I will just drop that here: "Outlook" was pronounced as "Out Of Luck" in some communities I have been... it might be still.
Posts by The Dark Side Of The Mind (TDSOTM)
60 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Sep 2012
Windows isn't an OS, it's a bad habit that wants to become an addiction
Monday 28th April 2025 18:12 GMT
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
Thursday 24th April 2025 18:58 GMT
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
How datacenters use water – and why kicking the habit is nearly impossible
Monday 6th January 2025 08:49 GMT 
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
Honored guest Bork visits Warsaw, Poland
Open source router firmware project OpenWrt ships its own entirely repairable hardware
Google Cloud shows it can break things for lots of customers – not just one at a time
Raspberry Pi OS 5.2 is here, with pleasant tweaks to Wayland-based desktop
GPS interference now a major flight safety concern for airline industry
Wednesday 31st January 2024 02:17 GMT
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
Google dumps 12,000 employees after project probe
Monday 23rd January 2023 04:03 GMT
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
To make this computer work, users had to press a button. Why didn't it work? Guess
Friday 21st October 2022 22:48 GMT
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
Zero-day vuln in Microsoft Office: 'Follina' will work even when macros are disabled
Ransomware encrypts files, demands three good deeds to restore data
Supercomputer to train 176-billion-parameter open-source AI language model
Sunday 27th March 2022 22:10 GMT
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
Research finds consumer-grade IoT devices showing up... on corporate networks
Computer scientists at University of Edinburgh contemplate courses without 'Alice' and 'Bob'
In space, no one can hear cyber security professionals scream
Windows 11 will roll out from October 5 as Microsoft hypes new hardware
Right to repair shouldn't exist – not because it's wrong but because it's so obviously right
Hey, AI software developers, you are taking Unicode into account, right ... right?
Is it broken yet? Is it? Is it? Ooh that means I can buy a sparkly, new but otherwise hard-to-justify replacement!
Autoforwarding in Exchange Online falls over due to a problematic spam rule deployment
Boffins improve on tech that extracts DC power from ambient Wi-Fi
Your private data has been nabbed: Please update your life as soon as possible while we deflect responsibility
Scientists stumped by strange X-rays from Uranus
That awful moment when what you thought was a number 1 turned out to be a number 2
Tinfoil hat brigade switches brand allegiance to bog paper
Saturday 14th March 2020 13:57 GMT
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...
Sadly, the web has brought a whole new meaning to the phrase 'nothing is true; everything is permitted'
Tech can endure the most inhospitable environments: Space, underwater, down t'pit... even hairdressers
So you locked your backups away for years, huh? Allow me to introduce my colleagues, Brute, Force and Ignorance
Doogee Wowser: The S40's a terrible smartphone, but a passable projectile
The silence of the racks is deafening, production gear has gone dark – so which wire do we cut?
Sunday 17th November 2019 17:50 GMT
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.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
