Posts by StudeJeff

People find amazing ways to break computers. Cats are even more creative

Re: Peripherals

I had one of those! They were free or very cheap at Radio Shack.

Teens maintained a mainframe and it went about as well as you'd imagine

Re: Good, but don't do that again

I guess I'm lucky, never really had to deal with that.

In my previous life with a big blue computer company we were working with used equipment, and if some of those parts went into our work machines no one cared... I had a SWEET souped up IntelliStation.

In my current job I was given a bog standard (and dull), Dell desktop, and it 32 bit word just couldn't handled the large documents I worked on. So my boss ordered a Dell workstation for me. Nice dual Xeon machine with lots of RAM, PLUS it had a PS/2 port so I brought in my trusty 1994 vintage Model M keyboard (which I am using even now).

Fast forward, it was time to "refresh" my PC, and as I had a big Dell Precision already I got a new one of those.

Meanwhile most of the office people are using Dell laptops, while I've got this big machine, my Model M, and three monitors. :)

Trump kills clearances for infosec's SentinelOne, ex-CISA boss Chris Krebs

Re: Youth Demand

Hmm... "non-violent civil resistance actions”... are they really or "non-violent civil resistance actions” like the BLM mobs on this side of the pond... "mostly peaceful demonstrations with just a few fires"? If it's the former (and they don't do stupid stuff like blocking roads), more power to them, it's their right to express their opinions.

Tesla Cybertruck turns into world's most expensive brick after car wash

Re: So much for the resilience of Stainless Steel - Re; 40% TAXES

I don't know about "most American's", but I wouldn't believe you.

For instance, there is no such things as "fully funded schools", no matter how much they get they always "need" more. In fact the most expensive government schools have the worst outcomes.

Tech support session saved files, but probably ended a marriage

Re: I know about ambitious lazy know-it-alls as well

I expect that's all too common in education on both sides of the pond.

It also helps explain why we here in the US spend so much on education and get such terrible results.

NASA rewrites Moon mission goals in quiet DEI retreat

Re: Insane

I know she went to Ireland, but many of them are the likes of Rosie O'Donnell.

And as an American who has a lot of respect for the UK, (if not necessarily your leaders), I'm sorry, you folks have enough problems without those people.

I also know many of you feel the same way about OUR leaders!

Re: Insane

I live in the US, and to get to another STATE would take me well over an hour... unless I head west, than it's going to be more like 3 or four hours.

SpaceX's 'Days Since Starship Exploded' counter made it to 48. It's back to zero again now

Blowups happen

Building spaceships isn't easy, how many have NASA and the Soviets blown up while getting it figured out?

Look at all the Falcon 9s that blew up during development (SpaceX made it easy, it created a blooper reel!)

It's now our most reliable space craft.

They will get the Starship figured out, and Starship launches will be just as common... if not more so, than Falcon 9 launches.

DARPA skips the lab, will head to orbit to test space manufacturing tech

Great stuff!

While it's a few years out yet it will be even better when we can make things from space sourced materials instead of being dragged up out of Earth's deep gravity well.

First private moon lander to touch down safely starts sending selfies

So... once you can do it and someone offers to pay you to put their logo on the moon you go to their competitor and see how much they will pay NOT to put a logo on the moon.

Then of course they can advertise that they saved the moon.

Yes, I read Heinlein's "The Man who Sold the Moon", get book!

SpaceX receives FAA blessing for another Starship test

Amazing times

Last June I was in Florida and watched a Crew Dragon take off for the ISS. It was night and from where I was standing on the banks of the Banana River I could see the ship take off, the stages separate, and then the booster land.

It was incredible.

I look forward to seeing a Starship doing the same thing one of these years. Both ships are magnificent accomplishments, unlike anything any government has accomplished.

We live in amazing times.

That was the previous administration, that's why Biden issued all those pardons.

Odds of city-killer asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth creep upward

Opportunity?

