Viva!
"Capitalism is a failed experiment" - Pass it on.
2905 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Mar 2008
I remember, decades ago, when we had people picking up litter, road sweeping machines regularly cleaning street gutters. We also had public toilets so people didn't have to piss up alleyways, recreational spaces and community sports fields.
I am not entirely convinced we have become worse as a society in carelessly discarding our crap, just worse at dealing with human nature. Usually because of 'cost', and an attempt to save money by making societal problems a matter of individual responsibility, when people don't feel that it is or should be their responsibility.
There were plenty of NHS staff who would have been grateful to be allowed to sleep at work than have to move out of their homes to keep themselves, their families, patients and colleagues, safe from becoming infected.
Many of those society was most dependent on ended up sleeping in tents, sheds and caravans, endured months of hardship in return for a once a week round of applause.
There's a lot to be said for campus and communal living, company canteens, on-site facilities. It's not all about enslaving the workforce.
Speculation: the AI thinks the arm failed to pick up white queen and is re-attempting the move.
It looked like that to me. I was wondering why, if it were doing that, it didn't keep doing that, lift the piece, finger and boy, and try and dump all in the tupperware box.
A better quality video shows the arm had picked up a Bishop and was placing that where the boy had moved his Castle to. So more a crushing injury than a grabbing injury.
Full marks to the observer who was heading for the Escape key as soon as the arm was returning to where the kid had placed his piece.
"Hit F10 to throw a punch"
I would suggest that someone takes a very serious look at who is lobbying whom and how much they are paying
There is no need for lobbying when the government and minister's ideology is "profit before people".
Brexit was a dream of those who wanted to escape the clutches of EU regulation which limited the abuses they could indulge in, constrained their pursuit of profit. Gullible and stupid people voted "please screw us over" and that's what this government intends to deliver, claims a mandate for doing.
It's amazing to me how little thought about actual use cases goes into so many of these devices.
Like 'Dementia Clocks' which invariably have small buttons tucked round the back so there's no easy way for a victim to terminate the "take your medicine" announcements. They aren't cheap, are quite expensive when including the additional functionality which is of no practical use.
Give me RP2xxx with 128+ I/O and at least a SDRAM interface...
This not the $6 plug-in-and-go development board you are looking for. The RP2040 chip is probably not the $1 chip you are desiring either.
It's got USB, host and device, Wi-Fi, oodles of other interfaces spread over 26 GPIO pins, including three ADC, on a 40-pin carrier. That's plenty for most hobbyists and makers - the people this board is targetted at.
I've had great success running some legacy 16-bit Windows programs under Windows 10 using OTVDM/ WINEVDM-
http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/otvdm.html
It's transparent; install that, launch a 16-bit executable and it just works - YMMV.
I must admit I felt more emotional loss than I anticipated when I discovered I had accidentally thrown out a particular ex-beer-mat-come-coaster. Not sure why I ever became so attached to it or why I am still not over it.
I don't know if I can be arsed to find another 450-plus words to describe my anguish and plight, but here goes...
Just kidding.
But I do miss that coaster.
Even though I know it means "five" I still pronounce it "vee" or no one knows which is being talked about.
And as V is the Roman numeral for 5 I don't see the problem with using "vee"; "RISC Five" is the RISC five chip labelled "RISC-5", "RISC Vee" is the RISC five chip labelled "RISC-V".
Both have been abused in attempts to justify what can otherwise not be justified
I would also add Osborne Effect - the mistaken belief that it will be almost impossible to sell current product once an improved version of the product has been announced, concluding that all new product must remain secret until launched or the business will be ruined.
While there will be some who would rather wait for the new than buy what's on offer that's far from the full story. But many seem to believe, because it happened to Osborne in very particular circumstances, it will happen to everyone, every time.
Don't Buy Bitcoin. It's Going To Crash!!!
And, when it does; that's when one buys. Hoping it soars again while remembering to be smart enough to get out before the next crash arrives. And, as long as it doesn't crash too badly, it's still a profit.
It's a game I might play if I had money I didn't care about losing.
the best weather forecast for 'tomorrow' was 'same as today'
In terms of being more right than not it feels correct and what most people anticipate. The limitation of that is when there's a drastic change coming over the horizon or when one wants to look more than a couple of days ahead.
The other rule of thumb is; if it's been gloriously hot all week it will rain at the weekend. In the UK anyway.
she is channelling Mrs Thatcher, Boudica and Xena Warrior princess.
Oh fuck! How much mindbleach is it going to take to get the image of a leather bikini clad Truss lugging a chained wheel of cheddar behind her out of my mind?
I fear I'm going to have to lie down on the driveway with my head against a tyre and wait for the inevitable. Thanks, you bastard.
"such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force"
Which means it may be armed force or could well be "meh" and nothing.
The limitations of Article 5 were revealed when it was invoked after 9-11, when some chose to storm into Afghanistan with guns blazing, others committed to far less.
Joining NATO and Article 5 applying doesn't guarantee someone else's army dropping in to help you out. Something Finland,Sweden and others may one day discover.
