Posts by bombastic bob

NYPD head of IT doubles down on Windows smartphone idiocy

Re: Hold on, if I read this right

No doubt it's not the cost of the phones themselves, but rather the cost of the infrastructure that surrounds them, and the long-term support and maintenance costs for "beyond 2 years from now".

Micro-shaft obviously wanted to lock them into a windows-based solution, so that (in perpetuity) they'd be Micro-shaft's biggest phone customer, locked in to "that solution" so that the cost becomes prohibitive to switch out of it, later on down the road. You know, like using Active Directory... or Office 365. Or any OTHER Micro-shaft product.

Switching to Apple _now_ would probably save money long term. Switching to Android, similar. They chose Apple.

Besides, there's no such thing as a FREE LUNCH. There's always a cost. You just need to recognize it. And if someone's GIVING AWAY a "solution", you _know_ that strings will be attached at some point, if not already there.

Tech soap-opera latest: Alexa marries Cortana, will share custody of customers

if they were local instead of being cloud-based...

if these things were local instead of being cloud-based, maybe it would be a good thing?

But as long as that "open mic" audio continues to flow into the cloud, it's a major privacy violation.

And you _KNOW_ that "they" are trying to make use of it! [it's just too tempting, after all]

Criticize Google, get fired: Spotlight spins on ad giant's use of soft money

drain the swamp

just sayin'

Best Korea fingered for hacks against Bitcoin exchanges in South

Re: Kim Jon 'Fat-ass' 'Cartman' Un is being a pest

"this exaggerated moral outrage at other countries' affairs coming from over the pond really gets my goat"

That statement actually made me think of Neville Chamberlain...

Re: Kim Jon 'Fat-ass' 'Cartman' Un is being a pest

actually I live near some of the most important military bases on the west coast. A 'first strike' is most likely to come here.

And of course, I fart in Kim Jong 'Fat-ass' Un's general direction. heh.

Seriously, though, that guy is JUST! LIKE! CARTMAN! from South Park.

Kim Jon 'Fat-ass' 'Cartman' Un is being a pest

Well, looks like it's not enough just to lob missiles at everyone around him, and threaten the universe with global thermonuclear war. Now he's gone and done the same *KIND* of thing, more or less, in the cyber universe as well.

That raving "Fat Boy Kim" needs a freaking cluebat at the earliest opportunity. Or a good spanking.

I mean, look at what he does to his own people. He stuffs his face and gets fat while everyone ELSE in N. Korea has to deal with starvation. He buys equipment for missile and nuclear bomb testing with their dwindling national funds, when he COULD be buying food for everyone [besides himself]. Not much of a "people's" republic if all they're doing over there is enabling this insane tin-horn man-child dictator to stuff his pig-face and scream the equivalent of "RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH" to the world, with all of that saber rattling and war threatening he's become so infamous for.

I suppose it was inevitable that some psychopathic lunatic like Kim Jong 'Fat-ass' Un would eventually engage in cyber warfare and steal bitcoins from around the world. No blaming the sanctions for it, either. It's just fat-ass Kim being greedy, and an asshat to the world, as usual.

[I understand that Baby Kimmy _REALLY_ hates it when people make fun of him, ESPECIALLY if it's about his weight. I hope he reads this and throws a gigantic TANTRUM. Come on, Kimmy-Boy, give US an excuse to deal with you _PROPERLY_]

Icon for obvious reasons

New periodic table names

Re: Tennessine

Element 115 (Moscovium) is the one the UFO people believe that powers the UFOs.

Re: always good for educational value

"today I learned that Nihon is the semi-official word for what we call Japan"

thanks for the link as well. I had no idea that 'Yamato' was an ancient name for Japan.

the kanji for 'Nihon' literally mans 'sun source' from what I understand. The 'hon' kanji can also mean 'book' and is part of the word 'hontou' meaning 'true' and so on. Lots of words seem to have the 'hon' kanji in them.

I'm not an expert, though, I just have an interest in it.

more like 'Tu' for 'Tauntalum'

Japanese sat tech sinks Sea Shepherd anti-whaling activists' hopes

a matter of pride?

perhaps it's just a matter of pride, NOT being told what to do by a bunch of eco-terrorists. Essentially.

