Posts by bombastic bob 10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015
"No behavior was changed but the code was changed to make use of the C99 declare-your-variable-in-the-for-loop construct. So apparently not yet done."
hopefully not an example of what Linus might call "compiler masturbation"
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/01/linus_torvalds_fires_off_angry_compilermasturbation_rant/
I think MOST software stopped being 'evolutionary' a while back, and became "we're millenials, it's OUR turn now to do it OUR way, screw you guys, we're doing it, stop being old farts and CHANGE!"
That's more de-evolutionary by my definition.
/me queues up some Devo music - "Go Monkey Go!"
I think I know which company did this. they greatly inconvenienced their customers (including one of mine).
If the customer wants to STAY WITH WHAT HE HAS, he should be able to.
It's BAD BUSINESS to "force" like that. Especially when it's done WITHOUT WARNING like that. It would be like changing their web server from Apache to nginx (or the other way around) and then it's like "oh, you didn't get the memo? here it is..."
or worse - from Linux to a WINDOWS server - without warning. "Case-sensitive file names? That actually MATTERS?" (among other things)
"But I also think that when they served their time you should also give them a fair chance to redeem themselves and sort it all out"
exactly. but the SJW's and "for the children" crowd want to punish these people *FOR* *LIFE*. Personally, I think it's already "gone too far" with the 'sex offender' registries and unnecessary restrictions on where they can live or work, etc.. There have been cases where a minor who takes naked pictures is now on an offender list for child pornography, or a case where an 18 yo has sex sith a 16 yo girlfriend and some SJW decides to ruin the 18yo's life [though the 2 get married later on]. And they were dating before the 18yo turned 18. So go figure.
If the law is merely an excuse to SCREW SOMEONE you don't particulaly like, or something to use as a stepping stone to greater power and influence, something's wrong with the law.
and when people are overly SJW "offended" and "outraged", I quote Shakespeare: "The lady doth protest too much". Or, a new twist on a familiar bible quote: those ninny nannies who are busy getting 'motes' out of other people's eyes should pay attention to the LOGS in their own, and last I checked, a 'mote' is a teensy piece of the SAME THING that the LOG is made from...
recycling isn't all THAT difficult...
a) secretly dump it in a dumpster for some apartment building where you don't live
b) beat with hammer until it's small enough, then place inside of a bag embedded in your kitchen trash, between the rotten food, used tea bags, and greasy paper towels.
"recycled"
and without being able to even CHANGE THE BATTERY, you're gonna have to toss it when PLANNED OBSCELESCENCE limits the product lifetime to something ridiculously short...
so yeah, don't buy one.
"The only impact of anti-crypto laws is to encourage bad people into using unbreakable private end to end encryption"
ok - let me substitute 'gun' for 'crypto' or 'encryption' and see if the EU keeps the same attitude...
This is an example of ONE thing the EU is getting right. Sorta like when Demo-Rats here in the USA get something right. it's rare, it's notable, and worthy of a thumbs up etc.. I sometimes have to give Diane Feinstein a slow-clap because of that. Even Obaka got one from me on rare occasions...
Keep in mind 99% of everything ELSE they're doing is NOT in your best interest. But this ONE thing, sure, they're getting it right.
/me slow claps
"The Firefox/Iceweasel issue came about due to Mozilla's trademark policy conflicting with Debian's stable release policy"
I think there might have been a bit more to it, but yeah that was a part of it allright. Also some of what Debian referred to as the "non-free" aspects of Firefox (back then) were excluded from iceweasel. Over time that has apparently been rectified, and we're all happy now. Hopefully.
"developers stop assuming systemd is installed."
we'd have to break the gnome dev's spirits before THAT will happen... sorta like "to ride a horse, you must first break him".
they have too much control over too many open source GUI applications that we all use.
I was APPALLED at what they did to evince. Fortunately Mate has Atril. But even that gave me some trouble on FreeBSD, when I tried to run it as "not the logged in user". Yeah, "all that CRAP" it apparently "needs". Or not. And that's the point.
The existence of Devuan and the BSD's should be a mighty force against the borg-like systemd taking over the desktop software.
/me regularly runs applications on the X11 desktop NOT as whatever user is currently logged in on the desktop. For customer projects, for example, I often create special users so I can store THEIR settings and files separate, etc. etc. and usually it's just a matter of "xhost +localhost" followed by "su - thatuser" and "setenv DISPLAY localhost:0.0" (or "export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0" for bash). THEN, the applications logged on as "the other user" run just fine alongside of everything else, often with a title that includes '(as thatuser)' so you can easily tell the difference. this makes even more sense for default editor settings and browser settings and things of THAT nature, where your company contract might require you to log in via google or use a different github login, and you don't want THAT globally polluting your REGULAR DESKTOP now do you?
