* Posts by bombastic bob

10515 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

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...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: "craft's carbon fiber hull"

a good ballpark value to use for depth pressure is 1 psi for every 2 feet of depth

(from a former submariner)

think "weight of the column of water above you"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: A fitting epitaph

makes sense - super-strong materials are often brittle, and brittle fracture is both rapid and catastrophic.

Recently had a cheap handle break off in my hand from brittle fracture, at a somewhat bad time. Quick action prevented it from causing a minor disaster. Did not really need that, yeah.

[think 'breaking glass' when you think 'brittle fracture']

Time running out for crew of missing Titanic tourist submarine

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

putting in perspective

just some perspective from an X Navy submariner...

Pressure is around 1 psi for every 2 feet of depth. close enough for estimates.

12,000 feet would be about 6000 psi.

At 400 feet, a water pressure of around 200 psi is higher than a typical fire hose. So water coming into the people tank is strong enough to knock you on your ass at 400 feet.

A pinhole leak at 6000 psi would probably "rip itself a new one" as the high velocity water would be strong enough to literally inject you (like one of those pneumatic hypodermic vaccine thingies) or cut body parts off. It would be supersonic so you would not be able to hear it. Chances are it would quickly become a catastrophic failure, in which case the people tank would rapidly pressurize, quite possibly fast enough to cause a diesel explosion involving anything organic inside. High pressure would instantly dissolve all gasses and, you guessed it, if the sudden pressure did not kill you there would be no air to breathe. And it would happen so fast that you wouldn't even be able to say "oh crap".

The sub is made of titanium and carbon fiber. Titanium can be brittle and I do not even know whether the cyclic stress of going down and up would in any way cause stress cracks or work hardening in the material.

Safe to say, not very safe.

Google searchers from years past can get paid for pilfered privacy

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Location?

I am thinking of a movie in which Steve Maatin's character had to write individual checks for $7.01 to millions of people, and you see him going..

"Pay to the order of... Jim Smith. SEVEN DOLLARS AND ONE CENT!!!"

"Pay to the order of... Harriet Jones. SEVEN DOLLARS AND ONE CENT!!!"

AI weapons need a safe back door for human control

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Use the off switch

Couldn't you just unplug them?

depends on where it is located... (which reminds me of a line from "Deadpool" where he describes where his 'off switch' is located - "Or is that the ON switch?")

I think that there ought to be a control panel somewhere with keys in it that will cause the AI power supply fuses to blow if both keys are turned simultaneously, forcing the system into manual override.

There are protection circuits known as "electronic crowbars" that could work for this purpose, forcing inline fuses to blow by (temporarily?) shorting out the power.. A single SCR (and a separate control line to drive it) could accomplish this. [I'd make use of an opto-isolator in there someplace)

Microsoft Windows edges closer to SMB security signing fully required by default

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Your code is slow and inefficient - solution, buy a faster machine

Oh but it worked SO well when Micros~1 did that with Vista!!!

(snark complete)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Love the contractions on here.

"6) I ask how to properly reconfigure so the things work.

Generally it will have something to do with printing... on the day you REALLY need it!

Windows 7 works with my printer. All Linux and FreeBSD boxen on my network work with my printer.

But a Win-10-nic VM (that I had to use to run tax software this year) does NOT. It will not scan from it either (it's an all-in-one fax/scan/print unit).

So I printed 'required forms' to PDF and used Atril (on FreeBSD) to make the hard copies. For scanned stuff I made the jpeg file on FreeBSD and copied to the Win-10-nic box and then opened it within the tax software (something you print, sign, and scan for filing basically).

Micros~1 does not seem to care much about printers. Nor scanners. Not any more. If yours is "too old", even if it works perfectly, a broken driver may be in your "update future" because "something changed" instead of being properly fixed.

File Explorer gets facelift in latest Windows 11 build

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I always mean to try...

I occasionally write MFC applications that run on 7. They seem to work on 10 as well, no problems noted. wxWidgets is very MFC-like in a lot of ways. I have run the exercise a couple o' times to take an MFC application and turn it into a wxWidgets application [takes effort but not THAT much].

I refuse to use the "new, shiny" [which has devolved into a polished turd] "[CR]App SDK" and UWP and TIFKAM in general.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: A Facelift?

