Posts by bombastic bob 10944 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015
well, perhaps a stuffed dog. an enterprising business savvy individual could rent them at one side of the escalator, allowing passengers to carry a dog, then collect the stuffed dog at the end of the ride.
At $1 each, WAY less than the potential fine, you'd make a ton o' money. Not only that, it's kinda like renting snow chains that way... "chains required" on the sign, next to the sign, a group of people renting snow chains so you can proceed. Perfect!
ack.
From the article: The company [Huawei] is owned by the Chinese government
and
Chinese companies are perhaps ahead of their American counterparts when it comes to 5G carrier equipment, and are able to produce their gear at a lower cost.
Because of 'slave labor' [essentially], working for government owned businesses [essentially], and by STEALING TRADE SECRETS FROM THE USA [not by actually INNOVATING]. Using iPhone dollars to purchase companies [or university research programs], and THEN ship all of the trade secrets over to Huawei, is NOT competition; it is PREDATORY.
And this is why China Telecom needs to stay out of the U.S. Market, and possibly Huawei equipment as well.
In a way it *might* be called protectionist, just like putting a stop to 'dumping' and other UNFAIR trade and business practices that were made illegal ~100 years ago in the USA.
Why should we JUST ALLOW the communist Chinese government to, effectively, TAKE OVER our telecommunications? I say we should NOT!
Otherwise, it's like doing the "bend 'em and spread 'em" voluntarily. And what, you did not say THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER afterwards??? Oh, how RUDE!
"Presently, Bosque relies on an interpreter written in TypeScript, run on Node.js"
Doesn't that pretty much say it all? (I hear a loud 'Eeewwww')
How long before Micro-shaft starts CRAMMING it at us like:
a) Windows 10 and "the Store"
b) ".Net"
c) C-pound
d) Silverlight
e) 'the Metro' and UWP (in general)
f) A DevStudio that requires EXCESSIVE mousie-clickie in a "property sheet" instead of the old-style tabbed dialog boxen (with easiy discovered hot keys) that you used to see in the dialog editor and class wizard of earlier VC++ IDEs...
etc.
And how is this better than Python for doing that sort of thing?
And what's wrong with a loop?
and don't EVEN get me started about un-typed data storage and garbage collection... which from what I can tell, seem to be unspoken 'features'.
why sad? It could be worse... it could be Huawei [and if they play their sueballs right, it could spell a LOT of trouble for Q and Apple as well].
I saw no mention of the Huawei+FTC lawsuit regarding Qualcomm. There was an El Reg article a while back...
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/08/qualcomm_in_antitrust_epic/
yeah let's keep 5G tech controlled within the "5 Eyes". Just because.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
better still - force them to have a paper trail in any "takedown" process [subject to audits], an appeals process (along with notifications), and to make backups of everything they wipe out... and public apologies whenever THEY ARE WRONG.
the administrative and compliance costs ALONE would be a thorn in their side for DECADES...
/me thinks of a 'Tw[a,i]tter Appellate Court" and "lawyers" paid in bitcoin...
"US tech world has suffered from many years of cutting costs, cutting staff and cutting R&D and sending jobs offshore so the capitalists can make more profit business can stay afloat, because of HIGH CORPORATE TAXES and overseas competition"
Fixed it for ya. Nobody should buy into the class envy and "99%-er" nonsense, EVAR. It's a big fat lie, fake news.
This is why Trump got Congress to lower tax rates for corporations, because THAT was the reason for downsizing and offshoring (etc.), and _NOT_ "corporate greed" [as evidenced by the current economy].
However, the greediest (the REAL "1%"-ers) all seem to be ON THE LEFT, because whenever THE LEFT runs things [and raise taxes on those trying to BECOME the rich], it stifles the economy for the "99%" _AND_ makes the "1%" EVEN RICHER, at EVERYONE ELSE's expense!!!
And yet, if they're big 'liberal cause' donors, "the left" will LOVE them, regardless of whether or not they represent the REAL "1%". And the end result, the divide between rich and poor WIDENS, because of the *kinds* of liberal policies they use their money to promote. You SHOULD be angry about it. I am.
no. just no.
Seriously, there's this "5 I" agreement that I have become aware of, in which the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have agreed full cooperation on intelligence matters, and "not to spy on one another".
It seems reasonable (to me) to ALSO exclude 'non member state' equipment when it comes to intelligence matters. It's the general idea (well established) that malware specifically targeted for espionage could be introduced into equipment supported by a foreign manufacturer.
It also suggests that open source firmware on a compatible platform might be the ultimate solution to prevent espionage...
