* Posts by bombastic bob

10515 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Black holes can briefly bring dead white dwarf stars back to life

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

'source level' reactions and reactivity addition

Just to add a little physics here...

The problem I see with eddy currents 'kick starting' a reaction in the white dwarf is that the sudden addition of reactivity [i.e. the gravitational compression] is *ALSO* likely to cause an uncontrolled reaction and *EXPLOSION* rather than a 'kick start' of the star.

Here's why:

Fusion and fission share a few similar *kinds* of parameters, reactivity being one of them. In the case of fusion, a major part of the reactivity consists of heat and density. The fusion reaction in a star is stable because the expansion force from the fusion reaction is balanced by gravity. Too much of one, the star goes 'boom', or collapses onto itself and goes out.

I would expect that because one fusion leads to another, you'd have a lifecycle time, delaying effects, and 'reactivity' (related to the effective neutron multiplication factor for fission; for fusion, it would be related to the ability of the energy from one fusion reaction to trigger others). When you have a sudden increase in reactivity, it's likely in a fusion reaction (as it is in a fission reaction) that you get a sudden 'jump' in the reaction rate that's somewhat proportional to the reactivity addition rate (this would be due to various factors that would be common in the reactivity equations of both fusion and fission). When the power levels of a nuclear reactor are unstable [a lot of chaotic activity, like a shut down fission reactor or a 'brown dwarf' star] then sudden spikes in the reaction rate might trigger an unknowable "super power level surge", high enough to explode instead of 'just starting up'. Or not.

The SL-1 incident (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 ) was a case where a shut down fission reactor went 'prompt critical' due to sudden reactivity addition, and experienced a 'prompt jump' in power levels (followed by 'prompt criticality' where power multiplied in microseconds instead of 100's of milliseconds) from a shut down condition to a 'thousands times maximum' power level (20GW according to the article, in a 3MW reactor) in a few milliseconds, burned nearly ALL of the nuclear fuel in that time period, and caused a 'water hammer' when all of the cooling water covering the core suddenly flashed to steam and pushed the remaining water up like a big piston, faster than you can blink, forcing the reactor vessel and attached components to jump 9 feet into the air, etc. etc. very very bad contamination, core meltdown, dead people, yotta yotta. Yuck. Photo of what was left of the the melted/sploded core on the web page.

Assuming that sudden dwarf star restarts might act *like* *that*, because of the addition of reactivity by tidal forces and other 'black hole' things, if it's too quick, dwarf star go *BOOM*. My opinion.

Microsoft gives Windows 10 a name, throws folks a bone

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: May I humbly suggest...

but I like dragons... I don't like Win-10-nic.

How about 'icebergs ahead' ?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Obviously...

"I making a point of immediately binning any CVs submitted as a .odt file"

That's why smart people submit PDFs instead, to get past the H.R. weenies and middle managers who think 'that way'.

Besides, who'd *WANT* to work for a snooty anal-retentive person that throws out a resumé simply because it's in an open source format? Or, worse, a company that HIRES such people in the H.R. department? [H.R. is the worst part of working on-site for any medium to large company - it's like they live to justify their own existence or something, nearly as bad as OUTSOURCED H.R.]

Fortunately, at this time, it's a "seller's market" (edit, I'd said 'buyer' but it's really 'seller') for employment opportunities, at least in the USA. It's pretty 'great'. [yeah I _did_ mean that, actually] So go ahead and toss my resumé so I don't hear back from ya!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

use of 'goto'

FYI - 'goto' is a legitimate way to program although it should be used (mostly) for things *like* error cleanup [see lots of Linux kernel modules for examples - 'error_exit' and similar labels].

In the world of userland-only coding, you can afford to be snobby about 'never use goto'. In the kernel world, you use it because it works better. Just pointing that one out, for those who don't know.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: >> I do not need DropBox Plus, nor OneDrive.

"The problem are the people on the other side who cannot live with, work with, or correct the minor issues"

yeah, those other people need to get Libre Office and quit whining about it. Not like it would cost them anything...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Crashy McCrashface?

I was thinking Flatty McFlatFace

Hello 'WOS': Windows on Arm now has a price

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Intel sueing in 3... 2... 1...

"After all few Windows-only Software actually uses anything that came out after 2000."

I wish this were true. Unfortunately, some *EXTREMELY* unwise software developers (for business applications) drank the Micro-shaft coolaid and either use C-pound, or (nearly as bad) ".Not" with C++.

If the application you use falls into this category, you're *B0NED*.

However, if the developers were SMART, they used Java [Oracle does this] or MFC/C++ *without* ".Not" and targeted XP or 7 [and not 10]. Yes, it's STILL possible to do that. And very, very wise.

/me points out that with a little effort, MFC applications can be modified to use wxWidgets to run on Mac or X11 systems. There's effort for sure, but it's not "that much" and worth doing. Then you can have a single code base for everything. Yes, _I_ do this.

Once business applications are commonly available for Linux and Mac, people will *STOP* "needing" Windows, and developers will have even MORE reason to make their applications run on non-windows OSs.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: I Wish You Luck

does it come with Linux instead?

Mate desktop, please, and *NO* 2D FLATSO themes!

Spies still super upset they can't get at your encrypted comms data

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Wack a Mole

thumbs up for the book cipher example. it just has to be a difficult lock to pick.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: Secure communications

don't forget "process crimes" and perjury traps set by the F.B.I. ... if they wanna 'get you', they'll 'get you', or bankrupt you with legal defense costs until you plead guilty or get financially ruined.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: "No homebrew" is NOT elitist

"and even though I have complete confidence in my own ability to get it right, I also know how much of my time it would take to be certain that I got it right"

blah blah blah - sorry, I don't accept the *kinds* of statements that I would consider *toxic*. They are similar to:

"other, smarter people" "it's too difficult" "other people have tried and failed" "it will never work" "you don't have the skill set" "re-inventing the wheel" "wasting your time" "use what already exists" "it's been done before" "it's never been done before" ... on, and on, and on, the negativity, so negative!

How about something encouraging like: "Well, when it comes time to check your algorithm, make sure that [short description of mathematical algorithm or procedural test] does [whatever result you should get for good encryption]

Otherwise, it sounds like the usual negativity ninnies. Just sayin.

[and I'd be interested in what tests you WOULD recommend]

icon, because, I hear from negativity ninnies all of the time. It's irritating at the least. Why discourage those with enthusiasm? Instead, point them in a direction that's actually HELPFUL.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Wack a Mole

"good crypto is incredibly hard to do"

I wouldn't say 'incredibly hard', but the diligence of testing the algorithm for actual cryptographic strength would be a part of that, yeah.

I wrote an encryption algorithm a couple o' decades ago. It was in protest of the 128-bit vs 60-bit "exportable" encryption nonsense, which was finally overturned a year or so later.

I described it in prose on a web site (kinda like PGP) just to make a point. It used a 256-bit key and a CRC algorithm at its core with a moving window that involved the encrypted data, not the 'dry' data, and was hyper-efficient on encrypting very large data files. Downside, required building a 128kbyte translation table which took a second or two on those old machines. I also encrypted the source file and published the binary, DARING anyone to de-crypt it. I used to get a lot of hits on that page, too (a hundred or so a month) and no takers on decrypting the source file. I forget what key I used to encrypt it. heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

What 'they' did to Turing

Turing is a VERY interesting example of what gummints could (and maybe WILL) do once the "need" for an individual has passed. Turing was needed to win the war. Turing was also on someone's "undesirable" list. He wasn't hurting anyone, but for some reason he NOW 'lost favor' and was quite effectively mistreated.

It is an example of "politics of the day" and those who do not conform to it, at the whim of those who wield power without accountability. Turing was a homosexual, and for some reason in the 1950's that suddenly became a problem (when it apparently wasn't in the 1940's because we needed him to decode Enigma and other coded messages). Turing should've gotten more respect. I have to wonder whose corn flakes he urinated in to suddenly cause "that" to happen...

The entire concept of free speech is really about POLITICAL speech, particularly speech that 'those in power' don't want to hear. "Political Correctness" fascists seek to SILENCE those they don't agree with, including corporations like Google and Facebook, as evidenced by how 'Diamond and Silk' have been treated (among other things).

And if you're law enforcement, and you look at someone's life for long enough, silently decrypting their files and data traffic and online history and so forth, until you find something 'questionable', you WILL find it eventually, ESPECIALLY when you have the unlimited resources of the U.S. Federal government and a _WILLING_ Department of "Justice" helping 'them' along and covering up the "2-tier'd justice system" abuses. You know, one justice for THEM, and another for YOU. That's a 2-tier'd justice system.

We do NOT need back doors to our encrypted data, giving unscrupulous power abusing law enforcement and government spies the keys to our lives. It's too easy to abuse in a digital world, which is why people use the encryption in the FIRST place. It's not so much what they WILL do, more like what they COULD do, or THREATEN to do to you, leaving you always looking over your shoulder, justifiably paranoid, of being somehow caught in a 'Perjury Trap' by the F.B.I. when you thought you were telling the TRUTH...

And WHO wants to live like _THAT_ ??? I'd rather be *FREE*.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Tide, stop coming in!

A mandatory back door to encryption just opens wide for fishing expeditions and criminals who somehow get the key.

Yeah, THAT never happens [recent news stories regarding _serious_ FBI corruption at the highest levels and a 2-tier'd justice system notwithstanding, right?]

If "they" want to "find something" on you, and have a crypto back door AND unlimited funds and resources, they WILL find something. It can be ANYTHING, including a "process crime" for you "lying" to them. "I wasn't doing a self-pleasuring sex act to online pr0n!" "we have your webcam photographing you doing this with a time stamp and XXX minutes of video, courtesy of your encrypted file system with a back door". And so on. You lie to them about it, it violates the law 'making a false statement to a federal officer', and they JAIL YOU for it, or force you to plead "guilty" to some B.S. made-up "crime" instead...

because they CAN, and you happen to be on "their" radar. And they have the back door encryption keys, and they can fish for "illegal" activity whenever they please.

Yes. Reasons _NOT_ to allow this crap. Clear substantiated proven and undeniable evidence for this kind of abuse from top members of the DOJ in the U.S., and the methods they use to HARASS people into a conviction, is on the news, every night. No, not THAT news, the OTHER news...

Golden State passes gold-standard net neutrality bill by 58-17

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

no surprise

no surprise that the socialist liberals dominating the state gummint of Cali-Fornicate-You have ONCE AGAIN passed legislation to CRAM THEIR AGENDAS up our as down our throats, so typical of "the left" to FORCE EVERYONE ELSE like that...

Mozilla changes Firefox policy from ‘do not track’ to ‘will not track’

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: It's about time

ack on noscript, and also plugins that make all un-white-listed cookies temporary.

But... when will they FIX THE AUSTRALIS NONSENSE and GO BACK TO THE WAY IT WAS? you know, a UI with a MENU (and not a fat-finger-burger-button) at least by default, 3D SKEUOMORPHIC [like it USED to be, not all "chrome clone" looking] and WITHOUT the skinny black font and bright blue 2D "buttons" on a blisteringly white backgroun 'options' screens...

'penny wise, pound foolish' I say.

Space station springs a leak while astronauts are asleep (but don't panic)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Kaptans Log

some kid in amsterdam volunteered for that (thumb in the hole), except he was already busy with his finger in a dike...

(whoops I almost spelled that wrong)

coat, please...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Duct tape

that 'kapton tape' stuff is used in electronic equipment a lot. One typical use, to tape the wires up on a LiPo battery to (help) keep it from bursting into flames.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: headline?

I thought the "don't panic" reference was pretty good.

And never go anywhere without your towel.

Europe's GDPR, Whois shakeup was supposed to trigger spam tsunami – so, er, where is it?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

lots of people pay for privacy service for whois info

paying extra to use a privacy service for the whois is pretty common, and a good idea if you personally register a domain. you don't want your home address and real name attached, right?

And so nothing really changed except that, with GDPR, it's theoretically possible to get the same level of service FOR FREE.

Let's do that in the USA too! I like it already.

In theory a registrar would need to have the real name/address and so they would know who to serve paperwork on for any kind of legal action.

That being said, ICANN could require registrars to cooperate with 'due process'. Fixed.

[it's probably like this already for the privacy services]

In the USA, you could do something _like_ an 'order to locate' in which you submit paperwork to a judge, in an 'ex parte' hearing (meaning you walk on in between cases) who then reviews the request and then signs or rejects it, most likely signing it if the case it applies to has any kind of merit. Then you serve paperwork after locating the entity/individual, sometimes involving law enforcement in the service, etc..

The registrar would simply have to honor the judge's order. But it's an extra step, probably doesn't really cost anything more than attorney fees for paperwork, and that will be significant enough for any legal action, so it's like *meh*.

IANAL disclaimer, YMMV, etc.

No need to code your webpage yourself, says Microsoft – draw it and our AI will do the rest

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: I do wonder...

"It is funny how all of these supposedly creative people all come up with a look and feel for sites that is almost identical."

almost identically *CRAP* design, all 2D FLAT and BRIGHT BLUE ON BLINDING WHITE.

It's like who told these guys THAT was 'good design'? Like who told cashiers to put the coins ON TOP OF THE DOLLAR BILLS and then hand the pile to you... some dim-bulb pretending to be a consultant I guess. And that answers the OTHER question, too.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Quality output

more likely, three colors.(at least for the actual web page, transcribed from a white board maybe)

One is light blue, for everything that's supposed to look like a button or a symbolic link.

Next, there is blisteringly blindingly bright white, for 90% of the page, to keep you from being able to see anything on it [like staring directly into the sun].

Then there's the black text, with a font size that is too small and a font weight that's too thin to be easily read without magnification, by anyone over the age of 35. Like this edit box, right here. Hint hint hint. Now, where's my magnifying glass... everything looks like "blur" on bright white here.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

Re: The return of front page

"Put some CSS, JQuery, or Ajax in there maybe the page could be interesting irritating."

Fixed it for ya. Except CSS is ok when kept to a minimum [and not some ginormous boilerplate abomination from robot hell, stored on a CDN, and only used on THAT web page].

I can imagine how many horrible things gone horribly wrong will end up on 'teh intarwebs' as a result of an AI tool that turns drawings into web pages.

No, eight characters, some capital letters and numbers is not a good password policy

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I've always preferred ..

correct horse battery staple [obligatory]. much easier.

Compuserve used to do this, issue your initial password as 2 random words separated by punctuation.

sword+rabbit

that works, too.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

your password is incorrect

from a Captain Tylor OVA: "delete all data"

and you can change your root password to 'TSA-sucks' whenever you take your laptop computer on an airplane

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Dictionaries

one step further, hard-to-guess user names that don't match e-mail names. It's an additional step that can prevent cracking your system, if the user names are also hard to guess.

'Jimmy1973' is too obvious. How about 'JMR.cor.bat.hor.sta' [a mild reference to "that comic" that I haven't seen mentioned yet, something about a horse saying "correct, that is a battery staple"]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Obligatory Dilbert

and a few lines from the movie 'Hackers'... (from themoviequotes.com)

Eugene Belford: Someone didn't bother reading my carefully prepared memo on commonly-used passwords. Now, then, as I so meticulously pointed out, the four most-used passwords are: love, sex, secret, and...

Margo: [glares at The Plague]

Eugene Belford: god. So, would your holiness care to change her password?

Salesforce boss Marc Benioff objects to US immigration policy so much, he makes millions from, er, US immigration

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Don't chain H1Bs to employers

2 words: immigration reform. yeah, fix THAT too (the H1B 'lock in' thing - indentured servitude is SUPPOSED to be ILLEGAL).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Help from a broad

wives from abroad... in some ways, as an American Male, this makes sense.

There is at least one web site out there dedicated to "no marriage" - without actually linking to it, which might force me to complete a captcha [difficult with scripting turned off].

In summary web sites like these contrast 'american feminist women' with women from outside of the US, suggesting that un-Americanized women make better wives. [there's a lot of truth to that; radical feminism has DESTROYED women, in my opinion, often turning them into queen-B man-hating B.I.itches, and who'd want to be married to one of THOSE women, but I digress...]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: These rich CEOs pay

then why not BECOME "the rich CEO" yourself? [you lack the talent and drive and risk taking to do it? not MY problem! nor the problem of the CEOs that become "rich"]

Seriously, your particular argument sounds like it belongs at the last part of 'The Jungle'. [I had to read that for a class once - the last 1/3 of it is nothing but Communist propaganda from the 19th century]

Marx and Engels would be proud!

Judge bars distribution of 3D gun files... er, five years after they were slapped onto the web

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: @Grikath you must be...

uh, the point of using plastic is to keep metal detectors from detecting it. [then again projectiles and casings are or have metal in them already, so it's just 'less detectable" with less metal in it]

so a metal printer would make "a firearm" and not "an undetectable firearm".

Since I can't think of an element or material that's both heavy AND solid enough to be a projectile, other than metals like lead or uranium, a plastic weapon that's totally undetectable is most likely going to be ineffective. You'd do better with a ceramic knife.

(pointing out that non-ferrous metal can be detected too, not just ferrous metal - put brass or other metal near a coil and its inductance changes, for example - eddy currents)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Where is the NRA?

"You would expect the NRA to be screaming bloody murder, but they remain silent"

I think you misunderstand the NRA's position. It's mostly about the right to DEFEND YOURSELF using firearms. Plastic guns are more like 'skoff-law' weapons. The NRA wants you to be able to purchase, carry, and use a weapon that you legally purchase [one that is safe and won't explode when you try to use it].

It really has nothing to do with gun manufacturers, though it's likely that the gun manufacturers are members. But then again, in a capitalist society, someone will make money from selling things people want. I don't have a problem with that. Burdening the citizens' cost of ownership with excessive taxes, regulations, and 'ban-laws', I have a LOT of problems with THAT.

And yeah, it's reasonable to make it illegal [for a time, at least] for convicted felons to own/use firearms. Simply "being accused" should NEVER deprive you of your legally owned firearms, however.

(icon because an armed citizenry is difficult to manipulate and control - big brother is behind the bans)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Bad Logic

selling drugs probably gets you jail time too. yet I bet it's easy to buy them, depending on where you go... (UK, USA, or anywhere for that matter)

[this is the classic libertarian 'making it illegal does not stop it' argument, yeah]

Don't forget the USA's experiment with prohibition. Not only did alcohol consumption continue, it became 'bad alcohol' consumption [home-made hooch with methanol and other poisons in it], and a great empowering of organized crime.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Remember PGP

"America needs to learn that once the technogenie is out of the bottle it aint going back in.

no, just our politicians (well, MOST of them, anyway)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: @Martin-73

"I can download plans to make black powder rifles and pistols (I have made one of each).. I assume there's probably plans for semi-autos out there."

guns were invented about 1000 years or so ago in China, about the same time as gunpowder.

The Kentucky Long Rifle, one of the most accurate weapons in the mid 18th century, was hand-built by craftsmen without modern milling equipment. (wikipedia quotes someone as describing them being built with 'crude tools').

I think modern educated/trained engineers, machinists, and craftsmen are even smarter now [they won't have to go through as much trial/error to get some kind of success]. I see no obstacles to success here.

And you could simply hire a machinist to build certain parts for you, and make the rest of out plastic or wood or whatever in whatever design you like. "I want a hollow metal tube with a fracture toughness of XXX or more, capable of withstanding temperatures up to XXX, with several small grooves cut into the inside that slowly rotate their orientation from one end to the other." <-- rifled barrel

(and a firing pin isn't that big of a deal, really - yeah has to be strong so it doesn't bend, but still...)

Then you do experiments in a bunker-like enclosure to test the limits of your new rifle design, just like gun manufacturers would do. when you get a good one, mass produce!

So yeah who needs to rely on "illegally distributed" intarweb plans, when you can MAKE! YOUR! OWN! [with a little time in a regular old library studying up beforehand]

(pirate icon, because, obvious)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Autoresponder?

autoresponder outside of the USA to which you send your PGP key. works for me. Make sure you mention "kittens" in the message body.

either that, or just post it to a binary newsgroup. works for pretty much everything ELSE

yeah a court order - that'll stop it! Considering that most of the people who want plastic firearms would either be hackers or outlaws, good luck with that.

icon, because, facepalm

Windows 95 roars once more in the Microsoft round-up

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Windows '95 = cybercrime

yes but here's what '95 does NOT have:

a) spyware and adware built-in

b) 2D FLATSO FLUGLY UI

c) a 'start thing' with "the Metro" style PANELS in it

d) touch-friendly aka user-hostile spaces between everything

e) bright blue on bright white, destroys your eyesight

f) FORCED UPDATES that take for-freaking-EVAR and dominate your bandwidth, lock you out of using the machine on its own schedule, yotta yotta [and might not work after updating]

and so on

I'll take '95 thanks.

(icon because facepalm)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Windows 95?

the purpose of the '95 app (as I see it) is to remind everyone what computing *SHOULD* *BE* *LIKE*

(Now I might wanna ask the author to put some effort into projects like Wine and ReactOS)

HP Inc strips off, rolls around as Windows 10 money pours down

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Friends don't let friends...

Friends don't let friends use windows 10

(and it rhymes)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Go

and until there's an equivalent to windows 7 out there, I shall continue to use it indefinitely for those things that still require windows. Until they don't.

It's a net neutrality whodunnit: Boffins devise way to detect who's throttling transit

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: TTL=Time To Lie?

well if network admins thought they could hide 'bad acting' by mucking with probe packets, I bet they would...

Anyway.l I think it's a good idea to run probes like this during peak periods just to know how the network is doing, maybe re-route things around bottlenecks, do some load balancing and so on.

The 'traceroute' algorithm uses something like this already, but it's based on the number of hops and the receipt of a control packet that tells you that you exceeded the number of hops. In this case the packet is just being dropped altogether when TTL is exceeded, so if it's not somehow indicating that it was dropped, the process becomes a bit more difficult to track.

Still, I'd like to see some 'standard POSIX tool' that could do this, at any rate. Let's see if it can become a new internet standard.

Oh and one more thing, with respect to the article: Verizon throttling bandwidth of firefighters - it was in their contract, unfortunately (and I blame both sides for that). Cellular contracts with data caps and throttling (if you go over the cap) have been around throughout the so-called 'net neutrality' regulation period from the FCC. So nothing changed at all, with respect to FCC de-regulation. Connecting the 'net neutrality' de-reg at the FCC with Verizon's data plan throttling practice is FUD, at best. Come on, El Reg, you can do better than THAT!

Quit that job and earn $185k... cleaning up San Francisco's notoriously crappy sidewalks

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Where are the local tech hype-sters?

"Or they could just build some toilets, I suppose."

Sadly, it's likely (in my opinion) that the scoff-laws wouldn't even walk 10 feet to use one. So now we crowd the residential sidewalks with port-a-potties every 20 feet (ok maybe not THAT many, but still). Somehow I think that's not enough of an improvement.

[so what are those 'port-a-potties' called in the UK? 'port-a-loo' ?]

how come nobody else seems to be advocating LAW ENFORCEMENT as a solution?

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

Re: That's some seriously hard of thinking

The article says this:

"a repeated refusal by residents to cough up enough money to deal with the jump in homeless folk"

But the REAL problem is LITERALLY one of LAW ENFORCEMENT, or better stated, SELECTIVE law enforcement (i.e. NOT enforcing the law on 'the homeless'). Because of bleeding-heart liberal policies, San Francisco TOLERATES a bunch of people loitering and camping out in public spaces and using the streets as a toilet.

So you ARREST them, FORCE them to leave town, and it'll stop. But NOOooo, the guilty-rich "feel sorry for them" and now "the homeless" [which used to be called 'hobos' and 'transients' and 'street people'] can get away with quite literally ANYTHING that regular rent-paying citizens could NEVER get away with.

The best solutions for "the homeless problem" are a 2 edged 'carrot and stick' solution. First, you deal with the scoff-laws by arresting, fining, jailing, etc. and ENFORCE the laws EQUALLY. Second, you provide INEXPENSIVE housing for people who are TRULY 'down and out' combined with required counseling, the requirement to look for work (and accept it when offered), the requirement to take medications for treating mental illness, no drugs, no alcohol abuse, etc. i.e. "follow rules" or they're OUT of the program. [Keep in mind nearly all of 'the homeless' are eligible for some kind of public assistance; they're just choosing to use it all for drugs/alcohol/tobacco and live on the street because they don't like "rules", and they choose San Francisco because they CAN]

Cities that do the carrot/stick approach generally spend LESS MONEY doing it 'that way', than with any of the other ideas being tried, and have a reasonably high success rate at actually getting homeless people off of the street and into productive lives.

But that's not what they do in San Francisco. Nope. They let 'the homeless' RUN WILD and CRAP IN THE STREETS and pretty much do whatever they want. Because they 'feel sorry' for them due to some misplaced false-guilt for being well off. Yeah, that word 'feel' again. It does _SO_ much _WRONG_.

NOTE: 'inexpensive housing' should require roommates, like a 1 bedroom studio apartment with 2 beds in it. Converted hotels generally work well for this purpose. It shouldn't be luxury, but it should be 'better than a tent' with an actual toilet instead of the street, and decent enough that it's not a 'slum', and if you fail the program by not following the rules, you're out and subject to arrest and/or removal from city limits.