"I'd describe it as being akin to putting lipstick on a pig."

I have not yet seen this "new, shiny" version myself. but from the descriptions I read (both in the article and in the comments) I can safely conclude that the lipstick was NOT applied to the end that goes "oink".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Thank God!

Doing it that way works, of course, but you forgot to mention the various incidents of arm-twisting and "Are you REALLY REALLY REALLY sure you want to do this" kinds of prompting along the way.

I have only ever done this. I never set up a Micros~1 account, not even for the admin user. It's all test VMs (with 10, 11 still have not done in a VM) anyway but I *still* do not want a "track you everywhere" Micros~1 login.

Users accuse Intuit of 'heavy-handed' support changes on QuickBooks for Desktop

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

I'm still on 2007

I still use QB 2007. Works fine, runs on Windows 7.

Why update it?

Subscription licensing is yet ANOTHER reason NOT to update!

UK tech industry pushing up salaries – but UI devs out of luck

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

"specialise in fixing what's not broken"

Key phrase: "It's OUR turn, now!"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: You have to ACT young

Being a contractor with a history of saving a project from inexperienced developers dragging it into missed opportunity ALSO helps.

Being old helps you be "that guy".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The only role category to see earning fall was mid-level UX and UI designers

having UI design on embedded systems being one of my least favorite tasks, and doing cool device control things being a LOT more interesting, I'd have to conclude that UI design (I never figured out why anyone calls it 'UX' unless they are from Marin county, related light bulb joke below) doe not require nearly the talent nor competence of "other kinds of coding". Or, how a kernel + device control C programmer like me can easily do the UI design also, given a search engine for docs and "how do I do this in XXX", but the converse is most likely NOT the case without a lot of low level coding experience.

That being said the UI with a web interface can be the fastest and simplest solution, especially for an RPi with a touch screen in 'kiosk mode'. The hard part is the architecture on the system side, aka how do you turn button clicks into "things happening". Lots of solutions for that exist, with PHP 'shell_exec()' being at the heart of it.

If you specialize in UI design you should probably learn how to do OTHER things too, from SQL to device control. An RPi or Arduino can help with that. Design a vending machine maybe? Or a retro game console? You would learn a lot of useful things, and learn where to get the necessary parts.

At that point you would be hired to do the harder stuff but could assist with or even take over the UI part later (or design the glue that makes it all work).

Light bulb joke: How many people from Marin County does it take to change a light bulb? At least 3. 1 to change the bulb and the rest to "share in the experience"

(which reflects what I think of the term 'UX', yeah)

Why you might want an email client in the era of webmail

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Dunning-Kruger effect

had to look it up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

"poor performers have not yet acquired the ability to distinguish between good and bad performances."

Sounds about right to me. Most likely cause: Too many years of "positive re-enforcement" instead of BRUTAL HONESTY.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

'Coffin dodger?' First time I've seen/heard THAT one!

(Back to dodging coffins and learnin' these young whippersnappers a thing or two)

[you young whippersnappers wouldn't know a proper UI if it bit you on the nose. in my day we had 3D SKEUOMORPHIC interfaces where buttons look like buttons and text was READABLE! Not this 2D FLATSO FLATASS bright white and light blue unreadable crap with 90% of the screen real estate wasted and NOT EVEN SHADOWING EFFECTS so you have to search for where to click the mouse EVERY! STINKING! TIME! Why, I oughta... *grumble* *gripe* *rant*]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: DNS-over-https

They are thinking that a cloudflare server gets to monitor (minotaur?) what you are looking at on teh intarwebs

[I thought this was obbious?]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: DNS-over-https

when you do a LOT of "local web server" stuff for development or whatever other reason, DNS over HTTPS is a SHOW STOPPER. *MUST* *TURN* *OFF* !!!

The local DNS then gets to decide what 'http://thingy/' means. On my network it is likely to be an embedded system with a web interface that I am developing a touch screen UI for. [it is extremely difficult to troubleshoot such an interface on the touch screen itself, so I use a browser on a desktop sized to match the screen]

You would think DEVELOPERS would HAVE A CLUE about such things. Then again, these "non-old" devs keep cramming 2D FLATTY FLATSO UIs at us, remove features that we use, etc.

