Posts by bombastic bob

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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.

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)

One-in-two JavaScript project audits by NPM tools sniff out at least one vulnerability...

agreed on the 'noscript' usage, except this is NodeJS we're talking about (from what I read in the article), and so it's all server-side. Running 'noscript' has no effect on server-side stupidity JavaScript and its apparent bag of vulnerabilities.

Server-side JavaScript is its OWN target for snark, disdain, and generally being made fun of.

It may be poor man's Photoshop, but GIMP casts a Long Shadow with latest update

Re: Forget the geeky stuff, sort out the user experience.

"except most of the time they close all the toolboxes before closing whichever window that makes gimp actually close"

yeah some parts of the UI need [quite] a bit more user friendliness. I just tried that with a different login context, and had a little trouble getting the main toolbox back the way I wanted it.

Re: Forget the geeky stuff, sort out the user experience.

"Why does everything have to be an effing "experience" these days"

This reminds me of a light bulb joke:

Q. How many 'Silly Valley' residents does it take to change a light bulb?

A. Three. One to actually change the bulb, and 2 to "share in the experience"

And I bet I answered your question, too.

Re: Forget the geeky stuff, sort out the user experience.

I use gimp a LOT. The only mildly irritating thing is that I have to 'export' to any format other than the 'gimp' format. But that's ok, once I understood the semantics of their menu, no big deal.

And I'm glad there's AN ACTUAL MENU and NO [profanity spew] RIBBON nor FAT-FINGER-BURGER. Well, in the versions I've been running on FreeBSD, anyway... (2.8.18 and 2.8.22, which work pretty well)

One thing gimp does lack is some of the things that MS Paint has always had, some of its line and curve generators and related things. Maybe if I worked with it some more I could figure out how to work around that...

Apache's latest SNAFU – Struts normal, all fscked up: Web app framework needs urgent patching

Re: Struts?

yeah I had to go look it up. checked out a tutorial. wasn't impressed. seems to have a lot of cruft in it. PHP would be easier (and probably faster to code) for the 'hello world' example.

Sorta reminds me of why I don't like C-pound. Or various HTML authoring tools.

/me goes back to hand-coding all HTML with a decent editor like 'pluma', without using _ANY_ Javascript. And just make the PHP backend do the work as needed.

Fire chief says Verizon throttled department's data in the middle of massive Cali wildfires

Re: What do you expect?

"How can folks fail to grasp this concept?"

Just because people disagree does NOT mean they do not 'understand'. Agreement is not the same thing as understanding. But you hear that kind of arguing, a form of 'ad hominem' attack on the intelligence of the person who disagrees, in desperation, from those who can't stand that others actually DISAGREE with their superior wisdom. Or whatever. [it reflects a bit of arrogance, I say]

Maybe that was in the contract, sure, but Verizon would've helped their own corporate image by UNCAPPING the data rate on a temporary basis during the emergency. Maybe THIS has to be part of every government cellular phone contract from now on?

So regardless of 'grasping the concept', Verizon blew a perfect opportunity to make their company look good, by greedily grubbing for pennies at the expense of missing the 'gold'.

That being said, the fire department ALSO blew it with their chosen data plan.

Plenty of 'fault' to go around.

Re: Verizon: "We Can"

yeah their public perception profile is probably pretty poor at the moment

Verizon blew a great P.R. opportunity. "temporary upgrade" to help in an emergency.

And the fire department should've gotten an UNLIMITED plan for the firefighters. Then the problem would NOT have been 'a problem'.

Don't blame net neutrality for this. Even with Obaka's stupid FCC regs in place, Verizon could STILL throttle bandwidth if you went over your plan's data cap. This policy has not been affected at ALL.

[something that might make sense is a regulation that requires EMERGENCY SERVICES to NOT use any plan with a data cap, thus forcing phone companies to ONLY offer 'unlimited' plans]

Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Runtime installers were built to fail

Re: Why the need for complex installers in the first place.

"Complex installers are need for complex software."

too hard, smarter people, blah blah blah [remember _I_ wrote an installer >20 years ago and kept it up to date through every version of windows since '95].

You do NOT need a complex installer. You need something that a) finds an existing install, b) checks the version resource of anything it's about to install or remove and make sure that the thing you want to put there has the correct version (whatever that might be), and c) maybe add some registry entries or icons or whatever.

It's not that hard. Seriously.

