Posts by bombastic bob

Shove your office mandates, people still prefer working from home

Re: I'm surprised RTO doesn't improve morale

Sometimes it might work well to be part-time "in office", then bring laptop home and finish up there. Meeting times from 10AM to 3PM, do collabs, get questions answered, blah blah then go home at 3-3:30.

Both directions you avoid traffic and major crowds. You finish up by eating lunch late and continue into evening. I've done that in the past. Alternately stagger hours to avoid "rush hour" commutes. Usually works well if you can be flexible on occasion. Not so good for hourly wage-work though(but contract and salary work well this way).

Japan's wooden satellite exits International Space Station

Re: building the spacecraft out of materials with less of an environmental impact is appealing

well if you use paper with carbon fiber... and line the inside with a sacrificial melty material... you could MAYBE make solid boosters "that way". Not re-usable though.

"tracking a wooden satellite using RADAR will be much more difficult than with a metal one."

Sonic screwdrivers won't work on 'em either.

/me keeps thinking "IKEA satellite company" for some reason...

Los Angeles wildfires force tens of thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

Re: There is more than one fire

it all tends to grow back after an occasional good rain. Southern CA, including LA and San Diego (where I am) is "Coastal Desert" so when it DOES rain, infrequently as it often is, it tends to storm and sometimes flood. If land management is done right, undergrowth and excess brush is removed, wires are relocated underground, water supplies are upgraded, etc. If enviro wacko "save the latest endangered species of the week" nutbags get in the way, and/or politicians squander all of the funds and apply DEI bureaucracy and red tape to every "solution", you get a lot of "the last couple of days" when conditions are ripe.

Re: Why pray?

a conclusion I came to a while back. You can always tell him off, though.

but then again, who really knows? It might be psychokinetic.

Re: Running Out of Water

a bit too soon.?

Most of the water problems are from houses with automatic fire sprinkler systems. What happens when a few hundred houses have their sprinkler systems activate? Yeah well there ya go...

[I still blame gummint but for the lack of infrastructure upgrades while shelling out tons o' money to illegal aliens and welfare scammers...]

Re: Data backups?

there are quite a few "ancient computing" fans out there. Might be easier than a lot of people might think.

Encryption backdoor debate 'done and dusted,' former White House tech advisor says

Re: Treason

I doubt that either Vivek or Elon are fans of back-doorable encryption, so no problem!

I'm pretty optimistic on this one.

Re: Treason

"All brought in with fear mongering"

That's how it's done, just about EVERY! SINGLE! TIME!

see icon

CAPTCHAs now run Doom – on nightmare mode

Re: Complete with cheat code support!

I did not have much luck with the chainsaw, either

CAPTCHA's days are numbered? PROMISE???

Since most web users find even the most basic CAPTCHA an annoying hoop to jump through

It is one of those things we all wish could be UN-invented...

[it irritates me SO much I cannot comment any further - just see icon]

Re: Complete with cheat code support!

I still like playing PRBoom on open source OS's - they have all new maps for Doom I and II and you can STILL play the originals [assuming you have the maps for a licensed copy].

still FUN after all these years

Boffins carve up C so code can be converted to Rust

Re: Down vote?

using "unsafe Rust" in a kernel is like using mono-compatible "C-Pound plus .Net" to write Linux-only applications... In other words, POINTLESS.

I thought FORTRAN was created for scientific stuff, but COBOL was the lingo for printing out accounting stuff, right?

That's how I remember it, anyway. I did a grok to verify it, seems to concur, language name being derived from "FORmula TRANslation", originally intended for scientific use.

Although the ASK/MANMAN system (business database stuff for HP and VAX minis) is, in fact, written in FORTRAN...

Jimmy Carter set the solar, space, and environmental pace

Re: He was one of us

Carter was definitely intelligent, a nuclear officer in the Navy, etc. However he was also a micro-manager and a globalist/socialist. THIS is what killed his presidency.

He should have listened to people like JFK, who was a supply-side economist. Instead he went for "big gummint" and rationing. Predictable outcome happened.

Sometimes "smart people" (especially 'Academics') are REALLY DUMB that way, as evidenced by THE RESULTS of their policies. Many good examples exist, from LBJ's "whiz kids" to Obama's presidency. Like the Argentinian president says, ¡Afuera!

