* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Microsoft Windows 10 October update giving HP users BSOD

bombastic bob Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Pros & Cons of AutoUpdate

From the article: "The update debate has divided security experts about whether automatic updates are more trouble than they're worth"

Ya think?

Obviously more 'cons' than 'pros'. See icon.

But, will Micro-shaft do what the CUSTOMERS want? (let alone security experts)

(snarky, hysterical, uncontrollable laughter follows)

The Obama-era cyber détente with China was nice, wasn't it? Yeah well it's obviously over now

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: PRC anyone?

what OS on the laptop? also you might want to see if the BIOS was re-flashed (or similar)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Please....

it also proves that bending over and apologizing to the world is NOT a good strategy. [better to negotiate from a position of STRENGTH]

If China were 100% "our friend" they wouldn't be reacting this way. Their goals were obvious, they've been called out on them, and they stopped pretending to be our friends, so much.

It's time to get lights out factories up and running 'back home', in lieu of paying a 'bunch of warm bodies' slave wages to do things manually in China. Pick & place and automated processing competes with China, easily. Seen it. And labor in places like Mexico is a bit more 'affordable' these days, all things considered.

China spent quite a bit of time trying to lock down the supply chains such that you HAVE to go to them, more or less, for pretty much EVERYTHING. I spent some time looking for possible components for a personal project, and saw a bunch of things marked as 'tarriff included' on the pricing (in this case, surface mount resistors). A lot of manufacturers use discrete parts that are made in China. But I bet an automated factory in the USA could do the same thing, once it's up and running. The reason the China factories are so popular is they're basically "down the road" from the assembly houses and board shops. So China has everything 'in one place' more or less which cheapens the overall supply line.

When things are built in lights out factories NOT in China, it becomes more reasonable to use domestic makers of discrete components, too. With automated processes, you don't need "a pile of warm bodies" to get things done any more.

It wouldn't take a whole lot of time to shift things over, I bet. A year or two perhaps, and lights out factories would be building discrete components in the USA and Mexico and Canada, and EU too.

The good news: PC sales went up a little worldwide, say Gartner crystal-ball-gazers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

if it weren't for Win-10-nic

PC sales would be fine, if they were pre-installed with WINDOWS 7 instead of Win-10-nic (or 'Ape' for what it's worth). Micro-shaft has *killed* desktop sales by making sure that the next machine you buy won't be perceived as 'as good as or better than what you already have'.

Results are, therefore, obvious, as well as the *CAUSE*.

Perhaps vendors need to get on board with the idea of shipping more computers with a DIFFERENT operating system, and promote it a bit, so that their sales will increase? You know, something like Mint or Ubuntu or one of the other more popular Linux distros... [with a choice of what you want pre-loaded!].

It wouldn't take a whole lot of convincing, especially if Linux were available on *ALL* computer models [not just 'select' ones], for people to choose Linux over Win-10-nic, especially if it were presented correctly and advertised a bit. This goes DOUBLE for computers sold without "the Micro-shaft tax" (i.e. a Win-10-nic license fee).

Imagine a Dell or Lenovo ad showing their computer with Linux Mint on it, doing something with Libre Office, web surfing via Firefox, and so forth, as a viable alternative to Microsoft, without the slurp, ads, update problems, etc. - and more CHOICE for configuring the desktop!

I know it would work. But the Micro-shaft lobbying against this has been strong...

Oh no, Xi didn't! Chinese spymaster cuffed in Belgium, yoinked to US on aerospace snoop rap

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Expect more

"There is a lot of down votes here"

probably the usual suspects [the howler monkeys, my fan club, etc.]

I find your lack of faith disturbing, IBM: Big Blue fires photon torpedo at Pentagon JEDI cloud contract

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Single Bidder

I don't disagree with the "2 or more main suppliers that hate each other" part, but I think it would be better to be able to switch suppliers at a moment's notice in case of "whatever reason", for reliability purposes.

