Posts by Gary Stewart

We know what day it is but these Raspberry Pi price hikes are no joke

I have been through many roller coaster RAM pricings over the last 50 years

Yep, the rising cost of Raspberry Pis due entirely to RAM shortages have reached the point where it is very difficult to find a good reason to buy one. Unfortunately this is clearly not limited to the Raspberry Pi and has indeed made the purchase of any new computer be on a must have basis. I'd like to throw in fast rising SSD prices as a major contributing factor for PC price rises. And while older preowned computers can fill some of that gap there are a couple of major problems with that. As more people turn to purchasing them the rise in demand will certainly cause their prices to rise too and in a lot of cases they will not comply with the Windows 11 "requirements". Being converted to a die hard Linux only user since Windows 7 (I actually began using Linux at Release 0.99 around 1992) the second one is not a problem for me but it will be a killer for a lot of people. Luckily being a Raspberry Pi user since it's introduction I have a couple of Pi 4's and 5's available for some ongoing projects where low power operation and/or portability are the main factors and their compute power is more than adequate. One is a home CUPS printer server and the other is a portable NFS server for my laptop. I also have a Pi 4 I want to use for a PiDP11 kit that I REALLY need to build. I'm just glad I bought them all well before the current massive price increases. As an example on the PC side I have a virtual server project that is on semi-permanent hold due RAM and SSD prices and most if not all cheaper PCs will not have enough RAM, storage, or compute power for this use. As I said in the title this not my first dance with RAM price increases although in all the previous cases their prices did eventually drop and keep dropping even as capacity and speed increased until the next price increase cycle. This time feels different as AI's hunger for RAM and storage, SSD and hard drives, seems to be insatiable even as it continues to increase it's demand to "feed me". I'd like to say that AI is doomed but there are some compelling applications that it appears to be very good at mainly dealing with sifting through vast amounts of prior research along with other data and coming up with novel solutions to material, chemical, medical, astronomical, and other scientific and engineering problems. I'm much less impressed with it's more human side attempts at "I" although language translation seems to be an area where it can be very useful. There are probably at least a few others I am not familiar with. So I believe that AI is here to stay in areas it works well at and most of those still require vast resources that will continue to increase. Only a massive increase in manufacturing capacity (as well as some Krell power technology) will help to tame the monster and it is for now more than a couple of years away.

FCC says it's making it easier for US telcos to ditch legacy lines

Re: Classic false choice

Actually in the US telcos are required by law to provide some kind of telephone service so the paying customer has access to emergency services. As far as I know the type of service is not specified although in the beginning there were problems with determining where the call was originating from with wireless. That was mostly fixed quite a while ago.

Trump remembers to appoint science panel, fills it mostly with tech bros

Re: Well of course...

You give him way too much credit. He has proven time and again that he doesn't know anything about anything. Well except for grifting, fraud, overall dishonesty, whining, coercion, theft, disloyalty, self worship, buffoonery (which he is very good at), and many many more. In general I try very hard not to hate anybody but Trump is in an elite group of evil people that are irredeemable. Given the considerable competition he would be near the bottom of that list except he has outdone himself with the cutting off of several food and medical aid programs which will probably lead to millions of deaths. I love it when he says that he will probably not make it to heaven for it is one of the very, very, very few things he is right about. He would probably like hell better anyway. Too bad I don't believe in either. I wonder how much he will charge to pee on his grave? After all someone has to pay for the massive drainage system.

Goodbye, Lunar Gateway: NASA ditches Moon station for Moon base

Off we go into the wild black yonder

I'm all for a permanent Lunar base. Just whatever you do, do NOT put a nuclear waste dump on it.

AI agents are 'gullible' and easy to turn into your minions

AI agents are 'gullible' and easy to turn into your minions

Being in the US that sounds weirdly familiar to me. Is it legal for AI to vote here in the states?

We tested Intel's new chips for cash-strapped hardcore PC users and they're impressive

More cores, higher clocks, and lower prices? What's not to like?

Intel? I have bought AMD processors ever since Intel's blatantly illegal attempts to cut off the oxygen on AMD processors by offering "special" consideration/compensation ($) to PC manufacturers to use only Intel processors. It was until very recently difficult to find top of the line AMD laptops especially from major manufacturers. Luckily for AMD Intel's numerous missteps over the last several years gave them a crack in the wall that they took full advantage of. Intel somehow still rules the roost but the are seriously straining their necks looking over their shoulder. And just to be clear, I do not want Intel to fail, I just want them to compete fairly with their competition. At this point it looks like they have no other choice which is good for everybody.