Re: A loss no doubt

obituaries always glow over any positives they find, and leave out the negatives, like the overwhelming DYSTOPIA effects from double-digit stag-flation, Iranian hostage crisis, Afghanistan invasion by USSR [which helped spawn Taliban etc.], WEAK foreign policies, 14% real unemployment, gasoline lines and restrictions (a gas line would sometimes wrap around the block by my house), and a general "malaise" that was criticized by the very SAME president whose policies CAUSED it. The resulting LANDSLIDE election of Ronald Reagan led to REVERSALS of these ridiculous policies. which were not tried again until Obaka, then even MORE with BIDAS, the latter of which wins the "worst President" trophy back from Mr. Carter.

Jimmy Carter was a great FORMER President. FORMER. Terrible in office, though... the road to DYSTOPIA is paved with good intentions and BAD ideas. Except with Bidas (and probably Obaka) they were BAD INTENTIONS, *NOT* GOOD...

Schneider Electric warns of future where datacenters eat the grid

Re: How about

that's sorta like co-generation. Putting power plants within reach of urban areas and selling the hot water (and making/selling chilled water with absorption chillers) works too.

Efficiency is good.

carbon-based fuel power plants in the USA

Whether the US will be willing to build new generating capacity in the volumes implied by the AI enthusiasts remains to be seen.

It WILL happen. It's a BIG REASON why a majority of US'ians voted FOR our next Prez.

"Drill baby drill". I would NOT be surprised to see DOGE and Trump getting Con-Grab to ELIMINATE the EPA!!! At the very least, ALL policies attempting to regulate CO2 will GO AWAY, perhaps even for NATIONAL SECURITY reasons. It is INEVITABLE. Americans by FAR are REJECTING the Climate Scam! And we want our PROSPERITY BACK!

"Energy Crisis model" => limit power consumption

IF ONLY people recognized that the "Climate Scam / Climate Cult" NONSENSE and "renewable energy sources" FANTASY were a COMPLETE LIE and fossil fuel and nuclear power generation are the ONLY things that REALLY make sense, then we would have *NO* "energy crisis" for which to give up our money, freedom and technological progress to "SOLVE"...

Article: It also suggests accelerating deployment of on-site renewable energy generation combined with advanced energy storage solutions

You LITERALLY can NOT produce enough power with so called "renewable" energy sources, many of which POLLUTE and consume FOSSIL FUEL RESOURCES to make them "over there" (read: China), just so that GREENIES can FEELZ GOOD about it "over here", at levels possibly HIGHER than the 'renewables' allegedly "offset". And putting "everyone has an EV now" demand on the grid is UNDOUBTEDLY WORSE than anything AI could demand.

That's just the laws of physics in a REAL WORLD, ya know? Run the numbers, you'll see.

If you need MORE TRONS, then MAKE THEM! Build a nuke or fossil fuel plant next to the data center. Natural gas turbine would do NICELY. And maybe cover building roofs and parking areas with solar panels [that are NOT made by the CCP] to supplement the grid, where it kinda makes sense! [after all, why not!]

Eight things that should not have happened last year, but did

Re: We all know that 'AI' is not really artificial intelligence.

How about AI search instead of google? But the summary will need to be more informative, NOT sound "authoritative" nor be filled with "paid for" (or pre-programmed) BIAS. So a search engine that looks like 'grok' (but with less "fluff" in the output) is where I think we're headed. Grok provides you with links to the pages it summarizes.

Grok is STILL affected by intarweb bias, so you could mentally remove a lot of the 'biased fluff' and pay attention to the list of web pages and summary info, and THEN it can be WAY faster/better than google or any other (real) search engine! I have started using it that way. What will cause the google's of the world to panic is how it would be WAY harder to monetize or be used to CONTROL THE NARRATIVE (if it is EVER to be TRULY USEFUL). I'd also expect MORE COMPETITION in this regard. THAT In My Bombastic Opinion is what we'll see change in 2025.

Axiom Space shuffles space station assembly sequence – to get it standalone sooner

Re: European space station

Where else are you going to buy large human rated pressure vessels qualified for use in space?

