* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Software development slow because 'Most of our ideas suck'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Flowcharts

actually, for most things, 'structure diagrams' replaced flowcharts a long time ago. It's part of the whole "top down programming" thing, which [of course] is *SUPERIOR* to whatever horrible "most of our ideas suck" process that generates things like Win-10-nic, FF Australis, gnome 3, systemd, ...

(that is because top down methodology defines the actual functionality FIRST, instead of moving the target continuously until you feel like you're "done")

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: What's missing in this commentary

The difference between good and bad ideas is whether or not they bring benefit to the customer.

Heh, you must be OLD [like me]

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: "Safe experimentation"

Only companies like Micro-shaft [with their forced updates and "up"grades] do 'continuous experimentation' on the unwitting public. Thing is, they all *FAILED* but nobody's willing to admit it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Precious

I prefer the one in the title: 'Most of our ideas suck'

Systemd is ONE of those that suck. So's the 2D FLATSO crap (including Australis). And yet, these ideas that SUCK have been foisted upon us, the customers, by aggressive "developers" who fail to realize that THEIR IDEAS SUCK.

Perhaps they need to stop trying to solve problems that do NOT exist? Oh but THEN their very existence wouldn't be JUSTIFIED and SMUG MILLENIALS wouldn't be able to CRAM THEIR CRAPWARE into our collective orifices, because they *FEEL* it's better, and it makes THEM FEEL GOOD to do it!

Yeah, it's all about "the feel" with those idiots. I'm glad someone's being HONEST about "most of our ideas suck" for once.

Old school inventors already knew this - I have to wonder how many times Edison tried to make a light bulb work by trying hundreds of configurations before he found one (carbon), which wasn't even the BEST material [but was the first one that worked well enough].

Net neutrality is saved in Senate vote! No, not really, it was a giant waste of everyone's time

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

actual legislation, not regulatory gerrymandering

is what is really needed. Obaka's FCC should NEVER have simply reclassified internet as a 1930's era telephone, and Pai is 100% correct to abandon that stupidity.

Con-grab needs to do THEIR job and address the issues properly, through a legislative process, and NOT an unconstitutional Obaka-era-style bureaucratic POWER GRAB.

And that was one of _MY_ main points from the beginning. but this was NEVER about 'net neutrality'. It was about REGULATORY POWER GRABS, and CIRCUMVENTING the legislative process, something OBAKA was INfamous for doing.

Oh, great, now there's a SECOND remote Rowhammer exploit

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

this sounds like you'd need to know something about the hardware

I suspect that direct access to the network is one of the pre-requisites, and with direct network access you'd be able to determine what hardware is being run [more or less] based on its MAC address.

However, I'd doubt any kind of proof of concept working across "teh intarwebs", even with a super-fast fiber line and distributed attack.

subsequent edit. From the linked article (PDF):

To induce the Rowhammer bug, one needs to access memory in the main memory repeatedly and, thus, needs to circumvent the cache. Therefore, either native flush in-structions [87], eviction [4, 28] or uncached memory [84] can be used to remove data from the cache. In particular, for eviction-based Nethammer, the system must use Intel CAT as described in Section 2.3 in a configuration that restricts the number of ways available to a virtual machine in a cloud scenario to guarantee performance to other co-located machines [40]. If none of these capabilities are available over the network, an attacker could not mount Nethammer in practice.

Boffins build smallest drone to fly itself with AI

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

"HydroElectric dams produce a shit load of power and are pretty darned reliable."

And are cost effective. /me likes hydro power.

But good luck getting one built, these days. Enviro-wackos will red-tape your project into non-existence.

Wait until the enviro-wackos start objecting about solar farms and windmills. No, wait...

https://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds

[the only thing that will make enviro-wackos happy is if we ALL STOP using electricity and fossil fuels, period, and live like LUDDITES and/or Amish - except for them - because they're "the elite" and are "special" and it's OK when THEY "do whatever", it's just the REST of us that have to be inconvenienced, stopped, controlled, whatever]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: re: Dodgy Geezer

I'd rather have NUCLEAR than solar. MORE POWER!

And fusion energy (potentially) allows us to have virtually unlimited fuel, assuming you can make it fuse with 1H and not require 2H or 3H or something else.

