* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Donald Trump jumps on anti-tech bandwagon, gets everything wrong

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Amazon? Postal Service?

"If they leave the box on the front step, then somebody steals it"

I've never had that problem [nor do I know anyone else who has] but I've seen videos taken of package thieves broadcast on the news, and as such, know that it occasionally happens.

'Robbing the mail' is a federal offense in the USA and carries a stiff penalty (according to an online search, up to 5 years in prison, up to $250k fine). No joke. A serial package thief could theoretically be charged with MULTIPLE felonies and spend the rest of his life in prison. Good riddance.

As for Amazon itself, it *appears* as if they *might* be engaging in either "unfair business practices" (an FTC issue), or even PREDATORY marketing practices (also an FTC issue, and violation of anti-trust laws). I would expect that Trump's concern is that Amazon may be causing retail businesses to go under, such as 'Toys R Us' (very recent).

That being said, Amazon is ALSO involved in the Demo-rat Party with contributions, etc. just like Faecebook (for what it's worth). It may *seem* that Amazon has way too much political clout, and as such, might be a threat to Trump's agenda. THAT much should be acknowledged as well, if you're being honest.

So I think Trump wants to investigate Amazon via the FTC to see if they're engaging in ANY kind of activity that violates federal law, specifically with respect to predatory practices and collection of sales taxes in states where they have a presence, INCLUDING for those "online stores" that use Amazon as a 'store front'.

Personally, I think that stores that adapt [Target, Walmart, etc.] by having an online presence and "pick it up at the store to avoid postage" are doing what needs to be done. So I'm not really concerned about Amazon, UNLESS they're engaging in activities that violate the law.

Back in the day, when "mom and pop" grocery stores were the way people got their food, the supermarkets ended up putting them out of business. In the 1960's we had milk men and independent butcher shops [who still had the best meat]. But most of the groceries came from supermarkets, who had lower prices and better selection. This put the "mom and pop" groceries out of business, except for those that converted themselves into "convenience markets".

Queue up modern times, and Amazon vs "mall shops". That kind of thing.

Microsoft's Windows supremo Terry Myerson is now Terry BYE-rson

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Clearing House in Redmond

"and making space for more 'nodding donkey yesmen'"

this would NOT surprise me in the LEAST. Apparently whoever it is with the "vision" over at Micro-shaft is clearing out anyone who won't go along with it. This has been going on for a while, since Win-10-nic. If you're not on-board with the market-hype, and "all excited" about whatever new, shiney comes down the pike, I'd suspect your job is on the line and you might want to consider sending out your resume before you get pink-slipped... like a bunch of product testers a few years ago, when some "mensa candidate" over at Micro-shaft *FELT* that they did not NEED people to test; after all, they have END USERS for that!

and so on.

Six months on, and let's check in on those 'stuttering' Windows 10 PCs. Yep, still stuttering

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

logging what happens on your computer while gaming

do you have the capabilities of logging the per-task CPU utilization on your computer?

It might be worth doing that, in order to see whether or not there are processes launching and/or being activated [let's say snooping, check for updates, etc.] while you're gaming, and for whatever reason it interferes with the game.

I have a similar concern with multimedia production. Last thing I need is to be running something like 'Cakewalk' while doing a live track recording, and have windows update make a "stutte" happen because it *FEELS* it needs to run right now... [I used to disable windows update on XP systems to prevent this from happening, and it WORKS]

Shaking up the Nad Men: Microsoft splits up into 'cloud' and 'edge'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Deck chairs

because "they" haven't artificially propped up their stock value for long enough before selling short just as the proverbial excrement hits the proverbial fan...

so get those deck chars in the right places, and look like we're doing something, harumph harumph!

icon, because, facepalm

Microsoft patches patch for Meltdown bug patch: Windows 7, Server 2008 rushed an emergency fix

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

This is what happens when...

a) you don't properly test prior to deployment;

b) you generally rely on end-users to test your patches;

c) your general focus on "all the wrong things" doesn't put sufficient resources on what's important, i.e. security and reliability, vs "next new, shiny that requires Edge and/or locks customers into a privacy invasive EULA or a subscription model".

and market-driven development cares LESS about support when "they" *FEEL* [not think] that end-users are LOCKED IN [like a monopoly] and wouldn't DARE go elsewhere...

