Posts by krf

Google Drive misplaces months' worth of customer files

I have said for years, people who choose to live in the cloud will eventually die in the cloud.

How to get a computer get stuck in a lift? Ask an 'illegal engineer'

Re: How was "Pig Iron" originally installed?

It really was programming, except rather than with an editor and compiler, it was done with wires. And just like today, there were beginners, programmers, and gurus. Many of the large card munching boxes had plugboards and some were like 2x2 feet in size with the potential of thousands of wires and an infinite number of connections. (Long time ago, and memory is hazy)

The boards were usually kept in a slanted horizontal rack next to the machine (special built for the task), and would be exchanged to do whatever task was needed. Payroll, accounting, inventory, etc.

And just like today, a plugboard (i.e. app) that had been used over the months or years and had been gradually debugged was protected just as much as any important software today. In fact, making any unauthorized changes without permission of whoever was in charge, was usually a firing offense.

Some of the plugboards were unbelievably complex, understood only by the person(s) who had programmed it. One pulled or broken wire could be a disaster, especially if the programmer was no longer around.

I never was in need of learning such copper programming, but just like my experiences in the early days of C, I saw boards that were worked on for weeks on end, trying to get the program right or finding a particular bug.

Just two die for: Apple reveals M1 Ultra chip in Mac Studio

Re: Already burned with an M1, not jumping again...

Quicktime??? Really? Do you also use a teletype for your printer? You either have a bad M1, bad load of Quicktime, or bad Video. I can assure you that the M1 can definitely play any video out there perfectly. I have 4tb of them to prove that statement.

Get yourself a real player.

Re: Well done on the Ultra, but announcing new .. colours??

Exactly my thoughts. I use Linux for programming and hobby stuff and Apple for day to day. But, when I watch an Apple event (and not just the 2022 one) and get the vision of the CEO of a multi-Trillion dollar company gushing over the color (purple, green, invisible, whatever) on a product as if it somehow greatly increased the usability or power... Well, it is ludicrous to say the least. Especially when next to a real announcement, such as the Studio.

Samsung: We will remotely brick smart TVs looted from our warehouse

Dumb is good.

This is one of the reasons - the main one being the eventual future day stuffing of your personal videos and songs with ads - that I prefer a dumb TV. But, since those are hard to find now, I just purchase the one I want, hook it up to an HDMI Roku or Apple TV, and never, ever turn on the internal Internet settings. In fact, you should first turn on the TV, or other similar box, in a place where it can't get a wifi signal just in case the Internet access comes defaulted on. Your WPA password should prevent that, but you can't be too careful.

So, Sony can either resign themselves to the fact that I do indeed own this TV, or tough noogies.

And, by the way, my ebooks and songs that I bought also never see the outside world again. The only way they are going to get permanently deleted by someone else is if they walk out to my offsite storage and take a hammer to the backup drives and DVDs. I guess that gives me absolute title to that media also.

Some battles are worth fighting, even if you are up against a formidable enemy.

Microsoft fiddles with Fluent while the long dark Nightmare of the Print Spooler continues for Windows

And yet, people still use Windows. The antivaxers of the internet refusing to believe the facts of reality.

I solved the problem by programming now on my 8080 (or at least a clone of my 1976 machine). C and assembler are fun and in all these years it has never leaked my personal details to the world. Lots of BSODs, of course (actually white) but they are my fault and fun to fix. After a career of Visual Studio (barf), Delphi and Xcode, the pureness of a machine that only does what I tell it is soothing in these days in which the gods have apparently abandoned the human race.

mvi a, 55h

out 8

hlt

We hope this hotel has a nice spa because Windows sure looks like it needs some R&R

I have at least two customers who use full sized Windows towers to run single electronic signs. My suggestions to the idea of using a $30 dollar Raspberry Pi without need of purchasing licenses falls on deaf (i.e. technically ignorant) ears.

Russia drags NASA: Enjoy your expensive SpaceX capsule, our Soyuz is the cheap Kalashnikov of rockets

Horseapples. You are using the news media for the basis of your comment. The average American is not much different that the average Brit or (fill in a country). I wouldn't believe the British tabloids if they said the sun will come up tomorrow and I suggest that you don't use American newsites and blogs to get your opinions, for the same reason. Over here, the biggest mouth gets in the top of the news - accuracy, or even truth, is a thing of the past on the 'Net.

I live in Texas and... The number of oil wells I own - 0. The church I attend - none. Flags that I own - 0. I have driven on American roads for over half a century and the number of high speed chases I have seen - 0. That despite the opinion around the world that it is a great entertainment venue to set your lawn chair on the corner of the street and watch the cops and hijackers zoom by.

Again. Don't use Hollywood, Fox and Huffpost news and the like to get your impressions of the USA. (Or probably anywhere, for that matter.)