The biggest concern with Huawei is them seeking to dominate 5G, even going so far as to SUE QUALCOMM, and the FTC _ENABLING_ them!!! [in some circles, this is called CHUTZPAH]. Some people view this the same way that the space race was seen, having Russia (in the late 1950's) dominating space would be a _BAD_ thing for the world. Similarly, having China dominate 5G is _ALSO_ a bad thing for the world. If you doubt me, look what they're doing with "the great firewall" and their 'social credit' scoring system. Yeah. "You cannot get a job unless you have a good citizen social credit score'. Seen THAT coming. ONLY "approved" PEOPLE GET TO WORK! [could this be 'the mark of the beast' that so many people fear?]
"more and more worried about the draconian control that states are trying to exert over the Internet these days"
It is the nature of humans to want to live free. It is the nature of gummints to want to stop that...
This is because the most vile and corrupt people tend to get involved in gummint in order to MAKE THEMSELVES MORE POWERFUL, or to deal with "fear" issues that motivate them to CONTROL OTHERS.
In either case, without some kind of 'push back', communism will return to Russia (and infect the entire world), because, it is the nature of a large number of people in government to WANT TO DO THIS TO US, and for a few very wealthy elitists to ENABLE them.
Maybe just some extra (free) VPN services would do (like Tor maybe?).
When politicians overwhelming pass legislation to give themselves EVEN MORE power, you gotta watch out...
Maybe we can find a way to help Russian Libertarians that are standing up for individual rights, free speech, and privacy... and let them fix it from within?
this sounds like the need of an 'OpenStack' cloud provider, particularly if it's replicated in different locations, for the entire ".gov" (except military, intelligence, and DOJ + law enforcement, who should have their own 'even more secure' systems, based on a similar concept).
But leave to gummint to muck things up, add 'governmentium' to increase its cost and mass, and find a way to grease the pockets of specific civilian contractors who are politically favored at the moment...
post-note: having the military maintain the servers is a good idea. Air Force or Army, most likely. And that nuke-proof compound in the Colorado mountains would be a good place for one of them, with backups etc. stored there as well.
actually degausing coils (being AC) are like rubbing the magnet around. But they have to be strong enough to do the job...
it's all about hysteresis of the particles in the oxide layer. Must overcome that, and then the AC (or moving magnet) will scramble them. static field, not so much.
I posted earlier about how using a magnet on magnetic media might cause read errors, but it does not properly erase it unless the magnet actually contacts the medium and is moved around...
(so you'd have to slide the entire length of tape along the magnet, basically)
To properly erase something you'd need a bulk tape eraser or similar which would use an AC magnetic field to scramble things up, basically a degaussing coil.
as for a true story...
During the Win '95 beta [as I recall], I had an application that would format diskettes using a low level format. However, I noticed that using the disk format command only did a VERIFY format, and that my application wasn't low-level formatting through windows (I'm trying to recall details from >20 years ago here), I think the problem was that Win '9x was intercepting the calls and translating them. If the disk had NEVER been formatted, the problem showed up as an inability to format the disk (because it wouldn't low-level format, even when you told it to), and I was trying to work with MS engineers to replicate it so they could fix it. This program worked perfectly with windows 3.1 . (see I _USED_ to _LIKE_ Microsoft and windows!)
I was told that at Microsoft, they were using a large magnet to erase diskettes, essentially drop them into a box between the poles, and they used such 'erased' disks in their tests. But that really wasn't good enough. What I did to erase a diskette was more direct: use the smooth-faced magnet on the back-end of a geek-tweeker screwdriver and carefully rub it against both sides of the exposed oxide surface on a diskette. As it turns out, my erase method was the ONLY way they could successfully replicate (and solve) the problem. Buying "truly blank" diskettes was difficult - they were ALL pre-formatted.
This says a lot about diskettes though... (at least the 3.5" version)
a) a strong magnet isn't enough to erase them unless it's in physcal contact with the disk
b) even then, you have to deliberately move it around to successfully erase the entire thing
c) read errors may still crop up with strong magnetic field exposure, but it's not enough to fully erase the thing.
So all of those old diskettes, if you want them properly erased, you'll probably have to SHRED them, because a format that is NOT a low level format will leave old data behind, and using a magnet may not actually erase the thing.
"If she was ALSO the team lead, what kinda muppet moron* would expect her to write a majority of the code?"
You make a good point: the best managers hardly seem to work at all. And yet, without them 'being there', things never go right...