It's baaack – WannaCry nasty soars through Boeing's computers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: OH !!

actually I think it's something called "windows for warships" (derived from XP) whether jokingly or for real. And the OS has been 'hardened' and the computers don't EVAR go on teh intarwebs. That's my understanding of it.

But I've been out of the loop for quite a while. Last time I visited a sub (my old boat, which visited San Diego for decommissioning) I saw the "hardened" laptops in the Control room, but didn't take a very close look. They also said "no devices on the sub" so we had to leave our cell phones, etc. in the car before going on the tour. It was kinda fun seeing old friends from 30 years ago, as well as the opportunity for a close relative to see my old boat before it got cut up - literally.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The important question

was Boeing's recent infection caused by individual Windows 7 users at the company NOT updating any more out of habit, because of GWX ? And NOT wanting to shut down work for half a day to WAIT for updates?

last time I worked on site, "the accountant" seemed to get a virus on her computer about once every 2 months. Yeah, it was probably from MS Word docs with "attachments" that were "invoices" or something. And yes, they were using OUTLOOK.

No Falcon Way: NASA to stick with SLS, SpaceX more like space ex

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: a rocket that already exists.

" BFR may well be ready before before the SLS."

More true than not, when you compare government projects to private industry (in general).

Back in the 80's, when I was in the Navy, the San Diego submarine base had an ongoing project to construct barracks for single officers. They were living at the barracks at another base a few miles away, or in apartments in the city. So this had been under construction for the entire time (>3 years) when I was at the San Diego base.

In 1985, McDonalds got permission to construct one of their restaurants on base. It was up and running in about 3 months, from laying the foundation to flipping burgers. And, by comparison, the officer's barracks WAS NOT EVEN REMOTELY COMPLETED after 3 FORNICATING YEARS!

That kinda says it all, I think. Musk wants to make money, so HIS "BFR" rockets will be designed, tested, flown, and approved LONG before NASA gets even REMOTELY close to having SLS ready.

(without the 'urgency' of the space race, like it was in the 1960's, gummint projects will milk the funding for all it can, keeping people employed indefinitely regardless of how important or useful the jobs are, creating circular bureaucracies that justify one another's existence, and LOTS of spinning wheels without motion)

Intel shrugs off ‘new’ side-channel attacks on branch prediction units and SGX

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Intel has serious product issues

with a bit of sympathy for engineers at Intel, I think much of this may have just "not been thought of".

Now that the genie is out of the bottle, they should just confess it and fix it.

As for branch prediction stuff, how come THAT isn't saved/restored with task state or thread state switching? OK performance hit, but still... not THAT bad compared to the security, and maybe a "fast bit" to turn it on/off in the OS?

What the @#$%&!? Microsoft bans nudity, swearing in Skype, emails, Office 365 docs

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Offensive moi?

"A real Pro can cuss you out without using profanity!"

and you can play it for laughs...

{What the FEEL???}

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: This is going to be so much fun on the train,....

keep it up, the train's crapper is out of toilet paper [and all I found was these 3 sea shells]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

"M$ Morality Police"

MICRO-SHAFT, FEEL YEAH!!!

we're only trying to help you, for your own good

MICRO-SHAFT, FEEL YEAH!!!

Protecting all the snowflakes, from language that's crude

MICRO-SHAFT, FEEL YEAH!!!

Victorian ethic reboot and political correctness too!

etc.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"Does that mean that if I tell Cortana to f$ck right off my machine she will ?"

if it were so easy.

