Posts by bombastic bob

Microsoft menaced with GDPR mega-fines in Europe for 'large scale and covert' gathering of people's info via Office

Re: What about Windows 10 that Office is sitting on?

"Surely the telemetry of both Office and Windows 10 is of concern here, not just Office?"

see icon

Facebook's CEO on his latest almighty Zuck-up: OK, we did try to smear critics, but I was too out-of-the-loop to know

Re: Facebook is bad for your health!

I think tobacco is less addictive than social media

Re: Disliking Soros != Anti-Semitism

"You see, here's the thing: Do you actually have good reasons to dislike Soros?"

Several. In general, he has made his 'zillions' by forcing other people to lose THEIRS.

maybe THIS will help:

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/george-soros-bank-of-england.asp

That's right, currency manipulation and no jail time for doing it. According to one source, he was convicted of insider trading in a French court in 2002.

stopping before it becomes a rant.

Also worth pointing out: when DISAGREEING with someone who's non-white and/or not-male becomes "a plethora of '-phobe' accusations", it not only waters down the condemnation of REAL racism/sexism etc. but it makes those pointing the [falsely] accusatory fingers appear as if they are a whole lot of SJW ninny-nanny political correctness fascists. And same goes for when Fa[e]cebook makes its charges of the SAME kinds of things against those whom they deem worthy of CENSORSHIP. So if there's any targeting of conservatives or anyone right of center, it's FA[E]CEBOOK doing most of it.

And, of course, pointing this out, in Fa[e]cebook's world, would make me a "-phobe" [name your prefix, and rinse/repeat into a long list as if that makes me look worse].

icon, because, it's funny

Destroy FB and something else will take it's place

"Destroy FB and something else will take it's place"

sadly, won't be THIS (I looked at it and was not impressed)

I think it's because the reason for NOT wanting to be on Fa[e]cebook has nothing to do with its censorship, apparent "clique-ishness" and 'fake news'. It's just the whole 'social media' thing with the tracking and the targeted ads and being exploited as a revenue source...

*shudder*

If at first or second you don't succeed, you may be Microsoft: Hold off installing re-released Windows Oct Update

Can somebody explain to me what Win-10-nic is supposed to convey?

"Win-10-nic", a somewhat obvious pun on 'Win-10' and 'Titanic', similar to 'Itanic', someone else's idea that I borrowed from the 'Insider' program before this abomination was foisted upon the masses, and meant to convey the following:

a) arrogance

b) lack of proper safety for the passengers

c) low quality materials/construction.

d) bad design assumptions

e) "icebergs ahead" --> "all ahead full anyway"

f) is obviously NOT "too big to sink" nor "too big to fail" (see 'arrogance')

g) Was intended to be a symbol of prowess and market domination, ended up as one of the worst disasters of its time.

and so on.

And Micro-shaft CONTINUES to "miss the boat" and GET IT WRONG on Win-10-nic, and continues to prove that I'm RIGHT about it.

[if I could include the 2D FLATSO in that analogy I'd do it; sadly, that was a feature of 'Ape' (8) that unfortunately carried forward for ALL of the wrong reasons. The 2D FLATTY is a bit like 70's disco, in that "popular" music became dumbed down, as did the appearance of the Windows UI, to an oversimplified form, spawning a HUGE division between the 'disco bunnies' and the 'rockers', so much so that a Chicago DJ, Steve Dahl, held a 'Disco Demolition Night' (see wikipedia article for more info) at a baseball game, with 'interesting' results. Similarly, there's a real backlash brewing against Windows 10 that has yet to 'surface' (bad pun) enough to be overwhelmingly obvious, not just due to the 2D FLATSO but also the low quality forced updates, spying, etc. - and for now it just sits there ready to boil over at a moment's notice]

Re: What I find really depressing

"How TF do you break mapping drives which frankly even many home users do"

You spend your ENTIRE life getting rewarded for PARTICIPATION instead of EXCELLENCE. And THEN you glide through "college" getting indoctrinated instead of educated, and then end up working for a mega-corporation with a culture such as the ones they have at Micro-shaft, Google, etc..

