Posts by piscator

There's nothing AI and automation can't solve – except bias and inequality in the workplace, says report

Good

All good points above, nothing to argue with

All good points above

Samsung combines 5G, AI, drones and cloud in conspiracy ... to ease network maintenance costs

Seems like a good idea to me

As per subject line

Lenovo ThinkPad X390: A trusty workhorse that means business but it's not without a few flaws

Politics and history

"are they basically just IBM with an unfortunate made in China sticker ?"

Well, according to wikipedia,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo

"Lenovo acquired IBM's personal computer business in 2005"

I remember it seemed like a very big deal at the time..

Re: Interesting

| Does Linux work on it?

the only question which matters, or *BSD ?

Password1? You're so random. By which we mean not random at all - UK.gov

re: forehead recognition

comment of the week :)

Vale, LOGO creator Seymour Papert, who taught us that code can be creative play

Re: Why can't this be in all schools?

"Or would that kill the joy?" ... no, it would kill off the most important structural feature of current school systems - the teaching of obedience to authority, subservience, "knowing your place", etc. ...

If you want to see how badly schools prepare youth for "Real Life", just check out any set of curriculum documentation - the 2013 "UK" National Curriculum, for example -- you'll find it a depressing experience of backward time-travel ... an example of looking backwards, not forwards :-(

Ordnance Survey unfolds handy Mars map

#wtf: Royal ORDNANCE survey of Mars ???!!!!

Looks like the UK really have set their hearts on leaving Europe after all, but isn't this taking things a bit far ... ?

Fed up with Windows? Linux too easy? Get weird, go ALTERNATIVE

*symbolics* LISP machine - thanks for the memory :)

"Lisp Machines – some say the greatest ever programmer's environment" - indeed, that's how I remember it, (on Symbolics, anyway), though NIL on VAX / VMS was a lot more accessible :)

I remember a guy (Alexander Ogorodnikov - whatever happened to him ?) buying microVAXen on his credit card (AmEx !), putting NIL on them, and selling them on for folk who didn't want something as specialised as a LISP machine. (That or they wanted something they could easily repurpose if the AI team upped and left !)

Now, there's enterprising for you - this was back in 1985 or thereabouts .... yeah, thanks for the memory ! (more memory than NIL had after running for a whole day - oops, no garbage-collection :)

/ramble

why is there an Apple forum?

Mountain LION doesn't seem to be a must have upgrade, was what I meant to say.

Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform

Thanks Eddy, for your interesting comment. As far as the Lion download goes, I have to say you nailed it when you wondered if it's the combination of factors which make it problematic - the size & the dodgy connection particularly. I did manage, in the end, to get an AppleStore ID sorted out, but I wasn't blown over by the speed of my first download, and I don't think I'll be going there (AppleStore) much in the future, if I can help it.

As for the iBook, I was just mentioning it, but your suggestion that I use it to lead my migration is a very good one - it's just not actually in my hands just now as I lent it to a friend in a neighbouring country but if he hasn't lost it in his last house-move, there's a good chance that could be pressed into service as suggested, in about a month's time.

I checked out Gentoo and the various BSDs - they do look good: BSD seems to have quite a good reputation, and I like the option of using ZFS for the future. No, I'm not too scared by compilations if there's a better than evens chance that they'll go smoothly ;-)

As for the iPod, again, I like your suggestions but I may not be able to try them unless I decide to fix its hard disk as I found out recently that's where the problem lies.

So,for the future, I am looking to set up 3 new systems and it would be great if "one system could rule them all" so to speak. A laptop for work & play, a 'sit at home' server for BitTorrent and watching movies, and something portable for tunes. That last item may turn out to be a mobile phone, of course, and the only way to have "one system to rule them all" then, would be an Ubuntu flavour, rather going against all the excellent advice I have here .... Interesting choices I have, and grateful for the input !

As you can probably tell, I'm not in too much of a hurry, but I think it will be this year, not next ... I don't want to be caught out by a must-have OSX upgrade, (no, Snow Leopard doesn't seem to be 'must have'), which might require me to upgrade all the software I currently have.

