Posts by toejam++

Microsoft locks out VeraCrypt and WireGuard devs, blames verification process

Too many people only look at the benefits of a product when new and not down the road when something goes wrong. Far too many companies capitalize on that.

Patch to end i486 support hits Linux kernel merge queue

Re: they are falling short of target

I wouldn't be surprised to see NetBSD keep the i386 port around for decades, even if it falls down to tier-2 status. The Commodore Amiga 680x0 and DEC Alpha are still supported by NetBSD as tier-2 systems, and they're both fairly niche now. And NetBSD has supported a 64-bit time_t under i386 since 6.0 (2012).

Supermarket sorry after facial recognition alert flags right criminal, wrong customer

Re: Riddle me this

If you started banning such companies, you'd also need a process for dealing with any corporate obfuscation they might pull using subsidiaries, joint ventures, or the like. Otherwise, you'll just end up playing whack-a-mole with the single-use companies they spin up.

Engineer used welding shop air hose to 'clean' PCs – hilarity did not ensue

Re: "a large US-based aircraft company"

Being the 1980s, it could have also been McDonnell-Douglas. If you include US-based military aircraft companies, you can add Lockheed and Northrop. Lots of places other than a Lazy-B where someone like that could land a spot.

US regulator tells GM to hit the brakes on customer tracking

The funny bit about all this is how long it went on for. People in Chevy Volt discussion forums had been complaining about this for years. Then it carried over to Chevy Bolt forums. That's how I learned about it before buying one. I yanked the fuse to the OnStar modem before driving my new Bolt home for the first time, which earned me a curious look from the salesperson. After receiving confirmation that I had been opted out (plus a few more days for good measure), I finally reinstalled the fuse as it also powers the hands-free microphone.

Why no, I don't find it curious that Chevy would put something else on the modem's circuit to discourage people from keeping it off...

Re: If the sensors are as dodgy as Skoda's

The front collision alarm in my Bolt goes off about once a month. Driving through construction zones will often set it off. It also fails to understand that alarms are unnecessary when you're already moving into the adjacent lane to avoid the vehicle you're approaching. But then, the adaptive cruise control will jam on the brakes when you're on the expressway and someone going faster than you pulls into the lane ahead of you. Toyota's adaptive cruise control seems to understand that the gap will widen on its own.

The most durable tech is boring, old, and everywhere

Re: "ATM networks"

That CNC machine in the back room running MS-DOS 6.22 and LAN Manager Client for DOS will be humming along with IPv4 for longer than most of us will be alive. It'll eventually featured in an episode of "Escape to the Country 2125" or "Connections: The Next Generation".

Coming Wi-Fi 8 will bring reliability rather than greater speed

Re: AVAILABLE??!!

Or that Australian developer who had his Apple account closed after trying to use a supposedly dodgy gift card, which in turn locked him out of his iCloud content. He eventually had the issue resolved after Apple’s Executive Relations stepped in, but what about us peons who lack such clout?

Windows 11 still barely pulling ahead of 10 despite end-of-support push

Same complaints here. But also, utilities such as OpenShell and TaskbarTweaker that attempt to make Windows 11 look more like older versions seem to break every time that explorer.exe receives an update, which is surprisingly often. So you either have to defer updates, disable updates, or disable the utility for a week or two until an update is pushed.

Meanwhile, even lightweight window managers for *NIX allow a great deal of customization to the UI, file manager, program manager, and so on. All built in.

Then there is the great shift from control panel to the settings panel, where the latter only has a subset of the functionality of the former, so you are constantly having to bounce between the two. At least the control panel still exists.

It just all seems like change for the sake of change, which people like myself really hate. Which is why I only have one laptop on Windows 11 while the rest of my machines are running Windows 10. And I've been debating as to if I should grab a LTSC version of W10 or Server 2022 for that laptop instead of suffering for longer with W11.

