Posts by JLV

Re: Google Need Them To

>>then Google can update literally everything

>Ah, but what can they practically update?

Ah, but what _will_ they _factually_ update? Not their own late 2013 Nexus 5, that's fer sure. Abandonware for a year already.

Re: Go Samsung!

>What people are failing to understand is the removal of Youtube is down to the Tv's specs.

That's not, strictly speaking, true.

The old-style YT app is Flash-based for this TV, believe it or not. Google retired it, but Sammy did not bother replacing it. I find it really hard to believe that, if a $40 Chromecast could 1080p YT in 2015 then Sammy's devs could not possibly fit that functionality onto their $1500 (new) 2013 TV. The cynical (not me!) might suspect they just want you to buy new stuff.

>only a moron enables auto-updates on anything

Thanks! As Win 10 users are well-aware, you don't always have a choice. I don't recall a setting to disable auto-updates, but I'll take a closer look. It does have dialog that allows you to cancel the update, which is what I do every time. Though one time I had to plug in a USB stick to update the firmware after I got too far behind in my updates and it wouldn't connect anymore.

While I don't disagree with reasoning of the "keep TVs dumb" crowd, that doesn't work for everyone: I don't have cable anymore, so it's all either Netflix or my DVDs. And, having an auxiliary PC under Linux or the like to handle the internet seems like a massive electricity drain to my parsimonious energy self as well as paying double for the functionality that's already included on modern TVs.

Re: Really ?

Not the least being that women are strongly encouraged to be topless on French beaches ; - )

Re: Interesting stuff

@Ledswinger It's interesting to note that, by "classical" Geneva conventions, Guantanomo was fully justified, even tame. Enemy combatants are expressly required to be uniformed, otherwise their treatment is not covered.

Your point is well taken but there is little benefit in an all-out struggle that just ups the nastiness without really improving the prospects of either party if the new nasty just balances out. That's more true of WW1 gassing than WW2 strategic bombing. Plus, at some point excessive inhumanity "soils" the country and society doing it.

Even Hitler did not use chemicals _in combat_ (note qualifier: I aint no Spicer). We've also successfully disallowed blinding lasers.

It's hard to find a balance between "humane war" and making war generally too palatable (cf old Star Trek). Methink a good start is defining "war crimes" and holding people who knowingly and wilfully infringe them very, very, accountable. I think we're, very roughly and clumsily, heading in the right direction - the Middle East wars of the last 15 years or so would have been much more indiscriminate if carried by early/mid 20th century Western democracies. With lil more success than Nam, Algeria, Soviets in Afghanistan.

Re: Go Java!

You can also tell a Java dev from his reinforced bookshelves. Filled with thick tomes on the endless libraries and addons needed suggested to get things done. A good subset of those libraries, Spring coming to mind, deals with shoving configuration pell-mell into XML so it that escapes the scrutiny of the so-desirable typing system and allow a modicum of, hated and unnecessary, dynamic behavior.

Much cleaner to put behavior, not data, in XML than code, innit? Especially considering how human-friendly searching through complex nested XML is ;-).

Odd that few other languages have drunk from the XML-as-code coolaid cup so deeply. They're missing so much.

Re: On Censorship

Ummm... the only "censor.+" found here is in your posting.

And, why would one want to censor anything? These clowns are hanging themselves.

I've wondered what it would take to whittle down Trump's core 30-40% of supporters. You know, the guys that voted, perhaps not the way some would have preferred, but exercised their right to pick the guy. And, not to vote Dem if they are Rep. Their right.

Impeach Trump now, as some suggest, will convince that 30-40% they are being oppressed. That's a good springboard for Trump 2 later (Cruz?). Best to have him visibly pee in the punch bowl a bit more first and lose more support. Trouble is, anything sufficiently blatant to wake that core up will probably be pretty nasty for the US. And potentially the world, like a botched NK intervention.

On the other hand, I would find it hard to believe that a sizeable portion of that 40% likes, or wants to be associated with, _real_ Nazis. This whole sorry episode is a pretty complication-free event that isolates Trump some more with limited actual downsides. If I were a reasonable Southern white favoring Confederate heritage, I'd be fuming at Trump and the Charlottesville event organizers for mucking that up. It ain't gonna cut his 40% by half, or even a quarter, he hasn't quite screwed it up enough, but it's chipping at the edges.

