Posts by bombastic bob

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?

NASA boss insists US returning to the Moon after Peanuts to show for past four decades

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'.

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!!!

Equifax reveals full horror of that monstrous cyber-heist of its servers

Re: And how...

considering that we never really gave permission to Equifax to collect all this crap, but rather OUR BANKS DID IT FOR US, who can you blame?

I think "they" have too much power. WAY too much.

Fork it! Microsoft adds .NET Core 3.0 including Windows Desktop apps

"Mono" is a disease

see topic

Re: Meanwhile in the rest of the world...

"And unlike .net you get a statically linked executable."

that's something I've been (slowly) working on for a few YEARS now (for C, C++). mostly done for X11, but I keep running into things that end up requiring major re-writes of a portion of the API [like how X11 handles true type fonts vs standard X11 fonts].

But yeah, that should be the goal: to easily and rapidly develop an application that can be shipped in source or binary form and installed on any platform, with minimal dependencies. Too bad Lazarus is pascal...

Re: Microsoft becoming Donald Trump

Why are you insulting Donald Trump that way? [I think he's the best president since Reagan, and want 6 more years with Trump at the helm - SERIOUSLY!]

A big thumbs DOWN to your post. And the topic. And the horse you rode in on.

Microsoft is more like an EVIL FASCIST COMMUNIST DICTATOR than anything else. And "they" want to micromanage YOU and your computer and everything you do online and in your life, and MONETIZE it all, because the ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS. That's more like OBAKA if you ask me...

Re: .dot not a lot

"they're too lazy take it out"

In DevStudio 2010 you have to go through and "un-check" a bunch of things (for an MFC C++ application, anyway) but [unfortunately] you STILL need a damned 'manifest' to avoid your application NOT being compatible or being treated with UAE when you don't want it to. At least, from DevStudio 2010. I don't like any of the later DevStudios as they're all oriented towards that 'UWP' crap and have 2D FLATSO user interfaces. 2010 is the LAST DevStudio I'll evar use, probably. And I'll target Win 7 if I ever have to write another winders application.

But yeah, if you jump through the hoops [there are a finite number] and turn OFF all of that "shared MFC" and "shared runtime" and "framework" and other CRAP, you can produce something that only has the windows API as a dependency. That's right, JUST AN EXECUTABLE! Amazing concept, huh?

[who needs all of those DLL HELL libraries anyway, just static link and be done with it - it'll load faster, too]

Welcome to the 21st century, where pretty much EVERY computer nowadays has GIGABYTES of RAM, and TERABYTES of hard drive storage, and if you pack around 256kbytes of "what COULD be shared libs" in every application, it's a drop in a bucket [and probably will load/run faster too].

ok someone will ask: how can it RUN FASTER? Well, if you do static link optimization tricks, you can get functions that "call each other" to be located within the same block(s) of memory, which helps to make L# cache more efficient, with a smaller code footprint in the cache, and more likely to get various CPU-driven optimizations to happen, yotta yotta. And of course, LESS PAGING ACTIVITY when the system demand is high. And did I mention it would LOAD FASTER?

Re: MS Tax

ack - there are several manufacturers who build computers without pre-installing windows. Sometimes the linux-capable versions cost MORE, though.

and there are also the 'netbook' variety computers, if all you want is something with a screen and keyboard and USB for mouse [and maybe a simple touch pad] for "el cheap".

So yeah Linux is out there, but doesn't have the marketing capital being shoved at it like MS does for windows. Also Wine is pretty much "not good enough, still" to run any windows application, so people with legacy applications [or those that REQUIRE windows, shame on you devs who STILL do that] will end up paying the MS Tax, and getting stuck with "the boar that has lipstick on the non-oinky end" known as Win-10-nic.

If I had the capital, I'd complete a cross-platform toolkit that would allow developers to create both C and C++ applications that are truly cross-platform, using a reasonably low-level API [so as NOT to have a boatload of shared libraries that it depends upon]. But as it's me funding myself doing the work, I still have to pay bills and so can't devote sufficient time to get it all done fast enough. Dammit.

Re: RE: How long before core becomes windows only?

if "the Core" is windows-only, then Micro-Shaft won't be able to CRAM UWP UP OUR A DOWN OUR THROATS on Linux, Mac, and "anything else you can imagine".

Remember, it's about WORLD DOMINATION, a lock-in to THEIR tech, so they can enforce SUBSCRIPTION models. If UWP is free *NOW* it's because it hasn't been monetized... yet.

They're doing the Embrace Extend Extinguish dance, all over again. "Embrace" Linux, with SQL Server and ".Not Core". "Extend" Linux with full-blown (2D FLUGLY) UWP "CRapps", _SO_ convenient for developers! Then, when end-users are CALLOUSED to the 2D FLUGLY LIMITED UI CRAPWARE, *EXTINGUISH* the "free" part of "Free Software" by INTRODUCING A SUBSCRIPTION MODEL. You know "pay up or it won't run".

Either that, or they COERCE the world into having NO other alternatives but THEIR CRAP.

Imagine Windows 10 running with Linux underneath. Powershell instead of bash. And _YOU_ paying a MONTHLY FEE in order to USE YOUR OWN COMPUTER.

Brain Bleach? That way --> http://freebsd.org/ http://linuxmint.com/

(while we still have control over our own choices)

Re: What a mess

Windows is (unfortunately) *UNDEAD* now. It's been killed so many times, it's a shambling zombie, staggering around going "UUUuuuuuhhhhh"... [like me before the coffee kicks in]

Microsoft's most popular SQL Server product of all time runs on Linux

Microsoft learned not to overreach.

since when? Win-10-nic says the opposite.

