Posts by Doctor Syntax

I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems all too well

Re: Computing smarts in the cloud

That's the user's fault. They should have stayed at home.

Re: Statistics, Statistics, Statistics...

Chromebooks are probably in the mix and the rest will be Mac or Don't Know. Colour the latter Windows.

Re: This statement is so incorrect I've just had to lie down.

You hope. But it's Microsoft's decision.

My main distro is Devuan which has a fairly old version (7.0.4) so I removed it and keep to the more conservative of the download options. But, yes, many will just use the distro version.

Re: Do they really?

As long as you put up with it they'll keep on doing it.

Here's an idea for you. Download the live ISOs some of the most popular distros: you could try the three main variants of Mint, Zorin and something with KDE, say Kubuntu.

Copy each in turn to a USB and fire it up. Play with it running from USB. Remember that the performance you see running from USB will be less than a properly installed version. Bearing that in mind see which most suits you, maybe with the aid of a bit of tweaking* - that's personal preference, neither I nor anyone else can help you there.

When you've made a choice, and providing you've got spare disk space, run the installer that the live distro provides. Take the option that allows it to install beside your Windows**. If offered take the further option which allows a separate /home. Try living with it for a few days.

* All of them will have some settings options which may change their appearance and behaviour to some degree. All of them IME default to a US keyboard layout so if that's not what you have it will be the first thing to change, even before logging into yout WiFi if the password includes punctuation marks. For a KDE desktop if you want to change the way the start menu works right click on the start menu button, click on Edit panel, then on Show Alternatives.

** Do not choose to let it take over the whole disk!!!!

Do you mean the post by Jake which says pretty much the same thing as Gene?

"Then there are all the newer containerized ways to install programs including Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage."

I'd agree this lot need to die. Just stick whatever it is in /opt in its own little directory tree along with any dependencies you think might be troublesome.

LibreOffice does this. It provides .deb and .rpm files with no need to bother about the specific distro using that particular package mechanism. (It also provides single packages for 32 & 64 bit Windows and for two CPU families of Mac.) The packaging mechanism looks after integration with the desktop - menus, file associations etc. and I assume the Windows and Mac options do the same thing.

An alternative option is to simply provide a tar file to unpack in /opt. This leaves the user to integrate into the desktop although I suppose it might be possible to provide a post-install script to do it.

Re: Computing smarts in the cloud

Don't give them ideas.

Re: Choosing to choose

"The next common thing about users is they hate change. Even modest 'enhancements' by Microsoft are guaranteed to bring howls of protest in these columns from people who want it to work the way it did."

Got it in one.

That's why I prefer a Linux desktop. I can keep things looking more or less the way they were 20 years ago with subtle improvements on the way. If you don't want to keep enjoying those modest enhancements bite the bullet once, switch to a Linux desktop that duplicates the experience you wanted and you never have to change unless you want to.

Linux has been my daily driver for years. Does fragmentation bother me? No. On the contrary it makes it easier for me to have exactly the desktop I need without some handful of vendors trying to double guess some small choice of arrangements which will [dis]please me and everyone else simultaneously.

Next major update of Windows 11 prepares for launch

"hardware refresh cycles ...e should mean an increase in adoption"

What hardware refresh cycles. We were told only a few days ago that H/W volumes were down, partly because WAH and component shortages.

Re: Nothing of appeal

Windows 12? Sutely Windows 10 was to be the last version and it was all updates from there.

Re: "Commercial Windows Insiders"

Software businesses preparing a release to target it.

Re: I'm surprised that it's not appeared on more ordinary people's machines

"I have heard some people have successfully upgraded even when failing the compatibility check "

Presumably on the basis of accepting a challenge.

Re: I'm surprised that it's not appeared on more ordinary people's machines

"What does that even mean."

It means that you don't own your machine any more Microsoft does.

Western Digital open to spinning out flash, hard disk businesses

So let's see. Leveraged buy-out of one or both businesses. Elliott* and other shareholders get a big payout, the businesses get loaded with debt, struggle to make a profit because of the interest, maybe get subject to another** leveraged buy-out and eventually fold leaving the creditors, largely those who lent for the ultimate buy-out, in the lurch. Bye bye WD. Have I missed anything out?

* Who always know better than current management of such a range of companies and must, therefore, be brilliant managers, so much so you wonder why they don't just start a few companies and run them so well they take over the world.

** How many did Maplin go through?

Citrix research: Bosses and workers don't see eye to eye over hybrid work

Back to the office has been enough to make my daughter jump ship.

