Posts by Col_Panek

Office 2016 and 2019 holdouts blame update for license deactivation bug

Re: Proof of Purchase removed successfully.

Oh, sure there is. You can download it from the ZorinOS or Linux Mint websites, and it fixes all those Windows problems.

Re: "Unintentional", my posterior

"...consumer protection"? Why, that's Un-American. Are you a communist/Democrat?

Most people who quit M365 for Google do it out of spite, but there’s no ROI in that

Re: Lesser of the two evils.

MS--> Google

Pot--> kettle

New boss-->same as the Old Boss.

If only we had the nerve to try something else.

I just retired my 2013 Chromebook for a video chip problem. But seriously considering a mobo swap, I bet they're pretty cheap. It runs MX Linux, of course.

Retired man turns spare room into Soviet-era supercomputer

Heater stress

It's not so much the thermal shock, but the resistance of cold tungsten is much lower than the resistance at glowing red temps. When fed with a constant voltage source, they suffer a much higher surge of current just when they are cold and most brittle, which can result in heater burnout. Light bulbs could have a 10:1 hot to cold resistance ratio, and are even more prone to this effect.

Some time ago, I had a side gig wiring 1N540 diodes across the power switches of All American 5 radios. This kept the heaters running at about half power, while the B+ power was cut off by the diode. tubes lasted forever, and the radio could be turned on almost instantly.

German-Japanese researchers invent electricity-free tech that could cool datacenters

Re: non-sensical

Some of us are starting to be suspicious.

Re: where?

Venus does just fine without life forms. Earth did fine being molten lava for quite some time.

Microsoft blames AI for delayed Exchange update, can’t say when it will arrive

Re: Looks like.....

Why bother, when you have a billion beta testers?

Does he have his own Linux distro? Everyone else has.

$1K laser mosquito zapper promises precision strikes as backers itch for answers

A thousand bucks...

... will buy a lot of bat houses.

Google buys crashed airline Spirit’s data at auction, because AI

Re: 13.7 million active emails addresses

Followed by g****.**m

Re: Spirit is now selling its soul

Billions of ohms of resistors? Crates of giveaway flashlight batteries?

Re: Ten millions

They probably learned some new swear words.

Microsoft says 8 GB of RAM should be enough for anyone running Windows 11

Re: They're joking, right?

When I plugged in the chips to bring my Leading Edge D up to 640K, I was on top of the world.

Re: "design is complete when there's nothing more that can be removed"

You oughta read more Bob Pease.

Cassette simulator rewinds digital audio to a more analog time in hiss-tory

It seems like the "musical instrument" standard (keyboards, stomp pedals) is -9 volts on the center pin. Why, I have no idea. Most digital gadgets like routers are +12V. I have marked all mine with big stickers.

Large Hadron Collider goes offline to make room for its enhanced successor

Re: Thinking deeply about this

You explain things to a politician by showing how much money it nets him.

Re: So no risk that ...

The face of the Genius who thinks dark blue is the best color for a shallow pool, thus turning it into an Iranian flag bright green.

Engineer accused of insider trading tied to Microsoft's reboot of Three Mile Island nuclear plant

Re: Insider Trading

And the bigger the cheat, the higher the elected office to slither out of prosecution. In congress (Pelosi) you can only grift millions.

How the AI bubble could pop and take down the global economy, according to the BIS

Re: A genuine "AI" benefit

We get cheap RAM? We have less data centers and cheaper electricity?

Wouldn't it be great if crypto died too? Cheap video cards, and Trump going broke.

Re: In other news

Like Lesotho is "in" South Africa.

Re: Eating Tulip bulbs

Most of ours get eaten by deer. But daffodils are poisonous and nobody eats those.

Hackers shoveled snow for company, were rewarded with network admin access

Re: Interesting

Perjhaps the principle is that annoying legit users is the best way to raise awareness of security. I dunno.

Ukraine puts its Russian war trophies online for allies to pick apart

Teardown?

Let's see an autopsy of President Putin.

Sorry, all repurposed Russian tanks come with no warranty

Micron locks in historically high memory prices for five years

Reuse, not recycle

All those "antique" PCs look good for mining silicon. My free computer is ten+ (?) years old, had 16 GB of RAM. Eight is OK to run any Linux. If people stop buying new machines it might have an effect on prices.

SUSE's sovereignty pitch meets an inconvenient $6 billion question

You missed your chance

... to run the headline "Microsoft acquires SUSE", thirty days ago.

Trump to UK: Stop taxing our big beautiful tech corps or face tariff tsunami

Re: FTFY?

Broken clock effect; but I can't remember the last time he was right.

Re: If it’s stressing the orange idiot out, great.

He's near the edge now so every push helps toward Article 25. Next time he reaches for the nuke button ...

