* Posts by JClouseau

61 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Sep 2019

Page:

CEO Satya Nadella thinks Microsoft hung up on Windows Phone too soon

JClouseau

Plus, to be honest, Windows Phone was the only place where those ugly tiles made any sense. The missus kept a Nokia 520 (WinPhone8) as far as possible and it was not unpleasant at all to use.

Falling from a staircase and the lack of Whatsapp sealed its fate.

The Nokia, not the missus.

Virgin Orbit doesn't

JClouseau
Pint

Re: Had it been a success....

Thanks, but as a cheese-eating Bonapartist I must restore the truth. France alone would never have had the success Ariane experienced without our European friends.

But thanks for this brief moment of French Glory, much appreciated ;-)

As for the failed launch, that's too bad but indeed space is a complicated thing. I'm just not sure to understand what they are trying to achieve here. I imagine that the payload must be quite small compared to what the Arianes, Saturns, and other Falcon 9's are capable of ? What's the point exactly ? Interweb-for-all constellations ? More tiny crap in orbit ? Have nobody watched "Gravity" ffs ?

(I admit I didn't read much about this endeavour)

Lastly, I sense here some despise towards Sir Richard. Again I don't follow his life with much interest but he looks like a decent billionaire to me, compared to the Bezos, Dysons and Musks. So he's not such a Nice Guy after all ?

OK, he also wants a piece of the space tourism cake, but isn't this a trait of all aging filthy rich guys ? Let him (her) who is sure he/she wouldn't indulge into some serious rocket fun, with the appropriate funds, cast the first stone !

Corporations start testing Windows 11 in bigger numbers. Good luck

JClouseau

Re: it's the GUI, stupid

OK I'll bite (for the last time) : this is not about MS having changed my habits and I'm an old grumpy geezer who can't tell his right from his left mouse buttons.

This is about me being perfectly at ease from Windows 3.1 through 7 (included), thinking that the UI was getting better most of the time. No major UI-related complains from my part.

Then came 8 and all hell broke loose (not on any of my PCs, but as lots of IT people here I'm the "support" guy for the family)

I'm not a fan of MacOS either (family support, etc...) but at least the UI is consistent.

Oh, and screensavers are still a feature that is available today in Windows (don't know about 11), so if I want to use it please let me be, thankyouverymuch.

Now the article is about 11, not 10. So perhaps they learned and did improve the UI, but reading comments here and there I'm not holding my breath. Certainly won't be trying this out on my main home PC any time soon.

JClouseau

it's the GUI, stupid

Of course I don't have any meaningful stats about this, but from my personal experience and (IT) people around me the problem is not about what's under the hood. There is no question Windows 10 is quite stable, and the jury is still out regarding performance (OS and apps get more and more bloated over time but hardware has progressed a lot).

But Windows 7 was, as far as I'm concerned, very stable and mature as well. I kept it until last week. Honestly XP was not too bad either.

The big problem with Windows 8/10 is indeed the GUI. And sorry, but it's not just about "oh they changed my menus, I'm all miffed" (holds breath, turns red) as you seem to imply. It's just crappy and unfinished. I'm quite afraid of 11.

I've been tinkering with computers for ~35 years, as a hobby and then a job. And I like to think I'm not (yet) completely senile.

So why did it take me around 5-10 minutes the first time to find where to set the bloody screensaver, understand why the screen would go black without showing the chosen screensaver ? Oh yes, let's not forget the fact that the settings are shown in a Windows 7-style window (?).

This is a mundane example, but shows the "philosophy" (or lack thereof) of this GUI. I could go on about the network/wifi settings. At times it feels like the interface has been designed by Terry Gilliam. Or Terry's chimp.

It has nothing to do with "looks" or taste, just plain functionality.

This is Microsoft, a company that's more than 50 years old, with thousands of (I guess) talented employees, sh*tloads of cash, there is simply no excuse for them to offer (impose ?) such a crappy, nonsensical and illogical UX to millions of users/customers/businesses.