The job before the about to become ex-job was work from home with visits to the rather distant office every few weeks. The about to become ex-job quickly became work at home during lockdown and is now reverting to office. The next job will not only be work at home, work at the office wasn't even an option, in fact she's not even sure if where the UK office is if there is one. All three are similar jobs, all three can, in practice, be work from or at home (there's a difference), two obligatorily so, but one suddenly thinks they have to be office based. Go figure.

Another VPN quits India, as government proposes social media censorship powers

Are they really "fighting criticism" as the sub-head suggests or just ignoring it?

Photonic processor can classify millions of images faster than you can blink

Given that it's a 5x6 pixel image, possibly with only 1 bit per pixel (we're not told otherwise but its only discriminating between two letters, then there's an obvious need for the rider "for some value of image".

US Copyright Office sued for denying AI model authorship of digital image

Re: Grant the AI the copyright

Both sides? It would only be the challenger who would cross-examine. But otherwise, yes; something that claims to have the same legal rights as a human whould be able to discharge all that the legal system requires of a human. That starts with making its own claims rather than having its owner do so.

AFAK it's the clients who get to be declared VLs. Just as well: if you had a lawyer defending you for something you wouldn't want him barred because of some other client and OTOH the probem client could use as many different lawyers as they want.

Sometimes you wish judges would find plaintiffs in contempt of court for bringing stupid cases.

Makers of ad blockers and browser privacy extensions fear the end is near

Re: Chrome is the hellmouth

"both times via an Adobe update"

I think that might be your problem.

Re: I don't get it.

"Use it from a browser that isn't Chrome and you'll get told the right way to use it is in Chrome."

Where do you get told that? I've never seen it on the odd occasions I stray from DDG.

IBM AI boat to commemorate historic US Mayflower voyage finally lands… in Canada

"The 50ft (15m) trimaran is powered by solar energy ... using electric motors."

Solar energy and "backup" diesels. The original just used wind power.

Japan's asteroid probe reportedly found 20 amino acids

Re: A statistician would argue ....

Do we? It's not the sort of thing that fossilises.

Re: A statistician would argue ....

".... that there is life elsewhere in the Universe."

First problem is to define life.

The second is to work out what steps have to be undergone to create the sub-systems it needs in a pre-biotic situation.

The next is to bring those subsystems them together. Not only do they have to have come about in the same place but also at the same time. It's no use, for example, if an energy handling system comes about after all the amino acid/nucleotide stuff has developed but fallen apart because something destructive has happened to the components.

They have to come together in a way that enables them to function together.

They also have to survive whatever changes that befall their planet including what they evolve into; the development of green plants, for instance, was a big threat to earlier life forms because it released free oxygen for the first ime, which is very poisonous to life that can't cope with that.

Although life as we know it is very good at perpetuating the otherwise improbable it is, itself, extremely unlikely.

As far as I can see the traditional statistical argument has been there are a lot of suitably sized planets (whatever suitably sized might mean) in the habitable zone and we know life started here on Earth (so how can might it be?) so there must be lots out there and where are they? Well, we know of one: here, us. Without looking at the individual requirements, estimating their likelihood (not easy, I'd have thought) and combining them there isn't a realistic assessment of how likely it is that eliminates observer bias.

Re: Which amino acids?

Assuming they're all amino acids found in proteins the answer seems to be "most of them".

"Nature published research suggesting that amino acids had a crucial role in the evolution of the first self-replicating molecules."

What that actually says is that RNA can act as a catalyst is joining random amino acids together to make peptides. It's not self replicating but it is an important step in showing how one of the important subsystems of life, translation of nucleic acid sequences into proteins, could have evolved given the appropriate components.

Transport giant picks up Google Cloud AI to aid package delivery, tracking

Can it be really that difficult in principle? Give each consignment an identifier, likewise each location and vehicle. Record each transfer of each consignment from one location or vehicle to another. Handling that sort of data is the sort of thing that Good Old RDBMS does really well. It's falling down on that recording that causes problems. Fail to record those transfers and your consignment's AWOL. The problem is the practical one of what should be done not being done, concentrate on find out why that's happenig. If the transfer doesn't happen when it should, raise an alarm, that is also within the capabilities of Good Old RDBMS.

Using AI/ML when the transfer isn't recorded is a fancy name for guessing. If the transfer's recorded you don't need the AI.

