Posts by Grogan

I'd agree, it's not about power, that's just piling on reasons. I was a bit washy about being closed minded, but I think they made the right decision at this time.

I compile my own software no matter what I'm using, I like to optimize and often don't like the way the distributor has compiled it. I care less for Gentoo, because I don't like to behave. For example it's easy to wind up with a bunch of circular dependencies in Ebuilds when you don't do everything their way. I prefer Arch for that, I build my own packages (not every silly dependency, there are thousands of packages including lib32 poo I need for gaming, but stuff that matters from the ground up) and use ignore directives so pacman won't replace my packages. I'm free to build my packages however I want using the PKGBUILD scripts and I can write in any dependency tracking info I want, as well as "provides" and "conflicts with" lines for things I choose to build monolithically instead of split packages. I've also got stuff I maintain myself in /usr/local and /opt. As long as what I do gibes, it doesn't break package management like I would in mainstream distros.

Otherwise, Gentoo is fun. I'd rather do a custom LFS than that though (which I also have for mostly non-gaming use).

A lot of distros like to spin their wheels. Others like to spin other people's wheels. Everybody thinks they are clever, and find new ways to re-invent the flat tire.

Re: "celebrated industry diplomat Linus Torvalds"

It's mostly just pretentious people that complain about him. He's actually a nice guy. I haven't in some years, but I used to follow the kernel mailing list. Any "rudeness" was more him just being jovial in admonishing people for bad code etc. He's been nice to me personally (and spent more of his time than I wanted to take) during interactions to get drivers fixed.

I'm a jackass too, I say what I want... so I couldn't criticize anyway.

No, the "mistrust" of western CPUs is only because they are being embargoed from purchasing high end silicon anyway. It's simply a tit for tat response, I'd think.

I've heard of tech support coaching people to use the low level debug DOS utility. Not just erasing structures on disk, but clearing CMOS too. I would have liked to reach through the wires and do three stooges stuff to them. You have to know exactly what you're poking at when writing to registers. You can corrupt firmware if you knock on the wrong doors. Back then, "flash bioses" were only in use for a few years. It was possible to corrupt it... a virus could do it by writing one byte to the bootstrap code in the bios to make the computer unable to boot from anything. You could brick a computer with debug.exe

P.S. There was a time when you could corrupt EEPROM on certain IBM Thinkpad laptops, simply by probing for sensors. The developers wrote in a "Thinkpad detection" routine after that, where the application (lmsensors' "sensors-detect" program) would quit with an error if any Thinkpad was detected :-)

Re: AI replacing bosses - irony

When stated like that perhaps, but many bosses only exist to be the boss, they don't otherwise contribute anything useful and can even be a hindrance to productivity and harmony. Empire building too... "everything goes through me".

Yeah well, churches allow divorce too and allow people to remarry. It's not "until death do us part" anymore. The point is the same.

Re: "those that can't take time off still have a chance to vote"

It takes minutes to vote in-person where I live with polling stations in schools, libraries, recreation centers, municipal facilities... everywhere (and it's not your only option) and even if there are lines for your alphabetical name, it moves very quickly. If you want to vote in-person even faster, go on one of the early voting days a few days ahead of time, you'll be in and out of there in seconds.

In the U.S. they have a bunch of petty little fiefdoms that actually control the elections. Who in their right mind would let state governments control federal elections.

Re: Because it's good....

I feel a little guilty, because the buyer friendly, convenience and expediency of Amazon comes at a human cost. However, I'd have to be in to self harm, to not use them. Especially where I live.

Even other vendors like Newegg with all their praise and glory fuck you on the returns (at the very least you have to justify it... and they'll have employees that inspect and allow/deny/slip you a mickey), whereas Amazon issues your refund, no questions asked, before they even receive the return... which they have painlessly set up for you. It's certainly easier than taking something back to a brick and mortar store and explaining/arguing.

I'm confident enough to order everything for a whole build from Amazon, knowing that any parts that are shitty can go right back, no questions asked and I'll have better ones the next day or day after that (they even deliver on a Sunday)

Re: If you are *already* in such a sad state ...

While it can't be used to dismiss the problem, I agree with you. Those people should not be users in the first place.

I wouldn't trust my own mother with a shell account on my mail server, for example.

Vulnerable software though, that's something the operator needs to be attentive to. Bloody Hell, a decade ago I got owned through exim (a mail transfer agent, like sendmail but supposedly simpler and safer lol) just after a few days of not knowing about it and not upgrading it (I was on an older software load and had to compile things like that to upgrade them). Fortunately I'm fairly attentive and noticed the fuckery immediately. A system process in the list spelled wrong (mimicking). The exploit actually got root! It was able to drop jobs in root's cron. I was VERY lucky that whatever gang didn't come to reap their rewards yet. It cost me an all nighter of poring over the scripts, following paths, deleting files, hunting and poking. I dropped in a new kernel, forced reinstalls of some system packages (all of that just in case, I don't think anything was actually compromised yet), upgraded all internet facing daemons etc. and had no more problems. That gave me the bloody creeps forever. I get a new server now when the software load is EOL.

