Posts by TrumpSlurp the Troll 622 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2017
My bits bucket still has WiFi adapters for old and now insecure versions of 802.11.
I am (sadly) very reluctant to throw anything away but I can't see, for example, and further use for 802.11b USB adapters/dongles.
This isn't due to lack of support by the manufacturer but due to outdated hardware.
My recent Windows 11 setup asked me for a photo and a fingerprint (declined) and a PIN.
Next thing I know it is authenticating with a PIN - 4 digits for this one (because I didn't think it would be used in this way).
Even with a 10 or 20 digit PIN it is surely very easy to crack.
No idea what the idea was.
A lot of scorn and down voting from people who only connect mainstream devices like printers and scanners.
Anything niche, such as a sat nav, a blood glucose monitor, bicycle computer seems to come with software and drivers for the most popular OS.
Which is still Windows.
I was a long term Linux user (and Unix before that) but I have found no need to use Linux recently and am still dragging my feet over moving to W10 from my W7 systems.
Yes, I have W10 systems and W8.1 but W7 seems to be the sweet spot for "mainly just works".
It seems that there is still a lot of religion over using Linux instead of Windows.
It still doesn't hit the spot of "does everything I need and supports every niche device I need" but Windows does.
Until all devices come with Linux support then Windows is still the default.
Saying "use a VM for Windows specific hardware" to me is complicating the issue.
If I don't need anything that only Linux provides then why complicate things?
Or fire up a Linux VM, of course. :-)
If it takes 2 years and billions to build a new fab then you want to be sure that when it comes on line the demand still outstrips the supply.
Or be prepared to run at a massive loss until demand picks up or another supplier goes bust.
Given the eye watering 50% and above profit margins I assume the established players are keeping a wary eye out for new entrants and have a lot of scope for cost cutting which could undermine many a business case.
In the UK remote teaching is available when schools are in lockdown.
Granted that a significant number of children can't access it due to lack of PCs or tablets, plus limited Internet.
However to buy these blackmarket services you would need the IT bits.
So what is driving the market?
Lack of authorised tutors, so unlicensed ones being employed who are using copyright material?
Sounds strange.
My first exposure to a PC was an RML something or other.
Back before the first IBM PCs were common.
I did something you weren't supposed to (no idea what) and the 8" floppy drive stopped working.
After a certain amount of "oh shit, what now?" I took the lid off.
It turned out that the floppy drive was driven by a rubber band (much like many older record decks) which had fallen off.
Refitted it, all good.
Still a little bemused at that particular design decision.
Eastern European friend asked how much it would cost if stopped in his car by the Police.
I didn't think that would work, but I've never tried it.
Allegedly one problem is when the police aren't paid a decent wage and are expected to make do with other sources of income.
Please note that natural selection usually relies on the selectee being removed from the gene pool before breeding or on them passing on negative characteristics to offspring.
I suspect many may be early breeders (gee, how did that happen?) so successful Darwinism regrettably mainly relies on them damaging their offspring.
Which antivaxxers at least seem to be able to do.
However Covid quack remedies and the like are more likely to harm the more "mature" individual.
At one time I used to commute from London to Dublin every month or so to visit a supplier.
This was the time before gas canisters in ring pull cans could generate a creamy head on Guiness. The solution at that time was to have a small plastic syringe to suck up some beer and then squirt it back. Not generally available in the UK. Anyway.
Being pre EU there were duty free limits, which included IIRC 50 litres of beer. So there I was with my baggage stuffed with all the novelty beer I could reasonably carry. Not 50 litres, mind.
So I would approach customs with a trolley full of bags which rattled and clinked and I would see the customs officers almost roll their eyes before stopping me to ask "Are you aware of the duty free limits?" "50 litres for beer" was my reply. Always got an extra check over in case this was a distraction ploy.
Still ---->
Black, of course.
Reminds me of the UK Ford management process. Promote you until you are above your level of competence then fire you.
The UK has gone so far up the value chain that it has fallen off the top.
Next step is to start at the bottom again.
Snakes and Ladders is a useful reference.
There's been a lot of similar commentardery with two common themes:
(1) I've spent my entire sad and geeky life buried in data. Why can't these people do what I do?
(2) Biologists should be able to deal with this.
Please remember that these people are just Lusers. They have all the aspects of the vast herd of non-biologists who drive the average IT support person to drink on a daily basis.
