On 06/11/2024 13:20, Rich wrote:

> There are a great many users for whom their *only* computing device is
> a cell phone or tablet. Every one of them is already firmly in the
> "thin terminal" camp.
>
> The "touchy-feely-crappy" (i.e., cell phone/tablet) (as TNP puts it)
> appeals to the IT illiterate because it seems easier to use. And
> there's a whole lot more IT illiterate in this world than there are
> even moderately IT literate folks.

I cant reliably answer my smartphone after 5 years. Sometimes it wants a
touch sometimes a swipe, and half the time the touchscreen doesn't work
because my fingers are dry or something.

It is quite frankly complete and utter shit.

--
"And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch".

Gospel of St. Mathew 15:14

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 06/11/2024 13:20, Rich wrote:
>
>> There are a great many users for whom their *only* computing device is
>> a cell phone or tablet. Every one of them is already firmly in the
>> "thin terminal" camp.
>>
>> The "touchy-feely-crappy" (i.e., cell phone/tablet) (as TNP puts it)
>> appeals to the IT illiterate because it seems easier to use. And
>> there's a whole lot more IT illiterate in this world than there are
>> even moderately IT literate folks.
>
> I cant reliably answer my smartphone after 5 years. Sometimes it wants a
> touch sometimes a swipe, and half the time the touchscreen doesn't work
> because my fingers are dry or something.
>
> It is quite frankly complete and utter shit.

Just throw it away. Haven't had a smart phone in a loooong time and my
nokia 110 4g works perfectly. To answer, I push a button, and it works!

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 11:31:21 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> And they voted for the Orange Jesus, because they were simply *bored of*
> assholes telling them what to do and treating them like idiots.
>
> "When you follow the [Liberal progressive] herd all you see is
> assholes."
> "Donald may be an asshole, but you said that is what we were anyway, so
> he is at least *our* asshole."

I studiously avoided all the election night bullshit. My first hint was
when I looked at my email this morning. A conservative Catholic newsletter
had an article headlined 'Trump Wins: Let the Work Begin'.

Looking at the state results was even better. Our three term Democratic
Senator lost by 13 points. Both Republican Representatives won handily, as
did the governor.

To be honest, I didn't see it happening. Now to see if the Orange Jesus
learned from his last term and can avoid hiring backstabbers.

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 13:20:02 -0000 (UTC), Rich wrote:

> The "touchy-feely-crappy" (i.e., cell phone/tablet) (as TNP puts it)
> appeals to the IT illiterate because it seems easier to use. And
> there's a whole lot more IT illiterate in this world than there are even
> moderately IT literate folks.

It was inevitable. Most users aren't interested in the technology. The
content could be delivered by magic for all they care. My Nokia doesn't
have a replaceable battery and will die someday so I keep abreast of the
phone market. All the reviews are concerned with is how well the phone can
play videos, take photos, and play games. For that matter most car reviews
are more interested in the entertainment system than what lives under the
hood.

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 14:04:24 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> I cant reliably answer my smartphone after 5 years. Sometimes it wants a
> touch sometimes a swipe, and half the time the touchscreen doesn't work
> because my fingers are dry or something.

I very rarely use the phone so if it does ring it takes me a while to
figure out what the noise is and how to make it stop. Sometimes I even
manage to answer it.

My usage: a Fitbit app, a pedometer app, a geocaching app, and a Slack
app for work. I recently added a GPS app to get the raw GPS data. I was
mostly interested in elevation, as in how many feet of ascent did I do.

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 13:20:02 -0000 (UTC), Rich wrote:
>
>> The "touchy-feely-crappy" (i.e., cell phone/tablet) (as TNP puts it)
>> appeals to the IT illiterate because it seems easier to use. And
>> there's a whole lot more IT illiterate in this world than there are even
>> moderately IT literate folks.
>
> It was inevitable. Most users aren't interested in the technology. The
> content could be delivered by magic for all they care.