Re: I need classic outlook

I use POP3 mail too and I don't listen to any brow beating about why I shouldn't, or why I don't need it anymore. I'll have it for as long as source code can still compile, too. (I run my own mail... there will always be a pop3d to run on a linux server)

Now that I've tried it, what immediately comes to mind, with the change to this test, is that the scores are meaningless to me at this time. I have to establish a baseline again :-)

Re: "Perform a hardware factory reset"

"And poof! say goodbye to your entire, lovingly-crafted network setup."

That their grandson, who has recently emigrated to Timbuktu, set up for them :-)

Re: If Google loses, it does not win

No, it was foistware. They didn't come by that honestly.

Firstly, it was bundled with a lot of freeware and users had to opt out to not install it.

Secondly, when people went to Google or their services, they were prompted to install Google Chrome, which would make the internet faster.

... but eat your meat, or you can't have any pudding :-)

Re: COULD ALLOW SMALL PARTICLES OF RICE TO DAMAGE YOUR IPHONE

I remember in a test kit of sample questions for A+ certification, one of the multiple choice questions was which of the following is not a valid method of cleaning a keyboard? One of them was "put it in the dishwasher" which I thought was the obvious negative answer. In fact they all looked ridiculous. I was wrong, "put it in the dishwasher" was a valid method. I think that's bollocks, the harsh detergents might not rinse out completely, like the streaks on my glasses.

(note that this was back in the day when keyboards were hundreds of dollars... I still have one that you can pry from my stiff, dead, fingers, one of the first IBM clickity clack PS/2 keyboards from the 80's)

Re: OK, I'll bite.

Good point, they'll have to come up with a bios key combo to clear the system memory portion of that persistent memory. (I say it like that because I envision a day when memory and storage are the same device)

Re: Nice museum piece

I remember in 1994 I paid $400 for Microsoft Office on umpteen floppy disks. Within a year or so some of those floppies had sectors that couldn't be read. So you'll get to like disc 12 and the installer barfs. Microsoft Office 95 was available on cdrom by then... I borrowed me one.

Re: Not worried

In Soviet America, Linux runs you...

Re: What?

You only think it's "fair" because you don't know anything better. We enjoy better compatibility for older hardware.

We have userspace driver frameworks for those kinds of peripherals too...

Windows Vista? They made perfectly good sound cards go in the garbage because they banned hardware processing because they couldn't control that with their DRM (at that point there were some models you could force to use a software driver if you edited .inf files but that was shitty compared to what you had). Windows 7 removed gameport support from sound cards.

Nvidia knows how to eat a bag of dicks, but they provide legacy drivers for older cards on Linux. Further, there are open source drivers that will accommodate them. Other, more open graphics hardware has even better support for old models (e.g. old Radeon cards). The kernel can still use old, non-mode setting drivers too with a few parameters set. Old Matrox cards and an AGP bus? No problem.

There are windows-only printers and devices that just can't work, but you'd likely be having trouble with those on newer windows as well because they didn't stick to the API frameworks.

Re: until the Cybertruck is scheduled for a full wash

Same (well, not even that, intentionally). I never wash my car, what's the point? It will rain, or in winter time, it will snow some days and rain other days, in current times. If the roads are salty and slushy, washing the car is pointless because it's still salty and slushy etc.

The body shouldn't rust, unless compromised. I drive my cars for 10+ years, too. There may be some scratches, gouges and rust when I take it to the wreckers at the end of its life, but it got there. That is a very unusual instruction in the manual for these vehicles. The kind of thing you'd skim over and then a few seconds later.... "what?!?

P.S. I'd have to say the underside takes more of a beating, if not undercoated.

I was up there today so I had a look at the car. It is indeed an Escape, a 2021 model Hybrid (not plug-in hybrid, it uses the engine to charge the batteries)

They have had it for longer than I remembered (time flies). They will have had it for 3 years in June, dad says. (and they haven't had any trouble with it)

Also, it was not as expensive as I thought. Around $44,000 Canadian (which is still a lot, but you could easily pay more for a car than that)

I can't edit the old post, so I'll just reply to it for the sake of correctness.

Re: "That's because we studied math at school."

I firmly believe this... "Lottery tickets are a tax on fools". The odds of winning anything significant are so far out there that you'd probably have a far greater chance of being dead on that day than winning a jackpot. For example,. the 6/49 lottery (sampling with replacement), your chances of winning with all 6 numbers are something like 1 in 15,000,000

Even with instant gratification tickets like "scratch and win", the serious prizes are VERY rare. The $2 and $20 etc. prizes you win occasionally are unlikely to cover the costs of all the money you waste on tickets. I have family members that buy me those at xmas or birthday time and dropping hints didn't work, so it was "Don't waste your money on that, it never pays out. I can't even be arsed to scratch them to be honest" which resulted in a disappointed "oh..." from my sister.

All these downvotes because people don't like to hear the truth. I've been downvoted here every time I've said something like this about IP address hoarding.

They must be American or something.

The truth is that nobody wants to replace all their equipment, work with more machine readable than human numbers, work with much more complex subnetting etc. and beta test new infrastructure. Companies are hoarding IP addresses and not using entire networks. That shouldn't be.