* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Microsoft decides Internet Explorer 10 has had its fun: Termination set for January 2020

bombastic bob Silver badge
Flame

Re: Browsers

At least, stop advertising that uses SCRIPTING... or any OTHER means of tracking people.

That "bloated feature creep" in browsers seems to be a universal problem, as well as the 2D FLATTY McFLATFACE FLATSO so-called "modern" [vomit] "the Metro"-like UI and its Chrome-clones.

FTC gets back to work: Now, where were we? Break up Facebook and fine it $2bn, you say?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Three companies that need to be broken up...

I'm not so sure a breakup is needed. Just some anti-trust action to prevent them from owning/controlling everything from the manufacturing to the deliver (in Amazon's case), or having too much control over search results (in Google's case) and ad-based revenue (in the case o shadow-banned youtube videos), or "just about everything" in FB's case.

anti-competitive monopolistic policies/actions and politically motivated manipulation has got to go.

100 years ago, Standard Oil controlled way too much of the oil production and distribution, and was the target of government action. Also there was U.S. Steel, railroads, and the banking industry, as I recall, the "Robber Barons".

Just apply similar regulations and whatnot to Facebook, Google, and Amazon, and everything should be ok. And a big $2billion fine for FB, assuming they deserve it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

FTC hadn't imposed a single fine against Facebook since it handed down its consent decree in 2011

lessee, WHO was president in 2011? Heh.

(but yeah I'm sure Zuck had the best politicians money could buy, at the time)

Agreed that FTC needed to look at FB back then, even earlier in fact.

A probe into Google would be nice, too. We can start with "shadow bans" and search engine result tweeking...

Microsoft delivers a second preview of Visual Studio 2019 (a Redmond thing we actually like)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Still using Visual Studio?

I only use the 2010 version for C++ on windows these days. And I _REFUSE_ to use C-pound. Yuck. Just Yuck.

I'm moderately satisfied with MFC on windows for a couple of reasons, assuming that it's statically linked (runtime AND MFC) and has _NO_ ".Not" dependencies. one is that I'm familiar with it, and the coding stuff I was doing in the 90's still works with it, more or less. The other is that wxWidgets can be [with some difficulty] ported from an MFC applicationt to run cross-platform.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: On my wish list

My list is pretty long...

For starters, I'd like them to stop it with the 2D FLATTY McFLATFACE, the VB-style "properties" stuff for class wizard and dialog editing that they've done since 2000-ish [which requires removing my mouse hand from the keyboard WAY too often], LESS centricity on C-pound, and _ALSO_ fix MFC so it's not so bloaty when you static link. Too many un-needed "features" are linked in ALL of the time, last I checked. And it seemed to be very difficult to remove it with compile options. I tried, yeah.

And it should be easier to do these things:

a) COMPLETELY exclude ".Not" from your project

b) static link runtime

c) static link class libraries

I don't like flipping all of the parameters on and off for EVERY STINKING PROJECT and so a pre-set "these are my project defaults" would be nice. Maybe it exists already, I dunno, just want to see something more reasonable than having to spend 10+ minutes "fixing" it, EVERY time.

What I've disliked about VS started with the 'The Metro' stuff. I've used the 2010 version for ALL windows development for quite a while now. It's "not changing" which is better than 'change for the sake of change' every time. I do NOT like the 2D FLATTY and am *NOT* going to do any stupid "the Metro" or "UWP" [CR]app. So the _OLDER_ one is superior as far as THAT goes.

In any case, I'm not pleased if I can't easily turn my project into a 'Makefile' version, and build without any special IDE nonsense. It's getting harder and harder to do that with Microsoft's tools.

Typescript, PostgreSQL and Visual Studio Code all get slathered with a little Microsoft lovin'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Decepticons, move out.

I'd rather say 'benefit of the doubt' on this one, and assume they're trying to bring people who use PGSQL into their cloudy platform as potential new customers.

