* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Hypersonic nukes! Nuclear-powered drone subs! Putin unwraps his new (propaganda) toys

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Possible scenario

"unnecessary/late/ineffectual weapons systems" "like the F35?"

well, people used to say bad things about the M-16, too, when it first came out. nowadays, after a few decades of serious use and tweeking, it's probably one of the best small arms any military might have in its arsenal. IMBO [In My Bombastic Opinion] it's better than an AK-47, though AKs are probably cheaper to make [it was a design feature of the AK to be cheap/easy to make].

Give the F35 some time, so the bugs can be worked out, and the benefits of having a common airframe for what is basically 3 different kinds of aircraft will make a lot more sense. Sometimes you have to look at "total cost of ownership", and how military supply systems work on ships and when deployed in the field. Keep in mind that you need SPARE PARTS for all of those planes, to deal with war damage and normal wear and tear. And so, the basic design feature of 'commonality' is a serious tactical advantage, from a supply/material standpoint.

[having been in the military, having been a 'repair parts petty officer' and had to deal with the navy supply system, it's important to consider THAT aspect, too, with respect to weapons systems and availability and so on].

In Sun Tzu's book, "The Art of Warfare", he talked about how important it was to make sure your troops were properly supplied for whatever campaign they were to be sent on. Supplies are extremely important.

Anyway, that's my $.10 worth on the F35. It's really still a "beta release". Then again, in a time of war, sometimes those 'beta release' weapons make all the difference. I mean, how many awesome planes in WW2 received the 'P' designation for PROTOTYPE? And I think it was the P51 Mustang with the Merlin engine that really did the trick to help end the war a bit faster...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Mutually Assured Destruction - MAD

Vlad "Pootie" Putin needs to read 'Superiority' by Arthur C. Clarke

And I have to ask this one tiny little question: Why, of all times, is he so blatantly bragging about his nukular capabilities? This is especially important because MOST of what he's talking about is still on the drawing board [as I understand it]. You can't be "stealthy" with hypersonics, FAST underwater craft are also LOUD [and susceptible to tactical nukular missiles, like 'subroc'] and so on.

What he seems to be saying is "we're important, too, DAMMIT! Pay attention to us, we're tired of being FORGOTTEN!"

Being that China's economy and population are WAY bigger than Russia, I can see he's got 'China Envy'.

He's also not happy at renewed interest (over here in the USA) of upgrading our arsenal and undoing some of the technological stagnation and possible degradation that's happened over the last (nearly a) decade.

If he hadn't been such an ass over in Crimea and Ukraine, maybe he wouldn't have to stand there jumping up and down and demanding we PAY ATTENTION TO HIM.

In any case, the only thing he did NOT do is pound his shoe on the podium...

Paul Allen's six-engined monster plane prepares for space deliveries

bombastic bob Silver badge

at some point it may need JATO bottles or some other kind of 'rocket booster' to assist taking that really freaking heavy rocket up to altitude...

but who knows, if it costs less than a "pure rocket" 1st stage...

the other alternative might be a hybrid air-breather for the 1st stage rocket.

Impulse is basically mass times delta-velocity of the stuff being ejected out of the tail end. If you double the delta velocity, it takes 4 times the energy to do it. OR, if you DOUBLE THE MASS, it only takes TWICE the energy. In both cases, you get twice the thrust.

So if you can breathe air {and use that as a significant part of the exhaust) the rocket itself becomes more efficient. It's only when you get to an altitude where air breathing isn't practical any more that you have to use 'fuel only' to propel you.

[it's the same basic reason why turbofan engines are so much more efficient than turbojet engines]

In any case, strap on hybrid rocket/air-breather engines could be a third option to increase payload capacity of the aircraft. Strap them on next to the rocket you're taking up to altitude, and land with them still attached (minus fuel weight). More hybrid hybrid solutions.

/me points out that extra booster rockets burning jet fuel + LOX could be fueled by extra 'drop tanks' carried by the aircraft. Hybrid hybrid hybrid hybrid I guess

23,000 HTTPS certs will be axed in next 24 hours after private keys leak

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Private keys are private

" why did they have the private key!?!?!?"

that bugs me too. I've done self-signed certs and the cert doesn't need the private key (specifically the web server's private key) in order to be created. As I recall, you (effectively) generate a public key from your own private key, and include THAT as part of the 'request' submission to the certificate authority for your SSL server cert.