I typicallty use T-bird because of ONE specific feature: "view as plain text". HTML e-mail is *EVIL* and should be *REMOVED* from the internet.

And "web mail" interfaces *STINK* *ON* *ICE* !!!

NASA's electric plane tech is coming in for a late, bumpy landing

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

good one!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: My plan

Why must the "Solution" to these [rectally extrapolated] "problems" *ALWAYS* *BE* something that involves:

* Heavy-handed government control

* Some kind of rationing

* Loss of freedom

* Lowering of living standards

* Increased cost / Lower wages

* Higher tax rates (especially for those trying to BECOME 'the rich')

* Socialism/Communism

That much should be a 'red flag' that maybe, JUST MAYBE, we're being LIED to, and it's REALLY just *TYRANNY* trying to take over...?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Hmm

"The problem of course being government setting a target with no clue how it could ever be hit."

Again, I mention Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: Any scientists left at NASA?

why not just drill for oil and make jet fuel?

Hydrocarbon fuels have a MUCH better energy-to-weight ratio than batteries made from the lightest metal in existence (Lithium).

And without saying much else on the topic, man-made CO2 is not causing AGW or AGCC or whateve (in my bombastic opinion at least).

So having an electric airplane is "interesting but impractical", and GUMMINT MANDATES to do the impossible simply remind me of Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"

Meanwhile the CCP will continue burning as many fossil fuels that they want, even at levels that exceed the rest of the world. Xi Jing 'Pooh' is a chemical engineer. He knows the truth.

Asahi Linux developer warns the one true way is Wayland

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Clip board security

using a new data type for copy/pasta would help with this. Render as new data type when copying/pasting passwords for example, something that has a DH key exchange in it...

If it were a standard this would be nice. X11 clipboard can theoretically handle any future data format. Very flexible. Just need to document it and get applications to support it.

NOTE: I have a script that decrypts a key for github where I enter a password, then it goes onto the clipboard via 'xclip' so I can 'git push' etc. and it seems that after a while the clipboard contents just 'go away' on their own, but you can always copy/pasta something else in its place to 'secure' it

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Is it time for the X.org project to be TAKEN OVER by X.org fans, and *NOT* "Wayland Cultists" ??

Just a thought...

I favor just fixing the bugs, extending features where needed, MAYBE go to X11R8 to address performance, and MOVE FORWARD with X11.

[certain legacy features could be wrapped in a 'legacy library' without losing 'the new stuff' nor impacting performance]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Nope

good one, heh

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Nope

"Wayland might be an OK option for the "Oh, SHINY!" set, but for professionals not so much."

It is *EXACTLY* that, In My Bombastic Opinion

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Nope

You have the ability to choose Wayland. Do NOT advocate taking away MY choice to use X11!!!

Because, like with gnome, the devs behind the push for Wayl;and are (apparently) trying to DO JUST THAT - "Move Us" (for our own good) to the "new shiny" instead of LETTING US STICK WITH THE THING THAT DOES THE JOB!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Nope

With X11 I can set up a login, and with some care, set up a shell that uses DISPLAY to run an X11 application in the context of THAT user, and by use of ssh with a cert, NOT have top enter a password.

That way you can (for example) sandbox everything you do with a web browser within that login TO that login. If web site 'a' tracks you, you can completely sandbox your history etc. JUST to that login. You can ignore using NoScript for THAT login, and things work, and maybe even (with firefox) have it PURGE HISTORY on exit.

As an example I need to use slack for work. So, the slack login has its own Firefox with its own history etc. allowing script and completely separate from anything ELSE I might do.

And also, if you work on embedded stuff, you can run an editor on the embedded platform (running Linux, let's say) and by setting DISPLAY you can use your desktop for an editor like 'pluma' or the 'meld' application or one of many OTHER useful GUI-based programming tools. Good luck doing that with WAYLAND. [I have heard about the workarounds. No thanks]

Microsoft will upgrade Windows 10 21H2 users whether they like it or not

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

upvote for obvious snark

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

pwned

who owns my computer again?

OK I am running 10 in a VM for testing and other things that *MUST* have Win-10-nic, and I do regularly force-run windows update for those few times I use 10, but still the basic attitude from THEM that "they own YOUR computer" is worse than irritating.

