* Posts by jake

26584 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007

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What's that? Uber isn't actually worth $82bn? Reverse-gear IPO shows the gig (economy) is up

jake Silver badge

Re: @Time Waster - I'm not sure I see how they get to profitability

"all of us are going to "trust" a driverless car, because we'll have no other choice."

Yeah, sure, right. Keep telling yourself that, Sunshine.

Hint: Any politician that decides to call for banning '65 Mustangs and '69 Cameros and etc. from both private ownership and public roads, is going to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on the rail. And they know it, too. There are far too many folks, of all political, religious, ethnic and etc. stripes who are into classic cars to run that kind of risk with a political career.

jake Silver badge

Re: Efficient Market

If the bicycle riders would learn a little basic physics they would probably stay out from under 1 ton+ motorized vehicles. The old equation f=ma doesn't change just because your are a holier than thou exercise freak with delusions of saving the planet.

Share the road, bicyclistotards ... you don't own it. Not even in San Francisco, the national home of terminally insane local government, where they deal with the homeless problem by throwing massive amounts of money at them, thus ensuring that they are attracted like moths to a flame. Build it, and they will come, SF.

(I live in Sonoma; most of us up here think of SF as an awful speed-bump that has to be traversed to get from Marin and points North to San Mateo and points South. It definitely isn't a place to stop, nor is it a destination. 'orrible, 'orrible, grotty hell-hole of a city. Not as sad and filthy as New York, London, Paris or Rome, but they are working on it.)

jake Silver badge

"semi self imployed drivers"

Imployee: n; An Implied, but not actual, employee.

jake Silver badge

Re: Holland, Tulips, early/mid 1600s ...

Also at Project Gutenberg. I should have known :-)

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm

jake Silver badge

Re: @Time Waster - I'm not sure I see how they get to profitability

Which brings up an interesting point ... how many of you lot in places that actually have winter and weather are going to trust a driverless car programmed in sunny California, and tested in the desert?

jake Silver badge

Re: @Kevin McMurtrie - Doesn't work but it was free

Most of us here in sunny California look on them as urban blight. Just so's ya know.

jake Silver badge
Pint

Re: Holland, Tulips, early/mid 1600s ...

Bookmarked. Ta.

jake Silver badge

Re: PT Barnum

Apparently he didn't say that. Turns out that it was said about him, by David Hannum in reference to Barnum's part in the Cardiff Giant hoax. Or so the story goes. My gut feeling is that the very same phrase was in widespread use before humans invented writing.

jake Silver badge

Holland, Tulips, early/mid 1600s ...

... oh, hell, why do I even try to bother.

Try to find a copy of the 1841 book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay ...

Techie with outdated documentation gets his step count in searching for non-existent cabinet

jake Silver badge

Re: So it wasn't his job

The vernacular works for me, to wit "the web".

And then there is the tried & true "TehIntraWebTubes".

jake Silver badge

That kind of thing is quite lucrative.

I charge a couple thousand per meg of data retrieved from the old drive.

The credo here is "First, do no harm!" ... make CERTAIN you know what you are doing before plugging one of these things into hardware that it didn't come with! You won't get a second chance if you fuck it up ... well, DriveSavers might be able to help, but they charge more than I do.

jake Silver badge

My stock answer to "Can you do a five minute job?" ...

... is "Sure, but I have <thing> I have to take care of first."

Gives me time to eyeball said five minute job at my leisure ... and 9 times out of ten I let 'em know that it'll take much longer than 5 minutes, and I can't do that without a proper contract because it will piss off my accountant/Wife and my insurance company. The other 10%? It's a true five minute job, which I happily take care of gratis to keep the client happy.

My insurance company won't actually give a shit, but my clients don't know that ... It's a dodge that comes in handy in lots of places. Clients under foot when installing new equipment? Keep 'em away with "You must stay back at least 20 feet, it's an insurance thing." Client wants to borrow a tool "for just a second"? Sorry, no can do. Insurance. Buddy wants to borrow a work truck (and you, of course) for a dump/tip run or to move house? Can't. Company vehicle. Insurance says no. Etc. Use your imagination.

Veteran vulture Andrew Orlowski is offski after 19 years at The Register

jake Silver badge
Pint

I think it was SLC who wrote:

"Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

But you already know that.

