* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Open source turns 20 years old, looks to attract normal people

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Free or Open?

'Open Source' works for me. it reflects the intent of exposing the soft underbelly for anyone to see/use. The doors are open, come on in, you're welcome.

Also it's being used in electronics hardware (open source design and board layouts being a big one, like Arduino), and elsewhere too as far as I know...

And even with all of the clones out there, Arduino is still doing pretty well last I checked.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Open Source versus Free Software

"When the *BSD community meets the Linux community, focus turns to the ideological difference between Open Source (like MIT license) and Free Software (like the GNU GPL)."

This is why I like to put my open source stuff up on the web as "dual license" - either [L]GPL _or_ a BSD-like license, YOUR choice. In this way it maximizes freedom. And it still helps _me_ out for being able to demonstrate my abilities for coding gigs, which is one of the main reasons I've contributed a bunch of different projects [some of which are abandonware anyway]. Another reason, of course, is BRAGGING RIGHTS. And I'm easy enough to find on well-known open source repositories if anybody cares...

The point is that if you want people to recognize your work, the 2 different licenses have their benefits. So why not use both?

But yeah, the religious battle between MIT/BSD and GPL and a few of the other licenses are kinda pointless. 'Dual License' (or multi-license if need be) helps to solve that. MAXIMUM freedom.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: "it was mostly white guys."

"It is okay to be white."

yeah, 'diversity' is highly overrated. It's an SJW's excuse to show favoritism to "group of the week".

I like THIS kind of diversity: a diverse group of highly qualified engineers, each with an expertise in a different niche. nevermind race/sex/whatever-else-the-SJWs-care-about

and you pay people based on their WORK QUALITY! [and ONLY that]

What's so wrong with THAT kind of 'diversity'? tell me, please, SJW's, because I'm obviously so CLUELESS in YOUR eyes!!!

troll icon because, obvious

[yeah I was searching for an existing thread on this sub-topic, because it really *irked* me to see the 'D' word in the article and the obvious 'affirmative action' nonsense being hailed as "a good thing" somehow - bit it was a quote, not the author, as far as I could tell, so no blame for El Reg - you're just telling like it is]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Open source is leading to single source

Ack on FreeBSD [I prefer it for doing software development, for a number of reasons, the ports collection being one, the automatic installation of headers and 'devel' stuff being another - dealing with installing all of the necessary '-devel' packages in Linux can be a royal PITA!]

There are additional BSDs as well (OpenBSD, NetBSD, Dragonfly), and the Mach kernel [which is closed source] used by Apple [and others].

OBSD and FBSD seem to work together a lot [at least if you read through the kernel source and stuff that's in the ports]. So you get collaboration also.

besides, according to open source licenses, there is NOTHING stopping you from taking all of Linux (for example), CLONING it, putting your own labels on everything, and then shipping it as "your own thing", as long as you make sure that you don't violate the GPL. Why would you want to? Oh, I dunno, maybe you're Cisco and you have a "special hardened Linux" with your name all over it that you want to use on your routers... or you're Mint and want to fork off of Ubuntu. Each has its own customizations and benefits and downsides, naturally. And that's the point. Even if it _WERE_ "single source", there would be flavors and variants of it all over the place.

Nunes FBI memo: Yep, it's every bit as terrible as you imagined

bombastic bob Silver badge
Flame

Re: Really?

here in the USA, and particularly on the Fox network, this story broke nearly a YEAR ago. Hannity is a very good source on this topic. But when I detail things such AS naming specifics about the gross inaccuracy and (alleged) fabrication of the Steele dossier, who bought and paid for it, I may be violating UK libel laws or something, and so my post would be rejected on that basis.

So it's hard to correct the obvious errors about "the memo" or "the dossier" if I can't say anything in a counterpoint.

However, you can _EASILY_ go over nearly a years' worth of Hannity's broadcasts over on the Fox news site, or read what he had to say about it over on hannity.com ...

Shopper f-bombed PC shop staff, so they mocked her with too-polite tech tutorial

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: The customer is always right....

yes but you have to admire the STUNNING BRILLIANCE of the staff in their treatment of said "always right" customer, with pure respect, apparently also with smiles and no obvious condescension.

Truly, it's a LOT funnier this way!

