* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Microsoft's Surface Pro 2017, unhinged: Luxury fondleslab that's good...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: UI must fully switch based on context.

Stupid UI indeed. "One Windows" is TOTAL FAIL. Even assuming that the UI switches to "touch friendly" when you detach the screen, it's not enough for MOST of the things people want a laptop computer for [vs a fondleslab].

And we know who (at Micro-shaft) to blame for the UI (my thanks for a comment in an earlier article that clued me in)

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

[I hear she _INVENTED_ the 2D FLATSO "the Metro" schhhtuff - Sinofsky only IMPLEMENTED it, and then took the fall, but then it never went away, because, THAT person]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: If only ....

"Also fix the broken and too flat GUI, default services and stop slurping on an otherwise internally decent enough OS."

nice summary of what's wrong with Win-10-nic

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: "If you don't have a Surface Pro, I suspect the price is why"

Actually, it's not JUST the price. It's the "Win-10-nic".

Your top five dreadful people the Google manifesto has pulled out of the woodwork

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: Awesome.

I didn't think it was all that awesome. The somewhat echoed opinions on James Damoore are disappointing.

It started well with "The ex-Googler did a very stupid thing. He decided to let his intellect drive his internal biases and ended up producing a document that he no doubt felt at the time was a powerful corrective argument to what he sees as a misplaced assertion within Google that the company needs to hire more women and more people from different races and backgrounds to balance its dominant white, male Caucasian culture."

I can understand the apparent author-bias in this, and it's "over-look-able". Differing opinions are usually interesting.

But wait.. THEN the article went on to say things like "It uses highly subjective language to push demeaning or mocking arguments. It provides "evidence" as an afterthought or not at all."

NOT the article that _I_ read. It didn't do that. I just got done summarizing it in another forum. So yeah, I read the thing. And commented on it. I didn't see *ANY* of what the author alleges.

So after wasting an ENTIRE page blasting this guy and making sound like some kind of "throwback" [I'm surprised "1950's" or "slavery" wasn't mentioned], the article COMPLETELY misses the point that Google was (in effect) soliciting opinions, and when a dissenting opinion was offered, one going against the political correctness culture, one that tries to show that their attempts at 'divesity' are hurting the company, they _SILENCED_ him, and created a "chilling effect" for anyone ELSE who might DARE to say the SAME kinds of things.

[it's why I don't work for companies like Google - that kind of "hostile environment" would drive me to RAGE QUIT]

However, the other points on the following pages were ok.

I'd give it an "Average" with some caveats about page 1.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: asshe but

"This guy stood right up in front of the entire company and said a chunk of said employees and co-workers were biologically unsuited for their job"

BULLSHIT. you didn't read it did you?

Google was effectively soliciting opinions. But they don't tolerate opinions that don't jive with their political correctness culture. THAT is why he was fired!

(that and they saw him as a replaceable mook)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: asshe but

"as soon as he disparaged 20% of the workforce"

did you bother reading what he said, or only what other people said ABOUT it... ?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: You might have also looked up "Social Darwinism"

"lead to laws in the US allowing doctors to enforce mandatory sterilization of people for everything from having below average IQs to having a child outside marriage."

WHAT??? proof required. that's simply OUTRAGEOUS.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Down voting?

probably the usual HOWLER MONKEYS. they're ganging up on their favorite people again, most likely, and slinging poo in the form of 'downvoting'

Windows Subsystem for Linux is coming to Windows Server

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Oh joy, more embracing...

"where will it all lead?"

EXTEND. then EXTINGUISH.

Power-Hell *FOREVAR*! You are COMPELLED!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

powershell - it's too ".Not"ty for my taste. I'll use Cygwin and bash instead. Or, just run Linux. Or FreeBSD.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature /?

poweshell. if I'm forced to re-learn, I'll re-learn on a Linux system. Oh, wait, I DID that, 15+ years ago! [except it was FreeBSD first, and THEN Linux]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: A turd in a trifle

"Ingredients"

1. an operating system built by Micro-shaft

2. a subsystem that pretends to be Linux

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: What?

"Finally Linux under a modern fully modular hybrid-microkernel architecture!"

you used the word 'modern'. I don't think that word means what you think it means.

icon as reference to "that movie"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: What?

"Haven't these people heard of Cygwin?"

heh, you made SO much sense your downvote ratio was higher than your upvotes. I +1'd you though. That's because you're ABSOLUTELY! RIGHT!!!

70% of Windows 10 users are totally happy with our big telemetry slurp, beams Microsoft

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Isn't every version going to be "the best Windows ever"?

