Posts by bombastic bob

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

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

classic "schmuck bait"

really, all of the jerking around and moving targets of the past (with respect to NASA and the moon) were nothing less that "schmuck bait". Question is, who's the "schmuck"? I think it was the voters...

A lot of talk happened right around the time "Apollo 13" the movie was released. Then it died off. Again.

The REAL problem is that only GUMMINTS are talking about it. Gummints involve politics, "other people's money", and (too often) voter manipulation.

It's hard to find a better analogy that doesn't involve a totally cynical look at political leaders, like maybe "The Deacon of the 'Deez" in Waterworld, who gave a speech and showed the tattoo'd back of the kidnapped girl in order to inspire the minions, and got them all rowing ["They'll row for a bleeding month"] even though the Deacon had no clue as to where to go. [IRL example, Jerry "2nd time around" Brown]

If we stopped spending money on social programs, and bought MOON ROCKETS instead, the rocket makers would hire the people who WERE getting freebies from gummint, and they'd be working to get their money [and would probably have a LOT more of it to spend]. And we'd have MOON ROCKETS to show for it. you get what you pay for.

So now I need to come up with an analogy for a) manipulating voters into FEELING that gummint giveaway programs are a good idea, b) dangling "back to the moon" to a group of voters to get THEM to vote for you, too, and c) tossing the idea of going back to the moon, CUTTING the NASA budget, and then SPENDING EVEN MORE on worthless "social programs" to buy even MORE votes.

And Lucy with the football seems close enough for me. "Schmuck bait". And the VOTERS are the 'schmucks'.

'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]

Date engraved onto net neutrality tombstone: June 11, 2018

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.

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?)

Re: Tell us...

IQ of 135 to 150 would be average in the IT world. nothing to brag about, really.

yes, it is an amazing realization to consider that the people you normally deal with at work, versus "the rest of the population", have that much of a gap in IQ. "Average IQ" is 100. That means there are as many people BELOW 100 as there are above it. Fortunately I don't have to deal with people that have "below 100" IQ very often [I think most of them have gummint jobs].

I wonder what 'median IQ' would be, though... that might say a LOT.

Re: Whats the pain points?

"Changing their minds every few years?"

More like "Changing their minds every few WEEKS". It's impossible to navigate while the compass is spinning. It's even worse when the compass leads us OVER THE CLIFF!

pain points: ".Not", C-pound, MFC/runtime "shared lib" by default, ".Not" dependency by default, manifests required in EXE's now, "code signage" requirements for drivers [aka TOLLBOOTH], UWP, "the Store", 2D FLATSO UI, *spyware*, *adware*, "change for the sake of change", FORCED UPDATES, "online only" MSDN documentation, Win 7 (effectively) not *purchasable* any more, subscription models for office [and we know its coming, THE OPERATING SYSTEM], and...

CUSTOMERS TREATED LIKE MOOKS / MINIONS / MASSES / EXPLOITABLES!!!

Micro-shaft - are you PAYING ATTENTION? Past experience suggests NO. (and you wonder WHY you don't know what the customer wants any more!)

Re: "We want to ask developers, what is your pain point"

"Let us develop using the native OS APIs, thank you"

Welcome Aboard! (see icon)

Now, admittedly I'd like to see an MFC-like cross-platform toolkit, where I could develop for this toolkit and easily compile/run on X11, OSX, or Windows, with the SAME SOURCE.

Oh, wait, there *IS* one! But yeah, it needs a bit more support with respect to tools, etc. from what I've seen.

MS: if you can "get on board" with what wxWidgets does, maybe devs will like you more? Just STOP IT with the C-pound-only, ".Not"-only, UWP-only, "spinning compass" directionless NONSENSE. Stick with one thing, make it better, make it cross-platform (and NO slurpware/adware built-in).