6G isn't even here yet but mobile industry wants triple the spectrum

Re: Outside of cities there is no use for large spectrum for 4G and 5G

Actually, the 3.5, 3.8, and 5 GHz GHz bands are/were sometimes used by WISPs for fixed point-to-multipoint networks. If you can get a directional antenna above the roofline, you might be able to get a few kilometers of range.

Keep in mind that major cellular providers are really pushing for home wireless internet. And they're not above elbowing out the little independent providers who used the 3.5 and 3.8 GHz bands in the past.

Re: 5G?

Your phone was likely an older model that supported data over LTE but not voice over LTE. That meant that it had to rely on some 2G or 3G voice network to make calls. When AT&T turned off all of that old kit and reallocated the bands for LTE and 5G-NR coverage, your phone was rendered useless.

Meanwhile, I recently had to pull such a phone (Galaxy S5) out of a desk drawer while my newer phone was down for repair. I use T-Mobile, which still operates a sliver of 2G GSM/EDGE coverage for legacy applications like home security systems with old modems. When I fired up my GS5, that's what it connected to. It was painfully slow and the coverage sucked, but it was only for a week.

A single DNS race condition brought Amazon's cloud empire to its knees

Re: Ouch

Route 53 is a dynamic DNS service. Instead of the usual static A record mappings of hostnames to IP addresses, it allows you to configure pools of IP addresses with various priority/failover and load-balancing schemes in play. The "DNS Planner" is a subsystem that reaches out and queries the health and status of the resources that use those IP addresses, either via an agent that runs on the cluster/box or by probing the object, so it can adjust what IP addresses are in play.

For those of you familiar with F5 Global Traffic Manager (formerly 3DNS) and Local Traffic Manager (formerly BIG-IP), it appears to a bit like the big3d daemon.

I imagine that if that subsystem was hosed, it would result in the DNS service believing that local area resources (load-balancer VIPs, stand-alone servers, etc...) were unhealthy/offline (assumed or otherwise). That's really bad, especially if you don't have a static IP address of last resort configured for a hostname, because the DNS service will just stop offering IP addresses when something makes a DNS query.

Microsoft lets bosses spot teams that are dodging Copilot

When I mentioned the prevalence of errors in AI output, my manager suggested that I run my prompt through a competing AI system and compare the results. That might work for short snippets of code, but remembering my comp-sci classes from college, the rate of code variation grows quickly as program size and complexity increases.

This stuff is supposed to improve my productivity, yes? Yes?

Re: Goodhart's law

A little part of my soul died reading this response because it tells me that the grass is likely not greener on the other side of the employment fence.

How Windows 11 is breaking from its bedrock and moving away

Does nobody here remember FX!32, the JITC emulator that DEC released in '96 for executing x86 binaries on DEC Alpha processor boxes running NT? When I worked for Microsoft, I had a DEC Personal Workstation 500a ("Miata") running NT4 that had no problem running the x86 version of Quake under FX!32. And in the pre-release version of NT5/W2K for Alpha, FX!32 came bundled with the OS. It all worked seamlessly.

/that box went on to run FreeBSD for Alpha

Crypto thief earns additional prison time for assaulting witness

It likely pushes out the date that he is eligible for parole and decreases the odds that a parole board will see him as a candidate for early release.

Commodore Amiga turns 40, headlines UK exhibition

Re: Great Memories

Similar story here. I likely spent more on my Amiga 4000 system (inflation adjusted) than any x86 PC since. It was fitted with a Cybervision 64, DKB 4091 SCSI controller, MultiFaceCard3 I/O card, A3640 processor card, 1GB DEC SCSI drive, and an extra 4 MB of memory. I also used a Syquest 88MB SCSI cartridge drive, an external 5.25" quad density disk drive (from my A2000 days when I had a Bridgeboard), and eventually a HP 4x SCSI CD-R drive.

I used it for years after the failure of Commodore as a Macintosh clone using Shapeshifter, for which it performed very well.

I no longer have the A4000 or the Cybervision, but I do still have the 4091 and MFC3 cards along with a broken A3000 (throws a bad Kickstart error on boot) sitting in my office closet. I really need to get the A3000 serviced along with my old C128 (noisy video on the Y/C component output) before they're ruined for good.