You could almost blame the media for hyping it up, except Trump chose to put his foot in his mouth himself.

Twice. And firing the CEOs to boot.

Censorship? Why??? Popcorn! Ditto with counter-violence by the Antifa groups - 100% with Peter2's post, there is no _need_ to confront isolated Nazis violently in this instance. Yes, in another time and place. Not here and now.

Re: I might watch it sometime

>the books are better

Sorry, that old cliche usually works but doesn't fly here: a) the books are horrendously slow in coming out, b) are apparently fleshing out more and more, but not in a good way* as they go and c) any notion of surprise twists is going out the window as this will be the first time a real (not novelization) set of books comes out after a movie.

* https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/RQMHSVDEC80QE?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl

I could already see the loss in plot tempo in book 4 so didn't bother with 5. And 6 was due in 2016, then 2017, then... I like GRRMs other work so I actually wouldn't mind if he gave up and let HBO drive and went back to writing SF, less self-consciously.

Re: Microsoft pretty did say you're holding it wrong.

>Sounds like a resounding quality endorsement to me.

In this case, yes. But it doesn't change the fact that the CPU throttling, which you cleverly decided was bullshit on my end, is pretty Catch 22-esque - how the heck do you justify thermal shutdown on an absent battery? When the rest of the system is perfectly aware it's missing. So, I think it's perfectly reasonable not to hold up Apple battery wisdom overmuch in heat management zen for the Surface.

The 2016 MBP I wanted to replace it with was returned - lousy keyboard, pricey, and the Touch Bar is a gimmick outside of native OSX apps and has zero travel. And it wasn't that much faster than my old laptop.

So, on balance, Apple is still the least worst for what I want to use the gear for. I still don't appreciate the cant-do-no-wrong attitude of its deep fanbois. I do feel embarrassed about stupid gushiness about Apple - they're just a vendor and it is to our best interest as customers to keep them on their toes, not idolize them.

To repeat: the fact that I am servicing 6 year old gear takes nothing away from the idiocy of the particular issue I was talking about and that you decided you needed to correct me on for bad-mouthing poor Apple.

Re: Only barbarous savages or coffee drinkers ... would even consider instant 'tea'

>mutualiste / anarchiste

N'empeche. C'etait plutot drole, non? Et que tant de rosbifs comprennent?

http://semver.org/ it's a thing and it makes sense even if it doesn't seem intuitive at first. And you should really know of it in this line of work because it's commonly used nowadays.

Re: Surface is shit, quelle surprise

Not speaking to your problems with Apple kit, but that's not my experience when it comes to running newer macOS on older kit.

MBP 2011 here, still running fine besides its known fried GPU manufacturing defect. Latest macOS runs fine on it, but keep in mind the thing is maxed @ 16GB Ram and a shiny Samsung 850 SSD.

Lest I be accused of just being an Apple shill, I bought a refurb 2016 MBP when my GPU broke down. It was unreliable and tended to reboot on things like plugging in an external monitor via USB C. Maybe it was a lemon - so I returned it within the 2 week no-questions-asked window. In any case, lemon or not, its keyboard was crap and it wasn't much faster at compilation than the old one. And, $$$$$$ is too much as well.

I don't rejoice in MS's Surface hardware woes. There are so many crap laptops with ugly cases and 1366x768 "HD" screens that Surface's hardware can only be lauded for motivating the big manufacturers to up their game. However, it's sad if it's really unreliable at that price.

As to Windows 10, there is always the hope* that MS will see reason, de-telemetrize it and settle henceforth on a stable configuration UI, but right now I can't be arsed to spend too much time on my ASUS gaming laptop which is otherwise a pretty nice beast.

* I can also hope for peace on Earth and rainbow unicorns, doesn't mean I believe it'll happen.

>Where the fuck did that come from?

Oh, sorry, was the subject of electronic part swapping off topic to your rant? Just like your bicycle rant was off topic to the original article, which dealt with electronic repairs and had nothing whatsoever to do with bicycles?

I mean, since you seemed to take issue with the article, I assumed you didn't mind if your parts are glued and non-serviceable. That's where "that came from". My bad. Btw, to me, external drives are not necessarily the greatest solution for laptops.

