* Posts by JEDIDIAH

2525 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jan 2009

Why solid-state disks are winning the argument

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Re: Fail and fail hard

> If you are relying on HDD soft failure modes preserve your precious snowflake pictures it is you who has hard failed. Redundancy.

...which is much more feasible if you are not paying 4x the price you really need to.

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Re: Too many words

> it became apparent that unless you have a burning desire to record and keep for posterior every single episode of East Enders

Even a machine that's used for light gaming and the occasional bit of web surfing is still going to need a significant amount of drive space. Significant meaning an amount that is EXPENSIVE if you are only considering SSDs. It really doesn't take much in terms of personal media files or just GAMES to fill up a smaller drive.

Going strictly SSD only makes sense if you're made of money or the device is only intended to be a terminal connecting to some other machine with a decent amount of storage.

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Re: Why I use SSD

My kid has been abusing my spinny disk based Archos for years. The thing refuses to die. If anything, it's the battery that's the problem.

Hard drive tech moved beyond the 80s style fragility you are talking about a long time ago.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Reasons for traditional HD

It's funny you should mention that because enterprise storage vendors have had "tiered storage" for many years now. This is not a new problem. These dynamics exist even within the same disk technology (namely magnetic HDD). There's pretty much always been a cost versus speed tradeoff.

Just add various "grades" of SSD into the mix using the tech that's already there.

...again: not news.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Old news.

This is old news. I was working with SSD storage back in 2001. The same issues and limitations existed then as they do now. People and companies are not made of money. Some big talking amateurs like to talk about how money doesn't matter but it does. It's a inescapable part of engineering.

Any solution you pose for any problem needs to be worth the cost.

That doesn't change just because it's 2014 and some blogger can get his hands on SSD tech now.

Ex-NSA lawyer warns Google, Apple: IMPENETRABLE RIM ruined BlackBerry

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Nothing to do with BB's shitty browser then?

It's the "rare gems" that make the ecosystem. WinDOS has a number of these. MacOS has a couple of these. They're the killer apps that people think they can't live without.

Of course the rest can be total crap.

Boxing clever? Amazon Fire TV is SO CLOSE to being excellent

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Phones as remotes.

My kid is also not bothered by the whole idea of using a phone as a remote. This is good because he lost one of the Roku remotes. It's a bit more awkward than a real remote but still usable.

It's interesting that someone dismisses this idea in principle because it's basically the big thing with Apple's streamer.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Wii Console

> It sounds like, at the moment, you are better off getting an old Nintendo Wii off eBay.

Nope. I had the in-laws setup with a Wii. The moment they saw my Roku the were like "why didn't you ever tell me about this. Buy me one of these."

"Hacking a Wii" isn't even an option there.

The Wii is a different tool for a different job.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: There's no subtitles

> I can confirm Amazon doesn't support these at all, in the UK.

Well that's terribly disappointing.

Captions and subtitles in general seem like a neglected part of most streamers.

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Re: Obsolete?

Exactly. With a "smart" TV you are effectively forced to pay for crap you don't want or need. The built in media features are pants. The thing is likely spying on you too. It's far better to not waste the resources (carbon footprint and whatnot) and just let people buy the STB of their choice.

When I bought my "smart" TV, the price premium was the same as one of my HTPCs.

That TV certainly didn't deliver a comparable level of extra utility.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Plex?

The more important question is whether or not this thing can handle all formats directly like a PC copy of Plex or XBMC would. Transcoding servers require more power and noise than a respectable GPU.

3D printed guns: This time it's for real! Oh, wait – no, still crap

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Re: But against the backdrop of your British readership...

I'm fine with that as long as the cops are disarmed too.

They are also civilians with insufficient training or discipline to be trusted with "military weapons" if the average citizen isn't. If anything, the cops need to be de-militarized first.

The late 2014 Apple Mac Mini: The best (and worst) of both worlds

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Huh? WTF?

> That "problem" should easily be fixed with 25£, which is the cost of an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapter :-)

Did you actually read that page? It's full of one star reviews.

JEDIDIAH

Re: Depends on your view...

> At some point, I bought two Macs. I could barely stand the usability of their desktop compared to my traditional Linux environments

Same here. I used Macs as Linux based HTPCs back when that made more sense. Tech moved along quickly and those Minis quickly became obsolete. After that, I had some Macs to play with so I could properly put MacOS through it's paces.