I think Micro-shaft should UNINSTALL THEIR OS as well, and set you up with Linux Mint, if you violate their terms of service. It'd be a really convenient way to UPgrade, by telling Micro-shaft, Cortana, or some overly sensitive "target" to {insert graphic sexual activity here} with {large uncomfortable looking object with multiple sharp pointy edges} and {something corrosive and/or abrasive that doesn't even remotely act like a lubricant}.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Skype

USENET preceded them all, you can swear and use profanity and upload pr0n as much as you like, and it's all available to anyone who wants to view it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Office365...

"And I'd like to think that people would read articles... [snip]"

comments on WHERE THIS IS LEADING are still relevant. It's the whole "slippery slope" thing.

Today: scan/ban only when someone complains

Tomorrow: we scan your schhhtuff and are OUT TO CONTROL YOU.

or something like that.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: What that tells us about Skype?

if some cold-caller that violates the 'do not call' list by calling MY phone using Skype, and I use profanity at them [a typical response from me], are Micro-shaft going to ban *THEM* for having "profanity" on their line?

[I doubt very much that Micro-shaft is policing this kind of activity with respect to the 'do not call' list]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Fuck translates to Fick, Bolle, and what more

"We are fast approaching a point where ordering a sandwich at a deli will land you in prison"

a SAUSAGE sandwich with MAYO, please...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: WTF!

I'm offended by Micro-shaft's policies. they should ban themselves now.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: That's Yorkshire fucked then

"we had to talk about how many different ways there are to conjugate "fuck" as a verb, adjective, noun or adverb"

if you see Kaye, tell her I said hi.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: It's a feature

wait until it auto-bans you based on poor swear-bot behavior, like "shitake mushrooms" where IRC swear-bots will occasionally kick/ban you because of something like that

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: No Cussing Allowed?

keep in mind that "offensive" might include anything that disagrees with POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

Micro-shaft can take their *PROFANITY* *PROFANITY* services and *PROFANITY* *PROFANITY* *PROFANITY* !!!

How do you make those darn code monkeys do what you want? Just give 'em a little nudge

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: You will get desert.....

how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Ring the bell

"Document in the positive."

things that document 'in the negative' were probably written by lawyers trying to cover their own asses...

bombastic bob Silver badge
IT Angle

Re: Beware of the leopard

well, a positive example of this 'make it easy' etc. principle is how the city of San Diego handles its recycling program, which effectively pays for itself (as I understand it) with items tossed in the blue cans.

All they did was give EVERYONE a blue trash can to put out every other week with recyclable materials.

Now I find I'm filling the blue can, and rarely put out the black one [normal trash] by comparison.

So recycling gets done on a massive scale, it benefits the city, trash doesn't fill up the landfills so much any more, and it is SO easy to do as a citizen, because you just toss the recyclable thing into the blue can instead of the black one. [they also give you a pretty long list of things you can recycle, and a trash calendar indicating which weeks to put the blue can out on the curb].

Anyway, I think this is a good example of the principles discussed in the article being applied. OK it's not IT, thus icon, but I thought it was worth "sharing". heh.

Parents blame brats' slipping school grades on crap internet speeds

bombastic bob Silver badge
Childcatcher

"a poor connection can waste an awful lot of time."

poor connections work fine for PLAIN TEXT and 3 or 4 pages of search engine results (it's all done server-side after all). Waiting for CAT (read: pr0n) videos on youtube to buffer, while claiming "I'm studying", not so much.

article: "Surely we're not expecting the little dears to read books instead?"

YES. And it PROBABLY requires going to and knowledge of a library to do THAT. With any luck they WALK to the library, getting some sunshine and exercise. All good!

icon, because I _AM_ thinking of the children. I'm just not a flaming bleeding heart brainless liberal.

When _I_ was a kid, I had to walk to school, uphill, both ways, in the bad weather, carrying a buttload of books so I could do 4 hours of homework every night. Kids these days got it WAY too easy! They need to get their ritalin-filled heads out of their collective asses and stop whining on social media, texting each other instead of talking, and playing video games all the time. Kids these days...

Meet the open sorcerers who have vowed to make Facebook history

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: another bloody silo that nobody needs

extending IMAP probably isn't the right way to do it, especially if existing private e-mail systems NOT running Dovecot suddenly become "incompatible" because of it.

