* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Guild behind actors' strike fears video game workers also at risk from AI

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Yep I give it ~5 years or so

It still takes a lot of money to make a movie, even a crappy (or woke) movie, with a high likelihood of it losing money overall when box office ticket sales circle the drain.

Hollyweird wants to do it cheaper, using robots. Actors want to continue getting prohibitively expensive salaries.

I think the robots will win. THEN Hollyweird can still excrete lheir worthless woke / crap movies but at a lower overall cost.

(the actual problem is that Hollyweird forgot how to make a movie worth seeing in the theater, and how to sufficiently market it so that people do not wait for the disk)

Arm reveals just how vulnerable it is to trade war with China

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Between morphng US regulations and RISC-V

whichever, both bad and oppressive and citizens are NOT free to innovate without imminent threat. That was my point.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Between morphng US regulations and RISC-V

It is highly likely that Huawei's innovation comes from Taiwan, not 'CCP China'

I've worked with engineers from Taiwan. They are very much like the engineers I've worked with in the USA and UK as far as skill, competency, and quality go [from my experience anyway].

Taiwan != China. It's the COMMUNISM that makes the difference, not so much who, or where, or who it is that is signing the checks.

For now, at least, Taiwan is "safe"...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Between morphng US regulations and RISC-V

"I'm not sure whether it is hubris, racial stereotyping or a lack of understanding of how technology develops that leads politicians to think that China will have trouble replacing the technology they are blocked from buying."

It's mostly HUBRIS.

China is a country, not a race, and it is COMMUNISM that stifles innovation (it is VERY hard to innovate when thinking outside of the box hurts your social credit score or gets you 'disappeared' which makes it hard for a U.S. company doing OEM mfg from 'CCP China' to deal with the engineers in 'CCP China' when trying to get problems fixed - yes, I have had to deal with that - in ONE case they first DENIED a problem existed, then fixed it a DIFFERENT way than what was suggested as a quick stopgap, months later, without saying anything).

But at least HALF of the politicians have NEVER INNOVATED. King Bidas, the doddering fool currently occupying the White House [for whom everything he touches turns to CRAP], has NEVER HAD A REAL JOB, particularly one where you have to make/build or design/invent things. Nor have his puppet masters, more than likely [lib-T think tank nor lefty college professor notwithstanding - plenty of THOSE kinds of people in Maryland, just north of D.C. - is NOT a REAL job].

If there is an actual GOAL here, it is to create a superficial APPEARANCE of a paper tiger, targeted at those who cast ballots out of *FEEL* instead of intelligence, while making corrupt deals behind the scenes. *COUGH*HUNTER*COUGH*

Really smart trade agreements should be made by those who understand business, NOT politics, and do not DIRECTLY PROFIT FROM THEM [through multiple shell companies as one example].

Microsoft whips out probe after Windows 11 users suffer the blue-screen blues

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

bleeding edge updates are highly overrated

what it says in the title

(is why I like 'stable' branches, and manual-only updates)

Microsoft teases Python scripting in Excel

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!

Or it is step 1 of 'Embrace, Extend, Extinguish'

Wait until you see "Visual P++"...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

cloudy 'security'

"the cloud habitat for Anaconda's Python will presumably be more secure than having Excel users downloading libraries on their own. Having anticipated concerns about enabling yet another attack vector in Excel, Microsoft has preemptively declared that its snake has been tamed.'

HA HA HA HA (oh wait, they're serious; let me laugh even HARDER!)

What part of THIS is 'more secure' ?

* Data stored in the cloud where governments and evil hackers can view it

* relying on "their server" performance including the pipeline to/from it

* DDoS, downtimes, network problems, MItM and DNS cracks, etc. NEVER HAPPEN, right?

More exist but another post near the top hit on the best ones

Moscow makes a mess on the Moon as Luna 25 probe misses orbit, lands with a thud

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Failure?

This was a passenger safety test. A crash test dummy was on board (they borrowed the one from Myth Busters)

If it did not have 'crumple zones' before, I'm sure it has them now!

And the whole concept of an inelastic collision and the moon being made of ballistics gel...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: "Luna 25, by contrast, tried to make the trip in nine days"

"Russia haven't been communist in 30 years."

Shhh... don't tell Vlad, he might crack

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Or, a corollary:

If a spacecraft crash-lands on the moon, does it make a sound?