For most (99%) of users, to them, the content *is* delivered by magic:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws>

And for that 99%, having no idea, and no care to know, how any of it
works, it is simply "the magic box that plays my videos".

> My Nokia doesn't have a replaceable battery and will die someday so I
> keep abreast of the phone market.

It is likely possible, albiet with some effort, to replace the battery
if need be.

> All the reviews are concerned with is how well the phone can play
> videos, take photos, and play games.

Of course. Pandering to the masses in order to get the "views"
necessary for the "ad revenue" to spill out.

> For that matter most car reviews are more interested in the
> entertainment system than what lives under the hood.

For the majority of drivers, their car is "magic" to them as well.
They have no idea how any of it works, nor do they have any care to
know even the slightest amount of how it works.

The majority of "the masses" have no inherent curiosity at all. The
remainder that do become the scientists and engineers that create the
"magic" for the rest.

On 06/11/2024 15:49, D wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 6 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 06/11/2024 13:20, Rich wrote:
>>
>>> There are a great many users for whom their *only* computing device is
>>> a cell phone or tablet.  Every one of them is already firmly in the
>>> "thin terminal" camp.
>>>
>>> The "touchy-feely-crappy" (i.e., cell phone/tablet) (as TNP puts it)
>>> appeals to the IT illiterate because it seems easier to use.  And
>>> there's a whole lot more IT illiterate in this world than there are
>>> even moderately IT literate folks.
>>
>> I cant reliably answer my smartphone after 5 years. Sometimes it wants
>> a touch sometimes a swipe, and half the time the touchscreen doesn't
>> work because my fingers are dry or something.
>>
>> It is quite frankly complete and utter shit.
>
> Just throw it away. Haven't had a smart phone in a loooong time and my
> nokia 110 4g works perfectly. To answer, I push a button, and it works!

If only. I need it to receive text messages for 2FA at the very least.
And whatsapp the family around the world.

The best feature is that I can read books on it and it has a really good
satnav, as long as I dont touch the screen.

--
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a
kind word alone.

Al Capone

On 06/11/2024 17:59, rbowman wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 11:31:21 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> And they voted for the Orange Jesus, because they were simply *bored of*
>> assholes telling them what to do and treating them like idiots.
>>
>> "When you follow the [Liberal progressive] herd all you see is
>> assholes."
>> "Donald may be an asshole, but you said that is what we were anyway, so
>> he is at least *our* asshole."
>
> I studiously avoided all the election night bullshit. My first hint was
> when I looked at my email this morning. A conservative Catholic newsletter
> had an article headlined 'Trump Wins: Let the Work Begin'.
>
> Looking at the state results was even better. Our three term Democratic
> Senator lost by 13 points. Both Republican Representatives won handily, as
> did the governor.
>
> To be honest, I didn't see it happening. Now to see if the Orange Jesus
> learned from his last term and can avoid hiring backstabbers.

I am of mixed mind., There are many good things a Republican
administration will probably do as long as he doesn't get involved.

And if it means the end of the 'progressive Liberal' social experiment,
that's good too.

But he will wreak revenge and I am seriously worried about Ukraine.

If that is allowed to fall, Europe is threatened. And Europe doesn't
currently have the ability to churn out armaments at the scale needed by
itself just yet.

--
"Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and
higher education positively fortifies it."

- Stephen Vizinczey

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 18:40:32 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> If only. I need it to receive text messages for 2FA at the very least.
> And whatsapp the family around the world.

There is that. The IT guy is a former Microsoftie so the VPN is set up to
require the Microsoft Authenticator app. I don't know if that is available
on a desktop.

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 18:44:59 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> But he will wreak revenge and I am seriously worried about Ukraine.
>
> If that is allowed to fall, Europe is threatened. And Europe doesn't
> currently have the ability to churn out armaments at the scale needed by
> itself just yet.

I don't share your worries but I don't live in Europe.

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 18:17:02 -0000 (UTC), Rich wrote:

> For the majority of drivers, their car is "magic" to them as well. They
> have no idea how any of it works, nor do they have any care to know even
> the slightest amount of how it works.

