Re: Er ...
Canada: 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles). On the other hand, we're not a continent.
Posts by keith_w
720 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jul 2012
Traffic lights, who needs 'em? Lucky Kentucky residents up in arms over first roundabout
State of Maine lays off 15 independent consultants on $13k a month amid efforts to implement troubled Workday system
PCs continue to sell like hot cakes and industry can barely keep up with demand – analyst
UK Court of Appeal rules Tiny Computers' legal remains can sue Micron and Infineon over 2002 DRAM price-fixing cartel
Beloved pixel pusher Paint prepares to join Notepad for updates from Microsoft Store
Update on PHP source code compromise: User database leak suspected
A floppy filled with software worth thousands of francs: Techie can't take it, customs won't keep it. What to do?
Turns out humans are leading AI systems astray because we can't agree on labeling
Diary of a report writer and his big break into bad business
Monday 29th March 2021 01:13 GMT
Re: A (La)TeX user writes:
Back in the 'good' old days, I started work at a place and one of my first support calls was to assist the receptionist who asked why her screen flashed so much when she typed. I visited her and discovered that 20 of the 24 lines displayed were WP4.2 codes consisting of varying combinations of <bold on> <bold off> <Italic on> <italic off> with the occasional letter in the middle of it. I turned off the display codes option and she was quite happy. I had absolutely no desire to sit there and clear out the mass of codes that were there.
Thousands of taxpayers' personal details potentially exposed online through councils' debt-chasing texts
US govt indicted me because I make privacy tools, says crypto-chat app CEO accused of helping drug smugglers
Four women, including TV star, thought they were investing in a software business. It was a scam. Now the perp's going to jail
McAfee to offload enterprise business for $4bn, focus on consumer security
Linus Torvalds went six days without electricity, swears smaller 5.12 kernel is co-incidental
Monday 1st March 2021 12:22 GMT
Re: No Backup Gen?
During the 2004 blackout I was working at a drug manufacturer that had diesel powered backup for their refrigeration systems. When designed they were expected to last 12 hours so that's all the fuel they stored. Instead, the outage lasted much longer so they were hand-carting blue pill drums (the drums, not the pills) to the corner where there was a service station that had, somehow, power and filling the drums with diesel fuel and hand-pumping it into the fuel tanks as they could not get a delivery. They also got dirty looks from the people lining up to fill their tanks for 'jumping the queue' although few or none were diesel users.
My niece's husband's family built a home beside a lake in Northern Ontario and due to the expected inclement weather, added an electrical generator connected to the 1000 gallon propane tank to power their home during outages. As far as I know it got used at least once per winter.
Thirsty work: TSMC starts trucking in water amid Taiwan drought to keep chip production lines chugging
SpaceX small print on Starlink insists no Earth government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities
Huawei loses attempt to rescue CFO Meng from US clutches despite using 140-year-old law in High Court
Monday 22nd February 2021 02:21 GMT
Re: Don't break my laws but I can break your laws
The Americans are trying to extradite her for lying to HSBC about Huawei's relationship with the company that did sell HP equipment to Iran, which would have put HSBC at risk under American law. Since the alleged crime took place in the USofA, they laid charges and issued an international arrest warrant for her, which the RCMP executed. It should be noted that she lives in a mansion in Vancouver, wears a tracking bracelet and pays for guards to ensure that she does not escape, decidedly less onerous conditions than the 2 Michaels kidnapped by the Chinese Communist Party. This case has gone on entirely too long. If it were up to me, I'd toss her over the border and let her take her chances with the American justice system which no matter how bad it is, is still considerably less bad than the Chinese one.
You want me to do WHAT in that prepaid envelope?
Wells Fargo patent troll case has finance world all aquiver so Barclays, TD Bank sign up to Open Invention Network
UK watchdog fines two firms £270k for cold-calling 531,000 people who had opted out
Wednesday 17th February 2021 18:30 GMT
There is plenty of phone number spoofing going on in North America as well. I have received a call from a fellow who asked if I wanted my air ducts (heating/cooling) cleaned. I responded that I didn't have ducts as we are all electric. He then severely berated me using language which will not be permitted here, for having called him to offer this service. I assumed that my number had been spoofed into some VOIP system to do marketing calls. I have also received calls from Canada Revenue informing me that I owe them money (which I do, quarterly) although they do not generally call you about it, tell you a warrant has been issued and threaten you with jail.
