* Posts by Wily Veteran

27 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Mar 2015

Starting over: Rebooting the OS stack for fun and profit

Wily Veteran

EMACS?

What the author describes sounds a lot like good old emacs (loved by many, reviled by otherss) on top of a PMEM system.

Most of it is written in eLisp on top of a small interpreter written in C, it has a tiling window system, it has a "storage" system in terms of buffers which can contain executable eLisp or text rather than files, can (more or less) transparently access other resources on the network....

Is emacs a perfect implementation? Of course not, but it can be seen as a "proof of concept" for the software part of the ideas presented.

USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix

Wily Veteran
Thumb Up

Older than the internet!

"older than the web"

No, it predates the internet. We used to use UUCP to distribute both NetNews and email in compressed packages which would be uncompressed and put into the necessary files on your own server/leaf node.

You would negotiate a group list and a schedule with a nearby neighbor which could range from daily or even weekly to hourly. Good admins would do this on a fee-free basis with the proviso you would stick to the schedule and agree to service other admins who asked you for a feed. An entry in the newsgroup which told of your connection(s) and schedule which primarily provided info for email.

I ran a leaf node (didn't service other systems) at home with my ATT 7300/3B1 UNIX-PC and things wer groovy.

Computing's big question for 2023: How many more questions can we endure?

Wily Veteran
Mushroom

Re: With every Amazon order:

I ordered some toner for my laser printer a couple of days ago. First there was the question of whether I wanted to subscribe. No thanks, then on my checkout page: "We're giving you a FREE trial of Amazon Prime" and it took a while to find the only way to say no was to find the quantity dropdown menu (which was really tiny) on the Prime item and change the quantity ordered to zero. Talk about a dark pattern!

RAD Basic – the Visual Basic 7 that never was – releases third alpha

Wily Veteran

Other BASICs

Many times, one simply has a job to do and neither the time nor the resources to spend months or years on a "proper" development project or (over)generalization to things other than relieving the immediate pain at hand. With two colleagues I once threw er, put together a little system (a mixture of VB2, SQL, and Excel macros) that provided a way of solving the "46 Million Dollar Problem" at my division of a huge manufacturing company. The Division General Manager said our duct-tape, chewing-gum, and bailing-wire tool was the single biggest factor that saved the division's bacon. We put it together in two days. Corporate IT wanted to schedule a four-month analysis and eight-month development project requiring around twenty people and, oh yeah, they couldn't get to it for at least six months. We would have been out of business by then.

Think of BASIC et. al. as a tool for the ER versus something for the medical specialist.

HP Basic was a very powerful system ostensibly for controlling scientific instruments but quite useful for other tasks.

Similarly, Microware OS-9 (NOT Mac OS9) provided a similar advanced basic on a very Unix-like system that ran on 6809-based micros including the late, lamented Radio Shack Color Computer.

Don't forget GAMBAS for current VB-like BASICs. FOSS and cross-platform.

The end of free Google storage for education

Wily Veteran
Pirate

Canary in the coal mine?

The "free" aspect isn't really the issue. Isn't this just a preview of what is to come in "the cloud?" Once Amazon/Microsoft/Google/Oracle et. al. have hoovered up all the business data (and applications) into their clouds and made it very hard or impossible to migrate to some other provider, they can then start raising prices and raising prices and raising prices so businesses/people (perhaps even governments) have to pay exorbitant prices just to access their own stuff. Whether the "service" was "free" in the beginning really isn't relevant.

If you don't control your data/applications on your own equipment you don't own your data/applications and better expect you'll get reamed at some point in the future. The cloud is just ransomware with a friendly face.

Mark it in your diaries: 14 October 2025 is the end of Windows 10

Wily Veteran
WTF?

No cost?

What do they mean "no cost?" There's always a cost to everything, it's a basic law of the universe. Even FOSS comes with a cost in terms of incompatiilities, lack of features, need for some degree of technical knowledge &c.

