* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Scared of that new-fangled 'cloud'? Office 2019 to the rescue!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I eagerly await..

can it get worse than 'clippy' ?

/me mentions obligatory clip from 'Salmon Days' regarding BOFH vs Clippy... "I'm NOT! WRITING! a F'ING! LETTER!, you STUPID! F'ING! PAPERCLIP!!!"

[if you've seen the video clip, you'll also know how to properly interpret the capitalization and punctuation]

Dyson to build electric car that doesn't suck

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Solve this at the source

"He was not talking about CO_2 emissions"

thankfully, or I would have considered his premise to be pure B.S.. Since he's apparently referring to diesel exhaust [specifically] and either particulate or unburned hydrocarbons or other byproducts of combustion, ones that irritate lungs etc., then he still has a point. However, given that car exhaust in the USA has been cleaned up pretty well, it's much less of a problem than it used to be. And we don't allow tetra-ethyl-lead in the fuel any more.

I still can't see the energy density of batteries and their recharge rate being any better than the 'liquid energy' of petroleum, along with the convenient refilling of the fuel tank. Until THAT happens, electric cars will merely be toys for the rich, the experimenters, and the smug.

My gasoline car can go 400+ miles on a "charge" and takes about 5 minutes to fill up. How's that compare to an electric car? That goes TRIPLE when it comes to "road trips". I can gas up before I leave, drive halfway up California, and gas up again, and get all the way to San Jose, or even San Francisco, starting out San Diego, within a day [stopping only for piss breaks and food, and that one stop for gas]. Try THAT in a purely electric vehicle...

My name is Bill Gates and I am an Android user

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Damn them to Hell

"Microsoft Strategy:"

"Version 8: Copy Apple."

"Version 10: Copy Google."

Version 1.0: copy Xerox

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Thriller

"I’d argue that Nadella has overseen:"

I think I'll reply point-by-point

The best version of MS Office in recent history

Compared to earlier MS Office versions, I can see why you might say that. Then again, Libre and Open office suites do pretty well, for what I need. No need to 'go subscription' or 'go cloud' just to write a document or make a spreadsheet, ya know? And you don't have to pay for Libre/Open Office. And they run on Linux and FreeBSD.

The opening of Microsoft to Linux technologies

Yeah, some of this is ok, but I always thought Cygwin did pretty well without MS's help. Earlier MS attempts like Interix/SFU/SUA were way too limited. I actually gave them a good try.

The open sourcing of .NET, fulfilling the promise of C#

*YAWN* - C-pound is _STILL_ at the 5%-6% range on the TIOBE index, last I looked. I think Python might be close to beating it. ".Not" has been CRAP since it was excreted from the bowels of Micro-shaft.

(double-checked, C-pound is around 4.8% now, down by ~0.7%, with Python at just under 3%)

The cross-platformisation of Visual Studio

still looks all 2D FLATSO and the interface's VB-ness [since the 2000's] *STILL* irritates me. VS '98 let you edit dialog boxes without lifting a hand off of the keyboard. That's IMPOSSIBLE since the 2000's. The only feature it has that's worth a damn is "virtual space". Those who know what that is probably agree with me about it being the BEST feature, at least. It's how _ALL_ GUI editors should behave.

Some damn good software on Android and iOS

I haven't seen it... and from what I've seen, there's a lot of CRapps out there for phones in the "stores" these days

Some really fantastic computers - both desktop and tablet.

at fantastically overblown prices. At that price, I should get a Mac.

Limp Weiner to get 21 months in the hole

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Weiner's Weiner Problem

"so less chance (however still some chance) he'll end up shived."

more likely, raped into submission and traded for candy bars

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: He gets less than 2 years, while that kid that sent pics of himself gets 10

"17 yo Kid sends pic of himself to older girl, gets 10 years for distributing child porn (of himself!!!)."

this is what happens when you get ACTIVISTS in positions of power as attorneys general and in other investigative positions of authority. That and the occasional nod/wink for their fellow 'lodge members', the country club of "the elite" Washington D.C. insiders, aka "the establishment".

Mrs. Clinton has YET to get ANY kind of sentencing for the list o' crimes that she's committed [obstruction of justice and mishandling of classified material being the two obvious ones].

So yeah, it's the law that applies to everyone equally, except that SOME people (certain Demo-rats, certain 'Dynasty' families) are MORE equal than the rest of us...