NASA sets 'impossible' ground rules for relocation of 'flown space vehicle'

Re: 747?

I hear that there is a 747 from Qatar that is currently being "upgraded". A few more special modifications should be doable.

Systemd 260 kills SysV, tells AI not to misbehave

Re: Not coming here

systemd?

In the name of science: Boffins build fart-tracking undies

Software testing is essential

I understand that they discovered a serious floating point overflow problem when testing using Trump as the simulation model.

Repopulate! Repopulate! Two lost Doctor Who episodes turn up in private collection

Re: Irresponsible reporting

AMEN! /s

Bundle of human neurons hooked to silicon learns to stumble through Doom

Re: Nothing new

I'll bet 1000 Quatloos that there are not 3 brains in the entire gaggle of sycophants in the Trump administration.

Re: 200,000 Neurons

You are so generous!

All your bots are belong to US if you don't play ball, DoD tells Anthropic

So a bot saying that AI bots belong to him. That can't end well.

AIs are happy to launch nukes in simulated combat scenarios

Shall we play a game?

OK, how about Global Thermonuclear war?

Obviously unlike humans (so far), AI can't figure out that nobody wins that game.

Artemis II headed back to the bay; helium issues force another delay

Re: For Sale

Thanks for the update, you may have just saved the inflatable cow. If the dummy stays true to form and chooses to launch anyway at least I can say he was warned.

For Sale

One very large rocket SRBs included. Never used, Moon ready, slightly leaky. Electric car and inflatable cow extra. Dummy driver (yes, that dummy) free. Inquire at NASA-New-Used-and-Canceled-Surplus- Space-Equipment.gov. Supplies may be limited so act NOW.

WARNING: DO NOT LAUNCH WHEN TEMPERATURES GO BELOW 0 deg. C (32 deg. F)!

O say, can you see: FCC pushes patriotic programming for US 250th

Re: Dear leader

"It's always struck me as somewhat odd if not downright banana republic that the US is so obsessed with the oath of allegiance, the flag and the national anthem"

A lot of that came from the 1950's red scare. The phrase "under god" was added to the pledge of allegiance and all paper currency (it was authorized to be on coins in 1864) at that time. Just proves that a lot of Americans have always been easily manipulated by scare tactics and patriotic sloganeering. Unfortunately appealing to the current regime and it's backers sense of decency, morality, or allegiance to the Constitution is an exercise in futility. Luckily I have been seeing many signs that the upcoming elections may put a crack in the dam of that idiocy, I just hope that there are no "stern letters" Democrats reelected that are dumb enough to stick those letters in the crack (EWWWW).

Microsoft boffins cook up archival storage using Pyrex glass they say can last over 10,000 years

Re: Do they make their own Pyrex?

I had forgotten about that and you are absolutely correct.

Do they make their own Pyrex?

Corning, the inventor of Pyrex (and patented although I would be surprised if the patent hadn't expired by now) sold all their commercial cooking glassware to another company and went all in on glass for fiber optics several years ago. The company they sold it to immediately stopped making borosilicate glass (AKA Pyrex) and went to regular glass without changing the name. The fake "Pyrex" is thicker than the original, I still have one bowl of the real thing (with a patent notice on the bottom) and noticed the change immediately. And it has a warning that it can no longer go directly from refrigerator (freezer?) to oven. So buyer beware.

Amazon's $200 billion capex plan: How I learned to stop worrying and love negative free cash flow

POE

Purity Of Expenses? Precious business fluidity?

NASA's fill-'er-up Moon rocket 'confidence' test sees mixed results

Re: Cryogenics is hard

The main problem with hydrogen is that it is the smallest atom and can find places to escape through in just about any gasket or flexible material. Thus preventing hydrogen from leaking especially in break away connections used to fuel a rocket and keep it topped off until launch presents extremely difficult engineering problems. That is why more modern reusable rockets like "Starship" and New Glen have moved to super chilled methane. Not quite the same bang for the buck but improved rocket engine design (the SLS engines are simply modified shuttle engines) and being much easier to handle makes it the fuel of choice for the next generation of heavy lift vehicles. But like I previously wrote, NASA has been handling liquid hydrogen for over 50 years so it makes the current SLS leak problems somewhat perplexing.