The 1H+1H->2H fusion reaction has very little mass defect, but doesn't really consume any energy, so it should be possible to have 'breeder' fusion along with 2H+2H->4He fusion for power. Until then, we can use a centrifuge to separate out the heavy water and still be cost effective (and have LOTS of fuel available).

In any case, i just want the cost of energy to be lower, so if solar is actually cheaper [not because of gummint taxes and regulations and subsidies, either] then use it. Otherwise, burn dinosaurs and ancient plants. And nuclear fission, too. Whatever costs the least, doesn't force rolling blackouts or 'conservation' or any other inconvenience, etc..

After all, why should MODERN people in 1st world countries live like they're in 3rd world countries? if you run out, MAKE MORE (note: this does NOT mean 'pollute everything' so you anti-tech fascists can't say it now, bleah). And tell the enviro-wackies to GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY and stop blocking construction projects.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

7 minutes' flight? That's still not bad, though battery tech now becomes the limiter, and not the electronics or programming.

the solar panel can be in the docking station. then you can make it as big as you want.

Agile development exposed as techie superstition

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Let's get rid of these myth too

"10x programmer"

no, that would be me. The secret to being a 10x developer is to get as much done in as short of a period of time as you can, so that you'll be left alone to work independently on "the hard stuff".

So if you come in and there's a backlog of things that need to get done, you hit them in order of 'easy to hard', with some "high priority" items stuck near the top so that people are happy with you. not only do you look as if you're DOING SOMETHING, you earn the freedom to approach things your own way, because it WORKS.

Then, when you've reached that difficult thing, you can spend time on that as you need to, because everything else got done. You can explain how hard it is, and maybe break it up into smaller goals that you can get as many as possible "done" within a short period of time, so it looks like you're busy and good at what you do.

Interestingly, when you reach a major roadblock, that requirement might end up being removed, when other people see how much effort is required. They get used to getting things done, too. Everybody wins.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Agile, another idea sold to the weak minded

upvote for the title

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Another Speaker talking without experience

"I simply feel"

got my downvote. just being honest.

The problem with Agile appears to *BE* "feel". Instead of 'think'. Or study. Or analyze. Or 'manage'.

My number one example of this: The 'scrum' meeting in which everybody gets to have their 'say', including the PFY that wants to feel good about himself and his ideas. I've seen it before, and it was a disaster, when "junior guy" convinces "manager" that HIS idea is a good one, and then "manager" tells "senior people" to do it the way the PFY wants it done, amidst objection, but he's the boss. etc.

because, *feel* instead of think. A proper manager would NEVER allow THAT to happen. But it does.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: Thank the heavens

"the rest of us have to work in teams - typically with a wide range of skill, experience and frankly basic engineering talent."

This is where proper management comes into play, and a 'top down' method is superior: you define the requirements, put one member 'in charge' of the sub-tasking, and hand off "the task" to them in a way that stays out of other people's sandbox as much as possible. 'The Manager' would then be in charge of anything that crosses into other sandboxes. The manager would also assign the teams.

Competent management makes this possible. A lack of competent management may be the ROOT of why 'agile' was *FELT* to be "the right thing to do" (in a kind of 'straw' test case). Results, predictable.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Thank the heavens

On the surface, 'Agile' sounds more like 'affiliation' management style, rather than a proper top-down 'delegator' style. Even a dictatorial 'authoritarian' style would be better [since directions and specifications are more likely to be clear, and not moving all of the time].

As opposed to what FRagile appears to be, an affiliation-based collective with a "let's just have a meeting and that will solve it" approach, because PFY *must* have ideas that are as good as grey-beard-ent engineers, because, FRagile. And meetings fix EVERYTHING!

/me once wrote a proof of concept in ~8 weeks [total effort], a linux kernel module, that was used as the demo for a new software product that was being worked on by 3 people (manager, senior eng, junior eng) for a *YEAR* and they STILL didn't finish, so they asked me to come back into that project [when junior guy was getting laid off] and basically 'get it working'. I saw the manager's door closed a LOT during that year, while the 3 of them wasted endless time in 'meetings' and I worked on a bunch of 'other things'. And I heard senior engineer trying NOT to complain, but throwing his hands in the air [effectively] at what "was decided" by the other two. A LOT. He did what he was told. Can't expect much else, really.