"Suck it up" ? Yep, we have no choice if we want to run some specific workloads. But we shouldn't have to put up with this.

Granted, I haven't really tried 11 yet, but the 10 "experience" is not too encouraging.

Aaaand I'm spent...

SystemRescue 9.06 is here with the shiny new Xfce 4.18

JClouseau

Re: Question

If you want to stick with SystemRescue I don't know, but the last time I needed to "hack" (at a friend's request, his laptop) a Windows admin account with chntpw I used Kali

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to 11 years in prison

JClouseau

Re: A CEO being held accountable?

That one too. For those who haven't yet, try to watch "DOWNFALL" on Notflix. I haven't lost anybody in those crashes but felt gutted about how this mess went (and eventually vanished without much happening to the aholes in charge).

The parallel is interesting insofar no-one died directly because of Theranos (or possibly a few desperate and broke investors).

Looks like the satisfaction of living investors is more important than some justice for the families of 346 dead people.

JClouseau

Re: A CEO being held accountable?

Indeed. Make it two patterns then. They are not mutually exclusive.

Is it time to retire C and C++ for Rust in new programs?

JClouseau
WTF?

Re: C/C++ - really?

As the Great Philosopher said (I'm paraphrasing)

Error Handling is for Wimps

Yep, I'm not a developer anymore, haven't been for ages. How'd you guess ?

Icon because, indeed, where is He ??? --->

G7 countries beat UK in worldwide broadband speed test again

JClouseau

Re: What is "enough"?

Working in IT and having ~1000/600 fibre, one big advantage I see is when a customer struggles to download some large patch/service pack/other file and I can not only download it for them, but more importantly upload it to another repository they can access, in no time. In the ADSL days the upload was painful.

Granted, it doesn't happen very often, but when it does it's usually critical/urgent ;-)

The "download a movie in seconds" is actually interesting for saving bandwidth : the kids/missus can download several episodes of their favourite Netflix/whatever series, thus hogging the line for a relatively short time, then watching them later on without even the need to access the Net.

(and when I say "hogging", it's not even accurate, either the source is capping its upload speed or it's the interwebs that can't cope with the speed)

Other than that yes, it's a bit overkill...

Wash your mouth out with shape-shifting metal

JClouseau

Re: I'd totally use something like this

Seeing how much brands like Braun charge for their toothbrush heads I wouldn't hold my breath (ah !). A bit like printer vendors and platine-priced ink.

I can imagine that because some of the stuff will be swallowed/lost, we'll have to "refill" our STARS thingy from time to time ?

the IONP continually reattach themselves and also get gathered by the magnetic field and reintegrated into STARS mass.

Why do I have this eerie feeling ?

"But it will fit inside the mouth."

That's a good start, at least someone is setting priorities right here.

France levels up local video game slang with list of French terms to replace foreign words

JClouseau
Pint

Clutching at straws

I'm glad and thankful that the comments for this "news" didn't turn out as the total french-bashing-fest I was expecting, it even came up with interesting linguistic discussions.

But personally this kind of thing, along with the abysmal/appalling/monstrous/inept/etc... handling of last weekend's Champions League disaster makes me want to crawl under a rock and stay there for a week. Possibly even try to get a UK (blue, right ?) passport.

That commission did find some acceptable words at time ("mél" for email, pretty harmless, and nobody uses it), but "joueur-se en direct" for "streamer" ?? This is public (mine) money we're talking about folks !! Do something useful ! Secure the freaking stadiums and put the thugs in jail ! Send them to Guyana !

I'm OK with "jeu en nuage" though. I don't know exactly how "cloud" is perceived in English, but "nuage" for me retains some kind of poetry, whatever the context.

Again, sorry a thousand times to all Liverpool supporters out there. Have a beer. Yes, the kids too if they want.

French court pulls SpaceX's Starlink license

JClouseau

Yep, that argument is a bit strange.

But I don't think this has anything to do with "cancelling" a potential foreign competitor, because a) Starlink is mostly aimed at people who can't get any other existing coverage, WiMAX, ADSL, 4G/5G, fibre, at least not with decent throughputs and b) the monthly subscription is/was 99€, which is way above what the "traditional" competitors charge.