Digital sovereignty gives European cloud a 'window of opportunity'

"the mainly US-based hyperscalers continue to wrestle with the privacy and data sovereignty needs of European citizens"

More likely the data wants of the US government.

Microsoft seizes 41 domains tied to 'Iranian phishing ring'

"Bohrium actors create fake social media profiles, often posing as recruiters,"

If these were on Twitter Musk will be even more upset.

Musk repeats threat to end $46.5bn Twitter deal – with lawyers, not just tweets

Re: HPE

I think the differences between HP/Autonomy & this are that (1) the change of mind has taken place before the transaction completed, (2) any US court looking at this is going to have to decide between two US entities rather than a US and non-US entities.

Re: Just end it already

This seems to be a further development of the technique started by HP. Make an offer but bypass due diligence. When buyer's remorse sets in blame the entity you were buying. The development is to advance the buyer's remorse so that it happens before the deal is finalised rather than afterwards.

Higher spec machines lift US PC revenues 40% even as shipments drop

Re: Elephant in the room...

The same probably applies to Chromebooks and home schooling.

Did anyone expect any different?

Brute force and whiskey: The solution to all life's problems

Re: Hmmm

Drink the whiskey & use Electrolube on the contacts. If the contacts were so corroded surely they weren't going to get a good signal through them.

Re: Why a "retired farmer"?

Yup. He'd have run faster at the very suggestion.

AI-driven HR startup snapped up as companies fight to retain employees

"ServiceNow said the purchase is designed to help companies under immense pressure to attract, train, and retain an effective workforce."

I can't help thinking that using ServiceNow and gaining a reputation for treating and paying employees well might be more effective than just using ServiceNow on its own.

That time a techie accidentally improved an airline's productivity

Re: Everybody knows...

Context is everything: in this case, an old mainframe system, the wording might well have been specified by an analyst or designer and not left to a junior programmer. It would have been specified that way because it wasn't customer facing, it was staff facing.

In general we need to realise that there's a hierarchy of ways to convey information. The UI is, whatever the era and technology, limited in bandwidth.

Long labels mean either crowded or oversized screens.

Long prompts aren't always going to be read or will sometimes be misread.

"Discoverable" functionality isn't going to be. Have you ever been shown, read or seen in a video some function of an application you thought you knew and thought "I forgot/never knew it could do that?".

Adding tool tips, extra documentation and training all have their places over and above the first line UI.

If you find something that old it's very likely driving some extremely expensive diagnostic machine which isn't going to be replaced any time soon and whose manufacturer has disappeared or never got the system re-qualified on a later version. Possibly it relies on an ISA interface card with not more recent alternative available. It's not organisation that matters, it's money.

Re: Easy to miss something trivial

The difference between Shift and Ctrl is that with Shift the action, or the result of it, is visible. This is especially true when using a typewriter so Shoft and Lock will require no thought whatsoever to someone who started out on typewriters. Ctrl characters are not necessarily so and operate on a different level in the user's perception. Ctrl-V, Ctrl-Z etc. might result is a visible change, Ctrl-C has no immediately obvious result (assuming the context means copy).

Re: Everybody knows...

“Are you sure” questions are daft.

Not if it saves you from the "Oh shit!" moment when you realise you've clicked the wrong button and what you've done is irreversible. They should, of course, be saved for such situations and accompanied by a clear statement of what it is you're about to confirm.

"At least I got a chance to visit the city on the customer's dime"

Chargeable to the customer and not part of an overall support contract charge? I'll bet their accounts were pleased!

Re: Easy to miss something trivial

As it's hard to press them simultaneously there's a 50% chance that C will be pressed fractionally first so that Ctrl has no effect. Tricky stuff, getting instructions right.

Re: Two types of workers

The checklist will inevitably be packed first with the equipment on top of it. Try as you might, you can't beat the warehouse staff.

Re: Male vs Female

"But sir, mine isn't threaded."

The next time your program is 'not responding,' (do not) try these steps

These days I'm looking at it from the other side.

Generally we find that our speakers will provide PPT or maybe ODP on a key and we can provide a laptop, projector and, if necessary loudspeakers. But then, as in this case, somebody says they want to play video, with sound, from their phone...

Re: VMs?

If Dabsy's job is teaching b0rkenware that would put him out of work.

Re: VMs?

Or he realised it was better to keep his head down in future.

Re: Cynical

The results are all from anything from 5 to 20 years old and deal with 8 similar but not identical problems with 4 long outdated versions of the software.