Posts by StudeJeff

Re: Conditions they would experience in space

If nothing else Kudzu, the bane of the American south, would likely grow in the moon, even in vacuum!

Ahh... the classical German spec "gudentight".

Or, "why is it called "common sense" when it's so rare?"

Re: And this is my major annoyance with Win11

I really can't stand the center taskbar thing and turn it off every chance I get, but that's a great idea.

Re: Humm... cooling!

A sealed system much like nuclear submarines use. The excess heat could be dissipated on the shady side of the reactor (or artificial shade). Once we have people actually using the power from the reactor some or a lot of the waste heat could be used to keep the living quarters warm during the lunar night, to heat and distill water, and even for cooking (such as a steam kettle).

Re: God

Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus is unique to Earth. It's possible He was also born on other worlds in other guises for the same reason He was born here.

Say on some Jovian world the major form of intelligent life would look to us like a cross between a dirigible, a whale, and an octopus, and He could have born as one of them.

If we ever find alien civilizations comparative religion would be one of the many fascinating fields of study, and we will likely find some interesting surprises!

Re: Strangely enough,

Actually not, they would still be responsible. This called Supervised Full Self Driving for a reason.

Re: Vintage Kit from the 1980's

Probably 25 years ago I went to an exhibit on computers at the Smithsonian. It had the ZX-81, Commodores, Apples, Trash-80s, all that fun stuff... stuff that I remember being cool and new.

I think that's the first time it hit me I really was getting older (now I have no doubt!)

Re: Self-fulfilling prophecies.

I think there is a strategic reason for the 50% tariff on imported copper.

Raising the price of imported copper makes domestically produced copper relatively cheap, and so encourages its production. We do produce quite a bit of copper here in the US, with the potential to produce far more.

I drove through the Globe, Arizona area a few weeks ago, the number of copper mines in that area is amazing, and that's not even the biggest copper producing area in the US.

Re: I touch it and it breaks!

Especially when using them on planes!

Re: *!$#&@ Bluetooth

My work PC, a year or so old Dell Precision workstation has one. I also rebuilt my home office PC a few months ago with all current tech, and it too has a PS/2 port.

And I USE them, one of the reasons I picked the MB that I did was because of the PS/2 port, as I use IBM Model M's at work and at home.

I think the hard core gamer types like PS/2 because of better latency numbers... but you'd have to talk to someone who really cared about such things to know for sure.

Sure, MS tests, kind of like GM does.

The first official releases of new versions of the OS (or a new car), are really the final beta versions. Then it's up to the poor suckers... er users who paid good money and expected to be one of the first to get the latest shiny new model to find all the bugs.

Re: Peripherals

I had one of those! They were free or very cheap at Radio Shack.

Re: Good, but don't do that again

I guess I'm lucky, never really had to deal with that.

In my previous life with a big blue computer company we were working with used equipment, and if some of those parts went into our work machines no one cared... I had a SWEET souped up IntelliStation.

In my current job I was given a bog standard (and dull), Dell desktop, and it 32 bit word just couldn't handled the large documents I worked on. So my boss ordered a Dell workstation for me. Nice dual Xeon machine with lots of RAM, PLUS it had a PS/2 port so I brought in my trusty 1994 vintage Model M keyboard (which I am using even now).

Fast forward, it was time to "refresh" my PC, and as I had a big Dell Precision already I got a new one of those.

Meanwhile most of the office people are using Dell laptops, while I've got this big machine, my Model M, and three monitors. :)

Re: Youth Demand

Hmm... "non-violent civil resistance actions”... are they really or "non-violent civil resistance actions” like the BLM mobs on this side of the pond... "mostly peaceful demonstrations with just a few fires"? If it's the former (and they don't do stupid stuff like blocking roads), more power to them, it's their right to express their opinions.

Re: So much for the resilience of Stainless Steel - Re; 40% TAXES

I don't know about "most American's", but I wouldn't believe you.

For instance, there is no such things as "fully funded schools", no matter how much they get they always "need" more. In fact the most expensive government schools have the worst outcomes.

Re: I know about ambitious lazy know-it-alls as well

I expect that's all too common in education on both sides of the pond.

It also helps explain why we here in the US spend so much on education and get such terrible results.

Re: Insane

I know she went to Ireland, but many of them are the likes of Rosie O'Donnell.