Devuan adds third init option in sixth birthday release
Huawei invokes 140-year-old law at England's High Court in latest bid to thwart CFO's US-Canada extradition
Nominet vows to freeze wages and prices, boost donations, and be more open. For many members, it’s too little, too late
US Air Force boots up not one but two AMD-powered supercomputers after five years of Intel Haswell CPUs
Microsoft tells Biden administration to adopt Australia’s pay-for-news plan
We know it's hard to get your kicks at work – just do it away from a wall switch powering anything important
Friday 12th February 2021 12:58 GMT
Re: Why have the switch ?
Yes we do. We have one that controls the outlet near the front door. During the summer it powers the window air conditioner, although the switch does not purposely get used, During the Christmas season it controls the Christmas lights on the tree and in the window. However, that switch is at the normal level, not at a level that is easily kicked or otherwise inappropriately accessed. Also, a lot of rooms without ceiling lights have switched outlets to turn on lamps as you enter.
Microsoft's underwhelming, underpowered dual-screen Surface Duo phone arrives in the UK this month for £1,349
Nespresso smart cards hacked to provide infinite coffee after someone wasn't too perky about security
Chromium cleans up its act – and daily DNS root server queries drop by 60 billion
My bad! So you're saying that redacting an on-screen PDF with Tipp-Ex won't work?
How do you save an ailing sales pitch? Just burn down the client's office with their own whiteboard
Robinhood plays Sheriff of Nottingham as it pauses GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry etc stock sales, gets sued
Friday 29th January 2021 13:08 GMT
Re: Piggly Wiggly
The stock valuation is not worth what Ford is worth. The stock value of Tesla is worth more that Ford, GM, Toyota, and Nissan (and possibly others) combined. While people such as Warren Buffet talk about fundamentals, people who invest in companies like Tesla whose price/earnings ratio are ridiculous are not making rational decisions, they are making emotional ones. I invested in R.I.M. years ago and watched the price go crashing down thanks to short sellers, so you will not see me shedding any tears for there losses.
Takes from the taxpayer, gives to the old – by squishing a bug in Thatcherite benefits system
Friday 29th January 2021 12:49 GMT 
Disk Constraints
As a former 4300 series system programmer, I am sure that the lack of a century year in dates could be entirely assigned to the desire to minimize the amount of disk space used as the drives attached to that system (3370 and 3380s) which were very limited in storage (576 MB for the 3370, 2.52 GB/unit for the 3380), so every byte counted.
Smartphones are becoming like white goods, says analyst, with users only upgrading when their handsets break
You can drive a car with your feet, you can operate a sewing machine with your feet. Same goes for computers obviously
Nothing new since the microwave: Let's get those home tech inventors cooking
UK Prime Minister Johnson knows not when 400k+ deleted records from police DB will be back
Thursday 21st January 2021 14:19 GMT
Re: oops...
It was my impression that they would restore the data base to the pre-erasure status and then run the transaction logs accumulated since then to update it with the new and revised records. At which time they can correct as many of the mis-coded records, take a new backup, run the revised deletion script, and express horror at the records that are now being incorrectly removed.
Raspberry Pi Foundation moves into microcontrollers with the $4 Pi Pico using homegrown silicon
Police drone plunged 70ft into pond after operator mashed pop-up that was actually the emergency cut-out button
Hollywood drone pilot admits he crashed gizmo into cop chopper, triggering emergency landing
Monday 18th January 2021 13:00 GMT
Re: Helicopter danger
You could probably check electrical usage, since gro-ops usually use a lot of power for the grow lights. If you suspect a certain house is being used I am sure a magistrate will be happy to issue a warrant for that information, which could then be further utilized to request or not request a search warrant.
Also, wrt drone crashes not killing anyone. I am sure that a Global Hawk drone crashing would kill anyone in it's path. I do also realize that most of the drones being referenced here are consumer sized but no one has actually said that.
Canadian Windows demands a jolly good bit of validating
Explained: The thinking behind the 32GB Windows Format limit on FAT32
Monday 4th January 2021 13:35 GMT
Re: Future proofing size constraints
Leave us not forget Ken Olsen (DEC) who is said to have asked "Why would anyone want a computer in their house?"
Also, I don't think it was Bill Gates who said the 640K quote, it was an IBM engineer working on the first IBM PCs.
Also, I had assumed that the Format GUI was a simple front end for the DOS Format command.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