Yeah, Micro-shaft is running out of actual IDEAS. So they'll recycle this one unti it stops working. The only market THEY care about is "the 70%".

I'd like to start a NEW campaign, to replace Windows with desktop Linux:

MAKE! COMPUTING! GREAT! AGAIN!!!

We'll go after the 30%, the "unsatisfied". It _COULD_ turn into a real revolution...

you're welcome.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: 29% Windows users

29% of Windows users probably have non-linear minds, and as such, can't be so easily HERDED like the other 70%. Except for the remaining 1%, who are hackers and IT pros, that threw away the Win-10-nic license for something SANE.

(this is based on the assumption that ~1/3 of the population are non-linear-minded "creative/hunter" types, and the other ~2/3 are linear-minded "farmer" types - the percentages based on centuries of natural selection because farming is a more effective means of getting food than hunting/gathering, though the creative/hunter types are highly ADAPTABLE and as such fill _OTHER_ important roles in society like craftsmanship and ranching and military/police, and thus the relative percentages of these "classifications" of thinking patterns, either linear time-based 'farmer' thinking, or non-linear now-based 'creative/hunter' thinking - yeah, it's an old theory, the 'hunter/farmer' concept, but it works and explains a lot)

It's 2017 and Hyper-V can be pwned by a guest app, Windows by a search query, Office by...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Microsoft has a bumper crop

"Do Adobe hire their programmers out of Trump University or something?"

<facepalm /> <downvote />

"How do they have such consistently shit code??"

it's probably a combination of:

a) management/policy deficiencies

b) 'original design' flaws

c) arrogant coders

d) closed source [so nobody can see how crappy it really is]

I wonder what the typical "function call depth" is... and how many files you have to look through to find out what XXX does. [and whether classes/objects muck with each others' storage, or if garbage collection is being relied upon instead of proper reference count based object freeup, etc..]

Engineer gets 18 months in the clink for looting ex-bosses' FTP server

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Hacking?

"The company say they rotated passwords"

except for the 'back door', apparently

Big question of the day: Is it time to lock down .localhost?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Is localhost even needed?

"MS moved localhost resolution into the local DNS client (probably to stop users messing things up by removing those names)."

OR, so Micro-shaft could hijack them later, and ALSO prevent you from using 'hosts' to stop their ADWARE and SPYWARE...

on a related note... do we need to protect ".local" as well? (I use this for my private network since decades ago, "something.local" with bind serving up resolution for it)

A sarcasm detector bot? That sounds absolutely brilliant. Definitely

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: "see also “smileys”"

I've heard SHARKS referred to as 'smileys' (you know with that big toothy grin)

wasn't MY term. just heard it.

and emoticons/smileys/emojis/etc. are just pure CRAP anyway. I never use them.

[el reg icon the only exception]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Paradoxical

Is it time to worry that I don't understand "emoji"

Only if you're a millenial or a 4-incher (i.e. someone who views the world through a 4-inch phone screen, otherwise it would be 1-incher).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: ᗧ++

(unicode seems to be not entirely working when I post a reply)

A programming language that consists ENTIRELY of unicode emoji ? yeah, looking forward to it! After all, it can't be any WORSE than C-pound with ".Not", right?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Not so Handy . .

"And tonal cannot be captured very well in writing, so for example in written English, one invests more in context to set the tone"

AND, you can use punctuated! text!, *emphasis*, italics, _underscore_, CAPITALIZATION, and other means of "tonal exposition" in your writing style.

Yeah. I do that. You're welcome.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Not so Handy . .

"What chance does an AI bot have if it doesn't know how much of an idiot the writer is?"

that's right, it could be some IDIOT that believes the lame-stream (left-wing biased) media's negative portrayal of Trump . However, being REALISTIC, I'd say Trump isn't THE greatest, but is pretty great nonetheless.

The Next Big Thing in Wi-Fi? Multiple access points in every home

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

"I have given up using wi-fi in the house due to the number of WAPs that are visible"

here's what you do:

a) pick a channel that nobody else is currently using.

b) stream continuous iperf traffic between two connected wireless devices for at least 2 solid days, witihout letting up. Get the bandwidth up as high as possible. Locate the devices strategically, so popular client locations are "covered"

c) when the neighboring access points all (autmatically?) change channels to avoid YOU, you'll have the entire channel block to yourself, at least for a while. 2.4Ghz needs 1 or 2 clear channels next to you (due to the modulation), so don't use 6. 10 or 2 is often a good choice [at least in the USA]. At 5Ghz, you can have adjacent channels since the 'A' bandwidth is higher than 'G'.

And then, rinse/repeat as often as needed to keep your bandwidth working well.

