* Posts by Bebu

2075 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2022

Elon Musk's assassination 'joke' bombs, internet calls for his deportation

Bebu
Windows

Re: Deport him…

…from the US to where??

North Korea would have to be favourite.

Kim is just about as deranged as Space Karen and would probably place this brilliant exiled engineer in charge of North Korea's space and weapons programs.

Why Mars? What have the Ice Warriors done to us that they deserved Musk?

Ellison declares Oracle all-in on AI mass surveillance, says it'll keep everyone in line

Bebu
Windows

Progress is...

natural selection applied to "bad behaviour."

This nong's customary complete lack of insight appears to want to retain the world's current dysfunction in perpetuity.

Those who challenge the prevailing status quo are invariably labelled trouble makers and their activities "bad behaviour" or worse.

I am certain the framing of the US Constitution was considered bad behaviour by George III and with hindsight I am not entirely sure that he would have been mistaken.

One doesn't need omniscence to discern that the original, creative and inventive individuals who over the millenia have given us our culture and civilisation weren't particularly notable for their "best behaviour."

You would think this chap would be more circumspect in his pronouncements, given were he to turn up to an audition for the role of Mephistopheles would be the automatic choice.

Most of the Vulturati from their bitter experience in dealing with Oracle already know their need for very long spoon.

250 million-plus unused IPv4 addresses should be left alone, argues network boffin

Bebu
Windows

"we rely on really cheap customer premises equipment in consumer land"

Pretty much pre enshitified :(

The sorry truth is most of these cheap and nasty (definitely not cheerful) devices actually run Linux albeit often ancient kernels and busybox versions on underpowered and obscure hardware.

Most of the kernels (&modules) and the iproute2 utils do support ipv6 but the UI doesn't and I imagine the preconfigured netfilter rules block 240.0.0.0/8.

The main disability is that these are not supported for very long, or at all, so upgrades are not possible. (Unless you are up for the [small] challenge of hacking into one of these devices eg Kogan-N300-4G-LTE-CAT4-Modem-Wireless-Router-KAR0514GMDA)

So until the vast majority these device become landfill and are replaced with decent supported hardware the internet is going to be shit all the way down... at least layers 7 to 3. :(

China’s quantum* crypto tech may be unhackable, but it's hardly a secret

Bebu
Windows

Re: old school

sounds to me like a one time pad.

I think that is the gist of it but there might be more crypto clever~ty involved. Exchanging limited use ephemeral key for quantum resistant crypto algorithms might be more practical.

I can imagine using quantum entanglement for indisputable tamper evidence could be applied to a portable vault (briefcase :) which protecting conventional storage containing a massive quantity of key material (or one time pad) could be physically transported between sites.

Only those apparently unmolested vaults would be used.

Saturating the channel with random traffic would hamper traffic analysis - using encrypted plausible but false or irrelevant messages for the padding might be more effective. Either way the receiver still has to be able to distinguish the message from the padding and I am not sure that can be achieved without a finite risk of an adversary discovering this.

I don't know that many secrets need to be kept for more than a century. Various (Wiki)leaks of extremely damaging documents would suggest that two decades is more than enough to dissipate any fallout from these premature exposures. Also demonstrated that the most secure channels are as weak as the nongs and drongos at either end.

I don't know what pressing Delete will do, but it seems safe enough!

Bebu
Windows

Re: Cameras, Too

UI designers just don't realise the thought processes that can go on in some users' heads

To be fair format wasn't really in much use as a verb before computing needed it to describe the process of writing a logical layout onto physical (magnetic) media.

For the vast majority of native English speakers it is a noun refering to the layout itself.

For those fortunate in not being in receipt of Microsoft's benevolence creating a new file system on media is not usually referred to as formatting even in the case of a FAT file system. [eg newfs or mkfs]

Low level disk formatting (even possible now?) was also described as "Initialization" which better conveyed irreversibility and loss of any existing data.

Users or consumers may be clueless but the narrowness in the real world experience of UI designers and application developers leaves a great deal to be desired.

Whimsically I would replace "Format" with "Bugger" so when selecting "Bugger" alias "Format" the application dialog asks:

"(Re)Bugger your SD Card? [y/N]?"

Any user complaining after selecting "Y" in error, could then be effectively dealt with: "you asked it to bugger your SD card - the card is now clearly buggered - your problem is?"

