* Posts by nautica

596 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Apr 2016

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Third time is almost the charm for SpaceX's Starship

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

Re: "...otherwise a success" is the logic equivalent of "kind'a pregnant".

It is an unbelievably trivial task to ferret out all of Musk's cyborgs/zombies/lemmings/cockroaches/sheep here.

...And so much fun!

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

"...otherwise a success" is the logic equivalent of "kind'a pregnant".

From the sub-head: "...Booster hit the water hard and monster rocket lost during re-entry, but otherwise a success!"

Intel's $699 Core i9-14900KS turbos to 6.2GHz – assuming you can keep it cool

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

"...the x86 giant now has a...processor...that it says will do 6.2GHz right out of the box..."

Why. (?) So it can wait faster?

We asked Intel to define 'AI PC'. Its reply: 'Anything with our latest CPUs'

nautica Silver badge
Thumb Up

"We asked Intel to define 'AI PC'..."

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Trump 'tried to sell Truth Social to Musk' as SPAC deal stalled

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Dictionary definition of circle-jerk?

It couldn't have happened to two more worthy individuals.

HP print rental service seeks more users to become subscription addicts

nautica Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: nothing more than smooth-brained, non-thinking, fucking sheep.

Congratulations. You just proved that you're in the majority.

(You will, very obviously, require outside help in having this explained to you.)

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Re: "...more users to become subscription addicts."

Old Yiddish saying--

"If praying really worked, they'd pay people to do it."

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

"...more users to become subscription addicts."

The majority of the world's population is made up of nothing more than smooth-brained, non-thinking, fucking sheep.

Sam Altman's chip ambitions may be loonier than feared

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Title: "Sam Altman's chip ambitions may be loonier than feared"

With apologies to that preeminent British biologist JBS Haldane, who famously said, "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, but it is stranger than we can imagine."...perhaps the title here could--or should--be

"Sam Altman's chip ambitions may not only be loonier than feared, but loonier than can be feared."

Amazon overcharges shoppers with Buy Box algorithm, fresh lawsuit claims

nautica Silver badge
Thumb Down

It's not just the 'Buy Box'--Amazon's magic is everywhere. Be very careful...

Amazon lets you keep items of interest in a holding area known as "Cart". Have noticed a disturbing phenomenon: the cost of some items moved into the 'Cart' somehow, mysteriously, tend to increase in price once they've been placed there (and, yes; as a test, I've removed items from the 'Cart', and placed them into the "Save for Later" area. The price went back down within a week).

That runaway datacenter power grab is the best news for net zero this century

nautica Silver badge
Happy

"Office of Nuclear Energy: NRC Certifies First U.S. Small Modular Reactor Design"

“The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued its final rule in the Federal Register to certify NuScale Power’s small modular reactor.

"The company’s power module becomes the first SMR design certified by the NRC and just the seventh reactor design cleared for use in the United States.

"The rule takes effects February 21, 2023 and equips the nation with a new clean power source to help drive down emissions across the country..."

“...Each power module leverages natural processes, such as convection and gravity, to passively cool the reactor without additional water, power, or even operator action....”

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nrc-certifies-first-us-small-modular-reactor-design

Read it here.

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Small modular reactors. Just one, by way of example:

Nuscale.

https://www.nuscalepower.com/en

If you use AI to teach you how to code, remember you still need to think for yourself

nautica Silver badge
Meh

"The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus."--Edsger Dijkstra

Wait, security courses aren't a requirement to graduate with a computer science degree?

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

" Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes, biology is about microscopes or chemistry is about beakers and test tubes. Science is not about tools. It is about how we use them, and what we find out when we do."

Edsger Dijkstra

nautica Silver badge

From David L Parnas--

"When someone builds a bridge, he uses engineers who have been certified as knowing what they are doing. Yet when someone builds you a software program, he has no similar certification, even though your safety may be just as dependent upon that software working as it is upon the bridge supporting your weight."

"There are no standards for computer programmers and no group to certify them."

“My judgment is that research in 'Star Wars' is going to fail, and I believe this so strongly that I'm willing to stake my professional reputation on this. I don't believe anybody is going to build this thing.”

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“...Parnas earned his PhD at Carnegie Mellon University in electrical engineering. Parnas also earned a professional engineering license in Canada and was one of the first to apply traditional engineering principles to software design...