I have to wonder who it was that came up with the 'JEDI' idea in the FIRST place. Then, "follow the money".

Russian 'troll factory' firebombed – but still fit to fiddle with our minds

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Don't be silly.

a 'good troll' will find your IRL info and dox you, subscribe your IRL e-mail address to multiple irritating lists, use a dozen sock puppets to ridicule everything you say, try and crack your firewall, post your company info on a business review site and give you lousy ratings, and if they're REALLY good, sign you up for receiving lots of junk mail. And, subscribing you to dating sites for bizarre fetishes.

There are point assignments for each troll behavior. So a REALLY good troll will score you more points. Then you can compare with your friends, "my troll is better than your troll". Otherwise, they'd become boring, and you'd just stop feeding them...

'SWATting' has a negative point value. that's just lame.

anonymously e-mailing you a windows virus, when you're running Linux or *BSD, is an extra added bonus!

Microsoft deletes deleterious file deletion bug from Windows 10 October 2018 Update

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

MS likes to display a montage of messages

turbo tax honestly says "ok this is taking longer than we expected" or similar.

Micro-shaft should have messages that are more honest, like:

a) we are busy resetting all of the changes you've made

b) we are busy slurping all of your data

c) this is taking way too damn long because we lazily coded it in Javascript

d) we know this process sucks, but we don't give a damn about YOU

e) you have been assimilated

and so on

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

those Linux so called "programmers", they don't have a clue

@fandom

I bet you use C-pound and '.Not' and UWP, right?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

An OS should never delete users' based files!

nor settings

nor config changes

nor extensions

nor installed software

nor UN-delete things you tried to make "go away"

I'll add taking away the nice 3D Skeuomorphic appearance of Windows 7, too, and replacing it with 2D FLATSO and cram-it-up-your-ass updates, ads, slurp, etc..

But they did it ANYWAY. Thanks, Micro-shaft!!!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: * Be careful * Also new in 1809, changes to Disk Cleanup Tool, now includes user directories.

"That's just sheer incompetence or a malicious act by MS."

No, because THEY own your hardware. Didn't you read the EULA?

PC makers: Intel CPU shortages are here to stay ... for six months

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: fully working 10Nm node

that really torques my gourd

Chinese Super Micro 'spy chip' story gets even more strange as everyone doubles down

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why are ICs always in large packages, how is this dot powered?

it has a name: 'parasitic power'. If you rely on open-drain logic circuits for the signals, you can get away with ONLY data (and ground) lines. DS18B20 is one such device [1-wire interface] that can use parasitic power.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

"they couldn't make a piece of unconnected silicon sitting on a non-conductive area of a PC board hack a system."

that's not what's being alleged here. the allegation is that the circuit board was modified in such a way to support having some kind of 'spy chip' in the data stream. That means adding power, ground, signal lines, whatever else it might need, exposing pads where the chip gets mounted, and then having some means of installing it there so that is' not very visible, yet totally functional.

if it were me designing it, it would be done with a heat gun and tweezers, under a microscope, following the main assembly process. In China they pay slave-wages, so an extra manual step like that wouldn't really add very much extra cost at all, easily compensated for by bribes, etc.. You'd mount the thing, maybe like a bga device or QFN [with solder pre-applied], setting it onto a mating surface with vias in the right spots, hit it with a heat gun until the solder melts, and it would tend to center itself if you do it right. Done. maybe 1 minute to mount the board in a rig, mount the chip onto the board with tweezers under a microscope, hit it with a heat gun for 5 seconds or so, done. 60 per hour per person.

Pentagon's JEDI mind tricks at odds with our 'values' says Google: Ad giant evaporates from $10bn cloud contract bid

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Let’s be honest, if Hillary had won Google employees would be perfectly happy...

There would be no 'Trump Hate' if Mrs. Clinton would've won, and maybe the drones would be used for purposes more in line with 'slurp' (aka Google).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Winner takes or loses all?

