* Posts by bombastic bob

10515 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Bill Gates' nuclear power plant stalled by Russian fuel holdup

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: "Frankly, for a country that came up with the Manhattan Project in the 1940s"

Oh yeah I should mention some things about Three Mile Island. The biggest problem here was a lack of communication, i.e operator error, combined with a stuck valve, improper valve position indication (it indicated shut), and the placement of indicators within the operations room that were too far apart (meaning you obsess over one panel without realizing the other is telling you a different story). So they manually overrode things they should NOT have, making the problem WORSE. When they finally realized it was too late,l the core had been uncovered and there was a steam bubble, followed by a Zr-water reaction that formed a large hydrogen bubble, which exposed the fuel, all helping to cause a meltdown that made everything go to hell really fast.

it was a lesson to the industry, but not to say "bad investment" - just "train more" and "design better". Nuke reactors are safe when designed and operated properly. Those last 2 bits are important.

(I could go into more detail but Wikipedia may already do that)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "Frankly, for a country that came up with the Manhattan Project in the 1940s"

Some of what you have said reflects popular opinion but not necessarily science and engineering fact.

Example: US operators have an obsession with running their nukes 100% 24/7 as baseload

The fact is that most (if not all) large civilian reactors either have a zero or a positive "alpha-T" - i.e. the coefficient of the relationship between water temperature and 'reactrivity'. This means these reactors are inherently unstable, so in order to control them, you need to use methods that are reliable at maintaining a constant power level. Changes in power cause 'transient' conditions that work AGAINST the reactor's controllability. This is why you SLOOoooowly bring power up over several DAYS when starting up one of these things. Then they run that way for weeks at 100% until you shut them down for maintenance. This is safest AND most profitable at the same time.

The variations on the grid are normally handled by carbon-fuel plants and hydroelectric plants. Wind and Solar could do the same if there were not such an "obsession" for getting more [expensive] power from THOSE instead. It would be much easier to feather the props on a wind farm than it would be to lower a nuke plant's output power [unless they dump steam, but that's inefficient].

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

You are right in a lot of ways. We'd have TONS of competing reactor designs RIGHT NOW if only those with political (and possibly financial) interests AGAINST nuclear power had NOT been flinging endless vexatious sueballs at the nuclear industry since the 1960's... including NIMBYs that won't let us build nuclear waste treatment plants nor ship it through their area.

Yeah, THERE's your problem...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Mochovce 3

The USA has HUGE coal deposits still... not gonna run out of THAT any time soon! (being able to mine for it without gummint opposition, that's something entirely different)

Germany might want to think of ways to become more energy self-sufficient, in any case.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Well.

Sharks with frickin' lasers? I thought it was ill tempered sea bass! After all the sharks ARE endangered, and Bill would not want to turn in his 'woke' card over that...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: "It's a real shame he didn't go for a breeder reactor instead"

yep, sounds nice and "sciency" to me, too. Nice perspective. I did not realize they were using alloy fuel though. I would be curious about delayed neutrons in a fast reactor, whether or not prompt neutrons are at a higher percentage than in thermal reactors. I suspect they are different since the fast fission product yield curve (Mae West curve) differs somewhat from thermal. I am not sure by how much.

In any case without enough delayed neutron precursors the reaction lifecycle will be too short to control it properly, and with fast neutrons you also lose at least SOME of the stabilizing factors of "negative alpha-T" and are stuck controlling it like a very large reactor that might have a 0 or even positive "alpha-T". These are some of the reasons that thermal fission is preferred over fast fission, other than a few physics details like buckling and macroscopic cross section for fission. But alternative designs are, well, "alternative" so I'm assuming they worked this all out.

bombastic bob Silver badge

that's an interesting analysis of using a CO2 coolant.

If it were my choice, i would just go with H2O, light water, because it is cheap and well established. You can control water chemistry with ammonia, use an ion exchanger to purify it, change out the resin once in a while as needed. The systems that already do this are basically the safest and most tested designs. Others, especially boiling water reactors, aren't very commonly used, nor are a few others I am aware of. Experimental, sure, but not so many operational. Liquid sodium does have high potential for being a practical alternative design and I believe that some subs and civilian power plants are using sodium. So it has its own problems but is effective and safe enough to work.