(if you don't get why I said that, you probably aren't old enough yet)

Re: Q(&A)

yeah well this article

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/23/microsoft_windows_10_crisis/

contains a brilliant statement: "Windows 10 is officially a shit show"

I summarized a few links about this update in a usenet post a couple of weeks or so ago:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/08/microsoft_windows_10_pulled/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/10/microsoft_windows_deletion_bug/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/04/microsoft_windows_10_1809_audio/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/23/windows_10_problem_roundup/

posted here as well, for everyone's enjoyment!

Hey El Reg, would you mind adding this list [and maybe a few more similar links] as a bootnote? Or if this comment stays near the top then everyone will see them here, whichever. It's a nice chronology, of sorts, as documented in El Reg.

Schadenfreude

Win-10-nic forced updates! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

The October November December Who knows WHEN they'll get it right update. For Win-10-nic. Cramming it up your computer's peripheral slot following a multi-hour intarweb download near you!

Doesn't it *FEEL* good to have Win-10-nic on your computer?

(I'm glad I'm still using 7 for my windows things)

This gift just KEEPS ON GIVING!

Got Linux?

128-layer flash flood to come roaring down the Yangtze in 2020 – report

nothing to worry about, then

From the article's title I was wondering if the manufacturer in China was ahead of the worldwide competition. Looks like that's not the case.

128 layers DOES sound pretty good, though. So, when do FLASH drives start selling for less than their spinny equivalents in the TB size range [or as my friend calls them, 'Tig' drives] for typical home computers and office workstations? Probably not soon enough, I guess. I want one with a SATA cable so I can just swap the thing in when the current hard drive does the 'titsup' thing.

Super Micro chief bean counter: Bloomberg's 'unwarranted hardware hacking article' has slowed our server sales

Re: I'm puzzled about all the controversy here.

"It's been going on all along. Get used to it."

I'd rather expose it and put a stop to it, thanks, but upvote for the rest of what you said.

Re: I'm sure there will be litigation over the Bloomberg story

one way or another, I'd rather see THE TRUTH than "it gets swept under a rug".

not quite time for popcorn, yet.

/me hopes it's a lie (chinese spying chips NOT actually inserted into the boards) but expects it is NOT a lie.

5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1... Runty-birds are go: 12,000+ internet-beaming mini-satellites OK'd by USA

Re: What could possibly...

yeah space is 'crowded enough' with the actual junk; now we're sending up a bunch of mini-junk that is likely to create more problems than it solves. OK how is this going to impact space aviation in the future? Even simple sub-orbital flights would probably have to dodge these @#$%'ing things...

Red Hat talks upgrades and bare metal with its new OpenStack Platform

IBM's influence

I suspect that IBM will initially try to retain whatever Red Hat already has, but may at some point tweek it to work better with IBM's solutions [and vice versa]. Simply putting a LOT of effort on IBM-related development might be all they need to do to justify buying RH.

IBM isn't really like Microsoft or Google. They've been around a REALLY long time, and tend to play "the long game".

A new Raspberry Pi takes a bow with all of the speed but less of the RAM

Re: New supplier required

"prevents support for the latest WebGL"

WebGL is overrated, just like 'cloud' and client side scripting, in general. It's like a cancer. Time to re-think it.

So unless movie playback or localized gaming needs "the new, shiny" existing OpenGL should be fine. chasing the bleeding edge isn't something that's part of the design of a device like RPi anyway.

Re: This is good.

"I'm already somewhat annoyed by the use of 5v on a micro USB port"

well the 40-pin connector has power input points on it. But as I recall it uses a linear regulator for the 3.3v (which is simpler overall, and a smaller footprint than a switcher) but NOT ideal for battery operation.

