Posts by jake

Re: Can the author please confirm...

When done right, Beastie and Penguins are inherently compatible.

Re: Its all about *efficient* communication...

So phone calls are "the ultimate my time is more important", because it "wastes" two people's time ... but Slack/Teams/whatever is more efficient because it wastes the time of twenty or more people? OK. If you say so.

Personally, I'd rather make a phone call and get 'er done. It's been working for me for over half a century, and no complaints to date.

"Can't use plain text, I challenge anybody to reply to a recruiter in plain text."

When I'm wearing my "recruiter" hat, I often specify left-justified plain-text only for CVs and resumes. Especially for more technical positions. Makes for an easy filter ... people who can not (or will not) follow simple instructions get circle-filed/bit-bucketed.

"Or at least, since the endless September. Usenet was another place it mattered to a lot of users."

Actually, it was about a year and a half before the start of the Eternal September, when Delphi opened its Usenet gateway to the masses.

Re: Space trash

Our acreage belongs to the (mostly feral[0]) cats, but they share it with us in return for fresh water, a place to sleep away from the coyotes, and a little quality chow. They also share with the folks east, west, and south of us (all of whom understand cats). The cats pee and poop at the outer corners of the ranch, where it won't get in anybody's way[1] ... and in the fancy rose garden and pool area of the asshole who lives just north of us. He hates cats, and they carefully return the favo(u)r.

The idiot to the north is clueless, and has had had a serious rodent problem for the couple decades that he has lived there ... Strangely enough, we don't, and neither do the neighbors to the east, west and south. I wonder why.

[0] Most of them get trapped at least once for spay/neuter and basic injections (difficult or impossible to live trap a feral cat more than once) ... According to the vet, they probably titer out for things like rabies for as long as they live, which isn't long. Sad to say, the ferals are part of the food chain here in Northern California.

[1] The more domestic house cats have a litterbox, but never use it. They use the doggie-door and do their business at the far end of the dog run, or further afield if they have a mind to.

Re: Space trash

"But humans are the only organisms that dump non-biodegradable trash without thought."

Ever visited the White Cliffs of Dover?

Ever hold a lump of amber?

Are you familiar with stromatolites?

Many birds and reptiles excrete salt.

Etc. etc. etc.

Re: Being based off ...

"This site is longer uses what we recognise as English"

Sprec tō mē on Englice. Ic þancie þē.

Re: Wang

Many moons ago An Wang told a roomful of Silly Con Valley luminaries and hangers-on that he got over the locker-room derived humo(u)r of his name during his first year at Harvard, but we should feel free to snicker at it if we liked. In his opinion, it said more about the person doing the snickering than the owner of the name. He further said this applied to any name.

Smart man, Dr. Wang. RIP

Re: Dad Jokes

"Did some tumbleweed blow past as the bell of a small church rang in the distance and a dog barked?"

That's what happens when you yell "Theater!" in a crowded[0] small-town firehouse.

Followed by a deep voice somewhere in the back intoning "Git a rope ... ".

_{[0] Yearly open-house. Recommended.}

Re: Not really

I am a Yank, and I have never heard that phrase used in conversation.

Discussing a data point, sure, but not "a data point of one" specifically.

I have heard "That is a testimonial, not data" in a few places over the years.

Re: Not really

Probably not any particular demographic. Probably just people who are tired of the same old bullshit rhetoric that both "sides" continue to spout.

Seriously, kids, its getting old and you're not convincing anyone. Why waste your time? What good does it do you?

Re: Basic mistake

I grow varietals of cherry tomato that are sweet enough to put into a fruit salad. Tasty. Unexpected. Recommended.

Intelligence is knowing that a Watermelon is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing it is actually a cucumber, and works well when sautéed with chicken (or pork chops) and served in a chipolte tomato sauce.

Hint: Get a melon as red and sweet as you can find. Use a melon baller for the watermelon. Don't warn your diners. They will bite into one of the balls, expecting a cherry tomato. The look on their face is priceless ... as is the empty plate soon after.

Re: There are a lot of problems with this

You're on your own there. I choose to not fill my head with nonsense from companies who think that bugs not only can, but should be patched according to the calendar. Especially not when their published errata needs its own Wiki.

Re: There are a lot of problems with this

"Not said directly, but clearly implied. Well, actually you did not communicate which level you are expecting, and reading someones mind over the internet is not yet implemented as RFC."

Read the rest of my post where I modified that with "unless you're just an easily replaceable cog in the machine, and content to stay that way."

"So, what exact level are you expecting?"

Probably not the answer you are looking for, but you wouldn't believe the number of times I've run across a so-called "programmer" who had spent days or weeks weeks trying to track down a bug in his code ... but it turned out to be a rather well documented compiler bug (or sometimes a feature, depending on the angle you observed it from).

Again, if you don't know the toolset inside out, are you truly a professional in that field?

Re: Seriously???????????

They are there, though ... Each of those holes allows you to connect a phone jack and its attendant equipment to a normally closed switch, thus inserting it into the circuit.