Re: Maybe

That's the "art" of the "deal". Oil industry contributes to Trump, Trump goes all out against renewables and EVs. See how that works? One hand washes the other. You just gotta cross his palm with cash and bend the knee to kiss his ... ring.

Micron breaks ground on humungous NY DRAM fab after beating bats and tree huggers

Clay

For those not familiar with New York geography: Clay is just north of Syracuse, near the center of the state. It takes 5 hours to drive there from where most people consider "New York". The Micron site is next to a power distribution site from the two nuclear reactors 30 miles away of Lake Ontario. It s 5 miles away from Oneida Lake, which has a third cubic mile of water (and a lot of ice, currently).

Don't feel bad for the bats. They have several large swampy areas nearby. Five miles to the southeast is The Great Cicero Swamp, which by personal observation contains half the world's population of mosquitoes. The Micron site can be seen on a map as a large barren area on the north side of NY Route 31, between I-81 and the big power switchyard. My daughter just closed her microbrewery in Liverpool, which was several years too early to serve thirsty Micron workers. The bats weren't interested.

Bootleg Windows, Office scheme crashes, triggers 22-month lockup for Florida woman

Because if we start in about American politicians/con men, we'd never get anything done.

Re: People will buy Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity stickers?

In the new USSA, the law Trumps YOU!

Price of popularity: Linux Mint's success also means maintainer stress

Re: Ancient hardware

Microsoft is in the business of selling new computers with new operating systems, and turning their noses up at our "antiques". Don't expect them to take notice.

I also ran Mint on a 2013 Chromebook Pixel, after trying a couple other distros. The others had problems with the audio not working, or the functions buttons mixed up, or the screen resolution unsupported, on and on.

Mint Just Works.

I ran version 9 (?) on a Win2K laptop with 512 MB RAM, and an Atom desktop (shoebox) with 2 GB.

To 'Infinity' ... and beyond: MX Linux 25 has arrived

It creeps up on you, like when you confuse Iceland with Greenland.

Ready for a newbie-friendly Linux? Mint team officially releases v 22.3, 'Zena'

Re: It's great to see...

I keep coming back to Mint since ... 9? I dunno. It Just Works.

If it had KDE it would be perfect. Now I just bounce back and forth between Neon, MX, and Mint. My wife runs Mint, but thinks it's just an upgraded Windows 7.

Re: LDME

In case Ubuntu, say, gets bought out by that other crazy guy from South Africa., and goes downhill like Cybertruck sales.

Torrent = trickle

I'd torrent Mint to do my part, but my cable upload speeds are slower than 10 WPM Morse Code.

Brussels plots open source push to pry Europe off Big Tech

Re: All These Boats Sailed Thirty Or Forty Years Ago!!!!

There's your problem right there: your garages are too small. We keep our junk, toys and startups in ours, and park our cars outside.

I'm not an IT professional, so could you explain the difference between a stack, an ecosystem, and a quagmire?

AI industry insiders launch site to poison the data that feeds them

Re: 20 years too late

The feed from Donald Trump's late night "Truth" social feeds will hasten the demise of AI.

What if Linux ran Windows… and meant it? Meet Loss32

Driving an ex-lease Mazda now, plus a 2015 Focus that we bought from Hertz.highly recommend the concept vs. new cars.

Welcome to America - now show us your last five years of social media posts

Re: Hey Trump

We went through Atlanta, same deal, but it was crazy quick. We had a Nexus pass, which is half the price of Global Entry (don't know why) and facial recognition, so breezed through. Of course, we're white.

Re: Hey Trump

Maybe he can get his pal Putin for a cellmate.

Dell says Windows 11 transition is far slower than Win 10 shift as PC sales stall

I, for one, welcome your Microsoft OVerlords ...

... increasing the supply of Linux-ready machines at low prices.

In other new, ZorinOS announced 800 thousand downloads. And it's one of dozens of distros.

SpaceX loses debut V3 Super Heavy in ground test mishap

Re: Test stand

Musk should have explained that to hos buddy Trompe.

UK agri dept spent hundreds of millions upgrading to Windows 10 – just in time for end of support

"upgrading" Windows makes things worse. Switching to Linux, makes it cleaner and easier to use. Keep the same icons and wallpaper,and people might not notice.

Re: Windows 7 laptops??

No, I didn't get the memo. I'm typing on an HP Elitebook that I got dirt cheap. It came with Windows 11, which I ran for an hour until trying a few distros, finally installing KDE Neon for fun. It replaced a 2013 Chromebook Pixel with a dead video driver. Our desktops average 9 years. No Windows in this house.

Schleswig-Holstein waves auf Wiedersehen to Microsoft stack

Re: @IGotOut - Meanwhile, here in Blighty...

Mar-A Lago East: Coming soon! First stage demolition is almost complete.