Posts by Scotthva5

Microsoft issues deadline for end of Windows 10 support – it's pay to play for security

Re: "we understand..."

That sums it up fairly accurately.

Re: Need the EU to step up…

...ensure it goes to into a reputable recycling route...

Will not happen. Your 'reputable recycling route' will offload a boatload of used office PCs to some third world country with questionable environmental protocols and a desperate need for cash.

Tech renders iconic rockers Kiss genuinely immortal

Really?

Isn't "Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park" punishment enough?

Apple exec defends 8GB $1,599 MacBook Pro, claims it's like 16GB in a PC

Insult to injury

8gb? Okay, maybe MacOS is more frugal than most. What I find inexcusable is the fruit vendor charging $200 to upgrade to 16gb. And no, you can't add memory at a later date, just from the factory.

Fool, money, etc.

Windows 11: The number you have dialed has been disconnected

Re: But but...

and highly paid "migration consultants".

IDC: AI is a solution for a PC industry with a sales problem

This too shall pass

Like every other overly hyped fad IDC jumps on - blockchain, Itanium* - I fear the future will be markedly different than IDC proposes.

*feel free to add your own world-changing technology that went nowhere.

CERN swells storage space beyond 1EB for LHC's latest ion-whacking experiments

Re: Brand (s) ?

Many, many thanks.

Mixin suspends deposits and withdrawals after $200m cryptocurrency heist

Re: Make it so

Why wait 'til Friday? Pints all around!

Beneath Microsoft's Surface event, AI spreads everywhere

Eco friendly?

How much additional power is the new Clippy going to require and who is going to pay for it? "AI" as it currently stands is not power efficient in the least and producing yet more carbon so I can finish an email 3 fentoseconds faster is not very attractive to me.

ArcaOS 5.1 gives vintage OS/2 a UEFI facelift for the 21st century

Use case?

I was a rabid OS/2 user back in the mid to late 90s until Linux wooed me and eventually swept me off my feet. It was, indeed, the better DOS and Windows that IBM promised and was a literal godsend for my use case of managing a mid-size Novell network over both ARCnet and TCNS with Windows clients aplenty. I'm aware that many banks and ATMs used OS/2 in its various incarnations until the mid 2000s but is it still being used in a professional capacity today at a volume worthy of keeping alive? Being stuck at 32 bit (which was hailed as a revolution at the time) severely limits its use today except for hobbyists like me that will buy a copy. That said, I'm glad OS/2 is still around and getting the love it deserves.

Judge snuffs man's quest to have AI-created art protected by copyright

Overheard in the judicial halls

"Someone please get these loons out of my courtroom."

Want to live dangerously? Try running Windows XP in 2023

Re: Windows XP Pro

I keep an old Mac SE/30 around just so I can play the original Might and Magic for Mac. Laughable "graphics" but hundreds of hours of old fashioned RPG game play. I've yet to find its equal.

Oracle pours fuel all over Red Hat source code drama

Re: Opensolaris anyone?

Just killing Opensolaris wasn't good enough for Oracle, they had to kill the entire Solaris ecosystem for....reasons? I've never quite understood why they stopped development of Solaris other than some bright young MBAs said they should.

Oh, great. Yet another tech billionaire thinks he can get microblogging right

Re: Funny

Judging by my two 20-something daughters I'm inclined to agree. Whenever I call them to verify that their vocal cords are in fact functional I receive a disapproving tone of voice that suggests "Jeez Daddy you're so old". My teenage son on the other hand refuses to communicate with anyone unless it's through TikToc or SnapChat.

FTC pulls emergency brake on Microsoft's marriage to Activision Blizzard

Re: Triple-A gaming is a mess and a ripoff

Agreed, some of my favorite games are produced by independent studios. The last AAA game I bought was Forza Horizon 4 and it took ages to sort out that mess. Benchmarks ran just fine but benchmarks didn't show the horrendous input lag that made it unplayable or Microsoft's cavalier attitude in fixing it. Never again.

Intel says AI is overwhelming CPUs, GPUs, even clouds – so all Meteor Lakes get a VPU

Chicken or Egg?

I wonder how many devs are willing to add AI to their existing applications and whether Intel is on the right track with this or is it more marketing hoopla? This seems a very narrow use case at least right now.

Nvidia's RTX 4060 and 4060TI are actually priced like mid-tier cards

A triumph of marketing over substance

The caveat "1.7x faster than its predecessor, when using its frame generated DLSS 3.0" is typical Nvidia marketing behavior and is apples to oranges regarding gen vs gen performance increases. Of course DLSS runs faster when turned on, that's the whole point of if it if the games support it. No mention of 3060ti vs 4060ti non-DLSS performance increase coupled with comparing it to a card 2 generations behind it makes me even more skeptical of their claims. A 10-15% actual gain is much more likely but doesn't sound as sexy in the marketing material.