I may be naive but I really believe that the Conseil d'Etat thought those two associations had a point, and chose to apply the almighty "principe de précaution" which is one of our lovely local peculiarities.

I've checked, and Priartem is an association against anything electro-magnetic or which could be linked to EM waves in a way or another : smart meters, 5G, etc... Not sure how much lobbying power they have but they are a bit extreme for sure. To their credit I couldn't find any signs of a campaign against sunlight.

As for the "pitch forks and peasants" caricatures I could read in some comments, yes, it's true french farmers tend to be a pain when they're not happy, but besides the big and rich ones there are many who struggle making ends meet, with way too many suicides and/or bankruptcies. The thing is they feed us and work hard, so give them some slack and please excuse me if I don't want to end up buying Vladimir's wheat.

But I digress.

About chivo's argument (space pollution), well, whether France authorizes Starlink or not it won't change the fact the satellites are already up there, right ?

I see the subject woke up some good ol' french-bashing commentards. But this is a Brit site (with typical funny and witty comments most of the time), so fair enough ;-)

In the graveyard of good ideas, how does yours measure up to these?

JClouseau
WTF?

But, but, but...

...these are supposed to be just (plain and innocent) oat flakes, not porridge. Basically tasteless breakfast cereals (hence the fruits and, er... leaves ? on the picture).

I had to check online what exactly porridge/oatmeal was and I can confirm this revolting exotic meal will be hard to find in France, or perhaps in selected, organic shops for yuppies.

Interesting example of cognitive bias due to your (complex) origins no doubt ;-)

...or perhaps this was just some typical tongue-in-cheek Scottish-Hungarian humour and I missed the point entirely...

Not looking forward to a greyscale 2022? Then look back to the past in 64 colours

JClouseau

Re: To be fair on BMW

Well, I just happen to have patented a revolutionary and unhackable e-ink registration certificate ("V5c" I believe you call it your side of La Manche).

It allows to you to change pretty much any information regarding your vehicle. And play Angry Birds.

Thank you, FAQ chatbot, but if I want your help I'll ask for it

JClouseau
Coffee/keyboard

Nice

Vous me devez un nouveau keyboard, M. Dabbs.

But I guess just a fishing license should do as well.

Happy Holidays to this (mostly) fine community !

Leaked footage shows British F-35B falling off HMS Queen Elizabeth and pilot's death-defying ejection

JClouseau
Holmes

Re: Well...

Absolutely, the alias is a tribute to my illustrious fellow countryman Jacques.

And of course the "quote" is a tribute to your not-less-illustrious (I should say "notorious") hay-haired PM...

JClouseau

Re: Well...

Oh come on, donnes-moi un frein...

How much would you pay me to develop a COVID tracking app that actually works? Ah, thought so: nothing

JClouseau
Pint

Vive la Fra..... oh, wait.

This, just this, in large amounts ----------------------------------------->

The site is brilliant, the guy seems rather modest and in his description actually speaks French instead of using "Big Data" (traitement des masses de données). My hero.

I'm happy this young talented fellow will have been a fellow citizen, if only for a few years.

Because no doubt he'll soon be nabbed by some US borg company with Deep Pockets and fly away to California (or, these days, more likely Texas/Florida).

I hope he's really bad in English. Or can't live without his raw milk Camembert.

University of the Highlands and Islands shuts down campuses as it deals with 'ongoing cyber incident'

JClouseau

Re: Would your mothers be proud of you?

Indeed. As the great Bill Watterson said (of school bullies), "they spawn on damp locker room floors."

Half a million stolen French medical records, drowned in feeble excuses

JClouseau
Pint

Nice one !

Sad news indeed for way too many people who probably didn't need this right now, that being said I can't help but be amazed by how you brought this up after last week's note. What a transition.

Well done ! Have a ....

...er, no, on second thoughts, no, don't...