Any kind of central "real world identity" system is RIPE for abuse. Period.

Spammers and scammers WANT to be able to connect a real-world identity with an online one, especially if you use multiple e-mail addresses, IRC handles, gamer IDs, or "any other presence". If they can't track you CENTRALLY, in order to monitor you for advertising (or other) purposes, they'll do it via the "real world identity" thing.

Don't forget, Micro-shaft NOW has that "Micro-shaft Logon" which was first excreted in the early part of the 21st century as part of their "Dot Not Initiative" - aka "Micro-shaft Passport", which was a TOTAL flop even when compared to the whole "dot bomb" thing.

maybe its time to divorce from the Faecebook way of doing things, and go back to something that doesn't track you or spam you with ads, like USENET and IRC.

Huawei wins patent injunction against Samsung in China

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: Chinese courts are capable of making reasonable decisions

"how do foreign companies fare in Chinese courts when trying to enforce their IP?"

Thanks. here ya go! Have a beer!

NASA fungus problem puts theory of 'Martian mushrooms' on toast

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Sounds like

"I mean how can you not have fun cleaning?"

when it involves being on your hands+knees and lots of bending over? that's not very fun...

"Come on guys, lets get our mops, our buckets and our sponges and have some fun cleaning! It's party time!"

how about high pressure washers and compressed air instead? That's even MORE fun!

when I was in the Navy they used to joke that a 1st class petty officer does "Field day" (ship cleanup) while standing up. And the CPOs all do their proficiency watches during that time so that the rest of the crew can clean. heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alien

Re: Um, nope

"but some species capable of producing amino acids that are usually considered to be extra-terrestrial when found in meteorites."

you sure that these fungususes and shrooms aren't of ALIEN ORIGIN???

icon because obvious

India: Yeah, we would like to 3D-print igloos on the Moon

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: What to use as a binder?

"How does this 3D house printing compare with an inflatable structure which can be used as a former for polyurethane foam?"

sounds good to me. and it could be made RE-USABLE to make MORE structures after the concrete cures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunarcrete

ok - you'd start with a thin enough layer so that the inflated structure doesn't collapse under the weight. But then, you remove the inflatable part, then build on top of the existing layer. I'd also assume some kind of support structure underneath it as well, not just air pressure. Lunar titanium. But it would begin with the inflatable structure that you mentioned. It's a good idea. I like it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: See what l did here....

"....and a country like the UK can spaff money on things like Trident and brexit when they don't have affordable housing for most of the population, feed school children, etc. et"

you know, MOST of that could be fixed with pure capitalism. You have to assume that the reason people have no housing is that it's not being built fast enough, the reason they have no food is because it's not being produced in farms fast enough, and the reason people lack money is because they don't have jobs.

So what's the solution? pay out tax dollars to people who claim they don't have enough money to get housing/food/etc.? I think NOT (think of where it has to come from, and how UNsustainable THAT would be). Instead, you ENcourage private enterprise to do what it's good at, create jobs, produce stuff people want, and tell GUMMINT to just STAY OUT OF THE WAY as much as possible. [yeah here come the exploitation arguments, yotta yotta - *yawn*]

Just stating "the obvious" ya know?

So, where are all of those "straw man" xenophobics anyway? Maybe there's a handfull of wackos, but that's it, right? Do YOU know any xenophobics? I mean REAL xenophobics, not "accused of it" because "political correctness" or something, the way the P.C. fascists throw around 'word of the day'-phobia accusations right/left/up/down/wherever all the time. And if you do not know anyone that's a xenophobic [likely], then ARE there any in significant numbers? And that's my point. People just want to live their lives in private and not be disturbed or coerced by anyone/thing, because THAT is human nature. I think most people are really like that. And I know a LOT of people 'like that'.