(it also helps to ask people what channels their on, to avoid obvious conflicts, or just scan the ones with more bars using a utility that tells you the channel and other info)

also turn off "greenfield" and enable B-style preambles (CTS etc.). This helps multiple wifi networks play well with each other. As well as can be expected, anyway...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

messing with meshes

I messed with mesh networks a while back. I forget the details, but it was overrated (in my viewpoint) for wifi.

You could PROBABLY provide the same _kind_ of thing by enabling 'roaming' on the clients, and setting up wireless "extender bridges" at various (strategic) points. They'd have 2 radios in each one, one that's connected to the base station on one channel, and acting like a router/AP on the other, and maybe have better radios and/or better antennae to keep the bandwidth as high as possible. Client roaming would handle best signal, etc. on the individual computers and devices, and everybody would "get along".

Then you won't have to run something like "BATMAN" on every device on your network...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.A.T.M.A.N.

[as I recall, you needed it on the clients, too]

Anyway I haven't messed with it in quite a while, so maybe those problems were solved? Most of what I did was on the wifi access point itself, and not so much the networking. Got a proof of concept working, then the project was presented for a defense contract by "the boss", and that was the end of it. bummer, yeah.

(I suppose in some ways IPv6 is a lot like BATMAN's mesh network routing stuff, so why not go full-blowin IPv6 and be done with it!!!)

Microsoft dumps mobility from its Vision

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Come on MS, say it... Windows Mobile is a dead duck.

"Didn't I read that there are 350,000 Qualified Engineers unemployed in India?"

probably, and there may be a reason why: If they are out of work, it may be because they're work (quality, quantity, outcome) isn't worth paying them the apparent low wage that a contractor in India might pay their employees as compared to someone working in Redmond.

A lot of this isn't due to a lack of education, or intelligence, or even real qualifications on the part of the 'out of work' engineers in India (or those who are working, for that matter). A lot of this is PROBABLY the 'rules of engagement' and the instructions given to the "body pack" that's ultimately hired to do the work.

Throwing bodies at a problem, i.e. 1000 previously out of work (and poorly paid) engineers are now working on "the problem". But they can't step outside of the box for fear of someone else quickly assuming their role at the company. And so REAL innovation goes out the window, problems are shrugged off and even HIDDEN to avoid conflict, and we get a lot of "yes sir" when there should be objections...

You can't blame them, of course, and I am just pointing out what I think is happening "over there" and why the phone support, engineering efforts, etc. seem to be 'below our standards' over here - and it's because 'boiler plate' is the rule of the day and nobody DARES go around it, against it, etc. - the nail that sticks up GETS THE HAMMER, right? Anyway... that would be the "rules of engagement" for doing the actual work.

So ultimately it has proven that off-shoring everything to India can be a bad idea, regardless of their intelligence or the apparent cost. It's the 'rules of engagement' that cause the fail and bureaucratic "solutions".

In any case, if Micro-shaft wants QUALITY people, they'll have to PAY for them. And you often get what you are willing to pay for, as long as you actually PAY for it. And don't "get cheap". etc..

Google diversity memo: Web giant repudiates staffer's screed for 'incorrect assumptions about gender'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

The token conservative spoke out!

I think Google needs to hire more political conservatives, more christians, more right-wingers, more Trump supporters, and more Republicans. That way, their "diversity" will more equally represent the entire population of the USA.

same logic as hiring more women, simply based on generic demographics. A downvote storm will be a badge of honor, since it would just be the usual howler monkeys doing it...

I am SO sick of this "diversity" crap. Yeah, let's mix an equal representation of materials found on the makeup of the entire planet next time we build something out of concrete. It's not *FAIR* that diatomacious earth isn't equally represented in the concrete mix... "iron mixed with clay" indeed, and not in a GOOD way [like rebar in re-enforced concrete], more like in an UNSTABLE and BRITTLE way.

And THAT is what "diversity" does. It brings people into the mix that aren't necessarily there because they STRENGTHEN, but because it AVOIDS LAWSUITS [even when discrimination doesn't really exist].

icon: me face-palming at the lameness of it all

Forget Iran and North Korea. Now there's another uranium source

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Intriguing

"the Black Hole is rapidly decelerating in the Neutron Star then settles in its middle while having an amazing full-fat meal with a side dish of transfat fries."

kinda like these...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMG-LWyNcAs

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Centrifugal force?

spins like a top, stuff flies off. spins faster as it shrinks (momentum conservation). something like that, anyway. A particle would have to be lucky enough to be near the equator

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

maybe regular stars as well

just thinking, maybe regular stars also have heavy elements inside the core, due to the compression and continuous neutron flux from the fusion reaction... yeah fusing iron + other things into gold, lead, and uranium would be the nuclear equivalent of 'endothermic' but you got all that pressure, all that temperature, and all those neutrons...

but yeah Iron, cobalt, and nickel have the lowest binding energy per nucleon, so all 'exothermic' fission/fusion reactions head towards them.