And, the talk when they started? How great 'agile' was and how they wanted to implement it in this project!

I've been told that what THEY ACTUALLY DID was not "agile" but who knows, maybe it really _was_...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Agile is b*llocks. Any non-idiot knows this.

I call it "Fr"agile. Because it broke down so very often.

There should be a requirement to use "the hacker term" whenever possible. It usually lacks the ironic, oxymoronic, and/or "market speak" overtone, replacing it with a more accurate (and humorous) term.

'Agile' - like someone who's told to "dance" in an old western (while bad guy shoots at his feet)

To upper level management and marketeers [that want to drive development], it must sound like a MIRACLE!

To the rest of us, it sounds like "endless boring meetings" "last minute overtime crunches" "spinning compass direction guessing" and "getting yelled at a lot for being unable to meet expectations".

etc.

Pointless US Congress net neutrality vote will take place tomorrow!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: bob the bot-herder

I don't look like a bot when I look into a mirror. Strangely I'm being accused of being one.

I just don't tow the liberal-lefty-line. Maybe everyone *ELSE* is a bot... [and based on what we see in social media in general, according to the 'Russian Collusion' investigation, using bots to make one person look like "a swarm" is commonplace]

but I figure the "howler monkey" downvotes are either bots OR collusion. Or both. HA HA HA HA HA!

Seriously, I sometimes think that commenters are being hired by organizations like "Media Matters" to individually comment so they don't LOOK like bots. Those of us who are conservative, true libertarians, or simply "disagree" with the politically correct socialist viewpoint, get *PUMMELLED* all of the time by the gang-up bullying LEFTISTS (aka 'howler monkeys' slinging poo).

That's ok, like Trump, I'll just throw it back at 'em.

(my 'fan club' can find me on USENET, too)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"He is an embarrassment to America"

you meant OBAMA is an embarassment to America. I had to tolerate that [insert pejoratives here] for 8 years. FINALLY there is SOMEONE who does what _I_ want done in the White House!!!

So yeah, I'm pretty stoked that Trump is President.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

"all the things the Trump administration has foisted on the US populace"

like, BETTER ECONOMY, FEWER REGULATIONS, LOWER TAXES, MORE JOBS, LOWEST UNEMPLOYMENT RATES *EVAR* FOR MINORITIES and WOMEN, ...

I do not think that word 'foisted' means what you think it means.

But as for 'net neutrality' (the ironically named attempt at gummint control of content on "teh intarwebs"), *THAT* in and of itself (aka 'net neutrality') is "the pointless thing".

Google shoots Chrome 66's silencer after developer backlash

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Options

"I'd quite like an option."

I'd like options for a LOT of things, including turning off the 2D FLATSO appearance and getting an actual MENU back [i.e. desktop friendly, not fat-finger-feel-screen-friendly].

but auto-play videos should be "handle-able" with a simple user-maintainable white-list of sites you want to allow this for. yeah, too much user-customization, not a "one size fits all" so-called "solution". can't have THAT. no, no, users are IDIOTS and we KNOW BEST here at Google!!!

Void Linux gave itself to the void, Korora needs a long siesta – life is hard for small distros

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Open Source monetary contributions

in a lot of cases, if there's a non-profit organization (or for-profit, for that matter) that can fund it, that's one way to do it. Your dev work is billed to the foundation/company/whatever.

actually that'd be a nice way of getting an income, for popular tools, even if it's just for weekend work. but I'd guess that [unless a company has a direct interest in the tool's success] it's generally done as volunteer work because the dev wants it.

yeah open source revenue models are somewhat unique in that way...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Luddite OS

for those of us who don't want:

a) systemd

b) anything else "poettering"

c) mono/dot-net-core/whatever-they-wanna-call-it-tomorrow

d) wayland

e) 2D FLATSO "chrome-ishness"

f) slab-friendly desktop-hostile

and whatever NEW "new, shiny" that smug millenial "developers" excrete over the next few years (and subsequently try to JAM UP OUR AS DOWN OUR THROATS)

The name itself would preclude all of the usual arrogant millienial smug-monkey-poo-throwing pejoratives, almost DARING them to use "such terms" to describe 'the rest of us'.