And nuke weapons helped prevented the world from falling to fascism and communism. I think _that_ is pretty useful, don't you?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: igloo

there are better materials than ICE, and could be made from moon dust which is basically 'regolith', not unlike concrete in many ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunarcrete

additionally, there have been several proposal with respect to ice as a construction material, one which was proposed back in WW2...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete

this example uses wood pulp plus ice, but there are other potential materials as well, that would help prevent the ice from subliming away in the vacuum on the moon.

Another good alternative would be GLASS. Yes, GLASS. And the lunar surface contains a lot of Titanium, which would be really good for support.

So now you get building materials that are local to the moon, and require very little (if any) water to make:

a) sulfur-based or other 'dry' concrete

b) titanium mined on the moon

c) glass made from silicates on the moon

d) solar and nuclear energy to power it all (2 weeks of night every month, so you'd need something to power stuff when it's dark, and nuclear makes the most sense).

Anyway, an igloo is kind of odd and impractical. But using LUNAR MATERIALS is definitely the way to go.

Sysadmin wiped two servers, left the country to escape the shame

bombastic bob Silver badge
IT Angle

water, water, everywhere!

decades ago I had an "in between" job as a building maintenance guy, working graveyard shift. One morning I went to turn on the A/C unit, but when I started the cooling tower pump, someone had shut the valve on the inlet of the A/C unit [only one guy ever did that]. It broke several 12" diameter PVC pipes running around the building, dumping tons of water into the parking garage. Yeah, the switch for the pumps was on the opposite side of the building from the A/C unit with the valve. I didn't get fired, though. But the A/C was down for several days [fortunately weather wasn't bad, and regular ventilation was sufficient] while the pipes were all re-done. With double-thickness pipe so it wouldn't happen again.

ok NOT related to I.T. hence icon.

SpaceX blasted massive plasma hole in Earth's ionosphere

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Yawn

"Disruptions in the ionosphere are to be expected for every rocket launch and are also detected during volcano blasts and solar flares."

And don't forget meteorites. Those that are large enough to hit the ground most likely create the same KINDS of "problems" in the ionosphere.

The *EARTH* is *NOT* *THAT* *FRAGILE*. And _natural_ processes do the SAME THING, and usually to a greater extent than ANYTHING humans can do. I mean, seriously, ONE ROCKET did "all that" ? I have my doubts!

Prez Trump's $60bn China tariff plan to hit tech, communications, aerospace industries

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: It's almost too late

"Whereas the USA will do anything to pay less"

hopefully THIS means building robotic factories in the USA.

In China (and many other upwardly mobile far east nations, from my experience), their underpaid employees are often "thrown" at solving a manufacturing need. It's a bit like the keystone cops. In the west, people think they're too good to count a million washers, and weigh the bag instead, estimating the number. Over there, they count, and throw an unlimited number of 'bodies' at the problem until it's done.

Yes, out of a million washers they were short a few hundred. [this was Singapore, back in the 90's]

So, back to the 21st century...

Let's say you want a limited production run of circuit boards. A company in China will probably have a big workbench filled with employees working on your device, using the 'tweezer' pick and place method. In the USA, a robot will do it, and a tech will load the parts reels and put the finished circuit boards into the reflow oven. Even visual inspection can be automated. Interestingly, one US company's manufacturing price is actually COMPETITIVE with at least one well known company in China [all things considered].

What China has going at the moment is a lack of "polluting" costs and better 'location proximity' for suppliers. They did this deliberately.

Let's say you have a resistor maker, a capacitor maker, a semiconductor maker, and a board maker, all in proximity to an assembly company. It doesn't take "rocket surgery" to figure out that having all of these NEXT TO EACH OTHER (effectively) will GREATLY improve the process and lower inventory levels [leading to lower costs].

THEN, they have an UNLIMITED SUPPLY of "low wage" employees, which (for now) are cheaper than building robots. And that's who is building our "stuff" at the moment.

