* Posts by W@ldo

48 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jul 2018

Apple releases Lisa source code on landmark machine's 40th birthday

W@ldo

Re: Architecture and Morality.....anyone?

That's a great question. Back in the day (late 70s & early 80s) I wrote assembly code on a Zilog z80 microprocessor. Life was good, but very limited. Zilog had announced the Z80k and that looked promising. Especially with the amount of memory available and how it was addressed. Zilog's approach was very much like Motorolas and I figured either one would come out on top. I never expected Intel to surface & dominate.

The company I worked for was stuck on IBM (nobody has been fired for buying IBM gear being the theory) and I took some training in 8086 architecture and coding. It didn't take long to realize that the original x86 indirect way of addressing memory would lead to many bugs. Segment and offset being used to reach into memory. At that time I decided to drop out of writing assembly language and went to C for stability reasons.

I did have to get back into assembly language and since I learned Intel's 8080 code way back then it was easy to get into the flow of things. Memory addressing has improved and you have much more processor to work with. That said, I think Intel's early x86 architecture cost me many late nights and probably 10 years of my life. Between that and windows reboot time I probably would be 20 years younger. :-)

FireEye publishes details of SolarWinds hacking techniques, gives out free tool to detect signs of intrusion

W@ldo

I worked in infosec for decades and security vendors often had the worst security practices. When compromised, they always run to "nation state" or otherwise more advanced actors. If your kit was so good, then you would guarantee it against such intrusions--or better, use it for your own protection to detect/prevent those advance threats you base your product claims. Soft solutions like Solarwinds are just the carriers for this one and a well oiled infosec vendor should have no trouble detecting anomalies.

Of course, soon you'll be able to buy the next generation of their kit that will stop yesterday's threats. For real, after spending many millions in ultimately useless security technologies it is best to practice sound system/network admin practices and not rely on technologies that are supposed to fill the gaps.

Loser Trump is no longer useful to Twitter, entire account deleted over fears he'll whip up more mayhem

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

I don't think Trump was born yet or had any influence. It was a democratic president at the helm during those times and the war was a leftover of unfinished business from WWI. Oh, remember, you all wanted us over there to spill our blood to save your arses.

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

By the way...that raid on the dry docks and the many other raids done by UK soldiers deserve a salute. Those are some awesome stories of heroism. I wish this generation had something similar to share.

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

I notice you don't mention the USA human capital lost defending your soil. To us that is priceless, I guess meaningless to you folks. SMH

Winston Churchill implored the US President to focus on Europe before going after Japan. If you look at how the war progressed, Australia could have been lost as well. Of course, nobody every talks about the Brittish Empire of colonizing lands of indigenous people and promulgating slave trade. You all like to cancel things, using that logic the UK would be in line somewhere for canceling.

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

So, when are the late fees and interest getting repaid? :-) Deadbeats!

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

Awe....all the thumbs down. Get some history lessons and you'll see how bad things could have been without the USA coming to the aid of the UK. It would have been bad for us too as no doubt all you thumbs down types would have signed on with the Germans/Japanese after some propaganda.

Winston Churchill was voted out of office after WWII due to the socialists wanting power--how the hell did that happen to such an incredible statesman. Oh, he did come back after the UK got fed up with the socialists. Maybe a repeat in the USA???

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

Yep, but prior to that USA had a lend/lease program for war supplies (ships, weapons, aircraft, etc) that was never paid back. Without those war materials you all would be speaking German--that is, those of you left after purging the undesirables. I think France is the only country to pay back its war debt to the USA.

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

Ok all the thumbs down--for real, go visit Pelosi's palace in SFO. You won't get close. She is a grifter that made her money off the working people of the country.

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

No, all have acknowledged the COVID-19 virus and its origin from Wuhan China. It is a potentially deadly bug, especially to those with underlying conditions. Again, more BBC propaganda that folks do not believe the virus exists or is impactful.

