Posts by Mage

Re: Do they do it accidentally or deliberately?

There is a seagull (of some kind) that steals bags of crisps from the shops instead of waiting for kids to drop them.

Re: Picking up burning/smoldering twigs

Even a common UK rook or magpie could spread fires, except they are busy eating road kill.

Awesome seeing a magpie dive bomb an adult bluetit on the feeder and fly off with it.

Raptors have a spread finger effect on end of wings. Look at a Raven, Magpie, Rook, Hoodie/carrion crow flying. They are mini-raptors.

The small birds are more freaked out by magpies than Rooks. They all vanish from garden if a magpie alights on the shed. Mostly they ignore rooks, though ours have learned how to use the peanut feeder and then others leave. I think they only bother with grain in summer or peanuts in feeder in winter when they run out of insects and roadkill.

Re: But how do they spread fires?

But rooks are now using traffic & traffic lights to crack nuts and snails.

Corvids even in UK turn out to be lazy and thus only demonstrate recognising guns, people, counting, using tools etc when otherwise they'd starve or be dead. Researchers were surprised the common UK rook was able to solve same puzzles (and use tools) just as well as the famously smart Caledonian crow. UK rooks can open a lock with a key and also "fish".

Curiously Magpies or Corvids in general aren't particularly into stealing shiny things, though some juvenile rooks might (recent research). Some rooks will "befriend" a human feeding them and then bring objects, there is no explanation yet.

However guinea fowl and some other avians I've kept seem extremely stupid.

There may be a good reason why the crow family feature so much in Norse, Celtic and other myths.

Re: live in 2003

Last sane versions of Windows, (server 2003), MS Office. Nokia Communicator not quite dead, they might have gone with S80 / Crystal / Touch instead of S60 abomination.

1600 x 1200 4:3 LCDs on Laptops and better.

What is so great about 2007 to 2017 in the world and IT?

Re: what else would normal people actually need?

Sage Accounts

Payroll apps

CRM

(The leaders on all those sort of applications are Windows only).

Perhaps SAP

turn to an OS which has a market share of around 1.5%

If Apple continues to iOS-afy OSX and MS continues to crapatise Win10, Linux only needs to stand still on development!

MS is still designing for an OS with now maybe 1/5th of Linux support. As well as forcing a ChromeOS style cloud dependency.

Re: So, 2018 will be the year of the Linux desktop because of Gnome?

Android?

It looks nice and is OK for a phone. Poor on a large tablet. Erratic application support for printing and external storage. They are gradually getting actual GUI features (not appearance) to about the level of Win 3.1 / Win95.

A USB ethernet dongle works on DHCP, but no interface to settings on any Android version I have.

Android is a work in progress, permanently in Beta. The Android TV seems designed for people at a desk using a 24" HD screen and only apps and streaming. The program guide too small font, sorting stations (esp on built in sat tuners) a disaster and GUI generally puts broadcast use & input selection far less important than streaming/apps. It's no use on a 50" 4K TV at 2m viewing distance (average bed or lounge settee viewing).

Also the Google T&C you MUST agree to on Android TV before tuning are probably illegal in EU.

Android is increasingly Google Spyware (as is Chrome Browser, Google Analytics, Chrome OS). They don't need streetview WiFi slurp now.

Android is a GUI for Mobile gadgets & essentially Google controlled Apps (Their version of Java on their version of JVM, Davik). The underlying OS is based on Linux based on Linux Kernel.

Android and Chrome OS are inferior to Linux and ANY decent GUI/Desktop. Both assume the Cloud. I'd prefer Linux on any 7" HD or larger tablet, especially if using to create content, rather than purely consume.

Re: VPN use

The local uni blocked VPN, so we set up our router to map port 80 to our VPN server. Then VPN worked as the Uni was only blocking ports and not doing inspection.

Re: public WiFi services

I don't use those now.

Even apart from javascript they are a problem unless you only use a VPN. The library wifi service here is unusable by eReaders at all and unusable for laptops / tablets / phones due to security / privacy issues. You have to log in with a library password AND your unique library ID. Sorry but I don't want anyone tracking my research or casual browsing.

I certainly have not used cafe / hotel wifi for about 14 years without using a VPN. Esp. for email.

Re: Mmmm, JavaScript.

uMatrix seems nicer than Noscript?

Re: Oh look, another one.

Maybe patents (and it depends), but not research.

Re: Z80 dual registers

I used that for a round robin cooperative multi-tasking OS in early 1980s. The alternate registers used ONLY for the scheduler. It meant lower overhead and better reliability. Previously, like many others, I'd used it for the NMI to reduce latency.

Re: " don't run untrusted code"

Install uMatrix plugin on Firefox. NoScript doesn't work on 52 ESR since 52.5.3

Re: At least Windows never killed my BIOS

You didn't have a Linc Tablet running Windows. Very many bricked by MS including an incompatible firmware update.

Also some of Google's Android tablets were bricked by by an official update!

Re: "So, where is the money going?"

Also the UK really only rents the Nukes. They obviously don't charge the US enough for all the bases they have in UK (usually labelled RAF).

There is one billion on a bunch of drones guarding Wales?

Re: Caps Lock

I set dual shift to be caps lock (either cancels) and Caps Lock to be the Compose key. Mårvəll°ŭß…

Keyboard US, paper size Letter, dates "wrong" etc. Default on Windows used to be USA regional Settings. Linux Mint asks at install time. Maybe Windows 10 does now? I forget.

The numlock on laptops is a menace. Who uses it?