And of course reliance on systemd would SCREW THAT UP a LOT
pressure from butane lighters - ever throw one into a fire? [I've heard about it, never done it - not recommended].
not saying the tech is bad [we're already using lithium batteries, made from one of the most reactive and unstable substances in the universe, in _everything_ these days] but choice of a different electrolyte might be a good idea. Something that stays liquid at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, for example, but still operates down to "chicago winter" temperatures.
flourocarbons are the lightest of the halogen+carbon chemicals, and actually has a chance at reaching ozone, since F + C + 2H = 18 + 12 + 2 = 32, only slightly heavier than nitrogen, and about the same as oxygen. in other words, it's an actual ozone depleter.
If they can do it with chlorine instead, then no danger of ozone depletion. you'd have to light it on fire to get it "up there" (and by then it breaks down from burning, so no longer a problem). Also diflouromethane would nearly be too heavy to get "up there" without a volcano to help. But flouromethane, that one is a valid concern.
CFC's and HFCs etc. react directly with ozone and deplete it, if it can get "up there" where the ozone is. The question is whether the chemicals are light enough to actually DO that, or if they just hug the ground.
So there is a lot of truth in the CFC + ozone reaction, and the HFC/CFC ability to be a greenhouse gas. My question is whether or not the heavier ones actually DO that. I have seen what happens when an entiire chiller's refrigerant tank leaks into a confined space. It's very very difficult to remove [because it's heavier than air]. So with modern refrigerants (and even R12) they're much too heavy to get to the upper atmosphere. If one of THOSE chemicals would do the trick, it would be a lot better than using flouromethane.
But yeah, flouromethane, bad idea for general use. Except in space.
Here's a thought:
Get an RPi, running Linux, with xmame, and provide a nice menu with LICENSED ROMS that work correctly with the attached hardware (joysticks, buttons, trackballs, whatever). Plug this into your HDMI-capable TV, and you've got a working 80's style game console with all of the classic Atari games!
Easily priced under $200.
(sadly, some d0rk will assume "Win-10-nic" and ruin it from that point forward)
the race to the bottom is happening out here in Cali-fornicate-you where...
a) single use plastic bags were banned in all stores, in an ELECTION no less. grocery stores MUST charge money for "re-usable" bags, and 75% of people NOW "go bagless" instead. It's irritating as hell. And with so many people HATING it, how did it PASS a VOTE? Voter fraud much?
b) huge gasoline tax and car tax increases on the horizon. Even electric cars will be taxed. "for the roads". Because highway funds were diverted to a) illegal immigrant social services, and b) the 'crazy train' that NOBODY will EVAR use.
c) state legislature "passes a law" to make it HARDER to recall politicians [basically using bureaucracy to slow down recall petitions to the point where they don't do any good] . It's a blatant violation of the state constitution, too. But they don't care, apparently.
d) The "crazy train" to nowhere and illegal immigrants get plenty of free state money, at the expense of those fewer and fewer Californians who actually EARN a living. Yeah, it's a "sanctuary state", with minimum wages constantly being raised, along with taxation. It's gotten WAY WORSE within the last year or so.
and so on.
So YEAH, I'm thinking about moving to Texas. I'd form a Texas corporation, sell the California corporation to it, and then MOVE. Houston is on the gulf coast, probably an ok place. I'll have to trade hurricanes for earthquakes.
I don't blame Texas for making it very very attractive for tech companies. It's already very attractive because of what the idiots in Sacramento are up to these days.
But if Google and Facebook (and others) pick up and move to Texas, how long before they change it for the WORSE...?
Sorry, that was way to "feely" for my stomach to handle. I need some pink liquid now...
take the 'hardass' approach on crime with kids. they'll respect you (and not commit crimes). "If I ever find out you XXX I'll call the cops myself." Make sure you follow through. Tell them about this long before the potential arises. They'll always know you'll do it. chances of actual crimes, from drugs to pushing someone to suicide, will be a hell of a lot lower. By the time they grow up, they will have grown used to the idea of disciplining themselves, and there you have it.
getting my coat now. I ran out of pink liquid.
how did the topic go off into pedophilia-land?
anyway my $.10 on that: people should be able to THINK or FEEL whatever they want. You can't have thought/emotion police [that's just stupid]. It's what a person DOES that matters. And if you're discouraging a potential kid-rapist from seeking psychological treatment before he commits an actual crime, by throwing his name onto an embarassing registry (etc.) then it's NOT helping...
And if no actual children are harmed... who cares WHAT happens? I'm sure there's a (NSFW) solution or two available online...
"You're getting down votes for telling the truth"
that only happens when you express something with a _conservative_ viewpoint.