Cryogenics is hard

Depends. SpaceX and Blue Origin both use cryogenic oxygen (as does NASA) and cryogenic methane with almost no leak problems. However, cryogenic hydrogen is very hard. With all the years that NASA has been using it, since Apollo at least up to the Space Shuttle which is the basis for the modified SLS rocket engines you'd think that they would have a better handle on it. Especially since the first launch also had liquid hydrogen leak problems. I am not a fan of the SLS program because they use outdated rocket technology (thanks congress!) but I do hope they get this problem fixed fairly soon so they can complete their part of the Artemus program.

Amazon-backed X-Energy gets green light for mini reactor fuel production

Re: hydrogen for helium gas

H+ ions (AKA protons) are the most reactive substance known due to that proton really, really wanting an electron in it's inner shell and the inner shell having the most potential (pun intended) to take electrons from wherever it may find then. The temperatures in a reactor is not nearly high enough to fully ionize hydrogen but along with other ionizing radiation it might produce enough to be a serious problem.

Elon Musk paints exodus of xAI co-founders as 'evolution'

Wouldn't Trump need some kind of intellectual capability to be intellectually lazy?

SpaceX back to Falcon 9 launches as Musk blathers about Moon city

Re: Wouldn't it be fun ...

That was over 50 years ago and times have changed, greatly. I watched virtually every American space flight since the first Mercury launches and the first walk on the moon. This is not the same NASA as back then they had carte blanche for funding and for the engineering decisions that they needed to make. Now they have become more politically controlled though congressional funding which has driven decisions that are not always technically sound. The Space Shuttle and the Artemis programs are excellent examples. In case you missed it the hydrogen leak reference is because both of the Artemis launches have been delayed due to hydrogen leaks at the same coupling. Now liquid hydrogen is very tricky to handle and the main reason they use it is because the engines on the first stage are modified versions of the shuttle engines which used liquid hydrogen. This was supposed to save money and of course jobs in several congressional districts. In the end the modifications and testing caused serious delays and went way over budget. I am 100% for NASA, but they have become, through no fault of their own, chained to the whims of congress/lobbyist and for now the child that controls the majority of both houses.

Re: Wouldn't it be fun ...

Any ideas on how that could be done? Hopefully they can get there (hydrogen leaks not withstanding), they just can't land or return from the surface which is fairly important to the astronauts and their families.

51 years after humans first set foot on the Moon, a deepfaked Nixon mourns how Armstrong and Aldrin never made it home

Re: Alternative fakery

I hear his ghost is still looking for the real killer on golf courses across America.

Re: Alternative fakery

As they bend it before your very eyes.

The Linux mid-life crisis that's an opportunity for Tux-led transformation

Re: Capitalism at its finest

"Only for the successful vendors to be swallowed up by bigger organisations who would close it down because it was competing too well with their own product"

Ah, the Microsoft modus operandi for decades that killed so many excellent up and coming software companies. A shining example of capitalism at it's worst killing capitalism at it's best. Unfortunately, in the US at least, this has reached epic proportions with the full blessing of the government with no end in sight.

Re: Don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

While in general you're probably right I would like to add please be more specific as "nobody" is patently false. As an example, I have been a dedicated spend thrift my entire life and do very much value free. I am certain that there are others that do too and I am equally certain that a large majority do not.

Study confirms experience beats youthful enthusiasm

Re: Experience includes institutional knowledge

"....were everything is completely and properly documented, there is no reason why a younger employee could not match, or exceed, the productivity of a senior employee."

Except of course that the younger employee would have to read the documentation and fully commit it to memory first whereas the senior employee would have that knowledge at his/her fingertips making them more productive from the git-go. Also the older employee would be more familiar with normal company processes and so better understand why things are done in a particular way.

You simply can't beat experience with little to no experience when it comes to productivity assuming equal commitment to the job which seems to be self evident.

Satya Nadella decides Microsoft needs an engineering quality czar

OR

They could just spend the money on enginerrs that know WTF software quality is and how to implement it. Too obvious? Too late?

Palantir declares itself the guardian of Americans' rights

Palantir declares itself the guardian of Americans' rights

And Donald Trump is the greatest leader in the history of mankind. /s (just in case)

Next-gen nuclear reactors safe enough to skip full environmental reviews, says Trump admin

Re: Dammit, I hope they choose the right location...

The Pantex plant near Amarillo in the Texas panhandle is the primary facility in the US for assembling, disassembling, and maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile so there may be talent there. And in an interesting twist Texas is one of the largest producers of yucky woke green energy in the US. It's going to take a while for Texas to just turn purple (lots and lots or rural areas) although I think I see the (train head)light at the end of the tunnel.