[forcing them into using SQL Server or some OTHER 'approved/supported' database has apparently NOT worked very well]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Kudos for the PostgreSQL love

I'm glad to see Azure cloud servers working better with PG. I like PG. A recent client was using PG with their system, and the 'psql' utility made it easy to admin the thing at a low level so that I could fix Django-related problems and get things up and running properly.

In any case, PG is like the 'de facto' standard in SQL implementation, as far as I can tell. 'MySQL' and probably 'MariaDB' both have issues, improper handling of embedded quote marks in strings being one of them. Last I tried it, even ODBC calls had to use '\"' instead of '""' to indicate embedded quotes in a double-quoted string. That was a while back, though, so maybe it's been fixed? Yeah, probably not. But ODBC calls shouldn't have to assume that embedded ANYTHING in a string buffer should have to deal with embedded quotes like that...

Anyway, Microsoft, Good job.

Should the super-rich pay 70% tax rate above $10m? Here's Michael Dell's hot take for Davos

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Rich Tax Paradox

lies, damn lies, and statistics. Most of Obaka's "unemployment" numbers were being 'cooked' to exclude those who had (literally) STOPPED LOOKING FOR WORK.

Also many positions became part time in lieu of full time so that employers wouldn't have to scrape up non-existent funds for Obaka-"Care", especially in places like restaurants that hire most of their people at or near 'minimum wage'. Increases in THAT have caused businesses to close, or put surcharges on standard menu items, and so on.

Yeah, and so on, and on, and on. THAT kind of socialistic activity (under Obaka) nearly KILLED the U.S. economy, which has more than just recovered since Trump took office. Try ACTUAL WAGE IMPROVEMENT for starters, and not some mandated minimum wage crap. THAT is the best indicator yet. Recent statistics have been published showing there are more jobs available than people to filll them. That _NEVER_ happened under Obaka.

So yeah you can use lies, damn lies, and statistics to skew the numbers to fit your model, by excluding information that more importantly shows how "your numbers" really don't tell the whole story...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Also England

Beatles lyrics for 'Tax Man': "One for you, Nineteen for me"

yeah, John Lennon may have also been a closet fan of Ronald Reagan in 1980, or so at least SOME information dictates [the source may not be reliable though, so this is a 'for what it's worth' at best].

In any case, once he BECAME "the rich" he obviously did not like this kind of wealth confiscation for the purpose of keeping the NON-rich "in their place". If he earns money, he should keep it, regardless of how much money he earns. I agree 100%.

I wonder if he came to the USA for tax reasons...

It's sorta like you never understand business fully until you are the one who signs the FRONT of the checks.,. and has to write apology letters to debtors and vendors because you had to make payroll, instead. And the highest earning person on the payroll is 'not you'.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Ocasio is nuts

"Uhhm, income tax is on income, not worth."

Yes. It puts a ROADBLOCK for those trying to *BECOME* rich. You know, like us 'riff raff' in the middle and upper middle class, "the rich" do not WANT *us* in their 'rich boy' club, and neither do their puppet politicians. "The Rich" already _HAVE_ their wealth. And they'll just DEFER income, shift it around, etc. for as long as it takes to avoid heavy taxation. A decent accountant would cost LESS than the tax bill. So guess where the money will go?

And a BIG THUMBS UP for saying it, despite the obvious socialism bias in some of the comments.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: Super rich don't pay salaries either

"tax rates in the US used to be even higher than 70% and they worked just fine then."

No. they did NOT. JFK knew this back in 1962 and before things got bad during HIS presidency, he insisted on TAX CUTS (which were later passed, after his death, creating an economic growth period in the mid 1960's).

Further, they came with a ship-load of LOOPHOLES and TAX SHELTER opportunities to "encourage" people to invest in less profitable stuff that the gummint wanted investment in [for whatever reason]. So for good or ill, rich people used those loopholes and shelters to avoid the taxation. And NEARLY ALL of them are GONE.

