Posts by Grunchy

Here comes an AI that can predict hurricane strength. Don't worry, NASA made it so it probably actually works

Chalk a win…?

Chalk a win for Watson? You mean, the Watson that defeated Ken Jennings?

Apple Mac sales break records amid ex-86-odus to Arm-compatible M1 silicon

Apple is earning $384 million profit each day?! Off of Macintosh?!

I do have an iPhone (2016 SE model, still working) but I chafe under the restrictions. The stupid thing positively hounds me for money every single photo I take, because I accidentally activated iCloud which has now filled up. But I have no idea how to pull data off iCloud onto the HDD so I can shut off the noise. There’s absolutely zero chance I’d ever buy an Apple computer, the iOS is built on a Ransomware foundation.

No Thank You!

Joe Danger rides to the rescue as ageing title tugs at the heartstrings

I’m pleased as heck that Ed Hobbs stepped up and made a modern windows (steam) version of his “Castles of Doctor Creep,” which was a fiendishly difficult C64 game from way back, and which I still never did get through all the advanced castles. Seriously, just try to get through Sylvania (the first one) in less than an hour. It’s merciless! Probably as bad as dark souls, or cuphead.

Almost there: James Webb Space Telescope frees its mirrors and prepares for insertion

Re: SO TRASHY

I think they said 12.5 mm is the length of 1/2 paperclip (being NASA that’s probably 1.00/2.00 paperclip standard lengths). I haven’t ejected a floppy from a Mac in so long, I don’t even know where all the paperclips wound up to even confirm their figures!

Tesla driver charged with vehicular manslaughter after deadly Autopilot crash

Re: New Name for Autopilot needed

It’s like when Boeing programmed their 737 Max to nosedive into the terrain if you weren’t driving fast enough. The first thing they did was investigate the flight deck crew looking for radicalized individuals and exhausted that line of investigation before anyone wondered, “gee what if the robot plane overpowered the crew killing everybody on board?”

The only reason they didn’t hit the flight deck personnel with charges is because they were the first ones dead. Arresting dead employees might not look right. Luckily they figured out how the buggy programming had turned the jets into mass-murder ‘bots after only two plane-loads of victims, “we figure it might be tidied up now,” said the software team with the latest update.

Re: Good

You know what, this reminds me of that old movie, “Christine”. Time for a remake? Instead of one single Plymouth Fury it’s every single Tesla, instead of evil intentions it’s the profoundly blind and stupid autopilot, and instead of the Devil it’s Elon Musk.

Or, wait… is Elon Musk in fact the real Devil?

Musk correctly called Tesla the world’s largest robot manufacturer based on the premise that Tesla cars are technically robots. He’s right. And robots have a well-deserved reputation for spontaneously going out of control and maiming whoever/whatever is within reach.

The safest robots are locked into a cage just a bit bigger than their operating envelope and nobody and nothing is ever allowed inside so long as the robot is energized. It’s the only certain method of stopping the killing and maiming! And this is deadly real!

North Korea pulled in $400m in cryptocurrency heists last year – report

Somebody should make it illegal for North Koreans to go online.

Ukraine shrugs off mass govt website defacement as world turns to stare at Russia

Well I read the Ukrainian internet news every single morning first thing when I wake up, and I was so shocked with fright I nearly went catatonic! You bunch might guffaw and say, “who cares” and I’m telling you I nearly had a cardiac event.

Obviously my lawer was promptly notified to fire up the sueage apparatus, yet again…

Tesla Full Self-Driving videos prompt California's DMV to rethink policy on accidents

All of the traffic signs are ALL CAPS, no wonder Tesla tries to wipe out pedestrians. It has become META.

Insurance giant Lloyd's hires DXC to migrate org off legacy mainframes to AWS cloud

Companies are throwing out perfectly good old data centres so that they can fire staff and pay rent to Amazon instead. Also, Amazon shuts down completely at random at least 2x a year, for no good reason and no matter what harm to themselves and their customers.

I actually don’t care one way or another, those old servers work fine in my basement doing nothing useful.

Snap continues to make a spectacle of itself as it tries to trademark the word spectacles

Snapticles

You could call them bargle-glogs, I bet that hasn’t even been trademarked yet.

The inevitability of the Windows 11 UI: New Notepad enters the beta channel

I’m not ‘upgrading’ anymore. I’m weary of the endless ‘change for the sake of change.’ I use a computer for specific work and it already does that competently. I just picked up a 2nd hand DL380P (gen 8) because they’re practically giving them away, and that 2012-era hardware would probably be woefully overloaded by modern Microsoft bloatware. Besides, I will probably load it with Linux instead because there’s absolutely no way I’m ever paying a nickle to Microsoft for their ‘dog’s breakfast’ product they have for offer.