"The winner will undoubtedly get a lot of cash initially but it will be stuck providing what the [customer] wants."

In other words, business as usual, as it is with ANY large company, rich person, or cash-rich organization, that's being serviced by a small one or individual. If the customer happens to be DoD, that's just what it is. Welcome to the world of contracts and service industries.

[when you sign the front of the checks, you begin to understand these things]

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: IBM

"Who is going to do the classified work?"

hire contractors. that's how it's usually done.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Wait! What?

"Those principles are to embrace authoritarian regimes"

I suspect that Google's management [and probably a lot of their employees] would embrace a communist/authoritarian regime even if there were NO money in it...

"Filter what people see on the intarwebs? Cool! Track their personal lives and score them for later use in privilege determination? Awesome!"

But, like the way it appears to be with most elitist types, they would be exempt from its effects.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" - George Orwell, 'Animal Farm'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Wait! What?

'NOFORN' - yeah, that's right, the U.S. Military often requires 'NOFORN' aka 'No Foreign Nationals' with respect to certain kinds of classified information. Perhaps a close look at Google's H1-B visa policy is unwanted? [they and others have often been suspected of deliberately 'importing' foreign employees and then effectively trapping them so that they have to work for less money]

when I was in U.S. Navy Nuclear Power School, I had to stamp every page in my notebook 'Confidential' and 'NOFORN'. It was kept inside the building. There were study halls you could go to after hours but the classified info had to stay inside the building. And, of course, disposing of such material involves massive industrial sized shredders and furnaces.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Wait! What?

Unfortunately, I don't think 'profit' is Google's main motivation. It's in there too, but they have a strong left-of-center political bias as well.

if it were "pure profit" they'd be easier to deal with. they wouldn't be pulling profitable videos off of youtube [or doing a 'shadow ban', same idea] just because they DISAGREE WITH THE POLITICS.

If youtube were about profit alone they'd WANT more "controversial" stuff [even as defined by the left] because, let's face it, it can easily become CLICK BAIT for ad revenue.

And that's just ONE example. Other things exist as well like unfavorable search results stacked in front of more favorable, regarding specific politicians (like Donald Trump) and issues (like Conservatism vs Liberalism). These examples have been well documented. Yes, on Fox News.

So Google's principles don't include the military? Well, having BEEN IN THE MILITARY, I'd say that their right to act like *IDIOTS* is protected by THE MILITARY, because (regardless of how anyone "feels" about it) the world is governed by THE AGGRESSIVE USE OF FORCE and THE WILL TO WIELD IT.

Those who are strong have the ability [and the moral obligation, in many respects] to KEEP the peace, through MILITARY STRENGTH. Otherwise, evil tin-horn dictators like "Little Rocket Man" will just fire missiles and blow up mountains with 'nukular' bombs to scare and intimidate everyone else, until you pay him to shut up for a few years at a time. Have a weak military, and these guys will pop up EVERYWHERE around the world, where evil dictators can oppress their people and squander their nations' resources. So you need a STRONG MILITARY to keep these people 'in check'.

And Google has TOTALLY missed the boat on that. No surprise, really. They are, after all, political LIBERALS. And they haven't got a clue... or maybe it's the customer base they're trying to ATTRACT that hasn't got a clue???

/me considers re-writing this using 'hippy' lingo - maybe they'd understand? Naaah, probably not.

{oh, and thanks for the downvote!}

Super Micro China super spy chip super scandal: US Homeland Security, UK spies back Amazon, Apple denials

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: Size matters

Hmm... SPI bus, given that it might be used to either program OR read the BIOS. makes sense.

