Posts by bombastic bob

Agile development exposed as techie superstition

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!

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)

"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.

"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

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

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...

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

Re: Giving a crap

someone had the guts...

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

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...

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.

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

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

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

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

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])

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].

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.

Re: Senate Vote

Yeah, "good job" Demon-Rats for going against the will of the people. Again. It's what causes a revolt at the ballot box, like 2016. A lot of moldy old Demon-Rats are up for re-election this time around, and they know it. So they make a show, harumph harumph etc. to make "the base" happy. What I'm laughing at is how Franken-Feinstein is doing political ads AGAINST TRUMP along with a handful of OTHER Demon-Rats. I expect the boomerang effect to be severe. It's like "get your popcorn" because you KNOW what the end result will be. They're so convinced that people WANT to be regulated, WANT gummint to tell them what to do and how to do it, etc. etc. and they think OBAKA's record is something to run on.

Pai has done the right thing. He has support of the American people, particularly those who understand that big nanny gummint regulation isn't the way to do things. Con-Grab can help fix any actual problems that "the regulation overreach 'solution' looking for a problem, ironically known as 'net neutrality'" alleges to fix, but really empowers a small number of politically powerful entities [the very thing that 'net neutrality' is supposed to 'correct'].

It's like how SOCIALISM ALWAYS WIDENS THE GAP BETWEEN HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS, because when you put "high tax rate" and "high regulation" road blocks in the way of people trying to BECOME the rich, you end up OPPRESSING THEM and KEEPING THEM IN THEIR PLACE, while simultaneously empowering the "we ALREADY have OUR wealth" old-money crowd, and "the lobbyists" that buy the politicians who say "universal health care for all" (or whatever) to manipulate voters into FEELING instead of THINKING so that everybody NOT ALREADY in "the rich boy country club" can have the MEDIOCRITY that gummint "solutions" provide, while THE OLD MONEY RICH (as well as hypocritical lawmakers) still have THEIR "special" elitist versions, so they can feel superior, etc. because THEY got THEIRS. Yeah, tell me that NHS doesn't do that already... g'head g'head!

I suggest this "net neutrality" thing is THE SAME WAY. EQUALITY (read: MEDIOCRITY) for all, except for those who are MORE equal than others! That's what REALLY happens! Double-speak and double-think, to manipulate voters to FEEL and run off the cliff in a massive stampede of stupidity at the ballot box.

By comparison, Orwell was an OPTIMIST.

Fortunately, in 2016, we the voters rebelled. And it "feels" pretty good, so far.

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

Art of the Deal

how Trump operates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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.

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.

"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

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

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

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.

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.

"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)?

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

Re: NASA

fine print: press twice to activate self-destruct.

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

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

I actually thought of that...

I actually thought of that back in the mid 90's when I was experimenting with Microshaft's "Speech API". I thought the idea of having 'natural language' dictionary-based word recognition and interpretation to be _SO_ trivially OBVIOUS, that I wouldn't bother patenting it. If the speech recognition tech (via SAPI) hadn't been so universally crappy, I would have done it back then. I wanted the 'Star Trek' interface, after all. What I ended up with instead was random room noise activating the thing and running programs, somewhat randomly.

2 words to describe the university: PATENT TROLL

[and _I_ preceded you "geniuses" by 10 FREAKING YEARS]

Your software hates you and your devices think you're stupid

Re: Vinyl tinted glasses

"I gave up when she started playing Abba"

Abba - the soft-rock of 70's disco. They *almost* made it palatable. Almost. At least they used more than 2 chords.

/me fortunately has the mental discipline to expunge "Dancing Queen" from my brain. But I bet _YOU_ don't, ha ha ha ha ha! enjoy the ear worm. you are welcome

Re: Please don't kill me with downvotes...

heh - bob mode - that's funny!

I hope your web site is light on script and doesn't use ginormous 'canned' style sheets. otherwise, it'll be like every other bandwidth-piggy garbage website on "teh intarwebs". Just sayin'...

Re: 80s music was mostly dire

"generally awful"

I only say that (and worse things) about 70's disco "music". I'd like more 80's music, please. What passes for "popular" nowadays [with the exception of groups like 'Muse'] is pretty much mundane crap.

And the disney-esque teeny-bopper stuff tends to sound like a hammer pounding into my brain. I sometimes hear it when I channel surf past some disney channel tween/teen thing. no thanks.

1970's era 110bpm disco "thunka-clappa-thunka-clappa" was the worst, though. "music" at the speed of sex. At least they sped it up to 130bpm or so in the 80's and stopped the high-hat abuse (with more than 2 chords in the song!). Yeah, I guess the 80's, with its often keyboard-centric 'new wave' sound, brought in more piano players (that had some music theory knowledge) to play keyboards, instead of the "stamped out of plastic" 1-2 chord specials that made up a lot of 70's "disco". Every song by KC and the Sunshine Band, the BGs, and a handful of others, sounded the same. THE! SAME!. It was like the epitome of "formulaic".