(and an M-theory discussion about observation and reality was born)

Version 5 of systemd-free Debian remix Devuan is here

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

fork in the road

as long as Xorg remains the default desktop engine (or at least easy to select during install), there won't need to be any more forks.

(Wayland cultists can have their systemd and other Poettering clusterer-blanks along with Wayland in other distros)

in my last Devuan install (chimera) I added X and mate in a separate step and it set up as a console login using 'startx', rather than booting into a GUI. Much better I say.

Virginia industrial park wants to power DCs with mini nuclear reactors, clean hydrogen

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Clean hydrogen

hydrocarbons store pretty well without much loss. i got a tank full of 'em in the back of my car...

Red Hat redeploys one of its main desktop developers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

countdown to Wayland bashing

Zero.

Wayland is a complete waste of developer energy and effort. Extending Xorg and providing good quality hardware support, especially open source hardware acceleration, and avoiding GTK past version 3, should be their #1 priority, and NOT time-wasting on what could easily be described as "The 'Supriority by Arthur C. Clarke' moment" also known as Wayland.

export DISPLAY=othermachine:0.0

This is the #1 BEST feature of Xorg, especially for embedded development.

[I go out of my way to ensure Wayland does NOT get installed]

You're welcome.

First US nuclear power plant built this century goes online

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"Also, the blades of wind turbines are not biodegradable, and is also a huge issue."

THIS PART, at least, is true.

the whole "Carbon Footprint" thing is an anti-science hoax anyway. Basic chemistry and physics disproves their nonsense. Human nature and the seeking of power over others by elitists explains it.

[Orwell was an optimist]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: ROI?

"This is a good start but they need to be cheaper."

laws need to change:

* Tort reform to GREATLY discourage malicious lawsuits by "environmental" (aka disruptive/communist) organizations

* standardization and mandatory EXPEDITING of environmental impact and related "studies" (max 3 months for approval / public comment, let's say)

* Fast-tracking (in general)

* Use of 'Interstate Commerce' in the USA for power placed on the grid so that individual states (like California) can NOT "slow walk" new construction. [unfortunately this could also backfire like calling down a napalm strike on YOUR location]

* Making it ILLEGAL for a state like California to literally DISCRIMINATE against power producers on the grid who produce cheaper but "non-renewable" power from out of state (say Nevada, Arizona) to feed the California grid and create lower energy prices for Californians

This kind of REGULATORY REFORM should cut the time between USA power plant construction to maybe 1 year instead of FIFTY.

Prices of gallium and germanium rise as China export controls loom

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Checkmate?

There is no actual shortage of these materials. China (specifically the CCP) is simply grabbing the WORLD BY THE BALLS when it comes to the LOWEST PRICE for them.

And, of course, I bet they mine them with SLAVE LABOR and/or CHILD LABOR like the way they mine for cobalt in AFRICA. Yeah pictures of THAT aren't all over teh intarwebs or anything.

This is how COMMUNISTS do things, in an allegedly capitalist world. They undercut their worldwide competition until they go out of business, and then leverage slave/child labor to keep costs down and then keep the worldwide price just below the threshold where it is practical for other nations to compete WITHOUT human exploitation.

I say, TARIFF China, long-term move as much manufacturing as you can ELSEWHERE, and live with the price increases on certain goods, until we put THEM out of business!!! [they NEED US more than we need THEM, and funding their military until they grow strong enough to take US over is a REAL THREAT]

Or does the world WANT 10 year old kids in African countries picking up rocks and putting them in baskets in open pit mines that can BURY THEM because the work is THAT dangerous?

Yeah, SOMEBODY has to say it...

Tokkers can Tok like Tweeters can Tweet – for now

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Yes but the CCP one comes with "Social Credit Score" for future reference!!! (you just can't see it)

RIP Kevin Mitnick: Former most-wanted hacker dies at 59

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: No published links

I suspect one of two causes for his cancer:

a) hereditary susceptibility

b) tobacco or recreational drug use

or less likely but possible: some kind of cancer causing retrovirus (retrovirus modifies DNA)

And, sometimes cancer starts in one place, but ends up killing you somewhere else.