Weiner is nothing more than a scapegoat, whose crimes are just too heinous to excuse and cover up. That and it gives Huma a chance to "be free" to be with Mrs. Clinton...

After Microsoft calls out HP Inc over stalled Windows 10 logins, HP bounces back with a fix

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

I was hoping...

I was hoping it would UNINSTALL Win-10-nic and give you the option to use Win7 or Linux.

Oh well, my hopes are dashed. dammit.

Shock! Hackers for medieval caliphate are terrible coders

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: C'mon, ElReg.

"could you PLEASE stop calling inept idiots hackers?"

well, Script Kiddies (or s'kiddies if you will) is one name, but that doesn't apply to the Daesh-bags. They're below s'kiddies in the overall ranking of things, I'd imagine. I suppose you could call them something else... so what WOULD be a good name for them?

Daesh-bags is probably fine.

Anything beyond that risks poo-slinging and accusations of 'Islama-phobia' from the SJW's [who are really just helping ISIS exist, every damn time they do that crap]

anyway, joining a radical Islamic cult like ISIS would have a prerequisite of below average intelligence, in my opinion...

Hotter than the Sun: JET – Earth’s biggest fusion reactor, in Culham

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

scaling up is the answer?

seems like "bigger" is better for tokomak, as far as efficiency goes.

I wish them luck, though I have my doubts about the practicality of using a scaled up tokomak to get 500MW out of 50MW of laser+microwave+whatever.

Keep in mind, that the thermal efficiency of a power plant might be 20-25%. So in theory, the 500MW (thermal) plant is generating only about 25% of that as electricity. Then 10% would be required to sustain the fusion reaction, leaving 10-15% for powering light bulbs and computers etc.

it's all about the physical capabilities of devices (assume steam system) that can turn thermal energy into electricity. Because we're dealing with the limits of known materials, you probably won't go over 1200 psi, or about 550 deg F (as I recall). The carnot efficiency at that temperature is around 30% as I recall, meaning practical efficiency is a bit lower, hence the 20-25% number [which is a ballpark guess, I've been out of the power generating world for quite some time].

I can't think of a more practical way to turn gamma+neutron radiation into power than a steam system. Maybe someone has come up with a better way, but water absorbs radiation really well, and if you have THAT much, then all of that energy needs to be absorbed and turned into "something" that can become electricity.

So you've got ginormous "gamma panels" that are like solar panels? 20% efficiency I think, is the best you can do. So not much better, and they're more expensive and more environmentally 'unfriendly' from all of the toxic materials you'll need to make them.

Anyway, steam is the most practical approach to make 'trons' out of 'gammas'. So we're looking at HALF of the electicity going back into the plant.

I'm not complaining so much about that, as pointing out the gross inefficiencies of the tokomak design. Not saying "don't bother making them". I'd love to spend 99 watts to get 1 usable watt out of fusion energy. But let's be realistic and manage expectations a bit, too.

Tokomak is probably not the best method to use in order to get fusion power to work. There are better methods, and some of them are very very interesting. I think that maybe so much money has gone into Toikomak designs that someone out there wants to see a payoff, one way or another, dammit, and there better be SOMETHING or there's HELL to pay!

Or something like that.

Outgoing Cisco exec chair John Chambers joins Sprinklr board

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

the development of [startup] nations?

"the development of startup companies, nations, & a startup world driving innovation & job creation"

'Nations'? I have to wonder what he means by that...

To have a 'startup world' you have to even the playing field, eliminate monopolistic practices, etc.

So what makes 'this guy' the expert on that? [inquiring minds want to know!]

Actually, I bet he goes into venture capital. Forget the 'new world order' speak, and just be an investment banker, k-thanks.

Attention adults working in the real world: Do not upgrade to iOS 11 if you use Outlook, Exchange

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Works fine here

"We use Office 365 at work for email and calendaring"

You have my pity...

In the mean time, looks like the iOS 11 bug is not a universal problem. This is probably why it ended up in the release. "Not enough end-user beta testing"

[still needs fixing, though]

I have to wonder if the reason for fail is (another example of) Micro-shaft NOT following the RFC's...

(the MSDN web server didn't properly support decade(s) old RFC requirements for downloading a 'byte range' until early this year, meaning that people with slower connections would NEVER be able to download, following the [smart?] decision to obliterate the "special" ActiveX control that COULD do this... so now I can 'hack' it and use wget to get anything >1Gb in size, which I have - anyway, that's ONE recent example of "we're microsoft, we invent our OWN standards; world, follow us")

Equifax fooled again! Blundering credit biz directs hack attack victims to parody site

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Both domains went dark ?

article: "has since been blocked by Google"

Alister: "The real one is equifaxsecurity2017.com."

yeah, I _HOPE_ google doesn't wield THAT kind of power...