Re: Approval not rejection

Over 12 hours not including a flight to and stopover in LA because there were no direct flights from the Dallas Fort Worth Airport when I went there in the 1980's. Unfortunately it was a business trip although I did enjoy flying business class on Qantas which included access to their first class lounge. Still think about going back just for fun.

Power scarcity drives datacenters to Texas, where the juice is

Re: it's a desolate place

Not sure what the thumbs down are for, I've lived in Texas for 70+ years so I am very familiar with the Texas landforms and weather patterns. I have lived through more storms and tornado warnings (issued when tornadoes have been confirmed to be in the area and loudly enunciated by civil warning sirens) than I can remember although a decent estimate would be ~8 - 10 severe storms and ~3 - 4 tornado warnings per year.

I should add that there are farms in some of the northern parts`of west Texas but that they rely heavily on the Ogallala Aquifer for water and they have been drawing water out of the Texas part of the aquifer, it extends through 6 other states, faster than it is being replaced for many decades.

Re: it's a desolate place

All of east Texas from top to bottom is forest along the Louisiana border mixed in with more grass land as you go west. The thunder/lightning storms and rain produced when cold fronts collide with warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico* mostly in the spring and fall can be intense. Texas has more tornadoes than any other state by a fairly large margin. Some undeveloped areas in and around Dallas have vegetation so thick that you can not walk through them. We do have droughts, we are currently well behind the normal rainfall but could easily catch up or pass it in spring. West Texas, starting a little east of the east side of the panhandle extending to the coast and all the way to the western border is pretty much as you described.

* FU Trump

Re: Did it suddenly start raining in Texas?

There are major discussions going on now on how to increase water supplies to meet demand in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Most of the water needed in that area goes to those two cities and the cities around them. Population growth both internal and external will soon outrun supplies which consists of quite a few man made lakes/reservoirs with the only way to fix it being more man made lakes. While this seems like a fairly easy problem to solve it requires a lot of publicly held land with limited locations that have the correct geology and don't have cities that would be in the middle of them. Perhaps one of the greatest failings is the current governments (state, local, and federal) is not recognizing that ever increasing population growth requires ever increasing resources with water being only one of several. Power is another, fortunately luckily Texas is a very big state that has been increasing the number of installations of wind and solar mainly on dry, flat west Texas. Unfortunately it has not kept up with increasing demand and this gap is likely to grow with the help of the current push by state and local governments to locate a large number of data centers here. My favorite is a huge amount of road and highway construction (with most of the workers looking and sounding suspiciously Hispanic so ICE could cause significant delays) on several main traffic streets and almost every major highway in Dallas for the last 4 or so years. With most still at least a couple of years away from completion. This is not unusual as it happens every ~10 years fueled by enough population growth to need new highway construction after only a couple of years respite. However this is increasingly running up to the same problem as the water supply as new highways or highway expansions require an ever increasing amount of the ever decreasing supply of very expensive land in the city and/or very expensive tunnels or multi level roadways.

Trump wants big tech to pay for big beautiful power plants

TDS

The first refuge of a bad argument.

Lawmakers urge FTC to probe Trump Mobile over 'deceptive' marketing

Re: Grifters gonna grift

But wait there's more:

The Trump Network - MLM scam

Trump University - Fraud

Trump foundation/charity Fraud

Trump Tampa - failure & fraud

Trump Soho - bankrupt

Trump golf Aberdeen - scam

Trump golf Puerto Rico - bankrupt

Trump Chicago - default 40 million

Trump Panama - lawsuit corruption

Trump Baja Mexico - Fraud & failure

Trump Fort Lauderdale - Scam & failure

Trump Vodka - business failure

Trump Wine - business failure

Trump Steaks - business failure

Trump Shuttle - loan default failure

Trump Air & Trump Pac - business failure

Trump Taj Mahal - 4 bankruptcies

Trump Marina/Trump Castle - bankrupt

Trump Plaza - bankrupt

Trump Indiana Riverboat Casino - bankrupt

Trump IPO ticker DJT - business failure

Trump Atlanta - business failure

Trump Jupiter - lawsuit

Trump Waikiki Hotel - scam lawsuit.

Just because Linus Torvalds vibe codes doesn't mean it's a good idea

Just because Linus Torvalds vibe codes doesn't mean it's a good idea

Yeah, I was kind of disappointed when he gave systemd the thumbs up too.