My suspicion is that if the facts had been reported without all the speculation and opinions the whole partygate rubbish would have vanished.
Facts. Like...
"The event lasted for a number of hours. There was excessive alcohol consumption by some individuals. One individual was sick. There was a minor altercation between two other individuals" - Cabinet Office
Rather annoyingly, the 'parties' I defended as anything but - just people in the same office kicking off their shoes, having a break, then getting back to it, or winding down at the end of a long day - turned out rather different to how they had been described.
Even then I could have some sympathy because we all bend the rules at times. But what's now being revealed by those who were there is this was wholesale taking the piss on an industrial scale.
It's the lies I hate. Plus that 'kick it down the road in the hope everyone forgets about it or gets bored with it' plan. And anyone who won't admit 'time to move on' is just code for 'please let them get away with it'.
Johnson is a serial lying shit and, while it seems he has got away with it; I'm not forgetting, never moving on.
It's a non trivial task to do a proper translation.
It often seems simple enough; replace literal strings in printf with a variable and load that for whichever language is used. A potentially large but straightforward task. Job done.
Then comes the realisation that 'adjective then noun' rules and the like are not the same across languages, and can vary on the adjective or noun themselves. That printf then needs replacing and a more complicated and dynamic output constructor is required. And that's not as simple as it first appears.
Those who promised it will swear the client will accept whatever they get. The client inevitably sees things differently. Sales will have moved on in search of the next bonus while the developers are bogged down in the minutiae of detail they don't themselves understand.
I remember going into Maplin and seeing A-A cables. No idea who they sold them to.
When cheap digital cameras first acquired USB, many had A sockets, so you needed an A plug to A plug cable. I recall some early MP3 players being the same.
I have quite a few. They are very useful for back-powering headless Raspberry Pi computers, avoiding the need to have a power connection to the side. You only need to solder a flying wire to bypass the USB current limiter to make it work.
there may well be a lot of companies that chose to use RISC-V, or are forced to by their governments, to avoid the risk of future sanctions.
Or, of course, forced into using RISC-V because of sanctions by other governments.
China, India and others will have seen the impact of sanctions being applied to Russia and will have asked themselves what would happen if they were in the same boat.
Nato expansionism has properly upset the cart. I am not sure if the inevitable consequences were unforeseen or unintended.
Unless delivery doesn't work for even online orders because of China's strict lockdown rules there's something wrong here.
That does seem to be an issue in China where restricting travel and deliveries to a minimum is deemed essential to prevent spread, where delivery of essentials is prioritised over others.
I am not convinced people being confined in buildings by welding the doors shut was state policy but it is clear there were much tighter and harsher lockdown restrictions in effect than in the west, fewer exceptions to keep industry running.
(as in why does an RPi cost more than TWICE what it did 2 years ago, if you can even GET one?)
Welcome to the Free Market.
Raspberry Pi say they are producing roughly the same as they did last year, I recall 6 million, which is down on the year before or perhaps now the year before that.
With commercial users getting priority, the backlog for other users growing, it is not surprising few appear for retail sale. The only choice is to buy or register an interests, get in line and wait for it, or buy at above usual prices.
It is not just Raspberry Pi who are struggling to fulfil back order demands.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable attitude.
It does, but it's a race to the bottom, has us stooping to their level, legitimises the practice of blocking voices, surrenders the moral high ground, makes us no better than them.
The better alternative is to accept that it's an asymmetric battle and address it some other way. Slap some sort of 'propaganda warning' on it, fact check it etc.
The problem is of course, that what some label propaganda, often contains grains of inconvenient truth which are more conveniently addressed by cancelling the messenger.
When it came to dealing with users he was way out of his depth, abrupt, argumentative and sometimes down-right rude.
That's reasonable because all users are wankers and arseholes.
Or so it will seem to those who don't have the skills and talent to deal with users and are, as here, out of their depth.
I would have thought it went without saying that people have different aptitudes, will be perfect in some roles, worse than useless and completely unsuitable in others.
Putting people in the right shaped hole is the key to success. Forcing them into a wrong shaped hole is utterly disastrous for everyone. As this tale perfectly shows.
To be truly inventive your mind needs to be free and that can only happen in a free society
I don't believe that's true; one only needs to feel free enough to be truly inventive. If you don't want or need a so-called freedom which a nation won't allow you won't ever miss it. It then becomes more about having access to resources.
One can argue the freedom of the west, which allows polarisation and deep division, terrible social injustices, hatreds and disadvantages, ultimately holds a country back more than authoritarianism imposing a unity of direction does.
Each has its pros and cons; the trick is finding the perfect balance between the two extremes.
This gives MS the perfect excuse to ignore Windows on ARM from now on. That looks like it is a dead duck.
Ironically it is Raspberry Pi themselves who are more proactive in discouraging running Windows on a Raspberry Pi than Microsoft.
I really enjoyed my time doing VB6. I thought it was a lovely language for the mundane, and for causal programmers. It was easy to use and simple enough, even if the ultra-hardcore didn't like it, the elitists sneered at its "BASIC" naming and heritage.