In this case, the overt "black lives matter" type of thinking, i.e. "non-whites are the only ones who get jailed", is what's getting the downvotes.
So yeah, dropping the racial/racist comments SHOULD make the downvotes go away.
"but did it rise to the level of manslaughter"
depends on how that's defined in a Massachusetts courtroom. And after the appeals, it will be clarified.
I think most people would regard what she did as SOME kind of crime. But don't worry, politicians will "harumph" because "something MUST be done", and make this more complicated than it needs to be.
yeah, she's maybe a symptom of the kinds of vacuous, self-centered, uber-feminist, drama queens being excreted by the millennial generation, i.e. "undateable" and reason for the '3DPD' acronym. She probably spells 'women' as 'womyn', too.
I blame Patricia Ireland and Gloria Steinam and others for helping to create multiple generations of these *kinds* of B.I.itches. [fortunately not ALL women fall into this trap, just way too many of them, and if they quote the 'fish needs a bicycle' idiocy, they're UBER undateable!]
Anyway, combine "that attitude" with a twisted desire to act like an intarweb troll (i.e. "Be An Hero" de-motivational showing someone with a gun to his head) and you get a 17 year old chick attempting to do an assisted suicide "for the lulz".
yeah. I'm probably right. watch the downvotes that come from people who hate hearing the truth, though.
"The simple solution to the Y2038 problem is to use unsigned as time_t. "
should be 64-biits, actually.
Looks like 32-bit linux still has 32-bit integer as time_t [the libc would have to be updated, most likely]
64-bit linux has it as a 64-bit integer, however. no problems there.
but I'm pretty sure that the 'time since epoch' i being stored internally as 64-bits within the kernel. If someone finds differently, it would be interesting to know.
however it looks like libc itself (on 32-bit machines) needs to be fixed.
(re: quiche)
"It is *not* a pie! It is a flan."
I killed a lot of Flan playing the Final Fantasy XIII series... not to mention "His Royal Ripeness" in FF13-2 (complete with a death-metal sounding leitmotif during the battle).
obligatory reference to a book from the 80's, "Real men don't eat quiche". I suppose real programmers don't use C-pound. heh.
" If you write for both you end up growling all the time"
solution: add different users with different editor settings. If you use X11, you can 'su' to the user, and (unless you're on a system that b0rks this) use X11 as a different user via the 'DISPLAY' environment variable. Ok there ARE some systemd configs that b0rk this. But it works right with Debian 8 and of course FreeBSD.
Or you can log in to the correct user via gdm or whatever.
And of course THIS is a reason NOT to use Wayland, so you CAN have 3 or 4 different users with different editor settings (stored for each user naturally) working on 4 different projects at the same time, etc. etc. etc..
(works well for specific customer projects too)
Yes. CAN!
every decent editor lets you change between tab or spaces, and set the default tab to "something other than 8". Then hit the tab key if you want, or let it 'auto tab' for you. problem solved.
I've been using pluma for coding, lately. works pretty well. for make files I use 'nano' or 'ee' to keep the hard tabs.
"you can configure pretty much anything (Notepad++ etc.) to insert 4 spaces when you press the tab key and detect them and delete 4 spaces on backspace"
true. and then ANY text-based program or editor (say 'less' or 'nano') will show what you did exactly as you did it, always lining up, always consistent, etc..
the 'droid IDE goes way too far in this regard, and if you're not careful, it wants VERY much to re-format your nice Allman-style code into crappy-looking K&R code. bleah.
just tell the IDE to convert those tabs into spaces, select 2 spaces per tab column, and you get the best of all worlds, no excessive right-margin widths, lots of indenture, and readable via 'less' 'nano' or any complicated IDE when you're done with it.
(and stop it with the K&R code, especially "} else {", so that humans can read what you wrote more easily)
well, you COULD try joining the project...
(then YOU can write the 'GetTabThread()' function)
Several reasons why I still use firefox:
a) cross-platform, works well with Mate and FreeBSD (as well as Linux, and *cough* winders)
b) lots of plugins like 'noscript' and all of the classic theme restorers [or I'd be ranting about 2D FLUGLY]
c) because of 'b', does NOT force you into '2D FLUGLY' (unlike Chrome)
So I'm content with it, at the least. Currently using 53 on FBSD 11.
HD thrashing is often a windows problem. example, windows' apparent "paranoid cacheing" on things LIKE the registry, where you have to re-re-read things directly from the hard disk EVERY! STINKING! TIME! (or from my early performance measurements on win-10-nic, this is how it seemed, and the same for earlier versions).