Debian isn't waiting for 2038 to blow up, switches to 64-bit time for everything

Re: Linux is Starting to Catch Up...

At least some 32-bit Linux distros will receive a fix. There are a number of orphaned operating systems out there that will never receive a fix, let alone the apps for them. I doubt that my old Commodore Amiga games will care at all when the wrap happens, but maybe that CNC machine running MS-DOS will care.

Meta joins Google in ragequitting EU political ads over onerous regulations

Once again, it reminds us that ad buyers are the real customers for social media. End-users are part of the product.

Trump tariffs turn techies topsy-turvy as US braces for PC tax

Re: The funniest thing I heard about this

"They were literally so dumb they expected they could install tariffs, then put them on a 90 day hold, and countries would call them up begging for a deal."

Also, countries had several years to prepare for another trade war with the US. So when Trump tried the same antics as before, the sting wasn't as bad. Which is likely why countries are just going to wait it out.

Gridlocked: AI's power needs could short-circuit US infrastructure

Re: How did they solve the tap-water problem?

"In the end, the AI plants will get their power, the rest of America maybe not so much."

Most people will still get the power they need, but they'll pay a whole lot more per kWh for it. That will likely push the rate of inflation up and it will discourage electrification of heating and transportation. But yeah, you're going to see more people disconnected for non-payment and more people going without HVAC in order to afford their electric bills.

And that's before you bring the huge job losses and reshuffling of the economy that AI will bring. Going to be difficult to afford that $500/mo electric bill for that McMansion you bought when you're unemployed and can't find work because you're over 40 and nobody wants to hire you in the "new economy".

Firefox is dead to me – and I'm not the only one who is fed up

> "Like others, for me it's the ONLY browser that still has addons that block everything I most revile about what the Internet has become."

On the rare occurrence that I browse the Web using a stock browser, I am horrified at how terrible the experience is. I honestly don't know how most folks can stand it.

Tug reaches flaming ship carrying electric cars off Alaska coast

Re: ships or decks never catch fire

Another option would be to transport the vehicles with a small capacity sodium-ion battery that is swapped out with the lithium-ion battery at the final destination, with those li-ion batteries being shipped using more fire containing means. But given the additional costs, I only see that happening if the shipping industry and its insurers really jack up the shipping and insurance costs.

Microsoft rolls out Windows 11 Start Menu updates

Re: We're making it easier...

One of the reasons I love my 16:10 aspect monitors is that I can have a large taskbar with two rows of quick launch icons. I rarely have to go into my start menu (which is running Open Shell, BTW) or Win+S or Win+R programs.

There are third party utilities that restore the quick launch functionality under Windows 11, which is good. But on the one personal laptop I have running W11, I find that those utilities break every time Microsoft updates explorer.exe, which is now done quite frequently compared to prior versions of Windows, which is bad. And zero chance that corporate will authorize those utilities for use on my work laptop, which is worse.

Looking at the enshittification going on with Windows 11, I really am dreading the day when Windows 10 goes completely out of support.

Microsoft updates the Windows 11 Start Menu

Re: Settings

If you're using Firefox, Cookie AutoDelete is another option. It can delete cookies on a per domain basis upon tab closure, browser closure, or usual life.

Re: Settings

I just visited Stack Overflow using Firefox with NoScript (all sites blocked) and uBlockOrigin extensions enabled and most of the site was working for me. Maybe they backpeddled?

Re: Settings

I'm curious if the knowledge base will be limited to items in the settings manager or if it'll also include items in the administrative tools panel, control panel, group policy editor, and so on. I admit that when I fire up gpedit.msc, it is usually only after reading instructions on Stack Overflow on how to change some obscure setting.

Commodore OS 3 is the loudest Linux yet

Came to find a desktop that resembles GEOS, leaving disappointed.