So let's say the SOC uses SPI to read the flash [this makes some sense from the architectures I'm familiar with]. Then the "in between" chip, running at SPI bus speeds (Mhz not Ghz) could [in theory] return a flash image that's 'one of its own', which does some mysterious 'thing', followed by reading of the REAL flash image (by 'the thing'), once the appropriate modifications or hidden spyware or whatever already installed. This could be anything from microcode mods to a hypervisor. [whether this is practical to actually DO or not is completely different]

Knowing what CPU gets loaded onto the board COULD make this 'plausible'. Not necessarily practical.

At this point the Intel 'Management Engine' could be employed to do the dirty work. Communicate via ethernet to 'wherever' on bootup [or periodically]. Monitor traffic for an incoming command/control signals. And so forth. It's everything we fear that's associated with compromised ME usage, basically.

OK - so we have at least one plausible attack vector now. This should add some credibility to the claim.

Still, just because it COULD does not mean it DID, so I'll still be waiting for some hard evidence to refute or support the 'Made in China' 'chip gate' claims.

/me still rooting for Bloomberg being right, although the implications are FAR worse than if they're actualy wrong... [I just don't want them to have generated 'fake news' via sloppy reporting]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: I'm surprised that anyone is surprised that a Chinese owned or controlled company would do this.

"You cannot just solder a chip on a board to have it spy for you."

well the allegation is that they had modified the board's design. The manufacturer has the gerber files [or whatever has the design on it], and it wouldn't take a lot to edit those to include a "something" to which a new chip would be soldered [or embedded within the layers even].

I understand the tech to embed devices between layers has already been used by Apple, or so I've read. In some cases it might be highly useful to do that [example, power supply bypass capacitors or a resistor array]. Series resistors are often used to abate 'unintentional radiator' signal noise, and so a resistor array conveniently placed between IO pins and their destination INSIDE of the board would be convenient (assuming it could be done).

In any case the tech apparently DOES exist to insert components. So the allegation is PLAUSIBLE and that's fear-inducing enough. Whether or not a manufacturer can be bribed/strong-armed into actually DOING that is another story.

And if it's on an SPI bus between a BIOS ROM and an SoC, such that it could re-program the BIOS slightly during a flash update, or read 'special instructions' in place of the ACTUAL flash, it could be pretty bad.

/me considers Intel's ME being invoked, for example. It might not take a lot of 'extra instructions' to make that happen, nor to cover its own tracks afterwards, and to invoke the on-chip LAN to "phone home"... and listen for commands while running.

which means that a call for a hardware mod to SHUT OFF Intel's Management Engine [with a jumper, let's say] now makes even MORE sense.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: @bombastic bob

Re: manufacturing in China "there's little you can do about it"

well, I've had at least SOME influence on manufacturing choices (for customers) in the past. I assume the future isn't going to be much different [my line of work being related to that]. So if a customer says "make in China" I have one specific alternative U.S. based pic-n-place board builder to suggest instead, and possibly one in Mexico as well, and I might even reference the Bloomberg article when it comes to determining manufacturing 'outsource' choices.

I'm sure others might do this as well, too, and that's the point. Outsourcing your manufacturing to China is less attractive, now, for many reasons. And Mexico is looking a lot better.

/me sometimes gets bare boards done by a Canadian company. Fast turnaround, good quality, ok pricing for small quantities. More expensive but I want my Monday AM design back by Friday, and usually that happens.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Size matters

20 vias along the edge - yeah, depending on bus width, that'd do it. But to have something operating at Ghz frequencies to be able to filter AND re-order information, it would take a very sophisticated device, sophisticated enough that the tech is being wasted on something devious instead of making new types of CPUs or GPUs [for example].

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

"if an USA owned or controlled company was doing the same."

I would be _extremely_ surprised if a USA company did something like this. After the lawsuits shut down their company and drove it into bankruptcy, the principal board members might actually face criminal charges. The legal bills would be enormous (breech of contract being #1 on that list).

