Posts by NATTtrash 565 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Apr 2019
And to add to my own moaning: it seems "there are more of us", so after about 2 years @Gnome are contemplating making the GUI customisable in Evolution ("It's for 3.55.1+") direct, sparked by the issue we were discussing originally. Have a look here. Not sure about the buttons in the topbar though...
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evolution/-/issues/2294
(My apologies to the TBird people for this subject highjacking...)
...but what does the change to rss.source do?
It disables and removes an annoying and useless News and Blogs entry in the tree view on the left (scroll down and you see it) where you can have all your accounts and their subfolders listed. And since, contrary to the Gnome people, I do not think that having the "Better Apple Pie" and "More Lego Adverntures" between my business email accounts is useful, I disable it like that, killing it at birth.
Have ran Evolution for more than a decade now. And with very little (Evolution!) complaints I must admit. Since I have to make my money by getting my email/ calendars from other peoples MS Exchange servers, and because it was a PITA to get (and keep!) it setup (OAuth2) and running (But why do you not buy a Windows computer then?), I'm kind of hesitant to fix it if it is not broken.
Having said that though, (the GUI of) Evolution is also not safe from the people with the Gnome kiddie crayons and too much phone screen time on their hands, and upon sync between my different systems I already have to
gsettings set org.gnome.evolution.shell use-header-bar false;sed -i "'s/Enabled=true/Enabled=false/g'" $HOME/.config/evolution/sources/rss.source
so it becomes a tool again that you can make your money with efficiently.
The threat out of the Gnome camp however is that "Gnome can taketh away" this little GUI tweak. And since we are on the topic of TBird anyway...
Many mention using it with webmail. But what are your experiences with plugging it into EWS, OAuth2 and stuff? All the stuff like email, calendar, contacts and tasks still working? Both local and remote?
@Liam: Coming your way again on 2 wheels tomorrow...
This gentleman actually extracted them from the dll, so you can update your current day box...
As far as I could determine the translation was accurate enough
MD here. Honestly? Errmmm... Not really.
Reading them side by side, a lot of the meaning got lost. Just to mention a few: the original text describes a contiously ongoing process, where the dumbed down version presents it as an end result, something stationary. Furthermore, it described damage, thickening of the tissue *between* the alveoli, the small lung sacks where oxygen is taken in, and CO2 expelled. The dumb text looses this distinction, throws everything "in the lung proximity" on one heap. Imagine this as a process over a membrane: if the membrane is thicker, this process becomes more hard. The "scarring" (different process, but hey) getting thicker of that "membrane" is because of a continuously ongoing infectious process against a "trigger". This trigger can be, yes, cigarette smoke, but also many other things like for example coal dust, asbestos, diesel fumes, pigeon fungi, solvents in paints and glues, and loads more, you get the idea. That oxygen needs to get in your blood, so it can be distributed across your body. But the walls of your vessels also get thicker because of this "out of control" infectious process. So your "sats" go down (measured with that clothes peg thing on your finger), you feel out of breath more and more. Now, did that text give you that?
I do understand this is a dumbing down tool, but then we also come into the topic of what is dumbing down? How to dumb down. And most important, why to dumb down. This is also an issue what I have seen (lost) when people use LLMs for for example making a quick abstract of a full text. Meaning is lost. And more scary, meaning is interpreted differently, and thus changed. Why this IMHO is worrying is...
For example: globally a physician has the legal obligation to get patient consent before treatment. For that (s)he has to explain what is going on, what the (best) intervention is, and ask the patient whether (s)he would like to proceed as suggested/ advised. Of course, it is critical in this process that patient understands what is said, so (s)he can make an educated decision. That's why you are always asked (I hope) if you are happy, and whether you have any questions.
The text here could not be used for that, because a lot of its meaning is lost. So yeah, sure it "broadly" describes what is written. But is it properly "translated"? Personally I would not spend the Wattage/ energy on it. But hey, this is Google trying to sell you something, so you know what that means.
As it is I suspect most radiology and pathology reports are routinely "machine assisted" or at least copy and paste.
Yes, you are right there. And if not "on the machine" when writing it down, then also in the head of the diagnosing physician. We all do something (again, I hope) called DD, differential diagnosis, which basically is a SOP for diagnosing, making sure you tick all boxes and consider options and alternatives. Just like any problem solving process I suppose...