The "cost" of Windows might not be in dollars/pounds/euros/yen/yuan/whatever but there is a *very* high cost in terms of data slurping, constant bug squashing, lack of meaningful competition, ecosystem lock-in....

World+dog share in collective panic attack as Google slides off the face of the internet

Wily Veteran
Happy

And for a few minutes....

The world was a better place.

Wow, you guys have so much in common: Oracle hotly tipped to power TikTok’s operations as Microsoft deal rejected

Wily Veteran
Joke

What will the dancers do....

When they start getting a per-core charge for using the app?

This IS Oracle.

Scala contributor: Open source and diversity key to tackling dev skills shortage

Wily Veteran
FAIL

Is HR still the real issue?

Before I retired several years ago, I was a software development supervisor in Corporate IT at a very large auto manufacturer. HR was very plain on new hires (even contractors): they shall have a CS degree from one of a small number of "approved" universities. Period. I couldn't even have hired myself since I don't have a CS degree. Skill didn't matter, experience didn't matter, track record didn't matter, problem-solving ability didn't matter. No CS degree from one of the "approved" universities, no interview.

Granted, it wasn't a tech company, but from what I could see, the attitude of tech-company HR departtments didn't differ much.

Still true?

Will that old Vulcan's engines run? Bluebird jet boat team turn to Cold War bomber

Wily Veteran
Unhappy

Not always a welcome sound.

The only time I ever heard a Vulcan was a few seconds before it dug a crater about a mile from my childhood home. The walls of the house shook, the windows rattled and we wondered if we were having an earthquake. Then the big boom. Something I strongly remember but definitely not something to get all misty-eyed about. The crash missed the one-time home of Charles Lindbergh's mother but not by much. (BTW, I went to high school where she taught chemistry albeit decades after she left).

From Wikipedia:

On 24 October 1958, Vulcan B.1 XA908 of No. 83 Squadron crashed east of Detroit, Michigan, USA. A complete electrical failure occurred at around 30,000 ft (9,100 m). The backup system should have provided 20 minutes of emergency power, allowing XA908 to reach one of several airports in the area, but backup power only lasted three minutes due to a short circuit in the service busbar, locking the controls. XA908 went into a steep dive before crashing, leaving a 40-ft (13 m) crater in the ground, which was later excavated while retrieving wreckage. Despite extensive property damage, there were no ground fatalities, only one person on the ground was hospitalized. All six crew members were killed, including the co-pilot, who had ejected. The co-pilot's ejection seat was found in Lake St Clair, but his body was not recovered until the following spring.[218] They were buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Trenton, Michigan, alongside 11 RAF student pilots killed during the Second World War in accidents at nearby Naval Air Station Grosse Ile.

NSA may kill off mass phone spying program Snowden exposed, says Congressional staffer

Wily Veteran
Flame

They don't have to collect it themselves

What with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, et. al. slurping data like crazy and the data brokers doing all the correlation, the NSA doesn't have to spend the money and effort doing it themselves, they can just buy the data on the open market. Likely, that's cheaper than what they were spending on their own efforts. If buying it doesn't work, a FISA warrant or just plain hacking will get it.

Don't rage against the machine – wage against the master, says McAfee amid AI havoc fear hype

Wily Veteran

Moral Compass

As "Gil Grissom" on the TV series, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" remarked, "A moral compass can only point the right direction but can't make you go there. Without a conscience, it's useless." (slightly paraphrased since I cannot remember the exact wording).

It's not enough to know what is right and what is wrong, one has to take right action to do the right thing.

Crooks swipe plutonium, cesium from US govt nuke wranglers' car. And yes, it's still missing

Wily Veteran
Boffin

Terror

Inciting terror does not require creating an actual risk. Just say either "radiation" or "dirty bomb" and people get extremely nervous. Have something go boom and spread a small amount of something that will register on survey meters and you can create a major panic, even if there is no actual danger. You don't even have to tickle the survey meters, just tell the hyper-competitive media that smoke bomb you just set off in the public park contains stolen plutonium and watch the breathless coverage incite a major panic. The whole idea behind terrorism is to generate fear, not cause major damage.

