Posts by Bill Neal

Cat accused of wiping US Veteran Affairs server info after jumping on keyboard

Re: cat /dev/null

But was it a sudo cat?

Germany's wild boars still too radioactive to eat largely due to Cold War nuke tests

Re: Bavaria only .....

How can that possibly be? Is nobody testing anywhere else in the world?

LibreOffice 7.6 arrives: Open source stalwart is showing its maturity

Meet?

What is Google meet? I use meet a lot, but didn't know Skype was still a thing.

Not call: Open source gurus urge you to dump Zoom

Zoom or Teams

It doesn't help if the everyone in my work-life only use Zoom, Teams, or both.

We need to be first on the Moon, uh, again, says NASA

Re: Just one question

They'll draw a dashed line around it.

Thousands of subreddits go dark in mega-protest over Reddit's app-killing API prices

Re: "But then how could it be used for porn ?"

Links are plain text

Reg FOSS desk test drive: First beta of Fedora 38 drops

Software Management

I love everything about Fedora except the software Management. I used fedora 14 as a daily driver for years and loved it. The changes in gnome drove me to Mint, and LMDE5 has been a dream compared to everything else. Mind you I'm not running a server, a touchscreen, or a programming workstation. For a standard one-size-fits-all desktop I see no reason to leave LMDE.

Linux Mint 21.2 and Cinnamon 5.8 desktop take shape

LMDE 5

I have been thoroughly enjoying LMDE 5. I use it on my personal work XPS laptop daily which has only an i3. I prefer MATE but cinnamon works just as well for me. Other desktops like NsCDE and MaXX were easy to install and try. The only thing that ever broke it was trying to update GRUB. Don't do that.

Google staff asked to share desk space in latest cost purge

Free message therapy?

Is that an SMS therapist or a chatbot?

Amazon buys US healthcare chain One Medical for $3.9bn

Re: "waiting weeks or even months to be seen"

Nah. They just need to manage their time better.

James Webb Space Telescope looks closer to home with Jupiter snaps

Re: photographing a turtle

They could just do it at night

Microsoft pulls Windows 10/11 installation websites in Russia

Re: I resisted for all of 20 seconds

Good time to be a ReactOS dev, if you live in Russia ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fujitsu, Intel tilt at hyperscale storage with Ceph-powered arrays

Ceph?

I guess we don't have to ask about Crysis then

Cranial RAM cram plan aims to restore memory

Johnny Mnemonic?

I hope they get better storage capacity than Keanu did.

We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Sorry, 'audiophiles', only IT will break the sound barrier

Ancient technology

I had an employer who insists his old tube-based amplifier is still superior to anything digital today. After hearing the quality at very high volume and very low wattage, I'm inclined to agree. Of course every few years he has to order new tubes from China or some eastern European country since there isn't much demand anymore in the west.

On the other hand, speakers have changed quite a bit over the years. There are even towers that you might not think capable of making any sound just by looking at them (google MartinLogan). Most people (myself included) still prefer a more traditional speaker for simplicity. When a simple speaker breaks, I know why and I can repair or replace it myself.

Speaking in Tech: 'Software-defined' anything makes me BARF in my MOUTH

Software Defined Nausea

Unisys cozies closer to Intel, 'sunsets' proprietary processor

Emulation?

"uses software for processes traditionally performed by hardware."

Are they afraid to say emulation? because it looks like they're afraid to say emulation.

Teeny GPU targets wearables, Things

IoT?

more like the Internet of Things for the NSA! Why would you need such high res (& probably low framerate) graphics in such a small package?

VROOM! Intel revs Devil's Canyon monster 4x4 at 4GHz

smaller and simpler power supplies

This may be a bit off-topic, but why aren't there power supplies for DC voltage applications like marine & automotive environments? Wouldn't it be simpler to skip the AC/DC transformer and just control voltage? Is there something out there that I don't know about?

The enemy of my enemy is my, well, temporary ally: Apple and Microsoft in pact against Google

Re: well ...

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia

US bloke raises $250k to build robo-masturbation device

Re: Software Defined Wanking

Masturbation as a Service? MaaS

Android is a BURNING 'hellstew' of malware, cackles Apple's Cook

Re: That's what my boss used to shout

Yeah, I'm not using KitKat and I'm still happy with my experience until I really want to shell out the cash for a new device that can handle it. I have seen several friends & family in the last year switch from iOS to Android for exactly the same reason, "The iOS update made my iPhone4 crap!" Everyone has their reasons. Mine are simple: total cost of ownership and device lifespan.

Venus Express to get final acid bath before crashing to surface

Re: The nutcase brigade would never allow a NASA mission to Venus

pity that NASA is concentrating so much effort on Mars, since there is no way we are going to colonize Venus

Solaris deposed as US drone-ware, replaced by Linux administration

Re: Wow, that'd make a great T-shirt!

Death as a Service? in the cloud?

Will Apple's $130bn cash infusion keep investors onboard?

Steve Jobs' legacy:

The money being spent on Samsung patent litigation and a new HQ.

Don't forget that he started those too.

Shocking new low for SanDisk – 15nm flash chips rolling out its fabs

too far?

I want to believe there is no loss of reliability, but at what point should I worry? Is it not still more reliable to use the last generation with slightly more atoms per bit?