[I guess newer Pi's use switchers and different configs than the earlier ones, though... making this impossible without supplying 5v and not just 3.3v]

Specifically for IOT they may need to re-think the use of the 5V rail and enable you to turn OFF various things (like ethernet) programatically to reduce power. And turn off 'video core' too, when it's not wanted/needed. [boot into a GUI for IoT? no. just no]

Re: This is good.

well it would depend on your needs, whether it's good or not. in a headless system it might be difficult to configure without mouse+keyboard+monitor. Maybe (temporarily) plugging in a USB ethernet doohickey would help?

US China-watcher warns against Middle Kingdom tech dominance

Re: And on that note...

"What happened to Bloomberg and the false allegations against Supermicro"

Fixed it for ya. The jury's still out on the 'false part.

Re: He America...

time to write that horse off, and get another.

Re: The Chinese Century

well, it COULD be 'The Chinese Century', if the USA and other western countries keep doing "the stupid thing" and relying on China's cheap labor force [read: exploiting them] while simultaneously EMPOWERING a COMMUNIST government that has, in the past, expressed a desire to spread its influence upon the world forcibly.

And when you look at what they do to their OWN people [exploit the masses, empower a handful as super-rich as long as they play along, etc.] as well as engage in predatory trade practices with other countries, violate their intellectual property, and so on... not very smart handing them the plans to "everything".

In the USA, and in UK and EU, we'd do well to start building lights-out factories to build our schtuff.

Until then, we'd be wise to STOP! TEACHING! THEM! HOW! TO! MAKE! THE! COOL! STUFF!!! Ship the chips, ship the pre-programmed ROMS, and let them build circuit boards and wire up stuff. When they start fabbing the high-tech components like CPUs and RAM, that's where the problems begin.

But yeah, they kinda *ENGINEERED* that for themselves with the whole "local supply chain" thing, didn't they?

Now, philosophically, USA, UK, and EU have a significant advantage: our cultures do NOT demand conformance and 'hammer down the nail that sticks out' the way they do "over there". As such, our engineers tend to be MORE CREATIVE than those who are in China. You can downvote the hell out of me for saying so, because I don't care. It's just simply TRUE, because a FREE PEOPLE are free to THINK DIFFERENT and a CAPITALIST society REWARDS you for being good at it. China is STILL COMMUNIST and as such, they have "that" as a HUGE roadblock to true innovation. And though they'll have one or two 'bright sparks' over there that would do it simply "for the lulz", there's NO way they can compete with a FREE nation's engineering prowess.

But they'll always be VERY good at REVERSE engineering...

Re: Oh really ?

outsourcing technology = "teaching your competitors how to destroy you"

just sayin'...

Ethernet patent inventor given permission to question validity of his own patent

Re: Two minds about this ?

It's usually "work for hire" at your normal salary/rate, and then any patent or copyright belongs to whomever it was that paid for it.

That's pretty much understood in the industry. Otherwise, good luck getting work as an engineer if you're not willing to sign over the patent/copyright to the employer.

The only part about this that bothers me are the number of claims about things that are "obvious". You're NOT supposed to be able to patent "obvious" and "trivial" things. otherwise the 'for' and 'while' loops would've been patented by some troll, who'd then try to extort money for EVERY programmer for using them.

Patent abuse is bad enough, but at least this one is getting a (apparently worth while) review. That should help the industry at large, In My Bombastic Opinion.

Hands up who isn't p!*$ed off about Amazon's new HQ in New York and Virginia?

I wish they'd do that for SMALL businesses...

except that corporate welfare and LIBERAL donors [and their mega-corporations] go hand-in-hand...

it's easier to influence a small number of people running a BIG company, than a bunch of people running SMALL companies, to "donate" to campaigns of politicians that delivered the goods.

THAT, and the potential of manipulation going on.

/me not relying on GUMMINT for my success. nope. FAT CHANCE getting anything FROM gummint, anyway. All they do is TAKE, and give to those who do NOT deserve it.

Scumbag who phoned in a Call of Duty 'swatting' that ended in death pleads guilty to dozens of criminal charges

Re: Hostage situations...