What folks don't agree on is the science behind masks, lockdowns and other draconian measures supported by politicians. Note how much Bezos net worth has increased during this tragic outbreak--I personally think profiting off the pain of others is worth talking about. Bezos hardly lifts a finger supporting charities that could help others.

The generation(s) before you withstood viruses, wars and natural disasters with courage. Why cower in the face of something that could be handled without destroying the economic lives of those working for a living???

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

Nope, I have not commented on your politics. They are not amusing to me in the least. I used to listen and watch BBC to get an alternate take on US activities. That was until BBC aligned with US media and social media to spew the same made up "facts".

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

Sorry, the protocol does not work that way. It is not disobeying to not provide the consent needed to trigger nuclear response. Your BBC propaganda station(s) (note, you have state controlled media) are full of bad information. .

W@ldo

Re: However you look at this

Twitter is really an advertising company and folks can just stop using it. For whatever reason, people use that platform to satisfy their own vanity. When folks move away, then things will change. I hope that happens soon!

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

It's kind of ironic that you comment on this BS when it originated in your own country. Doesn't that count as meddling in US politics/elections??? The UK was always a trusted ally, but when you start attacking politicians I think it is time to re-visit that position. The UK would lose lots of intelligence and resources.

Remember, it was the USA that bailed you folks out in WWII. Most in the USA did not want to get involved in another foreign war. The UK used to be the leader in the intel community, but now is at best another tabloid putting false info on the streets.

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

You have absolutely no idea what is going on over here--focus your energy on your own lovely country that no doubt has some things to fix.

The hospitals are very busy, but not using car parks for patients. You folks are being fed a line of propaganda BS from the very socialist BBC.

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

Here is a tip--go visit Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco. Oh, you'll have to climb a wall to get in--why would someone with such beliefs about no wall have a wall? And protective folks with guns? These politicians are self-serving maggots and have no desire to make life better for those of us working for a living.

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

What an expert--the Army is one of the US armed forces that has nuclear weapons. There is coordination between all branches of the military for any first or defensive nuclear strike.

You Brits really need to focus on your own country and quit applying what you see in movies or comics to real life.

W@ldo

Re: An elephant in the room

Sorry, it's moronic to even think a president, ANY president, can unilaterally initiate a nuclear strike. There is a procedure for any such action and you would have to also have consent from others that are not politicians.

Go back to your Netflix binge watching and Twitter is my life--what is funny is folks on twitter will run out of Trump stuff and need to find another target. Eventually, you will start consuming your own.

Failed insurrection aside, Biden is going to be president in two weeks. What does it mean for tech policy?

W@ldo

Re: Old tech

Japan is a great country--except, if you are not Japanese you are treated like crap in the business world. An American immigrating to a homogenous country such as Japan will experience things that those claiming racism in the USA experience. Now, let's have an African-American business person try to setup shop in Japan--there is absolutely zero chance of success. Put some names of American immigrants to Japan that have become successful.

Are Japanese racists? Hard to tell as on the surface they will treat you with respect, but behind the scenes they will blacklist you. So, when you fix the Japanese racism, please give us a call about US politics. If you are in such a great position to observe the US, maybe you should turn inward and look at what others would face in your own country.

W@ldo

Re: White Elephant

The president is only one part of the nuclear response. He/she cannot launch any nuclear attack, or defense without multiple consent with the military leadership. Only in the movies can a rogue president do such a thing.

W@ldo

Here are some sites that have figures for you...all are based on UN & USA census numbers. One important piece of info is the numbers only count legal immigration--the illegal immigration numbers are even higher. Good idea to question any claim that involves numbers!

List of top 5 aggregated immigration, USA #1 by far

https://citizenpath.com/countries-with-the-most-immigrants/

Net migration to the USA:

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/12/net-international-migration-projected-to-fall-lowest-levels-this-decade.html

Net migration to the UK:

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/

W@ldo

Re: US (Affordable Care Act)

Really???? Nationalized healthcare? Study medicare or any other government run healthcare program. It's not free, it won't pay for everything, and you'll see providers dropping out.