Apple fanbois ride to the aid of iGiant in patent spat with Qualcomm

Wily Veteran
Black Helicopters

Fanbois?

Why do I smell Astroturf? Maybe it's just my nose.

MongoDB turns on, tunes in, drops ACID and goes mobile

Wily Veteran
WTF?

Everything old is new again.

Processing on the front end? Where have I heard of that before? Business logic on the local machine using data from a remote. Sounds an awful lot like good ol' Client-Server computing to me.

Everything old is new again.

Google Pixel 2 XL: Like paying Apple-tier prices then saying, hey, please help yourself to my data

Wily Veteran
Big Brother

Once *somebody* slurps data, *anybody* can get it via hacking (criminal or state-sponsored), sufficient cash, or legal compulsion (National Security Letters anyone?).

Even if Google is on the side of the angels and only uses what it has slurped for benign purposes, they still have it and someone with nefarious purposes can get it if they have the tools and try hard enough. That is the problem.

Wily Veteran
WTF?

Just Pixel?

How much of that truly-invasive slurping is Pixel-specific? How much is attributable to Oreo? Are older versions of Android just as screwed by Google Play Services or are they a bit better?

Noise from blast of gas destroys Digiplex data depot disk drives

Wily Veteran
Meh

Re: Safe for personnel?

Supposedly, Halon was heavier than air and would not build to a dangerous concentration at the height of a human's head until enough time had elapsed to allow the operators to initiate an orderly shutdown before they evacuated. Supposedly. That's what we were told in the 70's anyway.

Auto auto fleets to dodge British potholes in future

Wily Veteran
Coat

Really?

Don't know about the UK, but here in Michigan pothole dodging while avoiding other vehicles also dodging potholes is the state sport and expecting them to be repaired after reporting them is the state joke.

Somehow, I'm haunted by a vision of autonomous cars dodging potholes that strongly resembles a demolition derby or the Dodge-Em ride at the carnival.

Firefox 57: Good news? It's nippy. Bad news? It'll also trash your add-ons

Wily Veteran
Meh

Waterfox

Waterfox (so far) seems to be the answer, at least for me. It keeps the more useful improvements Firefox makes, removes the Mozilla telemetry, and will support existing extensions as long as feasibly possible. Pale Moon is so far behind, it doesn't seem like a reasonable alternative and the pace of development seems to be on a geologic timescale, at least it isn't a reasonable alternative for me.

Just a happy Waterfox *user* who has nothing at all to do with any project and hates Google with a passion.

YMMV of course

Phone crypto shut FBI out of 7,000 devices, complains chief g-man

Wily Veteran
FAIL

Let them have the password

OK, so I'm a terrorist/pedophile/drug dealer/critic of the current administration with a normal (or higher) IQ who wants to get into the US and commit a dastardly deed. Months before I leave, I purchase a second phone and a micro SD card. I use that second phone (but never put the micro SD card in it) in a normal, boring way using separate social media accounts. My phone has pictures of my family, buds, and I doing normal, boring things and records the normal, boring social media participation.

I put all my terrorist plot materials and child porn in an encrypted file on the micro SD card then encrypt the whole card and I conceal it somewhere in my baggage or, if I think my baggage will be searched so thoroughly it might be found, swallow it and get it out of my shit later. Alternatively. I would send it to an associate/sympathizer, perhaps via multiple third parties. I then take only this second phone with the dull, boring stuff on it and go to the US. I cheerfully give the phone to the border cop who finds nothing of interest on it and waves me through. I then get the micro SD card from my "friend" and do the dastardly deed after which I immediately wipe the phone.

