Re: First email in my inbox this morning
Thank you! Bookmarked that now and will then go through it with a fine-toothed comb and checklist to compare against my faves. Already found a couple of my top ones.
865 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jul 2007
From Stardock: "Remove the Ads from Your Start Menu with Start11"
*sigh* Once our remodelling is done, I need to get serious about fully shifting to Linux - it's the games that are the issue and I just haven't had the time to seriously look into it. :'(
Many posters have said it's doable and works, but for which games and are they the same ones I play?
I had the announcement pop up in my LinkedIn feed.
The comment thread is a thing to behold. The sycophancy made me nauseous several times. Mostly from IBMers and channel partners. Actual comments about how support and development would now improve to another level with IBM backing.
Wut?! Maybe it was IBM "AI" bots, I dunno.
My favourite one was the guy excitedly predicting a merger between IBM + Broadcom + AWS in a few years. I'm serious! To create the tech stack of the future, or some such. That's the mental level of the cheerleaders on that thread.
I had to watch the full video to understand what the issue was.
My first reaction had been "passing a bicycle by offering a proper safety distance by getting into the other lane as long as there's no oncoming traffic" sounded like what you're supposed to do (and with mandated safety distance to cyclists, it's the *only* way to pass).
But that car was crossing double lines and there *was* oncoming traffic. One vehicle looked like it had to swerve off to the right to avoid a collision.
And yet, I'm so conflicted: looking at the SanFran style "unicyclist mob". The little guy with horns and pitchforks hovering over my right shoulder went "get them! get them!". Are we certain some of those weren't Waymo employees - or from some similar tech bro outfit?
It is hard for me to describe my heartfelt relief that *finally* this issue has been solved!
Without that driver I could not live! Without that driver Windows 11 was an empty soulless shell of an operating system!
Now, at long last I shall update at once!
...
OK, I'm really bad at this, aren't I? No stand-up or Thespian pursuits for me. :'(
Couple of years? I'd close up shop about 2 nanoseconds after the cheque for half a billion dollars clears, if I were them. And move far far away without a forwarding address.
But I'm not them. Curse you, sense of ethics and lack of chutzpah!
To take the aviation simile all the way: take-offs and landings, as well as taxiing is done by hand, as a general rule. As long as verbal instructions are given, someone human responds. Automation takes over once the filed flight plan route is reached.
Or should be - there have now been studies by FAA, ICAO and the rest of the alphabet soup on increasing over-reliance on automation/autopilot and decline of piloting skills, but I digress.And yes, there are auto-land systems for things like CAT III, etc. Without naming countries or airlines, some of the jet jocks have airmanship skills that leaves them at a loss when the brown stuff is hitting your turbofan intakes.
The point and analogy being that, driving in dense city traffic, the driver has controls; once you're on the freeway, let the automation take over.
Here in Australia you can flunk your instrument proficiency check by over-relying on the a/p, but you are definitely allowed and expected to use it to assist with single-pilot IFR. It's a fine line.
Parallel article in ElReg today about AI crashing democracy and causing wars.
So would that be 25% of remaining electricity on the ruins of civilisation?
With most prompts going along the line of "suggest alternative preparations for cooking weeds and fellow humans" and "how to prevent prion diseases from excessive cannibalism"
Thing is... way this planet is going... unless their message of We Come in Peace is "To Serve Man", slavery on an interstellar cruiser could be preferable.
OK, maybe not in the Adamantium mines of Florfix Jumblepad Prime, but why would a civilisation capable of interstellar cruisers need fleshware miners? More likely you'll be zoo exhibits or entertainment for their kids. Or bad examples: "see this species kids? they had one of the few absolutely perfectly placed planets around a G star! And they blew it!" Still not that horrible an existence, all things considered.
How does that compare to the HST, taking into account that even in high Chilean country you have to deal with atmospheric distortion?
If I read the Wikipedia article right, this is for massive surveys at a scale not previously achieved, whereas HST is more for pinpointing at specific areas or objects?
Who will buy their precious products?
Or will that not even matter anymore? Just some fantasy constructs of shuffling AI generated make-believe profits into stock buybacks for the next golden parachute as it all crumbles into a decline that makes the last years of the Western Roman Empire look like a pillar of stability.
Right, how could I forget.