Couple that with a LACK of environmentalist wackos (in China) complaining daily about the MERE PRESENCE of hazardous materials, along with the expense of disposing of such industrial waste (they just pump it into the air, etc.), and the frequent sue-balls and H.R. nightmare and "other regulations" and other problems associated with the "sue-ball" shadow economy, and building in China looks pretty damn good by comparison... [from the "can you blame them" depaertment]

I'd like to see a lot of "those things" made HERE instead. With robots. And clean processes. And once our industries stop going "over there" and invest "over here" to get the robotic plants up and running, because the tariffs make it worth while, we'll see a shift in manufacturing. And that's the point.

Prof Stephen Hawking's ashes will be interred alongside Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Throw Data and Riker in there

Star Trek TNG poker game. Hmm...

thinking about it, everyone from that game who was a HOLODECK character (in the STNG universe) is now in one place.

OK I'll grab my coat, too.

As I recall, Prof. Hawking won the hand.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"Prove me wrong"

science is based on the scientific method; that is:

a) theory

b) observation

c) hypothesis

d) experimentation

e) analysis (proof or disproof of hypothesis)

The experimental part needs to be repeatable by others in order to be considered 'science'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Prof Hawking worked on the 'theory' and 'hypothesis' parts, for sure, and the math may be part of 'experimentation' and 'analysis'. Others will experiment, no doubt, to prove or disprove his theories.

So science doesn't require "a leap of faith". Science requires experimental proof. Or disproof.

US Congress quietly slips cloud-spying powers into page 2,201 of spending mega-bill

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

provided they get a US judge to approve a subpoena

that would be the 'due process' part in accordance with the 4th ammendment.

Of course, foreign server operators can tell the FBI (or whoever) to pack sand. So the law is actually _MEANINGLESS_ without foreign government cooperation. For a U.S. company, however, it's probably binding (in one form or another).

More L[a]Yers getting enriched. Again.

Five things you need to know about Microsoft's looming Windows 10 Spring Creators Update

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Anyone attempted to use ReactOS?

I attempted it long ago. not even in alpha state, unfortunately. maybe now it's better. I don't even know if it supports applications written for Windows 7. Ot was originally intended as an XP clone.

it would be nice if it gets finished into a commercial product, because people WOULD BUY IT

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

"I moved 7 elderly cousins to 10 (one from Vista-7-10, 2 from 8.1) and for them it 'just works'."

well, LA-DE-FRICKING-DAH! [voice of Chris Farley]

"with ClassicShell and anti-slurps I've made them all look just like XP"

HOW can you POSSIBLY do THAT when it's STILL all "2D FLATSO"? And don't forget "Settings" vs "Control Panel" and lots of _OTHER_ sewage. Sure 'Classic Shell' makes it USABLE, but doesn't fix the REAL problem.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Long File Paths ?!

"If you want your application to use long paths then it needs to have this entry in the manifest"

Yeah, that's *ANOTHER* irritation that Micro-$HAFT has done to change Win32 applications: they added the FORNICATING MANIFEST which you *HAVE* to use for certain things to avoid *NIGHTMARE* scenarios for 'your application', such as being confused for an installer if the name resembles something that *might* be a setup utility [whether it is or not], since Vista.

But I suspect they want to go "UWP-only" at some point, so Win32 may become a thing of the Windows 7 past...

And Micro-$HAFT could have SIMPLY added another API function (20 years ago) to fix their shell, one that respects "longer than 260 character" paths.

related, the article linked to a site that showed the appearance of the latest "new, shiny" and it had a link to a $5 "light media player" - yes you have to BUY it from "the Store". That's a floated 'trial balloon' from Micro-$haft. And the appearance of VLC in the panel above (apparently a UWP version - *shudder*) was an abomination that I pray to the gods of programming *NEVER* *APPEARS* *ON* *ANY* *OTHER* *PLATFORM* {especially Linux or BSD}.

And of course the 2D FLATSO looks JUST as ugly, perhaps even uglier than before.

Leaning tower of NASA receives last big arm

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: And the passenger in the shuttle ?!

apparently, the previous thought was to have 'some kind of a shuttle' to guide the boosters back to earth? Robot pilot?

This is NASA's chance to make the case for their own launch system in competition with the private sector. Let's see how it works out.