There are 3 basic management styles [ok others exist and there are variations between, but this is an illustration]:
1. The delegator: This manager does very little of the work himself. His #2 guy is probably one of the busiest people, and does must of the low-level detail kinds of management. Delegators step back to see the big picture, and solve those problems that 'big picture' people need to solve. There will typically be a hierarchy underneath, with delegated authority at each level, even if it's an informal one. Working for this manager is typically good, as long as you don't mind a good level of accountability. But it will usually be clear as to what you're accountable for, and to what extent.
2. The authoritarian: This person tends to micro-manage everything, getting into the detail, even doing the work himself. Working for someone like this can sometimes be good, as one person 'uber alles' might actually get things done faster. But it seems that most of the time its's like working for a dictator who hasn't got a clue. Authoritarians will try and punish people into compliance, EVERYONE staying late until things are done, yelling at people in meetings, breathing down your neck while you complete some bottleneck task until it's done, and so on.
3. The affiliator: This person is everyone's friend, wants to get along, wants to make everyone happy, doesn't want to upset the apple cart, doesn't want anyone quitting or have to fire anyone. Although with competent people working for him, his projects may be successful, usually it's a dismal failure in which the manager gets called on the carpet for being ineffective. His people, however, LOVE working for this guy, because there's no real accountability, and he takes all the heat.
So after "all that", if the project manager or 'team leader' only writes a small amount of code, even THAT might be "too much". In my case, the best "let's get it done" session with me at the helm involved asking the guy most familiar with the code "where's the part that does this", letting hm find it, taking a look and offering suggestions and "let's try this" to fix it, get feedback, etc. and let him do the editing. Project got back on track, too. It just needed some steering, that's all.
yeah, UNmoderated is usually better, leaving filtering and killfiles up to the consumer. USENET is a good example. I can understand why El Reg moderates their stuff, though. <suckup>they seem to be doing an excellent job</suckup>. It's because not everyone that they want participating has a thick skin and can just roll off the punches, then dare everyone to do it again. heh.
Long ago I read someplace how many people on 'teh intarwebs' couldn't get away with saying the things they do to/about other people IRL to their faces. So they do it online, with anonymity.
"going to be unemployable if he said the wrong thing."
Therein lies the problem, among the SJWs and political correctness mafia. They seem to *FEEL* as if having "wrong thinking" (or worse, wrong speaking) according to THEIR rules means PERMA-BAN to society, career, everything.
Do we really want to empower people like this? I say NO. Give them the big middle finger whenever possible, those SJWs and Political Correctness MOB thugs... [they're really bullies]
but if someone is truly sexist, I think a better response is more like "seriously? You actually believe that?"
I didn't see one example of a truly sexist meme or comment, but I suppose there might have been. In certain ares of the internet, people go out of their way to behave like that. To characterize ALL of it as sexism, or any other '-ism' for that matter, does an injustice to identifying and stopping actual bigotry.
setting up a hidden service is _easy_. Anyone can use a web server to listen on an unfiltered port, use a dynamic DNS (or onion address), and have a web server with whatever 'hidden' content you want. You could even require using a VPN into a private address space to view it.
The thing is, if you want people to see your 'hidden' site you have to tell people how to find it.
And if other people can find it, at least SOME of those 'other people' will be LAW ENFORCEMENT.
I guess that's a summary of what happened with Silk Road 2, as the article pointed out that the undercover cop was invited to the new network admin IRC channel.
"Dumb Crooks" indeed.
SANE people don't commit crimes because they fear punishment for them. At least, that's how it works with _ME_.
(or another way to state it, one definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting a different outcome)
Why one person has the authority to block the "will of the people"
It is by design. The USA has 2 legislative bodies, each with different kinds of representation.
The Senate has 6 year terms and represents the states.
The House has 2 year terms and represents individuals.
The President has a 4 year term and must approve all legislation. However, a 2/3 majority in both the Senate and the House can override a veto.
The entire point is to prevent "tyrrany of the majority" by making it HARD to pass legislation.
Successful congresses learn how to compromise and not do everything "our way or the highway".
If they want 'net neutrality' so bad, they need to craft legislation that does not favor one party over another. Sensible legislation would be approved. What the FCC was doing prior to Trump, is NOT 'net neutrality'.
If this is all about network prioritization and filtering, then that needs to be debated. Personally, I like the idea of having a fast lane that I can pay for, so long as it isn't "butting anyone else out" to do so. So by adapting minimum performance standards, you could allow packet prioritization up to the point where the performance standards of 'regular traffic' still meet those standards. but yeah, once the fast lane clogs up it doesn't help a lot. but the extra revenue for it SHOULD enable the construction of faster pipelines, or else the ISPs and network providers will LOSE MONEY and NOT get revenue for a fast lane that does NOT work...
