Posts by fishman

Re: Law of Unintended Consequences

Using GoT as an example is a bad choice - much of it was filmed in the EU.

Re: To elaborate

Roughly 3/4 of Americans have only one broadband provider available. And only about 1/4 of Americans have only two.

Re: It's a bit of an irony, actually

"Here we were, idly postulating about how evil our governments could become, when it was actually private companies that were working on perfecting the most invasive day-to-day violation of our privacy."

Yes, but Google wants to throw ads at you - your government wants to throw people in jail.

Re: All products have a support life

Ford Pinto -

A friend of mine had a Pinto and a Corolla wagon back then. He was an engineer, and said that the Corolla had the same problem as the Pinto. So he made a modification to his Corolla that was similar to the one Ford provided to the Pinto.

"Get a Police whistle and blow it very loudly into the mouth piece."

Back in college in the '70s I took care of one of them by blowing a firecracker next to the mouthpiece. They had been calling everyone in my dorm, and stopped after they got to me. (The phone numbers for the dorm rooms were in sequence - add 1 to get the next room. The next numbers were not called).

Re: Faster hardware?

"Hang on - if the code dates back to the 1980s then the CPUs it's running on now are about a million times faster than the original ones. If it was fast enough 30 years ago, why is it too slow now?"

They try to analyze more complex problems. And it can take several weeks to run.

Re: Google's fault

Google's policy for Android updates / security fixes have been known for a couple of years - before the 5X came out. And it is longer than what it was in the past - the Nexus 1 to 3 had much shorter times than the Nexus 4.

Re: Being a yachtie myself...

" I think there is still a J class around somewhere"

There are a number of J class yachts around, and they get together and race. They have actually built new ones, but were restricted to using designs from long ago - one was a copy of Ranger, originally launched in 1937. The new version is for sale - $7.9M.

http://www.northropandjohnson.com/yachts-for-sale/3891-ranger/

Re: The real worry is cascade collisions, where debris from one hits a bunch of others.

"But what really surprised me is the claim only 60% of graveyard orbit burns are successful."

Probably due to keeping them up there until they stop working. And if they stop working, how can you tell it to deorbit?

Re: Not again...

"Almost every story I read about America incredibly brings my opinion even lower."

Brexit.

"Tell me again what's good about living in America?"

We have fewer surveillance cameras than the UK.

For now.

Re: not all packets are created equal

"Unfortunately - and as hard to believe as this is - there really isn't that much choice of Broadband providers, at least not where I live.

I live in Manhattan, and my only realistic choice is Spectrum - née Time Warner Cable."

I live just outside of Washington DC - 18 miles to the White House. I have a choice of two broadband providers - Verizon and Comcast.

I don't have to use Google, or Facebook, or Netflix. But I have little choice of broadband providers.

Re: FCC Reaction

I live 18 miles from the White House. I'm luckier than many americans in that I have the choice of two broadband providers. Sadly, it's Verizon and Comcast.

If I don't like Google, I have the choice of quite a number of search engines, including DuckDuckGo. Using things like Adblock, Noscript, and Ghostery, I can reduce the amount of "data leakage" to 3rd parties. But short of getting a VPN, my ISP has access to all of my internet activities.

How long before someone using a VPN will be considered a possible terrorist?

Re: No Paper Trail?

Use a proxy or vpn to access a free email account. Ship packages to an Amazon Locker. Enter an emailed 6 digit code to open the locker and retrieve the packages.

No paper trail. However, there are probably security cameras at the Amazon Locker facility.

Re: Chinese worry me less than Microsoft, GCHQ and NSA.

"But you're ok with Google?"

Google doesn't bother me - they will just throw ads at me, where governments can throw me in jail.*

*Of course, if Google [or others] has the data, governments can force Google to surrender the data.

Re: A colleague of mine

A PDP11 with the old Q Bus? We had those. One time we bought some hardware for one of them, and the vendor had their people install it. Those idiots didn't understand the idea that you cannot leave any gaps in the Q Bus slots (all slots from the first to last device had to be filled), so they couldn't get it to work. Even with me explaining it repeatedly.

Re: he's really quite clever, ain't he?

"I am not sure how long he took to put git together,"

IIRC, it took him about two weeks to write the initial version of Git. Of course, he might have been thinking about it for quite a while before that.

Re: Thanks, so-called Linus

All day to compile? I compiled 4.9.8 a few days ago, and it took at most a couple of hours on a slow (5 year old AMD Llano) computer.

Re: you must know the drill by now . . .

"As I read somewhere, Ignorant, uneducated, poor white Southerners have been voting Republican for generations, and they are still Ignorant, uneducated and poor."

As I read somewhere, Ignorant, uneducated, poor minority urbanites have been voting Democrat for generations, and they are still Ignorant, uneducated and poor.

Re: Difficult to blame him

"and these were easily swappable then electric car users could have fast option of battery exchange at a filling station"

Easily swappable = easily stealable.

Re: The Phoenix Syndrome

I voted for Gary Johnson (Libertarian). Don't blame me.

Re: EMALS

"I have heard the Americans are looking at the UK's new carriers and comparing them to their own in terms of purchase price, operating cost, and capability, and concluding that the UK is getting a lot more value for money."

Nope. The Navy went through this sort of ANAL-ysis back during the Carter administration, with the CVV program. While the carrier is cheaper, your other costs aren't reduced, but the capabilities are far reduced. Can all your planes take off with a full load? Can you carry as many planes? Can you fly the same planes? But you have just as many escort ships and subs in the carrier squadron. So you save 10-20%, and have 50% capability.

"Self-service checkouts are slower than human checkout. I really don't see how it could be any other way. "

Where I shop, there are usually 3 people in line at the cashier, versus an open self checkout lane. I can scan almost as fast as a cashier (and faster than a few), and I can bag faster than most. I'm done and heading for the car while I would have still been in line for the cashier.

"Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Andrei Chikatilo, and Gary Ridgway combined have disposed of fewer people than the BOFH, and PFY."

Sounds like an episode where its the BOFH vs Sherlock Holmes would be interesting.

Re: This won't matter

"Just...what has Net Neutrality helped competition? Name something...anything."

If it has no effect, why are the ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T screaming about it? Why do the republicans want to kill it?

Re: Why Trump won?

"Because most merkins are idiots, look for the presidential elections results if you need proof"

Brexit.

Re: Inaccurate report

Just look for a silver Mazda with a bloody drivers seat.

"At least with HP, you get fresh nozzles with each cart."

No, on some HP printers the ink cartridges and nozzles are separate.

Re: It's still smartphone-GUI-on-a-workstation.

"GNOME 3 is incredibly efficient, fast, beautiful and ergonomic. Why else do you think Linus uses it?"

I remember when Linus switched away from Gnome 3. Did he switch back?