Thank you, Reg Readers: On Call has turned 500!

Bebu
Windows

"AI will rob both groups [users & bosses] of common sense."

"some users aren’t getting any smarter, some bosses never become more reasonable, and AI will rob both groups of common sense."

Common sense would have to be the rarest element in this universe and its palpable absence probably accounts for Dark Matter more effectively than promordial black holes or WIMPS.

The idea of AI robbing either of these traditionally clueless groups of any sense, let alone the peerless pearl of common sense is about as credible claiming Space Karen suffers from excessive humility.

Best wishes for the next 500 instalments. Human frailty and failings will surely supply the grist to this mill. :)

MongoDB CEO says if AI hype were the dotcom boom, it is 1996

Bebu
Windows

Re: for those who can form clear arguments and favour not wasting their little lives..

"The statement suggests that right-wing individuals are more susceptible to groupthink, especially when influenced by AI-generated consensus. This is due to their reliance on authority figures and a tendency to follow the crowd. Liberal individuals, on the other hand, value individual thinking and logical argumentation."

In my experience the doctrinaire left is equally susceptible.

The (apparently shrinking) middle ground are more likely to apply a skerrick of common sense and question contradictory or unfounded or irrational claims. If they are liberal or not in the US sense is only testimony to their relative sanity.

The questioning and healthy scepticism are the crucial attributes. Even if asylum seekers were consuming pets [they are NOT] out of hunger isn't the question "why is the wealthiest first world nation allowing anyone within its borders to suffer starvation?" Take it away Mr Dylan...

If anyone states "The average <something> ..... <outrageous claim>" I interject "Average? Is that the median or the mean?" It usually stops these galahs before they can take wing. A bit like swallows: african v european. ;)

Feeld dating app's security too open-minded as private data swings into public view

Bebu
Windows

Took (probably too) long for the penny to drop...

Feeld

What?.... "Feeled" or more commonly felt (which is also compressed shaved animal fur - could be kinky. :)

Doesn't suggest a lot of imagination or creativity from their marketing... err... creatives.

If all the good english names are taken you like the british have always done - appropriate. Annex a foreign word from a preferably romance, language.

AI giants pinky swear (again) not to help make deepfake smut

Bebu
Windows

Re: [copious amounts of smoke]

"genie coming fully out of the bottle."

And unfortunately the typical bottled Djinni is never in the Barbara Eden* league. :)

* deep fakers would have a death wish if they go there.

Bebu
Windows

Re: "non-consensual deepfake pornography"

Because if it's not that, then I can't image what consensual deepfake pornography is.Could somebody educate me ?

A steamy Max Headroom and Kryten clip. My head just doesn't extend to Marvin and K9.

But realistically I am sure Ms Daniels would be happy to receive royalties (or is residuals) for her image to be (ab)used in computer generated erotica. "Stormy does Donny: not a Big Thing." available from anywhere quality downloads are sold. :)

I can foresee the fluffers'* union opposing the automation of this industry.

* apparently there is nothing for which wikipedia doesn't have entry.

OpenAI's latest o1 model family tries to emulate 'reasoning' – tho might overthink things a bit

Bebu
Windows

"'Reasoning' is a semantic thing"

Reading Daniel Kang's opinion provided to the Vulture I agreed that reasoning in the fullest and human sense is fundamentally semantic, that is about meaning in the broadest sense and content, against the purely formal.

"'Reasoning' is a semantic thing in my opinion," ... "I don't know how to adjudicate semantic arguments, but I would anticipate that most people would consider this reasoning."

But I think I misunderstood his meaning. I think he meant the meaning of reasoning comes down to what the writer means (as in mere semantics) which is pretty much Humpty Dumpty's relation to words.*

The I would then read "how to adjudicate semantics arguments" as "how to judge between arguments about semantics."

Generally one adjudicates between arguments based on their consistency, rationality and empirical evidence.

His being an assistant professor he chose his words wisely as his next berth might very profitably be with openAI or its fellow travellers.

That the vast body of contemporary humanity demonstrate little evidence of intelligence of any description, reason or rationality is an insurmountable impediment to any argument challenging the extravagant claims of these AI carpetbaggers.

* The return of Humpty Dumpty: who is the ultimate arbiter of meaning?