It should stay there, for parody/comedic purposes. I laugh in their general direction over at Equifax. I'm tired of companies like that slurping my personal information. They "get it wrong" more often than not. Try applying for a loan some time when there are errors on your credit report...

Chatbots: A load of hype or fancy lifehack for the lazy IT person?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Just KEEP! THEM! OFF! OF! THE! PHONE! LINES!

I can foresee telemarketers using these to robo-call you...

GNOME Foundation backs 'freedom-oriented' smartphone

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Am I sensing a horse-cart situation here ?

my grumbles with Android could be fixed by an improved UI toolkit that application designers could adopt...

you know, something that gives you 3D skeuomorphic without the difficulty of application-drawn controls, etc.

I don't expect GNOME devs, who "feel" that 2D FLATSO is a good thing [obviously], and "feel" that GNOME 3 is better than GNOME 2 was [I use MATE as a desktop], and "feel" that requiring 'special keys' without proper documentation to access the properties of the panel are a good thing [Linus _specifically_ bitched about that], and INTEGRATING! WITH! SYSTEMD! AND! DBUS! is a good thing [obviously NOT a good thing], would come up with a phone/slab OS that's any better than 'droid.

I think it would be WORSE for all of the things we do not like about 'droid.

I can't imagine what their "app store" would look like. And I doubt you'll be able to install un-approved applications, the way you can on 'droid (i.e. anybody can turn "that" off and load any APK file they download, if they want to).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Been down this road before

"webOS got the user experience _very_ right"

I don't agree. Maybe for a lot of content-consumption-only users, but not everyone. Otherwise, I'd change my desktop to look like that...

and the screenshots I've seen remind me of the XBox panel-based interfaced [which irritates me] and Windows "Ape" and have the 2D FLATSO etc..

Maybe ok for a tiny phone screen from the noughties (or 00-ties, whatever), but 'modern' gear has better resolution and speed, and can at LEAST be 3D skeuomorphic...

(yeah I'm trying to start a rebellion here - pirate icon)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: But

"only runs open source"

I've seen that kind of thing tried before, and it didn't work very well. Example, Debian Linux and the 'non-free' repo that you have to manually add to the package manager. Not quite so heavy-handed but same idea.

That goes along with the 'tainted kernel' thing for Linux kernel drivers that don't explicitly have that "I am GPL'd" macro someplace in the code.

Stallman must be behind this...

[pirate icon because I want REAL freedom, not just freedom to do what "they" want you to do]

Bill Gates says he'd do CTRL-ALT-DEL with one key if given the chance to go back through time

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: why

"He's a rich tw't who was in the right place at the right time... to make money"

what's wrong with making money? Work hard, earn money. Sounds good to me. Oh, and pick a career that actually pays well. That also sounds good to me.

Only a SOCIALIST or a COMMUNIST would be angry at someone else's success. Those philosophies are based on ENVY, and the concept that "someone else" should be working hard so YOU don't have to, and everyone gets the SAME salary, yotta yotta yotta regardless of how important the work is.

Economic conditions over millenia of human society have caused janitorial work to pay low wages, and engineering work to pay high wages, and "running the entire company" to pay million dollar salaries because "your decisions could mean success or bankruptcy" and "thousands of employees' fates and the stockholders' investments are in YOUR hands, so we want the BEST person running the show and are willing to pay for the best".

The pay should reflect the value of the work done. If YOU aren't paid well, find work that has value, and do that.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to log on

"Why does Windows make me press the "any" key or click the mouse before the login prompt appears?"

in Win-10-nic, it's so they can SHOVE ADVERTISEMENTS at you before you log in.

bombastic bob Silver badge

"Later PCs have a four second press of the power switch"

"Not sure what determines that function"

It's done in hardware - APM and ACPI interface with it, but those are software specs.

I forget the acronym associated with the hardware side, if there is one...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"I think going back and destroying Windows ME/Vista would have been higher on the list."

I'd rather keep THOSE and destroy Windows "Ape" and Win-10-nic and that ENTIRE "the Metro" concept.