I've seen the 'whale wars' show, and although it was interesting at first [with the presumption that the whaling was being done against international treaties or something] I think that it's in such small quantity now, and not EVEN close to endangering the species, that most people should just ignore it... and maybe that's their point?

If the whale species really DO become endangered, as bluefin tuna is close to becoming, they'll need to modify their quotas again. Otherwise, why not let them do what they want?

pirate icon because a pirate lives by his OWN rules

Boffins prove oil and water CAN mix – if you do it in a gas giant

water has a 'dissolved gas' capacity

just to mention, water has a 'dissolved gas' capacity that varies by temperature and pressure. Otherwise fish couldn't breathe, though I suppose algae could still grow since CO2 has a high affinity for water.

The minimum level of dissolved gas in water occurs in the range of about 165F (as I recall). When you boil water, you'll see a point where you get bubbles along the walls of the pot. but temperature is too low for boiling. This is the dissolved gas coming out of solution. Stir it and the bubbles go away as the gas is liberated from the water, and the bubbles don't re-form again. The water has lost the excess dissolved gas.

At the low temperature end, maximum gas capacity is at around 34F.

sorry for using the old Fahrenheit scale. I should've used something more "El Reg", like maybe expressing the temperature in Hiltons, but then I would've become confused or something.

In any case, as you raise pressure, dissolved gas capacity increases.

So yeah, gaseous hydrocarbons will dissolve in water, given a high enough pressure and proper temperature. It may just be that.

/me points out that this is why warm soda/beer goes flat, but cold soda/beer retains its fizz.

For once, Uber takes it up the tailpipe: Robo-ride gets rear-ended

accidents a 'fact of life' in Cali-fornicate-you

traffic accidents are a 'fact of life' in Cali-fornicate-you. You stop in the right turn lane and wait for pedestrians, someone looking left for oncoming traffic slams into you from behind. I suspect that's what happened.

And then there's the T bone incident. When the light is yellow, of COURSE I hit the gas to make it through. And if some idiot making a left turn tries to turn into oncoming traffic, well you just have to dodge them trying. The fact is you can wait until the light is RED to make your left turn, and since you're already in the intersection, just complete it when nobody's coming.

Those are rules easily programmed into computers, but POORLY programmed into driver's heads, especially when distracted by daily events, music, "new, shiny", children, and not even considering cell phones nor texting.

SO... maybe you just have to ASSUME that there will be accidents, and take a look at the causes, remedies, and what a human might do to avoid them, as well as the overall accident RATE.

But one accident shutting down the program? In Cali-fornicate-you CITY TRAFFIC? I doubt you could find a human capable of meeting a 'no accident' standard in those conditions. So why expect it from bots?

Another thing they might consider - paint the self-driving cars with highly visible colors [day/dusk/night] just in case the "silver car" wasn't seen at around sunset or something... (not knowing what color it was, just guessing possibilities).

Crowdfunding scheme hopes to pay legal fees for Marcus Hutchins

"A decent lawyer costs around $800 to $1500 per hour"

not necessarily. keep in mind that a lawyer probably has a 'legal team' and will hand off many tasks to team members, whose hourly rates will be significantly lower [please don't ask why I know this, k-thx]. Court appearances may be 'fixed fee' and you probably won't speak directly to the attorney except for the initial interviews and in the court room. Paperwork will be prepared by paralegals along with a lot of the research.

So it's not THAT BAD, but still pretty expensive.

[and pro bono attorneys are probably more likely to have you plead 'guilty' or 'no contest' to do a plea bargain, even if you're NOT guilty, which may end up being cheaper overall... if you can avoid jail anyway]

Re: No travel insurance?

"would be a typical insurer trying to wriggle out of a payout."

in a way, can you blame them? [not saying it's ethical]

Well, debugger me. Microsoft's BSOD fixer is getting a makeover

"Yep, something happened all right. Sorry. :("

back in the day, as a prank, I once changed one of the error messages of a PDP-11 computer running RSTS/E . It was an obscure error message, caused by NOT saving the source before running a program [then having certain errors happen].

The error message was "?Program lost. Sorry."