Bebu
Windows

"Thus far, AI haven't been able to explain their reasoning. "

They LLMs cannot "explain" what they have not got, namely "reason" or "reasoning."

It is not that machines cannot implement deductive reasoning as such systems have existed for very long time but that isn't how current AI/LLM works. (As as I can tell.)

If AI/LLM could identify and isolate the postulates it is using and apply a formal system of reasoning to derive its conclusion(s) from those postulates then we would have some explicatory value from AI - valid reasoning is valid no matter how it is obtained.

Otherwise the purported chain of "thought" is little more than a typically hallucinatory AI fugue.

Bebu
Pint

Re: Implied assumptions

you'd have a hard time passing off piss as water.

Beer on the other hand doesn't appear to suffer from water's defect.

Bebu
Windows

Re: Implied assumptions

If your aim is to demonstrate that it can match a reasonably competent primary school child in arithmetic, then I think the answer it gave is fine.

The kid has learnt that number (and presumably other properties) is not dependant on the particular objects being counted or the objects' purpose. I cannot accept ChatGPT has any equivalent.

Would ChatGPT respond correctly to "I have 5 green apples for preparing apple pie and 3 red apples for roast suckling pig*. How many apples do I have?"

* while I am not a vego I have to admit that is rather gross. Oddly the recipe with the image specifies kosher salt. ;)

Begun, the open source AI wars have

Bebu
Windows

"contains so many weasel words that you can start a zoo..."

A zoo full of only weasels?

Ah. I guess Tarakiyee had the US Legislatures in mind.

Or actually any legislature I imagine.

I suppose there is no point in asking ChatGPT-n for a definition. :)

I recall OSI once meant Open System Interconnection which I recall in its heyday also had some spectacular bun fights.

Homing pigeon missiles, dead trout swimming, butt breathing honored with Ig Nobel Prize

Bebu
Windows

Re: Next...

The Darwin awards. From what I understand were put out to pasture (so to speak)

The latest and I must say rather talented laureates I could find were from 2022 https://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2022.html.

While there is a massive pool of also rans there are still a smallish number of truly creative individuals unintentionally achieving self destruction who deserve their well earned recognition of a Darwin Award.* Would be a great shame if they were denied postumous immortality. ;)

* I suspect Erasmus Darwin might have appreciated these awards more than Charles. He preferred the Lunar Society to the loony society of becoming the physician to George III.

Bebu
Windows

"Well many already talk out of their backside"

The necessary gross converse would make for some definitely challenging "flavours."

Many of the IT billionaire certainly do and some look like it. All have parallel fusion reactors installed to illuminate their doings.

Bebu
Windows

Dead trout swimming...

Sounds a bit like "pining for the fjords" but actually an interesting if odd study.

The dead trout were towed rather than "swimming" behind the vortex shedding cylinder in order to determine the contribution of purely passive motion to the living fish's Kármán* gait.

I didn't know that fish naturally position themselve in vortices rather in undisturbed water. Must discover why - better oxygenation?

* presumably named afer von Kármán

Pokémon GO was an intelligence tool, claims Belarus military official

Bebu

You would have to wonder...

what Ilanov and fellow dropkicks would make of "Angry Birds"

A Western or NATO plot to legitimise the destruction of (White)russian structures?

BOFH: The Boss is right, the applications of AI are truly staggering

Bebu
Windows

the 'sheep' entrance...

you notice that the 'sheep' entrance has a two-meter-high doorway and several coat hooks.

Rather grisly implication and an unpleasant reference but probably quite applicable in this AI context.

Australia’s government spent the week boxing Big Tech

Bebu
Windows

A bit of a circus

Albanese's govt is facing an election early 2025 so a fair bit of this might be taken with grain of salt.

While I for one would be content if all social media were blocked in AU which is probably the only option that would prevent U16s from accessing these sites and even then I imagine there are quite a few cluey 15 year olds using a VPN.

We have the head of ASIO wanting to ban secure (uninterceptable) messaging (Clipper reheated?) and governments legislating age limits on access to specific internet services without any practical idea on how that might be implemented. Not too far from the US state legislature on biblical authority that once proclaimed π=3. (Intelligent Design? So how are you lot accounted for then?)

"Real experience from real people" while I understand what was intended this way of stating it seems just plain daft and open to derision like "you mean real abuse from real paedophiles?"