France's cyber-agency says Centreon IT management software sabotaged by Russian Sandworm

JClouseau
Headmaster

"rusty high school French and online translation services"

...or you could go straight to the English version ;-)

My bad! So you're saying that redacting an on-screen PDF with Tipp-Ex won't work?

JClouseau

Re: Lego™®

Pah, not even that.

In these days of wokeness even Lego parts have lost their "edge". I can't stand how they now make custom "bricks" for some specific sets.

OF COURSE you can't build a proper Bugatti Chiron using only the good old "jump-to-the-ceiling-in-pain-when-walking-on-in-the-dark" bricks !

But perhaps I'm just getting old and grumpy.

Return of the flying car, just when we all need to escape

JClouseau

Thanks

Thanks for writing in this time of doom, gloom, and many other totally unfunny things.

Re: where you live, my parents live there and have cable internet. Granted, it's SFR, but kind of works and it's fast.

Or perhaps just like most of your compatriots you chose to buy a rundown (but charming, with plenty of character) old manor in some obscure outskirts of M, that you will spend the rest of your life playing "Rénovation impossible" (Flip N move) with. :D

With a one-pair copper cable barely reaching the house. And behind a big hill that hides the nearest cell tower.

You guys are weird, but at least thanks to you we can sell our rundown houses located in desert places. And then someone buy a rundown café nearby and opens an English pub. And that's cool.

Thanks as well for the surreal "chat" between ministers, I didn't see that, it didn't make much noise in the press (strangely).

Hackers hack Hackney: Local government cries 'cyberattack' while UK infosec officials rush to figure out what happened

JClouseau
Coat

Where's Fatima

....when you need her ?

Sorry

From the Department of WCGW: An app-controlled polycarbonate lock with no manual override/physical key

JClouseau
Pint

Inspirational quotes

Like everybody else, very pleased to read you again. Have one (on expenses).

those who post inspirational quotes or virtue-signalling tales of how fantastic their working lives are.

That's it, we must be connected you and I. Now I don't troll them (at least not using my official account) as you never know who might hire you in the future, but these make me cringe, they're almost on par with the smurfs who keep informing you on Faecebook how wonderful the BA VIP lounge at Heathrow is (insert your favorite airline and trendy airport). With pictures of the complimentary cocktail and awesome snacks.

Where is the "love" icon ?

Third time's still the charm: AMD touts Zen-3-based Ryzen 5000 line, says it will 'deliver absolute leadership in x86'

JClouseau

Mum's rig

Ditto here, the "big" PC is (drum roll) a Phenom II X6 1065T (a 2011 design I believe) coupled with a GTX1060. And a SATA SSD for the system.

It's more than OK for browsing and office work, and the kid isn't complaining about Fortnite, Rocket League or Battlefront performance.

The real bottleneck at some point was the HD5770, but now I don't feel compelled to "refresh" (i.e. replace) it. I can also proudly contribute to the Vulture's COVID F@H effort.

Hell, I'm still running Win7

So unless OP's mum is a serious gamer, or an AI researcher, I see no reason to replace everything.

Now I really love AMD, but am I the only one confused by the complete lack of synchronization between the "Zen" architecture numbers and the Ryzen CPU references ?

This "Ryzen 5000" thing based on "Zen 3" lost me for good.

He was a skater boy. We said, 'see you later, boy' – and the VAX machine mysteriously began to work as intended

JClouseau

Re: Changes

And they're selling 1TB microSD cards these days, I for one :

1. will never trust such a tiny little thingy to hold reliably any "serious" data;

2. would probably lose it in less than 48 hours;

I've never worked on mainframes/minis but I'm quite sure at least those disks were rather hard to lose.

JClouseau
Holmes

CSI: Miami

"The branch tech," said Ethan, "made the profound statement: 'I think we may have found the source of our problem.'"

Great. Now I'll have David Caruso and his impersonation by Jim Carrey in my head for the rest of the day.

Thankyouverymuch

AI in the enterprise: Prepare to be disappointed – oversold but under appreciated, it can help... just not too much

JClouseau
Pint

Re: Whose intelligence?