We don't have a supply bottleneck here that involves the government (aka government 'owned' companies), nor a somewhat oppressive communist government that has the will [and ability] to demand/coerce that kind of cooperation from its citizens. The mistrust of government in THIS country is pretty overwhelming. Finding someone who'd put up with that would be difficult. People would quit their jobs first, before cooperating (not THAT hard to find another one, ya know?). And, some people live to be "whistleblowers" for things like that, with its instant fame, TV interviews, and book deals.

I doubt that anyone in the UK would try to get away with something like this either, for similar reasons. Nor the EU in general. Russia, on the other hand, might try something like that. But we don't buy "Made in Russia" stuff all that much, do we?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: "It is bonkers to think it would have screwed up a story this huge"

if the bloomberg reporter was passing along unconfirmed information, they should have been a bit more careful about how it was stated. As written, it seems to be an expose of a massive scandalous breech of contract by manufacturers in China, with crimes no doubt committed on both ends of the Pacific.

However, if it's all FUD and headline trolling, Bloomberg deserves shame and ridicule for it.

I'd say the same for ANY news source, regardless of their political slant. I've said things like this about [P]MSNBC as well as [F,C]NN and the 3-letter networks in the USA (ABS, CBS, NBS - ok not 'BS' but ABC,NBC - still it's a nicname they deserve].

So if Bloomberg is now engaging in the SAME kinds of "fake news", they deserve whatever happens to them as a result of it.

HOWEVER, if the facts show that Bloomberg is RIGHT, then we have a serious problem here. Not only because of the hardware-based spying [some of the allegations in the Bloomberg article suggest that chips were mounted BETWEEN LAYERS inside the circuit board], but also because of the DENIALS by those parties that were allegedly involved. AWS and Apple should NEVER deny an investigation, assuming that they're interested in customer and corporate security (unless they're under a gag order for national security or something similar).

In any case, I'm not 100% convinced to NOT purchase anything from SuperMicro, but I am concerned about 'things made in China' a bit more than I was before. China is going to have to come up with some kind of guarantee that the supply chain won't be manipulated like that - EVER. We've been suspecting them for too long, apparently with good reason, and past violations of our IP doesn't make them look like 'good guys', not at all.

Notwithstanding, some of the descriptions [chip the size of a grain of rice, or a sharpened pencil tip, between board layers even] is a little strange, to me. You'd need some pretty sophisticated stuff to interrupt a multi-Ghz signal and re-arrange the data like that. That kind of tech would be better served making a new CPU architecture or something like that. Rather than stealing tech, they could invent it instead. It's not profitable to them, in other words, to put that kind of tech expertise into spy chips that would THEN randomly target U.S. companies.

First it came for your desktop, now Windows 10 1809 is coming for your Things

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

pleased(?) to see Ethernet settings make an appearance in the Settings [CR]app

*cough* yeah THAT fixes it... [NOT]

So, NOW, I bet you can see multiple layers of 'bright blue on blinding white' "UWP" Settings screens instead. wheeee.

Multiple layers of UWP 'settings' screens WILL be needed, without crippling the ability to change your 'settings' that is, because the nature of UWP prevents you from putting more than 2 or 3 things on a single screen. Otherwise, it just won't have all of that wasted "fat finger friendly" (eye blinding) white space if you put too many things on it... or use a readable 'windows 7 looking' control panel tab dialog instead.

How come they can't just go back to control panel with a windows 7 appearance? It works FINE in windows 7 that way! Oh, I forgot - millenial "it's our turn now" children and/or their enablers running the show!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Licensing v. Litigation

"And once the small company has collapsed they buy it's patent portfolio and do the same thing to another company."

Beware of 'The Blob',

It creeps, and leaps, and glides, and slides across the floor,

(etc. - Burt Bacharach from the late 1950's as I recall)

'The Blob' - patent troll companies in general

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Is anyone actually using this?

"the .Net Core is actually pretty good, open source and on point"

/me falls out of chair. What... the... *FEEL*????????

If your code actually includes ".Not core" you need to SERIOUSLY RE-THINK your engineering strategy...