***Too many guns over here? I would have to agree on that one.

Starlink creates risk of internet investment doom cycle, says APNIC researcher

Dead on. (Americanese for absolutely accurate article). I was one of the first to use sat internet with Direct PC back in Cretaceous times. Worked great for a year until it was oversold and got actually (literally) slower than my 26k dialup. Moved to a terrestrial connection - not super fast but reliable. Then tried Hugesnet and got the same results over a year. Fast at first then gradually slowed down. Back to land line net. Finally, Excede (first Wildblue) which had the same half life as the others. Gave it up for Cell Tower internet which so far (fingers crossed) is fast and reliable.

What didn't help is that the average programmer (say in Silicon Valley or some other fibered hotspot) is sitting at the latest 50 core machine and with a gigabit fiber connection even to the office coffeepot. They never think of the rest of the world, with the best some users have available is a router hooked up to the far end of a barbed wire link or worse. So we get upgrades that are 5gb or bigger. Or worse, they just release the entire patched app in its entirety. (Anybody try to update GTA? The next Centennial might arrive before the end of the code.)

So, yes. I think that Starlink will gradually slide down the same slope eventually. Don't see how it could happen otherwise unless the constellation density actually blocks out the sun.

Another Windows 10 patch that breaks printers ups ante to full-on Blue Screen of Death

Re: "in some apps"?

Bunch of youngsters on here. My first 'app' was about six punched cards of Fortran on a college IBM 1401 with 8k, as I remember. Turn it in one day and show up to get your printout (usually an error list) the next. Circa 1964.

There are reasons that people use Windows even in 2021.

Firstly...

Well, SOMEONE must know why.

Apple's M1: the fastest and bestest ever silicon = revolution? Nah, there's far more interesting stuff happening in tech that matters to everyone

Re: Headline-whoring

Fanboyism is not something new. Youngsters here can't recall, but I can remember the last half of the 1970's - you know, the time of the start of the "Microcomputer Revolution." The 8080 processor from Intel had its fanboys, who laughed at the simplified 6502 from Motorola, and both were looked at with disdain by dudes using the later Z80 from Zilog. Just as today, no opinions, however reasonable or rabid, ever convinced anyone in the other groups.

Enjoy the ruckus from the sidelines while you are using your own favorite gear.

China's Chang'e-5 lands on the Moon to scratch surface

Notice the difference between the old US missions and the Chinese? Not to wish them ill - anybody doing space stuff is great in my books. But...

The US put their missions on live TV, to show both failures and successes as they happened. The Chinese made sure that it successfully landed before announcing it. A little insecurity there, it would seem.

Thought the FBI were the only ones able to unlock encrypted phones? Pretty much every US cop can get the job done

Re: Shot while fleeing?

In Texas, the cops usually need to shout three warnings before shooting shoplifters or jaywalkers.

Putting the d'oh! in Adobe: 'Years of photos' permanently wiped from iPhones, iPads by bad Lightroom app update

Re: Obviously was not tested

This is a joke, right? If I thought that any developers that had anything to do with the script-kiddie quality Flash app were still employed, I would dump all Adobe products and change my hosts file to send them straight to 127.0.0.1.

25 years of Delphi and no Oracle in sight: Not a Visual Basic killer but hard to kill

I loved it back in the 90's.

Some time back in WinNt days, I discovered Delphi. I didn't know Pascal so I had to add that on, but once I was into it, it became my main language. I loved the fact that you could deliver quite a large application as one exe file. It was the only thing I regretted leaving behind when I switched to Linux back in RedHat 7.x days.

I was quite surprised today to see that it is still available, and apparently in cross-platform, but... Going to the website, I quickly found that the cost of the compiler (subscription naturally) is insane.

No thanks. I will stick with Macos, Linux, C, and Perl.

Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly? It's about to be screwed for... reasons

A fool and his money are soon... unhooked.

Anyone who buys an IOT device now is...

Well, I have always been a first adopter on tech and have invested time and money in much that never went anywhere, but I wouldn't touch IOT now no matter how flashy it seems. I have a DOS version of a printed circuit program that still works very well after 30 years and will do so as long as the ancient IBM PC continues to run and the security dongle doesn't die. But, if it were bought today, it would quit as soon as the programmer/manufacturer decided to boost the bottom line with a new version. Or sold the business to Google.

Unlike the past, where some new devices/programs/languages failed to catch on but still worked, now it appears that ALL IOT gear has a very limited lifespan.

Google Chrome will check for leaked credentials every time you sign in anywhere

Is there a problem here?

Wow. This is like making friends with the big city mobsters to protect yourself against the pickpockets and grab-and-run thieves.

Whoosh, there it is: Toshiba bods say 14TB helium-filled disk is coming soon

How about a floppy?

I spent a thousand dollars $US on a Thinkertoy floppy drive back about '78. It was the size of a small toolbox and used a single sided floppy that held 256k. And I loved it. Before that the only storage was cassette tape which was barfo slow.

I tried to calculate how many floppies equals 14tb but the calculator overflowed.

Thinking back, I have no idea where my young self came up with a grand for the purchase. About four thousand today and probably a good part of a years salary then. I must have held up a liquor store while blind drunk.