Posts by Robert Brockway

Linux Foundation, IBM, Cisco and others back ‘Inclusive Naming Initiative’ to change nasty tech terms

On their website I found this gem:

"Slavery is a tradition barely 3 generations abolished"

Well, there's a cultural bias if ever I've seen one. Slavery is alive and well in 2020. The last country to actually make it illegal only did so a few years ago. There are more people enslaved on Earth right now than at any point in human history. Maybe the IETF and these other organisations should get a clue about the present day and history before lecturing others.

https://inclusivenaming.org/language/word-list/

Re: Sigh...

Yep. They once carried an entire Irish village off into slavery. The village just happened to be called Baltimore.

Windows 10 Pro goes Home as Microsoft fires up downgrade server

Linux WTF

Well I've used Linux on the desktop since 1994 and never regretted it.

Cops called after pair enter Canadian home and give it a good clean

Re: anti-crime

Some offences have an element of intent, some do not.

There is a defence in common law called "honest mistake of fact" in which a person can be excused from otherwise criminal behaviour by virtue of really believing they were acting lawfully. The example given to me many years ago was of a person driving the wrong car out of a carpark because it looked exactly like their car (to a reasonable first approximation) and their key worked. Back in the old days of physical keys there weren't that many combinations so the chance of a matching key was higher than many might expect. Also, very old keys were known to be good at opening car doors.

Obviously, this defence does not work for all crimes.

SQLite creator crucified after code of conduct warns devs to love God, and not kill, commit adultery, steal, curse...

Re: I have a code of conduct

Everything in moderation, including moderation -- anonymous.

Re: I have a code of conduct

Live your life in the manner that you see fit, to the extent that you don't prevent others from doing the same.

The age of hard drives is over as Samsung cranks out consumer QLC SSDs

Re: QLC? It's not the one for me

"Everything is analogue if you go down far enough"

And then might be digital again if you go down far enough (Planck length). :)

Sysadmin trained his offshore replacements, sat back, watched ex-employer's world burn

Re: Not in IT...

"Indeed, you thought you had just reduced a\ wage bill, but you actually threw away valuable capital that you have invested a lot of money in (that knowledge and experience)"

Precisely. The fact that this seems to be common knowledge in IT circles but unknown to management in so many companies is worrying.

Sysadmin sank IBM mainframe by going one VM too deep

Octothorpe

We can distinguish between the name of a symbol (arguably octothorpe) and its pronounciation as 'hash' , 'pound' or 'number sign'. This is analagous to the '&' character which is known as an ambersand but pronounced as 'and'.

Fun fact: ambersand used to be counted as the 27th letter of the English language. We've lost other letters over the centuries too but anyone interested should use their favourite search engine to read the fascinating story of the English Alphabet.

Britain's new F-35s arrive in UK as US.gov auditor sounds reliability warning klaxon

Re: What will happen during a war?

There are a number of problems with MAD. Two that come to mind:

(1) It presumes both belligerents are rational players.

(2) It presumes that both are in command of sufficient accurate information to be able to make an informed decision.

Sysadmin shut down the wrong server, and with it all European operations

Re: Soldier?

In that case the soviets had portable factories. In the face of a German invasion in WW2 they completely dismantled many factories in European Russia and reassembled them in the Ural Mountains and beyond. I've always been impressed by that.

Railways were apparently the key to moving the factories.

Windows 10 S to become a 'mode', not a discrete product

Re: Passed through the BS -> English translator

Ok Wallaby we get it, you don't like Linux :)

Posted on a Debian GNU/Linux 9 box running fvwm2 and Chrome.

Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired for opposing hiring caps on white, Asian male nerds

Re: Political correctness BS

[In response to a comment that almost everyone is posting anonymously]

Not me. I've been openly speaking out about political correctness gone mad, and related topics, for years. Every time someone stands up it's easier for the next person.

Teensy plastic shields are the big new thing in 2018's laptop crop

I'm amazed that you've been down-voted so much. A problem in IT going back decades is that most consumer grade systems are sold critically short of ram. The price difference is small but the performance difference is huge. The general public don't realise how serious a problem this is.

My main desktop system at home until recently was maxedout at 32GB ram. It was 6 years old and failing. I replaced it recently with a NUC maxed out at 32GB ram. Next system will probably have more.

Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Re: Hmmm...

There is precedent here. The kernel still tests for the F00F bug on boot and applies the kernel-level work around only on systems that need it. Thus the slow down is only applied where it is needed. I expect this will happen in this case, although we are talking about a significant architectural change here.

Fix capitalism with floating cities on Venus says Charles Stross

Re: Solution for what?

The entire point of the proposal is to _force_ private interests to invest, recognising that they won't do so voluntarily. The problem is that neither public nor private institutions are prepared to invest in truly long term projects today and he's arguing we need to change the rules so that these investments are viable. One option, for example, would be to require investors to invest $1 in long term projects for every $10 they invest in anything else. Such things are possible through government regulation and proper oversight. Any such effort would have to be international of course.