Too true. I'm an oddity when I shop for a car since I pop the hood while
the salesman blathers on. I do my own maintenance and want to be sure it
will be feasible. My Toyota's maintenance schedule is rather boring --
replace the oil and filter every 5K -- but I made sure the filter is
accessible. It's tight but I can reach down from the top to unscrew it
although I still need to go to ground to remove the drain plug.

Being a Toyota that's about it although I have three bikes that keep me in
practice. They're not as bullet proof.

On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 01:54:56 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 11/4/24 5:09 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 20:36:29 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> Why join when the MV approach keeps yer data in an already-joined
>>> state ???
>>
>> Because the MV approach makes that hard to maintain.
>
>
> Never noticed that ...

What kind of database doesn’t need updating?

> You CAN download OpenQM if you want, see how the MV approach can be
> useful.

LDAP has multi-valued attributes. But then, it has a different model where
all the records are in the same table, and the primary key has a
hierarchical form. And it has a “modify” operation that can add/remove
individual values for an attribute.

On 6 Nov 2024 18:52:54 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

> There is that. The IT guy is a former Microsoftie so the VPN is set
> up to require the Microsoft Authenticator app. I don't know if that
> is available on a desktop.

I don't know about officially, but WinAuth supports it:
https://winauth.github.io/winauth/download.html

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 11:31:21 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> And they voted for the Orange Jesus, because they were simply *bored of*
>> assholes telling them what to do and treating them like idiots.
>>
>> "When you follow the [Liberal progressive] herd all you see is
>> assholes."
>> "Donald may be an asshole, but you said that is what we were anyway, so
>> he is at least *our* asshole."
>
> I studiously avoided all the election night bullshit. My first hint was
> when I looked at my email this morning. A conservative Catholic newsletter
> had an article headlined 'Trump Wins: Let the Work Begin'.
>
> Looking at the state results was even better. Our three term Democratic
> Senator lost by 13 points. Both Republican Representatives won handily, as
> did the governor.
>
> To be honest, I didn't see it happening. Now to see if the Orange Jesus
> learned from his last term and can avoid hiring backstabbers.
>

We must pray for him! Can't wait until the coronation ceremony and his
solution for peace in Ukraine!

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 06/11/2024 15:49, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 6 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> On 06/11/2024 13:20, Rich wrote:
>>>
>>>> There are a great many users for whom their *only* computing device is
>>>> a cell phone or tablet.  Every one of them is already firmly in the
>>>> "thin terminal" camp.
>>>>
>>>> The "touchy-feely-crappy" (i.e., cell phone/tablet) (as TNP puts it)
>>>> appeals to the IT illiterate because it seems easier to use.  And
>>>> there's a whole lot more IT illiterate in this world than there are
>>>> even moderately IT literate folks.
>>>
>>> I cant reliably answer my smartphone after 5 years. Sometimes it wants a
>>> touch sometimes a swipe, and half the time the touchscreen doesn't work
>>> because my fingers are dry or something.
>>>
>>> It is quite frankly complete and utter shit.
>>
>> Just throw it away. Haven't had a smart phone in a loooong time and my
>> nokia 110 4g works perfectly. To answer, I push a button, and it works!
>
> If only. I need it to receive text messages for 2FA at the very least. And
> whatsapp the family around the world.

I feel your pain! For 2FA I use pass otp in linux. It works with all
providers so far, o365, google, and which ever surveillance service work
demands.

In my case, the family is small and within europe, so I call them for
free. I have a sim card from the country they are in, and it gives me
unlimited calls and sms messages for about 10 USD.

My nokia has 2 sim card slots, so I have one for the country I am in, and
one for the country my family is in, and can easily flip between them.

> The best feature is that I can read books on it and it has a really good
> satnav, as long as I dont touch the screen.

You should buy an eInk device if you like reading. It has revolutionized
my reading life and the reading life of my father!