Now when it comes to registration and all of that, COM DLL's already have a mechanism by which you can have the DLL register all of its stuff, and unregister it. There's an exported function [I forget what it's called] for each of those things. So you just have to call that function for each DLL. No big deal.

For the application itself, I generally add a command line option like '-install' or '-uninstall' that will let you use the application itself to set up "all that stuff". So if, like VLC, you associate a bunch of file types with your application, you PROBABLY already have a function in the executable to do that. Great! Call that when you do '-install' and un-do that when you call '-uninstall'. How hard is THAT?

Point is, it's NOT hard, it's surprisingly EASY, and almost brain-dead SIMPLE. You do _NOT_ need "a complex installer", particularly if you're NOT installing a monolithic ".Not" runtime and C++ shared lib installer that requires 2 reboots and a prayer (and a sacrificial chicken) to get your system up and running.

icon, because, *FACEPALM* [but your point reflects what Micro-shaft WANTS you to think, so you're forgiven for buying into their FUD and drinking their coolaid because you didn't know better].

Re: Why the need for complex installers in the first place.

LGPL can be satisfied by wrapping their library with your own API or DLL that encapsulates what they do. You make a copy with your name on it, open source the library, wrap it with what you need to do, and ship YOUR binary, open sourcing it as needed to comply with licensing. Not a problem, really. been there, done that, with jpeg as I recall. And your DLL, of course, is statically linked with the run-time. So no other dependencies [aka potential cock-ups].

Re: Probably finding it difficult to recreate the installers

I put my own installer on github a while back. There are others, too. FREE ones. Mine's so brain-dead simple to use it could make anyone who's ever used InstallShield or tried to program for MSI cry...

(too bad I suck at marketing or I would've pwned it 15 years ago)

"get rid of the runtime installers entirely and keep things clean with a single .dll, like mingw manages to do."

better still: STATICALLY LINK the run-time and everything else within your application. NO external dependencies. Problem Solved!

Re: Reminds me of why I stopped using IE back in the day

"It was one hell of a wake-up call."

Welcome aboard!

Safe surfing:

a) never use a Micro-shaft browser

b) avoid using windows if at all possible

c) only surf the web while logged in as a non-privileged user, ideally not the same one you do your wok as, NEVER 'root' or 'administrator' or similar.

d) use plugins like 'noscript' to avoid running javascript whenever possible. Most of it is ads and tracking anyway.

e) *NEVER* preview e-mail in HTML. *NEVER*. In fact, don't use HTML for e-mail at ALL, and view as plain text ONLY. This destroys the effectiveness of scammer e-mails, since they often leverage HTML to do their phishing, click-baiting and tracking. Thunderbird lets you turn off HTML in e-mail.

f) *NEVER* "install this" to view the content

g) NEVER install a flash plugin (use HTML5 only for media)

h) don't read PDF files within the browser; use an external application NOT written by Adobe or Micro-shaft (a recent vulnerability on this one proves I'm right about this).

and so on.

These simple rules, or ones similar to them, will help to protect you against nearly all of the known exploits, and probably most of the zero-day exploits.

But you discovered the most important one on your own: *NEVER* use a Micro-shaft browser!

Re: Seriously

Thanks, and don't call me 'Sirius Lee'

(ha ha ha)

Re: Why the need for complex installers in the first place.

"The disaster that is COM has a lot to do with it."

Now, now, don't go blaming COM for this undead 'DLL Hell' problem. COM works when it's implemented properly, but not the same way that so many people have ABused it by polluting the registry with everything and its grandmother.

Instead, you can blame LAZY DEVELOPERS for thinking "an application" equals "slap together a bunch of shared libraries and shared components" VB-style. And pollute the registry with the 'registration' of all of those said shared components and libraries with their unnecessarily large number of COM objects that you'll never use.

2 words: STATIC LINK. This avoids the entire problem. That includes static linking runtime into your DLLs. Then, actually using COM, or something like it, to talk to your own DLLs avoids having to rely on globals allocated using shared runtime - how about THAT! You don't need to use Micro-shaft's "class factory" nonsense either if you have your OWN object constructor within the DLL that knows what the 'new' operator is for... as a simple API function of your own design.

So, when some stupid downloaded game or "dancing gopher app" breaks the C/C++ run-time and/or MFC shared DLL's, you know that *MY* application will NOT be affected, because *I* went through the trouble of making sure there were NO dependencies on ANY of that! And the executable size is only about 200k more, if I do it right.