One that remains (for good or ill), "charitable deductions", is typically exploited by people like GEORGE SOROS to fund his political influence all over the USA ('media matters' and 'moveonorg' and whatnot). So taxpayers are LITERALLY paying for HIS politics...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: Rich Tax Paradox

@phuzz

back in the 1950's when the highest marginal tax rate EVAR was legislated, it was to SLOW DOWN the U.S. economy and allow war-torn Europe to 'catch up'.

However, these uber-high tax rates included "loopholes" and "tax shelters" that were literally designed to 'encourage' investment into them so that the money wouldn't be "just taken away".

So what has changed? The loopholes are *GONE*, that's what!

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Rich Tax Paradox

"The 70% tax on the rich is fine with me. And up the corporate tax rate as well."

until it kills your job, and future opportunities for a different one. think "the previous 8 years before Trump"

Think of it this way: why only SEVENTY PERCENT? Why not ONE HUNDRED PERCENT?

You know that could only happen once. THEN all income earners will simply STOP EARNING because it would be FUTILE. They'll find "some other way" to get their income. And 70% taxation (let alone, 100% taxation) means that it justifies ONE HELL OF A LOT of effort!

John F. Kennedy once spoke to the Economic Club of New York in 1962 regarding high marginal tax rates, which at THAT time were as high as 90% for "certain income" [as I recall]. The purpose of THOSE tax rates were literally to STIFLE the U.S. economy so post-WW2 Europe could "catch up" after all of the war damage, and came with a boatload of 'loopholes' that 'the rich' could use to 'shelter' their income from high taxation [practically NONE of which still exist today]. But I digress...

JFK said " This can be the most important step we could take to prevent another recession. That is the right kind of a tax cut, both for your family budget and the national budget, resulting from a permanent basic reform and reduction in our rate structure, a creative tax cut creating more jobs and income and eventually more revenue. Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary. And these new jobs and new salaries can create other jobs and other salaries."

So JFK was _FOR_ tax CUTS, and *NOT* tax INCREASES! He is probably the LAST Demo[n,c][R,r]at to do so. And JFK was _RIGHT_ about that!

So if tax CUTS stimulate the economy [as evidenced by the last 2 years], why do YOU want to RAISE taxes on corporations and high income earners? because they ARE NOT *YOU* ???

Envy. Pure *ENVY*. That's why!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

"When you are filthy rich you can set up a charity and then benefit from it - like paying for a portrait and then "donating" it to your golf club..."

Or setting up a PAC and "donating" to your favorite candidates and/or causes (ones that benefit you PERSONALLY, *right* Mr. Soros???)

The super-rich ALREADY have their money. Taxing their income WILL! NOT! MAKE! A! DIFFERENCE! [they'll shift it into something else, like capital gains or charities or a trust or whatever, thus being EXEMPT]

What a 'marginal' tax rate does is tax those who are *TRYING* *TO* ***BECOME*** *THE* *RICH*!!!

In other words, it's a "keep the RIFF RAFF in their place" tax. It's a STUMBLING BLOCK for small business and entrepreneurs and professionals. THESE are the people who DRIVE THE ENGINE of innovation, new job creation, and TECHNOLOGY.

So, you want to put a TAX in place to HOLD BACK those who make society GROW? That's REALLY FORNICATING STUPID!!!

That socialist [insert profanity here] congressman from New York City needs to GET A FEELING CLUE. *MARXISM* *FAILS* *EVERY* *TIME* *IT* *IS* *TRIED* !!!

"from those according to their means, to those according to their needs". Except for those MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS. She obviously did NOT read 'Animal Farm' in high school. Or maybe she *did*, and wants to become "one of the elite" to CONTROL EVERYONE ELSE???

When it comes to people like THAT, Orwell was an OPTIMIST. Reality could be FAR WORSE than his dystopian novels. And icon, obvious.

note: I say 'congressMAN' because the suffix 'man' is a generic for either a man OR a woman. I realize that [insert profane version of her name], the congressman from New York City, is a woman, and ALSO that she'd be VERY irritated being called 'congressman'. So yeah, I did it DELIBERATELY, and it's GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT. Phhhttthhhhhh.