“...Dr Parnas took a public stand against the US Strategic Defense Initiative (also known as "Star Wars") in the mid 1980s, arguing that it would be impossible to write an application of sufficient quality that it could be trusted to prevent a nuclear attack. {He felt that the immense requirements for software which had to be absolutely faultless was--and still is--simply not realizeable.} He has also been in the forefront of those urging the professionalization of "software engineering" (a term that he characterizes as "an unconsummated marriage"). Dr. Parnas is also a heavy promoter of ethics in the field of software engineering...”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Parnas

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What makes a hard error hard? Microsoft vet tells all

nautica Silver badge
Happy

...saw a bumper-sticker the other day (are those abominations used only in the US?) which is one of the very few I'd consider having--

'CAUSE I'M YO' MAMA, AND I SAY SO

Question (from this article's title): "What makes a hard error hard?"...

Answer: 'CAUSE I'M MICROSOFT, AND I SAY SO

US cities are going to struggle to green up their act by 2050

nautica Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: I didn't realize how much of an idiocracy we live in...until now.

"...To further hammer home the severity of the issue, the 31 cities chosen for the study represent 84 percent of the population..."

Good on you, mate. Don't know how that one was missed.

nautica Silver badge
Happy

We need to "reframe the issue..." I didn't realize how much of an idiocracy we live in...until now.

This article is filled with words, uttered by the people who get paid, with your money --via government research grants--and who are supposed to be smart enough to provide real solutions to this very serious and very perilous problem.

Here are just two examples of a few of the many words used by these academics who are charged with analyzing, and solving, this problem--

"..."Across the 31 cities present in this study, none are expected to meet their goal of 100 percent renewable based on existing or planned infrastructure development," the team found. "Even in the four best case scenarios developed, cities appear to cap off renewable energy penetration between 35 percent and 65 percent in the next two decades..."

"..."Successful energy transitions require reframing the issue as not one that is purely technical, economic, social or political but that is interdisciplinary and requires collaboration and communication across multiple sectors," the team concluded.

"Conversations are needed between those who apply the market approach to supply and demand versus those with sociopolitical approaches," Garrett added. ®

Here's the one word whose absence here is nothing short of deafening--and unconscionable:

nuclear.

For a moment there, Lotus Notes appeared to do everything a company needed

nautica Silver badge
IT Angle

Okay, so call me quirky, but one of the real nuggets of this article was not about Notes, but about MOCAS (see last paragraph).

A program 59 years old, running on its own dedicated (old-ish) mainframe? Written in--you guessed it--COBOL.

"Today, the system manages about $1.3 trillion in obligations and 340,000 contracts. It uses an IBM 2098 model E-10 mainframe. This hardware is able to perform 398 million instructions per second with the help of its 6GB RAM."

From MIT Technology Review--

https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/08/06/166822/what-is-the-oldest-computer-program-still-in-use/

"...MOCAS’s original interface relied on punchcards or keycards, says Michael Graham, the information technologist responsible for managing MOCAS. In the following decades the program got upgraded to work with what’s often called “green screen” access: a terminal-style system that remained in broad use at airlines, travel agents, banks, and telecom companies until just a few years ago. “I’m not sure I would call it a graphical user interface,” says Graham."...who has, obviously, mastered the art of the understatement.

Asia beat US, EU in chip building because the West didn't invest, Intel CEO claims

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

Simply type cal (for 'calendar') at the terminal's command line...

In this article, there are too many personal pronouns, too much bending of history, and far too much self-aggrandizing for my liking. One can almost hear these words coming out of the orange-haired Florida man, or the space cadet who builds electric cars. e.g.---

"...We were on the hair's edge of never being able to recover the manufacturing of this industry," he said. "Had I started the rebuilding of Intel a year later, I don't think I could have accomplished it."...

Mr Gelsinger, you stated, about a year ago that Intel would be profitable by 2024.

I just checked my calendar...

Tesla owners in deep freeze discover the cold, hard truth about EVs

nautica Silver badge
Meh

Re: And after all the comments

Simply because you "...asked around at work. Nobody knew what a block heater was..." does not relieve you of the basic necessity of understanding how something works, and what is required on your part; of your responsibilities in the utilization of a common technology.

Do you have any problem with NOT inserting your hand down into the kitchen sink's garbage disposer once you turn it on?

nautica Silver badge
Meh

You're right, but it was a different set of problems, and all much easier to fix.

nautica Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: irony

No; if people didn't insist on the lunacy of BEVs, we wouldn't have this problem.

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

Re: And after all the comments

No. It's your responsibility...only...and no one else's.

IF YOU OWN A DIESEL, you should be smart enough to know that many solutions for heating diesel engines have been around for years AND YEARS--- such as block heaters, dipstick oil heaters, under-the-car plug-in radiant heaters...[people who sell diesel engines are smart enough to know about the absolute need for cold-weather diesel engine heating].