I bet it would be popular, too. Like Devuan. In fact, I just replaced the OS on a Debian jessie box with devuan, using 'apt-get dist-upgrade', with very few issues - they were cleaned up by running aptitude a few times to get rid of systemd entirely and then re-install mate. Working fine now.

Bowel down: Laxative brownies brought to colleague's leaving bash

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Giving a crap

someone had the guts...

America's forgotten space station and a mission tinged with urine, we salute you

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: "Could have been used to feed hungry people"

"The list of tech that owes it's existence to the early program is a real eye opener"

I can't give you enough thumbs up for saying this! And yes, the "collateral benefits" of NASA and the space program in general is hard to 'dollarize' but I would expect it to be a NET BENEFIT. It "gave back".

After all - with all of that money we bought rockets and blasted them into space. We got what we paid for. Imagine what we'd have got if we'd paid for something that DOES NOT GIVE BACK...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I hope..

"could have been used to feed hungry people"

WAS used to HIRE hungry people (to build rockets, etc.). then they can FEED THEMSELVES instead of requiring some form of charity [whether voluntarily given or FORCIBLY TAKEN from taxPAYERS].

there. I said it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: the final crewed mission of the Mercury programme

I'll say 'manned' because

a) it's politically incorrect

b) it's true (there WAS 'a man' aboard)

c) Proper grammar defaults to male pronouns, etc. when sex is indeterminate or unimportant. See 'a'

/me wonders why the 'pee' problem in Gordo's flight was never mentioned in "The Right Stuff".

(my 'mailman' is a woman)

Android devs prepare to hit pause on ads amid Google GDPR chaos

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: "personalised ad" stuff is absolute nonsense.

ads within applications [and operating systems - Microshaft] is JUST! PLAIN! WRONG!

[I will not download nor use 'adware']

I can tolerate web site ads when a) they're part of my shopping [like amazon, target, etc.] or b) they're not IN MY FACE so I can ignore them if I want [like ads have been in newspapers forever].

Beyond that is irritating, and you don't want to irritate your potential customers.

Julian Assange said to have racked up $5m security bill for Ecuador

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Heroes

well, if they ARE heroes, maybe people would fund them with a 'go fund me' kind of campaign? At least they could pay back the Ecuadorians for the extra security costs...

UPnP joins the 'just turn it off on consumer devices, already' club

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

UPnP - insecure out of the box

one of the worst designs in UPnP would be the ability of a client to open up a port in any firewall configured for UPnP. In other words, if NAT was (at one time) protecting a computer from being a listening port on "teh intarwebs" for command/control, guess what? UPnP makes that possible, too.

So many levels of wrong. So many security craters. Why is it even "a feature" on routers?

/me thinks we can blame Micro-shaft, somehow...

icon, because, facepalm

Date engraved onto net neutrality tombstone: June 11, 2018

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: "Light touch regulation" - where did that get us before?

"It lead directly to the sub-prime mortgage f*** up"

No. that was caused by SPECIFIC regulations that (essentially) told banks to lend money to people who couldn't afford to re-pay them, because, political correctness and affirmative action and other similar feely things.

Link to Article

"a federal program that ordered banks to lend money to people that had no way of paying it back, lend money to people that didn’t have to take a credit test and pass it, lend money to people that everybody knew would never pay it back"

"There was a thing called the Community Reinvestment Act. It was originally proposed by Jimmy Carter, but it sort of languished after Carter proposed it. Bill Clinton in 1998 rejuvenated it, reignited it, as a means of distracting people from the Lewinski scandal."

"Community Reinvestment Act was a plan designed to get people into houses who had no business being in houses ’cause they couldn’t afford them. " " The banks were under federal orders to do it."

"most of the beneficiaries in the subprime mortgage were minorities. Racial minorities. So, anyway, millions of people who could not afford bank loans were given them, and they went out and bought houses. This led to the utter crash of the housing market."

"The banks, working with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, packaged these worthless mortgages into pools of worthless mortgages and called them mortgage-backed securities, and sold them — under false premises, essentially."

"The banks foisted off worthless paper to people who didn’t know what they were buying until they figured it out."