I would have thought "a rich variety of experiences in a broad selection of environments from a diversity of people" might better describe the challenging and enriching processes desired.

Muppet broke the datacenter every day, in its own weighty way

Bebu
Coat

Muppet... broke... heavy way.

And here I was uncharitably thinking Miss Piggy. :)

Robot enters Fukushima's nuclear core to retrieve melted-down remains

Bebu
Facepalm

I calculate to clear 880 tons by 2050...

will work out at just under a 100kg per day.

Assuming Imperial/long tons (ie not tonnes) 880 tons ~ 894124 kg

Between today 2024-09-12 and 2050-01-01 there are 9242 days

894124 kg / 9242 days ~ 96.73 kg/day

At a 3g nibble that's ~ 32000 bites a day which would give Pac-Man a run for his money. :)

Bebu
Windows

"shouldn't the entire management of TEPCO been dismissed"

If Japan were still under the Tokugawa shoguns, heads would have, quite literally rolled.

Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.

Down and out: Aegon's pension pothole and TfL's mystery 'maintenance'

Bebu
Devil

"shuffled off to pastures new."

I suspect those responsible for some of these original ("legacy") systems have shuffled the coil mortal and their pastures involve either harp music or (far more likely in my opinion) red hot pokers*.

* I am undecided whether an externity of saccharine harp music would be preferable to the hot pokers.

Oracle boasts zettascale 'AI supercomputer,' just don’t ask about precision

Bebu
Windows

Re: FP4 ???

"mathematician, but I would be hard pressed to do anything with such a representation"

Without any idea at all about what FP4 would be useful for or about LLMs generally, I would punt that you could use FP4 numbers as weights for a very large collection of linearly independent vectors (I suspect neither orthogonal or normalised.)

Like Camelot, AI is best avoided as 'tis a silly place and hopefully equally ephemeral.

Healthcare giant to pay $65M settlement after crooks stole and leaked nude patient pics

Bebu
Windows

The headline and article had "nude" ...

instead of "naked" which I would feel is an important if subtle distinction in this context.

"Naked" conveys the much greater breach of trust involved in this clinical environment.

Publishing a photograph of an art class nude model without her(his) consent while quite unacceptable is not as an egregious breach of trust.

So you paid a ransom demand … and now the decryptor doesn't work

Bebu
Coat

Re: Paying the Dane Geld

"Pay the Geld, and you'll never get rid of the Dane."

Better as Harold, in answer to Tostig's question at Stamford bridge, offered to Harald:

Six feet of ground or as much more as he needs

Perhaps more effective to substitute bounties for ransom without being too fastidious about how much of the offender's body is is required for payment.

The average Chechen gangster would likely offer the entirety while apologizing the tacky supermarket shopping bags.

Research suggests more than half of VMware customers are looking to move

Bebu
Windows

... "but never underestimate their intelligence"

I would substitute "cunning" for "intelligence" as in as cunning as a shithouse rat.

I would place "intelligence" between "cunning" and "wisdom."

Intelligent billionaires are about as rare as rocking-horse shit, wise ones non-existent or have some bloody small camels.

Pentagon has little to show for two decades of GPS modernization work

Bebu
Coat

I can see part of the problem ;)

Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Positioning, Navigation and Timing Program Office.

If the unit's name is a short story in itself...

I was wondering what M-Code was and followed the article's M-Code link to a .mil site which had the unit's name in the first para. As for M-Code still none the wiser.

Perhaps should buy shares in a single chip inertial navigation system based on nanomachine gyroscopes?

As major web browser makers snuggle up to AI, these skeptical holdouts remain

Bebu
Facepalm

Re: Choose wisely

Where LLMs are concerned, it is possible that the goat stands behind all three doors...

What? The same goat?

Some hideous hircine superposition of entangled goatish wave functions?

AI and QC... it only gets better...

AI has colonized our world – so it's time to learn the language of our new overlords

Bebu
Windows

Delvish?

burzum-ishi krimpatul - more likely the black speech of Mordor.

Bebu
Childcatcher

I suspect...

The King's English and politeness works wonders with AI's biological predecessors too.

Upgrading Linux with Rust looks like a new challenge. It's one of our oldest

Bebu
Windows

Re: Why a new language?