I'd like to add that socialist "equal outcomes for all" legislation only benefits the very few (elitists, uber-rich, and those in power, who never seem to be affected by what affects everyone else), because the masses will always have their mediocrity, but forcing EVERYONE to have the SAME mediocrity keeps everything mediocre... kinda like if you couldn't pay for UNLIMITED bandwidth on your phone, and because it's NOT fair to a poor person, you MUST have the same plan as the lowest service plan. Because, 'net neutrality'.
another way of saying this: the advancement in software to take advantage of the capabilities of modern hardware, from GPUs to multi-core, is WAY behind. It kinda reminds me of how it took FOREVER for a 32-bit Windows '95 to show up, even when most computers had 32-bit capable CPUs long before that.
Typical 'tricks' to consider, threaded and GPU-based algorithms, but NOT background busywork...
"still transitioning to alternative mobile systems"
This perception is INACCURATE. It is, however, what the market-droids have been citing for WAY too long.
The truth is simpler: people get mobile and slabs for different reasons than PCs, and the PCs don't need to be replaced (yet) [and the reasons for this were outlined in my previous post]. Simple.
in other words, mobile+slabs are NOT "replacing" PCs. they are really 2 different markets.
you are correct
Here's what I see as the top reasons why people aren't buying new computers:
a) don't have the disposable income or can't justify it right now [waiting for something to become unusable before buying a replacement]
b) Moore's law isn't giving '50% better' each year in technological growth any more
c) Win-10-nic on EVERY NEW PC [except for a few, and they often cost MORE]
d) Intel's (and to some extent, AMD's) security problems (meltdown, spectre)
e) chipsets with hidden "features" like REMOTE ADMIN that you can NOT easily shut off
In summary: new computers are NOT perceived as being significantly better than OLD ones. Save money, and upgrade/repair the old one instead.
"these programs which hook undocumented API calls"
back in the 90's, MS got sued over having undocumented API calls that Word and other MS applications leveraged in order to "not crash all of the time". I had just started doing windows development for Windows 3.0 and ran into some of these problems with 'GlobalLock' etc. which could occasionally UAE when you had a bad handle, not necessarily your fault either.
The solution, for me, was to validate the param by using the undocumented 'GlobalHandleNoRIP()' and fail gracefully. At the next dev conference, Microsoft introduced the 'ToolHelp' library [to assist with things they'd been doing internally, cough cough] and DOCUMENT all of those undocumented calls...
[they also separated the applications from the OS as separate 'business units' and complied with 'no information between OS and applications units that is not disclosed to EVERYONE']
So - with respect to 'undocumented calls' - which ones are those again? Microsoft may be forced to DOCUMENT them...
"The real reason is that he embarrassed the USA by exposing things and some there want revenge."
with the current DOJ and President Trump _not_ wanting 'revenge', Assange is more likely to become a material witness for other investigations...
(it would be different if Mrs. Clinton had actually been elected)
"They could have actually spent it catching some real criminals."
uh, bail jumping IS a crime, so it makes him a 'real criminal'.
I'm sure the cops are doing their jobs. Spending too many resources to go after a high profile crime helps to DISCOURAGE criminals, so it all works out. It's unlikely anyone else will try the 'asylum to hide in an embassy' trick. It was like Assange was in a kind of 'jail' for the last few years, am I right?
"He'd hate it much more if it turned out the world doesn't actually give a shit about him."
Yeah, he's a bit like Kevin Mitnick huh? (not in the detail, but to some extent, in the public image 'things')
In truth, having Assange 'available' for extradition to the USA might play out well (for him AND the rest of the world) with respect to D&CDNC e-mails leaked in 2016. Hannity did an interview with Assange a while back regarding this specific thing. And now that "certain investigations" are complete, it's time to open a few *NEW* ones, and Assange COULD be a key witness...
Aside from that, the Manning releases probably weren't a crime so long as Assange was only involved in their release to the world. If he had attempted to influence Manning to break the law, it'd be conspiracy of something-or-other. Most likely the DOJ would grant him immunity to get more information regarding the DNC e-mails, something that is likely to become very important over the next year.
I smell some behind-the-scenes activity. This timing is _very_ suspicious! [then again it's probably best for all concerned at this point, especially the Ecuadorians not having to put up with him any more]
"childishly coloured" you could change that, you know... [like Win 2k appearance in the start menu]
Whereas, you CAN! NOT! CHANGE! THAT! 2D! FLATTY! McFLATFACE! FLUGLY! FLATSO! appearance in Win-10-nic. Or get rid of the ads/slurp/store/start-thing/forced-updates [particularly on 'Home' versions] without some major hoop jumping that doesn't seem to work very well. 'Classic Shell' and other start menu replacements are lipstick on the non-oinky end of the boar. You still have 'Settings' (since Control Panel does less and less these days) to deal with...
and no 'metered connection' option for ethernet, last I checked.