Win-10-nic - making Vista look "not as bad"

Actually Vista's biggest problem, aside from bloat and slow, was the 'new hardware requirement' which made low-end Vista-capable PCs cost twice as much as an inexpensive XP machine. ME's biggest problem was that it didn't really fix any '98 bugs, and created a bunch of new ones instead. Win "Ape" and Win-10-nic changed all of the rules, made us all "feel dumb" for not knowing how to use the computer any more, and JAMMED a bunch of unwanted things up our a... down our throats.

Then again, Bill G. has been out of day-to-day things since the century rolled over. Everything since the ".Not" initiative has been Ballmer and Nadella. So Bill might've been involved with ME, but Vista was Ballmer's big blunder.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: the RESET key was an Apple idea!

I'm glad 'reboot' isn't a single key. Imagine having your fingers on the wrong keys after moving back/forth to and from the mouse all day, you land your fingers just wrong, start to type, and *BOOT*

Making it "non-accidental" is actually a very very good idea.

Manchester plod still running 1,500 Windows XP machines

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: I still have two XP instances

"What can those XP boxes do that you won't be able to do with Linux with a modern wine setup?"

I'm thinking that THIS might be a really good selling feature for a commercial Linux: 100% XP compatibility!

Then we just get everyone STILL running XP to UPgrade to Linux!

Behold iOS 11, an entirely new computer platform from Apple

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

still kinda "flattish"

it's still kinda "flattish" though this is unfortunately common in mobile platforms.

they could fix that by making the application icons have 'shadows', like some of the ones in 'droid. It just looks better.

Uber Cali goes ballistic, calls online ads bogus: These million-dollar banners are something quite atrocious

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: If there was any such thing as a legitimate ad

when you consider how intrusive the advertisers can get, you hae to wonder if there is REALLY any kind of benefit to the products being advertised...

Stack Overflow + Salary Calculator = your worth

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: No server side development, no Unix

and rating 'Web Devs' as earning MORE than desktop application developers? W.T.F. ??

that goes DOUBLE when you look at the quality of web development these days. Or are they assuming that all desktop applications are UWP/C-pound/dot-NOT (which is a pretty worthless skill set in my opinion)

I do embedded and kernel-level stuff (and all that other stuff when I have to) so, meh.

Sexploitation gang thrown in clink for 171 years after 'hunting' kids online and luring them in front of webcams

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

interesting how they got their material

it IS kind of interesting how they got their material, by essentially manipulating random rebellious teen girls and encouraging them to do something a little crazy in front of a webcam, etc..

It's the old 'confidence' game, basically. Only instead of 3 card monty, it's "full monty".

parents should educate their children about the ways of the world, and stop 'helicoptering' them. explaining how con games work might help them to avoid such situations. "If he says he's a teenage boy, or even a teenage girl, it's probably a middle-aged pervert". stuff like that. "don't be a victim". street smarts.

[you can't watch over them 7/24, so give them to tools to watch themselves, instead]

Black screen of death after Win10 update? Microsoft blames HP

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The 'Registry'

"It's a Btrieve based database with resilience features like transaction logging, rollback and snapshots and with fully integrated auditing and ACLs. So way faster, more resilient and more secure than say text files..."

HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

*cough*

Oh, were you serious?

I haven't seen any reference that says the registry uses Btrieve internally or not. I remember seeing it and NOT liking Btrieve a long time ago. I remember Novell really liked it for some reason [so much they bought the company]. I think microshaft could NOT have made much worse of a decision to base the registry's internal structure on, if it's really using Btrieve. They SHOULD have used a well-known file system like UFS (at that time, I don't think EXT existed) and set up a "file system in a file" for it, with journaling and locking thrown in as needed, CACHED! AT! THE! SYSTEM! LEVEL! for performance. That would have made a LOT more sense...

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: The 'Registry'

"imagine on Linux, systemd loading all configuration files in /etc into memory"

except this 'loading all configuration files' process would happen for EVERY! SINGLE! APPLICATION! that requests even the most TRIVIAL of information from such an eldritch abomination, if you want to duplicate what "the Registry" appears to do. In other words, it won't be cached. it will be (in a paranoid manner) READ FROM DISK (not from a cache) and then WRITTEN TO DISK when it changes (not write-through cache, but physical writes) and the individual processes will WAIT for this to complete and block in the API EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! to duplicate what appears to happen in "the Registry".