For me you hit the nail on the head there. In the end it is pretty simple I think. If you tell world+dog, as they did in the original version:
Does Firefox sell your personal data?
Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That's a promise.
Notice that in a lot of the quotes that are now all over the webz, in many that last sentence is omitted. Here, I noticed, Liam and Thomas do too. But maybe that is what it is all about. IMHO, it is pretty irrelevant what you promise. It is more that you did. You gave your word. And if you then show your word isn't worth... anything, what does that make you? Then again, probably too old fashioned for the current world...
Curious what will happen to spin offs now that use its base, like e.g.Tbird and Zotero...
Teams => Zoom
OneDrive, there are tons of options around. GDrive, Box, Dropbox... In fact Dropbox was the OG before OneDrive was a thing.
Even easier (as in lazy) options available. Have been using (as in "earning income". Yes, really.) Ismael Martinez' "Unofficial Microsoft Teams for Linux" for ever since MS decided they couldn't be arsed to deliver Teams for Linux themselves. It works brilliant. When working with "MS only" organisations it works seamless. My Evolution plugs into their email, calendars and so on. Ismaels Teams does the same: everything just works™, calendars, VOIP, chat. People can even see whether you're online or not (you can also "appear offline" ;))) and you can do your direct calls. And, if you click one of the files while browsing the OneDrive/ Share point... the corresponding MS application starts up, whether it is Word, Excel, PowerPoint. And yes, you can work in that document "collaboratively". And then share/ signal others.
And perhaps the best thing? That there are deb and rpm repos available (THX Nils Büchner) so you can let your Teams for Linux update automagically with all your other *nix software sudo apt update.
So guess who this pint is for..?
Basically, for 90% of I needed to then and since these packages worked fine.
Indeed, very true. And that is something that never stops to amaze me: listening to "others" nowadays, it all seems to hinge on "The Only One"™ and no alternatives "exist". Or should even be considered!
Reading through Nina's piece I had vague (Age? Booze?) memories of GEOS on the C64. Which did the job too, making me happy since I could not afford a PC yet. It all worked fine, despite the PITA of printing the final version of your project report on a 8 pins Oki printer... the night before you had to hand it in... ALL through the night..... Niiiiii, clank, niiiiiiiiiii, clack, niiiiiiiiiii, clank. Luckily my bed was located above the cupboard with the Oki... in a very careful configuration so the paper didn't tangle/ jam...
But yes, I agree. Later managed to get an IBM 30 out of a bust office auction. And WordPerfect 4.2 on it was... well, perfect. The WYSIWYG graphics of 5.0 were just "unnecessary indulgence". Quattro Pro did everything I do today too. CorelDraw let me make those images that looked very nifty in Harvard Graphics. And yes, ReferenceManager gave you that feeling automation really, REALLY saved you SO MUCH time and work. (Who of you have done, like me, their in text literature refs by hand,,, and then had to reorder all subsequent references and their list at the end 10.000 times, because you added reference #24? ;)))
Microsoft got lucky
@Liam: THX for the piece Liam! Let me add a thought here: I also think it was (just) very clever marketing. What I do remember from those days too that Microsoft "allowed" people to copy and use Windows everywhere. Everybody had a copy of Windows on their home computer. The running argument was that if people used it at home, they would nag their boss to also get it at work (where the MS money is made). It was all over the place, everybody gave it to everybody. And it was all good. And possible, since all could use it on their PCs. Contrary to the (way more expensive) Apple (software). And thus MicroSoft applied the "dealer-dependancy" model which works up to this day: give it away for free, get them hooked on it, and then charge them for it.
But yeah... "No fancy windows, no unnecessary bloat, just basic, it works, software". Happy days...
Me: "I don't install apps on my phone."
Them: "But why not?"
Well, you must be of a certain age, believing there is something ethereal like free choice and all that...
Council of the EU, Press release, 26 March 2024 10:30
European digital identity (eID): Council adopts legal framework on a secure and trustworthy digital wallet for all Europeans
...or...
BENEFITS: Why EU Digital Identity Wallets
And yes, this is the EU. But don't smirk. I'm not so confident that other territories will let this opportunity slip by unused.