Many of the economic institutions of today, such as a central bank and income tax, are quite recent inventions. Just because it hasn't happened before doesn't mean we can't do it, and people born in 50 years time may be surprised to discovered it was ever otherwise.

What we would need would be widespread buy-in that it is necessary. That's what we don't yet have. Hence, I presume, why this idea has been publically proposed now.

Seriously though, the idea of settling the clouds of Venus has been floating around for a while (sorry).

It is clear there are serious problems with our current short term economic thinking. Our choices are to address these problems or not. If we don't address them we will take our chances with the consequences.

Fix capitalism be damned... I just want floating cities on Venus! :)

Feminist Software Foundation gets grumpy with GitHub … or does it?

The master/slave terminology have been dropped from OpenLDAP. Now they are producers and consumers.

Oz government knew about PRISM BEFORE Snowden leaks

Re: Friends take care of friends

These five industrialised nations that (mostly) speak English and have a common cultural origin are conveniently placed around the world allowing them to watch each other's backs very nicely.

Re: Friends take care of friends

"Five Eyes". UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand reportedly share intelligence to an extent beyond any other states, now or in the past.

Assange^TM spins Oz Senate candidacy again

Electoral role

IANAL but by my reading I don't believe Julian Assange is eligible to be elected. The requirements are set out here:

http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/guides/briefno19

In particular I think he fails criteria 3 under Candidates, which states "an elector entitled to vote or a person qualified to become an elector."

After you've been non-resident in Australia for too long you are automatically removed from the roll. You can only apply to be an 'eligible overseas elector' within three years of becoming non-resident. Assange has been gone for so long I think he must have been removed from the electoral roll and could not get back on it without returning to Australia to live. As such I think he is neither an elector entitled to vote, nor a person qualified to become an elector.

I could easily see this going to court for a decision.

Asteroid miners hunt for platinum, leave all common sense in glovebox

Laws in space

Others have make some excellent responses to the article (new uses of the raw materials, materials could be used in space, etc). I didn't want to comment further there but I did want to make a point about the claim of ownership.

It is quite reasonable to conclude that once property rights in space become relevant, laws will appear to deal with them. A good example right here on Earth is the islands of Svalbard. Svalbard was not claimed by any state when citizens of various countries started exploiting its natural resources. Before long it becme clear that laws were needed on these islands in the interests of good order. The great powers gathered and agreed on a treaty to govern Svalbard. The country who was physically closest to Svalbard (Norway) would gain sovereignty and their laws would apply, but citizens of any signatory state would be allowed to live and work there to exploit the resources available on the islands. This treaty has operated well and been respecred by all signatory nations for nearly a century. The modern world is repleat with examples of laws and treaties being applied once there was a need. It is reasonable to assume that this would be the case with commercial space exploration & mining also.

2.5 million trades a DAY: How ISE admins became Puppet masters

I don't have an attachment to "preferred vendors", their ecosystems, ISVs and consultants and I've spent a career trying to convince others not to either. I have this weird idea about using the best tool for the job. Yes I use Puppet.

The GPL self-destruct mechanism that is killing Linux

Let me join the chorus

The article is muddled. It makes major claims about the future of FOSS and mostly talks about the Linux kernel, a single FOSS project. The article further mixes in issues like monolithic vs micro- kernels.

I also want to note that while it is true that forks are fairly common, successful forks are not. Forking tends to be an unstable equilibrium - either the fork will fail or the original project will disappear following the fork. While it is true that there are examples of a fork and the original project going on to be successful this really occurs in a minority of cases

Gabe Newell: Windows 8 is a 'catastrophe' for PC biz

Re: I see what you did there!

> The problem with linux is fragmentation. It's both linux's strength and weakness. Valve can make games for

> linux but which flavour and distro?

That's not really a problem at all. You can statically link your binaries (removing any lib dependency and version problems) and use LSB and package managers to manage installation. Seriously, this is a non-issue.

E-Cat pitching cold fusion to Australians

It's ok. If we had that much energy we could build them a new habitat in orbit.

Re: So if it doesn't work...

It's very easy to say such things anonymously isn't it? I wonder if you speak to people like this face to face.

Apple desperate to prevent nightmare scenario of iPad in Iranian hands

Prima facie evidence

Is speaking a foreign language prima facie evidence of intent to export the device to a foreign country? If she had stood in the store and said "This will be great back in Tehran" then they might have had some justification for declining to sell under export restrictions but to do so merely as a result of using a foreign language is ridiculous.

Hackers expose Citibank CEO's privates

Not in my countries

I have accounts with Credit Unions in two countries and have never encountered or heard of any limitations on what I can do through the CUs.