Sad face 'cause nobody wants to die from 'El Cancer' ('Deadpool' reference). A plane crash, run over by a train, getting hit with lightning or a car, over quickily. Cancer often lingers and puts you through HELL.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Hats off from a non-techie

I do not even have vestigial 'heart strings' (and if I did I'd have them removed)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Takedown

I have region free DVD player that I bought for that very reason - geofencing. Obviously does not work on Blu-Ray but you can still buy DVDs, especially used ones, for older movies [and most of the features I see available here in the USA usually have dual media]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: RIP Kevin

Interesting you mention DEC - in the late 70's I recall a PDP 11/70 running RSTS/E that had all of the priveleged programs that run at startup not only marked with temporary privileges, they could be RUN BY ANYONE. Once I found out about INIT I experimented with it and quickly learned how to bypass a login password [as long as I was already logged in]. Security CRATERS does not even come close to this basic design blunder, which should never have been set up 'that way' at a university...

Linux has nearly half of the desktop OS Linux market

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Yet again, Mint

PIMNIC and PIWNIC - heh

[By my observation PIDNIC does not seem to exist. Most kids (and young ladies) learn fast, so you can just make sure she has Linux on her laptop and she learns to use it. STEM.]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: ChromeOS is a fake linux

what about the "Big Enders" ?

Twitter ad revenue has halved since Elon Musk took over

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: As someone who does not and will not ever have either a twatter or a zuck imitation account

Yeah no vitriol there, or anything. heh.

I once said the same kinda thing about 'social media' in general (other than news commentary like this). Then Musk bought Twitter.

Now I do not get 'canceled' just for going against "The Establishment"

China succeeds where Elon Musk has failed with first methalox rocket

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Interesting but not earth shattering

"F is one of the most dangerous element around in chemistry."

in most of its forms, yes. In some cases, like flouride toothpaste, extremely useful and life enhancing.

In the wafer fab world, an HF exposure (even just a light splash) is one of the WORST kinds of industrial accidents. And you need HF to etch silicon.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Interesting but not earth shattering

"Environmental impacts should be less than RP1-LOX"

Why would THAT be? Carbon content? I hope you do not actually BELIEVE in carbon-dioxide-based "Climate Change"... So much evidence against it. Tony Heller is a good starting point.

(Most of the Earth's carbon is in the MANTLE, and it regularly gets spewed by volcanoes, in amounts WAY higher than human activity - I doubt a few RP1 rockets will even matter)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Clickbait journalism

The concept of it being 'a race' is based on what SHOULD be natural for humans: COMPETITION!

In this case I think methalox LOST as an ideal fuel. Musk understood this and abandoned it.

Now Foxconn hopes to lure TSMC, Japan’s TMH into India chip fab pact – report

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

All of this with the CCP looming overhead...

Foxconn (as I recall from a few years back) has competent engineers, some of whom I met and talked with back then.

There is NO doubt in my mind that they would all vacate Taiwan should the CCP come rolling in ( if they had the chance top do so).

India would be a nice close location to vacate to. (Just sayin')

What I *REALLY* hope this means is better (more stable) supply chain NOT sourced in China, to supply the rest of the world. We would ALL benefit from THAT.

Red Hat's open source rot took root when IBM walked in

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: IBM enters Personal Computer market

"they're spending more time spinning in circles than actually getting anywhere."

This is DEFINITELY TRUE in the Micros~1 'Windows World'. I do not mess with RHEL much (other than light experimentation with the clones) and so I just have to assume that this is also true for IBM/RH.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

an 'el cheapo' no-support license for RHEL?

What if a bunch of RHEL customers would be willing to pay a REALLY CHEAP license, either one time or subscription, that gives them "no support" (like using an RHEL clone) with the benefit of having the actual RHEL software (and not a clone) ?

There is no need to be greedy and demand ONLY the BIG BUCKS license unless, like an insurance company, they expect to drive revenue from customers who do NOT use the support...!

Then, just to have even MORE fun, they could offer users of the clone versions an option to get support at the RHEL support price. Some might want that.

NASA 'quiet' supersonic jet is nearly ready for flight

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: As much political as technical

The purpopose of the 1973 supersonic ban was essentially THAT (political, not technical). In the 1960's I used to hear a lot of sonic booms from aircraft operating near Santa Barbara, CA. They were probably military aircraft, researched by Hughes Aircraft. Needless to say, cracked windows were too common, and people complained a LOT. Then a lot of environmentalists said it was harming Condors (which it probably was, I used to see them occasionally flying over the house) and finally gummint stepped in and said "OK that's enough" and also semi-banned military aircraft as well [only allowed if there is a really good reason to make a sonic boom, in other words].

