Posts by gerryg

Re: Innovation

I'm curious to know what "next level" actually means in practice.

I have an ASUS laptop which must be getting on for 10 years old, it is fanless with an Intel something or other running at 900Mhz, 8GB RAM, It does have seriously good I/O and was probably one of the first to use an SSD. It's in a nice slim line aluminium case, so slim, the Ethernet port is via a USB plug-in. Its screen is something like 5200xforgotten.

When I got it I hoofed out the 128GB SSD complete with Windows something and put in a 256GB SSD then shoved openSUSE on it. The high resolution screen was a PITA but over time KDE has got there.

No, I don't do video processing nor finite element analysis with it, but for general use it is still snappy. Battery life remains at around 7 hours (though I use it on mains when possible)

It looks the DBs and when the screen eventually dies unless I can find a cheap pin compatible lower resolution screen (IMHO no-one needs 5200xforgotten on a 13" laptop) the laptop will die as replacement high resolution screens remain bonkers expensive.

Re: fine words butter no parnips

You could choose not to use it. Would you put your valuables in a safe that didn't close properly? Since when has crossing your fingers and hoping been a strategy?

Randomly

This reminds me of a small company making omelette pans. Following a recommendation by Delia Smith they had to decide to forego the opportunity of a ramp in demand or expand production. Having chose the latter route once the Waitrose caravanserai moved on, they had an unsupportable cost base and they went out of business.

I thought that Zoom responded admirably to COVID but now have the curse of too much capacity. In so far as they care, I hope they survive

Re: Never Forgive, Never Forget

Harshly expressed but let's focus on interoperability and proper standards then the sentiment might be better understood

Re: I'll have to ponder that...

I don't know if you are a Go player but I'll bite.

Alpha Go was trained by running through a zillion (possibly one or two fewer) professional games, I assume to try to abstract knowledge. It what we all do (with a few orders of magnitude adjustment), looking for insight.

Alpha Zero, using the garnered systems development experience, in a constrained environment that only has three rules...:

Alternate play

Stones remain on the border unless captured

You can't play so as to repeat the previous position (the formal explanation of ko)

(Chinese scoring or AGA (US) modified Japanese rules remove an infinitesimal lacuna)

...taught itself by playing against itself a gazillion times and was generally considered to be stronger than Alpha Go

KataGo uses Alpha Zero but with crowd sourced weightings to overcome the lack of expertise.

Does that help?

Re: Serious question

Berkshire Hathaway bet on this manufacturer beings better than that one. See discussion of EV in article.

Manufactures compete to attract capital. Investors are betting their own money and they have to be careful nor to run out of it. . It's not perfect but it keeps things leaner and meaner than they would be otherwise.

In the above example consider what happens when governments get involved, e.g., the Mini. Every time one was sold it increased the losses on the project.

Linux user here.

Since 1997. Most definitely not a Microsoft fanboi,

However some updates do need a reboot to take effect, most obviously the kernel. However I can choose when to reboot (or indeed, to update), which I surmise is what you really meant.

Re: If you don't like it...

The long run consists of a series of short runs.

If it is ruinously expensive in the current short run you have been asleep during all the other ruinously expensive shorts runs. If you have been self-harming for a long time there is no help I can offer you

Re: When the EEC was born

In 1957, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg signed a treaty in Rome which established a common market. Enlargement of the original six to nine countries was established by 99 directives passed into UK law by the European Communities Act 1972 establishing the European Economic Community which through further treaties became first the European Community and then the European Union.

Are we OK now?

Re: Hooray for Avoirdupois and pounds, shillings and pence

In days of yore, maps were topological - places were one day's travel on foot apart (minimise threat levels) and a day's travel was a journée corrupted over time to journey.

To throw in a quick French lesson, counter - duration: jour - journée, soir soirée et cetera FWIW

Re: WTF gives them the right to do so?!?

I'd suggest reading that licence you agreed to. (Disclaimer, I don't use Microsoft)

Re: Almost perfect, just get rid of GNOME

I do not agree with your reasoning for TDE. Pearson just liked KDE 3 and wanted to keep it going. His choice, good for him.

KDE 4 had its problems no doubt but if you are going to describe KDE 5 as a mess you've got to do more than assert.