Better idea: use an RTOS or Linux and _NO_ ".Not" CRAPware.

Intel's commitment to making its stuff secure is called into question

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Intel started to use .NET Framework in many of its drivers' GUI applications

that's another problem - swallowing Micro-shaft's coolaid!

'dangerous at any speed' - more or less applies here, too.

/me points out that a SIMPLE interface using a dialog box and the Win32 API doesn't need a bunch of ".Nuttiness" and is FAR less likely to have security issues [unless written by an IDIOT]. Yes, you'll have to do parameter checking to implement it and that's the point, actually... [amazingly enough sscanf (and its slightly more secure incarnations) still works]

On the seventh anniversary of Steve Jobs' death, we give you 7 times he served humanity and acted as an example to others

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: It's not April 1st, is it?

Satire vs sarcasm?

I was thinking 'snark'. Some of the best yet.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: It's not April 1st, is it?

"read the headline, got hit on the jaw by his knee flying upwards"

etc.

yeah I got hooked on that headline, after which I scanned the bullet points before starting to read, and THEN saw all of the snark I would've replied with in comments [and then some]. Everyone who knows anything about Steve Jobs knows he was NO saint, but hey, that's why the article [and it's baiting headline] was so much fun!

Microsoft yanks the document-destroying Windows 10 October 2018 Update

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: "Their management needs Linus to give them a lecture about not breaking things."

yeah, Linus has GREAT passion for quality, and those snowflake feelies out there, who can't take anything even remotely resembling criticism and need 'safe spaces' to deal with even the most trivial of life's problems, ALWAYS mistake 'passion' for 'anger' because, to them, it looks the same.

Sometimes, it takes a DRILL SERGEANT to get things moving in the right direction, with a few swift ass-kicks and a lot of yelling, insults, and profanity. That goes DOUBLE when the development team CONSISTS OF A BUNCH OF OVERPAID, UNDER-CHALLENGED, SPOILED CHILDREN! [right Micro-shaft?]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: "were made available for other OS"

"Linux UIs really lag behind Windows and macOS"

WRONG. I'll accept your "development tools" argument, but the problem with development on Linux or BSD has nothing to do with the UI "lagging behind" Windows.

in fact, the 2D FLATSO on Win-10-nic *LAGS* behind things like Mate and Cinnamon, assuming you don't use a 2D Flat theme, but the fact that you CAN CHANGE THE THEME means that Micro-shaft LAGS BEHIND!!!

Mate, Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE, and even vtwm have multiple desktops and have had them since 2005 or earlier. Micro-shaft only JUST added that feature to Win-10-nic. I typically have 8 desktops filled with task-specific stuff so I can multi-task more easily. Micro-shaft's "solution" appears kludgy to me, whereas there's over a decade of perfecting the way it works with systems that use X11.

And now the REAL reason for it "being hard" to develop for POSIX systems: Microshaft has been pushing for nearly 2 decades with proprietary "solutions" for developers, beginning with ".Not", and before THAT, lots of shared runtime DLLs and 'extension' DLLs, and so forth, ALL with licenses that allow you to 'freely distribute' them so long as they are ONLY installed on systems running a Microsoft OS. Yeah, it's in there.

Basically, they encourage [read: 'strongarm'] developers into using their 'freely distributable' shared components, but then LOCK THEM OUT of using them anyplace that's "not windows".

They also have made great efforts in the past to get driver support for their platform [which was a good thing for customers at one time], bending over backwards to assist 3rd party driver developers into getting this done, until it became a "pay to play" scheme for Win-10-nic [via certs].

They have also offered their OEM OS licenses as cheap as they can, with 'sweet deals' with computer makers that LITERALLY make it 'more expensive' to produce ANY computers pre-installed with Linux. This is usually called 'predatory practices' but for some reason they were getting away with it for a LONG time. Once they cornered the market, more or less, they controlled the availability of ANY alternative to their "one OS to rule them all" by essentially killing them off. Now we're all STUCK with Win-10-nic as the ONLY OS available on new computers not made by Apple, with a few exceptions here and there...