"That bunch of people decided to repackage them as something else and sell them again, and all the while they were insured by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Worthless paper, worthless loans that everybody knew were worthless kept being passed down to other investors until finally there were no more saps left to buy them and that’s when the crash happened and that is the Cliffs Notes version of what happened"

Rush says it better than I could.

(I wonder if this one will exceed my current downvote record, near the top of the comments - currently at 70 downvotes! Heh, I must be doing something "right" [wing])

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Senate Vote

"Unfettered capitalism leads to greater extremes between haves and have-nots"

according to the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. I don't believe that kind of propoganda. You should've been honest and said "bourgeoisie" and "proletariat" instead of "haves" and "have nots". I know what you REALLY meant.

So, when tax rate and regulation reduction happens, the economy DOES BETTER, and the results over the last year and a half have been IMPRESSIVE at the least. How is THAT compared to the OPPOSITE happening (you know, like under OBAKA)?

I'm quite happy with Trump right now, and look forward to MORE. And that includes the de-regulation of the internet by the FCC, aka no more [ironically named] "net neutrality" [which was just a feely-named power grab to CONTROL communication by bureaucrats].

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Senate Vote

Trump wouldn't sign a re-instatement of net neutrality (as defined by OBAKA's FCC) because it quite literally OVERSTEPS what the FCC was intended to do. Saying that the internet is now "a phone" based on 1930's era legislation and regulations is just plain stupid. And 'net neutrality' isn't about making your bandwidth better, either. And that's the point. It was nothing more than a regulatory agency POWER GRAB. Trump knows it, Pai knows it, and a majority of people in the USA know it.

As for states attempting to enact their own 'net neutrality', consider who's doing it: Cali-fornicate-you, for example, where the state legislature has basically gone INSANE from requiring all new houses to have solar panels to banning plastic bags at the grocery store, enacting their OWN version of "cap and trade", and restricting EVERYBODY's lawn watering to twice a week (basically causing it to die), because they have to send the state's drinking water down the Sacramento river to "save the fish" (in particular, delta smelt, more important than humans I guess).

There are a few leftist enclaves out there, where the 2016 revolt wasn't enough. Hopefully 2018 *WILL* be, at least in Cali-fornicate-you.

Did I say Chinese jobs? I meant American jobs says new Trump Tweet

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Art of the Deal

how Trump operates.

How many ways can a PDF mess up your PC? 47 in this Adobe update alone

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

who still uses Adobe anyway?

especially true on Linux, BSD systems

atril works pretty well for me. [evince now enforces 2D flatso look last I checked, won't touch with 10 foot pole]

(I had to go back and check what it was they did - was thinking '.Not' but it was a gtk 3 2d flatso look that irritated me)

Cheap-ish. Not Intel. Nice graphics. Pick, er, 3: AMD touts Ryzen Pro processors for business

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Microsoft priority for "business" ryzen flawed

also, from the article: "a string of promises to big biz"

Does this mean I won't be able to SHUT OFF the remote management crap? NOT being able to do so is a huge 'deal breaker' with me. Although, a lack of Linux/BSD compatibility is a true deal-killer.

Virtue singing – Spotify to pull hateful songs and artists

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

well, Vivaldi was accused of having a somewhat scandalous relationship with a teenage opera singer [for whom he apparently wrote several operas for her to sing in]. He denied everything, of course, but who knows... and nowadays, isn't JUST A SCANDAL reason enough to BAN and DEFAME people? yeah, 'trial by fake news' indeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Gir%C3%B2

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: dangerous policy

"Banning recordings based on the content"

It makes me ask what their standard is - a subjective "feel" (that includes the political and/or religious bias of the reviewer), or a set of clear guidelines that are viewable online?

I expect the 'feel' part because it EMPOWERS THEM more. A bit of payola to 'decide differently' maybe?

Muse's "Uprising" - how would they view THAT one?

Or, how about some retro punk from Star Trek IV (NSFW)? [that song was allegedly written and performed for the movie]

There are clearly songs about killing cops, sexually abusing women, etc. that have gotten airplay for DECADES, so I wonder if a right-leaning political commentary song would be considered "hate" but those other examples would NOT be... by left-leaning "moderators".

