Le 29-02-2024, Nuxxie <nuxxie@linux.rocks> a écrit :
> I don't use readers but only my PC, and using a PC entails
> lots of risk and expense. Frequent backups are necessary
> as well as the need to prepare for technological change in
> the future.
>
> But overall it still beats paper.

No. Your screen isn't as good as paper to read.

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On 3/1/2024 1:13 AM, rbowman wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Feb 2024 21:42:38 -0600, Physfitfreak wrote:
>
>> I don't remember what editor I was using with Commodore. It was a
>> software of its own, separate from the font editor software.
>
> I ever did anything with the 64, just the PET. That was sort of a fluke.
> The PET used the IEEE-488 port for its peripherals.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE-488
>
> The important part of that page is HP developed it to tie together their
> test equipment. My client was making tantalum capacitors and was doing a
> lot of process control. A HP desktop computer was about $3K and iirc a PET
> was $700. No brainer. Many years later I saw a PET perched on a garbage
> can on its way to the dump. I gave a moment of thought to rescuing it but
> kept on driving.
>
>

I got my Commodore 64 also from garbage dumpster :)

There were three of them dropped there when I placed my garbage bag
inside, so I climbed into and took all three. I had no experience with
pc before that, other than rare occasions trying something on a
neighbor's pc.

That was the beginning of my Commodore escapade.

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On 01 Mar 2024 20:21:53 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:

> Le 27-02-2024, Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> a écrit :
>> I've had to convert source code from 32-bit to 64-bit
>
> I don't believe that. Maybe a "Hello world!" program or something like
> that, but I wouldn't believe on anything more difficult from you.
>

I'll let YOU try, Carpenter.

Here is a C program from 1999. Thus it's definitely 32-bit
and it will not execute on a 64-bit machine. Let's see
if you can convert it:

https://ufile.io/5e4w8v5h

Well c'mon, Carpenter. Put your fucking money where your big,
fat mouth is. Make this C code 64-bit clean.

I did, and I use the result all the time.

It's very easy. But not for YOU.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Le 29-02-2024, Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> a écrit :
> What kind of idiot keeps backups in the "cloud?"

In fact, it can be a good idea.

> Keep them on Blu-Ray optical disks at either 25, 50, or 100 GiB
> per disk.

That's stupid. Now, it's obsolete. You'd better use hard drives, they
are cheap now and easier to use.

> The only possible problem with this scheme is that Best Buy
> may no longer carry Blu-Ray disk readers 10 years from now.

It's not the only problem. Their size is limited. They are difficult to
use. And you need to have a remote location to store them. Which is, in
fact, what the cloud provides, so it's why it can be a good idea to
use the cloud as a back up.

> Oh well. Just be prepared to copy to a new technology when
> the need arises.

The new technology is already available. You just need to learn about
it.

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On 3/1/2024 1:21 AM, rbowman wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Feb 2024 18:08:56 -0600, Physfitfreak wrote:
>
>> No it was before that. These were dot-matrix printers. I remember paying
>> $400 for one (used - from same consignment store) while I paid I think
>> $150 for the IBM-XT. Everything got cheaper of course, later.
>
> I don't remember the circumstances but when our QA people needed a dot
> matrix for some obscure testing I dragged in my Okidata. When they tried
> to give it back I refused.
>

Hehe :) I dumped a few of them too. Didn't exactly dump them, just left
them behind when I moved to a house from my apartment. I left a bunch of
old computers behind as well, almost all of them in working condition,
plus many computer parts. A whole closet-full of them in fact. I had no
hope of getting my deposit back, so... let them handle all that.

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Le 28-02-2024, Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> a écrit :
>
> When RedHat pushed out systemd, all the mainstream distros adopted
> it

Right.

> without question.

Wrong. They argued about it.

> There was no "choice" and all debate was quashed.

Exactly. There was nothing better. There is still nothing better. That's
the reason. The choice to use the only good possibility is still a
choice.

> So who has the "power to switch?"

Look at Ubuntu. They used SysV when there was nothing else. Then they
tried to switch to something else I don't remember its name. And then
they switch to systemd when it was available. They new SysV was garbage
and they now know systemd is the best available actually. So they had
the power to switch. Twice. They knew why. You don't know why because
you prefer being guided by your hatred than by your brain.