Trump admin freaks out over mere suggestion Amazon was going to show tariff impact on prices

Re: America

"America (and Canada, Greenland, and the rest of the free world) cringes and just hopes the next 1,361 days pass swiftly"

Trouble is, what happens on day 1,362? There are so many systemic flaws in the American media and election system that Republicans are almost guaranteed to retain enough power in Congress to stifle any Democratic president that replaces Trump. Problems will fester, blame will shift to the new administration, and memories will fade. So in eight years, there is a good chance that the USA could elect another far right populist to the presidency.

The world knows this risk, which is a big reason why they're writing the USA off.

Windows 2000 Server named peak Microsoft. Readers say it's all been downhill since Clippy

No love for XP x64?

I rather enjoyed using Windows XP Professional x64 edition, which was based on Server 2003. It was faster and more stable than XP 32-bit, supported GPT partitions, supported more RAM, and was generally more polished than the older 32-bit version. It was a brute on my old i7-930 + X58 system. It was also the last edition of Windows I used where home network sharing was dead simple to setup and troubleshoot. I feel like later versions of Windows required more fighting to make that (and most everything else) work right. I miss that aspect of XP x64.

As a downside, 64-bit driver support was rather limited at the time. And that was the first version of Windows to ditch support for Win16 executables, so I had to spin up a Windows 98SE virtual machine for a few old games. But the trade-offs were worth it, IMO.

Windows 11 poised to beat 10, mostly because it has to

"Whether users actually want the operating system is another matter. Windows 11 offers few compelling features that justify an upgrade and no killer application."

Worse, Windows 11 is just a worse experience than Windows 10. And that's before you start tweaking Windows 10 with third-party apps like OpenShell, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, Ultimate Windows Tweaker, and more.

Yes, many of those apps have been ported to Windows 11. But they never broke during OS updates with such frequency under Windows 10 as they have for me under Windows 11. Nothing like having some random Windows Explorer update pushed upon you that breaks those apps for a few weeks until the authors push out an update.

China's EV champ BYD reveals super-fast charging that leaves Tesla eating dust

Short journeys tend to consume very little battery power, especially if they're low speed. Takes very little time to recoup that amount of power even with a slow L2 home or office charger.

Where really fast charging tends to be most useful is for long trips on high speed roads where the battery drains quickly and you don't want to wait long to top it back up. I'm fine with stops lasting 15 to 25 minutes every couple hours, but some people just can't be inconvenienced like that, so 8 to 10 minutes is about their limit.

Re: Fast charging

Some charging networks in my area apply a higher price per kWh when your battery SoC exceeds 80%. They also charge an idle fee starting 5 or 10 minutes after a charge is complete. So there is some effort to dissuade charger hogs.

Re: Fast charging

I've noticed that most small gadgets with rechargeable batteries tend to favor cost, simplicity, and capacity over longevity. So they likely have simple charging profiles, basic thermal management, no ability to charge to less than 100% (while using cell chemistry that is sensitive to degradation), and little more than passive heat radiation. And being small gadgets, there is likely some level of planned obsolescence baked in to drive profits.

Meanwhile, electric vehicles tend to have very robust charging systems, thermal management, and cooling systems. Increasingly, they're using cell chemistry (LiFePO4) that sacrifices a bit of energy density for longevity, especially when charged to 100%. And since vehicles are often kept in service longer than many small gadgets and since many jurisdictions have rules mandating minimum warranties for EV battery life, there is pressure on manufacturers to take it all very seriously.

Windows 7 lives! How to keep your favorite fossil running

Re: What is dead may never die

This reminds me of KernelEx for Windows 98/ME. Was wondering why nothing like that existed for Windows XP/7/8.

Google confirms Gulf of Mexico renamed to appease Trump – but only in the US

Re: FTFY

Donald by the Bay, Trumpopolis, and Otisberg.

Trump's Dept of Transport hits brakes on Biden’s EV charger build-out

Slow charger rollout

There have been a few articles that have investigated why charger deployment under NEVI has been so slow.

One reason is because all charger deployments, with and without NEVI funds, have been slow. Every physical site has unique requirements. Utilities are slow to bring in new power feeds. Equipment vendors have long backlogs. State and local regs are a patchwork that also drive site-specific requirements.