Suddenly I wasn't interested in recommending Macs to rubes anymore. I was far less impressed with MacOS and Apple software than I thought I would be.

Although, being stuck using Apple hardware is the single biggest disadvantage of using MacOS. Apple does it's best to ignore sound engineering decisions to favor unmaintainable novelty form factors.

This blast from the past 80s style soldered on RAM is just more of Apple's usual nonsense.

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

> It's already *nix. Proper Unix, not Lunix.

Only to idiots that have never touched a "proper Unix" ever and only care about this stuff as some kind of lame marketing bullet point.

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Re: To think Apple once marketed the Mini as a server machine (do they still do that)?

> They don't market it as a server now but why would that need upgradable RAM,

Even my last Atari didn't have it's RAM soldered onto the main board.

A machine doesn't need to be a server. Maintainability and repairability is useful for ANY kind of machine. This is especially true given the fact that OS upgrades tend to demand more out of existing hardware. Plus tech tends to get cheaper over time making various kinds of upgrades more feasible.

Trolls pop malformed heads above bridge to sling abuse at Tim Cook

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Why proud, confident or assured maybe?

Proud to be X is still just the wrong way to put it.

Perhaps it's a failing of the English language.

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Re: Free speech...

> Just because all these people have a different opinion doesn't mean we have to sit back and let them spew all this bullsh*t all over the internet...

Yes. Actually it does. Otherwise it's not free speech.

It's not free speech if it's only the things you personally approve of.

This stupid sh*t is why we had to flee to another continent.

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Oh. Puleeeze.

News? I thought it was painfully obvious. No "announcement" was required.

Happy 2nd birthday, Windows 8 and Surface: Anatomy of a disaster

JEDIDIAH

Re: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

> Last time I tried Linux and attempted to install Firefox I first had to find an installer for the distribution I was using.

It sounds like you were going out of your way to make things harder than necessary.

Although Linux download file types are really no worse than comparable WinDOS equivalents. Something like Firefox works the same way. If you are whining about Linux being hard then you're whining about WinDOS being hard.

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Re: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

> And yet you're preaching a UNIX-like separation of OS and GUI? It hasn't worked to push Linux into the mainstream, why would it work here?

The total LACK of a GUI never stopped WinDOS from being ripped out of the mainstream.

Linux not being in the mainstream has nothing to do with it's particular characteristics. MS-DOS had the market completely tied up before a single line of Linux was ever written. Actually it was the dominance and crapulence of MS-DOS that inspired Linux to begin with.

No. People have always been too fixated on running things like Lotus-123. They tolerated MS-DOS in order to do it even when better and cheaper options were legion.

The Windows 8 debacle even demonstrates how this is the case. The majority tolerate Windows for it's ecosystem despite the fact that the OS itself is a festering pile.

Microsoft BARELY has to acknowledge the needs or desires of it's customers.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

> However ... “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” as Henry Ford said.

Except this isn't some primitive physical item that is still inferior to what it's trying to replace.

This is software. It doesn't wear out and it's easy to change. Enabling your "Model-T" doesn't require shooting everybody's horse.

CBS goes OTT, releases EVERY EPISODE of Star Trek EVER MADE

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: releases EVERY EPISODE of Star Trek EVER MADE

...pretty much.

The Netflix versions of these are great until you realize that they are low quality or they have been "widescreened". Then you want to go and use your own copy.

TV in general has this problem. It seems to apply equally to broadcast TV, cable TV, and streaming services.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Funny you should mention that.

Netflix you say? The funny thing about that is that the US subscription streaming services have already had all of Trek available for streaming. Don't recall if it's Netflix or Amazon Prime or both.

CBS is late to the party.

Forget the $2499 5K iMac – today we reveal Apple's most expensive computer to date

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Cultism

Apples were the playthings of the wealthy.

Commodore is who actually got computers into the hands of people.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Now that's just going too far

...and to that point specifically Jobs and Woz were no Henry Ford.

Apple kit has always been overpriced since day one. If anything, Apple is more like the pre-Ford luxury automakers like Mercedes. That's certainly the comparison modern fanboys want to make now.

The Ford of computing is more along the likes of Commodore or Sinclair.