US Congress finally emits all 3,000 Russian 'troll' Facebook ads. Let's take a look at some

Re: The poor English reminds me of the 419 scam.

there were LOTS of candidates in the Republican primary. Demon-Rats, not so much. Mrs. Clinton cheated, don't forget, according to the e-mails that were disclosed by Wikileaks.

That makes a HUGE difference!

Qualcomm, Microsoft drag apps for Win-10-on-Arm into 64-bit world

Re: Dumb

"Just watch!"

in HORROR! I hope they FAIL.

".NOT" on RPi

".NOT" on the RPi, even with Raspbian???

it BURNS us! Please, NO!

What has been seen cannot be unseen, without 'brain bleach'... *burp*, I think my lunch is coming up...

I'm looking forward to arm64 in general. However, it's already supported with clang and gcc. Who needs Micro-shaft's compiler, and ESPECIALLY who needs ".NOT" or C-POUND?

Target LINUX! And no ".Not" CRapps. K-thanks.

Windows Notepad fixed after 33 years: Now it finally handles Unix, Mac OS line endings

Re: Vi

"like a passive-aggressive millennial"

heh

Re: Windows...

"700 million of those on Windows 10."

how many of them by CHOICE?

Consider that GWX had to shove Win-10-nic "up"grades UP OUR AS DOWN OUR THROATS to get people to "up"grade not so long ago, and if Windows 7 were STILL available, I bet you'd see a lot of machines being sold with THAT on them, instead.

Don't forget what REALLY killed the PC market: Windows "Ape" and Win-10-nic

Re: relief arrived a long time ago

"from back with the Dinosaurs?"

seriously?

Re: relief arrived a long time ago

open the file with ANY editor on a Linux system, or in Cygwin. Fixed.

And I suppose I'd have to install Win-10-nic to get the notepad fix, right? No back-ports to 7?

Commodore 64 owners rejoice: The 1541 is BACK

Re: "6502 CPU and two 6522 processors"

" But it was never a processor."

well, there was a documented way of sending code to the on-board 6502 for things like "fast disk". but since the RAM was limited, you couldn't load very much. Seriously, though, it was doing what microcontrollers often do, in this case moving the diskette drive heads and whatnot. The ROM was decoded and documented in various books and whatnot. I don't have any of those any more [gave them all away along with the hardware, long ago] and I'm pretty sure that whoever ultimately ended up with it all probably didn't appreciate the geek factor of it...

In any case, it was possible to use the on-board 6502 as an actual 'processor'. It was just somewhat difficult and impractical for anything NOT disk related.

Re: Bang!

interesting. That might explain why my 1541's lasted quite a while, even though on one of them [the first one I bought] I had to cut open the case a bit and place a cooling fan on top because it overheated early in its life. I noticed that Commodore went with external power supplies for later models, which prevents the overheating.

Re: Perfect!

I had a koala pad [but couldn't print the drawings]

AI crisis: Sony reports shortage of cute robot puppies!

Re: Cheap compared to a real puppy

And, why exactly does it NEED a "cloud subscription" ???

Just sayin'...

Microsoft sees Red ...Hat for OpenShift-on-Azure public cloud offering

RH dealing with the devil (Micro-shaft)

I don't really blame RH for wanting to "partner" with Micro-shaft with cloud services (etc.) but I strongly suspect they might end up being swallowed later on...

(history suggests this pattern)

As for IBM, they've been committed to using Linux for quite a while now, so I'm pretty sure they'll be happy to make hardware that Linux runs on (and software solutions that run on them). No danger to RH there, as far as I would guess.

But RH needs to make sure they have an 'ass protector' already installed (and properly configured to defend against Micro-shaft). They're sneaky little buggers and RH doesn't need a "surprise".

Adobe, 'hyper personalisation' and your privacy

"In reality, with enough data, Shell would know to mark up this guy's petrol"

Worse: the Shell station near me has MINI-TV's mounted in the pumps that PLAY ADS while you're dispensing fuel... [I normally ignore them, but they're irritating, and you KNOW that if the fueling station has your personal data, they'll TARGET THOSE ADS TO YOU].