I've never not used KDE (except for occasionally trying the lightweight alternative Opensuse automatically installs and rushing back) so cannot make comparisons but I cannot think of any problems I have ever had with KDE 5.

I also don't know why anyone distro hops. And Opensuse has always included everything should I care, which I don't.

Re: Too many "heads in the sand" technophobes run the BBC

No, it's worse than that, you pay the BBC to watch other stuff

Re: "The emails contain a ZIP file"

I think you are being harsh. First off she checked. Last off she asked. At no point did she follow Grace Hopper's dictum.

Re: Cut them off at source

I think a small difference is that selling you the same stuff again is a business model (not only but including Microsoft) I'm not really convinced that closed source software suppliers ever really gave one about vulnerabilities until it was embarrassing to do otherwise.

Blaming China feels a little bit like "dog ate my homework".

If they gave more of a shit in the first place there would be few vulnerabilities to care about.

Re: Seems like a spurious argument

Pedantry alert.

FLOSS is copyrighted.

I'd have to do some deep diving for more information but there have been a series of lawsuits enforcing copyright on organisations that thought FLOSS was freeware.

Where FLOSS differs is in the rights it gives to others in return for certain obligations.

From "mention my name" through to "release source code".

Re: Sadly? and Slackware

Each to their own.

My wallpaper is a photograph of a squirrel clinging on for dear life while trying to get a drink of water from my pond. I still enjoy looking at it.

Re: I'm a bit confused

Always reminds me about the joke to the effect that all the people that should be running the country are too busy cutting hair or driving taxis. (I'm sure that list is extensible)

Regarding your downvote (one at the moment) I wonder if it was because they disagree with your description of the tories or because you were not singing from the hymn sheet of acceptable opinion

Re: Implicit in the article, but not explicitly stated:

I use one proprietary application under WINE (which somewhat amusingly uses FOSS libraries at its core). Fortunately it wasn't expensive. It doesn't work perfectly and it isn't a life saver, but I can work out how it use it. So I suck it up.

There are probably at least three FOSS applications that bury this proprietary application. But as someone that learned how to use GIMP I still can't fathom them out.

What I would like to fund and participate in developing are the idiots' guides* to Shotcut, kdenlive or the other one whose name I can't remember.

*not an infinite list of its functions and capability

We're all wise in retrospect

"But in all seriousness, something like this should have been reviewed long ago."

It seems like it was a small piece of code tucked away minding its own business. If I understand correctly you'd mostly notice it if you had an AMD laptop and there are few of those.

So given this is of of those issues for "need for speed" types the client group is not them and probably tiny. So no-one noticed.

But finally someone did and I envisage that still no-one will notice.

Re: but if you prefer something ... more like Office 365

I agree with your assessment of documents produced by local councils but would extend it to many other organisations: central government, charities, NGOs etc.

It seems like they take the opportunity to use every feature of their office suite to decorate documents baroque-style despite the intention that they get completed and returned electronically.

I can't believe it's that easy to work online with designed for print features using the same office suite. But it can be painful using LO.

It's possibly some form of localised expression of being in control but it does make things very difficult for the user.

Whether it is cock-up or conspiracy I leave to others

Re: Not the only game in town

Really? Then it suggests you have failed to install Ubuntu properly. Or did I just fall for the flamebait

Except...

...with KDE you can configure it to look pretty much how you like*. Moreover if you really like earlier versions then for example, there's always TDE.

Or throw it away and use one of the myriad alternatives.

And then change your mind.

All without any nagging nor pop up advertising

*including a right to left desktop for us lefties

RE: Plod is too over-worked to deal with old-fashioned burglaries

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-did-theft-become-effectively-decriminalised-in-britain-

[T]he clear-up rate for theft has plunged to such a low point that in some areas the Victims’ Commissioner...is concerned that it has become almost decriminalised.

Until 2015, the proportion of thefts which led to a suspect being charged or summonsed to appear in court hovered around 10 per cent. In 2021-22, the rate had fallen to 4.1 per cent, lower than any other crime group apart from sexual offences.

c.f. "hate crime" (sorry for long URL)

https://www.hampshire-pcc.gov.uk/police-and-crime-commissioner-donna-jones-responds-to-video-published-on-twitter-involving-hampshire-police-officers-regarding-alleged-hate-crime