NASA's Opportunity rover celebrates 15 years on Mars – by staying as dead as a doornail

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Enough with the 90 day nonsense!

Martian 'dust devils' - kinda like one o' those portable vacuum cleaners?

/me runs

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

"was willing to spend potentially ludicrous amounts of money on a vanity project"

source? or 'fake news'?

in any case, "throwing money" at NASA is better than throwing money at 'the lazy" and public benefits for illegal aliens. Just sayin'.

We did Nazi see this coming... Internet will welcome Earth's newest nation with, sigh, a brand new .SS TLD

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Single letter domains?

how about 'pi.ss' ? OK let's start a contest

You're an admin! You're an admin! You're all admins, thanks to this Microsoft Exchange zero-day and exploit

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Possible quick fix

How about a PERMANENT fix?

a) install Linux

b) use Cyrus for IMAP, sendmail or Exim for SMTP, and Samba for shares.

c) be gone, Microshaft's so-called "solution"

Q. China just landed on its far side, the US woz there 50 years ago – now Europe wants to mine it? A. It's the Moon

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Deal with two problems with one solution (no puns intended).

"you'd need a powerful hoover to suck up water through a tube thousands of miles long."

engineering 101 would say that you have to have a pump with a pressure of 1000s of miles of water. It's about 2 feet per psi so that works out to about 2500 psi per mile, or 2.5 million PSI for 1000 miles of water. Mutliply that out for 'thousands' and you have one HELL of a pump!

However, as you get away from the earth, gravity diminishes based on 1/r^2. The earth is around 8000 miles in diameter, so 4000 mile radius. So at 4000 miles away from the surface, gravity actually drops by a factor of 4. And the closer to the moon you get, the more the moon's gravity will affect it, too. So now this becomes a calculus problem involving the total weight of a column of water several thousand miles long, and I don't want to do the math (though when you get to the point where moon/earth gravity are balancing one another, it's all "downhill" from there).

/me points out you can't suck water past a vacuum, which would be around 30 feet of water. To get water to go up more than 30 feet, you either need capillary action [like in a tree], or a pump at the bottom.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: Deal with two problems with one solution (no puns intended).

"The Earth is soon to be experiencing catastrophic rises in sea level right?"

WRONG.

Heads up: Debian's package manager is APT for root-level malware injection... Fix out now to thwart MITM hijacks

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Lousy advice guys

"Changing to a fixed mirror in /etc/apt/sources.list will fix it."

how about FIXING sources.list to use https???

I tried this on a Devuan system...

apt-get install apt-transport-https -o Acquire::http::AllowRedirect=false

it gave me the re-direct error. So I installed without the '-o' part. should be ok, it's my normal connection.

then I changed sources.list to use 'https' instead of 'http'. problem solved? NO.

I kept getting server cert verification errors, and 'ignores' and whatnot. Using various incarnations of 'Verify-Host=false' and 'Verify-Peer=false' didn't seem to help.

since I don't have a debian install any more, can anyone get this to work on THEIR systems?

Intel applies hobnailed boot to countries where its men and women workers aren't paid the same

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Sure

"The only thing that should matter is how well you do it."

Agreed, mostly. The thing is, some other wage-related factors (like tenure) encourages people to 'not quit' and their experience sometimes has additional value to the company that's not apparent on the surface.

But ultimately, a job is something that must (in some way) make money for the company [or alternately, save money]. The total cost of the employee needs to be LESS than the amount gained, in bean-counter measurements. [this fact can also work in your favor at raise time, if you can monetize what you do]

/me points out that 'compliance' jobs save the company on the cost of fines for non-compliance, and other 'service' type jobs (which might even include I.T.) save time/money indirectly.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: GenZ will see you now and throw you out.

for Intel to focus on hiring women, does this mean they will DISCRIMINATE *AGAINST* MEN???