An IRL example of the same *kind* of performance exhibited by the support guru in that old 'Internet Help Desk' video. "Well, that's entirely my fault" over the phone, while simultaneously displaying his middle finger...

Spectre shenanigans, Nork hackers upgrade, bad WD drives and more

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: WD vuln

I actually like the WD drives I've used/purchased, but, whatever. At least it's just the 'MyCloud' (according to the article anyway) and not the drives themselves. Or... ? (don't make me panic, I'm already biting my nails over the Meltdown/Spectre news, and may end up in full-blown black helicopter paranoia soon if this keeps up, panic panic panic)

ok I was being facetious. Seriously, men in white coats, you do NOT need to take me away, ha ha!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

119 variants of code that exploit the CPU security cockups

I checked for more detail on what these are, exactly, and only found references to virus signatures, which isn't all that helpful in understanding what's going on.

So, is this:

* "executable file" malware

* client-side javascript

* cloud-based programs

* clever scripting in a spreadsheet or document sent via e-mail

* ???

or all of the above?

Can it be at least PARTIALLY mitigated by using NoScript and to avoid opening e-mail attachments or viewing e-mail "as HTML" ? you know, 'practice safe surfing'.

Unfortunately the references I found here didn't help me much in the knowledge department. Still good info, and I've seen entire series' of El Reg articles come about after a quicky "oops here it is" article [like this one], in which details and references and all kinds of goodies are presented. So I'm looking forward to it, in a way.

Otherwise, are we all just supposed to sit in our "Crona Corners" sucking our thumbs and wishing we'd never been born?

Super Cali's unrealistic net neutrality process – even though the sound of it is something quite... ferocious

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"they have to pay through the nose"

'teh intarwebs' has been around (commercially) since the early 90's. only under Obaka was it regulated by the FCC for "net neutrality". How come we didn't ALREADY "pay through the nose" ???

if history is the judge, 'teh intarwebs' does VERY well when de-regulated.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: It's not supposed to make it past a challange, silly!

"the out of control State of California"

Yeah, I have to live with that. for now. unless I get tired of paying the "coastline tax" and "sunshine tax" and move to another state, out of sheer frustration, and TAKE! MY! BUSINESS! WITH! ME!!

there's an election coming up. I hear good things about one particular candidate for governor. let's see what happens in November.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Federal and State Law

"Given the depth of government interference in our everyday lives nowadays, it is surely possible for any legislative body to enforce any behaviour they want by roundabout means, even if that behaviour is directly banned."

Governmentium. Always increases in mass. Nearly always in the way. It's why DE-regulation helps in the long run.

Don't forget the politicians with their hands out at election time. You often get what you pay for...

No Windows 10, no Office 2019, says Microsoft

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: just to it

"the ribbon has been around for 11 years."

and the person who invented it has been CANNED [finally] - she was generally responsible for "the metro" and Win-10-nic's "one windows" approach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Larson-Green

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: just to it

"I bet they love the extra work you cause them just so you can sit in your ivory tower radiating smugness at them."

I've never had a problem working with doc files generated by Libre Office in windows, unless you pick some exotic formatting method that's irritating on both ends.

But I have a solution for formatting problems: Have the recipients install Libre Office if formatting becomes an issue. or you can use google docs. whatever. Collaborative document files are irritating to maintain anyway. And if they're just going to print it, or keep it on file someplace, send a PDF. Works for me.

"Microsoft-only" smugness is worse, by the way.

thinking of work, I should get some done. taking up too much time commenting on a 4-page-long comments when I originally didn't think I had anything to say that wasn't already said...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "Is it me or is MS getting desperate now?"

"Alienating actual customers just because they didn't drink the last kool-aid may have a bitter price in the future."

alienated customers aren't the ones they're after. I think they're trying to lock-in the millenials... [the only customer base they even have a REMOTE chance of having any time in the future]. But I would say that most of the people that read El Reg would agree that Micro-shaft totally went the wrong way with Win-10-nic, and putting lipstick on the boar (not the oinky end) and THEN greasing up Office 2019 and jaming it up our as... down our throats isn't helping them win new customers, or even keep existing ones.

