Re: Skip "AI" results in firefox
A clear case of Keming then!
497 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Sep 2012
I had that chain of thought in Singapore once. I found a really nice antique aircraft clock in a second hand shop and was going to buy it. But then I realized the hands were coated in radium luminous paint, and I really didn't want to have a chat with the anti-terrorism department of customs on my return to the UK.
Pfffft. My local pub used serve it's strongest beer in 1/3 pint glasses and you could only buy two. Otherwise you'd be totally off your tits in no time.
Other similar beers are Old Tom and those lovely Belgian Trappist ales. I had one of those a few years ago on a warm summer's afternoon and discovered my legs just wouldn't work afterwards. Result!
Couldn't agree more with the comments about write protect switches, but that doesn't go far enough. When I were nobbut a young lad, software was on eproms. You had to erase it (*) before you could rewrite it and variables were in ram. I've always thought the way modern pc's work is insane because there's no distinction in ram between code and variables. That's why you can (or used to be able to) overwrite code with a longer than expected command line.
Put code in write protected flash memory. Put variables in ram. Yes, I know everything arrives from the disk and gets plonked in ram on boot, but that's the source of the problem. Modern SSDs are all flash anyway, so connect them as a large parallel memory block and write protect it. Securely sign updates and make sure the user has to allow them. Don't allow constant automatic updates all the time, which are probably only there to fix bugs in the previous updates.
Code in flash means absolutely instant boot after all, instead of having to wait ages before the stupid thing gets it's arse in gear.
I may well get downvotes for this, but it's coming from how things _used_ to work, which admittedly isn't as convenient as it all is now. But what do people want? Either a reliable machine which does what it's told, or a total mess of constantly shifting functionality which can turn against you in a heartbeat?
(*) By taking it out of its socket and putting it into a UV eraser. This was only a few years after the big bang.
@TheMaskedMan
Don't know why you got downvotes there. If I have a workshop with a fragile roof (In the UK at least) I must put signs up to warn scroats who climb up and try to break in through it, only to find themselves injured from the 10m drop that ensues. Otherwise I get arrested as well as the scroat.
Well yes, I had wondered about that.
What the UK the EU could do is wait till the US tech companies' shares totally tank ... and buy them. Then those companies would no longer be US ones. They do make money after all, and it'd be easier to regulate them.
It's apparently what the Orange Moron wants; although the tech bros fed him offerings before the election he still hates them.
I remember when nobody in the UK bought US cars because US manufacturers couldn't be arsed to make right hand drive ones and their performance was measured in gallons per mile. They usually had a low-compression V8 with the acceleration of a drugged slug.
After a while we were offered the PT Cruiser, so ugly it rivalled the Edsel. These days they're not quite as bad even though they're the size of buses, but I'd far rather buy a UK or Japanese car than a US one.
"keeping data in motion"
That's the mercury delay line! It sent serial data along a tube of mercury and the receiver at the far end recycled it back to the start again. Not much capacity for today's requirements though. I'm sure there was some setup involving high persistence CRTs as well.
I had that.
Boss: 'Why were you here at 9.15am?'
Me: 'Because I had to stay till 6 last night to fix that stuff you asked me to do.'
Boss: 'I want you here at 9am every day!'
Me: 'No problem, I'll leave at 5pm every day then.'
Boss: 'Rant rant rant rant.....'
After a few months we had the bailiffs in with a walking possession order following the company's failure to pay it's rent. I bought a key piece of equipment from the auction at 10% of what I'd previously ordered it for (logic & processor analyser - very expensive) and earned a living working for myself.
Oddly it went for coppers because nobody knew what it was. Oscilloscopes and computers went for more than their new value!