This whole 'quota-based' hiring standard needs to GO AWAY anyway. If real injustices are happening, let them be settled in the courts, without ANY discrimination in hiring (either FOR or AGAINST a particular 'class' or 'identity').

If the pay scale is the same for men and women for equal job title etc. then where's the beef?

I think more women should APPLY for work from Intel. That'd actually fix things. Perhaps Intel can make something that women like happen at their company to encourage this? Otherwise, the only thing that will happen is just MORE DISCRIMINATION to "fix" alleged discrimination. To that, I say *STOP".

Microsoft’s Bing dinged: What happened, Xi Jinping?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: Dictatorships never rewards "useful idiots"

time to stop bending over. time to stand up, and turn around so you are no longer voluntarily exposing your nether region for abuse, and say NO! MORE!!!

If you're JUST going to be banned anyway, might as well tell them off, with profanity, from the beginning.

UNLESS... it's in line with your company plans to do what THEY want, in which case the problem is much bigger than the Chinese Communist government behaving like pricks - or 'Communists' (same thing)

World's favourite open-source PDF interpreter needs patching (again)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Wait a minute - 'vulnerability' is WHAT again?

After looking at the TLDR article (linked to from this one) I can see how a stack overflow was used to read the password file in 'etc' (if I type the path I get prompted with a captcha). A proof of concept exists, then. Yeah, not good.

But _I_ don't want to see Ghostscript go away any time soon, so _I_ am calling for it *NOT* to be 'dumped'! It's too useful. Just fix it.

Fake broadband ISP support scammers accidentally cough up IP address to Deadpool in card phish gone wrong

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Who is to blaim for being taken by scammers?

"Should we disable all javascripts on unknown sites? I'm tempted to say yes, we should."

THAT should be "the default" in EVERY browser. imagine how much fixing would happen to 'teh intarwebs' if MOST people could see just how bad the script proliferation is (and DISABLED it)!

But yeah, NoJS and NoScript need to be installed, if not already, because browser makers didn't get the clue-memo

/me would make this a standard feature of ANY web browser, in addition to regex/glob URL blocking (anything with 'metrics' or 'ad' in its name, for example) and the blocking of sites that specify an IP address instead of a URL, cookie white-listing, and 'in memory only' cookies for everything else so they behave like session-only cookies.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Who is to blaim for being taken by scammers?

sometimes you might have an elderly person (or someone with a bad hangover or drunken state, etc.) getting scammed in a moment of weakness, caused by disease or medications.

Some medications prescribed to elderly patients can affect their thinking and cognitive skills in ways that are actually frightening. Catch someone in 'that state' off guard, someone who would normally NOT be susceptible to being scammed, and that's no fault of the victim. Then again, I don't blame victims of crime anyway... (though it never hurts for them to be 'street smart' instead of victims).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Dirty Scammers

whatever you do, it is necessary to directly tie-in their successful support (as measured by the client) to the length of their sentences, with automatic extensions as needed to fulfill the requirement.

(or would that be 'cruel and unusual'? I'm thinking Dante's Inferno here, the same kinds of poetic justice he imagined for various kinds of sinners)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"There must be an app for that, in our mobiles..."

I like it... I should do that, put in 'droid store for free. too bad it won't work on my land line, though.

I actually stopped answering my landline phone unless I recognize who it is on the answering machine speaker. No ringer either. Just goes to answering machine after FOUR RINGS (the maximum setting). The message starts off with an impersonation of 'The Big Bopper' saying "HELLoooo, BaaaayBY!". It's intended to flip the "hello" sensors in the robo dialers. Then it thanks friends/family for calling, please leave a message etc. and "For the rest of you, THIS NUMBER IS ON THE NATIONAL DO NOT CALL LIST". A lot of them hang up at exactly that point. And I'm glad if I wasted even a little of their time.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"In Ye Olden Dayes I used to keep a rape alarm next to the telephone for busting the eardums of scammers. Wish there was an Internet equivalent."

get an old modem, and hook up a microcontroller with a button that puts it into 'answer' mode. "that tone" is ear splitting.