Four techies flummoxed for hours by flickering 'E' on monitor

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: @ Chris 125

I looked for that newsgroup, couldn't see it on any archive or elsewhere. I found a "rule 34" site that had "thomas and friends" stuff. It was all laughably lame.

yeah nothing shocks anybody who's spent more than 5 minutes on "teh intarwebs"

Teen who texted boyfriend to kill himself gets 15 months jail

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Jump! Jump! Jump!

limits on free speech have been tested in the Supreme Court many times. Disclosing classified information, for one, is a punishable offense (all those 'leaks' for example). The classic example yelling "fire" in a crowded public space is another offense [typically 'disturbing the peace' or similar charges would be filed]. You can't be openly abusive, harass people, or create a public nuisance. But pretty much everything else, done peaceful-like and in the context of local ordinances, is fair game. I can go to the city park, stand on a soap box, and do political speech (or hate speech, for that matter) all day long. The cops will protect me and people can choose to walk away (or not). If I don't chase them and get in their faces, I'm not "harassing" or "disturbing". So yeah.

"Involuntary manslaughter" is the charge for when you negligently do something that significantly contributes to someone's death. Accidentally running someone over because you were texting on your phone, or disobeyed traffic laws [that sort of thing]. So there has to be some kind of "avoidable" negligent thing that you did, such as manipulating someone's emotions via text messages.

But yeah, the high courts will probably decide THIS one, too.

/me imagines chearleading squads at "jumper" events - "Screw it all, Screw it all, JUMP JUMP JUMP!"

megaphone icon for me standing on my soap box in this forum, heh

CMD.EXE gets first makeover in 20 years in new Windows 10 build

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Blue seems brighter

blue is like 15% luminosity or something like that, so "brighter blue" would be easier to read, especially if you're old...

I'm glad MS is brightening up the default colors. Now, will this be done with gnome/mate shells, too? default colors on THEM are like the old CMD defaults. I'm always forced to "unalias ls" and "unalias grep" and things like that to get rid of the colorized trext, because I CANNOT READ THAT DAMNED COLORIZED TEXT half the time (dark blue or dark purple on black - what dim-bulb thought THAT was a good idea?).

It's *IRRITATING*.

So a big well-deserved KUDOS to Microsoft <--- spelling their name properly when they do something right

Microsoft breaks Office 365 sign-in pages ahead of surprise update

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

"I can hardly contain my excitement :)"

sounds best when voiced by the actor that did Eeyore, or maybe (the late) Alan Rickman

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Paginated

"I don't get how that would yield such a supposed improvement in sign-in success?"

until they put different click-through ads on EACH PAGE that you're forced to re-load...

WAIT until "they" put "that" as the NEW LOGIN for WIN-10-NIC

/me heads for the door, dodging the rotting veggies and other flying objects. yeah, "don't give them any ideas"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Yeah...

"Yeah, this is why you don't let the programmers anywhere near the live servers..."

many thumbs up for that bit of advice!

[I currently find myself in the (somewhat necessary, regrettably) position of web development, server admin, AND system integrator, with a bozillian low-level fixes and necessary changes just WAITING to be implemented on the production side, and I have to CONSTANTLY resist the temptation to just put it into production anyway (since I have a 'development' site running in parallel, migrated from the production system's everything, and without any major problems) while I wait for the slow-moving wheels of but-if's and uncertainty on the "customer" end, until they finally say "go for it"]

So yeah, don't @#$% with the production system until the P.R. and non-IT people get their schtuff in one sock...

Trump as US president (in Sharknado 3)? Oh Hell No!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Oddly enough, Sharknado 5 is coming out in a few days.

I hear it airs this Sunday at 8PM on the sci fi channel. I know someone who's a fan of the sharknado movies, which is why I know about it. The series is campier than Shawn of the Dead, for those who love B movies that are a parody of themselves.

I mean, sharks, tornados, campy dialog, ridiculously fake-looking special effects, ass-pulls, and expect the unexpected. What's not to love, I guess...

I do appreciate the tag line from sharknado 3, though. "Oh, Hell No!" that was classic.

WannaCry kill-switch hero Marcus Hutchins collared by FBI on way home from DEF CON

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Genuine question

Sorry, not in this forum, it's off topic

I'm glad I waited to comment on the article, though. Sounds like the Feds may have some legit reason for questioning "our hero" (re: new article mentioned at the end in an update to this one)

but if you want more on capitalism, etc. there are smarter people than me who have done an excellent job of making this point. I suggest Prof. Walter Williams from George Mason University as a good start.