Thanks, man. It's been fun. I owe you a beer ... or three :-)

The Year Of Linux On The Desktop – at last! Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 brings the Linux kernel into Windows

jake Silver badge

Re: Hmm..

The Windows kernel is "fully modular"? Really? Last time I checked, it was a hybrid.

jake Silver badge

"bloody sure there is a MS VP reading my comments on 'ere"

I really, really doubt it. The signal to noise ratio around here would completely seize up it's brain while trying to simultaneously parse and justify Redmond propaganda.

jake Silver badge

Re: MS SOP: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

Interactive UNIX System V/386 was based on AT&Ts SysVR3.2 (and some bits & bobs from 4.3BSD), and was released in 1988, nearly a decade after most of my narrative. The UNIX Wars were in full swing by then, and AT&T had finally realized they had a name worth flogging.

I'm pretty certain the Interactive PDP stuff was Version 6 in the late '70s, before Sys3 existed. They may have released a Sys3 version, but I can't remember (I would have been heavily involved with BSD at the time).

Yes, Interactive produced the first version of AIX, for the IBM RT PC, released in 1986. It was a mix of SysV R1 and R2, with some 4.2BSD, and what looks like a couple bits of what would become 4.3BSD. I have an RT running AIX 1.0 down in my machineroom/museum/mausoleum/morgue ...

jake Silver badge

Re: But why?

A dozen Win 10 machines, and you have NEVER had any trouble with any of them? Either they never get turned on, or that's one of the most useless whoppers I've ever heard.

jake Silver badge

Re: Should have seen this coming...

"Does this give them the ability to corrupt Linux?"

No. It does not. Not until they own Linus. Until that day, there is a very good gatekeeper keeping the riff-raff out of the kernel.

jake Silver badge

Re: MS SOP: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

"Microsoft actually had their own Unix port, Xenix"

Xenix was actually licensed by Microsoft from AT&T in 1979. It was the exact same bog standard PDP11 Version 7 Unix that I had access to at Berkeley. Microsoft never actually coded anything[0] for Xenix, rather they sub-licensed the AT&T source code to third parties, who did the actual coding and porting.

For example, it was SCO[1] who ported it to the IBM PC's 8086/8088 architecture in roughly 1983. Yes, the very same machine that shipped with MS-DOS. Most of us yawned[2] ... although looking back, it was a pretty good hack by SCO![3] Hindsight's 20/20 ...

The name Xenix came about because Ma Bell couldn't (or didn't want to) let them use the UNIX name. The claim for jealousy guarding the trademarked UNIX name was because MaBell was regulated and wasn't allowed to get into the retail trade, although that always rang a trifle hollow to me.

Before SCO's port was released, there was a TRS-68000 version, a Zilog Z8001 port, and an Altos 8086 version (not necessarily in that order, my mind is concatenating time). There were several others. Microsoft didn't write any of them, rather the third-party companies in question did the coding.

A version of SCO Xenix is available for the download here: ftp://www.tuhs.org/UnixArchive/Distributions/Other/Xenix/ ... Don't blame me for the www in that URL.

[0] Unless you consider adding Redmond copyright crap to a few header files "coding".

[1] No, not the SCO of insane litigation. Not really, anyway.

[2] Those of us working on BSD at the time looked on Xenix as BSD's somewhat insane & slightly neurotic little brother.

[3] Last time I posted something along these lines, I asked if anyone could remember who ported Xenix to Apple's Lisa. Turns out it was SCO ... I have a copy, my Lisa looks a lot happier running a un*x than the OS she came with. (Don't worry, all you purists, I have the stock software for her, too.)

jake Silver badge

Re: But why?

It's not just easier, it's a LOT easier.

jake Silver badge

Re: MS SOP: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

And it does an excellent job of it, IMO.

Oh, and BTW, it's actually a pretty good desktop OS these days. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself. http://www.minix3.org/ ... The usually unreliable Wiki has a fairly decent overview.

jake Silver badge

Re: But why?

You are being disingenuous, at best. I've never seen a Windows box that didn't require extensive regular hand-holding. The closest version was Win2K, and even that was capable of spectacular cockups on a fairly regular basis. This Win`10 disaster ... well, read the articles here on ElReg for yourself. 40 years ago, it would have been laughed out of corporate America long before it was installed on a single "live" system.