For real, take some time to look at how gov run health is run....

W@ldo

Re: US (Affordable Care Act)

You are missing a few details about the so called Affordable Care Act. It was well intended, but failed miserably. First, all legislation that has a feel good name is usually just the opposite. The ACA made it possible for folks to buy health insurance, but the market rates were outrageous. Many bought high cost and low benefit insurance or opted to just pay the fine for not having insurance. Yes, if you did not have ACA insurance you had to pay a fine. Congress voted to drop many of those provisions, but that really gutted any chance of the ACA being a success. The only good thing that happened is those with pre-existing conditions would no longer be penalized.

Medicare you say? Even the elderly (I'm in that age group), continues to pay for medicare once you are required to move from your very good private insurance to medicare. There are different parts of medicare that cover different things--they have made that very expensive for the elderly and even worse difficult to follow. When young folks say "medicare for all" I say put 1000 of them on it for a year and have them report back to others--they will find out it is not free, it is not comprehensive, it does not cover everything and it is not accepted everywhere.

We can obviously do better with healthcare, but a gov run system isn't the answer. Just ask those from the UK, EU and other places that come to the USA for surgery they would have to wait a long time in their home countries.

W@ldo

I love all the thumbs downs by the group thinkers in IT. You will see this pivot on you in your lifetime and with gusto.

W@ldo

Re: Old tech

Which one? I say both!

W@ldo

Re: Old tech

Please tell us what perfect country you are from??? And why you would even care about US politics? Could it be the constant BBC propaganda being pumped in your head? Just a guess.

Biden was chosen because the old democratic party members wanted someone they can control--there were plenty of qualified candidates along the way that would have been better choices. Why do you think they approved of Kamala? She didn't even make it to a primary as her popularity was so low--they knew she too would be a tool of the party and not have an original thought.

W@ldo

Re: Rent a mob

Sorry, we don't have a democracy in the USA. It is a representative republic. If the USA was a democracy it would look like the west Coast USA and the northeast USA. Total control by democrats and net population losses of folks leaving those "democracies". You see, when you get a democracy you actual have mob rule--all you need to do is get enough folks on your side and your side wins, or does it?

In my state, we tell all the NY & CA transplants to leave their politics at home. It doesn't really work, but it does make them think a short minute about why they left.

Find some old high school textbooks on civics as it covers in great detail about how our county is a republic and why the founders feared a true democracy. The schools dumbing folks down has been a political strategy too. Don't take it personally, as your parents made the choice to put you into public school.

W@ldo

Re: Rent a mob

I love it when non-Americans have all the answers for Americans. One challenge we have is we are an open society--we just cannot round up any and all to go through their entire lives. Because of our split with England a few centuries ago, the founders created a Bill of Rights and a way to amend those rights. It wasn't perfect, but it was a start.

We let folks in from just about any country--check the net immigration in to the USA vs net out. It's always a much greater number of folks immigrating to the USA. Once someone is a citizen, they get the same rights as all born in the country. To do what you mention would take a very lengthy process and would probably fail as BOTH parties don't want to see those basic rights diminished.

Try again and read more about USA history and its constitution before you suggest such solutions. Better yet, stick with solving your own country's problems. I stick with mine and don't tell those in the UK how to fix their system.

W@ldo

Re: Rent a mob

Where is "over here"? I would love to go to a place where there are no malefactors. (and no, male is not a gender term, so don't try to use the word femalefactors)

The image you get from your left-leaning media paints that picture--are there some of those folks over here? Absolutely, but you will be pleasantly surprised to find it is a very small minority. Even better, the community does not tolerate that activity and stands up for the rights of all. Back before the civil rights movement, communities would not make any waves when KKK and other groups did their criminal activity.