"But C was obsolete by 1983. Why did Linux use it? Loads of choice by 1987."

Back then I followed the development of C standardization - the evolution of K&R C to ANSI C (C89) [ISO]

I actually obtained a copy of the ANSI standard - two things stand out for anyone that has dealt with standards documents viz the C89 standard document is short, rational, pragmatic and readable. C89 is probably unique in this. ;)

In the 1980s the commonest systems were comparatively low powered, with small primary [ram] and secondary [disk] memories which were comparable with the smallest contemporary embedded systems.

Self hosted development precluded most of the "non obsolete" options. If you were running a Z80 CP/M-80 system you pretty much had a choice of assembly or a C compiler (a few choices.)

Modula-2 compilers were available and arguably a safer language but never quite as good a fit when dealing with low level hardware.

I also remember that most of the "developers" were more likely to be engineers or scientists with minimal or no exposure to computer science (CS100 ;) but who could digest K&R in one sitting - try that with Ada. :)

While trying to revise or rewrite history is currently very much de rigueur it is pointless - it is a fact C dominated software development from the 1980s and to some extent still does - pretending otherwise is not sanity. Whether C remains dominant is a choice that can be made now and in future.

We're in the brute force phase of AI – once it ends, demand for GPUs will too

Bebu
Windows

5% useful, 15% pleb fascinator... the remaining 80% expensive hot air?

Gartner actually getting something right for once?

No, silly me, the 5% is clearly a hallucination.

I wouldn't be surprised* that in 2048 that what passes for AI today is only used to produce photorealistic and/or deep fake pornography. All those GPUs have to find a new purpose and the crypto wide boys have had their day so CG porn might be the next hot item.

* actually I would be suprised but mostly by my still being extant. :)

UK Lords push bill to tame rogue algorithms in public sector

Bebu
Windows

algorithmic transparency

something I have the very distinct feeling that anything based on ML/LLM would intrinsically lack.

Promised transparency in government and in civil (public) service has never exactly thrown much light on anything let alone some of the more scandalous episodes.

Glasnost and Perestroika also are not greatly favoured in the West it would seem.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch could be gone in ten years – for chump change

Bebu
Windows

"Unless we deal with it at the source"

Which ultimately not producing the muck in the first place.

Plastics weren't really a thing until after WW2 so really they can only have been "indispensable" for seventy years and within living memory.

Even in my childhood containers were glass and wrapping was (waxed) paper or cellophane. Revisiting some old technologies in the light more recent chemistry could produce far more environmentally friendly solutions. I can imagine materials based on biological waxes and (modified) cellulose could displace a large proportion of gratuitous plastics usage on cost alone.

Anyway icecream did taste better from a waxed cardboard carton. ;)

Curiously I recall these cartons being referred to as a quart which would have been 2 imperial pints or 40 imp. fl.oz. but I remember they were only about 1 litre so were probably 2 US pints - an oddity in our remote but very British corner of the Empire.

OneFileLinux: A tiny recovery distro that fits snugly in your EFI system partition

Bebu
Windows

Nothing new under the sun* :)

Then, for normal operation, automatically detect all the drivers in use on a given machine and compile a kernel with just those built in. Then we can dispense with the initrd altogether.

Quite a few proprietary Unix (bsd based?) kernels shipped with a generic genvmunix kernel which contained all the supported drivers and subsysteems that you initially booted into and the ran a script (doconfig?) to customise the selection of optional subsystems and retaining only the hardware support that genvmunix found (probed.) The resulting config file was then to build the custom kernel vmunix which is then subsequently booted to by default.

If your vmunix was corrupted or hardware changed etc you again booted /genvmunix.

I vaguely recall some sysv based systems (Irix?) invariably booted a mini(mal) Unix kernel and if the kernel config files had changed build a new Unix kernel then continued to boot or load the full Unix kernel. Typically did this when adding a non vendor tape drive.

* Eccles. 1:9 also 1:10 See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. KJV

Bebu
Coat

adjacent is ... systemd creator Lennart Poettering

A bit like saying "design inspired by Bergholt Stuttley Johnson "

Feds urge 3D printing industry to end DIY machine guns

Bebu
Windows

The unthinkable option...

you cannot convert a semi-automatic if you don't have a semi-automatic to begin with or indeed any firearm.