If it were only up to Apple computing would have gone nowhere. The masses would never be able to afford it.

UNIX greybeards threaten Debian fork over systemd plan

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Pottering just doesn't get it.

Yes. This is something that the "progress for the sake of progress" crowd just doesn't seem to get. In the domains where Unix has it's most powerful stronghold, the one overriding consideration is reliability. It doesn't have to be fast It doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be usable by a trained monkey. It needs to be reliable.

It's simply insane that it's a server vendor that's pushing this crap.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Such hatred

> "Why do I get the feeling that a lot of the people that want to keep sysvinit have never tried to read a service script, let alone write one."

Not only have I read and written service scripts but I have done so quite successfully. They're just standard shell scripts.

On the other hand, my first attempt to alter Upstart scripts resulted in an unbootable system.

Individual init scripts can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be. Init itself is very simple and difficult to sabotage without a lot of highly focused effort.

Post-PC era? PAH! Apple says Macs OUTSOLD iPads in Q4

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Lies, damned lies, and marketing masquerading as journalism...

It sounds like someone has an axe to grind. I looks like some fanboy wants to distract from the fact that the PC part of Apple's business is now only 15% while mobile devices in general account for more than 2 thirds of Apple revenue based on the fanboy's own numbers.

Apple is an ARM shop pushing consumer electronics. It ceased to be a PC company a long time ago.

Torvalds CONFESSES: 'I'm pretty good at alienating devs'

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Eric Raymond's (in)famous quote

The painter may need to take it personally. The painter may need to fix his work. Telling him pleasant lies might spare his ego but it's probably not what's really best for him.

Does the white lie benefit you or the person you're telling it to?

HBO shocks US pay TV world: We're down with OTT. Netflix says, 'Gee'

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Different day, same song.

> I can't imagine HBO going to market for less than netflix,

HBO already has a price structure with cable that places them at a higher price point than Netflix. I can't see them lowering that significantly. I am not sure they need to. They are already the classic ala carte premium cable option and always have been.

The Apple launch AS IT HAPPENED: Totally SERIOUS coverage, not for haters

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Way to stay classy reg

You wouldn't want us to mistake you for real journalists.

Facebook, Apple: LADIES! Why not FREEZE your EGGS? It's on the company!

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: As a parent I frankly disapprove

Once you hit 30, you have an increasingly greater risk of conceiving a genetically defective child. In some professions, you're barely going to be established by that age. In the US, you will likely be bogged down by student loans until that age (if not later).

Preserving the fresh eggs rather than trying to make do with the spoiled ones makes a lot of sense medically.

Radiohead(ache): BBC wants dead duck tech in sexy new mobes

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Those ugly data caps and whatnot.

I don't stream anything from my mobile device over an actual mobile network. The restrictions are just too draconian. If my phone could pick up something like conventional radio, that would not be such a bad thing. People like to call it a dinosaur but it (broadcast) is still a much better solution to the problem. Individual streams just don't scale.

Jony Ive: Flattered by rivals' designs? Nah, its 'theft'

JEDIDIAH

Re: I also watched this popular TV programme in the 1970's

The idea of minaturization in general was pretty common in the 50s. Pretty much anyone that read sci-fi in the 60s, 70s, or 80s could see stuff like the iDevices coming and probably imagined a number of their own that looked like "shameless Apple copies".

I thought up some "shameless Apple copies" of my own in the 80s. (Inspired by Asimov)

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Re: Those in glass houses, Sir Jony...

It doesn't matter if they "stole" it or "bought" it. The result is the same. They cribbed it from someone else. They did not invent it. They merely took someone else's stuff and reused it.

Apple like Microsoft are both great at watching the innovators flounder. Then they swoop down like vultures when everyone else has done the hard work trying to push the technology forward. They steal or buy stuff and then run the real risk takers out of business.

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Re: @SuccessCase Those in glass houses, Sir Jony...

> "Now I know many techies don't have much in the way of creative capacity."

I would rather that form followed function and that "design" was kept out of it. I would prefer that the practical considerations come first and the visual nonsense is only applied later once the important details are dealt with.

"Designers" are so full of themselves claiming ownership on simple things that require no real creativity at all.

Get NAS-ty: Reg puts claws to eight four-bay data dumpsters

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Is that all?