Notepad++ is a not bad alternative product, but you know what’s even more useful? Notetab.

(If you ever run ‘Notes’ on iPhone IOS, it seems like they borrowed heavily from Notetab, perhaps it is just a very sincere form of flattery?)

Two sides of the digital coin: Ill-gotten gains in cryptocurrencies double, outpaced by legit use – report

I don’t care about imaginary crypto munny and imaginary nft asetts, people can play whatever fool games they want.

What I do care about is the wastage of Earth’s actual resources in pursuit of pointless crypto calculations needed to create this made-up nonsense.

If there was ever anything desperately in need of CO2 taxation, crypto is it.

The Ghost of Windows Past haunts a street corner in Bermondsey

I like XP, Win7

You know what I like about ‘em?

Microsoft stopped messing around with them and they never change anymore.

It has finally become like the old times when a software product wouldn’t ship until it had been perfected, because back then they were baked into a ROM and updates were impossible. Nowadays software is 100% hacker product that will only be patched when frustrated customers find all your crap bugs for you. Also the patch is more opportunity for sleazy software vendors to introduce new advertising / spy monitoring / root kit / defeaturing.

Example of how destructive such modern garbage coding can be: Ariane explosion 1996. Or crashing a 737 Max.

https://youtu.be/5tJPXYA0Nec

Confirmed: James Webb Space Telescope team plans launch for this Xmas Eve after data cable fix

Re: Considering the state of things around the world coming up to crimble

Best wishes to your Mum!

Will I inhale coronavirus at this restaurant? There’s an app for that

“Killer App”

Risking your life relying on somebody else’s opinions simply because the opinions were put in app-form. Even better if you only knew how ignorant those app-people are, or what fees they charged to ‘clear’ certain restaurants over others.

What if we said you could turn any disk into a multi-boot OS installer for free without touching a single config file?

Aw man, and I just figured out how to use PLoP bootloader, too.

Oh well.

(Still figuring out how to multiboot Dos 6.22, Win98, WinXP, and Lubuntu *including* the crucial swap partition, all from a single /dev/sda, I do believe I nearly have it sorted!)

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... a coding puzzle and it's a doozy

I got 50 ⭐️ last year!

I think I cracked the top 1,000 one time only.

I used C#, because who cares!

Microsoft adds Buy Now, Pay Later financing option to Edge – and everyone hates it

I’m ticked off at Windows 10

... to the point that I don’t care any more, Windows 7 worked just fine, I’m going back to it. I don’t need all this Cracker Jack bs from Microsoft. I don’t care about their declaration that 7 is out of support, that suits me even better.

Smart things are so dumb because they take after their makers. Let's fix that

Server Error = Cloud Error

Anytime you don’t have complete and total control of something it’s because you either don’t fully own it or somebody is taking liberty with your property (you know, as if they stole it).

I would never buy a Tesla. The hell with that!

Reviving a classic: ThinkPad modder rattles tin to fund new motherboard for 2008's T60 and T61 series of laptops

How about Toshiba Satellite?

My next-to-new “Y2K” Satellite 2400 sports 3.5” floppy, DVD drive, 3x USB 1.0, and a Pentium 4. It runs everything from Dos 6.22 to Windows XP, and Lubuntu 16.04.

Never mind, it’s perfect as it sits!

Intel audio drivers give Windows 11 the blues and Microsoft Installer borked following security update

Dos 6.22, Win98SE, and WinXP ?

Vogons called to me from 2013. I’m going back.

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=36857

Survey shows XP lingers on while Windows 11 makes a 0.21% ripple in the enterprise

But I just got Windows XP yesterday!

I got me my new Toshiba Satellite 2400 and is she ever a beaut: Pentium 4 1.6GHz (180 nm!), 512 Meg DDR, 140 GB hard drive, DVD-rom / CD-RW, 3.5” floppy, wi-fi, 16MB S3 super-savage, V90 56K fax modem, ECP printer port, 3x Universal Serial Bus, infrared port, SD card slot, 2x PC Card slots, 85 key keyboard + 12 function keys, Alps touchpad, RGB monitor port, RCA video port, 1024x768 14.1” TFT LCD.

HANDILY runs Lubuntu 16.04 straight off the live DVD, but why would I toss out Windows XP? How else do you propose I run my Purble Place?

Amazon hasn't launched one internet satellite yet, but it's now planning a fleet of 7,774

I guess the only way satellite internet latency can be superior to land-based fibre optic is by completely eliminating the fibre optic: both parties communicating have to subscribe to the same satellite internet service.