It reminds me of the days when autoexec.bat and config.sys would get "things" added to them whether you wanted it or not - because - whatever thing you just installed IS the ONLY thing your PC could POSSIBLY run, and therefore taking over and mucking with stuff is just fine. Seriously.

NASA InSight lander spills the beans on Mars' core

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

martian canals

It was once said that Mars had 'canals' from early observers with much less sophisticated telescopes. Maybe the water did not disappear as long ago as people think?

Or then again it was from optical illusions caused by primitive optics...

In any case it's worth a mention

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

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Dusty Panels

Send a robot maid to clean the panels, like a 'Nan-droid' maybe?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Core composition

From my experience on a submarine and from what I know about Sonar back THEN, it is still pretty amazing what sound alone can tell you

A lot of this probably has to do with speed of sound which can generate curved paths among other things (due to change in density). Who knows, maybe sound resonance gives you some kind of 'spectral line' to identify material...

.

Uncle Sam probes H-1B abuse surge: What do our vultures make of it?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Its a joke

"lack of the thoroughly unnecessary postgraduate degree"

which should always be conditional with "or equivalent experience", especially when tech moves forward faster than academia!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: yes, prosecute

I do not have issue with H1-B visas. However like you said, the unchecked FLOOD of MILLIONS of unskilled people with NO real way of supporting themselves (except thrpugh slave labor to cartels) is where the REAL problem lies. The citizens of one nation do NOT deserve to be LOOTED by illegal migrants from another nation (via use of social services and increased crime, for starters), no matter how anyone *FEELZ* about it.

But H1-B when done properly is fine with me. Unless, of course, some people abuse it on the HIRING end to hold visa status over the heads of employees... [and exploit, etc.].

Eco warriors sue FAA over Starship fallout, claim watchdog is lost in space

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Parked car

"seems to be the usual environmental shakedown

As you pointed out, if it were REALLY about the environment, these people would care about windmills killing birds and off-shore windmill construction killing whales, both of which have been an issue recently. I saw a video online where a windmill smacked into a vulture circling around (probably because of OTHER dead birds on the ground) and the vulture dropped to the ground, only able to move half of its neck and its head. Nevermind all of the farmland being covered up by solar panels...

It's really about manipulation, control, power, and money by attacking modern tech and great accomplishments, and not about saving whales or buzzards [especially not from "green" energy windmills].

(I think their goal is WEF style socialism and CCP type control over everyone's life - and making us eat BUGS)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: X-rays

X rays are everywhere. "Mr. Sun" makes them. Flying at 30,000 feet exposes you to considerably more than living at sea level.

When I was in the Navy on a nuclear sub, I could point a gamma radiation detector upwards while on the surface and easily get 20-30 counts per minute. While underway (reactor running), about the same pointing towards the reactor compartment (from that .location). But pointing straight up, it was ZERO.

All of that solar radiation (X and gamma rays) was being shielded by >100 feet of water.

No more feature updates for Windows 10 – current version is final

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Truly, certainly not

Give me windows 10 with a windows 7 START menu and I'm happy.

Unfortunately that half solution STILL uses the butt-ugly 2D FLATSO TIFKAM look that I happen to *HATE*

I'll gladly take XP's "bulbous" look over THAT!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

forcing "up"grades upon us all. again.

they (Microps~1 and their 'partners') just want to force us into buying new hardware with TPM 2

China again signals desire to shape global IPv6 standards

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

I have not yet heard any compelling arguments NOT to implement IPv6 as it currently exists, even if it is imperfect.

I just do not want CHINA/CCP dictating internet protocols, no matter HOW much "Hunny" Xi Jing Pooh spreads on it (to make it more 'palatable')

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Dodgy stats

There are also many free IPv4 to IPv6 tunnels out there. (I happen to use he.net)

It helps with implementation if you can make an IPv6 tunnel and correctly support it with your WiFi router.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Dodgy stats

I have been using an IPv6 tunnel for several years and I think it works just fine, except that my personal domain does not have the ability to be served up with an IPv6 address directly (this is the name provider's fault but I am too lazy to switch providers).

Otherwise it's fine, performance-wise and everything else. For me, anyway...

(and this is with my updated connection, not the old one with a pathetically slow DSL)