Posts by bigtreeman 206 publicly visible posts • joined 8 May 2018
My ex rang out of the blue, which was unusual because our relationship was tense.
Frustrated with her computer which was telling her to hit "ANY" key.
I told her it was down the bottom left of the space bar, my keyboard had "ANY", but hers might have a picture of some sort.
All sorted and didn't hear from her for years after that, which suited me just fine.
Two workmates did a voice recognition demonstration back in the 70s, very impressive.
A microphone, a green led and a red led on a specially programmed board.
"Speak into the mic, Green or Red" says John
"Green", green led comes on
"Red", red led comes on
"Greeed", both leds come on
Meanwhile Stan is sitting at the workbench behind, surreptitiously switching the leds.
Had us all going for a little while.....
A not so small town council mid-north-coast-NSW. We had the contract to supply an upgrade of workstations pre-Y2K ( a major contract in our town).
Our workstations started failing, I was called in and found their "techs" randomly stripping machines, trying to find the problem.
I found out of spec pci video card edge connectors which caused random bad connections and failures, especially on machines roughly handled.
My fix was replace all video cards. The council canned our contract and gave it to a competing supplier.
Small town, the story came out later that the council head tech was mates of the other supplier and pushed for the change of contract.
"... Be that as it may, the huge majority of the indigenous British population inhabits a cultural wasteland, and with no offing remedy. In that regard, leaders and plebeians are indistinguishable. Perhaps, the content of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube 'influencer' videos, and nail-biting Eurovision Song Contests, represent a pinnacle of achievement?..."
You missed out the cultural wastelands of reality tv, sport and gambling which consume so much of the proletariat's existence.
Most of FaceAche feels like inane rubbish. I occasionally log in and have a browse, then logout, disgusted with myself for going there.
I do use Marketplace to sell second hand stuff and I've had success, although may in that space are looking for stupidly low prices.
Many friends only use messenger to communicate, so I tend to loose contact and hear about events, etc through secondary channels like my phone or email.
Generated by human or AI, it will still be rubbish.
Back in the 90s I used a barcode scanner to enter the device serial number into the firmware to program into secure modem micro-controllers, programmed in Forth.
Scan the serial number from the sticker on the box, program, test, assemble .... out the door. Really quick, secure and simple.
AI is a new opportunity to reduce labor costs and increase profits,
just as computerisation reduced "drudgery" (labor costs).
Where are all the unemployed going to go,
rest on a beach or sleep on a park bench.
How long til corporations don't need any people to operate?
I'm going surfing, no AI in the lineup....yet.
You have become numb to paying for subscription software,
so what's wrong with subscription printing ?
If you tire of paying for Office365 subscriptions,
you can uninstall and install LibreOffice.
We have known about HP ink for a very long time now,
you bought the HP printer knowing how much it would cost.
My last Fuji-Xerox printer could use really cheap generic toner,
RIP, it has now gone to printer heaven.
Stop whinging
faster | cheaper | better | sooner
pick 2
initially cheaper that is, until it falls out of the sky
Just as Australia should have built a government owned, fiber network,
before making promises of a better internet for all.
Redundant, full coverage, future proof, disaster proof, corporate corruption proof.
Soon after the PC came out I had a choice of a 64k ram Z80, STD bus, CP/M boxen or a 640k PC-XT clone out the back door of a Chinese factory, both the same $1500. Wouldn't even think about any of the little, basically useless toys out there.
The PC came with a mountain of pirated software and IBM firmware proms with a math co-processor.
So the choice was pretty simple, that ugly beige box and green screen looked pretty good and did everything was asked of it, work or play.
...deprecated...
I just compiled and installed Aqualung music player,
because it works....
I tried a number of active alternatives which were crap.
It has been forked and even has new dev work
I use bits of software that haven't been advancing for many years,
but they work...
and there's nothing else does the job I want, the way I like doing it.
don't fuck with it if it works
Tech people will want a clever tech answer to a problem.
Adding another layer of complexity, another point of failure
and a challenge for future hackers.
How about a low tech, old school, key lock somewhere in the network.
Only has to short CANH and CANL, could be retrofitted to all can bus vehicles.
A modern version of a steering lock (youngsters can google that).
My Asus laptop came Win pre-installed.
I tried to boot Windows before installing Linux, just to see what a new (Win10) looked like.
100 questions later, signed up to some Microsoft account, on and on it went.
I gave up, turned off boot security and installed Devuan in minutes.
It took months before that Microsoft account was removed.
If they had used the Tesla Wireless Power Transmission system,
I would have believed they were for real,
and not just rich, wanking dreamers.
Shame on Infrastructure Australia for giving the business case a big tick.
Pity they didn't run it by knowledgable engineers who would have given it a big fail.
Gold Coast to Brisbane commutes one to two hours each way, adds 25-50% extra, wasted time out of your lif.
then the rising cost of fuel and parking and lets not mention child minding.
Is it time to build that shit into your contract.
Remember folks an employment contract is not a one way, boss takes all agreement.
Strike out some of their clauses,
put in some of your own clauses.
It's called reaching an agreement,
and the more people do it,
the sooner employers will have to suck it up.
