* Posts by nintendoeats

692 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Aug 2020

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Vivaldi update unleashes the 'Cookie Crumbler' to simply block any services asking for consent (sites may break)

nintendoeats

Re: Choose your paranoia level:-

He says, after expressing his superior attitude...

nintendoeats

Re: Say what you will about FLoC

You already mentioned my proposed alternative: scorched earth. I'm not sure why I would be in favor of anything else.

Don't cross the team tasked with policing the surfing habits of California's teens

nintendoeats

Re: High-level manglement can be just as much a nuisance as unions

We agree. My point was, modern programming involves a lot of creating something approximate, pushing the button, and sorting out whats wrong with it. Having a seperate typist would mean looking over somebody's shoulder, rather than having them input your written code.

Then somebody is going to say "the old way was better, we had more correct code!" to which I respond, "no there was still lots of incorrect code, but it took 100 times longer to create and was much harder to modify".

nintendoeats

Re: High-level manglement can be just as much a nuisance as unions

And what do you mean by that?

nintendoeats

Re: Sometimes it backfires on the Unions

It is worth remembering that unions didn't come into existence for nothing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire

And in today's Tesla thread, somebody called out a very nice quote about how capitalism rarely produces safety; regulation does that.

nintendoeats

Re: High-level manglement can be just as much a nuisance as unions

"I can't really see why this shouldn't still be the case."

This is a joke right? I can understand how this would make sense in the cretaceous era, when everybody was timesharing and it was very important to ensure that your (presumably very short) code was formally correct before it got anywhere near a real computer. That's not how things work now though. If somebody had to do my typing for me, it would literally be a matter of me sitting next to them saying "put a curly-brace, then this variable name...actually, I don't like the readability of that, lets move it down a line and put the declaration here. Ok, press F5 and lets see what happens. Oh, compiler wants an explicit type-cast here, lets just fix that."

Introducing another person between keyboard and chair would massively reduce programming productivity.

nintendoeats

Being an educated professional with a non-specific job is very different...

When I look at this kind of thing, my first thought is usually "these people are nuts, there are always lots of things that need to be done. It doesn't matter if you get rid of one task".

I have to remind myself that not all jobs are like that. We are fortunate to have such flexibility in engineering type roles. Further down the food chain, people's livelihoods really do depend on a very narrow set of tasks they have been contracted to do (to move to another task, they would have to re-interview for a new job). While I don't support avoiding increases in efficiency/quality just to artificially keep people in work, I do understand the paranoia, and I can't blame them for not really caring that they are making things worse.

In contrast, I am actively trying to impart certain skills I have to co-workers so that they don't need to come to me all the time. Completely different mindset.

Words to strike fear into admins' hearts: One in five workers consider themselves 'digital experts' these days

nintendoeats

Re: Buried the lede

You have described the dream phone...

nintendoeats

Re: Buried the lede

There was something about the Titan that put me off, I don't remember what exactly. I think it was a combination of screen size and weight.

nintendoeats

Re: Buried the lede

Which I well know, as a Pro-1 X backer :/

nintendoeats

We had some intern resumes recently that listed "navigated the internet with ease", "Skilled at navigate[sic] the internet" and "Ability to use social media such as LinkedIn".

Under normal circumstances that would be bad. We are a high technology company hiring SE and CS students. Yeah, you had better be able to use the internet. And given that this is a writing position, you shouldn't have typos in your resume.

George Clooney of IT: Dribbling disaster and damp disk warnings scare the life out of innocent user

nintendoeats

Re: Electronic Sheep.

And then it lands in a bathtub! Adorable!

nintendoeats

Re: Electronic Sheep.

Your life is complete: https://adrianotiger.github.io/desktopPet/

I had this running for over a year, my GF loved it.

nintendoeats

Re: Sense of humour failure

That isn't really material to my point.

nintendoeats

Re: Not a prank...

That is truly somebody who does not belong in software development 0_0

nintendoeats

Re: Sense of humour failure

People often have different expectations for how they will be treated in a corporate environment than in their personal lives. Especially on their first day. You should probably default to not asking the women at work to show you their tits. That is also a good rule for real life.

nintendoeats

Re: Not a prank...

...uh...why was he haphazardly deleting things? What was his logic? I am very curious.

nintendoeats

Re: The modern version ....

Chapter and verse: http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/baggy-pantsing.html

nintendoeats

Re: BSOD

Not really a joke along the same lines, but my home PC has the C64 start screen as a background. Of course, to end a teams call, I have to back out from RDP to my local computer. Several times when I have been screen sharing, I have heard somebody laughing just as the call ends and then gotten a message saying "Sorry, I was laughing at your background".