Again, I would love to find out where over here is as maybe I would like to immigrate there. So many want to come to the US even with your perception of KKK everywhere. SMH

W@ldo

Re: Rent a mob

Right on target--only difference is the letter R or D next to their name. Each party will attempt to divide us during elections and hope they get 50%+1 vote. Watch the next election cycle--same issues will surface as imperatives. Meanwhile, all the ones folks think will change will go nowhere--each side will claim the other side is stalling.

W@ldo

Re: @AVR Not quite

For the life of me I cannot figure out why free services such as Twitter/Facebook are relevant. All folks have to do is stop using it if you disagree, maybe make a phone call instead of posting your life to the world to see. Twitter especially is awful with group-think galor. Especially in the tech industry.

Take a social media break, think for yourself, read a book, follow Biden's tip and play some records--ok, that last one was probably bad as we have better quality electronic media now.

W@ldo

Re: Psyche!

You are conflating a few things--pardoning for any federal crime is what a president can do. A president for example, cannot pardon someone's state/local criminal sentence. Impeachment is not a crime and a president cannot pardon him/her-self from that process. Impeachement is one of several ways to remove a president--first by US House of Representative impeachment, then by the senate to actually remove the president.

A president has never pardoned themselves as of now, so it is uncharted waters for its constitutionality. If he did it, the state legal actions would have no impact. Trump haters are getting excited really for no reason as if they are hoping for the NY legal actions those are likely to continue. It will set a legal precedent that each side should consider closely--if your intent is to harass a president remember it will cut both ways. Just like all the changes in both houses of congress have come back to bite themselves. A teacher of mine once had a poster with the changed saying of "time heals all wounds" to "time wounds all heels"--trust me, anything done to one will happen to another.

Folks are relishing in this and I understand it completely. I am no Trump fan, and no Biden fan either. Politicians are about posturing more than helping folks they represent--now, that would be a nice thing to change.

W@ldo

Re: Democracy

No doubt, wars and meddling is bad. Let's get a global treaty for all to stop the badness. That is so laughable as all countries have their share of dirty tricks. Even the most trusted of all in the UK have independent actors that perform actions that would make the Queen blush.

I was in the UK early last year and was on a train ride in London and the BBC was feeding its citizens line after line of BS about the US. If the sun came up and someone was sunburned they would add something like "because of Trump's environmental policies, x number of the people sunbathing were burned". It was hilarious as EVERY US news story added a Trump dig. I'm no fan of Trump, in fact I don't like him period, but you folks are being controlled by your media. Read 1984 & Animal Farm--we had to back in my day and it makes it easy to understand what is going on.

W@ldo

It kills me that other countries poke fun at the lower moments in US history--yep, they are all embarrassing.

One question--Why is the US the most desired country for those seeking immigration? Beyond the BS politics the media spins, the US has the greatest opportunities for success. Many of US citizens' stories are those of immigration & success.

Enjoy your completely socialist country while those in the US try to diminish that influence.

W@ldo

Re: Rent a mob

During the dem primaries there were younger and more qualified candidates than Biden. Why did Biden win? Not because of his energy or experience (do some research and you'll be horried about his voting record)--Biden was chosen by the dem establishment as they wanted to quelch the movement of Bernie Sanders, and others.

I despise politicians of all parties. Look at what you are cheerleading--as career politician, grifter, out of touch elderly person, and arguably near senile. Biden's strings are pulled by others. Obama would get out and stump for his positions, Biden can't. Of course the media is carrying his water. Is this really what everyone wants? Another elderly white male???

W@ldo

Re: Rent a mob

Keep drinking your cool-aid and spinning these narratives. Your time will come when whatever political leadership is in power doesn't align with your beliefs. I'm not for either one and can sit on the side and eat popcorn while these games play out.

Don't trust ANY politician--pro tip: They are all in it for themselves. Look at net worth for each upon entering, look at their relatively small salary, then look at their net worth every 2, 4 or 6 years. They are all either brilliant investors or grifters. My money is on the latter.

