Posts by W.S.Gosset

UK financial watchdog dithers over £680k refund from Google (in ad credits, mind you) for running anti-fraud ads

Eh?

This seems to be a strange jumbling of concepts/domains.

The FCA has no authority or responsibility to regulate advertising. It does Finance. (And rather well, in my experience.) So advertising in a known cesspool to alert/warn/train ignorami about risk of financial fraud via ads just like what they're looking at, is in fact an excellent tactic.

The Advertising Standards Authority is the one who should be cleaning up that cesspool. AND the only one who has the authority, resources, responsibility, purpose, and funding to do so.

I am at a loss as to why the FCA is suddenly being expected to take over the tasks and responsibilities and authorities of any other random regulator it goes near.

Mayflower, the AI ship sent to sail from the UK to the US with no humans, made it three days before breaking down

Re: Discrimination

> How can this possibly be legal?

It's in China.

.

Speaking of rigorous systemic focus on creating and enforcing a compliant underclass:

Western HR would be all over this in a flash if it wasn't for our laws.

Say helloSystem: Mac-like FreeBSD project emits 0.5 release

Re: package systems and security

Oh fan fucking TAS tic!

Add a magickey-doubleclick option eg command or control, to auto open the resource editor, and maybe throw in a tree interface option on it, and you've got the best of both worlds!

Next, tweak Aliases so they work like they _used_ to (as simple as adding an inode reference record, and using it first, then failover to symlink, then failover to showing user Search on basename symlink), and all sorts of rationality opens up again in terms of user control of files.

Re: Menus and application windows

> That a window can be in front of other windows but not be related to what's showing in the menu bar seems wrong from good UI design principles

You might be thinking of MacOSX.

MacOS strictly only showed menus for the front app, ie the window which had the"focus". Which MacOS VERY clearly flagged via a different top bar on the respective window.

Re: Proof, if it were needed,...

I had multiple desktop support on my Mac in ~91/92. My dad had it on his coupla years earlier.

MAN, MacOS was extensible. Throw a new unit/cdev into your System folder, restart: whole new functionalities.

Autocorrect and live spellcheck, for example, started as a MacOS init called Thunder. MacOS 4 or 6, can't remember now.

> Package manager bad?

See my note above. If he can manage close MacOS-ness, it becomes literally meaningless.

Re: package systems and security

Package Managers and all the faffery you mention here, solve a problem that literally didn't exist on MacOS.

You just drag an app in. Job done.

Move it anywhere you want. It Just Works.

I used to drag all my apps to a single disk/volume, all my data on another, then multiple OS versions on multiple other volumes. Backups trivial and trivially segregated by type and hence frequency land size). Switch OSs, all my apps and data work immediately and identically. It all Just Worked.

Hell, there was a while (7? 6? Both?) where you could actually switch OSs on the fly without bothering open apps + data! (Open new System folder, hold down errr just the Command key I think, and double-click on Finder. Done.)

Warning / Recommendation!!

That folklore.org site is wonderful.

Massive flashback city, plus you get to see how so much of what we now regard as standard, was actually arrived at after painstaking and rigorous assessment, evaluation, and decisions between widely competing alternatives.

So expect to lose way more time in it than you expected :D

Re: The UI

Valid but Quibble :

MacOS was multiapp from 1987 onwards via MultiFinder: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MultiFinder

A truly magnificent hack, btw.

For some fascinating background by the legend coder Andy Hertzfeld:

https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Switcher.txt&sortOrder=Sort+by+Title

> The 512K Macintosh, with four times the memory of the original, had just started shipping a few weeks ago. I had considered trying to run multiple applications simultaneously on the 512K Mac, but I was stymied by low memory conflicts and other potential gotchas. But now, as I observed Memory Shift in action on John's PC, I suddenly saw a simple way to do it, which didn't seem to be too hard to implement.

And here's the Mac in 1981 (yes, 1) and the introduction of mini apps, Desk Accessories:

https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Desk_Ornaments.txt&topic=Personality&showcomments=1

MultiFinder Easter eggs: http://www.mackido.com/EasterEggs/SYS-System6.html

Larger view of MultiFinder, including caveat that it really needs 2mb(!) to be useful for the bigger apps. But also note his notes re legend Andy's reworking AND fundamental changes in UI:

https://macfolkloreradio.com/fulltext/1988-01-iconoclast-tales-of-the-multifinder.html

There was a crooked man who bought a crooked M1 iMac, and we presume they lived together in a little crooked house

Re: Units error

The font of Solomon is a free download, I just discovered.