Check around. You might be surprised to find an aftermarket block heater, or even (heaven forbid) a block heater at your dealer which you could have ordered as an option.

nautica Silver badge
Stop

Hurricane evacuation--miles and miles of cars creeping along at 3 mph: ever see a Tesla?

I live in what most people in the US refer to as 'the Deep South'--about as 'deep' as you can get without being in Florida.

We have a fair share of mostly pleasant weather--sometimes really cold in January and February, and sometimes really hot in July/August, but mostly pleasant with average/above average amount of precipitation.

I have always referred to Teslas as "Fair-Weather, Blue-Sky Cars", because it's only then that you see all the Teslas hit the roads, so that there's not much demand--electrically--put on the vehicle. (I have personally witnessed Teslas being driven in rainstorms without main headlights on [against the law here], and with minimal use of windshield wipers--too much electricity, don'tcha know. Can't count the times I've seen these $100K cars driving in hot weather with their windows down...and you know the reason for that).

Someone here just referred to Teslas as 'Goldilocks Cars'. Great description--they are only for use when the ambient is "...not too hot; not too cold, but juuuuussst right".

Oh...and not raining.

BEVs are not the answer to whatever the question is.

Musk claims that venting liquid oxygen caused Starship explosion

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Has always seemed just exactly like tRUMP...

...Makes up excuses on the spur of the moment, and expects them to be accepted because they came out of his mouth. And, no; additional time to think things through before babbling would not help. The operative word here is think.

Microsoft suggests command line fiddling to get faulty Windows 10 update installed

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Know anything about Linux? ...At all?

"...Showing an unhelpful error message and then requiring a user to delve into the world of the command line to fix things. What is this? Linux? ®"

You have just displayed a considerable--some might say, "unbelievable", for a technical publication--lack of knowledge of modern Linux distributions, and of their developers.

Daughter of George Carlin horrified someone cloned her dad with AI for hour special

nautica Silver badge
Holmes

Why use A-I? Because there's no other way to get anything close to the essence of Carlin.

George Carlin--

“I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.”

“I don't like ass kissers, flag wavers or team players. I like people who buck the system. Individualists. I often warn people: "Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, 'There is no "I" in team.' What you should tell them is, 'Maybe not. But there is an "I" in independence, individuality and integrity.'" Avoid teams at all cost. Keep your circle small. Never join a group that has a name. If they say, "We're the So-and-Sos," take a walk. And if, somehow, you must join, if it's unavoidable, such as a union or a trade association, go ahead and join. But don't participate; it will be your death. And if they tell you you're not a team player, congratulate them on being observant.”

Apple sets new 16,000-foot iPhone drop test after 737 fuselage fail

nautica Silver badge
Thumb Down

No one really needs to know that; that's OLD news...

Would anyone here be surprised to learn that some news outlets are NOT reporting that this major-airframe "INCIDENT" occurred on a Boeing designed-by-software B 737-MAX aircraft?

Anyone?

'Only 700 new IT jobs' were created in US last year

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Only 700? Perhaps the 'software crisis' is due to not enough bad programmers?

From the article: "...A mere 700 IT jobs were added in the US last year compared to 267,000 the year prior..."

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"One bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year."--David L. Parnas

Microsoft pulls the plug on WordPad, the world's least favorite text editor

nautica Silver badge
Happy

"Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better."-Edsger W. Dijkstra

US fusion energy dreams edge closer to reality, Congress permitting

nautica Silver badge
Holmes

I'm glad we've finally found an expert on this subject to clear things up...

"...We're not building a star on earth, just a small subsection of one. You seem concerned by this?..."

The only thing that concerns me is when people try to display their (non-existent) erudition of a subject by obfuscation and diversion. One example of this type activity might be the appeal to hyperlinks which add nothing to the highly scientific and technical questions and issues to hand.

You could start convincing us of your technical and academic prowess (one must assume, at the very least, post-doc experience in astrophysics on your part) on this subject by enlightening us as to which particular SUBSECTION of a star the 'fusion experts' are aiming to build. Please be very specific as to the particular "...small subsection of..." a star you refer.

While the previous comment provided entertainment, be assured that we are all awaiting serious scientific enlightenment from you.

nautica Silver badge
Holmes

"We've already got a working fusion system"

Don't know why you chose the "Joke Alert" icon, but hey...it's your comment.