Seriously, Micro-shaft TOTALLY SCREWED the whole 'shared lib' concept a long time ago. You might as well just statically link. Your application will LOAD FASTER, it will RUN CLEANER, you won't be getting that midnight phone call because "Phil installed a game and now your application won't work and we need it yesterday".

And, you WON'T be relying on the "Micro-shaft's installer" for YOUR success!

You want how much?! Israel opts not to renew its Office 365 vows

Re: I think you just put yours in the shredder

@ }{amis}{

you used the word 'feel' twice. perhaps you should *THINK* instead?

(then you'd realize that the alleged 'human rights abuses' by Israel are just Islamist propaganda)

Use Debian? Want Intel's latest CPU patch? Small print sparks big problem

Re: Shrug

Shirley you jest!

I'd rather listen to vogon poetry than watch Debian do the 'silly walk' like that.

Re: Section 3

Debian is shooting themselves in the foot by not at least putting the update into the 'non-free' package distribution...

what, is Stallman behind this or something? Sounds like something he'd do/say...

/me imagines a bunch of hippies at a Santa Cruz beach wearing peace sign necklaces, love beads, psychadelic tie-dyed shirts, beaded headbands, and carrying protest signs worthy of the Laugh-In wall, talking like Tommy Chong and complaining that "Intel isn't giving us what we want, man!"

Debian, and every other distro depending on you: GET A CLUE! Just put the package into 'non-free' and be DONE with it!!!

icon, because, *FACEPALM*

Facebook brings banhammer down on over 650 pro-Iranian 'fake news' accounts

Re: I don't get it.

Fa[e]ceB[ook,itch] mistreats and tries to censor/silence conservatives all of the time, or so it would seem.

Now others that they (FB) don't like are (apparently) getting similar treatment.

The ban-hammer is on whomever they *FEEL* deserves it. [well, it IS their network, but they need to be HONEST about it, right?]

so yeah don't use Facebook if you want freedom

And YOUTUBE apparently does it, too... ('shadow bans' and 'demonetizing' practices, etc.)

(if ever there were a threat of 'corporatocracy', it'd be Facebook and Google and Micro-shaft doing it).

.NET Core 2.1 – huh, yeah – what is it good for? Bing, apparently

"It's a funny world when I can wholeheartedly recommend .Net devs to migrate their sites to Ubuntu."

I'd suggest weaning off of ".Not", too. They can thank me later.

Re: What is JIT good for?

not to be anal retentive, but Java is typically a compiled language, generating a P-code [or sometimes native] binary. JavaScript, on the other hand, requires a JIT compiler because

*ahem*

so-called JavaScript "developers" *FELT* that their own signfiicance was too little on 'teh intarwebs', and so they were COMPELLED to invent/inject B.S. javascript "code" into EVERYTHING web-related, from server to client, particularly when related to AD SERVERS, because, tracking. And so it's everywhere, and the more lazy J.S. "developers" propagate it via the use of CDN-delivered bloatware libraries (like JQuery, NodeJS).

And so these bloatware libraries take SO long to interpret, that their bloat-code runs slow, so they invented JIT compilers for both client and server side to try and 'compensate'. Nevermind the ENTIRE MODEL is flawed to begin with, as evidenced by a particular worthless function being pulled by a developer, causing chaos throughout the user base. And so on.

ok - rant complete. applying fire extinguisher now.

"It is showing off how far the framework has come gone

fixed it for you. They have 'gone too far' I would imagine. I've always *HATED* ".Not" especially for the desktop world (and that 'C-pound' language that goes with it).

maybe it has a tiny amount of sense on the server end (as compared to other silly things like NodeJS). however, you'd do a LOT better with native C code built as custom apache modules [for example], or just do some really clever PHP code instead, limit the bloat, call external C programs to do the REAL work, leverage CGI, etc. and make the system overall efficient _INSTEAD_ of, well, ".Notty"... AND portable across multiple operating systems!

/me wonders if their 'comparison' was a windows server using old code against a windows server running tweeked code. How about comparing it against a LINUX or FreeBSD server running Apache (or any OTHER web server for that matter) with well written NATIVE code?

Apple web design violates law, claims blind person

Re: To put it mildly.