Your average Luser will, early on, learn to use a word processor and spread sheet at a very simple level and will then be bound by the few functions that they learned for the rest of their working life.
Trying to break them of the habit, or educate them, is a way to profound despair.
Hammer/nail. Financial people will do everything in a spreadsheet, however unsuitable this seems. Marketing people will use PowerPoint in a similar way.
Deciding to change what you can control instead of another decade or more of fighting what you can't control seems eminently sensible to me.
Just thinking about it makes me need ->
On my Galaxy S5 I have to remove Apps on a regular basis because the updates keep eating more and more space.
As far as I can tell there is no way to remove old patches and keep the App.
It has just occurred to me that if the base App is updated with the new code an uninstall followed by a reinstall might work but I am not hopefully.
So I am now being pushed towards a new phone because my old one is suffering drift accretion.
Yes, I have moved what I can to the SD card.
Sequence:
(1) Fuck off you Euro twats we don't need you!
(2) What do you mean we can't use the system? We designed and built most of it!
(3) Fuck you double, we'll build our own!
(4) How much?
(5) Oh shit, what do we do now? We need a distraction.
(6) Hey, this firm does satellites. Close enough. Hint that it could do navigation as well and they'll be too busy arguing about it to remember the original cock up.
And, dear reader, the rest is history.
Upvoted for the welly boot suggestion.
One of our cats used to bring mice in to play with.
Let them run a bit, then trap them between fore paws.
Rinse and repeat.
Usually about 3 in the morning.
We were woken by the sound of "patter patter patter bump" repeated many times as the mouse was released and caught.
I had to wait until the mouse was frozen between the front paws and pop an inverted welly over it.
Lay it down and the mouse legged it up to the toe end.
Out into the cold dark night to shake a welly. {Not code!}
I have a mixed network including W7, W8.1 and W10.
Every now and then W10 seems to lose contact with the HP networked printer while W7 and W8.1 still print happily.
Restarting the printer (single action instead of tinkering with multiple PCs) seems to cure it.
This predates the latest updates so the W10 spooler may have been dodgy for some time.
I am occasionally cynical, and I wouldn't trust the intent behind this survey.
However the questions being asked would also be needed for a genuine survey trying to understand perceptions.
Do you know a lot about the subject and have a high degree of experience?
Do you know very little about the subject?
A valid result might be that:
(1) People who understand the uses, limitations and capabilities support the use of drones but people without this information distrust the technologies.
or
(2) People who really understand the issues are deeply uncomfortable with current and planned future uses but people who have a hobby drone think the whole thing is cool and see no problems.
So the questions themselves may be valid and could also highlight where there are real or perceived issues. Cynicism suggests it is just the start of a propaganda exercise to justify what they are doing and intend to keep on doing.
Comparing eCar range is obviously very interesting but is it strictly comparable with keeping a plane in the air?
I assume the range calculations should be for accelerating up to cruising speed then just cruising, which is more or less motorway miles. I think.
They stopped using this figure because it didn't reflect real life driving and now calculate fuel consumption and range based on mixed driving patterns.
It may be that the comparisons are the same, or it could be that the urban part of the test favours the eCar and the range difference may be larger.
Oh, and don't mention VW!
Not just Basingstoke (which is very tempting) but in the same blast radius (from memory) you would also get Newbury and Reading.
In fact they are far more likely because Aldermaston is beside the river Kennet which is in a vey deep valley with very steep sides. As are Newbury and Reading.
Still, very evocative image.
Noted by some above, ignored by others.
Phoning someone up and asking them to identify their contacts is more or less pointless if they have been in a shop or on public transport (just two of the many obvious cases).
Electronic recording of close(ish) contacts, such as with low power BT recording beacons, is not reliably accurate to identify close contact but it seems the best available at the moment.
Yes, mapping every cell phone into a massive central database linked to personal identity could do much the same but there may be minor privacy issues in that approach.
The BT approach at least gives a nod to maintaining anonymity.
Writing it off because of obvious edge cases is not a sensible approach, although much loved by techies. If it offers even 75% accuracy it is far better than an outsourced call centre which has all the failings detailed up stream.
I've been grumbling on and off for years that with all the built in sensors you get on a phone there is never a thermometer.
I assume one reason is isolating the sensor so battery temperature, pocket temperature etc. don't distort the reading. Protective cover could also cause issues.
Hmmmm....BT thermometer to talk to your phone?
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