Thanks again to Jake & Eddy for the input so far.

Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform

Thanks for that, Jake. I checked out Slackware and it does look interesting, however, from what I read there aren't a lot of options for avoiding the command line. As mentioned earlier, I don't mind doing things on the CLI, but I'd rather not do everything that way - I think I might be looking for something with a slightly more streamlined interface, as that was my initial motivation for choosing Macintosh all those years ago. But BSD does look like it might do the business, as another correspondent has suggested, so thanks for that idea too.

Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform

Well Jake, thanks for your thoughtful response. And, yes, 'really, honestly and no bullshit' ....

As for your follow-on questions, last first - it was when I was leaving a software career behind that I decided to go Apple, as their stuff had worked well in the office and was kinda neat, certainly compared to Windows at the same time (this was 1988, remember), and I just wanted something that would just work. That was Apple, back then. Oh, and the stuff lasted for years - I have an iBook G3 from 2004 which still runs, and even a G3 desktop from 1998 which will still, just about, start up.

But my iPod Classic - less than two years old, is about as much use as a paperweight already. Pity, as I was really enjoying it as a media centre. So, there's one platform I think I need a most urgent replacement for - as media-player (using a TV or, in time, projector). But something as portable as the iPod would also be great, (and if it was cheap-as-chips, so much the better - make a BitTorrenting leave-at-home media-centre *and* have tunes in my pocket....)

As for what applications - nothing freaky there, I'm afraid. Like most of us, I have a collection of personal documents to develop (OpenOffice is fine), JPEGs and MP3s and AVIs etc. to enjoy. And I want a bittorrent client, obviously. Actually, I'd like to leave all that at home, so it can run all day on a better internet connection than I have at work. And I'm pretty sure all these applications (I am a F/OSS lover) run on all / most platforms. So it's the platform that this question is still about, not the applications.

So, the question isn't really what do I do, or what do I need, since there's nothing special. The question is as I first framed it - which non-Apple, non-M$ system software is really working for most people out in the real world at the, I guess you could call it, 'prosumer' segment of the market place ? Preferably something I can usefully take to work with me.

It may be that I do the media-centre replacement first, migrate my data (see above), and then keep this hardware (2012 MacBook Pro) to run something else - but the question is still, what's best out there ? Is it Ubuntu - which one ? Is it Mint ? Is it FreeBSD ? Is it a GNU-variant ?

I don't mind if this posting / thread finds another home away from this general discussion.

Thanks for reading....

Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform

Thanks for that, AC 15, but getting the download is the problem !

I don't just want to fix these problems - I really want to find a better platform ! This is not easy for me, Apple has been a significant part of my life <violins>, but, you know, "darling, it's time we both moved on ...", is all I have to say to Apple these days.

The questions is ... where to ... ?

(pre-script the Fanboi icon with an "ex-")

Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform

Not sure whether I should start a new topic, but basically, I think the Apple Mac OS X high-point may have been Snow Leopard. I never had that experience, but I did think Leopard 10.5.8 was just perfect, especially after I "had to upgrade" to Lion 10.7.2 when I bought a new MacBook Pro. (I should have bought it 6 months earlier, then I could have had Snow Leopard).

Anyway, my Lion experiences have really led me to wonder if it is time to leave the Apple Camp. This is no small deal for me, having been a pretty happy Apple user from 1985, and first buying my own in 1989. In fact, I've never spent my own money with any other manufacturer.

What I really don't like :-

* where they fix things that aren't broken - why change the look of a UIF that just works ? (Lion's disappearing scrollbars)

* the system software has to come from Apple's Cloud if I need to re-install - no DVD in the box. I do use TimeMachine for backups, and that has saved my arse a few times, but it's not the whole answer. Where I live and work (developing country), the internet is not something to be relied on.

* most free software has to come through the Apple Store, not just Apple software

* things stop working - right now I'm having an epic time trying to get my iPod Classic (5th gen.) to sync again - it was fine to start with - a few months ago I started getting into situations where the sync is finished - unhook the iPod to find ... it's empty ! And then start all over again !! I've changed nothing - so why this problem ???