"shoot to injure" is impractical. Center body mass is easier to hit with a pistol, and if you MISS your target you could do a lot WORSE [like ricochet and hit civilians]. Very few 'crack shot' pistol wielders would be able to 'shoot to injure' except at very close range. There are just too many factors involved, and pistols just aren't accurate like rifles are.

Now if a sniper with a proper sniper rifle and spotter did a single head shot, you could make the case that he could've shot the guy in the leg instead. but for a cop wielding a pistol, or even a sub-machine gun, the accuracy just isn't "there".

So, like in the military, you're taught to go for "center mass" with pistols. [yeah it was that way when i was in the Navy, to qualify with a pistol for security reasons, twice a year if I remember correctly - aim carefully, exhale and squeeze - and I was never 'sharpshooter' quality, probably because I have long gorilla arms and the sighting moves around too much]

it's best NOT to make assumptions about firearms that are based on "pandering to the perception" and television/movies. In other words, if you haven't been taught to use a weapon in a military or police context, you probably won't "get it". [NRA classes ARE, as I understand it, similar to police and military training]. But yeah we're in a world where only a very SMALL percentage of the population has military or police experience.

Re: "Sure, so where does that put let's say Swiss police?"

@Voland's right hand

I won't even bother to quote from your post.

So, how's that "illegal to carry a knife" thing working out in London these days? Did it make ANY difference? Or is it just unnecessarily restricting those who might need one for some reason... or just simply WANT one.

I suspect it's 100% ineffective, just like EVERY OTHER "liberal solution" to crime. It doesn't affect criminals. They're scoff-laws anyway. It only affects the rest of us.

(although some of us, including me, don't need a knife or a gun to kill, so are HANDS going to be banned next? most people might need a weapon to properly defend themselves, because a cop can't be everwhere)

but yeah the main disadvantage of a knife or a gun is the fact that a skilled martial artist could TAKE IT AWAY [and then use it on THEM].

And, only 'sheeple' that have been cowed into NOT FIGHTING BACK [and then banning any means of self defense for anyone else] would want the carrying of reasonable self-defense weapons to be BANNED.

Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?

@AC and others...

"pandering to the perception" (U.S. cops being trigger happy murderers waiting for an excuse, and gun rights being an 'enabler' for them to 'be that way') might make you *feel* better, but it's neither TRUE nor HELPING.

And in my opinion FEELINGS are IRRELEVANT.

More often than not, guns STOP crimes.

But then again, *anything* can kill you, especially that Di-hydrogen Monoxide stuff - it's *EVERWHERE* !!!

^^^ if you don't see the correlation, then I pity you.

Oi, Elon: You Musk sort out your Autopilot! Tesla loyalists tell of code crashes, near-misses

Re: Say what you like about Teslas

"the only way that it's going to get safer is if more people get on their bikes"

easy to say (perhaps even smugly), not practical because of:

a) weather

b) hills

c) distance

d) age

factor those in, and our 'steel cages' are much more practical. It has been so for over 100 years.

The only alternative would be horse-drawn carts, and THEN you'd hear the constant b.i.itching and whining about the HORSE CRAP everywhere, and the stench, and the flies, and the need to grow all of that hay, yotta yottta (and horse farts spewing methane which really IS a greenhouse gas).

Things are the way they are because it's actually BETTER this way.

Re: Say what you like about Teslas

not just bicycles "not being seen", but motorcycles and convertibles with the top down. It's because car mirrors just aren't adequate, and it's easy to NOT see things under certain conditions.

As for me, I avoid riding in people's blind spots, and get REALLY irritated with "pacers" who match my speed and hang out in MY blind spots. [those people are idiots]

Now if I could just B-slap the [blank] out of people who insist on (or are ignorant of) having their headlights aimed too high [especially in fog] it'd be a lot better out there... that and people who won't [blanking] STEP ON THE GAS PEDAL when the light turns green, or space opens up in front of them. @#$% slow pokes BLOCKING THE LANE...

Re: Whisper it…

"What Tesla has done, though, is make electric cars acceptable EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE"

Fixed. You're welcome.