70's disco: "generally awful" indeed.

/me goes back listening to anime theme songs and straight-ahead jazz. and Muse. and Metallica. and 80's music. Oh my! Actual talent was needed to create them.

Re: "Stick to the OS GUI's way of doing things."

there used to be an IBM standard for GUI user interfaces. When I bought the Windows 3.0 SDK back in the day, it came with a box of book including THAT one. It defined things like the appearance of dialog boxes and list boxes and expected hot-keys and things of that nature. Some standards have shifted [we're more like Apple now than IBM] but the gist is still the same.

"User Hostile" interfaces, however, are like 'Settings' on Win-10-nic: Too many clicks, too many layers, too much screen real estate taken up by white space with light blue "controls" [read: poor contrast], and only a VERY limited amount of information on 'this screen' with too many choices to make between where you are and where you want to be... [and if you're lucky, they won't "circle jerk" on you].

Re: User interfaces in 2018:

"the tune banned from all geetar shops"

heh - the list of 'forbidden songs' is short, but distinguished.

(guitar)

1. Stairway to Heaven (the worst, when played poorly)

2. Smoke on the Water

3. Sweet Home Alabama

(piano/keyboard)

1. Alex Foley's theme from Beverley Hills Cop

2. Bach's Fugue in D Minor

3. Heart and Soul

4. Chopsticks

5. Those Endearing Young Charms (also good for xylophone)

yeah, NOBODY every shows off trying to play THOSE...

New law would stop Feds from demanding encryption backdoor

Re: But what about the existing Backdoors

perhaps existing back doors can be "circumvented" by using open source only?

Microsoft programming chief to devs: Tell us where Windows hurt you

Re: Visual Studio 6

"And REMOVE that blasted SourceSafe which makes the Source repository very unSafe."

ack, even CVS would be an improvement over THAT. I've never seen MORE corrupted repos than with "Source [un]Safe".

MFC applications, when you clean out all of the external dependency cruft, are pretty good. Static link them and you'll be fine. 'shared runtime' and 'shared MFC' DLLs are *HIGHLY* overrated, and might be a cause of a 'midnight phone call' due to some CRAPWARE that replaced them with buggy versions.

and MFC with C++ is *SUPERIOR* in *ALL* ways to C-Pound with bass-ackwards ".Not"

Re: Code Signing

(topic) is a CANCEROUS TOLLBOOTH that implies REVOCATION.

NO. Just No. [yet, for 64-bit drivers in 7, and everything later on, this is "the standard" now]

This puts a HUGE BURDEN on open source developers being able to deploy things *like* "soft drivers". Let's say alternative compressed and/or encrypted file systems, for one. Let's say "soft devices" for another [emulating a device through software, like MIDI loopback or CDROM 'file image']. Let's say "special driver for your USB IOT thingy that uses some of the publically available vendor/hardware IDs that can identify themselves by name".

All of this is *OPPRESSED* by the use of CODE SIGNAGE REQUIREMENTS where code must be SIGNED to be used! how can you *REALLY* comply with the GPL with this kind of requirement, as another example?

besides, it's possible to get around the "requirement" if you can get end-users to shut it off (using a non-obvious but well documented procedure). Then it becomes POINTLESS to even HAVE it in the FIRST place, except for Micro-shaft to SCRAPE REVENUE for every "signage" [yes, win-10-nic drivers NOW have to be signed by MICRO-SHAFT].

Code signage is like a broken condom, a FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY while one is getting SCREWED!

"To say that .NET is a shit copy of Java is a bit harsh WAY TOO KIND"

Fixed. you're welcome.

Re: Well I'm an optimist

PWB and Visual Studio

I remember PWB. I kinda liked it. I also liked VS 98, where you could EDIT A DIALOG BOX OR USE THE CLASS WIZARD WITHOUT EVER TOUCHING THE MOUSE!

(I'd love to have a LINUX version of PWB, actually! using CURSES!)

Regarding Visual Studio: Once it went to "lift hand from keyboard, mousie, clickie, mousie, clickie, find home row again, type, lift hand from keyboard, rinse/repeat" I stopped LIKING it. when it went to 2D FLATSO (2013 I think) I *STARTED* *HATING* *IT*!!!

2010 is the LAST visual studio I'll evar use... and I rarely use it!

Re: Well I'm an optimist

"Not much love on the comments today, but as someone using .NET, WPF and Visual Studio every day I'm pretty optimistic about the future for .NET Core/Standard."

no bias then. (how is that coolaid aftertaste?)