Dangerous policy indeed. We already KNOW what Faece-b[ook,itch] did to Diamond and Silk [referenced in a congressional hearing, even!] and I would venture to guess that Spotify will continue "more of the same". (t's how they think out there in Silly Valley, or in the case of Spotify, Sweden), after all...

/me points out that in 2002, shortly after Sweden added "sexual orientation" to the list of things towards which there could be 'hate speech', a Swedish pastor was charged with the crime of 'hate speech' because of a sermon. I guess he was reading from Genesis about Sodom and Gomorrha or something. Whatever. Point is, the conviction WAS overturned, but it's the fact they CHARGED the guy with 'hate speech' for preaching his religion...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85ke_Green

Not like he's the Westboro Baptist "Church" or anything.

On a side note, /me points out that, according to christianity, sin is universal, and really no one sin is worse than another (they're all bad). So assuming homosexual behavior is a sin, so is lying. And that's so universally practiced that EVERYBODY is going to hell! And I think lying does more collateral damage.

In any case I don't think Spotify qualifies as "moral police", k-thx

Africa's internet body in full-blown meltdown: 'None of the above' wins board protest vote

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Sounds just like the UK

" if your skin isn't the accepted colour you are obviously an immigrant and not a real resident."

well, maybe not in SOUTH Africa...

but yeah if they've got some racism built into their politics, it's ALSO a problem [tolerance of sexual harassment maybe being a symptom of bigger issues?]

Don't get me wrong, being FALSELY accused of any kind of harassment happens all of the time, too. So the claims have to be PROPERLY verified (i.e. not 'trial by fake news'). "Scandal alone" is NEVER a reason to be fired or forced to resign. That being said, too many people will cave in under the pressure instead of FIGHTING BACK.

Regardless, the accuser may NOT be a victim. That, in my mind, is an equal possibility to an actual case of sexual harassment. "#MeToo" can easily become a way to jam an agenda down people's throats. Ironic, though, how MOST of the perps are on 'the left'.

Shining lasers at planes in the UK could now get you up to 5 years in jail

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"some Hollywood CSI way of tracing the beam back to the exact point of origin"

maybe a 'beam detector' to get the general area? calculate within 100 feet [let's say] of where the perp is, then do some regular police work.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: OK-ish

"does not require intent"

in the USA there are a lot of laws regarding negligence, rather than intent, to determine whether a law was broken. Manslaughter, as you mentioned, is one of them. If you kill someone while driving drunk, you probably didn't intend to do that, but still Manslaughter. So iron bar hotel for you. But if you DID intend on it, it's "Murder II". If you planned to do it, it's "Murder I". IANAL but that's my understanding of it.

If someone is stupid enough, whether knowing or not, to shine bright lights (particularly lasers) at aircraft, that person DESERVES some iron bar hotel time.

there have always been stupid pranks involving vehicles, by idiots that are stupid enough to actually do it. I bet deliberately spooking a horse had a penalty associated with it also, at one time...

On a related note, the military COULD develop special 'night vision' for pilots that would mitigate this, in case enemy soldiers try to use "that trick" to down an aircraft.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Flame

"those cyclists have to get about in the dark somehow."

I never have trouble with bicycle nor motorcycle headlights. Its SUVs and large pickup trucks with "one beam aimed too high" (because the owner is too ignorant/lazy to fix it) that seem to be the BIGGEST problem. That will blind me faster than anything else, especially in fog. That, and when you have a vehicle that's taller than most of the others, you need to be responsible to get your headlights aimed correctly (or learn to do it yourself, and check it occasionally).

Maybe you Londoners have a similar problem [it gets pretty foggy around here at certain times of the year, evenings and/or mornings, and sometimes overnight].

You can see who these people are when you look at a bunch of cars on the road during fog and occasionally one of them has a giant white cloud-cone pointing at an up angle in front of the car's headlights. It's just way too common.

Hacking train Wi-Fi may expose passenger data and control systems

bombastic bob Silver badge
Childcatcher

Re: Trivial exploit

naw, the 'sploiter would just need to get the train driver to start texting in order to update a web site...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-train-crash/train-engineer-was-texting-just-before-california-crash-idUSN0152835520081002

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: train wifi should be free

MITM would be easy to do on a train. As a joke, once, I set up my laptop [years ago] on a commuter train, when there was NO wifi available on the trains, so that my laptop was an access point (easy with FreeBSD or Linux). At least one laptop near me tried to connect to me.