I know, it's just a trivial, silly remark, but what about... ermm safety? I seems that the drivers attention is required fully to operate and steer the vehicle safely. I'm sure everybody reading this can mention IRL examples of seeing drivers, whose attention was "distracted"? Then again, I'm sure you lot can all text and drive perfectly at the same time.
So yeah, let's not do drugs and alcohol in traffic, let's be modern and do phones and in-car ads...
<Hello there cloud...>
Then again, it will be interesting to see who this will play out long term. After all, Google is one of the largest, if not THE largest source of income for Mozilla. This grumpy person has seen many examples where bottom line always wins over principles™. But even if that happens, it might be amusing to see how it will be worded this time...
Simple user trying to understand...
On some hardware, LZ4 1.10 compresses data over five and up to nearly ten times faster than previous releases by using multiple CPU cores in parallel.
So how is this different then to pigz (https://github.com/madler/pigz) and pxz (https://github.com/jnovy/pxz), that, as far as I know, also do multi-core and we already have some time?
To be fair, the XApps initiative is something in that direction, isn't it?
That's like doing business in Germany in the 1939-1945 period.
Why are you surprised? Since inventing it, humans by default seem to go for "opportunities" making them vast quantities of money.
The second service to usually fail is the cellular network and internet, right after the power fails.
Very, very true. I would even venture to say that they go before base power fails. But that is a bit difficult to understand for a generation/ society that doesn't dare to leave the house without a mobile glued to their hand. Will be interesting though if somebody in the future strikes that Pompeii-like archeological find from the 21st century: "They met their end apparently, sitting in the corner, staring passively at in their hand. We are not sure about this behaviour, it might be something religious..." Ah well, if it doesn't appear on the screen of your mob, it isn't true any way...
Perhaps..? "Do one thing and do it well"
Kudos for bashing it out...
https://github.com/dkorolev/bash-tetris/blob/master/tetris.sh
Well, to be fair, there is a bias with the El Reg audience of course. But I would not be surprised if it's (also) an expression of the "bought it but never mine" dislike under the surface, having no control.
Then again, I have no doubt that the same audience happily carries around their phones and would go back home if it turns out they left their home without it...
For me, that also applies to this discussion: I do agree that the MS product is rubbish, not worth your business. However, we all buy/ use it, and are hit with emotions ranging from anxiety to "shrug and sloth" when change is suggested... (Yeah, sure, I know this is not you because you run your potato server 1976 edition. Don't be silly and do the Doctors Dot and Bubble please)
The public dealt with the health care providers and entrusted them with their data.
Looking at this from my own professional perspective: do/ did they really? From the EU countries I work(ed) in as MD, Germany is the only one where patients are asked specifically, every time, to note, and to approve/ decline consult data stored/ transferred. And even there the situation is changing rapidly. Even though the basic concept is different there (long term, patient is physical holder of medical data, not MD nor institute) that too is changing as far as possible under the stricter German data protection laws, the latest "digital medicine" plans of the German Health minister being an illustration of that. In the end, patient consent becomes/ is a side note, a box to tick off, because other criteria are rated more important, e.g. cost, health care system/ providers convenience, throughput efficiency, cost again, additional revenue opportunities. So, if we think this was a, as it says in law, dependent on patient consent, physician is just adviser (heard Sir Brian Langstaffs very correct speech this week?) active contemplation and (free) decision by patient, I think another look might be good...
Very true. Have a pint with a farmer and ask them about their tractor. Big chance you will get a story that, yes, it is all digital and no, we can't do anything ourselves any more. If John Deere talks about the production of food, they will probably omit that they plan to introduce a subscription model for that too. Read the stories here of cars not activating certain functions if you don't pay per month? Horrified by it? Well, again, buy a farmer a pint, and see what the world looks like for them for a long time already. Don't pay? Oh dear, tractor won't start...
For packaging desktop apps, it's probably fine. System tools, not so much.
Very true and, as it looks, exactly the next step Canonical wants to take. The suggestion (sorry, can't confirm, maybe @Liam can?) on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/1chilj4/completely_remove_snap_from_ubuntu_2404/) is that the next one to be snapped is CUPS, which would make snap removal disable base OS usability significantly.
Typo, or command?