So how about we send a ship up, oh say a Starship, and give the thing a nudge so it winds up in orbit. We could then use it as space station, and even mine it depending on what it's made of.

And if the thing DOES hit us, considering most of the Earth is covered with water it will likely land in an ocean. No cities getting squashed... but there would be a HUGE splash and the resulting waves could cause SERIOUS damage.

Re: DOGE avoidance strategy...

GREAT book with some solid ideas.

The movie was entertaining but nothing much like the book.

FBI's secret UFO hunters fear Trump's January 6 purge will send them into orbit

Re: And ... "Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime"

Too many people in the government follow the old dictum "Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime", that kind of behavior is even more odious in the United States than it was in Russia.

And the people responsible should be held criminally liable. Doesn't matter if they work for the FBI, if they are a DA, a county sheriff, or whatever.

Re: Drones

A few drones, a lot of silly people seeing airplanes and blinking lights on radio towers and imagining things.

Dude, you got a Dell, period! RIP XPS, Inspiron, Latitude, Precision

I can't speak to the laptops, I don't deal with them much, but in our plant I manage over 200 Dell OptiPlex's.

I've never been a fan of Dell (which is, of course, a four letter word), but this is a manufacturing environment, and in some places there is a lot of dust and oil vapor.

And the Dell's keep running. I've had a couple with bad USB ports, and one had a damaged Ethernet port, but I've yet to have one actually fail.

There was even one where the complaint was it kept shutting down. It was... all the vents were TOTALY clogged with oily dust, along with a thick coat of the mess on the fans and heat sink. So, I pulled it, cleaned it up, put it back, and it ran flawlessly before I replaced it with a Windows 10 system.

I'm no fan of Dell, but I'm very impressed with the reliability of the OptiPlex's.

FCC net neutrality rules dead again as appeals court sides with Big Telco

Re: SCOTUS

No need for any tortured logic, the FCC overstepped its legal authority. I really doubt it will get to the Court, they have more important cases to deal with.

Overturing Kelo would be a GREAT next step!

The law is the law

The bottom line of this isn't really about net neutrality, it's about the authority of government agencies to come up with rules that have the power of law with no law to support them.

The agencies don't get to do that. It is there job to carry out laws passed by Congress. If Congress doesn't give an agency authority to do something it just doesn't have the authority, and the SCOTUS made that clear with the Loper Bright decision.

If the politicians in Congress feel so strongly that net neutrality is the right way to go they have a proper, Constitutional tool to make it happen, all they have to do is pass it into law.

The fact that they haven't done that, even during the Obama years when the Democrats who support it, had solid control of both houses, shows that they really don't care that much.

US airspace closures, lack of answers deepen East Coast drone mystery

Re: New Jersey: stupid isn't just for red states since 1787

No, if that story was true he wasn't exercising his Second Amendment rights, he was demonstrating world class stupidity.

Re: There's a reason why Fox News is hyping the drone bullshit

Well... nothing would surprise me with the media these days, but this is nothing new. Keep in mind Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize when all he had done is won an election!

Aliens, spy balloons, or drones? SUV-sized mystery objects spotted in US skies

Which would be equally odd if it was someone like the North Korans, Chicoms or Iranians.

Windows 11 market share falls despite Microsoft ad blitz

Which Distro indeed?

You've pointed out the real problem with Linux.

There are so many different distros, some very different than others, they very often run very differently and will support different things.

So if one wants to make the switch there is no easy choice to make, unlike switching from Mac to Windows or vice versa.

In a previous life I worked in a plat that refurbished computers. Our big blue customer wanted us to come up with a way to package some of these machines with Linux so they wouldn't have to buy Windows licenses for them.

The customer gave no other guidance, so I got to work. I picked Red Hat because it was popular, was (relatively) easy to use, and the price was right, free. Our software boffins created an image we could load on the machines that had the OS, plus Open Office and a few games. I also wrote a booklet titled "What is this Linux thing anyway", that would give the user what they needed to get started.