I changed it to "?Program lost. TOUGH SHIT"

A week went by. Then the system operator did a 'nudge nudge wink wink' figuring it was me and asked me how he might fix it. I helped out saying things like "Well... I think the error messages are all stored in this one file..." and ended up hovering over him while he typed [logged in as an operator of course].

In any case, an appropriate change to the BSOD might be good for a laugh or two.

Re: Know your market

We can probably blame the inventor of the damned ribbon:

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

New York Police scrap 36,000 Windows smartphones

Re: Why does she still have that job??

perhaps for the same reason THIS person still has HER job:

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

inventor of "The Metro" "The Ribbon" and "one windows, everywhere"

Re: And here's how this entry will look on her resume

it's a corollary of the 'Peter Principle'

US Navy develops underwater wireless battery-charging tech

I'd think Qi would work ok

minus some losses due to eddy currents in the salt water, Qi should be able to manage it

Intel ME controller chip has secret kill switch

I guess I know what architectures to avoid...

self-explanatory

Facebook will deny ads to repeat promoters of fake news

Re: Belief Politics and the freedom to be wrong.

And don't forget "the onion". good for a laugh.

Facebook - World Police!

ZUCKERBERG - F Yeah!

making the world safer, for HIS AD SPAM!

(or something)

Google routing blunder sent Japan's Internet dark on Friday

All Eggs, One Basket, big fat thumb go *squish*

Yeah, kinda what the title says.

NOT good. Someone needs a CLUE BAT for letting things get to that point.

VW engineer sent to the clink for three years for emissions-busting code

Re: clean air laws are a joke

"Troll or arsehole, either way you should be ignored."

I thought it was satire, gave it an upvote.

man-made climate change *IS* fake news. but climate changes all the time. Consider that ~70 year cycle in the northern hemisphere, you know, like 1900 cold, 1935 warm, 1970 cold, 2005 warm, 2040 cold...

And the question here isn't about the emissions themselves [which are really based on air quality, and not "gobal fornicating warming" CO2 nonsense]. It's about every OTHER car maker complying, and VW _NOT_ complying, by cheating on the bi-annual smog checks [and other emissions testing].

Ultimately that's what it comes down to, yeah.

"How is an engineer supposed to know the law anyway"

it's probably down to the "any reasonable person" argument, and a jury that convicts based on that.

Re: Did He Have An Option ???

I'd say that for something NOT overtly illegal, you just politely complain about it in writing to the appropriate people, but do what you were asked to do anyway. Let the HR weenies and legal staff sort it out.

As for what was apparently done, i.e. writing a software method that's not even spoken about in 'normal terms', that knowingly 'cheats' on emissions tests, by first detecting if such a test is being done and THEN changing the engine's behavior accordingly [which is blatant, and can't be explained away[, knowing that auto makers must comply with these limits in order to sell cars in the USA, and then blatantly NOT complying [reducing the price of the cars, or making them perform better, or both] by cheating on the tests - as for THAT, I think any reasonable person would have inherently understood the ethical problems, and possible criminality, of actually DOING that.

So yeah he had an option, and I think in HIS case, it should've been to ask for a meeting with H.R. to discuss what his boss wanted him to do. But apparently he didn't do that, and instead, went far beyond expectations to invent something that basically "hacks the system". Nice hack, yeah, but illegal as hell.

Re: life&death? Did He Have An Option ???

"if all polluters were murderers, the jails would be very full."

count the number of cigarette butts you find alongside any given road, especially near bus stops [regardless of whether anti-smoking laws prohibit it], as an example. [enough of them, and they can clog storm drains, right Texas?]

"arson, murder, and littering."

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking

[and don't EVEN get me started on smokers' exhaust polluting the air I need to breathe]

US focuses eyes in the sky as Hurricane Harvey starts to slam into Texas

Re: I wonder if the US has a unified water grid...

Unified Water Grid - not a bad idea except for several mountain ranges beginning with the Rockies in Colorado

it would be SO expensive to pump water across the mountains (and a couple o' thousand miles) that it becomes seriously cost prohibitive, but it's well known that normal weather patterns typically put drought in California while flooding the Mississippi valley. And vice versa.

So yeah if we DID have the tech to send water across 6000+ foot mountains [several times] it would be nice to do that. Who knows it might solve LOTS of problems that way, but at a very high cost...