Goodyear, except they might smell a bit like tires...(steel belted radial space station modules - they got truck tires that big)

Re: Hollywood pitch

Makes me think of David Bowie... and Peter Schilling in the 80's version

Guide for the perplexed – Google is no longer the best search engine

Re: This was predicted - in El Reg - years ago.

"Governments deciding what technology they want to succeed is even worse"

Gummints picking the winners and losers, whether from lobbyist favors/kickbacks, the tax code, a political agenda driving regulation/legislation, or OUTRIGHT CORPORATE WELFARE, *IS* the heart of corruption in ANY government at ANY level, and the OPPPOSITE of free-market capitalism.

It is *THE* worst!

Re: This was predicted - in El Reg - years ago.

When I compare Grok (over on X, which is now free to all users) I get REAL results quickly, when Google and even DuckDuckGo led me down a lot of dead-end rabbit holes [partially due to it being a Win32 programming question, the predominance of Stack Overflow and it typically NOT helping, and being the kind of "GDI world transform" problem hardly anyone wants to deal with]. So instead of getting circle-jerked by Micros~1's own API documentation, Grok SUMMARIZED the entire issue by LOCATING SOME OBVIOUS Micros~1 SAMPLE CODE that demonstrated EXACTLY what I needed to know, a feature that the OLD MSDN DOCS (prior to 2012, before it went "all online") did MUCH BETTER in my opinion, but I got there EVEN FASTER due to Grok [thanks, Elon!].

It's probably NOT necessary to point out the APPARENT LACK OF ALGORITHMIC BIAS in Grok [you won't see woke-biased 'race placement' in an AI generated image of George Washington as far as I can tell, unless you ask for it], but I mention it anyway. And I have generally avoided google for a while now, MOSTLY because of TRACKING and ALGORITHMIC BIAS, ONLY doing google searches when DuckDuckGo searches aren't working well enough. And I doubt I'll be using ChatGPT or any of the others any time soon, for similar reasons. Still, DuckDuckGo (and I suppose Google) would still work for a lot of things where I get results that are useful on the first 2 pages. [the "site:" feature is the most useful feature I use to weed out MOST of the crap]

Oh, and Grok DOES LET ME SEE THE 15 PAGES ITS ALGORITHM FOUND... [at least as far as I can tell, correct me if I'm wrong please]

(yeah that wish was mentioned in the article, GOOD POINT by the way)

PIRATE Icon for the obvious reason.

US reportedly mulls TP-Link router ban over national security risk

Would have been nice to know about 3 weeks ago

Well, they have 2 things going for them: they're cheap, and they actually work.

I got a cheap TP-Link range extender that doubles as an AP. The reason was simple: a relative that lives with me likes using Nintendo gaming devices, but they tend to use B mode (even the newest ones) which KILLS network throughput during multiplayer games [let's say "Among Us"] when I'm trying to do development work on an embedded device across the wifi network. So editing files using X11 starts to SUCK because B mode screws the throughput for everything ELSE. Solution, a 2nd AP but with DHCP etc. turned OFF. Ethernet cable to a convenient place, and it works! (the thing looks like a wall-wart)

When I got it I was VERY disappointed at their docs and setup instructions, which said NOTHING about AP mode, so I gave it a one-star review and then hacked the solution. Turns out you need internet connectivity AND ethernet to the device simultaneously, THEN go to some remote web page, and it re-directs to a config page on the device itself where you can set it up, which is BS as far as I am concerned. And if you have "noscript" active it misleadingly tells you to UPGRADE YOUR BROWSER rather than "enable script".

So it's really "cheap crap but it works". No great loss if they get banned. That's My Bombastic Opinion at any rate...

Interpol wants everyone to stop saying 'pig butchering'

Sus Scrofa Domesticus

That's pretty "sus"...

Xfce 4.20 is out: Wayland support lands, but some pieces are still missing

Re: Still?

"at last, it's possible to use Wayland"

wheeee...

"Wayland people are engaged in re-inventing the wheel."

The way POETTERING re-invented audio and init

Intel sued again over struggling foundry business

Foundering foundry business

You missed a good opportunity for bad PUN-ishment!

(well I AM ex-Navy, why WOULDN'T I think of this right away?)