On the other hand, the CA has its own private key for generating the cert. If THAT got out, it would be just as bad.

Spectre haunts Intel's SGX defense: CPU flaws can be exploited to snoop on enclaves

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Death of DRM on PC platforms??

from what I understand, the practicality of the attack vs possibility is a completely different thing.

As much as I'd like to see the Blu-Ray equivalent of 'libdecss' with all of the possible decryption keys built-in, and easily downloadable software to convert Blu-Ray contents into h.265 media files on a computer, phone, or slab [for personal use, of course, I'm not interested in pirating content, just convenience], I don't see this happening any time soon, even with the ability to do a side-channel attack on the DRM code.

It just seems that there's a lot of cost for such a tiny payoff that it probably won't happen outside of specific kinds of "spear" attacks [perhaps by the NSA?].

In the mean time, every time I read into the technical details of these things, my mind boggles. Spectre is such a confusing mess to try and wrap my mind around, I can't see how any *SANE* person could actually make this work without an extreme amount of time and effort...

And the 'ret-poline' seems to be an adequate defense against at least SOME of it, by not using the speculative execution thingy in the first place.

Now, here's a thought: what if we could just flip a bit to turn branch prediction OFF for code that needs extra security? Or, better still, make it an inherent part of the TASK STATE so other CPU tasks can't pollute the branch prediction cache like that.

yeah that means a complete re-design of the chip's internals. I'll have to wait for a new CPU architecture before upgrading hardware, then... hopefully withOUT a mandatory management engine, too!

NSA boss: Trump won't pull trigger for Russia election hack retaliation

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Acts of war

you know maybe everyone's been thinking about this 'retaliation' thing all wrong...

here are some creative suggestions:

a) Order takeout from every restaurant in Moscow, have it delivered to Putin's house/office, to be paid on delivery. Daily. Until they stop delivering. Then he won't be able to call for take-out, ever again!

b) Make some kind of fake reports to local Moscow police such that the 'swat' guys (Russian equivalent) show up looking for a dangerous man posing himself as Putin

c) Subscribe Putin's personal e-mail address to a whole bunch of mailing lists. Make sure you include his home and cell phone numbers, too. 'Available hours: midnight to 6 AM'

d) Subscribe Putin to Playgirl magazine. Have the first edition FedEx'd directly to him.

e) Have the paparazzi follow Putin around, everywhere. Pay a few of the photographers to fake up some nude photos of Putin and print 'em in the worldwide tabloid news.

f) make up some story about Putin hiring hookers at Mar El Lago to pee on Trump's bed, and have it printed in Russian newspapers as if it were "fact".

heh

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I see the apologists for --

"So, Tom, you'd be OK with the Mexican army shelling San Diego"

/me looks outside, doesn't see any shelling going on. must be fake news.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: What were they planning on doing?

"Interfering in Russia's free and fare electoral process?"

Shhh... you're not supposed to talk about "fight club"

On a related note...

Sometimes you engage in battle, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you use deception to draw your enemy into a place where YOU have the advantage. Sometimes you appear to offer up something that the enemy considers to be of high value, "the precious thing", while simultaneously feigning protection of what you WANT them to think is YOUR "precious thing", so that maybe your enemy goes after what they THINK is your "precious thing" in order to get what THEY want in exchange...

It's all described in Sun Tzu's book, 'The Art of Warfare", and believe me, everything Trump does [or does not appear to do] is for a reason, and the reasons are PROBABLY in that book. Don't doubt me on this. I've paid the penalties for NOT doing what's in that book because I hadn't read it yet. After reading it, my last successful 'campaign' worked SO well I cost my "enemy" $10,000 while getting everything I REALLY wanted. yeah.

Cryptocurrencies kill people and may kill again, says Bill Gates

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Suddenly, all is revealed!

yeah, but I don't need "big nanny micro-shaft" determining what's best for me. Their attitude with respect to Win-10-nic is bad enough...