The only 'joke' is on the those who actually believe that--and are conned into funding--our pathway to 'green energy' (this whole discussion, like 'Quantum Computing', is founded and built strictly on buzzwords) lies in our ability to actually build a contained, CONTINUOUSLY WORKING, miniature sun here ON EARTH.

Strange, but the only stars I ever learned of are in outer space (yes; 93 million miles does qualify), separated by great distances--as in light-years--from other of their brethren.

There's got to be a fundamental-physics reason why the separation between these fusion machines is so enormous...but we're going to build one right here on earth.

I'll keep my money in my pocket, thank you very much.

CLIs are simply wizard at character building. Let’s not keep them to ourselves

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Of course it doesn't.

"The windows 10 calculator doesn't NEED to take up 39MB..".

One of the very best, very small Spreadsheet Programs, called Gnumeric, .--takes about 30 MB !

From Jack Germain, "Gnumeric Crunches Numbers Like a Pro", https://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Gnumeric-Crunches-Numbers-Like-a-Pro-76605.html

..."The bottom line regarding match computations with Gnumeric is that this spreadsheet app gets the same answers as its competitors, but does so faster....

"...Gnumeric is more than a simple and limited calculation program. It is a fully-functional spreadsheet capable of manipulating and analyzing numeric data. Its uses include keeping track of information in lists and organizing numeric values in columns.

“While it is defined by developers as lightweight, Gnumeric is not short on features. For example, it offers 100 percent of the worksheet functions in Microsoft Excel, plus it has 154 functions not found in that commercial business spreadsheet.

"It also comes with basic support for financial derivatives (Black Scholes) and for telecommunication engineering. It is adept at handling analytics and advanced statistical analysis. If you need it, this app can implement complex optimization modeling or perform tasks involving numbers, dates, times, names or other data.

Gnumeric handles extensive random number generation and performs and updates complex calculations by defining each step of the calculation and modifying particular steps subsequently. Also, it can create and display or print graphical plots of data using bar plots, line graphs, pie charts or radar charts....(--J.G.}

One can read the entire article here.

One of the very many qualities of Gnumeric is its extremely rich ensemble of Statistical Functions. Included, for example, is Fourier Analysis !

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Re: Windows CLI text editor?

"MS-DOS Editor, commonly just called edit or edit.com, is a TUI text editor that comes with MS-DOS 5.0 and later,[1] as well as all 32-bit x86 versions of Windows, until Windows 11. It supersedes edlin, the standard editor in earlier versions of MS-DOS. In MS-DOS, it was a stub for QBasic running in editor mode. Starting with Windows 95, MS-DOS Editor became a standalone program because QBasic didn't ship with Windows..."

From "Wikipedia", "MS-DOS Editor", here.

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Re: So, back to machine code?

The only problem here is the conflating of the different types of computer-user interfaces.

The GUI has not always been with us. As a matter of fact, the one program which is, arguably, responsible for the PC's "taking off", was 'Visicalc' (the forerunner of Lotus 1-2-3, and originally written for the Apple IIe--but quickly ported to the IBM PC), which is said to have had the result of people buying hardware just so they could run a piece of software. Visicalc, and all programs of the era, are referred to as TUI, or "Text (-based) User Interface" programs--which are all, always, full-screen programs.

The CLI is a single-line only user interface medium whose express purpose is for the very easy inspection, maintenance, and repair of an operating system and the hardware it runs on; and certainly not for the writing of production-level programs.

Your point is very well taken: GUI programs absolutely make life easier when it comes to using fairly complex applications...but so does the single-line TUI command-line interface CLI make life easier when used in its proper context.

Different horses for different courses...

nautica Silver badge
Go

Re: two things

"There are two exceedingly brilliant uses for CLI."

Here are two more exceedingly brilliant uses of the CLI which are unmatched elsewhere: software updating, and software upgrading. ["sudo" is required for administrator privilege; "apt" is the package manager for Debian-based distributions; "yum" and "dnf" are for Redhat; "pacman" is for Arch-based distros...]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

To simply update software, type (at the command line, of course)

sudo apt update

To simply upgrade software, type

sudo apt upgrade

To perform both tasks at the same time, simply type

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

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Now, try updating and/or upgrading your software as easily as this using GUI methods.

nautica Silver badge

Sadly,some things can't be upvoted. Or downvoted. Or answered.

"...Sadly, that was lost when Mac OS became UNIX."

So, here's the vote on this one: ‽ ‽

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Intuitive GUI? My arse.

Neither "cal" or nor "ncal" gives you 'Stardate'. Yet. (but programs exist on the interweb which do; for Christmas, 2023, at 10:50 am EST, Stardate is -299017.93093607307)

nautica Silver badge
Coat

Re: Intuitive GUI? My arse.

