Uh-huh.
And the best way to counter the 'complexity' buzz was to chant 'legacy'...'legacy'...'legacy'...five frikkin' times?
Oh, well, at least it's five, not fifteen as another author managed to pull off.
1143 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Feb 2013
Battery level & input fluctuations usually do not matter. Motherboard DC-DC converters will keep internal voltages pretty stable, and cut power off if any boundaries are breached. Unless somebody has screwed up in DC-DC converter design.
More likely causes:
- EMI interferences during power surges
- power saving mechanisms may try to lower RAM refresh rate when battery level gets low
Take a look at CPU errata sheet. Maybe some of it rings a bell.
intel.com/design/mobile/specupdt/314079.htm
GS45 & other Montevina chipsets
www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/specification-update/mobile-4-express-chipset-family-graphics-memory-controller-hub-specification-update.pdf
965 series chipsets (Santa Rosa)
intel.com/Assets/PDF/specupdate/316274.pdf
Probably because you got bitten by the old adage - never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence / sloppiness / pennypinching. While it may be hard to believe the staggering amount of ersatz out in the wild - never fear, there's even more.
Have some upvotes for your commendable efforts. And keep digging.
"I well remember hearing the sonic boom of an evening, growing up in Cornwall... How come we had to put up with it??"
Not to mention flocks of military birds dashing about. Sometimes going supersonic at stupid'o'clock during their scrambling exercises. Guess you just learn to live with it.
In distant 80's even Tu-160 sonic booms were survivable. Although they certainly catched some attention.
"Other breaking news, I would never buy a security product with *Spy* in the name. You are just asking for trouble."
That may be too harsh. Spybot S&D is a honest product. Started as a personal undertaking.
Snippets from their old v1 EULA:
Dedication Public License (DPL)
I.a. Dedication
Spybot-S&D is dedicated to the most wonderful girl on earth.
I.c. Conclusion
This means that I grant you the license to use Spybot-S&D as much as you like. But if you like it, I ask two things of you: say a prayer for me (and the most wonderful girl while you're at it ) to your god - or whatever you believe - and wish us some luck.
"I'm pretty sure I do not earn a "digital" salary"
Maybe you do. Does your paycheck show binary zeroes or decimal? They may look fairly similar for the uninitiated, non-digital mind, but it is a crucially important distinction for the digital economy. Just like Yahoo! exclamation mark isn't just any old exclamation mark.
Maybe we could convince Bong to elaborate on this matter in a future article.
"However, computer programming is a lot more important than Shakespeare, which is obvious from the fact that there are a lot more people who've been positively affected by computer programming than have been positively affected by Shakespeare (particularly all of the people who don't know English)"
Obvious? Fact? Pfft. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
That phrase, by the way, has made its way into hundreds of cultures and languages, as Shakespeare happens to be one of the most translated authors in history. It's far from the English-only phenomenon. His works are customary among the literature taught in public schools. Not to mention schools of actors all over the world - one simply cannot evade Shakespeare there.
"It was indeed the DX that had the coprocessor"
Yes, it had 80387-derivated floating point in it. SX didn't. SX was supposedly upgradeable, but Overdrive co-processors sold for that were essentially full DX processors. With even higher pricetag than DX.
"I think DX2 had some extras, and DX4 had a specific maths/3D coprocessor that allowed Quake to run!"
No. DX2 had its internal clock doubled, DX4 tripled. DX2/66 meant front side bus at 33 MHz and internal clock at 66.
For DX4, voltage had to be reduced to 3.3 volts in order to reach 99/100 MHz. Haven't heard of any further bits in DX4. Quake could launch on a normal 486DX. But minimum requirements demanded a Pentium. So it was down to horsepower, or lack of it.
Since we're splaffing secrets here:
- post as AC
- edit the post
- untick checkbox 'Post anonymously'
- choose an icon
- hit 'Submit'
Voilá. Post stays anonymous, but is decorated with an icon.
It's probably a quirk in the forum code and will be corrected Anytime Soon®. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Oh, there's an article about that. Who'd have thought it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.2
"Windows 3.11 was released on November 8, 1993. It did not add any feature improvements over Windows 3.1; it only corrected problems."
"Windows for Workgroups 3.1 (originally codenamed Winball and later Sparta), released in October 1992,[14] is an extended version of Windows 3.1 that features native networking support. It comes with SMB file sharing support via NetBIOS-based NBF and/or IPX network transport protocols"
"Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (originally codenamed Snowball) was released on August 11, 1993,[15] and shipped in November 1993."
"A Winsock package was required to support TCP/IP networking in Windows 3.x. Usually third-party packages were used, but in August 1994, Microsoft released an add-on package (codenamed Wolverine) that provided TCP/IP support in Windows for Workgroups 3.11."
BOFH calls them Serial Whiners. Should be a part of standard training.
www.theregister.co.uk/2000/05/03/bofh_signs_up_for_m/
"First stop, the Serial Whiner, to break his spirit. I mention he should make a minor alteration to her machine, (ie. move the mouse), which'll mean the next 1000 problems she has will be his fault."
Also:
bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/1999/bastard99-20.php
bofh.bjash.com/Bastard1999.html
"Single worst customer I ever had (with me in IT support role) was a student of law."
Yes, those can be nasty. Inflated egos, overconfidence, legal threats, references to laws that do not quite apply.