I find it convenient but indicative that the constitutional originalism of the bench of SCOTUS doesn't extend to the second amendment.

Python script saw students booted off the mainframe for sending one insult too many

Bebu
Windows

Re: OPERATOR != BOFH

and also != Dinsdale Piranha [a hard man. Vicious but fair]

Bebu
Coat

Re: Somehow became corrupted?

"it's an APL program"

That you Ken? Or someone else? :)

I haven't heard APL mentioned for decades about as obscure as the Griswolds' Icon language.

Bebu
Windows

Re: Somehow became corrupted?

Learn a new thing every day from the Vulture's carrion. :)

As always there is a wiki article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grawlix.

I quite like its synonym obscenicon as sound very Lovecraftian when read the right way.

I usually like the classical plural - grawlices* - but grawlixes is definitely more onomatopoeic and preferable.

* could be a nasty insect infestation

Bebu
Windows

Re: Somehow became corrupted?

"symbols to represent swearing"

Bugger!

I was trying to parse %/(&/)/=)%&/$&% as a regular expression... which I suppose it was... of disgust. ;)

Malaysia's plan to block overseas DNS dies after a day

Bebu
Windows

A different take on "its always DNS" ;)

I assume they weren't blocking/redirecting DNS over HTTPS so fairly pointless from the outset.

My guess only 53/udp (possibly 53/tcp but probably not) was being intercepted so running an overseas forwarder on port 5353 would work quite nicely if your resolver supports it or you do your own 53 -> 5353 redirection.

That is without considering VPNs or SSH tunnelling etc etc.

Globally politics, religion and morals enforcement seem to be completely incompatible with sane networking and security policies, reality or perhaps with sanity itself.

Boeing's Calamity Capsule returns to Earth without a crew

Bebu
Windows

Re: Which bright spark named it "Calamity"

"Lucky sod! I'd like to be kept stranded on an island by a nymph ..."

My luck it would be with Circe. ;)

Foot-thick wall workaround: Gigabit network links beamed through solid concrete

Bebu
Windows

Another option?

Concrete is pretty solid and inelastic so I imagine it might transmit high frequency acoustic (compressional) waves fairly efficiently.

An array of ultrasonic transducers on both sides of the wall might get similar results.

As with the article's technology you would want to encrypt the traffic otherwise a bit of a free kick.

OpenAI co-founder's Safe Superintelligence startup inhales $1B in funding

Bebu
Headmaster

"We are assembling a lean, cracked team"

"We are assembling a lean, cracked team"

I assume a typo for "crack" although the British English meaning of "cracked" as crazy, bonkers or insane would make perfect sense in this context.

A team of anorexic nut jobs then?

White House’s new fix for cyber job gaps: Serve the nation in infosec

Bebu
Windows

"Our Nation has a critical need for cyber talent."

John Lumic (Cybus Industries) had an effective method for recruiting Cybertalent :)

Lumic was a vastly cleverer version of Space Karen* but I could envisage an "X" cyber conversion program created by the second Trump Administration's new "Government Efficiency" Tsar.

* admittedly in a parallel Universe in which hopefully the only second Trump Administration might be found.

Google says replacing C/C++ in firmware with Rust is easy

Bebu
Windows

Re: Stupid "Fixes"

deletes the text of the post you were composing, such that you cannot recover that text.

I have noticed this on a tablet. I think its the Vulture's JS.

I noticed the loss seems to only occur if the comment hasn't been previewed. So I try to add an icon first, preview, then get stuck into the rant.* :)

"Use after free" is avoided with static preallocation in languages like SPARK [Ada] (originally at least.) Automatic memory management (garbage collection) pretty much precludes this but kften with performance penalties and issues with finalization.

My guess is the garbage collected languages like Go are the best fit for the majority of any application with languages like Rust or SPARK for the critical, low level components.

Rust appears to have a much wider and ambitious mandate which might be its undoing. I recall when Eiffel was the latest and greatest (and salvation) but I also recall usenet discussions(?) on contravariance v. covariance, or somesuch, descending into uncomprehendable (sic) rants that benefited no one. How many Eiffel/Sather programmers have ever you met?

Bertrand Meyer's books were (are) worth reading - no criticism of Eiffel's designer is intended or to be implied.

* what's the point of old age if not to shout the sky. :)