Posts by Doctor Syntax

Twitter shareholders to vote on Elon Musk's acquisition

"Musk signed a 100% specific performance clause"

That's very different from real money up front.

Re: hey, what's $1 billion to the world's richest man?

They have to get the billion out of him if he walks away. Consensus seems to be that these disputes are a ploy to lower either the purchase price or the break price. The money's not actually on the table and that makes a difference.

They should have asked him for a 10% non-refundable deposit.

Re: hey, what's $1 billion to the world's richest man?

"before slapping the money down"

Has he put any money down?

Vivaldi email client released 7 years after first announcement

Re: I loved the Opera mail client

Dammit sprint, not spring. Although spring next year or a few more years after that does fit the approach.

Re: A good first effort

For some reason it now connects. It will set up some services it recognises from the email address. Otherwise you have to enter server addresses & the like. The display of server address truncates it although there is space for a few more letters in the box. Email address is similarly truncated in the server login ID field the truncation occurs at odd lengths, different for the two fields.

The truncation makes troubleshooting harder. Accidentally include a trailing space in the copied address (I think that was the problem) and DNS fails. Having got that sorted I got SSL protocol errors. Trying a few hours later it finally worked with no evident changes. I'd exchanged emails with MSP support - maybe they changed something.

Other oddities in the UI: it insists on adding a sig - choices are above or below the message but none is not an option. The default sig, as is all too common these days, is to pat itself on the back. The sig defaults to this in the text box; I couldn't delete it directly but I could overwrite it with a space and then delete the space.

It claims to have custom folders. If there's a way to create them it's well concealed so I don't know if they're better than I'm used to and as this was the sole motivation for trying it that's a show stopper.

From my PoV there seems to be a more work needed on the UI.

It supports RSS news feeds but not newsgroups.

Not for me.

Re: I loved the Opera mail client

I think it's the Agile thinking. Get out an MVP and anything else can wait for a later spring. Much later.

Re: A good first effort

I think that would be a problem for me. However, I can't even get that far with it. So far it hasn't successfully conducted a handshake with my MSP's server. I suppose it tests OK with their own server, gmail and hotoutlive.com

Re: Why is it so hard to find a good email program?

I'm not sure how much if any difference there is between T-bird and the email client of Seamonkey except the UI but that indeed is a dog's dinner.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a good email program?

Oddly enough when searching for a Vivaldi extension for a newsgroup or usenet client T-bird is offered and is, AFAICS the only one amongst the numerous entries that are not - such as torrent add-ons. But moving to Vivaldi for the embedded mail client makes a bit of a nonsense if one then adds another email client for other functionality.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a good email program?

Netscape communicator still lives, it's now called Seamonkey. Its client side is, I think, Thunderbird without the tweaked UI; Sylpheed appears remarkable similar.

"But isn't it odd now that the Internet can be considered a mature technology, we still have to hunt around for a decent email program?"

It is indeed. If this can do a good job of organising emails I might well switch. Pity the browser is Chrome based - I wonder how far it's been defanged.

HP pilots paper delivery service for Instant Ink subscribers

Re: Great Printer Reset

"Honestly, if you are stuck with HP printer, go recycle it "

This depends entirely on the age and type of the printer. Old-school HP printers just go on working.

GitHub drops Atom bomb: Open-source text editor mothballed by end of year

"According to GitHub, the project hasn't had significant feature development for several years, apart from maintenance and security updates"

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Vi (the real vi, not vim) has been in that state for decades, not years. It means nobody's going round breaking it.

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

Re: What's a "category"?

It needs to be able to discriminate between an image of 17 Railway Cuttings and 17 Railway Sidings.

Over many years I've seen all sorts of technologies show amazing promise and disappear. With this one it's relevant to ask how the difficulty scales with number of pixels, bits per pixel and object categories and with object complexity.

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".

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

It works like that. Manglement spends so lo long pissing off staff that they don't think about the consequences until it's too late.

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.

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

PS I think you also miss mine. It's easier for me to have a working environment that I want. It's also easier for you and anyone else to have a working environment that you want which can be different from mine and different from what Windows or Mac provide.

You - and the author - see fragmentation. I - and others - see Pick 'n' Mix. And before you take up the analogy with the argument that Windows is the equivalent of a box of chocolates let me point out that I've disliked Black Magic for years since they removed most of my favourites and left me with no choice.

That sounds like a manglement decision - or maybe Windows support wanting to keep themselves in business. Those of us doing family support know that the problems come form the Windows users.

Re: Value entertainment

"I use Windows because I want the OS to be as transparent as possible between the hardware I want and the software I want. Linux has never done that for me."

Odd you should say that. My experience is the opposite. Don't tell me Microsoft have got rid of that opaque mass, the registry? Admittedly recent years have pushed Linux in danger of going the same way but as long as Devuan's about it's not really a problem.

Re: Some concerns though

"But also, in the end, all these various versions of Linux are an immense duplication and waste of effort"

A lot of distros are derivatives of another. Ubuntu, for instance, started as a version of Debian but keeping components more up-to-date*. Mint is a derivative of Ubuntu and is now considered preferable by a lot of users. Zorin is a derivative of Ununtu with the particular twist of making it as little of a culture shock as possible for Windows refugees. Neon is a derivative of Ubuntu for one specific purpose: to showcase KDE in its current version as a rolling distro. Devuan is a derivative of Debian keeping to a more Unix-like way of doing things.

Rolling out any these Debian distros takes less work than making a distro from scratch but each has a distinct purpose underlying the features that differentiate it from the others. The nature of FOSS facilitates this.

* Debian is a very conservative version with a huge amount of S/W in its repositories. Conservative is favoured by server admins as well as desktop users.

I don't have the time to faff either. That's why I don't run Windows.

It seems strange to you & me (where would I put all that stuff I'm working on and all the reference document?) but there are not only people who like the Unity sort of UI but were prepared to keep maintaining it. That's the beauty of an arrangement that gives you choice.

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?

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?

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.

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.