US airspace closures, lack of answers deepen East Coast drone mystery

Trump probably knows already

Trump has a history of revealing a LOT of things other presidents won't. He's big on transparency. He gets briefings and PROBABLY KNOWS ALREADY, but speaks carefully as he's not in office yet (so it might be a crime to "confirm or deny"). But he CAN say a lot, if it SOUNDS like an opinion.

Imagine the Trump admin NOT getting to the bottom (once and for all) of the Kennedy assassinations from the 60's, with RFKJr. as a member of his cabinet... you KNOW this is getting revealed if there's something to find. THAT and a zillion OTHER conspiracies. No need for tinfoil hats. "Deep State" is already on notice. Truth.

Re: The Idiocracy takes flight

Today I saw night vision videos on Fox News that identified a quadrotor drone in one panel (from Monday evening I believe) and a flock of geese from last night. So like always there are legit sightings and people who want to see something but it turns out to be something else.

In My Bombastic Opinion this may simple be a classified military operation, similar to development of the stealth fighter. "Drone War" is a distinct possibility and you KNOW the military industrial complex wants IN. If I am correct it may even be joint development, as these things are also being reported near UK bases and Ramstein DE. So if I take that to the next level, the US, UK, DE, and maybe Israel are developing drone-related tech in which they are capable of "going dark" and escaping (this was reported from a police helicopter crew) and operating over densely populated areas is part of the testing. For all we know, the PEOPLE are part of the testing...

Occam's Razor, they're "ours", it's classified, and gummint is lying about it, just like they lie about area 51 [where classified research like stealth fighter] haas been eveloped.

In any case, UK has a laser to shoot 'em down now.

Silent NASA lander gives boffins insight into Martian dust

NASA sends robot "red light squeegee guy" to Mars to wash Mars lander solar panels

As described in a (potential) "Babylon Bee" article

(are there Squeegee guys in UK?)

systemd begrudgingly drops a safety net while a challenger appears, GNU Shepherd 1.0

Re: 42% less unix philosophy

All sysdtemD does for ME is get in the way, especially on embedded things (like devices with an RPi as the controller). it's WORST feature is the default config, when you spend HOURS trying to figure out what it did that causes your serial port to get noise on the line (turned out some stupid MODEM SERVICE started and fornicated the serial connection and if I recall correctly I had to disable MORE THAN ONE THING to FIX it).

In any case if you are doing something OTHER than setting up Poettering's personal laptop (alluding to a similar comment in another post in this thread) it's QUITE POSSIBLE that something easily done with SysV init weil take bastardized workarounds or not be possible at ALL...

[try setting up the network to be either an AP *OR* a client, support scanning to set it up, AND optionally use an ethernet port instead of OR along with it, and see if you can leave systemD and it's minion processors to do it... so I shut them OFF and use the remnants of SysV networking and shell scripting invoked by rc.local]

Still I should have a look at the new GNU thing, find a distro that has it, test in a VM, etc.

Aliens, spy balloons, or drones? SUV-sized mystery objects spotted in US skies

If they flew over Texas, Louisiana, or Florida

If they flew over Texas, Louisiana, or Florida, we'd be finding their carcasses scattered all over the place.

Easy to get rid of: Just declare "open season" on the things, and let Bubba and Bo get out there with shotguns and blow 'em away!!!

[and STOP acting like a bunch of drenched female cats]

Facing sale or ban, TikTok tossed under national security bus by appeals court

Why don't all other countries take the same approach to US-cintrolled companies gathering data on their citizens?

Perhaps the data is being shared with them?

(GDPR helps, I think - we need something similar in the USA so we can see what's being tracked and control it individually, especially with 2FA more and more often demanding a CELL PHONE NUMBER)

Re: Not just TikTok

maybe not yet, but certainly possible I recall Furbies being banned in certain places because they used a microphone for certain functionality. And some time ago I visited a military base where they would not allow cell phones to be brought by visitors onto the ships that were docked there.

Re: US Constitution applies to the US Government

Limits are placed on the US federal and state governments with respect to CITIZENS and LEGAL RESIDENTS/VISITORS.