Hidden 'Windigo' UNIX ZOMBIES are EVERYWHERE

Would you like to install?

...unless they don't know the root password. That depends on the distro, of course.

ZEPPELINS to replace Goodyear blimps in American skies

Re: Zeppelin NT?

I guess we missed out on Zeppelin for Workgroups. They should be alright as long as they don't name one Vista.

Police pen shortage threatens Irish public order

Re: Actually I did expect better.

Someone needs to check out the Pen Island website. Be careful when googling that one. Here, I'll save you the trouble. www.penisland.net

Microsoft chairman John Thompson: Redmond looks 'like IBM in 1990'

At first I read that as

Thompson was taped to a chair by Microsoft's board earlier this month...

Toshiba opens curtains, reveals air-cushioned 5-terabyte terror

Re: Instant Erase

Sometimes instant erase is not an option.

Google will dodge EU MONSTER FINES by 'promoting' rival search services

Why?

I get Microsoft v Apple, Intel v AMD, and AT&T v (the world of the 80's?), but not this. Who is forced to use Google? only the advertisers? It seems to me Google is being punished for being too effective/efficient/good.

Why IBM's server sell-off is a lightbulb moment

How did Lenovo do it?

Start by making something for consumers that is affordable and isn't crap. I love HP servers, but their consumer-grade products are absolute crap, and Dell fell into that hole too. Lenovo & Asus are the only brands I recommend for cheap machines these days, and it has paid off.

Microsoft shops ditch XP for New Year as Windows market share expands

A good number of Windows surface tablets sold in Q3 2013 were quickly returned when people realized they had to get all applications from Microsoft. Where is that figure? Friends in retail tell me they are the most returned tablet. Too bad we don't get accurate stats on these things.

Lumia 1520: Our man screams into ENORMO new Nokia phondleslab

HELLO?

HELLO!

YEAH I GOT A NEW WINPHONE!

NO IT'S RUBBISH!

YEAH RUBBISH MATE!

CIAO!

I kinda miss trigger happy TV. I should go download it.

Bill Gates orders hitman to kill right-hand man Steve Ballmer

Whale Whores

DOLPHIN AND WHALE!

Cisco partners with Wilocity on hyper fast 5-gigabit Wi-Fi tech

abgn...

The engineers have made a fine mess of the alphabet with 802.11_ standards. What letter(s) will be next?

HP: Our NonStop servers will be rock solid – even when running on x86

Serious question

Are there ANY benefits to Itanium/IA64 over the Xeons availible at this time? I'm asking about hardware here, not software support or porting issues. I have heard about Intel bringing Itanium features to Xeon, and I'm just wondering what is left? Is the only problem with Itanium the low clocks? high cost? Is the only thing keeping IA64 alive the software lock-in?

Blighty's telcos set to CHOKE off another fistful of piracy gateways

Re: More power to them...

...while the rest of the world gets a list of cool sites to check out. I'm sure they appreciate the publicity. /s

HGST pops out 1TB ultraportable travelstar drive

Yes, but...

Does this one have shingles? I'd like to stay away from the ones that do.

What's the first Kinetic Ethernet hard drive? Psst, it's the 4TB Terascale

Headline

I saw the headline and thought, "WTF is Kinetic Ethernet?" that sounds dangerous.

Whodathunkit? Media barons slit own throats in flawed piracy crackdowns

Cold water?

Typical MPAA spokeswoman sticking fingers in ears shouting, "I'm not listening!"

Amazon wrapping FireTube tellybox for Christmas – reports

FireTube?

So it's NOT a source for ginger porn then. They really could have thought up a better name. I really don't see a reason to switch from my Roku3 & PS3. I don't want to buy an HDMI switch either.

Thirteen alleged Anons named and charged by FBI in antipiracy web war

Re: Thirteen down...

Fine. Say 1000 took part in what (to them) sounded like a good idea at the time. 13 were foolish enough to leave sufficient evidence to be charged & most likely convicted. It still sounds like a weak attempt to parade some dissidents before the masses.

Re: These are not the droids

Anon is conflicted with the ethics of using botnets to do their DDoSing. Can you blame them? If you wanted to picket a business, would you do it yourself or force others to do it against their will?

Google's boffins branded 'unacceptably ineffective' at tackling web piracy

Re: Simple Reason

It is even deeper than that. Google advertises Play and Chromebooks within android apps like the one for Kickass Torrents

I, for one, welcome our robotic communist jobless future

Re: It's lucky we have infinite energy and natural resources to build and power all of these robots

I see a correlation between scarcity and the desire to breed. How do you convince people to limit population growth to something sustainable? Should we all just pretend that we can reproduce as much as we want without consequences?

Intel reveals 14nm PC, declares Moore's Law 'alive and well'

Even without another process shrink...

Doesn't this give us even more room & better thermal envelope to add more subsystems to the same chip? The SoC development seems to take away more & more bottlenecks from our systems while giving us more efficiency. I'm sure there will always be the need to connect it all (and upgrade the GPU), but apart from the solid state storage & bus connections, what else can we shrink?

Shingle me timbers! Seagate brags of 1m SMR drives - where are they?

Shingles?

No thanks Seagate. I don't care how big it is.

WIN a RockBLOCK Iridium satellite comms module

BORAT

Ballocket

Operation

Remote

Abort

Transmission / Transmitter