AI algorithms can help erase bright streaks of internet satellites – but they cannot save astronomy

Well if you live in the middle of nowhere then what do you want internet for? Seems counter-productive. If you want to talk to your neighbor, guys, hamster radio. Get real.

I contend that any house that can be hooked up to power could also be hooked up to DSL. You just gotta believe!

I have a philosophy and it goes like this: if you can run power lines to a house, you could also run telephone/DSL service. If you wanted.

This is the stupidest thing I ever heard. I've seen satellites flying overhead in the night sky, they don't leave streaks like meteorites at all, they just look like any other planet floating by, except you can perceive the motion. You just block out the 'dot' and move on with your observations, it's not like astronomers don't know where each & every satellite is at any moment.

Remember the 'guy in a jetpack' seen flying close to passenger jets? Probably just balloons, says FBI

It was “Witchie-poo” of the West, astride her “Vroom Broom”

-We know this woman is a witch because she looks like one.

-We know this woman is a witch because she dresses like one.

-We know this woman is a witch because she has a wart.

-We know this woman is a witch because she turned someone into a newt.

-One burns witches.

-One burns wood.

-Witches burn because they are made out of wood.

-Bridges are made of wood.

-However, bridges are multiply realizable. They can be built from stone. [Implied] Building a bridge out of the woman will not determine that she is made of wood.

-Wood floats in water.

-A duck floats in water [bread, apples, very small rocks, cider, gravy, cherries, mud, churches, lead].

-If the woman weighs the same as a duck, then she is made of wood.

-The woman weighs the same as a duck.

-Therefore, the woman is a witch.

New World: Grindy? Check. Repetitive? Check. Fun? We hate to say it... but check

“ Let me start off by saying that MMORPGs are not typically good games.”

No doubt. But then you may not have ever tried out LORD (Legend Of Red Dragon). Not ‘massively’ multiplayer, more like adequately multiplayer.

Did you know there is an Oculus for Business? Make that 'was' – because Facebook has canned it after two years

Because it would be too obvious if he renamed facebook as oasis and himself as halliday.

(The oasis makes me too motion sick so I’m out regardless).

Assange psychiatrist misled judge over parentage of his kids, US tells High Court

Re: Evil

The CIA probably surveiled him fathering those very children with one of their spy satellites. That’s how they got Osama you know, I saw the scene in the dark 30 movie!!

I’ve been watching some of these police chase videos wherein the cops spot some hapless motorist mistakenly speeding or turn without indicating or missed a stop sign, then discover there are motorists in such despair they will destroy their own car, and anybody’s around them, and risk life and limb in a last-chance desperate bid to evade that $75 levy and attendant social stigma of being forced to admit, “I ran a yellow light.”

So yeah it’s plausible that Assange would drink arsenic to avoid facing responsibility for his actions, in a world where people are ready to die before capitulating to any social requirement of maintaining their auto insurance policy.

Florida man accused of breaking Mastodon's open-source license with botched social network launch

Why 30 days?

I guess the 30 day period might be part of the published terms. But if not, I’d only give 30 minutes warning. It’s going to court anyway, why not get a jump on things..

BOFH: So you want to have your computer switched out for something faster? It's time to learn from the master

I heard/suspected manufacturers can cause computers to slow to a crawl as a function of their age since purchased. I have an inkling this can be done by your own computer building an artificially intelligent dossier on you based on its faithfully relentless surveillance of everything you do online.

For example, the PC never stops grinding the hard drive back and forth, all day and all night, even if nobody’s been on it for weeks (like for example you leave it running while you nip away to Hawaii for a soak, you come back, and it’s still crunching away). What the hell is the goddamn thing up to all the time?! is what I’d like to know.

How your phone, laptop, or watch can be tracked by their Bluetooth transmissions

Hmm the FAA/FCC might be interested in Apple phones not shutting down radio emissions when commanded to do so.

Anyway I think this vulnerability is already widely known for years. Guys like Osama Bin Laden, and other wanted criminals, have long been aware their goose is fried the moment they become associated with a particular cell phone.

Windows 11 Paint: Oh look – rounded corners. And it is prettier... but slightly worse

Re: Continuing the trend

The bad thing about Windows 10 is the surveillance that they threw in there. It’s going to be worse in 11, because the performance requirements have ratcheted up dramatically. What makes Windows 11 so much more resource intensive to run? It can’t be the OS, it must be the artificially intelligent surveillance.

If anything I’m considering going back to Win7 — less spying.

Computer scientists at University of Edinburgh contemplate courses without 'Alice' and 'Bob'

It’s never been illegal to be bigoted or prejudiced, or even outright racist, if that’s your thing.