And software developers look at this and say "80% of the market is Windows, that's what I'll develop for, doing Linux or BSD or even OSX is just too expensive".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Move

I bet they moved them all into C:\NUL (that's a temporary directory tree, right?)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Terminator

Re: Why even touch user folders?

Don't ask Micro-shaft 'why', you'll just get a ban from their forums for NOT bowing down and worshiping them, and 'enjoying' EVERYTHING they do [to you], like a good little fanboi.

From the article: A former 'MVP' "went public after being defrocked following criticism"

Micro-shaft does NOT like criticism. ANY criticism. Especially, when it's the _TRUTH_.

/me "been there done that" back during the 'insider program'. MANY of us were VERY vocal about the 'wrongness' and were inappropriately treated by moderators, etc.. They wanted the insider forums to consist of praise and worship and "all good, no problems". Instead they got FEEDBACK about the wrong things they were doing, especially the ads, the slurp and forced updates. I was particularly vocal about the 2D FLATSO and the obvious 'not listening' to the customers.

And that's because we're not CUSTOMERS to them. We're "masses" or "minions" or something worse...

Microsoft's elderly .NET Framework shakes stick at whippersnapper Core while Visual Studio drops another preview

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

VS/DS "Now it just gets in the way,"

Ack. 'Getting In the way' ever since the first release after VS '97

I liked VS '97, especially the dialog editor and class wizard integration. It was really easy to work with if you're a typist, ESPECIALLY if you want to leave BOTH hands on the keyboard, instead of having to lift one off of home row just to mousie-fiddle with some *STUPID* *[deadpool-worthy pejorativde]* *PROPERTY* 'SHIT'.

I *REALLY* *HATE* the VB-ness of DevStudio, nowadays... [worst of both worlds for a C/C++ developer]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"On a different note, .NET Framework should definitely die. Too old gone HORRIBLY wrong."

Fixed it for ya. [being 'old' is NOT a reason for it to die].

And 'die' could be better expressed as: KILLED to DEATH by BURNING with FIRE, then DISSOLVING with SOLVENT. [that should 'solve' it, heh]

'.Not' and C-pound are 2 of Micro-shafts WORST decision in the last 2 decades!!! They should've just made C++ and MFC easier and tighter, and friendlier for STATIC LINKING. Well, THAT didn't really happen EITHER...

Day two – and Windows 10 October 2018 Update trips over Intel audio

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: rushed

" completely wrong"

your opinion has been noted, and rejected.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

Re: Dirty tactics with the settings reminders

Question: doesn't the data mining VIOLATE GDPR ???

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

I think GWX is finally gone; however I'll keep a lookout anyway. Who knows it might be resurrected...

In windows 7 I can STILL say "pack sand, 'windows update'" and only manually install things I actually want to install.

that's why they shut that ability OFF in Win-10-nic - no more choice except THEIR choice.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

what users and businesses want from an OS

actually, I think Micro-shaft stopped CARING what users and businesses want a LONG time ago... (around the time Windows 'Ape' released).

7 was the last version that was made with users and businesses in mind. Everything else SINCE then has been "what Micro-shaft wants to cram up our asses". 7 deliberately became the version that addressed our concerns [not theirs]. Not all things that ended up in 7 were better than XP. But mostly, it was an evolutionary change, and better than Vista. For the most part, the users were 'sated'.

I've heard that the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath is that a psychopath does not know what he is doing is wrong.

I think Micro-shaft knows DAMN WELL what they're doing, and they continue to do it, deliberately.

Embrace. Extend. Extinguish. EX-TER-MIN-ATE!

Their goal: When there is only ONE choice available, it will be Win-10-nic! And, _YOU_ will be the commodity!

('predatory practices' indeed...)

California cracks down on Internet of Crap passwords with new law to stop the botnets

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Any device manufactured in California..