If sending a micro SD card is too likely to be caught, I simply take my dull, boring second phone with me, install Telegram, Signal, or such from the app store /after/ I'm in the country, and retrieve the encrypted file through that, (or SFTP it from the server at Terrorists R Us), do the dastardly deed, and immediately wipe the phone.

For a domestic miscreant, follow a similar pattern and access the damning data in the cloud using end-to-end encryption then immediately wipe the phone.

For bonus points, replace the deviant data with something that looks plausible but leads the LEOs on a wild goose chase.

Any would-be miscreant who is stupid enough to have the real contraband data on their phone when they enter the country or might get caught in-country qualifies for the Dumb Criminal of the Month award and is fair game for the LEOs.

There are probably race conditions in the scenario or corner cases where this might not work, but the point is that a truly-determined criminal will be prepared enough to find an alternate way of getting at their incriminating data other than leaving it on their phone.

Boffins' satcomms rig uses earthly LEDs to talk to orbiting PV panels

Wily Veteran
Boffin

Re: Signal to noise ?

Ham radio operators have been operating digital transmissions at (sometimes below) the noise floor for years albeit mostly at slower speeds. Various modulation and encoding schemes allow differing combinations of SNR requirements and data rates. What these guys are doing sounds like some variation and improvement on MFSK-16, DominoEX, Olivia or similar. Those date from the early 2000's and there are likely newer modes with even more capability, I just haven't kept up.

Google, propaganda, and the new New Man

Wily Veteran

Brave New World

Take away the 1936 version of cloning in Aldous Huxley's chilling novel, and you have a society very much like the one he described: overseen by those who are "born to lead" (or dub themselves among them), unlimited sex divorced from reproduction, an ethos of finding calm and respite in pharmaceuticals, destruction of traditional societal structures, strict conditioning of those in the lower levels to enjoy their position and not seek anything except material goods and sex, enforced obsolescence to keep the factories humming, &c. &c. &c.

More, in his 1960's essays "Beyond Brave New World," Huxley discusses how his Brave New World could actually come about and the methods he discusses sound chillingly famiiliar.

It's happening! Official retro Thinkpad lappy spotted in the wild

Wily Veteran
Happy

T400/C840

I recently went through the agony of deciding whether to replace my aged ThinkPad T400 with a new laptop or simply replace the worn keyboard with the erratic spacebare and pop in an SSD (even though it has only SATAII interface). I decided keeping the relatively nice keyboard (no chiclets), 1440x900 display, and more than sufficient performance for what I do these days (writing novels with LibreOffice Writer, not code these days though I've spent 50+ years doing the latter) for $150 in easily-done repairs/upgrades beat the crap out of spending $800+ for something that, although newer and having a FHD screen). The Core2 Duo P8600 is plenty fast enough, Linux Mint 18.2 gains performance over Win 7 on a second SSD in the Slim Bay, lets me play casual HOPA games on the Win7 disc, and works just great for the casual web browsing I do. 802n may not be the fastest WiFi around but since my broadband connection is much slower anyway, who cares how fast the last link in the network chain is? A 3rd-party battery gives me 6+hours of battery life too. So it's not fashionably slim and light, WGAF?

I also have an old Dell C840 with a P4M and a very fine 1600x1200 large screen. Yes, it's slow, but it runs Libre Office writer very smoothly (once loaded) and is limited as much by a broken memory slot that only lets me use 512MB as by its speed.

If I could have the C840's screen on my ThinkPad, I'd be in hog heaven.

Sick of Chrome vs Firefox? Check out these 3 NEW browsers

Wily Veteran

Re: Crapware

I went to mozilla.com so unless there was a hijack or typosquatter somewhere it came from mozilla. I do not use Google for anything and I've been using FF on dozens of machines since it was Netscape so I would hardly need to do a search to find it.

Wily Veteran

Re: Crapware

Looks like I got hijacked. A fresh download is free and clear of crapware. Sorry, Mozilla, my bad.