Ofcom officially investigating X as Grok's nudify button stays switched on

Re: Wat will Grok take down ?

Showing nude images, AI generated or not of people without their permission is not censorship. It has also been used to generate images of under aged children although that is supposed to have been disabled.

Re: "asking Grok to generate a naked image of Musk"

The funniest picture in the world, Trump nudified by Grok. Fatal to all that see it, My EYES, MY EYES.

How hackers are fighting back against ICE surveillance tech

Re: Orange Nero is fiddling*

With sincere apologies to The Who

"I'm your wicked Uncle Donny, I'm glad you won't see or hear me, As I fiddle about, fiddle about, fiddle about"

Congress ctrl-Zs bulk of proposed cuts to NASA science

Re: There would be plenty of budget available for NASA ...

"It was not as frequently portrayed for protection from the state"

Article 1 section 8 of the US Constitution: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.

These duties are now performed by the National Guard and in some cases the US military. Somehow the Constitutional definition of a militia's duties and the inclusion of "A well regulated Militia" in the Second Amendment are always missed by the extreme 2nd Amendment advocates and unfortunately by numerous Supine Court decisions. Given the current level of US military spending it is ironic that one of the main original objections to a standing army was having to fund it. I am always amazed by people that claim that the US military is or was ever "week" given the spending levels over the past 70+ years and the fact that this spending has been for many many years more than the next 8 to 10 countries COMBINED. With most of those "other" countries being until recently at least allies. If the US military is not strong then the graft and corruption in the US military is staggering which has been brought up and immediately ignored on many occasions probably originally in Eisenhower's "Military Industrial Complex" speech and more recently by DOGE.

Re: There would be plenty of budget available for NASA ...

To provide for the general welfare? I know it's in the preamble but the preamble is a statement of the purpose, philosophy, and intent, of a document. If the states fail to do this, as they have and continue do it would then fall on the federal government to uphold this principle. Feeding and education not only provide for the general welfare they are directly responsible for the world leading economic powerhouse the US became and for at least the near future still is. And in most states it is illegal to be naked in public.

While the original intent of the constitution was to grant state governments a great deal of power in deciding how they were run over time it became obvious that some of that power had to be overridden by the federal government to fix serious problems created by the states. There are numerous examples of this with the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 17th amendments passed to correct these problems. The 17th amendment took away the ability of state legislators to appoint federal senators and gave the citizens of the states the responsibility of voting for the senators that would represent them. While this did reduce the power of the state's governments I would argue that it simply moved that power to the state's citizens and I don't think this is a bad thing. All of these are excellent examples of why a mechanism for to fix problems in the original constitution was included and the difficulty of getting one passed (by 2/3rds voter in both houses of congress and states) helps insure that for the most part at least that these changes are truly necessary.

Venezuela loses president, but gains empty Starlink internet offer

Re: Yankees go home

You need to reread my reply. I did not say it did anything FOR those people. In fact I said the exact opposite!

Re: Yankees go home

As a "yank" in Texas, love that apparent but not actual contradiction, I'd like to second that remark. Of course we learned from the best ;). As far as I know none of our (within a limited range of our) attempts at bringing several Central/South American nations as well as several other nations around the world to heel has worked out well for the people in those nations. What was that definition of insanity again?

The last supported version of HP-UX is no more

Re: Calculators

Don't know but I still have my hp 16C calculator that I bought around 1977 and it is still in perfect working order. From the distant past when HP (AKA High Priced) made top of the line quality products at top of the line prices. Given that I once bought a TI scientific calculator who's keyboard quit working in less than a year I'd say that quite often quality is worth the price.

Starlink satellite fails, polluting orbit with debris and falling toward Earth

Re: Great...

Via Google using "how many starlink satellites in orbit are not operational" and Space.com

"As of Dec. 19, 2025, there are currently 9,357 Starlink satellites in orbit, of which 9,347 are working, according to Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks the constellation on his website."

Not sure how he determines which ones are operational and I the "AI" response said that 1200 were not operational. However that response doesn't say how many of these are due to not being in the correct orbit yet or why any of the others are nonfunctional such as being in the process of de-orbiting after reaching expected lifetime. I believe that neither are completely accurate for the reasons stated and further googling did not provide any useful information, at least that I saw.

P.S. I have found on at least three occasions where Google "AI" was blatantly wrong so add that to the reasons for being uncertain.