"no devices are actually manufactured in California"

OK technically you're right. but for a 'California corporation' that outsources the actual building of the thing, then does final assembly and test in California, it may still 'count' as 'made here'.

I guess I'd have to see the nuances of whatever was excreted from Sacramento's "law factory"...

[knowing them, they thought of this already]

Linux, HCI and more, all from the new release of Windows Server 2019

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: the arrival of Shielded VMs for Linux VMs

"Now fuck off and lie down before you give yourself an aneurysm"

no. [as if you cared at all about my health, but your comment is irrelevant anyway]

'Veeam'. wheeeeeee. (Yeah I'm not impressed)

FYI - if you've ever really used POSIX systems (like Linux, *BSD) you'd realize that even simple tarball backups are pretty easy to automate and manage - unlike windows, something that requires special file access modes and whatnot to do live system backups - and file systems like ZFS make disasters less likely.

FreeBSD also has a hypervisor built in: https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve

(I've heard really good things about it)

China's going to make a mobile OS and everyone will love it, predict ball-gazing analysts

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: "Government approved" OSs ?

"So what you're proposing is that we let pedophiles, muslimic [sic] terrorists hide their stuff?"

Unfortunately, too many people DO think this way. 'Joke Alert' indeed. Point well made.

I have a good name for a 'Government Approved' OS: We'll call it 'Brownshirt'. It will include [for every entry in your 'friends' list, the new name for the phone number list] a 'report' button that you can easily use to turn your friends/neighbors/family in for non-approved actions/speech/thinking/whatever. Then the entries will automatically be deleted once the secret police haul them away...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Russia already has an alternative phone OS

With respect to ReactOS [and other open source alternatives]: As long as the OS and core applications remain 100% open source, the Russians, Chinese, and even the N. Koreans and Iranians can go ahead and contribute whatever they want to it. I might even help them!

It wouldn't be anti-American to assist with the success of ReactOS and other open source alternatives to Windows and Android. It would be anti-MONOPOLY (and thereby, pro FREEDOM) to do so.

A 'No Slurp' 100% open source alternative. Looking forward to it! well, hoping...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Facebook will position itself as a provider of government digital services

yeah, a phone OS that *ASSISTS* in managing that 'Social Credit' system - no surprise here!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: What could go wrong?

as I see it, if you don't trust Google with your privacy information, would you trust something invented in China?

AI trained to sniff out fake news online may itself be fake news: Bot has mixed results in classifying legit titles

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: 60 to 70% accurate?

well, when Fox News, which has members of BOTH the left AND the right on panel discussions on various shows, is called "right wing" or "far right", instead of 'fair and balanced', you know that the bias is already built-in. They've got both Geraldo Rivera _AND_ Juan Williams, after all (both liberals), as well as Hannity and Laura Ingraham (both conservatives). Of course you need opposing opinions to have a discussion. And that's the point. And yet, I'm sure the "judgement" would be for Fox News being "far right" or "extreme right" by any bot, because THAT KIND OF BIAS WAS PROGRAMMED IN.

So the main point is: The BIAS of the programmers will be exposed by the bots. Any 'training' algorithm will be flawed because of THEIR BIAS. This easily explains the 60-70% accuracy. Half of the sites labeled "right" may actually be "center" !!! (that would make it about 2/3 correct, if my math is working properly).

On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me: A file-munching run of DELTREE

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Not a good look here.

I just hated having "My[whitespace]Documents" as a directory name, I always rebelled and used "C:\documents" (or similar), a _directory_ name of my own choice, to store things.

Besides, whatever dim-bulb "decided" to include white space in directory names deserves a CLUE-BAT.

[yes I operate in a command shell much of the time, especially in POSIX systems and Cygwin]

As for 'auto-delete your files' on up-grade... it's worse than RANSOMWARE!

[and WHY are they screwing around with your data directories ANYWAY?]