Electric cars will be practical when:

a) they all have 'backup' dino-burning engines that can run WHILE YOU DRIVE

b) they can do a full charge within the same amount of time as "filling your tank"

c) they have a range of >400 miles in extreme weather conditions with the air conditioning or heating on.

Until then, they're "toys for the rich and/or smug" and we don't need GUMMINTS mandating (or worse, subsidizing) them.

Another 3D printer? Oh, stop it, you're killing us. Perhaps literally: Fears over ultrafine dust

no mention of the different types of filaments that can be used

exactly, PLA is supposed to be biodegradable and doesn't smell when you make things with it. I bought a spool of PLA because it was relatively inexpensive to test out a 3D printer I just got. if I want to make anything more "final" I'll use ABS but the PLA does very well for testing designs, especially if you're likely to throw it away after you screw it up for the N'th time.

Re: 3D printing

OK - how about an air ionizer operating near the printers? I bet that'll fix most of it. Just a regular "home unit" would probably do it. That, and filter all of the OTHER crap out of the air that just might be a whole lot worse...

Or, for a nice comparison, how about CIGARETTE SMOKE and its effect on EVERYBODY ELSE AROUND THE SMOKER??? I'll take the 3D printer farm ANY day.

Re: 'Give us money'

probably more right than not. "scare us" into donating/supporting/funding/BANNING.

Yeah, THAT never happens...

"follow the money"

It's November 2018, and Microsoft's super-secure Edge browser can be pwned eight different ways by a web page

if an open source project had MAJOR flaw rates like this

oh wait. they don't. That's because the source is OPEN, and can be reviewed directly by security researchers and quality-minded people, who would THEN flame the HELL out of the developers for releasing the kind of low-quality code that would make people like Linus have a complete meltdown over.

Micro-shaft, on the other hand, apparently had to re-re-re-write things FROM SCRATCH meaning that the perceived bugs of old, which would naturally be weeded out over time and development, have been REPLACED with NEW undiscovered bugs, which we're just now getting around to seeing.

There _IS_ something to be said about EVOLUTIONARY code development, instead of REVOLUTIONARY "here it is" "cram it up our asses" "this is all you get" "and updates are MANDATORY" *CRAP* code that Micro-shaft has turned into a "product" that's bound to become a "service", sooner than anyone wants.

Right?

And BSD is certainly some of the OLDEST code out there... just sayin'.

Russia: We did not hack the US Democrats. But if we did, we're immune from prosecution... lmao

Re: Wikileaks and Trump?

How about we just assume Fa[e]ceb[ook,itch] and You[t,b]oob is FULL OF FAKE NEWS (and trolls) and be done with it?

troll icon, because, funny

[if people are exposed to fake news and shrill politics and outright manipulation for long enough, people will become more 'street smart' and be harder to manipulate and control, just like if you lived in the big city and had to deal with scammers and street thieves every day]

France: Let's make the internet safer. America, Russia, China: Let's go with 'no' on that

Re: "Macron said he will keep trying to bring the US back on board."

"Just ask him to show his Tax Returns!!!"

[why did you have to mention Trump's tax returns anyway?]

The IRS has already seen them, and apparently audits the hell out of him every year. If there were mistakes or any kind of deceit, law-breaking, or even simple dishonesty on them, knowing the IRS, they'd have punished him for it already. You KNOW they LIVE for this sort of thing! "Hey I just busted 'so and so' the billionaire! woot!"

/me spits out fishook, snips additional commentary, avoiding political side-discussion.

Re: Strange bedfellows here...

"why would America align with Russia and China on this"

I would say there are several reasons:

a) political grandstanding (what 'all this' really is)

b) "agreements" that do nothing [good] in reality (but make people "feel better" for a while)

c) A previous Paris 'agreement' in which the USA was effectively punished for being the USA [which is why we left it]

d) Why *now*, why is Macron (and others) doing this... [I suspect it's not a very USA-friendly motive]

e) Neither Russia, China, nor the USA really want EU telling us what to do

f) It's likely to be a form of CENSORSHIP, and even Russia and China wouldn't want THAT [unless it's THEIR censorship, in which case it's "ok"]

g) globalism, in general. After Macron's recent posturing AT THE 100th ARMISTICE MEMORIAL [an event that should be DEVOID of politics], I'd say that 'globalism' is a big motivator for this.