On top of those issues, NEVI brings in ever more hassles. NEVI requires that chargers be manufactured in the US. The reimbursement process is one of the most complex systems that state transportation departments have ever worked with. And NEVI has minimum requirements for charger count and power.

States have a formula for determining where new stations need to be located based on NEVI requirements. States then send out requests for bids to build those stations from the private sector. Sometimes, sites don't receive any bids. Other times, the bids don't meet guidelines.

TL;DR: what looks easy on paper is extremely complicated in action

Musk's move fast and break things mantra won't work in US.gov

Re: "You're driving towards a wall!" "No I'm not!" *smash*

> The morons that voted for him can reap the tragic consequences and I hope they come away from the experience completely fucked-over.

While I will experience a great deal of schadenfreude over the next four years as their decisions come back to haunt them, the bigger question is if the harm will result in them reevaluating their decisions.

I suspect that they will not. Because their decisions are no longer rational. It is all about hurting the other side, which they have been manipulated into prioritizing above all else by decades of conservative propaganda. Day in and day out, they are told about the war between the Left and the Right so that they don't notice the class war that they are very much losing. And those propaganda outlets aren't going anywhere now that Trump is in charge.

Nothing short of economic destruction on par with the Great Depression or a de-Nazification program as the Allies enacted after WWII will reverse things.

Re: "You're driving towards a wall!" "No I'm not!" *smash*

> Right, what's currently going on has nothing to do at all with "move fast and break things", but more with a mobster's motto: "break things so they no longer can move"

Exactly. American conservatives have been trying to destroy government oversight for fun and profit since the 1950s. Now that they own all three branches of government, they're going after it from all directions.

The U.S. Supreme Court weakened oversight when it invalidated the Chevron doctrine. Now it is poised to invalidate the nondelegation doctrine, which has been in place since the Great Depression. And there is a good chance that they will turn a blind eye to Trump axing departments without Congressional approval. Which he can do because there is zero chance that Republicans in charge of Congress will impeach him.

BTW, USAID was likely the first target because it was investigating Musk over Starlink contracts in Ukraine. And he's going after the FAA because of their investigation into SpaceX. And the FCC because they rejected Starlink from a rural broadband program back in 2022. He has grievances and he's out for revenge.

Why users still couldn't care less about Windows 11

Re: Why change?

> Many see the problem is that Win11 is pointlessly rearranging the furniture and breaking things people use

This is precisely why I downgraded my new laptop from Windows 11 to 10. They introduced numerous changes to the UI and settings control, but the changes just made things worse. Annoyingly, there was no way to choose an older theme, as you could sorta do with XP thru W7.

I tried some third party utilities that restored aspects of Windows 10, but the constant upgrades constantly broke them. I've never seen Windows updates break such apps so often before Windows 11, so I took that as a bad sign.

Trump nukes 60 years of anti-discrimination rules for federal contractors

Re: He's just shotgunning

It takes more than a simple majority to pass most legislation in Congress, thanks to the Senate's filibuster rule. You need at least 60 votes to avoid the filibuster. Obama's party didn't have the votes.

Trump hits undo on Biden AI safety order, EV mandate, emissions standards, and more

Re: scrapped the goal of transitioning half of passenger vehicles into zero-emissions vehicles

Tesla is a meme stock at this point. It is going to take more than a few bad quarters for the stock to drop down to a more realistic valuation.

How the OS/2 flop went on to shape modern software

Re: I agree to some extent, but still think a lot of it is about memory

"However, a great deal of it was to do with the cost of RAM. Protected mode OS are more memory hungry. It was cheaper to run DOS programs which ran in upwards of 640Kb, or Windows 2.x which ran 'OK' on a 286 with as little as 1MB memory. When I first started using OS/2 2.1 in 1993 I had 8MB which was very unusual for a consumer, and quite expensive. 8MB was still at the lowest reasonable limit of acceptability for OS/2, and NT 3.x reasonably needed 12MB+."