Re: Hypo-personalisation?

and NOW we know why the Adobe reader wants you to LOG IN ONLINE...

(at least it did the last time I booted up a new/reconditioned windows (7) machine with Adobe pre-loaded, and in a horrified panic, I couldn't find "uninstall" fast enough)

Re: Choices

"no real drop-in replacement for its products that can maintain compatibility"

I've been using Atril to view PDFs for a long time. haven't had any trouble indicating any incompatibility. I used Evince before that, except that they "went .Not" so I'll *NEVAR* install it *AGAIN*. Morons.

I also NEVER use flash, not for many years.

So what else does Adobe provide [with no reasonable open source equivalent] that I might actually need? I suspect that if I can't do it with Libre Office already, or perhaps mash together with gimp, I probably won't think of it [or will write my own application to do it with imagemagick and/or shell/Perl/Python/C]

Maybe you can list a few things I don't know about, just for grins. I'm actually curious.

Re: Choices

"what you outline is what incurs the big fines."

EU will NOW test this concept. If it works, I think the USA will demand it too. I fear that a workaround is 'ready to go' such that the big players continue to get away with it, while the smaller ones get the fines.

Good luck with GDPR. I want to see it actually succeed. I think it won't, though.

/me imagines the 'forget' list for search engines being SO large that it renders them pretty unusable...

Re: "People are buying experiences, not products"

This 'experience' thing reminds me of a light bulb joke:

Q: How many people from Silly Valley does it take to change a light bulb:

A: Three. 1 to change the bulb, and 2 to "share in the experience".

Yeah, it's how these idiots think. Why are we (collectively) ALLOWING them to "define the future" FOR us?

icon, because, facepalm

Microsoft reckons devs would like an AI Clippy to help them write code

Re: "Hello it looks like you are writing code...

don't forget "auto-edit+refactor that variable/function name to conform with Hungarian notation and CamelHumping"

[there are people who absolutely HATE Hungarian notation and shift-ridden function names - and sometimes THEY set the shop standards]

Micro-shaft: dumbing-down the developers, developers, developers, developers since they invented ".Not" and C-pound and then shoved it up our as down our throats (because they couldn't Embrace, Extend, Extinguish Java) !

/me points out Android Studio isn't much better, out-of-the-box enforcing K&R style. Yuck. I spend the 30 minutes' time to fix that, make it Allman style, no hard tabs [so I can keep what little sanity I have left].

And we don't need "Micro-shaft Clippy" doing even WORSE...

Re: There is a reason that I gave up developing for the MS Platform

I already *HATE* [lack of intelligence]Intelli-sense getting in the way of my high speed typing. Now they're making it WORSE...

/me goes back to using 'pluma' to edit code...

Re: #Nostalgia

beer for the Salmon Days "clippy clip" - it was the first thing that entered my mind when I saw the article's title.

The world is becoming a computer, says CEO of worldwide computer company Microsoft

Re: Nadella, Nadella, Nadella

beer beer beer!

Re: This is improvident imbecility

"dire and deadly results of human demolition of our planet is Luddite in the extreme"

human DEMOLITION of our planet? gimme a break! You need to study REAL science, not enviro-wacko propaganda.

*yawn*

*bored now*

icon because: facepalm at the lame. the sky is NOT falling. and the emperor is NAKED.

Re: Here's a thought, MS.

"How about an OS that just works?"

ack. instead of:

instrumenting everything and gathering the surveillance data, which in turn needs to be dealt with, often using a cloud service.

Question: _WHY_ do _I_ need "surveillance data" collected on me?

Micro-shaft is selling something we shouldn't want.

And, if they cared about DEVELOPERS, they wouldn't be SHOVING UWP UP OUR DOWN OUR THROATS!!!

Only a matter of time before:

a) slurp everywhere [even on Linux]

b) subscription OS

c) No more Win32 API - *EVERYTHING* UWP!!!