[I think it's pretty clear that the USA is moving away from globalism. I'd guess that China and Russia don't want it, either].

The internet basically exists because pretty much everybody is agreeing on "free information flow". Once you start whittling that down, it'll become the Facebook/Google/Microsoft network because THESE 3 "big boy" players have PURCHASED the most politicians to make it so.

Yeah, no WONDER "they" want it!

Then again, it's ALSO possible that we were "excluded" from the club because THEY! DO! NOT! WANT! US! IN! IT!!! "American RIFF RAFF" or something equally smug...

Microsoft lobs Windows 10, Server Oct 2018 update at world (minus file-nuking 'feature') after actually doing some testing

like that scene in original Jurassic Park

"Hold onto your butts"

Michael Howard: Embrace of open source is destroying 'artificial definitions' of legacy vendors

Re: Did he catch a bad case of biz-speak?

well... pretending to be altruistic and "just giving it away" DOES seem to be hypocrisy in the face of doing another IPO with the MariaDB fork of MySQL...

wrapping that with 'biz speak' - makes no sense unless he's ideologically opposed to his own success.

icon, because, facepalm.

how to monetize open source

that's the real question here. usually it's in "value added something", from support to consulting to customization and maybe hats or T shirts and an official binary image on a DVD. But yeah, monetizing open source is definitely the way to go if you can manage doing it, then keep it open and everybody wins.

French president Macron insists new regulations needed to protect us all from Facebook's claws

maybe the REAL problem

maybe the REAL problem is less in the hands of Facebook, but rather the fact that zillions of people are WILLING to BE EXPLOITED by them...

and as you can't go around protecting people from themselves in a FREE society, you end up with "that kind" of solution, i.e. gummint regulators increasing their own power at the expense of freedom.

perhaps there's a simpler solution: hold FB accountable to existing rules, and make sure they're enforced. And clarifying the use of tracking and other information, via "opt in", with GDPR's 'right to be forgotten', should be enough. So yeah, just a few tweeks to what's there right now oughta do it.

But yeah politicians LOVE to pontificate, don't they?

(see icon)

"for the children - for their own good. because we're good people and we know better..."

^^^--- when you hear that, RUN, HIDE, and HOLD ONTO YOUR WALLET and your FREEDOM

OK Google, why was your web traffic hijacked and routed through China, Russia today?

Re: So much for the original intent of the ARPANET

well it was only a test, and apparently a SUCCESS! [just not for Google and people in the U.S. trying to access their services]

If I'd have know, I would have polluted the snooping by making bizarre requests on google for things that would be extremely embarrassing to anyone looking at the data... [wait, was THAT a NAKED PICTURE of Henry Kissinger?]

/me laughs because in the 1970's, there was a parody Cosmo edition done by Harvard Lampoon, and the centerfold was, in fact, Henry Kissinger.

Just a little heads up: Google is still trying to convince everyone that web apps don't suck

I messed with the 'web app' idea a bit...

I actually had a use for this for a prototype eye exam device that never went past the clinical trial phase (unfortunately), but that's the world of new product development...

In short, there was an android fondleslab that became a remote controlling device for the equipment, which also had some live video feed and charts and command buttons and whatnot. It was quite literally a web site on the LAN, but it looked like you were running "an app".

The web server [written b me] was also a device control application, running as a daemon under Linux. The slab and the linux box were connected via a wifi access point. The serial output from the Linux box went to a microcontroller, which did things on the equipment, involving various blinky lights and stuff. The camera was a regular USB web cam, re-purposed to take continuous video of a patient's eyeball.

To prevent the web page from having unnecessary "decorations" around it, I embedded it into a 5 line (or so) "web application" wrapper app thingy that basically invoked the web server on its hard coded IP address and let you navi-guess it via the slab, without any of those Chromium decorations etc..