We presented it as a nice, neat package, ready for the go ahead and we could start shipping.

The big blue sales guy liked what we did, but then said we really needed to use a distro made by a company the big blue company owned, that wasn't compatible with much of anything AND there was a charge for it.

And... that was the end of that project.

One thing AI can't generate at the moment – compelling reasons to use it for work

Re: A prediction of the future of AI

There is a simple fix that all too often is ignored.

When it comes right down to it in every decision, whether it be from an AI, a committee, a company, Congress or Parliament, there are ALWAYS people who have to sign off on it.

Name names and hold them responsible.

Chinese cyberspies, Musk’s Beijing ties, labelled ‘real risk’ to US security by senator

I think he's more like D.D. Harriman.

Re: Blumenthal also blasted Apple

Especially one like Bloomers...

Congress ponders underwater alien civilizations, human hybrids, and other unexplained stuff

Re: So let me get this straight ...

Well... if something like the Alcubierre drive really is not only possible but practical for an advanced enough civilization there very well may be alien starships wandering the cosmos.

As any technologically advanced civilization almost certainly had to pass though a phase something like we are now, with technology advancing at an exponential rate and all the challenges that go with that they would likely find us fascinating to study.

We are also making ourselves known, as for most of the past century if you look at our solar system with a radio telescope the brightest object in the system isn't the Sun, it's the Earth with all our broadcasts. (and if they can actually make those out I'm not sure I want to know what they think of them!)

All bark, no bite? Musk's DOGE unlikely to have any real power

The real power of Doge

There is great potential in Doge successfully cutting government waste, and it won't be because of suggestions to President Trump or Congress.

Dog will likely be posting what it finds on social media, and asking for suggestions, and comments.

This won't be like one of these government reports, such as the "Pig Book" of years gone by, that gets released, gets a lot of attention for a few days, and is then forgotten.

Doge will likely be posting what it finds regularly, daily or weekly, and ten's of thousands, if not millions of people will be following and commenting on the posts.

Radio talk show hosts will be talking about the latest examples of government waste, talking heads and podcasters will be talking about them and picking out the ones they find most egregious.

And regular people will notice, and demand their Congresscritters do something.

I mean really... did we HAVE to give Bowdoin College $3.9 million of taxpayers hard earned money to determine what makes goldfish feel sexy?!?

What might a second term of Trump mean for the US space program?

Because he knew she was a loser, and not only that his paper is hemorrhaging cash because of what many see as it's strong left wing bias, and a Harris endorsement would have further cemented that.

Oh to Mars!

With all due respect to Mr. Hunt I've no doubt Humans will walk on Mars, and likely a lot sooner than many of us think.

As the great Arther C. Clarke said, "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

Musk might be a bit of flake, but he is a very smart flake, and he's already done a lot of things many people have said were impossible.

Relocation is a complete success – right up until the last minute

On the bright side there is a nice audible overcurrent notification.

Skyscraper-high sewage plume erupts in Moscow

Re: Ageing sewers?

Thank you for being a voice of common sense and reason. Characteristics that are all too rare these days.

US lawmakers dig into FCC's $900M Starlink snub in wake of Hurricane Helene

Re: Did meet spec

And Hughes did? Have you ever used Hughes Net? About all I can say for it is it works and it's better than dialup.

First time's the charm: SpaceX catches a descending Super Heavy Booster

Re: To the Moon and Mars

Nor with the boosters be needed on the moon or Mars. The big problem is getting out of Earth's deep gravity well.

Boeing used to be like that, then the bureaucrats and bean counters took over.

Tesla's big reveal: Steering-wheel-free Robotaxi will charge wirelessly

Could be fun!

The Robotaxi is all well and good, lets see how it works out.

But as long as Tesla is building that platform I hope they also build a version for people who want to drive, IE with things like a steering wheel.

A two seat Tesla this size could be a LOT of fun, and if Tesla gets anywhere close to the price target for the Cybertaxi a more conventional one could be even less expensive.