So yeah MITM in a train car would be EASY. Also as you stop at various stations, sometimes the nearby wifi is 'connectable' for a minute. Might be long enough to 'burst transfer' something. Windows boxen are often SO prolific at connecting to "something" when people leave their wifi on.

And setting MITM up with a Linux or BSD laptop is somewhat trivial. You could even hook well-known IP addresses like 8.8.8.8 for google's DNS [for example], in case someone hard-codes the IP address for DNS rather than relying on DHCP.

So, yeah, watch your certs and ssh fingerprints when you're on any kind of public wifi! [or else 'they' will]

First SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket lobs comms sat into orbit

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Betting against Elon Musk?

"enthusiasts who've watched a bit too much Star Trek and think it's humanity's religious duty to colonise uninhabitable planets in the name of Techtopia or some such"

you couldn't be more wrong about things.

Space exploration and the tech that enables it drives a lot of positive things back here on earth. Consider these for example:

a) rapid transit across the pond via suborbital flight [to replace Concorde, finally]

b) technologies that make orbital/lunar tourism affordable

c) one or more permanent '2001-ish' space stations, with multiple gravity levels

d) satellite repair [actually do what the Space Shuttle never could, bring it back for repair, re-launch later]

e) satellite refueling - fill 'er up with hydrazine!

and so on (not to mention 'collateral tech' like engines, fuel, electronics, miniaturization, power generation, yotta yotta)

100 years ago airlines were a dream, for the most part. The negativity of Tom Paine's post is probably similar to negativity "back then". I think we need to invest MORE in space. Apparently so do Musk, the board of directors at Lockheed, and others.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: 190,000lb of thrust?

" the mass of the Falcon 9 as 549,054kg"

You might need to add in the mass of the payload as well. But you're probably correct about the figure being for all 9 engines, not each.

A typical rocket should have "just enough power" to exceed 1G of acceleration at the moment it launches. In fact, Saturn V had to burn fuel for a couple of seconds before it actually left the launch platform (it was still just a 'tad' too heavy at T minus zero). Saturn V started its engines at T minus 3 [I think that's right], throttled up with the fuel lines connected, and at T minus 0, it ejected the fuel lines and the tower moved out of the way with the engines running at full capacity for a couple of seconds before actual lift-off. Something like that.

And the Space Shuttle had to do a 'throttle back' while the SRBs were attached, to limit stress during certain parts of the launch. I'd expect that the Falcon 9 does something like this as well, so it won't be running "balls to the walls" during the entire trip.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"it's done with Marionettes and fireworks, just like in the good old days."

Back in the 60's I watched every Thunderbirds episode they ever made. Supermarionation!

And I watched every rocket launch for Gemini and Apollo (my mother would wake me up in the middle of the night as necessary).

I wish people nowadays were into space exploration (and things of that nature) like my friends and I were back in the 60's. What happened (rhetorical question)?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: A half complete network of Iridium satellites...

With respect to losing satellite video feed from the landing barge...

rocket engines could also be creating static discharge and related E.M. interference. Not only that, but atmospheric disturbances from the thermal energy could be affecting antenna performance, even cause frequency distortion, like a rotating fan near a WiFi might mess things up a bit. When you're dealing with microwave communications that have centimeter wavelengths, things like atmospheric impedence and/or reflectivity changes caused by moving clouds of hot rocket engine exhaust would actually matter.

That's what I'm thinking, anyway, based on my experience with RF (in general) and WiFi antennas (in particular).

NASA boss insists US returning to the Moon after Peanuts to show for past four decades

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: NASA

fine print: press twice to activate self-destruct.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: PLEEESE go back, just for our sanity.....

"that they could not argue with"

never underestimate the ability of a flattard (or warmist, or Win-10-nic fanboi, or socialist, etc.) to argue in the face of reality.

icon: obvious

'Alexa, find me a good patent lawyer' – Amazon sued for allegedly lifting tech of home assistant

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

this sort of thing has been "trivially solved" since RJR cave allowed you to say "throw the axe at the dwarf"