But a student of psychology can also be a nuisance. Especially when there is a conflict situation brewing. When an accusation gets thrown about, things get quite illogical, there is no good way to repeal the accusation. Word 'no' means 'yes', because denial. Long and detailed explanation is obviously an attempt to dodge. Silence is a sign of agreement. Snarkiness is just a sign of inability to admit the truth. So it doesn't matter what is said, she's always right. Isn't that wonderful.
I could swear it was the other way around - Sys V base with BSD bits mashed in. Wikipedia article seems to concur.
"AIX Version 1, introduced in 1986 for the IBM 6150 RT workstation, was based on UNIX System V Releases 1 and 2. In developing AIX, IBM and Interactive Systems Corporation (whom IBM contracted) also incorporated source code from 4.2 and 4.3 BSD UNIX."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_AIX
"Which itself was based on a version of the V1 engine"
Shame you should say that! V2 is a complete rewrite - modern technologies, enhanced user experience, advanced communication capabilities, better socialization features, compliant with every modern buzzword out there. You name it & we've got it.
"Er... is there a reason you're removing kb2952664 twice"
Probably. When doing manual removal, I noticed that KB2952664 didn't disappear on the first attempt. Can't tell whether it always behaves like that. This KB was re-issued at some point, so it may have been an update on top of the similarly named update.
In RAID10 (excepting 0+1 variants), disk rebuild means copying data from one partner disk. Obviously requiring this partner disk to be in perfect health.
For a 4-disk array, risks of a rebuild failure are 3 to 1 (as RAID5 requires 3 good disks to copy from, RAID10 requires 1). For 8-disk array the ratio increases to 7:1, and so forth.
"screen repairs are one major reason to buy Apple - costs are very competitive and rarely go over $120. Contrast with Android or other phones which typically start @ $200"
It has to be something big or special to cost over $200. I just had one replaced for €70 - and it was a bloody sandwich with 4 layers glued together. Other phone had LCD panel as a separable part, only €30. Labour included.
I have a nagging suspicion that web browsers are spawns of dark magic. In that case, it would be folly to throw any further amounts at them, it only makes them stronger.
Well-aimed lightning bolts have somewhat better chances. If your Mac is reduced to a smoldering ruin, then evil ghosts will have to leave. Probably.
"If they built it big enough it would (probably) work. That would cost a lot of money and governments have pointless wars that they prefer to finance."
Ah, they're just following the genie from this old story:
A Princeton plasma physicist is at the beach when he discovers an ancient looking oil lantern sticking out of the sand. He rubs the sand off with a towel and a genie pops out. The genie offers to grant him one wish. The physicist retrieves a map of the world from his car an circles the Middle East and tells the genie, 'I wish you to bring peace in this region'.
After 10 long minutes of deliberation, the genie replies, 'Gee, there are lots of problems there with Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, and all those other places. This is awfully embarrassing. I've never had to do this before, but I'm just going to have to ask you for another wish. This one is just too much for me'.
Taken aback, the physicist thinks a bit and asks, 'I wish that the Princeton tokamak would achieve scientific fusion energy break-even.
After another deliberation the genie asks, 'Could I see that map again?'
"Which is presumably why, decades later, power supplies tend to be universal now. Eventuallly the feedback got through to the factories?"
It wasn't just a matter of decision. It took years of serious engineering to get universal input supplies good enough for mass market. Starting from notebook AC adapters where it mattered most. During development there were major obstacles like cost, complexity, reliability, conversion efficiency. Plus a zillion of lesser hurdles.
Yes, mature corporations tend to have some similarities, which is rather worrying.
There's one more: by tradition, leaders of the communist party occupied several governing positions - either heading the executive branch, or legislative branch. Conflation of duties tends to be a bad omen. It didn't matter very much in the USSR, because all influential positions were tightly controlled by the party, down to the street level, so the system was screwed anyway.
Megacorps seem more like stagnation-era Soviet Union. There are at least 3 key similarities:
- Internally they operate by the principle of planned economy. Plans are sacred. Markets may sometimes be acknowledged in words, but in practice they'll try to avoid influences from that scary unpredictable wilderness at any cost.
- Unified propaganda service that uses a lot of doublespeak and newspeak. Gaps are occasionally filled with pure noise.
- They have an enormous caste of administrative personnel and a rather mild cult of the leadership. Apparatchiks pay some lip service to the upper echelon, trying to parrot as much phrases from the official propaganda as they can. But in everyday life they just play by the byzantine rules of bureaucracy, mostly unwritten and obscure, rarely changed as the leaders come and go.
I tend to agree with your unexpressed concern - yes, it's not fair to 'punish' big and diverse group of people for words and actions of their head honchos. Too much collateral damage. Not to mention that collective responsibility is never just, it's a leftover from tribal societies.
If some specific individuals leading the crusade against constitutional rights would see their dirty laundry out in the open...that'd be much more fitting.
OTOH, those big honchos don't seem to have any qualms about invading the life of millions to catch few perpetrators. Where's the fairness in that.
You probably misread these comments. Among IT folks, prevailing interest is to have privacy for everyone. With a (somewhat naïve) hope that everyone would like to play by the same book and would respect the privacy of others.
That's clearly not the case for the law enforcement and secret services. High-ranking officials are rather constantly banging on the notion that privacy serves no other purpose than providing a cover for nefarious people. Which is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you ask me.
Anyhow, if that "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" mantra is repeated endlessly, it is only natural that people will want to put it to the test. Should it become apparent that these mockers of privacy are using double standards, you'll witness a good deal of schadenfreude. As you just did.
Schadenfreude is a rather nasty emotion, of course, but quite frequently it's a normal response to seeing an even nastier mindset going down in flames.