"Even for a person with normal sight, the Apple website isn't the most efficient place to compare Apple products"

Ack. And these so-called "modern design" web sites have color combinations (light blue on bright white, for example) that are HARD ON THE EYES.

yeah, how about [*joke*] considering "old eyes" a DISABILITY so we can SUE them into compliance! I bet the millenial SJW's would spin in place over not being able to take sides... like a permanently unresolved quantum state or something.

/me ponders new energy resource - spinning millenial SJW's - now how to collect and put it on the power grid...

Python wriggles onward without its head

Django "providing a way forward" ? ew.

From the article:

"Hettinger believes examples of good governance in various Python projects, like Django and Project Jupyter, provide the core language developers with a way forward."

I've seen Django, and had to fix things written for it. Without going into a slam-fest about it, I'd simply say that having Django drive where Python is going would be like Chrome and JQuery driving where web sites are going [whoops, too late!] and the results will be both DISMAL _AND_ PREDICTABLE.

I have to wonder how much the former "Benevolent Dictator' was doing to STOP the bad things, though...

Whenever Python becomes _SO_ "object oriented" and "feature rich" that it needs its OWN OPERATING SYSTEM to run, then you'll know I was right. It goes against the Unix Philosophy and, as such, is likely to implode from its own growing mass.

Mozilla accuses FCC of abdicating its role, ignoring comments in net neutrality lawsuit

"controversial decision to tear up existing net neutrality rules"

More like:

its somewhat controversial decision to de-regulate by removing alleged 'net neutrality' rules put into place for political reasons by the previous administration.

Fixed it for ya.

'Teh Intarwebs' worked fine without these 'existing' (read: added) rules prior to 2009, so why appear to lose all sanity over their removal?

The sun continues to rise. The birds continue to sing. Paychecks appear on payday (and in the USA, with more 'take home' money in them). People are hiring, so you're no longer 'stuck' in your dead-end job with no upward mobility. Overall, things seem to be at LEAST as good as they were, if not even better. Why complain about it?

Microsoft: We busted Russian Fancy Bear disinfo websites

Microsoft: internet police

Micro-soft, "FEEL" YEAH!

Making the world safe on 'teh intarwebs'

Micro-soft, *FEEL* YEAH!!

etc.

(where are the 'South Park' creators, I've got a great idea for their new movie)

Re: How things have changed

"Russia is the new Evil Empire rather than Microsoft."

'more evil than us, lookie lookie lookie! we are no longer the bad guys' - heh

It's like over at M.S. they're all doing the "side step" and distracting everyone with 'new, shiny' - that's right, because wearing the 'shiny gold belt buckle' drop item will distract the floor boss long enough to get in a one-hit kill on the boss (instead of a total party kill on the players).

I think it was REALLY 'Anonymous' pretending to be the CIA pretending to be China pretending to be Russia... [for the lulz, now laughing at Micro-shaft]

In all seriousness, though, doesn't this sound a little *too* convenient? And, also, a little *too* insignificant to be of any _REAL_ importance...

a) thinking that Russians try to hack U.S. political organization to create chaos: plausible

b) thinking that Russians are targeting anti-Trump Republicans because they're anti-Trump: possible, but not very effective [they'd get more out of 'chaos' to get people to mistrust the electoral process]

c) implying that Trump is colluding with these alleged Russian hackers because "doing that" would have any significant effect: illogical; highly unlikely

d) making this point as if it's significant because Mueller's report is going to be out soon, and Micro-shaft's official company political position [for evidence watch [P]MSNBC for 5 minutes, if you can stomach it] DEMANDS that as much NEGATIVITY as POSSIBLE regarding Trump continue INDEFINITELY, including Mueller's witch-hunt "investigation": GUARANTEED

So phar, so FUD: PHP flaw puts WordPress sites at risk of hacks

Re: Good alternatives to WordPress?

well here's what I do: I have local copies of everything and web servers handy to test stuff if I need to. Then you use scp or sftp or some other means to copy files onto the actual web server. In one case, for a customer site, it used a private github repo [which is extremely convenient that way - test on another server, then do pull request to main repo, then 'git pull' on the server plus whatever other post-pull stuff you gotta do and it's automatically backed up in the cloud].

Some of these solutions require shell access. In the case of my company web site, which I've had since the mid 90's, I use sftp to transfer files from my local repo to the server. [then I only have to use their 'control panel' stuff to manage things like e-mail addresses and DNS entries].

*REAL* html coders can do it with pluma. Or vi. (and without ANY scripting!)