Re: Good luck Texans!

Good luck, yeah, but think about it...

Texas has tornados and hurricanes. Florida has hurricanes. And California has earthquakes. etc. It's to be expected, depending on where you live, and if you haven't seen one in a while, you probably will soon. There hasn't been a major storm in that area for a decade or so, so I guess "it's time".

"Can't Trump build a wall to keep it out?"

yeah, would be nice if he could. Nothing even remotely like that worked for Katrina [N.O. being surrounded by levies and stuff, some of which broke, resulting in floods].

Seriously, though, think about it: if there is nothing humans can do to STOP it, then why the hell would anyone think that humans CAUSED it... [just to make a point]

Oh, and it was upgraded to category 4, probably after the article was written.

Fox news had a reporter standing out in the middle of a street being blown about and rained on while discussing the situation on live TV. If it weren't a serious cause of property damage and possible loss of life, it'd be funny watching him. Then again, if they'd played 'Yakkity Sax' in the background...

Minnesota Senator calls out US watchdogs: Why so cozy with Amazon?

Re: It is surprising how quick it was for one reason

"Trump hates the Washington Post"

so do a LOT of people. G. Gordon Liddy called it "The Washington Bleep" back in the 90's.

The 'Washington Bleep' is probably as bad as CNN as far as "fake news" goes.

But yeah, 1st ammendment, as long as it's not outright libel, they can print whatever.

Funny how Bezos owns it, though.

Re: Short Answer

"we can expect more of this..."

which is of course good and bad at the same time, depending on your perspective.

On the one hand, you don't want gummint red tape gumming everything up [and requiring payola in the form of campaign contributions to get past it, which is the worst form of corruption in this regard]. On the other hand, you want enough regulation to keep the playing field level.

A good point, Amazon mail-order groceries probably aren't going to dent Safeway, Kroger, Walmart, Target, and others who are busy going for each other's markets at the moment.

Safeway and Kroger have traditional "union worker" staffing. Walmart and Target do not. Safeway/Vons has merged with Albertsons/Lucky stores (a few years back) and as such, there's "less choice" except for Walmart and Target. So competition is still there. I don't go to "whole foods" type markets anyway since their prices are high and selection low (by comparison). Several of THOSE exist around here, like Henry's or a couple of others I can't recall. So yeah, the only ones really affected are those who can ALREADY afford to have groceries delivered to their houses. That's not me, nor anyone shopping at Vons (Safeway) or Ralphs (Kroger) or Walmart or Target [me most of the time, to save money].

Realistically, this buyout/merger probably won't affect too many people. It sounds like the FTC made the right call... and GETTING OUT OF THE FREAKING WAY while they were at it.

Node.js forks again – this time it's a war of words over anti-sex-pest codes of conduct

Re: Normal differences, nothing to see here.

There is a hell of a lot of misogyny in tech, and it's perpetuated by guys who think that anything that questions male domination is "political correctness" or "virtue signaling."

EW, you used 3 of those terms in a single sentence! Wash your mouth out with soap, please!

'misogyny' is a myth. 'MISANDRONY', however, is reality. Ask any father going through a divorce in Cali-fornicate-you. [both of course are equally bad]

Re: sounds like he should be working on unix

actually, Linux [thinking Linus]

and look how SUCCESSFUL Linus has been!

you have to wonder...

Re: "It's our job as journalists..."

I dunno, I read 'El Reg' for the entertaining twist on the news. If I'm concerned about truth, I can research it further, myself...

Re: "there are downsides to codes of conduct"

"Anon for reasons that should be obvious."

considering how THAT GUY is being HARASSED by Node.js [to which he's apparently contributed well enough to be one of the project leaders] and by people forking it, etc. over what he TWEETED (??!!) I would say that your use of A.C. may be well justified.

As for me, I don't give a crap if someone tries to retaliate [bring it on, I love a good fight! but I'm easily bored, too, so you have to meet high standards]

This has been happening too often, from Mozilla to Google and now THIS guy.

So I understand the A/C for the post. you have my upvote for what you said.