Not directly related to the topic, but amen to that :

It might be more effective in the long run to improve our education systems so we can unlock the vast pool of increasingly wasted human potential.

Emphasis on "increasingly wasted".

https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity#t-7850

RIP Sir Ken.

As Amazon pulls union-buster job ads, workers describe a 'Mad Max' atmosphere – unsafe, bullying, abusive

JClouseau
Childcatcher

Re: There's a simple solution

Other similar companies are usually not philantropists either, but the way Amazon brings "productivity" and "efficiency" to extreme levels in such a brutally industrial fashion makes them clearly stand out, at least to me. Other retailers, as big as they can be, look like corner shops in comparison.

I don't know how life is in Alibaba/express' warehouses though, never bought much from/through them anyway.

I haven't been buying from Amazon in months, except for little gadgets you can't find anywhere else (cause nobody can compete with Amazon on some items anymore) when I'm desperate, it's not too hard to find alternatives, sometimes for the same price. But again I'm not an avid consumer and perhaps some people just can't live without "them".

In France you can usually find alternatives with the "big" players for books, electronics, PC parts, etc... as they try to align with Amazon's prices, I just hope it's sustainable for them in the long run...

To be fair, Amazon is fair game for critics because of their incredible success, but all the reports seem to confirm that they've crossed a line at some point with regard to employee "wellness". I don't believe Bezos would need to sleep in a cardboard box if the "rates" in warehouses went down a bit, to more humane levels.

China slams President Trump's TikTok banned-or-be-bought plan in the US

JClouseau

Re: Incorrect premise?

to stop China from doing asymmetrical business

To be fair China's never forced us (US/Europe) to off best-shore our entire production of goods (or services) there (or India, Vietnam, ...), it's not as if there was ever a deal like "OK guys, we're giving you large chunks of our manufacturing, but behave, let's play fair, right ?".

I've heard a not-too-PC joke the other day from an Asian stand-upper, it was like : "Rumor has it that we Chinese have a very small d|ck. That's true : we've been fcking you in the arse for some time and you didn't feel a thing".

IBM's sacking spree reaches Australia – and as staff wait to exit, they're offered AU$4k to find new workers

JClouseau

Re: What Would You Say You Do Here ?

If we're talking about the same Michael "You can just call me Mike" Bolton, then you beat me to it.

The "they can escape redundancy by explaining why their role should be preserved" thing immediately brought to mind the interviews with the Two Bobs.

"What would you say you do here ?"

Priceless, if this wasn't about actual people losing actual jobs...

I used to laugh while watching that movie years ago, and "sorry, your job has been sent to Bangalore" was more of a US thing.

Used to...

Cloudflare outage caused by techie pulling out the wrong cables

JClouseau
Boffin

Re: Cables with labels on

Tell me about it....

https://www.color-blindness.com/ishihara-38-plates-cvd-test/#prettyPhoto

What a nasty, nasty little test.

That's when I found out I would never be a fighter pilot. Turned to IT out of despair (and probably lack of any kind of other competence).

NASA's classic worm logo returns for first all-American trip to ISS in years: Are you a meatball or a squiggly fan?

JClouseau

Re: When

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/10/31

(I'm totally allowed to post this, I've bought the "Complete" books !)

I'm more of a "wormer" myself, but I'm almost a boomer and 70's stuff kind of hit a chord. That being said the meatball with the orbiting spermatozoon is also cool, "Jetsons' style".

PC owners borg into the most powerful computer the world has ever known – all in the search for coronavirus cure

JClouseau

Re: Public Service Donation

Missed that one, and the link is actually on this very site's frontpage (NextPlatform. I never click, it's usually serious stuff) :

https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/03/23/bringing-330-petaflops-of-supercomputing-to-bear-on-the-outbreak/

JClouseau
Thumb Up

Re: Public Service Donation

A tad smaller than Google, but definitely doing something about that :

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/blog-post/2020/03/challenging-times-call-for-clear-heads-purpose-driven-priorities-and-a-focus-on-communities.html

Mind you, with their "legacy" HPC and now the Cray people and resources, I believe they can do interesting things. Not to mention Aruba wireless deployments in makeshift "hospitals", etc...