For foreign entities there are treaties, and for foreign citizens there are visas. For foreign-owned businesses they can be allowed, restricted, banned or even confiscated. That's how "National Sovereignty" works. Any other interpretation, PARTICULARLY that which implies special (or any) rights imparted to foreign-owned companies and/or ILLEGAL residents/visitors is a RIDICULOUS "bleeding heart" *HOBBLING* of such national sovereignty that exists NOPLACE ELSE in the world. Like every other nation, FOREIGN people and entities are allowed access to the USA according to laws that do not EVEN have to be FAIR. The US Constitution cannot be used to argue ANY rights for foreign controlled businesses. Byte Dance is WRONG on this and may find their assets confiscated, but I hope they TRY and get way with it. SCOTUS is essentially the LAST word in appellate jurisdiction and as such can clarify this once and for all, most likely with a 6:3 majority.

NEXT might be a confiscation of all of that FARMLAND the CCP got away with snarfing up, which is PROBABLY used for hiding criminal aliens and drugs, and spying on our military (rather than growing food). WHY they were allowed to buy land in the FIRST place is beyond INSANITY, but WHEN the truth comes out the Feds are likely just to tear up their deeds and auction it off to people that want to grow FOOD.

.

Microsoft confirms there will be no U-turn on Windows 11 hardware requirements

Re: Can anyone clarify

Would that EVER translate into "FINGERPRINTS ONLINE" or create LICENSING ISSUES??

[asking for a friend - heh]

fixed it for ya

"What kind of insane person runs an email server live on the Internet using Windows ANYTHING"

FIFY

Re: Well...

I decided a while back (AFTER CANCELLING MSDN AS IT BECAME A TOTAL FREAKING WASTE OF $ WITH 11's TPM REQUIREMENT and VBOX NOT SUPPORTING VIRTUAL TPM - YOU ARE F'ing WELCOME, MICROS~1) that if, for WHATEVER reason, I MUST have 11 installed on something, I'd purchase the CHEAPEST PIECE OF CRAP I could find and just use THAT for that ONE PIECE OF CRAP SOFTWARE that DEMANDS 11...

*TOTAL* *BACKFIRE* !!!

(I hope you are happy, Micros~1, and I will LOUDLY recommend Linux and/or BSD solutions to D.O.G.E. while I'm at it!!!)

Elementary OS 8 'Circe' conjures Wayland magic

Sadly, in our testing, ... the Wayland session wasn't usable.

"Sadly, in our testing, ... the Wayland session wasn't usable."

(Obligatory Wayland-hate comment withheld)

Speaks for itself.

X.org : STOP WASTING DEV TIME ON WAYLAND AND STREAMLINE X11 INSTEAD!!!!! Linux and FreeBSD are NOT Micros~1 Windows, will NEVER BE Micros~1 Windows, and you are DIVIDING THE OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY!!!

J U S T _ S T O P _ I T !!!

Wubuntu: The lovechild of Windows and Linux nobody asked for

2D FLATTY FLATASS FLATSO look still there - **WHY**???

You know, if the UI were to look like Win7, WinXP, or even Win2k, it would be a WHOLE LOT BETTER...

But NOOOOoooo. By "cloning" the look/feelz of Windows Ape/10-nic/II they've TRIPLED DOWN on Sinofsky's BULLSHIT FLATSO TIFKAM UI, once again.

When is 3D Skeuomorphic (what people REALLY want) going to be the DRIVING FACTOR again?

Remember Windows 2.x, vs 3.0??? 3.0 was SKEUOMORPHIC and THAT was *THE* revolution!!! I call THAT "PROOF"!!! 2D FLATSO FLATTY FLATASS is a REGRESSION!!!

Musk and Trump to fall out in 2025, predicts analyst

Re: Shocked

yeah the TDS venting in the comments is voluminous AND entertaining!

SO funny when none of "that" happens and DOGE gets to trim >$2TRILLION from annual gummint expenditure.

Elon can put factories wherever he wants. 10:1 he puts the new ones in Mexico, Canada, or inside USA with Musk-bots doing most of the work. CCP China is a passing FAD when it comes to manufacturing. Trump de-regulating will allow US minerals and energy to dominate again. We do NOT need the CCP to supply critical minerals despite their takeover and/or coercion as they corner markets around the world. Before long, they'll be BEGGING for US companies to consider them RELEVANT.