{and a code of conduct should *NEVAR* stray into your *PERSONAL* life, especially POLITICS, RELIGION, and PERSONAL OPINIONS}

San Franciscans unite to smite alt-right with minefield of doggy shite

Re: Remember when...

Antifa protesters and other rioters aren't doing any equivalent of fighting WW2 against Nazis. they are busy causing riots and damaging people/property to create CHAOS, which is how they operate. It's a form of TERRORISM to do that. And it's being TOLERATED by left-leaning gummint and law enforcement "people in charge".

RIOTERS should be SHOT. The National Guard can handle that. If I were the mayor of a town where Antifa started rioting, I'd call them in when the first window gets broken, or the first firecracker is thrown at a cop. That'll fix it.

Peaceful protest marches are more effective. They get the word out. No need to start a riot.

Re: Fines?

"I'm pretty sure it's not legal to leave the emissions from your dog's behind behind in California"

it's not - you're supposed to pick it up and dispose of it. In San Francisco that might require taking it to some kind of inconvenient "disposal center" but for the rest of us, use one of those single-use plastic bags [the kind california recently made illegal for grocery stores to bag your food in, so I do "no bags" now so I don't have to buy "re-usable" ones] and if you hold the bag around your hand properly, you can safely grab the doggie land mine and wrap the bag around it. SAFE! [plastic mitts, in convenient dispensers, also provided in some areas for this very purpose]

So yeah, you're SUPPOSED to pick up the dog crap and throw it out or something. And if it's wrapped in plastic, it would help cut back on the smell a bit... [I wonder if those free plastic mitts have deoderizer on them]

But yeah, it's pretty much state wide from what I understand, though at the city/county level and not a state law. Pretty sure. Otherwise, in coastal communities, a big rain storm would wash a bunch of dog crap right into the ocean from the storm drain overflow [same if the dog crap is on the beach]. So yeah, it needs to be cleaned up. We don't want high bad-bacteria levels in the water.

And so the protesters would've had to accumulate a bunch of crap-bags from the usual walks where they had to pick it up. That should complete the picture, I guess.

[seeing the other post, with reference to 'dumping', that might be a different thing entirely]

Re: biological warfare

"The stench of rotten eggs is not H2S, it is thioles "

like my farts. similar gas.

"They also have an interesting side effect - they saturate their receptors so people exposed to them stop feeling the stench"

yeah I'm 'nose blind' to them, heh.

/me goes off and clears a room. muahahahaha!

Re: Hmmmm....

yeah they "promise" to get together and clean it up afterwards, but you know how it is with lefties... whenever you see photos of 'the aftermath' when they leave, trash all over etc. because most of them have the mentality that "someone else" will do it [usually gummint]. It's how they think. Gummint does EVERYTHING according to leftists, so cleaning up their mess would make sense, to THEM.

here's an example: http://www.king5.com/tech/science/environment/ton-of-trash-left-behind-after-environmental-protest/197524056

and don't forget trash arranged in the form of a peace sign, at woodstock... [yeah why couldnt' they haul it away instead?] OK not a protest, but it was hippies "back in the day", a foreshadowing of the future behavior of left-leaning protests, I'd guess.

This as opposed to Tea Party rallies in which the level of trash afterwards was apparently VERY SMALL (and piled near trash cans when they overflow).

http://goodsensepolitics.blogspot.com/2009/09/compare-garbage-after-tea-party-vs.html

So yeah, who IS going to clean that up? THEY say THEY will. I wouldn't hold my breath... well, I guess I'd hold my breath anyway, because the stench of the DOG CRAP will be pretty foul.

Yeah, they CLAIM they'll clean it up, but they're "fulla crap". had to say that.

PC sales to fall and fall and fall and fall and fall for the next five years

Re: Useless

"I use it maybe once a month to fill out my overtime sheet in Word."

obviously you're one of those "content consumer" 4-inch types. enjoy your mediocre computing experience.

Re: "Developing world - if you were to only have *one* computing device"

"So what's going on up there in Silicon Valley? Its like the PC makers are too busy reading MSM / Gartner / IDC reports, instead of asking people on the ground what they really want!"

In Silly Valley they're isolated in their bubble community of wacky-weed addicts without a clue as to what the rest of the world is like. Their politics, attitudes, and marketing proves it.