He has learned in linux (at 74) to download ebooks through torrents, and
to convert them with calibre. I'm very proud, and I also think it says a
lot about how usable linux has become for people without a computer
background! =)

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 06/11/2024 17:59, rbowman wrote:
>> On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 11:31:21 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> And they voted for the Orange Jesus, because they were simply *bored of*
>>> assholes telling them what to do and treating them like idiots.
>>>
>>> "When you follow the [Liberal progressive] herd all you see is
>>> assholes."
>>> "Donald may be an asshole, but you said that is what we were anyway, so
>>> he is at least *our* asshole."
>>
>> I studiously avoided all the election night bullshit. My first hint was
>> when I looked at my email this morning. A conservative Catholic newsletter
>> had an article headlined 'Trump Wins: Let the Work Begin'.
>>
>> Looking at the state results was even better. Our three term Democratic
>> Senator lost by 13 points. Both Republican Representatives won handily, as
>> did the governor.
>>
>> To be honest, I didn't see it happening. Now to see if the Orange Jesus
>> learned from his last term and can avoid hiring backstabbers.
>
> I am of mixed mind., There are many good things a Republican administration
> will probably do as long as he doesn't get involved.
>
> And if it means the end of the 'progressive Liberal' social experiment,
> that's good too.
>
> But he will wreak revenge and I am seriously worried about Ukraine.

I wouldn't worry about it. Europe can outspend russia 15x and if europe
cannot manufacture, europe will buy from other countries who can.

Trump is a businessman, so even if he does not send more money to Ukraine,
he will definitely, 100% allow europe to buy weapons and ammunition from
the US. US benefits, and Ukraine, and europe foots the bill, as it should
be in the new Trumpian world.

I even imagine that he will send some token amounts or help out with
non-monetary gifts, unless his 24 hour peace plan works out (which I
doubt).

> If that is allowed to fall, Europe is threatened. And Europe doesn't
> currently have the ability to churn out armaments at the scale needed by
> itself just yet.

It is an interesting question... how long time would it take for europes
weapon companies to up the production?

I saw a mainstream news reports from a swedish weapons factury where they
have already lowered the quality in order to up the quantity of their
production line to help ukraine.

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 18:40:32 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> If only. I need it to receive text messages for 2FA at the very least.
>> And whatsapp the family around the world.
>
> There is that. The IT guy is a former Microsoftie so the VPN is set up to
> require the Microsoft Authenticator app. I don't know if that is available
> on a desktop.
>

Depends... usually you should be able to tease out the relevant details,
but I haven't touched windows in many decades, so I'm afraid I cannot help
with anything more useful. =(

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 12:49:43 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>> It’s a little scary how dependent we are on single sources for things.
>> The NC floods impacted both what’s apparently a single source of
>> ultra-pure quartz and a major supplier of IV solution.
>
> Free-market capitalism in action: all the alternative suppliers were wiped
> out of the market because they simply couldn’t compete.
>
>> You would think we would have learned something from the great
>> baby-formula shortage ...
>
> Ah, but the lesson to be learned involves centralized planning. And who
> would do such planning, if not the Government? But isn’t that how
> Communism works?
>

Antitrust. If there’s a single source, or only one or two sources of
something, it’s a monopoly. Break it up. Provide tax benefits for
competitors to locate in other parts of the country.

--
Pete

D wrote this post while blinking in Morse code:

> On Wed, 6 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:
>
>> To be honest, I didn't see it happening. Now to see if the Orange Jesus
>> learned from his last term and can avoid hiring backstabbers.

Backstabbers? Keepers, more like.

> We must pray for him! Can't wait until the coronation ceremony and his
> solution for peace in Ukraine!

"Vlad, here it is. Take it."

--
Ladybug, ladybug, Look to your stern!
Your house is on fire, Your children will burn!
So jump ye and sing, for The very first time
The four lines above Have been put into rhyme.
-- Walt Kelly

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 11:31:21 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> In the beginning computers were Very Expensive, and God said "Lo, let
> them time share"

Actually, the computing gods said “let them use batch”. Timesharing was
considered a very inefficient use of scarce and expensive computing
resources.