"...but I couldn't find the"ANY" key..."--old joke/cartoon.

nautica Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Some things are just hard

Very good!

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.‭"--‬Mark Twain‭

nautica Silver badge
Meh

Re: Windows CLI text editor?

If I remember correctly, 'EDIT' was an ancillary function of Microsoft's Basic; if MSBasic were not installed, one didn't have the EDIT program to use.

...and EDIT was, most definitely, not a terminal, or CLI, editor.

nautica Silver badge
Happy

Re: -h or --help

This entire comment appears to be offered in support of a personal opinion, only, and is not borne out by fact. No situation has ever been encountered in which "...they [i.e., sub-commands] tend to be chosen from a misguided desire to make the whole command invocation read like an English sentence...".

Offered as a very simple counter-example is the inxi command, the following example of which is used to obtain a fairly complete listing of one's system parameters (furthermore--I'm still having difficulty forging an English sentence, using the (supposedly English) 'word' which is at the very root of this very "English-sentence-like command invocation "--"inxi" ):

sudo inxi -FmxZ , or, sudo inxi -F -m -x -Z ["sudo" is needed by the "m" option because root privilege is required in order to display installed memory. You will be asked for a password--the same one you use to sign in to use your Linux distro]

This is a simple example of the "inxi" command. Read the full listing of all of "inxi"s capabilities by typing either "man inxi", or "info inxi" at the terminal's command line. You will quickly be disabused of the notion that the creator(s) of "inxi" were laboring under a "... misguided desire to make the whole command invocation read like an English sentence...".

Windows 12: Savior of PC makers, or just an apology for Windows 11?

nautica Silver badge
Go

"There's a place up ahead where I'm goin'... "

I have Windows7 and Windows10 on three Lenovo machines, in a dual-boot configuration alongside Linux (for a "...just in case..." situation). Have never used the Windows installations; never needed to. Been using Linux since before Ubuntu went all crazy, and before Linux was declared to be "...a cancer..." by Steve Balmer.

Every time I think of Windows, I think of the song "Up Around the Bend", written and sung by John Fogerty of Credence Clearwater Revival, and particularly the end of the first stanza, which states

"...Come away, come away if you're goin';

Leave the sinkin' ship behind."

California approves lavatory-to-faucet water recycling

nautica Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Actually I sort of makes sense

Q: What do you get when you add a glass of fine wine to a 55-gallon drum of sewage?

A: A 55-gallon drum of sewage.

Q: What do you get when you add a glass of sewage to a 55-gallon drum of fine wine?

A: A 55-gallon drum of sewage.

nautica Silver badge
Stop

Re: California water...

Wells have nothing to do with water quality.

Some the best water in the world comes from wells.

nautica Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: California water...

Give this person ten up-votes!

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Please could you ....

You forgot a favorite: acre-feet.

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Why

"[Why] Aren't the data centers near rivers or the sea..."

What are we missing here?

Isn't this cooling problem precisely why nuclear power plants, with their need for cooling towers, are always located near rivers or the sea?

Oh; wait...I think I've got it---all those massive tax breaks and incentives given--usually with stiff competition, and always for 'bragging rights'-- to the "High-Tech Giants" to locate their data centers in certain jurisdictions (states, provinces, etc) apply only when these high-technology "plums" locate in low land-cost, water-scarce areas (read as 'desert areas'). Everyone knows that real estate, located near the water--any water, is always very expensive, and can't simply be given away [a totally different set of conditions apply--absolutely--to Public Utilities: any land (and water), anywhere, can be 'appropriated' for the public good].

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"There's always a very simple answer to every seemingly very complex problem if you just look at it the right way."--Douglas Adams

How to deorbit the Chromebook... and repurpose it for innovators

nautica Silver badge
Alert

Re: De-orbit?

From the "FAQ" section of MrChromebox.tech (https://mrchromebox.tech/) referenced further down--

Q: I want to buy a Chromebook to run Windows or Linux -- which should I buy?

A: Buying any Chromebook with the intention of running Windows or Linux is not a great idea. Many can't boot anything other than ChromeOS; Those that can boot Linux (or Windows) often have functional deficiencies -- DO NOT EXPECT EVERYTHING TO WORK OUT OF THE BOX. Older models may fair [sic] better compatibility wise, but there are still lots of caveats, and it's not recommended to buy a Chromebook as a cheap Linux device.

That said, here's a handy spreadsheet that's reasonably up to date detailing Linux compatibility...."

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