There is no loss of efficiency with something like pressurized water coolant. Heat is heat, and the most limiting factor is really on the secondary side, as in how much steam pressure can your secondary systems take and whether or not you need to superheat the steam. PWR pressure is less of an issue (you could go as high as 3000psi for example without too much trouble) but the mollier diagram for steam indicates that phase changes over ~1200 psi [around the maximum specific enthalpy point] can become problematic. I think you'd see heavy condensation in the piping which means a LOT of superheating to prevent it. Anyway... all of that is part of overall system design. Way too much math/engineeering outside of my field.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

The SCRAM name is unfortunately a bit of folk etymology and not true

I have seen at least some evidence to suggest it was true, from a college prof who worked at Lawrence Livermore Labs when it mattered, back in the 1950's, early on in the industry. And, the U.S. Navy.

There were a number of terms I heard about in my radiation safety class, a number of nicnames and acronyms you do not often see elsewhere. For example one of the radiacs was referred to as a "cutie pie". It had a large cylinder extending from it (as I recall it was an alpha particle monitor). And of course I learned about SL-1 (the unclassified version), a nasty example of radiation poising for a welder in Argentina to tried to steal an unshielded radiation source for x-raying metal, and (no shit) how to clean up radioactive spills using maxi pads and comet cleanser. Things WERE a bit more innovative in those days, yeah.

So you can expect some odd naming conventions from that time period.. And my time in the U.S. Navy confirmed the SCRAM acronym, where (if I remember correctly, my Nuclear Power school time was in 1981) we had some nice hand-drawn diagrams of the system showing the guy with the axe and the rope, possibly even from classified sources. Then again Admiral Rickover was a bit of a prankster at times, so maybe HE was responsible for it?

[also noted was that they all stayed in the same room with the reactor running for an extended period of time, while radiation alarms were going off in the room warning them to get the hell out - it's who these guys were]

Also in the Navy I read the classified incident report on SL-1 which was required reading, as well as the official 3 Mile Island incident report, and also "Murphy's Law" (that's Admiral RIckover's sense of humor for ya). The classified SL-1 report basically confirmed some of the rumors that were hinted at when I learned about it in college. I guess some details were (literally) too gruesome not to be classified at the time. Of course there were other details that I remember that may be related to things like plant design which may still remain classified so I will not say any of that. And there was a movie that showed before, some maintenance practices, and the aftermath. Some of that has been declassified as I understand it (read the Wikipedia page, you'll see).

So anyway, the rumors around the term SCRAM may not be confirmed because they were classified and never released, or were never written down in the first place. Does not mean it is not true.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

in theory you are correct but also there is naturally going to be at least some conversion of U238 into Pu239 in a low enrichment fueled reactor. So recovering Pu239 from spent fuel might be the best direction to take.

The thing about breeders is that they have to have longer "slowing down lengths" for the neutrons which is not so much power-making friendly but fuel-making friendly. So there would have to be some special design considerations with respect to the physics of fuel geometry and a few other things. The very first nuclear reactor on record (not made by accident) was a breeder with carbon moderator.

I would guess that the competing design goals are why we do not already see this being done at scale.

and having a conveyer belt of U238 on one end and Pu239 on the other end is probably less workable than any of us would like, which means frequent shutdowns to harvest fuel made in a breeder.

Another thing to consider is that thermal neutron reactors are a LOT safer and easier to control than fast neutron reactors. What might work best for Pu239 usage is a hybrid fuel where there is a lot of U235, but it is mixed with Pu239. That would make it easier to control.

Apple preps for 'third-party iOS app stores' in Europe

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Thanks for nothing EU

the absolute last thing I want is for a plethora of ways for potential customers to come across my games.

/me does double-take

Whu...?

uh... don't you want your applications sold in as MANY stores as possible?

FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried charged with fraud by just about everyone

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

yeah it is not likely that creditors are at fault for making bad investment/loan/etc choices anyway. They simply must want their money.

It's probably a number of private investors and firms that invest in lots of things like that. The world of finance.

Kinda reminds me of an old fashioned "bank run".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

your snark is appreciated

Since "Bankman-Fraud" aka "Brain-Fried" is likely to go to prison for his loss of billions of dollars in other people's money by way of alleged fraudulent claims, alleged criminal mismanagement, etc. I would think that EXISTING laws and regs are just fine if the bad actors go to prison for allegedly violating them in such an allegedly gross manner.

Some think he might follow the same fate as Epstein. I have to wonder if "knowing where the skeletons are" has anything to do with THIS...

Note: never trust your life savings to an alleged hippy allegedly running an investment business from a multi-million dollar commune in the Bahamas, despite all of the alleged woke virtue signalling he's allegedly doing to convince you, especially when he (allegedly) visibly shakes like a meth-head in a TV interview and (allegedly) goes into a "Talking 'bout my generation" thought+verbal spin trying to explain things...

