Posts by Kubla Cant

Just what I came to say. "salubrious" means "health-giving; healthy" (OED).

Re: I wonder how many people still remember how to use it?

I was working on Rdb systems when it was sold to Oracle. We all went to a presentation at the local Oracle office. There they cheerily told us that future support contracts were going to be very, very expensive, because that's the only way they could fund development. This may be a software fact of life, but only Oracle would boast about it.

There's quite a bit of discussion of the problem on Apple-related fora. It seems likely that it's because the monitors are identical. Possibly the MacBook can tell the difference between two £4k Apple monitors, but it can't be bothered to distinguish between cheapo Samsung ones.

Re: Transputer?

17, 33, 45 and 72 rpm records

Not 17, but 16⅔ - half 33⅓.

Despite living through the entire cycle, from 78 rpm onwards, I have never seen a 16⅔ rpm record.

It is possible there were portable valve radios

Indeed, my grandma owned one. ISTR it contained a huge Ever Ready battery that didn't last long and couldn't be recharged, so listening to it was probably an expensive activity.

Re: True AI

So you're saying Dabbsy is actually Marvin?

No. Marvin wouldn't use the USAian misspelling of 'axe'. He's been replaced by Clippy.

"hack it to pieces with an ax"

Re: I don't know about anyone else

Interesting that the malaise known as "presenteeism" doesn't go away when working from home.

Re: I'm in two minds here

I hate to go in to bat for Microsoft, but they did a lot of good with TypeScript and VSCode.

My experience is that all Deutsche Bank devs work on Citrix virtual desktops, so even when checked out the code stays on the servers.

edit: ninjad by Steve Channell

Re: "Internal calculations found the total cost of headaches was $22.5 million a year"

Fujitsu aren't much good at financial calculations. Ask a sub-postmaster.

Re: School SEN teacher Also 90s

Probably couldn't seek advice about how to save a document because everything she types is secret.

I can recall a support request from the HR in the next office.

"No problem, I'll be there in a minute."

"Oh, you can't look at it. It's confidential."

WW1 analogies are tough, though; neither side is clearly "the good guy" or "the bad guy", and when it boils down to it, the whole thing was essentially different branches of the ruling classes (in this case, cousins in the same royal family) fighting each other for control over the peasants.

I think you're confusing WW1 with the Hundred Years War. In 1914 Britain was a parliamentary democracy and France was a republic. Neither had much in the way of peasants.

Re: Semantic alert

Plaintiff’s mistruths do not change the facts.

WTF is a "mistruth"? (Don't answer, I can guess.)

Where do these mealy-mouthed neologisms come from? Cf "misspeak" = to lie.

Re: Concepts are hard to understand

But the Brits won at Rorke's Drift. Isandlwana on the same day is where they got wiped out.

Re: Fascinating

Now all they need is an AI to produced decent plots and dialogue

Accounts suggest that the way film scripts are written is already a Generative Adversarial Network, except that the components are human. It should be a simple matter to replace them with computers.

Actually, how do we know they haven't already done so?

Special characters

Where did the stupid term "special characters" come from? Special to whom?

Assuming that "special" means any character that isn't alphanumeric and isn't a control character, why does every bird-brain that implements this restriction have a different concept of this set?

Is any Unicode character legal, so I can have a password that's mostly emojis? I've never done this because I have enough password trouble to be going on with, but it's an amusing thought.

Re: Competition time!

If MS were so bothered about that they could have changed it so the rename dialog/in-place edit thingy in the list doesn't allow the extension to be changed, unless e.g. you hold shift.

I think current Windows* pre-selects the part before the dot when you rename. If you want to change the type you have to deselect and reselect everything.

* I could be confusing this with Linux, MacOS....

Automated reverse parking fails in the same way as much other automation. It tackles the easy problems (big spaces) and leaves you with the hard ones (spaces only slightly longer than you car).

Re: GIGO for the goddesses sake!

Broadcasting on 1500 metres from Daventry?

ISTR that it used to be a thing to purge the input buffer before showing a message that requires acknowledgement. Probably a bit more difficult in a GUI.

Re: Windows stopped being good....

Maybe putting a tablet interface on a server OS was Microsoft's cunning plan to get people to start using PowerShell more Linux.

Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT)

Civil Service names and initialisms for technology are as obscure and numerous as euphemisms for a latrine.

Government departments seem to be always trying to fill vacancies for a "Digital Developer". Is this a developer who counts on his fingers? Or are they just making sure they don't see applicants whose only experience is on a MONIAC?

Re: occasionally being sampled when there's nothing left in the house.

My worst recollections are:

• A Swiss drink called Enzian (gentian). Maybe I was sold a bottle of antiseptic - it certainly tasted like it.
• An apéritif called Suze. Used to be advertised on the side of French barns, and tasted like it might have been produced by the occupants thereof. Guaranteed to remove your appetite.
• Parfait Amour, a purple liqueur of such cloying sweetness that I swear you could feel it eating its way round your fillings.

Re: Mystery

If you're inside of IR35 and not planning on contracting for too long...

It seems to be immaterial whether you're contracting for a long or short time. Big clients all seem to be insisting on blanket IR35. Some run their own contractor PAYE via a captive agency, but most rely on umbrellas.

I seem to have had a lucky escape with Parasol. Was going to sign up with them, but the portal went down before I could agree the contract, so I've nominated another umbrella.

Re: "just 5 per cent saying they thought CEST was accurate in the survey"

True. But when it's a population who have lost money as a result of CEST, 5% is surprisingly high. Turkeys voting for Christmas.

If your intent is to truly master a language, there is no substitute for immersion

Too true. Despite seven years of learning French at school, I still find myself tongue-tied in France.

It reminds me of my first attempt to install Linux, some 15(?) years ago. I was using a Thinkpad at the time, and the installation instructions started along lines of "you first need to recompile the kernel, to support the system hardware..."

I've been installing Linux - various distros - for at least 15 years, and I've never had to recompile anything. I've never done it on a Thinkpad, but I have installed on a variety of off-the-peg and home-built kit and I'm surprised that such a popular platform would require recompilation.

Re: "we will update this article accordingly"

I think DEFRA accept messages by cleft stick.

Re: Colour options

I don't think I've ever seen a BMW that wasn't either black or white

Black, white, many shades of grey and silver, plus, for some reason, a peculiar bricky orange.

Last time I was in a BMW dealers I commented on a car finished in a wild pattern of white-on-black sqiggles. The salesman told me it was to disguise a new model.