No more feature updates for Windows 10 – current version is final

Re: Err

American here, I haven't heard that particular phase used, either professionally or private, in my 60+ years on this planet. "Work toward that end" however is an American idiom much loved by pointy-headed management types and should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

Musicians threaten to make Oasis 'Live Forever' with AI

Re: Gallagher Siblings Conversation [not AI]

Change the names and that's a fair approximation of our latest family reunion.

More ads in Windows 11 Start Menu could be last straw for some

Re: You don't have to use the native start menu - there are better alternatives

Agreed, Start10(11) has been on my Windows partition for years. Well worth the trivial amount they ask for.

IDC gets even more pessimistic about PC sales

Re: I, for one...

>> goodbye, nVidia

You might want to explore Intel's Arc 750/770 as the drivers are maturing week by week. The just released 6.2 kernel has Arc support baked in so no need for twiddling or running Ubuntu to make it work properly and the price/performance ratio beats anything nVidia or AMD is offering. Everything I've read is very promising and Arc might do very well indeed on Linux.

Patches to make WINE work on Wayland display server protocol are being merged

I've found the lighting of ritual candles helps, as does a bit of interpretive dance. Chanting is optional.

Titanic mass grave site to be pillaged for NFTs

Re: Coming soon

The race to the bottom in three...two...one

Marketing company chases Twitter for $7,000 over 'swag gift box for Elon'

Re: $800 for a cheese board and cheese?

That's only for whole milk, skim and 2% use hydroponic cows.

Microsoft tells people to prepare for AI search engine that goes Bing!

Re: Decisions Decisions

Butter BEFORE the jam

You absolute heathen

Fancy a quick tour of DragonFly BSD 6.4?

Re: Not goading a flamewar...

I worked in a NetBSD shop around the time of the Dragonfly split and through the years I've heard many variations of the argument (sometimes in raised voices) about which approach works best. Consensus seemed to be they both are and since Net and Dragonfly (mostly) peacefully coexist I don't believe there is a "right" or "wrong" approach. As Liam said above, choice is good.

Too big to live, too loved to die: Big Tech's billion dollar curse of the free

Re: I'm a typical Alexa user

I'm embarrassed to admit it's a matter of pure convenience on our part. It is much easier to say "Alexa play white noise" than it is to muck around with Bluetooth and plugging in yet another device to save the battery. Trust me we have tried myriad ways and this is the easiest and best solution for the both of us. The app has a ton of settings to sculpt the sound to your liking as it's not easy to get two people to agree on what constitutes "white noise" as apposed to just "noise".

I'm a typical Alexa user

We have a number of Alexa devices in the house and we use them just as the study suggests: music, reminders and the occasional argument settler. The only Alexa service we pay for is the advanced white noise app that we use for sleep and it is worth its weight ($2.99 a month) in gold. I'm willing to bet Amazon will increase the cost of Prime for Alexa devices over and above the cost of regular Prime service to keep the accountants happy. When this happens we will bin the lot and go back to earplugs.

Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home

Easy choice Elon

In essence you're asking your few remaining employees to work 3 times longer for the same pay or be fired. That's an easy choice to make, for me at least.

Why I love my Chromebook: Reason 1, it's a Linux desktop

Re: I'll be buying a Chromebook

We are a Red Hat shop at work but at home Zorin Pro is our OS of choice. Works well, easy on the eyes and doesn't get in my way. My wife likes it as well after her brief flirtation with Deepin ended in tears.

Juno offering Linux-powered tablet PC for pre-order

Re: Kinda pricey...

I was using the iPad as a reference, obviously they are for completely separate markets. What exactly are you going to be filling that larger storage with short of media? It certainly won't be touch native applications. I'm no Apple fanboy (I champion all things Linux and have for years) but the value of Apple's massive ecosystem can't be overstated. Adding a mouse or other input device such as a keyboard would make it far easier to use normal Linux apps but now we are getting away from being a 'tablet' and closer to Microsoft's Surface. At $400+ this is outside the realm of 'nice to have plaything', at least for me. I wish Juno the best of luck but I don't see a compelling market niche for it.

Kinda pricey...

..for a no-name, non-upgradable Chinese tablet with a slow, low-end processor. I'm all for more Linux based appliances but Apple's base iPad is $100 cheaper, boasts far higher specs, has an OS designed from the ground up to be touch native and a vast ecosystem. Tablets are not flying off the shelves these days and I'm struggling to see what market niche this would fill other than developers working on touch native applications.