Win-10-nic is the #1 reason why PC sales slump. #2 is the lack of "new computer performs better than old computer". Why replace something that works with something that works about the same (but has Win-10-nic on it) ???

Predictable. Predictable. Predictable. It's so damn obvious I don't know what else I can say without a cluebat and a cat5-o-nine-tails to emphasize the point by BEATING IT into those clueless douchebags that seem to be "in charge".

Nasty firmware update butchers Samsung smart TVs so bad, they have to be repaired

Re: Bricked TVs

were the updates MANDATORY?

El Reg gets schooled on why SSDs will NOT kill off the trusty hard drive

Re: Remeber folks HDD is a great archive medium, much better than any old tape....

well, sounds like backups and archiving ought to be a multi-plan thing then.

a) store on multiple machines/hard drives/SAN/etc.

b) periodic tape/dvd/SD card/whatever archival

c) cloudy backup for when it's appropriate

that's kinda what I do...

Re: This was my grandfather's HDD.

"Kalok, right? Both the name of the brand, and the sound they would make when it broke..."

I bought a Kalok drive in the 90's. When I loaded a beta version of Win '95 it started swapping to disk a LOT, which caused the drive to eat itself. Sounded a lot like breaking glass.

(fortunately, I did regular backups, and only lost time and the cost of a new hard drive)

Prior to that, I had left a Seagate drive on top of the case, with extended length IDE+power cables going into the back of the computer (a secondary hard drive). I stored "work files" on it, mostly (whatever I was working on at the time, source code etc.) and did regular backups. But whenever the drive had been off for a while, after being on for a while, it wouldn't spin up. But the spindle stuck out through the circuit board, just a little. So I'd grab it with pliers and manually spin it until it free'd up, then power up the drive. It worked for about a year like this until I finally replaced it.

So what's in the new Windows Insider build? Bug fixes, an AR goof-around, and a font

If you're gonna do "something 3D"...

Micro-shaft: If you're gonna do "something 3D", why not 3D SKEUOMORPHIC UI APPEARANCE????

You know, instead of that 2D FLATSO FLUGLINESS that began with Windows "Ape".

(and while you're at it, get rid of the SLURPING and AD-NAGGING, too)

Micro-shaft: majoring in the 'minors' with another worthless "new, shiny".

The only new emoji that would matter is "REALLY PISSED OFF AT MICRO-SHAFT" which would look a LOT like a hand with a firmly extended middle finger...

Mozilla ponders making telemetry opt-out, 'cos hardly anyone opted in

Re: This user has visited one or more of these sites today

yes, having that information means they can sell it to whatever 3rd party wants it.

^^^ the REAL motivation behind telemetry

"Silly Valley" has gone INSANE

"Why on every front are they trying to copy the worst ideas of the competitors"

(from topic 'idea of opt-out telemetry')

'Silly Valley' has gone INSANE. It's turning into an ISOLATED MICRO-CULTURE, in which they all suck one anoth... scratch one another's backs and tell each other how great their ideas are, while the REST OF THE PLANET is angry. Redmond is also a similar micro-culture and maybe they do occasional culture exchanges between Silly Valley and Redmond or something...

Point being, these guys are SO isolated from what end-users (read: customers) want, that they're falling for the SAME traps that Microshaft and Google and Facebook, and "all of the others" have fallen for.

What Mozilla has done to reduce their market share:

a) become WAY TOO MUCH like Chrome (2D FLATSO, hamburger menu, etc.)

b) stop supporting the plugin interface needed for 'Classic UI' plugins

c) favoring "new shiny" _WAY_ over "make it better"

What they should do instead: LISTEN TO THE CUSTOMERS! Not pollsters, not shouty activist users, etc.. And stop relying on bots and slurping and other 'impersonal' tactics that effectively turn people into MINIONS to be exploited.

Re: I think that's a good idea

"This is basically what Windows 10 does"

and that is PRECISELY why we do NOT want this telemetry stuff to be OPT OUT

NEWS FLASH: _MOST_ people do NOT run Win-10-nic.

If Mozilla becomes "slurpy" like Micro-shaft and Google, they'll lose their entire market share, and someone else will fork their code so that we'll have a reasonable browser alternative, other than the data slurpers.