Because, if you're Micro-shaft, the disk contents _might_ have CHANGED "not through the OS" (even if it can't) and so DAMMIT, we *MUST* *MAKE* *SURE* by RE-READING it, and PHYSICALLY WRITING it, EVERY! SINGLE! TIME!!!

(or so that's the way it seems, when I've measured performance)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: The registry that should never have happened

"The Registry" was originally supposed to replace all of the INI files with something more efficient, but then everything "OLE" began to pollute it. And for some odd reason, Micro-shaft's code appears to act as if it's "paranoid", based on what I've seen in performance measurements. It's like "the Registry" _MUST_ flush and re-read its cache physically from disk, every time something burps. It can't intelligently use a system-wide write-through cache. No, that would make TOO! MUCH! SENSE! and perform TOO! WELL! for Micro-shaft. Instead, it appears that EVERY application that accesses the registry must FLUSH TO DISK and READ FROM DISK, EVERY! SINGLE! TIME!!

(if anyone has proof of the contrary, please let me know; but all of my performance measurements suggests that this is the case and it explains SO many hideous performance problems in Windows, and every version since XP seems to do this, and probably the ones before that as well)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

"app readiness" - computer foreplay?

what it says in the title

took 'em 10 minutes - their technique must be flawed.

Microsoft teases web-based Windows Server management console

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: GUI good

"And the real issue is often that *nix really lacks a system API - you really need the command tools to manage many subsystems because in the old times the concept of a system API - maybe language-neutral, was still to come... let's keep our heads well stuck in the 1970s"

BOO! [downvote icon, because, THIS]

the 'unix principle', i.e. "do one thing and do it well" and its plethora of utility functions simply means that you can wrap this kind of stuff in a SHELL SCRIPT [you don't need a bloated WEB-BASED ADMIN SCREEN, ok?]

"stuck in the 1970s" <-- computers are still using electricity to run them, must be 'stuck in the 70s'

And it seems to me, you haven't seen [the CLUSTER-FEEL known as] systemd, NOR have you read Arthur C. Clarke's Superiority.

I think an examination of both of these might act like a cluebat...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: GUI good

yeah, I guess Micro-shaft FINALLY got around to re-inventing:

WEBMIN!!!

(welcome to the club)

/me [captain obvious] points out that a lot of experienced admins really *HATE* things like Webmin...

implications now so obvious that I don't need to point them out, heh

Apocalypse now: Ad biz cries foul over Apple's great AI cookie purge

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

"although 30 days is quite a short period"

still WAY too long in my view. maybe asking users if they want to KEEP the thing could clue people in to just how pervasive this practice REALLY is.

perhaps the answer is to be able to explicitly run one or more windows (or even tabs) of a browser in "stealth mode", i.e. don't actually save cookies [keep them in memory only], and dump related browsing history when you close it. And let the users CHOOSE how long to keep those unnecessary cookies, maybe even on a cookie-by-cookie basis. And how about a 'regex' match for cookies to NEVER keep, like ANY domain with "ad" or "click" in it...

and so on

Outlook.com looking more like an outage outbreak for Europe

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"The Cloud" is SO overrated!

and here's another outage to make that point

New HMRC IT boss to 'recuse' herself over Microsoft decisions

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: What could possibly go wrong?

the hens want to hire a fox for the henhouse to help guard against foxes raiding the henhouse...

"I will recuse myself of all discussions regarding foxes"

[I think I hear an echo]

Google sued for paying women less than men

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: Lack of a penis

"This is America that we're talking about - in America women are always paid less and asked to do more."

source, please, and FYI "Southern Poverty Law Center" nor some radical feminist blog isn't a valid source.

Otherwise, I call BULLSHIT on your "fact".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

"What he argues is (a) that sexism still exists, (b) women are equally capable as a group as men in technical fields and (c) that women have a tendency to prefer other fields"

Google could have used this help in their defense. But they shot themselves in the foot, instead, by firing the guy. Now it's time to pay for their mistakes, I guess.

(you live by the political correctness, you die by it too)

Oh, and a big thumbs up to h4rm0ny for stating the facts

Google to kill Chrome autoplay madness

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Autoplay

"Burn it. Burn it with fire."

then MURDER! IT! TO! DEATH!!

what part of "nearly all of that CRAP is advertising and we don't want to have it SHOVED UP OUR DOWN OUR THROATS" do they NOT understand???

Would you get in a one-man quadcopter air taxi?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Flame

Re: Would you get in a one-man quadcopter air taxi?