/me continuing to work on an IDE and dev kit that _could_ help make writing X11-based [and compatibility for WIN32] applications a WHOLE lot easier... and when I tested a proof of concept last week, I typed in the program name in a shell, with a glob for 50-something files as the argument, and it opened all of them in under a second [I even captured a cool video of it from the desktop using vlc] and displayed the main window like "pop" - the way applications SHOULD start up, not taking 10's of seconds of wait cursor just to put a splash screen up, and then 10's more to get the IDE to display, and then a boatload of additional time loading each file, etc.. Yeah. Under 1 second, 50-something text files, with a tabbed multi-doc editing main window and the first doc [a C source file 2000+ lines] right there. The point is that it' POSSIBLE to write applications like this, if you don't do it "the Micro-shaft Way" and do it on a system that has X11 like Linux or FreeBSD. I'll just have to make sure that the toolkit works seamlessly on WIN32 also, and write some C++ foundation classes, and voila! but yeah I've been working on this for YEARS now. I'll need to finish before 2020 or it will be pointless when Win 7 support dies off and it's not done yet...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Well Done Microsoft for encouraging LibreOffice 6 deployment

" I moved to LibreOffice and it seems to work well enough."

I did that (on my winders boxen) when a bug in Office '97 prevented MS Excess from working, and the "fix" prevented Word from printing. [I wonder if this is the same as YOUR win7 bug].

Open Office and Libre Office both work fine on every platform I've tried them on. I do miss _some_ features that were in MS Excess '97, though. but because of the 1G RAM bug from Office '97 I stopped even considering it...

(office '97 was the version that introduced "clippy", but read the formats that a customer decided EVERY document needed to be saved in, the only reason I 'upgraded' from Office '95, and subsequently REFUSED to go through that cycle AGAIN)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

"modern"

"modern" - that word does not man what they think it means

(and is often used as a pejorative by win-10-nic zealots when talking about those ancient sticks in the mud, aka the rest of us, that refuse to change/adapt/whatever to the "modern" interface)

icon, because, facepalm

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: As soon as Windows 7 support finishes

"This is why the average user (ie 95% of people on this planet) will never use Linux."

see icon.

keep in mind that linux help, online, is not only free [as a general rule], it's usually accompanied by people who are willing to hand-hold you through the process if you're a n00b. Even on IRC. ok SOME usenet channels are filled with trolls and people looking to make their own male members look larger at YOUR expense, but in general I've found the linux help forums and IRC channels to be not only helpful and friendly, but gregarious, philanthropic, and very generous with the time needed to help a n00b.

Yeah, it's MUCH better than talking with some boiler-plate idiot tech in a call center that you actually PAID for in the product price... or the bureaucracy you have to naviguess through in order to get something you're entitled to according to the license/whatever.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: What's a

"poke(rnd(0,65535), rnd(0,255))"

random poking is fun. or at least amusing. heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

"waiting for Bombasic Bob to make a comment :)"

No need for me to say anything else, really. Not only did you make the top ranking, you pretty much said it. well done! beer for you!

Web searching died the day they invented SEO

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: SEO = Sell Everything Online

it's how something that's "free" generates zillions of dollars in revenue...

(I thought everyone knew this already?)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The article overlooks one point...

"quality" phone-app reviews in which a) there is a very small sample of 'satisfied' customers, and b) all but one are sock puppets of the phone-app author... (somewhat obvious from the xkcd comic, and thanks for that link, it's a good one)

IRL - it apparently happens a LOT, from shady sellers wanting to rip you off.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: The B ark.....

cat minecraft. no, do NOT go there...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Hmmmmm...

"Apart from in the 90s when there wasn't actually much of anything to find on the WWW."

and the AOL 'web crawler' actually did a pretty good job.

Nowadays I find myself REQUIRING the quoted terms in half the searches I do in order to avoid the search on "what they thought I wanted" showing up first... damn that 'AS' (Artificial Stupidity) and thanks for "correcting" my typing/spelling for me.

(but it made an ad show up, which increased their revenue just a bit)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Well, yes, but...

"Searching for anything from before 2000 is increasingly difficult"

"what you do find tends to be enthusiast-generated and full of errors"

and, from the article

"Rather than showing what you're searching for, search results show you links that marketeers want you click on instead. The whole point of SEO today is to direct you to content you don't want and didn't ask for."

That's pretty much the general frustration experience, yeah.

As for the 2nd point, "what you do find tends to be enthusiast-generated and full of errors", <sarcasm>I'll step on a land mine and blame net neutrality</sarcasm>. heh.