In the open source spirit... whatever you choose it to be (the lack of which is the main issue with snaps IMHO)
I envisioned two options though: either hop to another distro, or resort to another hopping solution (see icon) and "forget" all about it.
Either way, I don't think you have a leg to stand on.
Strangely, that has occurred when executing that last option...
Same thing here, since it is becoming more and a more of a pain to actually remove snapd and its tentacles (in the correct order for success!) and subsequently get the software you need for an efficient productivity box. And apparently we are not the only ones, since I see/ hear more and more people looking for alternatives, e.g xfce Debian, xfce Mint, xfce Devuan, Xebian,.. It's sad to see something that was thought out and worked well decompose. Ah well, let's keep calm and hop... or live that LTS to its end and get on that productivity...
Oh don't get me wrong...
having things on paper may be stone age oldschool
...I do agree and frequently invite youngsters to this new technological, sustainable and low carbon foot print marvel called paper (<<< Don't agree? Ever thought of the Wh your devices and their backend are gobbling up?).
It's just funny to see, just like the (heavy use of the) printers at the entrances of the German banks for people to print out their statements.
I'm not at all saying what's right and what's wrong. It's just interesting to see, just like the things they have on offer on Food Street in China...
You must have worked with eremites then. They probably also never used a modern cell phone, and I guess they communicate with businesses only via fax...
Ah, I see you have been working in Germany. Because indeed, that is exactly the situation. (Especially for a foreigner) Germany is still largely paper based, and if for the majority of German companies/ businesses you get contact details for will have a fax number on there. As one of the jokes went, fired at the German politicians in the room during the "carnival speeches":
"Do you know what the German definition of cyber warfare is? Sending so many faxes that the paper runs out on the other side" (Guido Cantz).
"Learned about the vuln this morning. Checked my system, I had version “5.6.0-0.2” of xz-utils installed."
Looks like the LTS' of this world might have escaped this? My *buntu 22.04 LTS seems to prove that a bit of constipation might actually not be a bad thing...
nat@practice241:~$ dpkg -l *xz*
+++-==============-===========================-============-======================================
ii pxz 4.999.99~beta5+gitfcfea93-2 amd64 parallel LZMA compressor using liblzma
un xz-lzma <none> <none> (no description available)
ii xz-utils 5.2.5-2ubuntu1 amd64 XZ-format compression utilities
nat@practice241:~$ dpkg -l *liblzma*
+++-==============-==============-============-=================================
un liblzma2 <none> <none> (no description available)
ii liblzma5:amd64 5.2.5-2ubuntu1 amd64 XZ-format compression library
ii liblzma5:i386 5.2.5-2ubuntu1 i386 XZ-format compression library
Then again, being old and grumpy does force me to mumble "I told you so" on the systemd philosophy and creep...
Suppose Ken and Dennis were on about something that was lost in (German) translation...
How does this scenario work in a web-only situation?
Like OP I too am a long time *nix + LO user, having to work daily with other MS users. What I see in my professional use case is that, yes, those web versions of Word and Excel do work, but they also have significant eye brow raisers. First of all, since you are not a MS registered user, you do need to jump through 10 million hoops to get to the application to begin with. IMHO MS did a master stroke there, applying the EUs 2FTA requirement to serve their own use case and make it way harder to enter their walled garden (MS Authenticator). Some that come to mind immediately: web versions do not have all options/ capabilities of local versions. Seamless portability between local vs web MS applications can be troublesome and require extra work infile. And this one that makes me roll eyes every time: the MS window dressing about file compatibility. If you have a file in on-line versions of Word, you can File > Save as > Download them as an open document. But, if you then open this ODT locally with LO, it looks like nothing you exported out of Word. If you have an ODT and you upload it to the SharePoint of the people you're working with, and open it in Teams/ Word/ Excel/ PowerPoint(web version) you will see... nothing. You can do... nothing. Upload and double click your (LO exported/ native) Word, Excel, PowerPoint, what ever file, and it opens and you can view and edit. PDF, no issue at all.
I agree with other commentart here that LO improves every time in its compatibility with MSO. It's a one way street however, because at the same time MS does what is best for MS with all this open document window dressing/ camouflage being just enough to serve it own not so open, "why don't you just use what you're supposed to use, we are the industry standard" needs...