I might, but I sometimes waver on the edge of a deathwish, as long as it's spectacular and involves flames

"Flying Car" - queue Jetsons theme - "Meet George Jetson... Jane his wife..." etc.

icon because

Windows 10 Creators Update will add app-level privacy controls

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Sorry Microsoft

"Imagine sharing your location data while you're at the desk on a PC..."

and getting it wrong, because your "location" is at the office of your ISP, a hundred miles away [seen that, laughed]

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Take a Stand...

"as a Windows user, you are used to using a Toy OS..."

this goes double for Win-10-nic [the Playskool version, dumbed down to the level of pre-school children]

thanks, Micro-shaft, for adding spyware and then "giving" us incremental ways to "block" it, like you're doing us a favor now... [but ONLY for 'Enterprise']

Pennsylvania cops deploy electronics sniffer dog to catch child abusers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Just get a dog

spray can of 'dog smell' - spray on luggage before traveling

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Probable cause

' "we took a peek inside your luggage" cards in my bags'

might also be fun to include a small number of really _odd_ items, like a ginormous bra, a male stripper's g-string, a laminated photo of "whatever" (livestock for example) with lipstick prints on it, some hard-corn porn [the funnier the better], and a strange-looking device that vibrates when the switch is turned on, all clearly visible when the baggage is opened. Heh.

waiting for "we took a peek inside your luggage, and were horrified at the nightmare fuel, and now need brain bleach, so thanks for THAT image that won't get out of our brains" cards to be placed inside...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Probable cause

dogs can tell people of different races easily, because we smell different to them. White people who invite their black friends over (and have a dog that's not used to black people) can verify that one. Dogs freak out sometimes, go into barking fits for no reason, etc.. The inverse is also true.

so yeah you might get a prejudiced dog that barks at the black man's luggage... [what do THEY know of SJW's and various civil rights laws - they're DOGS]

(oh, and the premise that people of different races are unfairly profiled - I don't believe it really happens in any significant amount)

DARPA lays out cash-splash to defibrillate Moore's Law

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

keep in mind what the moon program did for tech

keep in mind what the moon program did for tech, and there's no harm in buying something that needs to be small, fast, and multi-core.

But the problem with Moore's Law isn't the width of the bus, the number of cores, or even the Ghz clock speed. It's the general LACK of decent software that takes advantage of multi-core SMP design.

And Micro-shaft's move towards a "phone-like" "App" instead of multiple applications sharing multiple desktops and simultaneously doing things YOU want done [not slurping nor advertising nor sharing your personal data over 'teh intarwebs' "in the background"], definitely is NOT moving in the right direction.

True multi-thread SMP solutions would make the UI run a lot faster, or at least be PERCEIVED as faster. The obvious things like MPEG decoding (and encoding) are already being addressed, as well as high performance gaming. But as long as Micro-shaft (and others) continue to excrete BLOATWARE instead of software (and ".Not" and UWP are a big part of THAT problem) you're not going to see that technological push that makes people believe that "the new computer" is actually BETTER than what they already own...

Another reason to hate Excel: its Macros can help pivot attacks

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: "assuming a machine in the group is already pwned"

cracking a windows admin-level user password across a LAN - how long does that take these days?

Kaspersky shrugs off US government sales ban proposal

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

this Russia blaming

I wonder where it's coming from... blaming Russia for so many things, assuming all Russian businesses are in bed with Putin's gummint, yotta yotta yotta.

It might be a case of "the lady doth protest too much, methinks"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

"In Capitalist Amerika, Bank robs you!"

not any more... they got caught.

Apple's adoption of Qi signals the end of the wireless charging wars

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Choices

"Chee? I had no idea it was pronounced like this. I'm still going to call it Queue-Aye, ryming with fanboi-in-chief Stephen Fry..."

As I understand it, 'Qi' is how you spell the Chinese word for 'energy', 'chi' [pronounced 'chee'] because that's what the 'Q' is apparently, a 'ch'.

Not to be confused with the girl android from Chobits...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: for once...

Qi chargers and micro-USB charge clients (like those nice thin/flat semi-flexible ones you can stick to the bottom of your phone) are relatively cheap and effective.

I've done a lot with Qi at the hardware level, and so I'm kinda happy with this.

As long as Apple sticks with "the standard" it should be a bit easier to go someplace and find a few courtesy charger pads laying about that will work with YOUR device (Apple, 'droid, or whatever).

now... will they try an 'Embrace, Extend, Extinguish'? Let's hope not...