If you have a QNAP NAS, stop what you're doing right now and install latest updates. Do it before Qlocker gets you

nintendoeats

Re: I have a Qnap

Container station WOULD be great if it didn't remap your NAT ports every time you restarted a container.

nintendoeats

Re: I have a Qnap

Yes, and therein lies the problem. When it comes to an always-on computing appliance, too much is too much. I keep my NAS in a closet. The power brick is rated for less than my normal computer draws at idle.

A dual-i7 machine needs to be properly cooled, will make more noise unless you invest a lot of money in big coolers, will draw lots of power, and will be much larger than a toaster (a 4-bay NAS isn't much larger than if you took 4 HDDs and put some thick paint on them). Also, if you don't already have such a machine, it will cost you more than you first expect to buy it.

nintendoeats

Re: Infection vector

That only works because you have the knowledge and time to set up that whole rats nest. By definition, not everybody can do something like that.

nintendoeats

Re: I have a Qnap

The advantage of running programs on a NAS is that it is a small, low-powered, always-on appliance. For example, I run SVN, MySQL, and a UT99 server off my NAS. Otherwise, I would have to run all these things off my PC (which uses more power and is therefore not always-on) or set up yet another box (which uses more power and will need to find a home somewhere in the apartment).

nintendoeats

Re: Hard-coded login credentials - ouch!

Look into the performance of doing this. To get full disk speed out of a RAID setup, you need to add a RAID card which is neither convenient or economical.

Foxconn's showcase Wisconsin LCD factory becomes aspirational 'manufacturing ecosystem'

nintendoeats

So "wrong-sized" is used to criticize projects that somebody else would call "right-sized"? Nice.

nintendoeats

I feel it is important to call out the BS of the term "right sizing" whenever it is used. I have never once heard somebody refer to growth as "right-sizing".

Microsoft revokes MVP status of developer who tweeted complaint about request to promote SQL-on-Azure

nintendoeats

Re: Important week for cloud compete...

Well, if you intend to use it, you should probably know that I misspelled it. It's actually "microcosm" (I always have trouble remembering which is correct).

nintendoeats

Re: Important week for cloud compete...

This became real for me when I was required to take a buisness writing course. For one exercise, we had to respond to somebody we were giving bad news. I had marks deducted for NOT using the passive voice.

This is merely a microcausm of the things that disgusted me about that course. There were many times that we were given advice which, in by subsequent role as a technical writer, would have gotten me into another round of editing.

Microsoft realises constant meetings stress people out, adds Office 365 settings to cut them short or start them late

nintendoeats

Re: A theory

As opposed to all those modern companies that REALLY care about their employees?

Though, I can confirm that my employer uses Teams and they hail from the olden days (recently found out that they were approached about designing video hardware for the IBM 5150).

nintendoeats

The idea that you can change how long a meeting will be by altering a number in a program is laughable (unless that number is how many pizzas you are going to order everybody for when the meeting is over).

UK digital secretary Oliver Dowden starts national security probe into proposed Arm-Nvidia merger

nintendoeats

It doesn't matter what they say...

because they will say whatever makes the deal most likely to go through. Concentrating that much power in one place is no bueno.

To have one floppy failure is unlucky. To have 20 implies evil magic or a very silly user

nintendoeats

Re: Copy Protection Blues

It wasn't an SGI Indy was it?

Oracle vs Google: No, the Supreme Court did not say APIs aren't copyright – and that's a good thing

nintendoeats

Re: Good article

I feel it is important, now that I have had my coffee and bothered to double-check, to come back and correct myself. That song was sung by Freda Payne, and therefore the premise of my joke was incorrect. We regret the error. Please accept the following, revised joke:

Are you suggesting that The Supremes should have kept them hanging on?

nintendoeats

Re: Good article

Are you suggesting that The Supremes should have left them with nothing but a band of gold?

DoorDash delivery drivers try to manipulate the food biz's payment algorithm to earn a living wage in gig economy

nintendoeats

At a greek restaraunt we rather like, their website tells you that using the UberEats link they provide gives Uber a much lower cut than if you use the UberEats website or the App. I presume that this is because if you go to the restaurant's website, you are no longer using the UberEats discovery service (basically, the restaurant is now selling ME to Uber instead of Uber selling ME to the restaurant).

It occurs to me that somebody could build a tool that aggregates these links as an "open" discovery service. Then consumers get a convenient interface and restaurants get paid.

Obviously the problem with this is that the Uber et al would do everything they could to break it, all day, every day.

Yep, you're totally unique: That one very special user and their very special problem

nintendoeats

Re: (Can't...stop...the... voices....)

That's why I didn't look into automating it; if she went somewhere and used her laptop, the NAS wouldn't be available and I was worried it would throw up nonsense.

nintendoeats

Re: (Can't...stop...the... voices....)

Yeah, that would probably be better. Does it handle things gracefully when the network drive you are backing up to is not available? Not that this is a problem these days...

nintendoeats

Re: (Can't...stop...the... voices....)

