Comment Re:Only the failures? (Score 4, Informative) 122
+1
You beat me to it. I'll just mention Abraham Wald, who worked on this.
Comment Pedrick's patents (Score 2) 113
I expect to see a working prototype of this patent: Photon push-pull radiation detector for use in chromatically selective cat flap control and 1000 megaton earth-orbital peace-keeping bomb by Arthur Paul Pedrick before any of Pais' work.
Submission + - Linux long term support version numbers about to run out of bits 1
alanw writes: The 4.4 and 4.9 long term support kernels are both at sublevel 252. The field that holds sublevel is only 8 bits, so is going to run out in a couple of weeks.
Discussion on how to fix it: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/2...
Discussion on how to fix it: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/2...
Twitter App Code Indicates That Live Video Broadcasting App Periscope May Get Shut Down (techcrunch.com) 11
Twitter has been doubling down on video services within its app, building out Twitter Live and recently launching Fleets so that users can share more moving media alongside their pithy 180-word observations, links and still photos. But in the process, it appears that it may also be streamlining its bigger stable of services. From a report: Code in the Twitter app indicates that Periscope -- the live video broadcasting app that launched a thousand fluttering hearts -- may be headed into retirement. Date and other details are still unknown, but super-sleuth developer Jane Machun Wong found a line in Twitter's app code that indicated a link to a shutdown notice for Periscope (which currently does not go to a live link). There are no shutdown references in any of the code in the currently obtainable version of the Persicope app, Wong told us, but she also pointed out that the two apps do share some code -- indeed there are integrations between the two Twitter-owned apps -- and "I guess [that] is how the text in the screenshot got slipped into Twitter," she said.
Comment Re: This is why (Score 2) 88
Their previous attempt to screw their customers: forcing adverts into their html and a cock up that broke connectivity haven't stopped people buying their products.
Comment Blackview are useless (Score 1) 30
My Blackview BV9600 pro (bought because it was cheap and rugged) is still running on firmware dated 20190430 - it will be its 1st birthday in two days.
Comment Re:the rich still have an market for stolen art (Score 3, Interesting) 53
Just a fortnight ago: Van Dyck painting stolen from University of Oxford gallery
Comment Re:MS will NEVER OpenSource Windows.... (Score 2) 144
+1 on this.
About 20 years ago I was responsible for taking the code for OpenSTA, a web/database server performance measuring tool and releasing it under the GPL. As the OP points out, 3rd party code, and unsavoury comments, plus all the personal names/IDs needed to be removed. Not an quick or easy task, even for (sloccount) 235k lines of code, never mind a full OS.
Its a noble, yet futile gesture.
Comment Interviews with Carolyn Porco, Garry Hunt and Alan (Score 3, Insightful) 25
Interviews, with Carolyn Porco, Garry Hunt and Alan Stern at The Register
Comment Some links to more info (Score 3, Informative) 74
Having identified the image of the plane as an F104 Starfighter, and doing a bit of googling, it turned out I wasn't the first.
Summarising from comments on his blog post:
NASA: Starfighters Ready to Launch Research, Satellites
CubeCap
Comment Re:I like his page (Score 2) 39
And remember that he's written a book on Digital Typography, and after being disappointed with the typesetting of the second volume of TAOCP, wrote TeX.
Comment The imaginary Bank of San Serriffe (Score 2) 39
San Serriffe was a 1977 April Fools' day spoof special report in the UK Guardian newspaper. Everything connected with San Serriffe was named after printing and typesetting terms.
Comment Advertising? (Score 4, Insightful) 75
If it was essential, they wouldn't have to advertise it, would they?
Comment Toothbrush holesmanship (Score 1) 117
From the spoof travel documentary: "Balham, Gateway to the south":
https://youtu.be/6ewUOSlRDkk?t...
There a spoken Peter Sellers version, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Comment ESR on "Load-Bearing Internet People" (Score 1) 228
Coincidentally, Eric Raymond has just written an apposite article:
An LBIP is a person who maintains the software for a critical Internet service or library, and has to do it without organizational support or a budget backing him up.
That second part is key. Some maintainers for critical software operate from a niche at a university or a government agency that supports their effort. There might be a few who are independently wealthy. Those people aren’t LBIPs, because the kind of load I’m talking about isn’t technical challenge. It’s the stress of knowing that you are it and you are alone, the world out there has no idea what a crapstorm it would be if you failed at your self-imposed duty, and goddammit why doesn’t anybody care?
He then proposes a scheme: "Loadsharers" to fund LBIPs.
