Posts by jake

Re: Polkit

"It meant that in the case of an installation with multiple operators the privileges could be shared out appropriately by giving an operator the specific passwords they needed."

Still can, if you know what you are doing. Slackware makes it (relatively) easy.

Re: Polkit

Bastardization of the concept doesn't negate the origin.

Re: I doubt any business allows any old user to connect to a Linux terminal

That was quite kind and gentle of you, sabroni. Mellowing with age?

Re: Eyes

Don't make mountains out of molehills. It's just another bug. It has been patched, and faster than commercial software usually is, by a wide margin. No more problem.

There will be more bugs in ANY codebase as large as a Linux distribution. When found, they will be patched just as quickly as this one was.

::shrugs::

Re: Polkit

How about polkitd?

Re: Polkit

Except it was in development before the systemd-cancer existed.

Re: Hive

I'd comb my brain for a smart-assed reply to pollinate the conversation, but I doubt the commentardery want me to wax lyrical.

Re: 640k

It was not the original POSIX subsystem (based on XENIX[0]) ... XP and Windows Server 2003 used the new Windows Services for UNIX, which was essentially "borrowed" from BSD.

[0] Xenix was bog-stock AT&T UNIX Version 7 source, rebranded by Microsoft and offered to other companies "as is" to port to their hardware of choice. Microsoft was essentially a reseller of AT&T source code licenses.

Re: 640k

NT wasn't a fork, it was a new OS that included the OS/2 API, which was later changed to a Win3.x focused API after the unexpected explosion in sales of first Win3.0 and then Win3.1

Interestingly, NT kept the (minimal) POSIX API because Microsoft felt that chasing the government mandated FIPS 151-2 standard was worthwhile. This went away with the release of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Early NT also kept a variation of the OS/2 API, but it was depreciated more and more over time.

Re: 640k

Not so.

PRISM (Parallel Reduced Instruction Set Machine) was the architecture. The OS was called MICA ... binning this and then letting Cutler go (along with a lot of other high level engineers), only to attempt to pick up the pieces again with Alpha the following year is a major portion of what lead to DEC's downfall.

Yes, there are many creature-comforts that are well worth having on modern Ag gear. I particularly like the ability to spot adjust fertilizer quantity as it is being delivered according to the results of soil tests. Has cut my fertilizer use by around 50% and increased yield by about 15% on the AZ property where we grow most of our critter chow. Couple this with GPS controlled steering for planting and harvesting, leaving me free to keep an eye on the equipment and look out for rocks in the field has resulted in both fewer breakdowns, and less damage because I can usually spot it before it gets bad. If you produce large acreage crops, these things are a godsend. As are heated seats, air-ride cabs, air conditioning in the summer, proper lights at night, etc. etc.

Don't get me wrong, I love my 1915 Case traction engine ... and I enjoy demonstrating my manually operated 12 bottom plow ... but 8 guys to plow a field is not exactly labo(u)r saving. (Driver, engineer/fireman, and 6 guys, each one responsible for raising/lowering two of the actual plows. Can get away with 3, but 6 is more impressive at a county fair.).

We have issues in our modern society, but making Ag workers lives easier is something that all of us benefit from. Well, those of us who eat, anyway. Support your local farmer.

""No one will even need more than 640k Memory for a personal computer" - Bill Gates."

Bill Gates never said that. It's a myth.

However, I personally remember Steve Jobs saying that "128K should to be enough for home users!", at a meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club in late 1983, as he was demonstrating the original 128K Mac, just before the public unveiling. At the time, he had a point ... people were running flight simulators in 64K!

Re: Small farmers are a dying breed

"And John Deere is helping to plow their graves."

Nah. We're still hanging in there. JD kit brings quite a bit as scrap if you don't feel like parting it out yourself, and there are plenty of other vendors who are happy to work will us little guys without screwing us over.

Not all that bad.

As an IT consultant, I implemented a four hour minimum for on-site visits in (roughly) 1990, a couple years after I went solo. Double on weekends/holidays. A few clients balked at the new rate ... I simply told 'em "Don't call me unless you actually need me". Or, as I tell prospective new clients "It's my job to ensure we see as little of each other as possible".

A new issue arose. Convincing 'em to pay 4 hours for a one minute visit. The old TV repairman's maxim applied, "I'm not charging you for thumping your telly with a screwdriver. I'm charging you for knowing where and how hard to thump your telly, and for showing up to do it". The explanation seems to have worked ... although about four years ago a child CEO wondered why I'd need to thump a telly with a screwdriver.

This is NOT the reason for the lawsuits. The lawsuits are because Deere is a defacto monopoly, if your farm runs on Green.

John Deere is so bad that when attempting to restore a 55 year old tractor, the local dealership refused to sell me engine and transmission parts! Told me I was "stealing" from JD by having the gall to do my own work. So I called corporate to complain. They told me it was policy.

Needless to say, I have sold all my JD kit, and will never purchase anything from them again.

Re: Under the floor

Who needs keys with filing cabinets? I have one lock pick that'll open almost all of 'em, and about as fast as with the key.

Re: there is a lot of faux adobe - stucco, instead of siding

"Doesn't that require a lot of maintenance?"

No. In fact, none at all in the 60+ years my parents have owned theirs in Palo Alto. It's essentially a layer of concrete mixed with just enough fibers to reduce cracking, and the colo(u)red stone powder (usually off-white) of your choice.