At least their SQL server group is STARTING to "get it". But for the rest of the company, it's same thing, different day. Customers are "minions", to be herded and coerced into doing things "Microsoft's way" so that the market can be cornered, dependency can be established, and nobody DARES go outside of the box!

And YOUR computer is under THEIR control!

It's World (Terrible) Password (Advice) Day!

Re: Sensible Rules

just hand out the root password to everyone who might need it. Make sure it's so cryptic that you have to write it down or store it someplace. Problem "solved".

@Squander Two - you're trying too hard here.

Just do the 'correct horse battery staple' with predictable non-alpha-numeric characters between each word, like: "correct-horse+battery/staple". To "change" your password, merely change the value and/or order of the non-printables, making it easy to remember, difficult to crack.

back in the day Compuserve issued passwords very similar to that concept, consisting of two unrelated words separated by a non-alpha-numeric, like "kettle?gear" [no that wasn't my password, but I still remember what it was, more than 20 years later].

Also a line from your favorite movie might work, with similar characters between words... "go-ahead+make!my/day?"

Pentagon in uproar: 'China's lasers' make US pilots shake in Djibouti

Re: Laser canon and sonic death rays.

maybe we could just equip military aircraft with a kilowatt laser that "fires back" at the laser? "Send it back" with 'interest'!

That's right, "mine's bigger". Wanna see? Heh!

FCC shifts its $8bn pot of gold, sparks fears of corporate money grab

Re: Overcharge

"Maybe they should quit collecting the money for six years."

Maybe they should quit collecting the money for six years AND SCRAP THE PROGRAM

fixed it for ya.

This "program" (aka wealth transfer of O.P.M. to buy votes) has CERTAINLY outlived its usefulness (if it ever had any), especially with how cheap cell phones are these days... [and WHY should _I_ pay for SOMEONE! ELSE'S! PHONE! LINE! with TAXES???].

if you don't make a boatload of calls, you can get a <$50 phone with pre-paid from AT&T for $100/year. that's what I have, actually. works for me, just fine.

Microsoft's latest Windows 10 update downs Chrome, Cortana

Re: I've outlined the reasons on El Reg countless times

" Insiders = nincompoops. Fanboys, not professional QA testers."

Yes, Micro-shaft definitely made it VERY UNFRIENDLY for *ANYONE* who became an insider in order to improve the product by feeding opinions back to Micro-shaft, when such feedback did NOT fall in LOCK STEP with the FASCIST REGIME opinions of Micro-shaft.

Dissension was rewarded with BANS and DELIBERATE+OBVIOUS BIASED TREATMENT of so-called "term of use" violations. Fanboi trolls would deliberately engage people, "a comment" that didn't even violate TOU would be issued from the target, and then *POUNCE* and BAN. They got REALLY BAD after a while, like they were DELIBERATELY trying to clean out EVERYONE who dissented, so they could have a nice "pleasant" forum of like-minded sycophantic groupies.

One day 4 or 5 individuals commented to me in their forum about things that were irrelevant, but it was like 'sock puppet' posts, people who were CONSTANT violators of the TOU (they were frequent ad hominem attackers, for one). Next thing I get is a 'ban warning' (a "last warning" in fact) for allegedly doing something NOT COVERED by their TOU. At that point I abandoned their forum to their own folly. It was obviously NOT going to help any more to tell Micro-shaft why they were screwing up, with examples and specificity, in as many areas as I could think of [which I did for about a year, actually, and did NOT violate their TOU]. So yeah I saw it first hand. They didn't want dissenting opinions. Many other dissenters left the forum at the same time.

Yeah, no @#$% this really happened.

If you're a Fedora fanboi, this latest release might break your heart a little

Re: A differente audience

smells a lot like Ubuntu, looks a lot like Unity.

Unless it comes with Mate I'm not even going to download the thing - I don't like using rpm packages anyway, tried/tested CentOS and wasn't all that impressed with it. I got used to dpkg/apt a long time ago and I can stick with it.

But at least the screenshots weren't all "2D FLATSO". I appreciate THAT much.

Ubu has non-free packages. I guess this may have driven RH to do the same.

But I believe in "true freedom" so I welcome the [mis-named] "non-free" package repo, particularly when it's 'non-free' as defined by STALLMAN and his hippie/commie fanbois. Stallman's fascist approach to GPL is not relevant any more. Who _CARES_ if the 'GNU List' of "approval" doesn't include Fedora? What matters is what the users/customers think.

And right now, RH "gets it". Well, minus the whole systemd and gome-3-ness...

Re: In Linux, "freedom" means you have no freedom but to bow to Stallman.

"If you're really free, you're free to release your code as you like, and install any application you like."

True.

As for the topic line:

you have no freedom but to bow to Stallman Poettering.

fixed it for ya.

Google will vet political ads to ward off Phantom Menace of fake news

Google's twichy bums

I think they want to have the last-minute filtering "authority" so that MORE DEMON-RATS can be "elected".

After all, telling the TRUTH about Mrs. Clinton's crimes is being universally withheld across the non-Fox media (in the USA anyway), telling the TRUTH about Mueller's so-called "investigation" is ALSO being universally withheld, and telling the TRUTH about Trump's many accomplishments and the improved economy and world-standing of the USA is _ALSO_ being universally WITHHELD by "the left", the lame-stream non-Fox media, and [of course] GOOGLE wants to have THAT kind of POWER, too.

Because shaping public opinion, using emotional manipulation, is the CORE of controlling "the masses", and it can be done through advertisement, "clever" filtering of news, "social media", and the BLOCKING of ANY CONTENT that you deem "unworthy". And the more they slurp, the easier it becomes.

THAT is apparently what Google wants. Their left-leaning slant [by corporate policies and political involvement] is WELL documented. And THEY want Zuckerberg's kind of power, too.