Your Phone prematurely ejected, Skype texting on the way, and 900 more years of Windows

Re: Skype texting

yeah - with auto-emoji that has motion in it for "the usual ASCII art"

Re: Sticky notes pre-dates WinXP

as long as it doesn't show up as part of a desktop package under Linux, with ".Not" aka Mono dependencies (like Tomboy - I can't say enough *BAD* things about *THAT* cluster-blank), I don't care about any 'sticky notes'. It just sounds like another 'gimmick feature' that will die a horrific death on its own, without any intervention.

Re: 900 years

'Windows 10 Uber Alles!' <-- echoes in the Halls of Redmond

And will it be 2D FLATSO 'The Metro" light blue on bright white [aka eye-killing] ADWARE+SPYWARE with forced updates 900 years from now? Or will they come up with EVEN WORSE THINGS to HORRIFY us?

Boss regrets pointing finger at chilled out techie who finished upgrade early

Re: The boss owned up? Apologised, even?

I actually had this happen when I was in the military.

I was on a submarine for about 4 years. At the time, I was one of the most senior people on board. The boat was a fairly new class of submarine, and had a different kind of propulsion plant than most of the rest of the fleet. Our engineer had moved on (with a promotion) and so we had a new engineering officer who was pretty 'green' with respect to our power plant. Some of his decisions reflected that, telling us NOT to do things we've always done before etc..

Well we were running engineering drills for the upcoming annual examination, and because of a stuck valve, I was told (by the engineer) to do something that violated a procedure. It posed no actual danger, but it violated the procedure. So I told him that (but I couldn't remember where in the procedure it said NOT to do this, I just remembered it). He said to do it anyway. I offered alternatives that were allowed by procedure. He said "I'm not going to XXX because of YYY". I asked for a watch relief. He got angrier, said we weren't going to do that in the middle of yotta yotta yotta. So I logged that the engineer ordered me to do that thing, and I made DAMNED sure it didn't pose a danger to human lives or equipment (it was only for about 10 minutes anyway).

Then later, it really bugged him that one of his senior people would be so insistent (even though nobody else was) so he went looking for where it said NOT to do that, and discovered that we were supposed to shut down the reactor under the condition he told me to operate it under [remember there was no actual danger, I made sure of it]. Well, somewhat embarrassed by this, he did the right thing: he called me in personally, apologized, and then held 'all hands' training on it. No doubt an 'incident report' was also filed. [again there was no real danger, it was just a violation of the procedure, which was intended to protect against a different possible condition that wasn't present, and would NOT be with my hand on the controls]. And of course, we didn't get the engineering 'E' award that year, either [but didn't fail our annual exam].

Yeah, oops.

Unfortunately, the engineer wasn't any easier to work with after that. He was actually a bit [more] overcautious. He should have trusted his people more. But I was the _ONLY_ person in the engine room that understood that what he wanted us to do was against the procedure. Had I said nothing, we would have FAILED the annual examination, which is a _LOT_ _WORSE_ than what happened.

And it wasn't THAT bad of a situation, because if it WERE, the engineer would've been 'fired'. He wasn't. He actually got promoted on schedule, from what I understand. So yeah no danger, just an "I *blanked* up" on his part.

Now you can tell someone to literally go f--k themselves over the internet: Remote-control mock-cock patent dies

Re: Unencumbered by patents

says "implementation in C pound" - heh, not surprised, really

syntax error - you forgot the ; at the end

What happens to your online accounts when you die?

Re: Society devolving back to feudalism

"And the primary driving force behind this devolution is intellectual monopoly."

no, it's the willingness of people to surrender a part of their freedom to others, i.e. to "the elite", whether it's governments or corporations. Certain "evil" corporations are only just a PART of that, when driven by motives that are NOT "give the customer what he wants and make a profit". When it becomes "drive the customer to do what WE want, and make them PAY US FOR IT" - that's the problem.

Right, Microsoft?

Boffins build the smallest transistor, controlled by an atom

Re: 1 atom switched junction <> 1 atom wide junction.

I'm actually curious about switching speeds here. If we can't go faster, what's the point?

