cstross

52 ms·

211.
by cstross 6y ago
Why even fake it? Most hard drives (and presumably SSDs) contain embedded microcontrollers to handle translation between the various protocol levels (USB, SATA, etc) and the raw data on the platters/FLASH cells, often running i/o
212.
by cstross 6y ago
Powershell. But Microsoft ported Powershell to run on UNIX/Linux, so ...
213.
by cstross 6y ago
Per memory, Coherent 4.0 showed up around 1992-3, with TCP/IP and pseudoTTYs. X11 came along a little later. But by then it was too little too late: the Linux distros were already eating their lunch. Same with SCO. When I worked there
214.
by cstross 6y ago
Bad news: people outside the US have memories longer than 4 (or 8) years. Even if the next POTUS does make nice, there will thereafter always be the memory of how rapidly Trump tanked the USA's relationships. As a result, nobody will
215.
by cstross 6y ago
£100 in 1982 have inflated to roughly £305 today: https://www.inflationtool.com/british-pound/1982-to-present-... The original 16K Speccy launched for £125, worth a whisker under £350 in 2019 (per wikipedia). So the Sp
216.
by cstross 6y ago
The spiritual successor to the Psion Series 5 is the Cosmo Communicator: https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/cosmo-communicator Similar size, but has the classic Psion keyboard (it was designed by the same guy, Martin Riddifor
217.
by cstross 6y ago
BZZZT Pedant alert: Fish and Chips is not originally British! (It's only been a staple over here since the 1860s.) The chips had their origin as Belgian frites, and the fish is from Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Holland, who picke
218.
by cstross 6y ago
/etc/shadow was a thing on SCO Unixen as far back as 1991, to the best of my memory (and maybe sooner -- but not Xenix, which was System 7 based and discontinued after 1991).
219.
by cstross 6y ago
You missed out one critical element of a highly contagious bioweapon: you have to be able to protect your own population . Otherwise it's a self-own. (This is why nobody has really used bioweapons in warfare to date, with the excepti
220.
by cstross 6y ago
> What is needed is for car manufacturers and society to rediscover the purpose of small, light cars. Mobility without the resource drain. I have some sympathy for this, but not for the accident death toll associated with vehicles that l
221.
Moldova Shuts Down Bootleg Helicopter Factory(balkaninsight.com)
301 points by cstross 6y ago|161 comments
222.
by cstross 6y ago
Idle thought: I imagine that as soon as the Apple ARM development boxes drop, someone is going to start evaluating how to port RiscOS to Mac (either on the bare metal or, more likely, via virtualization).
223.
by cstross 6y ago
> Journalism schools are also part of the problem. They form a cohort of people who think they can do exactly that: write about anything. It's bullshit, and it does not work well for the category. This . 100% this. (I spent about a
224.
by cstross 6y ago
Corticosteroids are strongly contraindicated for topical application to the face, because of the risk of glaucoma. Systemic (that is, oral/intravenous for full-body effect) corticosteroid use doesn't usually have this specific sid
225.
by cstross 6y ago
In the GDR (East Germany) during Stalin's period running the Communist bloc, prior to about 1953 they used to execute dissidents using a guillotine in the Stasi basement. The death certificates stated the cause of death as "low bl
226.
by cstross 6y ago
The "cliff-edge" hasn't materialized because the UK is in a negotiated transition period during which nothing changes. That ends on December 31st, 2020. On January 1st, new arrangements are supposed to come into force -- exce
227.
by cstross 6y ago
But ClF3 is harmless compared to dimethyl mercury (which he also goes into) -- and which the USAF contemplated as a reaction mass for air to air missiles, until they realized the mercury in the exhaust plume would melt their launch aircra
228.
by cstross 6y ago
Can confirm. I wrote (for publication) about six novels using POD format plus some basic command line tools and a makefile, treating RTF as a final output format, back in the day. (I was forced to adopt Microsoft Word for checking copy-edit
229.
by cstross 6y ago
He may not be planning on a "next gig" — he's 64, so edging close to retirement. I'm assuming as a corporate VP at that age he's probably got his pension sorted: he probably feels able to make a principled stand in
230.
by cstross 7y ago
You don't need to be surprised -- rail is more widely used than domestic air travel. (Reminder: regular express services run at up to 125mph; the HS1 -- Channel tunnel -- route maxes out at 180mph, and the HS2 line in development is
231.
Operation Behemoth(en.wikipedia.org)
1 points by cstross 7y ago|0 comments
232.
by cstross 7y ago
I still have a Z88 somewhere in here (my office) ... It's the granddaddy of the modern PDA and smartphone; anecdotally, some time in 1989-ish John Sculley was chairing a meeting of Apple execs and realized half of them were typing on t
233.
by cstross 7y ago
The FDA exists because before those regulations were a thing, there were scandals such as the Elixir Sulfanilamide poisoning deaths in 1937: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_Sulfanilamide ... And then tighter regul
234.
by cstross 7y ago
The German government believes it enough that Jens Spahn, their Health Minister, is on the record as saying a US takeover of CureVac won't be allowed to happen, and CureVac removed their (American) CEO last week (following a meeting w
235.
by cstross 7y ago
> pretty much everything you use for Msft Word and similar - all on a 1 MB floppy Somewhere in my pile of not-quite-abandonware I have a copy of the install floppies for Microsoft Word 5.1a for Macintosh, circa 1988/89. All three o
236.
by cstross 7y ago
The problematic bits here are the word "exclusively" and the phrase "but only for the United States". Viral pandemics don't respect frontiers.
237.
by cstross 7y ago
It's being reported here (the UK) as "anyone who has visited or trsvelled through a Schengen zone country in the past 14 days". Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/coronav
238.
by cstross 7y ago
This all assumes that executive level government functions rationally and in the long-term national interest. Which is normally the case, but this is an abnormal decade. Let me be extremely cynical (at risk of down-voting) about the curre
239.
by cstross 7y ago
Correction: article asserts that the Atlas ICBM was the first operational intercontinental missile. This is incorrect -- that honour belongs to the R-7 Semyorka, which beat it by several months and which is still in service today as the Soy
240.
by cstross 7y ago
O'Neill's colony design is flawed (and needs updating): in particular they had huge glassed-in window areas to admit sunlight (focussed via reflectors) for agriculture: he didn't account for differential heating-induced expan

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