2016 — 10 October: Monday
While I wouldn't dream of "declaring victory and moving on" on so little evidence — a favoured tactic of some of the more unscrupulous denizens lurking in grey clouds in the upper echelons of IBM management in past decades — it seems that simply cleaning up the NFS permissions settings for access to my NAS from Skylark has also removed the irritating differences I mentioned yesterday between "new" file creation on BlackBeast and on Skylark.
My apologies to UltraEdit, which was not the culprit.
Emboldened by this diagnostic success...
... I ventured into Skylark's BIOS settings early this morning1 before allowing it to resume booting. I needed to correct a deficiency that had stubbornly thwarted me in my (minor-league) ambition of taking the latest build of the LXLE distro out for a spin in my VirtualBox park. I had previously disabled the hardware virtualisation setting, on the grounds that I had no need for it. But when I tried to run LXLE a couple of days ago it turned out that LXLE either (or both) expects and needs this "assistance" before it's willing to fire up in a VirtualBox... further reports to follow.
But not before I have also tidied up the i5NUC's NAS access, and drunk at least one further cuppa.
"Ignorance and anonymity"...
... is to become "no defence" when saying or posting rude things about people on the Web in the UK as new legal guidelines are considered. About time too. But will this laudable change be extended to cover what politicians say and do, I wonder? (Link.)
Tangled up...
... in too much (super) string?
In his new book Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe, theoretical physicist Roger Penrose argues against the widespread attention given to some prominent theories about the universe, including string theory. Some ideas in physics, he says, are merely fashionable, attracting attention without solid experimental support. He also criticizes physicists who seek to apply quantum theories too widely to the macroscopic world, and takes aim at the idea of cosmic inflation.
I thought...
... at a mere £1-83 for the Kindle edition, this...
... was probably worth a punt. It should show up on "David's Fifth Android device" (the SHIELD Tablet PC upstairs) any minute now.
Post-truthiness
Nicely put, I felt:
For some time now, we have been abandoning the realm of thought. We have been reading pointless books about "emotional intelligence". We have been indulging sciences that contain not the slightest particle of science, not even the memory of science. We have been immersing ourselves in reality shows that contain no semblance of reality. We have been obsessing about the love lives of famous composite nouns. We have allowed the 24-hour media to frighten us into a constant state of hysteria, even though our lives are longer, safer and healthier than they have ever been. We have moved into a world where feelings outrank thought, where we share our emotions instantly, incessantly and incontinently with people we've never met, as we binge on moral outrage and conspiracy theories.
It's Linux, Jim...
... but not as we know it!
So I've proved my BIOS tweak worked.
Memo to the idiot...
... who thinks he's in charge of technology around here:
Before next trying to teach your i5NUC the rudiments of NFS access to the NAS drives... how about installing the NFS-common support package first? It makes things go so much better.
[Pause]
Back from the latest attempt to re-fill Mrs Hubbard's self-emptying cupboard, I've fitted my spare 250GB SSD back into the i5NUC, but decided against immediately filling it up with LXLE as it failed to live up to its initial promise during my test drive. I'm sure I can find something else shiny to play with. Time for lemonses, methinks.
Nevermore!
Yes, yes, I know I've been here before, but it's just too good:
Sh1t like this...
... doesn't encourage me to use my 'smartphone'. And I'm not a crook or a terrorist. (Link.)
"Pioneer Detectives" was fascinating. Did you know that Pioneer 10 will pass relatively close to the orange giant star Aldebaran in about 2,000,000 years from now? That's about 68 light years from the Solar system.