I recommend a non-windows OS for web browsing anyway. It's *SAFER*
"Is a browser that doesn't hang when I've got umpteen tabs open."
or crash, for that matter, because of scripting problems.
then again, I use 'noscript' most of the time.
Also, 'classic UI' plugins to a) get RID of the hamburger, b) give me 3D-looking buttons, c) no "flatso" on ANYTHING (including tabs). Hopefully those don't break with the new FF.
Now, about the multi-process and sandboxing... can't we make that TUNEABLE instead? You know, set our OWN limits and whatnot in about:config .
I still have an old QIC/Travan drive banging about in the boneyard, and a couple of tapes to go with it. They store >1Gb per tape. Wow!
https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-colorado-t3000-tape-drive-travan-1mbps-floppy-series/specs/
and I have a box of IOMega 'zip' drive cartridges, too. 10Mb each!
Amazing the money we all spent on that kind of tech, back in the day...
[it was SO quickly obsoleted]
"I don't know that any off the shelf commercial CPUs of the time would be sufficiently hardened against radiation damage."
Unlikely. However, there were 4-bit 'ALU' devices (which could be daisy chained to form 16 or maybe 18 bit words, as needed) available in TTL at the time. DEC used them in some of their computers, actually. They weren't really fast but a 250khz clock would run them just fine, most likely. A little bit of microcode and they'd form a CPU on a single circuit card. Using flat packs, maybe even CPU plus RAM.
but yeah they'd have to ruggedize it for space.
Fukushima's only design flaw involved the (non-nuclear) emergency generators, which were flooded out by the Tsunami. If electrical power could've been restored within 48 hours, none of the bad things would've happened. The Tsunami wiped out the entire town as well. The containment vessels that were there helped keep the problem down to a minimum.
And all of the FUD about radiation from Fukushima showing up in california is just nonsense. background radiation levels from Mr. Sun would keep it below detectable levels. Seriously, it's a BIG planet!
/me got LESS radiation living within 100 feet of an operating nuclear reactor on board a U.S. submarine than on the surface of the earth, and I know this because we recorded our radiation dosage. I got 80mrem per year [whatever new-fangled measurement THAT is] from Mr. Sun, and about 60 from Mr. Reactor.
Most of the radiation you get is from the Sun. You're in greater danger if you fly a lot or get a root canal, than from any failed nuclear reactor on the planet, including Fukushima and Chernobyl, so long as you're not "right there" at ground zero.
"And I think they use a far higher level of enrichment un subs - around 20% instead of 3-5% 235Uranium."
that little? come now, use your imagination. The higher the enrichment, the smaller the reactor size (due to smaller critical mass/geometry being possible). there's a LOT more going on than that, of course, engineering-wise [you want to make that a "lifetime of the boat" core, by pre-loading every bit of fuel you expect to need in 30+ years, right?] but 20% enrichment is a WAY small number. Just sayin'.
"Water-moderated ones do, because of the low temperatures they run at and their very low thermodynamic efficiency"
not entirely accurate the way you put it. total plant efficiency is generally a function of the steam temperature going into the turbines, and the rejection temperature of the condenser.
You can run PWRs at very high temperatures, but the steam plant itself limits the total capability. I would imagine that a 1200 psi steam plant (with gas-fired superheaters) is "typical". The reactor would run in the 550 degree F range for that kind of pressure. Not a problem, really. Steam itself, in many ways, determines what the max efficiency will be for a power plant. If you could drive the turbines directly with molten salt, that would be different. but you can't. You still need steam (for a practical solution, at any rate).
Water, as convenient as it is, just has physics properties that limit your overall efficiency. You can't have steam above a certain temperature (its phase is indefinite, actually, neither liquid nor gas) and you can't have heat rejection below a certain temperature (i.e. ICE formation).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HS-Wasserdampf_engl.png
what size are the reactors on subs
it depends on the sub. most reactor specs are classified. Some are published in 'Jane's Fighting Ships' etc. but they're not official. Suffice it to say, they are much larger than you think, megawatt-wise.
Back in the 1980's I was on a 688 (Los Angeles) class sub that used a core that was originally designed for a destroyer, and was adapted for a sub. They actually had to do a post-manufacturing modification to the main engines (steam turbines) for it to use 100% reactor power. And it went fast enough for 'back then', enough that they had seat belts on key watchstations for "rig for high speed".
Now, add 30 years of technological development to that timeline, and speculate. You're probably close.
Needless to say, 30MW is probably close to what the Nautilus had when it first launched in the mid 50's.
but yeah I can't truly confirm any of that. it's classified.
On carriers, the Enterprise originally had 8 reactors. I think the newest carries have only 2, and they're pretty big (more total steam than the Enterprise's 8 reactors). That gives you a perspective on how the nuclear tech has advanced over the years.
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