> Unless one was willing to "roll ones own," 99% of distros switched
> to systemd

Yes. It was their choice.

> and forced all of their lackeys to go along.

They forced nobody. Your hate is blinding you.

> There is some choice in open source, but not much.

Not in the init system. In other ways, there is.

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On 3/1/2024 12:58 AM, rbowman wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Feb 2024 21:54:20 -0600, Physfitfreak wrote:
>
>> Among a lot of stuff that he did in his field, were the discovery of a
>> certain mode of evolution that Darwin had totally missed. And this was
>> before the tool of genetics was even available. But he also wrote about
>> many other subjects.
>
> That all depends on whether you consider punctuated equilibrium a valid
> theory or a hype job by someone writing popular science for the masses.
> Let's say I was on E.O. Wilson's side of the dogfight. Wolpoff punched a
> few holes in 'The Mismeasure of Man'
>
> https://sundeepdougal.tripod.com/dengld.html
>
> Daniel Dennett had some unkind things to say. Richard Dawkins was even
> more hostile.
>
> Yes, Gould wrote a lot of best sellers and was widely read by the public.

In my opinion, Gould was a league (or two) above those who argued with
him. He was audience-friendly and communicated with them; and had a
similar relationship with others in his field. But that didn't mean any
of them were of his caliber. Just allowing them his time didn't mean
they were equals in any way, including Dawkins and Dennett, etc.

The latter people were his groupies. And only that. Nothing else.
Dawkins, for instance, is really just a smart aleck stupid person. He
can see through to a point, but never beyond that. Same with others who
always argued with Gould. I call them, "cro-magnons". One cannot think
out, outside his own species.

Gould was Modern Man.

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On 01 Mar 2024 20:58:43 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:

> They new SysV was garbage
> and they now know systemd is the best available actually.
>

Says who? Says you -- and who the fuck are you?

For a standalone, desktop workstation, systemd is total, unnecessary
JUNK. Got that? Junk.

YOU cannot design and build your own distro, but _I_ certainly
can, and _I_ say that systemd is total, unnecessary JUNK.

YOU are just another distro lackey that is completely dependent
on what is given to you by the distros. If not for the distros
you would not, because you could not, be using GNU/Linux.

On Fri, 1 Mar 2024 08:17:10 -0500, DFS <dfs@nospam.com> wrote in
<65e1d54b$0$4630$882e4bbb@reader.netnews.com>:

> On 2/27/2024 10:07 PM, vallor wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Feb 2024 18:51:49 -0500, DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote in
>>>
>>> And space marines and The Strogg. Reduce 'em to gibs!
>>
>> You know there are more sophisticated games out than Quake, right?
>
> Did you recognize The Strogg, or did you have to look it up?

Of course I recognized them -- indeed, we used to run a Q II server.

>> What I'm trying to say is Quake II, while fun, is kid's stuff compared
>> to what's out now. (Heck, it's kid's stuff compared to Half-Life, and
>> that is ancient.)
>
> And HL is kid's stuff compared to the masterful HL2, which is 20 years
> old!
>
>
>
>> EDO doesn't have gibs. It does have interactive fiction,
>> much more immersive than watching a video.
>
> I like Serious Sam. Then out of left field, the Sam developers -
> Croteam - released the cool, philosophical puzzle game 'The Talos
> Principle'.

I've played a bit of both (didn't finish them), and
another good thinking game is 'The Stanley Parable'.

Another game in the "Serious Sam" camp would be Boltgun,
which is so retro it uses sprites for some objects.

--
-v

On 3/1/2024 1:24 AM, rbowman wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Feb 2024 17:39:02 -0600, Physfitfreak wrote:
>
>> They don't have to hack the ciphered docs. They'll hack the computers on
>> which the digital docs are in the government.
>
> https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Final-ONCD-
> Technical-Report.pdf
>
> Never fear, the government is on it.

Hehe :)

Hacking isn't just taking control. It can also aim at damaging. Damaging
software performance on a computer is now a science of its own :)
Hahhahahh :)

I think it was already like 20 years ago that I read somewhere (a
Persian post in a mailing list I think) that even some Iranian
university had begun _teaching_ ways of stopping software _or_ hardware
to function correctly! ...