Re: Suitable for driving only on a billiard table

It's a flashy, show car prototype, no doubt the production model with have real tires on it.

It takes a LOT longer than a minute to fuel an ICE vehicle. Just the filling takes longer than that, at least with every car I've had (and in the past half century or so I've had quite a few).

There is also going out of your way to find a gas station, finding an open pump, arranging payment (card at the pump, cash inside or whatever), then you have to stand there and hold or at least babysit the nozzle while the tank fills.

Then it's putting the nozzle back, finding your way out of the gas station and back onto your route.

I don't know how things are going to work for the Robotaxi, but I know that for most people, with a regular EV, charging is a matter of a few seconds to plug the car in when they get home from work, then another few seconds to unplug it the next morning. And on those rare occasions when you have to use a public charger you plug the car in and go do something else while it charges.

Happy birthday, Putin – you've been pwned

Re: "Collective West"

The Soviet Union was an empire... and putrid Putin is trying to recreate it.

Emperor is just a title and has no more meaning than that.

Re: Msg to Chris Williams

It's not just people who don't like Trump. Someone suffering from TDS rants and rages about pretty much anything and blames it on Trump.

And it's not unique to Trump haters.

There is BDS (Biden Derangement Syndrome), or 0BS (0bama Derangement Syndrome), and on your side of the pond no doubt there are people who behave the same away about your politicians...

Re: Unprecedented

Ahh... so the Russian version of "The View"?

After we fix that, how about we also accidentally break something important?

In my previous life I worked as an process engineer in a North Carolina (USA) plant that refurbished computing equipment for a big, blue computer maker. If you had a problem with equipment you got from us and called our hotline you'd actually reach people in our building.

Once in a while they would get stumped and ask if I'd mind talking to a customer, it wasn't my job to deal with customers, but I was always happy to help.

They would also contact me if there was an dodgy attempted return. They called about a guy trying to return some rather pricey server hard drives, and when I heard the name I told them that under no circumstances whatsoever should they do anything for him. The guy was a former employee and had been fired for stealing parts, now he was somehow a broker. I'd be willing to bet real money that he'd stolen those drives from us to begin with.

US govt hiding top hurricane forecast model sparks outrage after deadly Helene

They created a tool, that didn't take resources? The resources put into creating that tool with the expectation of a financial gain as a result is pretty much the definition of an investment.

Re: Yet another way Trump admin fucked the public

There is one thing Harris has been extraordinarily successful at... getting power by providing personal services to powerful men.

(I'm bet I'm going to get a LOT of downvotes for that factoid!)

China claims Starlink signals can reveal stealth aircraft – and what that really means

Re: I'm skeptical

Yes... and the Chicoms are liars.

Scientists demonstrate X-rays as a way to zap asteroids out of Earth's path

I don't think radio telescopes would be much help in detecting asteroids.

However, what Musk (SpaceX) is working on, the Starship, will make access to space much easier, which in turn will make it that much more likely we could actually DO something about an asteroid heading our way.

Amazon, Tesla, Meta considered harmful to democracy

The unions really aren't fans of democracy.

I believe it was the UAW where it was shown about 75% of its membership supports Trump, and yet the union endorsed Harris.

The thing that is most important to the major unions is keeping their leaders in power, and those people really don't care much about the rank and file members.

Iran's cyber-goons emailed stolen Trump info to Team Biden – which ignored them

Re: We can all agree

Biden got the nomination because the DNC wanted him to have it and blocked any candidates that could have been serious opposition.

So we wind up with a Democratic candidate who has never won a single vote in a primary... and the Democrats claim to be the party that will "save democracy".

Re: It's a little funny, as an outsider...

Harris would be the weaker President and support policies that arguably would weaken the United States, so it's only natural the Chicoms would support her.

Boeing union workers in US reject contract: 96% vote to strike

A 25% raise isn't good enough? Sounds like it's time for Boeing to move more production to non union plants... or ALL of it.