Re: There are a lot of problems with this

Show me where I said I "expected everyone to know"?

Because I can assure you that I don't expect that at all.

But I DO expect anybody who considers themselves to be a professional programmer to at least have clues. If you don't know the tools that you make your bread & butter with inside out, how can you consider yourself to be a professional?

Re: There are a lot of problems with this

I've been contributing to the GCC since the year dot, and PCC before that. I think I have at least a vague idea.

Re: Seriously???????????

In the beginning, "patching" was manually tying two telephone circuits together with patch cables. See early photos of operators sitting in front of patch panels (sometimes called switchboards).

Re: There are a lot of problems with this

"Sometimes, you really need to understand how the compiler works"

One should ALWAYS understand how the compiler works ... unless you're just an easily replaceable cog in the machine, and content to stay that way.

Oh, gawd/ess ... PLEASE don't give the marketards any ideas.

"Now With NEW!!! AI-generated comments!"

::shudder::

Re: I'm sorry, I just can't dump Zoom.

The difference is that while it's quite likely that your telephone calls are, in fact, being recorded (five eyes), nobody is actually doing anything with the vast majority of that information (unless you're a crook moving major sums of money, drugs, firearms and/or humans). In essence there is so much raw data involved that you will be ignored, unless you have already triggered an investigation. They quite simply do not have the manpower to keep an eye on every many, woman and child within their snooping network.

But your zooms (teams, twits, whatever) are being recorded by multibillion dollar multinational marketing companies for the express intent of invading your personal privacy so they can get better[0] at marketing at you. And this somehow makes you feel good?

_{[0] For very warped values of "better".}

Re: I'm sorry, I just can't dump Zoom.

Forced? That's a big, loaded, scary word.

Are you sure it means what you think it means?

Personally, I have never allowed an employer to force me to do anything. THEY need ME, that's why they pay me. I don't need them. I can always get someone else to pay me the same salary+benefits (or sometimes more) for the same (or similar) services.

Re: Failover backup redlining

" have no idea how to get two dots overt a lower case i."

Not a Black Sabbath fan, I take it?

Perhaps I'm showing my age.

_{Or maybe I'm just paranoïd.}

Re: Fallback fault-tolerant

Naming systems after Tolkien characters officially became old after I ran across the fifth server named "Bilbo" in a single day (two at Berkeley, one each at Stanford, San Jose State and Mission College). That was in roughly 1980.

Zones. Solaris isn't BSD anymore.

Re: Fallback fault-tolerant

The ancient counterparts worked just fine when spec'ed and installed and maintained properly.

Just like the modern kit.

Re: The "book" has 44 pages.

"The book about the book, at 14 pages IS just a pamphlet."

Are the first few "Dick and Jane"[0] books actually books, or are they other?

_{[0] That would be similar to "Janet and John", for those of you in Blighty.}

Re: The "book" has 44 pages.

I was taught that a quire was originally 4 sheets if paper/parchment, later it was 4 ptinted sheets folded to make 16 pages, and still later morphed to mean 24 unbound finished sheets (1/20th of a ream, with a few throw-away setup sheets per ream).

"My guess is the speed difference was probably too high for an accurate cannon shot."

They fire at, and hit, tanks on the ground, no?

"I think there's also a question of whether it would come down quickly *enough* with just some slow leaks in the envelope."

Then clearly you'll need more leaks. Rumo(u)r has it there are devices known as "computers" which could help you calculate how many such leaks it would take.

"Ideally you want to be able to bring it down for a quick, controlled landing"

Or just drop it just low enough to pluck it out of the air with one of your government of choice's heavy lifters. Line up four or five such aircraft in case the first one (two, three...) miss the snatch.

"so it doesn't drag across miles of power lines and such."

That's why you pluck it out of the air with one of your government of choice's heavy lifters. If it looks like it'll hit the ground anyway, time to give it a coup de grâce and try again with the next one.

Re: shooting down the balloon with convential shells wont work

"even 20mm cannon shells are unlikely to make any significant dent in the ability to float."

Depends on how many 20mm holes you manage to poke into it, no?

Re: I don't get that, at all

"I picked AWS as the start of cloud, as the first (that I am aware of) commercially available VM service."

That you are aware of.

People were working with primitive virtual machines in the late 1950s and very early 1960s. In fact, it was a major selling (leasing[0]) point on IBM's System/360 in 1964. The 360 would emulate the 1401, so all your old code could still run, while making the modern 360 code available, too! (WOW! Whodathunkit? What an age we lived in!)

IBM continued research through the 1960s with the M44/44X, through CP-44 and finally culminating in the System/370 variation called VM/370 in 1972. (Note that the "VM" in this case stood for Virtual Memory, akin to BSD's vmunix in 1979 ... the hypervisor was part of the control program ("kernel" in modern parlance, kinda, if you squint).)

Absolutely none of this stuff was invented on or for the PEE CEE architecture.

[0] Also available through dial-up (or Switched-56) timeshare ... The current generation didn't invent "cloud", either. See: Service Bureau