Trolling, trolling, la, la-la, la-la, whenever I throw in my line, a fish will come to call... [to the tune of 'sailing sailing' if it wasn't already obvious]

troll icon, because, obvious

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I think you forgot one

"The totally circular references"

As I understand it, pr0n sites offering "free pr0n" often do that to frustrate potential customers so they can hook you into paying for it. they call it "circle jerking".

Crowdfunding refund judgment doesn't quite open the floodgates

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

"requires a working prototype to be demonstrated"

Right, and if I'm correct, the promise of a payout in the form of a product is usually "only if the project gets funded". I don't know if they have a mediation thingy set up for people who fail to get even THAT far, but like any investment, you COULD lose it ALL.

And that's the point.

Any shady deals are the responsibility of whomever it was that got the money. THEY are the ones who should be sued/prosecuted/etc.

But sometimes you don't get that chance because dum-dum LLC has no value, and so cannot pay out for any lawsuits [nor even defend against them properly].

I've considered kickstarter etc. before, so I looked into it seriously. It's no guarantee of funds. You have to convince thousands of people to give you a little bit of money. How easy is *THAT* ???

If IndieGogo does NOT require a prototype, then potential investors should consider that before handing over any cash.

[incidentally I _do_ have working prototypes for a few things, and not-quite-working prototypes for other things, but it's the "convince thousands of people" part I get stuck on...]

Who can save us? It's 2018 and some email is still sent as cleartext

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Port 465

I had the same thought [as in 'why is my sendmail NOT listening on 465 right now'].

found THIS

I'll torpedo Tor weirdos, US AG storms: Feds have 'already infiltrated' darknet drug souks

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Permissiveness has gone too far

"let's just abuse each other for using tea, coffee, alcohol, chocolate, yerba"

/me notices tobacco wasn't in the list. then again, it's funnier your way.

there's a lot to be said about freedom. and a small amount of regulation. but a conservative libertarian position would be to allow EVERYTHING with a prescription, and as many things as is reasonable without one.

Some opiates are addictive with only a single dose. NOT requiring a prescription for those, assuming they save lives and/or prevent debilitating pain, would be irresponsible. And if there's no actual PENALTY, what's to stop people from ignoring the prescription requirement?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

"WHY Americans in general WANT to medicate themselves into a general stupor"

Uh, no. 'Americans in general' do not WANT to medicate themselves into a general stupor. That's just ridiculous.

A _SMALL_ _NUMBER_ of people do that. if they can't get their fix through a prescription [which maybe is how they got addicted in the first place], then they get it illegally.

I'm all for making every kind of drug legal via prescriptions, and giving doctors the responsibility and discretion for monitoring their patients. But I don't think it's a good idea for things _LIKE_ opiates to be generally available without a prescription, just like abusing antibiotics [the ABuse of which causes resistant strains of bacteria to develop] should be prevented by putting a doctor in charge of how the medicine is put to use.

But you can't just legalize everything because you perceive that the majority of Americans are drugging themselves into a stupor already, and buying their fixes through the dark net.

And if a prescription is required, and the drugs are sold without them, that's a violation of the law, and should be investigated by the FBI or other law enforcement, and people arrested, convicted, jailed for doing so.

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Single provider health care

NO. NO gummint run 'health care'. NO. just NO.

It would enforce "mediocrity for all", except for the super-elite, who will always "get theirs".

The problem with high costs isn't evil corporations sucking money away from sick people. THAT is an emotion-bomb generated by those who want to manipulate people into accepting gummint-run "health care".

the single biggest problem with high medical costs are HIGH TORT SETTLEMENTS for various sueballs that are regularly thrown at the medical industry, INCLUDING TV advertisements for class-actions against companies that (through no obvious negligence) had FDA approval for things that were later found to be a problem [thus, sueballs]. CAPPING tort settlements to significantly SMALLER values would address this, lowering malpractice insurance costs, and thereby lowering hospital and treatment costs, as well as preventing hospitals and doctors from doing "cover my ass" tests and procedures that otherwise would NEVER be done [with costs benig passed on to the patient and health insurance companies].

Saying "gummint will pay for it all" is ABSOLUTELY! FORNICATING! CLUELESS!!! Instead, a TRUE free market, with cross-state (and even international) competition, serious tort reform, serious insurance reform [including the abolishing of state-based monopolies on insurance providers], and "merit based" health insurance rates, are the only way to go.