"for me - the kiddy-komputer 2D-ism actually makes it slower to use."
Yes, the taste of bile and "bad feng shui" appearance is distracting in an "anti-productivity" kind of way... like horrible paint colors and "open bay" desk farms.
more reasons to miss XP... [I actually like it better than 7, particularly when the shortcut icons next to the start button don't move around and turn into an application icon whenever I use one of them - most hated 'feature' of Vista and 7]
just WHAT is so "outdated" about XP?
*crickets*
(I do NOT consider the Sinofsky/Larson-Green aka 2D FLATTY McFLATFACE user interface to be 'modern' nor 'an improvement' - and XP could have kept its appearance and UI specifics while the kernel and built-in applications were improved for security, with less effort etc., for another 10 years at least)
Anti-trust isn't/wasn't socialism, it's government oversight [there's a difference]. Banking regulation isn't socialism, either. Socialism is what the OTHER Roosevelt (FDR) wanted, as well as one of the WORST presidents this country ever had, Woodrow Wilson (what he did with income and estate taxes, for starters).
And to prevent thread decay, I'll stop now [after correcting the big blunders].
wtf is "Win-10-nic"
A reference to windows 10 as the Titanic. It's a term I did not invent but I nearly always use, when referring to Windows 10, because, in all too many ways, it's like the Titanic, damn the icebergs, full speed ahead! Why else would Micro-shaft continue with the slurp, the ads, the 2D FLATTY McFLATFACE, and so on, unless they were completely CLUELESS as to how much those "features" are HATED ?
this has a good potential for becoming "a thing" but still isn't close to being ready for use by anyone other than an experimenter...
Too bad, because if they got SERIOUS about it, it could compete with windows. Maybe it could sell for HALF the price of Win-10-nic [including new computer installs], support indefinitely, remain open source, and keep the 3D SKEUOMORPHIC look. Who knows it could even run various start menu plugins and skins so that it looks like your favorite windows version, or even "theme" like Win-10-nic for the hardcore 2D FLATTY McFLATFACE advocates...
Yeah, "dream on", right?
When I consider my brief exposure to the world of paid Wine developers, and realized they're just hiring the wrong people due to the project management just NOT having a clue as to who the best people ARE, and consider ReactOS's close ties with the Wine project, I see a likelihood of it being a lot of 'academically arrogant' engineers who are focused on dotting the 'i' and crossing the 't' and using all of the right key words and tricky phrases [like that's who they're looking for], and NOT hiring people who are literally HACKERS that are willing and likely to come up with unique solutions to problems... and maybe work for 80 hours per week on salary simply because it's interesting, and GET THINGS DONE.
[such hackers are the kinds of engineers, as I understand it, that made the Windows OS work to begin with, but not any more 3 decades later, which is why we have Win-10-nic]
"I was not aware of any application development targeted for Linux desktops"
There is a LOT. It is too easy in the windows world to *feel* as if EVERYBODY _ONLY_ does Windows... which is part of the reason why Win-10-nic is what it is.
GTK and Qt applications can be made to run cross-platform, including OS/X. Similarly, Java. DBMSs that aren't SQL Server are often written for Linux FIRST, then adapted to windows later. Similarly, web servers and other server applications. Linux first, then windows [and only if it makes sense].
When you include Android and iOS, UNIX-like operating systems are #1, windows is #2. pun intended.
"You do need to be on a 64bit version of Win10 or Server2019 though."
And this _is_ the dealbreaker... (I assume Win-10-nic 'Home' also cannot run it?)
re-compiling for cygwin already happens, as it has its own package manager in the form of the 'setup' utility.
Running native Linux applications is interesting, but less of a 'thing' with me. I would consider overall usability to be the number 1 feature. I messed with SFU/SUA/Interix years ago, and it just couldn't perform better than Cygwin.
I would expect WSL to be similar, regardless of the bell/whistle/shiny factor.
(that and I can run Cygwin on a Win7 box)
last I checked, the Adobe reader kept asking me to REGISTER IT with an E-MAIL ADDRESS...
So, with at least 2 decent alternative PDF readers out there (that I know of), neither of which VIOLATE YOUR PRIVACY, _WHY_ would anyone want to install Adobe's PDF reader? That especially when taking into consideration Adobe's piss-poor security track record.