Antonio Neri seems to be a rather decent fellow, especially compared to others CEOs. I guess the fact he's Italian only added to the incentive.

Publicity, genuine good will, whatever, anything goes to fight against this little biatch.

JClouseau

Re: My PC is *THIS* big!

Cassini was asking about Rosetta@Home (BOINC)

JClouseau

Re: My PC is *THIS* big!

Hi,

A "Linux 32" ? Bah, I only run Linux 64-bits :)

I found team "Vulture Central XV", not sure how active it is but the name definitely rings a bell.

JClouseau

Re: When you say spare cycles...

OK, perhaps I was a bit lazy at first, now I understand how this goes a bit better. Most of you probably know what's below already but just in case...

Here (Win7, ancient Phenom II X6 + GTX1060) when set to "Medium" I have the CPU running at ~85% and the GPU at 100%. "On idle" unchecked.

Both running at ~60°C.

I understand there are options to throttle CPU usage so I'll be tinkering with that, but this is not possible for the GPU, it's all or nothing. GPUs don't have any of the fancy throttling mechanisms modern CPUs have.

My solution is to use the very nice utility from Gigabyte to underclock the GPU.

Still, with this I can compute a WU (GPU) in 3 or 4 hours so I will be generating one per day.

As a comparison while the GPU was on 1 WU + 30% of the next one, the CPU was still chugging at ~25% of its first WU.

Compared to BOINC I don't understand the notion of WU : BOINC uses one core per "task" for any given project, it's simple. Is a F@H WU a "task", meaning that it is balanced across all cores ? Or is it more complex than that ?

Other than that Rosetta@Home works fine, it allows for "fine throttling" of the CPU, but it cannot use the GPU.

Perhaps a good combination if you want to run this 24/7 without too much strain on the system would be Rosetta at, say, 70/80% of the CPU, and F@H with no CPU slot and an underclocked GPU ?

JClouseau
Go

Corporate Crunching ?

Agree. What could be done is to ask officially your employer (major IT vendor here) to install whatever useful grid computing software on some big iron in demo rooms, test/PoC labs, currently idle or much less used because of the confinement.

It would be more symbolic than anything, but a nice symbol.

JClouseau

Re: When you say spare cycles...

Indeed. I've been running World Community Grid (BOINC-based) for years and its very lean GUI allows you for choosing the % of CPU you allow it to use.

The other day I've installed F@H (Win7) and I do think the GUI is not too clear and most of all the settings are a bit rough around the edges.

At first ("Light" setting) it wouldn't use my GPU (GTX1060) at all and very little CPU so I thought something was wrong with my (old) PC, but then I found this page(*) that explains it and switched to "Medium". The CPU went to almost 90% and the GPU to 100% with all fans blowing at full speed.

No, I didn't try "Full".

It's not that I don't want to contribute, but if my main rig gets fried I have a 10-years old Fortnite pro at home who's going to be very pissed.

May give a try with Rosetta@Home which uses BOINC. Still, the guys seem to have plenty of firepower already. Science is cool.

(*) https://foldingathome.org/faqs/fah-v7/v7-introduction/web-control/folding-power-slider/

Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo dies aged 92

JClouseau

Re: O tempora, o mores!

As a native French I didn't get all the puns when I was a kid, not to mention when latin is involved. Asterix is very funny when you're young and only gets better as you grow old.

Recently one of my kids was reading Asterix in Britain (in English) for her... English classes. I haven't yet, but from what I could read elsewhere the English translations are indeed brilliant ("Dogmatix" or "Cacofonix" for instance, excellent).

If I have to re-read the whole collection in English, so be it, that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

I hope I'll get the puns.

JClouseau
Pint

Re: I have the whole collection

My kids are all grown-up, but I am not.

Citação do mês. Have a milk-shake.

Fed-up air safety bods ban A350 pilots from enjoying cockpit coffees

JClouseau

Re: Gobsmacked!