Re: You're looking at it wrong

All Apple fanbois KNOW they're on the side of the Angles.

Re: 4 typical (e.g. hazel) pollen grains

That's pronounced "Rick", pright?

Don't cut the middle man out of your local currency units or they become valueless!

BTW, the correct term is not "middle man". It varies but it's often either "Queen" or "President", depending on what country you're in and what denomination note you're applying the scissors to. Slightly off to one side too, not middle.

> energy traders

[ST? LT? Or non-power, oil/gas/coal?]

Just tell them Apple sells proprietary IP, so this Mac has taken a proprietary position. Specifically, a slight tilt on a normal back-to-back, or in this case side-to-side.

If this fails, just point at one of the watch-screens and shout "Oh my god! Your virtual storage is leaking!" and hotfoot it out of there before they twig they've been tricked.

Wabi sabi

Apple innovation!

UK spends £36m on 18 little 'bullet-proof' boats to protect Royal Navy assets

Re: No sign of armament

I say. Steady on.

China's latest online crackdown targets mean girl online fan clubs that turn toxic

OT: behind-the-curtain view of China's "switch" to "capitalism"

Includes some unusual details which only got outside China a few years ago.

Specifically, Zhao Ziyang while a provincial up&comer had managed to wangle (part of) Shenzhen as what he'd hoped to be a template for salvaging the ongoing China debacle/decline: a semi-free-enterprise/-capitalism zone. Later as he rose to national ranks and finally General Secretary (highest rank in CCP), he pushed and pushed to widen it to all China, but not only got nowhere, he also created a bad smell for himself in the inner circles. Result: Zhao got rolled by Li Peng in his own bid to move from Premier to top-dog General Secretary, deliberately inflaming then using Tiananmen Square to backdoor Zhao with Deng Xiaoping (who was still very much the throne rather than the power behind the throne, nominal job-titles notwithstanding).

_{___weneedanindentcode___} (Aside: An insight into China-CCP's ur-attitude to other countries: Zhao had just about hosed things down once he got back in the country (Li had arranged a high-profile high-rank foreign tour which needed the (unsuspecting) General Secretary), when Li gave a speech which blew the whole thing up overnight --> from winding-down-and-calming to outraged-riots overnight. Why that reaction? According to the protestors, the Premier had spoken to them like they were Westerners (same style, phrasing, etc), and they were incensed that their leaders were lying to them. Ponder the implications of that for a minute.)

Anyway, plebs'-lives brushed aside in standard elite fashion, Li's machinations worked well but not perfectly. Zhao got ousted as planned (and spent the rest of his life under house arrest)(managed to record & smuggle out some tape recordings), BUT Li didn't get his treasured prize of General Secretary; it went to another. Poor ol' Zhao got rolled for nothing.

Later, as China continued to tank and major unrest growing, Deng, on tour and increasingly desperate, discovered the only happy place and the only non-desperate place and the only growing place, was Zhao's Shenzhen special semi-commercial zone. Deng promptly declared this approach/freeing-up would be general policy. And took credit for the whole thing.

Subsequently, CCP's internal power got swamped (by globalisation's cost-only swivelling --further fuelled by CCP tanking the fx rate-- to outsource most production to this new and HUGE supply of mostly slave labour, leading to explosion in activity & uncontrolled individualism which CCP didn't realise until too late) but they're hauling back in now; have been for the last 20yrs or so and IMO are past the tipping point. Still holding the tail of the tiger, but now the spear is firmly back in hand. Ask Jack Ma about "capitalism"...

Re: But it will eventually rise again...

My post immediately-after-that-one demonstrated I know rather a lot about Marx. You'll note I quoted from his hand-written personal correspondence. Because I've read a fair whack of it. Also other people's recountings of conversations with him. Whereas your post suggests you know little of Marx -- you offered a link to his carefully-honed-for-publicity pre-prepared staged bon mots as if it reflected what he thought, rather than what he wanted other people to think. Worse, your understanding of Marx's communism is taken from the modern revisionist playbook, not from Marx. 20thC communism is precisely what he intended. He was quite clear about what he intended, and even (occasionally) quite clear that he was not serious about it being genuinely interim, that that thing about moving on to socialism was just sugar/carrot to get the plebs on board; he actually considered what you call "20C" communism, the end-point.

I would no more have "liked" "a few beers" with Marx than I would with any other two-faced hypocritical social-status-obsessed/-needy parasite suffering from extreme narcissism and routinely evincing contempt for the little people/plebs, while preaching a movement cynically designed to elevate himself and cadre to high-privilege at the expense of the little people/plebs.

Your China assertions seem likewise eyebrow-raising revisionism. China did not "switch" -- the surrender to allowing some bottom-up freedom came as a one-man desperation move late-in-the-day which got seriously out of control, not an up-front teleogically strategic group goal chosen as a way of fixing the Cultural Revolution.

Have you even noticed you're using "capitalism" 2 different ways? As in, 2 wildly different concepts/dimensions. Standard practice in the revisionist schools.

Actually, given your other statements, I'll provide some real-world info below re the China "switch", as you put it.

Your post's odd assertions suggest you are well trained but via very selective/selected-for-you sources.

I suggest you broaden your sources.

Re: But it will eventually rise again...

Marx spent his life sponging off the rich, to maintain the lifestyle he felt he deserved.

And put in writing that he thought that Engels' girlfriend was too common.

Re: But it will eventually rise again...

No, China is entirely Marxist communism. Marx intended communism to be a totalitarian elite with absolute control over the non-cadre/plebs, in order to properly and utterly reshape society. Then the society would logically take the next and final step to the high halcyon fields of socialism.

Thing is, that interim step is kinda the ideal and end-point for the Parasite class. And once they're ensconced, they don't wanna shift.

Business model

> business model where income, popularity and relevance relies on the devotion of one’s fans

Same as Bitcoin et al, in other words.

CAC

If they're looking for a logo, Calendly will shortly have one going cheap.

Deluded medics fail to show Ohio lawmakers that COVID vaccines magnetise patients

Re: magnetic vaccines.

Is Anonymous now not (primarily) a 4chan thing? I thought it still was. Been kinda ignoring it.

Re: magnetic vaccines.

> That particular hare was started as a gag on Social Meedja.

QAnon started as a gag on 4chan.

Heh

We have an embarrassment of Riches.

Funny how Sir Tim Berners-Lee, famous for hyperlinks, is into NFTs, glorified hyperlinks

RW

We sorta have pseudo RW now, but it's actually proxied via spoke&hub interstitial servers. The original goal was to be fully peer-to-peer, and just via html.

Interestingly

, the web per Tim was only ever intended to be a proof of concept, just quickly hacking up an implementation of the read-only aspects of the then-much-argued-about full-scale html spec (RW not just RO). His intent was that it would galvanise the rather moribund squabbling, get it back on track.

Instead, the little read-only prototype sparked a lot of outsiders' interest and enthusiasm, and kinda took off by itself and in its (or their) own direction.

"Oops"

Alibaba suffers billion-item data leak of usernames and mobile numbers

Court reporting codes

> Our best efforts to secure one of those codes have been unsuccessful over a period of several months.

I know where you can rent a good web crawler to find one for you, going cheap for the next 3yrs.

Debian's Cinnamon desktop maintainer quits because he thinks KDE is better now

It's not dead!

It's just Preining for the Friords!

Capita scores half a billion pound outsourcing contract, but refuses to name (or shame?) lucky 'European telco' customer

> Now why on Earth would you be shy about your £528m relationship?

Because they can't quite believe it themselves?

'Welcome to Perth' mirth being milked for all it's worth

Re: "I mean, it's not that funny, though, is it, really?"

Well actually Aussie standard beer is what the Brits call Heavy, and what the Brits call normal beer/ale strength is called a Light beer downunder.

Size-wise, we Aussies have now caught up: no longer the tiny Pot, now the Pint is standard.

Still, our beers taste rubbish compared to a proper English ale. HSB FTW!

(CAMRA member, ~25yrs standing)

Re: Question

Fun Fact: koalas are actually in plague proportions down south.

For the reasons Denarius mentioned compounded by faux-greenies insisting they're endangered so insisting on huge unbalanced plantings of their food trees.

Victoria routinely has to cull them now! One cull alone was 1,500 (!) and in the Before & After photos of the koala infestation, the After photo looks like the Somme circa 1918.