I was getting harassment calls at one time, started doing that consistently (put modem into answer mode) from the command line on a computer. Calls stopped.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: reporting the account and the IP address to Twitter and the Met Police

"There must be 100+ IP addresses committing crimes"

yeah there must be a zillion people committing OTHER kinds of crimes, too. I guess we should just let them get away with it... NOT.

Sorry, I don't buy that at ALL. I say, nuke 'em 'till they glow (then shoot 'em in the dark)

/me thought I heard a whiny voice saying 'law enforcement is TOO HARD'

I quote Charles Bronson from one of the 'Death Wish' movies, while he makes his own bullets: "Nothing is too good for our friends!". Along with Deadpool, excellent vigilante movies!

Did I say 'vigilante'? I sure did!

/me every once in a while goes over the 'Fail2ban' logs and reports one of the IP addresses, particularly if they show up more than once within the last day or 2.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: reporting the account and the IP address to Twitter and the Met Police

keep in mind you can't *legally* back-hack someone. I know, it should be covered by "self defense" and "stand your ground", but there you go. Laws are usually written by idiots and people with agendas.

Although a bit of 'grey hat' hacking can be useful.

Example: back in the 'code red' days, the code red infected machine basically had a port open that went directoy to a CMD shell that would run in the background. You could, in theory, send a web request that would invoke CMD with commands of your choice [this was the big problem with code red, the big back door].

Any machine attempting to infect (your Linux box - ha ha ha ha ha) would have a particular signature. Using that IP address, you could (in theory) "back hack" it and shut down the web server. This would stop the infection in its tracks, as it was memory resident only unless someone altered the system after the fact. Of course, you could *ALSO* pop up a message box on the console saying "you are an idiot, patch your code-red infected IIS server" or similar, or maybe leave a text file on the desktop called "IDIOT.TXT" or similar. Heh. (it wasn't me, I just heard about it)

On a related note, 419 scammers have been trolled in similar ways. I really like that 'Africa' video that features photos of Nigerian 419 scammers holding up signs with lyrics from Toto's 'Africa'. Crowning moment of awesome! So why not troll the phishing scammers, too? Spectator sport, even!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Deadpool

"Deadpool is the greatest supah hero ever!"

I think so too, although, technically an ANTI-hero since he's not a boy scout type. Batman would _also_ be considered an 'anti-hero' in most cases.

This whole exchange reminds me of the background music from a particular fight scene in Deadpool 2 - "Fighting Dirty".

Fighting Dirty (repeat several times)

You can't stop him. He's the BOFH

You can't stop, this @#$%^*(

Holy $#!+balls (repeat)

ok I had a bit of artistic license with 'BOFH' but still, it applies in this case, right?

NOTE: I'd normally insert the real profanity, but sometimes it's funnier to use punctuation substitution, and it's also a bit more 'work safe'

Wow, fancy that. Web ad giant Google to block ad-blockers in Chrome. For safety, apparently

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Google are cunts

how effective are non-google search engines? Well, 99% of the time I'm using 'duckduckgo' and only occasionally do I re-enter a query for google, and when I do, I don't log in with any kind of google login. So it's as anonymous as can be (and I assume they're watching everything I do).

Occasionally I'll pollute their metrics by making scripted requests of things that should cause red flags to appear someplace... heh heh heh

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: Google are cunts

"Googles gives you:" (snip details) "all of that FOR FREE"

Not "for free". When our personal data and privacy are "the commodity", that's the cost of using their services.

Far from 'FREE'. Although, they DO give that particular perception of 'free', don't they? At least, on the surface...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Flame

Re: Google are cunts

"The truth.Switch to Firefox."

Until that, too, does the same thing. What happened in 57 is a case where plugins were deliberately broken. Once money is involved, it'll happen with FF, too.