Is Tesla making airliners now ?

What a terrible result from this year's Super Bowl. Can you believe it? Awful. Yes, we're talking about the tech ads

JClouseau

Re: did not watch

Even worse, I avoided the sports page on my usual news sites, only to "catch" -or better said get caught by- the title about The Donald congratulating Kansas for the Chiefs' victory. "Trump, "congratulate","wrong state", and bam!

Still watched the replay (oh the joy of being able to fast forward through the dreadful half-time show) (although I must say Shakira...) (but I digress) and to be honest until 10" before the end I thought I'd read it wrong. Very entertaining game. Not as much as Le Crunch, but entertaining ;-)

And to be fair with the Agent Orange, I keep forgetting K.C. is NOT in Kansas...

No wonder Bezos wants to move industry into orbit: In space, no one can hear you* scream

JClouseau

Re: Accidents

Yes, I thought about that too, but it would be just accidents of a different nature.

I wouldn't like to be hit on the head by a 65" TV (curved or not) traveling at high velocity because an overly zealous colleague in the same warehouse alley wants to win the "fastest employee of the month" award.

JClouseau
Facepalm

Yay ! Let's use more resources !

“You want a dynamic civilization that continues to use more and more energy and more and more resources and build amazing things"

Sorry, no. Please call Greta for further details.

While I kind of admire this guy for his achievements as an entrepreneur and did my share of shopping on Amazon in the past, I really don't like what he's become. Looks more and more like Brain from "Pinky and the Brain".

No, no, it's my kids who watch that. Not me. I swear.

Close the windows, it's coming through the walls: Copper Cthulu invades Dabbsy's living room

JClouseau
Headmaster

Cut the yellow and green wire. Or the red and black. Ah, just pick one up...

Salut,

I'd choose another electrician if I were you. The "NF C 15-100" French standard is a real pain in the back with all the restrictions and requirements it includes. Fortunately it only applies when you're building a new house, otherwise doing any renovation work would cost more than the house.

The standard does say that earth should be green&yellow, neutral sky blue, and live "any other colour".

Which, I admit, could still be a bit confusing for colour-blind people (such as, say, myself) if you choose a bright colour for live.

And this is since 1970. The fun starts when you buy a pre-1970 house where you may find :

earth : red OR black, neutral : grey OR white, live : yellow OR green

...provided whoever did the job at the time followed the rules.

I would know, I have an excellent electrician who is borderline autistic(*) when it comes to standards. Including how to wire live and neutral on a 3-prongs socket.

He's Portuguese.

(*) disclaimer : I'm NOT making fun of autism, and he's NOT autistic. He's a great guy. It's a figure of speech.

Bon sang! French hospital contracts 6,000 PC-locking ransomware infection

JClouseau

Re: DAMN YOU DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION!!!!

People believe all sorts of things ...

For tel est mon bon plaisir, my lord. No need to be patronizing, but to each his own.

Digitus in latin means finger, I think we agree at least on that.

The fact that you guys started using "digit" to designate a single numerical entity (sorry, couldn't find a satisfactory synonym other than... "digit") at some point for some obscure reason, apparently related to the fact one naturally counts on their fingers, doesn't make it more right in the Big Scheme of Etymology. To me.

I know I'm right. It's the rest of the humanity that's wrong. Self-confidence is everything. I'm sure you agree.

JClouseau

Re: DAMN YOU DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION!!!!

Definitely not, and be happy you're not French.

Here, whether you work in IT for a French or foreign company, you get bombed with corporate BS in frenglish (sure enough "tchallêndge" is much easier to say than "défi")

My pet peeve is precisely "Digital Transformation", and people here managed to make it more ridiculous, with the ominous "Transformation Digitale". French being a latin language, "digital" is more related to fingers rather than numbers, binary or computers.

But no, it's fancy and sooo much cooler than "Transformation Numérique". Which is ugly as well. We're doomed.

The funny thing is that I believe the usage of "digital" instead of "numerical" in English is wrong as well. So what am I doing here, exactly ??

Page: