Posts by bombastic bob 10841 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015
"I actively don't want my personal electronics to connect to my work network"
assuming it's non-trivial to have 2 network configs, yeah (or to shut off the stupid MDM crap when you're using it outside of the office, or with a non-company login).
Very often a corporation will have a 'guest' network that anybody can use, the kind of thing you'd offer up for a visiting exec or a potential client. I would suggest leaving that as an unmanaged network outside of the normal company firewall, with minimal filtering on it [just enough to prevent obvious abuse] and also DISABLING uPNP on it.
then you don't need MDM stuff just to access company web-mail etc. via https using the 'guest' network. But yeah maybe some idiot upper manager bought some overpriced pile of software that included MDM for every kind of phone invented, and he needs to justify his purchase...
"At least 20% of any Bash script seems to be spent parsing out the results of other commands using a witches' brew of sed, awk and grep"
If the entire script were "that" and it worked reliably, I'd give the author a beer. AND, maybe a promotion.
The alternative is to write a C language utility that does some of the more complex stuff. Usually a 1-pager that does stdin/stdout with printf and scanf etc.. Not too hard even for a junior coder right out of "pre-school" (aka CS major that just graduated from college - the REAL schooling starts with your first paid programming assignment!).
You may be confusing bash with Perl in this regard. Perl is often filled with regex stuff. It also has objects if you like those. The fact is you don't have to do it "that way" (with the "witch's brew"). But often, it's faster to write if you DO do it "that way". In fact I kinda like the "witch's brew" analogy. I think I'll start using it.
/me likes to encapsulate the "witch's brew" as functions. that way, the real code is readable and maintainable, and you can debug the "witch's brew" separately, with test data, before putting it into production. Been there, done that, should've written the book. I also use comments so others can maintain it.
added note: pre-emptively I'm going to mention using "the more secure versions" of printf/scanf when unknown input sources are involved. Someone will criticize me and narrowly focus on one tiny nitty detail like that. this is to pre-empt it. Yes, captain obvious, you DO want to keep security in mind.
"see all the bash scripts which break if a path contains a space."
spaces in file names are *EVIL*. don't allow them on your network. and you can backslash the spaces in case you absolutely MUST allow them, like this.
/the_share/Some\ Idiot\ Put\ Spaces\ In\ The\ Name.whatever
you can make that happen with this:
sed 's/ /\\ /g'
you're welcome.
EXISTING tools. they exist. and they still do the job, very very well. Best to learn how to use what's there and not inject some Micro-shaft NIH-agenda bloatware onto a perfectly good Linux or BSD system...
Also keep in mind - Embrace Extend Extinguish.
"BASH doesn't support consuming .net libraries directly like PowerShell does"
you say that as if it were a BAD thing... I think the 'lack of .Not support' is a GOOD thing. It means it's not internally polluted with "that architecture" in mind.
"PowerShell has some very powerful processing features built in that BASH is utterly missing"
And it's missing in Perl as well? How about (instead) writing a quicky piping filter in C, in accordance with the 'UNIX principle' of "do one thing, well". Yeah, 'too hard' for Windows admins. I believe they don't have that much of an intelligence vacuum, to be honest. But I suppose I _could_ be wrong about THAT detail...
As for Python, it's too bass-ackwards for efficient coding (much like '.Not' and C-pound). I find Python to be extremely useful for quicky things but a poor choice for anything above prototype level.
if the only thing keeping you away from bash and perl is the alleged 'arcane syntax' I prefer 'arcane' over 'bloatware inefficient' (aka ANYTHING using '.Not' in ANY fashion) **ANY** day.
How come they can't just learn bash, perl? Why must we inject Microsoft's insane model (read: power-hell and '.Not') and way of doing things into the world of POSIX shells and scripting lingos?
This is like building your house out of glass because you like windows. Yeah bad 'pun'ishment there. Careful not to play ball games in the yard [or throw stones].
"A refusal to change with the times"
I am _OFFENDED_ that you *FEEL* I'm REFUSING to CHANGE "with the times".
Except, of course, I _AM_. Refusing to behave like AN IDIOT is a good thing.
see what happens when the OTHER side is "offended"? I bet you don't give a crap! And neither do I, about people being "offended" about the terms master / slave in a technical context.
Let's all STOP GIVING A CRAP. Then we'll get along.
It's a form of passive-aggressive behavior, to pretend it's "others" then "bring it to your attention" like that...
'Passive-aggressive' is considered (by some at least) to be a psychological DISORDER. For most of us, it's just A PAIN IN THE ASS.
Ever had to work with a passive-aggressive who targets you? I have. Several times. No thanks. And getting them punished for it: impossible. All you can do is *QUIT* and say why on the way out the door...
"male dominance over a female partner!!"
yeah and with all of the BDSM references for master/slave LAST time around...
I still think Tori and Uke would get past the radar. They're Judo terms. Judo. 'Tori' literally means 'bird' and is the person doing the throw (also according to the web page from the verb 'toru' which has a meaning of take or pick up or choose - but if you've ever had a bird steal your food, it makes sense). 'Uke' means 'receiver' more or less and is the person being thrown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tori_(martial_arts)
any OTHER connotation, political or sexual, was (*cough*) accidental.
/me thinks "at least I didn't say 'tops' and 'bottoms' - no, wait..."
"start using the 'n' word more. It just means black person."
Uh, no. Direct racial epithets aren't the same thing as the use of the term 'master' and/or 'slave' with respect to one another in a technical context.
[but maybe you made a good point anyway, in a backwards kind of way - 'master' and 'slave' aren't racial epithets unless you WANT them to be, so that you can control other people's speech or something]
Oh, come on now... at least point out something we can snark at, not just make fun of their name and use profanity.
Like maybe that they treat end-users like Minions instead of Customers, by FORCING us into 2D Flatso, spyware, adware, forced updates, strong-armed 'Cloudy Login', 'the Store', yotta yotta. And being their QA department.
"The next time these chuckleheads boast about their quarterly profits, remember part of that largess comes at the expense of having anything resembling a responsible QA process."
cannot be emphasized enough
(insiders and end users - those are the new 'QA department', with forced updates to perpetuate it)
Microsoft does not do "testing" any more. It's why they have minions insiders.
And they probably don't have a sense of humor, either.
Hey Micro-shaft: it's ready AIM fire, not ready FIRE aim. Or, in your case, patch, TEST, upload to servers, not what YOU did: patch, upload to servers, test.
Well, that's right - you don't do "test" any more! So you REALLY did patch, upload [no test].
icon, because, facepalm for the OBVIOUS 'lameness' of this moment
this problem was solved in the 1960's during the Gemini program. They also had a drill-operated wrench, if I remember correctly. the back story, as I recall, was that they put a test rig filled with typical operations like turning wrenches and screwdrivers and using a drill into the back end of a gemini capsule where it had an equipment space set up for this kind of thing. An astronaut went outside in a suit and tried to do all that, but failed miserably. Then NASA came up with a brilliant plan of using a swimming pool to simulate zero gravity [which they've been doing ever since]. They rehearsed the mission, and tried it again, this time successful.
Anyway, a bit of NASA history from the dark spider-webbed recesses of my mind.
also mentioned (sort of) here
The swimming pool helped them 'get it right' with Gemini XII
who was trying to plug a leak by drilling down to where the leak was so he could put some kind of leak-stopping material in there. the hole would've been considered 'benign' and apparently it was covered up so it couldn't easily be seen.
Then, the patch that was made on Earth failed, causing the recent leakage. Their fix was kinda like what I propose the original fix was - inject something into the hole to stop the leak, and cover it up.
Occam's razor in this case.
(not nearly as interesting as snarking all over it and pointing fingers and conspiracy theories)
"Washington Post claims president Trump is a sorcerer creating storms."
you know, that's worth a pause for thought, at least...
when you take *THIS* kind of lunacy into consideration, and apparently from all angles [except Fox and a handful of others], is it any wonder Trump is 'a little unhappy' with 'the media' ? They've been filtering out all of the good things he's done (economy, trade, N. Korea, etc.) and only reporting what they perceive to be the bad, mixed with obviously biased opinions, continuously, for the last 2+ years, worse than they ever did to Nixon as far as I remember - admittedly being a snark-meister is more fun, but they are being at least a *little* irresponsible, ya know?
Oh, and the new Amazon location is possibly the one here in the San Diego area. They're apparently looking to hire 'DevOps' people. One of the ads I saw practically begged people to come work for a 'socially conscious' company or something like that. I think I'd rather sleep at night, thanks (and keep my stomach contents on the inside where they belong). If the benefit for working at Amazon is working for a 'socially conscious' company, I have to consider some of the recent news about Google where they (*LITERALLY*) did a big 'group hug' in response to Trump being elected, and someone recently leaked the video to Breitbart.
In the past, certain 'Silly Valley' companies have been reported to have colluded together to drive down wages with secret 'do not recruit' pacts, and to use H1-B visas to hire foreign workers and kinda 'trap them here' so they can pay them less and drive the wage scale down. Trump's approach to immigration threatens this kind of thing [which is good, because nobody outside of 'them' likes wage manipulation].
Couple that with some of the 'big tech' company policies with countries like China (Google helping the 'great firewall' to block content, for example, something called 'Dragonfly') ya think maybe *THAT* kind of thing is ultimately why a lot of these very wealthy "tech" CEOs don't like Trump??? Trump is in their way for driving down wages and controlling the flow of information and goods here in the U.S. (and of course 'the world'). And apparently they're 'globalists' and Trump is 'America First'. It's an obvious divide in politics that can't be crossed.
So yeah, maybe Amazon's CEO should review his own company policies, and remove the obvious blinding 'log' from his own eye, before trying to remove the spec of sawdust from Trump's eye. Yeah, that was in the bible someplace, an illustration about hypocrisy.
I 'outgrew' '.Not' back in the early noughties, when they thought it up.
I just do a native compile. Seems to go blisteringly fast, too. It's WAY better than some p-code wannabe that's part of ".Not". Bleah. Throw it away along with 'garbage collection' and the bass-ackwards pseudo-object-oriented way of doing things that's so "core" to ".Not".
I mean, do you REALLY need "Universe.Galaxy.system.planet.continent.country.province" <line break> ".county.city.district.street.house.pet.flea" just to get to "flea"? beginning by enumerating the 'universe' collection? And getting EVERY! STINKING! DETAIL! about EVERY! OTHER! FLEA! during the enumeration to find the matching flea? Seriously?
OK maybe not THAT bad, but it was an illustration of the bass-ackwards thinking behind ".Not"s very design. Thanks, I'll use API functions instead, and write efficient C/C++ code that compiles to a NATIVE BINARY and doesn't need a MONOLITHIC TOP-HEAVY SHARED LIB [that gets updated _ALL_ of the time because it's so flawed] just to LOAD [let alone RUN].
[and - dirty little secret - if I design my C++ code properly, I can compile it for MFC _or_ wxWidgets with the SAME! CODE! BASE! Imagine that!]
"Windows 10 is worse than shite. It's broken to the point of being utterly useless."
well, I couldn't go THAT far and remain accurate. It's not 'utterly useless'. IRRITATING for sure. But, unfortunately, people really ARE able to use it to get things done. Except during certain phases of the mandatory updates. [and I don't want to schedule my life around Micro-shaft's convenience, thank you]
I still despise Win-10-nic and the horrible attitudes of those who continue to try to force-market and strong-arm us into it.
there are a handful of people, admittedly, who actually _LIKE_ windows 10. What *REALLY* *PISSES* *ME* *OFF* is how *THAT* is used to *JUSTIFY* *CRAMMING* *IT* *INTO* *THE* *REST* *OF* *OUR* *RECTUMS* because Micro-shaft and a small percentage of windows users *FEEL* it is better, and so the *REST* of us *MUST* *USE* *IT* *TOO*.
taking away choice is BAD customer relations. It's more like... *A* *MONOPOLY* !!!
"running software that only runs on Windows"
In many cases, this is easily rectified. In a few cases, sadly, it is not. However, alternatives most likely exist. I think it was said best when Ernie Ball got one of those "predatory audits" back in the _very_ early noughties, and has been "Rockin' on without Microsoft" ever since.
link: "https://www.cnet.com/news/rockin-on-without-microsoft/" (I hate captcha, using 'a' tags forced it to happen, go fig, I'm not a bot, and 'noscript' breaks captcha anyway)
According to the article, Ernie Ball (the company) saved about $80k 'right away', nearly paying the $100k fine+costs. No doubt he's got 'a fleet' of computers, people who need to be trained to use them, etc..
Yeah, "not that hard". No thanks for the FUD. here's a nice example of why Linux is a viable (and in this case, WAY less expensive) solution. Worth pointing out they use a commercial Linux (RH). Imagine what kind of money (and maybe even time!) you might save by using CentOS or a Debian derivative [including Devuan] and just having Linux-savvy IT on the premises.
"SatNad and his crew in Redmond get more like [Big Brother] each and every day"
Like that graphic with Bill G. as Locutus of Borg. It's been happening for a while. SatNad is just the latest. I would say 'Borg Queen' but that has so many alternate implications I figured I'd leave that one alone... oops, too late.
When i went to check on a security vulnerability yesterday, I had to load the MS link for the CVE in a separate security context and process incarnation of firefox that allows script AND cookies [and then dumps it all when I close it - ha ha]. Upon loading the MS link for the CVE report, which basically didn't tell me anything useful, I had to AGREE to their TOU for some @#$% reason...
just how far are they gonna TAKE that #&%$ anyway?
I might give them a nice slow-clap for that.
In the mean time, all of that "special attention" to UWP, when practically NOBODY actually doing that, can only be driven by some kind of internal agenda to cram UWP "development' into our body orifices.
Isn't that "special" !
However, being able to 'go back a line' sounds like a cool feature. Too bad I'll be sticking with the last DevStudio I'll ever need (2010) because everything SINCE then has the 2D FLATSO, UWP, Metro, and so on look, even on 7. And I might have to re-learn how to NOT have ".Not" be a dependency of your project. There were several steps to ensure that in 2010, and MFC is becoming more and more bloated as time moves forward, and static linking (to me) is MANDATORY for all too many reasons.
I'd just like it if the 'class wizard' and dialog editor interfaces went *BACK* to the way it was in 1998... if you are a typist, and don't like lifting your hand off of home row to mousie-clickie-mousie-clickie, you'll know what I mean. I __**REALLY**__ __**DESPISE**__ the VB-ish 'property' things. "Cumbersome" is an understatement.
(and don't even get me STARTED on ANYTHING that tries to type things in for me... at least I can shut that OFF)
/me observes there's really only ONE feature I REALLY like about DevStudio. It's been around since "Programmer's Workbench". 'Virtual Space'. ALL editors need that!!!
there was a bit of a flap over 'beastie' the FreeBSD mascott. Some FUD went around [and I fell for it...] regarding the logo change, that it was some kind of P.C. thing. Well 'Beastie' is still 'the mascott' but yeah the logo changed to a ball with horns.
that being said there were a lot of us "spun up" over the potential of P.C. screwing things up for 'most people' at the benefit of a very small, vocal, minority of overly-sensitive SJW types. So yeah. Sick of it for over a decade.
"I'd like to see your alternatives, just in case I find any of them offensive."
I already posted my alternatives, and people might find them uproariously funny [as well as offensive]
to add to that list: Top / Bottom
(or you could do 'Top Dog' / 'Under Dog' - heh heh heh)
with careful consideration and a complete irreverance for this kind of 'social justice' idiocy, all *kinds* of fun 'equivalent' comparative terms may develop!
ack on the 'downhill'. P.C. and 'hurt feelings' don't belong in tech.
But if they don't like master/slave, how about:
a) dominant / submissive
b) sadist / masochist
c) Tori / Uke (Judo terms. Judo.)
d) Giver / Goatse
e) Boss / You
f) Microsoft / Everyone Else
and so on. heh.
"The foundation perpetuates an elitist attitude that no one can do things as well as they can"
this IS a discussion about the Raspberry Pi, right?
I haven't found any of what you said to be true. Maybe some time surfing around the web site would be a good idea.
Sometimes the info you want _IS_ hard to find, but if you surf around a bit you'll eventually get to it. "Poorly indexed" might be a good criticism to use, and it's obviously not done deliberately.
Some links on their web site lead more down rabbit holes than to useful information. Yeah, that's irritating. Eventually you find the right set of pages and links and VOILA it's all there! Or at least most of it. Then you download the broadcom CPU docs and surf around other sites like elinux.org and sometimes their info isn't 100% accurate, so you occasionally tear out your hair over it, but in general, it's pretty good docs for something this inexpensive and flexible.
the fan may be a necessity with certain Pi versions, having that circuit board over the top of the 'otherwise open' ventilation space for the CPU...
Otherwise, it's probably cheaper to get a simple $10 PoE adaptor on amazon [several versions exist at around the same price with very good reviews], one of the 'wye splitter' variety at any rate. [yeah this was discussed on IRC last week, along with links to one particular device that fits the category of what I just said].
but PoE is less important (to me) than having a proper power/shutdown switch... and yeah external boards exist for that, too.
with respect to 'safe surfing' practices, how many times have _I_ been DOWN voted for saying things like this?
With respect to CVE-2018-8475 at least:
a) do NOT surf the web logged in with admin or root credentials
b) do NOT use a Micro-shaft browser
c) if possible, do NOT surf the web with a MICROSOFT OS
e) do NOT view mail "as HTML", and especially do NOT preview images 'inline'.
(see? see? see????)
e) run 'noscript' or other script blocker BY DEFAULT
f) never "just open" the attachment to an e-mail [even if you know the sender]
and so on.
I ALSO expect that ad servers, image-related blog sites, spam mail with images embedded in them, and even web pages on places like 'deviantart' and 'imgur' and so forth can become VECTORS for the exploit.
And it's very difficult to get *DETAILS* on this one, meaning it's probably VERY bad, enough that search engines are maybe DELIBERATELY keeping us from [easily] finding those places where it's properly explained... [my 'google fu' is usually pretty good, but not with THIS, not THIS time]
yeah a little paranoia, and a *BIG* *FAT* "see I told you so" on the SAFE SURFING!!! because, even if they SAY it is patched, what OTHER similar vulnerabilities are STILL THERE waiting to be found???
[sloppy coding is as sloppy coding does]
I have to wonder what percent of the total cost of a Cisco router is affected by this...
But it _DOES_ suggest that relying on "single source" for parts is _BAD_ [even if it's cheap].
I've seen an illegal knockoff built in China before. An antenna company I worked at had an antenna that was potted in plastic. Cleverly they had etched the company logo into the antenna design (removing it would affect antenna performance). The knockoff had the same antenna logo on the copper, underneath the plastic, but it was kinda 'rough' like they'd used an X ray to clone it. The antennas WERE being made in China at that time, and so the existence of knockoffs were COMPLETELY undeniable. And this was around 10 years ago.
I suggest that companies in the UK get some 'lights out' factories built. As long as it's cheaper to hire "pile of bodies" in China to work for slave wages to build our stuff, companies will do that. When it becomes economically viable to NOT do that, i.e. with robots doing the tedious manual labo[u]r, and a lack of tarriffs, shorter lead times, cheaper shipping costs, etc. to go with it, using LOCAL sources for at least PART of the product will make a whole lot more sense.
I doubt China's chip foundries are any better than those in other places in the world, including Japan, UK, and USA, just cheaper cost. They've actually done things pretty smart, trying to get the entire supply chain 'over there' so they can reduce costs. Inventory is expensive. So having all of that 'in one place' shortens lead times and maximizes supply-chain flexibility.
