Posts by abortnow

How to destroy expensive test kit: What does that button do?

Re: "Do not press" button

Read of a toy box with a button and two windows.

One lit reading "Press to test".

Push button.

Other window lights with "Release to detonate".

License to thrill: Ahead of v13.0, the FreeBSD team talks about Linux and the completed toolchain project that changes everything

Re: Says it all

As stated in the article, some corporations using FreeBSD do give back in the form of development.

One not mentioned in the article is iXsystems who not only do that but give away TrueNAS Core (was FreeNAS) - a popular storage OS. This gives the same code that is used (with additions) on their heavyweight commercial systems much more exposure.

I have been a happy FreeBSD user for over twenty years, for a long time knitting my own firewalls and storage servers, but a while back I switched over to pfSense and FreeNAS / TrueNAS appliances. I now have just two FreeBSD systems - and they are Hyper V VMS.

Baby Yoda stowed away on Crew Dragon, boards International Space Station

Re: $2700 per kilo?

Robert A. Heinlein in The Man Who sold The Moon. Published 1950.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon

The technical problems are solvable with money and talent. To solve the tougher financial problems, Harriman exploits commercial and political rivalries. He implies to the Moka-Coka company, for example, that rival soft drink maker 6+ plans to turn the Moon into a massive billboard, using a rocket to scatter black dust on the surface in patterns. To an anti-Communist associate, he suggests that the Russians may print the hammer and sickle across the face of the Moon if they get to it first. To a television network, he offers the Moon as a reliable and uncensorable broadcasting station.

Start Me Up: 25 years ago this week, Windows 95 launched and, for a brief moment, Microsoft was almost cool

One account of the Windows 95 experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOwQKWiRJAA

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin. Hang on, the PDP 11/70 has dropped offline

As I recall, the reset button was originally the other way up, till frequent resets of one machine were traced to a buxom operator who often unwittingly depressed the switch when sitting down.

Everything must go! Distributors clear shelves of ALL notebooks in Q2, even ones gathering dust over last 12 months

I am now retired, but while working and now my home IT gear has always been rather more than most IT staff have at home. Even so, much of my work was done either directly on a works laptop (nothing else could establish a work VPN) or via it to the real kit. The power of works laptops was dependant on need. Only developers, with management approval, got beefy machines. Most were not replaced until at least 5 years old. New starters generally got functional but old machines. Few could write to CD/DVD or USB devices without the result being encrypted. I could, as I had a need to produce boot devices. This was challenged at least annually. I had to fight hard to justify my retaining my works PC as well as a laptop.

For a while I had a works rack-mount screaming away in a spare(ish) room at home to test various ESXI upgrade paths and guest behaviour. That made me stop yearning for a rack of my own.

Boolean bafflement at British Airways' Executive Club: Sneaky little Avioses - Wicked, Tricksy, False!

One way of spending Avios

If you have them and do not want to try to use them for a flight, you can buy wine and spirits with BA Avios. Expensive, but better than wasting them.

I've had it with these motherflipping eggs on this motherflipping train

Re: Oh boy.. An egg...

I enjoyed it, or something very similar. Shark, flensed, buried for 6 months, dug up, cubed. No mention of air drying. Our 12-strong tourist group were served tasty little white cubes and alcohol, then told of how it was made, finishing with "...and then served to unsuspecting tourists like you."

How do you do, fellow kids? Facebook now Boomerbook as British oldies outnumber teens

Re: Hey, remember the 2000s?

Some web forums are still serving a useful role.

I'll just clear down the database before break. What's the worst that could happen? It's a trial

Re: BTDTGTTS

I seem to recall that the commands should be issued separately, to allow the syncs a chance of working while you were typing.

Fujitsu 'continues to bludgeon through' UK, Ireland job cuts – union

Re: Odd thought

In short, ICL was bought by Fujitsu, after a decade or so they decided it could not be sold as a going concern and brought it in house, thereafter shedding a lot of staff.