This maglev turntable costs more than an average luxury electric car

Re: Hah. but...

Don't forget the $4000 power cord that "re-aligns the power flow" to provide maximum precision.

Linus Torvalds's faulty memory (RAM, not wetware) slows kernel development

Re: I worry about the longevity of Emperor Penguins

>>Decision-by-committee is the worst death by a thousand cuts

Sounds like you have been subjected to one too many "product planning" or "customer focus" meetings, as have I. Herding Jell-O cats is easier than getting a firm decision by a group of people with conflicting interests.

Intel's 13th-gen CPUs are hot, hungry, loaded with cores

Re: Seems an odd choice for 2022

I'm thinking more or less along similar lines: what happened to the push for efficiency? When AMD announced their Ryzen 7000 series and the large boost in TDP I thought it was a misprint at first and now Intel is doing the same thing. So much for efficient and cool running CPUs and their less costly cooling requirements. It's no wonder ARM is making inroads in the data center, small though they may be.

You can never have too many backups. Also, you can never have too many backups

Re: A maze of twisty little backups

Guilty on more than one occasion. "I'll remember which is newest...surely".

Big Tech is building the metaverse of its own dreams. You don't want to go there

>> I'm not interested in sharing the minutia of my life with strangers.

That, in a nutshell, is why I've stayed away from almost all forms of social media. If I wanted to know what you ate last night or what film you watched I would ask, I don't need to read about the next day. Years ago B3TA did a "show us your useless inventions" Photoshop challenge and one of the winners was Twitter enabled bog roll. "I'm wiping my ass with Tesco Ultra Soft" is not too far removed from the drivel that populates most Facebook or Twitter feeds.

Mozilla finds 18 of 25 popular reproductive health apps share your data

Re: Women as breeder cattle, rights

Can't the same result be achieved by pen and paper? A handy calendar might suffice.

Specs leak of 5.7GHz AMD Ryzen 7000 chips with double the L2 cache

Re: 120-140W of power under load

That was my first thought. Hopefully these "leaked" specs are not accurate as it seems, to me anyway, to be somewhat of a step backward given the current push for efficiency.

Enough with the notifications! Focus Assist will shut them u… 'But I'm too important!'

Re: talky toaster?

More like Talky Microwave. I have a mid-range micro that announces every key press with a shrill and incredibly loud beep with no option of turning it off. Why? Ostensibly it's for the visually impaired but a closer inspection reveals that to be false: the number pad is perfectly smooth (so no tactical feedback) and the tone is the same for every key press (so no audible feedback). The best I can come up with is the micro has taken it upon itself to inform the entire household that Dad is back from the bar and reheating that last piece of pizza at 2 am.

VMware’s subscriptions start at 16 cores, prices won't be made public

Crystal ball

Is any of this even remotely surprising given the current corporate love affair with subscriptions and the possibility of a continuous, renewable revenue stream?

Motorola-powered Mac from 1989 used to write smartphone apps

I remember using A/UX 3.x back in the 90's. It was lovely, the stability of Unix (with some BSD goodies) paired with the Apple finder grafted on top. It's a shame Apple never continued development and restricted it's use to Nubus equipped 68k Macs, it might have replaced the mess that was classic MacOS with something far more modern.

Choosing a non-Windows OS on Lenovo Secured-core PCs is trickier than it should be

Re: The Dog Returns To His Vomit

No and they never will as long as their focus is fixated on market share and pleasing Wall Street instead of customer experience.

Microsoft's Dublin datacenter to help take pressure off Ireland's renewable energy

Good analogy and typical Borg behavior attempting to monetize everything not nailed down...or nailed down in this case.

Next major update of Windows 11 prepares for launch

Apparently Baldrick is now running Microsoft. That explains a great deal.

OpenVMS on x86-64 reaches production status with v9.2

Re: I wonder how many people still remember how to use it?

Back in the day I asked one of our Dectites (the DuPont name for those brave unfortunate souls) a technical question and he referred me, with some reverence I might add, to the VAX/VMS documentation library holding forth in its own vast storeroom. Had to supply my own breadcrumbs to find my way back. Never did find the answer.

Robots are creepy. Why trust AIs that are even creepier?

Re: Ahhh, smug mode.

I toast, therefore I am.

Run Windows on a Chromebook: All the details. Not so fast, home user...

Re: Best of both worlds!

Add Parallels to mix and $69 a year for the privilege. What a bargain.