Give them 20 years and they can come up with something, believe me! In
that post, the guy was describing how he had learned to write code to
indirectly make the adjacent memory bits in the computer (I don't
remember in RAM or in CPU itself or in the registers or elsewhere)
flip-flop. The code would repeat flip-flopping the adjacent bit to the
target bit intensely for a few seconds until, only by the proximity to
the target bit, it would eventually make that bit flip-flop and thus
create bugs in other stuff that computer did which depended on the value
of the target bit.

How can you prevent measures like that?... Do we want to go back to
ENIAC type of computers to avoid it? Hehe :)

And what about the rock-bottom method of using EMP? Russians have scores
of little nukes that are made only for creating EMP, powerful enough to
fuck up anything electronic that you may be using in that area.

I think computer is for good times and good people only. It is extremely
useful of course, but only when you, the user, are a person, an
institution, an entity, that do not create enemies of itself. If you are
troublesome, computer will not help you when you need it.

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On 2024-03-01 3:48 p.m., Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
> Le 29-02-2024, Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> a écrit :
>> What kind of idiot keeps backups in the "cloud?"
>
> In fact, it can be a good idea.
>
>> Keep them on Blu-Ray optical disks at either 25, 50, or 100 GiB
>> per disk.
>
> That's stupid. Now, it's obsolete. You'd better use hard drives, they
> are cheap now and easier to use.

Blu-Rays last longer than hard disks do.

< snip >

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On 3/1/2024 5:02 PM, Relf wrote:

> My favorite way to program is lying down, eyes closed.

I like to sleep standing up, eyes open.

On Fri, 1 Mar 2024 15:04:31 -0600, Physfitfreak wrote:

> In my opinion, Gould was a league (or two) above those who argued with
> him.

We all have our opinions.

On 3/1/2024 6:03 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Mar 2024 15:04:31 -0600, Physfitfreak wrote:
>
>> In my opinion, Gould was a league (or two) above those who argued with
>> him.
>
> We all have our opinions.

Sure, but we at least try to base them on facts.

Dawkins is a good journalist who later became a priest. But a priest on
the "science"'s side. Nevertheless a priest and nothing more than that.

Dennett has been a bullshitter all his life. A "philosopher." I can't
even compare these types of people with a scientist, let alone a first
rate scientist that Gould was.

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vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> wrote at 21:36 this Friday (GMT):
> On Fri, 1 Mar 2024 08:17:10 -0500, DFS <dfs@nospam.com> wrote in
><65e1d54b$0$4630$882e4bbb@reader.netnews.com>:
>
>> On 2/27/2024 10:07 PM, vallor wrote:
>>> On Tue, 27 Feb 2024 18:51:49 -0500, DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote in
>>>>
>>>> And space marines and The Strogg. Reduce 'em to gibs!
>>>
>>> You know there are more sophisticated games out than Quake, right?
>>
>> Did you recognize The Strogg, or did you have to look it up?
>
> Of course I recognized them -- indeed, we used to run a Q II server.
>
>>> What I'm trying to say is Quake II, while fun, is kid's stuff compared
>>> to what's out now. (Heck, it's kid's stuff compared to Half-Life, and
>>> that is ancient.)
>>
>> And HL is kid's stuff compared to the masterful HL2, which is 20 years
>> old!
>>
>>
>>
>>> EDO doesn't have gibs. It does have interactive fiction,
>>> much more immersive than watching a video.
>>
>> I like Serious Sam. Then out of left field, the Sam developers -
>> Croteam - released the cool, philosophical puzzle game 'The Talos
>> Principle'.
>
> I've played a bit of both (didn't finish them), and
> another good thinking game is 'The Stanley Parable'.
>
> Another game in the "Serious Sam" camp would be Boltgun,
> which is so retro it uses sprites for some objects.

Stanley Parable and UltraDeluxe are really great games.
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On Fri, 1 Mar 2024 22:25:45 -0600, Physfitfreak wrote:

> Sure, but we at least try to base them on facts.

