Slashdot Mirror


User: dickens

dickens's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
420
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 420

  1. There's no reason that Microsoft (and Adobe for that matter) couldn't make a boatload of money selling versions of their apps for Linux. So why don't they? Corruption.

  2. Swapping out the battery back entirely makes little sense for passenger cars but for long haul trucks it makes perfect sense. Instead of recharging stations trucks could swing through, drop their battery and pick up a fully charged replacement.

  3. Re: Reads Like An Ad on 'Star In a Jar' Fusion Reactor Works, Promises Infinite Energy (space.com) · · Score: 1

    Like NYC ? You can stand across the valley from this thing and listen to it spin up on a hot summer afternoon when all the air conditioners in the city kick on : https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim-Gilboa_Hydroelectric_Power_Station

  4. Re: What an empty life on Right-Wing and Fake News Writers Are Now Going After Elon Musk (qz.com) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Make no mistake this is serious and these people are paid. It's about money and preserving the old energy business structure. Musk needs to hire massive PR and counterattack.

  5. 7th Grade, 1973 on Slashdot Asks: How Did You Learn How To Code? · · Score: 1

    BASIC on mark sense cards, West Vancouver BC. After school program.

  6. Re:Software as a Service avoids open source benefi on Open365 Is An Open Source Alternative to Microsoft Office 365 (open365.io) · · Score: 1

    Of course there is a point. The benefits of having location independence and "cloud" storage are the same whether the software is open source or not, or whether I share the information with others or not.

  7. Re: Given a choice in the 70's on Gene Roddenberry's Floppy Disks Recovered (pcworld.com) · · Score: 2

    Once when I was setting up a dedicated syslog server I installed a dot matrix printer on a serial line in a locked room. The final touch was snipping the transmit+ pin to make it truly write-only.

  8. No official report after 48 hours+ ? on Debian Founder Ian Murdock Has Died (docker.com) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I certainly will not believe any official reports - the fact that they're late means they're being cooked, without doubt. Some multi-millionaires out there need to make sure to get all the way to the bottom of this.

  9. Re: Firssd? on SSDs Approaching Price Parity With HDDs (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    And in infinite time everything is inevitable, heat death of the universe not withstanding.

  10. laws supporting dealers are void on Are Car Dealers a Business Worth Keeping? (vox.com) · · Score: 1

    IANAL, but on the face of it, any law that improves the position of car dealers and old-school manufacturers at the expense of Tesla and their ilk is in violation of the Sherman Act, which is about as settled as settled law can get.

  11. Re:Serial RS-232 port on What's the Oldest Technology You've Used In a Production Environment? · · Score: 1

    Yeah didn't think about that.. I have scales and counters with RS-232 interfaces,, which of course I have connected to ethernet,

  12. how about an emulated Wang 2200 on SCO Unix ? on What's the Oldest Technology You've Used In a Production Environment? · · Score: 3, Informative

    I almost want to post anon but I can't resist. When I took over my current job ten years ago, the company used a green-screen accounting system based on an emulated Wang 2200 running on SCO Open Server. That puts the actual technology in use back around 1973. This used the Niakwa Basic2c system. The system was lovingly maintained (!) by some dedicated guys in Auburndale.

    Before we migrated it off it we got it running on Linux and I still have a KVM image running this system over Centos 5. The last time I booted it was in 2014, or 41 years after the Wang 2200 came out. I actually used one at Ashland (MA) High School - the second interactive computer I ever used. (The first was a PDP-8 accessed via a teletype at 110 baud from Wayland Junior High School).

  13. On the other hand... on Watching People Code Is Becoming an (Even Bigger) Thing · · Score: 1

    I recently had my first experience with a form of pair-coding, with another engineer looking over my shoulder while I explained an API he would be working with. It was unnerving at first but after a while I almost found a flow. I gained something by using my left brain to verbalize what I was doing with the very right-brain task of visualizing algorithms and data structures. I will probably be repeating this.

  14. Re:Why? on Trojanized, Info-Stealing PuTTY Version Lurking Online · · Score: 1

    Ditto here. I suspect they are, as you suggest, downloading 3rd party applications that depend on the Cygwin DLL. I use the setup.exe provided and have never had a problem.

  15. or watch out for snakes... on Generate Memorizable Passphrases That Even the NSA Can't Guess · · Score: 1

    well.. there's also watchout4snakes. I think it succeeds at being memorable more often with some tuning choosing the parts of speech and the commonness of each

  16. nice clickbait subject on The One Mistake Google Keeps Making · · Score: 1

    might as well be huffpost

  17. Re: Solar power terminology on Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016 · · Score: 1

    This is precisely where the research effort needs to go.

  18. Re: They WILL FIght Back on Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016 · · Score: 1

    Sad to say, but vote with your feet.

  19. now for storage on Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If we had distributed storage (better batteries) we could crush the fossil fuel industry for good with this, and bankrupt Russia and the Saudis for good measure. It's within reach, within a very few years.

  20. Re:India: Scammer country on Turning the Tables On "Phone Tech Support" Scammers · · Score: 1

    It is kind of a shame. I worked at DEC for 18 years and I knew quite a few genius-level CS guys in the research and AD group where I worked.

    But I think the wannabees followed them in. I finished my BS at Fitchburg State College where there are a dozen undergrads and 100 grad students in the CS dept, and almost all of the grad students were Indian. I went to a programming contest there, showed up 40 minutes late for a 2 hour contest, was the only one there writing in Java (because I was intent on learning it at the time) and took 5th place out of a field of 80.

  21. Re:Use a Pre-Built Network Appliance on Ask Slashdot: Advice On Building a Firewall With VPN Capabilities? · · Score: 1

    A "Full Computer" isn't what it used to be. We like this kind of thing.

  22. Untangle? on Ask Slashdot: Advice On Building a Firewall With VPN Capabilities? · · Score: 1

    What do you think about Untangle? (untangle.com) You can buy appliance version of it too.

  23. Re:Right to a Bank Account on Reason Suggests DoJ Closing Porn Stars' Bank Accounts · · Score: 1

    Um, you have heard about "Romneycare" ? He pretty much invented the idea of the individual mandate. And yup, it's working.

  24. we should drop yahoo groups on Yahoo DMARC Implementation Breaks Most Mailing Lists · · Score: 1

    seriously drop all mail incoming and outgoing to/from yahoo groups. Put them out of business instantly.

  25. Re:Hey you, early USB plug apologist on USB Reversable Cable Images Emerge · · Score: 1

    I have personally witnessed a user break out the little tab in a usb jack by repeatedly trying to force the plug in backwards. Twice. The same user.