Tractors, not phones, will (maybe) get America a right-to-repair law at this rate: Bernie slams 'truly insane' situation

jake Silver badge

Re: Really good?

Chuck wrote the programming language you are calling to halt. (Given this forum is what it is, I ass-u-me'd you were talking about Charles Moore's Forth in your handle. If not, apologies.)

I wouldn't expect you to be welcome after lock-in quite yet, but not even in the public bar? How far North are you, anyway? Even me dad (a bloody Yank[0]) was part of the darts team after only 6 years in the Dales ...

[0] Apropos cartoon: https://www.xkcd.com/1015/

jake Silver badge

Re: Really good?

Careful, if you out yourself as having actually traveled further[0] than Hull you won't be welcome down at your local anymore.

While I've got your attention, what do you have against the work of Chuck, anyway?

[0] Note to the pedants in the audience (and you know who you are!): I contemplated farther, and decided the context was more metaphorical than physical and went with the further. So shoot me.

jake Silver badge

Re: Really good?

You've piqued my interest ... what's the make, model and year of the bike?

jake Silver badge

Re: Really good?

Actually, there are trees on Everest. They grow below the treeline, or under 12,500 feet (plus or minus) in much of the Himalaya range. Some Junipers[0] have been found above 15,000 feet. I wouldn't expect you Brits to know this, though ... you lot don't have any mountains, and expect everything on the planet to be exactly like it is in Blighty.

[0] The aptly named Juniperus tibetica.

jake Silver badge

Re: Or in the words of older Scottish Farmers

That was your little corner, Swarthy. I can show you similar enclaves scattered across the US where everybody had Fords. Or Internationals. Or Masseys. Or Farmalls. But over the vast majority of the country, there is no single brand. Never has been.

This reminds me of a stream in the autumn ... there is a random scattering of leaves over the surface, all heading downstream with the flow. Think of the leaves as tractors, with the brands being represented by the type of tree, and the stream being the US as a whole. Every now and then wind & currents conspire to bring together a clump of leaves into one location. That's tractors in a farming community. And once in a great while, all those leaves in the clump will be from the same type of tree. That's your JDs.

In other words, it's a statistical anomaly, and far from the norm.

jake Silver badge

Re: Balance

Some of us are collecting, restoring and using old gear of various makes and models, and of course most of us have a newer Kubota or two of one description or another.

Purchasing old tractors and refurbishing them is fairly lucrative ... I found a Ford 850 that was complete but not running and had been out in the weather for several years. Cost me $750. I put another $2,000 into it, about 10 hours of my time, slapped on a coat of paint, gave it four used but serviceable tires that I had laying around. Sold the result it to my neighbor for $5,500. I fully expect that it'll be 8 to 10 years before he has to do anything to it beyond routine maintenance. It is used daily.

jake Silver badge

Re: Or in the words of older Scottish Farmers

No. JD never had a monopoly in North America.

No. JD never had any more "free advertising" than anything else.

No. JD was never the default for anything.

Care to try again?

jake Silver badge

Re: He's actually got a point.

"Voting against the Cheeto is not voting in favor of Granny Nixon."

You cannot vote against somebody. You can only vote for somebody. If people of a similar mind split their vote for two different candidates, the third candidate can take an election. And we wind up with an orange idiot-in-chief with tiny little hands in the Oval Office, despite him not winning the popular vote.

As the great Ben Franklin put it, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." The Democrats bitching among themselves is going to keep the senile old git in office if we're not careful.

jake Silver badge

"they should not be expected to understand every single bit of their tractor that they can repair it themselves, especially if that involves electronics."

Sorry bub, but my experience refutes your premise. We diagnose and repair or replace all of it. It is a part of what makes a farmer a farmer. I even put a Hondata ECU in the wife's old Prelude, just so I can easily keep it diagnosed and running without trips to the stealer. Only so-called "gentleman farmers" refuse to get their fingernails dirty on the equipment. We just smile sadly in their general direction as they shell out money needlessly.

jake Silver badge

Re: Really good?

No, but Honda did have a Honda-only tool to remove the lower center bolt on the intake manifold many moons ago. Eventually Snap-on made one, for the low, low price of $300 for what was essentially nothing more than a specially bent $10 12mm box end wrench.