On the other hand, what they're doing with their trade and IP policies is NOT smart. Angering your customers is bad policy. IP theft angers customers. 'Predatory practices' angers customers. 'Retaliatory tarriffs' angers customers as well. But the government ultimately runs the show, and they're not capitalists, they're neo-communists, and so their thinking process is tainted by their politics.
Maybe a clue-bat is required?
exactly. I think it proves how desperate that certain Demo[n][c,R]ats like Booker and Kamala are. Consider also how certain Demo[n][c,R]ats literally invited disruptive protesters to the hearings (it's the only way they could have gotten in; and 50 or so arrests were made as I recall)
Now they apparently have in their hands a "gotcha" e-mail [that isn't, but they're claiming it is], because they want to do what an aggressive prosecutor would do to someone using a "process crime" sting, i.e. trap someone into "lying" under oath ('I did not do this', followed by the paper copy 'evidence' and the subsequent 'process crime' arrest) in order to coerce a guilty plea to some low-level process crime, and THEN get that person to 'sing' or 'compose' against someone else, etc. to stay out of prison [what they sometimes do to members of organized crime syndicates, for example].
In any case, reading the El Reg article is the first I've heard of it. I think if it were a big deal, a big deal would've been made of this by now. [it's still interesting info, but not compelling]
Apparently the e-mail is real. That deserves an explanation [not fingers pointing and accusations]. However, I can't remember what I e-mailed last year, let alone 2001, and we don't even know what the context is! And without the context, you really don't have a "lie" if, as in the title, it was a response to various hypothetical questions.
icon, because, facepalm all of this. Booker and Kamala are way out in 'cloud cuckooland' as far as I'm concerned. Anything they say or do is tainted, by definition.
this reflects the same problems with the FCC and the 'do not call list' in the USA. My numbers have been on that list since it began. I still get occasional robocalls [which are illegal in their own right] in addition to what appear to be actual humans cold-calling me for what they believe to be a legit reason...
I do have one 'confirmed kill' though: a solar company in Orange County. I got the Better Business Bureau involved, and 2 months later an apology e-mail from them (via the BBB). They were caught, they knew it, I could've pressed it further (and their e-mail expressed minor regret and a lot of finger-pointing at their advertising/marketing firm) and unfortunately most of the calls nowadays are robocalls and only have a "press 1 to speak with an operator" and no other identifying information...
"Shouldn't that mean that they're all free of regulations now "
I wouldn't mind THAT happening at ALL! With cell phone coverage nearly everwhere, there's sufficient competition for POTS to warrant more de-regulation. The only reason for regulating it before was that a single company typically served up an area, so it's a kind of monopoly in that sense. What you'd end up seeing is more cell phone carriers providing 'primary service' to residential and business customers, in lieu of physical phone lines, and the local phone companies busy trying to get their business back through more competitive options. Or I'd like to think so. [sometimes it's a crap shoot, but odds seem to be that you usually roll a 7 at the right time]
OK maybe SOME regulations need to remain, to keep land lines from being 'not fixed' for extended periods of time, like happened to me, 3 weeks without land-line nor intarwebs, due to a storm etc. (techs were just BUSY). THAT SUCKED. And it had happened a few times before, too. Turned out one of the splice boxes had a pinched wire in it, and it was MY wire, and it corroded to the point it just freaking broke. Naturally, it was the one my pathetic DSL is on. But I digress...
in any case if phone companies were required to hire consultants to get service calls completed with, let's say, 3 days, it might make things nicer, and possibly not cost more (since it is a rare occurrence). But a nice 'quid pro quo' would be the other de-regulation. So there ya go.
FYI - in the USA, doing 'anti-competitive' things like "hobbling access to save their phone service", would get you indicted/punished under various anti-Trust and similar laws.
given that, a lack of what you perceive "net neutrality" to be isn't going to make a difference. These things will STILL be illegal. we don't need overlapping laws that have unwanted consequences to fix an incorrectly perceived problem that's already covered by EXISTING law.
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