So I suppose the new standard ought to be revised, such as "no sonic booms above THAT sound level" and maybe some approved designs over populated areas or places where wildlife might be severely impacted.

Let's take a look at those US Supreme Court decisions and how they will affect tech

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: No such scenario occurred - really ?

post a sign. yeah that'll help.

I think certain kinds of sports equipmentr, blinding lights, extreme noise at close range, and a general fear that some extremely unhinged person might cause physical harm are a pretty good deterrent, too...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: No such scenario occurred - really ?

I'd equally support a web designer or cake maker who refused to make a product that celebrated or priomoted a numher of things, from racism to communism to evil dictators to people that illegally stick those flourescent green signs in the middle of the road because their kids are playing in the front yard (never mind telling them to stay out of the road which is what my mother did when I was 3-4, they have to literally bully everyone else into being just as unreasonably paranoid about THEIR kid, and disrupt the world with their passive aggressive bullying, but I digress).

There are a LOT of disagreeable positions that an artist or craftsman might not want to do a creative work for. It's just that some ideas/beliefs/behaviors are more "special" than others.

(I was thinking of 'Animal Farm' when I wrote that last part)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

Re: The odd billionaire-run fiefdom that monetizes outrage.

If I am allergic to cats does that mean I have to start sneezing?

BOFH: Lies, damned lies, and standards

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Association of Servicepeople for Software and Hardware Over the Lifetime of Equipment.

First thing I looked for was a potential acronym

[now it needs a T shirt]

Two new Linux desktops – one with deep roots – come to Debian

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Display postscript?

If it does not link to Cairo, which I think would solve all of that (i.e. if it were linked to Cairo), then that's a good point. Web fonts, TTF, raster, and PostScript (we hope) would all be supported... but ARE they?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Debian?? Really??

NO issues? Not like ADWAITA or systemd or pulse audio or any of a number of POETTERING brain farts are potential "issues", right? *facepalm*

(I also prefer dpkg-based packages - it is an easy system to master if you wanna re-distribute modified or patched versions of things)

I've given my OK nod to Rocky Linux for testing with something similar RHEL and CentOS though, but not as a daily driver for sure, only because setup is simple and I might need to test things on it. But that is about the extent of how far I'd go with something derived from RH.

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Beautiful? Really?

Would you prefer something 2D FLATSO FLATASS like Gnome+ADWAITA ? Or whatever the hell KDE became?

I think a nice retro 3D Skeuomorphic look is both REFRESHING and SUPERIOR !!!

I'll still use Mate with "TraditionalOK" though...

(I really am SICK of phone-like desktops and 2D FLATTY Win-Ape / Win-10-nic TIFKAM look - and I certainly hope THAT is NOT what the authors think of when they say "polished")

If not for Mate and Cinnamon, I'd really consider switching to GSDE. I hope it shows up in Devuan and Ubuntu-derived soon (if not already)

Europe's Euclid telescope launches to figure out dark energy, the universe, and everything

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: L2?

The actual L2 isn't stable

So regardless it will need maneuvering fuel and to have some kind of de-orbit plan once it runs out.

(I am pretty sure they figured this one out already)

I understand most Lagrange orbits are often of the 'spinning a weight on a string' (aka 'halo orbit') variety [or similar]. Some have very unusual patterns to maintain stability.

Wikipedia has some interesting info on Lagrange points.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Forty Two

Obligatory Hitchhiker's Guide reference

It's 2023 and memory overwrite bugs are not just a thing, they're still number one

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: This crap should be fixed in hardware

1. Separate I and D spaces

Harvard architecture. Has advantages AND disadvantages. But Intel memory management has read/write and read-only page flags so it is pretty easy to make code memory "not writeable" already.

2. Use the MPU to enforce per-process limits

easier to do using task switching parameters and a reasonably-written pre-emptive scheduler. YMMV on RTOS

3. Hardware assist on privileges (not just user/super but > 5 levels)

why does hardware need to 'assist' with that many? Typically hardware has separate system and user stacks and/or page tables, even entire register banks. But normally, just 2. And each application's address/page table is different (i.e. separate address spaces) already. Just why do you need > 5 when you already have things LIKE separate address spaces for applications?