Assembly language, arcade games, and YouTube: The Reg speaks to former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer

W@ldo

I was an 8080/z80 programmer in the early 80s. When the transition to IBM PCs started most of us vomited at the sight of x86 assembly language. We were all ready for a transition to the Motorola 68k, or the planned Zilog 80000 processor. Both had direct/natural memory addressing and not the segment/offset memory addressing for the x86. I switched to C, then in the early 2000s started back on the Intel processors as they got sanity back with direct memory addressing. What's funny is the learning curve to get back into Intel processors was so easy as many of the opcodes were still the same as the 8080.

I think there was a lost decade or two in computer evolution due to the early x86 architecture. Yes, we made it to a much better place, but without this pain we could have been much further along. I still shake my head at all the computer lock ups due to memory management issues of the day. When Windows 3.0 emerge, all were pleased to only have to reboot ~3 times a day. Basing progress on the number of reboots per day was absurd!

Amazon turns Victorian industrialist with $2bn building project to house workers near new headquarters

W@ldo

Next comes the employee cryptocurrency, only valid at the company store

Yes, those that don't study history are destined to repeat history. This all has played out many times as our civilizations emerged. It sounds really good labeled as affordable housing--but, they really are not targeting affordable housing to those that need it most. If you are on the lowest tier of employees you either live in poverty or work multiple gigs to make ends meet.

Bezos could do something epic from his vantage point--take on some of the social problems that tech followers prominently tout on their facebook/twitter feeds. Walk the talk and solve some problems. You'll still be rich, and probably get richer.

50 years ago, someone decided it would be OK to fire Apollo 12 through a rain cloud. Awks, or just 'SCE to Aux'?

W@ldo

...and Bean laughed while going into space

Great story about this at the link below. Watch one of the short videos that has the actual folks involved in the solution that saved the mission. I always liked the part about Bean laughing about the event while cruising into orbit.

I grew up in the 1960s, lived in FL and the space culture was all around us. It was an incredible time to be around all that activity. On the downside, when my 6th grade class went to Kennedy Space Center there were only a few rockets & capsules to see--that's all they had at the time. It's much more fun to visit now!

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xyw4kz/john-aaron-apollo-12-curiosity-luck-and-sce-to-aux

Six-day cruise lies ahead for India's Chandrayaan-2 probe before the real lunar shenanigans begin

W@ldo

Lunar achievements are great, let's get some indoor plumbing going next

No doubt there are some very capable Indian scientists and nothing against their efforts. Incredible that a country places that as higher priority than basic infrastructure services. Having a functioning toilet being one of those priorities. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/08/toilet-defecate-outdoors-stunting-sanitation/

Again, I applaud the accomplishments with Indian space travel. When that's over, let's get some attention to sanitation. India could be an even more impressive country if you could visit without worrying about health issues related to sanitation.

Flight Simulator 2020: Exciting new ride or a doomed tailspin in a crowded market?

W@ldo

I've been licensed for a long time as commercial, multi-engine & glider. The flight sim as the poster mentions is great for working out instrument procedures in an environment where you can have unlimited time to get it right. Training in an aircraft is expensive and anything you can do to shorten that amount of time saves money.

My use case was to shoot several approaches into an unfamiliar airport prior to flying to that destination. It helps to get the basics of each approach down and to have the frequencies/procedures in your head for quick recall. This provides a lot more confidence when shooting the approach down to minimums. Sure, you cannot log the hours, but that's not the point. Think of it as a way to maintain proficiency, shorten the learning curve and save on actual aircraft instruction time.

Serverless is awesome (if you overlook inflated costs, dislike distributed computing, love vendor lock-in), say boffins

W@ldo

Re: Measurements?

"metric fuck-ton"

Now, that's a very useful measurement! Love it, I wish I could use it at work when someone comes forward with a half-baked idea....