One day, if I have the time, I will regale the ElReg community with the story of a failed migration of an entire major bank's IT SCM to a product called Github AE.
Microsoft's attempt at hosting GHE in Azure. Which was so bad that Microsoft cancelled it - while we were half-way through a mass migration during holiday downtime. 6 months of work for our team and a ruined Xmas holiday season for the team in charge of the actual migration work. All for nought. Though at least the latter got a sweet chunk of OT compensation.
You lucky bastards! You lucky, lucky bastards! Proper architects pets aren't ye? You must have slipped them a few quid eh? What wouldn't I give to use .NET 7! I sometimes lie awake at night dreaming of using .NET 7.
I got thrown in to help out at a project that uses .NET 3.5.1 ! I asked for one cross instead (first door on the left), because using an antique version of .NET is more painful than crucifixion.
What powers the electric gun? Where does that *fuel* come from?
What's the expected thrust output? Early in the article it mentions ion drives, which this isn't/can't be, as those have notoriously low thrust (but can work in actual space when you burn them over long periods of time). Is this intended as an intermediary step that takes over from the launch rockets and then acts as a sort of "shuttle" to get them through the "Karman line plus/minus some dozen km"? I confess, I don't know what the "lowest useful orbit" is for satellites. Real ones, not Jebediah when I'm jubilatin' that I barely made it in KSP.
A lot more question could/should have been asked by the interviewer.
Currently reading and highly recommend "Flying Blind" by Peter Robinson.
Probably the most depressing book I've read in ages - and one that very seriously makes me not want to step into a Boeing aircraft ever again. Reading it, none of this comes as a surprise. And it was "merely" written in the wake of the 737MAX disasters, so doesn't even cover the door mess or the Boeing rocket fiascos.
Could someone more familiar with the US legal system explain what he gains, in this case, by changing his plea?
How much will it reduce his sentence?
EDIT: just read the .mil article on the discipline measures taken against the perp's chain of command. Yikes! Talk about messing up your life by negligence.Heck, the entire group has a black mark it seems.
Many many years ago, while still living in the US, case of same name, same birthday. The other guy had a rap sheet as long as your arm, all violent, and fugitive from the law. Why do I know that? Because for some reason that guy came up *with all that info* on a friggin DMV computer screen, where I could see it as well!
The DMV drone, probably already seeing themselves on the evening news as hero of the hour, just about started calling police officers.
The much-maligned social security number - and the fact that we weren't even born in the same country, never mind state, eventually came to the rescue. After just about yelling at them to look at what was staring at them on the screen. But it couldn't be that there could be a mix up, or coincidence, and that I maybe was NOT that wanted person.
This may sound unbelievable, blasphemous or just nuts, but:
Sometimes, for the lulz, my wife and I, when driving together, each use a different app. She'll use Google Maps, I use Apple Maps. Then we compare what each tells us.
In the last year or so, we noticed that the latter, somewhat surprisingly gets the router better, with less fuss and weird "I know a shortcut, follow me!" or totally out of date/time traffic conditions.
Whenever I hear "private equity" I look like I'm having a seizure, because I can't decide whether I should facepalm, run screaming or have paroxysms of rage.
Will this mob follow the usual pattern of trying to leech off the IP? Start lawsuits? Try and force users of the free version into a subscription model? Close-source MariaDB, in the usual incomprehension of OSS, leading to another fork? JosephDB, I presume, this time around?
20 years ago, ACS was already the mob in charge of assessments.
Personally, I cannot complain: despite lacking a university degree and "nothing" to show but (at the time) about 15 years of experience and the usual batch of certification to plaster my wall with, they didn't just give me a positive assessment, but even advised and wrote a letter of recommendation for sponsorship with the Victorian state govt. They were looking for IT security folks in that day, and what would/could have been a nearly 2 year process/wait, was done and dusted in 12 weeks!
However, for years afterwards they would stalk me about joining and obtaining their attempts at creating the "definite" industry certification (the IT version of a CPA or medical professional boards). Which never really went anywhere, cost an arm and a leg, and nobody but nobody of any job I ever applied for or worked in ever asked about it, never mind required it.
So, yeah, without them I wouldn't be here, I s'pose, but their monopoly on being the gatekeeper always rubbed me wrong. Seemed too much based on luck and your file ending up with the right assessor on the right day.