C++ zooms past Java in programming popularity contest

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: No great surprise, what goes around comes around

You forgot to mention C and C++, which have decades of history and performance tweeks.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Java can’t go away, sadly

I mostly use Java for 'droid when I do 'droid.

The Kotlin learning curve is too steep and a waste of my time.

I said the same thing about C-pound (among other things) when it first got the "new shiny" promo from Micros~1. I rejected it, just like I have rejected Kotlin.

Java does the job, does it well, and is familiar.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"the number of queries for C++ is because it is so insanely huge and confusing to most programmers"

My experience has been that JavaScript and Python are like this, mostly because I do not use them every day.

JavaScript has the unfortunate legacy of being (at least the way too many people use it) grossly inefficient on top of that, so when fixing someone else's code I spend quite a bit of time researching how it OUGHT to be done by a competent programmer.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Damn Statistics

well, I've based my own decisions about "learning what lingo" on TIOBE. It seems to be less biased towards ":new, shiny" than would, let's say, a Stack Overflow assessment.

TIOBE is not perfect but it gives you a ballpark idea which is often good enough.

And, it has always (more realistically) scored C-pound much lower than MS propaganda would have you believe.

So yeah if you want a job or starting a new project:

* C / C++ (I consider them similar enough to combine them in my head)

* Java

* Python [though as a scripting lingo is is brilliant, for applications it is cumbersome]

US could save billions in health costs if it changed wind energy strategy

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Dubious claims, In My Bombastic Opinion

Although gross air pollution was "a thing" back in the 60's and 70's in the USA (and STILL is in places like China), I am doubtful of the claims on health.

The biggest health risks from burning fossil fuels are particulates, hydrocarbons, and acid rain components.

It is my understanding that they are generally taken care of through scrubber technology. ff not, they SHOULD be.

But I do not believe that any of this is a problem inside the USA in the 21st century. So I would like very much if they could make more specific claims, such as "air particulates containing carbon and carbon compounds were shown at levels above XX and therefore result in YY health concerns". But what seems clear to me is that there are generalities and a possible logical fallacy of "everybody knows" or ":everybody believes" as if thick black smoke were belching from the exhaust stacks of every power plant which it is not, at least not in the USA].

Now the article discusses "historic data' for particulates, ozone, and acidic stuff, but then goes into the RIDICULOUS claim about CO2 [keep in mind that CO2 levels are 0.04% and do not become serious health concern until they go above 2% - ask any submariner]. So I would be interested in what the particulate, ozone, and acid levels are as compared to, let;s say, a FOREST FIRE, something we regularly extinguish as responsible humans.

I am also a bit concerned about how RECENT the 'historic data' is. I suspect that acidic, particulate, AND ozone in power plant exhaust are not nearly what might be indicated by that data, as technology has improved with respect to cleaning up the exhaust from burning fossil fuels. Example, adding scrubbers to existing coal plant exhaust stacks.

A web site with a list of retrofitted power plants with scrubbers added

It is my understanding that in many cases the chemicals recovered from the exhaust might actually be usable and can offset the cost of the scrubber.

Point is, wouldn't it just be SMARTER to CLEAN UP the exhaust, instead of turning them OFF? Then monitor air quality reasonably and make investments in retrofits where it makes the most sense.

US EPA info on power plant exhaust

I am curious, why ozone was mentioned... I cannot find any references to it in stack exhaust. Unless it is a reaction from breakdown of NO2 or some other similar reaction (combustion itself would NEVER produce it) then I am not sure why it was even mentioned IN THE ARTICLE. Hey maybe someone knows why but it is not helping their credibility if it is wrong. But any SO2 scrubber should remove NO2 as well.

[If they are really referring to ozone depletion, then that might make sense - hot exhaust is hot enough to get to the ozone layer - volcanoes do that all of the time they erupt]

Redox OS version 0.8 is both strange and very familiar

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Graphical

The NT kernel is actually small, but the OS itself is supported by required monolithic API libraries that interface with it.

Hybrid-kernel might be a better explanation of what it is.

Thinking of that... ReactOS ?

NASA scraps budget-busting GeoCarb greenhouse gas observatory project

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

collecting data from space = good

I think that collecting data from space and producing maps is a VERY good thing.

Down side, we won't have any starting point for comparable data. Trying to compare space data to on-the-ground trends would tend towards apple/orange comparisons.