Intel gives Broadwells and Haswells their Meltdown medicine

bombastic bob Silver badge

nothing listed for mine yet - a Q6600 (yeah a 10 year old core quad). Funny thing, it's doing just fine except for Meltdown/Spectre. Am I going to have to get new motherboard+CPU+RAM now?

Use of HTTPS among top sites is growing, but weirdly so is deprecated HTTP public key pinning

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: I only just noticed...

I'd like https a lot more if there weren't a potential "tollbooth" designed into the protocol (i.e. having to periodically pay a 3rd party for a cert).

also I wouldn't expect a public key method to protect you from a man-in-the-middle attack. self-cert https sites don't either, in theory, though I suppose you could verify the DNS request by contacting multiple DNS servers directly. An MITM that could be so clever as to mask itself as a particular name server, including the root name servers, would be pretty amazing.

Just to re-iterate: the absolute LAST thing we want on the intarwebs is a TOLLBOOTH that prevents independent small-time web server operators from publishing content WITHOUT a google, github, amazon, faecebook, linkedin, or ANY other 'web site or cloud service provider' being involved.

BBC Telly Tax heavies got pat on the head from snoopers' overseers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why persist?

Well, rather than licensing every TV set (when pretty much everyone HAS a TV set), how about this?

a) make it an annual tax that everyone just pays;

- and -

b) have people who do NOT own TV sets (or do not use them in 'illegal' ways) apply for a refund [then it's on them to prove they don't own one]

The cost of enforcement and non-compliance would be WAY lower.

You could actually LOWER the tax rates by doing this

The BBC would probably have more money as a result

There would be no more invading people's privacy.

The current system is probably outdated. If you can make it work well for everyone, then nobody will really complain (too much). But with pretty much every household having a TV in it, you're better off just assuming that everyone has a TV, issue exemptions for those who can prove they do NOT have a TV, and be done with it.

[but that would make too much sense, wouldn't it? I think UKs gummint is as gummed up as USA's in the same kinds of ways, because THAT is the nature of a gummint]

4G found on Moon

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: And if there are any problems just call our hotline

"8 seconds delay"

yeah the signal has a half-million mile (or so) trip each way, or something like it. Imagine two people trying to talk during the silences.

Well then...

No you...

OK, then...

Uh, you first...

Anyway ~1 million miles / 186,000 miles/sec -> ~6 seconds give or take some roundoff, and that assumes my half-million mile to the moon figgur is actually correct.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: patent that

as long as your "home of record" remains on Earth, you'd be subject to the laws of that jurisdiction.

Additionally, there are international agreements, such as what you'd face "on the high seas".

But I'm sure the legislators can't wait to muck things up even worse than it already is on Earth. No escaping it, like death and taxes.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: At last I will be able to phone from home

I hope you have a high limit on your credit card, the roaming charges are likely to be ENORMOUS!

RAT king thrown in the slammer for peddling NanoCore PC nasty

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

honor amongst thieves

I don't whether to be amused or surprised (or not) that even criminals don't like their software nicked!

Honor amongst thieves - does not exist.

I wish I could earn money robbing from "the bad guys". It'd be fun. And what are they gonna do about it, call the COPS? OK they'd call the mafia, but still... it sounds like a lot of fun!

Opt-in cryptomining script Coinhive 'barely used' say researchers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"Can someone get me a copy of the Computer Misuse Act, please?"

I'd prefer a BATTERING RAM and a FLAMETHROWER

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I don't mind supporting websites by mining... but...

- it should NOT be written in a scripted language, which would tend to be GROSSLY inefficient and a total waste of electricity by "contributors"

[but I doubt a 'native' version would EVER happen - who's gonna download an EXECUTABLE and RUN it?]

And so, crypto-mining (voluntary or otherwise) basically RIPS YOU OFF via your electricity bill.

and I bet the <whiny_voice>'climate change'</whiny_voice> crowd won't like the effect of electricity waste. but I'd laugh my backside off if ANY of those people are ACTUALLY USING javascript-based crypto-mining to raise funds!

That would be funnier than Penn & Teller passing out flyers at Earth Day to ban 'DHMO'.

IPv6 and 5G will make life hell for spooks and cops say Australia's spooks and cops

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I am a bear of very little brain.