I suggest, since you seem to think of yourself as a clever chap, that you investigate the distinction between anecdotes and statistically sound data. I have no doubt there are tons of stupid cyclists doing stupid things. With you so far. However, you decided to jump feet first onto a gross generalization from that point on. Again, on an article that had nothing to do with bicycles.

Re: Pretty sure he knows nothing...

XEDIT, you'll find.

>done an Xbox

I agree. While the numbers are horrendous, MS really is taking a big risk by bailing out on mobile. There's a huge chunk of stuff that naturally will gravitate, or be closely involved with, mobiles. Take personal health. And, in a way, cloud + mobile is good reason for cloud too. Step away, and others may sneak in.

With their massive cash flow, MS has spent decades and untold B$ trying to diversify from Windows n Office. Often for no discernibly good reasons - Skype, Linkedin.

Many people aren't that fond of either Android or Apple. A clever, humble (as in, listen to customers) and deep-pocketed vendor could still find a spot.

Might be MS is just realistic that they only have one of the above qualities. But it still showcases their worrying lack of perseverance that adopters of new MS ventures best keep in mind.

Re: Or else he was trying to throw the dogs off the track.

>vice-versa

Agree. I'd also add that, if he is innocent, I hope he gets cleared relatively quickly and doesn't suffer huge financial losses and stress defending his innocence. That's probably an unrealistic hope, but still.

On the positive side, he has enough profile and goodwil that his trial will receive a lot of attention. If the G-men have a case they'll have to make it in full and won't be able to cut corners.

Remember though that Kronos itself is not a prank hack, like defacing whitehouse.gov or whatever. Whoever built it, whether Marcus or not, should burn. And that's another reason the FBI needs to make an airtight case: if an innocent man gets jailed, the real criminal gets away.

>Ah

True but the average Windows user does get to worry about compliance with their general, end-user, customer agreement if you have the temerity to want to launch a guest VM Windows using the same license as your current, host, Windows. Or the impact of hardware changes depending on the flavor of license, like OEM, you might have purchased. That's a darn sight more applicable to the real world of average users than a GPL spat wrt grsecs' shady practices.

Nice try tho ;-)

Re: ... but will it

>be aware that shouting at the cat is not a good way to stop the dog shitting on your carpet.

Worth a +1 on its own.

Re: It's quite simple don't blame the player, vote to change the game.

You must have missed the part where your retirement depends on investment returns ;-) Including that of investments run by your government on behalf of the general retiree pool, if you are not directly investing yourself.

Look, I am not claiming that corporations are snow-white. But the very notion of workers require the presence of employers. Who can't all be public sector and non-profit, otherwise, there'd be no tax revenue, would there? Corporations are one mechanism for ownership. They need not abuse the public any more than a private business owner is required to screw his employees, although the lack of individual responsibility does make it easier for them to act unethically if they don't run the risk of penalties.

Absolutist positions make it easy to ignore the need for reforms. Right now, at least in economies like the US, the UK and to a lesser extent Canada, it is acceptable for CEOs, not founders, to be remunerated in the tens of millions, 300x their average worker pay, whether or not their companies outperform their peers. That's because they have a huge say in how their pay package "needs to be competitive". Other market economies, esp in Scandinavia, tend to have a social contract that says "<5-10 M$ OK, but no more". That's already a heck of a lot, mind you, but nowhere as obscene as what we are seeing in some cases. Remember the post-bailout bank bonuses in the US, paid for by the taxpayer funded relief to failing banks? I do.

Sorry, but your baying at the moon ain't gonna convince too many lawmakers you have a valid point, dear ;-)

Re: But...

Powershell is powerful, true. But its early learning curve is very steep. Steeper than bash and much steeper than dos. Even a lowly dir /o:d requires figuring out what the object's date attribute is called and a pipe to the sort. And the whole command will be much longer too. On the positive side you don't need to parse an text stream to isolate that date for further processing. For advanced usage, ps's more structured object mechanism pays off, most of the time it seems overkill.

I fear the days of the casual command line user, if there ever was such a beast on Windows, are ending.

Re: Stop picking on that poor kid.

They have a bit of a feud going on (who doesn't Trump have a feud with?)

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-vs-amazon-jeff-bezos-641506

popcorn.

Mind you I kinda like Bezos & Amazon. But Amazon has a rep as an employer w very lil work/life balance, they squeeeze you. And they ought to be watched for market domination too.