Still it should help show things like whether active volcanoes ARE actually pumping huge levels of CO2 into the atmosphere (which i believe is the case).

This would also help with monitoring obviously-man-made CO2 concentrations in low-rain areas away from coastlines, taking wind and weather into consideration. It would help to show whether (or NOT, as I would claim) the models of CO2 production and depletion actually fit reality, and whether atmospheric CO2 concentrations are really affecting temperature [you could correlate concentration to cooldown rate at night when there are few clouds and no wind, for example).

Ideally this data would be available for EVERYONE so that citizen-scientists can look at it, etc. as well as college students and profs.

I just hope that they would not in any way filter the data to match a political position. Just raw and available to EVERYONE

(Maybe the other project can do the same? Save money and consolidate the mssions?)

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

that looks like a cultural reference that search engines aren't helping me with much...

Guess the most common password. Hint: We just told you

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: What!?

an alternative, use something familiar followed by a short random sequence.

KeepassXC generates random pass if you want it. So I'll grab (let's say) 6 random chars, and either prefix or postfix something easy to type that is not easy to guess (let's say my favorite movie character but spelled wrong). So hansolow-{random sequence} then save it to KeePassXC and use either web browser password cache or KeePassXC to keep it.

For longer stuff like github keys I wrote an open source application with a simple shell script example that lets me store a password in an encrypted file. Then I enter the master pass phrase and it puts the password in the clipboard. Then I can say "git pull" on a private repo, enter anything for the user name, and paste in the password. Pretty simple, reasonably secure.

In any case if you do not have to remember it, a combination of "CorrectHorseBatteryStaple" approach with a pure random component is probably the easiest way to get a secure password.

Japan successfully propels steam-powered spacecraft

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: EQUULEUS

some kind of carefully designed "thermos bottle" might retain heat well enough (on small amounts of propellant) to make this practical, so that you collect heat whenever it is practical to do so, then carefully retain it inside the specially designed tank containing a limited amount of propellant, enough to maneuver anyway. Remaining energy could also be accumulated from solar panels when batteries are fully charged (i.e. heat it electrically with spare trons).

in this case you need no vacuum container (space vacuum works) but you'd minimize the thermal conduction area and insulate as much as possible to avoid radiative cooling.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: EQUULEUS

might get more efficiency if you can put something in the water that retains more heat, weighs more than pure water, does not gunk things up,l and does not significantly increase the boiling point. That way you get more impulse for the same wattage, and fuel tanks can be smaller.

an alcohol of some kind might do the trick, maybe propanol/isopropyl or heavier...?

Time Lords decree an end to leap seconds before risky attempt to reverse time

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

cool... heh

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Didn't someone previously propose

"Don't Blink"

FTX disarray declared 'unprecedented' by exec who cleaned up after Enron

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Delaware

Close. And Joe Biden is FROM THERE...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Next chapter

Bitcoin is kinda like Tulip bulbs being speculated on, and THEN actually being used as currency. Reference to this:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dutch_tulip_bulb_market_bubble.asp

(They fell short of actually using them as currency as I understand it)

I avoid it because a) I cannot afford to lose an investment and b) it is SO volatlle and has 2 major drawbacks: it increases in value slowly, and drops in value RAPIDLY.

But some people invest, and some make money, and probably MORE people LOSE money. My bombastic opinion.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: "unprecedented"

Become a master criminal by running a successful company so badly that even though you make money, so did everyone else. have no accounting, no business plan. Then claim incompetence so your assets arent totally taken away. That being said if he has loads of offshore accounts everywhere then good luck finding them all.

Reminds me of "The Producers". When it is completely bankrupt, everyone loses their investment, but YOU keep everything you milked out of the company, even though it was a complete failure, YOU win.

and now a chorus of "Springtime for Hitler" sung by a strung-out out-of-time speed-freak hippy named Brain-Fried, who lives in a poly-amorous commune, and his finance officer, also part of the commune, that cannot even do BASIC MATH. Yeah that show is GUARANTEED to fail (for the investors and customers) !!! [I hear the company bought the Bahamas commune for them, for $40M]

(yeah that's 'unprecedented' alright!)

They're gonna put THIS one right at the front of the "Dumb Crook" file!!!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: LOL'd at this one

now they are gonna need a "handcuff" emoji to represent where most (if not all) of them are headed...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: LOL'd at this one

But... but... but... their ESG score was STELLAR! I mean, VEGAN! Contribute to DEMOCRATS! Climate Change!