And any mechanic worth his/her salt knows what a Ford Wrench is.

jake Silver badge

Re: Balance

"Perhaps there are some repairs that require a qualified technician to complete"

I categorically reject that argument. "Qualified" is both capricious and ambiguous.

jake Silver badge

You seem to be missing the point, Reader2435

We are more than happy to change our own oil. And rebuild entire drivetrains, for that matter. It's Corporate America that is trying to remove that option from those of us down in the trenches (literally). We are resisting the power grab.

jake Silver badge

Re: America - 'Land Of The Free'

As I keep telling you lot, that's "Land of the Fee".

jake Silver badge

Re: Really good?

I'd double-check that number if I were you. The 3 might be an 8, the 2 might be a 5, the 0 might be a 9 or a 6 ... failing that, measure yours (ID, OD and thickness) and cross-reference it. I hear TehIntraWebTubes is good for cross referencing bearings ... Failing that, King Bearing has never failed me when I need an obscure part for a restoration. They ship, and have excellent prices.

jake Silver badge

That's nothing.

You should see Blighty from a leftpondian perspective. Either side of the 49th parallel.

jake Silver badge

Re: Really good?

"when they finally ban diesels from London"

What do the cabbies have to say about that?

jake Silver badge

"It's not desirable for farmers to fix their own tractors"

Every single farmer that I have ever known has worked on all of their own equipment. So you can forget that line of reasoning completely, just to save us all a little time. Ta in advance.

CryptoQueen on the run from Feds, lawsuit after her OneCoin slammed as 'an old-school pyramid scheme on a new-school platform'

jake Silver badge

Re: "folks like your DearOldMum and Gran defrauded"

So in your mind, stealing from people is OK as long as the people you are stealing from are stupid and greedy?

Your mum must be right proud of you.

jake Silver badge

Re: Remember, kiddies ...

Tusser actually said: "A foole & his money, be soone at debate; which after with sorow, repents him to late." in Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie, 1573.

It was John Bridges that first said "If they pay a penie or two pence more for the reddinesse of them ... let them looke to that, a foole and his money is soone parted." in Defence of the Government of the Church of England, 1587

Doesn't alter your point, though.

jake Silver badge

Re: So what's the harm?

HildyJ, if you are trying to make a funny, you failed miserably.

Unless you actually want to see folks like your DearOldMum and Gran defrauded out of their retirement savings, that is.

jake Silver badge

Remember, kiddies ...

... if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Talk to a real broker or two (or three, or ...) before investing in anything ... unless you want to be the brokee.

Can I get a RHEL yeah? Version 8 arrives at last as IBM given go-ahead to wolf down Red Hat

jake Silver badge

Re: Gnome, wayland and systemd ...

Dhryflakes. Too many stone in whetflakes.

jake Silver badge

Re: Too much damned javascript ...

You created an ElReg account for that?

It would be easier to use DDG, Shirley.

jake Silver badge

Re: Centos 8

Thank you for Alpha testing for the rest of us. Let us know how it works in a year or so. Ta.

jake Silver badge

Re: Gnome, wayland and systemd ...

No. Translation: "I'm an old UNIX[tm] hacker, and that's the way I like it."

With that said, my buckboard gets around 35 miles on 3 flakes of oat hay and one of alfalfa, plus all the spring greens that he wants to eat. (Note that he's a rather young Percheron and in really good shape. Your horse's mileage may vary.)

jake Silver badge

Re: Too much damned javascript ...

Here's the page linked to by the "get the technical brief for sysadmins" link:

https://www.redhat.com/en/resources/red-hat-enterprise-linux-8-system-admins-brief

From that page, you can download a PDF that is essentially a two page brochure, seemingly written by a marketing department and aimed at a purchasing department. No sign of actual techie info for sysadmins anywhere that I can see. Read it for yourself:

https://www.redhat.com/cms/managed-files/li-rhel-8-system-admin-technology-brief-f17203-201905-en.pdf

jake Silver badge

Gnome, wayland and systemd ...

... three strikes and yer out.

Sticking with Slackware on the desktops, BSD on the servers. But thanks for playing.

Firefox armagg-add-on: Lapsed security cert kills all browser extensions, from website password managers to ad blockers

jake Silver badge

Re: Too much to take in in one hit ...

"What would have happened if they'd suffered a problem which rendered all versions of IE practically useless."

Must ... not ... comment ...

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