"Just done an ipconfig on my Win10 lappie"

<condescension>

well, if you're using Win-10-nic, IPv6 configuration is too advanced a topic for you. Sorry to disappoint.

</condescension>

However, keep in mind one thing: Micro-shaft doesn't know how to properly set up IPv6, either.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/19/windows_10_bug_undercuts_ipv6_rollout/

So it should come as no surprise that it makes no real sense. I suppose I could 'nuke out' what they're trying to accomplish, with the dozen or so 'temporary addresses', most likely being a general FUBAR in their networking code.

FreeBSD assigns 3 IPv6 addresses for me: one's a 'link local' fe80: address, one's the static address I assigned in the config file, and a 3rd one is an 'autoconf' address that's based on the MAC address along with the assigned IPv6 prefix. And you certainly don't need a dozen 'temporary' assigned addresses.

On the same network, NOT statically assigned, a Win 7 box has 4 IPv6 addresses. One appears to be from the DHCPv6 server, another one appears to be 'autoconf' (using the MAC address in the suffix), a third is a link local, and a 4th is a 'temporary' one that looks like it's randomly assigned.

Anyway, your Win-10-nic box is obviously doing something stupid.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Legitimate encryption

"Any claims that backdoored encryption will only be decrypted with a warrant are false"

Here's a much simpler analogy: Gummint wants to have EVERY DOOR LOCK be unlockable with a gummint-mandated skeleton/master key. The Gummint ensures you that THEY will be the only ones with this skeleton/master key.

OK - how long before someone abuses THAT setup? Either Gummint _OR_ some clever locksmith? That's right, nobody EVER plants evidence or does a "bogus warrant" search for political reasons, right?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Backdoors don't matter.....

I'll just stick with ROT-13 - it's secure enough for everyone!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: So they want..

"With ipv6 they can do a 1-to-1 mapping of IP address to device, which surely is much stronger from the point of view of bureden of proof."

not only that, but an IPv6 user is likely to have an assigned netblock, which "identifies" you. So, in actual fact, it's EASIER to tell who you are, because your netblock won't change.

As I recall, I've got two /64 blocks assigned to me. that leaves about 2**60 netblocks for everyone else, assuming that we're all assigned netblocks from 2000::/3

https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv6-address-space/ipv6-address-space.xhtml

Why, why, Mr American Pai? FCC boss under increasing pressure in corporate favoritism row

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

maybe what's REALLY happening is...

maybe what's REALLY happening is that the regulatory environment over at the FCC is becoming LESS "favored" towards those who've benefited from such "favoritism" in the past, which just HAPPENS to benefit one particular company, who perhaps has been TOO REGULATED until now?

Just a thought. But it goes against a one-sided rant against Pai. You guys just don't like him because he shut down regulations at the FCC that would enforce "net neutrality", which is anything BUT what its name implies...

I say "net free-for-all" and just comply with the technical standards so the nodes can still talk to one another. you know, like what it was for >20 years before "net neutrality". It seemed to work pretty well BEFORE, so why did we need "all this regulation" shoved into our orifices?

Oh _I_ know why: to EMPOWER BUREAUCRATS so they *COULD* engage in various forms of favoritism! [and would THAT be so eagerly and well reported on if it were favoring OTHER than a large media company like Sinclair ???]

Just sayin'... (and the downvotes are badges of honor, thanks in advance)

Symantec ends cheap Norton offer to NRA members

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"What do a gun manufacturer lobby and internet security have to do with each other?"

Nothing. But the NRA is more like a club or an organization, with membership (not a manufacturer lobby).

Apparently Symantec just wanted NRA members to have an introductory offer as a benefit for membership [maybe it was part of an advertising deal or something with the NRA]. You might see similar *kinds* of discounts for AARP members. Right?

In any case, Symantec probably angered too many potential customers by caving to the LEFTIST BULLIES like that. Yeah, empower and enable those FASCISTS who hate freedom by caving into their demands instead of telling the to GO TO HELL!

The 2nd ammendment is MOSTLY about the right to self defense. "Infringe" on THAT, and you get a population of easily controlled "sheeple", when it becomes ILLEGAL to kill someone in the defense of life/injury/property, someone who's trying to kill/rob/rape YOU. Or your family. Or your neighbor. And so on.