And I'm sitting here rolling on the floor laughing over just how comical this all would look if Brain-Fried actually said that...

(while constantly jittering like he did in a video being interviewed by some liberal media guy, like he was strung out on speed)

I hear Brain-Fried is scheduled to make a speech in NYC on 11/30 or thereabouts. I hope he shows up!! "Inspector Zenigata" will be there with a nice new shiny pair of bracelets for him...

Twitter engineer calls out Elon Musk for technical BS in unusual career move

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Top marks for honesty

Frohnhoefer replied flatly: "Zero. The apps don't make RPC calls."

Technically correct, I suppose, as the app itself does not "make" the calls, it rather causes them to be made. The RPCs being referred to presumably happen server side?

arguments over terms and semantics. exactly what I think was happening.

This probably means that territorial boundaries are getting stepped on, and those in charge of the territories are getting nervous and a bit defensive...

(so maybe Elon wants to integrate and probably consolidate, a thing that a new CEO is likely to want to do)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: Bit klunky, but...

OK you are the captain of a ship. Someone on the bridge starts insulting your personality or ability to command the vessel because of a disagreement, maybe even during a crisis.

What do they call that again... MUTINY? INSUBORDINATION?

Yeah. from the perspective of the CEO, it is like THAT. UNDERMINING the leadership at the top to that extent can damage the company structure in ways you cannot imagine, if you think "feeling stupid" has anything to do with this.

This needs to pass the "shoe on the other foot" test.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Bit klunky, but...

it is also possble that the term "RPC" in Elon's mind means something different in their programmers' minds, like "we do not do RPCs we do "remote API requests" or something equally tedious and irritating [so typical of people trying to hide things, or maybe Simon the BOFH when he wants the boss to leave him alone].

Musk understands enough to know the *kinds* of questions to ask. He expects (as was pointed out earlier) straight answers, and NOT territorial spats and blame on "10 years of coding".

Some time ago I was working on an application that collected data and sent it to a server by phone. Circumstances being what they were, the person who designed the server side left the company (maybe because I asked too many questions). But it was taking MINUTES to do uploads from an iPhone... and it was due to server-side kludginess! Needless to say I went in and improved the upload efficiency by a factor of 10 by re-writing significant parts in C instead of python. But for some reason that was NEVER considered until I did it. of course my reward was to have my contract NOT renewed, and now the company no longer exists due to the INCOMPETENCE of those who ran the show. I think one of the people behind it simply liked Python and did not want to see an EFFICIENT solution replace the Django one, even when being called by DJango as external utilities to process things. [he even went so far as to re-re-design the hardware for the only product using features the rest of us had abandoned years before because it was proven to fail catastrophically in a short amount of time, but who am I, I am not a college professor, just an engineer... academic arrogance, nuff said. project and company DIED]

And THAT example is kinda where I think Musk wants to go - he has discovered an obvious bottleneck, he wants to know why it is being done that way, and he wants to re-do things to address the worst of the efficiency problems first. if it has to round-trip to the server several [thousand?] times, you have performance problems. I bet that's what he means.

That is pretty much what *I* would do, too.

(this sort of lines up with how AGILE is FRAGILE, why you do NOT make everything 'object oriented', and why falling back to a well established standard compiled language like C instead of 'new, shiny' is not necessarily a bad thing...)

NASA's Artemis mission finally launches after faulty Ethernet switch delayed countdown

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

I had the evening cable news on while busy on the computer, noted the switch in coverage, watched the coverage (about 5 min I think). Very nice launch. I think NASA has redeemed themselves from the delays etc.. Much better than a spectacular loss of system integrity.

Looks like SLS will do the job. cheers!

Sorta reminds me of watching all of those Apollo (and some of the Gemini) launches back in the 60's and early 70's.

Wells Fargo, Zelle slammed by Liz Warren over rampant online banking fraud

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: 0.1% fraud?

obviously they need to do better at dealing with fraud...

allowing transaction reversals by scammed customers might be a good start!

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Elizabeth Warren

yeah, pot and kettle. Exactly.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: fraud claims vs bank-covered fraud

so, if my funds are transferred without my permission it is THEIR fault, so they re-imburse me. That is fair.

But if I authorize the transfer it is MY fault? That is unfortunately NOT a 'wrong' position to take.

In the USA a credit transaction can be reversed within a reasonable time period (60 days I think it is). A debit or EFT (as I understand it) can NOT be reversed. So when I do online orders it is always with credit, not debit or EFT [except in a very few cases, like paying taxes or doing business with extremely trustworthy vendors].