"most websites are getting wise and are limiting access to content when you use a tool like No Script which will also block ads"

No, just certain hosters do this by putting the re-direct in a script when you first load "the thing". then you get that stupid 'Forbidden' error page instead of the content. So I'll either look at google's cached version, a web archive version, or "not at all" in response to their STUPIDITY.

If they want MY business, they need to stop PUTTING SCRIPT IN ADS, for starters. The problem is the PREVALENCE OF SCRIPTING in web pages. THAT needs to GO! AWAY! !!!

EU will have agreed a tech tax by March, says French finance minister

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

that's right - consumers will end up paying the tax bill.

And all of this talk about "fair share" - if FAIRNESS were really a goal, then the tax rate would be EQUALLY APPLIED across the board, not "only them" paying...

Taxed Enough Already?

Tens to be disappointed as Windows 10 Mobile death date set: Doomed phone OS won't see 2020

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Will it come back again?

to kill a zombie you must destroy the brain.

(I saw that on an F.P.S. Russia video)

/me adds some Tannerite to spice things up. Heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

@Updraft102

" MS is out of the mobile business, but the phone look and hopelessly ugly and functionally gimped UI for PC Windows are still here"

Right on!

(MS - FIX THIS - give us our Win7 interface back, k-thx)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Clickbait

Let's put it all into perspective here....

Micro-shaft **RUINED** the Windows UI for their "One Windows, Everywhere!" campaign.

And now, the *ONLY* reason that a 2D FLATTY McFLATFACE FLATSO "The Metro" "Start Thing" CRAP INTERFACE exists AT ALL (in Windows) in the FIRST place, is being taken out to the woodshed and SHOT!!!

And, let the abominable horror of THAT little factoid sink in for a bit...

'WIMP' interface RULES. FLATTY FEELY interface *STINKS*. Except for phones and slabs. And they all run Android and iOS. And a WIMP interface needs 3D SKEUOMORPHIC THINGS on the desktop.

MICRO-SHAFT GET A FREAKING CLUE AND FIX WIn-10-nic's INTERFACE BACK TO LOOK LIKE 7!!!

Microsoft's Master Chief calls time on Cortana as a standalone AI platform

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

"It looks like you're trying to build a UI"

with respect to "a free tool that it hopes will let devs prototype UWP XAML for user interfaces"

One more CLIPPY clone and I think I'll *EXPLODE* [ok maybe it's not clippy but still... did they NOT see that one scene from Salmon Days when the BOFH started wrestling with Clippy screaming "I AM NOT! WRITING! A @#$%ING! LETTER! YOU STUPID @#$%ING PAPERCLIP!"]

The tool would HAVE to be FREE, because NO self-respecting developer would EVAR *PAY* for such an abomination!!!

UWP needs to be killed to death by burning it with FIRE.

Holy crappuccino. There's a latte trouble brewing... Bio-boffins reckon 60%+ of coffee species may be doomed

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Umm... nope.

So-called 'global warming' (this cycle) stopped at around 2010. It's all cooling now, will continue for the remainder of the bottom half of the ~70 year cycle. Yeah, it's a cycle. Like most things in nature. And it's not created by humans. There's also a 500 year cycle in the northern hemisphere, and 2000 was at or near the peak of THAT one, too. You know, 1000 AD warm, 1250 AD cold, 1500AD warm, 1750 AD cold [the Thames froze, and 'Valley Forge' happened], 2000 WARM, etc. and also the 70 year cycle... 1900 cold, 1935 warm, 1970 cold, 2005 warm, 2040 cold...

That's right. No need to panic. Coffee will be around for as long as people grow it.

/me sips cappuccino and moves onto something that actually matters

Friday fun fact: If Stegosauruses had space telescopes, they wouldn't have seen any rings around Saturn

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

rude ring joke

A stegosaurus could not see the rings around Saturn with a telescope, but with a MICROscope he could see rings around Uranus!

(sorry, U-rectum)

IBM HR made me lie to US govt, says axed VP in age-discrim legal row: I was ordered to cover up layoffs of older workers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: Age...