Easy to do, and inexpensive ... when my parent's house was built in the early 1950s, they framed a standard stud wall, threw a layer of roofing felt over it (40lb, I think), then a layer of what is essentially chicken wire, and then troweled about 3/8s of an inch of the concrete mix onto that. Texture as you see fit, wait for it to cure, and you're done.

The result is weather and insect-proof, and does a fair job at keeping warm air either in or out in our mild climate. No need for paint (even on scratches, dings and dents), resists mildew (even on the North side), lasts virtually forever, and the entire house is on a slab foundation that "floats" in an earthquake, so it doesn't even crack.

Yes, it is a boring expanse for a wall ... so the architects raised the visual appeal with door and window trim (LOTS of windows!), porches, roof lines, chimneys and the like. The whole is not altogether displeasing, in a tract house kind of way.

Brick veneer is common pretty much everywhere ... it's fairly cheap, ships well, is purely decorative, and non-structural.

Actual brick is common wherever there are good clay deposits and earthquakes are few and far between.

Essentially, housing is built of whatever is available locally that can withstand the conditions that mother nature throws at it. The Universal Building Code (UBC) spells it out in great detail.

The US is a big place ... what might work well in SillyCon Valley probably isn't all that useful in Chicago or Albuquerque or Miami ... or it's really, really spendy to transport alternate materials. I've milled Redwood beams and other smaller boards for a custom SIP on timber-frame house built in Vermont. The all Redwood interior came out absolutely beautiful (if over-kill for my taste), is to code, and should last essentially forever ... but the family paid an arm and a leg in shipping charges.

Re: Dave?!

Because Dave's not here, man ... any fule nos that.

Re: The bloke who arrived a few minutes later said it happened all the time.

PALM OIL IS RUINING THE PLANET!

Oh, wait, wrong forum ...

Re: Out of date building plans

"your not a real network guy until the buildings layout has changed beyond recognition of the documented floor plan..."

Seeing as "as built" rarely coincides with the filed plans, that would be pretty much every building, no?

Re: Out of date building plans

"~40ft up on a ladder from a farm forklift."

The wife caught me doing that when I was wiring the lights on the ridge beam in the big arena.

The budget suddenly included a boomlift.

After eyeballing rental prices, I bought a used one. Has probably saved me over a hundred thousand dollars owning the thing over the years. The second most useful piece of equipment around here, after the two bobcats.

Re: Out of date building plans

Star Trek & Shatner. Not the film, the TV show. All of them.

_{OK, no need to yell, you're right, the films too,}

Re: "it has no natural predators,"

I suspect he jumped down and tucked it in the corner when I was replacing cheap old thin-walled copper water pipe with PEX ... probably when I had my back turned, taking the tools back to the shop.

IT? No need ... bootnotes.

Re: Ah, yes. The dreaded "fix it NOW!" call ...

I take it you don't make your own specialty capacitors. Try fleabay if you don't have a local industrial supply.

Re: Who Cares?

Aye. Win2K was peak Microsoft.

Re: Stupid questions

I do not remember "app" beginning to be used as common shorthand until roughly 2005, and it didn't really take off until the release of the first iPhone (2007?) ... Prior to that, "Application Software" was used in contracts (and by suits), "program" was used by everybody else. Smaller programs were called "utilities" or "tools". Some used "executable files" (or .exes) and ".com files" on DOS. There was also separation of binaries, filters and scripts.

But APPS? Not so much. Not in my memory, anyway. With one exception ... the proverbial "killer app" (mid 1980s?), which was mostly just used as a term in the media and by certain rah-rah types in marketing (see: iPhone, above).

"So far it looks more like a "meh"."

FTFY

Re: Oh, do fuck off. It's my machine. I admin it, not Redmond.

"the writers of commercial software will want to move to charging rent rather than selling stand alone applications."

They can want whatever they like. They are still not getting another dime of my money. FOSS solutions work just fine, and I can (and do) pay in kind. It does not bother me that some people use the code for free, and don't even bother finding out if they can contribute ... that's what it's there for.

"Perhaps file sync to data stores in the 'cloud' (i.e. landlord's servers) is better for ordinary people."

Why? Because they have to pay for it and/or give up all of their personal details and/or their firstborn (just wait ... ) in order to use it? How does that help them remember their username, password, and where, exactly, their files are stored? More to the point, how does that help a tech find their missing files, should that kind of help become necessary?

I won't get into the concept of increasing the size of the attack surface with clouds, much less the unknown number of attack vectors introduced by clouds ...

Re: Please bundle Process Explorer directly...

"you both followed the FAQ, and ignored it in equal measure"

I did nothing of the sort. I pointed the user at the FAQ, not the mailing list or newsgroup. That's what the FAQ is for, to take a portion of the load off the more interactive forums.

Re: Who Cares?

Linux printing problems pretty much went away twenty+ years ago.

Old jokes are old.

Re: Ranting 'cause you love to rant?

ps and kill (when needed) work for me ... although I admit to a fondness for both top and htop.

Re: Please bundle Process Explorer directly...

"web-virii"

In English, virii is properly pronounced viruses. In Latin, the word virii doesn't exist.

See the FAQ, section F, question 3.

Re: There's gonna be carnage!

There's an echo in here.

Re: Encryption

Who said anything about guns?