REALbasic was what I moved to when VB6 was no more and because of its cross-platform capabilities. It was okay but expensive to licence and the developers seemed more focused on new features and releases than bug fixing. I can't speak for the Xojo incarnation having never used it but it's where I'd probably head if I wanted to relive the VB6 experience. I believe there's a free version for Raspberry Pi.
RAD Basic has probably missed its window of opportunity - its failed Kickstarter demonstrates that, and is doomed to go nowhere if not free to use, if it ever gets out of Alpha.
All the cool kids have moved on to Python and Qt, or are resigned to whatever-dot-Net.
I still have VB6 installed on my Windows 10 PC because I can't be bothered to port code which has worked for years to something else.
There was also their favourite step "..remove xxxx" - which often proved to have hidden complications.
I was once facing the need to repair something I thought would be simple enough until the relevant section opened with "first, remove the engine".
Thankfully contortion, sliced and bruised arms, a whole lot of swearing, and an inordinate amount of time spent, including on building Heath-Robinson contraptions, proved it not to be an absolute necessity.
More than half the bolts I removed never got refitted but it was fine until rust finally did her in.
So, wait, you're for or against free speech?
I would want to see the definition of Free Speech before I could decide which side I came down on.
Free Speech as in "anything goes", completely unrestrained and unrestricted - No, I am against that.
I have found very few people who genuinely support such an ultra-libertarian implementation of Free Speech. Most are hypocrites who simply want the right to say whatever they want to say while limiting the rights of others to have their say.
Allowing unrestrained and unrestricted Free Speech means being in favour of allowing terrorists and other scum to radicalise, to promote and incite murder, assassination, killing and genocide, to promote hatred and causes which would harm them, others, their families, tribe, country or lifestyle.
I am not in favour of that. I believe there should be some restrictions and they should apply to all.
rm -r ./* a few days ago with the dot not quite registering as a keyboard press caused a sharp intake of buttock.
Luckily I was on a Raspberry Pi with a rather slow SD card and it was crunching its way through erasing a huge backup directory which wasn't an essential when I hit ^C
Amazingly no actual harm done. Lesson learned.
i'd be inclined to just cut the cable with a pair of bolt cutters
I was thinking some kind of pivoted contraption which allows a battery powered circular saw to bear down on the cable would allow oneself to be well away from the sparks when they fly.
Just slicing the outer sheathing of the cable and stripping a length bare is probably enough to merit a costly replacement.
Or tie a tow rope around it and drive off.
The one with "The Little Book of Calm" in the pocket
Of all stupid arguments, this must be the absolute dumbest.
Oh no siree. You obviously haven't heard the claim that Biden contracted the Chinese through Fauci to get them to inflict Covid on the world so Trump would lose the election.
Seriously. Is there an El Reg unit for degree of insanity?
I can understand why it was, but the author did have a legitimate starting point; "How do you know it was unprovoked??".
I am with those who see Nato reneging on their promises not to advance to the east, not to put their weapons and troops up against Russia's borders, as much a provocation to Russia as the Cuban Missile Crisis was to America. But these days that has one quickly labelled as a traitor and enemy of the people, even if one does not support what Putin has done.
I have never witnessed such a Cancel Culture campaign, heard so much anti-Russia rhetoric, seen so much demonisation and propaganda, "evidence" which even those presenting it admit is only "belief".
It is "with or against us" at a level I have never experienced in my lifetime. It has even turned Germany and the EU against Russia, has China undecided.
It seems too me to be the inevitable culmination of where things have been going in recent years, the shift to tribalism, division and polarisation. Welcome to the world we have created.
Tesla not only think they're above the law, they also seem to think they can rewrite the law.
But we have to accept that not everyone does come to a complete stop at stop signs if they think it is safe to continue without actually stopping.
The question is whether the law allows that, in some states if not others?
If it does then Tesla were allowing something which is allowed, otherwise they were allowing something which isn't.
If it's not allowed but Tesla believed it was, that isn't "rewriting the law"; it's being wrong. Just as drivers who don't stop at stops signs when they are meant to would be.
There's growing recognition that a low-carb diet helps with weightloss and T2 diabetes management.
Lowering carbs does seem to be key and worked for me.
And exercise. Grab an MP3 player, a couple of kg dumbells, and dance like no one's watching.
I shrug off any feelings of twattishness by knowing how much healthier I am.
I suspect most Brexiters would be fine joining an EU CPU initiative. It's not exactly a 'red flag' hot topic that anyone is likely to have heard drunks in Wetherspoons uttering "dey tooook oour silicons!"
All covered by "Bloody EU".
It's a spectrum - there are a few "I didn't like how it was going but I'm happy to trade with them, work with them" but a whole lot more with an "It's evil! We must have nothing to do with them" perspective.
There's no value in reasoning with those who believe Farage ought to be, not just knighted, but made a saint, that the UK's future is as the 51st State with a Trumpian lording over us.
The real problem is we have a government which seems beholden to such voters, is too afraid to upset them lest they lose power.