"dinosaurs who refuse to evolve"

name ONE example (fine to do it in your own head, no need to dox anyone). In any case, I call "straw man" on THAT one

But I can cite SEVERAL recent examples of projects/products gone horribly wrong because the tech allegedly "evolved" but really went into a spiral pattern that encircled the drain... because, as far as I see it, too many of the experienced people LEFT and "the children" took over.

You know, like the cluster-blanks of:

* gnome 3

* Windows 8 and then 10

* Mozilla (post-Australis)

* systemd

[just for starters, anyway]

youthful arrogance, indeed. With plenty of 'enthusiasm' I'm sure. And degrees a-plenty. But a degree is only "proof of potential". *EXPERIENCE* is proof of CAPABILITY!!!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: I doubt that anything will happen

"Corporations are corrupt"

No, SOME people who RUN corporations are corrupt. The corporations themselves are just entities that exist on paper for accounting, tax, and liability purposes.

And it's highly likely that even YOU work for "a corporation", dontcha? So where would you get a job if not FOR "a corporation" ?

A small number of (apparently) evil+greedy+self-centered people slither up the power hierarchy in order to fulfill their evil goals and desires. It's been that way forever. This time it looks like they got caught engaging in age discrimination. Let's hope others will be motivated to NOT do such things in the future.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Some companies don't even pretend ....

and in that alleged 'equal opportunity' list it conspicuously didn't include AGE... because, of course, <begin snark> _SOME_ people don't recognize the benefit of having done things "like that" before, aka experience is worth more than youth, because, 'cheaper' is not necessarily better. You get what you pay for.

And, most likely, some bean counter would say "how come this 50-something is earning twice what a 30-something earns?" (without regard to actual work output or quality, of course).

Obvious Answer: he's worth every dollar/GBP of the additional salary. Bean counters don't know this of course. They're too busy counting beans.

But yeah older people know what they're worth, too, so you won't get them to work for peanuts. Bean counters hate that, but they're (thankfully) NOT the hiring managers. And HR (and the bean counters) need to get out of the way of a company's success.

But on a lighter/snarkier note...

Q: How many HR people does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Irrelevant. HR never does any REAL work, even something as simple as changing a light bulb. But they'll happily "screen" hundreds of applications, spending WEEKS on filtering out anyone who doesn't have at least a Master's degree in a "relevant field", ignoring anyone who's been a light bulb changer for 50+ years, maybe even INVENTING the light bulbs that are replacing the old ones, because the application and/or resume/CV doesn't have the right "key words and tricky phrases" in it, because in HR they're all a bunch of anal retentive pencil-pushing un-creative types that fear going outside of the lines/box for ANY reason, at ANY time, even if it's common sense to do so, the type of people who would need to read a procedure and check off all of the rules and regulations in order to take a dump...

(OK I'm done venting)

US midterms barely over when Russians came knocking on our servers (again), Democrats claim

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Russian hackers attempted to infiltrate the Democratic National Committee

TOO LATE!

(they've already become communists)

/me runs from the rotten veggies being tossed my way

I used to be a dull John Doe. Thanks to Huawei, I'm now James Bond!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Shoe Phone

Shoe Phone - that was Maxwell Smart's phone, from 'Get Smart'. And that show was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry as an obvious spoof on James Bond.

"Sorry about that, Chief!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Smart.

Are you sure your disc drive has stopped rotating, or are you just ignoring the messages?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Joke

Re: I can believe it!

cartoon face? like an emoji? [ew]

Perhaps a pair of tits instead... that'd work! (no wait people would stare at the tits and not read the trext...)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: I can believe it!

"They you make the prompt: 'Type the nth letter of the previous sentence to continue'."

Hell, make it like old school copy protection on a game, where they tell you to go to page 'N' in the printed manual and type the 4th word on the 2nd line of paragraph 2 and enter it to continue.

(yeah, that'll teach those users!)