So government create a problem.
Or to be more specific, the upcoming government create a problem. That is the "slight" side effect when populist right wing parties get the mandate from their (in the Netherlands large, and historically omnipresent) base and practise what they have been shouting about. And as the age old law of nature goes: politics and business are bad bed partners. Funny observation always is that principles tend to be less binary when money starts evaporating...
The other thing is that electric cars are easier to protect against crashes because they don’t have a huge lump of non-deformable metal directly in front of the driver.
Not all have engines at the front, like my trusty Ghia for example.
But, have you ever talked to people of the fire department? Had a pint with some, and they are really, really concerned about electric car fires, which are really, really scary. Not only frequent, but extremely difficult to put out. They told me they would rather see a ban on people loading their cars overnight "close to their house", like near their front door, in their private, or worse, apartment building parking garage, because (their words) it is a disaster waiting to happen.
Ink's where the money is...
Very true. Ink == printer company's subscription model.
And they are not the only one. In the medical area for example, companies are (almost) giving away high precision equipment, automated injectors for administering drugs/ fluids... up to the point you try to insert a container, which is required to be "generic" by law, but is not from the same manufacturer who "gave" you the thing. Of course there was a lot of blah about safety and all that. But in the end it turned out to be just camouflage for the same HP model (Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat at the window... Who's there?)
And then... The Logitech K750 has been around for something like more than 10 years now. And works well I can say. Only changed the button cell once in that period, and never has been out, or low on power. So what is so ground breaking about this one now? That "kinetic" thing? Hmmm... I might be the odd one out, but my hands are always kind of busy when I'm at a keyboard... You know... Typing and stuff...
Stop giving them money.
Indeed, because that is what it is all about. Then again, "money management" and "intelligence" do not always come together with all specimens of the human species...
There are other sparks of sanity though...
Authors & Copyright Scholars Back 'Internet Archive' in Landmark Legal Battle
Plenty of Kpop acts do this already, and a couple haven't even bothered with the meat-sack stage.
Indeed. But more in general, it kind of shows you the evolution of pop music in the last decades, right?
Sure, every musician wanted to become famous and at least fund the Rolls (or habits ;) with their talents. However, today it all is primary a product, marketed as such (ignoring some odd-one-outs), devoid of any emotion, inspiration, or dare I say talent. You will see it already a bit looking at the hot thing with kids now - where in my age and time you would shame your eyes out of your head to say you liked the music of your nan (and secretly did), anemia is now all over the place, with industry rehashing and reselling. And then I'm not even talking about potential "ideas" connected to youth movements, often critical to those "at the head of the table", triggered and supported by new music and ideas. So no more free love, hair peace dancing naked through the meadow while protesting against war, no swearing on TV, addressing the touchy subject of royalty "differently" while proclaiming a new anarchy. Nope, market the much known (and cheap due to recycling!) product that doesn't ripple, sells well, and can be labeled as the family experience. Oh, that Brave New World...
To be fair: Snap as something that is "out there to use" is OK. I don't like it, I don't want it, I don't use it. But if it is just an option, it serves what you want to do, you can sudo apt snap.deb if you want it, hey, knock yourself out.
It is the autocratic force feed behaviour of Canonical I have an issue with and made me change to a Debian "base layer". So yeah, if that is what you mean, yep, you got a point.
I won't disagree that 8 GB is enough for some people, but don't pretend it's amazing when it's not.
True, but then it is all about use case isn't it? I mean, picturing people who use their computers like that, would most likely also be very fine with a 8/ 256 GB Vostro for a third of the price.
And there we go: in the end it is the same thing like those trainers the chavs need to have, the thick watch the pub blagger wears, and that car that was parked deliberately in front of your local hotel.
It's not about the innards, it's all about that aluminium body and that glowing Apple on the lid that, since there is a bite out of it, will push its Snow White user into a brain coma...
Interesting post, but it misses the point that the vast, vast majority of the "low-level waste" that you talk about, is just stuff that is "potentially contaminated" so has to be classified as nuclear waste, even if it is not radioactive at all.
Ah well... That's why we marched and camped in the 80s. To finally end up with nuclear powered TikTok. All just a consideration of essential priorities I suppose...
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