WannaCry-slayer Marcus Hutchins 'built Kronos banking trojan' – FBI

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

no good deed goes unpunished

and the corollary: it only takes one "AW, SHIT" to un-do a zillion "Atta Boy"s (that's how I remember the phrase from when I was in the Navy)

Go fork yourself: Bitcoin has split in two – and yes, it's all forked up

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: In related NEWS....

"The Dutch ate tulip bulbs at the end of the second world war when there was fuck all else to eat."

they should've eaten NAZIS... [ok that was bad, wasn't it?]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: "giant worldwide fraud created by bankers"

"Are you a Trump supporter, by any chance ?"

trolling, indeed. you apparently have no real grasp on who Trump supporters really are.

Ugh. The 'academic arrogance' of the elitist, socialist types. *groan* They see everyone who disagrees with them as uneducated tin-foil-hat conspiracy types, one foot away from being locked in the loony bin, "feel" instead of think, and assume that people in general will NOT do the right thing when given the responsibility of their choices, and so the population must be 'controlled' by 'the elite' 'for their own good'. because 'the elite' knows best. Always. *groan*

Big Internet balks at fresh effort to crack down on sex trafficking

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Worst Way Possible

yeah, leave it to gummints to totally "get it wrong".

holding web site operators liable for the actions of their advertisers, especially when they use some kind of ad network [and can't necessarily review nor screen the ads] makes you wonder why they even BOTHER, knowing that the lawsuits over wrongful prosecution will keep this tied up in courts for, like, EVAR.

Why not just go after the perpetrators instead? Or is that just not good enough?

old fashioned police work does NOT need blanket surveilance, "unmasking", punishing of ISPs or web site operators, nor the kinds of idiotic "gun-control-like" laws that attempt to hold legitimate businesses responsible for the actions of a few that are inconsequentially involving them.

Chrome web dev plugin with 1m+ users hijacked, crams ads into browsers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Terminator

track down the perps!

did anyone chase down where the ad revenue was headed to locate the perpetrator?

just wonderin...

Browser trust test: Would you let Chrome block ads? Or Firefox share and encrypt files?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Add me to the above sentiment.

remember when they *FELT* we wanted THIS?

The 'Australis' makeover. Yes, it has a name.

The millenial elitist academic-arrogant 4"-ers [ref to screen size, i.e. everything on a 4" phone, otherwise would be 1"-ers] "feel" that we ALL want their RAPED-UP user interface, with it's "hamburger" menu and 2D flatness. These are the same *TYPE* of people behind Windows "Ape" and Win-10-nic, Gnome 3, and systemd. Do we REALLY want *THEM* determining what "features" we want for the future?

I say, NO!

Let's make the browser display web pages efficiently, clean up its unused memory properly, NOT crash nor stutter your computer system if it's left running with 43 tabs open on multiple windows for more than a month, and EFFICIENTLY run (and dispose of excess memory use for) javascript.

Did eye just do that? Microsoft brings gaze tracking to Windows 10

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: What's the pr0n angle?

"Why do you bother?"

because it's FUNNY in a prurient kinda way?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: As always, it's a balance between benefit and risk

"The paranoia is just the result of Microsofts track record of ramming any and almost every potentially invasive piece of technology down users throats."

that would be the SANITIZED version of things. My opinion is that it's been shoved into the OTHER END the entire time. That way they can hear you SCREAM...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Masking tape, meet webcam

OK Stephen Hawkings release, fine with me. I still have access to my limbs, at least for now, and so I'll stick with keyboard+mouse k-thanks [mostly keyboard]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: What?

"Biometric sensing a privacy concern? My Arse!"

Arse-cameras coming, too. Watching your anus pucker up based on what you're seeing/reading

And here I was thinking I'd be safe if I merely SAT on the camera...

Sun of a b... Rising solar temp wrecks chances of finding ET in our system

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: yep, we're interested in the water UNDER the ice

"we handed over the job to stay-at-home, pro-robot time-wasters after Apollo."

Unfortunately, politics entered the mix, back in the 70's. I could enumerate the details, but it's all there if someone wants to look for it.

Apollo had at least 2 moon launches canceled, an Apollo/Soyuz mission and Skylab re-purposed the remaining hardware [except that which became museum pieces], and for some stupid reason, the USA seemed to lose their passion for manned space exploration. [I never did]

I blame the politicians and the driving forces behind them [which isn't "the people"].

It was kinda like being neutered, in a way...