But as for ME, I'd rather use my BARE HANDS to defend myself. Heh. Heh. Heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: That'll show 'em!

"actually this kind of boycott/pressure is one of the only ways small consumers can impact the behaviour of large corporations."

actually, this kind of boycott/pressure is done by a HANDFUL OF PEOPLE who use bots to make 1 person look like 10,000, willing accomplice web sites like faecebook and twatter, and various bullying and intimidation techniques to (essentially) SILENCE! THE! OPPOSITION! even though THEIR opinion is in the minority.

it's how "the left" does what they do. It's been going on for DECADES, in one form or another. It's a classic 'Saul Alinksy' tactic, from paid protesters getting "special media attention" so that the 100 protesters look like thousands, yotta yotta yotta. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

And Symantec won't be getting MY business. (well, I don't really want their stuff anyway)

Rush Limbaugh has done a VERY good job of exposing some of these idiots, when they went after HIS advertisers on twitter a while back... using BOTS to make themselves look like a 'legion' when in fact, it was 10 people. Yes, he named names. wanna see?

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/09/23/the_hidden_story_behind_stop_rush/

Imagine the libel suits (that did NOT happen) if he had been WRONG about this...

And THAT is the point: boycotts are BULLY TACTICS used by DESPERATE LEFTIES that can't win in the arena of ideas by stating their case to an intelligent audience. Instead, they must manipulate emotions, engage in "this kind" of behavior, make themselves look bigger than they really are, intimidate, protest, make a lot of noise, and generally be a PAIN in the rest of the world's ASS.

Does anybody REALLY wanna be CONTROLLED by THESE people? I sure don't!

Boycotts are the TACTIC of MANIPULATIVE HOODLUMS. I suggest NOT participating in them. And threatening people WITH boycotts is even WORSE. (and I don't have much respect for companies who cave to these idiots, either)

/me points out that if I found out Obaka likes (or hates) Starbucks coffee, it won't affect my opinion of them. I'd still go for a cappuccino on occasion, or purchase a bag of Espresso Roast beans...

Intellisense was off and developer learned you can't code in Canadian

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"DELETE FROM HISTORY;"

oops!

2 lessons:

a) do backup first

b) use 'SELECT *' in place of 'DELETE' in a test query before changing it to 'DELETE'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Archimedes

I've seen 'colour' and other things spelled that way in wxWidgets, as I recall...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: I've never quite understood

"As any fule know, 'colour' rhymes with 'yellow'."

/me ponders for a moment... 'old yellow' - now you're making me foam at the mouth!

heh - only kidding... or?

coat, please

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

#define IF(X) if(0)

#define ELSE if(0)

heh

(ok that doesn't work in Java but still...)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"'Queens English' - the language spoken in one of the boroughs of New York City."

And the current U.S. President! Heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Boro

as a kid, for the longest time, I was confused by the spelling of 'bough' - always thought it was pronounced 'bow' like 'bow and arrow', and not 'bow' as in 'bow to show respect'. And in my mind it was never connected to the spelling for 'tree bough'. It may be the worst example of arcane non-phonetic spelling causing confusion. [but in middle english it probably rhymed with 'cough'].

bombastic bob Silver badge
Joke

backgrond-colour <-- fixed

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

perhaps he needed a "non-US-english.h" with a bunch of #define aliases in it

EU aviation agency publishes new drone framework. Hobbyists won't like it

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Drone makers rush

"Seems fairly reasonable to me."

as someone who apparently flies model aircraft AND people-driven aircraft, I think your opinion should carry a lot of weight.

After a cursory look at the article, I didn't see anything really bad, either. Local authorities being able to exempt flying clubs and specific locations is probably the BEST part, since it avoids the "top down dictatorial way" of handing down regulations, which rarely (if ever) really fixes a problem everywhere, equally.

And if you can't see the thing flying, it's not a bad idea for you to need some kind of 'pilot creds' to fly a drone outside of visual range.

The FAA could do something very similar and I'd be happy with it.

Apple: Er, yes. Your iCloud stuff is now on Google's servers, too

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: But...