Facebook deletes hacked Pages, destroying years of work

Other options

There are various other options too, like requiring multiple admins to agree to delete another admin (or perhaps this could be applied only in the case of the page creator).

Another option would be to only allow temporary suspensions of the creating account, not deletion. Most Hax0rs will get bored and forget to renew the suspension so the original account could be recovered. A legit business wanting to keep the original account suspended could do so indefinitely.

DNS hijack hits The Register: All well

Yeah sure :)

That's exactly what _they_ would say isn't it? :)

Definitions

The problem is the term hacker has as many as three distinct meanings in computing:

(1) Originally someone who hacked out code. Not necessarily a compliment.

(2) Later it became a term used for a very good coder or someone who loved coding for its own sake.

(3) Later still it was used (largely by the media) to describe crackers, script kiddies and even blackhats.

The last two definitions are still in use. I avoid the term and always use an alternative as it is too easily misunderstood.

Woman dies of heart attack at own funeral

Not so rare

Actually misdiagnosed death isn't so uncommon. I saw a documentary on it maybe 20 or 30 years ago. It featured a guy who had been pronounced dead many times. He ended up inventing a wearable device that showed that he was still alive. I guess it was some sort of pulse meter. Truth is stranger than fiction and all that.

ISS crew man the lifeboat

Two capsules available

The ability to dock a second Soyuz was added a few years ago. That's why the crew compliment is now 6.

Global warming is actually good for rainforests, say boffins

Oh they're fighting all right

The best hypothesis I've heard is this:

Trees like CO2 levels higher than grass does. The trees and grass have been in a war for millions of years, each side trying to alter the environment to their preferred cO2 level. The trees have recently deployed their ultimate weapon (humans) to drive up the CO2 levels and defeat the evil grass once and for all.

Make that 6.8 billion

The population hasn't been 6 billion for a decade. We're likely to top out at about 9-10 billion. This is itself a huge problem which gets little air time.

STINKY GREEN DWARF FROM SPACE - sensation at NASA

Cool dwarfs

Well said, and they did say it is the coolest brown dwarf known. I bet it gets invited to all the best parties.

Linux IRC server leaves backdoor open

Immunity

No OS is 'immune' to security threats because formal correctness cannot yet be established for anything as complicated as an entire OS. A small experimental kernel was formally proven correct recently however.

No mainstream OS even has a very high level of security.

I'm not pointing this as any particular person here but gosh our industry has a lot of clueless people to speak about topics they know nothing about.

The various reports on this problem are generally wrong on several levels. I won't go into them as I've already done that a few times and so have others.

What I will say is that methods to avoid source compromises like this are well understood and have been in use for as long as 20 years. You calculate hashes of the packages/archives (eg, using md5), keep the hashes in a seperate security domain and check them when you download. Package management systems usually automate the checking these days.

This problem occured because the people producing the package/archive didn't follow well known security procedures.

Fanboi's lament – falling out of love with the iPad

A title

"That said, no one is forcing you, dear Reg reader, to buy an iPad/Pod/Phone —"

Quite right which is why I don't own any of them. Apple's devices are too proprietary for me.

A well balanced article. I have one additional comment though:

For all that you say that you don't like the device, Apple still has your money. They don't care anymore. The same problem continues with Hollywood films. A lot of people believe they are turning our few good films but as long as people keep paying to see the rubbish films (often "because there's nothing else") then they will not be motivated to improve their products.

Oz customs search lappies and mobes for smut

A title

You;'re correct that as a citzen you cannot be refused entry but they can _delay_ entry under a number of circumstances. Declining to answer the questions may even be an offence, infact I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was.

Anyway Senator Conroy's filter has already pre-determined how I'm going to vote at the next federal election.

Firefox-based attack wreaks havoc on IRC users

Mandatory title

I've used IRC in the old days and then took a 10 year break. On returning to IRC I found that most of the valdals/trolls had moved on (same with Usenet). Freenode & OFTC have a very high signal to noise ratio. It's a world apart from the IRC of old.

New Labour bring old Nuremberg Laws to Britain

Don't even go there

As a former police officer I have to say: Don't try to make a citizens arrest on a police officer. If you really suspect they may not be a real PO then ask to see their ID. A real PO will provide you with sufficient opportunity to establish their position.

If you disagree with the actions of a PO fight them in court. On the street they have all the power - court is a much more even playing ground.

Wikipedia springs free labor leak

Re: Well now, Wikipedia the Real Freetard #

Dear AC1, you really don't get open source do you? :)

Here's a hint: It isn't all about altruism. There are plenty of self serving reasons why it makes sense to share content (and code). I won't go in to them as they are widely reported.

Cheers,

Rob

Users howl as Fedora 12 gives root to unwashed masses

Bad assumptions

The strength of *nix has always been that it made as few assumptions as possible. Claiming that Fedora is 'only a desktop OS' is an enormous assumption. They should not presume to know how the machine will be used.