy helicopter.

Installin such a device in a household with kids can provide endless joy...

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: That sounds like ...

"That sounds like a haired brain idea."

FTFY

Sadly, the web has brought a whole new meaning to the phrase 'nothing is true; everything is permitted'

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: a better quality of idiot. maybe.

Nope. They were just fewer and more contained/confined.

Tech can endure the most inhospitable environments: Space, underwater, down t'pit... even hairdressers

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Surprisingly ...

I gather you watched enough of them to get immunized. So did I.

So you locked your backups away for years, huh? Allow me to introduce my colleagues, Brute, Force and Ignorance

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: freezers

The freezers work best for worn-out bearings in (relatively) fast spinning drives, while in the XT era the "stiction" (from "static friction") was caused by the heads getting stuck on the platters... In that case, freezing would do only worse.

Doogee Wowser: The S40's a terrible smartphone, but a passable projectile

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Trollface

Re: Usefulness

"That might defeat the purpose of a cold room, though"

Or would blow the HVAC budget.

The silence of the racks is deafening, production gear has gone dark – so which wire do we cut?

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Coat

Re: The big red button

I once had an "internal" UPS on ISA bus with a lead-acid battery (industry standard by then) stuck inside the mid-tower PC case and secured with 2-sided adhesive tape... It ran flawlessly for almost 6 years until the electrolyte dried a few weeks before a power outage... And it had almost no monitoring capabilities (more than 20 years ago)... That piece got to rest a while in a "spare" equipment for 2 more years before some beancounter decided that the residual value was NIL.

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
Pint

Re: The big red button

Have a pint, you brave soul. Hercules on WfW 3.11 was a nice trick to do back then, more so without proper documentation.

Google promises to be good with Knative as it releases Cloud Run serverless containers

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Google to the Rescue !

... feeding a bit more to the bottom line in the process of "not controlling outcomes".

Come on, you can't be serious: Now Australia mulls face-recog tech for p0rno site age checks

The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)

Re: Hmmmm...

What? A 400x mag of the thing upscaled to 4k?

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