Do I hear two million dollars? Apple-1 fossil goes on the block, cassettes included

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: On the bright side...

it won't be pre-installed with Win-10-nic

it won't slurp your private data

it won't flash advertisements in your face

[I'll stop now]

Chap asks Facebook for data on his web activity, Facebook says no, now watchdog's on the case

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Can we please ALSO get the same with MICROSOFT (in addition to Google, Apple, others) ?

You know, that 'Microsoft Logon' that they strongarm* you into using, JUST so you can access your _OWN_ Windows 10 PC? What info is being stored along with THAT??? Hmmm???

Yeah I think the U.S.A. needs a GDPR, too. And _ONLY_ 'opt-in' authorization for data collection. And the ability to edit/erase the data. And so on. It can't be THAT hard for FB and the others to write a simple generic SQL query web interface to do this. It's just they don't wanna unzip their pants and let people see what's REALLY behind the curtain...

* last time I had to build a Win-10-nic VM with a very recent downloaded ISO image from MSDN, I ran into the same 'how do I prevent having to use a Micro-$#!+ login" problem... as I'd forgotten the 2-step hoop jump you have to do to make this work. Eventually I remembered, but it _IS_ strong-arming when you force people to do this JUST to avoid your tracking/slurping/cloudy/online logon for a LOCALLY INSTALLED COMPUTER. In other words, they *NEVER* *FIXED* *THIS*.

Intel rips up microcode security fix license that banned benchmarking

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Open source works

when lawyers do 'due diligence' it can (and probably will) still end up as a one-sided boilerplate agreement.

"Let's see, gives our client 100% rights in perpetuity, check. Limits the rights to complain or sue us, check. Requires mediation by our overpriced law firm only, check. Non-disclosure and non-compete agreements binding until 10 years after death, check..."

(I guess only Debian and people like me read the fine print)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Open source works

It looks like Debian's reasoning in this case was correct (they didn't want to be held responsible for '3rd party' benchmarks, which you KNOW are going to happen!). Unfortunately the REAL reason didn't come out in the earlier announcement...

In any case, it looks like Intel tried to pull a fast one. NOT good.

(Debian actually reads the fine print)

Winner, Winner, prison dinner: Five years in the clink for NSA leaker

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Understandable

It's not the revelation of the problem (in an attempt to correct it) that's the cause of the prosecution, or even at issue; it's the way the information was disclosed.

Going to a congressional oversight committee with the information would have been smarter [and would not have included jail time]. Making any kind of classified material 'public' like that endangers those who obtained the information. You begin the disclosure process by contacting your own Congressman and/or Senator and explaining things. Or maybe you just discuss it with your boss and get HIM to do it.

With the exception of some of the stuff the D.O.J. has 'classified' in order to cover their own asses [as revealed by somewhat recent Inspector General and congressional oversight investigations] classified information is generally 'classified' because the SOURCE (or national defense, etc.) is put in danger by de-classifying it.

I have seen information that is classified in the past, information you normally wouldn't think SHOULD be classified, until you look at it or read it and realize that the person who got that information to you would be put in danger BECAUSE the information actually links that person to its disclosure.

So if properly used, information classification isn't to "stop some high-up from being embarassed" but instead, to PROTECT THE SPY THAT GOT THE INFO. Except, of course, when the classified nature of information is being abused. That's a different problem.

Android data slurping measured and monitored

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

What's really funny...

After seeing the photo at the top of the article...

You know what's REALLY funny (to me) is how many Cali-Fornicate-You cities are voting to BAN PLASTIC STRAWS, complete with JAIL TIME for failing to comply with their heavy handed control of our daily lives.

Somehow I don't think this will help much to keep Google from 'slurping' our data...

Yeah you can file this in the 'ironically walking over dollars to pick up dimes' cabinet when it comes to Google and data slurping and what anyone 'in power' is doing about it, but I thought it was kinda funny and appropriate to point this out (considering the photo for the article).

So Google can freely 'slurp your data', but you can NOT 'slurp your soda' with a PLASTIC STRAW!

At least, not in Cali-Fornicate-You.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: RE: tiggity

'gender' refers to the masculinity or femininity (or lack thereof) of nouns and other parts of speech, in languages that have such things (like Spanish, French, etc.).

For human chromosomal arrangements and the associated secondary characteristics, see 'sex'.

(any other usage of 'gender' to mean 'sex' simply smacks of political correctness and deserves ridicule and contempt)