> Simplicity and convenience, maybe. Unless you can spin up a FreeNAS instance with iSCSI, NFS, SMB, and options for apache, MySQL, LDAP, BitTorrent client working fully, with a decent interface within, ooh, twenty minutes? ;-)

Sounds like installing a modern copy of Linux.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Or alternatively...

This very article articulated problems with various brands and models of drives for a particular NAS. If the entire unit goes out, how do you know that you will ever be able to get a completely compatible replacement chassis? That's never a problem with just running a regular OS.

You don't have to write your own NAS software. It's already baked into most modern operating systems.

Building your own puts you in complete control. Simple mods (like SMART alerts) are possible without adding much more bother. The problem with NAS kit is that it represents a market segment that already has to be in the top 1% of geekiness just to be aware of the product.

I want to transplant your storage brains: WD desktop NAS refresh

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Re: Beyond RAID

> 4TB in RAID1/5 is already stretching it, 6TB even worse. rebuild times become so ridiculously long....

No not really.

This is not nearly as dire as everyone with zero actual experience wants to make it out to be.

Linux systemd dev says open source is 'SICK', kernel community 'awful'

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Re: Obvious answer to this is, get a mac

> If you have a problem with a mac, you will find people with the exact same problem, and among them you'll find those who have found a solution.

...unless you manage to use computers in a remotely interesting or creative fashion. Then the wagons start to circle and you get berated and accused of being a pirate.

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Re: As the saying goes...

You're confused.

You've got things backwards.

It's his "substitute" that we are rejecting. We are not seeking something different or "better". He's trying to force his sh*t on us without our consent.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Bias

It sounds like someone that can't handle being judged based on his merits.

He's been judged harshly by the community so he has to make up some nonsense and lash out. Ironically he's engaging in exactly the sort of juvenile nonsense he's trying to accuse the community at large of. He's making up baseless and wildly inflammatory accusations.

He's trying to exploit similar current media narratives.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Hostile leadership vs hostile software

Pulseaudio is only tolerable because it's trivial to get rid of. If you have some stripped down HTPC machine, you can easily and quickly ditch pulseaudio. SystemD doesn't seem to be like that. It seems to have it's hooks into a lot of things at a low level that makes ripping it out a fatal proposition.

The key feature of Unix is that you can ignore a component that you don't like.

JEDIDIAH

Re: The Linux community has always been this way.

> Apart from it's lack of market share for anything other than web servers and embedded devices/mobile phones.

You mean any market that didn't already have a deeply entrenched monopoly before Linux ever even existed?

Thriving everywhere except DOS legacy apps is not at all bad.

Strange tale of an angry bean counter, Comcast and a shock 'firing'

JEDIDIAH
Linux

No real surprise here...

This was simply a case of a customer with half a clue. He knew what buttons to push. He knew what people to talk to and what to threaten them with. A lawyer is a pretty good example of someone with that kind of knowledge but apparently being an accountant works too.

PEAK LANDFILL: Why tablet gloom is good news for Windows users

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Re: Post PC

> No I don't expect you to use the soft keyboard, any more than I expect you to click on the onscreen keyboard on a PC.

Then you simply distorted the tablet until it was something else entirely... a quasi-PC with parts from the last decade (or the one before that) and less choices about available software and less ability to directly control the system.

You're describing a very dedicated attempt to slam a square peg into a round hole regardless of whether it makes an sense or not.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

More of the ARM delusion.

ARM devices simply don't have the horsepower either CPU or GPU to displace a real PC. At best you will be looking at some very severe compromises. You will just have to give up on doing some simple basic things that would be trivial with a more powerful machine.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Re: Tablets are neither phones nor PCs

No. The it's the Apple product that introduced the Wal-mart price tag. There is a natural price for these things and Apple found it. They also figured out what kind of cheap hardware they need to put into it in order to make the price point. Since they didn't have a decades long desktop monopoly, they weren't tied to the x86. As a failure at the desktop, they were free to ignore it.

There simply may be no "Herrods" niche when it comes to tables. The same goes for video streamers. Google tried selling a "premium" product and got slapped down in the same way Microsoft did.

It's possible that the price collapse in PCs got everyone used to the idea that hardware should be cheap making it an uphill battle for ANY "premium" option.

Top 10 SSDs: Price, performance and capacity

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Re: alas

Most of us aren't made of money.