Again, scheduler params and the existing password/group security (Linux/BSD/UNIX/etc.) can manage this kind of multi-level security with a reasonably-written pre-emptive scheduler., though I understand there are some ACL mods for Linux available to extend this.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Buffer overrun? still?

well there are warnings you can enable in llvm-based C/C++ compilers that find a lot of things .

Other C/C++ tricks include use of strncpy, snprintf, etc which have buffer checking built in, as well as avoiding more obvious things, by sanitizing "foreign" (and even internal) data and structures, AND including (but not being limited to) the simple fix of 'fgets' vs 'gets' on stdin.

Custom APIs with output to buffers should ALSO do size checking and have the output buffer size specified. The simple things.

No need to implement garbage collection memory control, nor use Rust to fix this.

Attorney sues Microsoft for $1.75M, claiming his email has been useless since May

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: We have asked the company for comment. ®

I have somewhat recently had issues with outlook mail.

One of my e-mail addresses is an old MSN addressw, but I occasionally use it for a couple of things. A couple of months or so ago it suddenly gave me a boatload of login errors and would not work anymore with a POP3 client. After communicating a few times with MS they made it possible for me to use it as web mail, but POP3 was still broken.

After researching an obscure solutioin stuck out - change the password (or reset it or similar).

I have not yet tried this but I suppose I oughta. In the mean time MS insists that there is no problem with it.

Thought I would mention this.

Red Hat strikes a crushing blow against RHEL downstreams

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Simple solution

Just use Windows

HA HA HA HA HA... oh were you serious?

(I should laugh even HARDER if you were!)

But yeah, nice trollin'. We all can use a good laugh now and then.

(my apology for any mishap involving coffee, cats, and keyboards)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: GPL violation

You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein

This is the part that i was thinking might be their Achilles' heel.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: GPL violation

Hopefully though this will be the incentive the rest of the ecosystem needs to finally put systemd and pulseaudio in the bin.

And, gnome 3/4/5 while we're at it!

(Cinnamon and Mate are definitely superior desktops to gnome > 2)

[I like your thinking on this - well played!]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: GPL violation

It's pretty sneaky.

I agree with that part. Some "bright bulb" l[aw]yer must've cleverly thought up a new loophole, and now they wanna test it.

It is no doubt that this move was prepared for, and the surprise 'attack' leaves the other distros wondering what just happened.

The only way to counter a surprize attack like this is to do the unexpected, perhaps even deceiving IBM/RH into doing something that puts them at a disadvantage.

Not sure what that is, though. They have a head start. Might take a while.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: GPL violation

So aside from open source stuff (which must have source made available if it is modified) what "Secret Suce" are they offering that is worth the license cost?

RHEL could fix all of this right now by publishing everything that is NOT proprietary in any way.

At that point, CentOS-derived distros could "sync up" the published source, and do compatibility tests/edits with the rest.

Jut a thought. then it's back to the way CentOS *USED* to be, but with a different distro name. Rocky, maybe?

Missing Titan sub likely destroyed in implosion, no survivors

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

the amount of effort to rescue 5 people

Well, it's sort of "the rule of the sea" to rescue and provide aid to those who need it out on the ocean. Fortunately does not happen often.

The ocean is very large and in the middle of it you are very, very alone.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: "craft's carbon fiber hull"

oompressive stress is a bit easier to deal with than tensile (ripping apart) stress.. This is one of the principles behind pre-stressing structures.

However, you get certain areas that still have tensile stress on them, and this is where failures happen.

* bending inwards of unsupported surface sections

* telescopic compression [most likely this happened]

* seams for things like hatches and cables.

The design has to be a compromise between weight and bouyancy, where you can drop weights to surface in an emergency.

If I might predict what happened, it was a telescopic compression of the 'people tank', starting at a point of stress that had been cycled too many times going to and from the Titanic wreck.

And it would have been rapid, quite possibly causing a diesel explosion of everything organic that was inside - plastic, paint, people, ...

Probably the window and nose cone were found intact for this reason. But the carbon fiber stuff would have shattered. [In the case of a metal sub hull, it would look a bit like a beer can that you stomped on the top of to flatten it)

A readup on the USS Scorpion and USS Thresher accidents might give a perspective on what happens at crush depth...