So I guess in a "light client heavy server" application like that, it made sense and free'd up some screen real estate.

Arm kit vendors snuggle up around the Windows 10 Autumnwatch bonfire awaiting supported OS

"Wondering what the asinine decision to support API copyrighting in the Oracle vs Google Android case could mean for this type of endeavor in the future?"

In this case it is more like COPYRIGHT vs ANTI-TRUST. "They" will determine which one is MORE important to "the political donor class", and politicians' back pockets, so grab your popcorn, and enjoy the CORRUPTION.

In a *SANE* world, an API could NOT be copyrighted. It would be like copyrighting the English language.

Can your rival fix it as fast? turns out to be ten-million-dollar question for plucky support guy

Re: recompense?

somewhat related, though it worked out ok because I kept working for a couple more years at a nice pay rate...

a) as a contractor, told [after short vacation] I had to fly to Dallas to assist an important customer with software mods that were just NOT working. Other guy was flying back.

b) asked very nicely to ONLY charge 8 hours per day for that [I was nice, I did it]

c) took my personal laptop with FreeBSD on it, configured to build all of the software using the customer's chosen compiler version, compatible with their proprietary system, so I could hand them a binary BLOB library with any fixes in it when needed

d) a disgruntled employee at the customer site had NOT implemented 'layer' fixes (in their code) that were needed to run the latest library code [new lib necessary because it fixed specific bad bugs and enhanced performance]

e) later, another reported problem turned out to be related to THEIR OWN IP STACK [and was confirmed and fixed by their 'sales engineer' while I twiddled my thumbs in their storage warehouse for a few hours]

f) I fly back on friday, and spent a couple of hours on saturday over the phone with one of their engineers, finalizing it all.

A few months later, the product shipped. If this hadn't gone well, they would've canceled all orders for the company I was contracting with. I don't know how much money they earned, and as far as I was concerned, I was "just doing my job". But it's 100% true, no [bleep] this really happened!

And in the summer, Dallas Texas is HOT AS A PISTOL. And they don't fix the 'walk' signals at their traffic lights. I think I was the only one walking that day, only a mile or two to the hotel, but still.

How one programmer's efforts to stop checking in buggy code changed the DevOps world

Re: " he is most interested..the vast data sets generated by..successes and failures of

designing a test that covers the largest amount of code in the smallest amount of time is never a bad thing...

unless you define "test" as 'unit testing EVERY possible trivial thing INCLUDING functions that return trivial answers like 1+1 = 2, making sure they STILL return 2, years after being written, without any modifications being done to them'.

/me seen that last part, to some extent. won't go there. waste of time. if you need THAT, test "the library" separately, and only when you CHANGE it.

in any case, there's also "data overload". The solution is to turn data into 'information' rather than 'a bunch of meaningless, uh, data'. then you present the information, executive summary first, with drill-down capability for those who really want that.

Re: Jenkins?

"This is a bit like saying you've never heard of git. Somewhat invalidates any subsequent claims of competence."

Not really. It mostly invalidates any claim of knowing EVERYTHING. You can survive your entire career without knowing a THING about git. It all depends on whether or not you've ever needed it, or something like it. Some of us just don't need to chase the bleeding edge all of the time, would rather just work with what we have and get stuff done [which makes bosses+clients happy and higher pay scale, usually].

I'd only heard 'Jenkins' mentioned before, and after reading the article, I'll probably look into it more closely. The truth is, I've never needed anything like it. I don't work in large teams [normally could do the work of a relatively large team on my own, heh, by approaching things efficiently and generally being left alone, no meetings, no pairing up, etc.].

Funniest (or saddest) example of this: at a used-to-company, developed initial prototype in 3 weeks for something that was worked on FOR A YEAR by one manager, one senior coder, and one junior coder, with daily closed door meetings, etc. at the frustration of the senior coder. They used my prototype [which I'd maybe spent a weeks' additional time patching and tweeking] to demonstrate the concept to potential customers SEVERAL times, while still working on the "real" version. At the end of that year-long period, they asked me to step in to help them finish up. The junior guy got laid off, and the senior guy and I finished it up and fixed it. Took about a month to fix it, though. Go fig. I think the design concepts being used in the "real" version were flawed and inefficient to code around and that became the biggest problem.