Nvidia gobbles up mapping startup to help automakers install its self-driving platform

Waymo

appear to be the only group tackling autonomous vehicles sanely and introducably

Do you come from a land Down Under? Where diesel's low and techies blunder

Re: Gee…

"I can't tell these support undergarments apart."

Re: Gee…

"Wombat: eats roots and leaves"

Text from an old Australian children's encyclopaedia, which immediately entered Aussie legend.

(For the uninitiated, "root" is Aussie slang for --how should I put this? Faux-formal, methinks-- sexual intercourse, typically of a casual nature or lacking emotional involvement.)

Unknown author Liz Truss much later nicked the joke and mangled it for non-Aussie consumption to entitle her Punctuation book, "Eats shoots and leaves".

Re: Happened to me as well!

One of the largest Aussie bushfires last season was started by a major regional transformer blowing.

The utility's engineers had got the cables round the wrong way.

Re: Tax

Can confirm: the only difference is tax. (And colouring additive)

Hence the harsh penalties if caught with unauthorised red diesel: you are literally committing tax fraud.

Agricultural: purpose is: subsidy for Food. Ie, fruit and veggies (primarily) are cheaper. Target beneficiaries: low income earners.

Realizing this is getting out of hand, Coq mulls new name for programming language

Re: au Vin

oo ta. I like me some etymological goodness, I do.

.

On a related note: the name "mean" for what most people regard as a normal average, comes from the French "moyen" meaning "middle". The original English statistical term was "middle" and the posh language in England then (eg, used in the law courts) was French.

Ay walla! (A German phrase meaning to have fun in mud)

James May

Every time he stuffed up on Top Gear or hit a problem, he called on this very programming language. Quite distinctly and quite frequently.

Re: Cockroach

That's insexism, that is.

Re: Add YOUR perhapslessthanformal Alternate Ideas HERE, Goys and Birls! :-

If they want to keep the history AND the reference&tribute to the early contributor, why not use a standard follow-on via Word Association (football) as per "Vin" above?

So: Monsieur Coquand

BALLS

Add YOUR perhapslessthanformal Alternate Ideas HERE, Goys and Birls! :-

How about...

THRUST

Theorem HeuRistic Uncertainty Specious Tits

or-rrrr...

SPREM

Systematically Proving Rithmetic En' Maths

Gah -- you were going to finish with a droll pun-esque joke, but you chocked.

What Microsoft's Windows 11 will probably look like

AKA MacOS (ie, the original, not X)

Re: Centred task bar

Ahhhh, Fitt's Law etc. Those were the days.

Re: Win95 . (was: Should I care?)

XP for me. I've not used Win95, mind.

But of all the extant UIs I've used (all the MacOSXs, all the Windozers bar 95 & ME), XP remains dominant. XP is basically Panther (MacOSX 10.3) with more regard for the user. (After 10.3, Apple switched to increasingly aggressive user-contempt.)

.

.

[Of the extinct OSs, MacOS 8.6 by a country mile + fundamental step-change, then BeOS & AtariOS tying for 2nd.]

IBM pulls up the ladder behind some supercomputer customers

IBM coders and admins clearly still had a sense of humour

I quite like this, buried in the midst of the PDF's description of a novice crew actually using a borrowed lift:

> Just before the power down the system outputs one final message on the screen:

"Goodbye cruel world!"

Re: the guy who dropped it

According to the PDF, just the top-most piece of kit on their lift usage was worth US$200k.

So in answer to your question: no!

If HAL did digital signage. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that...

Re: I'm sorry...

Fdisk always sounds bowdlerised to me.

Dealing with the pandemic by drinking and swearing? Boffins say you're not alone

Re: re: no safe level

Interestingly, the high-quality high-validity research is unusually consistent, and says you're spot on.

A bottle of wine a day is the break-even point for drinkers having the same expected lifespan as teetotallers.

Drinkers' expected lifespan increases with #Units/Day until peaking/maximising at 6-7, declining again after that, but now monotonically, crossing the Teetotallers' axis/baseline somewhere between 13 and 14 Units/Day.

To put it another way:

Drinkers live longer than non-drinkers, as long as they drink less than 14 units of alcohol a day.

Most EUK wines are less than that per bottle.

So you'll live longest if you split a bottle of wine every day.