Current tech limits us to under 4Ghz for the most part (yeah overclockers, but still). I always figured it would be 3Ghz, but it's gone all the way to 4Ghz. 4Ghz has a wavelength of less than 8cm and so in theory for a single clock cycle read transaction, you need a distance of 2cm or less between whatever on either end [to allow for switching and propogation etc.]. You mght get away with 4cm, but that's the speed of light we're talking about, and you can't exceed it. So yeah clocking along at 4Ghz generally means no more than 2cm between any 2 points that have to talk to each other at that speed.

Atom-sized transistors, therefore, could speed this up by compressing the size significantly. You'll still need a way to get the RAM physically closer to the L2 cache, though, so you can at least read it at the full clock rate. 2cm isn't very big, and that's only 4Ghz.

Now, HOW fast can this gel-substance switch at?

GitHub goes off the Rails as Microsoft closes in

I'm still in 'wait and see' mode

I still have stuff on github, and am not planning on moving it any time soon. It's just a place to put things, really. The 'issues' system can be helpful, and I've contributed to other projects with it [submitted pull requests].

None of that seems to have changed.

And so I'm still in 'wait and see' mode, making sure that none of that is LOST or corrupted by "microsoft-isms", too many mousey-clickey motions or the requirement to use a ".Not"-based plugin or C-pound or something equally *HIDEOUS*. As long as they don't go there, I guess I'll be, uh, 'happy' with github.

Net neutrality freaks furious over lack of fury at FCC hearing

Re: Government failing the populace

"I have yet to see any rational argument supporting the reversal of Net neutrality"

1. government take-over of the internet is NOT good for freedom. They will censor, block, harass, snoop, force encryption back doors, and filter speech, given the opportunity. "for the children" etc. It's what they do. In the name of political correctness.

2. de-regulation works by getting the 'brick walls' and 'roadblocks' OUT of the way of for-profit industries to serve their customers as best as they can, while still making a profit.

3. If you want to fix problems with infrastructure in unprofitable areas, allow the ISPs to charge MORE for service. Then they'll be able to afford it. Otherwise it's a WELFARE PROGRAM.

4. Preventing someone from buying a "fast lane" (i.e.prioritization) is like forcing EVERYONE to be EQUALLY MEDIOCRE.

5. Net neutrality is not about equality of service. It's about GOVERNMENT CONTROL. The end result can ONLY be mediocrity for everyone, because NOBODY can "get better". Except for the elite. Because some are MORE equal than others, like in 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell.

The Trump admiinistration de-regulates, cuts taxes, etc. - exactly what Pai did for that ridiculous "net neutrality" nonsense that was anything _BUT_ "net neutrality" - and the economy BOOMS forward, making the ENTIRE WORLD better off. It's a work in progress, but it's got a nice running start, and you know what's happening if you keep your eyes open and don't allow 'fake news' to tell you that you're not seeing what you're seeing every day. De-regulation works, tax cutting works, getting gummint out of the way works. Freedom works. That's the point.

One factoid I heard about on the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday - that apparently, download speeds have DOUBLED since the dropping of the so-called 'net neutrality' nonsense. Imagine THAT! And yet you'll NEVER hear about it on the lame-stream news. I was pleasantly surprised.

Windows 10 Linux Distribution Overload? We have just the thing

I still think they're majoring in the minors. again.

Yeah, it may have a cool/geek factor to manage "all these Linux distros", but it's still Win-10-nic, it's still lipstick on the NON-OINKY end of the BOAR, and it's STILL Micro-shaft doing the "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" thing.

(this new, shiny feature is part of "Extend")

Now - tell me how this helps my day to day operations. Yeah, thought so.

Were they spending an EQUAL amount of effort on a Wine-like subsystem that RUNS ON LINUX, so we could use windows applications on a Linux system DIRECTLY without having to use Win-10-nic, I'd be TRULY impressed!

Or, just get rid of the 2D FLATSO "the Metro" slurp/ad/track in Win-10-nic, and make it look like 7. yeah, fat chance, right?

If you drop a tablet in a forest of smartphones, will anyone hear it fall?

Re: Niche item

yeah I've built a couple of prototype devices to demo a concept for one particular customer using an inexpensive fondleslab as a control device (in lieu of a front panel). A $$ 'droid slab will do what a $$$ screen does, and you can walk around the room with it...

Boffins get fish drunk to prove what any bouncer already knows

Re: so they drink like a fish?

spiders on drugs? [I checked out that link, it had an interesting photo - "this is your web" "this is your web on various kinds of drugs" - the 'caffeine' one was appropriately 'tweeked']

Charlotte's Psychadelic Web. heh.