[reducing costs is the BEST way to lower prices, and if you want to reduce COSTS, keep GUMMINT out of it, LIMIT tort settlements, increase 'burden of proof' for tort claims, yotta yotta and make sure COMPETITION has a free and clear path and a level playing field]

California Senate OKs net neutrality law, gives FCC cold hard long stare

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: If It's So Flipping Bad?

"why did they all vote for it"

because, Demo-Rats, who _AL:WAYS_ vote in favor of more gummint control, more regulation, more "we know better how YOU must conduct YOUR life", etc. etc. etc..

This same bunch of clowns ALSO want to ban plastic straws, fining any restaurant that gives you a straw upon request. And don't forget single-use plastic bags in grocery stores [I always say 'no bags' because the only alternative is to pay 10 cents per bag and the money goes to the grocery store unions, if I remember correctly - I miss single-use plastic bags in grocery stores!!!].

And, don't forget the "sanctuary state" laws that PREVENT state and local law enforcement from COOPERATING with federal law enforcement with respect to the immigration status of anyone suspected of committing a crime. That's right, if an illegal alien who'd been deported before RETURNS to the country and commits a crime, state law enforcement can NOT tell ICE about it...

The Cali-Fornicate-You legislature _IS_ _THE_ _MOST_ _CORRUPT_ entity on the planet! Lobbyists typically occupy the floor, and are consulted on EVERY vote. And the party of Mrs. Clinton is somehow 'magically elected' into a super-majority power, giving them the >2/3 majority needed to RAISE TAXES whenever they want to. And they _WANT_ to. Because, 'all of that legislation' that gives free money and services to the protected classes (say illegal aliens and 'the lazy') and cushy retirement and creates "you cannot be fired" policies for gummint employees that don't do _ANY_ work [aka show up when they want, do nothing, and collect a salary... AND! I! KID! YOU! NOT! a friend of mine's wife is a SUPERVISOR for her department in Sacramento, working for the state, in a department that's in an oversight position required by law, and she has employees that do EXACTLY THAT [show up late most days, take way too long for lunch, get barely anything done] and they can NOT be fired

So you see what the problems are now, perhaps? A corrupt legislature, ALWAYS begging for more money, NEVER cuts back on the spending and makes it IMPOSSIBLE to fire incompetent employees, negotiates SWEET DEALS with the public service unions for retirement and benefits, pays above-average salaries, gives out money and services to illegal aliens, CODDLES criminals and "the lazy" on the public dole, and then won't fix the damn roads or build more jails to hold convicted criminals [instead releasing criminals because the jails are 'overcrowded']. And _THEN_ they just RAISE! TAXES! to get even MORE money, because ***FLAMING*** ***IDIOT*** ***VOTERS*** [many of whom are 'dead people' and illegal aliens aka 'voter fraud'] keep ELECTING THEM.

We need a Trump-like governor and an enema in Sacramento. 'Make California Great Again'.

Are you taking the peacock? United Airlines deny flight to 'emotional support' bird

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"Dam airline cigar tubes are turning into an animal menageirie."

well, a certain segment of globalists want 1st world countries to be reduced to the same level of mediocrity as 3rd world countries, so let's just put a few chicken crates and free-running pigs in the people compartment on every flight...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Marketing opportunity?

now you made me think of the tail end of Muse's "Uprising" video...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"if it is a service animal required because of a disability"

exactly. I doubt ANY reasonable person objects to trained service animals for people with _REAL_ disabilities.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

"due to people going into true panics without their comfort pets"

To such people I say:

a) your psychological issues are not MY fault, nor MY business. If you can't sit in your seat for xx hours without going into a panic, charter your own damn plane or STAY OFF of the ones I fly on.

b) My compassion was seared and burned away LONG ago by all of the bleeding heart and SJW types. I just dno't give a CRAP any more. You want to fly, LEARN NOT TO PANIC.

c) Celebrating and coddling the lowest rungs of society ONLY ENCOURAGES THEM to be EVEN WORSE, instead of DEMANDING that they IMPROVE.

yeah it's frustrating to be 'a regular person'.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

"Sadly the fallout from this will hurt the people who actually need animals for support"

sorry, my compassion has been seared away by too many SJW types making B.S. claims (like emotional support peacocks). I say "put the animal in a kennel/crate as checked baggage" and be done with it. Or leave your animal at home. Or in a kennel/zoo/whatever or a friend that you've taken advantage of. whatever. NOT on the damn plane, please! NO exceptions.