"Beard trimmers and latte makers"

you don't need a beard trimmer THAT often - just when you need to make a public appearance. Like "when do you need to shower" or "when do you need to change clothes". [my underwear is itchy, time to change it - ha ha ha ha ha]

/me wonders if it's actually 'that way' inside the cubes at Apple. Heh.

Oh, and latte is too weak. Cappuccino or Espresso [or Jolt] and don't forget powering the mini-fridges.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Bah!

Alanis Morissette? I don't get it...

(then again I don't like her "music", nor 'that whiny style' from the 90's in particular, so maybe that's why I don't get it)

But since Apple (apparently) isn't a cloud provider, they gotta use SOMEBODY's cloud server...

/me thinks that if you store your data [strongly] encrypted, such that ONLY YOU have the decrypt key, then it could be stored in a publically viewable place and STILL be secure.

[then it wouldn't matter who snoops or subpoena's your data, it will be worthless to them]

Or, just don't 'iCloud' anything. There's an invention called an SD card. you could store things on THAT, instead.

Trump buries H-1B visa applicants in paperwork

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Off shore slumming

well, we WANT it to be "hire local expertise at the going rate" rather than "import people to drive the cost down".

but yeah, unintended consequences being what they are, hard to say how it will work out unless we let it run for a while, see how it goes.

Just out of curiosity, how does UK handle _their_ equivalent of H1-B?

Unlucky Linux boxes trampled by NPM code update, patch zapped

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: One Consolation in this.

"But, if you have to write complex web frontend behavior"

then you're stuck with an idiotic/clueless design that should be scrapped for something that does bulk of the work server-side instead, and without JavaScript.

but yeah that would require more serious developers with *REAL* skills... instead of pretend "developers" who "program" using JavaScript (read: slap together several bloatware packages into a chimera-monster and call it 'programming').

Huawei guns for Apple with Mac-alike Matebook X

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: When?

and can it come with OS/X [or another non-MS OS] in lieu of Win-10-nic ???

Because, if it has Win-10-nic, I ain't buying.

We all hate Word docs and PDFs, but have they ever led you to being hit with 32 indictments?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: There's a worrying implication

well, consider this:

a) you go to your bank because you NEED MONEY, because (for some reason) you didn't earn enough and there are expenses

b) The bank checks your CURRENT income and says "no we cannot lend you money because you actually NEED it right now"

Now, the bank WANTS to lend you money, because you make THEM money when you pay it back. So what happens normally? Well, they make a decision based on you, your history, how much of your money has flowed through their bank, what your credit rating is, and so on. THEN they give you an approval based on "all of that", sometimes coaching you to 'fudge a little' so they can "sell you the loan".

This is just business as usual, in reality. The banks want you to pay them because they'll lose money if you don't. But sometimes stupid-regs just "get in the way" and so the loan officers know how to 'adjust' things accordingly to make it work. And it does. And we move forward, pay our bills [most of the time], and everybody's happy, and nobody outside of the bank and customer REALLY NEEDS TO KNOW the details of that process.

Added: business loans and lines of credit are a bit different than mortgages...

Why isn't digital fixing the productivity puzzle?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"Employment is falling"

you meant UNemployment is falling, right? Fixed.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: Millenials

"Smartphone / social media obsession cannot be helping output per worker as the opportunity for distractions increases."

A *BRILLIANT* point! beer?

[I might add, the (apparently 'millenial') trending use of online and cloudy 'things' which, from what I can tell, aren't quite as good as the ones they were patterned after, seems to be a part of it. And, if you view the world through a 4-inch screen (like many millenials seem to do), you get a very NARROW perspective of it, in particular, one that's _marketed_ to you, so that you don't easily see anything else...]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: If people don't get paid enough money...

1% this, 1% that...

you're STILL doing that 'Occupy' crap? That's SO lame...

'Scuse me, your "envy politics" is showing.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Well, there's your problem!

"If all you do is manage a team of coders then you need to earn less than those coders."

hold on there, that's a bad generalization to make [though I'm sure there are a lot of UNproductive 'managers' out there].

Management done properly makes it look as though the manager isn't doing anything at all.