Official: IBM to gobble Red Hat for $34bn – yes, the enterprise Linux biz

W@ldo

Sad, but probably true.

W@ldo

Re: At least is isnt oracle or M$

Sort of the lesser of evils---do you want to be shot or hung by the neck? No good choice for this acquisition.

Azure certifications are awful, Microsoft admits, so it has made new ones

W@ldo

Re: I'm done with this

What I glean from these posts is something I've experienced in 3+ decades of IT--the best folks I have either worked with or hired don't have any of the vendor specific certs. They spend their time doing, versus studying to learn a particular exam. Very big difference in skill building. At the end of the time doing, the person is much more experienced. At the end of a cert learning process at best you have a piece of paper.

The problem is with employers, including mine, that require and/or are cert happy. I've had to jump through those hoops over the years and like my Novell Netware CNE are just pieces of paper in a folder to prove I have the organization required competencies. Just a check box. As an IT manager I would rather provide quality training and exposure to new technologies instead of sending someone off to boot camps. Hiring is another story--the organization required certs are filters that unfortunately leave out more qualified candidates.

My advice--do the certs going for the quality ones out there that cover broad checkbox items for qualifying for a position. Get real hands on experience via practicing using the many vendor supplied free resources. It is much easier now with both AWS & MS giving away lots of access to their technology. Back in my day you had to cannibalize hardware to cobble together a server, router, etc.

College is a different story. All are correct that many that attend are no better than those that have gained the experience on the job. Like certs, the degrees are a filter some organizations use. They miss many highly qualified candidates, but that's their choice. Think of all the IT pioneers that have no degree....and there are those that contributed through academia. You really need both and keep the doors open for all truly qualified. (my opinion) I got my degrees while working--yes, it sucked going to classes with folks 10 years younger and with different motivations. It did take much longer, but I got that paper and nobody cares about the GPA, honors, whether you were a jock/cheerleader, etc. :-)

Hang in there and avoid wasting time chasing the cert hypes!

Salesforce boss Marc Benioff objects to US immigration policy so much, he makes millions from, er, US immigration

W@ldo

Re: Unreasonable without reason

This is exactly where folks are missing the boat. You won't get many likes as few have studied the history of labor abuses in the world. If you live in the US, go ahead and try to immigrate into Canada, Japan, Australia & the various parts of the UK. You will run into protectionist legislation that far exceeds what the US requires for entry. Much hay is made about this without comparing to the laws of other countries.

The offshoring that is done is really just an exploitation in the home country that will eventually backfire. If you go back in time for US history, this smacks of the child labor abuses in the 1800s & 1900s. Large organizations profited on the backs of those workers while playing lip service to politicians and constituents. I worked at a large US company and left due to the domestic damage done by the offshoring and the abuse of those poor folks trying to make a sustainable living in foreign countries. Exploitation on both sides--US employees losing jobs, foreign employees not being paid fairly.

Push for immigration that makes sense for all. There is much hype on both sides about the more emotional issues and that's what generates the furor. A question for non-US countries--Why don't you allow American citizens the same immigration reciprocity & work permitting?

First low-frequency fast radio burst to grace our skies detected at last

W@ldo

Re: Pedantry

Thanks for pointing that out--I was ready to do the same. LF is a specific range 30kHz-300kHz. Hardly a scientific writing if they consider clearly UHF as LF. Funny how some post without understanding the frequency structure of radio waves.

Python creator Guido van Rossum sys.exit()s as language overlord

W@ldo

Re: I like Python and C

IBM owning a big chunk of a then faltering Intel gave us the joys of segment:offset memory addressing. That set us back years in assembly coding quality software. There were Zilog and Motorola chips around at the time that were much better and could handle direct memory addressing. We all paid a price for 15+ years until Intel reached that point.

If you don't know how segment:offset works, take some time and you'll see the futility we all faced back in the day....I moved on to C, never embraced C++ and Python is the only interpreted language I became fond of. Too bad about the situation as it has been a fun ride.