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Computers_Limited#Fujitsu

ICL's relationship with Fujitsu started in 1981, when ICL needed a cheaper source of technology to develop lower-end machines in the 2900 range to compete with the IBM 4300 series. At this stage ICL was developing its own LSI technology for use in the higher-end machines, designed as a successor to the highly successful 2966 processor (known internally as S3). ICL had visited a number of companies during 1980 including Fujitsu and Hitachi to identify potential suppliers.

In early 1981 ICL ran into a financial crisis, leading to a full takeover bid from Univac; but the British Government stepped in with a loan guarantee, enabling the company to stay independent. As part of this rescue agreement, Robb Wilmot arrived as CEO in May 1981.

Wilmot cancelled ICL in-house LSI technology development, and negotiated an agreement that gave access to Fujitsu's LSI and packaging technologies, which, when combined with ICL's in-house CAD capability, enabled ICL to design and manufacture the DM1 and Estriel machines, later marketed very profitably as Series 39 level 30 and 80.

Initially the collaboration with Fujitsu was presented as being an arm's length one, to avoid diluting ICL's credentials as a European and British company. However, Fujitsu's involvement with ICL at both the financial and the technical level steadily increased over the subsequent two decades, leading first to 100% ownership and subsequently to the full integration of ICL into the Fujitsu company and the dropping of the ICL brand.

In 1990 Fujitsu acquired 80% of ICL plc from the parent STC plc, paying USD 1.29 billion. In 1998 Fujitsu became ICL's sole shareholder.

Cheap NAND nasty: Flooding market with chips threatens prices

goggle translate English->German->English gives

"The ASP of NAND Flash will decline in the third quarter of 18 and in the fourth quarter of 18 by about 10 percent each"

ASP - Average Selling Price?

SanDisk's little microSD card sucks up 400GB

Re: honest question

I have a couple of 200 GB cards in a FiiO 5 music player. Not large enough for my excessively big mainly music collection. Unfortunately the number of tracks broke the FiiO's ability to index them, leaving just navigation which is s l o w, so I won't be splashing out on 400 GB cards.

Re: a bit more ancient, perhaps !

My personal hard disks have included:

A 1 MB (equivalent) IBM 2315 disk pack for a university 1130, in 19:69.

A 25 MB drive (Cumana?) for an Amstrad PPC.

A 300MB full height (like a shoe box) drive for an early PC clone, preceded by a ~100 MB drive which was far too small for SCO OpenDeathTrap.

I was startled by the small physical size of my first 1 GB drive.

Nowadays my biggest drives are 4* and 8* 8 TB drives in a couple of NASs.

I wonder when 8 TB SSDs will become affordable.

IT firms guilty of blasting customers with soul-numbing canned music

Re: Suggestions for tech firms' hold music

A real example from long ago as I waited in a call cue on a transatlantic help desk call

Borland International - Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone

Intel's Atom C2000 chips are bricking products – and it's not just Cisco hit

Aargh!

I have two potentially affected boxes:

iXsystems FreeNAS Mini

CPU: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU C2750 @ 2.40GHz (2400.06-MHz K8-class CPU)

Nothing yet in the FreeNAS forum.

Netgate pfSense SG-2220 firewall

CPU: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU C2338 @ 1.74GHz (1750.04-MHz K8-class CPU)

User comments and questions already present in pfSense forum. No response yet from Netgate.

Plus the FreeNAS Mini XL I have on order (8-(

Very annoying that this quite expensive kit should have such a problem. Thanks Intel. Some of us have not yet forgotten the Pentium FDIV saga.

Echopraxia scores 'diamond cutter' on the sci-fi hardness scale

I greatly enjoyed Ancillary Justice.

One man's meat ...

Boffins, Tunnel Tigers and Scotland's world-first power mountain

Re: Splendid!

I enjoyed it too. More like this too, please.