/me points out that _CELEBRATING_ the lowest rung of society is bass-ackwards. We should be celebrating SUCCESS, not denegrating it. And we should be BERATING those at the bottom end who insist on inconveniencing the rest of us because "they have issues". JOKE 'em if they can't take a @#$%!!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Emotional Support Peacock

at least he wasn't cutting the cheese

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Poor choice

I used to work near Scripps Ranch in San Diego, where there were a large number of peacocks. You could hear them sometimes in the parking lot, "Ar,AH!, Ar,AH!". I only live a few miles from there, and one day I saw a pea-hen on top of someone's car. The owners were trying to get it to come down. I guess it flew the ~10 miles from there (or maybe it was from the zoo, which is a little closer) and just landed on that car for no good reason, and just sat there. Those birds are HUGE.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

"They aren't in the same category of extensively trained service animals."

ack - but try telling THAT to an S.J.W. that *FEELS* that all corporations (especially airlines) are evil entities that deserve to be punished... by THEM... at EVERY opportunity, no matter WHO gets inconvenienced.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Maybe take an emotional support Skunk with you on the plane

you deserve a beer!

I can think of other 'emotional support' animals that would be equally disruptive...

a) rattlesnake

b) albatross

c) tazmanian devil

d) marlin

FBI slams secret Nunes memo alleging Feds spied on Team Trump for political reasons

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Hypocrisy about FISA

no argument here about hypocrisy and FISA. I'd be happy if it all went away. Based on appearances, it may NOT be possible to protect civil rights _AND_ have a "FISA court" that rubber stamps surveilence on a rival political candidate based on fake evidence paid for by a political candidate+party.

Last time a sitting president authorized illegal spying on a rival political candidate, 'Watergate' happened...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: Trump Administration (I use the term ironically)

"They're administering a conspiracy scam to deflect attention from the Mueller investigation"

I can't give this enough downvotes.

The Mueller "investigation" is merely part of the swamp trying to undermine an elected president. A grand jury can indict a sandwich if it wants to. A special prosecutor can waste millions of dollars investigating something that never happened, too, particularly if the goal is really to "find ANYTHING that can be used against Trump".

'Drain the swamp'. Sounds like a good idea. I hope Trump succeeds! And, if he DOES, then WHO is it that is REALLY being threatened???

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Why I quit reading your article

I'd just like to point out that, without the _ACTUAL_ _MEMO_, everything is pure speculation.

That, and nobody else (prior to this point) mentioned anything about items 1-3 in A.C.'s post.

What I'm hoping to see: an uncovering of serious corruption at the highest levels in gummint, followed by a corrective action that jails a few perps and puts a stop to most of that crap, along with a great deal of transparency and a really good explanation of those FISA warrants... (or an outright cancellation of them, if they're just being used to spy on certain U.S. Citizens, rival politicians, and people "they" don't like).

What I'm currently seeing: political posturing. It's pretty meaningless without the _ACTUAL_ _MEMO_.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Yeah, but..

"investigation into H.R. Clinton"

that would be 'H.R.H. Clinton'. Fixed it for ya!

PC not dead, Apple single-handedly propping up mobe market, says Gartner

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Not rocket science

"Keyboard, mouse, monitor - still the best way to get things done, at least for me."

Ack. and the 10+ year old desktops/notebooks work JUST FINE, and don't have Win-10-nic on them...

[actually, most of mine have either FreeBSD or Linux on them]

The biggest problem with performance on old boxen i really "the software". I've been working on an X11 toolkit for several YEARS now, but I'm getting close to making something that could be a REAL product that uses it. When I get it working well enough, I think I'll wrap a UI around webkit and make a competing web browser. In any case, I originally added the splash screen because startup is "too fast" and i was originally like "what? oh, it's running!". Opening >50 files (several thousand lines each, for at least half of them) and displaying a scrolling-tabbed window with all 50 documents, took about 1 second. Yes, that's 1 second. I even did a video.

And I have to wonder, WHY do "all of those other applications" have to take FOR-EV-AR to load up?