Was OS/2 2.0 purely 32-bit? I recall one of the benefits of Windows 3.x and 95 being a mix of 32-bit and 16-bit code is that it helped keep memory requirements down. My first PC clone was a 486/66 with 4MB of memory and it ran Windows 3.1 moderately well. I also recall most apps still being Win16 during the time, not Win32s or Win32, which also helped keep memory requirements down.

And speaking of cost, weren't 386 systems prohibitively expensive those first few years? I wonder if IBM thought that it had more time before it needed to make the transition to 386 code.

How a good business deal made us underestimate BASIC

It didn't have to be so terrible.

Commodore BASIC 2.0 (introduced in '79) wasn't just lacking commands for graphics and sound. It also lacked commands for managing filesystems. That's why you had to use weird LOAD/LIST commands for displaying directories and third party tools for copying and deleting files.

Commodore BASIC 4.0 (introduced in '80 with the PET 4000) included 18 new commands (vs 2.0), mostly for managing filesystems. The Commodore Super Expander cartridge for the VIC20 (introduced in '81) included 17 new commands for graphics, sound, and input. The Super Expander cart for the C64 increased it to 32 new commands. Commodore BASIC 3.5 (introduced in '84 with the C16 and Plus4) included 37 new commands, mostly taken from BASIC 4.0 and Super Expander.

So, why didn't the C64 either use something like BASIC 3.5 or at least the Super Expander extensions, since they were available at the time? My guess is cost. BASIC 2.0 was 8KB, BASIC 4.0 was 12KB, BASIC 3.5 was 16KB, and the Super Expander 64 cart was 9KB. Tramel was a notorious cheapskate. So, BASIC 2.0 was what we received.

But even with BASIC 7.0 in the C128, Commodore BASIC was still lacking when it came to array and string manipulation and structured programming control. That's where Simons' BASIC really shined.

Re: GOTO

"But that C64 basic....... my god what a bad implementation on such a capable machine. 67 poke commands to define and move one screen sprite.... no wonder everyone hated it and moved straight into 6502 assembly helll, even the Zx81's basic was more advanced and capable than the C64.... and thats saying something"

What is especially frustrating is that Commodore opted to use BASIC 2.0 in the C64 instead of the more capable BASIC 4.0 that was released with the CBM-II. Nor did they include any of the graphics or sounds extensions for BASIC 2.0 that were included in the Super Expander cartridge for the VIC-20. All because Jack Tramel was a cheap SOB and didn't want to use a larger ROM.

Commodore did release a Super Expander cartridge for the C64, but I don't recall it being very popular. I do recall a number of people with Simons' BASIC, which was powerful enough to write games with. And Simons' BASIC 2 was even more powerful, and fully supported structured programming, IIRC.

Cruise robotaxis parked forever, as GM decides it can't compete and wants to cut costs

Re: Reality is at fault

They work well in retirement communities. But such locations are very small in size and speed is quite slow, so you get the benefit of a very well defined area and more reaction time.

EU buyers still shunning pure electric vehicles, prefer hybrids

They make excellent city/commuter cars if you have reliable charging at home or work. I get around 320 to 370 Km (depending on the weather) out of an 80% charge in my midsize BEV. Meanwhile, my daily commute is only 48 Km, round trip. So I only charge it once or twice a week using my home L2 charger.

Since I only charge to 80% and almost never fast charge it, range should only decrease 10%-12% over 200,000 Km. The battery has a 160,000 Km warranty. If it dies after that period, I expect that a fair greater number of refurbishment companies will be in operation by then, so the replacement cost shouldn't be terrible, assuming the rest of the car is still in good enough condition to warrant the work.

If you don't have reliable access to a charger at home or work, then no, I wouldn't recommend one. You could use public fast DC chargers, but they tend to be expensive and hard on the battery. Stick with a hybrid and wait until more curbside charging gets rolled out.

DoJ wants Google to sell off Chrome and ban it from paying to be search default

Similar deal with AltaVista (pre-Yahoo). But that was also an era before spamdexing and other search engine manipulation techniques became common.