Posts by Gene Cash

I am disappointed they're not also suing GasBuddy and the other app makers. They're at least as complicit in accepting the money.

Re: Aion FX

> Highly recommended, but I'd prefer if Linus just sent out a voucher or unfinished kit. Not as much fun if you don't build it.

Eh, it's more of the story behind it than anything, and it sits on the shelf as a conversation piece, right?

I hope he at least signs the case with a silver sharpie.

It's not like I actually wear my RedHat red hat.

Re: "It was just another sentence"

Pffft. You expect things to be DOCUMENTED? Wot?

I'm surprised that little caveat was actually in there.

Re: Landing issues

Not really. Only about 8% of the F9 launches have been pushed due to recovery area weather.

The landing zone is about 250 miles out, so it's not that far out to sea, and the weather at the landing barge is not that much different from the weather at the pad. A high sea state will also probably mean it's too windy to launch.

Re: Reds under the garage door openers!

I made my own IoT stuff. My server is a Raspberry Pi 3B+ bolted to the wall. My phone presents a certificate before it's allowed to open the door and it also checks the server certificate.

It was fun though, when I was trying to figure out how to generate and validate certificates, as I was a complete SSL noob. There were tons of posts on StackOverflow going "your SSL doesn't work? here's how to make it accept ANY certificate!" which is pretty pointless.

Re: Data backups?

> I would hope everything of scientific value is in a modern format so it is easily replicated and backed up.

**LOL** Oh you sweet, sweet summer child.

Search for the "Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project" (AKA "McMoon" because it was run in an ex-McDonald's near JPL HQ)

This was a semi-crowdfunded effort to get the Lunar Orbiter data off obsolete tapes. They had to find obsolete AMPEX tape drives to read them and the retired technicians to repair and align those. The cameras were CIA equipment (classified at the time) and the images they recovered were stunning and far better than expected. The printouts had been done in the mid '60s on garbage-level black & white printers so no one realized the original data was such high resolution.

I hear the '76 Viking Mars lander data is now in similar condition.

Edit: I have an original 1967 print out of an LO image because I donated a bit of money. It's a prized possession.

> Are US consumers willing to pay the $700 premium for US made?

I don't see why that's a thing. I bought a Moto G over a Google Pixel back when they were made in Ft. Worth, Texas. It wasn't that expensive. "Cheap and cheerful" was what El Reg said.

Unfortunately, it had only a partially working touchscreen, and even more unfortunately they completely botched the return process, sending me an urgent airmail envelope that I wasn't allowed to use with their return service and noting the wrong model of phone.

Soon after that, Motorola closed the Texas plant.

Re: Suborbital

Ask Blue Origin about their New Shepard...

They apparently make a lot of dough from people willing to pay to just pop up and down.

Re: "Honey helps merchants reduce...

Or they pop up a captcha, at which point I go elsewhere.

Why do people make it so god damned hard to give them your money?

And then whine nobody gives them money?

This is why Amazon is steamrolling everyone despite being massive assholes. They make it a greased slide from picking what you want to clicking "pay"

Re: "Consumed" just isn't right

> which goes right back in the fresh water supply

Actually, no, it doesn't. The rain falls in the ocean and on the land, and then it's no longer fresh water.

That is, if it rains, which in a big chunk of the SW US, it doesn't.

If you actually read to the end of the article, you'll see a quote:

Planet Earth has no shortage of water. What planet Earth has a shortage of, in some cases, is regional drinkable water, and there is a water distribution scarcity issue in certain parts of the world.

I can walk into an independently owned shop or even a huge national chain store and find nothing I want to buy.

I wanted some adhesive squares of rubber anti skid for the bottom of my keyboard, so you'd think one of 3 office supply chains or one of 2 hobby & crafts chains would have it. Nope.

I wanted some soft 3" compression springs for a project. You'd think a hobby & crafts chain or one of 3 different hardware store chains would have it. Nope.

I needed 3/4" 12" pipes for making a rack for my jackets. You'd think one of 3 different hardware store chains would have it. Nope.

I needed some replacement bags for my small DeWalt shop vac. You'd think one of 3 different hardware store chains would have it. Nope. They sell that model shop vac though!

I wanted an electric mattress pad or blanket because it's cold. You'd think 2 different big-box department stores would have more than one shitty choice. Nope.

So for me, it's online or nothing. I don't even try shopping locally any more.

Re: Windows 11 is fine.

> Sorry, I need a computer to do actual work, not be a game of Whack-A-Mole with MS.

That's the reason I moved to Linux a dog's age ago.

It might take 3 months to fix something on Linux (e.g. finally discovering it was qpdfview turning /dev/null into a regular file) but IT'S FIXED.

In Windows, you fix something, and 4 weeks later it's broken again.

At least it got delivered! No puny human fail!

Re: Not a landing gear problem

> the crew shutdown the good, #1 engine

It's happened so many times, there's a Wikipedia category for it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_accidents_and_incidents_caused_by_wrong_engine_shutdown

They're all different types of aircraft, so there doesn't seem to be a common bad UI or design thread.

Re: Attack of the clones

It also killed the S-100 boxen as well.

In '84-'86 I ran a network of 3-4 CompuPro S-100 machines, each with 40mb hard drives, several serial terminals each, and a multi-user dual-CPU version of CP/M. It was probably another 5-10 years before you could do that reliably with PCs and you had to run a UNIX variant for the multi-user bit.

Re: I give it 30 years...

Orbital mechanics isn't simply "giving in to gravity"

Re: Cycles

I still want one of the JPL Mars team watches that measures in Martian days.

"Your watch is off, sir..."

"No, actually, this is the correct time... on Mars."

Re: An Age Thing

I have to disagree on the personal experience level with your disagreement on the personal experience level.

I find a lot of kids are doing the "cargo cult" thing. As far as they're concerned, it's tiny little elves. They have a set of behaviors/actions they use, and if they don't work, they're stuck. They have no idea what else to try.

The joke about a teenager unable to use a magazine because nothing happens when he taps the paper is real.

I'm surprised it's only one third, and not one half.

Re: Close enough

> I got the joblogs, and one of the first messages was "storage pool allocations are too small". Apparently I was the first person to have noticed this.

God damn... if I had $5 for each time I've gone "what do the logs say?" and gotten "no idea" or even "logs? huh?" I'd be telling Elon Musk how many months I wanted to stay on ISS.

Re: Avoid 24H2 for now

Microsoft. Making systemd look good.

Re: "We'll be in and out within 20 minutes."

> these poor guys were meant for a week long job [in space] and have been extended to 6-7 months

Man, if only I were so lucky... unfortunately I don't have the $$$ for even a week in space.

Re: computers on wheels

Another one is windshields. They have really complex sensors attached now, so even if you don't have to replace the sensors, you still have to go through a time consuming calibration.

My friend has an Accord, and the *HONDA dealership* could not do the calibration, they had to hire some sort of specialist. WTAF is that?

Re: Hallucinations matter

Stop rolling your jargon dice since you don't understand half of what you said.

Hallucinations and dreams are NOT hypotheses. A hypothesis is something you can test: "is water wet?" [sticks hand in] "yes it is" from which you evolve the theory that "water is wet"

And there's no such thing as a "reliable hallucination"

Re: A drunk's dream...

> suspect I'm a little bit of an outlier

Actually, in my experience, you're not.

A standard event when visiting a friend's home is being told which buttons on which of a half dozen remotes do what (and immediately forgetting, of course)

Re: 21st Century Grimm

BBC:

Chatbot 'encouraged teen to kill parents over screen time limit'