OK in between gigs I have time to work on it, and maybe I can finish enough to make it 'alpha' instead of 'pre-alpha'. Just did font anti-aliasing, and it looks a lot better, now. Yeah in X11 you have to do it the hard way.

So, my point: If it weren't or CRAPware (instead of SOFTware) taking 10's of seconds JUST to load the bozillian shared components and dynamic libraries and runtime-bullcrap, we wouldn't NEED 3+Ghz machines for most of what we do.

And GTK-applications (particularly those that use cairo and bonobo) are NO exceptions to this. It's NOT just Windows, UWP, and/or C-pound and '.Not' doing this...

And all that being said, IF our existing machines are "good enough", we don't upgrade them, so they don't show up as "new machine sales", and so a bunch of CLUELESS CRYSTAL BALL GAZERS just ASSUME that it means "the end of 'The Desktop'" which we ALL know is completely WRONG. Right?

In America, tech support conmen get a mild slap. In Blighty, scammers get the book thrown at them

bombastic bob Silver badge
Flame

Re: Too mild in both cases

perhaps we need to add "special place in hell" and "one way ticket to hell" as potential punishments...

'Repeal hate crime laws for free speech' petition passes 14k signatures

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The justice system really has money to waste?

"anti-hate-crime laws don't need repealing, they just need to be applied with something which seems to be missing... Common sense."

That sounds like "unequal application of the law" to me. If a law is to be enforced, it's enforcement needs to be equal, blind to circumstance, and consistent.

Otherwise, it's "banana republic" time - you pissed off "dear leader" and so he'll actually ENFORCE THE LAW on YOU.

Wait a minute... this sounds familiar... something about 'executive orders'... recent history...

Russia claims it repelled home-grown drone swarm in Syria

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

A guidance system could be an RPi with a 9-axis IMU and GPS module attached... and open source software to power it. Convenient for hobbyists, but that's what terrorists are doing, apparently, by repurposing hobby equipment as weapons of terror. I could cobble one together myself [and probably write the guidance control software for it]. I'm very familiar with IMUs and GPS because of a customer project I've been working on for a while, and it wouldn't take a "schmott guy" very long to figure out how to build something evil with the same tech. (yeah, 'Nize hat').

And the bombs were probably stolen or purchased via the black market.

FBI says it can't unlock 8,000 encrypted devices, demands backdoors for America's 'public safety'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Talking to the Hand

"Using innocent, sensible phrases that mean something else entirely"

That's OLD SCHOOL! Key words and tricky phrases spoken over radio in the clear is one way that the French Underground communicated with the UK back in WW2 during the occupation.

Or, from the movie 'Hackers' - "It's where I put that thing that one time" (or something like that). Like anyone but an informed insider would know what it means.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Face Palm

"Would someone please tell me why we keep putting Directors in the FBI that don't understand the most simple concept of encryption"

A _LOT_ of people over at the FBI, CIA, etc. are OBAKA HOLDOVERS. I think THAT guy is, too.

Now, if Jeff Sessions were making a big push for encryption back doors, I'd be a LOT more concerned. According to the EFF, from a 1 year old article, Jeff Sessions supports them. And the EFF alleges Trump does to, but I don't think that's the case - Trump doesn't speak in black/white ideas, he often voices his inner monologue and people over-react to it.

However, we have not heard ANYTHING since then, to my knowledge, until this one FBI deputy director made some noise, prompting the article.

Keep in mind that Trump is pro-gun and the arguments for strong encryption [protecting your bank accounts and private information] and gun ownership [protecting lives and property] are very much the SAME. Logic concludes that BOTH legal gun ownership AND legal strong encryption [without back doors] are necessary for individuals to be able to protect themselves from crime, AND from potentially oppressive governments. This is the intent of the 2nd ammendment, regardless of how anybody FEELS about it - it's about self defense against oppressive government as well as criminals.

That being said, I don't think Sessions is going to call for encryption back doors. I think he understands the political SUICIDE of doing so. And, I doubt Trump would EVER sign such legislation, for the same reasons. We the people will, of course, keep our eyes on things, because gummints really can NOT be trusted.

Oh, and thanks in advance for the expected downvotes, the usual penalty for stating the truth without the "pretty please with sugar on top" i.e. "no lubrication required"