It took the advent of cheaper minicomputers from (at the time) new
companies like DEC, Data General, Perkin-Elmer, Prime and others, that
were purpose-built for this newfangled interactive timesharing usage, to
allow it to really grow in popularity.

And then the next step was the microcomputer, where machines became cheap
enough that one could sit there spending 99% of its time waiting for the
user to hit the next key (or click the mouse button, when those came along
a little bit later).

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 22:33:38 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> GUIs are just easier to deal with for a LOT of little things, esp
> things non-experts may need.

They are also great for running multiple terminal sessions and being able
to copy-paste between them and editor windows. In other words,

GUI + command line = something more powerful than either on its own

On 11/6/24 2:03 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 01:54:56 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> On 11/4/24 5:09 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 20:36:29 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>>
>>>> Why join when the MV approach keeps yer data in an already-joined
>>>> state ???
>>>
>>> Because the MV approach makes that hard to maintain.
>>
>>
>> Never noticed that ...
>
> What kind of database doesn’t need updating?

That wasn't my point ... just saying that updates
ain't as difficult as you seem to think.

>> You CAN download OpenQM if you want, see how the MV approach can be
>> useful.
>
> LDAP has multi-valued attributes. But then, it has a different model where
> all the records are in the same table, and the primary key has a
> hierarchical form. And it has a “modify” operation that can add/remove
> individual values for an attribute.

LDAP is a kinda lightweight 'DB' - not built to
be really 'general purpose'.

PICK ... kinda depends on your POV as to whether
all records are in one table or not. Easier to
just think of each record as a long string, with
delims marking fields/subfields/etc. MV records
are usually not all THAT long so straight searching
goes quick but you COULD add a small hash table
if there were mass quantities of fields/subfields.

Anyway, get or borrow a MV DB and fool around
with it yourself.

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 11:14:00 -0800, John Ames wrote:

> On 6 Nov 2024 18:52:54 GMT rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>
>> There is that. The IT guy is a former Microsoftie so the VPN is set up
>> to require the Microsoft Authenticator app. I don't know if that is
>> available on a desktop.
>
> I don't know about officially, but WinAuth supports it:
> https://winauth.github.io/winauth/download.html

Thanks. I'll give it a try.

On Wed, 6 Nov 2024 21:56:16 +0100, D wrote:

> Depends... usually you should be able to tease out the relevant details,
> but I haven't touched windows in many decades, so I'm afraid I cannot
> help with anything more useful. =(

There's a lot going on behind the scenes. The app cranks out a 6 digit
number that's good for a couple of minutes has to be entered into the VPN
dialog. The two have to be coordinated so it's a little different than
'we'll text you a number to be entered.'

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 03/11/2024 19:49, Peter Flass wrote:
>> I’ve never understood why native Americans didn’t use the wheel.
>
> You kinda need a road to go with it.

I was thinking this, too, but wagons were used extensively, if not
invented, by the “Aryan” Yamnaya people from the eurasian steppes. They
trekked in their wagons from Europe to China. Likewise the American
pioneers in their covered wagons. What they did have were oxen and horses.
The Indians only had bison, which I don’t think domesticate well. Of course
the Lapps had reindeer, and the americas had elk, which might have worked.
There were roads in the americas. The Mayas had an extensive road system,
as apparently did the amazonian peoples. In the US, Chaco Canyon was the
center of a system of roads connecting outlying pueblos over a couple of
current states.

>
>> Maybe the
>> Incas, because mountain trackways aren’t to conducive to wheeled traffic,
>> but besides Chaco the Mayans and the Amazonian civilization had roads with
>> no wheels. I also don’t understand why there was no American bronze age
>> when they certainly used metals, including copper.
>
> The chinese would kill inventors who threatened the need for people to
> do the work.
>

--
Pete