The facts are Gould was a left wing bullshitter who never had an original
idea in his life including punctuated equilibria. He wrote easily read
books that impressed the unwashed masses. If you want to put him on a
pedestal that's your problem. Maybe you share his agendas; I don't.

Le 01-03-2024, Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> a écrit :
> On 01 Mar 2024 20:58:43 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>
>> They new SysV was garbage
>> and they now know systemd is the best available actually.
>>
>
> Says who?

Except the dinosaurs who take a long time learning SysV and are afraid
to discover they lost a lot of time for nothing, everyone.

> Says you

Not only. A lot of concepts where bad. And to adapt it to modern usages
it requires a lot of bad things which made it difficult to maintain.

> and who the fuck are you?

Who I am is irrelevant. I have arguments, so what's important are my
arguments, not who I am. Except for you who has no arguments because you
can only shout and laugh. So who you are is relevant. And as everything
you show is a failure. So who you are, by itself, proves you are wrong.

> For a standalone, desktop workstation, systemd is total, unnecessary
> JUNK.

OK, first worthless claim. So, I'll give you my first argument to prove
it's wrong. For a start, the config files of a standalone, desktop
workstation are all at the same place with SysV. So, when I changed some
defaults, any update was messing with my changes and I had to manually
take care of it. With systemd, there is a place for my changes and a
place for the maintainers, so everything is updated smoothly now. And
that's a great thing by itself.

As I'm confident you are at loss and don't have any argument, I'll give
you a second one. For free. When I'm booting my computer, I don't want
to know if I'll use a network connection or a usb key. I want it to boot
and later I'll decide if I want to plug something or not. With SysV,
it's difficult to manage, with systemd it's by design.

So for a standalone, desktop workstation, systemd has two (for a start)
good advantages over SysV.

> Got that?

Yes, systemd 2 -- SysV 0.

> Junk.

What are you speaking of? SysV or yourself? As both are true at the same
time, I don't really know.

> YOU cannot design and build your own distro,

You don't know what I can or can't do. But once again, we are not
speaking about what I am but what systemd and SysV are. So don't change
the subject to try to hide your lack of knowledge.

> but _I_ certainly can,

From what you show, I'm pretty sure _you_ certainly can't. You tried
to install gentoo because it looks cool. So it's not what one can call
design and build your own distro. It's being a distro lackey. And you
show everyone here it's unfinished and unusable. It required you years
of efforts for that. It would require you centuries of hard efforts to
be able to design and build your own distro.

> and _I_ say

What you say is garbage. As always. There are no argument to back your
claims, so what you say is irrelevant.

> that systemd is total, unnecessary JUNK.

I gave you two valid arguments for systemd. Now, give yours for SysV.

> YOU are just another distro lackey

Like you. It's just not the same distro, but it doesn't change anything
about being a distro lackey. But unlike you, I can manage my distro to
be very useful and efficient.

> that is completely dependent on what is given to you by the distros.

Once again, like you.

> If not for the distros you would not, because you could not,

You have no idea of what I could or couldn't do. So we'll pass this
point. Now, the purpose of a system is to be used not to be installed
and managed. So using what others have done to be able to install and
manage effortlessly your system is a pretty good idea. I'm not that
surprised you can't see the point.

To do everything by yourself to learn is a good idea. But to use all of
your time to do it by yourself and having no time remaining to use it is
not. And as you never learned anything when trying to install gentoo,
your way is just stupid.

> be using GNU/Linux.

Unlike you, I'm using Linux. You are still trying to finish its
installation when updating it without breaking everything you previously
did. And, by the way, some of your messages proved that fails from time
to time. When you are proud of a system you claim to be well managed, it
shouldn't break with updates.

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On 02 Mar 2024 09:57:33 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:

>
> I gave you two valid arguments for systemd. Now, give yours for SysV.
>

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Since when is SysV the only alternative to systemd?

I never mentioned SysV. NEVER. Yet you automatically assume that
I must be using SysV because I am not using systemd.

What an idiot!

There are *many* possibilities for an init system. The Linux
world is far bigger than just SysV and systemd (and YOU).

My init system boots my GNU/Linux machines in just 30 lines
of bash code. Compare that to systemd's 50 MILLION LINES.

YOU are stuck with systemd because you don't know how to do
anything else.