/me thinks that if SpaceX doesn't make a better one that is people-rated, someone else (besides NASA) will. because, as we all know (or should know), it takes a gummint to cost-bloat and delay a project into infinity (unless someone is watching VERY CAREFULLY and lighting a fire under their asses at every opportunity).

Programming languages can be hard to grasp for non-English speakers. Step forward, Bato: A Ruby port for Filipinos

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: It is NOT English

" but when you are programming you are thinking only of how the function is used and what it does rather than how the word would be used in English."

hence, the occasional utility function named 'semprini'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: There's a PhD in that

yeah, let's just all program in '4th'. problem "solved" [everyone equally disadvantaged]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I wonder if you can't be bothered to learn

if you learn martial arts, it's likely you learn the terms in whatever lingo the martial art is associated with...

English terms are few and easily recognized, don't require characters outside of 7-bit ASCII, and since English is "the language of commerce" it's often taught in non-English speaking countries. As I understand it, English is still #1 when you look at it from "how many people in the world are at least familiar with the basics of the language". English is ALSO spoken universally for air traffic control . It's an "international standard".

if we were to use Spanish as 'the standard language' (also a commonly spoken/understood language), then the 'if' statement would use 'si' (no accent), which is a little ambiguious compared to 'sí' (with an accent) which means 'yes', and also requires me to use the 'charmap' application to grab an accented 'i'. Other languages like French and German have their non-7-bit-ASCII characters, too. German might be able to live without the 'ö' and use 'ss' instead of 'ß', and maybe Spanish can live without the 'ñ', but your average U.S. ASCII keyboard doesn't have those keys on it. Typists would have trouble with it. It would slow down productivity. Seriously.

I remember finding some stuff, in wxWidgets as I recall, that uses 'colour' rather than 'color' and I had no problem with it. You just go with what's there.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Nothing new here

I worked with some engineers from Russia a few years back [they were visiting the US at the time] as part of the company project, which involved a Russian company in St. Petersberg and a U.S. company in San Diego. I mentinoned that debian linux had a Russian version, but he said that in Russia they usually prefer to use the English versions of the software because the Russian translations are often ambiguous or unclear, particularly with UI elements and things like that.

Maybe THAT is why the Russian translation of BASIC wasn't being used...

Addicts of Facebook and pals are easy prey for manipulative scumbags – thanks to tech giants' 'extraordinary reach'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Some Data Protection and other ideas

let's propose something a bit simpler:

a) opt-in only for the data collection; and

b) individuals must be able to view and edit their own info, in a meaningful form, as they see fit [including erasing all of it]

And you _KNOW_ the data miners would NEVER go for it, which would probably mean it's the right way to do it.

Not to mention the EU's "right to be forgotten" which means you should be able to tell every data miner to "forget" everything they've got on you... [and propagate it to every one of their 'partners' too].

so yeah if you accidentally visited a few pr0n sites, just erase that bit of history, and no more ads for penis pills. Well, you'd hope that, anyway.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: Regulation is badly needed - Steps: 1-3

oh yeah, more gummint. that'll fix it. **NOT**

No, Stephen Hawking's last paper didn't prove the existence of a multiverse

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Awesome

Call it "n-space" instead of 'universe' perhaps?

and what separates the n-spaces... a dimension? So they're really (n-1)-spaces

And what if gravity (or mass) were a dimension, like time? Particles tend to play a "now you see them, now you don't" game, from what I understand, even appearing in more than one place within the same 'time' from what I've read [but that was YEARS ago, science may have explained that one away by now].

So if quantum events create new (if just theoretical) n-spaces, NOT having an atomic decay might have a different 'mass' dimension than 'that other universe' where the atomic decay took place.

so you're back to infinite 'n-spaces' again, even if things did not start out that way at 1.0E-33 seconds.

/me now does a shoutout for 'Noein'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Multiverse Mania

there's still that one OTHER universe where everybody wears cowboy hats... (but only THAT one).

/me goes to the edge, sees cowboy hat Bender waving back