Environmentalists won't complain about how CCP and 3rd world nations RAPE the earth for minerals, leaving open pit and strip mining scars and other environmental damage in their wake. If USA mines its OWN minerals, AND Canada, and maybe even Mexico, it can be done WITHOUT the environmental damage if NOT over-regulated into non-profitability, and THAT is the point.

Truth: pollute and rape the land "over there" and use SLAVE labor to do it - THAT (CCP) model MUST go away, swapped out for COMMON SENSE regulations in places where we CARE about such things.

It'll work. You'll see.

Bluesky keeps growing, and so do its problems

B.S. worst kind of echo chamber

Having not bothered to go there, I do not know. However, SOME evidence seems to indicate this is so.

For example, I have seen a couple of videos where someone signs up for B.S. (Blue Sky), then enters his first post with something frequently said on X, such as "there are two biological sexes", or "man made climate change is a hoax" (or similar).

Within 30 seconds an algorithm of some kind flat-out bans the user. [I cannot imagine what they'd do for a PRONOUN violation]

So if you like "safe" environments in which nobody argues with your politics and/or opinions, B.S. may be for you.

(Personally I call that *BORING*)

Win a slice of XP cheese if you tell us where Microsoft should put Copilot next

Copilot collar for Lemmiwinks

Copilot collar for Lemmiwinks

Seems to be one of the most appropriate uses

Both KDE and GNOME to offer official distros

daily-drivable general purpose OS.

Article: I would like to turn GNOME OS, GNOME's home-grown distro for testing and development of the GNOME Desktop, into a daily-drivable general purpose OS.

OK. Here ya GO:

* Stop forcing everyone top use ADWAITA (it SUCKS)

* Default to 3D skeuomorphic look, preferably "TraditionalOK"

* Put panel back the way it is in Mate (gnome 2 functionality)

* Fully support GTk2 and GTK3 existing simultaneously

* STOP IT with 'HAMBURGER' MENU ICON

* stop it with "moving targets" i.e. a STABLE API

* Screw Wayland, standardize on X11

* FULL SUPPORT of "NO SystemD" SYSTEMS!

Basically become Mate/Cinnamon, and especially default to 3D SKEUOMORPHIC and *NOT* that RIDICULOUS GOOGLE/MICROS~1 2D FLATSO FLATASS LOOK!!!

Trump tariffs transform into bigger threats for Mexico, Canada than China

Re: You keep using that word...

"Written on the back of a McDonalds napkin in black sharpie?"

I get my best ideas at the strangest times.... so a napkin with a sharpie could actually be a CROWNING MOMENT of BRILLIANCE!

(don't knock the napkin).

One day when I'm working in an office the supervisor, the manager, and the marketing guy were discussing ways of solving a basic mechanical problem, right behind me, while I was working on firmware. Existing solutions were less than adequate. I got a brilliant inspiration from nature and sketched it out on a notepad with "here ya go". They adopted it. Worked pretty well, cheap plastic sheet stamped into the right size and shape, less than 10 cents each, helped to sell the $$$$.$$ solution (several thousand of them). The system itself even has a patent [I had to put that hat on too, the original writeup for the lawyers and a half dozen review/edits], though I think the plastic sheet design just has a copyright. Yeah the fun things!

Re: I have no doubt you blame Trump for not controlling covid....

The ridiculous "inject bleach" hoax

Debunked LONG ago... (DO try and keep up!)

Snopes link

Re: Good luck buying fruits and vegetables then

Look at Central California and Salinas Valley and say that again...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanimura_%26_Antle

(Yes their trucks DO say T&A on them)

And getting Taiwan to build them (assuming CCP does not conquer the island) would be a nice MIDDLE FINGER to the MIDDLE KINGDOM GUMMINT!

"2nd source" NOT in China should quickly become the NORM, especially after what CCP did to us during the VIRUS SCARE!

Windows 10's farewell tour – not AI PCs – set to drive laptop sales in 2025

Re: Looks like people are buying laptops without all that A.I. bullcrap...

I wonder where they get the idea that "Businesses want to move to AI PCs".

Big WIntel Marketing droids. They SAID so, it MUST be true!