Anyway, "that" happens, too.

[I suspect that Jenkins would make "doing it the wrong way" more efficient?]

Re: Jenkins?

who hasn't, at one time in his career, written buggy code and then checked it into source control [or committed to production] and then later on had some disaster come about that's "totally YOUR fault" and had to either come in after hours or have everyone breathing down your neck while you fix it...

I only really did that once, an oversight in a late afternoon transaction processing batch job that locked up the database for 20 minutes, causing angry accountants to complain about not being able to do their job, etc.. Yeah, I was USUALLY careful, except that ONE time. Oops. Heh. [and my supervisor scanned over my code before I ran it, too]

I've never actually used Jenkins, but it's beginning to sound a lot like something I'd want to avoid if I were not trying to manage a very very large project written mostly by junior coders. People at my level are usually the ones who HAVE to Q.A. their own work, because there's nobody above you who's capable of it. So in a 'Linus'-like position, you think in those terms all of the time. But the people below you who are part of a managed sub-project, they might not know enough about "the whole system" to make those assessments, and so yeah, some kind of management tool exists.

And so I suppose I should have a close look at Jenkins, in case I'm in "that position" again, not just self-managing some ginormous project that, when done by 1 person, doesn't have "that kind of problem".

(The one-man-band consulting gig works great when you are "the guy" making the prototype and initial production run, gets it all done faster and at lower cost, before the feature creep and one-size-fits-all marketing-driven development begins - that latter part requires a bureaucracy - heh)

That amazing Microsoft software quality, part 97: Windows Phone update kills Outlook, Calendar

How long before

some malware-maker pwns a network someplace, and forces people to "upgrade" their windows devices to a version that has even MORE built-in malware than the Micro-shaft version, which THEN spreads itself by taking over MORE networks (public wifi, whatever) until everyone's windows "device" has been "upgraded" to something that CANNOT BE REMOVED, etc...

and without the choice to turn it off, it "just loads the 'up'grade". And it "cleverly" marks itself with a newer revision than anything ELSE that might show up to overwrite it, hides itself, puts itself into the BIOS, etc. to keep it on the "device" forever and ever and ever...

It's bad enough when Micro-shaft totally SCREWS THE POOCH on their *LACK* of quality control. But this kind of "we forced you to accept something that broke what you had" mentality can ONLY end very, very, badly.

Berners-Lee takes flak for 'hippie manifesto' that only Google and Facebook could love

"Google is also the biggest revenue stream for Mozilla"

THAT explains a lot... Australis and the shift to 57 [and apparent abandonment of 52-ESR]

and weak privacy protections, as well. What's next, HTML 5 audio/video you CANNOT turn off? Scripty video ads jammed into our faces and tracking our every move online in the background, requiriing "click through" and a REBOOT to get past them?

[I should stop giving them ideas]

As if connected toys weren't creepy enough, kids' data could be used against them in future

Re: Just ignore social media when recruiting

well LinkedIn is still ok if all you do is use it for resume and references. All of that OTHER noise needs to just GO AWAY. I've tried to give it a chance since MS came in, but they're starting to turn it into Facebook I think.

As for automated algorithms that glean personal stuff about you on social media, a nice big fat DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT is in order if something you said online is used to prevent you from being hired, get a loan, or buy insurance. Proving it might be hard, though.

Windows XP? Pfff! Parts of the Royal Navy are running Win ME

Spanish language Win98 First Edition? Diskette images? I might be able to do that...

My old MSDN subscription CDs are still around. I've got piles of them. Upon one of those I'd probably have Win '98 First Edition, Spanish Language even. I'm pretty sure I had all of the language packs.

And most likely other ancient computer geeks like myself would have a similar pile of old CDs