And as for containers, what used to be $2,000 is now $20,000, if not $30,000...
]]>"Also a bit like the old days of Usenet."
Does that still exist, or is there at least an archive?
It still exists, although it is much, much smaller than it was, even before the Great Reorganisation.
Many of the groups are populated either by 'bots or incarnations of the Seagull, and there is a tendency for certain types to find a newsgroup and then set about drowning the signal with noise. I had the displeasure of watching it happen to alt.comp.freeware. At least rec.arts.sf.written still has a decent level of traffic, but there are enough problem types there that my kill-file occasionally gets additions. And google groups is the new AOL. :-(
]]>That is complete bollocks. NTP is a very complicated and, worse, brittle protocol, originally...
Hmm, never seemed that brittle to me, but back when I was worrying about things being externally accurate - as in the time being the same here as on the other side of the planet - I had access to stratum 1 servers.
These days I just point one thing at au.pool.ntp.org, (well, 0-4.au...), and everything else at that, and it does the job. Basically been stable for decades.
And when I went looking for some information about SNTP, I found this gem: "The SNTP protocol no longer plays a role in time synchronization on commercially available PCs due to today’s improved computing power. More complex protocols such as NTP are used as standard, and have no noticeable effect on performance."
]]>Sarbanes-Oxley (and its relatives): Bloody thing nearly caused a heap of grief back when it happened, until it was pointed out that ROT-13 (aka Caesar code) was sufficient. It's not like those of us who've been on USENET since before the great reorganisation couldn't read it straight off the screen...
Time: If you aren't bright enough to set up an NTP server you're not even as accurate as a stopped clock.
Version Control for non-Programmers: It's called Sharepoint, nearly all the large companies use it. It's shit, but it usually works.
]]>I kind of think there have been stories about accidental AIs which either don't care about humans or are actively malicious.
Sadly I can't name any, but it feels like a regularly used trope.
Harlan Ellison - "I have no mouth and I must scream".
Can't speak to how accidental it was, but it's certainly actively malicious by the time we get to meet it.
]]>Just out of curiosity, has anyone played with a language called Julia, and if so, what did you think?
One of the seconded-to-a-recently-purchased-data-science-company managers (who is really a programmer, but let them know he has people skills) from $ORK has mentioned it to me a few times, and Ph.D.-student-I-skate-with-whose-family-don't-grok-it has also mentioned it, in the context of, "Like R, but on steroids, viagra, and multivitamins".
Seems to be another, "If you like languages like that you'll like it", things. (I liked SNOBOL back in the day, but never found anything I could point it at, not even sure if I still have a copy of the source, or what it was written in, possibly Interdata assembler???)
]]>Commuting to work by bicycle reduces all-cause mortality by 20% compared to commuting by car (for cardiovascular diseases, it's a 24% reduction), according to a cohort study by Patterson et al in Lancet Planetary Health. There are plenty of other studies which indicate a similar relationship, with varying effect strenght (I remember one with 40% of reduction in all-cause mortality).
That's interesting, and no doubt perfectly correct, if people are encouraged to exercise, and do exercise, a reduction in various morbidities would be the expected outcome.
[SNIP]
Which is why we have science. It's a pity it has not caught on yet.
So what sort of "science" are you envisaging that equates, "Being required to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle", with, "I will not wear a helmet, I will only drive my car"??? Inquiring minds long to know!
Maybe in a culture where both drivers and cyclists aren't equally feral - such as the Netherlands - it would probably have a great impact, indeed may already have had such an impact.
Not happening here in Oz, though. Too many cyclists think they are a protected species, and too many drivers aren't sufficiently aware of what is happening outside the cabin.
And it's only gotten worse since both mobs returned to the roads post-COVID.
Although I haven't yet this year had an unlit black bike being ridden by a rider dressed in black try to run me off a cycle path, and abuse thoroughly-illuminated me for the privilege, but it is only May.
Of course, it wasn't even January 3rd before a Toorak Tractor decided that the lane my car was travelling in was completely empty, and, what are indicators for, anyway??
On another note entirely, has anyone else noticed that Teslas seem to have taken over from BMWs as the, "Car least likely to have indicators installed"???
]]>Just ask the poor bastard of a neurosurgeon who is on-call at the nearest emergency hospital how much more time they've spent with their family since the helmet laws came in.
Oh, and while you're at it, ask the osteo how many recumbent users they've had to rebuild after they've gone under something.
]]>That's the kind of thing that I used to come up with when I was an undergraduate. I bet that most of the people who turned up were bored students.
In town, on a Saturday, over Easter??? Not in Oz, sunshine, not in Oz.
]]>(Mods, please fix at your leisure.)
]]>Y'know, folks, all this discussion about the "kingdom of heaven"... it just struck me to be surprised that the funnymentalists aren't fighting the space program tooth and nail.
They do. There was a rally in Bourke Street, Melbourne, today.
Here's a linkie, SFW, but perhaps not the mind: Christians Against Satellites
Sad, so sad...
]]>Actually, no, they wouldn't have helped in the Falklands - and I have done essentially that. Yes, they are a lot easier over many terrains, but boggy, tussocky moorland is not one of them. The boggy conditions need seriously wide tyres (at least 4", preferably 8") and the rough going needs large wheels (at least 36", preferably 72"). Without those, it's actually easier to carry the damn bicycle - been there, done that, too!
That's why I paged Graydon Saunders, and why Heteromeles is talking about the Ming Dynasty - Chinese wheel-barrows are different, a 180cm diameter wheel is not unlikely, and a 12cm tyre would just make sense. :-)
]]>Graydon will be along soon...
]]>