And it’s not just people of specific cultures or races that some people would never consider marrying, either. Some people think nothing of putting up firm barriers about what genders they won’t marry, what age groups they are going to boycott, they won’t marry funny looking people with big noses, or warts, or they had some body part chopped off, or they belong to a cult they don’t like, or they’re afflicted with alcoholism or they drive a rusty Dodge or their farting dog sheds the wrong colour. Or they have a job they don’t like, or they don’t like the right music, or even whether or not that person observes the Oxford Comma.

No matter what descriptive tendency that a person may or may not have that can be imagined, potential spouses are prepared to be discriminating about it!

They got me in 1993

Back in 1993 we were told we’re no longer allowed to say ‘mailman’ or ‘fireman’ or other gender specific terms. So I’ve been dutifully saying ‘mailperson’ and ‘fireperson’ and such ever since.

Then I find out I’m the only one who bothered...

It has become like an elaborate joke to see who’s gullible enough to believe that speech can be legislated.

(We had a similar thing when Canada went metric, but it was only automobiles and milk jugs and that’s it. Good luck finding a metric measuring tape in Canada, which has been metrified since ‘76 - only gullible people played along.)

Microsoft shows off Office 2021 for consumers ahead of the coming of Windows 11

Re: Standalone versions need an MS Account

In my opinion all the word processors are pretty much crap. 9x out of 10 I’m just writing a simple cover letter, I always do that in Notepad .txt format for gosh sake, and print to .pdf and there you go.

And I’ll tell you what, I have no qualms about editing those after the fact in vi, for gosh sake.

And you know what I just found I’ve still got installed? Is NoteTab .otl file type, for gosh sake, I’m gonna put all those cover letters into NoteTab.

Re: artsy UI updates

“But when they DON'T update the UI they get blasted for being behind the times.”

I don’t blast old UI elements for being behind the times, maybe you’re blowing something out of proportion.

People such as myself still use Windows XP in certain circumstances because it’s not abstracted out to the moon like today’s PCs have become.

I also still dig Windows 95, especially the Weezer and Brickell videos.

“What’s with these homies dissing my girl, why do they gotta front?”: indeed.

What if Chrome broke features of the web and Google forgot to tell anyone? Oh wait, that's exactly what happened

theregister.com No Workee with Lynx

Tried surfing here via Lynx and guess what, links to the individual stories are not rendered.

Sure I can log in to my account, but what's the use if I can't gloat that I'm surfing here via Lynx because your site is borken?

You guys need to shape up pls, you've forced me to activate my copy of Mozilla. Friendly suggestion.

IKEA: Cameras were hidden in the ceiling above warehouse toilets for 'health and safety'

Replaced with smaller ones

Because the reason for having the cameras hasn't changed, just the awareness of them has changed.

So just delete the awareness and that's the correct solution!

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou admits lying about Iran deal, gets to go home

Re: They won't get any traction

"Any admission of guilt through the US 'justice' system's plea bargaining is worth exactly as much as the paper it's written on."

No good point, now that she's free & clear she'll be going back for holidays in California next month.

*droll*

Re: They won't get any traction

"Would that be the criminal behavior of a Chinese based company based out of Hong Kong using a subsidiary to trade with Iran in contravention of US law? I find it a bit of a stretch to argue that it's criminal."

Well yeah you're 100% absolutely correct, so long as Huawei doesn't have an arm in USA reselling forbidden American technology to Iran. Except that's exactly what they have, so I guess you are therefore wrong.

"...I expect there to be lawsuits against the US government for their grandstanding..."

What "grandstanding"? I think you just completely glossed over the crimes Huawei has been committing.

You know what, all of a sudden I've become fully in support of AUKUS and nuclear-powered subs for Australia.

Furthermore I think I'm going to buy more Taiwan and less China from now on...

For the nth time, China bans cryptocurrencies

If only I hadn’t seen through the 2009 con

If I hadn’t seen through the obvious bitcoin con back in 2009, I could have gotten in on it!

Oh, woe is me :)

With just over two weeks to go, Microsoft punts Windows 11 to Release Preview

Windows 10 will be the last version

https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows

"Right now we’re releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10." That was the message from Microsoft employee Jerry Nixon, a developer evangelist speaking at the company's Ignite conference this week.

Navigating without GPS is one thing – so let's jam it and see what happens to our warship

War with China becoming more likely

It’s funny you should do this article right now, according to the experts they consulted at 60 Minutes Australia, probably the first thing China will do when they invade Taiwan is to burn down the global GPS system using fricken space lasers.

https://youtu.be/kA2KaEKs1LA

(When GPS quits worldwide — that was our warning.)