MY machines belong to ME.

YOU belong to SYSTEMD.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Nuxxie <nuxxie@linux.rocks> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Feb 2024 13:57:16 -0500, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>
>>>
>>> I have tens of thousands of books and if they were all paper they would
>>> literally break the foundation of my residence.
>>
>> So how many have you read? :-D
>>
>
> Certainly not all of them, and as I keep adding more and more
> it is most cetain that I will never read all of them.
>
> But that's not the point. The point is to ammass a huge personal
> library that one can consult at will. Needless to say, unless one
> is a billionaire the only way to do this is by going digital.

Or just visit your local library. /s

>> But you can't make notes on them. You gotta charge up the reader.
>> Hope it doesn't drop the floor and render the screen unusable.
>>
>
> Making notes on digital books is very simple.

Makes a mess of the touchscreen, though.

> I don't use readers but only my PC, and using a PC entails
> lots of risk and expense. Frequent backups are necessary
> as well as the need to prepare for technological change in
> the future.
>
> But overall it still beats paper.

Does your library include Clifford Stohl’s “Silicone Snake Oil”?

-hh

On 3/2/2024 12:02 AM, rbowman wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Mar 2024 22:25:45 -0600, Physfitfreak wrote:
>
>> Sure, but we at least try to base them on facts.
>
> The facts are Gould was a left wing bullshitter who never had an original
> idea in his life including punctuated equilibria. He wrote easily read
> books that impressed the unwashed masses. If you want to put him on a
> pedestal that's your problem. Maybe you share his agendas; I don't.
>

Hehe :)

Then perhaps it was someone like you who killed him. Hahhahahh :)

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On Sat, 2 Mar 2024 21:07:13 -0600, Physfitfreak wrote:

> Then perhaps it was someone like you who killed him. Hahhahahh

Wouldn't it be ironic if his cancers were found to be linked to his
genetics like Tay-Sachs,

On Sat, 2 Mar 2024 21:04:02 -0500, -hh wrote:

> Does your library include Clifford Stohl’s “Silicone Snake Oil”?

Very few people have been able to so completely miss the boat. I think I
did read Cuckoo's Egg which had the benefit of being written after the
fact.

Le 02-03-2024, Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> a écrit :
> On 02 Mar 2024 09:57:33 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>
>>
>> I gave you two valid arguments for systemd. Now, give yours for SysV.
>
> I never mentioned SysV. NEVER. Yet you automatically assume that
> I must be using SysV because I am not using systemd.

I said SysV is crap and you asked who says that. So if you don't mention
it it was implied. Don't try to run away like that.

> What an idiot!

Yes, I know that. There is no need to repeat it at length, it will not
change.

> There are *many* possibilities for an init system.

Not really.

> My init system boots my GNU/Linux machines in just 30 lines
> of bash code.

First, using bash for that is bad in itself, it was an issue with SysV
and it's a good thing systemd doesn't rely on bash.
Second, your init boot does nothing, like your computer. It's useless
and shouldn't be considered an alternative to any init system.

> Compare that to systemd's 50 MILLION LINES.

Obviously, you don't know how to count lines of code, so maybe your 30
lines of bash code resume in one line of bash code: a call to a real
init system. I wouldn't be that surprised from you.

> YOU are stuck with systemd because you don't know how to do
> anything else.

No, I'm stuck with systemd because it's good and there's nothing better
actually. The day something better comes, I'll switch to it.

> MY machines belong to ME.

Yes, like you it's useless.

> YOU belong to SYSTEMD.

No. Systemd is just but one tool among others to run my machine.

> Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Yes, no argument. Like predicted. Except an imaginary one about the
number of lines of code of systemd and of your pretended bash script.
When I added one: the absence of bash in systemd. So for systemd there
is one point more and still 0 for SysV and you.

So right now, it's systemd 3 -- SysV 0 -- you 0.

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rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Mar 2024 21:04:02 -0500, -hh wrote:
>
>> Does your library include Clifford Stohl’s “Silicone Snake Oil”?
>
> Very few people have been able to so completely miss the boat. I think I
> did read Cuckoo's Egg which had the benefit of being written after the
> fact.
>
>

I was referring to his insight on digital archiving costs…

-hh