* the fact I can't shift iPod contents back onto the MacBook - yeah, I know this is not new, but it's a crazy bind just like the old days when you couldn't get any device in Europe with plug-in record-video capability.

* iTunes 11 is billed as putting my music "in the Cloud" -- wtf ?!?!?! See above about dodgy internet where I live. Anyway, it's my music, I want it local ! More to the point - I want to choose !

So, what to do ?? I don't think I can stay with Apple much longer.

There's almost too much choice out there - it's like buying toothpaste in a foreign country, one is desperate for something that looks just a bit familiar. And the choice is overwhelming - from FreeBSD to *buntu to Mint / Debian ... where to start ?? I am reading a lot of good things about Mint, especially here in El Reg land ....

If I get favourable responses to this posting, I'd like to explore those options - Xubuntu looks interesting, so does Dynebolic and those mentioned above ... I will need something that works well out of the box. I will try and keep the Mac up and running during the hand-over, so, yes, I will have to buy new hardware - probably some kind of laptop.

Thanks for reading. If you think I should start a new thread, just let me know ....

Twenty classic arcade games

This article should have been a survey ?

BattleZone got around 17 mentions .... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1980_video_game) ... apparently it was the first game used in training by the US Army ... but my other favourite, Atari Orbit - got none ! http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8929 What a great game - you could even tweak the physics for more gravity, more / less thrust, absolute / relative direction control .....

Maybe, (like a few other 'tards), I should be getting into MAME and relive these classics a bit !

That Firefox OS mobe: The sorta phone left behind after a mugging

classic !

"The on-site catering situation here is so desperate that by mid-week the Red Cross will be dropping food parcels, or the attendees will start eating each other. Perhaps that’s where Accenture comes in. Now that would be very JG Ballard. ..." Yo ! Where's that zombie icon ?!

Register reader Ray revs radio-controlled Raspberry Pi race rover

just needs to fit one of these ...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/01/wicked_lasers/

then it won't matter if other cars get in front of it -- they won't be there for long !

Shatners talks space, acting with fellow Canuck on ISS

Re: iPads in space?

Good question - any **serious** answers ?

Activists urge Skype: Tell us who is spying on us

Re: Skype - RIP

Sure - Skype ca. 2009 was fine, didn't have to be a sado-masochist to appreciate it - it was a killer app

Skype - RIP

And I'm missing it ..... that.is.all :-(

Asia has fastest internet, launches most cyber-attacks

"Not only ...."

"Not only is Asia home to the world's fastest internet connections, but it's also ...." home to some of the world's slowest and unreliable !! 'packet-sniffing' ? more like 'packet-licking' or even packet-munching in some of these places .... Thank FSM for wget !

Microsoftie's tell-all on 'rival-flinging' Ballmer: The politics of disbelief

Says it all

"the company has spent 12 years throwing billions of dollars at every game-changing technology wave to catch up" ... (and never did .... will they ever learn ?)

DARPA shells out $194m for 'phase 6' of STARnet chip project

Love it !

"And now we know who we have to go back in time to get, Jeffrey ®"

That.is.all

Is this possibly the worst broadband in the world?

FWIW

"... in the World ??". Sorry, but writer needs to get out a bit more .... out here in "a developing country", internet speeds are well off the bottom of any of your scales .... and that's not even the worst problem !

Appreciative note: tech-tards here suggesting careful check of in-home phone wiring ... <shakes in-home wiring hopefully>

Ten stars of CES 2013: Who made the biggest splash?

ASUS have a winner for me anyway ...

the Transformer AiO, a Intel Core i3-based all-in-one desktop running Windows 8 on an 18.4-inch, 1920 x 1080 IPS LCD touchscreen. The novel part: said screen slips out of a dock to become an independently operating Android 4.1 Jelly Bean tablet.

Hey, can leave Windows on the desk ! Idea comes only about 20 years too late ....