No no. If I do that, then every computer problem she ever has will become my problem. I have yet to see her touch a computing device she couldn't screw up. No no, she is sticking with the thing that she knows best because I am NOT spending the rest of my life being blamed for the fact that she lost all of her photos for the fifth, sixth, and seventh time. No no, she is sticking with something that she at least kind of understands and which my dad can mostly hack.

I set up a simple NAS for her to back things up to. All she has to do is run freefilesync, which requires pressing an entire 3 buttons. She mentioned today that she never uses it because it's not user friendly enough. I asked what would make it more user-friendly and she said it was just about "spending time to learn an new thing".

You do not have my mother, destroyer of devices, breaker of software, loser of files.

No. I am not setting up Slackware for her. I will not like it.

nintendoeats

Re: A little harsh

I try to explain this exact thing to people, and it usually doesn't go down well.

I recall a couple years ago, a 50-something long-time Mac user (a technical guy, but not a computer expert) staring me in the face and saying in a very serious voice "Windows is crap, only Macs are good". He was sure to say it very slowly so I would understand. It was like some kind of holy scripture.

With that lesson learned, I went back to my Linux/Windows dual-booting Dell laptop with the C64 background to continue what I was doing.

nintendoeats

Re: (Can't...stop...the... voices....)

I am trying to envision the moment I am helping my mother with a problem and I say "open a terminal".

nintendoeats

Re: When turn off/turn on fails

I ask you to consider the XBOX power button, which is inexplicably NOT the huge button with the ring around it which is OBVIOUSLY a power button. Instead, it is the small button underneath which is OBVIOUSLY an eject or reset button.

And then there is the thing on the center of the controller, which is so OBVIOUSLY a button that they decided to actually make it one for the next iteration of the system :p

Salesforce to face trial after software used by Backpage 'to track sex traffickers, pimps, johns on social media'

nintendoeats

Gizmondo

Every time, EVERY TIME, I read about salesforce, I have to do a double take. I have to carefully re-read Carl Ferrer's name, to remind myself that he isn't Carl Freer (the more legal half of the Gizmondo duo).

Sure, Dave might seem like he's avidly listening to this morning's meeting, but he's actually doing a yoga routine

nintendoeats

Re: Returning

You know, they introduced the open plan office because they thought it was a good ideas :p

They WANT you in an open plan office. What they don't realize is, sitting next to a chat box is as open plan as it gets.

Bell Labs transfers copyright of influential ‘Plan 9’ OS to new foundation

nintendoeats

Re: Alot of that...

I agree with you in principle, but AFAIK in the specific case of medical equipment: the reason things don't get updated is that equipment is is qualified as appropriate for medical use as a whole. If you swap out a part, you need to replace it with an identical other part (or sometimes an approved replacement).

This is AFAIK. I am not an expert in this.

SK Hynix boss predicts CPUs and RAM will merge, chipmakers will hold hands to make it happen

nintendoeats

Re: Ultimately, speed will increase further in Computing in Memory(CIM)

That's all well and good, but the fact that memory access is so slow is a problem for writing efficient code.

Yesterday I was discussing implementing a large data set as a linked list so it would be very efficient to break off chunks of it and move them to over objects. He point out that the disadvantages of memory fragmentation were so significant (largely because the data won't be loaded into cache together) that it was usually better to just put the data in an array and accept the cost of copying things when it happens.

Yes there is alot of inefficient gibberish in the world (interpreted languages still exist), but even when you are trying; the unbalanced nature of modern hardware performance heavily favors some practices that should logically be slower.

What could be worse than killing a golden goose? Killing someone else's golden goose

nintendoeats

Re: made a senior team member very angry and retribution was swift and brutal

I'm not sure how long ago this was, but depending on the decade a female programmer might have found it more difficult to change jobs (especially if she didn't get a good reference). I also wonder if that exacerbated the embarassment of the "slighted" employee.

The Audacity of it all: Version 3.0 of open-source audio fave boasts new file format, 160+ bug fixes

nintendoeats

That label system would have been really useful a year ago when I recorded all the individual components (over 200) of the System Shock soundtrack through a GUS and needed to break them up into individual files. I love Audacity!

Australian police suggests app to record consent to sexual activity

nintendoeats

If I were the chief of police, that's what would be on my mind.

I'd imagine that every hesaid shesaid rape case is a nightmare for everybody involved.

Don't be a fool, cover your tool: How IBM's mighty XT keyboard was felled by toxic atmosphere of the '80s

nintendoeats

Re: SGI Keyboard

I've got one on my desk (also from an Indy), yeah it's a beast. Honestly, typing on it feels...manly...like every keystroke is a swing of a pickaxe. After a long day of coding on that thing, I would be exhausted!

We can't avoid it any longer. Here's a story about the NFT mania... aka someone bought a JPEG for $69m in Ether

nintendoeats

Re: It just goes to show ...

I'll be just fine with it until somebody demonstrates to me that it is not apt.

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