It's the manager's job to divvy up the work assignments so that things get done. It's the manager's job to make sure that interactions happen in a SANE way. If that means "Scrum meeting" then it's probably being done WRONG. if it means individual 1-on-1 meetings (as simple as "how are things going") followed up by some kind of a policy decision, then it's probably being done right. If your problems with 'management' are being dealt with [or there aren't any] it's being done right. if you're constantly getting jerked around and following whatever Sales wants done, it's probably being done wrong.

I would think that departmental productivity should be the #1 factor in determining how much a manager is paid. And SOME managers might be worth 10 times the wage of the average developer, just on the fact that developers become so much more productive when "that guy" is running the show.

So YMMV on management salary. But yeah, a proper measuring device is in order.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

"the productive parts of the economy are now so wrapped in red tape and security theater that they have stopped expanding"

A *VERY* good way of saying it! Beer, sir!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: Our missing productivity was shifted to China

"the old capitalism is the only way that works argument"

"relies heavilly on defning "all" to exclude the brown people" (etc.)

"Is that the system you are promoting?"

thanks for tossing in the 'emotion bomb' of racism into an otherwise sane discussion, like a Hand Grenade.

I officially downvote the HELL out of your comment, on that basis.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: It doesn't take a flashy report with pretty graphs...

"people making minimum wage put in minimum wage effort." "You get what you pay for"

This is converging closer to reality, now.

You can make economic criticism from both the right and left, talk about effective take-home wage vs what you're actually paid (in which case, tax cuts are an obvious stimulus to the economy from a 'consumption' point of view), or the 'widening gap between rich and poor' in which case there's apparent exploitation going on [as has happened in the past, ca "robber baron" era].

But each of these is an inadequate explanation on its own, as they're interrelated. When the employees don't have enough $ to live on comfortably, it screws with their psyche, and when this causes a perception of "have vs have not" envy, making things worse. [keep in mind that high tax rates on 'the rich' are actually on upper middle class WAGE EARNERS, and tend to WIDEN that gap, because it keeps upper middle class from BECOMING 'the rich' - prior to last December, 'the rich' were getting away with paying LOWER taxes because the income wasn't WAGE income - but I digress].

Here are some of the negative aspects that create productivity problems, in my view:

1. Hiring the wrong person. This is ALWAYS expensive. There are many reasons why, from race/sex/whatever quotas [gummint mandates and lawsuits] to HR incompetence. "What Color is your Parachute" talks about this, from what I recall.

2. Actual collusion to pay people less - this happened in Silly Valley a while back.

3. Inefficient management - too many meetings, for example, or focus on "social" instead of "work output". You can 'feel good' about it all damn day and NOT get a damn thing done! This isn't helping anybody.

4. Punishing achievement and rewarding mediocrity. This is a complex issue, because it happens in the tax code [work more/harder, less effective $ per hour], and seeing promotions based on something OTHER than merit (like race/sex/whatever quotas). Productivity and quality must be rewarded, or else you get "who gives a flying FEEL any more" with dead-end jobs and looking to go elsewhere all the time.

5. "Process of the week" involving the latest new, shiny way to do engineering work, like "Agile" done wrong by everyone that attempts it. Scrum meetings in which "the junior guy" gets an equal say, for example, and management going along with it because it FEELS good to let 'the newbie' get a chance to contribute.

Anyway, that's my $.10 on it. You basically can't point at a single thing, but when you look at ALL of it, there could be a pattern...

Does my boom look big in this? New universe measurements bewilder boffins

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: 2011 Nobel Prize (Reiss, Perlmutter, and Schmidt)

" It's the Russians. They get everywhere these days."

you haven't heard the newest conspiracy then: It's really the Chinese government _PRETENDING_ to be Russians... with help from the NSA, so they can later blame the North Koreans.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Possibly.

distance from gravitational center of the universe as "a factor" - how's that?

as I understand it, we're pretty close to that gravitational center (which should be the place the big bang happened). At least, that's what it looks like from our perspective.

/me wonders if the big bang made a mushroom cloud... thus, icon choice [ok it didn't because 'ground' and 'gravity' are needed to make a proper mushroom cloud, but it's still lame-funny]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Or in this case

"(see new paper to be released around April)"

I can't wait to read it!

You know, like RFC8140 and its predecessors.