Anyway part of the problem may lie on a lack of understanding by the users. We hate the outcome, but that's how it is.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Stockholm syndrome

when it comes to loans and business banking, sometimes the larger banks are easier to go to.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: "any external analysis done is incomplete.."

welll... did you check the e-mail headers to see what mail server sent the spam? sorry, but I have to agree with chase on this one, if in fact someone merely crammed their e-mail address into the 'From' on the mail header, and the 'reply to'' would have been their scammer address...

I sometimes get spam like this, even spam that pretends to be from Wells Fargo, or rarely, Chase, More often it claims to be from my own mail server admin (which I run for my domain) which is laughable but still sad. (If I am in a rotten mood I report it to all of the appropriate agencies and ISPs). Clicking the 'remove me' link just confirms your e-mail address is real so you can get even MORE spam.

In any case I do business with Chase also and have not seen problems, though the spamming in their name (i.e. joe job) DOES happen.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: EWS - Early Warning Services, Inc. - We'll let you know when the feds are investigating.

I think the banks were trying to do a good job on a competing product to PayPay, but underestimated criminal potential.

secure transactions will ALWAYS plague the banking industry, just like bank robbers always have.

As for Lizzy Warren I would not trust her with respect to 'fraud' considering the FRAUD she committed when trying to leverage affirmative action (something I already hate but still) by claiming to be "Native American" with respect to college admission etc.. Me being 1/8 or so (about 1/16 of which is from the Taos tribe in New Mexico), I could have made stupid claims like that and it might have even been LEGIT, but the thought of doing so NAUSEATES me... And also, Warren's DNA test showed her at under 0.1% (as I recall), so in REALITY she's out there playing "Ms. Pot" to the banking industry's "Mr. Kettle" when it comes to FRAUD.

(I do business with Wells Fargo, and I haven't had any problems)

Republican senators tell FTC to back off data security, surveillance rules

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Simple approach?

The toughest of all of the states' rules - *that* is what CONGRESS is supposed to decide (and hopefully they DO). You are right, though, about different rules everywhere. 'Interstate commerce' is to be assumed with web sites, and that's why the USA has a federal government unlike the original 'Articles of Confeeration'.

Husband and wife nuclear warship 'spy' team get 20 years each

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Damn!

no, you're mistaking it for a rectalinear poobah. This particular device uses the more superior 'gonkulator'.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Damn!

they must be like QWERTY keyboards, now.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: From Brazil directly to the CCP

a good point. I'm glad they handed it over to FBI (at least this time). Not sure how long this had been going on, though, or who the initial contacts were...

KFC bot urges Germans to mark Kristallnacht with cheesy chicken

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

I was actually thinking 9/11 was a better comparison... (or 'worse', depending)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

I guess it;s a bit like their 9/11 . Did not know there was a national comemoration for that.

So it was sorta like saying "Celebrate your 9/11 by buying this cool product!"

(This probably means that you should never let computer AIs generate advertisements).

GitHub's Copilot flies into its first open source copyright lawsuit

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Most human programmers were also trained on open source code

I'd shorten that down to "concept vs copy". Or in legal specifics, patent vs copyright.

It is very hard to argue (In My Bombastic Opinion) that an AI-based programming algorithm is anything more than a fuzzy data compression and expansion method. As such the data from the program source it scanned is uncompressed and included in the output. Whereas humans, of course, would have to create something fresh the way it has been done for 100,000 or so years. OK so your neighbor made a wheel. You can make one, too. NOT plagiarism (but maybe violates his 'patent'). etc,

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: FOSS conditions

I would rather have the positive affirmation of "OK to use" rather than "NOT OK to use", sorta like "Opt In" vs "Opt Out"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Snowballs anyone?

true - imagine the litigation over use of 'for' or 'if', or (worse) variable names! "I had a 'for(i1=blahbnlah)' in MY code and YOU COPIED IT!"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: "Open source is a cancer"

This asks the addititional question: who exactly is going to assimilate WHOM? At least for the OS, a workable windows running on Linux would be a better model...

As for open source licensing, in theory this whole situation with CoPilot begs the question of "what exactly is plagiarism"? I'd say if you look at code in a book or online and then write your own it is NOT. But if a machine creates an AI model (like fractals for a photo) and then re-creates that code from the model (in a nearly identical way) it IS plagiarism. Hopefully the courts will agree.

I am not too happy with such AI writing code. I see gross obvious junior-coder mistakes in THAT future.