And as an American who has a lot of respect for the UK, (if not necessarily your leaders), I'm sorry, you folks have enough problems without those people.

I also know many of you feel the same way about OUR leaders!

So... once you can do it and someone offers to pay you to put their logo on the moon you go to their competitor and see how much they will pay NOT to put a logo on the moon.

Then of course they can advertise that they saved the moon.

Yes, I read Heinlein's "The Man who Sold the Moon", get book!

Re: And ... "Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime"

Too many people in the government follow the old dictum "Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime", that kind of behavior is even more odious in the United States than it was in Russia.

And the people responsible should be held criminally liable. Doesn't matter if they work for the FBI, if they are a DA, a county sheriff, or whatever.

I can't speak to the laptops, I don't deal with them much, but in our plant I manage over 200 Dell OptiPlex's.

I've never been a fan of Dell (which is, of course, a four letter word), but this is a manufacturing environment, and in some places there is a lot of dust and oil vapor.

And the Dell's keep running. I've had a couple with bad USB ports, and one had a damaged Ethernet port, but I've yet to have one actually fail.

There was even one where the complaint was it kept shutting down. It was... all the vents were TOTALY clogged with oily dust, along with a thick coat of the mess on the fans and heat sink. So, I pulled it, cleaned it up, put it back, and it ran flawlessly before I replaced it with a Windows 10 system.

I'm no fan of Dell, but I'm very impressed with the reliability of the OptiPlex's.

Re: SCOTUS

No need for any tortured logic, the FCC overstepped its legal authority. I really doubt it will get to the Court, they have more important cases to deal with.

Overturing Kelo would be a GREAT next step!

Re: New Jersey: stupid isn't just for red states since 1787

No, if that story was true he wasn't exercising his Second Amendment rights, he was demonstrating world class stupidity.

Which would be equally odd if it was someone like the North Korans, Chicoms or Iranians.

Which Distro indeed?

You've pointed out the real problem with Linux.

There are so many different distros, some very different than others, they very often run very differently and will support different things.

So if one wants to make the switch there is no easy choice to make, unlike switching from Mac to Windows or vice versa.

In a previous life I worked in a plat that refurbished computers. Our big blue customer wanted us to come up with a way to package some of these machines with Linux so they wouldn't have to buy Windows licenses for them.

The customer gave no other guidance, so I got to work. I picked Red Hat because it was popular, was (relatively) easy to use, and the price was right, free. Our software boffins created an image we could load on the machines that had the OS, plus Open Office and a few games. I also wrote a booklet titled "What is this Linux thing anyway", that would give the user what they needed to get started.

We presented it as a nice, neat package, ready for the go ahead and we could start shipping.

The big blue sales guy liked what we did, but then said we really needed to use a distro made by a company the big blue company owned, that wasn't compatible with much of anything AND there was a charge for it.

And... that was the end of that project.

Re: A prediction of the future of AI

There is a simple fix that all too often is ignored.

When it comes right down to it in every decision, whether it be from an AI, a committee, a company, Congress or Parliament, there are ALWAYS people who have to sign off on it.

Name names and hold them responsible.

I think he's more like D.D. Harriman.

Re: So let me get this straight ...

Well... if something like the Alcubierre drive really is not only possible but practical for an advanced enough civilization there very well may be alien starships wandering the cosmos.

As any technologically advanced civilization almost certainly had to pass though a phase something like we are now, with technology advancing at an exponential rate and all the challenges that go with that they would likely find us fascinating to study.

We are also making ourselves known, as for most of the past century if you look at our solar system with a radio telescope the brightest object in the system isn't the Sun, it's the Earth with all our broadcasts. (and if they can actually make those out I'm not sure I want to know what they think of them!)

Because he knew she was a loser, and not only that his paper is hemorrhaging cash because of what many see as it's strong left wing bias, and a Harris endorsement would have further cemented that.

On the bright side there is a nice audible overcurrent notification.

Re: Ageing sewers?

Thank you for being a voice of common sense and reason. Characteristics that are all too rare these days.

Re: Did meet spec

And Hughes did? Have you ever used Hughes Net? About all I can say for it is it works and it's better than dialup.

Re: To the Moon and Mars

Nor with the boosters be needed on the moon or Mars. The big problem is getting out of Earth's deep gravity well.